Chapter 1: Descent
Notes:
Movie Trailer Edit by Hansån Luy
Movie trailer edit by Nyx Astra
Movie trailer edit by stillhotterthanyours
Movie trailer edit by heartphantom
Movie trailer edit by eucalyptus
Movie trailer edit/fanart by malefica-yana
Collaborative Spotify Playlist
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Cover art by Enchanted.raccoon
"Mysterious thing, Time. Powerful, and when meddled with, dangerous." - Albus Dumbledore
"…He Who Must Not Be Named did great things—terrible, yes, but great." - Garrick Ollivander
"Voldemort is my past, present, and future." - Tom Riddle
Hermione's breath was steady. Her hands did not shake, her heart did not race. It did not matter that it was a frigid day in late December, the temperature well below freezing with snow coating the ground.
Hermione Granger did not tremble.
This was something for which she had planned for far too long, and she had already executed the first part with perfection.
December 31st, 1926.
Yes, she knew it could damage her body irrevocably, though she had taken precautions. Yes, she knew it could have unforeseen consequences. Was counting on that, in fact.
After all, what did she have to lose?
Hermione's life after the war was a deterioration. Returning to Hogwarts to get her N.E.W.T.'s had resulted in a plethora of dramatic events, the most notable being her newly-born romance with Ron going up in flames, her estrangement from the Weasley family because of it, and, consequently, her friendship with Harry becoming distant and detached.
None of them hated her necessarily, it wasn't that—especially not Harry. Nothing could completely break Hermione's friendship with Harry.
It was just… isolation. And it had shocked her with its abruptness.
Before, Hermione had seen her life unfolding in what she thought would be a happy and predictable path. She and Ron were supposed to get married, have children, be happy. She would go on to work in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, carry on with S.P.E.W., maybe…
After she and Ron had broken up, everything changed. Those who were at Hogwarts with her in Hermione's final year had looked at her differently, when they looked at her at all. Ginny was no longer the warm, pleasant girlfriend she had known before. Even Horace Slughorn, who had once said, 'Miss Granger, continue on at the rate you are, and I'll bet you're running for Minister of Magic by the time you're thirty years old!', was more reserved around her. The rumors being spread made it seem like she had deserted Ron, like Hermione had done something wrong to become severed from the 'Golden Trio'.
Rita Skeeter always had been excellent at painting Hermione in an unflattering light, she would give the woman that.
The prospect of working in a Department where she would be in the same building as Ron all the time seemed unbearable, after those publications. Hermione's mind was only changed after she'd had a career orientation meeting with McGonagall, who, unlike everyone else in her life, had treated Hermione exactly the same after the onslaught of Prophet and magazine articles slandering her. Hermione had confessed that she, for the first time, was unsure of what to do with her life. Her former instructor and then Headmistress had slid a pamphlet across the desk towards her, telling Hermione to 'think about it'.
There was only a single word on the cover:
Unspeakables.
And the information within, scant as it was, had been enough to persuade Hermione. Suddenly, being an outcast didn't seem to matter anymore.
In opposition to all the passive-aggressive hostility Hermione had been forced to deal with was, surprisingly enough, Draco Malfoy. She would never call it a friendship, what had begun to develop between the two social pariahs at that point, but… Well, it was something. Instrumental, even. Hermione would never have even considered it, were it not for the initial encouragement and support of that conniving Slytherin.
'What if it ruins people's lives, rather than improves them? What if people in the present get hurt?' she'd asked in one of her weaker moments, questioning everything, remembering her third year and how it had almost fallen into chaos. Malfoy had shoved the sleeve up on his left arm, revealing the faded but still there, always there, eternally there Dark Mark.
'Show me yours,' he'd demanded in response. Slowly, she had.
Mudblood.
Faded, but still there, always there, eternally there.
The last time she'd seen Harry—had it really been months, now?—Hermione had asked him about his scar. That infamous lightning bolt that marked him as an impossibility.
'Does it ever hurt you, anymore?'
'No.' Harry had smiled. 'It hasn't hurt me in years.'
But Hermione still burned.
…
December 31st, 1926.
Hermione walked along a snowy sidewalk on the outskirts of London. It was already dark. She spotted the clock tower in the distance, which read half past nine. Just as she’d planned.
Finding the records for Wool's Orphanage, though it no longer existed in the year 2001, had not been as difficult as Hermione would have thought. Tom Marvolo Riddle had been born at precisely 11:00 pm on New Year's Eve. And if the matron in the memory's retelling was any indication, it had been a very quick, bloody birth.
Of course Hermione had seen the memories.
Dumbledore's Pensieve, as it transpired, had been bequeathed to the Department of Mysteries in his will, as well as all the memories it contained. It was kept in the Time Room, which was still undergoing repairs thanks to the battle which had ensued at the end of their fifth year.
Once Hermione had officially become an Unspeakable, just a few weeks after graduation, she'd been unable to not take advantage of this.
She'd watched everything.
The first time was out of simple but uncontainable curiosity, but she watched them again after she and Malfoy had begun to congregate and plan.
And again, and again, and again.
Tom Riddle: orphan, student, manipulator, murderer.
Hermione had watched the story of the Half-Blood Prince, too. Memories which had surprised her when she'd first come across them, because they did not belong to Albus Dumbledore. Then it clicked. Hermione recalled the night that she unknowingly had gathered those memories herself. Severus Snape, dying in the Shrieking Shack…
Harry must have broken into the Headmaster's office, somehow. He must have watched them, and then, at the end…
That was why he'd left them…
So much pain, so much suffering.
'We could prevent it, you know.' Draco Malfoy, his dangerous suggestions, and his Time-Turner which was not bound by hours. 'We could change the world, Granger.'
Hermione had merely considered it at first. Not agreed.
She’d studied the case files of Eloise Mintumble in depth. A witch who had been irreparably damaged when, in 1899, she'd traveled to the year 1402 and had been stuck there for five days. Once she'd finally been rescued and brought back to her present time, her body had aged five centuries. She died shortly thereafter.
The consequences of this experiment had been… illogical, as far as Hermione could tell. Twenty-five of her descendants vanished, having been unborn. The Tuesday following her death had lasted two and a half days, while that Thursday had lasted only four hours. Yet time carried on.
Twenty-five people had died in that experiment. Only one would die in Hermione's.
…Well, two, technically.
She's dying, anyway, Hermione reminded herself. Merope Gaunt is already dead.
Hermione took another steadying breath. With Draco's help, she had prepared accordingly. It was fortunate that Malfoy had an endless supply of galleons—the provisions needed to create a body-stabilizing potion strong enough to withstand time-travel hadn't been cheap. Not that she intended to be here for five days, by any means. Still, she was confident enough in both her own and Draco's potion-making skills that the brew she'd consumed would keep her from falling apart.
Hermione knew there was no guarantee of such a thing. But again… What did she have to lose?
Draco had initially offered to be the one to come instead, or to at least come with her, but no. Hermione had insisted that she come alone. She knew far more about time than he did—she'd studied it in part as an Unspeakable—and besides, he would distract her. Draco Malfoy wasn't a killer.
Hermione Granger was.
She never told Harry nor Ron about it afterwards, but she’d cast the killing curse. She'd thrown it at Bellatrix Lestrange. Hermione had wanted to kill the witch with her own wand, and when she'd uttered the words 'Avada Kedavra' with truest intent, the flash of green had been immediate.
Too bad the bitch was good at dodging.
It had been Hermione's one opportunity to kill her, and she'd missed. She knew she was no match for a proper duel against Bellatrix Lestrange, and the element of surprise was gone after that. If Ginny and Luna hadn't stepped in to help, she probably would have been killed.
But I'm not going up against Bellatrix Lestrange now. Hermione kept a watchful eye out, concealed by the shadows of an alley near the orphanage. I'm going up against a weak, desperate witch. Practically a squib.
Hermione swallowed thickly, recognizing what a horrid murder this was going to be—despite everything—to kill a pregnant woman. She was happy that she had not allowed Malfoy to come with her.
Hermione had, however, let him give her a giant leather bag full of galleons.
'In case everything goes to shit, and you do get stuck for five days or whatever,' he'd said.
'And how will gold help me, if that's the case?' Hermione had responded dryly.
He'd looked at her like she was a complete moron—a look Hermione Granger did not often have aimed at her. 'Enough gold can work miracles, Granger.'
Hermione could feel the weight of those galleons in her pocket. Oddly enough, she was glad that she had them, if only because it served to remind her that someone cared about her. She had one hand in her pocket while the other was to her chest, her fingers twisting around the chain of the Time-Turner in anticipation.
Any minute now, Merope Gaunt would come stumbling down that sidewalk, already in labor, on the brink of death. She would never make it to the doorstep of Wool's Orphanage, Hermione would see to that.
She waited.
Finally, the peaceful scene of softly falling snow on New Year's Eve was disrupted by a woman's cries. Feeble and desperate.
"H… help… Somebody…"
Steeling herself, Hermione went to answer her call.
"Oh, thank… thank God…" The woman grinned painfully when she noticed what she assumed to be her savior. Hermione stopped short when she saw her face, illuminated by the ochre light of a street lamp.
It shouldn't have impacted her so much—Hermione had seen this woman in the memories many times, after all—but it did.
She was hideous.
"Help me," Merope gasped, her hands on her swollen stomach, shaking. When her knees buckled, Hermione instinctually went to catch her. "My baby, my baby…"
Hermione stared into the face of this dying woman, her hardened heart suddenly consumed with pity.
No. No.
"Help me, I c-can't make it to… t-to the hospital…"
Kill her.
"Please—"
Kill her!
"I'm so sorry." Hermione retracted her wand. The street was deserted, the orphanage several blocks away yet. "I'm sorry, I… It won't hurt."
Merope's eyes, which had been looking in opposite directions before, focused singularly on her wand. Hermione didn't hesitate again. There were many spells which she could cast wordlessly, but the killing curse was not one of them.
Death demanded a declaration.
"Avada—"
The reaction was instantaneous.
Hermione's wand went flying from her hand at the same moment that Merope Gaunt screamed—a bloodcurdling cry that ripped across the winter air. She clawed at Hermione's chest with a strength that should not have been possible from such a weakened woman. Hermione's body froze. Whether it was from terror or the fierce brand of magic that was emanating from the soon-to-be mother, sensing mortal peril, Hermione was not sure.
Either way, she was powerless to stop what happened next.
"Witch!" Merope screamed, digging her nails into Hermione's throat and finding purchase on the chain around her neck. "Witch! Witch!"
Merope's fingers curled around the Time-Turner. She surely had no idea what it was, but that hardly mattered. The dying woman was looking for something, anything to use as a weapon, and she had found one.
With one horrifically brutal motion, Merope Gaunt gripped the Time-Turner in her fist and slammed it savagely into Hermione's throat. It shattered against her neck, bits of glass and gold piercing into her skin. Merope's scream abruptly ended. The snowy streets of 1920's London fell away, and Hermione was sent somewhere, elsewhere, nowhere.
Her skin was being peeled backwards, her bones were being cracked and twisted and cracked again. The scream that was resounding in her mind was unable to escape her bleeding throat, which burned, burned, burned.
Hermione was certain that she was dead. The last thing she saw before blackness consumed her was a plume of metallic dust and vitreous fragments, tiny prisms dancing behind her eyelids.
Death, she thought emotionlessly, is beautiful.
She exhaled blood and gold.
Chapter Text
The world was blinding.
Hermione's body felt like it had been broken into a thousand fragments, burning pieces lost in a dark suspension, just to come snapping back together all at once. Her limbs were spread out at awkward angles on cold, hard ground. Her eyes flew open to a light like a ray of piercing sunlight, making her wince. She inhaled through her burning throat and immediately rolled to her side and coughed, a horrible, raspy sound. Blood splattered across the concrete.
"Oh—oh, good lord!"
Hermione heard a woman crying out, shrill and panicked. The sound assaulted her like nails being thrust directly into her eardrums.
"Carl—Carl! Go knock on someone's door, call an ambulance!"
The woman was kneeling at her side. Hermione whimpered when she shouted so close to her, curling into herself and covering her head with her hands. She felt something warm and sticky on her neck. She was bleeding; her skin felt like it was on fire from where Merope had stricken her.
"Don't worry dear, don't worry… we're calling for help…"
Hermione peered up through her lashes, her vision blurred. She saw the hazy outline of a woman, and she was… sparkling…
An ambulance, she'd said…
"Oh, dear, oh, no…" The woman began rummaging through her purse, quickly pulling out a handkerchief. "Here, let me put this on that wound, you should apply p-pressure—"
Hermione was struck with a crushing wave of clarity, the kind which was only brought on by adrenaline and fear. Her eyes focused, her heart froze. An ambulance. These were muggles, and—and she had just been attacked, and she'd dropped her wand—
Hermione started to push herself to her feet. "No, dear! You shouldn't move!" the woman cried, reaching for her shoulder. Hermione shoved it aside and stood anyway.
The blood rushed to her head, but she shook off the spell of dizziness, remaining on her feet. Her wand. She had been disarmed, her wand had flown… that way…
Hermione looked wildly in the direction which it had gone, but she saw nothing in the empty street—no wand, no feeble mother about to give birth, nothing. It was still night, however. That blinding light from before was not blinding at all, only the dim streetlight which she had landed under.
The muggle man came running forward. Hermione noticed that he was wearing a smart, vintage suit and that the woman herself hadn't really been sparkling; she was just wearing a bejeweled necklace and hat, as well as a bright, poufy dress. "No one answered the door—should we take her to the orphanage? They must have a nurse, or—"
"No!" Hermione screamed, backing away a few paces. The unexpected ferocity in her voice made them both jump.
Slowly, Hermione removed her hand from her bleeding neck, wondering how bad the injury was. The second she did, the man gasped, and the woman let out a high, quick yelp. They both looked horrified.
Pretty bad, then.
"I'm not going to that orphanage," she said. The muggles raised their hands defensively, clearly much more afraid of Hermione than for her, now.
Hermione was about to flee, but then she paused. She snatched the handkerchief from the woman's hand, who let out another shrill yelp in response.
Hermione held the lacy fabric to her neck. "Thank you," she muttered before turning away and heading to where she thought her wand might have gone. She could heal herself if she had her wand…
At least, she hoped she could.
Hermione could only imagine what kind of injury she’d acquired—or what she even looked like, for that matter. Had the stabilizing potion she and Draco made worked? It felt like she'd splinched a thousand times when Merope Gaunt slammed the Time-Turner into her throat…
Heart racing, Hermione reached for the chain around her neck. It wasn't there. Merope must have ripped the entire thing off her…
The Time-Turner, a true Time-Turner… Draco Malfoy’s time-turner…
Hermione turned and looked back where she'd landed (the muggles must have decided that she did not need their help after all, and were now practically running in the opposite direction), but she didn't see even a trace of glass or golden fragments.
The Time-Turner was gone.
Malfoy is going to murder me for having lost that, Hermione despaired. She pulled the handkerchief away from her neck; it was already half saturated in blood. If I can get back to him, that is.
She wondered how long Malfoy would wait in the year she had left before trying to find her. Would he try at all? She supposed it all depended on what she did here. If she was able to get back to that time before her body was too badly affected, then it wouldn't matter…
But if she couldn't…
Hermione forced her mounting panic aside, focusing instead on looking everywhere in the vicinity for her wand. With each beat, she felt like her heart might give out. It must be here, she thought, it must be, it must…
But it wasn't. Hermione tried summoning it to her, she tried shouting Lumos! in hopes that it would light up so that she could see it. Nothing.
Her wand was not here.
"Fuck," Hermione swore, happy in that moment to be on a deserted street at night. Wool's Orphanage was still a few blocks away, a dismal, gray building that looked more like a prison than a place where children lived.
She swallowed thickly, her throat burning when she did. Maybe she would have to go to that Orphanage, after all…
How long had she been passed out? What kind of horrific magic had Merope struck her with to make her experience such disorienting, terrible pain? It couldn't have been too long, or else someone would have found her sooner, before that muggle couple…
Unless…
Hermione started to examine her surroundings properly.
The clock tower in the distance stood just as it had before, reading twenty minutes until midnight. Wool's orphanage looked the same… but the rest of the street didn't.
Those little shops with the 'closed' signs weren't there before, Hermione realized, her blood running cold. Neither were all those nice houses. They were more run down before, weren't they? These looked remodeled…
The scenery was different.
Her wand was gone.
The Time-Turner was gone.
Hermione started to hyperventilate.
She stumbled sideways, leaning against a tree as she struggled to breathe. Her muscles ached and her neck continued to burn, but the pain was hardly noticeable over the fear which now threatened to overwhelm her. Her vision was blurring again, and her stomach churned. She was either going to pass out or be sick—possibly both.
Hold it together, Granger. Hermione closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep breath. Focus on your breathing. Count to three… Breathe in, breathe out… Remember your training; you didn't let Holloway attack your mind for months just to lose it over something like this… Breathe in, breathe out…
It took longer than it usually did, but Hermione soon calmed down enough so that she was no longer on the brink of a panic attack. Months and months of Occlumency training—standard for all new Unspeakables—had come in handy more times than she could count. It was more about finding an inner peace and sense of control than it was about being defensive, and that was a skill which was applicable to nearly all situations.
Hermione opened her eyes again. She was wandless. She knew where she was, but not when. She did not have a Time-Turner.
She had… nothing.
No, she realized suddenly, the tiniest spark of hope igniting in her chest.
'Enough gold can work miracles, Granger.'
Hermione reached into her pocket with her free hand, laughing breathily at the weight of galleons in a leather pouch. God bless you, Draco Malfoy, she thought with a smile.
Right, then. Hermione cleared her expression as a short-term plan formed in her mind. Of utmost importance was to acquire a wand, but first and foremost, she had to deal with this injury… and get off the streets of muggle London.
Hermione turned a corner into a shady alley, stuck her wand arm out, and waited. The Knight Bus came, and with it, a sense of irrational security.
Hermione took the Knight Bus quite often in her daily life in her own time. She smiled at its familiar, purple paint, but couldn't help but notice that it didn't seem to be nearly as… chaotic in its approach. It pulled up to where she stood slowly, not at all like it was being driven by a half-blind man who somehow retained his position.
The door opened, and a short, stout woman stepped out. "Welcome aboard the—Oh, Merlin's beard! What's happened to you?"
And she hadn't even moved the handkerchief yet. "I've been mugged," Hermione said, and she hardly had to pretend to act despairing. "I've been attacked, I was hit with some curse—he took my wand—"
"Oh, you poor thing!" the conductor cried. "Let me see, let me—"
The moment Hermione moved the drenched fabric from her neck, the woman's face paled. It was really bad, then. "What kind of curse were you hit with!?"
"I don't know," Hermione snapped, placing the handkerchief back over the wound. "He didn't exactly stop to tell me before he took my wand! Just—do you mind healing me, please, ma'am? I'm sort of bleeding all over the place."
The conductor's face paled even further. "I only know basic charms, I-I'm no proper Healer…"
It was really, really bad, then. "Well, I'm very good at curative magic, if you don't mind me borrowing your wand? If I can board and use the restroom, so I can look in the mirror and see what I'm doing…"
When the conductor didn't immediately react, only continued to stare at her neck dumbfoundedly, Hermione nearly screamed. "I have the fare," she said. "And I'd be happy to give you extra if you let me use your wand for just a few moments."
"You… you can pay to get on the bus?" the conductor balked. "But you just said you've been mugged!"
Hermione realized her blunder too late, but quickly recovered. "Yes, well, I always keep an extra bit of money hidden in my inner pocket. Here." She pulled out a single galleon and offered it up. "Apply this to my fare, and keep the extra as a thank you for letting me use your wand. Please."
The conductor looked shocked at that statement. Hermione wondered if maybe she had made another mistake. How much more were galleons worth, in this present? Was inflation as severe in the magical world as it was in the muggle world?
All questions Hermione had never bothered to consider before her trip. She suddenly wished Malfoy had come with her after all.
"Well?"
The conductor stared for a moment before pocketing the galleon and nodding firmly. "Of course, of course! R-right this way! Miss…?"
Hermione paused. "Johnson," she said. "Er. Jane Johnson."
The conductor blinked but didn't comment. Well, Hermione thought, if she had to work on an alias later, she would do much better than that.
Hermione climbed aboard the Knight Bus. The driver, too, was someone unfamiliar to her: an older gentleman with dark hair, who was clearly much better at his job than Ernie Prang was. He glanced at Hermione and looked as concerned as the conductor was. Hermione ignored him.
"Your wand, then, if you don't mind," Hermione said as soon as she'd boarded.
The conductor reached into her pocket. "My name is Maryanne, by the way," she said, standing proudly and handing over her wand. "Maryanne Williams, conductor of the Knight Bus for almost five years, now."
"Charmed," Hermione said, far more concerned with her injury than familiarities. She turned and headed towards the bathroom at the back of the bus before Maryanne could direct her. Fortunately, the Knight Bus was a much less unpredictable vehicle under this driver's care. It was also nearly empty, having been hailed at such a late hour.
She found the women's restroom and slammed the door shut behind her. Bracing herself, Hermione slowly removed the handkerchief and faced the mirror.
She nearly fainted on the spot.
It wasn't that the jagged cut looked too terribly grave, no. It was simply how… unreal the injury appeared.
But Hermione was only able to examine it for a second before the trickle of blood obscured it. Forcing herself to concentrate, she pointed the wand tip at the wound, and murmured the words, "Vulnera Sanentur."
The gash slowly sewed itself shut. Her skin mended, and the bleeding ceased. She wiped away the excess blood.
The bizarre markings remained.
Hermione stared in awe and shock as she examined the lines that swirled around the center of her throat, radiating from the point of injury which was just above her collarbone on the left side of her neck. They were… strangely beautiful, in an outlandish, horrific way. Gleaming, golden arches that glimmered almost as though they were flecked with bits of diamonds.
Like glass…
Like glass.
Hermione almost screamed at the comprehension.
The Time-Turner had been smashed into her neck, right there, and when she'd woken up, she'd found no trace of it: not a shard of glass, not a bit of fragmented metal.
It hadn't simply vanished. Not all of it, anyway, if it had left such a scar.
Hermione leaned forward with both hands on the sink, her entire body trembling, though whether it was from blood loss or pure shock, she wasn't sure.
Focus, Hermione, she berated herself yet again. Focus.
You need a wand. You can figure something out, you always do—but you first need a wand.
Hermione cleaned the rest of the blood from her face and neck, and as much as she could rinse from her hair. She then purposefully arranged her unruly locks so that they fell on that side, hiding the whirling, shimmering markings as much as possible.
She made her way up to the front of the Knight Bus again. Maryanne sat in the conductor's seat, looking expectant. "Thank you," Hermione said, returning her wand.
"You're welcome, Miss Johnson," Maryanne responded, looking much less pale now that Hermione was no longer covered in blood. "Should we take you to St. Mungo's, would—"
"No," Hermione interrupted. "No, I'm fine. Really. I… I would like to go to Diagon Alley, actually."
Maryanne looked at her for a long moment before nodding. "All right," she said. "We have two stops to make before that, and they're a bit out of the way. Would you rather us go to Diagon Alley first, since we're in London? We could be there in an hour… Or we could make these few rounds first, if you'd prefer to sleep through the night in the bed you paid for and arrive downtown early in the morning. Unless you have plans tonight, yet…?"
Hermione frowned. "Plans? No, no plans. I would very much like to just rest through the night, thank you. Please, make the other stops first," she said.
Maryanne gave her a sort of sympathetic grin. "All right, dear. Pick any curtained space on the second floor that you like. And you let me know if you need anything."
Hermione nodded wordlessly in response, feeling exhausted. Then, just as she was about to climb the steps to the second story, she paused. "Oh, actually… Do you have today's paper? I missed it."
"Sure. Here." The conductor handed her an issue of The Daily Prophet. "Happy almost New Year," she added. Hermione didn't respond to that comment and made herself wait to read the full headline.
She picked the space furthest from the front of the bus and covered herself in the blankets which were provided. Only once she had taken many deep breaths and lulled herself into a state of calm did Hermione allow herself to pick up the Prophet.
December 31st, 1949.
Her brain seemed frozen as she read that date over and over again.
December 31st, 1949.
Simple math seemed such an impossible task, suddenly.
She'd watched the memories. Hermione had memorized every date of importance which concerned Tom Marvolo Riddle and the deformed witch who had birthed him.
If Hermione had failed to kill Merope Gaunt—and she was pretty damn certain that she had failed, spectacularly—that meant that Tom Riddle…
Hermione was glad that she was sitting down. Her head was swimming as the horrific truth of what year she had landed in—and what it meant about the wizard she was trying to kill—sunk in. She was undoubtedly about to pass out, now.
In about ten minutes, it would officially be January 1st, 1950.
Somehow, she thought through a delirium of near hysteria, somehow, she imagined that it was going to be much more difficult to murder a twenty-three year old Tom Riddle than an unborn one.
Chapter 3: A Heavenly Match
Chapter Text
Hermione tried to rest on the bus ride to Diagon Alley, but was unable to sleep at all. Her already over-active mind raced more than ever, making her toss and turn on the small cot as rural England passed her by.
She wondered what was happening in her present—in 2001, where she had just left Draco Malfoy in her flat. How long would he wait for her? Hermione had told him that if she didn't reappear in just twenty-six seconds, it meant that she had not only failed, but was… in trouble.
How would he react? Would he go to the Department of Mysteries to speak to her boss, Armand Holloway, admitting to the Ministry that he owned such a dangerous, magical device?
Probably not, Hermione lamented. An offense that large would mean a sentence in Azkaban, and Draco Malfoy had barely avoided that fate after the war ended.
What would he do?
Hermione covered her face in her hands. She had no idea how Malfoy would deal with this on his end. Hell, she had no idea what she should do at the moment.
Her first thought was to find another Time-Turner.
The same one, technically, the true one, the one which… Draco Malfoy’s grandfather? His great-grandfather? Someone in his family probably owned in this time—illegally so.
It was a notion that was dismissed nearly the second she'd had it. Time-Turners went back in time, not forward, and the only one which would have been able to transport her to her present had been smashed into her throat.
Hermione ran her fingers along the side of her neck, where the skin felt smooth now that she had healed it, but which she knew was anything but normal-looking. She wondered if there would be any repercussions beyond a strange, dazzling scar of golden loops, or if the broken artifact was affecting her in some other way. It didn't seem to be. She had no way of knowing until she had a wand and could run some tests.
At least it doesn't hurt, she thought. At least it's not burning anymore…
Hermione let the devastation of her situation truly settle in: the Time-Turner was gone, and the only way she would be able to get back to the present was if someone from her time came and rescued her.
She shook her head, trying not to think of poor Malfoy pacing her apartment, anxious and confused. Hermione knew she had no power over what people in the year 2001 did, only what she could do, here.
It was 1950.
Tom Riddle had just turned twenty-three years old, and… what was he doing these days?
If she remembered her dates correctly—and Hermione always did—Hepzibah Smith was not murdered until 1955, sometime in February. Riddle was still working at Borgin and Burkes as a shop boy, then, but he surely was doing much more than that in his spare time. Whatever Riddle was up to while he was not helping Mr. Borgin acquire rare, magical artifacts to sell them for a profit, it was undoubtedly not good.
This was before he had vanished from Britain entirely, and not even Dumbledore knew what the young Dark Lord was up to then.
But he wouldn't disappear for a while.
Hermione had five years in which she knew that Riddle would be in London. She knew where he worked, and she knew when he would kill that old woman and bewitch her poor house-elf into thinking she had done it.
Those were about the only advantages she had.
Hermione swore under her breath. Why couldn't she had been dumped sometime in the 1940's, when Tom Riddle was still a child, or at the very least a teenager? She could have taken him then. He may not have been easy to kill, but she could have done it. It would be horrible to murder a child, but Hermione wagered she could do it, considering who that child would inevitably grow up to be.
She was not so sure she could kill Tom Riddle as he was now, and it was a comprehension that had nothing at all to do with morals.
It wasn't that she wasn't confident in her own skills; she was. Hermione was an excellent duelist and proficient at everything she put her mind to. But this was Tom Marvolo Riddle she was talking about, and on this date, he was actually a bit older than her… not to mention the small fact that he had already committed several murders.
This was, Hermione realized with dread, possibly the most dangerous version of the Dark Lord she could have been put up against. One who had already proved himself capable of killing unflinchingly, as he'd commanded the basilisk to kill Myrtle, as well as murdered his father and his grandparents… But he'd also split his soul twice.
The diary and the ring.
He was lethal but not insane. He was young but not naïve. He was confident, and arrogant, surely, but still living under the guise as a harmless, charming shop boy.
And immortal.
Even if Hermione did think herself capable of catching him off guard and murdering him in some dark alleyway (which she didn't, and she was not stupid enough to try), it wouldn't matter. She would have to destroy the Horcruxes first.
Had he already hidden the ring in his uncle's shack? And the diary, where had he kept that before handing it off to Lucius Malfoy so many years later?
Hermione turned on her side, staring out the window. She was getting ahead of herself. She needed to focus solely on getting a wand, and then she could begin to investigate, and—
And what? Just waltz into Borgin and Burkes, run into Tom Riddle, and strike up a conversation with the charismatic, young murderer?
Hermione recalled the time she had followed Draco Malfoy into that very same store, trying to figure out what it was he'd been interested in having fixed back when they were still in school. She almost laughed at her horrible acting; it had been spontaneous and ridiculous. In hindsight, it was mostly amusing, as now she and Malfoy sort of were friend-like… though she would never think to buy him a cursed necklace for his birthday.
She needed a backstory, and a good one. She would come up with everything she needed to convincingly be someone else… but she couldn't be from England. She couldn't have gone to Hogwarts. Tom Riddle may realize that he'd never seen her in the castle before, and if she was caught in a lie, she was doomed. She would have to be from somewhere else, from a different school, with a different life.
It's a damn shame I don't know French, Hermione thought humorlessly. Or Bulgarian. I should have learned more from Viktor.
Hermione sighed. She would figure all that out later.
Wand, she repeated to herself. Everything else can follow after we have a means of spell-casting.
She lamented the loss of her own wand viscerally already—vine, dragon heartstring, 10 ¾ inches long. It was lost somewhere in an alleyway in 1920's London. Probably run over by a car or something, she thought morbidly.
In the year 1950, it was unlikely that it had been created yet. She couldn't imagine that Ollivander kept many wands on the shelf for over forty years… Or did he? Hermione wasn't sure. Yet even if he did, that would mean that she'd be purchasing her own wand before her eleven-year-old self could in 1991… didn't it? If she remained in the same timeline, which had been the plan, but now...
Hermione's head was spinning. It looked like she was going to alter history in more ways than one—possibly more than one history—but she recognized that the least of her concerns should be how she might change a timeline by acquiring her future self's wand.
Maybe, she thought, if she was fortunate, she wouldn't make any significant changes at all. She kept peering through the curtain around her cot, half-hoping and half-dreading that Holloway might apparate suddenly, looking livid and firing her (and probably far worse—who was she kidding, this act of vigilantism was incredibly illegal and she knew it), but at least not before dragging her back to the right year.
It didn't happen.
The Knight Bus made a few stops before taking her to Diagon Alley, right around the time the sun was rising, and Hermione faced the new day having hardly rested at all.
God bless Draco Malfoy.
Hermione found herself thinking that every time she reached into her leather satchel for galleons.
Since it was New Year's Day, many of the shops were closed. Hermione was fortunate to be able to get a room in a dingy little motel that edged dangerously close to Knockturn Alley. She didn't like it, but it was the only place with any availability. It didn't matter to her that it was a bit dodgy, what bothered her more was how close it was to certain sinister shops with even more sinister employees.
She distracted herself by staying in the brighter, cheerier sections of Diagon Alley, thankful that a few food vendors were open. Hermione ate a double serving of chocolate ice cream, because damn it, if ever there was a time to indulge herself, it was now.
"God bless Draco Malfoy," she murmured as she finished the last of it, licking the spoon clean.
There were surprisingly few differences in the layout of the magical shopping center, all things considered. The items being sold were, of course, in alignment with the era—the Clean Sweep 7 was the fastest broom of the day, and the robes on display in the windows were, in Hermione's opinion, a bit more stylish—but overall, it felt pleasantly familiar.
She could have cried when she saw that Ollivander's shop was closed. Tomorrow, she thought, reading the sign on the door which said they would be open at nine. Tomorrow, I'll be back.
Then a miracle happened.
Hermione wondered just how she was going to keep herself busy until then, when she found the library…and it was open.
Open, on a national holiday! Open, open, open!
"There is a God," she breathed to herself, elated. Hermione practically danced her way up the steps as she entered through the front doors. She couldn't check anything out, as she had no form of identification on her, but she could read while inside.
The library was almost empty. Hermione went straight to the non-fiction section, finding herself texts on the history of Magical Education. She ran her fingers over the spines of dozens of books, pausing in reverence as she encountered Hogwarts, a History—but she left it on the shelf.
What other schools existed where English was the main language, and where she could begin to build her story?
Her eyes came to rest on a thick, black text—Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: From Irish Beginnings to the 20th Century.
Hermione smiled and did what she did best. She read, she learned… and she began to plot.
Ollivander's shop was also nearly just as she remembered it.
Hermione only made one stop beforehand on the morning of January 2nd, 1950, and that was to purchase a scarf at a clothing store. The marks on her neck were something she would have to figure out how to get rid of, eventually, or at least hide with a glamour… as well as the scar on her arm.
All things she would be able to do after today.
The small wand shop looked very much the same, but Ollivander himself did not.
He was younger, naturally, but it was unmistakably him. His hair, while blonde instead of white, was just as thick as before, and his eyes gleamed like silver when they looked up from his work to see a witch entering his shop.
"Hello," he said, setting his quill aside. "May I help you?"
"Yes. I would like to buy a wand, sir."
Hermione might as well have just said, 'I would like to bear your child, sir', he looked so perplexed. Ollivander stood and came around the counter to speak with her better.
"You'd like to buy a wand?" he asked, baffled.
"Yes." Hermione's eye twitched, but she forced a smile. What was so shocking about a woman coming into a wand shop to buy a wand?
Her irritation must have been obvious, however, because he inclined his head politely. "My apologies, it's just not very often I have adult customers—in January, no less! I'm used to having hordes of eleven-year-olds in the summer, and copious amounts of downtime the rest of the season."
Hermione's annoyance swiftly vanished; she had not considered this. "Oh. Well, I was robbed, unfortunately. So I'll be needing a replacement wand. I heard you were the best, so I decided to come to you."
"I'm so sorry to hear that," Ollivander said, looking genuinely sad for her. "May I ask who you purchased a wand from before?"
Hermione was grateful that she'd had the entire day yesterday to research. She would not have had an answer to this question prepared, otherwise. "Shikoba Wolfe," she responded effortlessly.
"Oh! American then, are you? I've heard good things about Wolfe's wands. Is it true she tends to carve them somewhat…ornately?"
"I'm from the states, yes, but I've been in England for several years now. And Wolfe's wands are a bit ornate, that's true," Hermione replied. She recalled the moving images in one of the books on international wand-making she'd found, having committed them to memory. "My own was quite beautiful. It had lovely ivy cravings on the side."
Ollivander made a face like this did not impress him. "Looks can be deceiving. One should never judge the power of an individual nor their wand based on appearance. Wouldn't you agree, Miss…?"
"Smith," Hermione answered easily. Though it was another overly common name, she at least had a good reason for using this one. "And I would agree with you, Mr. Ollivander. Appearances can be deceiving."
He smiled. "Right, well. Miss Smith. You'll find that I make and sell my wands a bit differently, here. I don't allow customers to bring in their own cores or peruse my shelves and pick out whichever one they think best based on their own, usually misconstrued notions, but require that the customer try out a variety until the right one is in their hands. The wand chooses the witch, Miss Smith."
"I've heard that's how you operate," Hermione said, looking only slightly amused. "Other wandmakers say that it's an eccentric practice, but I think it sounds fascinating. So."
Hermione looked around the shop with its many shelves full of wands. "How do we begin?"
Ollivander clapped his hands together joyfully before reaching for several boxes. "How exciting! An adult customer, such a treat—what was the length of your old wand? No! Don't tell me, I don't want to be swayed. Put your arms out, Miss, if you please—"
Hermione obeyed, and a tape measure began hovering around her and taking her measurements. It dropped to the floor at the same time Ollivander handed her the first wand.
"Cherry, ten inches, unicorn hair core," he said. "Quite flexible. Try it out."
Hermione couldn't help but feel giddy with excitement as she took it. She remembered getting her wand the first time around, and what a magical, whimsical experience it had been—her parents behind her, clapping and whooping with pride as their spontaneously magical daughter made sparks of bright pink emit from a piece of wood…
Muggles in Ollivander's Wand Shoppe, and everyone involved had a wonderful time.
"Nope, that won't do—"
Ollivander plucked the cherry wand from her fingers and handed her another one. "Here—12", ash, unicorn hair again—"
Hermione had barely swished it before it was taken from her. "No, no, no—maybe one of these—"
He gave her wand after wand, then finally decided to set aside the entire pile he'd accumulated and grabbed a few others from a different section. "I must rid myself of the practice of trying to read people," he said, sighing. "I confess, I thought I knew what brand of wand would suit you, but clearly I am mistaken. Don't judge on appearances, Ollivander—ah, I must learn to practice what I preach!"
"Sorry, but… what do you mean?" Hermione asked, watching warily as he pulled out another wand—one which was much longer than any of the others thus far. "What kind of wand did you think would suit me?"
"Something about you struck me more as one who would be inclined to practice Charms, or Potions, perhaps," he admitted. "Not light, healing magic, necessarily, but not offensive spells, either. Practical. No-nonsense."
Hermione laughed. "Well, I would venture to say that your preconceived notions are correct," she said. "That about sums me up."
Ollivander didn't respond, only handed her the long wand in his hand. Hermione hesitated before she took it. As Ollivander began listing its characteristics, she realized with a start that she had seen this wand before.
"12 ¾", walnut, dragon heartstring…"
She had used this wand before.
"Extremely unyielding."
She had dueled with it against its own master at the final battle of Hogwarts; she had tossed it into a pyre after the war.
It was the wand that had belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
Hermione's stomach dropped. It wouldn't matter, she told herself. This wand wouldn't work for her, either.
Hermione touched the handle and knew that she was wrong at once.
The walnut felt nothing at all like it had when she had fought in the castle, spiteful in her hands as she cast the killing curse at its rightful owner, full of hatred, forcing it to cooperate.
It felt warm beneath her fingers now, pleasant. Hermione hardly moved it through the air before sparks emitted from its tip, silvery-white and brilliant, like stars. It was such an unexpected burst of magic that she forgot to be horrified at the implications—they were beautiful, dancing lights like a night sky come to life in the wand shop.
Ollivander applauded once the sparks vanished. "Oh, bravo, bravo!" he cheered, grinning merrily. "A heavenly match, perfect, wonderful!"
The wave of nausea that Hermione had forced away came rushing back. "I don't want this wand," she said, thrusting it towards the wandmaker. Ollivander's brows shot up, disappearing behind his white-blonde hair. "I can't take it."
"You can't not take it!" Ollivander shouted, looking scandalized and refusing to take the wand. "That wand chose you—wants you!"
Hermione swallowed thickly, her entire sense of self torn. She did not want the wand which had belonged to the witch who'd tormented the Longbottoms into insanity, who had killed Sirius Black… who had scarred her forever…
Mudblood.
But those things haven't happened yet, said a quiet voice in the back of her mind. And besides, it's not the wand's fault that it performed such dark magic. It was just in the wrong hands.
But it's Bellatrix's! was her own instant, childish sounding response. I feel disgusting touching it!
Do you?
Hermione turned the walnut over in her hands, examining the wand. The truth was that she didn't. The wand thrummed with power beneath her fingers, pulsing with a dull but inviting warmth. It felt right.
Besides, came that small, academic tone that Hermione often heard during her internal arguments, it's sort of satisfying, isn't it? Taking Bellatrix Lestrange's wand from her before she's even been born.
Hermione's lips twitched.
"All right," she said, looking up at Ollivander and nodding. He beamed.
"I'll take it."
Chapter Text
Hermione was elated. With a wand in her hands, her perspective had changed dramatically. All things were suddenly possible, she could still complete her mission, she could succeed.
She had checked out of the inn in Knockturn earlier that day and was now headed towards Diagon Alley, where she could rent a nicer room near the shops that were of a less dangerous variety. Though she was sorely tempted to go into Borgin and Burkes right away, she would not let her curiosity get the better of her. She was not the same girl who acted with little to no plan; she was no longer a teenager hiding under a cloak with two reckless boys, spying on a schoolmate.
Hermione Granger was a woman, an Unspeakable… and from this moment on, she was a Smith.
Smiling to herself, Hermione entered a cozy-looking inn next to the ice cream parlor. She checked into a room, the cost easily covered by the galleons Draco Malfoy had, thankfully, forced her to take.
That was another obstacle she would have to overcome, Hermione thought as she pocketed the bag of gold again, heading towards her new, temporary home. She had a significant amount of gold, but it was not endless.
Hermione set that concern aside. There was a far more pressing matter that weighed on her, one that needed to come before worries about gold, false identities, or even the fate of Tom Riddle.
She closed and locked the door to her room behind her, much more pleased with these living accommodations than her previous ones. The bed was larger, and there was even a desk and small pantry to store food. It felt… homey. Comfortable.
Hermione shrugged off her coat before pulling her newly acquired scarf from her neck. She took a deep breath and entered the bathroom, wand in hand.
The scar was dazzling.
Was it just her paranoia, or had it grown? Hermione's heart fluttered, her fingers lightly tracing the mysterious, golden lines. They were perfect spirals, all extended from the very spot where Merope had struck her… too perfect. They made her think of the golden ratio, in fact, mathematical in their precision.
The thought made her laugh out loud. Golden markings of a golden ratio—how delightfully nerdy. "Only me," she muttered, grinning crookedly at her own reflection. "Such a thing would happen only to me."
Hermione swallowed back her amusement, forcing herself into an emotionally detached state. Analytical. She needed to learn more about the extent of this injury.
"Egritudo," she murmured, pointing her wand at her neck.
The golden lines shone more brightly upon being struck with a spell, gleaming. Then the magic traveled, a tingly warmth that spread… and Hermione was petrified at what she saw.
The light from the spell did not stop on her neck as she expected it to. Instead, it traveled all over her body, glowing from under her skin… it was traveling everywhere, in a very specific, intricate way…
"It's in my blood," Hermione whispered, staring at her surreal reflection where convoluted lines shone across her body, pulsing with every beat of her heart. The broken Time-Turner, the fragments of enchanted glass and charmed gold…
It was in her bloodstream.
Hermione waved her wand again, her fingers shaking as she ended the diagnostic spell. "Oh, no," she breathed, so close to the mirror that her breath fogged the surface. "Oh, fuck."
Whatever Merope Gaunt had reduced the Time-Turner to in her fit of wandless, passionate magic, it was now coursing through Hermione's veins. Therefore, it was saturating her entire body.
She couldn't exactly get a new body, could she?
Hermione counted to ten and closed her eyes.
Remember your training. Don't panic. Breathe.
Once her pulse had slowed to something less sporadic, she opened her eyes again.
Focus.
…Nothing she did removed the scars.
Hermione tried everything she could think of—and she had researched scar removal extensively. She'd once dreamed that she could rid Malfoy of his Dark Mark; that she could erase the lightning bolt scar from Harry's forehead.
That she could vanish the word mudblood which was crudely carved into her arm.
Yet she had come to learn with a despairing clarity that powerful magic lingered. For once, Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age, had been unable to figure something out. She couldn't remove the scar on her forearm in the past, and nothing she thought of now made the glimmering lines on her neck vanish, either.
She knew it was silly that this bothered her so much.
Not being able to erase another scar—the shallow, surface issue—should have been the least of her concerns. Who cared what she looked like? What did it matter if she had another permanent brand on her body?
Barring the fact that these markings were incredibly suspicious, of course.
Sighing, Hermione cast a concealment charm over her neck. It was a temporary solution to the problem. Concealment charms were effective but not perfect; they had a sort of sheen to them that very apt wizards and witches could perceive—not to mention the much larger issue, which was that they were a serious drain on magical energy. Hermione had tried to go a whole day with one over her forearm in her early days as an Unspeakable. Consequently, she had nearly fallen asleep during one of Holloway's less enthralling lectures on how to properly clean a Pensieve.
She lived with her scar being visible after that.
There were other ways of hiding such markings, though. Hermione had once considered purchasing an enchanted piece of jewelry which essentially kept a concealment charm cast on the wearer, but the good ones were extremely expensive. That, and she had never been one to wear much jewelry.
Hermione cast another concealment charm. She immediately felt the drain on her magic, and knew that this was not something she could maintain.
Hermione Granger may not have been the type to wear jewelry… but Hermione Smith was. She thought of the galleons waiting in her coat pocket, knowing that she would need to spend whatever it cost to purchase an item which would hide her flaws as soon as she could. It was fortunate that she had the luxury.
God bless Draco Malfoy.
Yet the physical scar which Merope Gaunt had graced her with was not what threatened Hermione with a panic attack. It was how the magic could be affecting her internally that was scaring the piss out of her.
Hermione shook her head and stepped away from the mirror. She cast a few more spells to see if she could divine anything else about what the annihilated Time-Turner may be doing to her, but came up empty-handed. Her tests yielded no results—she seemed to be perfectly healthy.
…But for how long?
Hermione's mind raced as she recalled all the specifics of Eloise Mintumble's case files. Had that witch's body been damaged while she was still in 1402, or had she not aged irreversibly until she was returned to her present? The details had been unclear. Was Hermione's entire being set to deteriorate unexpectedly at any moment? The stabilizing potion that she and Malfoy had prepared could not last indefinitely…
Hermione took another long, steadying breath. There was no point in dwelling on that because if that was going to happen, there was little she could do about it. The same was true for the Time-Turner magic coursing through her veins—if it was going to affect her in some fashion, she was powerless to stop it. She could hardly go to St. Mungo's for help and openly admit that she'd had a Time-Turner smashed into her neck. Besides, the year was 1950. Though she was not a Healer, Hermione probably knew more advanced medical practices than the Healers of the day.
"All right, then," Hermione said out loud to herself, deciding to not waste another moment. She put her coat back on and re-wrapped her scarf around her neck, hiding even the concealment charm and all evidence of glistening spirals that may or may not have been growing. She hoped not. She forced herself not to dwell on it. That would be a waste of her time and effort… and she had other things to concentrate on.
Hermione had a plan half-concocted in her mind, and now that she had decided that her body was not in any immediate danger of falling apart, she would begin to put it into action.
Tom Riddle would not kill and split his soul again for several years (at least, as far as she knew). Hermione decided that this meant she could allow herself to take her time. If she was going to try and trick the cunning and powerful Tom Marvolo Riddle—a Legilimens—then she was going to do this right. She was going to need to be someone worthy of grabbing his attention, and she was going to need to look and play the part flawlessly.
After all of her Occlumency training, Hermione knew that the best way to tell a convincing lie—short of being psychotic and believing it yourself—was to have it stem from some kernel of truth.
She needed details, affluence, and connections. She needed a reason for being where she was, for doing what she planned to do. She needed a fake identity that was so grounded in reality that no one, not even a Legilimens, could sense that it was a lie.
Hepzibah Smith was the solution to all of this.
Chapter 5: A Cycle
Chapter Text
Hermione once more spent the day where wonders and miracle were born: the library.
Being a 'Smith' was much like being a 'Potter' or a 'Brown'. There were many magical families who considered themselves purebloods, but because their surnames were so horrendously common, they were excluded from Britain's prestigious Sacred 28. And though there were countless Smiths in Britain, there was only one 'Hepzibah Prudence Smith'. Hermione had discovered where she lived in the library's archives, after reading a semi-recent newspaper article. Just over a month ago, Hepzibah had acquired the original copy of 'Confronting the Faceless' by Sabastian Fawley in an auction and had stated that if anyone were interested in examining such a text in person to owl her at the following address.
Hermione was mentally rolling her eyes the entire time she read the article. It was hardly surprising that Hepzibah had damned herself to an early grave if this was the sort of thing she did. Purchasing desirable, dark artifacts only to flaunt them to the general public in whatever seemingly philanthropic manner she could, just so that she could show off… Well, it was no wonder Borgin eventually sent his charming, young shop boy to her home with flowers in hand, ready to persuade and collect. Especially considering that Hepzibah had purchased the locket from Borgin himself at some point, Hermione knew… and he was assuredly planning on getting it back someday.
Shame for all parties involved that Tom Riddle had decided that the locket belonged to him instead.
Hermione intended to intervene first.
Sighing, Hermione set the old paper aside, having already copied the address down on a scrap piece of parchment. She’d made herself a bit of a fortress at the table she'd claimed, piles of books surrounding her as she'd decided she needed to do further research for her backstory. She was fortunate in that the public library had a decent section on muggle culture, as well as a sizeable arts, philosophy, and international section. Hermione educated herself on all the current political happenings, both in Britain and North America, both muggle and magical. She studied Ilvermorny so deeply that she almost felt like she'd walked the castle halls, having committed every single image of the school which she could find to memory. She'd read the first-person account in the biography of a previous President of the Magical Congress, Seraphina Picquery, and was fascinated by the school's sorting ceremony and what their four houses represented.
Hermione knew as much as she possibly could without actually going to New York, which she seriously considered… but no. She didn't have the gold to do so now, not after her latest purchase.
She held her hand out, admiring her most recent acquisition. A beautiful, gold ring, perfectly polished and inlaid with diamonds. It was the most expensive option available for a piece of jewelry that would continually keep up a flawless concealment charm, one powerful enough to hide all of her magically induced scars. It boasted several other enchantments, too; it would magically adjust to fit whatever finger she liked, and the diamonds would never dull.
She could have gone with a necklace that would have done the job, but it wasn't nearly as nice, and besides, a ring was much easier to keep on at all times. That, and she was no longer the frugal girl who could care less about owning nice things—Hermione Smith was a pureblood witch who only took the best.
She'd needed to confound the poor wizard who sold it to her, though. Not because she wanted to steal it—she would never be so tactless—but only to modify his memory just slightly after the transaction. When the shop keeper would attempt to recall the witch who'd needed to purchase such a specific, expensive, and suspicious item, he would only recall vaguely what she looked like, and would not at all remember her name.
Hermione was not taking chances.
That, and she'd also wanted to practice her confounding and memory modification spells. She knew she was good at them, she always had been. Even before her training as an Unspeakable, Hermione had been able to make her parents forget their own daughter, believing that Australia was where they'd always wanted to live…
Hermione's heart ached at the thought of her parents' smiling faces. It had been such a beautiful day, that morning when she'd tracked them down in Sydney after the war was over in order to restore their memories… She could see them so clearly, how they'd started to cry tears of happiness in the same moment she had begun to weep with gut-wrenching guilt, begging them to forgive her. Of course, they had.
That was back when everything seemed so hopeful, that summer that had felt never-ending—before she had gone back to school to take her N.E.W.T.'s. She and Harry had stayed for weeks at the Burrow, dealing with all the fan mail and attending parties in their honor, just as they'd organized and attended funerals… So much drama, so many highs and lows…
But throughout that entire summer, she'd had Harry's friendship, her proud parents, the Weasley family's support, Ron's—
Stop it, Hermione hissed at herself. She rubbed her eyes, willing away the tears that threatened to form there. Stop throwing yourself a pity party. You are on a mission, whether you like it or not. That world doesn't matter anymore.
This is your world, now.
…If she could trick her own parents into forgetting her, then Hermione was more than confident that she could trick Hepzibah into suddenly remembering her beloved niece from the states.
Still, it was nice to practice on the shop owner of Williams' Jewelry and Finery, first. The old wizard had seemed happy enough afterward too, considering he'd probably just made his largest sale of the new year that day.
And really, Hermione thought, watching the way the diamonds caught the light from the ring finger on her right hand, it was quite lovely, wasn't it? It didn't even feel uncomfortable; she barely noticed it resting on her finger at all. She'd never owned a diamond before. Now she owned twelve, all in one, golden ring.
Effective, too. Hermione had examined herself tirelessly in the mirror that evening, and it was only when she was really, really looking for it that she could see the slightest shimmer of some kind of magic radiating about her… and even then, it was so fleeting and discreet that she wondered if she was just imagining it herself.
Hermione checked the time. It was getting late, and the library would be closing in about an hour. She still had plenty of money left to live easily for the next three days, which was how long she'd rented a room in Diagon Alley for. She would use that time to continue researching and familiarizing herself with the current times before putting her plan further into motion. Perhaps, she mused, if she had enough gold, she would get herself some new robes before then. Hers were rather old and drab; frayed, even, and would not do at all for the fabulous Hermione Smith…
Looking forward to spending a nice evening alone in her room with a cup of hot tea, Hermione began to gather the many books surrounding her into a single stack, knowing she would need to put them back. She'd fabricated for herself a lovely new fake ID, and while it supported her false identity, it would not grant her the beauty of a library card for a British establishment—an American passport.
Hermione Jean Smith, female, born September 19th, 1929 in New York City. Her own cheeky picture smiled up at her, though Hermione wasn't exactly pleased with the image. Her hair really was a mess of a lion's mane, wasn't it? It certainly didn't look very proper…
Just one more thing she was going to have to change. Had Sleekeazy's Hair Potion even been invented yet? Hermione doubted it.
Becoming someone else, Hermione thought, carrying the heavy stack of books and beginning her rounds of placing them back on the shelves in their proper places, was exhausting.
She'd only just put the old Daily Prophet back in archives and the books on Ilvermoney away when her blood ran cold.
"Good evening, Miss Taylor. How are you?"
That voice.
She heard that voice from behind her, near the front of the library. Hermione looked over her shoulder, convincing herself mid-action that it couldn't possibly be him. It was just someone with a similar tenor as the smooth-talking boy in the memories. He could not possibly be here now.
"Mr. Riddle! I'm doing well, always such a pleasure to see you here! How are you? Is there something I can help you find?"
Oh, fucking hell.
Hermione had glanced just long enough to see a tall, pale man with dark hair greeting the librarian, an older woman who sounded so positively thrilled to see Mr. Riddle that there was no doubt at all about who that was, just a stone's throw away from her, leaning over the counter.
And here she was, holding a very tall stack of incriminating books, fuzzy-haired, disheveled robes, not at all ready.
Hermione began to walk away as quickly as she could without actually running. If she could just get between the aisles then she could go unnoticed; she could sneak out while he was looking the other way…
But fate, having evidently decided that it had not fucked with Hermione Granger enough… had other plans.
She tripped.
Like some two-year-old with poor coordination, Hermione, in all her sudden nervousness, tripped over her own feet. Her tower of books went flying out of her hands in all directions and she fell to the floor, landing on her hip in a manner which she could tell at once meant a nasty bruise.
"Actually, yes. I was hoping to—oh!"
Hermione did not turn to look. They had just witnessed her fall; were surely coming over to do the chivalrous things and help her up—
No, no, no. You are not ready. You cannot let him see your face, this ring, your wand—nothing.
"Are you all right, Miss…?"
Hermione ran.
Immediate, full-blown retreat. She left the pile of books scattered across the floor, making for the exit with her head down, just narrowly avoiding colliding with Tom Marvolo Riddle himself on her way out. She passed so close to his chest that their shoulders brushed, that she inhaled the scent of cologne clinging to his robes—sandalwood and something else.
But she didn't look up to see his face, and was certain that, with her chin lowered and the fact that he was much taller than her, he only saw a mass of bushy hair and black robes escaping from the library in a frenzy.
The second she made it outside of the public building's wards, Hermione disapparated.
That night, when Hermione was safely back in her room, she came to a firm decision.
She had swaddled herself in a mountain of blankets after stripping off her clothes, feeling far too tired and frazzled to heal herself properly. The bruise on her hip was a spectacular shade of blue-violet; such natural injuries not concealed by her ring, which specifically covered magically-induced makings. While the injury on her side throbbed, it wasn't too awful. She would heal it in the morning.
One of many things I shall do in the morning, Hermione thought, looking across the room at the bit of parchment which bore Hepzibah's address on it.
She would reach out to her soon-to-be Auntie tomorrow.
There was no time to lose.
Dear Miss Hepzibah Smith,
I apologize for being so forward with this letter, but I was recently informed by a colleague of mine that you have acquired the original copy of 'Confronting the Faceless'. I am the current Director of Collections at the Museum of Magical Texts located in New York, and was wondering if, perhaps, you would allow me to examine such a rarity? I happen to be in London on business for a time, and I was told that you are a most generous philanthropist. If your schedule allows, I would be delighted to discuss our shared interests over tea sometime.
Please respond via owl at this address, where I am currently staying for the next several nights in Diagon Alley, with attention to my name.
Yours Sincerely,
Miss Victoria Alexandria Hawthorne
Hermione folded up the letter and sealed it inside of a heavy envelope, sending it away with a owl from the public owlery. It was all a lie, of course—but it was a story which Hermione hoped would result in a quick and simple yes. Someone important from a collections department of some museum seemed like the exact kind of person Hepzibah would want to show off to, and Hermione was certain she would hear from her soon. The how and why of it didn't matter—Hermione only needed an invitation to her home, as she was certain that an old, pureblooded witch with a lot of money lived in a place as warded as the Black's. Just because she had a mailing address, she doubted she could just show up with her wand drawn.
Once she was in the door, however…
Having such a keen eye for details was becoming taxing, and Hermione's lies were starting to compound. She had needed to confound the innkeeper at Diagon that her name was Victoria Alexandria Hawthorne that morning so that when Hepzibah replied, the letter would be given to her.
Exhausting, Hermione thought again. She left the owlery, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder every five seconds, as though Tom Riddle might appear at any moment. Because he had, and he could, and why the blazes hadn't she considered that he might go to the library?
He was that sort, wasn't he? The bookworm-ish type, the kind who would frequent a massive library…
Just like her.
None of that, now, Hermione scolded herself—allowing one quick glance over her shoulder, after all. There were no young Dark Lords in sight. Don't go comparing yourself to him. Just because you're both interested in being well-read doesn't mean you're anything alike.
Obviously.
She had just made it to the town center, about to disapparate, when Hermione realized something.
Her hip.
Last night, it had ached with a dull and consistent throb. But this morning, she had felt nothing, and it should feel worse, not better by now, surely? It was rather nasty looking…
She vanished with a pop and appeared outside of her inn. "Morning, Miss Hawthorne!" the man at the desk greeted. Even if Hermione would have remembered to respond to that name, she wouldn't have—she rushed up to her room, heart racing.
The moment she had the door closed and locked, Hermione pulled up her shirt, and shoved the hem of her pants down.
Gone.
The bruise, which had been so massive the night before, was gone, not so much as a trace of it left.
She stripped.
Hermione whipped her clothes off faster than a wizard being seduced by a throng of Veela. She let her clothes fall where they may and slid off her ring, and when she stood in front of the full-length mirror, naked, her breath hitched in her gilded throat.
The golden lines were definitely spreading.
They were not only on her neck, but they were now coiling down her chest, grazing her collar bone and the tops of her shoulders in shimmering spirals. Hermione ran her fingers over them, astonished.
What did it all mean? The dazzling lines, the bruise vanishing—
Hermione nearly fainted at the sudden recollection from the Department of Mysteries… and not from a time when she'd worked there.
It was a memory of a Death Eater that struck her, a man she had stunned… Rabastan, and his head aging and de-aging within a glass jar, forever stuck in a loop…
Hermione swallowed thickly and grabbed a letter opener from the desk. She went to the bathroom and, holding her hand over the sink, swiped it across her palm. Blood blossomed along the cut, and she watched with numb detachment as blood dripped and fell to the floor.
