Weeks passed by slowly at Malfoy Manor since the meeting. Hermione had buried her nose in the books provided by Voldemort, even being thankful when he had sent her more. Some evenings, she would have dinner with Voldemort and whoever else was present at the household during dinner. The only words exchanged between them all were the findings Hermione had come upon in the books, ideas and sparks of her imagination that might even prove to be useful. The more she read, the more she began fearing the worse -- that it wasn’t a curse, but a poison, which if personally invented, could even be worse than curses. Especially on an item already cursed to begin with, let alone created into a horcrux.