CHAPTER I

The stone, the witch and the black lake

"Harry has to die..."

As soon as the words left her mouth, the witch felt sick. She chancelled and her hand found the leather of the worn chair on her side, gripping it tightly enough to hurt herself.

"Please tell me I am wrong...Professor, please..."

If she had the strength, she would have screamed to fill the silence of the man before her. But she was so tired that her voice seemed to break a little more at each word she uttered. Hermione Granger never liked noise, and she would often find comfort in the thick silence of the library, but in this moment she would have given anything to make her quiet and soft professor speak.

Remus Lupin looked at her with a pale and worn face, his mouth stubbornly closed. The young woman grabbed a handful of her curly hair with her fist and tugged on it.

"I have to think...think, think...There is always more than one solution. Dumbledor would never have...He wouldn't...He couldn't do this to Harry."

The silence around her started to fade, now full of her loud and stuttering breath. Was that it ? So they couldn't win ? Harry, sweet Harry, could never win against such a monster. And he was going to die trying because a part of this monster was currently living in him. Dumbledor knew it, and the stone was to permit Harry to kill Voldemort even after he had died.

The witch let out a strange noise, as if lost in between a breathless laugh and a broken sob as she raised her right arm angrily. Proeminent veins ran over it, cutting it like purples wounds, and the strangest thing about it was a stone, deeply carved in the skin of her wrist. A dark stone with an outworldly and strangely enchanting glow, as clear as a black diamond and as misty as a cloudy night's sky.

"If the resurrection stone is the only way for Harry to kill this monster... Why is it here ?! How do I get rid of it ?!"

Remus let himself fall into an old wooden chair, putting his head in his hands, as if he wanted to hide his face from the nightmare that was enfolding itself before them. His voice then finally echoed in the dusty study of Grimmaud Place.

"The story of The Deathly Hallows doesn't stop after the death of the Peverell's brothers. It actually never stopped. The Hallows never disappeared, they just escaped the eyes of the wizarding world before reappearing again and again. It is said that they are always searching for new masters, new wizards to use...It is even believed that when they will find the perfect master, they will take his body as a new receptacle and enlish their full power."

Hermione shaked her head, gripping her right wrist, tugging and scratching it as if hoping that the stone would come off.

"The resurrection stone belonged to the heirs of Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunt family, for generations. But it had never chosen a body...Never, until you."

"Are you saying that I am the master of this stone now, professor ?"

"No, I am saying that you are the stone."

§§§

"You must protect it, protect yourself always. If the stone is lost, we have no hope of winning this battle...Remember that you must not bleed and you absolutely must not approach death. If you bleed, if your body is in danger of death, the stone will protect it. It will keep you alive and far from the danger, guiding you to a place where no harm could come and get you, where you would be protected, maybe even in another world. I couldn't tell you where, no one can...And no one can know."

The words of her professor had haunted Hermione and her far away look didn't go unnoticed. Harry and Ron relayed each other, always asking her if she was doing okay, if she was fine, if she needed help. In these moments she wanted to scream, she wanted to let the truth fall from her mouth and plea for help...But she knew they couldn't help her. No one could, and that made her keep her mouth shut and smile, and this smile seemed to cut her lips.

She often thanked the heavens that these boys were so thick. They never saw how different she grew each day, never perceived that neither the cold winter nor the lack of food seemed to attack her skin, which was always more golden and healthy, how her eyes had become as clear and as intense as ambers or how her hair were so thick, so full, in these awful living conditions...How alive she seemed, so alive, as if liquid life flowed in her veins. As if she was a warm living day of summer in a dead world.

But none of this mattered anymore. They were lost, and they would lose, she thought, as her wand rolled across the marble floor of the room, far away from her.

"Crucio !" screamed a high-pitched voice, soon covered by her screams.

She fell into the ground as the spell hit her. Her body convulsing and her mouth forced opened by her screams. It felt like death...If one had told her that she would die here, in Malfoy's house, and before his eyes she would have laugh. Her eyes encountered the pale gaze of Draco Malfoy, sitted on a luxurious chair with the rest of his family. He looked at the ground, as if trying to shut himself from the cries, from the noises of pains and from the sight she offered.