She noted the time and waited.
The blood coagulated a few minutes later, but the injury remained, a sharp pain on her palm.
Still, she waited.
It took a few hours, but then Hermione's outlandish hypothesis was confirmed.
The cut was, very slowly, healing. Her skin was closing itself up, almost in slow motion, in the same yet opposite manner in which she had caused it—it stitched closed from the bottom to top, like it was healing—
In reverse, Hermione thought, thunderstruck.
It took over an hour, but eventually, the wound had disappeared.
"My body is on a cycle," Hermione murmured to herself, staring at the mirror. A golden-lined girl with the word mudblood carved into her arm stared back at her… stunned, confused, and more frightened than she'd ever been in her life.
Chapter 6: Home
Chapter Text
Hermione stood there, stark naked and staring at herself for what must have been the better part of an hour.
Her body was healing itself, it was stuck on a cycle… But what kind of cycle? Was her physical form perpetually reverting itself to the moment in which she'd been struck with the Time-Turner? But the Time-Turner itself had caused a brutal injury, and that wound on her neck wasn't disappearing and reappearing…
Hermione trailed her fingers over her throat, tilting her head and watching the way the markings caught the light. They shone brilliantly, like someone had painted perfect spirals of liquid gold onto her skin, and she couldn't help but think that they were rather gorgeous… Beautiful, even…
Beautiful, but terrifying.
Maybe, she thought, maybe the injury on her neck wasn't constantly coming back because the Time-Turner had not yet dissolved fully into her bloodstream. Perhaps she had healed herself before the vitreous fragments made it throughout her body, and she was in a cycle which focused on some point in time just a few hours later…
It would explain why the mudblood scar wasn't going away, at least. That was a marking she'd had before…
But then, if her body was stuck in some kind of loop based on that night… what were the lasting implications? Was she physically never going to age beyond that day? Was the cycle going to remain the same, or would it someday wear off…? It was in her blood, and that meant it was everywhere, and so—
What about her mind? Hermione's heart raced at the notion, her reflection paling. If it was flowing through her blood, that meant it was flowing through her brain, and so did that mean her mind was in a loop as well? Were the axons and dendrites between the neurons in her brain firing impulses on repeat, was she doomed to continuously forget and remember all which she knew from that night onwards?
Oh, God, Hermione thought with terror, what if my mind was permanently damaged? What if this is just some delirious fabrication my psyche has invented, and I'm actually sitting in St. Mungo's, pressing candy wrappers into strangers' hands like Alice Longbottom?
Panic—cold, paralyzing, and all-consuming—threatened to debilitate her again. Her reflection looked foreign with how white her skin had become.
No, don't do that, Hermione berated herself, closing her eyes, focusing.
Breathe in, breathe out… Remember your training, remember…
She opened her eyes again several minutes later. She wasn't laying in a hospital room somewhere. This was real, she was in 1950… and she had to hold herself together if she wanted to complete her initial task.
Though it did beg the question… If the Time-Turner was cycling throughout her body, focused around a precise moment which was shortly after her injury, then why wasn't her mind being affected? She felt as lucid and as rational as she always felt—or as rational as she could feel, given the circumstances. So, why was this the case? The brain was just another vital organ; the human mind, brilliant as it could be, was only the result of electrical signals being passed from one cell to another, which ultimately controlled the entirety of the nervous system…
Or was it?
Was the fact that her body was clearly being affected by the Time-Turner, yet her mind was not, some indication that this was idea was false? Was there something beyond the body that went untouched and unaffected by cells, tissue, and blood? Was she, right here, right now, the living proof that the intangible did exist… The ethereal mind—the soul, perhaps?
No amount of analyzing her pale reflection brought Hermione any closer to enlightenment. She stood there for a long while, staring at the gilded loops like she might catch them in the act of spreading.
A knock on the door shocked her out of her stupor.
"Miss Hawthorne! An owl came for you!"
Hermione hurriedly began to dress herself. "Just a moment!" she called as she tugged her shirt over her shoulders and pulled on her pants. She slipped the ring back onto her finger, and the mysterious scars vanished from sight.
There will be time for endless philosophizing later, she told herself firmly. She tossed her mass of hair over one shoulder and went to get the door.
She had so much to do.
The very next day, Hermione found herself on the doorstep of Number 32, Cadogen Street, London.
Having been invited and given the address by the rightful owner of the property, Hermione was assured that the home would become accessible to her once she passed the first ward.
Hepzibah Prudence Smith lived alone in Chelsea, which Hermione was well aware was an affluent area in London by muggle standards. Evidently, this extended to the witches and wizards who lived there as well. Hepzibah's house appeared to her much in the same manner that Grimmauld Place had the first time she'd seen it, after reading the handwritten letter from the then-secret keeper, Albus Dumbledore. The buildings labeled 31 and 33 moved aside, revealing a structure which had not been present before. The muggles passing by didn't so much as look up at the sudden shifting of bricks and mortar right in front of them.
Hermione stared at the home in awe.
It was gorgeous, built of what looked like limestone in a gothic style. The door was imposingly tall, painted black with a huge, wrought-iron knocker in the center. A lovely, stained glass window shone in the morning light on the upper level, directly over the front door—a circular, abstract pattern made completely in gemstone hues.
The house was more of a mansion, really. Hermione knew she shouldn't have been surprised. She was aware that Hepzibah Smith was rich, had even seen the memory of some of the interior of the home, and that room alone had been lavishly decorated—but still, Hermione gaped.
"I think I'm going to like it here," she murmured to herself. Hermione smirked as she squared her shoulders and gripped the metal knocker, banging on the door. It swung open almost at once, and before her stood a tiny, familiar house-elf.
"Welcome to the home of my Mistress, Madam Hepzibah Smith, Miss Hawthorne!" the elf squeaked, bowing her head as she opened the door for Hermione to walk through. "Madam is waiting for you in the foyer for tea, ma'am. Hokey will be showing you there!"
Hermione smiled fondly down at the poor thing, knowing what happened to her in the future she had left behind. Tom Riddle had given her a false memory, forcing this dear, loyal creature to believe that she had poisoned her mistress… Hermione could only imagine the strife she had suffered until Dumbledore had found out the truth…
But by then, Hokey was even older and frailer than she was now—she was easily the oldest house-elf Hermione had ever seen in this year—and she had died before she could be proven innocent.
Not on my watch, Hermione thought, stepping into the house and looking to see if Hepzibah was in sight. She wasn't. Hermione turned and pulled out her wand, kneeling so that she was at eye-level with Hokey.
The elf was so small that it took her entire body weight to push the front door closed. When she turned back around to see Hermione on her knees in front of her she jumped, confused. "M-Miss Hawthorne?"
"No, dear thing," Hermione said quietly. She raised her wand and smiled. "Not quite… Obliviate."
After erasing the last fifteen seconds from her memory, Hermione quickly began weaving the lie of who she wanted Hokey to think she was, implanting the memory. It was relatively simple; the minds of house-elves were less complicated than those of humans.
"Your Mistress may prove more difficult," she murmured once she'd finished. Hokey blinked at her dazedly, her large eyes out of focus—a normal reaction. Individuals whose memories were tampered with usually felt a bit off afterwards. Then, feeling only slightly guilty, Hermione cast a wordless stunning charm, catching the elf before she hit the ground.
"You'll feel much better after a bit of a nap," she said, picking Hokey up and laying her on a nearby sofa.
Right. And now, Hepzibah.
Hermione turned and made her way towards where she assumed the foyer must be. She tried not to become distracted by her extravagant surroundings—Hepzibah certainly had garish, profligate tastes.
"Miss Smith?" she called tentatively, opening a set of double doors, wand held tightly in one hand. She smiled brightly at the sight that met her: Hepzibah was sitting in the very same sitting room where she would one day welcome Tom Riddle into her home… only there was no empty vase sitting expectantly on the table.
Which was all well and good, because Hermione certainly hadn't brought flowers.
Hermione only allowed Hepzibah one look of surprise at her appearance—whether it was because she did not look like a sophisticated Director of Collections at some museum in New York, because she had burst in without being led by Hokey the house-elf, or because Hermione had her wand pointed directly at Hepzibah's chest in a very impolite manner, Hermione wasn't sure. Probably a combination of all three.
She didn't ask for clarification. "Stupefy," Hermione said, and Hepzibah went out like a light.
Unconscious minds were much easier to manipulate. Hermione promptly got to work.
"Hermione… dearest."
Nearly two weeks had passed, and Hermione had made herself right at home at Number 32, Cadogen Street, London.
The sad truth of the matter was that Hepzibah Smith was extremely simple to manipulate, and it wasn't because her mind was easily tricked by memory modifications.
Hepzibah was not a stupid woman, nor was she weak, slow, or senseless.
She was lonely.
Hepzibah may have been a very philanthropic witch—she frequently invited guests of importance into her house, she often hosted teas and attended lavish fundraisers—but she had no family left, no children. Hepzibah had countless acquaintances but no truly close friends. Hermione had riffled through her memories enough to see why. Many times, Hepzibah had been burned by someone whom she thought was honestly interested in her companionship but who turned out to be far more interested in her gold instead. It had made her a bit resentful and much more reclusive in her old age.
And yet you still fell for the charm of Tom Riddle, Hermione had thought with a sigh.
But not this time. This time, you have me.
Hepzibah Smith lived only with Hokey in her huge home. She was the sole heir to the Smith family fortune, and had been ever since her younger sister had died a few years ago…
Which was a lie.
Hepzibah Smith did not have a younger sister… but she firmly believed as much now.
A much younger, more outgoing and daring sister who had decided that America was where she wanted to be, and who had moved to the United States in the 1920's. Monica, Hermione had decided to name her fabrication, in honor of the false name she had once given her true mother.
The lie had worked then. Hermione believed that it would work now.
The imaginary Monica Jean Smith had moved to New York City and had eventually given birth to her one and only daughter, Hermione Jean Smith, in 1929. In Hermione's fake past, she was raised alone by her mother in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, until she eventually left home to attend Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Alas, tragedy occurred, and Monica Smith fell ill to the dragon pox epidemic which struck the city the very summer after Hermione had graduated, filling her poor daughter with grief. Hermione Smith, having recently come of age, had then decided that she needed to travel, to leave Manhattan for a time, to see the world…
Which, eventually, led her to Britain, where she had an aunt that she had only met a few times. Little memories of she, Hepzibah, and Monica having Christmas dinner here in Hepzibah's home in London on the few years that Hepzibah was not too busy during the holidays with some philanthropic event… And, of course, the fabrication of a funeral, of the death of Monica…
No loose ends, Hermione had thought, feeling guilty as she wove the memories of fake but still tangible grief into the witch's mind.
It was tragic, that fiction which she'd written… even if it wasn't real.
But how happy was Hepzibah to have her niece here to stay!
It was absurdly easy to convince Hepzibah's unconscious mind that she had a deceased sister and a niece. The older woman desperately wanted the closeness of family, of someone to care for. Her closest confidant was Hokey, and while Hermione could appreciate the fondness she had for the elf and praise her for treating Hokey well, it was not enough. Hepzibah craved human closeness.
Hermione was all too happy to fill that gap.
It was tempting to just modify Hephzibah's memory and move forward with her plan right away, but Hermione made herself wait. Certain things, such as false memories, were easy to fabricate—for Hermione, at least. Implanting the story of Monica and her daughter was simple.
Other things, however, were impossible to manufacture, even for someone as skilled as Hermione.
…Like love.
No one could replicate true affection. If a skilled Legilimens bothered to delve into Hephzibah's recently modified mind, they could, conceivably, see that there were no real emotions of attachment where Hermione was concerned. Her memories would then look suspicious, and could therefore be discovered to be falsities. Memory charms could be broken.
It was too risky.
Hermione would take no chances. She committed herself to creating real affection between herself and Hepzibah before she proceeded.
That, and Hermione wanted to be comfortable in this lavish building she was now living in—she wanted it to feel like home. Hermione needed to be familiar with Number 32, Cadogen Street, London… as well as all its hidden treasures.
It hadn't taken long. Hepzibah had been so very excited to show who she believed to be a family member the cup of Helga Hufflepuff ("Your grandmother passed it down to me, of course, as I was the oldest… Your mother was ever so jealous!"), as well as the more recently acquired locket of Salazar Slytherin.
Hermione had seen them both, had held the golden chalice and heavy chain in her hands… Completely whole, untouched by dark magic…
Safe… for now.
She would see to it that they stayed that way.
By the second week, Hermione was truly beginning to feel cozy. She had a huge bedroom with a balcony all to herself; there was a furnished roof deck which she could go on and stare at the stars; Hepzibah even had a glorious, personal library which was so well-stocked that Hermione would never need to frequent the public library and risk running into certain individuals ever again.
Hepzibah had also given her a key to the Smith vault in Gringotts, thus forever solving her financial issues. Hermione had pretended like she'd had her own money and simply wanted to keep it safe in a vault while abroad. A lie, naturally, and Hermione had been sure that Hepzibah remembered the balance of her vault accordingly, later.
It almost felt like being on vacation.
Hepzibah may not have been her first choice of company, but she was kind and warm, and Hokey was a delightful little elf. They both doted on her, so happy to have a guest staying in their huge, usually empty house. Hepzibah had been nothing short of motherly towards the girl she believed to be her niece.
Hermione was therefore very distraught by the nervous tone in her voice just now.
She looked up from her book, concerned. They were spending a lazy Sunday afternoon in the sitting room, reading by the fire. Hokey served them tea, happy to have two people smiling and thanking her for her good work.
"Yes, Auntie?" Hermione said, lowering her text on contemporary charms... of the 1940's. Hepzibah's brows were deeply furrowed, and she was looking at Hermione in an uncharacteristic, scrutinizing manner.
"You're a young, pretty witch," she said after a pause, like she was choosing her words carefully. "And… Oh, I remember when I was your age."
Hepzibah set her own book aside, leaning forward, her eyes suddenly alight with enthusiasm. "I had hair just like yours, only it stuck out even more, because of the color," she said, eyeing Hermione's wild locks. "And I never wore make-up, either. Couldn't be bothered with any of it, especially not my hair. I thought I was a lost cause."
Hermione was surprised by this confession: Hepzibah had worn make-up every day in Hermione's presence, and her curly, red hair was always up in a perfect bun.
"And then I went to Melissa."
"Melissa?"
"Melissa the miracle, as I call her," Hepzibah said, grinning. "She's the best beautician in London. If I didn't go to her once a month, this hair would be as frizzy and out of control as yours… no offense, darling, but the Smith hair, it is a curse! Of course, mine would also be silver rather than ginger, at this point."
Hermione smirked and closed her book. "Perhaps I like my frizzy, out of control hair."
Hepzibah was obviously unconvinced. "Oh, don't give me that. You're an even worse liar than your mother was," she muttered, and Hermione had to hand it to herself—she really had done a fabulous job on creating fake memories. "Monica was a free spirit, I always appreciated that about her, and I know you're just the same way—but you're in London now, dearie, and I have a reputation to uphold."
She took a sip of her tea, looking a bit haughty—but she was smirking. Hepzibah had a very dry sense of humor, Hermione had come to learn. "Well!" Hermione said, crossing her arms and pretending to be offended. "I would hate to shatter your reputation, Auntie. That would be so rude of me, considering you are being such a generous host."
"Quite. The reason I bring it up now is because there is a gala next week being hosted by WAG, the Wizarding Artist's Guild. I've been a great patron for years, and their galas are always wonderful—they have a dinner, an auction, drinks and dancing… It's fabulous. You're coming with me." She lowered her tea cup, which Hokey instant refilled. "And you can't go looking like that."
Hermione might have been affronted… if she didn't secretly agree.
She had been thinking about it for a while now. Hermione remembered clearly how most of the girls—Pansy Parkinson and her gang of Slytherins in particular—had carried themselves, how they styled their hair and wore fancy make-up and perfume…
If she wanted to play the part convincingly, she was going to have to start doing that too. She knew it, she was just… delaying the inevitable.
It still stung a bit to hear the suggestion coming from her fake aunt, first.
"…All right," Hermione said. "I'll go see this Melissa."
"Excellent! I made you an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. What? I knew you'd agree to go, and she books out weeks in advance. This way she can show you how to make yourself marvelous. Oh, I already can't wait to see you when you get back!"
"You're not coming with me?"
"And ruin the surprise? Of course not!" Hepzibah shouted. "I want the whole effect. I've got some errands to run tomorrow anyway, so I'll tend to those while you're with her. She's going to do your hair and your make-up, show you how to make yourself look a proper lady, and then I want you to treat yourself to some new clothes—all on me, of course. Go to the nicest boutique afterwards. Her parlor is in Diagon Alley, so you'll have plenty of places to choose from. Then you can just summon Hokey and have her alert me when you're all done, and we can meet up again and go out to dinner afterwards. To celebrate!"
Hepzibah's enthusiasm was palpable. Hermione didn't have the heart to let her see that she was anything but excited.
"Of course," she said, and Hepzibah clapped her hands together gleefully. "To, er, celebrate."
They clinked their tea cups together like they were toasting some grand event. Hermione went back to her book, but failed to take in another word.
Later that night, she laid wide-awake in her silk sheets and king-sized bed, unsure what she was more nervous about—her first real encounter with Tom Riddle, or this 'miraculous' Melissa.
She was leaning towards the latter.
Chapter Text
"My, my, my."
Hermione felt more anxious than when she'd had the Sorting Hat placed on her head.
She relived that moment now, mentally rejecting the reality of her situation in a beauty parlor, being analyzed at length by a critical woman. Hermione recalled being in Hogwarts' Great Hall, eleven years old, excited, nervous… and still secretly unconvinced that she was a witch at all.
It had been a silly fear, of course. She'd gotten her letter and spoken with a Hogwarts representative, purchased a wand, and had even tried out spells on her own—all of which had worked. She'd memorized textbooks and committed new, magical histories to memory…
But still, in that moment before the Sorting Hat had begun to speak, Hermione had feared that it was going to never say anything at all. That she would sit there for minutes on end, and that finally, after an unbearable amount of silence, McGonagall would take the Hat off and say there must have been a mistake—that she wasn't a witch, that magic wasn't real, not for her. That she would wake up and the idea of Hogwarts would feel like something out of a dream, and she would go back to her life of being the bushy-haired bookworm with buckteeth that was just… different.
But then the Hat had begun to deliberate.
'Smart, yes… a great thirst for knowledge… Brave, too, very bold… Oh my, I don't think I've ever seen such a clever and cunning mind in years! But, ah… Alas… Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, then, Ravenclaw or Gryffindor… Tell me, Miss Granger, what is more important: to know, or to act?'
Hermione had considered this for a time. 'Well… What's the point of knowing anything, if you're not going to act?'
The Hat had laughed. 'Considered like a Ravenclaw, but answered with the conviction of a GRYFFINDOR!'
And the rest was history. The last word had been shouted out loud, and Hermione Granger was sorted into the house of the brave and the bold.
She did not feel brave nor bold, now.
Melissa was a witch in her late thirties, perhaps, with platinum blonde hair and bright, hazel eyes. Hermione could see at once why she was the most sought after beautician in London—her face was made up flawlessly; her hair was a cascade of enviable, silvery waves that reached her shoulders. Even her nails, while kept short, shone like they had just been painted in liquid emeralds, a hue that matched the green in her mottled eyes perfectly.
She was stunning.
She was… extremely judgmental.
Melissa walked around Hermione like a predatory cat encircling its prey, trying to figure out the best plan of attack. Hermione sat in the chair before the mirror with her fingers twisted together in her lap, her eyes lowered.
"So. Miss Smith… Hepzibah warned me when she made the appointment," she said, pausing to wrap a perfectly manicured finger around one of Hermione's bushy locks, "but I don't think she warned me enough."
Hermione laughed feebly. "Am I a lost cause?"
"You? Oh no, not at all." Melissa then moved so quickly that Hermione squealed. She reached down and grabbed her chin, blatantly examining her features. "Your face is the perfect canvas," she said. "But first I must address the hair, or I won't be able to focus properly. Tell me, what's your daily routine?"
Hermione stared. "Er," she said, feeling completely out of sorts, for once not having an answer to a question. Her 'daily routine' was exactly nothing, except perhaps throwing her hair up in a ponytail or putting on lip balm.
A few moments of silence and Hermione blushing was enough for Melissa to understand. "Right. Well. The hair," she said, business-like, "Are you opposed to going short? Bobs are very fashionable right now, and you have the face for it."
Hermione instantly paled. She had not thought about it before this very moment, but what if her hair was on a cycle, too? What if she let this woman cut it, only for it to grow back to exactly how long it was before in a few hours' time?
Well, truthfully, that was not why her heart thrummed with anxiety. Her hands flew up to her hair, suddenly protective. "No," she said, shaking her head. "Don't cut it."
"None of it?"
"None of it."
"Not even a trim?"
"Not even a trim."
Melissa looked at her like Hermione was the biggest idiot alive. It reminded her very much of the look Malfoy had given her when she'd questioned his gift of gold.
"…Okay, then," Melissa said at length. "If you want me to transform you but you will not allow me to cut any of it off…"
She stepped behind her, grabbing one curly tendril and pulling it taut. She grinned at Hermione in the mirror.
"How would you feel about straight hair, Miss Smith?"
Hermione laughed at once, far louder than before. "My hair? Straight?" she balked. "The last time I attempted that, it took two hours and several bottles of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion."
"Bottles of what?"
"Er… It's an American thing," Hermione murmured, shaking her head.
Melissa put her hands on her hips and frowned. "I'm not the most successful stylist in all of London for nothing," she said, pulling out her wand. "I don't use potions, here. I use charms and spells of my own invention. I've come up with a permanent straightening charm—and no one has come close to mimicking it thus far, and only I know the counter-spell to undo it! Which means you'll have to come back to me every month or so, as your hair grows out, or if you ever want it undone… What do you say? Are you ready for a new look?"
Hermione's mouth felt dry. She wondered if she would have to come back, if her hair was growing like it normally would. Trying not to over think things too much, she nodded, saying nothing.
"Excellent! Get comfortable, Miss Smith."
Melissa spun the chair around so that Hermione was no longer facing it. She rolled her sleeves up and stretched, like someone about to run a race, or perhaps go to war.
"This is going to take a while."
Over three hours later, and it was done.
Melissa turned Hermione towards the mirror again, unwilling to let her see her reflection until she was finished. The poor beautician looked exhausted, having cast spells repetitively for such a length of time. Hermione, as she'd pointed out, had a lot of hair.
But Melissa was relentless and persistent, Hermione had to give her that. She never complained once, and when Hermione looked at her reflection, she actually thought it might be some kind of trick.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Melissa murmured, watching Hermione's eyes go wide. "How changing one's hairstyle can alter an appearance so much? Well? Go on, give it a feel!"
Hermione stood like she was in a trance. Her hair…
It was so smooth and flat it was unworldly. Hermione had thought she'd done a good job when she had straightened it in her fourth year, but now she realized that she had been a novice. It was now not only straight, but soft, shiny, and long, so long… Her hair in its curly state had reached just below her shoulders, but straight, it fell to her elbows…
"Whoa," she breathed, running her fingers through it from her scalp all the way to the end—a feat she had never been able to accomplish before.
"Do you like it?"
Hermione looked at herself for a long time.
She was… unsure.
There was no denying that it was beautiful; Melissa definitely knew what she was doing. Her hair looked like something out of a magazine ad.
It wasn't her.
Which is exactly what it needs to be, Hermione thought, forcing away whatever crippling emotion was threatening to overwhelm her at the loss of her frizzy curls. I'm not a fuzzy-haired bookworm anymore. I am a poised, confident, arrogant, pureblood witch.
"It's perfect," she finally said, grinning.
Melissa beamed. "It is, isn't it? Really works for your face shape… Now, about that face!"
Melissa grabbed her by the shoulders and all but threw Hermione back in the chair. "You don't usually wear make-up, that much is obvious," she said, pointing her wand about the salon, where drawers flew open and brushes, poufs, and various items that looked like they might be torture devices hovered around her. Hermione swallowed thickly.
"But you should! Such a lovely face deserves to be highlighted, now that it's not concealed by a mass of tangles. You have good skin, high cheekbones, full lips… bottom one is a bit large, but it works. And your eye color is quite nice."
Hermione couldn't help but gape, particularly surprised by the last bit. "My eye color?" she asked. "But… my eyes are just… brown. Nothing special."
Melissa made a scandalized noise. "I have seen a lot of people, Miss Smith," she said, walking around her and looking at Hermione in the mirror again. "And one thing I can tell you is that everyone's eyes are special. No set is the same—often, the two even differ from each other! I have seen blues that are light and icy like a winter's morning frost, and blues that are navy like a midnight sky. I have seen greens that are deep like the moss that grows in the shadows of a forest, and greens that are as vibrant as an unforgiveable curse… And I have seen thousands of brown eyes. They are infinitely varied. Browns like a deer's fur, browns like the bark of an oak tree… Browns so dark that they border on black, tunnels that pull you in…"
Melissa leaned down so that her chin nearly rested on Hermione's shoulder, keeping eye contact with her in the mirror. "And what would you call yours?" Hermione asked, noting that Melissa's eyes were a mix of brown and green.
"Unimportant," she responded easily. "Right now, my eyes are all for yours… And they are exquisite. You see how your irises have a dark ring along the outside? That's called a limbal ring. Not everyone has them, but they're considered attractive in any hue. Your eyes are dark on the rim, but they're actually quite light near your pupil, practically amber, golden-brown…"
Hermione leaned closer to the mirror to see more clearly. She had never taken the time to examine her eyes so critically before… But as she looked at them now, she could see that Melissa was right. They were a sort of amber hue, near the center…
"There's a misconception that make-up is mostly meant to conceal flaws, to trick people. It's not. When done correctly, make-up is a tool to highlight our best features. It's meant to draw attention to the places we want it, to make people notice the beauty that they may otherwise miss. So, take notes, Miss Smith."
Melissa snatched a few items out of the air. Hermione had a momentary instinctive need for a quill and parchment, to take her instructions literally and write down everything she said. "You're going to look a whole new witch by the time I'm done with you. Now… let's bring that gold out."
Hermione left the parlor in a daze.
Melissa the miracle surpassed her wildest expectations. Hermione had gawked at her reflection for an embarrassingly long time after she'd finished, stunned. Her eyes looked so warm and vibrant that Hermione wondered if it wasn't actually another side-effect of the Time-Turner, or if that truly was the power of shimmery, violet eyeshadow and the magical equivalent of mascara—which was a simple charm that Melissa was kind enough to teach her.
For some things there were spells; for others, physical, enchanted make-up worked better. Hermione learned what she needed to and bought everything else, unconcerned with the cost.
She felt far too elated for something as simple and contrite as a make-over.
And yet she was. Elated. Hermione couldn't stop smiling as she walked through Diagon Alley, catching her reflection in shop windows. She saw the way heads turned when she shopped, the way that people stared. She'd never felt so ridiculously confident… all because of a hair style and some artfully placed blush.
Hermione truly did feel like a whole new witch.
She'd purchased herself a new set of robes too, just as Hepzibah had instructed. Dress robes of the highest quality in a cut that she never would have considered before. The neckline was lower, the skirt beneath the cloak a bit higher. Nothing inappropriate, of course, but a just bit more… daring. They were all black.
Looking at herself in the dressing room mirror, Hermione felt there was a stranger staring back at her—some mysterious, gorgeous woman, the kind seen on the arms of powerful politicians at lavish parties.
I am ready, she thought with a sly smile.
It was just as she was leaving Twilfitt and Tatting's in her new attire, about to summon Hokey, when that last thought repeated itself in her mind... but as a question.
Am I ready?
Hermione checked the time on her watch, which was also newly purchased—gold and thin, a delicate piece of jewelry. It matched her ring perfectly.
It was only half past five.
Hermione deliberated.
She was feeling confident. She was dressed the part; she had her face recently and impeccably made up by the best beautician in London. She had her story memorized, she had gone over and over in her mind exactly how she wanted her first encounter with Tom Riddle to go—what she would say, how she would say it…
Borgin and Burkes was close. She was here. Would she be any more prepared tomorrow, or the next day, or next week, than she was right now?
Unlikely. Hermione bit her lower lip, contemplating. I know my lines, I've been preparing for this for weeks. Besides, it's only going to be a few minutes. A short but critical exchange…
I am ready.
Hermione straightened her posture and walked with purpose, making her way towards a dark alley with equally dark intentions. She lifted her hood over her head. Considered like a Ravenclaw, she thought, smirking.
…but answered like a Gryffindor.
Chapter Text
Hermione fastened the top buttons of her cloak and kept her hood drawn as she turned a corner, her face hidden beneath the shadows. There was still the barest hint of daylight, but already Knockturn Alley was beginning to take on the ominous characteristics that came with such places at night.
Hermione was unafraid.
She blended in seamlessly with the other witches, wizards, and questionable beings that stalked through the steets, all with their cloaks concealing their features as well. She made eye contact with no one, and did not notice anyone turning their heads to spare her a second glance.
Hermione passed a few shops that she recalled from before, such as Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe and a pub called The White Wyvern, and a few she did not. One of these was a store that must have been shut down at some point—Talons and Fangs, a shop that sold what looked to be dangerous and probably illegal creatures.
A few moments later, and Hermione hovered outside of the entrance to Borgin and Burkes.
It looked much as it had the day she'd gone in as a teenager, leaving Harry and Ron outside under the cloak. She glanced to the side, remembering it all so perfectly, how the three of them had stood right there, how she and Ron had bickered right there, Harry rolling his eyes at their squabbling…
Hermione drew in a deep breath and banished such recollections from her mind. That was a different life. She was someone else, now, and her current mission was far more perilous. She exhaled, checking that her mind was clear and her undetectable Occlumency barriers intact and in place, just as they always were.
Hermione Smith entered the shop, and left Hermione Granger out in the cold, January air outside.
It was large and dimly lit store, full of glass cases and wooden shelves holding everything from shiny antiques to what appeared to be human bones. Rusty, spiked instruments hung from the ceiling, and sinister-looking masks stared down at her with empty eye sockets from the walls… masks which looked suspiciously like the ones that would later cover the faces of Death Eaters, Hermione realized with a cold wave of clarity.
Or were they already?
It was possible, Hermione mused, but she did not think it likely. Just because Tom Riddle had begun using a contrived title for himself while he was a student did not mean he had started branding his followers and calling them Death Eaters yet. The Dark Mark was a complex bit of magic; a dark curse that she doubted he would have been foolish enough to focus on developing while in school—not with Albus Dumbledore around.
She theorized that he was working on it, now. That in the years after his graduation while pretending to be a mere shop boy, Tom Riddle had two true points of focus: collecting artifacts connected to the four founders of Hogwarts, thus completing his goal of seven vessels for his soul, and learning as much as possible about the Dark Arts so that he could create a permanent, binding mark to unite his followers.
What better place to find such items and learn about the Dark Arts than in a shop which specialized in exactly that?
A bell chimed behind her when the door closed, and Hermione spotted two men at the front of the store—one behind the counter, whom she presumed was a young Mr. Burke, and an unfamiliar wizard on the other side who must have been a customer. The two were speaking in low voices when Hermione entered, but Mr. Burke fell silent as she drew nearer.
Hermione kept her composure, looking away from the shop owner and his current client. Tom Riddle was nowhere to be seen. Hermione internally swore; was he not working this evening? Or was he out somewhere, doing Mr. Borgin or Mr. Burke's bidding and procuring items from some other poor person?
Well, I'm in it, now, she thought, realizing that to turn around and leave so soon could be disastrous for her plans. She began idly examining the items on the shelves, like perusing dark artifacts in dodgy shops was the sort of thing she did all the time.
Mr. Burke cleared his throat. "Can I help you?" he called, and only then did Hermione make eye contact with him.
"Just looking, thank you," she answered, lofty and unsmiling. She turned her attention back to the object nearest to her—a silver, ornate hand mirror. She picked it up with one hand and pulled her hood down with the other, revealing for the first time her perfectly straight, smooth tresses and the kind of face that Mr. Burke rarely saw on his clientele, Hermione was certain.
Her clothes, her jewelry, her hair, her haughty demeanor and pretty face—Hermione knew she looked like the sort of young witch who had money. No respectable store owner would be stupid enough to let someone so potentially loaded—and, with any luck, naïve—wander about their shop without someone dogging them, making sure their every whim was catered to until they were parted with a significant amount of gold.
Hermione was not disappointed. She heard Mr. Burke mutter 'excuse me' to the wizard he'd been speaking with and make his way over to her.
"An excellent choice, ma'am," he said, and his tone could not have been more different than the one Mr. Borgin had used with her years ago.
Mr. Burke was not suspicious nor rude, but the epitome of courteous. He had thick brows, dark hair, and smile plastered on his face that looked well-rehearsed as he nodded towards the silver mirror. "If you feel you have the need for protection, of course. This mirror is made of foe-glass. Allows you to see your enemies in the reflected surface, should you find they are getting too close. They first appear as dark shapes behind you, when physically near, but you only truly must worry when the whites of their eyes become visible. That's when they're aware…"
Hermione watched with trepidation as a shadowy figure formed itself on the surface of the silver—close, but with an obscured, featureless face…
He was here.
Tom Riddle was here, somewhere, just… not in this room, not directly behind of her.
Not aware.
Hermione hurriedly set the mirror down. She was unsure if Mr. Burke had seen the same entity in the silver that she had, or if only the holder could see their own enemies in the shadows. His brows were furrowed and his expression curious, making her fear the former.
"Interesting, but not the sort of thing I'm looking for," she said, forcing herself to remain calm.
If he had seen that Hermione had an enemy floating on the outskirts of her reflection, Mr. Burke chose not to comment on it. "And what are you looking for, Miss…?"
"Smith," Hermione answered.
"Miss Smith." He inclined his head deferentially. "My name is Caractacus Burke. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Hermione allowed him to take hold of her gloved hand, where he held on just a bit too long, his thumb sliding against the silk on her wrist in a way that was too intimate for a normal handshake.
"May I ask what brings you to my humble shop this evening? I mean no disrespect, but you do not fit my typical… clientele." He gave her a wry smile, and the way his eyes darted down her frame made her internally scowl.
As it was, she pretended to be used to such shamelessness. "No, I suspect I don't," she agreed dryly. "I sought your store out, Mr. Burke, because my aunt has spoken very highly of your establishment. Says she's acquired some of her most valued possessions here. I'm new to England, and she's been so dear to me, letting me stay with her, showing me around the city, and, well… I wanted to find some way to repay her for her kindness. I thought I might find her a gift of some kind, here."
Hermione could see the recognition sparking to life in his eyes as he divined who she was most likely talking about. Triumph swelled in her chest, but outwardly, she made of show of looking around the store with great judgement. "I must admit, by the way she spoke of your shop and the items she's supposedly purchased here, I expected something… different."
Hermione smiled thinly. Mr. Burke swallowed her story whole, a hungry glint in his gaze.
"Ah, but the objects on display are often far more than what they seem," he said adamantly. "And Knockturn Alley may be a… questionable place at times, but I assure you—you will find no greater treasures than on this street, in this shop."
"I'm sure," Hermione said, clearly unconvinced by her tone. She glanced at the wizard still standing by the counter; an older man who looked very annoyed that Mr. Burke had left him to attend to a young witch instead. "I would hate to distract you from your business, Mr. Burke. I am just looking, after all."
Caractacus was visibly torn. He did not want to abandon his first customer, but he didn't want to let Hermione slip away from the shop without purchasing something, either. She hoped he came to the obvious solution to this problem.
Who else would be better to entertain a pretty witch then their very own, charismatic shop boy?
"Of course," he said, inclining his head once more and backing away. "If you have any questions at all, Miss Smith, please, don't hesitate to ask."
Hermione nodded but said nothing. Rather than go straight to his previous client, Mr. Burke made his way to the back of the shop and disappeared behind a door there. Hermione turned and resumed her nonchalant, somewhat bored meandering through the store, her mind racing.
He was going to go get him. Caractacus Burke was probably briefing Tom Riddle right now in the back somewhere, informing him of the obviously wealthy and ignorant witch in their midst… One who was related to a previous customer who they must keep in good graces with, for the sake of their business…
Hermione didn't turn at the sound of the door opening a few moments later, though adrenaline was rushing through her veins. She instead pretended to be intrigued by a tapestry that was draped over a fixture like a coat rack. The fabric was silvery blue and white in color, with a pattern on it, almost like stars…
She was just about to reach out and touch it when she remembered herself. She was in a store full of dark artifacts, and just touching things was idiotic. She was lucky the mirror had been something as harmless as foe-glass.
"It won't hurt you."
Hermione's heart leapt in her throat.
She hadn't heard him walk up behind her; she hadn't noticed him approach at all—and she had been listening intently, despite feigning disinterest in her surroundings. Hermione nearly jumped, but managed to retain her calm disposition just barely. She glanced up, and it was like the world came to a brief but irrefutable standstill.
Just as no amount of seeing the woman in a memory had prepared Hermione for the hideousness of Merope Gaunt… nothing could have readied her for the reality of Tom Riddle.
He was striking in every conceivable way. The Slytherin heir had high cheekbones; flawless, pale skin; black hair that fell in pristine waves above his eyes… and those eyes. How had Melissa described such irises? So dark they bordered on black, tunnels that pulled you in…
Those dark tunnels were focused on her, now, and they certainly had that effect.
Tom Riddle's appearance was of the variety that was thought obliterating. Hermione's mind went blank as she inhaled the scent of that sandalwood cologne, as she stared into a set of eyes that were like two bottomless, black holes.
"That fabric, I mean," he continued, nodding towards the tapestry Hermione had nearly grabbed. His voice was smooth and low, nothing like the high and inhuman pitch Hermione half-expected it to be.
"It won't bite."
He smiled. His curling lips revealing a set of white, perfectly even teeth.
Hermione's brain lurched back to life, a thousand thoughts crashing into each other in their fight for prominence. She returned her attention to the tapestry, ignoring her thundering heart. "What is it, then?" she asked.
"Something fascinating."
He reached for the fabric, and Hermione's mouth went dry.
The ring.
The Peverell ring, the Gaunt ring, the resurrection stone—Tom Riddle was wearing it, it was on his left hand, middle finger—
His second horcrux.
It vanished.
"It's a cloak of invisibility," he said, draping what Hermione had thought was some decorative tapestry over his arms. They disappeared beneath the cloth, and he smirked at Hermione's shocked expression, misinterpreting it completely. "One of the highest quality, guaranteed to last at least a decade."
He handed it to her. Hermione refocused and stood a bit straighter. "Oh," she said, taking the cloak from him. "I've heard of these, but I've never seen one before."
Only somewhat of a lie, really. She'd never seen a typical cloak of invisibility—Harry's hadn't had a pattern on it, it had been pure silver and pristine. Because it hadn't just been a cloak, it had been a hallow…
Just like that ring.
"Interesting, and quite pretty, but not particularly useful, is it?" Hermione hung the fabric up again, regaining her lofty demeanor. "A proper disillusionment charm would be more practical."
Riddle inclined his head. "I agree," he murmured. Hermione had to crane her neck to look at his face properly—God, he was so tall, she hadn't realized how tall he was in the memories.
She raised a single brow at him, channeling her inner Narcissa Malfoy and reminding herself of what brand of witch she was supposed to be playing the part of—pureblooded, rich, and entitled. "I take it you work here, then? And Mr. Burke sent you to help me find something to my liking?"
"I am but a humble servant… and Mr. Burke does hate to leave anyone in his shop without the attention they deserve." Riddle extended his hand. "Tom Riddle," he said, the words rolling off his tongue quite sinuously for someone who supposedly hated his name so much.
Hermione thought to give her first name as well, but stopped herself at the last moment. "Miss Smith," she offered instead. Unlike Mr. Burke, Tom Riddle's handshake was careful, gentle, and nothing short of courteous.
He caught her staring at his left hand. "I like your ring," she said, deciding that transparency was less suspicious than poorly masked disinterest.
"I like yours," he responded, eyes glancing towards her diamond encrusted one.
Hermione's heart skipped a beat.
She forced a grin, convincing herself that she must be imagining the playful gleam in his eyes. He couldn't possibly know that it was enchanted just by looking at it… could he? "Oh, thank you. A relatively recent purchase," she said, holding her hand up and pretending only to be flattered—not unnerved. "But yours, yours is obviously old, vintage. You can tell that it's unique, truly one of a kind. Such things are rare. Wherever did you get it?"
Rather than act complimented, Riddle lowered his hand, clearly not wanting to discuss just how rare a treasure it was. "I inherited it, I'm afraid," he lied effortlessly. "It used to belong to my grandfather, before he passed away."
Well. He wasn’t telling a complete lie either, Hermione supposed. "That's lovely," she said. "You're lucky to have something precious to remember him by. Family is so important."
"…Yes," Riddle responded after a pause. He spoke again before Hermione could, shifting the focus away from himself and onto her. "Mr. Burke has informed me that you are new to England," he said. "May I ask where you're from?"
"America, originally. But I've been traveling quite a bit over the past few years. I finally came to stay with my aunt here in London a few weeks ago."
"America?" Riddle asked. "You grew up in the United States?"
"New York City, born and raised," she replied, looking away from him when she spoke and taking interest in a medium-sized, wooden box on a shelf, one with markings carved on its surface.
"And yet you have no accent whatsoever, as far as I can tell."
Hermione glanced at him and grinned, prepared for this. "I can't tell you how happy it makes me to hear you say that," she gushed as though making a great confession. "My mother was from London, and I was very close to her. I thought her English accent made her sound so sophisticated—as did everyone else, truthfully. I emulated everything about her, especially the way she spoke. I even called her 'mum' rather than 'mom'."
Hermione turned her attention back to the wooden box, eyes narrowing as she examined the markings there. "Those are Ancient Runes carved into the surface," Riddle explained. "They mean—"
"Beware… and something about greed, and the lunar cycle…"
Riddle's eyes widened a fraction when Hermione lifted the box and began turning it, investigating it in earnest as she attempted to translate the crudely drawn markings. She pursed her lips as she looked from one side to the other, thinking…
Ancient Runes were always at least somewhat difficult to decipher. It wasn't like reading a sentence, one word at a time—one needed the whole picture before the message was clear.
"It can only be opened safely on the full moon…" she said slowly, though that didn't explain the last symbols, nor a few on the first side…
Just when Riddle opened his mouth to speak, she figured it out. "Oh! Unless it's opened by someone who only wants to place something in the box, but not take something out." She looked up at Riddle, her cheerful expression at having solved a puzzle quickly turning to one of apprehension. "And what happens if someone with the intent of removing whatever's inside opens it on the wrong day?" she asked.
Riddle's face became blank. He was no longer smiling like the charismatic shop boy he was supposed to be emulating, but staring at Hermione with a thoughtful look in his eyes. "…We do not know," he said slowly. His lips curled, bemused, and it was far darker than his previous smile.
"Buyer beware."
Hermione set it down and shrugged like she was unimpressed. She began walking down the aisle, looking around at a few other items on the shelves. She could feel Burke's eyes following her as she moved, distracted once more from his own customer.
"I take it you've studied Ancient Runes extensively, then," Riddle said, staying close to her.
"Yes. I took it for years at Ilvermorny. One of my favorite subjects. What is this?"
She pointed towards a polished, golden sphere on a stand. "An Entrancing Orb," he answered. "Stare at if for too long, and the only way you can look away again is if someone calls your name."
Hermione looked away so quickly that Riddle laughed. What a predicament she would be in, if she needed to confess her true name just to be able to leave the damn shop! "Another cursed object," she muttered. "I'm beginning to sense a pattern, here. It's no wonder Mr. Burke asked you to attend to me. Clearly just looking in this store is a safety hazard."
Riddle laughed again, a soft and charming sound. "This is not the type of shop where people come to peruse the shelves casually," he said. "Our typical clients come with a specific object in mind; or, more often than not, to sell."
"Well, I am not a typical client," Hermione said curtly.
"No," Riddle agreed, his voice lowering. "That much is perfectly obvious."
There was a beat of silence. Hermione looked up into his eyes and could see nothing there at all.
"You said you attended Ilvermorny," he continued after a moment, his voice politely interested once more. "I'll admit that I know very little about that school. Did you enjoy it, there?"
"Oh, yes," Hermione said wistfully. "Very much. It's the very best Wizarding School in the world."
"I would venture to say that is a matter of opinion, Miss Smith."
Hermione laughed. "Of course. I expect that you're going to tell me that—what is it?—Hogwarts is the best?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "Yes, my mother went there, she's told me all about it. How you sit on a stool and have a ragged old hat tell you what House you should be in? Forgive me, Mr. Riddle, but that sounds a bit… crass."
She turned and let her focus drift to a set of silver instruments which reminded her of dental tools. "Enchanted utensils for the purpose of extracting extremely lethal venom from the bodies of magical creatures," he explained quickly. "Beautiful and nearly indestructible tools, but unless you intend to harvest something like basilisk venom, there's hardly any use for them."
"Perhaps I intend to harvest some basilisk venom in the near future," Hermione murmured. She picked one up, a small, thin knife, and twirled it in her fingers. She briefly entertained the notion that maybe she should buy something today, after all.
"Then you’d best purchase a blindfold as well."
Riddle's expression was perfectly composed. Hermione smirked. "Or a pet rooster," she said, placing the silver instrument back in its place.
Riddle chose not to respond to that. Instead, he once more shifted the topic back to Hermione. "How do they sort in Ilvermorny, then?" he asked. "If you find the idea of the Sorting Hat so crass."
"It's much more interesting. At Ilvermorny, you stand in the center of the Gordian Knot on the floor of the entrance hall. There are four statues there, symbolizing the four houses, and they react if they want you—the crystal on the Horned Serpent's forehead will glow, the Wampus will roar, the Pukwudgie will raise its arrow, and the Thunderbird with beat its wings."
"Which one wanted you?"
Hermione paused, turning to face Riddle with a slightly disdainful expression on her face. "Nosy, aren't you? For a shop boy."
There was the slightest tensing of his jaw before Riddle inclined his head again, slipping back into the role of subservient, innocent employee. "My sincerest apologies," he murmured, eyes downcast. He acted so convincingly humbled that Hermione would have believed his charade without question, had she not known better.
But she did.
"It's quite all right," she carried on. "Ilvermorny is fascinating. As it happens, I was a rarity. More than one house wanted me. Three, in fact. All but the Pukwudgie. I suppose my heart wasn't pure enough for that little creature to be interested. Ever heard of one before? They're a bit like house-elves, pukwudgies… Anyway."
Hermione waved her hand flippantly, as though she were dismissing the importance of such creatures. "The three other houses were all interested in me, and so I was able to choose. No hat whispering in my ear, telling me where I might fit in best. It was my decision in the end."
Hermione looked down and checked her watch. "Oh, look at the time! It's nearly six! I'm afraid I must go soon, I have dinner plans."
"If you give me some idea of what kind of object you are looking for, I could help you find something suitable," Riddle offered. Hermione noticed Mr. Burke perking up from the other side of the store. His customer was now gone, and she was certain he was listening with rapt attention.
"Well, I was hoping to find something to use as a centerpiece for my aunt's new dining room table; it's just such a large, empty space, completely gone to waste—but I don't see anything here even remotely close to what I had in mind. I was hoping for something beautiful, not deadly." She sighed. "I confess that I am… disappointed."
"We do acquire new objects on a regular basis," Riddle said. "Perhaps we shall have something more to your liking soon."
Hermione smiled but promised nothing. "I must be going," she said instead.
"Here." Riddle procured a bit of parchment out of thin air. If Hermione weren't so determined not to be impressed by him, she might have reacted to such wordless, wandless magic. "My card… just in case."
He pressed it into her palm, and were she any other witch in the world, Hermione probably would have melted under his dazzling grin. He had abandoned being professional in favor of being flirtatious.
But Hermione knew it was hollow, and neither tactic would work on her. "In case I decide I would like tools to obtain basilisk venom or buy a mysterious, cursed box?" she asked wryly, pulling her hand away and not taking the card. His eyes widened in surprise. Hermione doubted that Tom Riddle had ever been rejected in any manner—man or woman, professionally or flirtatiously. "If I decide I require something like that, then I know where to find you, don't I?"
She took a step backwards. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Riddle," she said, turning away from him and facing the door. She had just reached for the handle when he spoke again.
"Which did you choose?"
Hermione's lips twitched.
She turned and looked over her shoulder. Riddle was standing there with his card still in his hand, his face an impenetrable mask of no discernible emotion. "If three houses wanted you, and the decision was yours… Which one did you end up choosing, Miss Smith?"
There was something different about his tone. He had completely dropped any façade, and was now asking from some place of interest that had nothing to do with his job.
He was intrigued. Tom Riddle wanted to know this for himself.
"…If you must know, Mr. Riddle," she said at length, "I chose not the House which favors warriors and represents the body, nor the one which favors scholars and prizes the mind… but the House representative of that which is the most powerful, yet least understood."
She smiled when Riddle's head tilted to one side, waiting for an explanation. "I'm speaking, of course, of the soul."
Hermione hardly needed Legilimency to see the intrigue flickering in those dark, tunnel-like eyes. Her smile widened. "I fancy myself an adventurer."
She bowed her head in farewell before pulling her hood up over her face, concealing her features in shadows once more. "Have a pleasant evening, Mr. Riddle," she said quietly.
She did not wait for a response.
Hermione left. The bell chimed behind her, but she was already halfway down the street when she heard its peal.
It was fully dark now, and at some point during her short time in the shop it had begun to snow. Snowflakes landed softly on her shoulders as she went.
Hermione felt almost as though she were floating, she was so giddy with success and relief. All things considered, that exchange had gone better than she expected. With the exception of that initial hiccup in the beginning—she really hadn't expected him to be wearing the ring still—she had accomplished all that she had set out to do.
If she had played her part well enough, she would be seeing Mr. Riddle again very soon… though that was now up to Mr. Burke. Hermione hoped he would act the way she anticipated he would. He was a greedy man, predictably so; she had no reason to think that he would not.
Her plan was officially in motion.
Hermione would scatter intriguing words behind her like alluring morsels, leading Tom Riddle further and further along her deceitful path until he was so distracted that he tripped…
And when he did, Hermione would make sure that he never got up.
Chapter 9: Fictitious
Chapter Text
"The Love Chamber."
Hermione hesitated at this door, the only one which she had not yet passed through in the Department of Mysteries. A door that remained locked; a door she had once branded with an X when she was a teenager on a rescue mission that had ended in death, anyway.
Hermione was in her first official week as an Unspeakable, and she was the only recruit to have come straight out of school. Holloway, her new boss, explained that they usually only took on witches and wizards with impressive resumes and years of experience. Often, they were officials who worked in other departments at the Ministry and transferred over.
Hermione Jean Granger, naturally, was the exception.
The Department of Mysteries did not operate like the rest of the Ministry. It was the only one that didn't answer to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and its structure was simple. There were two kinds of Unspeakables: Transients and Perpetuals. The Transients did not specialize in a subdivision, but flowed freely in their research from one specialty to another. The Perpetuals, in contrast, focused solely on one subdivision, becoming an expert in their field of choice.
Time. Space. Thought. Death. Love.
Hermione had been shown each of the main corridors in accordance with these subdivisions, and she felt horrid feelings of nostalgia as they went from room to room. The Time Chamber was still in a state of semi-disrepair; the Death Chamber was as horrifically eerie as it had been when she'd first seen it…
But the Love Chamber… this was new territory for Hermione, and she was nervous.
Holloway touched his wand to the door and it swung open at once, no incantation necessary for him. Hermione followed, feigning bravery.
"Of all the sectors within the Department of Mysteries, this one is the most… intricate," Holloway said as they walked down a dimly lit hall, settling for the last word like he was not satisfied with it. "As I explained before, you'll need to work as a Transient for at least five years before declaring a specialty, if you wish to do so… But this does not apply to the field of Love. This sector requires a minimum of ten years prior experience as an Unspeakable, and even then, those who apply must go through a series of rigorous, mental tests. In fact, we only have three Unspeakables who are currently employed as Perpetuals in " Why is it so much more difficult, sir? To specialize in this subdivision…?"
Holloway gave her a humorless grin. "Let's just say that this field of interest requires a certain… temperament that few have. Here we are."
They entered a rounded corridor, and Hermione was shocked to see that it was set up much in the same way that the Death Chamber was. The atmosphere was significantly different, though—the air was pleasantly warm rather than chilly, and instead of an ominous archway with a flickering veil, in the center of this Chamber on a raised platform was a massive, white marble fountain.
Amortentia.
It was spilling from a geyser in a centered cascade, glistening with its mesmeric, mother-of-pearl sheen as tendrils of smoke rose from the liquid in spirals. Hermione held her breath as Holloway led her to it.
"Amortentia… though I'm sure you could guess as much," he said. "The most powerful love potion in the world. Just one of many tools here which the Unspeakables use to study this mystery."
Hermione finally closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose. It smelled like freshly cut grass and new parchment, with hints of spearmint… and a discernible note of ink which she did not recall being there before…
She was relieved that it didn't smell like Ron.
Ron. Months had passed since their dramatic break-up, but the betrayal still felt like a fresh wound. Hermione forced the image of his vibrant hair and freckled face away, letting the enthralling scent of knowledge obliterate her thoughts.
"Intoxicating, isn't it?" Holloway said, and when Hermione opened her eyes, it was to see that he looked like he was fighting to urge to laugh at her.
Hermione blushed. "S-sorry, sir.”
"Don't be. You did quite well, actually. This particular brew is far more potent than any other love potion in known existence. The last recruit I brought through here nearly fainted, he was so starry-eyed."
He did laugh, then. Hermione smiled as well. "Amortentia…" she said thoughtfully, watching the spirals twist and turn as they evaporated into the air. "Professor Slughorn said it was one of the most dangerous potions to exist."
"And he’s quite right," Holloway said, his tone grave. "The fact that it’s available for purchase—that any love potion is on the market, really—is appalling, in my opinion."
Hermione thought about this. "It is," she agreed. "However. I suppose the argument against banning them completely is that people would brew their own, anyway—and that incorrectly brewed potions are far more dangerous than elixirs whose effects are potent but short-lived."
“A terrible rationalization, don't you think?"
Hermione frowned but didn't disagree.
She remembered back to how Romilda Vane had attempted to seduce Harry with a love potion, and it was distressing, wasn't it? How easy it was for people to acquire something so dangerous?
"But surely few people use them," she said. "Surely…" Hermione's own arguments died before she could make them. "…How many people use them, do you think?"
Holloway shrugged. “It's impossible to know. While the effects of love potions are short, cases of people admitting to being tricked into drinking it are almost never reported."
"Really? People who have knowingly been seduced don't try and get justice for the crimes against them? Why on earth not?"
"The same reason most rape victims don't come forward when they've been wronged, I imagine," Holloway said. "And yes, Miss Granger, no matter how willing a participant may seem, whenever a love potion is involved, it is rape."
The enticement of the flowing amortentia abruptly lost its effect. Such a lovely looking concoction for something so atrocious.
Hermione stared at the fountain, suddenly recalling a conversation she'd had with Harry last summer—back when life had seemed so promising in the aftermath of the war. It was just the two of them, she and Harry, and maybe it was only because Ron and Ginny were not around that he’d been willing to talk about it at all.
He'd admitted that he felt so, so guilty.
Harry, with his perpetual 'saving people' thing, harbored a heavy guilt for the death of Tom Riddle. He told Hermione that he'd seen what was to become of the Dark Lord; of the horrible fate that awaited someone who split their soul without remorse. Harry hadn't wanted that for him. He wouldn't wish eternal limbo on anyone, not even Lord Voldemort.
“I think what really gets me," Harry had said, one hand in his hair, "is that he just had a horrible life, you know? I mean, neither of his parents wanted him—his father had been tricked into taking a love potion, and his mother didn't care enough for him to stay alive—he grew up during a war in an orphanage, thinking he was freak… He never really had a chance, did he?"
Hermione had needed to reassure him that he’d done the right thing—that for some people, there was no salvation. Harry had offered Tom Riddle the opportunity for remorse in the Great Hall, and Tom Riddle had refused.
He was such a gentle soul, Harry. Hermione missed his constant companionship dearly. She felt like she’d changed without his influence in her life…
Hermione willed such depressing recollections away, hesitating before asking a question that had bothered her ever since that conversation. “What about the children?"
Hollow's brows rose in confusion. "I mean, children who are conceived under the influence of a love potion," Hermione clarified. "Does it affect them? Are there any documented cases of such a thing?"
Holloway was silent for a time, watching the fountain of amortentia detachedly. "In fact, there are," he said. "Two for certain. I forget what exact years they were born, but they were both sometime in the 1800's. They grew up with their mothers, both of whom had been the ones to have been drugged. The children appeared to be completely healthy, physically and mentally."
His eyes darkened. "Then there was a boy born in the early 1900’s. His mother abandoned him and he grew up in an household that was later discovered to be… quite toxic. Have you ever heard of the series of murders by a wizard that happened in the 1920’s? The ones characterized by a murderer who always killed by summoning his victims' hearts straight through their ribcages and nailing them to their door? Muggles, usually."
"My God, no, I haven't.”
“Well, it happened. His name was Edmund Thompson, and he committed thirteen murders… he was so young, too… He was eventually caught and sentenced to the Dementor's kiss. It was obvious that there was something very, very wrong with this man. The Department of Mysteries requested his soulless body for further study. It took the combined efforts of Perpetuals in both the Thought and Love subdivision, but we were able to conclude that he was absolutely incapable of love. It was… like nothing we'd ever seen before."
Hermione stared, horrified. "Are you saying that he was conceived under the influence of amortentia? That that's why he couldn't love…?"
"We can't be completely certain, but that's what we believe, yes," Holloway answered. "Something powerful and magical had affected his cognitive development, that much was obvious."
"But the other children, they were okay," Hermione pointed out. "So such people aren't entirely hopeless, right?"
She wondered why she was even asking. Holloway shrugged again. "There's always hope. The problem isn't that people can't recover from such tragedies—if working in the Department of Mysteries has taught me anything, it's that there’s nothing more fascinating and malleable than the human psyche—but something greater. It's will, Miss Granger. People can heal… but they must want to heal."
Hermione nodded but said nothing. She knew only one thing with certainty in that moment—if she ever chose to specialize as a Perpetual, she would be staying far, far away from the subdivision of Love.
"I think that's enough for one day. Come on," Holloway said, guiding Hermione from the fountain and back towards the hallway.
"This stuff is starting to give me a bloody headache."
That night, they feasted.
Hepzibah had absolutely fawned over Hermione's new appearance, declaring her a legitimate danger to all wizards in Britain—no, the world.
They went out to eat at a fancy restaurant, where Hermione ordered a steak and didn't give a damn about lady-like proportions, despite her much more lady-like appearance. She and Hepzibah ate heartily and drank wine that was ridiculously expensive, reminiscing about a shared history that hadn't actually happened, until they were both torn between laughing and crying over the memory of a woman who had never been born.
But did that make their laughter or tears any less meaningful? Hermione did not think so. Monica Smith may not have been real, but the essence of what she and Hepzibah mourned was. Hepzibah grieved over the non-existent family she so dearly yearned for; Hermione grieved for her actual mother, whom she realized that she may never see again.
Hermione tried not to dwell on the reality that she was likely trapped in 1950 permanently, but the fact that no one had come to save her made her believe that this may be the case.
At least she and Hepzibah had each other.
Hermione went to bed that night with her mind buzzing, barely managing to take off her new robes first. She fell asleep with a smile on her face and a hope in her heart that might have been misplaced, but which she clung to nonetheless.
Days passed before it happened.
