The location was not a matter for debate. Dumbledore knew of only one place that matched the prophecy's description of a nexus point, sealed by ancient magic and forgotten by all but the most dedicated lore-keepers. It lay deep within the bowels of the one place Voldemort had coveted but never truly conquered: the Department of Mysteries.

They Apparated with three sharp cracks that echoed unnaturally in the chilled, silent air of a chamber far below the Hall of Prophecy. This was a place of foundations, where the Ministry’s deepest and most volatile magics were anchored to the bedrock of the world. The air was heavy, tasting of stone dust and ozone. Dominating the center of the vast, circular room was a seamless wall of what looked like polished obsidian, a perfect, featureless circle of black that seemed to drink the light from Dumbledore’s wand.

She was already there.

Hermione Granger stood before the obsidian wall, her back to them. She was no longer the frizzy-haired girl who had followed Harry Potter into danger. The woman who turned to face them was clad in the severe, practical black robes of an Unspeakable. Her hair was pulled back in a tight, severe knot, and her face, though still young, was etched with the grim resolve of someone who had seen too much and was still expected to see more. Her wand was not in her hand, but her entire posture was a coiled spring, ready to snap into violence at the slightest provocation.

Her eyes, sharp and intelligent, swept over the arrivals. They lingered on Dumbledore with a flicker of pained confusion, slid past Bellatrix with a flash of pure, undiluted hatred that made the air feel colder, and finally landed on Lord Voldemort. For a heart-stopping second, raw, primal fear widened her pupils, the memory of torture and terror a physical thing between them. But she crushed it. With a visible effort of will that impressed even the Dark Lord, she forced the fear down, replacing it with a cold, analytical fury.

“So it’s true,” she said, her voice steady, betraying none of the turmoil raging within her. “The Architect, the Conqueror, the Zealot… and the Scholar.”

Bellatrix let out a low, guttural snarl, her hand twitching towards her own wand. The sight of the Mudblood standing there, so defiant, so unbroken, was an offense that screamed to be punished. “Filth. You dare speak to the Dark Lord?”

“I dare a great many things, Lestrange,” Hermione shot back, her tone dropping to an icy whisper. “Including surviving you.”

The hatred between the two women was a palpable force, a crackling, venomous energy that seemed to warp the air. Bellatrix took a half-step forward, her face a mask of rabid insanity, but Voldemort’s voice cut through the tension like a shard of ice.

“Enough.”

He did not raise his voice, yet the command was absolute. Bellatrix froze, her lips pulling back from her teeth in a silent snarl, but she obeyed. Voldemort’s red eyes were fixed on Hermione, a slow, reptilian smile playing on his lipless mouth. He was taking her in, not as the girl who had been his enemy’s pet, but as the final, necessary component. He saw her strength, her defiance, the power simmering beneath her controlled exterior. She was an ingredient, yes, but a potent one. The thought of breaking her, of bending that will and that mind to his purpose within the prophesied union, was a far more exquisite pleasure than simply killing her.

“The Sanctum of Four Pillars,” Dumbledore said, his voice heavy as he stepped forward, placing himself between the warring factions. He gestured to the obsidian wall. “It can only be opened when all four archetypes are present. It requires a conscious act of will. A touch.”

He looked from one to the next. “We must all place our hands upon the stone. Together.”

The silence that followed was thick with revulsion. Hermione stared at the wall as if it were coated in poison. To willingly touch a surface that was also being touched by the man who had murdered her friends and the woman who had carved the word ‘Mudblood’ into her arm was a violation she could barely contemplate. Her hand trembled, not with fear, but with rage.

Bellatrix looked equally disgusted, her gaze flicking between Dumbledore and Hermione as if trying to decide which of them was more foul. The idea of her skin making contact, even indirectly, with the Mudblood’s was nauseating.

Voldemort, however, was merely impatient. This was a means to an end. A lock to be unfastened. He glided forward, his long, white fingers extending towards the black surface without hesitation. He looked back at the others, his expression one of utter contempt for their petty squeamishness. “Now.”

