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Blood and Poison by susiepip [Reviews - 6]


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This is an expansion of the Chronicler of Victories’ tale. It tells how the Chronicler of Victories and the Master of Dark Potions overthrew the Dark Lord and avenged their comrades. For bluemoonie.


“He will kill you, as soon as my work is finished here, ” Hermione made her prediction on her first day in the home of Voldemort’s Master of Dark Potions.

Severus looked at the Dark Lord’s Chronicler of Victories, seated at a desk in his well-warded library. She was sent to him by Voldemort, ostensibly in order to record in more detail Snape’s role in poisoning his enemies, and also as a gift for services rendered, to be used for his pleasure.

She flexed her fingers, ready to take up the blood quill that was chained to her left wrist. “ He's lulling you into a false sense of security by sending me here.Then, when I've recorded your death, I think he will kill me. Sybill Trelawney’s prophecies still haunt him. They still have potency; and his crazed mind can interpret them now in any way he pleases.”

Severus sat in an easy chair by the fireplace. He did not immediately react to her words. All was silent save the crackling of the blue- and purple –flamed fire, and the ticking of the doom-chime clock on the mantelpiece. Slowly he leaned forward so that his still-black hair formed a curtain across most of his face.

“We’re the only ones left who have any sort of link to their telling,” he replied, finally. “Our value to him is now outweighed by that. We are lucky to have lived for so long.”

Hermione took a deep breath and grasped the blood quill. It searched hungrily for the blood from the veins in her hand and was ready to begin. Slowly, with her other hand, she opened the latest volume of the Chronicle of Victory, bound in a portion of Ginny Weasley’s flayed skin.

“I have something,” said Severus. “It will enrich your blood, and will make the writing ordeal less draining for you. It has some other properties.”

And then he came to the crux of the matter.

“He tastes and touches your blood when he caresses those foul books. He never lets anyone else touch the original hand-written volumes. By his orders, only you or he may handle them. I think he might suspect if I tried to poison the binding or the pages but your blood is another matter. He would not expect me to administer a deadly blood poison to you, unless he expressly ordered it for his own purposes, and he has not. That is our best chance. Otherwise, he is too well-protected.”

“You poison me, to get to him. And will I die from the poison too?”

“It will be at its most potent when Voldemort asks you to write on the pages in front of him. When he savours the smell of your freshly drawn blood and puts his tongue to your words.” Severus ignored her question.

“If I die as the instrument of his death, then I suppose that is fair enough,” Hermione spoke without emotion. Then she added, “I hold the quill and it’s feeding on my blood. I must write something soon or the pain becomes too intense to bear.”

So Snape began to recount in a quiet monotone the ingredients and dosages of his more basic poisons, and their intended effects. Hermione faithfully wrote down his words, cross-referencing who the various victims of the poisons had been together with the dates of their deaths.

After an hour, the quill permitted her to stop. Whenever she was away from Voldemort’s side, the quill was spelled to ensure she faithfully carried out orders with regard to the Chronicles. The quill always had to be used at least once a day, or Hermione suffered.

Apart from that, she was free to be a plaything for Snape.

“He wants me to record how you use me, as well.”

“Tonight,” Snape sighed. “A performance for the Dark Lord. I will not disappoint.”

He left the library, telling her she should stay there until sunset, when he would send for her.

Their coupling that night was short and cursory. Hermione felt nothing but discomfort, until afterwards, with his body-weight still upon her, Snape grasped her neck and put his thumb at the base of her throat, pressing down on a pulse point. For a fleeting moment she was afraid he might strangle her. He was fumbling for the blood quill with his other hand, willing it to respond to him and tensing as he found it and it sought its ink from his body. Suddenly, he pressed down the sharp metal quill-nib across her heart, as if it was a scalpel, cutting through her skin. His blood from the quill mingled with hers, in the wound he had made. His magic sought her magic.

“I will find a way for you to live,” he whispered. “I give you an Unbreakable Vow. There must be a way. He will die but you will live. Killing him can only be the beginning. I need you alive to help me change the Wizarding World. We have to make sure another Voldemort never comes to power.”

He got up and left her then in the darkness. Hermione placed her fingers over the wound. For the first time in an age she felt something stir within her. All that time waiting, hope against hope for a chance to end the Dark Lord’s reign. And she might live to see it. An Unbreakable Vow! She was glad her resolve had not broken; and that neither had Snape’s.

A pattern emerged over the next few days. The Chronicler fulfilled her duties for an hour, recording the words of the Master of Dark Potions. Then Snape went to work to refine the blood-poison. Hermione was left alone, but increasingly impatient for the sunset call.

Each night, as their minds and bodies came together she felt the growing import of the vow Severus had made her. Hope enabled her to respond to him, and she felt the intensity of his response match hers. Their love-making, for that is what it had become, was a glorious act of rebellion. They had no one in the whole of Voldemort’s depraved and cruel world to aid them. They could only rely on each other and hope that their plans would be successful.

Her recording of how Snape took his pleasure with her, was accurate up to a point. The wound over her heart and the bruises around her throat were real and verifiable. She imported some memories coined from Death Eater revels to round things off. Occasionally in bed, brushing Snape’s mind, she sensed he kept his cruelty and harshness as a lover in check with her. She wondered what he would be like, unleashed, and decided that she wouldn't care.

She also began to long for the return of her wand, confiscated by Voldemort years ago. She imagined it in her fingers, in place of the blood quill, and what she could do with it. She lusted for a wand.