It was a little after ten in the morning on a Wednesday, and Hermione and Hepzibah were having a delightfully appropriate discussion in the sitting room when the doorbell chimed.
“Strange for someone to come calling now,” Hepzibah said, frowning. “Hokey, see who that is, won't you?"
It was strange that the doorbell should ring—the wards were set in an elaborate manner; one could not simply walk up to the Smith's doorstep, even if they were a wizard. It meant that whoever it was had either been invited to Hephzibah's home before, or knew someone who had.
Hermione had a feeling she knew exactly who it was.
The elf bowed and dispparated with a nearly silent pop. When Hermione made to get to her feet and see for herself, Hepzibah touched her arm and stopped her. "Oh no, dearie. Let Hokey go. That way if it's a salesperson or something she can dismiss them for us."
Hermione barely stopped herself from laughing. "Of course, Auntie," she said.
Hokey reappeared a moment later. "There is a wizard here, Mistress Smith. He is saying he is here representing a Mister Burke, if you would be so kind as to be allowing him a moment of your time."
“Burke?" Hepzibah's brows rose so high on her head they disappeared beneath her bangs. “Caractacus Burke? I haven't spoken with him in months… He's sent someone here in his place, you said?"
"Yes, Mistress. He is being a young man… He brought flowers, ma'am."
Hermione's pulse quickened. It had worked. Burke had heard her tale of how Hepzibah Smith, her aunt, extremely wealthy witch and dear client, had a tragically empty dining room table in desperate need of an expensive new centerpiece… and he had sent their darling shop boy on a mission, years earlier than he otherwise would have shown up at the Smith residence.
Perfect.
"Flowers, hm?” said Hepzibah. “Still is rather rude to show up without sending an owl first…"
"Maybe he thought you would refuse him," Hermione chimed in.
"With good reason; I'm still a bit miffed at how much I paid for that locket, considering how little he paid for it in the first place…"
Hermione's smirk faltered—she would need to make sure Hepzibah did not mention the locket in Tom Riddle's presence.
"Well, all right, then. Hokey, go ahead and let him in, and bring him back to the sitting room."
Hermione checked her reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall, adjusting her hair. Her make-up was light but still flawless (and though she was no miraculous Melissa, Hermione did have an aptitude for that mascara charm), her clothing was just casual enough to say, 'I wasn't expecting company' while still looking refined and proper.
Hermione turned back around. Hepzibah had noticed her unusual and sudden caring for her appearance, and was looking suspicious because of it. Hermione smiled innocently.
"Mr. Riddle, Mistress Smith and Mistress Smith."
Hokey bowed and moved aside, allowing Tom Riddle to step into the room.
…Was it the lighting? The weather? Had she eaten something strange that morning and it was affecting her perception? Hermione wasn't sure, but Riddle's presence was mind-numbing, just as it had been when she'd first met him in the shop.
Only now…
Now he was dressed much more nicely, in black clothes adorned with shining, silver clasps that were rather form-fitting for robes—were his shoulders so broad, just days ago?—and in his hands was a huge bouquet of pink and white roses which simply must have been enchanted, their aroma so quickly filled the room. Tom Riddle looked like he belonged in a romance novel.
His eyes found Hermione's first. They lingered there, two endless, black holes that made her feel like she was falling.
Hepzibah stood, and the sound of her chair moving backwards caused Hermione's mind to snap back to reality. "Mr. Riddle," she said, and though Hepzibah extended her hand politely, Hermione thought there was a frostiness to her tone. "My name is Hepzibah Smith."
Riddle's eyes left Hermione's to settle on Hepzibah, and he gave her his most charming, flawless smile. "Miss Smith," he said, taking her hand in his. "It is so wonderful to meet you. I’ve heard nothing but great things. Thank you for receiving me."
"An owl might have been a nice forewarning."
Riddle laughed softly. "I said as much as well, but Mr. Burke is nothing if not a… stubborn man. I do believe he thought you might have said you were busy and refused to see me, were it not a bit of a surprise."
"Is that what the flowers are for, then? To soften an old woman up?"
"He said it was a token of his gratitude for your consistent and great patronage… But yes, I would venture to say that they are more of a preemptive apology for his boldness."
Riddle's smile was dazzling, and Hepzibah accepted the roses with a wry grin. "That man," she sighed, shaking her head. "Hokey, be a dear and get me a vase, won't you?"
Hokey nodded and disappeared. Hermione stood as well, feeling substantially more composed than she had a few moments ago. "Mr. Riddle," she said. “What an unexpected surprise."
"Miss Smith." Riddle turned his attention to her again, and Hermione braced herself, ready for his alluring grin. "The other Miss Smith, I should say."
There was brief pause, then, where Hermione knew what the polite thing to say would be. Tom Riddle had, after all, given her his first name, and it would only be fitting that she do the same now.
She didn't. Hermione wasn't sure why it seemed important, temporarily keeping her name from him, but there was something satisfying about withholding it.
When Hermione did not say anything, Riddle continued speaking in a voice as smooth as velvet. "It's lovely to see you again… So, this is your aunt?"
Riddle glanced from Hermione to Hepzibah and back again. "The family resemblance is… uncanny."
Hermione's heart fluttered. She felt her face flush at his words and at how sincerely he said them, because she knew nothing could be further from the truth. Hepzibah was a plump woman with a round face, wavy red hair, watery blue eyes, and the kind of light skin that burned if you merely looked at it too intensely.
Hermione, on the other hand, was rather lithe with a heart shaped face, brown hair that was now perfectly straight, large eyes, and a skin tone that definitely tanned when she was fortunate enough to see the sun.
They did not look related.
Well, he doesn't exactly look like anyone on his mother's side, either, Hermione thought. Somehow, this succeeded in making her feel more self-assured.
Hokey returned with a soft pop. "Wait—you two have met?" Hepzibah asked sharply, all but throwing the roses down to the tiny elf. Hokey almost fell under the weight of them, there were so many, but she managed to stay afoot and place them in the vase. Hepzibah hardly noticed; her eyes were darting back and forth between Hermione and Riddle, suspicious once more.
"We have," Riddle answered. "Miss Smith came into Borgin and Burke's just the other evening."
"You what?" Hepzibah looked appalled. "You went to Knockturn Alley? By yourself? In the evening? That's no place for a lady to go wandering around alone! Whatever were you doing there?"
"Well." Hermione cast Riddle a scathing glance before looking back to Hepzibah. "I went there because you mentioned that you got so many of your most treasured items there, and I wanted to get you a gift for how good you've been to me… A centerpiece, I thought, for the living room table… Something which would have been a surprise…"
She glared at Riddle again, who had the audacity to smile more brightly. "My sincerest apologies. I did not mean to ruin your kind intentions," he murmured, but he sounded anything but apologetic.
"Oh… Well, that's very sweet of you, dear, but still. Never go to Knockturn Alley again! It's a shady place full of all sorts of dodgy people and creatures! No offense." She added the last part hastily, looking once more to Riddle.
"None taken," Riddle answered.
Hepzibah sighed and looked at Hokey, who was adjusting the roses in the vase which she’d hovered to the middle of the table. "Hokey, bring some tea for us and for our guest, won't you?"
Hokey bowed and disappeared. "Please, sit,” Hepzibah said.
Riddle inclined his head politely at the offer, and Hepzibah and Hermione sat as well. "You have an absolutely enchanting home, Miss Smith," Riddle said. "Was that banner I spotted on the wall of the foyer an original possession from the Flamel line, or is it just an antique sporting the same coat of arms?"
"It's an original, of course," Hepzibah said, straightening her posture and looking proud.
"Then everything Mr. Burke has said of you is correct—you have impeccable tastes and sophisticated interests."
His flattery was so expertly done, his smile so convincingly charming. Hermione had known that he would be a skilled actor, of course, but still—it was such an impeccable façade that it was almost easy to forget what he was.
Hokey returned with a gilded tray. While all Hepzibah's china was lovely, Hermione noticed that the elf had gone with the exceptionally good porcelain, today—a teapot and cups that were a shimmering black, rimmed in brilliant, warm gold. Hokey poured them all a cup and rested the tray with milk and sugar on the table silently, as was expected of a proper house-elf in the midst of company. Hermione had to resist the urge to thank her or pat her on the head as she usually did, and instead accepted her cup as though beverages magically floating into one’s willing hand was something to be expected when one was such a refined, pureblooded witch.
"Why, even the china, Auntie?" Hermione spoke first as she accepted her cup. "I know you are proud, but still…" Hepzibah looked confused at Hermione's words. "These are your old house colors, no? From school?"
"Ah, yes,” said Hepzibah. “The Hufflepuff house colors are yellow and black."
"We were just discussing our family history when you arrived," Hermione explained, looking to Riddle. "I know next to nothing about my British ancestors, as my own mother cared little for such things—but my aunt is very knowledgeable. Evidently, we're related to the woman who founded her house while in school."
"You're descended from Helga Hufflepuff?" Riddle asked, and though his voice was light, Hermione saw the intrigue in his eyes.
"Oh, yes," Hepzibah said. "The Smith family line is related to many of the most noble, pureblood houses—most notably Helga Hufflepuff herself."
"I still think it all sounds made up, personally," Hermione added dryly.
"Whatever do you mean?" Riddle asked. “The founders of Hogwarts were incredibly skilled witches and wizards; I can assure you none of their legendary histories were made up."
"It does sound a bit far-fetched, though, doesn't it? Honestly, their names all sound like they were selected from a children's story. What were they all again, Auntie?"
"Helga Hufflepuff," Hepzibah answered. "Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin."
"Ah, Slytherin, that one I know," Hermione said, nodding before taking a sip of tea. She could feel Riddle's eyes burning as he stared at her, no doubt wanting to ask, but not wanting to appear too interested in his own, secret ancestor.
Fortunately for him, Hepzibah asked. "Well, how is that you know about Salazar Slytherin but not Helga Hufflepuff, the founder whose very blood runs through your veins?" she balked.
"Because Salazar Slytherin's descendents traveled to America, of course," Hermione answered. "The founder of Ilvermorny, Isolt Sayre, was related to him. It's a long story—she could understand snakes and even used Slytherin's own wand until it was rendered inactive—but I won't bore you with the details."
Hermione took another sip of tea, relishing the fact that Tom Riddle had shifted forward in his seat, unable to contain his interest which he should be concealing. "I didn't know that," Hepzibah said, looking far less excited by the history of a founder to which she was not related.
"But the Hogwarts founders all sound a bit fictitious, don't they?" Hermione said, looking to Riddle and shifting the conversation back to Hogwarts. "And completely illogical, most of them. For example, why would Ravenclaw pick an eagle as opposed to a raven for her emblem? And Gryffindor—well, clearly a griffin would be more appropriate, no? The only one that made any sense was Slytherin, choosing a snake."
"What's wrong with the badger Hufflepuff chose?" Hepzibah asked.
"That one is the least logical of all!" Hermione set her cup down and laughed. "You were just saying that Helga Hufflepuff was known for being kind and accepting, and yet she chose a badger for her animal!"
"So?"
"Have you ever seen a wild badger, Aunt? They may look harmless, but they are vicious creatures. Honey badgers in particular." Hermione smiled wryly and lifter her cup once more to her lips. "Badgers eat snakes for breakfast," she murmured before taking another sip.
Hermione couldn't help it; her eyes flickered to Riddle's after she said it. He did not look amused.
Good, Hermione thought. Let's see that façade crack.
"Well, that's all very interesting," Hepzibah said, sounding a bit annoyed that Hermione was not awestruck with all things Hufflepuff, "but I daresay that Mr. Riddle was not instructed to come here to deliver flowers and hear about our family history."
Riddle's attention snapped back to Hepzibah, his slight look of annoyance turning so swiftly to one of charm and pleasantness that Hermione was astounded. "No, unfortunately, that was not why Mr. Burke sent me."
"Based on my experience in your shop, I would venture to say that Mr. Burke has a specific motive, Auntie," Hermione said as she looked at Riddle. "I believe he is here to come and steal away your most beautiful, valuable things."
Riddle smiled in a manner that was more predatory than anything she’d seen on him yet. "Perhaps I am," he murmured. He lifted the gold rim of the teacup to his lips, the Peverell ring glinting on his finger, but his dark eyes never left Hermione's as he took a drink.
Hermione was entirely flustered—her face burned, and though she tried to look unaffected, she knew she failed spectacularly as she was the first to break eye contact, looking down at her lap and clearing her throat.
The insinuation was not lost on Hepzibah.
"Well, that's all well and good, but I'm not interested in selling anything at this time."
Riddle looked surprised at the sudden iciness in her tone. "Oh," he said, setting his cup down. "Well, as it transpires, that is not why I am here. Mr. Burke sent me to see if you might be interested in one of his newest acquisitions. We just came into ownership of it yesterday."
Riddle pulled something from his pocket, a tiny, shimmering thing, as well as his wand. Hermione's muscles instinctually went rigid at the sight of Tom Riddle with a wand in his hand. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, noting the way her posture stiffened, but didn't comment on it.
He cast a wordless spell, and the small, silver item grew. "A 17th century, enchanted candelabra," he explained as it became the height of the bouquet of roses. "Goblin-made, in excellent condition. It has been charmed to remain lit perpetually, if need be—the lighting spells interwoven into it are flawless. Indestructible, with inlaid sapphires and pearls. It is currently our most valuable item in stock, and we already have a few interested buyers, but Mr. Burke thought to extend the offer to you, our loyal and most valued patron, first."
It was beautiful, even Hermione could attest that that. The silver was so polished it was nearly blinding, and the sapphires so large they looked unreal. It reminded her of the tiara Fleur wore on her wedding day.
Hepzibah, however, glanced at it only briefly before looking unimpressed. "I'm not interested," she said. "It's a bit too plain, for my tastes."
A blatant lie. There was nothing plain about this exquisite piece at all. Riddle froze, an expression of shock on his face. "Plain?" he repeated.
"Plain," Hepzibah said firmly. She waved her wand at the candelabra as though it bored her. "You can take it back with you. Tell Mr. Burke he may sell to one of his other, more willing buyers."
Hermione nearly covered her mouth in amazement.
Because it was amazing, wasn't it? How very differently Hepzibah Smith was treating the handsome Tom Riddle. When Hepzibah had been the sole focus of his charm and flattery, the witch had been nothing but sweet and accommodating.
Now that he had unwittingly but undeniably showed interest in her pretty, young niece, her attitude could not have been more different. Hepzibah was no longer a desperate, lonely woman, but a protective aunt… and she was not about to let some shop boy from Knockturn Alley swoon her darling niece.
Riddle appeared stunned for only a moment longer before slipping back into his role of humble, modest employee. "Mr. Burke will be very sorry to hear that you have been disappointed, I am sure," he murmured, shrinking the candelabra with a wave of his wand.
Hepzibah chose not to respond to that. She stood. "If you don't mind, Mr. Riddle, you must be on your way. My niece and I have lunch reservations at Rosie's downtown and shall be leaving soon. Hermione, why don't you go upstairs and get ready?"
Another obvious lie; they had no such reservations anywhere. Hermione blinked in surprise before setting her cup down. "Oh… Oh, right,” she said as she stood. “Of course. I nearly forgot."
Riddle got to his feet as well, pocketing his wand and the shrunken candelabra. And though he should have been focusing on Hepzibh, perhaps trying to rectify her dissatisfaction just then, his eyes were once more glued to her supposed niece.
"Hermione," he said, and Hermione's breath hitched. His dark eyes gleamed with something like triumph.
"Your name is Hermione."
Hermione stared. "I… Yes," she said, unable to think of anything else.
A beat of silence. Hermione felt like the room was filled with an electric charge; a ridiculous sensation for something as contrite as eye contact.
The moment was broken by Hepzibah's stern voice. "Hokey, please show Mr. Riddle to the door, won't you?"
Hokey arrived to do exactly that. Riddle bowed in subservient manner, but Hepzibah's smile could not have looked more insincere. "It was an honor to meet you, Miss Smith," he said.
She didn't respond in like. Hermione was just about to dash up the stairs, feeling overwhelmed, when she found her hand suddenly, inexplicably, caught in Riddle's.
"And a wonderful surprise to see you once more… Miss Smith."
Then, in a motion that was as fluid as it was brief and polite, Riddle lifted her hand in his and brushed his lips over her fingers, looking like some prince out of a fairy tale as he did.
Hermione felt like her hand was on fire long after he let go. "Mr. Riddle," Hepzibah said sharply. "If you wouldn't mind."
And with one last bow, the Dark Lord was dismissed.
"Well?" Hepzibah barked once he was gone, making Hermione jump. "Do you mind explaining what all that was about?"
She put her hands on her hips, looking very motherly indeed. Hermione shook her head and came back to herself, holding her hand which Tom Riddle had just kissed to her chest. "Mr. Burke wanted to sell you his wares," she answered flatly.
"Yes, I could see that." Hepzibah pursed her lips and walked around the table, her annoyed expression softening. "He was cute, I'll give him that," she said, placing one hand on Hermione's shoulder. "But a shop boy from Knockturn Alley? Please, dear. You are a pureblood, you are Smith—you are a beauty and a gift. You deserve much, much better."
"Of course," Hermione murmured, coming out of her admittedly dazed state. "You're absolutely right."
Hepzibah smiled. "There's my smart girl. Now, I think we really ought to go out to lunch. Then I thought we'd go shopping. The gala is in a few days, and trust me when I say that we will want to be wearing nothing but the latest, most fabulous gowns and accessories. The other collectors are absolute wolves when it comes to fashion, and I don't intend to get eaten alive, do you?"
Hermione laughed weakly. "No," she said, smirking. She dropped her hand to her side, remembering what it was she had traveled back in time in the first place to do—what was still to be done.
"No, I don't intend for that at all."
Chapter 10: Modern-Day Goddess
Chapter Text
Hermione spotted him before he intended to be seen. He was lurking in the atrium of the Ministry near the lifts, checking his watch and pretending to be waiting for someone, surely.
He technically was, she supposed.
Hermione walked right past him at a brisk pace. Perhaps if she moved quickly enough—
"Hey—hey! Miss Granger!"
Hermione internally groaned.
"Miss Granger, do you have a moment?"
Hermione glanced up at the supposed stranger. A young man, tall with dark eyes, but ah, his hair, it was a dead giveaway…
"No, Malfoy, I don't have a moment."
Hermione took a second to appreciate his flustered expression and the way he glanced over his shoulder—had anyone heard her say his name?—before continuing to walk towards the fireplaces.
Fortunately for him, the atrium was empty. It usually was when Hermione left the Department of Mysteries; it was why she left work when she did. "Wait—hold up!"
Against her better judgement, Hermione paused. "What do you want?"
"How'd you know it was me so fast?" he asked, quickly catching up to her.
Hermione barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "Well, for one, this is the third time you've tried to catch me unawares under the influence of Polyjuice Potion—"
"So? Random people try and bother you all the time, don't they?"
Hermione glared. "Your hair is starting to turn blonde," she said coolly.
Draco Malfoy blinked and ran a hand through his mottled, slowly transitioning hair. "Is it really? Damn, it hasn't even been an hour—"
Hermione snorted. "Wow, Malfoy. I was able to make a more effective Polyjuice Potion than you when I was twelve."
"I didn't brew mine," Malfoy drawled. "I bought it."
"I'm even more impressed."
Hermione turned and began to walk away again. "Wait! Just—just give me one damn minute of your time, Granger!"
"Why should I?" Hermione kept walking, and the poorly disguised Draco Malfoy fell into step beside her. "I have nothing to say to you."
"But I have things to say to you, and I know you're interested in hearing them."
Hermione looked at him warily out of the corner of her eye. He appeared far friendlier in this fake, temporary form. She wondered whose hair he'd used. The idea that he more than likely stole some muggle man's appearance was highly amusing to her. "Why do you bother with the Polyjuice Potion, anyway? You're a free man. You can walk into the Ministry if you want, no one can stop you."
"The same reason you leave every day after seven rather than five like almost people else who work here," Malfoy answered. Hermione appreciated briefly just how committed he was to talking to her—he’d bothered to learn her unconventional work schedule. "Because I don't want to risk running into anyone. Everyone looks at me and just sees an ex-Death Eater who got off easy. They all stare daggers at me and whisper about me behind their hands, it's insufferable."
"Well, you are an ex-Death Eater who got off easy," Hermione countered. "You should be thankful. If Harry hadn't stood up for you at your trial, you'd probably be in Azkaban."
His expression became stony. He suddenly looked much more like Draco Malfoy truly did, despite the façade. "Gonna stand up for Potter now, are you?" he fumed. Clearly, he did not appreciate nor admire Harry for the fact that he had gone out of his way to defend him in court—if anything, it seemed to make Malfoy detest his schoolboy enemy even more.
Hermione supposed she understood why, on some level. It was less that he hated Harry specifically and more that he was generally bitter about how things had unfolded for him. How he had all but been forced into being a Death Eater, how he had been raised to believe that everyone who was not a pureblood was the scum of the earth…
It was obvious that Malfoy still struggled with his ideals. Hermione could not wholly blame him for his internal conflict, considering his family. Still, it didn't make it right for him to despise Harry, who had done nothing but help him.
"Harry's my friend," she said. "Of course I stand up for him."
"Oh, is he? Is he your friend?" Malfoy's eyes lightened a fraction, dark brown transitioning into steely gray. "Tell me, Granger, did he tell you himself about his engagement to the Weasley girl, or did you find out like the rest of the world in the Prophet?"
Hermione froze, her jaw clenching. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he sneered. "Funny, most friends talk to each other that sort of thing. Guess he couldn't be bothered to invite you to grab a drink or even send you an owl when he was so busy with his new fiancé and his best friend, R—"
"Piss off, Malfoy."
She began to march away again, but Malfoy grabbed her by the wrist. "Wait, I didn't—"
Hermione whipped her wand out and jabbed it under his chin. Malfoy's eyes crossed as he looked down at it, releasing her. She was very glad the atrium was empty. "You didn't what?"
Malfoy slowly looked up to her face, raising both hands out on either side of himself rather than reaching for his own wand. "I didn't mean to bring that up. I just… I get it. I know what it's like, you know. Being slandered all the time like that. Rita Skeeter has had a damn field day dragging your name through the dirt. She was just waiting for something to happen, to find a way to separate you from the 'golden trio’ and make you out to be some untrustworthy, scandalous witch again. She's turned you into an outcast… I know what that's like."
Hermione raised one brow at him. "So, what? You're looking for someone to wallow in pity with you? Sorry, but I'm not interested."
"You know that's not what I want," Malfoy snapped. "I want your help. I want to change things." He paused, checking over his shoulders again. "I told you, I have the only true T—"
"You shouldn't have that," Hermione instantly interrupted. "It's extremely illegal and I want nothing to do with it. I could turn you in, you know. And not even Harry would be able to save you, then."
"But you haven't," he said. "You could, but haven't turned me in, because you know you're interested, because you know I have some good points. We could do it. We could change time."
"No, we couldn't," Hermione said. "You can't travel that far back without irreversible damage to your body. Eloise Mintumble tried to go back in time—"
"To 1402, yes, I know. She was stuck there for five days, and then died after she was brought back to the present."
Malfoy was clearly annoyed at how surprised Hermione must have looked. "Yes, I've researched this at length, thank you very much. You're not the only one capable of looking things up. But you're not Eloise Mintumble, you're Hermione Granger, prodigy and smartest witch of her age. With your brains and my resources and sense of self-preservation, we could actually do it."
Hermione gaped at him, both dumbfounded and slightly amused. "Am I going deaf, or is Draco Malfoy complimenting me?"
"I'm a changed man," he said dryly. Hermione's lips twitched—he had said the exact same thing at his trial, though he'd said it much more convincingly, then.
"Be that as it may, I'm still not interested. Time-travel is far too dangerous… and illegal."
She began walking again, finally making it to where the floo portals were. "Just—just consider this," Malfoy said, standing directly in front of the fireplace. "We make a stabilizing potion, we go back for just a few minutes, and—and eliminate the problem before it can… before it can, you know. Become a real problem."
Hermione was unsure if she should laugh or not. "…You're serious?"
"I'm dead serious." Malfoy’s eyes, which were now almost entirely gray, fell to her forearm. "Ever imagined a world where you don't have a scar on your forearm, one that makes it impossible to forget all the ghosts in your past? Because I have."
He lifted his sleeve, revealing the barest outline of the Dark Mark as it began to become visible. The Polyjuice Potion had nearly faded entirely.
Hermione was quiet for a moment. The truth was that of course she had thought about it; ever since Draco Malfoy first accosted her after work with the temptation of an illegal, true Time-Turner, she had been unable to stop herself from dwelling on it… What if she could go back and save everyone who had fallen, stop the second war from ever even happening… And she knew Dumbledore had donated his old Pensieve to the Department of Mysteries; she could research Tom Riddle's past in depth, make sure she was fully prepared…
Hermione shook her head. Such thoughts were tremendously dangerous; they were nothing more than fantasies.
Yet he expression of Malfoy's face was so hopeful. She sighed.
"I'll think about it," she said, though she had no intention of taking this seriously. She would use any excuse to get Malfoy to stop pestering her, filling her head with impossible dreams of lives that neither of them could ever hope to live. "But you have to leave me alone while I do, all right?"
"Deal," Malfoy agreed. "I won't bother you for a full week."
Hermione rolled her eyes and grabbed a handful of floo powder. "Get better Polyjuice Potion next time," she said resignedly. She tossed the powder into the fireplace where green flames instantly ignited. "Or better yet," she added just before departing.
"…Be yourself."
Hermione feared she might be getting spoiled.
Hepzibah lived a lavish lifestyle, no doubt, and she had no qualms at all about dropping as much gold as she pleased on whatever she fancied.
When Hepzibah Smith shopped, she shopped.
She and Hermione went to the most upscale, magical clothing stores in London, chic boutiques that Hermione was almost positive no longer existed in her time. They tried on dresses of every kind, and though Hermione was not usually the kind to enjoy clothes shopping, found Hepzibah's enthusiasm infectious.
She didn't even mind that her 'aunt' was keen to repetitively dress her up like a doll, and the shop attendants even more so.
"This is a popular style," the witch and seamstress who had been tending to them for the past hour said. Madame Hopkins, and she was rather like an older and less fabulous version of Hepzibah. "Black satin, trim fitting, very flattering—"
"Black! No more black, I'm tired of black," Hepzibah, who had already picked out a dress for herself, said. Oddly enough the dress she had chosen was black. "I want to see my niece in color. Oh, find us something yellow, maybe. We could go to the gala in Hufflepuff colors!"
Hermione laughed. "Your ancestral pride is admirable, Auntie," she said.
"As it should be!"
"Hm… I don't know if we have anything in yellow…" Madame Hopkins pursed her lips. "I suppose we could cast a color altering charm—"
"Good Lord, no. Those are always so dreadfully obvious, even the best ones," Hepzibah said distastefully.
The shop owner bowed. "Yes, of course, Miss Smith… Well, what about gold?"
"Oh, gold would be excellent. Let's see it."
The seamstress shuffled away into the back room, taking the unwanted black dress with her. "Just go on into the fitting room, dear, and I'll bring it to you," she called over her shoulder.
Hermione did as she was told. A few moments later, and a long, gilded gown was being hovered into the room where she waited.
Even before she could put it on, Hermione knew she was not leaving without this dress.
It was long, shimmering and made of silk. The waist was covered with an intricate white and gold rose design made of lace, and there was a flowing quality to it all that made her think of Ancient Greece. It was beautiful.
When Hermione timidly stepped out of the dressing room, she could tell that the seamstress and her fake aunt shared her sentiments.
"Hermione," Hepzibah gushed. "You look ravishing… Come, come! Stand in front of the mirrors, here!"
The seamstress stepped aside. "I'll just give you some space," she said, looking cheery that she would surely have a sale in a few moments' time.
Hermione allowed Hepzibah to once more guide her onto the dais where several full-length mirrors hovered. "Oh, this is much better," she gushed, fixing the fabric around Hermione's legs. "You're too special for black; everyone wears black at these things—little black dresses, as far as the eye can see! But this, gold, why, you're just glowing in it, aren't you!"
Hermione smirked, blushing slightly at how overzealous Hepzibah was. "But you've chosen a black dress for yourself, Auntie," she pointed out.
"Yes, well, I'll just have to accessorize to stand out. That's my preference, anyway—but you! I almost don't think you should wear anything else, except… Oh, you know what you should do? Wear your hair up in braids with some flowers in it. Gold roses, to match the lace pattern here." She smiled and ran her fingers over the flowers at Hermione's waist, looking at her fondly. "You'll be just like a modern-day Goddess. Like Aphrodite."
"Aphrodite?" Hermione said curiously. "Hm… I think I would prefer to be a modern-day Persephone, myself."
"Persephone?" Hepzibah continued to smooth the fabric of her golden dress. "Why would you want to be Persephone? Wasn't she the one who was abducted by Hades and taken to the Underworld, forced to marry him against her will and all that?"
"In the more popular versions of the story, yes, Persephone was kidnapped and some even say she was raped," Hermione agreed. "But that's likely not the original tale. In some older versions, it's questionable whether she was truly taken there by force, or if she allowed Hades to take her. She was a Goddess herself, after all. Regardless, she wound up in the Underworld, but Hades wasn't the evil ruler many people assume he was… and Persephone was anything but a damsel in distress. She liked the Underworld. She wanted to stay and be with God of Death, even if at the same time she missed the earth…"
Hermione brushed her long, straight hair over her shoulder, imagining how it might look if it was up and out of her way. "And when she became Queen, well… Hades might have worn the crown declaring himself the supreme ruler of the Underworld, but it was Persephone that everyone feared."
Hepzibah looked distraught for a moment before giving a small smile and shaking her head. "I think you read too much, dearie," she said.
The night before the gala, Hermione and Hepzibah shared in their evening ritual of drinking herbal tea before bed. The weather was oddly warm for early February, and so they decided to sit on the balcony outside of Hermione's bedroom. Magical containers full of bluebell flames illuminated the space around them and kept them warm. The tea in Hermione's steaming mug felt pleasant in her hands.
She was anxious about the next day. It would be the first time she attended a high-end social gathering with other rich, established wizarding families. Hepzibah had explained that there would be reporters present from The Daily Prophet, Witch Weekly, and more. Cameras would be flashing and if they were lucky, they might make the paper.
Hermione wondered if Tom Riddle would be present.
Part of her seemed to think it likely—it was a wizarding event, one which some of the most prestigious pureblood families would surely be attending—but another part of her disagreed. It was an art auction, after all. Would Tom Riddle bother to attend some event where the whole point was to raise money for artists?
Of course, no one went to these things with such pure intentions. The supposed goal was always something noble and good, but really everyone went to be seen by and with the right people, as well as to make connections. This was the point in Tom Riddle's life where he was doing exactly that. He was no well known Dark Lord, yet. His power was currently hinging quite dependently on the wealthy, pureblood followers he had acquired at school...
There was a decent chance that he would be in attendance, but she could not be sure. Either way, Hermione was certain that some of Riddle's most prominent peers would be there… and she would have work to do.
Hermione took a sip of tea, admiring the view from the balcony before finally speaking.
"So, I take it we'll be apparating to this gala tomorrow, then? Or taking the floo?"
Hermione had thought it an innocent question, but Hepzibah looked practically scandalized. "Apparating? The floo?" When Hermione looked confused, she shook her head and elaborated. "What, and miss the chance to show off? Absolutely not! We'll arrive in style, of course."
She lowered her mug so that Hokey could refill it. "You'll see," Hepzibah said vaguely. "Trust me, you're going to love it."
A limousine.
It pulled up to the Smith residence at a quarter to seven, black and glossy and, in Hermione's mind, very retro.
Hermione was stunned at first, confused by the fact that they would be taking a muggle form of transportation to a wizarding event—and then she remembered. For as much as witches and wizards so often looked down on muggle technology, this general distaste was somehow untrue of trains and the automobile. Magical people not only appreciated them, but created their own, superiorly enchanted versions of them all the time.
How hypocritical, Hermione thought, smirking.
She wouldn't deny that she and Hepzibah looked right at home in a limousine, though.
Their make-up was flawless, their dresses were elegant, and their hair was pristine. Hermione had gone with Hepzibah's suggestion, allowing the hairdresser to decorate her elaborate updo with many small, golden roses that were interwoven into the braids. It was utterly gorgeous, and Hermione was astonished once more at what something as simple as a hair style could accomplish in terms of both her appearance and her confidence.
The only thing that had Hermione nervous was the issue of her wand. She had no pockets, and so she had told Hepzibah that she wanted to bring a purse for the sole purpose of storing her wand.
"Your wand?" Hepzibah had asked. "Hermione, dear, you have no reason to bring your wand to events like these. We've been invited, we'll be ushered in without issue—besides, it breaks a sort of unspoken social protocol. Bringing a wand to a gala with high security and an entire staff would be like taking a knife to the opera. Leave it here."
Well, Hermione would sooner drink basilisk venom that be potentially anywhere near Tom Riddle without a wand handy. She'd crafted herself a garter out of some fabric and secured it to her thigh, enchanting it with a non-slipping spell before sliding her wand in it. It was completely concealed by her dress, but if Hermione needed it, it was easy to get to.
…Not that she'd told Hepzibah as much. Hermione smiled innocently at her as their limo driver got out to open the door for them. He was a short, fat old wizard with a bushy mustache. "Miss Smith and Miss Smith," he said, bowing his head as he greeted them. He then opened the back door, and Hermione's jaw dropped.
It was fabulous.
The limousine was enchanted to be much larger on the inside, which was preposterous, really, as limos were already roomy. Floating lights that were like smaller versions of fairies were floating around inside, making it look like the heavens were contained within a car. They illuminated the leather seats and made the currently empty champagne glasses which sat on the armrest shine brilliantly.
"What do you think?" Hepzibah asked, clearly relishing Hermione's expression.
Hermione composed herself. She was supposed to be at least somewhat used to this finery, even if she had made it seem as though her fake mother was not as interested in decadence as Hepzibah was. "I think it's lovely," she said.
"Only half as lovely as us," Hepzibah said, motioning for Hermione to climb in before her. The driver closed the door behind them, and immediately a bottle of champagne came out of a compartment, magically hovering as it filled the two empty glasses on its own. They flew into Hermione's and Hepzibah's outstretched hands. "And if you think this is marvelous," Hepzibah said, clinking her glass to Hermione's, "just you wait until we get to the gala."
The champagne was light and sweet. Hermione was only slightly disappointed with herself that she felt equally bubbly with excitement.
Chapter 11: The Golden Man
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
He was waiting for her exactly one week later.
Right at seven o’clock, Hermione found him, yet again, in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic. Draco Lucius Malfoy—and, for once, he was not under the influence of Polyjuice Potion. His hair was its characteristic white-blonde, his eyes were light and silvery. He was standing with his arms crossed, continually looking over his shoulders and tapping his foot anxiously. Hermione smiled.
Twitchy little ferret.
Draco spotted her the moment she stepped out of the lift. He made a beeline straight for her, eyes bright with expectation. "Well?" he said, skipping a greeting altogether.
He didn't need to elaborate; Hermione knew what he was asking.
A week ago, she had tried to convince herself to let this drop. To not research this. To not stay after work and look once more into Dumbledore's Pensieve which shimmered and swirled with memories of Tom Marvolo Riddle.
…The temptation had been too great.
Hermione had never been one to deny herself knowledge, and besides, what was the harm in looking? She could study a few memories without committing to anything. There was nothing wrong with a bit of extra information.
But as the days went by and she watched more and more, as she nonchalantly asked the Perpetual Unspeakables who worked in the Time Department questions as they went about repairing the damage from years ago…
Hermione looked at Draco's hopeful expression, with his truthful, pointed features and wide eyes. She jerked her head towards the fireplaces, motioning for him to follow her. He beamed.
"Let's talk, Malfoy."
They stepped out of the limo into sheer decadence.
Hermione and Hepzibah were far from the only ones to arrive in an ostentatious, enchanted form of transportation. Magically influenced limousines seemed to be a favorite, but there were also sleek and brightly colored cars, as well as a few glorious looking carriages—one of which was being pulled by unicorns. Hermione gaped at them, wondering if that was legal in this time and how they had enchanted the creatures to make them undetectable to muggles.
The questions were gone from her mind nearly the moment she had them. Hermione was distracted by the flashing lights of cameras and crowds of people outside of the arts center where the gala was being held. There were witches and wizards everywhere, and Hepzibah had been correct—it was a sea of little black dresses and masculine dress robes in black and white, men in top hats and women in silk gloves and high heels.
Hermione stood out, to say the least.
Where most witches wore black, Hermione Smith was draped in a long gown of gold; where most of the women sported the short, stylish bobs that were so fitting of this era, Hermione's hair was pinned and braided and adorned with golden roses. She got more than her fair share of looks as they ascended the stairs towards the entryway, but Hermione did not think they were bad. Cameras flashed in their direction when they approached the doors. Under Hepzibah's prompting, Hermione smiled prettily, posing with her aunt for a reporter.
When a wizard working as a guard held the door to the arts center open for them, Hermione's jaw dropped.
The atrium was packed with people, all dressed in their finest, but it was not the witches and wizards that had Hermione astounded. The atmosphere was superb. Fairies were everywhere, illuminating the space in their jewel-colored lights; shining trays of delicious looking appetizers and full champagne flutes floated through the crowd, where people would grab a drink as they passed; and there was a massive bar set up in the back where Hermione saw a few wizards gathered, requesting hard liquor or other drinks which were made upon request by bartenders in crisp white shirts and bowties.
"Hepzibah, my dear—it has been too long!"
An older gentleman spotted them when they'd only taken a few steps into the atrium, greeting Hepzibah with a swift kiss to her cheek. His beady eyes then went to Hermione, where he looked both delighted and surprised to see her arm linked around Hepzibah's. "And who might this charming young lady be?"
Hepzibah began introducing her as her niece from America, only to need to start explaining her presence in Britain all over again once a few other witches and wizards whom Hepzibah knew arrived. Hermione shook hands and smiled and was introduced to far too many people far too quickly—all older witches and wizards, with names like Nott and Abbot, greetings accompanied by genial smiles and sympathetic looks as Hepzibah explained why Hermione was here in London.
It was incredible how flawless her story unfolded coming from Hepzibah's lips. Hermione's pride at her ability to create false memories intensified as Hepzibah talked briefly about her wayward sister, the one she rarely mentioned because Monica Smith had left to go to America, who had died tragically from Dragon Pox not so long ago…
It was the sort of conversation no one wanted to have at a party, so, thankfully, no one asked for details about Monica Smith. They were far more interested in Hermione, her beautiful and lovely daughter—how was it that she had no American accent, what was Ilvermorny like, and wherever did she get such a lovely dress?
"I daresay we'll have plenty of time to talk at dinner," Hepzibah had interrupted, perhaps sensing Hermione's aversion to so much attention at once. "We're seated together, I already checked the charts, and my darling niece can indulge you in all of your curiosities about her torrid American lifestyle while we eat—but I was hoping to show her around the arts center first. And, with any luck, finally manage to grab a drink!"
Hepzibah's friends laughed good-naturedly. "Of course," said one of the women—Rachel Abbot, Hermione thought. "I'm sure they'll be ushering us into the hall for dinner any minute now. We'll see you shortly."
Hermione internally sighed as Hepzibah guided her away from her throng of elderly peers. "Sorry about that, dearie," she murmured as they wove through the crowd in the opposite direction. "That lot can be rather demanding, it's just in their nature, old bats… Not that I can blame them for being so interested in you, of course."
A tray full of champagne glasses hovered past them, and Hepzibah deftly grabbed two of them and handed one to Hermione. "Finally," she said. "Thought we'd never get our hands on some!"
She clinked her glass to Hermione's. Hermione smiled, and was just about to take a sip when she nearly dropped her glass. "Oh my goodness," she gasped in disbelief.
She knew that man. That slicked back, white-blonde hair, those silvery eyes, those familiar, pointed features. But how? Had he come for her, had he somehow acquired another Time-Turner? Was he here to save her and bring her back to their time?
Hepzibah followed Hermione's stunned gaze and made a low sound of understanding. "Ah… Yes. Abraxas Malfoy."
Abraxas Malfoy. Hermione nearly laughed. Of course that was not Draco.
It was his grandfather…
He looked so much like his future grandson that it was uncanny. He was currently surrounded by a group of witches and a wizard his own age, all of whom were dressed lavishly and laughing, drinks in hand.
Hermione took a sip of champagne, willing her racing heart to slow. She did not know Abraxas Malfoy. Hermione Smith, young witch from New York, had never met a Malfoy. She knew nothing about his family. "Sorry," she murmured. "I just… thought he looked familiar for a moment."
"I wouldn't be surprised. He's rather… notorious," Hepzibah said, grinning. Her voice lowered, and she leaned into Hermione when she spoke next. "He's the most sought-after bachelor in Wizarding Britain and the sole heir to the Malfoy family fortune. His mother passed away when he was a child, and after his father died a few years ago, it left him to inherit an ungodly amount of gold—as well as a massive manor—all to himself. He's quite the philanthropist though; donates money to all sorts of things, from non-profits like WAG to various departments at the Ministry… Always hanging around the Ministry, just like his father used to…"
Hermione smirked. Evidently, the men in the Malfoy family had a long history of popping in and out of the Ministry of Magic.
"Witch Weekly published an interview with him a few months ago," Hepzibah went on. "Focusing largely on his status of being single, of course… He was rather blunt in the interview about his desire to stay unattached for the time being. Doesn't look as though he has a date with him tonight, either…"
Hepzibah craned her neck to get a better look, and Hermione couldn't help but do the same. Abraxas Malfoy did not seem to have any one specific witch on his arm, but he looked right at home holding court with a group of them, all of whom fluttered their lashes at him and smiled flirtatiously.
"But there, to his left, do you see the gentleman with the dark blonde hair?" Hermione nodded—he was the only other man in the group. "That's Irving Lestrange and his fiancé, Victoria Rosier. Just got engaged a few weeks ago, it was in the Prophet. And I don't know most of those witches pining over Mr. Malfoy there, but the one with the black hair looks familiar…"
Surprisingly, Hermione had thought the exact same thing—the witch with bright red lipstick and dark hair let out a laugh that carried even in the loud and bustling hall. Her face was so pug-like that she simply had to be an ancestor of Pansy Parkinson. Hermione knew she should not harbor any ill-will towards this woman she'd never spoken to, but she couldn't help the feeling of spite that festered in her mind when she looked at her.
She tore her eyes away from her to examine Irving Lestrange again. As she looked more closely, she could see it—he was one of the boys from Slughorn's memories, one which Dumbledore had collected and left in his Pensieve long ago… Lestrange had sat with several other Slytherins in Slughorn's office, casting Tom Riddle admiring looks…
Hermione wondered if this was Rodolphus's father, or uncle, perhaps…
So, these were two of the future Dark Lord's current, most prominent followers, Hermione thought as she looked between him and Abraxas. The Knights of Walpurgis, at the moment… Unless they had already been renamed…?
Abraxas happened to look up and catch Hermione's eye. Hermione looked away, blushing and cursing herself for having been caught ogling him so blatantly. Even stupider still, she chanced looking at him again a moment later, unable to stop herself.
He was still staring straight at her.
He smiled.
"I think Mr. Malfoy noticed you," Hepzibah said astutely, touching Hermione's elbow.
"Don't be silly," said Hermione, yet she hoped that Hepzibah was right. Hermione had every intention of catching the attention of Riddle's followers… and Abraxas Malfoy, supposed notorious bachelor and sole heir to the Malfoy fortune, had just made the very top of her list.
She turned her back to the young, sophisticated group of witches and wizards. Hepzibah smiled amusedly, but before she could say anything a voice reverberated in the atrium, announcing that cocktail hour was over and instructing everyone to move into the main hall for dinner.
"I hope you won't feel too attacked by my… associates while we eat," Hepzibah said as she once more hooked her arm through Hermione's. Empty trays were now hovering all around, and Hermione and Hepzibah deposited their empty champagne flutes on one as it passed. They then followed the crowd into the room where two large double doors opened before them.
The dining hall was even more spectacular than the atrium, filled with fairies and chandelier lights and luxurious drapes hanging from the ceiling. There were dozens of tables with name cards on them, all set with gleaming silverware which was currently empty. In the back was a stage, where Hermione assumed the live auction would soon be happening. "Especially that Walden," Hepzibah went on. "He's on the board for WAG and just loves to pick people's brains; I daresay he'll have a thousand questions for you about Ilvermorny…"
Hermione nodded, only half-listening as she scanned the crowds. She had not seen Riddle yet. Was he not in attendance? She frowned, spotting Abraxas Malfoy and Irving Lestrange as they took their seats at a table behind them. Irving's fiancé, Victoria Rosier, sat with them, as did another wizard that Hermione vaguely recognized. Avery, that was the Avery boy from the same memory in which she had seen Lestrange, but Hermione did not know his first name… Three future Death Eaters then, all at one table…
No Riddle.
Not wanting to get caught staring again, Hermione turned to face the table which Hepzibah had led her to. A name card which read 'Hermione Smith' written in elegant script sat atop a golden plate, next to 'Hepzibah Smith'. Smiling, Hermione and Hepzibah took their seats, and within moments the rest of their table had joined them.
Hermione was by far the youngest witch at the table. The rest were around Hepzibah's own age—her 'associates' as she had called them—all major donors to the Wizarding Artists Guild, board members, or art collectors. And while they were friendly enough, Hepzibah had been right about their fascination with Hermione. They'd barely sat down before Walden Travers began assaulting Hermione with questions about her life in New York, and everyone else was just as intrigued. Hermione was simply glad she'd done her research and was able to answer all their questions convincingly.
Dinner manifested itself on their plates in a manner which was reminiscent of the feasts at Hogwarts—seared salmon, chicken farro risotto, arabica crusted steak, black pepper fettuccini—whatever they had selected with their RSVP appeared before them, and one of their glasses filled with water. But they each had a wine glass as well, and Hermione watched in mild confusion as Walden—who had just asked her if it was true if the pukwudgie statue fired an arrow at the students it wanted—picked his empty glass up.
"Pinot noir," he said into his goblet, and instantly it filled with red wine. All around the hall Hermione saw other witches and wizards doing the same, their glasses filling with the drink of their choice.
She might not have followed suit—she wanted to keep a clear head, after all—had Walden not given her a large, toothy grin and all but shoved her own glass into her hand. "You simply must try the pinot, I convinced the head caterer to serve this brand, it's a made in the Burgundy region of France, best there is."
He took a large drink and Hermione immediately knew she would not be taking him up on his suggestion—his mouth was already stained purple. "I think I ought to stick to champagne," she said, smiling demurely. "Red wine doesn't always agree with me."
Her glass immediately filled with a light and bubbly liquid. "They do say it's smart to stick with one sort of drink," Walden said, shrugging. "But I've never had an issue! Anyway, about this pukwudgie…"
As the dinner went on, Hermione found herself becoming more and more comfortable in the high-heeled shoes of Hermione Smith. She had discreetly checked as many tables in the hall as she could, and confirmed that no, Tom Riddle was not present. She wondered why this was the case. His closest 'friends' were in attendance; surely he could have acquired an invitation? Perhaps he was simply not interested in coming to an art auction. Perhaps he thought it a waste of time.
Or, perhaps, Hermione mused darkly, considering this was happening early on a Tuesday evening… Perhaps he simply had to work.
Whatever the reasoning, Tom Marvolo Riddle was not here. This had disappointed Hermione at first, but once she knew with certainty that she would not be confronting the future Dark Lord this evening, Hermione was able to relax. His absence would make it easier to focus on catching the interest of his present, almost equally important followers.
Hermione held court nearly all through dinner. It was almost too easy to pretend to be an American witch with a British mother and aunt, and no one suspected that a thing was amiss as she shared with them silly anecdotes of her Ilvermorny days that simply did not happen.
"Well, it sounds like a superb school, but I'm afraid no other institution can hold a candle to Hogwarts," said Walden's wife, a witch named Esmerelda who had light blue eyes and beautiful, silver hair. "It's an amazing castle, Hermione. If you ever get the opportunity to visit Hogwarts, you should. Headmaster Dippet may even allow visitors during breaks and such."
"That sounds lovely," Hermione murmured, though her stomach twisted uncomfortably. As wonderful as it would be to see Hogwarts again, she had no intention of returning to the castle.
"Isn't he here?" Hepzibah asked. "Armando usually comes to these things—ah, yes, there he is, way up there, at the table on the left side of the stage."
Hermione followed her aunt's finger to look behind her, and nearly dropped her glass for the second time that evening. It was not Armando Dippet, current Headmaster of Hogwarts that startled her so—but the man he was speaking to.
There was no doubt in her mind that that was Albus Dumbledore.
His hair was ginger rather than white, and unlike most of the wizards who wore black or dark-colored dress robes, Albus Dumbledore was wearing robes of vibrant fuchsia... And next to him was a slew of other witches and wizards she recognized: Elphias Doge, the small wizard who had spoken at Dumbledore's funeral; Horace Slughorn, slightly less round and with hair that was blonde rather than gray; and was that Bathilda Bagshot? It was difficult to tell, seeing as the one and only time Hermione had seen Bathilda she had technically been dead, her body occupied by a venomous, massive snake—but this woman did resemble that particular animated corpse if she tilted her head just so.
Hermione wondered how on earth she had missed Dumbledore in his bright clothes before in her careful scanning of the hall—perhaps he had arrived later, or been in the bathroom when she'd looked that way? Or maybe she had just been that intent on looking specifically for Riddle, that she had completely overlooked such notable and familiar faces. Regardless, it was definitely Dumbledore, Slughorn, Dippet, and Doge who sat at together, looking cheery as they ate their dinner and drank wine.
"Oh, that's the Transfiguration Professor at Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore," Hepzibah explained, surely noting Hermione’s expression. "Absolutely brilliant wizard."
"I know who Albus Dumbledore is," Hermione said, because she would know if she were a well-read witch of this time. She turned away from his table as though she feared Dumbledore might suddenly make eye contact with her from across the hall, know at once what she was, and theatrically scream ‘Time traveler!' for all the world to hear.
But they do not know me, Hermione reminded herself, breathing deeply. They have never seen me before, no one will recognize Hermione Smith…
"Of course she knows who Albus Dumbledore is!" Walden shouted incredulously. "Half the world knows who he is! He defeated Grindelwald in the finest duel this world has ever seen!"
"You'll have to forgive his enthusiasm; my Walden's a bit biased with his affections towards Dumbledore," said Esmerelda, rolling her eyes at her husband. "Walden was a Gryffindor, and Albus Dumbledore was a few years older than him in the same house."
"You say that as though there is something wrong with being a Gryffindor," Hermione said, smirking as she took another sip of champagne.
"Oh, there's nothing wrong with being a Gryffindor, of course!" said Esmerelda. "They just tend to be a bit brash is all. I was a Ravenclaw, myself."
"Had her nose in a book ninety percent of the time I saw her," Walden said. "I had to drag her out of the library some days to see the sunlight. The only reason she ever noticed me was because I literally pried a book out of her hands to ask if she'd go with me to Hogsmeade."
"I supposed Gryffindor recklessness is good for some things," said Esmerelda.
The older couple shared a fond, tender look, and Hermione wasn't sure if she found it beautiful or sickening, how in love this older couple clearly was.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" The booming voice from before resounded throughout the hall, only now its source was clear. A young, charismatic wizard in dress robes and a top hat nearly as bright as Dumbledore's clothing (only his were aqua rather than fuchsia, and sparkling with rhinestones) walked onto the stage, smiling widely. "Our live auction is about to begin, and I shall be your M.C., your Master of Ceremonies, your auctioneer, your host, your humble servant—whatever you'd like me to be! Your plates will vanish shortly, but fear not! Your goblets shall remain, ever overflowing!"
The crowd laughed. Hermione did as well, taking another sip of champagne and setting her glass down, switching to water for the time being. She was excited. Hermione had never attended a live auction before, let alone a wizarding one.
The plates and silverware vanished, and in their places appeared paddles with numbers on them. Hermione stared down at hers—number twenty-two—and saw that Hepzibah's was labeled as number twenty-one.
"Does everyone bid at these things?" Hermione asked quietly.
"Oh no, of course not," Hepzibah answered under her breath. "Though it is fun to just watch, especially when a good bidding war breaks out."
"And now, the entertainment you have all been waiting for—aside from the charming aesthetic of my voice—the art!"
The host in the aqua, rhinestone attire gestured to one side with his wand, and a large landscape painting came hovering out. Birds fluttered across a canvas decorated in cherry blossom trees before a setting sun. "Done by the emerging artist Emily Lesterfield, a work titled 'May', a beautiful piece, truly—it would look right at home above a lavish mantelpiece or fireplace if I do say so myself—shall we start the bidding at, say, one hundred galleons? Ah, yes, the very first bid of the evening, thank you, number fourteen—I have one hundred, do I have one-ten? Yes, two one over here—and now one twenty, thank you, ma'am—"
Hermione watched as paddle after paddle went up, the announcer darting back and forth across the stage and glistening like an aqua disco ball as he moved, pointing and speaking impressively fast. His enchanted voice was amplified so that he did not need a microphone, and he was half the show, really, aside from the actual bidding that was going on. Each time an artwork was won, he shouted 'SOLD' at the top of his lungs, and sparks of brilliant colors went flying from the tip of his wand, showering the stage in a cascade of lights.
Artwork after artwork was brought out on the stage, mostly magical paintings but also the occasional sculpture which moved. Dumbledore had a short bidding war with a young witch over a bronze sculpture of a phoenix, which was amazing in that it started as an egg and transformed into a bird when tapped with a wand. Tapped again, and it became an egg once more. Dumbledore ultimately won the piece. Hermione was hardly surprised.
She kept looking at Hepzibah out of the corner of her eye to see if anything interested her, but nothing seemed to. Hermione was content to simply watch, alternating between sipping water and champagne, enjoying herself probably too much for something so ostentatious. Soon the auction would come to an end, and then, in the mingling which would occur afterward, was when she would need to get to work.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, our last piece of the evening…"
One final painting was brought to the stage, and Hermione was instantly enamored.
She had never considered herself much of an art lover. She appreciated it, sure, but Hermione had never seen a magical painting that made her stop and think, wow.
This one managed that feat.
It was a painted representation of a child in a garden. A girl, maybe four or five years old. She was sitting on the ground in front of a rose bush. It was dying; the leaves were black, the flowers were wilting, their petals nearly all fallen off. The girl held her little hands up to one of the dying roses and scrunched her face up, hard. Then, magically, the petals floated up from the ground and reattached themselves, and soon the rose and the blackened leaves around it were as good as new.
Then it started all over again. Petals falling and dwindling; a child's expression of sadness, determination, and delight. One moment, it looked like she was saving the rose bush, bringing the petals and leaves back to life. The next, it looked like she was the cause of its death; petals falling and leaves turning from green to black.
Killing, saving. Killing, saving.
It wasn't just what the painting depicted that had Hermione so in awe of it though—it was how it was painted. Everything was so… dramatic. The shadows were dark and the red of the petals so vibrant when they were all attached to a thorny stem. The girl's dress was white and lovely but smeared in dirt and grass stains like she had gone through hell on earth in lace to make it to that dying rose. Her eyes were bright and her hair a frizzy mess, and her face, her cherubic face was so full of contrasting emotion.
"'The Garden', a beautiful piece by Delilah Labarbera, an artist who has been practicing here in London for several years, previously located in Italy…"
"Wow," Hermione gasped after a moment, hardly hearing what the announcer was saying.
"You like it?" Hepzibah said, one brow raised.
"It's lovely," said Hermione.
Hepzibah looked at Hermione, then to the painting, then back to Hermione. "All right, then," she said simply. "Let's win it."
"Really?"
"Yes… but here." She handed Hermione her own paddle, which Hepzibah herself had not raised once. "Use mine."
"Why me?"
Hepzibah smiled slyly. "You'll put on a better show than I will."
Hermione was about to ask what that meant when the announcer said, "Do I have two hundred as a starting bid?"
Hepzibah gave her a pointed look, and, reacting instinctively, Hermione's arm shot up in the air with the practice of one who often raised her hand first in a large group setting. "Excellent! Two hundred to the lovely lady in gold! Do I have two ten—? Yes, sir! Two ten to number forty-one—"
Hermione's eyes narrowed, turning to see who had bid against her. The glower slid from her face when she locked eyes with none other than Abraxas Malfoy.
He smiled at her.
"Do I have two twenty?"
Hermione gave Hepzibah a questioning look. Hepzibah was grinning wickedly. "Let's take him to the cleaners," she said.
Hermione's arm once more shot into the air, her paddle raised high.
A battle began.
A few other people bid in the beginning, but they were out of the game quickly enough. Five hundred, five-fifty, six hundred galleons. Hermione tried to think of what that converted to in pounds and what that equated to in the year 1950, and simply knew that it was a lot. She also knew that Hepzibah had gold to spare, and though she probably should have been a little more concerned in terms of spending her fake aunt's money on a painting, she wasn't. Hepzibah only egged her on, and Hermione knew that this was probably the perfect way to meet someone like Abraxas Malfoy and make a lasting impression.
Everyone was watching with amazement as this unknown young woman, one who was sitting at a table of much older witches and wizards, went toe to toe in a bidding war against Abraxas Malfoy, most sought after bachelor in wizarding Britain. He and Hermione shared little smirks as the price of the painting continued to go up, up, up, and Hermione had to wonder if Abraxas really cared about artwork in the slightest. He hadn't bid on a single other piece all evening, after all…
He was flirting with her, she realized. This was the most expensive, competitive form of flirting the world had ever seen.
Leave it to a Malfoy, Hermione thought as she raised her paddle again, setting the price at a bewildering six-hundred and eighty galleons.
The host was beside himself at how high the cost of the painting had risen. He was quite amusing to watch, now referring to Abraxas Malfoy as 'the Golden Man', presumably because of his hair, and Hermione as 'the Golden Lady', obviously because of her dress. Everyone was enjoying the spectacle, gasping and cheering as the price continued to skyrocket, but as it neared eight hundred galleons, Hepzibah started to look concerned.
"I don't think he's going to let us win, Auntie," Hermione murmured as Abraxas raised his paddle again, where his peers surrounding him smiled and cheered.
"I think you might be right," Hepzibah responded.
The host noticed Hermione's hesitation and the whispering going on at her table. "What's this? Is the Golden Lady throwing in the towel? Abandoning such a lovely work of art, so delicately crafted? Why, it's a one-of-a-kind piece, you'll find nothing like it elsewhere—"
Hepzibah sighed and gave Hermione a little nod, as though to say 'one more bid'. Hermione lifted the paddle to cheers from her table, the price of the painting now at an even eight hundred galleons.
"Do I have eight ten, my good, Golden Man?"
Hermione turned to face him. Abraxas was looking at her intently, the slightest smile on his lips. He looked so much like Draco that Hermione could have sworn for a moment that it was him, having spotted her from across the vacant atrium of the Ministry, waiting.
But then he did something that Draco Malfoy would have never done. He inclined his head slightly as though in acquiescence, and he set his paddle down on the table as he did. The girl who resembled Parkinson stuck her lower lip out, then shot Hermione a venomous look. Hermione smiled brightly at her, gave Abraxas a small nod of her own, and turned back around to face the host. Hepzibah was positively beaming.
"My, it seems that the he is out of the race! Are you quite sure? I could do this all night—no, really, I've had so many pepper-up potions I don't think I'll be able to sleep for a week—no? Going once—going twice—I mean it now, this is the real thing, this is not a drill—going for a third time…. SOLD!"