Dumbledore sighed, the sound impossibly weary, and placed his own aged hand on the wall, a few feet from Voldemort’s. He looked at Bellatrix, a silent command in his eyes. With a shudder of revulsion, she obeyed her Master’s will, slapping her hand against the cold stone as if it burned her.

Three hands rested on the obsidian. Nothing happened.

All eyes turned to Hermione. She stood frozen, her jaw clenched so tight her teeth ached. This was it. The first surrender. The first step into the blasphemy the prophecy demanded. She could refuse. She could fight. She would die, and the world would end. Her duty, her relentless, punishing sense of duty, warred with every instinct for self-preservation and every fiber of hatred she possessed.

Slowly, as if lifting a lead weight, she raised her right arm. She saw the faint, silvery scars on her forearm, forever spelling out the word Bellatrix had carved there. With a sharp, ragged intake of breath, she stepped forward and pressed her palm flat against the cold, unyielding surface.

The moment her skin made contact, a violent jolt of power shot through all four of them. It was not painful, but it was overwhelming—a raw, chaotic flood of their combined essences. Hermione felt the searing cold of Voldemort’s ambition, the wild, ecstatic madness of Bellatrix, and the ancient, profound weight of Dumbledore’s power all at once. It was a psychic scream, a discordant symphony of light, dark, order, and chaos.

The obsidian wall hummed, the sound vibrating deep in their bones. A single, glowing line of silver light appeared, tracing a perfect circle in the center of the wall. The circle became a ring, and then the ring became a doorway, the section of obsidian within it dissolving into a shimmering portal of pearlescent light.

Beyond the threshold, they could see a vast, circular chamber, its walls covered in glowing runes, a massive, ornate dais at its center. The air that drifted out was ancient and heavy with magic, waiting.

Without a word, Voldemort stepped through. Bellatrix followed a half-second later, a loyal shadow at his heel. Dumbledore gave Hermione a single, sorrowful look before he, too, crossed the threshold.

Hermione stood alone for a moment, on the precipice of a future she couldn’t imagine. Then, with her shoulders squared and her face set like stone, she stepped into the sanctum. The portal shimmered and vanished behind her, sealing the four of them inside.

The moment the portal sealed shut, plunging the chamber into the cool, steady glow of the runes, Bellatrix moved. There was no thought, only pure, murderous instinct. She drew her wand with a speed that defied her age, a high, piercing shriek of rage building in her throat as she lunged at Hermione.
“I’ll finish what I started, you filthy Mud—”

She hit a wall. Not a physical one, but a barrier of pure force that stopped her dead, her face inches from Hermione’s. Her momentum was so great she slammed into it, the impact jarring her teeth. Her wand arm, raised to cast an Unforgivable, was frozen in place. The curse died on her lips, the words refusing to form. She struggled against the invisible restraint, her muscles straining, a frustrated, animalistic growl tearing from her chest. The magic of the sanctum was absolute. No harm would be done here.

Hermione hadn't even flinched. She simply stood there, watching Bellatrix’s rabid display with a look of cold, clinical contempt.

“Is that your only solution to things you don’t understand, Lestrange?” Hermione’s voice was quiet, yet it cut through Bellatrix’s snarling. “Screaming and flailing? You’re like a rabid dog on a leash.”

“I’ll wear your entrails as a necklace!” Bellatrix spat, her face contorted with hate, her black eyes promising agony.

“You had your chance,” Hermione retorted, her own eyes narrowing. “You had me helpless on the floor of Malfoy Manor. You had your wand, your knife, your madness. And yet, here I stand. You failed. That must be a bitter fucking pill to swallow, knowing that for all your devotion and all your supposed power, you couldn't even properly dispose of one unarmed girl.”

Every word was a precisely aimed dart. Bellatrix recoiled as if struck, the invisible barrier releasing her as her immediate intent to harm subsided. The truth of Hermione’s words was a deeper wound than any curse.

“My Lord will grant me the pleasure of killing you,” she seethed, falling back on her ultimate defense.