Coward...He would be a coward until the end...

"Tell me how you entered my vault ?!" asked Bellatrix Lestrange gripping with her long and cruel fingers her face, her nails digging into her full cheeks.

Hermione looked at her with as much strength as she could muster, her body shaking but her eyes unmoving, unforgiving as they were looking at the mad witch. Bellatrix Lestrange had to have been a beautiful woman once, before Azkaban broke her, before madness claimed her and before she sold herself to the dark wizard she called master. But now her aristocratic face was emaciated and wasted by her unstability...She looked every bit like the shell of the woman you described as a witch in children's fairy tales.

Such a cruel, worn and rotten woman...Seeing her, Hermione could only think one thing.

"I pity you", the young witch croacked, her voice already hurt by her screams.

The face of Bellatrix seemed to discompose itself under the words. As if this simple sentence was like acid tossed at her face.

"How dare you...How dare you pity me...You dirty, dirty mudblood ! CRUCIO !"

Her mouth opened, but no screams came out. Her body twisted itself, her back arched and her head hit the ground. It wasn't death...Death would have been sweeter. This was raw, unadultered pain, pure pain and she felt it destroying her.

Even with all of her courage, she felt afraid as Bellatrix Lestrange hit her with a third, a fourth, a fifth curse, as the merciless rythm of heart started to slow down and that her burning blood became cold, that her whole body became cold.

She wanted it to be finished. But if there was something that Hermione Granger was even when she was afraid, even when she cried, it was proud. She made her hands into fists and ground her teeths together as tears escaped her eyes, and she looked at her tormentor with all of her emotions, with pain, with fear and with pride.

"How dare you look at me like that..."

The voice of Bellatrix only expressed her cold anger. And if there was one thing more terrifying than her hysteria, it was this cold cruelty that burned inside her eyes. This raw desire to hurt and this frantic anticipation of her victim pain. Calmly the witch took a dagger out of her black belt. It looked old and priceless and its blade was glowing in a strange and dark way. It was without a doubt a dangerous weapon, like an embodiement of the wickedness of wizards of the old.

As soon as she saw it, Hermione understood. The woman didn't want to kill her with a spell. She wanted to hurt her in a muggle way, to take away her dignity as a witch. Her amber eyes were fixed on the murky glow of the blade and she closed her eyes. The woman wanted to curse her, bones deep, soul deep.

A hand climbed to her throat, choking her, as the dark witch let her weight fall on her body, starting to carve the first letter. Her mouth opened for another scream as her blood started to flow, staining the beautiful persian carpet of the Malfoys.

On her right arm, turned and hidden from view, the stone vibrated strangely, pulsing deep inside her flesh as a warm and beating heart.

You must not bleed...

The stone started to burn against her cold body. It was like a ball of fire, and it extended to all of her, making her body feel like a house caught in a fire.

You must absolutely not approach death...

The blade was like poison in her veins, it was going to kill her, and the stone seemed to be fighting it. It seemed angered by it.

It will keep you alive far from the danger, guiding you to a place where no harm could come and get you, where you would be protected, maybe even in another world. I couldn't tell you where, no one can...

This didn't seem so bad, thought the witch, as her eyes closed themselves to the pain again. This didn't seem so bad to be protected for once...When she opened her eyes there was no pain, no Malfoy manor, no crazy witch and no luxurious furnitures. Only the night sky and it was as if she was falling through it. Falling and falling...But to where ? To what ground would she land ? She couldn't tell...And right now nobody could except for the stone planted deep in her wrist, vibrating with power.

§§§

"Who saw you ?"

The young slytherin shook violently as he heard the silky and calm voice of his master. Nothing was more frightning than this tone. Not even the forbidden forest surrounding him with its darkness, awful silence and invisible gaze fixed on them.

No the real danger wasn't in the forest, nor in the creatures who made themselves at home in it. The danger was in the man before him and in his eyes, as black as the midnight sky above them. Tom Riddle was dangerous. Of course he was, it was why he, the only heir of the Nott family, had joined him to begin with. It was because this wizard was only a man by appearance. And a very perfect one indeed. His face was beyond common beauty, and seemed to embody an ideal which shouldn't have existed. All of him, from his voice to the tip of his hair seemed to have been made to enchant.