A jet of golden sparks fired from the tip of his wand, covering the stage in a shower of gilded stars. Hermione feared he might set the painting on fire with how many there were, but then she saw them pass right through the frame and realized they must have been illusory bits of light all along.
"Oh, excellent!" Walden said, touching Hermione's shoulder and looking to Hepzibah. "Well done!"
"Wonderful acquisition," said Rachel Abbot, who was sitting across the table from them.
"I'll say," added Esmerelda. But she was not looking at Hermione nor the painting, which was now being hovered off stage, but at Abraxas Malfoy. She then shared a knowing look with Hepzibah, both of whom were smirking.
Hermione was giddy with excitement. "Oh, that was exhilarating!" she declared, dropping the paddle and picking up her champagne. Perhaps it was just all the hand-raising which had resulted in something far better than house points, but she felt exceptionally delighted. "I can't believe I just spent so much of your money on a painting though, Auntie!"
"Consider it your birthday present, dearie," Hepzibah said, smiling.
"How will we get it? Do we have to pick it up now?"
"Oh, no, they have a delivery system, it will be brought to my house later this week… once I send them the gold, of course…"
The host had finished giving his thanks to the crowd as they'd talked, exiting the stage and asking everyone to please move back into the atrium where more drinks as well as dessert would be served. All around them people stood, and as Hermione got to her feet, she felt a rush of warmth and dizziness overcome her.
"Are you all right, dear?" Walden said, offering her his hand. Hermione didn't take it, and though the dizziness subsided, she did still feel a bit… off.
"I'm fine," she murmured.
"Probably just a bit too much champagne," Esmerelda said. "I know I overdid my first time at one of these things. They do make it easy…"
"But I didn't even…"
Hermione's voice trailed off. She was about to say, 'but I didn't even finish that glass', when, looking around, she saw that no one had. Everyone at her table had been drinking the whole time, but never once had they needed to repeat their drink request into the glass, nor had waiters been weaving through tables, refilling them…
'Your goblets shall remain, ever overflowing!'
The host hadn't been making a joke. The glasses had been magically refilling themselves the whole time.
Oh dear, Hermione thought, torn between being angry at herself and a bit annoyed at Hepzibah. Why hadn't she realized that was what was happening? How much had she drunk? And why hadn't her protective, fake aunt warned her?
Because you're Hermione Smith, her niece from New York who has grown up equally wealthy her entire life. Surely she assumed that you'd attended one social function like this? Surely she did not think she needed to tell her twenty-one-year-old niece not to be an idiot?
Hermione grabbed her water glass and drank deeply.
As they made their way back to the atrium, she realized it might not be as bad as she thought. She didn't feel drunk, just a bit… tipsy, and she could easily blame her less than perfect coordination on these damn heels. Her mind felt lucid enough, at any rate.
She was fine.
The moment they settled into the post-dinner cocktail party, where trays of fancy pastries and other sweets hovered everywhere, being snatched up by the people they passed, Hermione was bombarded by people she did not know. Random wizards and witches—only some of whom were familiar with Hepzibah—congratulated her on her purchase and made comments on what good taste she had. Hermione smiled and thanked them, carefully keeping an eye out for particular faces.
It was just as Walden once more forced her into a conversation about Ilvermorny—this time, asking if they had an art collection or classes like Hogwarts did—when Hermione once more made eye contact with Abraxas Malfoy. This time, he was the one caught staring at her. He was currently speaking with Horace Slughorn. Upon seeing that his ex-student's attention was no longer on him, Slughorn turned and saw who he was staring at. Hermione turned away.
"Hogwarts has several art clubs, you know," Walden was saying, and Hermione nodded distractedly. "Both magical and the muggle kind, can you believe it? It's an odd tradition, but they find that learning how to paint the muggle way makes it easier to learn magical techniques."
"Is that right," Hermione murmured before drinking more water.
"Indeed! Some of the finest artists in wizarding Britain are muggle-borns."
"I would say that's arguable, Mr. Travers."
Hermione knew who it was before she even looked. She'd hoped this would be the moment that he would come to her, and she had been correct.
Up close, the differences between Abraxas Malfoy and Draco were more obvious. Abraxas's jawline was not as pointed, his nose not as long, and Hermione did not recall Draco being quite as tall. His steely eyes were the same though, and when he smiled, it was with a similar, mischievous quality to it. He was looking at Walden when he first appeared at Hermione's side, addressing the old man when he continued, saying, "The best artists in wizarding Britain are those who were raised to understand the complex, underlying magical techniques first. Like the renowned portrait artist Altair Black, who has been commissioned to do every painting of the Hogwarts Headmasters since he turned sixteen."
He turned his attention to Hermione before Walden could respond. "The Golden Lady," he said, calling her by the same name the host had given her.
"The Golden Man," Hermione responded in kind.
Hepzibah looked back and forth between the two. "Walden, won't you come with me to find your wife?” she said. “I think she's gone over there, by the bar…"
And without another word, Hepzibah had ushered Walden away, leaving Hermione to speak with Abraxas Malfoy alone.
Or as alone as two people could be, in the middle of such a large crowd. Hermione was simply relieved that he had come alone, not bringing his friends with him—or worse, Horace Slughorn. "You acquired a lovely work of art this evening," Abraxas said. He had a glass of some hard liquor in his hands, which he raised towards her in a toast.
"Only because you allowed me to win," said Hermione.
"Does it really matter how someone won, if, at the end of the day, they've acquired their heart's desire?"
Oh, he's good, Hermione thought as Abraxas gave her a charming smile. Very good.
But will he transpire to be as good as Riddle?
"That depends. In this particular instance, I would say yes, it does matter… Now I'll always look at that painting and remember the golden-haired man that allowed me to win it."
"How very unfortunate for you," Abraxas said, his smile widening. He offered her his hand. "My name is Malfoy, Abraxas Malfoy. You might have heard of me."
Hermione resisted the urge to laugh, and instead allowed him to take her hand. "Hermione Smith," she responded as he kissed her knuckles. "You shall have to forgive me; I'm new to London, so no, I haven't heard of you."
Rather than look offended, Abraxas appeared pleased. "I thought that might be the case. I'm certain I would have noticed someone like you before… So, Miss Smith. What brings you to London? Where are you from?"
Hermione launched into her story, sensing that she was gaining Abraxas's interest with every word she spoke. Hepzibah Smith's niece from America, wealthy, beautiful, pureblood witch… Completely unknown territory, just exotic enough to be frightfully interesting; so different from the other witches he surely had pining over him all the time here in London…
Abraxas had just begun to talk about his beautiful manor when the booming voice interrupted him. The host announced that the gala was coming to an end. The guards would soon be ushering them out, escorting them to their various forms of magical transportation or, if they preferred, seeing them to an activated floo outlet.
"The floo," Abraxas said amusedly. An empty tray hovered by, and he and Hermione both set their glasses on it. "These events are rather funny in that aspect. Nearly everyone shows up in some extravagant carriage or something, only to be too intoxicated to bother with it for the journey home. The floo isn't as fun, but it is efficient."
Indeed, they could see witches and wizards stumbling into the atrium now, where fireplaces that had been concealed by the massive bar were now visible. They disappeared in flashes of green, their departures supervised by the guards stationed by each one.
"I'm surprised no one is apparating," Hermione murmured. Abraxas laughed like she had just made a joke.
"Can you imagine? If this too-drunk crowd all had their wands on them and decided to try apparating home? The walkway outside would be littered in body parts; it'd be a nightmare."
Hermione blushed, realizing how true that was. Apparating was difficult enough to do with a wand and sober, and some people never got the hang of it at all.
"Do you plan on taking the floo home?" Hermione asked curiously. She had a suspicion that the carriage with unicorns might belong to him.
"Well, yes, actually, but that's only because I'm having—"
"Abraxas!" The witch who so resembled Pansy appeared, and behind her a few others, including Irving Lestrange, Victoria Rosier, and Avery. "There you are! Are we still going to your manor?"
She then noticed Hermione, and shot her an ugly look. "Of course," said Abraxas. "Ah, Miss Smith, this is my good friend Alice Parkinson. And here, Marie Greengrass, Adam Avery, Irving Lestrange, and his fiancé, Victoria Rosier. Everyone, this is the Golden Lady, otherwise known as…"
Alice Parkinson came as no surprise to Hermione, who had the same nose and hair as Pansy. Marie Greengrass was a very short, petite blonde with green eyes that were dark and mysterious; Adam Avery was a brunette man with a bit of a babyface, and Victoria Rosier was tall, curvy, and absolutely gorgeous, with light brown hair and blue eyes like a summer's day sky.
"Hermione Smith," Hermione finished, not taking any offense to the fact that Abraxas had not recalled it. "I know, it's a bit of an odd name."
As she said it, she realized that maybe remaining Hermione in this era had been a stupid idea. It was an uncommon name. Perhaps she should have gone with something else…
Well, it was too late now. "I think it's pretty," Marie Greengrass said, shaking her hand first. "And I simply adore your dress," she added, smiling.
"It's very… unconventional," Alice Parkinson said, not in a friendly manner. Hermione wasn't sure if she was referring to her name or the dress. She shook Hermione's hand like it pained her.
The others seemed kind enough though. Hermione found Victoria the most intimidating of all of them; in her heels, she was just a bit taller than her fiancé. Irving had a handsome face and dirty blonde, curly hair, but his smile was warm and friendly, and Adam Avery seemed far too eager to kiss her hand, smiling toothily at her after he did.
The host's voice once more instructed them, in a less patient tone, to please leave the arts center. Hepzibah found her way over to Hermione, where she noted the crowd around her and smiled.
"Miss Smith," Abraxas greeted her at once. Hermione wondered when and how they had met. Had Hepzibah known Abraxas's father before he passed? "Lovely to see you."
"You as well," Hepzibah said curtly. "But it would seem the evening has come to an end. Come along, Hermione. Our limousine is waiting."
"Actually," Abraxas said, smoothly stepping in front of Hermione before Hepzibah could take her arm, "I was just about to invite your niece to come to my manor. I'm having a bit of an after-party; many of my friends who were unable to attend the gala shall be there—Oliver Macnair, for example, had another engagement and so he had to decline his invitation to this, as well as a few others—but Hermione mentioned that she was new to England, and I would love to introduce her to some of London's finest."
His smile was perfectly charming. Hepzibah looked conflicted, but Hermione knew that this was a perfect opportunity. Many of his friends who were unable to attend, hm?
"Oh, can't I, Auntie?" she pleaded. "He was just telling me about his manor, and it sounds simply divine."
"It truly must be seen to be appreciated," Abraxas agreed.
Hepzibah continued to look torn for a moment, but then she gave in. Hermione could tell that Hepzibah secretly wanted her to go, and was merely putting on a bit of a protective show.
Clearly, while shop boys working in shady stores in Knockturn Alley were nowhere near good enough for her precious niece… this was not the case for someone like Abraxas Malfoy.
"Oh, all right," she said. "But do have her home before midnight, won't you? I'll be up all night worrying about her if she's not."
"Of course," Abraxas said.
Hepzibah gave Hermione a swift kiss on the cheek. "Be safe, dearie," she said, and then, a bit quieter, "I mean it, be home by midnight. And don't hesitate to call for Hokey if you need anything."
"I assure you, you have nothing to worry about in concerns for your niece's safety while she is with me," said Abraxas, offering Hermione his arm. Hermione waved goodbye and Hepzibah watched them walk away with a smile on her face; Alice Parkinson glowered when their elbows linked and began whispering behind her hand to Marie Greengrass.
Hermione ignored them. They made their way to the fireplaces on the far side of the atrium, which were continually lighting up with green flames as more witches and wizards departed, supervised by guards. Hermione discreetly grazed her free hand over the fabric of her dress as they walked, where she could just barely feel it—the reassuring presence of her wand held securely against her thigh.
She could do this.
Abraxas looked at Hermione with another charming smile and, just as he reached for a handful of floo powder, said, "There's no safer place on earth than Malfoy Manor."
Chapter 12: Malfoy Manor
Chapter Text
Hermione stepped out of the whirling green flames and blinked in the brightness of her new surroundings. Her eyes adjusted, focusing first on the polished, marble floor on which her heels made a sharp clicking sound. She then looked up. Hermione's breath caught. In the glittering of a great chandelier, she saw horror. In the flickering of an ephemeral rainbow shining in a crystal, there was a nightmare.
"Wait… All except… except for the mudblood."
Dark, heavily lidded eyes bored into hers, gleaming mercilessly.
"No! You can have me, keep me!"
Ron's cries were met with a resounding blow to his face. The sound echoed in the drawing room; everyone standing there, even the Malfoys, winced as though they too had been struck.
Bellatrix Lestrange was a force to behold.
"If she dies under questioning, I'll take you next. Blood traitor is next to mudblood in my book…"
Hermione's heart had begun pounding too loudly for her to make out Bellatrix's next words; it was all she could do then to remain standing. Bellatrix withdrew a silver blade and cut her loose from the others, and she was being dragged away by her hair from the rest of them—Harry, his features all puffed up and shiny and unrecognizable due to her own hex; Ron, his face ashen, eyes sparkling and blue and locked onto hers—
And she knew, in that fleeting moment when they made eye contact. She knew then what she had been unsure of for so long; what she had questioned every time their fingers brushed or he smiled at her with his cheeks turning so red that his freckles seemed to vanish—what she had been certain was not true when he left them in the woods, only to come back, always to come back—
He loved her.
Ronald Weasley loved her, and now she was going to die.
Hermione was forced to her knees. Bellatrix towered over her, black hair wild about her pale and livid face, her wand in one hand, and the long, silver blade in the other. It shone as she brandished it, pointing it towards Hermione's throat.
Hermione, terrified, wanting to look anywhere other than at the mad woman before her, looked at the Malfoy's. They were standing against the grandiose fireplace, as still and as lifeless as light fixtures.
Draco still had his back to them. He had turned away as soon as he'd declared that it might be Potter. That it could be Granger, that it could be Arthur Weasley's son. He'd walked away from the situation, reluctant to damn them, but unwilling to do anything to help them, either.
But Hermione caught his unwitting eye in the mirror. A great, silver thing above the fireplace. He looked as frightened as Hermione felt.
Save us, she screamed with her wide, panicked eyes.
Draco did nothing.
"I'm going to ask you nicely once, ickle Mudblood," Bellatrix murmured, and Hermione's stomach dropped at the sound. Her voice was condescending, a sickly-sweet coo.
"Where did you get this sword?"
Bellatrix pointed towards the sword of Gryffindor with her blade, which she had set aside. The rubies shone like fresh blood in the firelight.
"We f-found it," Hermione whispered. “We f-found it in the woods—"
"Lies! Crucio!"
Pain, unfathomable pain. Hermione felt it in her bones, roaring up and down her spine like wildfire. She screamed with a primal savagery that she had never known before. Hermione fell to her side, back arching, hands twisting in her mess of hair. She did not think pain like this was possible. Somewhere, perhaps in her imagination, she thought she heard a phantom crying her name. She couldn't tell over the sound of her own screaming.
It ended. Hermione's body shook. Her eyes watered, but she could still make out Bellatrix's sinister form quiet clearly.
"Tell me the truth, mudblood. Where did you find it?"
"In the woods, we—"
"Crucio!"
A maelstorm incinerating her nerves. Hermione thrashed, screaming, hot tears streaming down her face. There was an inferno trapped beneath her skin.
"I'm going to ask you again," Bellatrix snarled after she lifted the curse. "Where did you get this sword? Where?"
"We found it—we found it—please!"
It was useless. Bellatrix bellowed 'Crucio!' once more, and Hermione screamed—a broken, strangled sound. As the agony became paramount, her mind sought some kind of reprieve. Her roving eyes caught the flicker of a rainbow, colors dancing along one of the crystals of the chandelier. Pretty, she thought as her neck curved backwards.
She wondered how long it took for someone to go mad from this.
She wondered how long Alice and Frank Longbottom had lasted under the point of this wicked woman's wrath.
She wondered and screamed.
Bellatrix paused in her onslaught to shout at her, her words vicious and horrible. Hermione couldn't make them all out over the ringing of her ears—something about her vault in Gringotts, how they must have broken into it. Hermione supposed the details didn't matter at the moment though, because Bellatrix hardly drew a breath afterwards before she lifted her wand again.
Hermione watched the way her wrist twisted through a haze. Her mind drifted, and she seemed to observe the manner in which Bellatrix's lips moved and her wand flicked as though in slow motion. Perfect annunciation, she thought. A precise, purposeful motion.
Bellatrix Lestrange's spellcasting was truly impeccable.
"Crucio!"
'The Cruciatus Curse does not inflict real damage to its victim; at least, not in the physical sense. The spell only affects the mind, creating a false sense of excruciating pain, while in reality, the target's body is not being harmed at all.' Chapter seven of 'Dark and Formidable Magic' by Rolande Robinson.
The curse was lifted again. Hermione had stars in her eyes, rainbows occasionally flittering in and out of her vision. She heard something clicking with the regularity of a metronome as though from a great distance, and it wasn't until it had stopped and she was being yanked up by her hair that Hermione realized what it was. Bellatrix's heels on the hard floor. She was behind her now.
Hermione whimpered when she was pulled roughly to her feet. Her body was limp, hardly able to support her own weight as Bellatrix's arm snaked around her chest, the knife pointed under her throat. "Do you know what will happen to you, ickle mudblood?" Bellatrix cooed. Her breath fanned against Hermione's ear, making her shudder. "Do you know what Greyback will do once I am through with you? You can't even imagine the horrors that that filthy half-breed shall inflict upon you… If you are unfortunate enough to live that long."
She laughed. Then, in a dark and suggestive voice, she whispered, "Let's play a game."
Bellatrix yanked Hermione's arm out and held the blade against it. Hermione struggled, but it was a pitiful attempt. Bellatrix held her tight; Hermione felt like a newborn lamb, trembling in the arms of her death.
For a spell that supposedly only affected the mind, the Cruciatus Curse had certainly taken a toll on Hermione's body.
"I'm going to write a word here. If I finish it before you confess where and how you got my sword, maybe I shall grant you a small mercy."
Without warning, Bellatrix dragged the blade across Hermione's arm—a straight line down. Hermione barely bit back another scream. The silver burned like acid on her skin; it must have been cursed. "I'll kill you before the werewolf can have you," Bellatrix said in her ear. The letter M was now etched into her arm, weeping blood.
The pain was horrid, but it was nothing compared to that of the Cruciatus Curse. Hermione could feel her lucidity returning. She shook her head, saying nothing as clear thoughts came back to her.
"Your little friends won't have to hear your screams as he rapes you," Bellatrix went on leeringly. She cut again with the blade, moving faster.
M-u-d-
"We found it," Hermione gasped, barley audible. Bellatrix ignored her.
"They won't hear the sounds of you being raped and shredded to bits, because corpses don't scream."
M-u-d-b-l-o-
"Isn't real," Hermione croaked. She weakly tugged her arm, but Bellatrix's grasp was ironclad around her wrist.
"What was that, mudblood? You're going to need to speak up." More searing pain, more dripping blood. It was making a mess on the marble floor.
M-u-d-b-l-o-o-
"Sword's a fake. We've n-never been in your vault. It isn't real."
Bellatrix froze. There was commotion as Lucius barked some order to his son—'get the goblin, he will tell us if it's a fake'—and Hermione watched as Draco left, refusing to look at her before he went.
"Better," Bellatrix purred.
She finished the word anyway.
"Miss Smith?"
Hermione came back to herself.
She blinked owlishly up at Draco—no Abraxas—and realized that she no longer had her arm linked with his. She was standing, trembling slightly, her right hand clutching at her left forearm.
Mudblood.
But the word was not visible now, thanks to her enchanted ring, and neither were the mysterious, golden spirals that swirled along her neck and chest. Abraxas's eyes flickered down to her forearm; Hermione released her death grip on it. "Are you all right?" he asked, one brow raised in concern.
Hermione drew in a deep breath and stood straighter. "Yes, of course," she said, smiling. She looked at the glittering chandelier, ignoring the nauseating coiling of her stomach. "I'm just a bit dazzled by your manor already, I suppose."
A wide smile stretched across Abraxas's face. Hermione heard one of the girls scoff before she and the others walked past—Hermione had a feeling as to who had made the condescending sound—but neither she nor Abraxas acknowledged it. "Why, this is just the drawing room," Abraxas said, taking Hermione by the arm again and guiding her further into the manor. Be calm, Hermione thought, as though pleading with her own racing heart. That was a lifetime ago. You're fine. You can do this.
"If you're dazzled by this, just wait until I show you the gardens."
"A bit cold for a stroll through the gardens, don't you think?"
Adam Avery, Abraxas's friend who had kissed Hermione's hand a bit too overzealously, appeared at her other side. The others had gone ahead, claiming spots on some lovely furniture surrounding a low table in the center of the drawing room. They looked right at home as they sat there, their relaxed dispositions giving Hermione the impression that they were invited to Malfoy Manor at least somewhat frequently.
"Wouldn't want Miss Smith to be catching a cold," Avery finished, flashing Hermione a grin.
Abraxas scoffed. "A cold? Please Adam, don't be so daft. My gardens have been enchanted to remain at a moderate temperature all year round." Avery's expression soured, but Abraxas didn't seem to notice—he’d already turned his attention back to Hermione. "I just had all the grounds redone last season. The flowers are most impressive, though they're far from the only beautiful part of this property."
"I don't doubt it," said Hermione, glancing around the drawing room. Now that she was not in mortal peril, she was able to take in all the details of this luxurious space. There was a tall, impressive grandfather clock with many gilded hands next to a gleaming, grand piano; there were gorgeous, framed paintings lining walls covered in intricate wallpaper; there was a thick rug beneath the table with an elaborate, snake-like design. On top of the table's mahogany surface were a few thick books, as well as a wizarding chess set. The pieces appeared to be made of onyx and gold. Hermione's eyes lingered on them before she smiled demurely up at Abraxas. "It's apparent to me that you have an impeccable eye for beauty, Mr. Malfoy."
"That I do. But please, call me Abraxas."
"Very well… Abraxas."
Abraxas held Hermione's gaze for a moment, then looked away and called, "Maldey!"
At once, a house-elf appeared before them. His ears hung low as he bowed towards Abraxas. "Yes, Master Malfoy?"
"Drinks for our guests. The usual should be fine—unless anyone would like to surprise me with a special request?"
Abraxas looked inquiringly down at those who had already taken a seat, all of whom shook their heads. "I'd prefer firewhisky this fine evening," said Avery, who was still standing on Hermione's other side. "Straight." He gave Hermione another smile before he sat in a vacant love seat.
"Not your usual butterbeer, Adam?" Irving Lestrange asked. "Sure you can handle it? I remember the last time we fed you too much firewhisky."
Avery's expression darkened when everyone laughed. "That was one time," he muttered.
"It was brilliant, was what it was," said Victoria Rosier, Lestrange's beautiful fiancé. She looked at Hermione with a wicked smile. "Adam here turns into quite the performer when he's had enough to drink. Come, have a seat, it's a funny story."
She motioned for Hermione to sit across from her, next to Avery. Feeling it would be rude not to do so—and wanting very much to be on at least one of these women's good sides—Hermione did. Avery sat up straighter, and Hermione couldn't tell by his expression if he was excited or worried about whatever tale they were about to tell. "I do love a good story," Hermione said.
Abraxas pursed his lips when Hermione slipped from his arm, a mildly annoyed expression crossing his features. She was next to Avery. The only other place left to sit was in an armchair on the other side of the table. Abraxas begrudgingly took this spot, but he clearly wasn't fond of the seating arrangement. "Well, what about you, Miss Smith?" he asked, gesturing towards the house-elf who was waiting patiently. "What's your drink of choice? Wine?"
"Oh, please, if I'm to call you Abraxas then you must call me Hermione," Hermione said. "And in continuing to trust in your good tastes… I'll have whatever you're having."
Abraxas's smile returned. "You heard the lady," he said to the elf, not taking his eyes off her. "Make it quick, Maldey."
The elf disappeared.
"When will the others be coming?" Marie Greengrass asked, twisting a lock of blonde hair around her finger.
“I said any time after eleven, as I wasn't sure how long the gala would go on,” said Abraxas. According to the grandfather clock, it was only a quarter until eleven now.
Hermione was about to ask who else would be joining them when Rosier spoke. "So," she said, leaning forward and folding her hands on her knee. "When we were in school, our seventh year, Abraxas snuck in a few bottles of firewhisky from Hogsmeade. And—"
"Hogsmeade is a town outside of Hogwarts," Abraxas cut in. "Miss Smith is from America, Victoria; she didn't go to Hogwarts."
This caused everyone to look at Hermione with peculiar expressions. "Oh?" Victoria said. “You didn't? I just assumed you were in a different year or house than us."
"That explains your interesting fashion choices, at least," said Alice Parkinson. Hermione met her judgmental eyes, and though she was definitely prettier than Pansy, Hermione still saw far too much resemblance there for her liking. "Do all Americans wear flowers in their hair in winter? Seems an odd choice for January."
Hermione forced a grin. "Beauty is never out of season… much like Abraxas's enchanted gardens, I'm sure," she answered, casting Abraxas an admiring look. She caught the way Parkinson's smirk faltered and Abraxas's eyes lit up, relishing all of it.
"I think they're lovely," said Avery, drawing Hermione's attention to him. "They're enchanted as well, no? But this one seems to be falling out of place. May I?"
Hermione didn't much like the idea of him touching her hair, but she nodded all the same. Avery gently pushed one of the flowers back, and it wasn't until his fingers grazed her cheek on the way back down and he was smiling at her that she realized that no flowers had been about to fall out of her hair at all. "That's better," he said, now much closer to her.
While he was not nearly as handsome as Abraxas, Hermione had to admit that move caught her off guard. She felt her cheeks flushing when he winked at her, and she supposed he was rather charming in a sweet, friendly manner. His rounded face made her think of Neville, had he been a confident, flirtatious wizard.
A soft pop. Maldey had returned, hovering a tray with many drinks. They each floated into their hands, and Hermione accepted a glass filled with a liquid which was so dark it was nearly black. Only she and Abraxas had such ominous looking drinks; Lestrange and Avery had firewhisky, and all the women had wine glasses which they caught by the stems.
"Cachaça," Abraxas explained, lifting his own glass. "Finest there is, imported from Brazil. This variety is aged with mandrake leaves, which is why it's so dark. Makes it much smoother."
Hermione eyed the drink warily. "How interesting," she said. Abraxas took a sip of his own, and Hermione followed suit.
It was not as bad as she feared. It was thick like syrup and semi-sweet, though the burn of alcohol was apparent. She wondered how potent this drink was. Hermione lowered her glass and smiled at Abraxas's expectant face. "It's very good," she said.
"Good lord, I don't know how you can drink that stuff," Greengrass said. "Every time I try to drink something like that or firewhisky straight, I just shudder—I can't stand it by itself."
"It's not for everyone," Abraxas agreed.
"It's certainly not for Adam," said Rosier. She smirked at him and then refocused on Hermione. "As I was saying—we had some firewhisky. And at Hogwarts, your seventh year is your last year, and so we essentially owned the common room at that point."
"We owned it long before we were seventh years," Lestrange murmured, smirking.
"Sure, sure," said Rosier. "And so we decided to have a bit of fun with dear Avery one night. He'd lost a bet, you see—"
"He said he could persuade some of the merfolk to attack a group of Gryffindor quidditch players the day before a match," Abraxas interjected gleefully. "I bet that he couldn't. The merfolk had been playing a prank on him, turns out—they pulled poor Adam into the lake when he got too close, it was hilarious."
"They said they would do it!" Avery shouted, and though his face was flushing, he was smiling, too.
"What do you mean they said they would do it?" Greengrass shouted, but she was also grinning. "For the hundredth time, Adam, you can't speak Mermish!"
"I can so!"
"Say something, then. Say something in Mermish."
Avery screwed up his face like he was concentrating very hard, then made a series of squawking, grunting noises. Hermione raised her brows at him, unsure if she should be impressed or not.
"That wasn't Mermish," Abraxas drawled.
"Was so."
"What'd you say, then?"
"Same thing I said when they dragged me into the lake. 'You slimy traitors!'"
They all laughed. "Well, it's like my mother always says," said Rosier. "Never trust a creature or a half-breed; they're born to be deceitful. Anyway, Avery lost that bet, and so as punishment we decided to send him to the kitchens to steal us all some food after hours—but not without a good deal of liquid courage first."
"They had me absolutely smashed," Avery groaned, looking equal parts annoyed and amused. He grinned sheepishly at Hermione. "Sneaking into the kitchens at Hogwarts isn't really that hard; the house-elves just give food away—but making it from our common room, through the castle to the kitchens when I was that drunk wasn't easy. Hogwarts is a complicated castle. It seems to change all the time, just to mess with you. And I always miss the fake stair! Could've died, I could have. Or worse, been caught by Pringle, that arse—he's the caretaker of Hogwarts, and he loves to cane those whom he catches out after hours—"
"At least we didn't send you off alone," Greengrass said, stifling a laugh.
"Your one mercy," Avery muttered.
"You're just being dramatic, Adam," Abraxas said. "You wouldn't have gotten caught. It’s kind of hard to get in trouble when you have both a prefect and the Head Boy with you."
Hermione perked up. Avery looked far more incredulous now. "You two were the reason I got stuck in the stair at all!" he yelled, his face still a mixture of anger and amusement. "Told me it was the next step, then just laughed, watching me floundering about!"
"You were drunk. You're clearly remembering things wrong," Abraxas said, but his smile indicated otherwise.
Hermione couldn't help but grin as well. It was a bit of a surreal thought, imagining someone like Tom Riddle with Abraxas Malfoy, laughing as their drunk friend attempted to pull himself from the false stair. It sounded like the kind of thing Fred and George might have done to their friend, Lee Jordan.
At the image of Fred's face in her mind, Hermione's smile became strained. Dead. In her time, Fred Weasley was dead, and George didn't pull pranks or laugh hardly at all anymore.
The thought was a visceral, cold reminder of why she was here, of what she meant to do.
"Whatever," Avery scoffed. He looked at Hermione, motioning towards Abraxas when he murmured, "He's a right arse, this one. Don't let his pretty blonde hair fool you. He's a snake."
"We're all snakes, Adam," said Rosier, uncrossing and re-crossing her long legs. "Slytherin's house mascot," she explained to Hermione. "The best house, of course."
"Well, I've no personal opinion on the matter," said Hermione, "but my aunt would say otherwise. She was in Hufflepuff."
"Ha! Hufflepuff!" Alice Parkinson let out a shrill laugh. "Sorry to break it to you, Miss Smith, but that house is a bit of joke at Hogwarts. It's filled with all the students who simply didn't fit in anywhere else."
Hermione's eyes narrowed. "Sometimes, not fitting in can be a marvelous thing," she said, looking about at all of them, in their black dresses and robes. She did indeed stand out from the rest of them, and it was her golden gown and flowers that had snagged the most eligible and sought-after bachelor's attention.
"Cheers to that," said Avery. He lifted his glass, and Hermione, smiling, clinked hers to it. They both drank, and Avery winked afterwards. Hermione wasn't sure if the rush of heat to her face was from the alcohol or his flirty grin.
"Adam," said Abraxas suddenly, "really is quite the performer, though. He was such a laugh that night, after we got him back to the common room with a fair amount of sweets. Which was a challenge, as he kept falling over himself, but he managed."
"With little help from you," Avery said dryly.
"While his general coordination is not the best," Abraxas went on, "he is an excellent musician. Aren't you, Adam?"
Avery blinked once in surprise, then puffed up at the praise. Hermione could tell that Abraxas did not often hand out such compliments. "I've composed a song or two in my time," he said, grinning at Hermione.
"Composed?" Hermione asked. "What do you play?"
"Adam is an amazing piano player," Greengrass gushed. "Oh, play us a song, won't you Adam?"
"Yes," added Abraxas. Hermione thought there was something devious in his grin. "Play that one composition you played last time. You know, the long and impressive one."
"Well, I suppose I could," Avery said, looking about at their eager faces. Hermione was equally intrigued, and upon seeing her smile and nod, he said, "All right. Sure, why not?"
He stood and went over to the grand piano. He took a long sip of whisky, set his glass down, and cracked his knuckles. Then, with a flourishing of his fingers, he began to play.
It was a lovely song, lively and energetic. Hermione thought it reflected his personality perfectly.
"Wow," she said quietly. "He is quite good, isn't he?"
The others nodded. Abraxas slid into Avery's now vacant seat. "He's all right," he said, suddenly much less complimentary—and then Hermione understood his ploy.
By encouraging Avery to show off, Abraxas had forced him in to giving up his spot at Hermione's side. Avery was now chained to the piano, metaphorically speaking, and Abraxas wasted no time swooping in and engaging her in conversation.
Clever, Hermione thought.
"So, Hermione," Abraxas said over the piano song, "How are you enjoying London so far? Do you prefer it to New York?"
The conversation revolved around Hermione for a time. Though the others appeared just as curious about her life in America—except for Parkinson, who so clearly adored Abraxas and was jealous that he seemed interested in Hermione—Abraxas constantly geared her attention towards himself. Hermione caught Avery looking up when Abraxas touched her shoulder again, and as his eyes darted back and forth between the two of them, she thought he might have realized he'd been tricked. He played faster, the song clearly about to come to an end.
"Oh, but where are my manners?" Abraxas said abruptly, probably noting this as well. "Here I am, having invited you into my home, and I haven't even shown you more than the drawing room!" He stood and set his drink down, then extended a hand to Hermione. "Come, I'll give you a bit of a tour. A short one, of course—your shoes, lovely as they are, don't look as though they would make long distances enjoyable."
Hermione laughed and set her own drink down, accepting his hand. "No," she said as she was pulled to her feet. She swayed slightly, proving his point, but held her composure. "They certainly do not."
"We'll be back in a bit. Maldey!" The house-elf reappeared with a soft pop. "Make sure out guests are well taken care of."
The elf bowed. Abraxas led Hermione away from the drawing room just as the piano song came to an end.
He's good, Hermione thought again as they headed down the hall, away from the others. He's very good.
Malfoy Manor was larger and more luxurious than Hermione might have imagined. There were crystal wall sconces everywhere, and so many paintings that Hermione now thought it no wonder that Abraxas didn't bid on anything else at the WAG auction, because where would he have put them? And when they came to a large bay window, she was struck nearly breathless by the sight.
"Oh," she gasped, looking out into an impossibly beautiful view. There, in the middle of January, was a stretch of lush green lawn, as well as some of the most beautiful gardens she'd ever seen. White peacocks strutted about, pristine, proud birds decorating the foliage.
"Like I said, it's all been recently redone," said Abraxas. "I was opposed to the peacocks at first, but my designer said they would really make everything look more elegant. I daresay he was right."
Hermione smirked as one peacock spread its wide, white tail. "They are rather pretty," she commented.
"I'll show them to you later. But the garden entrance is back through the drawing room, and you simply must see the library while we're on this side of the manor…"
True to his word, Abraxas kept the tour relatively short. He kept Hermione's arm linked with his the entire time, flashing her charming smiles, his eyes sparkling. Hermione acted equally flirtatious, doing her best not squeal like a school girl when he showed her the vast and impressive library. Everything was so luxurious, so refined, that Hermione was beginning to understand why Draco had grown to be such an arrogant, spoiled git. To live here was to live like a prince.
They were heading back towards the drawing room—Abraxas prattling on about some wine cellar he planned to expand—when a loud cry of delight cut him off.
"Oliver!" someone shouted, and Hermione thought it must be Greengrass. "So good to see you! And Tom!"
Hermione tensed. She looked at Abraxas and smiled, hoping he did not notice her sudden rigidity, but he didn't seem to. In fact, he seemed to have gone a bit stiff as well. Hermione just caught a flickering of unease on his face before he looked down at her, another charming smile forming on his lips.
But Hermione had seen it. That slight unease.
"Your other friends have arrived?" Hermione asked unnecessarily.
"It would seem so." He checked his watch. Hermione glanced at it as well; it was a little past eleven. "Excellent, we still have nearly an hour before your dear aunt wants you back home. Come, I'll introduce you to the others, and we can have another drink. And the gardens! I'll show you those as well."
"That sounds lovely."
Hermione knew it was silly, but she felt oddly reassured when he tightened his hold on her arm. She wondered what Riddle would think when they entered—the mysterious Hermione Smith, already on the arm of the man who was considered the most sought after, eligible bachelor of London… as well as one of Riddle's undoubtedly most important followers of this time.
Hermione discreetly checked for her wand. Still there. Good, she thought. Hermione felt a thrill of anticipation as they drew near to the drawing room, where she could hear giggling followed by a familiar, smooth voice. She smiled.
Let's play, Riddle.
Chapter 13: Cinderella
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hermione knew how critical the smallest of moments could be—particularly those which were unanticipated, and, in the grand retelling of things, would seem inconsequential to the naïve eye.
It was what she always looked for in a good book when she was in the mood for a riveting romance. All skilled authors took their time painting the picture in words—poetically, sensibly, or artistically, according to their style—but the great authors knew exactly which moments to emphasize.
More often than not, the most pivotal moments in a story were not the obvious ones.
One would think to describe the moment that the two lovers first kissed, or the manner in which eternal enemies finally faced one another on the battlefield, eyes locked and weapons raised. And those heart-stopping seconds of the tale were important too—there was no denying that—but the real tension happened in the moments leading up to those scenes. The subtle actions right before the kiss. The graceful or predatory advances as one's paramour was forced against a wall or led into a darker corner; the shy smiles or possessive hands being pressed against thighs. The shaky steps taken towards the battlefield as the antagonist obsessed over their foe, wondering how their enemy's eyes would look without the light in them—knowing that their adversary's obsession was of an equal measure.
…Or not. It depended on the picture being painted, what story was being told.
It was with this arsenal of knowledge that Hermione entered the drawing room on the arm of Abraxas Malfoy. As they turned the corner, she was in complete control of the moment—the seemingly inconsequential moment—before they made eye contact. As the light from the chandelier fell across her face, Hermione was grinning as though Abraxas had just made some great joke, the kind of smile that spellbound men would want to chase with their own. She made certain to not look at the faces of the new arrivals right away, but rather let her gaze slide to the side of the room, where she spotted a glass door leading out to the enchanted gardens. She let her eyes linger there like she found the world on the other side vastly more interesting than this one, a manor illuminated by a gaudy chandelier.
And though only a few seconds had passed, Hermione knew without a doubt that Tom Riddle's eyes were already on her, had fixated on her the second she walked in. She waited a heartbeat longer before finally meeting his gaze.
Her smile faltered.
Hermione knew the element of surprise was on her side tonight. How could Riddle possibly know that she would be here? The gala, he might have presumed she would be in attendance, but here? In Malfoy Manor? How unlikely.
Hermione had thought that seeing her unexpectedly in this setting, dressed like this, would garner a more useful reaction. She had hoped that seeing her in a gown of gold and a crown of gilded flowers, accompanied by the dashing Abraxas, would have made him give her the same look Draco had given her at the Yule Ball. An unexpected beauty on an impressive man's arm, a moment of weakness that she could capitalize on.
One split second of eye contact with him, and Hermione knew she had miscalculated gravely.
Oh, she was certain she had caught him off guard—there was no doubt in Hermione's mind on that account. Riddle's face was not entirely expressionless. His lips were slightly parted, and it was clear he was surprised at her presence.
What shocked her was that there was no semi-stunned look in his eyes; no wistful, slightly dreamy stare which bordered on awe or longing. There was only one word Hermione could think to describe those eyes as they bored into hers:
Cold.
Her skin prickled. She nearly shuddered.
His eyes were so… cold.
"Tom, you came!”
The icy moment was gone so quickly that it might never have happened. Greengrass was on her feet, and Riddle's attention shifted to her as she bounded forward, looking overjoyed to see him. Hermione watched, ignoring her inner voice which longed to scream 'Get away from him, you stupid girl!' as Greengrass went dangerously close to the most lethal wizard of all time—even for someone who was a Slytherin, pureblood witch, Hermione thought.
Far more astonishing was how fluidly Riddle allowed this advance. Mask now firmly back in place, he smiled beautifully and took her hand, greeting her like the perfect, most charismatic gentleman. "Marie," he murmured, and the one word had her blushing. He kissed her fingers. "You look as lovely as ever."
She giggled, and Hermione barely prevented her jaw from dropping. Was that how she had looked, when Riddle had held her hand? Surely she hadn't turned such a bright pink as that.
The action was repeated nearly identically with Parkinson and Rosier, both of whom seemed equally smitten and excited at the arrival of Tom Riddle. Riddle was dressed not in lavish robes, Hermione noticed, nor in anything extravagant and impressive, but in the dark, simplistic attire he had been wearing at Borgin and Burke's—the kind of flowing black fabric that would blend into shadows and disappear in dark alleys. The only part of his attire that stood out was the ring on his finger—a black stone set in bright, luscious gold. It glinted at Hermione in the chandelier light like a mocking wink.
Hermione tore her eyes away from Riddle to examine his companion, and it truly spoke to the magnetism of Riddle's person that she hadn't noticed at him first. He was a massive man, nearly as tall as Riddle but almost twice as wide. He was not fat; far from it. He was stocky, with a large, barrel chest and arms like thick tree branches. His hair was dark and wild, making Hermione think achingly of Harry for a moment, but that was where their similarities began and ended. This man could have eaten someone Harry's size for breakfast and had room for more. Standing next to Riddle, he looked like a sinister body guard.
Not that Tom Riddle needs protection from anyone, Hermione thought darkly.
When this large, unknown entity met Hermione's eyes, his features brightened. His prominent brow rose. After a second of looking surprised, he smiled. Hermione tried to smile back, but her mouth had decided to stop cooperating. Her face felt frozen in the aftermath of Riddle's unforeseen, cold stare.
It was Avery's voice that snapped her out of it. "Tom!" he said, clearly trying to appear the epitome of pleased—but there was something trembling in his voice that made alarm bells go off in the back of Hermione's mind. "Y-you came!"
Surprised. Avery sounded very surprised by this.
Why?
"Adam," Riddle said, his smile a bit less dazzling as his focus went from the gorgeous Rosier to him. "So good to see you again."
"Yes! Very good!" Adam said, too enthusiastically. Hermione caught the way the muscles in his neck tensed when he shook Riddle's hand. "Yes, it has been too long!"
Riddle chose not to respond to this. He instead looked to Irving Lestrange and, rather than call his name or shake his hand, he merely nodded. More familiar. Lestrange nodded back. If he was surprised to see Tom Riddle make an appearance tonight, he did not show it.
At this point, Abraxas and Hermione were near enough that Abraxas could address them without needing to shout. "Tom," he said cheerily, and Abraxas's voice did not waver like Adam's had. "So glad that you could make it this fine evening!"
Hermione was already gauging their reactions, putting the pieces together. Tom Riddle was invited to these social interactions often. He did not often come. So, why had he come tonight? It couldn't have been for her; that look of surprise—glacial and unsettling though it was—had been surprise nonetheless.
What made you decide to come out tonight, Riddle?
Abraxas checked his watch. "I wonder where—?"
"Orion and Linus send their deepest regards for not coming," Tom said. His voice was low, but it cut through Abraxas's words like a smooth, sharp blade through butter. "They are… terribly busy." He smiled. Macnair smiled behind him.
Neither offered up further explanation.
Hermione's mind instantly went reeling. What do you have them doing for you, Riddle? What are you up to? And why is Abraxas not in on this plan—has he done something to displease you? Orion is a Black—but from what family line is Linus? Who are these people to you?
"Oh," said Abraxas, plainly unsure how to respond to Riddle's vagueness. Then he cleared his throat, regaining his dapper disposition. "Well, I know how those old boys get; they've probably had one too many and are now lost to downtown London."
"Typical Linus," Parkinson said. She was looking yearningly up at Riddle; Abraxas, evidently, ceased to exist in his presence.
"I pity the women they come across," said Abraxas bracingly. "But it's their loss, I say!"
He then looked down at Hermione, his handsome grin back and brighter than ever. "Allow me to make some introductions," he said. "I did say I'd have you meet the best magical London has to offer… These two fine gentlemen are both very good friends of ours—they were also in our year and House at Hogwarts. This is Oliver Macnair—" the huge man bowed his head towards her; Hermione was glad that being on the arm of Abraxas seemed to make it so that social protocol of taking her hand was unnecessary—"and this is Tom Riddle. This lovely lady, my good fellows, is Hermione Smith. We were fortunate enough to meet at the gala."
For the second time, they locked eyes.
For the second time, Hermione froze, though she was not assaulted with the sensation of being swept up in a cold wind again. Tom Riddle's amiable façade had returned, and with it his welcoming and prince-like temperament.
Was she supposed to acknowledge it first, that they were already acquainted? Or was it unwise to do such a thing? Would it be rude, to admit that she had already met him in a dodgy shop in Knockturn Alley, working? A visceral reminder to all present that Tom Riddle was not rich and affluent, did not come from a prestigious, magical family…
At least, not publicly.
She decided to acknowledge it—but to leave it to him to decide what story to tell. "My, magical London must be much smaller than I anticipated," Hermione said, surprising herself at how cool and level her voice was. "I heard Miss Greengrass shout your name from down the hall, but I didn't dream that I would be seeing you again this evening, Mr. Riddle."
Hermione wondered if Riddle found her smile alluring or vicious. She had said it without saying it at all:
Common name, Tom.
Glints of coldness, like the broken remnants of an iceberg, surfaced once more in the depths of his eyes. Hermione didn't let his stare unsettle her this time.
"You… you two have met?" Abraxas said, his tone notably strained. Hermione felt his hand twitch, tightening around her arm.
"We have," Riddle confirmed. The iciness melted away again, disappearing beneath the currents of his warm, velvety voice. "We met just a few days ago. On a… business-related venture."
Hermione wasn't sure what sparkled more: the light gleaming on his teeth when he smiled, or the chandelier glinting above them ostentatiously.
"You mean while you were working?" Parkinson, seemingly oblivious to any tension—or misinterpreting it—all but pouted as she spoke, moving nearer to Riddle and seeking his attention as brazenly as Greengrass had. Her boldness was almost admirable; Parkinson stood directly in front of her, as though by doing so she could shunt Hermione to the side of the drawing room and force her to retreat. She was so close to Riddle that Hermione—little though she liked this woman—once more fought the instinctual need to yell and drag her away to a safer distance.
"You're always working, Tom, I don't know how you stand it!" Parkinson went on in a whiny voice. "Such a dingy little shop, Burgin and Burke's. My father would give his left hand to have someone like you as his protégé. I know I've told you before, but I'm sure his offer still stands. He's constantly lamenting how unpromising the up-and-coming officers are that he oversees, swears he'll never be able to retire if someone sharper doesn't come along. You could be taking over the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in five years, if you wanted."
"And how is your father, Alice?" Riddle asked, courteous and polite. "I read in The Daily Prophet last week that his frontline team finally apprehended the elusive 'gem thief' in West Sussex."
"Oh, yes," Parkinson said. Hermione was admittedly impressed, though hardly surprised. How easily Riddle had shifted the conversation away from himself, and how charmingly, too. "It took them four weeks to catch him in the act. Turns out the thief was a nothing more than a disgusting muggle-born operating alone—unless one counts the muggles he was confounding. Should have known, seeing as he was breaking into muggle homes."
Parkinson spat the words muggle-born and muggle as though saying them made her feel ill. Hermione's jaw tightened, but her smile remained fixed in place.
"Naturally," Rosier drawled. "Only someone of that deplorable standing would sink so low. Just when you think they can go no lower… Stealing gems from muggles …"
Hermione decided that Victoria Rosier did not look beautiful at all with that sneering expression on her face.
"Speaking of gems. Miss Smith," she said, turning her brilliant, blue eyes to Hermione. "I meant to tell you earlier—I simply adore your ring. Wherever did you get it? Is it enchanted?"
Hermione's heart froze, and her hand flew to her chest. Could they somehow tell that it was imbibed with concealing magic? "S-sorry?"
"You know, enchanted. With a never-dull charm, or reflective-enhancement charm. The finest jewelry always is; Irving just bought me these earrings before the gala, and they look of a similar quality to the diamonds in your ring."
She tossed her long, brown hair back, revealing two huge, diamond studs. They glinted with an unnatural clarity. Hermione could breathe again. "Oh," she said. "Yes, I imagine this one is. But I'm not entirely sure. It was a gift."
Hermione looked briefly at Riddle. His face was blank, unreadable.
"A gift?" said Parkinson. "You must have quite an admirer, Miss Smith, to be giving you such lovely jewelry."
Hermione could tell that Parkinson wanted very much for Hermione to declare that she was committed to someone; some convenient, rich wizard in America, perhaps, that she would soon be returning to. Hermione grinned as she destroyed that hope. "Actually, if was from my aunt," she said.
Parkinson's returning smile looked painful.
"Well, it's beautiful," said Rosier. "There really is just no comparing magically crafted jewelry with mediocre, plain stones. Which is why it's so amusing to me, that some muggle-born wizard would go around stealing normal jewelry from muggles. Honestly, how uneducated—were they unaware of finer gems? You would think they would at least try and steal something worth stealing, if they were going to take the risk!"
Several of them laughed. "I am so sorry to sound… naïve," Hermione said, inspiration striking in the midst of their haughty laughter, "But what do you all mean by the word muggle?"
They all stared at her. Hermione forced herself to look at anyone but Riddle, choosing to focus on the face of the most friendly entity in the room, Avery. He looked mildly concerned. "It's the word for non-magical people," he explained.
When Hermione feigned recognition, he smiled. "Oh!" she exclaimed, then laughed herself. "My apologies. I thought I'd heard my aunt muttering about them once, but I hadn't asked… In America, we refer to them as no-majes."
" No-majes?" Abraxas asked. "What a peculiar word!"
"It's far less peculiar than muggle," Hermione pointed out. "No-maj, at least, stems from two recognizable words—'no' and 'magic'. Muggle sounds like some strange breed of dog."
They nearly all laughed at that, like she had made a truly hilarious remark. The only one who didn't seem amused was Parkinson, whose eyes narrowed on Hermione.
"What do you Americans call muggle-borns, then?" she asked. "No-maj-borns?"
Hermione met her gaze unflinchingly. "We call them wizards and witches," she said coolly.
The warmth in the air brought on by her unintended joke vanished. Hermione didn't remove her eyes from Parkinson's, didn't dare glance at Riddle.
"My, what a terrible host I have been! We are in dire need of drinks!"
Abraxas was suddenly shouting, his voice forcibly jubilant as he removed his arm from Hermione's. Hermione glanced at the table where everyone's glasses sat, mostly full. "Maldey!" Abraxas called, clapping his hands together, and the house-elf appeared. "Another round for our guests. The usual for you Oliver?"
Oliver Macnair grunted in response—evidently, this was a 'yes'. "And for you, Tom…?"
It was a different question, one which was waiting for a specific response. Ah, Hermione realized. Tom Riddle did not even come to this manor often enough for Malfoy's house-elf to have his drink preference memorized. Hermione couldn't help but be intrigued: What did a young Dark Lord drink when he chose to imbibe?
"Do you have any Aeternum?" Riddle asked lightly of Abraxas, and his smile indicated that there was a history accompanying this request.
Abraxas grinned. "But of course," he said. "Make it the same for me this round, Maldey." The elf bowed and vanished. "Come, let us all sit, not point in standing around—here—"
He reached into his robe pocket, pulling out his wand, and Hermione felt a strange stab of annoyance stir within her at the sight. It took her a moment to realize why. Hepzibah had said something about how it was unusual for people to bring their wands to events like the gala, but as she watched Abraxas vanish their old glasses, conjure up a chintz chair, and then another, and then another, she realized this statement was inaccurate. Witches —in their revealing, unforgiving dresses—didn't bring wands to such events. Where would they go? How would they carry them? If Hermione hadn't fashioned a garter and strapped hers to her thigh, there would be no place for it.
Women's dress robes should all have pockets, she thought sourly.
"Please. Ladies first."
Hermione walked past Abraxas's sweeping arm, choosing to sit not on the couch or one of the loveseats, but in one of the chairs Abraxas had just conjured. She did not want anyone finding an excuse to worm their way closer to her, touching her hair or holding her arm. She crossed her legs and rested her elbows on the chair's carved, wooden arms, ignoring Abraxas's and Adam's ill-concealed disappointment at her choice.
The rest settled around her—Rosier and Lestrange occupying the snug loveseat that Abraxas had cornered her on just moments ago; Abraxas on the couch next to her and Adam grudgingly taking the spot next to him; Macnair in another unattached seat; and Parkinson and Greengrass collapsing onto the other loveseat.
Across from her, in a chair identical to hers, sat Riddle.
"Your spellwork is rather impressive, Abraxas," Hermione commented, drumming nails along one of the mahogany arms. Her diamond-encrusted ring glittered when she moved her fingers. "Did you conjure these from nothing?"
Abraxas did not immediately answer. His eyes flickered to Riddle's, whose returning stare was seemingly impassive.
Abraxas turned back to Hermione in a flash, but Hermione had caught that silent, nearly imperceptible interaction. "I wish I could say that was the case," he said, laughing. "But alas, it is not. I merely relocated them from somewhere else in the manor."
"Ah," said Hermione. "Well, still. Silent teleportation spells are no easy feat either. Silent spell-casting in general is beyond most people. You are quite impressive, Abraxas."
"Abraxas," Tom said, and his voice had lowered an octave with the word. Hermione could tell at once that he was not addressing his so-called friend when he said it—he was looking at Hermione, speaking to Hermione. He wasn't smiling. "You've just met this evening, and already you are on a first name basis with someone as prolific as the infamous Malfoy Heir. How… lovely."
It was abundantly clear that Riddle thought there was nothing lovely about this quick familiarity at all. One glance at Abraxas showed that he realized this, too; his already fair complexion paled. Another look towards the rest of them revealed that it was obvious to nearly everyone present—with the exception of Greengrass, perhaps, who looked agreeable rather than nervous.
"Abraxas is always such a gentleman," she said. "So quick to help and befriend. And you two really did hit it off at the gala! I've never had so much fun watching a bidding war. Congratulations on your excellent purchase and victory, by the way, Miss Smith."
Greengrass lifted her wineglass to her. Hermione decided that, of the lot of them, Marie Greengrass was the purest. Why, unless it was a greater act of Slytherin cunning than she had seen yet, Hermione thought she might even be sweet. "Thank you," she said.
But there it was again—without even looking at him, Hermione could feel the indescribable sensation of Riddle's cold eyes on her. A chill swept up her spine, her skin broke out into goosebumps. She tried to ignore it, but her overactive mind began to race, and the alarm bells in the back of her mind grew louder and louder.
Why? Why was Riddle radiating with such an inhospitable energy right now? Hermione was sure she was not imagining it; she could feel the spiteful waves being aimed towards her. She didn't understand. He had been nothing but charming and, more importantly, intrigued before. But now that she was here, aligning herself with sort of people Riddle himself had chosen to surround himself with, making it easier for him to—
And then it hit her.
Hermione had been looking at Tom Riddle all wrong.
She had been analyzing him and setting up a ploy which considered him through the lens which she knew him—with the knowledge of what he would one day become, what he would accomplish. She was thinking of him as a young Dark Lord who would one day raise armies, bewitch the very creatures he discriminated against, slaughter hundreds, and become a twisted, serpentine monster with only a fraction of a soul and a shred of sanity… when that was not how she should be gauging him at all.
She was allowing her own, personal knowledge of Riddle to influence her decisions too greatly. She had allowed the future which had so scarred her to guide her, when what she should have been doing was looking at Riddle in relation to his past. He was nowhere near the snake-like man who had gone eleven years without a body. In this time, he was much closer to the orphan boy who had clawed his way up the social hierarchy of Slytherin House—the ascent no doubt a challenging one, considering he had arrived at Hogwarts with no name and hand-me-down robes.
Riddle had undoubtedly needed to carve his place into magical society through an excess of cunning, charm, and a most impressive display of power. The fact that he was Slytherin's heir was one which he had chosen to share with a precious few. No, his sparkling reputation hadn't been handed to him—he had needed to work for it.
Hermione could relate… but that was not the role she was playing.
No, she was pretending to be a privileged witch. And now here she was, having only been in London a few weeks, and already she was being pulled into Abraxas Malfoy's inner circle, gaining his attention by purchasing the most expensive artwork on a whim, then shortly after found drinking fancy liquor at his manor, calling him by his first name. No effort, no cunning, not as far as Riddle knew. Just a pretty face and a good name, the right family relations, and she was in… and it hadn't been Riddle who had done it.
Hermione had slipped right in to this prestigious gathering herself, beneath his notice at a profligate gala that he either hadn't wanted to go to or couldn't attend. He had not been in control.
Of course he was feeling spiteful.
Hermione's heart beat faster. She had been so confident that she was on the right track before, that she would have Riddle's undivided interest completely by the end of the night. And perhaps she would—but now it felt very much like she would be earning his malevolence, not his favor.
She needed to rectify this. Hermione did not want to make an enemy of Riddle—not now, not like this.
Breathe, she thought to herself. Everything is fine. You can fix this.
A pop sound echoed in the drawing room as Maldey reappeared, and drinks hovered into their hands. Hermione almost made a face—she had not thought to ask for something else besides the strange, dark liquor that now floated into her unwilling grasp. It was much too strong. She would have rather had wine. Or, better yet, water.
"Let us share a toast," Abraxas said. It was painful how obvious he was trying to change the atmosphere to one which was bubbly and light. "Shall we?"
"Of course," Hermione agreed at once. "To what shall we toast?"
"How about to great art and greater acquaintances?" Greengrass offered.
"To beautiful women," said Macnair, the giant man who was probably Riddle's personal murderer on-duty for the night. He grinned at Hermione, revealing yellow teeth that made her think unwittingly of Fenrir Greyback.
"To Slytherin," Lestrange drawled. He raised his glass, his chin lowered almost reverently and his eyes on Riddle.
"To Slytherin!" Avery agreed heartily at once. He smiled at Riddle like an anxious child seeking approval.
Riddle looked amused as the rest quickly followed suit. It was an interesting dichotomy. The men were all varying levels of anxious and reverent, but the women… the women were just fearless in their adoration, weren't they? All except Rosier, who kept a slightly more respectful, dignified distance… But Greengrass and Parkinson looked like they were barely resisting the urge to crawl into Riddle's lap.
Hermione internally scoffed—his little peons, all full of admiration and secretly toasting him—but outwardly she raised her glass as well, pretending not to realize this. Riddle let them all hover with their arms raised like he simply enjoyed watching the light dance along the crystal rims, his own tumbler held comfortably at his side. After a momet he said, "To all the great founders of Hogwarts... and to our noble blood."
He looked across the table at Hermione. His lifted his glass directly towards her, somehow making the simple motion look enviably elegant. His long, pale fingers held the crystal so delicately, and the liquid within—something dark with a ruby tint, rather reminiscent of blood—shimmered. His gold ring glinted. Though his smile was perfectly dashing, the warmth didn't touch his eyes, which were as cold and hard as stones.
"To our noble blood," Hermione repeated softly.
The others repeated her words or murmured their agreement before they drank. Hermione hesitated—a moment in which Riddle's lips quirked the tiniest bit—before she took a drink and closed her eyes, needing to get out from under his stare.
Hermione's heart was pounding hard as she tasted the sweet, thick cachaça on her tongue. She drank only a sip, lowering her glass and looking to the grandfather clock as she swallowed. It was nearing half past eleven. Soon, she could leave without seeming rude, and regroup.