“Will he?” Hermione’s gaze flickered past Bellatrix to the Dark Lord. “He seems to need me alive. Just like he needs Dumbledore. Just like he needs you. A component. A tool. Does it bother you, being reduced to a mere ingredient? No more special than the rest of us?”

While the two women circled each other with words, Voldemort and Dumbledore were engaged in their own silent war. Voldemort had glided to the center of the room, his serpentine features illuminated by the runic light. He ran a long, pale finger over the edge of the central dais, a look of covetous appreciation in his red eyes.

“A fascinating piece of magic, Albus,” he said, his voice a low hiss that carried in the still air. “A crucible. Designed to contain and concentrate immense power. A power that will soon be mine.”

“The power is meant to serve a purpose, Tom,” Dumbledore replied, his voice calm but laced with steel. He stood near the sealed entrance, his posture relaxed but his blue eyes sharp, missing nothing. “It is not a crown to be claimed.”

“Everything is a crown to be claimed, old man. You simply lacked the ambition to reach for them,” Voldemort countered. He turned his gaze fully on Dumbledore, a cruel smile twisting his mouth. “You could have had it all. You had the power, the intellect. But you squandered it on sentiment. On protecting inferiors.” His eyes flicked pointedly towards Hermione. “And now, fate has brought us here. Forcing you to ally with the very things you sought to destroy, and the very Mudblood you championed. How delicious the irony must taste.”

“The irony,” Dumbledore said, his voice dropping, “is that for all your talk of conquest and supremacy, you are just as trapped here as the rest of us. Bound by the same rules. Your ambition is leashed, Tom. You want to rule the world, but first, you must cooperate to ensure there is a world left to rule. For a being of your immense ego, that must be galling.”

Voldemort’s smile tightened. “It is a temporary inconvenience. A necessary step. Once the threat is neutralized and this power is forged, the board will be reset. And I assure you, the final configuration will be to my liking.”

His gaze slid from Dumbledore to Hermione, then to Bellatrix. The implication was clear. They were all pieces in his game, even Dumbledore. Temporary allies to be used and discarded, or perhaps kept as prizes. The air crackled with the sheer force of their combined wills, a silent, titanic struggle between the desire for absolute control and the wisdom of shared purpose. The truce of the sanctum prevented physical violence, but here, in the cold, runic glow, the hatred, ambition, and history between the four of them was a weapon all its own.

The tense standoff was broken not by a curse or a concession, but by a flicker of intellectual curiosity. Hermione, forcing her gaze away from the hateful figures of her enemies, turned her attention to the walls. The runes glowed with a soft, internal light, shifting in infinitesimal patterns that she now realized were not random. They were a language.

Ignoring the others, she walked towards the nearest wall, her footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. The air was thick with a strange, resonant quality, as if the chamber itself were listening, breathing. She reached out, her fingers hovering just over the glowing symbols, tracing their elegant, alien shapes. They were archaic, predating any runic alphabet she had formally studied, but the underlying structure of the magic was familiar. It was foundational, powerful, and deeply intentional.

“This place… it’s alive,” she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else. As she spoke, the runes closest to her hand pulsed with a brighter light, a direct response to her proximity and focus. The chamber was aware of them.

“A sentient construct,” Voldemort’s voice cut in, startlingly close. He had moved to a different section of the wall, his own long fingers tracing a separate passage of the text. There was no mockery in his tone now, only the cold, sharp focus of a scholar recognizing a masterpiece of magical architecture. “Designed for a single, specific purpose. It is not merely a container; it is the mechanism itself.”

Hermione’s eyes scanned the text, her mind working furiously to piece together the archaic grammar and syntax. “It speaks of trials,” she said, her voice tight. “A sequence of… offerings. It says the four pillars must be attuned before they can be joined.”

“Not offerings, you foolish girl,” Voldemort corrected, though his focus remained on the wall. “Sacrifices. Not of life, but of self. It requires a stripping of defenses. An exposure.” He turned his head slightly, his red eyes glinting in the runic glow. “It is designed to break us down into our component parts before reassembling us.”