But beauty was only a veil to his cruel and rotten nature. The tip of Riddle's wand encountered his chin digging painfully into it as he was forced to look into his eyes.

"I didn't teach you this spell for you to exercise on a student in plain sight...Dumbledor is already wary of me, and if you attract attention this is the whole group and me who will be put in an...uncomfortable situation. So I will repeat one last time : Who. Saw. You ?"

"I...I don't know my lord. I only heard steps, but I think I also saw a tie...It may be a gryffindor, a gryffindor male student."

Several noises of discontentment ran through the crowd surrounding them. All around them in a circle were the wealthiest and most gifted Slytherins from fourth to seventh year. All joined Riddle either enchanted by him or by his skills, by his terrific, nightmarish power and its dark promises.

Riddle sighted, straightening himself and turning his wand between his long fingers. He passed a hand into his black and thick hair and smiled, of this charming and ever so polite smile of his.

"Now that is unfortunate", he finished by saying, pronuncing each word in a slow and detached manner "Now what shoud I do, with you ? Have you got an idea, gentlemen ?"

He turned his head to the side, his gaze falling to his most trusted men. Orion Black and Abraxas Malfoy looked sightly bored by the situation but a strange and sadistic light appeared in Ignatus Lestrange's eyes. But before the wizard could make his wicked idea known, the sound of something heavy crashing into the water alerted them.

They all looked in the direction of the black lake who flowed from the back of Hogwart's castle to the depths of the forest. Whispers ran through crowd of young men and Riddle raised his wand making them all cease with this simple gesture.

"Black." he simply said.

Orion Black raised an eyebrow but didn't discuss the hidden order. He pulled his wand out of his pocket, bowed and went to the direction of the noise. All of them waited for Black to return and it is only after several minutes that the voice of the heir made itself heard.

"My Lord...I think you must come and see this."

A rictus twisted the full lips of the dark young wizard as he joined his follower, the rest of the students following him with measured and uncertain steps. Teignous Nott sighted as three other students posted themselves wordlessly on his sides, guarding him for the return of their lord.

As Tom Riddle arrived to the side of Orion Black, he saw her. A young woman completely drenched was making her way out the lake crawling, coughing and spitting water. What was that ? No wizard would be foolish enough to swin in the dark lake, the creatures there were known to be as unfriendly as they could toward any other living presence. And she couldn't be a creature from the lake...She looked too human, too alive. She was in fact the healthiest person he ever saw, with golden skin and light brown hair falling into heavy soaked curls on her body.

Slowly the wizard pointed her wand on her but something stopped him. As she fell lying down, her arms went limp before her and on her wrist shone a stone which seemed to make one with her flesh. It was a dark shining stone, entrancing and of a priceless appearance. He knew this stone, just as every pureblooded men around him.

"The resurrection stone..." whispersed Lestrange, all anticipation of the upcoming torture now gone, replaced by an avid and hungry curiosity.

As the words were pronounced the young women opened her eyes, gulping the air as if she was still drowning, and her gaze met his. A flickered of emotions passed through her eyes : lack of understanding, fear, and then burning anger.

As he looked at her he felt himself shake under the glee which was running through him. The stone of resurrection, the ultimate weapon against death, the embodiement of immortality was a woman and she fell from the sky to land just at his feet. The stone was a woman in all her glorious goldenness, in all her just and righteous anger, and it was as if nobody was alive beside her. As if pure life was coursing her veins and shining through her eyes.

Tom Riddle was often misunderstood by his followers because of his interest, even obsession with death. If death alimented all of his reseaches, it wasn't because he liked it but because he hated it. Death had taken his mother away from him, and her disgusting embrace seemed to follow him everywhere. His desire to possess life, and to possess it eternally was so strong than it consummed him.

And here life was, coughing at his feet, and he never wanted to possess something as bad as he wanted to possess her.

To be continued...