"As usual, Abraxas, you have an impeccable eye," Riddle said, and her eyes snapped from the clock to him. He had addressed Abraxas this time, clearly, but his gaze was still fixed on Hermione. He leaned back languidly in his chair, propping one ankle on his knee and swirling his glass lazily. For all the world he looked like an indolent king, ready to watch his subjects dance for his entertainment. "Miss Smith is related to the Hufflepuff line—which, as you probably all know, means that she is distantly related to the Shafiq's, the Flint’s the Weasley’s, and, a bit closer to home, the Malfoy’s." He smirked at Abraxas. "One could say you are like distant cousins."
Hermione forced a laugh. "Well met, cousin," she said, grinning at Abraxas like she found the notion that they may be related silly. Abraxas returned her smile weakly.
Hermione refused to let the fact that Riddle was admitting to having studied magical blood lines panic her. She had already known he was an expert in that field, and she had personally done the same research. It was why choosing Smith as her surname had been such a stroke of genius—there were so many Smith’s that no one bothered to record them all in the same fashion as the Black’s or the Malfoy’s of the world might. He could find Helga Hufflepuff if he dug far enough, but there was no way to know if anyone with the surname of Smith was related to her one way or another.
No—the best proof anyone with such a common last name (or any last name that was not one of the Sacred 28, for that matter) had of being related to a prestigious line was a family heirloom. Which Hepzibah had, of course, but that didn't really mean anything either when it came down to it. Case in point—Dolores Umbridge, passing off Slytherin's locket as an heirloom, claiming the S stood for Selwyn.
It was all nonsense.
"Of course, such matters are probably rather meaningless to you," Riddle went on, eyes settling on Hermione again. "Blood purity isn't something that is much celebrated in America, is it? And it has no bearing on your house sorting at your school."
"It doesn't?" Parkinson balked. Her nose wrinkled like she thought that a scandalizing idea.
"No," Hermione responded. "It doesn't."
"But Ilvermorny has houses, like Hogwarts?" Greengrass asked. "Oooh, how fun! How many are there?"
Hermione nodded, but Riddle was the one who spoke. "Indeed it does, Marie," he said, and Greengrass instantly gravitated towards him like a sunflower chasing after the sun. "Four houses, just like Hogwarts. In fact, the entire structure was based on Hogwarts, as it was the only magical school that those who'd formed it knew of. Of course, there are many differences—their sorting ceremony is quite unique, and the traits deemed desirable for each house vary somewhat from ours—but much is the same. For example—ah, how discourteous of me."
Riddle broke off, smiling at Hermione so demurely that she was instantly wary. "Forgive me, Miss Smith… If anyone should be holding court and talking about Ilvermorny, it's you. I confess, after you mentioned a few things about your school during our last encounter, I decided to go learn about its history. I have a rather insatiable need to research things. I should be thanking you, truly. It made for some delightful reading. Ilvermorny certainly has a fascinating… backstory."
His eyes glinted playfully at the word. Hermione felt like a heavy stone had been dropped in the pit of her stomach. The metaphorical alarm bells were now screaming in her ears—he knew something. He had been researching her, and he knew, he knew what she was, and—
No, he can't know, Hermione snapped at herself. That was impossible. He might be suspicious of her in general, but there was no way that he knew her true story. There was no evidence to be found, she had made sure of it. Magical schools were secretive and very private. He might have been able to read about Ilvermorny, but it wasn't like he could go there, or even contact their Headmaster and request old rosters or information about past students. That was absurd; magical schools didn't even reveal their precise locations, let alone personal information about students to unrecognized sources.
He was just trying to fluster her. She wouldn't allow it.
"It truly does," she agreed. "A thrilling tale—but I am sure it pales in comparison with the story of how Hogwarts, the very school which it was based on, was formed… I admit that I also have a penchant for researching. Perhaps I should set aside my current studying of advanced calculative arithmancy, and finally satisfy my aunt's relentlessness to read about this Hogwarts—as well as our supposedly prestigious family tree."
"Advanced calculative arithmancy?" Riddle asked.
"Slovin's theory on dream interpretation in particular," Hermione said comfortably. For as much as muggle technology had changed, she had been relieved to find that magical theory in 1950 was much the same as it was in her time. "I appreciate his dissection of language in terms of translating words into proper mathematical equations; I find it leads to cleaner and more logical predictions."
"Do you?" Riddle's brows raised a hair, his eyes trained on Hermione carefully. He seemed to be considering his next words carefully. "…I must disagree," he said at length. "I find Portier's methods superior."
"Portier's methods are too simplistic, in my opinion," Hermione countered. "I understand the appeal to his methodology, and recognize that his technique generally results in a wider array of applications, but I feel it is too straightforward to yield exact results. It's the way the letters correspond directly to the numerical values. It puts too much emphasis on the word which is chosen to be the sole subject."
"That is why one must be certain of what they have dreamt, and very aware of what it is they are hoping to divine," said Riddle. "And use Latin, of course," he added.
"Well, obviously," Hermione said, annoyed that he would think that she might use anything but. "Seeing as that is what his entire theory is based on. Can you imagine what one might divine if they were to apply Portier's theory using their mother tongue?"
They both laughed. No one else joined them.
"Something absurd, no doubt," Riddle said, smiling. He was no longer reclining back in his seat, but leaning forward, eager. "But that doesn't dismiss the superiority of his methods. They are accurate when used correctly. And you're quite right—the greatest appeal to them is that the information gleaned can then be applied to a multitude of subsequent calculations. It's a larger net with which you can catch more fish."
"A larger net means a weaker hold, Mr. Riddle. You might catch more fish, but you'll only catch the small ones. Slovin's theory, on the other hand, leads to a metaphorical harpoon. You can gather guppies all day long if you want… but I prefer to hunt the shark."
Hermione smirked and took a sip of her drink, holding his gaze the same way he had held hers over the gold-rimmed, porcelain teacup at Hepzibah's. Riddle said nothing—he simply stared, an expression that was somewhere between intrigued and irritated gracing his features.
It was only when someone cleared their throat that Hermione lifted her eyes from his. She had quite forgotten, in the midst of that small debate, that anyone else was there.
Something grazed her neck.
Hermione's heart leapt into her throat, adrenaline exploding in her veins as she whipped around in her chair, gasping, almost dropping her glass. Her other hand was on her leg, about to reach up her dress and snatch her wand, but then she realized that no one was behind her, no one had touched her. Couldn't have like that, through the back of the chair.
"My goodness!" Avery exclaimed. Hermione was breathing very quickly as she turned back around, confused. "Are you all right, Miss Smith?"
"Y-yes," Hermione said. "I just thought I felt something…"
She could feel Riddle's eyes like weights on her. Hermione would not look at him. Had he somehow done that?
"Oh, dear. It was just your hair." Parkinson stood, set her wine glass down, and sauntered over to Hermione, leaning down over her and giving Hermione a rather unobstructed and personal view of her cleavage. She caught a strand of Hermione's hair between her fingers. "One of your braids has fallen loose. I daresay you have Adam to blame for that—he must have messed something up with those thick fingers of his when he was playing with your flowers earlier."
Avery choked on his drink at the words. Hermione could imagine the glare Riddle was now shooting his way, but she didn't chance looking. "Come with me, I can show you to a little powder room down the hall," Parkinson said.
She smiled so sweetly that Hermione could feel her teeth rotting. When Parkinson offered her hand, Hermione could not see a way to refuse it politely… though this kindness was undoubtedly a trap. "That would be lovely, thank you," she said, setting her drink down and flashing a smile of her own.
Hermione nearly tripped over herself when she stood. These damn shoes, she thought viciously, though a small part of her thought the alcohol deserved some of the blame. Why had she let Hepzibah talk her into wearing these shoes again?
She might have fallen, too, were it not for Parkinson steadying her. "My, someone is rather clumsy!" she said, giggling. Hermione repressed a scowl. "One would think you've never walked in heels before!"
Hermione laughed as well, but it sounded altogether too high and nervous even to herself. Stupidly, her eyes flickered to Riddle. He was staring, not at her face, but at her legs—hard. And not in a lecherous way, no. In a calculating way. Like there was a secret written in ancient runes along the hem of her dress, and he was on the precipice of an epiphany.
She didn't have time to consider what that look might mean before Parkinson was guiding her away. Hermione turned and walked at her side, happy to get away from that analytical stare.
What was Riddle thinking?
"It's not far, don't worry," Parkinson said. "Just a little nook around the corner here. Isn't Abraxas's home just gorgeous?"
"Yes, it is."
"I've been coming here for years—our families have been dear friends for ages, the Malfoy’s and the Parkinson’s have always been very close—but Abraxas really has put his own signature on the place. Before he redid the gardens he had that beautiful chandelier installed. He really has a splendid style, wouldn't you agree? It's very art nouveau."
Hermione nodded and made a noncommittal, humming noise. She did not think much of the chandelier in the drawing room, but then again, her opinion was rather biased.
More concerning was Parkinson's innocent prattlings. Hermione half-listened as she led her to a mirror, which was, indeed, tucked away in a corner. Hermione had a dark feeling about it. It was not far, but the inability to see or hear the others in the drawing room made it feel isolated.
Hermione did not like the idea of being alone with Alice Parkinson, but she was far from afraid of her. She released Hermione's arm. While Hermione re-braided the wayward strands of hair and pinned them back into place, Parkinson's dark eyes watched her intently, fixed on her in the glass.
"You're nothing special, you know."
And there it was. Hermione had just been waiting for her fake, saccharine sweetness to twist. Parkinson had hardly been containing it before, and now that they were out of earshot of the others, her malice was, for the moment, unconcealed.
Hermione pretended not to understand. "I'm sorry?" she asked, meeting her eyes in the mirror.
"You think they're sincere, that they're fawning over you, those boys, don't you? That you're so special," Parkinson said. "You're wrong. Adam, well, he would flirt with a cow if it would give him the time of day; Oliver is all but betrothed to Marie, their parents have been talking about it for years; and Abraxas… He might be intrigued now, but that's not surprising. You're just a shiny, new toy that he'll get bored with soon enough… just like all the rest."
She grinned cruelly. Hermione turned to face her head on. "I think you misunderstand, Miss Parkinson," she said, forcing a smile that hurt her jaw. "I was merely accepting Abraxas's generous offer to see his manor. I have no intention of being a toy for anyone."
"Oh, of course not, dear," Parkinson said, her voice sweet and condescending once more. She hooked her arm through Hermione's and started leading them back towards the others; Hermione's skin crawled even as she once more allowed it. "And I didn't mean in any way to offend. I am only trying to help you. Woman to woman. Adam is a simple soul, Oliver is taken, Abraxas changes his mind all the time, and Tom, well…"
Parkinson's voice trailed off. "Yes?" she prompted, impatient.
"You are just entirely wasting your time there," she finished softly, not looking at Hermione.
Hermione wondered when and how she'd been rejected.
As they walked towards the drawing room, Hermione listened hard. Abraxas was talking to Macnair and Lestrange in voices too low for Hermione to make out, but Rosier and Greengrass were fawning over Riddle, smiling bashfully at him and speaking in high, loud voices. Hermione tried not to outwardly gape when Greengrass even had the boldness to lean over and touch his arm when she spoke—something about how he simply must make time to see them more often—and was she actually telling Riddle he had to do anything? Hermione was astonished at the casualness of it all; what was she thinking?
Tom Riddle had begun building his empire while he was in school, Hermione was certain of it. He had started to call himself by a new name at Hogwarts; he had gathered around himself the precursors to his Death Eaters, his Knights; he had opened the Chamber of Secrets and who knew what other dark magic he had gotten up to in the dark corners of the Slytherin common room? Didn’t she have a healthy enough fear of him to keep a bit of distance? Didn't she—
Then it hit her. A second, damning realization.
She didn't know.
Marie Greengrass, Alice Parkinson, Victoria Rosier. They didn't know. They did not know the Riddle behind the mask, not in the same manner that the men did. And just as Hermione was beginning to think this a ludicrous notion— how could they not know?—she realized that it was not ludicrous at all.
This was 1950. In the memories Hermione had seen of a young Tom Riddle, there had been no girls seated around a table in Slughorn's office, enjoying a fancy dinner and talking like proper gentlemen. Sexism was not a plague in this time period, it was normal.
Why had she not considered this?
Hermione answered herself with a single name: Bellatrix Lestrange.
That notoriety of that one woman was so large it cast the infamy of twelve male Death Eaters in its shadow, but she was still only one woman. And here, now, in 1950, Bellatrix Lestrange—Bellatrix Black—had not even been born yet.
And what had Bellatrix needed to do, to prove herself worthy as his first female Death Eater? What tribulations had she needed to suffer through, how many of her male colleagues had she needed to crush beneath her heel before Voldemort decided to mark her—before she became his closest and most powerful lieutenant? Hermione didn't know, but she was certain it had not been an easy path.
But this realization changed everything. Hermione had thought that it would be an easy path. That by simply placing herself in the right place, with the right name, seen with the right people—so easily within reach—that Riddle would snatch her up at once. That her intelligence would be enough of an enticement that she would become a part of his inner circle, that she could gain enough of his trust…
Now she realized that no, it would not be easy. It would not be easy at all.
Because why would Tom Riddle take another pretty, rich young witch seriously? If the way these women were acting was any indication, they must have thrown themselves at him when he was in school and continued to do so now. He probably looked at them and the way they batted their lashes at him and laughed inside. More likely than not, Riddle let them worship his body just to leave them broken and wanting, and Hermione bet that still they pined for him afterwards. How unimpressive he must have thought they were, to so easily become charmed by him. How weak.
Hermione glanced at Parkinson with a fresh, new spite which was severely judgmental. How could you be so blinded by his pretty face? How could you not have any suspicion at all for the devil sleeping in the dorm next to yours?
How could you be so stupid?
Well, not her.
Rather than let this comprehension discourage her, Hermione felt a new spark of determination flare to life, the heat of which incinerated her earlier apprehension. The former alarm bells were drowned out by a sound like a lion's roar. It didn't matter that it was 1950. She was the brightest witch of her age—of any age. If Bellatrix Black could gain his favor in twenty years' time, then she could do it now.
"So, Hermione," Parkinson said loudly as they reentered the foyer. Hermione's jaw clenched at the use of her first name; everyone stopped talking to look at them. "I was just wondering—you said you're Hepzibah's niece, yes? And that it was your mother who was her sister?"
Parkinson's smile was nauseating. Hermione's stomach churned—she knew exactly where Parkinson was going with this, just as she knew there was nothing she could do to stop her. This was not what Hermione had planned. This was not how this conversation was supposed to happen, not with an audience of pureblood bigots, not with her.
But it was happening, and Hermione had to stick with her story. "Yes, that's correct," she answered tersely.
"Well, why ever would you have you mother's surname and not your father's? How… delightfully unconventional!" Parkinson threw in a small giggle afterwards for good measure. Hermione pulled her arm free. They were still standing, and the others were watching silently from their seats, glasses in hand. "Unless your father's name was also Smith? I suppose it is very common…"
She laughed again. The sound grated on Hermione's ears; her spite for Parkinson was swelling larger with each passing second. Hermione drew in a deep breath, and in a quiet voice, said, "I never knew my father."
The silence was deafening. Parkinson blinked once in surprise… and then her smiled widened like that of a sardonic, gratified crocodile.
"Alice, why don't you—"
Whatever Abraxas might have said in an attempt to diffuse the situation failed spectacularly. "You never knew your father?" Parkinson plowed on, ignoring him. Her fat smile switched to one of false pity with the speed of a light switch being flicked. "Do you mean he passed away while you were young?"
"No. I don't know," Hermione said softly. "I never met him, and my mother never spoke of him."
"Oh, you poor dear!" Parkinson put a hand on her shoulder. Hermione bristled; she wanted to rip her fingers off. "Well, I can only imagine why—someone as prestigious as that, a pureblood witch descended from the Hufflepuff line. She must have made a terrible mistake, a scandal; not telling you was probably a mercy. Probably some deplorable mud—"
Hermione moved faster than she ever had. She didn't even notice how or why she'd done it, she only knew that she had retrieved her wand in a flash of rage, fury simmering beneath her skin like a pot that had finally boiled over. She had her wand up beneath Parkinson's chin, the tip of the walnut flickering like a flint. Parkinson's hand flew off her shoulder like Hermione's skin had burned her, and her condescending expression was gone as quickly as though Hermione had slapped it from her face.
In that moment, her act had vanished. She was not Hermione Smith and this was not Alice Parkinson—she was Hermione Granger: bushy-hair, buckteeth, bookworm, mudblood, and this was Pansy she was drawing her wand on—Hermione was a thirteen-year-old girl getting ganged up on by Pansy and her cluster of Slytherin friends, cornering her in the girls' bathroom where Harry and Ron were not around to defend her.
But Hermione had always been able to fight for herself.
"Finish that sentence," Hermione hissed, “and see what happens."
Hermione's hand was trembling slightly, but her mind was set. Say something, she silently dared. Give me an excuse.
Fury was broiling within her; Hermione was prepared to unleash it without so much as an incantation uttered—she would set this girl ablaze in a flash of her mudblood magic; she could feel it, sweltering hot, burning, burning, burning—
Burning—
"Fire!"
Greengrass shrieked behind them. Parkinson screamed too, stumbling backwards, away from her, and when Hermione followed her terrified gaze, her body locked up in shock.
Fire. An actual fire…
As though remembering something from someone else's life—the same girl who had been tortured, seeking solace in a crystal's flickering rainbow—Hermione recalled another vivid detail from that day. When Bellatrix had roared in rage, full of fury and fear, a flame had emitted from the tip of her wand. It was unintended magic, that stream of fire which had burnt a hole in the carpet…
It seemed this wand reacted just as powerfully to Hermione's emotions as it had to Bellatrix's. A flame had been born the moment she'd touched the wood, pulling her wand from beneath her skirt, and now the bottom of her dress was burning because that unintentional flame had caught on the fabric.
I am on fire, she thought in a state of complete shock. Somewhere in another world, women were screaming and people were jumping to their feet. I am on fire.
Hermione was just about to redirect her wand, to cast the spell—aguamenti—when there was a sharp snapping sound, and several things happened at once.
The flames died. The chandelier flickered. Hermione felt an unnatural chill against her legs and waist. It was like winter had just bled into the room and wrapped itself around her, snuffing out the fire and sinking into her bones.
Hermione stared down at her dress. One side was completely ruined—the fabric was incinerated all the way up to her leg to where the garter was, the edges of the gold now singed and turned a charcoal black. Hermione ran a hand over her exposed thigh. She felt a moment of relief—the fire hadn't lasted long enough to do any damage to her skin. Had she done that, had she put it out? Had she stopped the fire as unintentionally as she had started it?
Shivering, Hermione looked up. It was perfectly clear at once that no, she had not.
Riddle was sitting, the only one of the group who had remained in his chair. He was leaning back again, that languid, royal look about him, effortlessly debonair. He had one arm raised—it was obvious by the way he held his hand out that he had just snapped—and his other elbow was propped against the armrest. Tom Riddle had put that fire out… and he hadn't said a word, he hadn't drawn his wand.
He hadn't even set his drink down.
His face held no expression. Hermione gaped at him, swallowing thickly. Everyone was staring, their heads swiveling back and forth between Hermione and Riddle with huge eyes, unsure of how to react.
Then Riddle smiled, and the tension in the room cracked like ice being doused with hot water.
Parkinson was the first to laugh.
It was a shrill, familiar sound, that laughter, and everyone else began laughing soon thereafter. Everyone except Riddle, who loftily lifted his glass to his lips and took a drink. His eyes glinted amusedly as he lowered the tumbler, his gaze trailing down the length of Hermione's now scorched dress where most of her leg and a makeshift garter were now visible. He was grinning wickedly when his eyes returned to hers, his head tilting slightly to one side as if to say, not bad.
Hermione could feel her entire body turn red.
"A… Are you all right, Hermione?"
Abraxas, it seemed, was the only one able to control his laughter well enough to bother asking. Everyone else, besides Riddle, was doubled over. Parkinson was laughing so hard that she could hardly stand; Greengrass was clutching her stomach and seemed to be crying; Lestrange was holding onto his fiancé, who had dropped her wineglass at some point but didn't seem too fussed about it at the moment; Macnair's booming laughter would have put Hagrid's to shame; and Avery had his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with laughter so hard it was silent.
Hermione's already furious blush deepened. "I'm fine," she snapped. She could only meet Abraxas's gaze for a second—he was barely chocking back laughter of his own in his attempt to be a courteous host. Which she supposed meant making sure his guests weren't badly burned.
"I think… I need some air."
And with as much dignity and grace as she could muster, Hermione walked away from them, heading towards the glass door, leaving the drawing room and going outside.
Hermione could hear their laughter even after she had slammed the door behind her—the sound loud enough that it caused an albino peacock to squawk in alarm and rush off into the bushes. Feeling more mortified than she ever had, Hermione marched away from Malfoy Manor, her wand held tightly in her fist. She stared down at the walnut accusingly. "Don't do that again," she muttered, like the wand was a sentient thing and could take instruction.
You can't blame the wand, Hermione, she scolded herself. It's only a magical conduit that responded to your emotions. That magic was your own fault. Control your emotions. Focus on your plan.
Somehow, Holloway's voice had crept into her subconscious again. It usually did when she was berating herself for having done something stupid. Hermione grit her teeth and walked.
She may have considered some things… incorrectly, and she may have just made a complete fool of herself… but all was not lost. Her story was still solid, she had not allowed any cracks to show through the surface of her own mask, not really. Victory was still attainable.
She thought of Draco Malfoy in her own time, of everything they had gone through. Hours and hours of research, of planning. She couldn't let it all be for naught.
I can do still this, Hermione thought. Just one foot in front of the other, one step at a time.
She was on a smooth, cobblestone path, one which was leading her towards the gardens that Abraxas had been so boastful of. There was huge, iron gate in the distance. Hermione remembered it vividly. That same metal had once contorted into a mouth, demanding to know who dared come to Malfoy Manor when Fenrir Greyback had captured them…
Forcing the memories from that day aside for the hundredth time, Hermione returned her attention to the path. Abraxas had been right—the grounds were not chilly as they should be for a night in January. The air felt pleasantly warm, and the foliage was all a lush green, full of life. She turned a corner behind a tall hedge, and was so awestruck by what she saw that she momentarily forgot her turmoil.
Wow.
The garden that Hermione had entered was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. There were flowers, hundreds of them, all vibrantly pink. White fairy lights illuminated the greenery, floating near the hedges like stars that had been dragged down to earth and set in place. Hermione breathed in, and the sweet smell of flowers filled her like a drug, an aroma far more intoxicating than any perfume. The walkway went in a circle here, decorated with tall, marble columns, and in the center of the ring which they formed was a stone basin. A pool. Hermione approached it, and the water within was as smooth and shiny as glass. Her awestruck reflection stared up at her, and…
Frowning, Hermione leaned closer to the water's edge. What was that, whirling around in there? Something white, like tiny, tiny fish, maybe…
Then Hermione looked up, and she gasped.
Snow.
The white dots weren't in the lake—it was only another reflection. Several feet above her, Hermione could see the snow falling, only it stopped at a very precise point. It must have been where the wards were in place, keeping the warmth in these enchanted grounds. Beyond that point winter reigned, but here, in these magnificent gardens, it was eternally spring.
Hermione wasn't sure how long she watched the snow flutter towards her. It was so surreal—like being in a reverse snow globe. The snowflakes fell, blankets of them, evaporating long before she could ever hope to catch one on her tongue.
"…Beautiful, isn't it?"
Maybe the voice should have startled her. Probably. Any rational human being who knew what she knew would have been alarmed. He hadn't made any sound at all when he'd appeared. Who knew how long he’d been standing there? Perhaps as long as Hermione had been staring up at the sky, entranced by the snowfall beyond reach.
But she wasn't startled. She wouldn't pretend to have known that he was going to come after her, but now that he was here, she was not at all surprised. "Yes," she answered. "It is."
Then she lowered her gaze from the sky to look at him, and the serenity of the moment was gone.
Riddle was standing with his arms folded across his chest, leaning against one of the marble columns. His skin was nearly as white as the stone, his hair blacker than his dark robes, and his lips—which were currently curled in a slight smile—were more saturated with color than what should have been permissible without the aid of cosmetics. How could such a beautiful person be so monstrous on the inside? Standing there as he was, illuminated by the soft glow of fairy light, he could have been a male version of Snow White.
Hermione scowled. She knew better. "Come to mock me, have you?"
"On the contrary, I came to make sure you were all right." Riddle unfolded his arms and stood straighter. Hermione's hand once more tensed around her wand. "And to make sure that there weren't any new fires in need of dousing," he added, his eyes having caught the slight action.
"Well, there aren't, so you're free to go," Hermione said stiffly. "But your chivalry has been duly noted."
"Has it, now?" Riddle, naturally, did not go. He took a step closer to her, his black cloak billowing behind him. Hermione wondered which pocket his wand was in, how fast he could have it aimed at her. She was surprised he didn't have it out now. She was glad that her own was in her grasp, ready to be put to use. "I was chivalrous enough to stop the entirety of your dress from going up in flames... not that the alteration is entirely disastrous." He paused. Smirked. Hermione could feel her face once more flushing with heat. "If such chivalry was noted, one might expect a thank you."
"I could have put it out myself," Hermione muttered.
"Could you have?" Riddle drawled. "Because from my point of view, it looked very much like you were incapable of movement."
"I was just in shock."
"I think we were all in shock by that… interaction." Hermione's body burned hotter. "Careful," Riddle went on, his eyes gleaming as he stared pointedly at her blushing face. "You wouldn't want to catch on fire again. I might have to resort to more drastic measures to put you out."
This, of course, had the opposite of a desirable effect. Hermione's flushed more than ever, and she turned away from him, glaring down into the pool of water with such toxicity she thought she might turn it to acid. Behind her, Riddle laughed.
"She insulted my family," Hermione bit out, choosing to ignore his comment. "I should have lit her on fire."
"Ah, you'll have to forgive Miss Parkinson. She and the others were raised in a far different world than the one that you were raised in, no doubt. Here, pureblood children from certain families are raised to believe that they are, to put it simply, magical royalty."
"I don't care who they are—I don't have to forgive anyone who doesn't deserve it.”
"Fair enough."
Hermione looked up at that unexpected response. Riddle's expression resembled something like understanding. "I don't forgive those who insult me either," he said simply.
"Hm."
They fell into silence. Hermione's focus returned to the pool, where she watched the snow whirl about in the reflection. It was rather hypnotic, the way the snowflakes danced. Soothing.
Eventually, Hermione drew in a deep breath and bit back her pride. "Thank you," she said, turning her attention back to Riddle.
He smiled. "I would never let a good witch burn, Miss Smith."
No, you'd do far worse things to a good witch, Hermione thought contemptuously. Torture them, maim them, kill them without a second thought. Leave a skull with a snake slithering out of it written in stars like a grave marker.
"It's Hermione," she said, giving him the most genuine smile she could muster. "Please."
"As you wish… Hermione."
Hermione's heart skipped a beat. What was it about the way he said her name that caused such a visceral reaction?
Get it together, Granger, Holloway scolded her from some dark corner of her mind. It was a sobering voice. Focus.
"That was impressive," Hermione said then, careful with her flattery. "That magic—putting out fire like that without a wand. More impressive even than making business cards appear from nothingness. I can't help but wonder…" She gave him a sweeping, appraising look. "What else are you capable of?"
"What do you think I'm capable of?"
Hermione's brows furrowed, feigning deep thought. "…Magically making the bottom portion of incinerated, golden dresses reform themselves," she said.
Riddle laughed. "Such a specific talent," he said. "But you have knowingly set me up for failure. One cannot restore something which has been destroyed by fire. It's—"
"Explained thoroughly in the third law of magic, yes, I am perfectly aware," Hermione said, waving one hand dismissively. "Doesn't make it any less depressing. This was a nice dress."
"At least your garter didn't burn."
Hermione looked down. Her handcrafted garter where she had stashed her wand was, indeed, untouched… and now it was clearly visible. "Nice wand holster," Riddle added slyly.
"You know, I wouldn't have needed to resort to that if—if women's dress robes had pockets!" Hermione shouted heatedly.
"You could have worn something over your dress with pockets," Riddle said, like that was the most obvious thing in the world. Which was infuriating because it was.
Hermione thought to make several arguments to this—that no one did that, that wearing a cloak over a fancy dress defeated the purpose of wearing a fancy dress in the first place, that Hepzibah wouldn't have allowed her to do that anyway, seeing as she wouldn't even let her bring a bag—but then stopped short. Hermione was not about to open up a discussion about magical fashion with Tom Riddle of all people. "Oh, never mind," she said. "I knew it was a bad idea when I did it—basic wand safety and all that. I'd have been better off tucking it behind my ear. Or maybe woven in to my braids, under all these stupid flowers."
Hermione reached up and pulled one of the golden roses from her hair. It glinted and shimmered, magic radiating about it which made it sparkle. She tossed it into the pool where it floated, turning in circles in the now rippling pool.
"What do you usually do with your wand?" Riddle asked.
Hermione frowned at him. "What do you mean?"
"When you go to events such as the gala this evening. What do you usually do with your wand?"
Hermione then realized the reasoning behind his question. Right. She was an affluent witch who went to those sort of things all the time…
"Normally, I don't bring it with me," she lied. "In New York I didn't, at least. But this is different. I know very few people in London, and trust even less. I won't go anywhere in this city without a wand."
"A smart move," said Riddle approvingly.
"I'm a smart girl," Hermione responded, shrugging. "My mother taught me well."
There was a pause. Hermione waited, holding her breath, wondering if he would breach the subject.
"…That was extraordinarily rude, the manner in which Alice questioned you," he said. Hermione's pulse picked up. "She should have held her tongue."
"Trust me, it isn't the first time someone has questioned me about my surname and my parents," Hermione responded. "I'm usually much better at handling it. Something about her tone just… got to me, I suppose.”
"She does have a rather grating tone," Riddle murmured.
Hermione gasped. "Why, have you just insulted a fellow Slytherin?” She put one hand to her chest, pretending to be deeply scandalized. "And here I was, thinking your house loyalties so very important! And you've just told me she is magical royalty!"
"There are precious few who should think of themselves so highly.”
"Like who? You, perhaps? Is your surname passed down from some ancient, pureblood King, Mr. Riddle?"
"No."
Riddle's tone was suddenly sharp, his face hard. Hermione's heart stopped, but a moment later he was smiling again, faultlessly charming. "And it's Tom," he said in the same, gentle tone she had used.
"…Please."
Hermione swallowed thickly. Her heart stuttered back to life, though it was once more beating too fast. "As you wish," she said, hating how her voice came out in a whisper. "…Tom."
Hermione turned away, needing to look anywhere but at Riddle, seeking some distraction from those alluring, damning eyes. She stared at the tall bushes, focusing on one of the bright pink flowers.
"Roses," Riddle said, having followed her gaze.
Hermione glanced at the golden rose in the pool. Of course the color was wrong, but despite that, they could not have looked more different. The flowers growing around them only had five petals. "These aren't roses," she disagreed. She nodded towards the fake flower in the pool." That's a rose."
"You are both right and wrong," said Riddle. Hermione could hear the smirk in his voice before she even looked at him. He moved to stand closer to her, his long fingers grazing one of the pink blossoms. "These are wild roses. The kind which can grow and survive without human intervention, which have been around much longer than us. They grow spontaneously out of wreckage, they grow without the careful pruning and care of people. They thrive, and die, and thrive again, all on their own."
He turned to look at her, his eyes lingering on the flowers which remained fixed in her braids. "The enchanted roses which you wear in your hair are, in fact, roses, but they are garden roses. Roses that were purposefully cultivated and altered for a more alluring appearance. More petals, different colors. And it worked—cultivation led to the flowers that you typically think of when you hear the word 'roses'. The kind you see in shops, available for purchase in large bouquets and given as gifts when one wishes to impress... But there are drawbacks to such selective breeding. Garden roses, while pretty, are delicate. They require far more care—temperate weather, pruning, frequent watering. Most of them have no scent at all. Makes them perfect to grow with the intent of sacrifice. Most women melt under the weight of a dozen roses being pressed into their arms."
He gripped the stem of one of the wild roses, tight, like he was about to rip it from the bush. "But you don't strike me as one of those women, Hermione."
Riddle released the flower. His fingers grazed the petals as his arm dropped, and when had he gotten so close?
"Y-you don't?" Hermione stuttered. Riddle was standing so near to her that she had to crane her neck to look up at him.
"No, you don't. I don't think a bouquet of flowers would impress you much. I think the story behind how roses have been cultivated impresses you more. Beautiful, meaningless things do very little for you… but knowledge. That piques your interest."
He shifted even closer. "I have to go," Hermione said, unthinking. Her voice didn't sound like her own—it was small, feeble. "I have to be back home before midnight."
"Or what?" Riddle said. Closer. "Will the rest of your dress disintegrate into ashes when the clock strikes twelve? Is that when the magic will fade, the spell effectively broken, and the truth beneath the dazzling façade shall be revealed?" His eyes were dark tunnels—pulling, pulling, pulling. "Are you Cinderella?"
His tone was smoother than silk. He knew something, but how could he know?
Hermione feigned ignorance. She was supposed to be the sort of witch who thought Cinderella might be a disease, not a princess from a fairy tale. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about," she said numbly, even as the lines of evil stepsisters from the familiar tale echoed in her mind—the version her mother had told her, her favorite bedtime story.
Cinderella, Cinderella. Don't you know your place?
"Oh, I think you know far more than you let on."
Riddle's stare was paralyzing. Hermione couldn't move, couldn't think. "But perhaps I'm still off the mark," he went on. "Maybe just knowledge all on its own isn't enough to hold your interest, either. Perhaps it's something more—words carefully crafted to convey meaning that otherwise would be incomprehensible. Perhaps you live for poetry."
He plucked one of the remaining flowers from her hair, holding it agilely between his fingers. He was so close that Hermione could count the lashes framing his eyes if she wanted. They were long and black like spider's legs, reaching out, pulling.
"A rose by any other name…"
Hermione could smell the cologne clinging to his robes, mixing with the scent of the wild roses. She could see fairy lights shining in his eyes.
"…would smell as sweet," she finished without thinking.
Riddle smiled, and though there was something undeniably dangerous in the curve of his lips, Hermione couldn't dwell on it. The golden rose fell from his grasp, and he lightly touched her chin to tilt her head back. His fingers were soft and cool against her skin, and he leaned closer, closer—
Hermione closed her eyes. She could feel his breath on her lips.
In the same moment that he grazed her bottom lip with his own—the lightest ghost of a kiss—the grandfather clock from within the drawing room, a thousand miles away, struck twelve. The resounding chime was like a bolt of lightning straight to Hermione's heart.
She shoved him, hard.
Something flared, bright and blinding, and Riddle was sent staggering backwards—but how far he had been forced away, Hermione did not know, for she did not stay to watch. She shoved him and ran, tearing out of the garden, sprinting towards the gates.
Cinderella, Cinderella. Don't you know your place?
Hermione was too panicked to think logically; all that mattered was that she escape from this place, this nightmarish manor, those magnetic eyes. She tore across the enchanted lawn at breakneck speed, and just as she was nearing the gates, she fell. Fate was an unseen root twisting around the heel of her shoe, and Hermione flew forward as it caught her, landing on her hands and knees. The shoe was ripped from her foot, and a horrible, stinging pain shot up her leg when her ankle twisted—but she ignored it, pushing herself up and running on, leaving the shoe behind. Was Riddle chasing her? She did not know, she would not look—the gate was so close; Hermione raised her wand, ready to blast apart the iron—
But there was no need. For as imposing as the gates had been when someone wanted to enter the manor, they had no such discriminations against those wishing to leave. They flew open before her, and Hermione escaped the grounds, bursting beyond the wards. Cold air hit her like a wall of ice, so sudden and hard that Hermione nearly choked on it. The snow here, in this real, wild world, made it all the way to the ground. Hermione left a single mark in it, her bare foot sinking into the soft, white snow before she exhaled, gripped her wand like a talisman, and vanished with a crack.
Chapter 14: O, Romeo
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hermione ran.
The sound of clock striking midnight reverberated in her ears, a metronome of cataclysmic chimes. The world became a bit darker with each note, a bit colder, a bit wilder. Her dress was falling apart around her, deteriorating into cinders, turning to dust that was snatched up by the wind. Something was chasing her. It was at her heels. A monster sunk its teeth into her shoe and yanked it backwards, keeping it, snarling, laughing. Hermione fell and scraped her knees, getting dirt on her hands and breaking the skin on her palms. The flowers fell from her hair and turned to ashes. The clock stopped chiming.
Still, she ran.
Hermione burst through the gates and into the snow. Behind her, the iron twisted into a mouth, shouting ‘Mudblood!’ in Bellatrix’s voice. Hermione refused to turn and look back. She ran, her dress having been reduced completely to ashes, leaving her naked save for a thin layer of charcoal coating her skin.
It was so, so cold.
Her wand, where was her wand? Hermione was frantic, confused; she had just had it a moment ago, but now it was gone—her dirty, bleeding palms were empty. Bellatrix’s voice was laughing manically behind her. Hermione shuddered, held her arms tight against her chest, and ran on, bursting past the tree line into the woods. The trees towered over her with their bare, lifeless limbs, swaying in the wind. She did not make it far before she tripped and fell again. Hermione landed face first in a snowdrift.
The impact of the snow enveloping her body stole her breath away; Hermione could feel the frigid, January air like something solid stuck in her throat. She rolled on to her side and began coughing violently. To her great horror, she hacked up roses and blood: pink petals coated in scarlet, blossoms staining the snow and turning it into a wounded water painting. They wouldn’t stop coming.
Help me, she thought, desperately clawing at her throat. She couldn’t breathe. She was going to die. Someone, help me.
Hermione felt something move against her leg. Eyes watering from her forceful coughing, she looked down in shock: her other shoe had turned not to ashes and dust, like the rest of her garments, but into a snake. Vibrant green and toxic-looking, it stood out in this world of white snow and black, dead trees. It coiled around her calf, was slithering past her bloodied knee and up her thigh. Hermione would have screamed, but the roses in her throat would not allow it. She could not even move to get away—the frigid air and snow had frozen her. Her skin was turning blue. She was helpless.
The snake slid up her hips, across her stomach, between her breasts. It lifted its head and stared into her wide, watery eyes. It flicked its forked tongue out curiously, hungrily. Hermione, still clawing at her throat, knew that it was over—the snake was going to unhinge its jaw and strike, and there was nothing she could do.
And then it let out a low, velvety hiss.
Hee-sah-iss.
To nearly anyone else in the world, that would have sounded like nonsense, but not to Hermione. She knew that word, that one word in that language—had listened to Ron struggle with it over and over and over again until finally the sink in the girl’s lavatory had revealed a hole, and she, a muggle-born, had followed the blood traitor into the darkness.
Open.
And before Hermione could even think to react, the snake lunged. It forced itself past her blood-stained lips and into her flower-riddled mouth, pushing itself down her throat; Hermione gagged and tried to pull it away, but its body was too slick, too powerful—
Hermione awoke with a start.
She sat bolt upright, clutching at her neck. She expected to find her windpipe blocked, and was shocked when she was easily able to draw in a long, unobstructed breath. Hermione could have cried in relief. A dream. It was only a dream.
Or a nightmare, more like, she thought, her hand falling to her chest. She could feel her heart speeding beneath her palm, beating against her ribcage. An extremely visceral, horrifying nightmare.
Hermione took several deep breaths. She thought for a moment of what key words she might use if she wanted to apply Portier’s method of dream interpretation to that delightful nightmare. Snake, perhaps? Snow? Mudblood? Choking? Roses? Blood? Horror?
And that is why Slovin’s methods are superior, she thought dryly. I could use them all, then.
Once her pulse was no longer racing, Hermione focused on her reality rather than her disturbing dream. Sunlight streamed through the translucent curtains which blocked the doors to her balcony, the brightness of which made her wince. Her head pounded—no doubt the repercussions of last night’s alcohol—but other than that, she felt all right.
Hermione glanced at herself in the freestanding, full-length mirror which stood next to her dresser. The sight of her reflection startled her. She half expected to see herself covered in ashes, with her skin turned blue and snow in her hair.
As it was, she looked quite normal. She was in her nightgown, her hair loose and slightly tangled from sleep but otherwise as smooth as it always was now. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the remnants of some smudged cosmetics that she had been too lazy to clean off last night, she would have looked just as she did every morning when she awoke in Hepzibah’s home.
The clock on her wall chimed, and Hermione about had another heart attack, her pulse racing again in an instant—but the sound of her bedroom clock was nothing like that of the monotonous notes of her nightmare. It was a light, sweet chime that rang from the corner of her room, and it was not declaring midnight.
It wasn’t morning, either. Hermione stared in disbelief at the clock face which indicated that it was noon. She had slept until noon! She couldn’t even remember the last time she had slept in so late.
Then, before there was time for her thundering heartbeat to slow a second time, another sound made her jump—a sharp, scratching noise. Hermione turned towards the balcony, and she could see a dark shape outlined on the other side of the curtain. It was unmistakably an owl clawing at the glass of her door, flapping its wings and hooting. It was holding something.
Hermione let it in. The owl swooped down and landed on her dresser—a great bard owl with giant, amber eyes. It extended one leg and held out its parcel to her. Hermione’s jaw fell open.
Her shoe.
Hermione stared, unmoving for a long moment. Her shoe. This owl was delivering her shoe to her. Here, at her bedroom door, having come straight to her balcony.
The owl gave a disgruntled hooting noise as if to say, ‘What are you waiting for?’ and Hermione snapped out of her stupor. She took the shoe from the owl, which had been secured to its leg with a black cord.
There was no note.
Baffled, Hermione turned the shoe over in her hands, like maybe there would be a secret message written on the underside. There wasn’t. No letter, no scrap of parchment to accompany it, nothing. Just her shoe.
Hermione felt like she might still be dreaming. Her head pounded painfully. “What does this mean?” she whispered to herself, beginning to pace.
Could this have come from Abraxas? No, that was highly unlikely. Riddle had been the one in the courtyard with her; Riddle had made the Cinderella reference…
And then she had shoved him, possibly even harmed him—she wasn’t sure about that though; the feeling of her own magic was fleeting, and it had all happened so fast—before she sprinted away, tearing off across Malfoy’s lawn like her life depended on it…
What had Riddle thought, after that? What was he thinking now? Why had he decided to collect her shoe for her, why had he bothered to send it to her now, like this, straight to her room…?
Hermione turned, holding the shoe in front of her as though the pointed heel was a weapon. “What does this mean?” she asked—addressing an owl, she realized, as though it might know. The owl ruffled its feathers at her accusatory tone.
Rather than be offended by its lack of an answer, Hermione beamed at it, a realization dawning on her. This was an owl. From Riddle. Was this Riddle’s own pet, then? Was this bird, right here, right now, about to fly back to wherever it was the young Mr. Riddle lived in the year 1950…?
As soon as she had the notion, Hermione dismissed it as well. She very much doubted that Riddle owned a pet owl of his own. A rising Dark Lord would have no need or want of such an animal. A bird that flew to and from the place you slept at night was probably not the wisest thing when one was practicing questionable magic and forming illegal, dark groups. The smile slid from Hermione’s face.
“You’re from the public owlery, aren’t you?” Hermione murmured. The owl’s ruffled feathers flattened, and it raised its head, letting out a much more dignified hoot. Hermione could only take this as a yes. It then hooted again, a bit more sharply. “What is it?” Hermione asked. “Do you want water or something? It’s not like you flew very far—”
She paused, having figured it out mid-sentence. “A response,” Hermione said. “You’ve come from the public owlery, and you’ve been told by Mr. Riddle to linger in case I have a response.”
The owl hooted again. It was amazing how condescending these animals could sound without words.
Hermione began to panic. A response. At this very moment, on the other side of London, Tom Riddle was sitting in the public owlery, having sent her the shoe she’d left behind… and he was waiting to see, perhaps, if she was going to send a message in return…
But he wouldn’t wait long. Of course he wouldn’t, no one would—what if she wasn’t home when the owl came?—but especially not someone like Tom Riddle. She had a very short window of time to respond if she wanted to.
Did she want to?
Hermione started to pace again, this time twice as fast and far less gracefully. A response, a response—what was her response? She had no idea how to respond to this very ambiguous and mysterious delivery of her shoe. He hadn’t sent a letter of his own! Was he angry at her? Upset? Probably, seeing as she had damn near shoved him into Malfoy’s pond—but maybe it hadn’t been as bad as she thought it was? For if it was, surely he wouldn’t bother sending her the shoe back to her in the first place?
Or was this a joke? A trick? There was some meaningful message being conveyed here, Hermione knew it, but there was no time to sit down and ponder it as she might like to—
The owl flapped its wings, hooting irritably. “I’m thinking!” Hermione snapped. What should she say? What should she do? She needed to rectify things, that was true; she had been rather… er, rude…
And she needed to be on his good side. Her entire plan rested on being in Riddle’s good graces, in becoming his confidant…
Hermione sat at her desk and grabbed some parchment and a quill. She started writing a letter, one that was kind and regretful sounding—but then shook her head, crumpling it up and tossing it aside. No, that would not do, not at all; she was the proud Hermione Smith…
But she couldn’t not say anything, either. After another minute of starting and throwing away unworthy letters, agonizing over what to say, Hermione ended up with a monumental note which consisted of exactly two words. She rolled the small piece of parchment into a tight scroll, then tied it to the owl’s leg using the same cord her shoe had been secured with. The owl took off as soon as she was done, flying out through the open balcony door towards the sun, taking her very profound message with it.
Thank you.
Hermione groaned, closed the door, and flung herself down on her bed. She rubbed her temples for a few moments, then mumbled, “Hokey?”
A soft pop resounded, and Hokey was there in the bedroom with her, bowing. “Mistress Smith is awake!” the elf said. “Hokey is being very happy, miss. Madame was beginning to be concerned!”
“Please tell her not to worry, I’m up.”
“Madame is gone at the moment, Miss. She is going and running errands.”
Hermione nodded, grateful but not too surprised that Hepzibah was not home. She may not have had family to care for (except for her newly acquired niece, Hermione supposed), but Hepzibah always found a way to keep busy. She wasn’t one to stay inside all day; Hepzibah Smith liked to go shopping and visit galleries and make appearances at the Ministry from time to time, things like that. “All right,” said Hermione. “Do you mind bringing me some tea to my room then, Hokey?”
“Of course, Miss. Would you like some toast or fruit, perhaps, for breakfast?”
“No, thank you,” said Hermione, smiling. “Just tea.”
Hokey disappeared with another soft pop. Hermione stood, contemplated getting dressed, then decided against it. She instead sat at her vanity and began to disentangle her tousled hair. Despite everything, Hermione thought that being able to properly run a comb through her hair might be the wildest thing that had happened to her since the Time-Turner was slammed into her throat.
Hokey returned by the time that she was done, a tray with a steaming cup of tea levitating before her. The cup then floated into Hermione’s hand, and Hermione swore her headache vanished at the smell of Earl Grey alone. “Thanks, Hokey,” she said again.
Hokey bowed, but not before giving Hermione an odd, speculative look. “Hokey is happy to serve, Miss Smith,” the elf said, then disappeared once more.
The strange look only confirmed what Hermione suspected last night: Hokey the house-elf was on to her.
Hermione didn’t blame Hokey for being apprehensive, either—though the elf had no reason to be truly wary of anything. It wasn’t like Hermione had been stupid enough to apparate straight back to Hepzibah’s with her dress in tatters, the flowers from her hair gone or awry, and missing a shoe.
No, Hermione had apparated somewhere else. At the time, her panicked thoughts before disapparating had been a vague somewhere, anywhere else—the kind of directions that usually ended up in splinching, though this did not happen to her, thank God—and then she had landed in the Forest of Dean, of all the bloody places. She supposed it was fitting, in an ironic, crude sort of way, but she didn’t linger on that long. Hermione only leaned against a tree until she could get her breathing under control, then did what she could to look presentable before going home. This included casting a glamour over her dress to make it look whole again (one really can’t restore that which has been destroyed by fire); fixing her hair as much as she could (which meant taking the rest of the flowers out, so she could act as though she’d discarded them all on purpose); and then replicating her remaining shoe to replace the one she’d lost.
Only, Hermione hadn’t been able to do that quite right. She was excellent at replicating things, of course, and she’d been able to perform the spell perfectly as usual—which resulted in two perfect, left shoes. It had been too cold to stand in the damn Forest of Dean to try and figure out how to invert one, and it had been far too uncomfortable to wear two left shoes, so Hermione had just taken the other one off as well, hoping Hepzibah just wouldn’t notice if she held her identical heels behind her back. Hermione was fully prepared to lament to her aunt about how she had taken them off because her feet hurt, and it was all because she’d been walking around so much with Abraxas in his huge, fancy manor with its huge, fancy garden—which was why she was fifteen minutes late, of course, and she was so sorry to have worried her!
But Hermione hadn’t needed to say any of that. When she walked through the front door, bracing herself for her aunt to scold her for her tardiness, Hermione almost laughed. Hepzibah, the sweet old thing, had been waiting up in the front room… but she’d fallen asleep. Hepzibah had dozed off in the armchair she’d been waiting in, a book open on her lap, a cup of tea beside her that had long since gone cold. Hermione was able to sneak upstairs, change out of her ruined dress (she shoved it and her two left shoes as far back in her closet as she could, where they would remain untouched forevermore) and into her nightgown, let her hair down, and only then did she go back downstairs to gently awaken her aunt.
Hepzibah hadn’t suspected a thing. In fact, she had apologized to Hermione for having fallen asleep when she said she’d wait up, and she had been all too happy to hear that her niece had a wonderful time with that charming Abraxas Malfoy.
Someone who was not so blatantly glad was Hokey, the tiny house-elf. When Hermione had first walked in, late, putting a finger to her mouth to indicate that Hokey should be quiet while she crept upstairs to change, Hokey had looked… concerned. She had nodded, ever the obedient elf, but her eyes had lingered on Hermione’s glamoured dress a bit too long for her liking. Could house-elves see through glamouring charms? Hokey had never once seemed suspicious of her enchanted ring, but then again, they were different sorts of charms… Had Hermione just not cast the glamour as well as she could have? She’d thought she had done an impeccable job at the time, but perhaps not…
Hermione had a feeling that Hokey noticed more than she let on.
Sighing, Hermione forced that thought aside and took a sip of her tea. She had far more pressing things to worry about than whether or not Hokey knew she’d ruined her dress. Hermione set her cup down on the vanity and began to remove her make-up with a charmed cloth while she thought about the most major of concerns: Last night.
She had won a bidding war against Abraxas Malfoy, then been invited into his manor. She had sat and drank with the most elitist group of up-and-coming purebloods of magical Britain, holding her own fairly well. Then Tom Riddle had arrived, she’d set her dress on fire in front of all of them, he had put it out with the mere snapping of his fingers…
And then they had talked. Alone, in the garden.
Hermione stared at her reflection, now devoid of any smudged eyeliner. Tom Riddle had said far too many things last night which left her unsettled. She recounted them all as she began to wipe the rouge from her cheeks.
Ilvermorny certainly has a fascinating… backstory.
You wouldn't want to catch on fire again. I might have to resort to more drastic measures to put you out.
Will the rest of your dress disintegrate into ashes when the clock strikes twelve? Is that when the magic will fade, the spell effectively broken, and the truth beneath the dazzling façade shall be revealed? …Are you Cinderella?
And, of course:
A rose by any other name…
Hermione nearly groaned. Shakespeare, he had recited Shakespeare at her… and she, unthinking, unwitting, had recited it back to him.
Foolish though that had been, Hermione realized that this was not damning. Her outlook brightened. No, the fact that she could not deny that she knew Shakespeare’s work was not damning at all—in fact, with a rush of relief, she realized that she could fit it into her story quite nicely. Her fake mother, Monica Smith, was not a conventional witch of 1950, after all. She was the kind of woman who ran off to America, leaving her parents and sister behind to chase her dreams of living in New York City. She was the kind of woman who didn’t want to track down the abandoning arse who was the father of her unborn child; she was the sort who decided to raise her daughter alone, and give her the Smith surname, traditions be damned. She was an open-minded, independent witch. One who liked to look at muggle art and read muggle literature and that was why her daughter’s name was Hermione—a name she’d read in The Winter’s Tale. Monica Smith was an adventurer, and she’d raised her daughter to be one, too.
That was the story, at any rate.
All right, then, Hermione thought, nodding at the mirror approvingly. So that slip-up was rectifiable…
But then there was the kiss.
Near-kiss, Hermione mentally corrected at once. His mouth had barely touched hers. Barely.
Hermione’s grazed her lower lip with her fingertips, recalling that infinitesimal, soft feeling. Her face immediately flushed, redder than it had been a moment ago when the rogue still tinted her cheeks.
She dropped her hand and glowered at herself. Why had he done that? Why had he tried to kiss her? Had she said or done something to make it seem like she wanted that? No, no, she knew she hadn’t—but then why?
Perhaps it was because of Abraxas, Hermione thought, trying to make sense of this most absurd and uncharacteristic of actions from a future Dark Lord. She had gotten the feeling that Riddle was not exactly pleased with Abraxas last night. Maybe he had only shown up at all to remind them who was really in charge, despite who was being touted in Witch Weekly as Wizarding Britain’s most desirable bachelor. Maybe seeing Hermione on his arm had given Riddle the idea that he should swoop in and pluck her off it, just to prove a point. Just to show that he could.
Hermione’s glower deepened as she recalled how the other women had acted around Riddle. Greengrass, Parkinson, and even Rosier had all fawned over him like he was some kind of God, gracing them with his presence. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had used them all at some point—or had at least turned them down, but knew that with a single, charming smile and a word of encouragement, he could have them. Maybe he was just curious to see if Hermione Smith was the same.
Shame, deep and debilitating, curled in the pit of Hermione’s stomach. Because there was simply no denying it. Last night, when he had started talking about wild roses and making muggle references and reciting Shakespeare towards her…
She had been just the same.
Hermione had been as dumb-struck as every girl he’d ever fixed those dark, alluring eyes on; she had stood there like she’d been enchanted, completely at his mercy.
Hermione had been prepared for so much before she chose to travel back in time. She knew that Riddle was smart, cunning, manipulative, cruel; she was well-versed on his abilities with Legilimency and the Dark Arts and everything in between. But she had underestimated one of his qualities, a seemingly unimportant one, and vastly so.
He was just so fucking good-looking.
How humiliating! To think that, just moments before she’d talked with him in the garden, Hermione had judged those other girls so harshly. She had thought them so stupid for being caught up in something as shallow as his pretty face.
And then she’d gone and let him kiss her.
Nearly, she reminded herself firmly. She touched her lower lip again. It was only a near-kiss.
And that could have worked in her favor, too. If she’d had her head on straight, she would have allowed that kiss. She would have let him think that she was just another vapid girl pining to be invited into his bed, and—Hermione’s heart stuttered at the realization—maybe she would have been invited into his bed, should have been trying to make that happen, because that would be one way to find out where he lived, as there was a very high likelihood that wherever he lived was where he was keeping the diary, and that was the entire bloody point of all of this.
Hermione was breathing very quickly as these thoughts raced across her mind. The diary. Everything she was doing now was with the hope that she would find that horcrux. So long as the diary existed, Tom Riddle could not be killed. If he was willing to let someone like Lucius Malfoy know he had such an artifact, one which would open the Chamber of Secrets, she could get him to trust her with such knowledge, too. Not to tell her what it really was, of course—she doubted he told any of his followers that he created items which contained fragments of his mangled soul—just that it existed. But at this point, as she thought on it, Hermione realized that she probably didn’t need him to even confide that much information in her. If he was still wearing the ring, it stood to reason that he was keeping the diary very close as well. It was probably in his flat right now, under some protective wards and charms.
And maybe, last night, if she had been thinking clearly—she could have found out where that was!
Hermione exhaled slowly. She took a sip of tea and gave herself a disgusted look. The truth was that she had not been thinking clearly. She had been seduced by Tom Riddle’s beautiful damn face and his smooth-as-velvet words, irrevocably so… and in the moment when she realized what was happening, she had—for lack of a better way to describe her behavior—freaked the fuck out.
I must have looked like a mad woman when I ran across the lawn like that, she thought, setting her cup down again and holding her head in her hands. He tried to kiss me, I shoved him, ran away, fell, lost a shoe, and ran some more until I could disapparate. And then he retrieved that shoe, sent it back to me without a note, and I just said… ‘thanks’.
Exasperated, Hermione slammed her hands down on the vanity. The teacup danced against the wood, nearly spilling its contents. Why would he send it back? What the fuck did that mean? What was he thinking? And more importantly, why could she not figure it out?
Was she really the same girl who was so effortlessly able to decipher the emotions of her peers when she was in school? How was it she had once been capable of explaining to Harry why Ron was being such a prat, or to Ginny why Harry wasn’t looking, or to Harry why Cho Chang was conflicted and crying when he kissed her? Had she regressed so greatly over the past few years in which she socialized with only her co-workers and Draco Malfoy that she had forgotten how to read people? Was her emotional range now that of a teaspoon?
“No,” Hermione seethed, jabbing a finger her reflection. “That’s not true. This is different. Tom Riddle is not Cho Chang.”
Her reflection blinked, so affronted enough by her pointing that it stopped mimicking her. “Never said he was,” it said loftily.
Hermione rolled her eyes and grabbed her cup. She did not know what to think, but at this point, it was out of her hands. She had already sent a response with the bard owl—Thank you—and so it was up to Riddle to respond. The ball was in his court, so to speak.
Hermione drank the last of her tea. Maybe he won’t respond at all, she thought miserably. Probably not. I don’t imagine I would want to pursue someone who did things like light her dress on fire or shoved me when I tried to kiss them...
It was just as she had come to this conclusion—that she had ruined everything, and would have to concoct a new plan in order to get her hands on that diary—when there was a scratching on the door. Hermione leapt up at the familiar outline against the curtains and sprinted across the room, almost tripping over herself in her haste. The same bard owl from before came flying in. Hermione’s heart was beating rapidly as she took the letter from the owl’s outstretched leg, her fingers were trembling as she unfurled the parchment. The owl did not wait for her this time but took off as soon as she held the letter in her hands. Hermione barely noticed it leaving. Her eyes tore across the words, which were written in an altogether too elegant script.
Miss Smith,
I seem to have offended you.
My sincerest apologies if this is the case; I swear that I never intended to do anything which would insult you. I fear, perhaps, that there is a barrier which has caused some confusion. Perhaps it is cultural. Perhaps it is something else. Regardless, I believe there was a misinterpretation on my part, and for that, I am remorseful. I do hope you will forgive my forwardness.
If you would find it agreeable, I would like the opportunity to rectify this. I feel as though there is something unfinished between us. But perhaps this is just my own wishful thinking.
Should you wish to write back, please send an owl to 13 Abbey Rise. It will find me.
Sincerely,
Tom
P.S. I reconsidered your opinion on Slovin’s theory on dream interpretation in advanced calculative arithmancy. I still think you’re wrong—Portier’s simply makes more sense, not to mention it takes far less time… and when it comes down to it, what do we have that is more precious than time?—but I did think about it.
Hermione read the letter twice through. Her heart was fluttering, her lips were curling into a smile. He was still interested in her. In fact, he seemed more interested in her than ever. Perhaps running away had been the right choice, somehow. She smirked as she considered this.
Boys did love to chase things, didn’t they?
Well, she must have done something right, because he had given her an address to write to! But the wording which followed that… It will find me… Was this not his address, then? Was it the address of one of his followers? Probably the latter; Hermione would not give her personal address out so easily were she in Riddle’s place… But still. She had something to work with. And that last bit, even though it had her bristling in annoyance—she was not wrong about Slovin’s theory—it also had her grinning like a school girl.