Bellatrix made a sound of disgust. “I will not be ‘reassembled’ by some dusty old room! My Lord, this is a trap.”

“It is the only path to the power we require,” Voldemort said, silencing her with a single look. “This sanctum will not permit us to fail.”

Dumbledore, who had been observing the chamber as a whole, finally spoke, his voice grave. “He is correct. The magic here is prescriptive. It will guide us, or it will compel us. The runes are not a suggestion; they are the terms of our survival.” He walked slowly towards the central dais, his eyes sweeping over the carvings that spiraled across its surface. “The prophecy did not merely foretell a union. It seems it has also provided the means to enforce it.”

Hermione’s blood ran cold. Enforce. Compel. This wasn’t an alliance; it was a prison with a purpose. Her gaze fell upon a new section of runes, the meaning suddenly becoming terrifyingly clear. “The union…” she read aloud, her voice barely a whisper. “It describes a complete merging. Of mind. Of magic. Of…” She trailed off, unable to speak the final word, the implication hanging in the air like a shroud. The text was not metaphorical. It was a literal instruction manual for a ritual that went far beyond a simple magical fusion.

“Of body,” Voldemort finished for her, his voice smooth and laced with a chilling, predatory understanding. He looked from Hermione’s horrified face to Dumbledore’s grim expression, and a slow, terrible smile spread across his own. He was beginning to grasp the full scope of what was being asked of them, and unlike the others, he was not repulsed. He was intrigued. The prophecy was demanding a level of intimacy, of violation, that went beyond any simple battle or conquest. It was a new, far more interesting form of domination.

The runes around the chamber flared once, a single, unified pulse of light. On the central dais, a single symbol began to glow brighter than all the rest—a complex knot of four interwoven lines. The first trial was presenting itself.

A low, resonant hum filled the chamber, emanating from the glowing knot on the dais. The magic in the air thickened, pressing in on them, heavy and demanding. It was a tangible command, a will that superseded their own. A voice echoed, not through the air, but directly inside each of their skulls—ancient, genderless, and absolute.

Present your core. The ambition that drives the vessel. The foundation upon which your power is built. One must be laid bare for all to see. Only then can the attunement begin.

Voldemort was the first to step forward, a look of supreme arrogance on his face. He saw this not as a violation, but as an opportunity to display the sheer scale of his will. He placed a hand on the glowing symbol, and the sanctum’s magic eagerly surged into him, seizing the memory he offered.

The vision slammed into the minds of the other three with the force of a physical blow. It was not a simple image, but a full sensory experience. They were standing beside him, yet also inside him, looking out through his crimson eyes. Below them, the world was broken. Cities were smoldering ruins, forests were petrified stone, and the sky was a permanent, bruised twilight. But it wasn't the destruction that was the point. It was the order. Magic itself, the very fabric of reality, was a slave. At a flick of Voldemort's will, mountains crumbled into dust and reformed as towering spires bearing his mark. The winds whispered his name. The remaining dregs of humanity knelt not in fear, but in absolute, mindless worship, their own magic and wills subsumed into his. He was not a king; he was a god, and the universe was his plaything. The feeling that accompanied the vision was one of cold, ecstatic, and utterly lonely supremacy. It was a power so vast it had consumed everything, leaving nothing else to conquer.

The vision shattered, leaving Dumbledore, Hermione, and Bellatrix gasping, the phantom sensation of absolute control still tingling in their nerves. Bellatrix looked at her master with renewed, feverish adoration. Hermione felt a wave of nausea. Dumbledore’s expression was one of profound, ancient sorrow.

The magic of the dais then turned its attention to the Headmaster. He didn't move, but the light of the symbol intensified, and a tendril of runic energy snaked out and touched his chest. He closed his eyes, his face tight with resistance, but the sanctum was relentless. It pulled the memory from him.