On the fourth day, Snape began dosing her with the blood poison. It had a number of properties.

First, as he had promised, it enriched her blood and she lost some of her grey pallor. Her blood was also more free-flowing, making the use of the blood-quill less of a torture.

Secondly, of course, it began to poison her. Tinge her with Dark magic from within. Snape could not have brewed what he had without calling upon a little Dark magic.

Snape countered Hermione’s poisoning with another potion and subtle charms to keep her alive for the time being. They both knew, and accepted, that he would have to poison her, to poison Voldemort. However, the poison was principally designed only to kill the Dark Lord immediately. Hermione would be kept alive and well enough to function until the Dark Lord had subsumed the poison. Then he had but a short time to find a way to administer a carefully hidden antidote to her and fulfil his Unbreakable Vow. An antidote that would cure a Mudblood witch mildly tainted with Dark magic, but would never work on the body of the evil creature that Tom Riddle had become.

All had to be ready by the time the Dark Lord called Hermione back to his side, and it was.

By the end of the second week, the message arrived for the Chronicler of Victories to return to Voldemort, and to bring Severus Snape with her. Voldemort’s Dark magic searches would not reveal Hermione as the vessel of the poison. How could they? The poison lurked within her, cloaked and undetectable. This was a Master Poisons-maker at work, unsurpassed in skill.

Severus began to see that his plan could be successful. He would even picture the scene. Himself standing before the Dark Lord and flanked by Death Eaters as Hermione wrote down, in her freshly-drawn blood, his crimes against the Voldemort regime. The Dark Lord would take the Chronicle from Hermione and go through the ritual of smelling and tasting the words. He would take the poison.

Hermione interrupted his thoughts.

“I think he might find a way to kill you as soon as I have recounted what I’ve written these past few weeks. He wants to unmask you as disloyal and a traitor. You’re almost the only one left who remembers anything about him before he killed Harry and won the war. That’s why he wants you there. I will have to record your ‘crimes’, read them out and then he will kill you.” And she added, “If we both die but he dies too, it won’t matter. The important thing is his death.”

Idly, he realised that if his scheme worked Voldemort would probably be touching the skin of the dead Ginny Weasley as he took in the poison, and that pleased him.

All they then would have to do would be to duel for their lives with the Death Eaters who surrounded them. He made a mental note to down a Death Eater quickly and get a wand, any wand, to Hermione as quickly as he could. That would greatly increase their chances of survival. Finally, he would get the antidote to Hermione and save her. Then they would remake the Wizarding World. He wanted to stay alive to do that.

It almost happened as he hoped.

Unfortunately, Snape’s own wand was confiscated just before he was led into Voldemort’s presence and ambushed with the account of his own allegedly traitorous plan to fulfil Trelawney’s prophesies and destroy the Dark Lord. A young and undistinguished wizard, Curiosus Malfoy, distant relative of Lucius Malfoy, was apparently part of the bogus plot and so was dragged in to stand next to Severus.

Severus hadn't seen that one coming, but who really knew exactly how Voldemort’s mind worked, these days.

That said, when it came to it, Voldemort asked Hermione to write down the transgressions of Severus Snape in the Chronicles and read them out. After that, the Dark Lord could not help but handle the book, caress Hermione's handwriting and taste Hermione’s blood on the Chronicle. With her away for the two weeks he was desperate for her blood.

The effect was almost instant and, in the end, quite undramatic. Within milliseconds Voldemort collapsed in on himself. He had no time to react. His inanimate body toppled from the dais on which it had previously stood.

Snape's poison had worked.

Voldemort's wand and the Chronicle had rolled a short distance away from the dead creature’s hands. Hermione, closest to the body, prodded the corpse dispassionately with a toe and then snatched up the Dark Lord’s wand.

The Elder Wand.

She knew she had to act quickly before realisation about what had happened truly hit the other occupants of the chamber.

Feeling powerful wand-magic surge within her, Hermione sought to control it. She managed to fell a Death Eater and tossed his wand to Severus. The young Malfoy had fallen to the floor, wandless but trying to protect himself as well as he could. Hermione threw a protective charm around him.

Another flick of the Elder Wand and Hermione broke the chain that shackled the blood quill to her. This wand had such power and it was willing to do her bidding!

Two more flicks and two more Death Eaters fell, and Severus was at her side. They mounted the dais together, as if slightly higher ground would help them in the battle to come. Severus saw that she had the Elder Wand, and how easily she used it.

As soon as they were on the dais, the fighting stopped.

The Death Eaters had seen them conquer Voldemort and, as conquerors, The Chronicler of Victories and the Master of Dark Potions required their allegiance. Moreover, the witch had the Elder wand. Falling to their knees, they fervently hailed their new rulers. Curiosus Malfoy, realising he was in considerably less danger than he had been a few minutes ago, staggered to his feet, and managed to bow carefully to Hermione and Severus.

Severus was able to give her the antidote, of course. He had kept his Unbreakable Vow.


The tale of The King and Queen of the Night is coming. It will be another expansion of the Chronicler of Victories’ tale. It will tell the story of how Severus and Hermione fare after they kill Voldemort. Can they repair the Wizarding World, or are they destined to fail? This will be for bluemoonie and MlleGigi, with thanks for their thoughtful reviews of 'The Chronicler of Victories.'


Blood and Poison by susiepip [Reviews - 6]


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