Hermione almost giggled at the light sensation bubbling in her chest—and then her blood went as cold as though she’d been doused with a bucket of ice water.
This was not good, this light-hearted, fuzzy feeling. This was not good at all. She had, in her hands, the reassurance that Riddle was not spiteful towards her, that she could move forward with her plan…
But could she?
Could she trust herself not to fall prey to those alluring eyes again? After last night, Hermione was no longer certain.
She set the letter down. This time, at least, she had time to think before responding. Riddle would not expect a letter back right away. What I need, she thought, grabbing her empty tea cup and leaving her bedroom, is a metaphorical cold shower.
Hermione paid close attention as she relieved that fateful day.
Harry was lying in Hagrid’s arms, seemingly dead. Hagrid was crying tears the size of water balloons, drenching what she thought was her best friend’s corpse. Ron was shaking next to her, traumatized yet fierce, and Hermione herself looked like she wanted to scream and roar and wail all at once.
And Lord Voldemort spoke.
Hermione watched with eyes wide open as the Dark Lord swept back and forth before those who remained to oppose him outside of Hogwarts. She listened to his spitting words which were spoken in a high, cold voice; she focused on his grotesque face and serpent-like features. His skin was scaly and raw, his head was bald and his eyes were a bloody red, split by thin pupils like those of a deranged cat.
He was hideous. He was mad, he was vile, he was revolting.
This is what you are, Hermione told herself, hatred boiling in her blood as he ranted and raved. This is what you are, Tom Riddle. This is what you will become.
Just because she was trying to approach things more logically from now on, keeping in mind that in this time, Riddle was, admittedly, a long way off from this, Hermione could not let herself forget. This was what she was trying to prevent. This was what she would stop.
“Hermione? Dear?”
Hepzibah’s voice nearly scared the piss out of her. Hermione willed herself out of the memory in a hurry, landing in the drawing room a mere second before Hepzibah opened the door and entered.
“Hello, Auntie,” Hermione said, smoothing the fabric of her nightgown down. Her pulse was racing as she tried desperately to act nonchalant. Wouldn’t that have been wonderful, if Hepzibah had happened upon her in that memory? “You’re back from running errands, I see!”
“Yes, I am,” said Hepzibah slowly. Her gaze fell to the Pensieve in which Hermione had just been dwelling. The silvery tendrils within whirled, abstract and enigmatic in their movements. “What were you doing, using my Pensieve?” she asked. Then she smiled wryly. “Was last night so wonderful that you wanted to revisit it?”
Hermione shook her head. “No, nothing like that,” she said. “I was just… watching some older memories. Feeling nostalgic, I guess.”
Hepzibah’s smile faded. She looked sympathetic, even a bit heartbroken. “Oh, Hermione,” she sighed. She pulled her into a hug. “I understand. After your mother died, I spent my fair share of time in a Pensieve, too.” She stepped away to hold Hermione at arm’s length.
Hermione blinked in surprise. “D-did you?” she asked. That was mildly alarming information. How would her imparted, fake memories hold up in a Pensieve? Hermione wasn't sure.
Hepzibah seemed to think she had relived fake memories at some point, at least. “Sure. I think most people who can afford to own Pensieves do the same thing. But it’s no way to live, Hermione. You can get lost in your memories if you’re not careful.”
“Yes, of course,” Hermione said. “I was just… Reteaching myself an important lesson, is all.”
Hermione was grateful that Hepzibah didn’t ask, only smiled another doleful smile. “Well, hurry up and gather your bearings,” she said, motioning towards the Pensieve. “Then come out to the dining room. I stopped by Dolce earlier, that muggle bakery we went to last week. I got us scones. Nothing’s better for a hangover than scones!”
And with that, she bustled out of the drawing room, leaving Hermione to ‘gather her bearings’. She couldn’t help but grin as she turned towards the Pensieve. Hepzibah was really starting to grow on her.
Hermione dipped her wand into the basin. The memories clung to the tip of the walnut: strange, ghostly limbs of silver grasping at a lifeline.
Such beautiful conduits, Hermione thought, pouring them back into her mind. Far too gorgeous to contain something so ugly.
The trip down memory lane had the desired effect. That night, when Hermione went back to look over the letter Riddle had sent her with a clear mind, she did not feel giddy whatsoever. When she read the words ‘perhaps this is just my own wishful thinking’, she imagined the script being formed by decrepit, thin fingers from a hand that resembled a large, pale spider, and she shuddered. She envisioned livid, scarlet eyes scanning the parchment before furling it into a scroll, and Hermione cringed.
She could do this.
I am going to steal your diary, she thought as she dipped her quill into ink, flattening out a sheet of parchment. And I’m going to be around to know when you deposit your ring in the Gaunt shack, and then I’m going to steal that, too, she thought as she wrote a reply, a careful construction of demureness, intrigue, and something that might have bordered on apologetic for her actions. And then I’m going to destroy them both, even if I have to go back to Hogwarts after all and kill your basilisk just to get my hands on its fangs, she thought, grinning as she confessed in ink that she thought there was something unfinished between them, too.
And then I’m going to stab you in the back, she thought. She signed the letter Sincerely, Hermione.
Then, just because she couldn’t help herself, she added a post script of her own.
I hope you didn’t think about my argument against Portier’s inferior theory too long. After all, what do we have that is more precious than time?
Hermione mailed her letter early the next day, waking up at the crack of dawn to do so. Hepzibah didn’t own an owl of her own. She said it was because they smelled, and she didn’t want to deal with the mess, but Hermione thought she knew the real reason. Hepzibah liked going out to the public owlery. Needing to go there to send correspondences—which Hepzibah did often—was as good excuse as any to be out doing something.
But Hermione didn’t want Hepzibah to know she was corresponding with that shop boy either, if she could help it. So, she left before Hepzibah had awoken, apparated to the owlery, and sent the letter off. Hermione then stopped by another bakery to pick up breakfast. To repay her aunt for getting them sconces yesterday, she thought… and so she would have an explanation for being out if Hepzibah was awake when she got home.
Hermione was anxious all day. She kept making excuses to linger in her bedroom, saying she had a headache and wasn’t feeling well, and left the balcony door unlatched when she wasn’t there. Hermione suspected that Riddle, when he sent a response, would do so in the same manner he had sent his first letter—to her bedroom door, directly to her balcony. Which begged the question of how he had known this was her bedroom in the first place, but Hermione tried not to think too hard on that. Hepzibah had told her to go upstairs and change the one time he’d been in their house. Perhaps he had remembered that and taken a gamble that this balcony must lead to her room.
Or maybe he told the owl to deliver it that way and knew he couldn’t lose, Hermione realized with a scowl. If the bard owl had brought her shoe straight to Hepzibah’s room on accident, well… Then Hermione would have had to deal with her aunt’s questioning (‘Why on earth has an owl brought your shoe home with no letter? What on earth happened at Malfoy Manor last night?’), and maybe knowing that he had caused the pretty, spoiled witch who’d snubbed him some turmoil would have been amusing to him.
She… might have been overthinking things.
Hermione finally left her room for dinner, not wanting to worry Hepzibah too much. The last thing she needed was for her aunt to become concerned for her well-being, thinking she was really sick, and therefore keeping a closer eye on her—or worse, having Hokey keep a closer eye on her. Hermione smiled as the house-elf served them an excellent meal of chicken and roasted potatoes, and when they were done she patted Hokey on the head and thanked her for her impeccable service.
When Hermione went upstairs afterwards to shower and change into her nightgown—the usual preparations before their nightly tradition of reading and drinking tea—she saw it. There, sitting on her pillow. Another letter secured by a black cord. Hermione rushed over to it, then closed the balcony door, as well as the door to her bedroom. She took a steadying breath, untied the cord, and unrolled the parchment. It was a short letter.
Tonight. Midnight.
I’ll come for you.
Dress warm.
He hadn’t even signed it.
Hermione was torn between being unnerved and annoyed. Midnight! Was that his idea of a joke? Tonight. And no explanation, just the vague instructions of ‘dress warm’. She supposed this meant she was sneaking out tonight, then.
That’s what I get for letting Tom Riddle call the shots, Hermione thought, shaking her head. She pulled out her wand and set the note ablaze, watching in mild satisfaction as the words went up in smoke, no incantation necessary.
Hermione agonized over what to wear.
Hepzibah always went to bed long before midnight, and usually Hermione did, too. There was no reason for her aunt nor Hokey to think that she might ever sneak out at night.
Still, Hermione was cautious. She waited until twenty minutes to midnight to sit up from her bed, having feigned sleep until then while her mind reeled, very much awake. She illuminated her room with nothing but a wordless lumos spell, then began to dig through her closet as quietly as she could.
Dress warm, the letter had said. Dress warm.
She thought she’d known exactly what she was going to wear hours ago, but now, as she rifled through sweaters and leggings and scarves, she was unsure. For having lived with Hepzibah for such a short time, she had acquired a great deal of clothing. Hepzibah loved to shop, and she loved to shower her niece in fine garments and dazzling jewelry more than anything.
At least I can forgo all that, Hermione thought, casting a disdainful look towards her dresser where several jewelry boxes were, full of bracelets and necklaces. The only adornment she needed was on the ring finger of her right hand, covered in diamonds and shimmering with a subtle enchantment.
Once she’d finally settled on what to wear—a cozy but nice navy sweater, her long stockings, and a thick, black scarf with golden thread interwoven into the cable knitting (Hufflepuff colors, of course, from Hepzibah), as well as her coat, gloves, and a pair of knee-high, lace-up boots—Hermione sat at her vanity and stared at all the cosmetics there. Should she wear make-up? Was that ridiculous?
Hermione mentally chided herself. Hermione Granger might think it was silly to wear make-up just to meet some boy, but Hermione Smith certainly didn’t. And besides, this wasn’t just some boy. This was Tom Marvolo Riddle.
Not that I want to look like I’m trying very hard, though, she thought as she waved her wand, a silent charm making her eyelashes look both longer and fuller. A bit of lip-gloss, and she decided that was enough. Hermione nodded, then flicked her wand, whispering the word “Knox,” into the night.
And then she waited.
Hermione was on pins and needles as she watched the second hand of the clock tick further and further towards midnight. The moon was full, so her room was not entirely dark. She had the curtains of her balcony door pushed open, and so moonlight streamed in through window, giving her a clear view of the currently empty street below.
I’ll come for you.
How would he come for her? That was very cryptic way of saying he would get her, wasn’t it? Yes, it was; it was dark and sinister, and really, such vagueness could almost be considered rude, and yet Hermione found herself feeling a bit thrilled despite all this. Anxious, yes. Frustrated, absolutely.
But also thrilled.
Remember, she scolded herself, coming to an abrupt halt before the balcony doors. She envisioned a hideous monstrosity of a man, one with bloodshot eyes and waxen, sickly skin. Remember.
The clock had just struck twelve when she noticed it.
It was completely by chance. Hermione just happened to be staring outside, across the street towards the sidewalk where she saw the slightest shimmering of something, and that was the only reason she noticed it at all. At precisely midnight, at exactly the right moment, Hermione saw the way the air seemed to gleam as though the negative space had just come to life. It was a disillusionment charm. A damn good one too; a nearly imperceptible spell that was concealing whoever had just appeared across the street from Hepzibah’s home. Silently.
There was little doubt as to who that might be.
Hermione watched for a moment from her bedroom window, wondering what Riddle would do. Nothing. In fact, if she hadn’t caught the moment of his arrival, which had only made the space he was currently standing in flicker for a moment when he apparated, she was sure she would have no idea he was there now. But she had seen it, so she watched, waiting. How long would he stand there, invisible like that?
Then Hermione realized—with a jolt that was nearly sickening—that she was not invisible, and she was just standing in front of the glass door of her balcony with the curtains wide open, and he could probably see her standing there, staring down at the sidewalk—
Hermione composed herself and stepped outside. She let her eyes wander to the other side of the street, away from where Riddle was, like she did not know he was there after all. She leaned with her elbows against the railing and turned her attention toward the moon. It was massive, round and bright as a reflective, circular mirror.
It almost felt like this moment had come together just for her to say those words which were not her own, from a story which did not belong to her—the very one which Riddle himself had tricked her into reciting the lines from. But she could not take back what she had already said; she could not pretend not to know what she had already revealed.
She could only move forward.
“O, Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” Hermione sighed, barely able to contain a smile at how dramatic it was. “Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love… and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”
Somewhere in the midst of regurgitating those words, Hermione stopped finding it amusing. As she recalled the rest of Juliet’s speech, she realized just how pertinent those lines were. Too pertinent.
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
Hermione decided not to give Riddle the chance to respond with any lines of his own. She turned her focus towards where she knew he was standing, concealed by a charm, and smiled. Then, without a pause, Hermione swung her legs over the ledge of the balcony and leapt.
Her wand was held high above her head, and the spell she cast was both silent and effective. A mild hovering charm to make her descent slow and her landing soft. Hermione’s feet lightly touched the ground, as elegant a landing as she could have hoped for.
It was only then, as she stood, facing him, that Riddle’s disillusionment charm faded.
Would she ever become accustomed to him? For even when she was expecting it, Riddle’s appearance was debilitating. He was not dressed in any particularly grand way—just the same, dark robes as before, though now he wore a black scarf and gloves as well—nor was he doing anything especially magnificent, he was only standing there. It was just… who he was. Those full lips, that wavy, black hair. That flawless, pale complexion and those razor-sharp cheekbones. Those eyes.
If he was amused by her quoting more Shakespeare at him, or impressed by the fact that she both knew he was there and performed a silent hovering charm, he did not show it. Riddle’s handsome face was blank, composed—but there was something stirring in those bottomless eyes.
Hermione waited for him to say something. To explain his cryptic letter, for example, and tell her where they were going and why. He didn’t. Riddle only looked at her, that infuriatingly emotionless mask on his face. Hermione stared back at him. Her heart began to pound.
Then, just as she was about to say something herself, Riddle lifted his arm. In a fluid motion, he offered her his hand and bowed slightly. It was the kind of chivalrous gesture a knight might make to ask a lady to dance. His eyes were locked onto Hermione’s, smoldering, moonlight dancing in their depths.
Hermione didn’t say anything, either. She stepped forward, her heart beating a thunderous rhythm against her ribcage, and did the only thing she could do.
She took Riddle’s hand. His lips curled just slightly as he held her gloved fingers with his own, the ghost of a smile. As the sensation of side-along apparition gripped her, Hermione almost smiled back, allowing herself to be pulled into his orbit.
Chapter 15: Wicked, Wicked Witch
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The smell of salt and cold, biting air rushed Hermione the moment her feet touched the ground. The compressing feeling of apparition vanished, replaced by a sense of openness, and, as she took in her surroundings, she realized: vulnerability.
There were no buildings in sight; there was no sign of civilization whatsoever. Were it not for the clear sky littered with stars and the full, swollen moon, it would have been difficult to see anything. As it was, the moonlight shone on the snow, making the world they’d landed in radiant with its light. Though she couldn't see it where they were, Hermione heard the ocean nearby, its currents drifting along some unseen beach. She focused again on Riddle, whose hand was still holding onto hers, and whose eyes, dark and mysterious, had not left her face.
Hermione wasn’t sure why it had not crossed her mind prior to leaving that she might be brought to a secluded place for an underhanded purpose, but now that she was here, in this barren landscape by the sea, she was astounded that it hadn’t. How had she just accepted the hand of Tom Riddle without considering this very possible, grim outcome? Riddle was a murderer. He murdered people. At this point in his life, right after charming them.
Which was what he had been doing to her with those saccharine letters.
Before Hermione could say or do anything, Riddle pulled his hand from hers. “This way,” he said quietly, then began to walk.
Hermione had managed to go from cool and collected to paranoid in the length of two seconds. “This way to wh—?”
She didn’t get to finish the sentence before Riddle had turned around, shooting her a look that was not quite what she would consider hostile, but which was sharper than anything she’d seen on him yet. “Don’t shout,” he said, keeping his voice low. “You’ll scare them.”
This did little to pacify Hermione. “Scare who?” she hissed in a quieter tone.
Riddle didn’t answer, only smiled. He then turned and began to walk away again.
Hermione watched him for a moment, conflicted. Should she follow him, or was it wiser to turn back now? But it was a stupid question to even ask of herself, for she already knew the answer. Of course she was going to follow. This was all a part of the plan. And, now that rational thought had begun to trickle back into her mind, she knew that it was ridiculous to think Riddle would try and harm her. She was Hermione Smith, niece to the affluent Hepzibah Smith, who just made a lot of friends at a fancy gala. It would be very inconvenient to attempt to murder her for no other reason than she shoved him away when he tried to kiss her. People would notice. People would care.
So, Hermione followed—but not before reaching into her pocket to draw her wand. If she was going to follow Tom Riddle into the unknown, she was not about to do it unarmed, and—
“Don’t.”
He moved so quickly that Hermione barely saw him move. One moment, he had his back turned and was walking at a leisurely pace; the next, Riddle was standing directly in front of her, facing her, near enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her face. He didn’t touch her, but his gloved hand was open, his palm hovering over her wand and motioning for her to lower it. Hermione stared up at him, too shocked at his sudden proximity to be unnerved. “It will frighten them,” he murmured, nodding towards her wand. Then, after a beat in which Hermione merely stared at him, probably incredulously, he smiled. “You’ll see,” he said.
Hermione half expected him to walk off again, but he didn’t. Riddle stood, his eyes on her wand, waiting for her to put it away. Hermione hesitated, but then relented and shoved it in her pocket. His grin widened. This time, before he turned, he once more offered her his hand.
“To make sure I don’t draw my wand while you’re not looking?” she asked in a whisper, eyeing his hand with skepticism.
“That’s half the reason,” he whispered back.
Unable to stop herself from mirroring his grin, Hermione took his hand, letting Tom Riddle lead her into the night.
The place where they had arrived was at an incline, and he took her up. Fortunately, the snow was not too deep, and because Hermione had dressed well (as instructed), she soon found that she was warm from trudging along after him, as well as a bit out of breath. She got the distinct impression that Riddle was moving slower than he normally would have to accommodate her, and though she had never once felt self-conscious about not being very physically fit before, Hermione was suddenly worried about it.
She didn’t have too long to linger on any of her potential shortcomings though, because soon Riddle stopped and released her hand. They were near a cliff, and when Hermione moved closer, peering over the edge, she could see the ocean to match the soothing sounds of currents and the smell of salt. Along the shoreline, Hermione saw what looked to be the entrances of caves, surrounded by tall, jagged rocks.
“Why are we here?” Hermione asked. She was surprised when she turned around, for Riddle was not where she expected him to be. He was now sitting, cross-legged in the snow, his black cloak fanned out beside him.
“Sit,” he murmured, motioning to his side. “And you’ll see.”
Hermione looked behind him, anxiety pooling in her gut. There was nothing around save for their footprints, two tracks leading up to them in the snow. She opened her mouth to ask again, but when she looked back to Riddle, she closed it. He was giving her that same playful grin, and she knew he wouldn’t answer even if she did ask.
Reluctantly, Hermione sat, leaving enough space between them that they were in no danger of accidentally touching. “It won’t be long,” Riddle said, his gaze drifting off towards the snow.
There was a long moment of stillness in which the chill of the air began to become noticeable again. The sounds of the ocean fell into the background, and Hermione couldn’t stand the silence. Her nervousness became too much, but when she drew in a breath to once more ask why he had brought her to such an inhospitable place in the middle of the night, Riddle put his finger to his mouth to quiet her.
Hermione glared at him. Riddle lowered his finger to point to her side, and when Hermione looked, she gasped.
There, crawling out of the snow, was a tiny, winged creature, no larger than the length of her middle finger. It was glowing and colorless, its wings glittering, thin and transparent like sheets of glass. Though it’s body resembled that of a human’s, its face was anything but. It had large, black eyes, a round little face, and tufts of hair that were bright and fuzzy like cotton. It shrunk away when Hermione gasped, blinking its huge eyes at her. It flew off into the night.
“Oh,” said Hermione in surprise, for as she watched it go, she saw others—dozens of them, emerging from the snow. Those that were closest to her acted as wary as the first had, fluttering to a safer distance and staring. Their wings sparkled. “Oh, oh my goodness,” Hermione said. “They’re lovely.”
“They are,” Riddle said. “They’re—”
“Snow sprites,” Hermione finished impulsively. One of them, the sprite that had first emerged near her, had come back around, hovering at her eye level and examining her curiously. Its silvery light reminded Hermione of a patronus. “Distant relatives of the doxie, nocturnal beings, though they are only a class XX creature, as they are much more docile, and they tend to avoid humans as much as possible; snow sprites would never infest old curtains or something… They hibernate all summer underground, too…”
Hermione grinned. She had never seen a snow sprite before, though Professor Grubbly-Plank had tried, without success, to procure a few for their fifth-year class before Hagrid had returned.
“…Correct,” said Riddle softly.
But Hermione was still watching the sprites, her mind reeling. As more and more of them began to emerge from the snow, silent in their flight and glowing brighter than faeries, she frowned. “They’re extremely difficult to find, though,” she murmured, now as baffled at their presence as she was enchanted. “They despise witches and wizards.”
Riddle’s instruction at having her put her wand away now made sense, at least—Hermione was certain that, were she to draw her wand now, they would scatter at the sight. But the fact that they were not hiding anyway was cause for question. She’d read that they were some of the timidest magical creatures, which was why no one used them for lights as they did faeries, even though they were prettier. They were too easily frightened.
Hermione looked at Riddle expectantly. He had a strange expression on his face that Hermione couldn’t decipher. “They do,” he agreed, nodding. “However, these particular sprites know me.”
As if on cue, another sprite flew directly between them. It cast Hermione a judgmental look before flying nearer to Riddle. Riddle grinned as it fluttered its sparkly wings at him—rather flirtatiously, Hermione thought—lighting up his face with its silvery glow. It then flew once around his head and zoomed off. Riddle laughed.
“How often do you come here?” Hermione asked.
“Often enough,” Riddle answered. Another sprite flew over, floating in front of Riddle where the last sprite had been, making it difficult for Hermione to see him. It spun once in midair, twinkling dazzlingly.
Hermione was shocked. “You come here often enough to endear yourself to creatures as shy as snow sprites?” she asked, sounding disbelieving despite all the evidence to the contrary. There was no question that Riddle had earned the affection of these creatures. One was twirling for him now. “You’d have better luck getting a unicorn to come near you.”
“You seem to know a great deal about snow sprites,” Riddle said, shifting so that he could see Hermione’s face, “considering that they’re indigenous to Britain.”
Hermione froze. For a terrifying moment, her brain jammed, and she was unable to think of anything to say. Riddle smiled at her. She stared back at him, her lips parted uselessly.
Then another sprite flew by, now vying with the first one for Riddle’s attention. Hermione’s mind lurched back to life. “I am very well read,” she said, decisively not looking at Riddle. She watched a few sprites in the distance as they circled each other, bright and shiny in the moonlight. “I took Care of Magical Creatures for years at Ilvermorny. We studied all sorts of creatures, not only ones which are native to America. Though I’ll admit to having done a lot of research outside of the curriculum. I like to read. About everything. Terrible hobby of mine, truth be told; I know far more than I should about the most useless of subjects. Even muggle literature. Which is why I know Shakespeare. Guilty pleasure. It was also my mother’s.”
Hermione had the thought, Oh god, I’m rambling, somewhere in the midst of those words, but she still hadn’t been able to make herself shut up. Her heart was pounding. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself.
“I see,” said Riddle at length. There was a stretch of silence following his words, and because Hermione could tell he was scrutinizing her face, she kept her focus elsewhere, pretending to be absorbed in the way the sprites floated and glistened above the snow.
It wasn’t difficult to feign fascination. They were gorgeous, the way they shone—like silvery fireflies coated in diamonds. “So… You decided to go hunting for snow sprites one day, then?” Hermione eventually asked, careful to not start spewing words again.
“No,” said Riddle. Hermione returned her attention to him, and was astounded when she did. There were about twenty or so sprites surrounding Riddle, some hovering, some resting on his shoulders, some sitting on the snow near his legs. They all looked upon him with their huge, black eyes like they were content just to watch him breathe. Riddle waved one hand, a gesture as if to say Go on, and they floated away, joining the rest of their kin which hovered over the snow.
“I came here once in my youth,” Riddle said, his eyes drifting towards the ocean. “It was one of my favorite places. So, I come back every now and then, when I feel the need to get away from things. I suppose the sprites came to recognize me, though they only ever come out in the winter, of course. But they aren’t why I started to come. I like the ocean. Watching the water is peaceful. And at night, when the sky is clear, it’s nice to look up. See if the stars have any warnings for me.”
Riddle smirked at her before tilting his head back, then gave the sky an analytical look. His eyes darted across the stars like he was tracing the constellations with his eyes.
“You mean like… like Divination?” Hermione asked, shocked even further.
“Yes,” said Riddle, still scanning the heavens.
“You believe in in Divination? You?”
Tom’s brows rose in surprise at her tone. The sharpness of her voice caused several of the nearest sprites to brighten and zoom away. “Yes,” Riddle said. “…I take it you don’t?”
“Of course not,” Hermione muttered, keeping her voice down so as not to startle any more sprites. “It’s complete rubbish.”
Riddle leaned forward, looking both bemused and perplexed. “Yet you believe in the practice of Arithmancy for making predictions.”
“Well, sure, yes.”
“How can one study and believe in Arithmancy, but not Divination?”
“Because Arithmancy is based on mathematics and science and—and data!” Hermione snapped, unable to stop herself from shouting any longer. “Whereas Divination is just a bunch of looking in tea leaves and crystal balls and hoping you see something. It’s rubbish.”
“Divination is an ancient, respected branch of magic. One of the oldest, in fact,” Riddle said. “It’s rather mysterious, granted, and difficult, but it has connections with many other branches as well, including Arithmancy. It’s just another method of predicting the future, is all… As well as other things.”
“Tell me you’ve seen a single, accurate thing in the bottom of a teacup. Or in a big, glass ball. Or in the stars,” Hermione drawled, motioning towards the sky.
“I have,” Riddle answered, unaffected by her sarcasm. Her eyes went wide, and Riddle laughed. “You look so shocked that I should believe in Divination. It is almost as if you think you know me.”
Hermione’s mind nearly froze again. “You just—you just seemed intelligent, was all,” she stuttered out. She cleared her throat. “Perhaps I was wrong,” she added coolly, folding her arms across her chest.
“And here I was, having the exact same thoughts about you,” said Riddle in an equally cool tone.
“What is that supposed to mean? You now think I’m unintelligent because I don’t believe in something as ridiculous as Divination?”
“No,” said Riddle, “your intelligence is currently under question because you think Divination is rubbish while at the same time you think that Arithmancy is respectable.”
“Yes, because—”
“Because one uses mathematics and the other belief. Correct?”
Hermione’s eye narrowed on him as he smiled; she got the impression she was walking into a trap. “Yes,” she agreed warily.
“Consider this, then,” said Riddle. “Arithmancy uses mathematical equations, yes, but why in the world should you believe that it will work in the first place? Yes, there are hundreds of texts with specific rules and guidelines; theories about which practice is best written by some of the most genius minds in magical history, but so what? It’s still belief, at its core, that allows you to trust in those equations.”
Hermione was not about to let him fluster her, not on this topic. “Yes,” she agreed, pointing one hand in the air and shifting closer to him, “but those equations which you speak of have been tested, again and again. Theories that have been put into practice and then improved upon. Evidence of functionality. Proof that it works. Data.”
“The same is true of Divination,” said Riddle. “The methods for divining the future are just as complex. One cannot simply enjoy a cup of tea and expect the leaves to show them something; one cannot just look at the stars and expect to see something of value. There are specific rituals that must first take place, pathways one must follow. There are rules. It can be done wrong. And new methods are being suggested all the time, new theories being proposed.”
Hermione gawked at him. “New theories for stargazing?” she asked. She looked up at the sky, frowning.
“Yes,” said Riddle, also looking up.
“But it’s all nonsense from the start,” Hermione argued. “They can’t tell us anything about the future. They’re just a bunch of stars.”
“And words are just words and numbers are just numbers,” Riddle said, “yet you seem content with allowing them to tell you what may come. Divination is, therefore, just as sound a method for prediction as Arithmancy. It’s only a different method. A different way of thinking.”
Hermione glared at him. Riddle was smiling, such a smug yet charming grin. She tried to think of a good argument to his flawed logic. She couldn’t. Not at the moment, anyway.
“You’re wrong,” she said, stubborn despite this. “They’re nothing at all alike.”
“Perhaps I should give you the benefit of the doubt,” said Riddle, speaking a bit condescendingly. “Perhaps Ilvermorny did you a disservice in this regard, and you had an incompetent instructor on the subject, and so you are biased against Divination.”
“That’s not why,” said Hermione stiffly. Then, unable to stop herself, she said, “Well, yes, she was a right fraud. But that isn’t why I think Divination is a waste of time.”
“I see.”
Hermione glowered, still mystified to learn that he, Tom Riddle of all people—supposed genius—was defending Divination. “Why, did you have some amazing Seer for a professor, or something?” She was curious; surely whoever had taught before Trelawney was at least a bit more proficient.
“I had a very capable instructor,” said Riddle. He didn’t elaborate.
And quite suddenly, Hermione understood why he might believe in such nonsense. “I bet you’re the type to put stock in things like prophecies, too,” she murmured, watching his face carefully.
Before he could respond, another sprite flew between them. It spun in a show-off-y manner, clearly trying to get Riddle’s attention away from Hermione and onto itself.
“They really like you,” Hermione murmured, effectively distracted.
“Not everyone finds me so terrible,” he said. “In fact, most find me rather charming.”
“Wow,” said Hermione dully. “That doesn’t sound arrogant at all.”
“I’m only being honest… Of course, some are more difficult to impress than others.”
Something, Hermione wasn’t sure what, changed. Her skin prickled beneath her many layers of clothing, and she shivered. Then, all at once, the sprites stopped glowing.
Hermione almost said something, alarmed, but before she could, they lit up again. Then they went out, then lit up. Again and again, all around them, the sprites began to glow and fade with a unified, pulsing silver, like glittering Christmas lights.
“Why are they—?”
Hermione’s question died in her throat when she looked at Riddle. He was grinning, a far more arrogant smile than before, his dark eyes gleaming with the methodic light from the sprites. A voice, unbidden, echoed in the back of Hermione’s mind. Riddle’s voice—though not as he was now, but from a memory, long ago; a child’s voice…
‘I can make animals do what I want without training them…’
“You’re doing this,” Hermione whispered. “You’re controlling them…”
She wasn’t sure if she was impressed or afraid.
“Not controlling, no,” said Riddle, shaking his head. “Just suggesting.”
“How?” As she looked, Hermione could see that the sprites did not look like they were being controlled, or even uncomfortable; in fact, they seemed rather happy, casting Riddle affectionate looks as they floated by him.
Riddle’s smile became softer, almost innocent. “Magic,” he answered.
Hermione took a moment to simply watch, mesmerized as the sprites began to fly in circles around them. They were lighting up in ripples now, swirling in an organized yet chaotic way. The feeling of magic was tangible, cool and vibrating in the air. “Incredible,” Hermione murmured without thinking.
“Yes,” Riddle agreed in a low voice. When she looked back at him, it was to see that same, smug grin on his face. It was as infuriating an expression as it was dashing.
As much as she wanted to act the part of unimpressed, Hermione couldn’t. Her curiosity was too great. “How do you do it, though?” she asked. “How do you use magic to get them to do what you want? Sprites are so sensitive, shouldn’t it be scaring them off…?”
“Not all magic is the same, Hermione,” Riddle said, and her heart skipped a beat when he said her name. “Pointing a wand and casting a spell is much more jarring. This sort of magic is subtle. Gentle.” He gave her a calculative look, as though considering her. “I can show you, if you like.”
Hermione, perhaps foolishly, didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” she said. “Show me.”
Riddle lifted one hand, and a sprite floated onto his open palm as though he had summoned it. It stopped flashing once it landed, staying a full, silvery white. He held it in front of his chest, bringing bother hands together to hold it, and smiled. “Hello, lovely,” he said to the sprite, which preened. Riddle then looked at Hermione. “Put your hands out."
Hermione only realized then just how close she and Riddle had become. When had she edged so near to him? “You want me to take it?” she asked, anxious.
“Yes,” said Riddle. “Don’t worry. It won’t bite. Will you, pretty thing?”
The sprite flashed its wings, pulsing a brighter silver. “See?” said Riddle. “They’re harmless.”
But Hermione was not looking at the sprite, as she was completely caught up on Riddle's face. How was this the same man who would willingly one day drag a house-elf to its doom, all in the name of making sure a sliver of his soul would be safe? Right now, he was grinning at this sprite so fondly, so kindly, like he truly admired a creature for its beauty.
It was an act, of course… but it was such a flawless one! Right now, with that look on his face, smiling like he was… Why, he was almost cute.
It’s an act for you, Hermione told herself. This performance is all a show to manipulate you, to make you believe he is a sweet, charming person.
“You don’t have to,” Riddle said after a moment, misinterpreting her indecision. “If you’re—”
“No, no. I’m fine.” Hermione said. She cupped her hands and lifted them, grinning now at the sprite. “It’s all right,” she said soothingly. “I would never hurt you.”
The sprite looked at Riddle, who nodded, and then stepped from his hands to hers.
“Now focus. Concentrate on your magic. Think of what you would like it to do and will that suggestion—gently—towards it. Will it to stop glowing.”
Hermione took a deep breath. She wasn’t sure how to do any of what he’d just said, but if Riddle could make a whole field full of sprites do what he wanted, she could influence just one. Hermione willed her magic, yearning for it to impose itself on the sprite. The sprite stared at her, its eyes huge and uncomprehending. It glowed brightly.
Go on, she thought furiously. Stop glowing. Stop glowing, please. Stop it.
Hermione’s concentration was broken by a short, choking sound. She looked up. Riddle had a hand over his mouth, covering half his face.
“What?” Hermione snapped. The sprite jumped from her hands and began to hover, shooting her an indignant look, still glowing as bright as ever.
“Your face,” Riddle said, and when he moved his hands, it revealed a huge grin. Hermione then realized what the sound was. He’d been trying not to laugh at her… a task at which he was now failing. “You looked… You looked like you were about to burst a blood vessel,” he said, laughing between words.
Hermione scowled, embarrassed and annoyed. To make matters worse, her entire face began to burn, and she was sure she was blushing a bright, mortifying red. Riddle put his hand out, and the sprite landed there again, once more docile.
“It takes practice,” Riddle said, not unkindly. “Here. I’ll help you. Take it again.”
“I don’t think it will let me touch it,” Hermione mumbled. The sprite had its back to her.
“Sure it will. Won’t you, gorgeous?” The sprite once more fluttered its wings at the compliment, a vague gesture which Riddle seemed to think reassuring. He smiled at Hermione, saying “Take it.”
Riddle’s expression was gentle, his pale skin unworldly looking, bathed in such a soft, silvery glow as it was. Hermione’s breath hitched.
He was so beautiful.
She started like she’d just been struck with something. What was wrong with her? This was Lord Voldemort, she reminded herself, calling to mind that snake-like monstrosity she had visited in the Pensieve. He was a hideous, horrific person. He always was and always would be a hideous, horrific person.
…But she wanted to learn his tricks.
Moving slowly, Hermione raised her hands to accept the sprite, which once more floated onto her palms. Then Riddle did something she had not expected. He cupped her hands with his, and though there were two layers of gloves separating their skin, Hermione’s pulse began racing. Her blush, which had only just begun to fade, was back with a vengeance.
“Don’t think too hard,” Riddle said, his voice low and smooth like silk. “Be gentle with your magic.”
Hermione was confused for a moment, having entirely forgotten what it was she was supposed to be trying to do. Right. The sprite; she wanted to make the sprite stop glowing…
She forced herself to breath slowly, to focus not on Tom Riddle’s far too close and far too attractive face, nor on the fact that his hands were holding hers… She could feel her heart beating against her chest, could hear the thrumming of its pulse in her ears…
Then, quite suddenly, the sprite’s light went out.
“Oh!” Hermione gasped, then smiled. “It worked! I—”
One look at Riddle told her everything she needed to know. That fucking smug grin. “You did that, didn’t you,” she said with no inflection in her voice. Her own smile vanished.
“I did,” Riddle admitted shamelessly. The sprite lit up again, looking at Hermione and making a small noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
Hermione glowered, fixing her heated expression on the sprite, now angry with it. How could it willingly obey Riddle so easily, and not her? She bit her lower lip, fiercely determined, now, to do what Riddle had done. She would succeed; she would wipe the mocking little expression right off its little face, and its light would go out—
It disappeared.
There was a beat in which Hermione blinked, thinking she’d imagined it. But no. It was gone. Their hands were empty. She glanced at Riddle, who looked, for the moment, equally bewildered as he stared at her palms where the sprite should have been, but no longer was. Then he looked at her.
“You vanished it,” he said, his eyes wide with shock.
“No,” Hermione denied at once. She shook her head. “No, no I didn’t.”
“You did.” Riddle’s stunned expression was beginning to change; his lips were starting to curl on one side. “You vanished that poor sprite.”
“I did not!” Hermione shouted, a bit shrilly. The other nearby sprites flew away. Hermione pulled her hands from Riddle’s, holding them tightly to her chest. “I didn’t! I—”
“You wicked, wicked witch,” Riddle said. “And I once called you good.”
He was grinning maliciously. Hermione shook her head, but she was speechless. “To think, I brought you here, showing you some of my favorite creatures in a place that is dear to me, dazzling you with a display of, in your own words, incredible magic—why, one might even go as far as to describe the entire setting as romantic—and you repay me with murder.”
He couldn’t have looked more pleased.
“I did not—I did not murder it!” Hermione yelled. “I mean—vanishing things, according to the Fifth Law of Magic, states that things that are vanished are actually only transfigured into a state of—”
“You killed it,” Riddle interrupted in a drawl.
Hermione swallowed thickly, her panic quickly transitioning into guilt. “I didn’t mean to,” she said weakly.
“Well, you must have meant to do something, because one moment there was a sweet, innocent sprite in your hands, and the next it was gone.”
“Oh, God,” Hermione lamented. “How could I have done such a thing? I love creatures, I didn’t mean, I would never have meant, I didn’t…”
Her voice trailed off, miserable.
“Honestly, I’m more impressed than anything,” said Riddle, his tone suddenly academic. “Wandless magic isn’t easy, but what I was doing was relatively simple. I was only asking magical creatures to do what they would do anyway, in a more organized fashion. But a vanishing spell? Without a wand or even a word?” He inclined his head slightly towards Hermione, almost deferentially. “That is most impressive.”
“I… is it?” Hermione asked. Her back arched involuntarily, and she sat up a bit straighter. “Is it really?”
“Ah, there it is.” Riddle’s smug grin was back, only it was infinitely darker now. “You say you care about creatures, and maybe you do; you say you like to read and learn about things, even useless things, and maybe you do; but what really satisfies you, Hermione…”
He paused, his voice dropping to a low purr when he finished, saying, “…is praise.”
For the third time that evening, Hermione’s wits abandoned her. Riddle said it all like he’d just discovered her greatest, most intimate secret, and he was smiling so… so knowingly, mischievously, and Hermione was certain that her body had not felt this hot even when she had literally lit herself on fire.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said in a most unconvincing, high-pitched tone.
“I should probably send the rest of the sprites away,” Riddle said casually, ignoring her. “To save them from your wrath.”
“I didn’t—I am not wrathful!” Hermione shouted… wrathfully.
“No, clearly not, not at all. My deepest apologies for even suggesting such a horrendous thing.” Riddle laughed. “I’m just relieved you didn’t set the poor thing on fire before you sentenced it to its transfigured state of non-being. Which is definitely not murder.”
“You think you’re just—that you’re so… You’re just awful!” Hermione spluttered. “You’re terrible!”
“Says the sprite killer,” Riddle retorted.
Hermione’s jaw dropped, astounded that she should find herself in such a situation. She, Hermione, the champion of house-elves and founder of S.P.E.W., needing to prove herself as not a killer of creatures to Tom fucking Riddle! Who had murdered at least one rabbit and four people at this point in his life, and who even knew what else!
Hermione shook her head and stood. “I am leaving,” she declared.
Riddle didn’t stand nor try to stop her. In fact, he fell back on the snow, putting his hands behind his head and making himself comfortable. Once he laid down, the sprites started to gather around him, resting on his legs and chest. “All right. Have a lovely evening, killer.” His lips twitched. “Let’s do it again sometime.”
Hermione resisted the urge to reach for her wand and send the sprites which had just landed on him, looking at him so adoringly, fleeing. “Careful what you wish for, Tom,” she said quietly. “Maybe next time, I’ll vanish you.”
She regretted the words nearly as soon as she’d said them, but Riddle clearly didn’t find her threatening. He looked up at the stars, his eyes once more following a specific, purposeful path. “I’m not too worried about that,” he said.
Hermione gawked at him, then looked at the stars, then back to him. What was it Riddle was seeing there—or thought he was seeing there, more like? Hermione glowered; she didn’t know, because she dropped Divination almost immediately, but it didn’t matter anyway because it was all nonsense; but he was staring at the stars with an obnoxious glint in his eyes, and his smile was growing wider with every second that he ignored her. He was just waiting for her to burst and ask, she could tell.
I won't give him the satisfaction, she thought. Hermione made an indignant, huffing sound, then turned on her heel and stalked away.
She made it about three paces before she tripped.
The silver lining was that she didn’t completely fall; the unfortunate part was that she almost did, and so the sprites that had been near her quickly darted off, terrified as she fumbled forward in the snow. Hermione thought she might like to vanish herself.
“I wonder,” Riddle called, his voice lofty. Hermione froze with her back still to him. “If you are always so clumsy, or if it is me, specifically, that causes you to stumble.”
Something about that statement made Hermione’s blood run cold. She didn’t linger to figure out why in his presence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she repeated in a monotone, not turning to face him.
When she disapparated a moment later, his laughter rang in her ears.
Chapter 16: Lady Luck
Chapter Text
Hermione sat with perfect posture as Holloway lectured, his voice booming in the ominous corridor. The Hall of Time. It was still in disrepair, though it looked much better than it did the day Harry Potter, his band of devious, teenaged friends, and some Death Eaters had left it years ago.
This was the third in the rotation of the sub-Departments for the newest Unspeakables of the Department of Mysterious: Hermione Granger, and two older men who had transferred from other Departments, Jackson and Selwyn. First, they had learned about Space, the sub-department for which Hermione had been least enthusiastic, and so she was happy to have gotten it out of the way. Then there had been a few months of research and spell training, lots of reading and learning about hexes and curses which were heavily reliant on Ancient Runes, and which Holloway said they would need to know later. Next had been the Hall of Thought, which was much less enthralling than Hermione had assumed it would be.
Now they had moved on to the Hall of Time—the one which Hermione was most excited about. This was largely because it had much to do with her current ‘extra-curricular’ activities; the ones that involved Draco Malfoy and half-concocted fantasies that would surely never come to fruition… but still. Hermione was intrigued to learn more about Time and, specifically, time-travel. Would have been intrigued anyway, considering her history. It was what Holloway was lecturing about today, and Hermione listened with rapt attention as he conjured up a stream of light, issuing from his wand in a bright, cobalt blue.
“Space and Time, which are in unison,” he said, and the light began to shimmer and swirl, like rushing water, “exist together like a deep, many-layered river. There is our current time, the present in which we live, which exists somewhere in the midst of this. The past, therefore, is somewhere else—above, below. Not necessarily behind, as one might think. Moving at its own rate, constantly a part of and influencing our universe.”
“Where is the future?” asked Jackson.
“It doesn’t exist yet, of course. If it’s the future you’re after, Jackson, the Hall of Prophecy is that way. Don’t worry, we’ll get there eventually. Now.”
The shimmering light flashed, splitting into two layers which were distinguishable only because one was brighter. They mingled around each other, separate, yet at the same time a single entity. “When one uses a Time-Turner, they briefly jump from one current into the other. We have found, after many years of study, that the extent of this jump is a critical factor in the success of the excursion.”
Hermione’s hand instinctively shot up in the air before she spoke. “Is that why Ministry approved Time-Turner only go as far as five hours?” she asked.
“That is precisely why,” said Holloway. “Five hours is the limit that has been proven to not shatter timelines. Which is to say, if someone travels five hours or less in a single jump, it means that they were meant to make that jump in our present. Their actions remain in our current. Are necessary, even.” He gave Hermione a wry smile. “Though I suspect you would know all about that, Miss Granger.”
“I suppose I would,” Hermione agreed. “But, Mr. Holloway—if you don’t mind me asking—what happens when you go further than five hours back? Say, many years? Decades, even?”
Holloway’s grin faded. “Have you not read the case studies on Eloise Mintumble? I’m shocked, Miss Granger. They were a part of the required reading weeks ago.”
“Of course I read them,” Hermione huffed, “many times. But the reports are all very confusing and conflicting. Time was affected greatly, and yet, things carried on. Descendants ceased to exist, and yet, consequences of their existence prior to their vanishing remained.” Hermione folded her arms across her chest, frowning. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Holloway sighed heavily and shook his head—something which he did often after Hermione asked questions. “Miss Granger, this is the Department of Mysterious. There are no clear answers here. Only conjectures.”
“All right,” said Hermione. “What are the current conjectures, then, sir?”
“That time has laws which are incomprehensible in the realm of our thoughts—our minds are distressingly limited, as you should know from our previous studies. However, the Time Perpetuals have proposed many theories. They relate somewhat to Space. And they are complicated. Should you decide to become a Perpetual in either department, you shall learn more about them.”
Hermione’s lower lip jutted out. “Can’t you tell us anything about them now?”
The other new Unspeakables voiced their interest as well, and Hollow sighed again, resignedly. “I don’t know much, as I’m not a Perpetual myself,” he said. “But I can tell you what I know, as I understand it.”
He lifted his wand, and the glowing spell flashed. “When one goes only a few hours back in time, the currents meld back into each other seamlessly,” he said, and one current broke off, making a loop and joining with the second. The currents flowed on undisturbed. “We call this Temporal Equilibrium. Safe. However, when one goes further back…”
The same layer which had looped around did so again, only this time it made a much larger arc. It tried to meet back up with the second layer, but then it paused. It twitched, and the light scattered suddenly, shooting off in another direction. “It can fail. Never to return, if there is no intervention.”
“Where did the rest of it go?” Jackson asked.
“Elsewhere,” Holloway responded vaguely. “Another realm.”
“As in, another dimension?” said Selwyn. “Like a separate timeline?”
“That is the conjecture,” said Holloway. “That there are countless other realms; alternative universes that exist under a different set of circumstances. But it’s as I said before—I am not a Perpetual. I know very little on the specifics of these theories. This, the idea of a many layered river, is just a metaphor to better illustrate my point. And the theories they are just that. Theories.”
“So… What do we call that, then?” asked Hermione. She pointed towards the stream which was broken, flowing in the wrong direction. “When it breaks off like that. If we call a successful time jump Temporal Equilibrium, what do we call it when it fails? When whoever made the jump goes too far and ends up… elsewhere?”
She’d asked because she wanted to be able to look it up later, but Holloway only grinned morbidly. “After the disaster of Eloise Mintumble, we call it, ‘not our problem’,” he said, then waved his wand, and the glowing river of time vanished.
What is your stance on the recently proposed bill concerning lycanthropy?
Hermione smirked as she read the short message which hardly constituted a letter. Just a question, no greetings nor a signature, but it was no mystery as to who’d sent it. Riddle’s elegant script was unmistakable, and who else would send such an inquiry?
Glancing at the owl which waited for her to reply, Hermione decided not to hesitate. Riddle was looking for more than than just her opinion on lycanthropy (of which she was certain he would disagree), he was also trying to find out whether or not she was well-informed of what was going on in politics.
Now, in the year 1950, was the first time a bill was proposed to limit the days which a werewolf could be employed. The only reason it was never taken into serious consideration was that in this day and age, werewolves were hardly considered for employment at all. Very few werewolves could get hired in this era, and Hermione, having done more than her fair amount of research on lycanthropy once she figured out Professor Lupin was afflicted with it, knew that this bill was largely ignored not because most witches and wizards thought werewolves should not be able to work these days, but for other reasons. To legislate lycanthropy in such a manner would open up a whole new discussion about part-creature policies in the workplace, and there were more pressing things to be worried about. No one was hiring werewolves anyway. Best to just ignore the issue.
It would not resurface until the 1980’s. This dismissed bill would be brought up again by none other than Dolores Umbridge, soon after the advent of Wolfsbane Potion. Hermione scowled as she envisioned Umbridge’s smiling, toad-like face and her penchant for squashing true progression. Just as things looked like they might be turning around for werewolves, that horrid woman had found this old bill, tweaked some of the wording to make it more palatable, and got it passed into law.
One step forward, ten steps back.
Of course, Riddle could not possibly know just how informed Hermione was on such matters. Hermione grabbed a quill and wrote her response, directly under his question on the same sheet of parchment.
I believe that it was for the best that the bill did not go beyond the second reading. It is absurd to me that those suffering from lycanthropy should not be allowed to work two days prior to and following a full moon—the magical illness is only dangerous and potentially spreadable during the small window of time in which a full moon is present at night, and even then, only with clear skies. One does not choose to be a werewolf. That bill was discrimination, and it is the Ministry’s duty to create legislation which abolishes such practices, not reinforces them.
Hermione folded the letter up neatly and sent it off with the owl.
Two days had passed since their midnight excursion into the snowy field by the sea, and Hermione was unsurprised that Riddle had chosen to reach out to her again. She was not, however, pleased. Hermione had done a lot of thinking over the last forty-eight hours, and she had come to a very difficult conclusion:
She would not succeed with this plan.
It was a hard pill to swallow, that reality, but it was the truth. She was not denouncing herself completely; there were many things about herself which Hermione took pride in and would not disregard. She was smart. She did not doubt that she was at least on par with Riddle in terms of intelligence, and when it came to recalling facts, dates, and laws, she thought she might best him. She was cunning, too; Hermione could be just as clever. She felt she’d proved that to herself well enough by fitting into the life of Hepzibah Smith, acquiring a notable ally and affluence.
What she did not have, however—and which she had grossly underestimated the power of—was his charm.
Riddle’s ability to twist words and cast dazzling smiles at just the right time was uncanny. He was not only smart and clever, he was alluring, he was dashing. He was a master of manipulation and seduction (not to mention obnoxiously handsome, which was why it worked), and it was a game he had been playing his whole life. Hermione didn’t stand a chance.
And why would I? Hermione thought, sighing as she combed through her closet, deciding what to wear for the day. Why had she been foolish enough to think that she could outcharm Riddle? He had been wrapping people around his fingers since the moment he set foot in Hogwarts, climbing that social hierarchy until he was Head Boy and Slughorn’s crowned jewel, and he had only continued to hone those deceptive skills working at Borgin and Burke’s. Tom Riddle as he was right now was at the very pinnacle of his manipulative expertise.
Inversely, Hermione had become a social outcast after she and Ron had broken up, and she then chose to become an Unspeakable, working with a small group who were not exactly the most socially adept people in the world. Unless one counted skulking around with Draco Malfoy from time to time, Hermione hadn’t exactly been refining her people skills.
She could not win.
After so many near slip-ups during their moonlit outing, Hermione knew her initial plan was doomed for failure. Her intentions to get close to Riddle, to pretend to become one of his little pawns so that she could learn where he kept that damn diary… It wasn’t going to work. If she carried on this way, he would catch her in her lie, and she would be—to put it in elegant terms—quite fucked.
This was not a game she could afford to lose.
Already, Hermione had begun to formulate a plan B, but she was not looking forward to progressing with it. It would mean getting as far away from Riddle as possible; it would mean leaving London and the comfortable home she had created for herself here.
But I didn’t travel back in time to have fun, she reminded herself—as though she needed reminding. I came here to destroy Riddle… and one way or another, I will.
The doorbell rang. Hermione quickly grabbed a set of blue robes and put them on, her heart already pounding. He wouldn’t show up here, would he? After that response? No, he wouldn’t—would he?
Hermione ran a comb through her hair then rushed downstairs. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw not Riddle—thank goodness—but a few other wizards. One was an older man whom she recognized, and then there were two younger men in uniforms whom were carrying between them a large, rectangular package. Hokey watched them move it into the drawing room with apprehensive eyes, like she thought she should be in charge of that.
“Yes, please, right over here—oh good! Hermione, you’re up!”
Hepzibah ushered Hermione into the drawing room, smiling brightly. “The painting we won from the auction is here,” she said.
“And what a fine painting it is!” Walden, the elderly wizard whom Hermione had spoken with at the gala, beamed at her. “Good to see you again, Hermione.”
“And you, Walden,” Hermione said. He took her hand and politely raised it to his lips, then turned his attention back to the movers. “Was it necessary to have it brought here by wizards, at full size?” Hermione asked. “Surely it could have been shrunk and sent by owl?”
“And risk the chance of damaging the artwork, and making the receiver perform an enlarging charm that could go awry?” Walden said, sounding scandalized at the very thought. “No, no, dear Hermione— as a board member of WAG, I make it my personal duty to ensure that all artworks purchased at the annual gala are delivered to their new homes safely. Especially to such generous donors as you and your aunt.” He winked.
“Yes, yes, very generous,” said Hepzibah distractedly, who was watching the movers like a hawk. “A bit higher, if you please—right above the mantle—and to the left a little more, that’s not quite centered—”
After a few moments where Hepzibah fussed over the exact placement of the work, she seemed satisfied. “Excellent,” she said.
“And now, for the reveal!”
Walden pointed his wand at the painting, which was still wrapped in semi-translucent packaging which Hermione could only assume was a highly protective enchantment. It melted away, revealing the image beneath.
Hermione was just as enamored as the first time she saw it. A little girl, her dress covered in mud in a wild, flowery scene, kneeling in front of a rose bush. Garden roses, Hermione now knew. The kind that had been cultivated and which needed much more care than their sporadic counter-parts.
“Very good,” said Walden. “Well, we’d best be off—many more deliveries to make. Thank you again for your brilliant purchase… and congratulations!”
Walden shook both Hermione’s and Hepzibah’s hands, then bowed himself out.
“You were right, Auntie,” Hermione said, looking wistfully back to the painting. “It is simply perfect there.”
Hermione watched as the little girl furrowed her brows, lifting her hands over the bush. Flowers sprang into life, only to wither again soon enough, the petals falling to the ground and curling into something black and desolate. The longer Hermione stared, the more ambiguous it became. Was the girl bringing the rose bush back to life, or was the child covered in mud the cause of its demise?
Killing, saving. Killing, saving.
“It really does look good there, doesn’t it?” Hepzibah agreed. “It fits just right. We got very lucky!”
Hermione blinked. She looked at Hepzibah, some part of her mind registering that she had said something poignant, but not yet knowing what it was. “What did you say?”
“I said it fits just right,” Hepzibah repeated. “We got lucky.”
Lucky.
Lucky.
“Oh, Hepzibah,” Hermione said. “Have I told you today how much I love you?”
Hepzibah looked a bit confused, but then she laughed. “Not today, I’m afraid, seeing as you’ve just graced me with your presence. But thank you, dearie. I love you, too. Now, for breakfast, I was thinking—oh, my!”
Hepzibah and Hermione both started when an owl came zooming down the stairs, flying straight into the drawing room and landing on the back of a chair. The owl stared at Hermione and held out its leg.
“Good lord, where did that owl come from?” Hepzibah said. “It must have come from the kitchen! Or upstairs!” Then a look of sudden realization spread across her face. She cast Hermione a shrewd look.
“Must have left the balcony open,” Hermione muttered. Why hadn’t this delivery bird just left the letter on her pillow like the last one had? It must not have been as smart. Hermione took the parchment from the owl and unfurled it.
An interesting opinion, Hermione, but entirely wrong. I would like to explain the finer details as to why this is the case, if you would oblige me. This evening, perhaps?
Hermione read the message quickly, sensing that Hepzibah was standing on her tip-toes behind her, craning her neck to read over her shoulder. Hermione held the letter tightly to her chest and whirled around to face her.
“Who’s writing you?” Hepzibah asked. “Is it Abraxas Malfoy?”
Hermione stared at her blankly for a moment. “…Why, yes,” she answered slowly. She cleared her throat and, more confidently, said, “Yes. Yes, it is. We’ve sort of been owling each other since the gala.”
Hepzibah would frown upon her owling that shop boy from Knockturn Alley, but Hermione knew she would have no such issue with her corresponding with Abraxas Malfoy. How convenient, she thought, that Hepzibah had provided the cover story for her.
“Oh, how exciting!” Hepzibah exclaimed. “Since the gala? How could you not tell me?” She put her hands on her hips, frowning, but the angry expression was gone nearly at once. “Oh, never mind, I can’t possibly be upset. Abraxas Malfoy! Really and truly?”
“Yes, Auntie,” Hermione murmured, blushing.
“Well, go on, tell me—has he asked you on a proper date yet?”
“Er, actually, yes, he has. Just now. That’s what this letter is. He’s asked me out tonight, in fact.”
“Oh! Oh! Well, what are you waiting for? Write back! You want to go, don’t you? But of course you do, It’s Abraxas Malfoy—go on, shoo—go write a response—!”
Hermione laughed nervously as Hepzibah all but pushed her back upstairs. “And when you’ve got that sorted out, we can go out for breakfast, and then we must shop! New dress robes are certainly in order!”
Hermione nodded, glad that Hepzibah was not insisting on reading whatever she wrote. She went to her room and shut the door, her mind reeling as she sat at her desk.
Just minutes ago, she was prepared to throw in the towel—to completely give up on this quest to get Riddle’s diary. And she was still going to abandon most of her crazy plan, she was… but not yet.
If she could just get the diary first, then it would make taking Riddle down infinitely easier. She needed to get her hands on those two items—the diary and the ring.
The ring would be easier. As soon as it was no longer on his finger, Hermione knew where it was going. She could simply check the Gaunt shack periodically, monitoring it for dark enchantments, and then she would have it. That was a waiting game.
A much shorter waiting game, she hoped, than the one she would have to play if she couldn’t get the diary soon. True, she knew it would go into Lucius Malfoy’s care at some point, but he wasn’t even born yet, and wouldn’t be a Death Eater for quite some time. No, Hermione wanted that diary, and she wanted it now.
She knew it existed. She knew it was, more than likely, being kept wherever Riddle lived. And she knew now what she needed to do to find it. She had the brains, she had the courage. She may not have had the same silver tongue honed by years of manipulation that Riddle had, but she didn’t need that.
What she needed… was a little luck.
Hermione picked up a quill and began her reply. Oh yes, she would meet Riddle this evening. She would oblige him. But tonight, it was going to be on her terms.
Shopping was Hepzibah’s reaction to just about everything. There is a gala approaching—we must shop! It is the first of February—we must shop! The sun is shining—we must shop! So, Hermione was hardly surprised when, after being (allegedly) asked out on a date by the notorious Abraxas Malfoy, she should find herself in one of Hepzibah’s favorite clothing boutiques.
A saleswoman stalked them throughout the store as they browsed, asking Hermione what she was looking for. “A special occasion?” she inquired lightly.
Hermione opened her mouth to answer, but Hepzibah beat her to it. “She has a very special date this evening,” she said.
“Is that right?” asked the witch. “What a lucky wizard he is, to have the company of such a pretty witch.”
“Who said he was a wizard?” Hermione said casually, pushing through the racks of clothes. “Maybe it’s a muggle fellow I’m seeing.”
She took a moment to appreciate how the woman’s jaw dropped at this unexpected suggestion. “Is—is he, now?”