The new vision was a stark, painful contrast. It was a world bathed in soft, gentle light. Hogwarts stood pristine, its halls filled with the quiet murmur of peaceful learning. Diagon Alley bustled with happy, prosperous families. There were no Aurors because there was no crime. There was no Ministry hierarchy because there was no struggle for power. It was a world of perfect, placid order. But as the vision lingered, the others felt the truth beneath it: it was a world built on control as absolute as Voldemort's, just quieter. A world where difficult choices were never made because Dumbledore had already made them all. The ambition was not for peace, but for a world where no one would ever have to suffer as he had, a world he would personally shepherd, a gilded cage built from his own regret and suffocating wisdom. The prevailing emotion was not joy, but a deep, weary ache for a tranquility he knew was a lie.

As his memory faded, Bellatrix let out a cackle, a harsh, grating sound. “Pathetic! Your greatest dream is a world of sheep!” She strode to the dais, eager to present her own offering, to wash the taste of Dumbledore’s sentimentality away with the purity of her devotion. She slammed her palm onto the symbol.

Her ambition was a hot, sharp spike of feeling. She was on her knees, her head bowed on the cold stone floor of a vast, dark throne room. Voldemort sat above her, his presence an all-consuming fire. He reached down, a single long finger tilting her chin up. His touch was agony and ecstasy. He wasn't smiling, his face was a mask of impassive power, but his approval flowed into her like a drug, a current of raw magic that made her entire being sing. She felt his power, his dominance, and her place was to be the perfect conduit for it, his most beloved, most vicious weapon. Her ambition wasn't to rule alongside him, but to be the ultimate subject of his rule, to exist solely within his shadow, to have her very soul defined by his will. It was a vision of total, orgasmic self-annihilation in the name of her master.

When it ended, Voldemort’s lips were curled in a faint, pleased smile. He looked at Bellatrix, a flicker of genuine approval in his eyes.

Finally, the relentless magic turned to Hermione. She stood frozen, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. This was too much. To have her deepest, most secret self laid bare for them—for him—was a violation worse than any curse.

The sanctum didn't care. The light on the dais flared violently, and the compulsion seized her, ripping the memory from her mind with brutal force.

Her vision was not of people or power, but of pure information. She stood in a library that was infinite, its shelves stretching into impossible geometries. Every book that had ever been written, every spell ever conceived, every secret ever kept, was here. And she could read them all at once. Knowledge flowed into her not as words, but as pure, unadulterated understanding. She saw the creation of the universe, the mathematics of a soul, the language of the stars. With this knowledge, she could solve anything. End wars with a single, perfectly crafted argument. Cure diseases with a forgotten potion. Rewrite magical law to be perfectly just. It was a vision of ultimate competence, a power derived not from force or control over others, but from absolute mastery over truth itself. The emotion was a burning, insatiable hunger for more, a desperate need to know, to understand, to fix everything by simply being the smartest one in the room.

The trial ended. The light on the dais dimmed back to a low hum. The four of them stood in the sudden silence, breathing heavily, the echoes of four lifetimes of ambition still ringing in their minds. They were exposed, raw, and irrevocably seen. And deep within the quiet spaces of their consciousness, a faint but undeniable link had been forged, a psychic thread woven from the fabric of their most secret desires.

A film of sweat coated Hermione’s skin. The silence in the chamber was a physical weight, pressing down on her, filled with the psychic residue of what they had just shared. It was more than just seeing; it was feeling. She could still feel the phantom chill of Voldemort’s absolute power, the weary ache of Dumbledore’s gilded cage, the sharp, orgasmic spike of Bellatrix’s submission. They were inside her head, vile and sticky, clinging to her own thoughts.

And she was inside theirs.

The thought made her want to vomit. She could feel their awareness of her, of her own secret, desperate ambition to know everything, to fix the world with her mind. She felt Voldemort’s focus on it, a cold, analytical curiosity that felt like a violation. It was as if he were turning her soul over in his long fingers, examining it like a new, intriguing artifact.

Voldemort, for his part, was fighting a rising tide of disgust. The sanctum’s magic had forced a channel open, and the pathetic emotions of the others were trickling into him. Dumbledore’s suffocating regret was a cloying stench of weakness. Bellatrix’s devotion was a familiar comfort, a baseline of sanity in the deluge. But the Granger girl… her ambition was a clean, sharp, infuriating thing. It wasn't power over people, but over principles, over truths. He could feel the ghost of her relentless intellect, a burning, hungry fire that mirrored his own in intensity, if not in scope. It was an alien kind of power, one he hadn't considered, and the echo of it in his mind felt like a grit of sand in a flawless machine. It was a challenge.

Dumbledore’s hands were trembling slightly. He had spent a century building walls around his heart, fortifying his mind against the very man who now stood inside them. He could feel the vast, lonely void at the center of Voldemort’s ambition, a chilling emptiness that resonated with his own deepest fears of failure. It was the same core of brilliance and hunger he had seen in the boy, Tom, now magnified into a monstrous, cosmic selfishness. Worse still was the echo of Bellatrix. Her desire for total annihilation in the service of another was a madness so pure it was almost a religious experience. To feel it, even as a psychic remnant, was to understand a devotion he had only ever seen from the outside. It was obscene.

Bellatrix was panting, her eyes wild and unfocused. The vision of her Lord’s power, followed by the shared experience of it, had left her high, tingling with vicarious might. But the other two memories were polluting the perfect sensation. Dumbledore’s quiet world of sheep was a suffocating blanket of boredom. And the Mudblood… Bellatrix could still feel the shape of Hermione’s mind, a vast, ordered, and terrifyingly powerful thing. It was a power that didn't need a master, a power that sought to understand and catalogue, not to worship and destroy. She could feel the girl’s hunger for knowledge like a physical thirst. It made her hate her more, but the hatred was different now. It was no longer aimed at a lesser being. It was aimed at a rival. A true rival.

“The attunement is complete,” Voldemort stated, his voice cutting through the thick silence. He was the first to regain his composure, masking the internal intrusion with a familiar veneer of command. His crimson eyes swept over them, lingering for a moment too long on Hermione, then on Dumbledore. “A crude but effective method. Our core objectives are now… transparent.”

The word ‘transparent’ was an insult. It implied a willing sharing, not the brutal psychic rape they had just endured.

“This changes nothing,” Hermione bit out, her voice shaking with barely suppressed fury. But it was a lie, and they all knew it. She could feel the lie resonate between them, a false note in the new, shared space of their minds.

“Oh, I think it changes everything, Mudblood,” Bellatrix purred, her usual manic energy now focused into a predatory stillness. She took a step towards Hermione, her head tilted. “I know what you want now. Not fame. Not glory. You just want to be the cleverest little bitch in the world. You want to have all the answers.” Her lips twisted into a cruel smile. “I wonder what it would feel like to fuck that knowledge right out of you.”

The threat was crude, visceral, but because of the link, Hermione felt the spark of genuine, dark curiosity behind it. She felt Bellatrix’s desire to conquer her mind by dominating her body, and a hot, shameful jolt went through her.

“That is enough, Bellatrix,” Dumbledore said, his voice strained. He felt the spike of Bellatrix's violent lust and Hermione's shocked arousal through the link, a repulsive feedback loop that made his stomach turn. “The sanctum has made its point. We are… connected. We must learn to navigate this, if we are to proceed.”

Voldemort gave a soft, humorless laugh. “Navigate? No, Headmaster. We will exploit it. This bond, this unwelcome intimacy… it is a tool. A weapon.” His gaze settled on Dumbledore, a new, predatory light in his eyes. He no longer just saw his old enemy; he felt the weary weight of his regrets, the deep-seated desire for order. He saw the cracks in the ancient façade. “I now know precisely where your foundations are weakest.”

The four of them stood apart, yet bound together more tightly than any chain could manage. The air was still thick with their exposed ambitions, but now it was tainted with something else: the unsettling awareness that they could feel each other. Not just their magic, but the echoes of their thoughts, the taste of their emotions. They had been stripped bare, and in the ruins of their privacy, a new and dangerous landscape was beginning to form. They were enemies, allies of convenience, and now, unwilling tenants in each other’s souls.