“Don’t be ridiculous Hermione,” Hepzibah said chidingly. Hermione smirked. “He is not a muggle at all, he’s a very proper wizard. Quite a well-known one, in fact.” Hepzibah gave the saleswoman a meaningful look. “A very well-known bachelor. A very well-known, wealthy, desirable bachelor.”
“Hepzibah, don’t,” Hermione warned. The last thing she needed was for rumors to abound that she was seeing Abraxas Malfoy when she wasn’t.
But the woman caught Hepzibah’s drift right away. “My goodness, do you have a date with Abraxas Malfoy?”
“Don’t—don’t shout it to the entire store, please!” Hermione snapped.
The woman lowered her voice. “Abraxas Malfoy?” she repeated. Hepzibah nodded, grinning. “Wow! You lucky girl!”
Hadn’t he been the lucky one, just moments ago? Hermione rolled her eyes and pulled out a dress. “How about something like this?” she said, holding it up.
“Red?” the saleswoman said in shock.
“Is something wrong with red?”
“Forgive my niece, she’s from the states,” said Hepzibah. “She doesn’t appreciate the gravity of the whole house loyalty thing.”
“What on earth does the color red have to do with anything?”
“Oh, dear,” said the saleswoman. “It’s just that, red is a bit of a Gryffindor color, and Abraxas Malfoy is a very proud Slytherin. His whole family is. I don’t think he’d like red very much.”
Hermione scoffed. As if she didn’t know. “Well then, I suppose it’s a good thing Abraxas won’t be the one wearing it.” Still, she put the dress back on the rack.
“How about something more like this?” Hepzibah pointed out a green gown hanging on the wall, a stylish and dark set of dress robes.
Hermione frowned at it. “Not much of a green person,” she said. “What about purple—is there any reason purple might be offensive?”
She held out another dress that caught her eye. It was a little more reserved than the others, less flashy, which Hermione thought a good thing. The saleswoman and Hepzibah both eyed it critically.
“Hmm… Purple, the color often associated with royalty… I like it.”
The saleswoman grinned and flicked her wand, causing the garment to go soaring into her hands. “Come on, lucky lady. Let’s get you into a dressing room so we can make some adjustments. We’ll make this gown fit you like a glove! Oh, Abraxas Malfoy won’t know what hit him. Notorious bachelor, no more!”
Hermione had a good feeling about tonight, now.
She had needed to sneak away from Hepzibah to make a certain purchase, and it had not been an easy feat. She’d had to convince her that she wanted to buy some new perfume, but she was very picky when it came to scents, so it would probably take her forever, so how about I meet you at home, Auntie?
Hepzibah had finally relented, and so Hermione was able to go to the store she really wanted to go to… an apothecary.
Of sorts.
Hermione had never purchased pre-made potions before, always being the kind of witch who preferred to brew them herself, but time was not on her side. She needed this potion now.
She just hadn’t expected it to cost so bloody much! Six hours’ worth for seventy-five galleons! That was a ridiculous amount in her time, not to mention in 1950! But Hermione had payed it, and thanked the store owner kindly. It rested in her front pocket now, a tiny vial more valuable than a thousand galleons.
Felix Felicis.
The thing about luck, Hermione had learned, was that it was not as simple as most people assumed it to be. Luck was not something random or sporadic. Like most things, there were laws to which it conformed—even if those laws did not make much sense, being a set of rules which were different than the ones people were used to. Still, Hermione understood somewhat how Felix Felicis operated once ingested. She’d read about it extensively after Harry had cheated his way into winning a vial (she was not still bitter, really), and she came to understand why witches and wizards did not drink the stuff all the time—outside of the usual side-effects of potential toxicity and its ungodly price tag.
Luck existed within each individual, and it always found balance. When one experienced a great deal of good luck, typically, somewhere along the line, some bad luck would come to even it out. So, when someone drank Felix Felicis, they were not simply conjuring up good luck from nothing, but pulling it from somewhere else. This usually meant that whatever good luck the elixir brought on was met with bad luck of equal measure afterwards. In almost all the first-person accounts Hermione had read on the subject, those who took Felix Felicis had the best day of their lives while under the influence of it… and often the worst one not too long afterwards.
Of course, there were exceptions to this rule. Fate truly did favor some people, Hermione thought, because there were also stories of those who had good luck that just went on and on and on, Felix Felicis or no, and it really didn’t seem fair.
Hermione, however, was under no disillusion that she would be one of these people. She would never say that she had good luck, but she wouldn’t say she had bad luck, either. For all the horrible things she could think of in her life, she could think of just as many blessings. She was average in this regard, and so she suspected that she would have typical results with her Felix Felicis.
Which is just fine, Hermine thought, placing her hand over her pocket to feel that the vial was still there. It doesn’t matter if I have some bad luck after. I won't be around Riddle then anyway, I'll be sure of it. Six hours should be plenty of time to get lucky enough to at least figure out where the diary is.
She was willing to give it a shot, at least. And if it didn’t work, well… on to plan B.
“Well, don’t you look gorgeous.”
Hepzibah couldn’t look happier as she examined Hermione in the mirror, having helped dress her. These dazzling earrings, this shining necklace. Definitely this gold bracelet. Hermione had smiled and let her adorn her.
“Thank you, Hepzibah,” Hermione said. “This dress really is lovely.”
It was, too—the purple dress, which she had thought looked more conservative on the rack, looked almost too fetching, now. It clung to Hermione’s body a bit tighter than what she was used to, showing off an hourglass curve to her hips she hadn’t realized she had. And the neckline was lower than she’d thought acceptable, but the saleswoman insisted on that cut for the fabric, and Hepzibah hadn’t disagreed, so here she was, moderate cleavage exposed.
But again, no pockets! Yet Hermione was not going to make the same mistake twice. She was bringing a purse with her, Hepzibah’s annoyance be damned, and she was putting her wand in it.
“You are ravishing. You’re going to have the Malfoy heir eating out of the palm of your hand.” Hepzibah grinned and checked her watch. “Speaking of—when is he coming to get you again? You said eight thirty, right? It’s almost eight thirty now!”
“I did say eight thirty, but I didn’t say he was coming here,” Hermione said. “I’m meeting him out.”
Hermione might have just told her she was pregnant, Hepzibah looked so shocked. “He’s not coming here?”
“Er, no,” Hermione said. She hadn’t thought about it, but she supposed that might have been a social faux pas in this time. Proper wizards probably came to witch’s homes to pick them up in the year 1950. And Abraxas Malfoy was a proper wizard.
“Really? Well, he ought to!”
“Auntie, it’s fine,” Hermione said. “I asked him to meet me out. It’s no big deal.”
Hermione snatched up her bag and stepped away from the mirror. “And please, don’t wait up for me. I felt horrible that night I came back from the gala and you’d fallen asleep in your chair.”
Hepzibah gave her a wary looked. “I’m not a child, Auntie,” Hermione went on. “I’m a capable, adult witch. I can take care of myself. I’ll be fine, I promise.”
Hepzibah scrutinized her for a moment more, then sighed. “I know you are,” she said. “Just don’t make any rash decisions, all right?”
“I won’t.” Hermione gave Hepzibah a swift kiss on the cheek, then headed towards the door. “Goodnight, then, Auntie! You too, Hokey!”
Hermione was almost skipping as she dashed down the front stairs of the patio, out onto the streets of London. She went a few blocks away from Hepzibah’s home before she turned into a semi-empty alley, then pulled out her potion, grinning widely at the Felix Felicis. Golden droplets bounced around in the vial like happy little fish. Hermione was beyond eager. The last time she had taken Felix, it had been only a few drops, and she hadn't really taken the time to appreciate it, then.
Hermione undid the stopper and swallowed the contents whole, savoring the flavor of it on her tongue.
Her first thought—which was a bizarre and uncomfortable one—was that it tasted a little like Harry. Or the Harry Potter version of Polyjuice Potion, at any rate. A little sweet. She supposed that shouldn’t have been surprising, considering it was golden, just as that brew had been.
But that notion was fleeting, for then Hermione’s mind focused, and it focused quite sharply.
Right then, she thought, tossing the empty vial into the nearest bin. She was off to meet Riddle. This evening would go splendidly, just splendidly, she had no doubts about that.
Hermione was on the verge of disapparating when she caught her reflection in the window of a closed shop. Hm, no, that wasn’t quite right. Some adjustments were in order. Hermione swept her long hair up into a bun, pinning it high on her head. She then retracted her wand—she was not worried about any muggles seeing her; they wouldn’t—and, casting a quick and wordless spell, stitched up the neckline a bit higher. And this jewelry had to go; the earrings were were much too… much, and the necklace too; and this bracelet—no. Not the bracelet. Keep the bracelet.
Hermione nodded firmly to herself once she’d tucked the unwanted jewelry safely in her purse, along with her wand. Much better, she thought, unsure why it was much better, but knowing that this was undoubtedly the case.
She grinned. Hermione had been compared to Aphrodite by Hepzibah, called the Golden Lady by the gala’s host; she had been called Cinderella and spoken to as though she were Juliet by Riddle…
But tonight, I am something far better than any of those.
Hermione smoothed the fabric of her dress. There. Perfect.
Tonight, I am Lady Luck.
Chapter 17: Interlude I
Chapter Text
She was a riddle.
The girl—
Hermione—if that was her name, if that was even h e r n a m e—
—was a constantly evolving complication. She was a many-sided gemstone, and each time he saw her another facet revealed itself. Sometimes glaringly, like the sun was shining on its surface with a beatific vengeance; sometimes subtlety—the barest wink that those less perceptive than him would no doubt miss.
She seemed so poised at first, and in that initial encounter he thought he had the measure of her—except… not quite. Because although there was an effortless superiority in her demeanor, there had been another facet, too, even then. It revealed itself as she held a cursed, wooden box in her hands. The arrogance had slipped, and hunger—hunger to know; hunger he personally knew far too well—had shone in those amber-brown eyes. She was full of fire from the moment he met her, and it was enough to intrigue him from the get-go.
(That, and she had denied him, placing his card back into his proffered hand, and no one denied him when he made his intentions clear, no one, no one, no one)
More edges appeared over time. She would begin as a dignified and proper witch, but then, with only the barest insult to her intelligence, she would turn indignant and angry and act somewhat like a child. She’d be too stubborn to admit she might be wrong, willing and able to cite whatever sources necessary to prove that she was, in fact, not.
Other times, she would be so shocked at whatever words he might throw her way that she would freeze. She would turn a delicate tint of cerise and she would look enchanting—enchanted—and he knew that she was at her weakest in those moments, like a captivated deer. And yet, tempting though it was, he never struck then. Advance on a deer and it will flee, swift and graceful between the trees. He did not yet know how quick this creature was, nor what he intended to do with her, besides… so it was smarter to wait.
Far more interesting, however, were the moments when she turned wholly into something else. Sometimes he would say things and in response she would stare, not blankly but with eyes full and wide. Haunted. Her focus would drift somewhere away from him, cold and detached, far from his influence. Where did she go in those moments?
Where did she go?
She’d always come back, rapid fire, dropping to the earth like a star falling from the sky, and who would she be when she returned? The poised witch? The bitter, well-versed girl? The blushing maiden? Or the mysterious woman that went somewhere else completely; somewhere dark, he was sure, where no one else could reach her?
…
He wanted to know which facets were false.
They could not all be true. He knew that someone with that many sides was living a lie at least some of the time. It infuriated him that he could not differentiate between the veracities and the fantasies; it infuriated him even further to think that there may be more sides to her yet.
…There was at least one more.
Perhaps the most honest glimpse into her that he had seen yet. He suspected that she may have some skills in the mind arts, though he was not completely sure—and it bothered him immensely that this was the case; he was a Legilimens, how could he be unsure?—but there was one moment in particular that stood out to him. One that haunted him.
Hermione Smith, wearing a sweeping gown of gold and a crown of roses… on the arm of Abraxas Malfoy. In Abraxas’s home. Laughing, smiling. Looking like she belonged so perfectly… and then her golden-brown eyes, previously so bright, met his.
Fear.
Her pupils had dilated so widely that the light in her gaze vanished, swallowed by blackness. Her painted lips had parted, her blushing face had paled to the color of freshly fallen snow. It had been the first time he had caught a true glimpse behind the multi-faceted mask that was Hermione Smith.
She feared him.
He could not have imagined a more delicious expression.
Enticing yet fleeting; gone as fast as a flash of lightning. But why? Why should this girl ever have cause to have such visceral fear—for a moment, for a heartbeat—of him? A supposed shop-boy from Knockturn Alley?
What did she know?
What did s h e k n o w ?
…
She was elegant until she wasn’t. She was egotistical and vain until something slipped. She was a well-dressed, perfectly manicured, pureblooded witch… but she wasn’t always.
She was a riddle, an incredibly convoluted one. But Lord Voldemort was not worried.
Riddles.
He knew precisely how to deal with those.
Chapter 18: The Devil's Cup
Chapter Text
Riddle was already there.
He was waiting exactly where Hermione had told him to meet her—in Hyde Park near the North Gate, right alongside Park Lane. At the Joy of Life Fountain.
It was chilly and late enough that there were not many people lingering. The muggles walked by at a brisk pace, passing the fountain on their way home or somewhere more exciting for the evening. Everyone was in a rush to get out of the cold… except one.
Riddle sat on the edge of the fountain, one ankle propped up on his knee, looking altogether too debonair. He was wearing wizard’s clothing, yes, but they were not the garish sort that muggles would find suspicious. His long, black cloak with silver buckles looked like a more fashionable version of the coats of the day, and his scarf—dark green—was tied in a perfect knot around his throat. But his attire wasn’t what made him look charming to Hermione.
He was reading a book.
Because of the precise point where she had apparated, Riddle hadn’t noticed her instantaneous arrival. Hermione had long since learned the art of apparating without making the shotgun like crack that shook the air—it had been a required part of her stealth Unspeakable training—and she’d happened to land in a position where she was slightly behind Riddle, to the side. The perfect spot to see him and the book he was reading… and he had not yet spotted her.
How lucky.
The book was titled The Significance of Symbols and Numerals by Alastair Grunnion , a text about Ancient Runes and its applications in Arithmancy. Hermione recognized the tetrahedral drawing embossed on the cover; she’d read the book many times herself. In her sixth year, when she was trying not to think about Ron being with Lavender and was tired of hearing Harry carry on about Malfoy, obsessively studying Ancient Runes and Arithmancy—classes she shared with neither of them, thank goodness—had been her favorite form of escapism. That particular book happened to be one of her go-to’s. Hermione had more than a few passages memorized.
…How lucky.
Smiling, Hermione took a moment to appreciate the setting. The Fountain of Joy looked oddly desolate, considering that it was a bronze sculpture of a man and a woman on the precipice of embracing, beaming at one another as only young lovers do. Illuminated by the streetlights and with no water gushing out around them, they appeared as two souls who were trapped in a moment for all time—so close to the promise of a kiss that was forever denied them. Their smiles were frozen; their eyes blank.
Hermione moved quietly, and she found, to her not-so-great-surprise, that she was much lighter on her feet than usual. Riddle didn’t hear her coming. When she leaned down behind him and spoke, he jumped involuntarily.
“Chapter twenty-nine is my favorite,” she said, and Riddle turned to look up at her. Hermione smiled. “Though I’m not sure if I agree with Grunnion’s hypothesis that the color in which one makes their runic symbols matters.”
Riddle didn’t let the shock remain on his face long. After only a moment where he looked surprised—genuinely so, at being snuck up on—he smiled in turn, rising to his feet in a fluid motion. He closed the book, though not before folding down the corner at the top of the page to mark his place. “You’re familiar with The Significance of Symbols and Numerals ?” he asked. His eyes darted down the length of Hermione’s body, surely taking in what she was wearing, but they returned at once to her face.
“To say I’m familiar with it would be a bit of an understatement.”
Riddle cocked his head to one side, assessing her. “Well, this is only my second time reading it myself, and it has been a while since the first go-through... so I’ll reserve any opinions I have on the contents of chapter twenty-nine until I’ve finished.”
“So that you can heartily disagree with me, no doubt.”
“You’re putting words and opinions into my mouth before I’ve even thought to have them,” Riddle chided. He smiled a dazzling smile. “That’s utterly unfair, Hermione.”
Maybe, under other circumstances, his grin would have made her heart speed. As it was, Hermione merely laughed and said, “Life is often utterly unfair, Tom. Just ask the werewolves.”
Riddle laughed as well. “A clever segue into a conversation better had elsewhere.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Hermione agreed. They were out in the middle of public, muggle London, after all. “Did you have some place in mind?”
While she had chosen the meeting time and location, Hermione decided that it would be wise to let Riddle pick the place they would go—partly because she figured he would like to have that control and would therefore be in a better mood, partly because she was curious.
Where would Riddle take her this time?
“I do,” Riddle said. He held out his arm to her, elbow extended in a manner which suggested she should link her own arm through it. With his long cloak, elegantly tied scarf, and handsome smile, he truly did look prince-like. Hermione grinned and took his arm like the prosperous lady she was not. Riddle cast a quick look up and down the street, and, seeing that the coast was clear, they disapparated.
Hermione’s eyes widened when they landed. “What,” she asked, unhooking her arm from Riddle’s, “is this?”
It was a rhetorical question—the sign on the establishment before them made that much clear—but Riddle answered anyway. “It’s a pub,” he said.
It was a pub… of sorts. The Devil’s Cup was obviously a bar, what with the banner of a chalice on it and hours listed until 2 am, but it was dark and decrepit looking—not at all the sort of place that Hermione would think wise to bring a lady. It had a definite sense of not being frequented often, and the surrounding buildings and alleys were not at all helping with the atmosphere.
“I see that,” Hermione said. “Did you bring me to a pub in Knockturn Alley, Tom? After everything my aunt said about it, yelling at me for coming here?”
“No,” Riddle replied. “This, technically, is Aconite Alley. I know the subtleties of the divisions of magical London are probably still lost on you, but Knockturn Alley definitively begins after 3rd street… Which is right over there.”
He pointed down the alleyway where Hermione had been looking—a dark, narrow street where a few hags shuffled slowly in the shadows. One of them seemed to be coming their way. “Aconite Alley,” she repeated dryly. Riddle didn’t know it, but Hermione couldn’t help but find that amusing. Aconite would one day be discovered to be the key ingredient for the effectiveness of Wolfsbane Potion. “How… quaint.”
Riddle chuckled and took a step closer to the dingy pub. “I don’t come here for the atmosphere,” he said.
“Let me guess,” Hermione said, eyeing the suspicious looking hag who was on the move. They entered The Devil’s Cup before them and disappeared inside. “You come for the company.”
“Actually,” said Riddle, “I come for the people who don’t come here… It’s not as bad as it seems, I promise. Unless…” He paused, giving Hermione a look that she could only describe as challenging. “You’re afraid?”
Hermione raised a brow at him. “Afraid to enter a desolate pub in—or, excuse me, near—Knockturn Alley? Please, Tom. I grew up in New York City. Whatever sketchiness magical London may have to offer, I assure you, I’ve seen worse.”
Hermione strut past Riddle, heading into the pub with confidence. She pushed the door open and spoke to him over her shoulder. “I only fear that I may be overdressed.”
With a wink—and noticing that Riddle’s eyes did another quick dart down the length of her body—she stepped inside.
The Devil’s Cup was, to Riddle’s credit, not quite so terrible looking on the inside. While mostly empty and therefore desolate feeling, it was at least clean, with dark wooden tables and softly glowing lights. Banners with the Merlin family crest, as well as maps of old England and other… oh, Hermione would guess they were from around the 12th century, such imagery—tapestries were hung on every wall. With the exception of the large, more modern-looking clock above the bar, the pub had a distinctly medieval feel to it.
There were only three other occupants—two men with their hoods drawn, speaking at a table in quiet voices, and the hag who had just entered, who now sat at the bar, alone. A slow, jazzy instrumental played from a record player in the back of the building.
Hermione’s first thought was that it was a terrible place to come if one wanted to have private conversations—which Riddle assuredly did, considering that he’d said he came here for the people that didn’t … and, well, considering the fact that he was Tom Riddle. But just because it was sparsely populated didn’t make it an ideal place for secret meetings. Hermione knew it was better to go to crowded places where conversations could happen unnoticed, murmured and lost beneath the hustle and bustle. Sirius had taught her that.
For a moment, this all surprised her. Surely Riddle wasn’t so dim as to not know this? But then she realized that yes, he was that dim. Riddle had done exactly that in a memory she’d seen—one where he’d had a meeting with his Death Eaters in the Hog’s Head right before his interview with Dumbledore. And he had been in his late thirties, then.
As much as Hermione would have liked to judge him, letting this bit of information boost her own sense of superiority, she could not. She had, after all, done the same thing herself when forming Dumbledore’s Army.
They were both idiots. Brilliant, brilliant idiots.
“So,” Hermone said as Riddle followed her inside, “shall we sit at the bar or a table?”
“Whatever you prefer.”
Hermione gave the bartender a quick appraisal. He currently had his back to them, cleaning a glass with utmost attention.
“A table, I think,” Hermione decided. She headed towards one by a window, a booth that would have them sitting closer to each other than one of the high tables with stools. She slid elegantly to one side while Tom remained standing.
“And what would the lovely niece of Hepzibah Smith like to drink this evening?” he asked.
Hermione knew well enough to not question his offer to buy her drink. Resting her chin on her hand she smiled, saying, “Whatever it is the wizard who can douse fire with his fingers is having.”
Riddle looked taken aback for a moment before laughing. It was not the musical sound that it usually was, but something rougher. More real. “As you wish,” he said, then turned towards the bar.
Hermione watched him go, the smile still on her face as she observed. Riddle tapped the bar to get the bartender’s attention. The bartender looked up, and when his eyes landed on Riddle, he nearly dropped his glass.
Interesting, Hermione thought. While he didn’t bow or otherwise prostrate himself, it was obvious by his mannerisms that this man knew Tom Riddle.
Knew him… and feared him.
After Riddle ordered whatever it was that he thought appropriate for the two of them, Hermione saw no exchange of coin. The bartender merely handed the drinks over, inclining his head. Interesting .
Riddle returned to their table with two rocks glasses full of a dark, ruby-hued liquid. Hermione recognized it as the drink he had requested at Abraxas’s manor. “Aeternum?” she inquired, though she knew it with certainty.
“Indeed,” Riddle said as he sat. He slid one glass towards her. In the dull light of the bar, it looked very much like blood. “You have an impeccable memory, Miss Smith.”
“Hermione,” she corrected, smirking. “And yes, I do. I thought you had as well. Are we not on a first name basis any longer, Tom? Do you not wish to be?”
Riddle lowered his chin as though demure. “Forgive me,” he said. “I very much wish to be on a first name basis with you… Hermione.”
Although he said her name in a low, borderline seductive tone, Hermione was not distracted by it tonight. “That’s good,” she said matter-of-factly, “because I would feel guilty about verbally destroying someone I was not at least familiar with… but before I do such a thing.”
Hermione lifted her glass. “Thank you for the drink, Tom. Let us toast to your kindness.”
“Surely we most toast to something more than that.”
Hermione pursed her lips. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “It didn’t appear as though these drinks cost you anything. Did you threaten the bartender, Tom?”
She said it in a joking manner, grinning. Riddle’s smile was equally saccharine. “I have a bit of an… outstanding tab here, you could say.”
“An outstanding tab? Here?” Hermione made a show of looking around the strange, nearly empty bar. “You grow more mysterious all the time, Tom,” she said. She raised her glass again. “All right. Let us toast to your kindness and your ever-evolving intrigue.”
Riddle said nothing to that, only raised his own glass, slowly. His eyes stayed fixed on hers when their glasses clinked.
“So,” Hermione said once they’d each had a sip, unaffected by both the dry taste of the liquor and Riddle’s deep, probing stare, “Tell me all about your prejudice against werewolves in the workplace.”
“It’s not the werewolves specifically I have a problem with,” Riddle said, diving right in. “It’s anyone that has the potential to spread a dangerous and incurable disease.”
“It’s only contagious for a very short window,” said Hermione.
“Which is why it would be logical to create and enforce laws which would prohibit these individuals from working in a public space during those times.”
“But that time period is a definitive one—less than twelve hours, at night, once a month. It is so definitive, in fact, that we can calculate exactly when those infected should not be exposed to the general public. The two days prior to and after the full moon are entirely unnecessary and are obviously only being proposed to make it harder for those suffering from lycanthropy to get a job in the first place.”
“Which it should be. It is the Ministry’s job to protect as many individuals as possible, which includes containing diseases to which there are no known cures. Limiting exposure time is a natural first, precautionary step, wouldn’t you say?”
“I might be inclined to agree if the laws being proposed only included such working restriction on the night of the full moon—which, as I’ve said, is the only time they can be contagious. There’s no reason for those extra four days.”
“You seem so certain that it is such a definitive time period in which one can be infected with lycanthropy… But how do you know?”
Hermione’s brows furrowed at the unusual question. Riddle, she noticed, was leaning across the table somewhat, his dark eyes alight with eagerness. He took a long sip of his drink.
“Excuse me?” Hermione asked. “What do you mean, how do I know ?”
“How do you know that the night of the full moon is the only time in which a werewolf can inflict another human being with lycanthropy? Yes, it is the time period in which they transform, but that does not necessarily mean it is the only time in which they are contagious.”
“Of course it does,” Hermione said. “That’s how lycanthropy works. Werewolves transform, run rampart, and attack humans in order to infect them with the disease.”
“Barring that they don’t kill their victims in the process instead,” said Riddle wryly. “Regardless, there has been nothing done to research that. I’ve looked into the matter myself. There have been no studies on the effects of a deeply penetrating bite from a werewolf—while untransformed, of course—at various stages of the moon’s cycle to determine whether or not there is a chance of infection while not transformed.”
Hermione scoffed. “That’s a preposterous thing to even propose. Of course they’re not infectious then.”
“But we cannot be certain without controlled and repeatable studies.”
“And who on earth would volunteer to be a part of those studies?” Hermione asked. “If it is the Ministry of Magic’s job to protect as many individuals within the magical population, as you say, then surely such studies would be in direct conflict with this.”
“Therein lies a problem,” Riddle admitted. “It is the Ministry of Magic’s job to conceal and protect the magical population… But there are always the muggles.”
He took another long drink, his eyes watching her intently, gauging her reaction. Hermione did not let any emotion cross her face. “The muggles?” she repeated quietly. “…Are you suggesting that the Ministry of Magic conduct these studies experimentally… on no-majes? On muggles?”
“They are as susceptible to the disease as witches and wizards are,” Riddle said. “Quite a horrific introduction to the magical world, I might imagine… but I digress. They would be perfect test subjects.”
Outrage broiled in the pit of Hermione’s stomach, but she kept her composure. “How so?” she asked in a tone of voice that was only lightly curious.
“Because they are easily manipulated. They could be brought in under whatever magical influence would make them most complacent, exposed to the magical disease, and returned home and monitored until the next full moon… and if nothing were to happen, then we would know. There would be no harm done and we would have the information we need.”
“You suggest using them as guinea pigs,” Hermione said.
Riddle shrugged. “It’s hardly a novel idea. Muggles are often exposed to and manipulated by magic for our convenience and then have their memories modified afterward. There is no harm done.”
Hermione wished she could say that this was not true, but she knew that it was. She recalled at once the muggle man outside the campgrounds during the Quidditch World Cup. Mr. Roberts, the owner of the campsite nearest to where the match was being held, and what he had been forced to undergo as witches and wizards from all over the world stormed his grounds…
“Been having a lot of trouble with him. Needs a Memory Charm ten times a day to keep him happy…”
“Well, what if it did infect them?” Hermione asked shrewdly. “Then there would certainly be a great deal of harm done.”
Riddle shrugged again. “And we would have the information we need.”
He grinned and took another drink. Hermione could tell that he was enjoying himself greatly, telling someone he considered at least somewhat intelligent his ideas. He swirled his glass around in one hand; his drink was almost empty.
Hermione’s however, had hardly been touched. Riddle didn’t seem to notice. “An interesting proposal, Tom, but one that begs further discussion before being considered. If this series of studies were to be approved, where would it end? Surely others would want to use non-magical people in their exploratory and potentially very harmful investigations as well. It would be objected against. Your lycanthropy study would never happen—not because it isn’t logically sound, but because it’s immoral. Some magical families may support such a thing, but most would not.”
Riddle’s haughty expression soured. “Those with muggle relatives, you mean,” he muttered.
“Yes, those with muggle relatives, which I would assume outnumber the families who do not. Especially the—what was it you called them again? The mudbloods?”
Riddle, glowering, nodded. Hermione laughed. “Yes, them,” she said. “The mudbloods would be your greatest opposition, Tom.”
Riddle drained his glass. “I need another drink,” he said tersely, then stood.
His gait was not as fluid as it usually was when he walked—Hermione could see his frustration in every step. When Riddle approached the bar, the bartender got a fresh drink for him so quickly it was comical. He’d even turned away from the current patron he had been about to help—the hooded hag who had entered right before them—to serve Riddle. With a glance at what was assuredly Riddle’s unhappy expression, the bartender, looking nervous, poured a much healthier amount into his glass.
Hermione smiled. More liquor in Riddle’s system could only work in her favor.
“You know,” Hermione said as Riddle once more took his seat, “Upon further reflection, such a study wouldn’t be worth pursuing anyway. Even if you could get approval from the Ministry; even if there was no great opposition.”
Riddle looked at her with slightly narrowed eyes. “Oh?” he said. His tone was careful, but Hermione could sense the underlying anger there—he was not used to being bluntly defied. “And why not?”
“Because it’s pointless,” Hermione said unabashedly. “We already know that a werewolf’s bite won’t infect another while not transformed. If that were true, there would be far more cases of lycanthropy, don’t you think?”
“…Why would I think that?” Riddle said slowly, apprehensive.
Hermione was the one shrugging this time. “It’s the saliva that contains the magical contaminant. That’s why the bite into the bloodstream is so effective. But that magical contaminant must only become active during the full moon… much like that mysterious, ancient-rune covered, buyer-beware box in that lovely shop you work at. If being exposed to a werewolf’s saliva at any point in any degree were to be infectious, it would affect far more people.”
Riddle stared. Hermione laughed. “Much as they’re discriminated against, werewolves only look and act like werewolves once a month, Tom. I’m sure they find ways to swap saliva with uninfected people regularly. Especially the poor muggles you would experiment on. You know, the ones who don’t believe in lycanthropy in the first place.”
Riddle seemed to contemplate this for a long time. He took another deep drink. Hermione grinned innocently, waiting for the argument that she somehow knew he wouldn’t be able to come up with.
“I don’t know if I believe that werewolves are as promiscuous as you might assume,” he eventually said.
“I have a feeling that they are as promiscuous as any human is. Because, despite being infected with a disease they didn’t ask for, they are still human.”
“…Would you do it?” Riddle asked after another pause. “Would you kiss a werewolf if you knew what they became once a month?”
“To prove you wrong? Oh, absolutely. I would even let one bite me on a non-full moon night. You know, there might be a werewolf here. Do you think there is? Seems the kind of crowd this bar might attract.”
Hermione made a show of looking around, eyeing each of the mysterious occupants with interest. The hag at the bar, who had been snubbed just moments before in favor of Riddle, turned in their direction.
Riddle grabbed Hermione by the wrist. His fingers closed around the thin, gold bracelet there. His grip was strong. Was this really the man whose fingers would become skeletally thin and frail? Whose body would become little more than a waif; whose voice would turn high and shrill?
It was not high nor shrill now. “Don’t,” Riddle said, his tone low. “It’s best not to draw attention to yourself here.”
“You’re the one who brought me to The Devil’s Cup,” Hermione answered, not lowering her voice at all. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the other clientele.”
To her surprise, Riddle sighed and shook his head. He released her wrist in order to grab his glass and take another drink. “I have come to a distressing conclusion about you, Hermione,” he said. “I believe you may be a Gryffindor at heart.”
“A Gryffindor? The house of bravery and recklessness and all that? Who wear red and gold?”
“That would be the one,” Riddle muttered, disdain clear in his voice.
“Well, I disagree,” said Hermione. “I am related to Helga Hufflepuff. Surely that old hat would put me in the house of my ancestor. Nothing is stronger than blood. I thought you believed the same, no?”
“Yes, I do believe that,” Riddle said. “But I fear that you are nowhere near ordinary enough to be a Hufflepuff.”
“Well I think you would be a Pukwudgie,” Hermione snapped back, giggling. She took a sip of her own drink, allowing a small amount of the liquor to touch her tongue. It burned wonderfully.
“A Pukwudgie?” Riddle echoed—and though Hermione clearly said it in a way that was meant to be an insult, he smiled, too. “The only house that didn’t want you—the one with the emblem of a heart and which is known to favor Healers? Who bases their actions on how much they care for others?” His eyes glittered playfully. “Interesting perception you have of me, Hermione… We must toast to my kindness more often, then.”
Hermione opened her mouth, about to try and argue the point, but started laughing before she could even start. It was a genuine laugh. Riddle was as far from a Pukwudgie as one could possibly be and they both knew it—although the extent as to why Hermione should find this so funny was surely a mystery to Riddle.
“All right, I don’t think you’d be a Pukwudgie,” Hermione said between laughs. “You really have done your research on Ilvermorny… Not that I would expect anything less of you, Tom. To your clear lack of heart and outright kindness.” She raised her glass to his.
“How exceptionally rude of you,” Riddle said, but his smile only widened. They clinked cups once more, and Hermione was pleased to note that, yet again, he drank significantly more than her.
“No, no, you are not a Pukwudgie,” Hermione went on. “I think you might be a Horned Serpent, were you to have gone to Ilvermorny.”
Riddle sat up a bit straighter at this comment. Of course he would find anything identifying with a snake the most flattering. “The house which favors the mind and knowledge,” he said respectfully.
“Bunch of nerds, the whole lot.”
Riddle gave her a stunned looked before laughing again. “And how many times did you lose the House Cup to them?”
“It was never fair!” Hermione shouted. She slammed her hand down on the table in a convincing fit of rage, as though she truly was a Thunderbird who despised all the Serpents from her past. “Those bookworms always had the answers to the stupidest, most useless questions.”
“How dare they,” Riddle drawled. “I’m sure you never had the answers to any obscure questions.”
“In everything but Divination,” Hermione agreed.
“Of course,” Riddle said. “Because such ridiculous topics are beneath you.”
“Maybe you can convince me otherwise.”
Riddle looked as though he was fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “I believe I tried once. If I recall correctly, you were rather unwilling to listen to my arguments. So unwilling, in fact, that you stormed off into the night, nearly falling face-first in the snow on your way.”
“Well, here is your chance to prove yourself then,” Hermione said. She set her drink down and put her elbows on the table, shifting closer to him and lowing her voice. “I had a… a dream a few nights ago. A disturbing one, truthfully. Terrifying.”
“A nightmare, you mean.”
Riddle’s eyes shone with interest.
“Yes,” Hermione admitted. “A nightmare. I tried to interpret it with Arithmancy—using both Portier’s and Slovin’s methods, mind you—but was unable to figure out what it might mean. Perhaps… Perhaps the… art of Divination might be more revealing. If you are well-versed enough in dream interpretation without using a text, that is.”
“Of course I am,” Riddle said arrogantly. He leaned closer to her, looking more eager than Hermione had seen him yet. Hungry. “Tell me what happened in the nightmare. In detail.”
Hermione knew she could—and should—tell the truth… to an extent. “It was the night… well, it was right after I left Malfoy Manor,” she said. The warmth of a light blush touched her cheeks, but Hermione did not lose her composure because of it. Riddle’s eyes widened a fraction, but he said nothing. “I was… in the nightmare, I mean—I was running. Running in the woods, through the snow, rather like I had been outside that manor, except… Except I didn’t have my wand, and my dress was burning all around me, turning to embers on my skin until I was naked, completely naked. And I tripped, falling into the snow—actually head-first this time; yes I know, ha-ha—but then—then I started… I started coughing up…”
Hermione’s hand went instinctively to her throat as she recalled the horrific sensation. “Coughing up what?” Riddle prompted.
“Rose petals,” Hermione said. “They were bright and bloody and I couldn’t breathe—I tried to call out for help, but I couldn’t speak—I just remember thinking ‘ Help me, help’—and then, as I lay on the ground, cold and defenseless, dying, there was a… A…”
Her gaze fell to the table, away from Riddle’s face. “A what?” Riddle asked, impatient. Commanding. His expression softened a second later, however, and he reached across the table to grasp her other hand. “Then what happened, Hermione?” he asked in a much gentler tone.
Hermione exhaled slowly. “It was terrifying,” she said, feeling as though she was reliving the nightmare right then. She kept her eyes downcast and spoke in a whisper. “It was… a snake. A massive, toxically green serpent. It appeared just as I had fallen and began slithering up my leg; I could feel its scales against my skin… It slipped up my stomach and between my breasts but I was frozen, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t stop it… And then, when its head was near to mine, so close, it… It hissed like it was talking to me, but of course I couldn’t understand what it was saying if it was, and then it lunged. And it—it was forcing itself down my throat; it was inside me…”
Hermione shuddered, pulling her hand from Riddle’s grasp and holding it to her chest. “What do you think it means, Tom?” she asked as she looked at his face once more. “Running naked in the snowy woods until I fell; a serpent speaking to me, wrapped around me so intimately, holding me, inside me—what do you think it all means?”
Hermione could never have imagined such a thunderstruck expression on his face. After a long moment, Riddle lifted his glass to his lips and drained it in one long drink.
“Excuse me for one moment,” he said, almost dazedly.
He stood. Riddle walked past the bar, setting his empty glass there on his way further down the hall where Hermione could only assume the restrooms were. She barely contained a grin. Riddle really hadn’t expected that dream. And whatever he had interpreted it as using his almighty Divination knowledge, well… it had certainly thrown him off.
While he was gone, Hermione saw that the hag at the bar was staring. They had turned their body slightly in her direction—a subtle shift that Hermione nonetheless noticed. Their face was still shrouded by the shadow of their hood, but Hermione could tell they were looking. She could feel their eyes on her, watching.
Somehow, this seemingly discreet attention did not bother her. In fact, Hermione had an inkling it would be useful later. She stretched her arms above her head, pretending only to get more comfortable in her seat—and the hag’s interest in her visibly sharpened.
Hermione pretended not to notice.
Riddle returned a few moments later with another drink. His composure was once more as haughty as it usually was, but there were some slight differences. For one, his typically pale cheeks were tinged pink. For another, his posture was less than perfect, slouching slightly with his elbows on the table.
He was getting drunk. Relatively quickly; perhaps quicker than he usually would with this amount of alcohol, Hermione wagered.
How lucky.
“Do you not like it?” Riddle said, nodding towards Hermione’s still half-full drink. “Perhaps Aeternum is too strong for you. In my experience, witches do tend to prefer sweeter, more easily digestible things. Maybe you should…”
Hermione had lifted her glass and begun drinking at the words ‘too strong’, and by the time he was recommending what she might have instead, she had finished. She set the cup down on the table, then slowly licked the last droplet from her bottom lip. The alcohol burned, but not in a way that bothered her. She knew drinking at least a moderate amount would not hurt her in her quest. She needed to avoid his suspicion, after all… and keep him intrigued.
“…I’ve had stronger,” she said, smiling at him.
Riddle stared with his brows raised. Hermione’s smile fell. “What? Not going to offer to get me another, Tom? And I thought you were a gentleman.”
“Greedy,” Riddle murmured, his smooth composure returning.
“Very,” Hermione agreed.
And even though he had just sat back down, Riddle once more stood, snatching up her glass as he went. His interaction with the frightened bartender lasted a bit longer this time, and when he returned it was not only with her glass… but with the entire bottle of Aeternum. It was half-full.
“You haven’t interpreted my dream yet,” Hermione said as he poured them each another drink. She took her glass without commenting on the fact that he had brought a whole bottle of expensive liquor to the table. “Was my nightmare too disturbing for you, Tom? Is your Divination knowledge failing you?”
“Not at all,” Riddle said. “I only have a few questions. For clarifying purposes.”
“Fire away.”
“You say your dress was burning. Was it hurting you? Was your skin being damaged as the fabric disintegrated?”
“No.”
“The rose petals—what color were they?”
“Pink.”
Riddle hummed thoughtfully. “And this… serpent,” he said. “You described it as toxically green. But what were its eyes like?”
“Its… its eyes?” Hermione asked. Riddle nodded.
Hermione closed her own eyes, thinking back to the nightmare, to the moment where the snake had lifted its head just above hers. “They… they were dark. Very dark.”
She looked up. Riddle’s focus was fixated on her—those eyes like black holes, pulling her in. “Bottomless,” she added.
Riddle nodded again. If he had any feelings about this information, he kept them hidden well. “And lastly,” he said, “when the snake was… inside you… Was it killing you or saving you?”
Hermione blinked in shock at his words. The painting of the girl in the wild garden came to her mind, her muddied hands hovering over a rose bush that was trapped in a cycle.
Killing, Saving.
Hermione shook her head, snapping out of her reverie. “It was in my throat,” she said tersely. “I’m pretty sure that isn’t conducive for breathing.”
“But you said that you were chocking already. Before the serpent appeared—you said that you were already dying, suffocating on the pink, bloody rose petals you were coughing up. Then the serpent appeared. It manifested after you tried to call for help, then it coiled around your body and ultimately forced itself into your mouth, which was spewing up petals, which were killing you. So.”
He lifted his glass. He took another drink before asking again, “Was it killing you or saving you?”
Hermione was quiet for a long time as she considered this. “…I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I woke up right after it lunged. With quite a start, might I add.”
“I’m sure.”
Riddle took another drink, and Hermione joined him. She waited as he stared somewhere over her head, looking thoughtful.
She couldn’t handle the silence long. “Well?” she finally said. “Any illuminating thoughts?”
“Oh yes,” Riddle murmured, still not looking at her. “I have many, many illuminating thoughts…”
“And?”
Riddle returned his focus to her. “…And I would prefer to keep them to myself.”
He smiled a bright smile. Hermione’s eye twitched.
“Fine,” she said coolly, choosing to act indifferently rather than angry and demanding as she knew he would expect. “I doubt your divine interpretation would be worth knowing. I’m fairly certain I’ve figured it out myself, anyway.”
“And what have you divined, Hermione?”
Hermione took her time in answering, sipping at her drink. “I think the serpent represents someone,” she said at length.
She took another drink, inwardly grinning as now Riddle began to look impatient. “And?” he asked.
“And I’d rather keep the rest of my interpretation to myself.”
An expression of anger flashed across Riddle’s face—a dark shadow stirring in his eyes, dangerous and threatening—but it was gone a second later. He smiled pleasantly. “Fair enough,” he said.
“What about you, Tom?” Hermione asked. “You’ve heard one of my more interesting dreams… Any nightmares of your own to share?”
Riddle looked surprised at her question. She doubted any of his ‘friends’ dared to ask Tom Riddle personal inquiries of any kind.
But Hermione was not one of those friends. “It’s only fair,” she said. “A nightmare for a nightmare.”
Riddle strummed his fingers along the wooden table; the Gaunt ring glittered in the dull light of the bar. Just as she was sure he was about to make up some excuse, such as never remembering his dreams, he surprised her.
“…I have one,” he murmured. He spoke slowly, apprehensively—like he was uncertain he should be saying this out loud. But he continued. “A recurring dream. A nightmare. I have it… fairly often.”
His fingers paused. Hermione said nothing to prompt him, only listened.
“It is night, and there is a fire,” he said softly. “Its light crackling is all that I can hear, and I am waiting, but for what, I am unsure… It fills me entirely though, this sense of anticipation… I am waiting for something I have been waiting for all my life… And then, eventually, someone appears. On the other side of the flame.”
He took a drink. His expression was like nothing Hermione had ever seen on him before. He was disturbed. “…Is that what you were waiting for?” she asked. “The person who appeared?”
“It is and it is not,” he answered. “I feel both a sense of relief and anxiety when they finally manifest. I can not make out exactly what they look like—the fire distorts them. But I can see black hair, pale skin. And the eyes… Green. Wildly green, vibrantly green, even in the darkness…”
He looked like he might actually shudder. Hermione was shocked, but she continued to hold her tongue. “I attack this person in the dream. I throw a curse and they do nothing to block it, only stand there, almost victorious looking as the spell comes their way, and then… I wake up.”
Riddle threw back the last of his drink, then poured himself more. Hermione had a feeling he was leaving out some critical details of this recurring nightmare, but she chose not to point this out. “What do you think it means?” she asked instead. “Who do you think this mysterious, green-eyed person is?”
“I think…” Riddle said, running a hand through his hair, “I think… I believe… it is Death.”
Hermione stared.
Her mind reeled as she looked at him—this pristine young man who so many claimed was the most brilliant wizard of his age. He looked… well, he looked afraid. Scared by a recurring dream he had. One which sounded an awful lot to Hermione like he was describing not Death incarnate… but Harry Potter.
The Chosen One. The boy with green eyes who he would one day mark as his equal; who ultimately would be his death…
For the first time in her life, Hermione wondered if there was, perhaps, something to this whole Divination thing after all.
“But Death doesn’t ever strike you in this nightmare,” Hermione said, keeping her tone gentle. “So you don’t die at the end… right?”
Riddle looked at her, his eyes somewhat glassy. He was thinking something profound, she could tell, but of course she could not read such thoughts in his mind. Nor would she dare to try. Not even when he was drunk, not even while under the influence of Felix Felicities . Hermione knew that doing that—trying to delve into the mind of Tom Riddle—would, without a doubt, end badly.
“…Right,” Riddle eventually said, nodding. “Right…”
Hermione brightened up, determined to shake the eeriness that had settled over him away. “Besides,” she said cheerfully, “I thought Divination said that Death was a great dog? The Grim, right? Not a person.”
Riddle’s eyes refocused at her words. “Yes, it does,” he said. He smiled, slipping back into his typical self. “And I thought you knew nothing about Divination.”
“I know that one. Everyone knows that one,” she said. “The big, bad Grim…I had a friend once who had a giant, black dog as a pet, and sometimes he freaked people out because they’d see him in the shadows and think they’d spotted Death. Which was ridiculous, obviously. He was the friendliest dog I’d ever met.”
“What about you? Any pets of your own?” Riddle asked. He seemed somewhat relieved to be moving away from the topic of dreams into something more frivolous.
“I had a cat once,” Hermione said wistfully. True sadness tinged her voice. “He was half-kneazle. His name was Crookshanks…”
“Half-kneazle? Why in the world would you get a cat that was half-kneazle? It must have been massive and… aggressive, I would imagine.”
“He was massive, but he wasn’t aggressive! …Well, all right, he could be, but only around rats and the like… Dumb, slow rodents who had it coming, mind you…”
Their conversation carried on for some time. They talked about far less imposing topics—mostly Riddle was curious about Hermione, asking her questions about her childhood, growing up in America, attending Ilvermorny. Hermione answered everything flawlessly, inventing anecdotes on the spot about city life that were vague enough that there was no way they could be dispelled but detailed enough to sound convincing. She asked very little about Riddle’s past, but when she did, she was careful to make sure the questions referred only to his time at Hogwarts.
Hours passed. The bottle of Aeternum slowly dwindled. Riddle’s cheeks turned pinker and his smiles came more easily and his cold, seemingly impenetrable walls slowly but surely began to melt in Hermione’s presence.
He was warming to her.
The sudden sound of a bell caused them both to jump in their seats, interrupting their current discussion on the Arithmancy book Riddle was reading for the second time. Hermione looked around the bar in surprise; the large clock read ten to two in the morning. The music had stopped at some point. The two hooded wizards at the back table had long gone; only the hag at the bar remained.
“What was that?” Hermione asked.
Riddle eyed the bartender with a sharp look—a look which the bartender pointedly avoided, Hermione noticed. “Last call,” Riddle said. “The Devil’s Cup will be closing up shop soon…”
Riddle glanced at the bottle, which was now empty, and their nearly drained glasses. Then he looked at Hermione, then towards the door, then down at the glasses again before saying, measuredly, “I have… I am enjoying this conversation.”
Hermione barely stifled a laugh. Was Tom Riddle acting… nervous? Was it a ruse, or was it real?
She couldn’t tell. She supposed it didn’t matter. Hermione had exactly forty minutes left of liquid, positive luck, and she intended to use every one.
“As am I,” she said. “A shame that it has to end…”
She let her words dangle in the air, a tempting and—if she was being honest—obvious insinuation. Riddle’s eyes snapped to hers.
“It doesn’t have to.”
Hermione quirked one brow at him as though she could possibly be unsure of what it was he was offering. “And whatever do you mean by that, Tom?”
“We could continue this discussion at my abode, if you are not opposed to it,” he said. “Unless, of course, the niece of Hepzibah Smith must be getting home. The hour is late…”
Hermione failed to stifle a giggle. Riddle’s charming smile faltered. “What?” he said. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because you called wherever you live an abode,” Hermione said with a smile. “An abode, Tom? Do you live in a mysterious, underground lair? Or an ancient old castle in the woods next to Hogwarts, maybe?”
Riddle glared at her for a moment before he laughed as well—seemingly despite himself, Hermione thought. “My flat then,” he said.
Hermione continued to giggle. “A flat!” she said, feigning bemusement. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! It’s just, we call them apartments in America… Flats…”
Riddle looked annoyed again. “Would you like to join me in my apartment or not?” he said. Then, in an annoyed mutter that Hermione knew was false, he added, “I am beginning to regret my invitation.”
Hermione stood, still smiling as she grabbed her purse and swung it over her shoulder. She faltered slightly in her heels when she did, and Riddle was by her side in an instant, steadying her. Hermione let out another breathy laugh as she leaned against his chest. “I suppose your presence does make me clumsy,” she said.
She looked unblinkingly into his eyes. A feeling like electricity seemed to thrum between them, burning hot everywhere they touched—her shoulder against his chest; his other arm around her waist.
The high screeching of a stool scraping against the wooden floor snapped them out of it. The hag who had been watching them was getting up, presumably to leave the bar as well. Last call.
Riddle released her and stepped back, smoothing the front of his robes. “So?” he asked.
“So?” Hermione repeated. “Let’s go.”
Triumph sang in Hermione’s chest—she was going to find out where he lived! The diary, she was going to discover where the diary was being kept! She could feel it in her bones; she knew it in her heart. Victory!
Feeling elated, Hermione turned and headed for the door. She’d only taken one step before she collided with the hag, who had been moving towards the same exit with unprecedented swiftness.
Hermione stumbled backward; the hag’s hood slipped; a hissing sound rang in her ears. Sickly light, grey eyes bored into hers. She saw a flash of frighteningly long teeth.
In almost the same moment that the creature spit at her and barred their fangs, Riddle was there, his wand raised, standing between her and the hag—who was not a hag at all, Hermione now realized.
Riddle said nothing. He didn’t have to. His wand, pointed high and with precision, was enough. “I meant nothing by it,” said the vampire quickly, whose rapid-fire, hostile disposition was now gone. He stepped away and lowered his bald, pale head, raising both hands complacently. The bartender observed with a worried look, but he did nothing to interrupt the interaction. “She bumped into me. It was an innate reaction, nothing more.”
Riddle did not move. Hermione’s heart thudded in her chest as she watched, waiting to see how this would unfold. Cold yet fierce tension hung in the air.
Then, in a startingly abrupt and benign motion, Riddle turned away from the vampire. He pocketed his wand and faced Hermione, holding out his arm to her. He was once more the charming, perfect gentleman. “Shall we?” he said with a smile.
It was like the cowering vampire no longer existed. Baffled, Hermione looked from him to Riddle, then swallowed thickly. “Y-yes, please,” she said.
Hermione took his arm and was grateful, very grateful, to leave. She shuddered as they passed through the doorway, feeling the intent gaze of a vampire on her until the door closed behind them.
But that fearful interaction quickly turned to an ingenious idea in her mind. That vampire had done her a great service. Hermione discreetly slipped her bracelet from her wrist and slid it into her bag. Riddle, she was certain, didn't notice.
“Are you all right?”
Riddle didn’t ask until they were a healthy distance away from The Devil's Cup. They were now technically in Knockturn Ally; they had passed beyond the rusty, old sign which said 3 rd Street.
“Yes,” Hermione said. “That was… I’ve only ever seen one vampire before…”
“Disgusting, despicable creatures,” Riddle muttered. “I sincerely apologize for bringing you anywhere near one. That establishment may cater to a… different brand of customer than most, but I’ve never seen a vampire there before.”
“How would you know?” Hermione countered. “Vampires, werewolves, dark witches or wizards... It could be anybody under a hooded robe.”
She looked up at him with huge eyes, unwavering in her gaze.
“Anyone could be a monster, Tom.”
Riddle stared back at her, his expression calculating but otherwise undecipherable. His arm moved from hers to slip around her waist, pulling her closer.
“Yes,” Riddle murmured, nodding. “You’re quite right, Hermione… anyone could be a monster.”
A slight but sinister smile played on his lips. Hermione did not have a chance to respond—a moment later and she was once more pulled along with him in a side-along, disappearing into the night with the most dangerous monster she knew.
Chapter 19: Never Borrowed, Only Gifted
Chapter Text
They landed gently.
Hermione’s eyes narrowed when she took in the glow of a streetlight, mildly disoriented as the sensation of apparition wore off. Riddle was still holding her tightly, his arm wrapped around her waist like a snake.
He smiled down at her before removing his arm. Hermione stepped away, the feeling like fire in her chest only somewhat abating. She took in her surroundings. They were standing on the sidewalk of a small side street, one lined with many similar-looking buildings of faded red brick.
“Are we still in Diagon Alley?” she asked.
“Just barely,” said Riddle. “We’re on the other side of it now, on the outskirts… Come. This way.”
Hermione followed him as he led her to a building further down the block, one as nondescript as the rest of them. He went not up the concrete stairs to the main door, but down a small flight of steps which led to what Hermione presumed was the flat on the lowest level. He tapped the gate with his wand, and it swung open. “After you,” he said. Hermione nodded and stepped through the gate; it closed behind her with the soft clinking of met.
She was surprised when he did not use a key or even his wand to open his door, but his palm. Riddle gripped the handle and held it, which began to glow a soft blue. He then released it, and the door opened on its own. The blue light faded.
“Is that usually how people lock their apartments—flats, here?” Hermione asked, one eyebrow quirked. It was a genuine inquiry. She had no idea how magical people typically locked their doors when they rented. At the Inns she’d stayed at they had given her keys that worked on locks impervious to spells such as Alohamora. Whatever enchantment Riddle had just used was one she had never come across; the door had seemed to recognize him by his touch alone. She itched to know how it worked.
“No, it is not,” he admitted. “They issue us charmed keys… but I find that is insufficient for keeping my belongings safe.”
I’ll bet you do, Hermione thought grimly. Considering what sort of belongings you have in there.
“I see,” she said. She wanted to ask more about the specifics of that spell but thought better of it. “That’s wise of you. My aunt implements nothing but the best of protective spells around her home.”
“Yes, I could see that,” said Riddle. “I was only able to find it because she had previously disclosed the location to my boss. Concealment charms like that are quite complex, nearly as multi-faceted and difficult as the Fidelius charm… but this spell is sufficient for me.” He held the door open for her. “After you,” he said again.
Hermione held her breath as she stepped into the dark apartment. When Riddle followed, flicking his wand and filling the room with light, she was almost vibrating with anticipation. What sort of place did a Dark Lord call home?
The walls were a soft and neutral off-white. Deep, emerald green curtains were drawn over the one window in the room, which was above a sink, showing a bland view that was level with the street. The only thing hanging on the wall was utilitarian, not decorative—a clock whose second hand softly ticked. There were a number of wooden cabinets which Hermione assumed contained silverware and such; a table with two plain, wooden chairs; and on the other side of the room—beyond a small couch and a very comfy looking chair—were a couple of doors. A bedroom and a bathroom, probably.
It was small. It was clean.
It was utterly normal.
There were no sinister looking artifacts behind glass cases; no cages full of snakes or skulls or other dark objects like in Borgin and Burkes. In fact, the only thing that was of any interest at all was a tall, overly full bookcase. It was jam-packed with texts, mostly academic in nature. There was also a small pile of books on the side table next to the sofa—Hermione recognized them as having come from the public library—and one more still that was resting on the arm of the chair, face down and splayed open so as to not lose his place. Hermione might have been offended at the poor treatment of a book if she wasn’t so besotted by the fact that he had so many.
“It’s not very large,” Riddle said as he closed the door behind her. “But it’s only a temporary arrangement.”
He had an expression on his face like maybe he was regretting bringing her here—to his small flat, which was much less impressive than what Hermione was, supposedly, accustomed to. Hermione grinned at him. “I think it’s lovely,” she said. “A bit sparse in terms of decorations, but I find that to be a relief, to be honest. Hepzibah’s tastes can be a bit… much.”
“Embellishment is not a primary concern of mine,” Riddle said. He returned her smile, seemingly relaxing.
“Clearly not. Your concerns are perfectly obvious, Tom… I think you may enjoy reading more than I do. And that is saying something.”
“One may say I have a problem.”
Riddle then reached into his inner robe pocket and revealed a tiny book the size of his thumb. He flourished his wand over it, and it became much larger. It was the book he had been reading earlier when she met him by the fountain. The Significance of Symbols and Numerals by Alastair Grunnion. Grinning at her raised brows, Riddle went and set it atop the other library books he had.
Hermione chose not to comment on his stealth nor his impressive, non-verbal spellcasting. “I certainly wouldn’t be the one saying that you have a problem.”
“Then I am in good company,” said Riddle.
“The very best… but you already knew that, or you wouldn’t have invited me here.”
Riddle smirked but didn’t argue. “Would you be opposed to wine, Hermione?” he asked.
“Not at all.”
Riddle nodded towards the table, and Hermione took a seat, hanging her purse on the back of the chair. She continued to look around his flat as Riddle opened a cabinet, retrieving from it a bottle of wine and two glasses. It really was plain, wasn’t it? There were not only no dark looking magical objects, but seemingly no magical objects at all. It was hard to believe that a wizard lived here, let alone a rising Dark Lord in his twenties.
Which is clever of him, because that’s exactly what he is, Hermione thought. Riddle uncorked the bottle of wine. He wouldn’t want to keep anything in his home that might raise suspicions, not now, not while he’s still in London. Which is why he’s still wearing the ring, probably… Keeping it on him at all times was safer, less conspicuous…
But then where was the diary?
Hermione turned in her seat, her eyes scouring the bookshelf. Would he keep it there? It was an innocent-looking journal, after all; perhaps he was clever enough to know that he could hide it best by keeping it in plain sight…
Much like himself, she mused wryly. A charming, subservient shop boy, indeed.
But as Hermione examined the shelves, she knew it was not there. All those texts were much too large to be the diary. Besides, that isn’t where one would keep a diary, was it?
I’d wager it’s in his bedroom, she thought. And with the power of liquid luck running through her veins, she was confident that she was right.
“Judging my reading material?” Riddle asked. Hermione turned to face him again, seeing that he now held two glasses full of wine. He handed her one before taking the empty seat across from her.
“Of course,” she said.
“And the verdict?”
“You have one too many books on Divination for my tastes.”
Riddle laughed. “And I thought you might be asking me to borrow such a book at this point.”
“I would never ask to borrow a book,” Hermione said, feigning great offense. “Books borrowed rarely find their way back to their original owners; experience has taught me that time and time again. I am therefore of the firm belief that books are always gifts.” She paused, eyeing the pile of books on the side table. “Unless they are from the library, of course,” she amended.
“Ah, yes. One should never be so heartless as to keep books from such a sacred institution.” He raised his glass. “To the library.”
Hermione gaped at him for a moment, unwittingly moved by such a simple toast. She never thought she would agree with Tom Riddle about anything so wholeheartedly. “To the library,” she agreed, and their glasses clinked.
The wine was dry but not overly so; still, Hermione only had a small sip. She needed to stay sharp, now more than ever.
She only had about half an hour of good luck left.
“Oh… oh, dear.” Hermione’s eyes widened in alarm, looking suddenly stricken at the sight of her own raised arm. She set her glass down and began to look hurriedly about, first on both her wrists and then, a bit frantically, in her bag.
“What is it?” Riddle asked.
“It’s my bracelet,” Hermione said, continuing to search as she spoke. Her bracelet was right there, in one of the interior pockets. She shoved it further down. “I know I was wearing it at the bar, I must have lost it somehow! I don’t know how I could have done such a thing! I didn’t take it off, I—”
“Was it silver?” Riddle asked. His voice was calm, but there was a frostiness to it.
“…Or gold?”
Hermione could practically feel his mind racing, piecing together her fabricated incident. “Gold of course,” she snapped, looking up from her purse to glare at him. Then she exhaled a deep breath, setting her bag aside as though defeated. “I’m sorry. It’s just that—that was a special bracelet to me.” She swallowed hard, and to her amazement, felt tears welling in the corners of her eyes.
“My mother gave it to me.”
Riddle stood. “I think I know what happened,” he said. His eyes were dark with disdain, and the blush in his cheeks all but vanished.
“That I’m an utter fool and I somehow lost it between The Devil’s Cup and here?”
“No. That filthy vampire… I don’t think his running into you was an accident, Hermione. I think he stole it from you.”
Hermione blinked up at him, feeling her deceptive tears catch on her lashes. “Oh no,” she gasped. She stood too, but wobbled pitifully on her heels again as she did. “Oh, I have to get it back, I have to go, I can’t—but a vampire—a vampire, oh Merlin, I can’t—”
“No,” Riddle said. He put a hand on her shoulder. His touch was warm comforting in its firmness, despite how cold his stare was. “You stay here. I will retrieve your bracelet… and deal with the vampire.”
Hermione fixed him with a sad, watery stare. “I could never ask you to do that,” she whispered.
“You don’t have to.” He flashed her a dazzling smile, the sort that would suit a Prince asking a Princess to dance—not a supposedly harmless shop boy making a thinly veiled declaration of vampire violence.
“Tom, please, I—”
Riddle would not hear her pleas. “Stay here,” he commanded. “I’ll be back shortly. And don’t worry, the wards won’t let anyone but me through the entryway. You are perfectly safe here.”
Hermione could only hope that those same wards didn’t encumber people trying to leave. She swallowed thickly and nodded.
Riddle left.
The moment the door closed, Hermione’s façade slipped. She wiped the tears from her eyes and beamed, barely resisting the primal urge to bellow a triumphant cry. She had played her part exactly right. She came off as just nervous and frightened and, honestly, pathetic enough to be believable in her fear of vampires; she had tapped into Riddle’s understanding and respect for family heirlooms, particularly jewelry… and he liked her enough that he was willing to confront a vampire on her behalf, leaving her here. In his flat.
Alone.
Pushing aside the worries of what Riddle would do if he found this vampire—who was innocent, but whom Riddle would surely despise anyway, being a creature—Hermione got to it. She pulled her wand from her bag and opened one of the doors. The bathroom. Curious though she was to see what sorts of things Riddle kept in his medicine cabinet, Hermione moved on to door number two.
She hesitated with her hand hovering over the handle. What if he had enchanted this door in the same way that he had the entrance? What if it not only didn’t let her in but scalded her or cursed her in some other frightening fashion?
With a flick of her wand, Hermione ran a quick diagnostics test. Nothing happened. Unless it was some very complex, secretive hex, there was no enchantment anywhere on the door.
Hermione took a deep breath and turned the handle. The door opened with ease. Elated at another small success, Hermione stepped into what was the Dark Lord’s bedroom.
It was almost as innocent-looking as the living room and kitchen area. The walls were darker—a muted navy—and because there were no windows, it was very dim indeed. “Lumos,” Hermione said, and light bloomed at the tip of her wand.
His bed was not small but not very large, either, though it was neatly made with a black comforter and two pillows in matching black cases. There was a bedside table, a closet with the door ajar that was full of dark robes, a desk with an oil lamp on it that was currently unlit, and another bookcase—albeit a much smaller one. And this one, Hermione noted, had a much more interesting array of books. The ones that had titles on the spines were written in Latin, and Hermione could deduce at once that they were about the Dark Arts. Nothing that would get him in trouble, of course… yet suspicious enough that Riddle had decided that it was best to keep them in his room instead.
But no diary.
Hermione pursed her lips, her heart pounding. She did not know how long Riddle would be gone. She needed to act quickly.
If I were a horcrux masquerading as a harmless diary, where would I be?
She first looked under his pillows and mattress, if for no other reason than the predictability of that would have made her laugh. It was not in either place. Next she looked on his desk—which was so neatly organized that, had he not corresponded with her personally, Hermione might have wondered if he ever actually used it. There were rolls of tightly bound, blank parchment that did not appear to have been touched yet, and the quills and inkpot were impeccably clean, not so much as a trace of ink anywhere. But there was no diary, not on the desk nor in any of its drawers, which contained nothing more than additional parchment and ink. It was not in the bedside table either—although Hermione did find, amusingly enough, a pack of sugar quills, half of which were eaten. She never would have thought Tom Riddle had a sweet tooth.
Still, she had not found the diary… which left only one obvious place to look.
Hermione approached the closet with wariness and a sense of—she could not think of a better word for it—rightness as she did. She had a hunch that it may be there, hidden behind a wall of clothes. Closets were the place where people tended to hide things.
Hermione shoved the robes aside, taking a moment to note that he did not have that many clothes. At all. And while one or two sets seemed nice, the majority of his wardrobe was a bit worn. Not ratty by any means, like what Remus Lupin had worn while teaching at Hogwarts, but… not great either.
They reminded her painfully of Ron.
Swallowing back that unwanted recollection, Hermione carried on. Maybe there was a trapdoor in the ceiling that let to a secret storage space, or—
“Oh!”
Hermione pointed her wand down, shining light on her feet. Her shoe had just gotten stuck! There was a small hole in the wood, one that was just the right size for her heel to become wedged in. Annoyed, Hermione set her wand down beside her and slipped her foot from the straps, then yanked her shoe free.
Her irritation quickly turned to excitement. The floorboard she had just gotten trapped in was slightly higher than the others, a little bit off…
The was not a secret storage space above her… but below.
Grinning, Hermione lifted the board, finding that it was easy to move. She set the plank aside and stared in wonder at what she found there, hidden in a space that was barely a foot deep beneath the closet’s floor.
A chest.
A small, silver chest, and it was easily the most sinister thing she had come across in Riddle’s flat. It was definitely ancient, and there was definitely something magical about it. It had intricate details of ivy embossed around the edges, and right in the center, half its body on the lid and half on the bottom of the chest, was a snake. Its body was twisted around itself in a Celtic knot, and its eyes were made of emeralds. They sparkled at her in the light of her wand, making the serpent look disturbingly life-like.
It was in here. Hermione knew it.
Too cautious by far to touch it, she picked up her wand and ran another diagnostic spell. The chest glowed a soft blue, then returned to normal. Hermione frowned as she considered what this meant. Anything truly harmful that might have been triggered by touch would have caused the object to glow red, not blue… but any reaction meant there was something there, and that light had looked familiar…
Like his doorknob, Hermione realized. Her heart sank. Did that mean he had enchanted it with the same spell? If this chest only opened at Riddle’s touch, then she was doomed. Hermione stared at the serpent with its glittering, gemstone eyes, which seemed to be staring back at her. Then a moment of clarity caused her to gasp.
No, she thought to herself, shaking her head. That would be too simple. He would never make that all that was required to gain access to his horcrux.
But in nearly the same moment that she told herself it could not be true, Hermione knew it very well could. Did Tom Riddle not think he was the rarest of the rare, the one and only in many facets? Had he not presumed that he was the sole student to discover the Room of Requirement despite the evidence staring him in the face that this was not so? Years and years of Hogwarts students’ hidden treasures, and yet he fancied himself the only one clever enough…
Just as he assumed he was the only one able to speak in paseltongue.
But he’s wrong, and in more than one way, Hermione thought vindictively. Harry could speak it fluently thanks to his own curse, and during the battle of Hogwarts Ron had spoken it, too. Anyone could utter the right phrase if they’d heard it before… and as it happened, Hermione knew exactly the right word.
She envisioned a snake coiling around her body in the snow, a serpent with dark eyes and toxically green scales.
“Hee-sah-iss,” she said in a guttural hiss.
Open.
There was a pause. Nothing. Hermione’s hopes began to crash; she knew that would have been too easy, too—
The serpent became animated, so sudden in its movements that Hermione squealed and dropped her wand. She let it roll to her side, watching in fascination as the snake untangled itself. It soon slithered downwards, where it settled itself on the bottom half of the chest, no longer in a Celtic knot. It went still.
Fingers trembling, Hermione opened the box.
“Oh…”
The diary.
There it was, resting within its confines in solitude. Hermione picked it up, holding it with both hands like she feared it may hex her. Once she was confident nothing more was going to happen, her face broke out into a huge, ear-to-ear grin.
Success!
But there was no time to celebrate her victory now; she was not out of the woods yet. Hermione set the diary down and picked up her still-glowing wand, then pointed it at the horcrux. This part, at least, she had already thought through with precision. She was impeccable at duplicating charms, and Hermione had a feeling that Riddle did not often check up on his well-hidden horcrux. He must still be under the illusion that he would simply know if something happened to one of his soul-vessels. Besides, the point of the diary horcrux specifically was to be unextraordinary; he had created it with the intention that it would seem harmless.
He had done too well a job, in Hermione’s opinion. Lucius Malfoy only knew that it was an object that would, supposedly, reopen the Chamber of Secrets, and had slipped it into the cauldron of one of Arthur Weasley’s many children. Hermione therefore deduced that, if she made an excellent copy—and she would—then not even Tom Riddle himself would know he was harboring a fake.
Unless he likes to write to himself, Hermione mused as she set to work, reciting the incantation. But she very much doubted that, or he wouldn’t be keeping it in here at all—it would have been in his nightstand. Besides, what would Riddle gain from interacting with a version of his younger self in such a fashion? No, she suspected that he kept it here and rarely bothered with it. A priceless treasure that was kept out of sight, safe and sound in his super special snake box.
Hermione finished the duplication. She gave herself a mental pat on the back for her spellwork; the copy was so realistic that she could not tell the difference herself. She got it right on the first try, too, just as she had the parseltongue.
How lucky.
Hermione hurriedly placed the duplicate in the chest, then closed the lid. The serpent slid back into place, seamlessly coiling around itself once more and locking the chest with its knotted body.
Hermione wasted no time in replacing the floorboard, pushing the robes into place, and putting her shoe on. She snatched up the diary and rushed back to the living room, where she shoved it and her wand into her bag.
A book is never borrowed, she thought with a savage delight. They’re always gifted.
Hermione pulled her purse over her shoulder, a dozen different stories already forming in her head that she could give to Riddle later as excuses: I’m so sorry I left, Tom, I was feeling so sick, I was so anxious; Please don’t detest me, Tom, I had lady issues, I’m sure you understand what I mean—
She was just about to open the door when she heard the crack of someone’s apparation. Hermione reacted so quickly that even she was shocked at her deftness. She pulled the bracelet from her purse, then tossed her bag onto the chair, where it landed exactly where it had been before. She then clung to her bracelet with both hands, holding it to her chest as she began to pace the living room of Riddle’s flat nervously… as though she had been doing so for some time.
The door opened. “Hermione,” Tom said, an expression of what seemed to be sincere remorse on his face. “I am so—oh.”
His eyes zeroed in at once on the bracelet in her hands. Hermione rushed forward.
“Oh, Tom! I am so sorry, I am such an idiot!” she cried. Tears once more welled at the corners of her eyes. “I thought I had lost it, I really did, and then—Gods, I’m so stupid—it was right here! On your living room floor, beneath the table!”
She gestured wildly down toward the floor, then shook her head. “Why didn’t I look there first? I am so, so sorry.”
Riddle’s jaw tightened. It looked like it was taking all his self-control to not be angry with her. “It’s quite all right,” he said—but the iciness in his eyes said otherwise. “I also should have thought to look there.”
“Should I go?” Hermione said. Then, nodding derisively to herself, “Yes, I should. I should go. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
And although she had reached for her purse, ready to escape, Riddle shook his head. “No,” he said, his expression and tone softening. “It’s fine. Truly. It was an honest mistake.”
“But… what happened?” Hermione asked. “Tom, did you—did you accuse the vampire of stealing from me? Did you…” She swallowed hard before saying, in a hushed voice, “…Did you kill him, Tom?”
Riddle looked shocked. Then his face broke out into a grin, and he laughed.
He laughed in a genuine, deep-in-his-belly way. Hermione frowned at him, though it was hard to do so when he was laughing like that.
“Kill him?” He repeated, affronted. “No! In fact, I couldn’t even find him. The bartender gave me a location, but he wasn’t there, and I didn’t want to leave you here alone in my flat all night, wondering if I’d been attacked—by a disgusting vampire, no less… You thought I killed him? Just now, truly? Over a bracelet, which he didn’t even take? In less than… what, ten minutes?”
He gestured widely with his arms, as though to make obvious the fact that he did not look as though he’d just gotten out of a vampire brawl. Hermione felt her cheeks coloring.
“I mean… You could have just fixed your robes and such before coming back. Blood-cleaning spells aren’t hard, either. You could be lying to me.”
Riddle’s jovial expression dimmed. “…Just who do you think I am, Hermione?”
The question hung heavy in the air. Riddle watched her face carefully, his arms still out on either side of him, waiting.
Then it was Hermione who was laughing. “I sound crazy, don’t I?” she said. “You’re right. Obviously, you didn’t just murder an innocent vampire. I’m just… I don’t know. A bit dramatic, I suppose.”
Riddle’s smile swiftly returned. “That would be the understatement of the century,” he said.
“Shut up. I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”
“Apology not accepted. You can only make it up to me by helping me finish this bottle of wine.”
Hermione bit her lower lip, weighing her options. She glanced at the clock. She still had a little bit of time left before her luck ran out…
“Is it too late for you?” Riddle asked, noting the way she had checked the time. “If your dress was going to deteriorate into tatters, that would have happened hours ago. Midnight is long past.”
Hermione glared at him. She resumed her seat, setting her bracelet on the table and picking up her still-full glass of wine. “Lucky for you that I’m no no-maj Princess in need of saving. I’ll stay until I’ve finished the glass.”
“Well, the jury is still out on that,” Riddle said as he took his seat across from her. “The ‘needing saving’ part. That all depends on how one interprets your dream.”
“Does that mean you’re going to finally tell me how you interpreted my dream?”
“Not at all.”
Hermione set her glass down sharply. “You’re the worst.”
“Irrevocably,” Riddle murmured. His eyes were bright with mirth as he took a sip of his wine. “The worst you’ve ever met.”
Huffing, and hating that she felt the heat rising to her cheeks again, Hermione took a long, large gulp of wine, nearly finishing the glass in one go. Riddle laughed at her.
“Are you trying to leave now? Right after I left on what some would say was a potentially very dangerous—and undoubtedly chivalrous—quest to accost an innocent vampire on your behalf?” Riddle shook his head and clicked his tongue disappointedly. “I am wounded, Hermione.”
“I very much doubt I have the ability to wound you, Tom.”
“Then why are you so clearly trying to leave?”
Hermione sighed, looking at the clock once more. “Honestly, it’s just that it’s late. Hepzibah gets worried when I don’t come home at a reasonable hour, even when I tell her not to wait up… and, as you’ve pointed out, its far past midnight. I don’t like worrying her.” She stared dolefully down at the golden bracelet. “I’m all she has left, you know. And her, I.”
Riddle was quiet for a moment, drinking his wine pensively. Then he set his glass down and picked up the bracelet.
He motioned for her to give him her hand. Hesitantly, Hermione did. He pulled her arm towards him, then lifted the bracelet to loop it around her wrist. He secured it there, taking his time with the clasp. Hermione watched his pale, slender fingers with her lips slightly parted.
“There,” he said. He kept his hands around her wrists, the pressure of his fingers burning into her skin. “You should be more careful with it… such things are precious.”
His eyes flashed to hers, dark and smoldering. Hermione barely had the presence of mind to nod. It was such a sweet, intimate gesture. It left her face far too warm.
She stood abruptly. “I am leaving,” she said, pulling her wrist from his gentle grasp—the same declaration she had given to him days ago when he had flustered her with snow sprites and a silver tongue.
Riddle had laughed then, and he laughed now. “Fine, fine… But I have something for you before you go.”
Hermione watched as he went to the bookshelf, plucking a book from it. He returned to Hermione with a text she recognized all too well.
Hogwarts, A History.
“You did say you wanted to learn more about Hogwarts,” Riddle said, either missing the stunned expression on her face or misinterpreting it. “As far as comprehensive descriptions and timelines go, this is the best book I’ve come across on the subject of the school. It does have a few sparse areas, but it’s still rather good. And since you’ve said books are never borrowed, only gifted, well… Consider this a gift.”
Hermione was at a loss as she took it from his proffered hands. This copy could not have been nearly as old the one she had in her time, and yet it was much more worn. The cover was frayed at the edges, and as Hermione began to flip through the pages she could see that many of them had old crease marks in them from being dogeared…
“That was one of the first magical books I bought before I ever set foot in Hogwarts,” Riddle continued. “I probably shouldn’t have; it wasn’t required reading, and I didn’t have—well, I bought a copy anyway because I was just so curious. I wanted to know everything I could about the school before I arrived.”
Hermione listened, numbly noting that Riddle, being an orphan with very little school funds, might have stolen this book… but she was almost wholly enraptured at the pages before her. Riddle had not only dogeared it in multiple places, but had written all over it, adding notes and little drawings to accompany the text…
Riddle was quiet. Hermione finally returned her focus to him to see that he was standing there, a bit uncomfortable looking, his brows furrowing.
“You hate it. But of course you do,” he said, his voice coming out low and derisive. He scoffed and shook his head as though he were mocking not her, but himself. “Because it’s old, because it’s used…”
Hermione’s mind put it together in an instant. She saw it even as it was unfolding—Riddle’s dark, toxic self-loathing. It was creeping up his spine and into his eyes; she saw it as the deep-seated resentment that he must have harbored for himself for years as an orphan at Hogwarts. Before he knew who he was; when he was just a new student coming from a muggle orphanage with the last name of Riddle… Sorted into Slytherin with hand-me-down robes and now, now that hatred was resurfacing, coming back to life because of her—because he didn’t know why she should look so dumbstruck at the sight of Hogwarts, a History; because he assumed, incorrectly, that she was offended by his gift of an old, battered book, being a rich, pureblood girl…
“My apologies, I shouldn’t have—”
Hermione kissed him.
She was lunging for him before she ever gave her body permission to act so brazenly. One moment she was staring at Riddle, unable to stand the sadness sweeping across his features, and the next she had both her arms wrapped around his neck, her lips pressing with far too much exuberance onto his, a collision of mouths that was as unexpected as it was inelegant.
Hermione’s eyes opened wide a second later, once her mind caught up to what her body had done. She retreated as far away as she could as quickly as she could, bumping into a chair as she did. Her neatly coiffed hair came undone and spilled unevenly over one shoulder. She held Hogwarts, a History over half her burning face like a shield, leaving only her eyes visible.
“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled, her meek voice barely discernible behind the text.
Riddle, for his part, looked like he had just been woken up from a stunning hex. He blinked dazedly, and if his dumbfounded expression could be described in any way at all, it was confused. It looked out of place on his face; Hermione doubted Tom Riddle had ever been caught looking so flabbergasted in his life.
She glanced at the clock again. Her time was up. “I am leaving now,” she once more announced, whispering. Her voice, soft as it was, trembled.
The perplexed expression vanished from Riddle’s face, replaced by something entirely different. Riddle didn’t say anything when he moved, advancing on her in a slow, predatory manner. Hermione took another step backwards. Her back hit the wall. But still, Riddle came.
He moved until his face was inches from hers, his pupils blown wide. Hermione could barely make out the ring of brown outlining the black. His lashes cast shadows on his cheekbones; his lips were cherry red from the wine.
Hermione ripped her eyes from his face to look towards the door. “I really should—”
Ignoring her words, Riddle grabbed the book from her hands and dropped it to the ground. He then put his finger under her chin, his touch so gentle she barely felt it. Hermione’s heart thrummed as her eyes locked back onto his.
Still he said nothing. Riddle’s gaze flickered down to her lips, then back to her eyes, making his intention perfectly clear.
She didn’t fight it.
Riddle’s kiss was the antithesis of whatever school-girl monstrosity she had just accosted him with. He placed his lips to hers with an almost absurd tenderness, so much so that Hermione suspected he was saying, in his own, Slytherin-seductive way, This is how this is done. His hand cupped her face, and when he was met with no resistance, he gently ran his tongue along her lower lip. Heat pooled in Hermione’s abdomen in a way that she had never experienced.
Riddle’s hand went from her jawline to her hair, freeing what was left from its half-pinned bun and slowly intertwining his fingers in her long tresses. He deepened their kiss, his tongue finding its way between her parting lips, and something like a whimper filled Hermione’s throat.
It was blissful and sweet.
Most notably, it was ephemeral.
The innocence of that moment couldn’t have lasted more than a second; the high-pitched sound that Hermione had been unable to stop caused Riddle’s fingers to twist in her hair, suddenly tight, demanding. Their kiss became something far more primal; Riddle pressed himself against her and Hermione allowed it, the pounding of her racing pulse loud in her ears; his other hand was trailing down her throat, his fingers ghosting over her collarbone before deftly undoing the topmost button she had fastened into place before coming to meet him…
The alarm bells were ringing in the furthest recesses of her mind, warning her, but Hermione could hardly be bothered. Her blood was on fire as Riddle’s fingers trailed along the skin between her breasts. She arched her back and Riddle's hand slipped beneath the fabric of her dress, edging towards her nipples—his hips ground into hers, and with a thrilling rush she felt that he was growing hard—he pulled his lips from hers to kiss her neck, ravaging her throat, and Hermione threw her head back and moaned—
Pop!
The sound was like a shotgun in the living room. Riddle released Hermione and had his wand drawn, holding it at the ready before Hermione could even see straight.
“What—?”
“Mistress Smith!”
Hokey the house-elf had never looked so intimidating. She stood with her tiny arms crossed, standing in the middle of Tom Riddle’s flat with a glower carved into her wrinkled face.
“Hokey!” Hermione screeched. She quickly straightened her dress, quite aware that Riddle had just disheveled it in an inappropriate manner. “What are you doing here!?”
“Hokey has been asked to keep an eye on you, young Mistress,” Hokey said matter-of-factly.
Hermione’s embarrassment swiftly turned to anger. “Hepzibah has you stalking me?”
Riddle spoke before Hokey could answer. “How are you in here?” he asked in a sinister voice. His eyes had gone from lust-wild to furious. “How? I have wards in place!”
Despite his life-threatening tone, Hokey only shrugged. “Hokey was instructed to follow, and so Hokey did,” she said.
Riddle was glowering down at the house-elf like he had never properly seen one before, his features twisted in a combination of rage and disbelief.
“Why would Hepzibah do that?” Hermione asked. “That is so—so disrespectful of my privacy!”
“Well,” Hokey said indignantly, “Hokey was instructed, at first, to only make sure that Master Malfoy took Mistress Smith to a safe and reputable place… but then Hokey was seeing that the young Mistress Smith was not with the young Master Malfoy at all.”
Hermione’s jaw dropped in horror, but Hokey plowed on. “And so, after Hokey was reporting this to Mistress Smith, Hokey was being told to follow and make sure that the young Mistress was safe. But now Hokey is feeling that it is time for Hermione to come home.”
Hermione was appalled. Since when was she a child that needed to be babysat? And since when did Hokey call her Hermione?
She turned to face Riddle, terror bubbling in her chest. “Tom, I—”
“Young Master Malfoy?”
Riddle’s voice was soft, but the sound of it made Hermione freeze. The angry expression he had aimed at Hokey a moment ago was gone, replaced by a blank, ice-cold mask. His gaze did not fully reach Hermione’s when he spoke. Still, she could see the way that his eyes had changed—his pupils were no longer blown, but somehow his gaze had become darker for it. Before, she had begun to see the light filter through, a small but building warmth emanating from behind his walls like a rising sun.
Now, as he realized that she had lied—that she had told her aunt that she was not out with him, the shop boy who was unworthy, but with Abraxas Malfoy, the wealthy, handsome pureblood—that warmth vanished. The light disappeared like drapes that had been sharply pulled shut, leaving nothing but darkness in their wake.
“No, Tom, please, listen,” Hermione pleaded, but still Riddle would not meet her gaze. “I didn’t—you have to understand, I—”
“We is going now,” Hokey announced.
Hokey grabbed her by the ankle and raised her other hand high. Hermione barely had time to think—she lunged and grabbed her purse, and then, in a moment of near madness, dropped to the floor so that she could scoop up Hogwarts, A History as well. Hokey snapped her fingers just as Hermione grabbed ahold of the frayed cover.
They landed much more harshly than when she and Riddle had appeared outside of his flat. Hermione teetered and fell, breaking the heel that had earlier been her savior, lodging itself in the floorboard of Riddle’s closet.
“Shit!” Hermione swore. Just how many pairs of shoes was she going to sacrifice in the name of defeating a Dark Lord?
“Mistress!” Hokey said, shocked. But the elf did not further reprimand her. “We is home.”
Hermione groaned, shoving Hogwarts, a History into her bag as she looked up at the familiar building. Dread coiled in her chest as she reluctantly followed Hokey into Number 32, Cadogen Street, London.
There was a split second where, upon entering, everything was dark. Distressingly so. Then, in an act that was more dramatic than anything Hermione had done (in her opinion), the room was alight all at once. Hepzibah was holding her wand up pointedly. She was sitting in her armchair, wearing a flowery nightgown and a stone-faced expression. It was the magical equivalent of many muggle TV shows, Hermione thought—the parent staying up late and waiting, ready to flick on the lamp when their child snuck in, thinking they’d gotten away with it.
“Well?” Hepzibah said when Hermione did not speak. She cocked her head to one side and did not let her wand fall an inch. “Did you have fun with Abraxas? Oh, excuse me—I meant the shop boy. Riddle, was it?”
Hermione hobbled into the room ungracefully with her broken heel. Hepzibah noticed but didn’t comment. “How could you order Hokey to spy on me!?” she shouted.
“My first reason was to protect you. Just because a boy is well-groomed and comes from a good family doesn’t mean that he has pure intentions. But my second, and better, reason was that I had a hunch you were lying to me. I saw the way you and that shop boy looked at each other. And I know that Abraxas Malfoy would have had the gumption to come here and greet me first, bringing you flowers and the like and gaining my favor. But meeting you out? Sounded like something only a dodgy boy would request—one who wanted to avoid me, perhaps, because we had a previous, slightly unpleasant encounter.” She smirked. “Turns out, I was right.”
“I asked him to meet me out, Auntie,” Hermione snapped. “Because I knew you wouldn’t approve of him, and I didn’t want you commanding that I not go. So I lied to you. But he wasn’t avoiding you—I was.”
Hepzibah’s smug expression faltered. “You think I would command you to not go out with him?”
“Well, yeah,” Hermione said, baffled. “You were the one who said I deserve better than a shop boy…”
Hepzibah stood, walking towards Hermione and shoving her wand in her pocket. She cradled Hermione’s face with both hands when she said, “Oh, Hermione. Dearest. I would never command you to do anything! You can make your own choices.”
Hermione’s face folded in confusion. “You’re not mad at me, then?”
“Oh, no. I’m furious. But not that you went on a date with a shop boy. I’m only mad that you lied to me, dear. What if you hadn’t come home? I would have been so worried, and then I would have been accusing Abraxas Malfoy of having done something to you! And then to find out that he didn’t even see you, what would I have thought? What would I have done? I wouldn’t have known where to look!”
Hermione nodded in acquiescence. “You’re right. I’m sorry I lied to you.”
“As you should be. No more outings for you without me acting as a chaperone for at least a week.”
“But you just said I was an adult who could make my own choices!”
“Yes, but you lied to me, and that was a very callous thing to do while in my care, staying under my roof.” Hepzibah dropped her hands from Hermione’s face. “Now off to bed with you. Hokey, see that she makes it there safely, considering that she’s managed to ruin a shoe… And see to it that she stays there, too.”
Hokey bowed deeply. Hepzibah turned and left without a backward glance, her flowery nightgown flourishing behind her as she went.
Hokey tugged on Hermione’s dress. “Young Mistress Smith must be—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hermione grumbled. “I’m going.”
She pulled herself from Hokey’s grasp and marched up the stairs, feeling very much the part of the deviant teenager as she did. Her head was already beginning to throb, and she stumbled once and winced when her shin hit the stair. She pushed herself up before Hokey could tend to her. At least the Time-Turner magic will fix that, she thought as she flung her bedroom door open and slammed it behind her. She then realized that such an unbidden thought should alarm her. Oh yeah. The Time-Turner magic in my blood. That’s still an issue.
Hermione shook that ever-looming concern aside. She didn’t have the energy nor the ability to think about the currently concealed, mysterious golden loops on her throat… the ones that had possibly (probably) spread even further by now, doing God only knew what.
Hermione pulled her shoes off and chucked them towards the closet; the heel on the other shoe snapped off as well when it collided with the door. She might have found that funny if her head wasn’t beginning to pound so badly. She then made the mistake of looking at herself in the mirror.
The top button of her dress had popped off (was that Riddle’s doing?), the strap on her right shoulder had snapped (when did that happen?) and her usually sleek, smooth hair was a rat’s nest on one side (was it reverting to its old ways?). Her make-up was a mess; the mascara charm had faltered and now it looked like she had bruises under her eyes. Her red lipstick was smeared onto her jaw.
She didn’t need the mirror to comment, but it did anyway. “You look like a harlot,” her reflection said nonchalantly.
Hermione scowled but didn’t respond. She stumbled to her bed, recognizing on some level that her coordination had, over the course of a few minutes, gone from ‘mildly off-kilter’ to ‘absolutely horrid’. She landed on top of her mattress face-first onto her pillow.
She might have passed out right away, but nothing, not even the aftermath of Felix Felicis could halt her curiosity. She flipped over onto her back with what felt like far too much effort and pulled her bag onto her stomach.
First, she retrieved the diary.
Hermione flipped through the object she knew to be a horcrux with some mixture of reverence and wariness. This small, harmless-looking journal had opened the Chamber of Secrets in her time… It had possessed Ginny and was the reason that she, Hermione Granger, had been petrified…
“I missed my exams because of you,” she mumbled irritably into the pages. The diary, being a diary, did not respond.
For a wild moment Hermione considered it. She looked across the room towards her desk, where quills and ink sat at the ready…
But no. That was stupid and reckless. She was just going to destroy the thing; it would be beyond idiotic to interact with it and potentially develop an unwitting fondness for it. Not that she ever would. Hermione was not an eleven-year-old girl desperate for a friend; she was, as Hepzibah had said, a grown woman.
Besides, she had another book on her mind at the moment.
Feeling too drunk to do anything more sophisticated, Hermione shoved the diary under her pillow. I am the stereotype, she thought with a smirk.
Then she pulled out the second—and in her mind, far more interesting—book.
Hogwarts, a History… with additional commentary and illustrations by Tom Riddle.
Hermione was grinning despite herself as she flipped through the book, noting that there were very few pages he had not written or drawn on. The small section on the Chamber of Secrets was, oddly enough, one of the few passages he left unscathed.
I have to apologize to him, Hermione thought groggily. Her head was really starting to throb now. She was undoubtedly in for a rough morning. I have to make that right…
But do you? said a firmer, much more sober sounding voice. It was the tenor that reminded her of Holloway again. Evidently her boss’s… bossiness would always find a way to haunt her. You have the diary. That’s all you need from him. Now you just have to wait until he hides the ring. Then you can destroy them both, and he will be mortal without even knowing it…
Yeah, Hermione thought in response. Yeah, I suppose…
Her mind began to drift as she lazily read through this much more entertaining version of Hogwarts, a History, nodding off mid-sentence on one of her favorite chapters. At the bottom of the page was a drawing of Barnabas the Barmy with his arms out, demonstrating a pirouette to half a dozen trolls who only scratched their head in confusion. At the top of the page, circling the chapter title—The Seventh Floor Corridor—a set of footprints appeared, much like those she had seen on the Marauder’s Map. They walked past the emboldened words once, twice, three times… and then they disappeared, the ink vanishing into the parchment.
Chapter 20: Roses and Ruses
Chapter Text
Walking into this room was as eerie and unreal as a nightmare. Everything was muted, from the already gray stone floor to the stairs that surrounded them on all sides like a crumbling, ancient arena. And the cold. It was not an immediate, striking when one first walked in, but slow. Measured. The kind of cold that crept into your bones and made itself a home there, draining warmth so gradually that you didn’t notice you were shivering until you tried to lift your wand.
“The Death Chamber.”
The announcement was hardly necessary.
Space. Thought. Time. Love. To these mysteries they had already been introduced.
Next on the agenda was Death.
They approached the dais cautiously, though Hermione noticed that Selwyn and Jackson were warier than she was. They stayed a half step behind her as they followed Holloway, clearly afraid as they drew nearer and nearer to that ominous arch. We can’t all be Gryffindors, Hermione thought amusedly. She lifted her chin and took the lead, staying behind Holloway only.
“Stand here and come no closer,” Holloway eventually instructed. Hermione, Selwyn, and Jackson did as they were told, standing in a cluster a good fifteen feet away from the sunken dais. Hermione watched the fluttering fabric in a mixture of fascination and repulsion. The air in the room was stagnant, cold and lifeless, and yet the fabric hanging from the arch moved as though there was a gentle breeze.
“What do you perceive?” Holloway asked.
It was a typical question from their mentor, and it meant he was asking for much more than a visual analysis. Still, Hermione found that was as good a place as any to start. “It is what appears to be an ancient, stone archway in a sunken dais, upon which an equally old piece of fabric hangs, tattered, flickering slightly in a breeze I do not feel,” she said.
Holloway nodded. “And?”
The fabric moved with a particularly lively flicker, like it knew it was being examined and discussed. Hermione shivered.
“There is a coldness that emanates from it,” said Jackson. He pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders. Of course Hermione had noticed the cold in this hall as well, but she hadn’t picked up on the fact that it was coming directly from the arch. Now that she focused, she could tell he was right. The frigidity was undulating around the dais, a soft rippling of cold magic.
“An excellent observation, but an inaccurate one,” said Holloway. “The arch does not project coldness. Rather, it consumes warmth.”
Jackson, Hermione, and Selwyn exchanged an uneasy glance.
“But what else?” said Holloway. “Listen.”
They fell silent, and Hermione frowned. She didn’t hear anything…
“Selwyn,” said Holloway. Selwyn’s usually dark complexion had gone quite pale. “What does it sound like?”
“I-it sounds like… voices,” he said. He closed his eyes. “They’re whispering… I can almost make out what they’re saying… but… but not quite—”
“Stop.”
Selwyn jumped, then looked about, confused. He had taken a few steps closer to the sunken dais as he listened, and now that he opened his eyes again, he looked surprised.
Holloway gave him a sympathetic smile. “That is how it lures,” he said quietly. “The veil beckons.”
Selwyn retreated back towards Hermione and Jackson, standing behind them.
“What do you mean, it beckons?” Hermione asked. “And why could only Selwyn hear it?”
Hermione wasn’t sure if she should be jealous or not. She was reminded of when she had told Harry she was jealous that he could see Thestrals when she could not… and the look he had given her afterward.
Selwyn, for his part, seemed shaken. He was staring at the dais, the voices clearly still calling to him.
“While we have no definite answers, we have many theories,” Holloway said. “We are, after all, in—”
“The Department of Mysteries, yes,” Hermione finished impatiently.
Holloway’s lips twitched, but he didn’t chastise her for interrupting. “Yes,” he continued. “And so, we have theories. One is that those who are closer to Death are more affected by the arch.”
“As in, they’re going die soon?” Jackson asked.
“That is correct.”
He and Hermione both cast Selwyn worried looks. Holloway laughed. “Don’t look so alarmed, Selwyn. It’s only one theory. And one I personally don’t believe. Near-death encounters happen more often than you might think, especially when one comes down here. But that is far from being near to the True Death. On that account, we have very little reliable data which supports that theory.”
Selwyn nodded, but he didn’t look relieved.
“I don’t believe that’s right either,” Hermione said. “When I was here… Well, Harry was affected by the veil quite strongly, as was Luna, and they did both have near-death experiences that night… but we all did. Including me. I was cursed by a Death Eater and probably came closer to death than any of them. And I didn’t hear anything when we were in this room.”
“Which brings us to another theory,” said Holloway. “Some believe that the veil calls more strongly to those who have lost loved ones. Someone whose life has been shaped more by the loss of life than by the presence of it.”
Hermione thought about this, then nodded. “That would make more sense,” she said. She didn’t feel the need to say that Harry had lost both his parents as everyone knew that, and was even less inclined to talk about Luna’s mother.
“A third theory—which ought to make you feel better, Selwyn—is that those who are most affected by it are those who are most resistant to Death,” Holloway went on. “That it’s more powerful beckoning is to tempt those who are otherwise quite skilled at evading their demise… Death is, above all, greedy.”
A moment of silence followed his proclamation, and after a beat of quietness, Hermione jumped. “Oh!” she said. The veil flickered playfully. “I… I hear it!”
It was soft, but it was definitely something. A lilting, pillowy voice, saying something, but what? What was that, what was it trying to tell her—?
“Hermione!”
Jackson grabbed hold of her arm, and Hermione spun at the action, whipping out her wand instinctually. It shook in her hands. The coldness, which she had forgotten about when focusing on the veil, struck her then. It was freezing in here.
“Easy,” said Holloway, but Hermione noted the that the tone of his voice rang with approval. Part of their training was to always be ready to defend. “Yes, I am sure you did hear something. Everyone does, eventually. It is the way of the veil. The longer you are in its presence, the more you are entranced. Stay in here long enough and anyone will succumb… though those with superb mental stamina can resist much longer.”
“Succumb?” Jackson asked. Hermione lowered her wand, and he released her arm.
“Pass through the veil,” Holloway said. “And go on.”
After he said it, it was very difficult to not imagine doing so. Hermione was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to go closer to the sunken dais, to that crumbling arch. The fabric fluttered and the voices sounded louder, almost excited…
“Enough,” said Holloway sharply. “Come.”
He flicked his wand, and from it emanated a bright green, glowing loop. He flung it around the three of them like a lasso and pulled them along behind him in a tightly bound group.
“Hey!” Hermione shouted. “This is rather uncalled for!”
“We can walk just fine—”
“OW—Jackson, you stepped on my foot—”
“Well then look where you’re going, why don’t you, and quit staring at that wretched veil—”
Holloway ignored their grumbling as he pulled them out of the Death Chamber, through one of the wooden doors into a hall that was, blessedly, far less interesting. The only thing in it were a few giant wooden chests along one wall.
“Not great reactions to the veil, but not the worst I’ve seen,” Holloway said. He flicked his wand upward and the glowing lasso dispersed, releasing them.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Hermione muttered as she shoved her wand back in her pocket and straightened her robes.
“Not to worry,” said Holloway. “You have plenty of time to make it up to me… For we begin our most intense training in mental magic now.”
“Mental magic? Today?” Selwyn asked. “Why now, when we’re supposed to be studying Death? Wouldn’t that have made more sense when we were introduced to Thought?”
“Any guesses?” Holloway asked curiously.
Hermione rose her hand—an old habit—before just blurting it out. “To acquire the superb mental stamina you mentioned.”
“Ten points for Gryffindor,” Holloway said slyly. Hermione smirked and lowered her hand. “To your point, Selwyn—we will no doubt be applying what we do here to when we circle back to the Room of Thought, yes… but we address it now because we can go no further into the exploration of Death at all until you have become Masters of the Mind Arts. Occlumency and Legilimency, of course, as well as some even more obscure branches of mental magic… all of these are critical if you wish to continue your training to become Unspeakables. To be in the Death Chamber is to be influenced by one of the most powerful forces in the known universe… and it is a mental one. That beckoning is in your mind. You must be able to resist it at all costs. Do you understand?”
Hermione, Selwyn, and Jackson nodded in unison.
“The first task is to be able to resist the temptation of Death by whatever means possible. The veil lures in a sophisticated manner. The most sophisticated, truly. One does not even realize they are on the precipice of it until it is too late; one does not feel the life-threatening cold until you are freezing. But it is far from the only entity that uses such tactics. You shall be practicing on one of these entities in order to learn resistance.”
He turned to face the wooden chests. They suddenly appeared nearly as ominous as the veil itself.
“Wh-what kind of entity?” Jackson stuttered.
Holloway ignored him, walking over to the wooden chests and withdrawing his wand. He gave them all a strained smile. “You’re not going to like this, I’m afraid,” he said. “Despite how well trained ours are.”
He tapped the lid of the chest with his wand. It opened and the room instantly filled with a horrible, drenching cold.
A Dementor.
It glided from its encasement, filling the room with its awful, sickening presence. It did not progress very far, however; the Dementor paused, remaining stagnant in the center of the room. It tilted its hooded head to one side. Hermione presumed that it was staring at them, but it was impossible to tell.
“A Dementor!” Jackson screamed. He and Selwyn both had their wands out, as did Hermione. She wasn’t even aware of having drawn it again.
“Very good, Jackson,” Holloway said casually. He stood beside the soul-sucking creature as though it did not bother him at all. “Who here knows how to cast a corporal patronus?”
“I-I can,” Hermione answered. Neither Selwyn nor Jackson claimed as much.
“Are you insane?” Selwyn snarled. He lifted his wand higher, but his arm was shaking terribly. “We can’t let one of those loose in a room with us! Move, I’m going to—”
“You’ve as good as confessed that you do not know how to produce a corporal patronus, Selwyn. Anything short of that will be about as effective as a bubble-head charm at fending off a Dementor, so you might as well save your strength.”
Selwyn scowled and lowered his wand, but not before shooting Hermione a look as though to say, ‘You do it, then.’
“Do not cast the charm, Granger,” Holloway said firmly. “Actually, it is to my advantage that two of you do not how to produce patronuses. The goal of today is to not fight the sensation in that way… for being around a dementor will eventually fill you with a sense of dread and coldness so strong that you will want it to end; that you will desire their kiss… and it is your job to learn how to resist this calling not with magic, but with your mind alone.”
Hermione stared at Holloway in horror. “You want us to… to mentally block out a Dementor?” She shivered violently, the sense of dread already crawling up her spine. She couldn’t believe she was here, trying to become an Unspeakable; she was not talented enough, she couldn’t do this…
“Essentially,” said Holloway. “And I will confess to you that this is the part of the training where we tend to lose trainees—not because they lose their souls of course,” he added quickly, and Hermione was astonished that he was able to laugh while near a Dementor. “But because they quit. Or fail. This will not be easy… but we have found it is the best way to forge the minds of mental masters. With the assistance of Dementors, we have been able to teach our Unspeakables the ability to empty their minds and cloak their thoughts in the direst situations—pass this training, and shielding your surface thoughts from any human will be as easy as breathing.”
“H-how long will this p-part of the training last?” Jackson asked. He looked and sounded dreadful—his voice was very high and his body shook with the unnatural cold.
“Until I say you are ready,” Holloway answered. “ If I say you are ready.”
Hermione gawked at him, both amazed and envious. How was he able to stand there, so close to a Dementor, and look so calm? To smile ? She would never be able to master the mind arts like that…
“There is a certain test in particular that you must pass. Using the Dementors, we have developed a mind blocking technique known as Rubiconem suum … and you must master it. Should you fail to do so, your training as an Unspeakable will come to an end.”
“ Rubiconem suum …?” Jackson repeated.
“Point of n-no return,” Hermione translated quickly—though her Latin skills did little to illuminate her. “What does that m-mean?”
“All in good time,” Holloway said. “For now, for today, your task is simple. Don’t let the Dementor affect your mind. Resist the weight of sadness. Lower your wand. Ignore the cold. You have my word that the Dementor will not harm you.”
Hermione had to close her eyes when the Dementor began to glide closer to them. She tried to focus, to think of something happy, something light… of the last time she had made a corporal patronus…
And then she was envisioning a memory that, just a few years ago, would have been nothing short of happy. Now, however, it rested in her heart like a heavy stone. She, Harry, and Ron, practicing the patronus charm in the Room of Requirement before the others showed up… Her otter, bright silver and cheery, gamboling away from Ron’s terrier as it chased it about the hall… Harry laughed, looking back and forth between the two as though he knew something they didn’t… Ron was blushing and smiling and awkwardly and was unable to look at her…
As hard as Hermione tried to think of anything else, more memories of the life she no longer had flooded her mind. Those happy months when, post-war, she and Ron had finally admitted their feelings for each other and had gotten on, almost effortlessly, like something out of a dream… a dream that dwindled and ended when she went back to school and Ron began to train as an auror, living in London and finally having everything he’d always wanted: a promising career, affluence, and, above all… fame.
Fame that was not overshadowed by any of his brothers; fame that had affirmed that he was special and talented and beloved.
Fame that had, unsurprisingly, gone to his head, for it was accompanied by adoring fans and parties and—
And you weren’t there, were you, Hermione? Because you went back to school, because you didn’t take happiness when it was offered to you because you valued yourself and your career over him… but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because you weren’t good enough for him at all, were you? And you will never be good enough for anyone ever again because you’re nothing, unworthy of love or romance or even real friendship; you have lost it all—
“N-no,” Hermione whimpered feebly, but she was not certain that the word ever truly left her mouth. She opened her eyes a crack to discover, to her great surprise, that she was on the floor. She didn’t remember falling; she couldn’t feel her body. Jackson was slumped on the ground by her side. Only Selwyn remained standing of the three of them, though he had backed himself into the corner of the room and was leaning against the wall.
Holloway remained exactly where he was, behind the Dementor. His face was utterly emotionless.
I will fail, Hermione thought. The Dementor was a stagnant entity in the room, hovering silently. I can’t do this. I am nothing.
‘ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?’
Hermione let out a choking sob. Ron’s voice, young and ringing loudly from a memory long past, wrenched at her heavy heartstrings.
God, she missed him.
The Dementor shifted closer, and the cold wrapped around her like so many thick, thorny tendrils of Devil’s Snare. Hermione reached for her wand but it flew out of her hand, clattering along the floor, and there would be no life-saving light to save her—she slipped to one side and the coldness was all-encompassing and she breathed in the frozen air as a precursor to a scream—
Hermione jolted awake. She toppled to the floor, pulling her comforter and the sheets along with her. Her bag fell off the foot of her bed. Something else flung across the room, slamming into her bedside lamp and knocking it over. It hit the ground at the same time she did, shattering to pieces.
Hermione swore. Then she groaned, rolled over onto her side, and quietly lamented her existence while she waited for her heart rate to slow. Pieces of painted porcelain—what was once her lamp—were scattered all around her. Riddle’s copy of Hogwarts, a History—the entity responsible for the murder of her lamp—was splayed open on its spine. A disturbingly accurate drawing of the Bloody Baron glided along the margins, creepily adorning whatever section was currently displayed. The index? That illustration probably haunted the whole damn book, knowing Riddle’s aesthetic.
Slowly, and avoiding the porcelain shards, Hermione pushed herself into a seated position.
Her head pounded.
Hermione groaned again as she struggled against her tangled sheets, freeing her arms so she could rub her temples. She had been having the strangest, most horrible dream…
She shivered as fragments of the nightmare came back to her. Hermione shook it away, pulling her tangle of sheets tight over her shoulders again. She took a few moments to breathe deeply with her eyes closed.
Clear your mind. Focus.
Remember your training.
When she opened her eyes again, she felt calmer—though her head still throbbed with the ache of what was easily the worst hangover she’d ever had. She was halfway through disentangling herself from her self-made blanket cocoon when a loud crack stopped her.
“Ah!” Hermione shouted, wincing at the sound. Hokey stood before her, her huge eyes level with Hermione’s where she sat on the floor.
“Missus is awake,” Hokey said coolly. With a wave of her skinny arm, the lamp repaired itself and hovered back onto the nightstand.
“Misses sure is,” Hermione muttered. “Ow, Hokey, must you apparate so loudly? My head is killing me…”
Hokey’s frosty demeanor melted at once. “I will be bringing you an elixir to help, Mistress Smith. Mixed into some tea? With toast and fruit, perhaps?”
Hermione nodded gratefully. The elf apparated away with a much quieter pop .
Sighing heavily, Hermione looked at the clock. It was after eleven. Well, at least that means the majority of my bad luck should be over…
Her throbbing headache begged to differ with her. Hermione finally freed herself from her sheets and blanket and stood, catching her reflection in the mirror. Her make-up was still all over her face and her hair was in tangles. She looked even worse than she had last night.
“You look even worse than you did last night,” her reflection commented aptly.
“No one asked your opinion,” Hermione snapped. She threw her blankets onto her bed, where she knocked her pillow onto the floor instead. Revealing…
“Oh,” Hermione gasped, and the details from the night before came rushing back. “You.”
The diary looked as plain and unextraordinary as ever. Still, Hermione approached it with caution. All things considered, she had made out well. She had accomplished all she had meant to. She had the diary horcrux. What was a horrible hangover and some terrible nightmares in comparison to this? That was not so bad.
Except… that’s not all that happened, Hermione admitted to herself.
Riddle was… well, he was angry, that was certain. Furious, probably. He’d learned that she had lied to Hepzibah about being out with him, that she had said she was going out with the infamous Abraxas Malfoy instead. And if their previous interactions at Malfoy Manor had told her anything, it was that he had not liked the look of her on Abraxas’s arm that evening. When Hokey had announced that fabrication, Hermione had undoubtedly earned Riddle’s fury.
Except… it wasn’t just that Riddle was angry, either. That would have been plenty, though, wouldn’t it? Having Tom Riddle go from nearly adoring her to despising her in the blink of an eye…
But no. She hadn’t just angered him… she had wounded him.
Hermione had struck at his deepest, most tender insecurity then. For this was not a Tom Riddle who had years and years of magical experience and expertise, with an army formed and dozens if not hundreds of followers with branded arms, ready and willing to die for him, to kill for him… No, this was a Tom Riddle on the other side of his life, still young, still perceived as a mere shop boy. Sure, some of his closest ‘friends’ knew who and what he was, but that was a far cry from the supremely influential Dark Lord he would one day be.
He was not a pureblood.
He was not rich.
He was not a part of the highest tier of Wizarding Society in magical London, attending galas where he could bid exuberant amounts of gold on priceless artworks just to gain the attention of some pretty witch.
He was brilliant, yes, and powerful, and while his current life as a lower-middle-class shop boy was a strategic choice, it was a brutal testament to his current reality. No matter how magnificent and charming he was, he was not, as far as anyone else was concerned, in the same league as Hermione Smith. Now he surely believed that Hermione bought into this belief herself… so much so that she had to lie about even seeing him.
What was most troubling, though, was how badly this bothered her.
Hokey returned with a tray of steaming hot tea and breakfast. Hermione watched as she poured what she could only assume was the elixir to cure her headache into her teacup and stirred. “Here you is, Mistress Smith,” she squeaked.
“Thank you,” Hermione said. She sipped the tea, and it really was magic, how quickly it worked. Hermione’s headache was gone in moments… which also allowed her to think much more clearly.
“Hokey,” she said, keeping her voice light, “just how long were you were watching me last night?”
Hokey stood as tall as she could. “Hokey was keeping an eye on young Mistress, as Hokey was instructed,” she answered, both dutiful and vague.
“I see.” Hermione nodded and took another sip. “Oh, Hokey, would you mind terribly if I asked you to get me some milk? For my tea. I’m feeling some need for it this morning. It might help with the bitterness of the anti-headache potion.”
Hokey bowed and disappeared without a word. Hermione set her cup down and crossed the room to where her bag had fallen, retrieving her wand. She was ready the moment Hokey reappeared.
“Stupefy.”
The small, glass pitcher full of milk fell from Hokey’s grasp and shattered in the same place her lamp had. Hermione cleaned it up and then turned her attention to the now unconscious elf.
“I am so sorry to have to keep modifying your mind, poor thing,” she said. It pained her, but she couldn’t have Hokey knowing that she had stolen a diary from the dodgy shop boy. “I promise that it’s for your own good.”
She scooped Hokey up and laid her gently onto her bed. “Better me messing with your memory than Riddle, at any rate,” she murmured, thinking of a different timeline—one where Tom Riddle would one day convince Hokey the house-elf that she had accidentally poisoned her Mistress. But that world was not this one, and Hermione once more got to work.
The next few days passed in a relatively uneventful blur.
Hepzibah was true to her word, not allowing Hermione to so much as walk around the block alone. Which, while a bit annoying, Hermione did not mind all that much. She did feel guilty for lying, so she was on her best behavior. She accompanied Hepzibah on all her daily errands, on all her shopping trips and to tea and lunch and whatever else she was in the mood for. Hermione even enjoyed it, for the most part. She learned a great deal of wizarding life from Hepzibah Smith; she really was like the witch aunt Hermione never had.
Besides, all those evenings drinking tea and relaxing on the balcony or by the fire gave her time to think, to focus…
To plot.
Plan B.
Hermione spent the nights putting things into place, ready to set her back-up plan into motion. On one of their lengthier shopping trips, Hermione had purchased a lovely bag made entirely of mokeskin—the perfect anti-theft container. The following afternoon, she had admitted to Hepzibah that she’d been researching Hogwarts, as well as their famous ancestor, and asked her aunt to give her a more detailed tour of her old, prized possessions. It had allowed Hermione to learn exactly how Hepzibah kept the cup of Hufflepuff and the locket Slytherin safely tucked away, and it was therefore rather easy to steal the two items later that night (after making sure Hokey was unconscious, of course… Hermione would not forget the abilities of spying house-elves ever again). She had duplicated them perfectly, then placed the fakes beneath the same protective barrier Hepzibah had created.
The diary. The locket. The cup. Only one was a horcrux now, but Hermione had all three stored securely in her mokeskin bag. Being fully prepared to escape was all a part of Plan B, and while she thought it was inevitable at this point, she was partially still hoping that she could avoid putting it into action.
Plan B would mean leaving London, and that prospect—while the most logical—remained a decision she struggled with. Hermione Smith was an adventurer, after all; it would not be out of character for her to want to take off and explore somewhere else. Or, in this case, to return to a place that she had (allegedly) already been.
But to depart now, leavings things as they were…
Riddle hadn’t tried to contact her once since that night. No impatient owls with haughty attitudes, no secret notes left on her bed. Nothing. Hermione had not tried to contact him, either. What would she say? Hermione was still struggling with how to rectify the situation… and if she should even try.
Hermione sighed. While she’d been staring at the pages of the book in her hands for at least ten minutes, she hadn’t done anything other than watch the doodles of stars twinkle in and out of focus, sparkling between the chapter title and the main text. Admitting defeat for the time being, she closed Riddle’s book.
No, my book, she thought firmly to herself. This was a gift.
And truly, Hermione would not have returned such a book even if it hadn’t been a gift. Hogwarts, a History was far more interesting with Riddle’s added notes. She’d already read it through once and was making a second pass as she whiled away her Friday afternoon. She had just gotten to the section on the descriptions of the common rooms—she was currently on Ravenclaw, which Riddle had adorned with drawings of many tiny stars—when she decided to take a break. Hermione set the book on the arm of the chair and looked up, her attention ensnared at once by the painting above the hearth.
Killing, Saving.
The little girl in white, covered in mud, frowning as she struggled with her magic… Killing the roses or saving them depending on how one watched, yet she was trapped either way, forever in an oil-painted loop…
Was the snake killing you, or saving you?
A familiar chiming sound startled Hermione out of her thoughts. The doorbell.
“Hokey!” Hepzibah called from the kitchen—but the house-elf had already appeared in the foyer with Hermione, heading towards the door. “Answer that please!”
Hermione stood, anxious. She smoothed her dress and shoved his—no, her—copy of Hogwarts, a History beneath the cushion of the armchair.
Could it be…?
Hokey cast her a furtive look before opening the front door. Hermione was perhaps even more shocked when it was revealed to be not Tom Riddle on their doorstep, but none other than Abraxas Malfoy... and he too came with a massive bouquet of roses.
Wild roses.
“Oh,” he said when Hokey welcomed him in. He stared at Hermione, clearly not expecting her to be in the foyer right when he arrived. “Hermione. I… hello.”
“Hello,” Hermione echoed stupidly.
Hokey stood between them for a moment. The awkwardness that filled the room was tangible. “I will be telling Mistress Smith that you is here, Master Malfoy,” she finally said, then disappeared.
Hermione and Abraxas were alone in the foyer. Hermione, unprepared, fumbled for something to say. “I, er… welcome to my home.”
She gave him a gesture that she supposed was meant to be a curtsy, but ended up being some strange mixture of a lopsided half-bow and a nod.
Abraxas, ever the gentleman, didn’t comment on it. “The Garden,” he said. Hermione followed his gaze to the oil painting. She had forgotten that The Garden was the title of the work; she had been referring to it as Killing, Saving so long in her head. “It looks lovely there. I suppose you deserved to win it after all.”
“Thank you,” Hermione said.
They lapsed into silence. The girl covered in mud caused the roses—of the cultivated, more popular variety—to wither and wilt.
“I take it your aunt… she didn’t tell you I was coming?”
“No,” said Hermione. “She certainly did not. Did she…?”
Before Hermione could say anything else, Hepzibah appeared in the doorway. “Abraxas, dear, welcome,” she said—in a voice that did not sound at all surprised to see the young Malfoy heir there. She swept across the room and greeted him in a much more socially acceptable manner: Hepzibah gave him her proffered hand, which Abraxas took at once, falling into an elegant bow before placing her knuckles to his lips.
“Miss Smith. You look as lovely and as fashionable as ever.”
“You invited Abraxas over,” Hermione said, smiling as she spoke through clenched teeth. “Without informing me,” she added.
“He wrote me yesterday, asking if I would allow him to make a house call,” Hepzibah said. “I saw no reason to not allow it.”
Hermione was unsure how to react. Hepzibah was smiling in a proud way, like she had just done Hermione a great favor. She supposed it did explain a few things—like why Hepzibah had told her to wear the nice green dress robes today, not the blue ones she had put on first, and why she had insisted on having Hokey put her hair in a braided updo.
“I see,” Hermione finally said, inwardly seething.
“I apologize,” Abraxas said. “I shouldn’t have—I mean to say, I… should have written you directly, Hermione. I only—”
“Nonsense,” Hepzibah said. “You did the proper thing, courteous gentleman that you are. I am the head of this house and it was quite respectable that you asked my permission to see my niece first.”
“I suspect he figured you would ask me if I was willing to be seen before he came,” Hermione muttered. The look on Abraxas’s face confirmed as much, but he didn’t say anything.
Hepzibah waved her hand through the air as though to dismiss Hermione’s accusation. “I wanted it to be a surprise! Oh, look at that bouquet. How… delightfully unconventional. Whatever kind of flowers are those?”
Abraxas, blushing somewhat, offered them to Hermione. She answered Hepzibah’s question before Abraxas could. “They’re roses,” Hermione said. “Wild roses.”
“The very same ones that grow in my gardens,” Abraxas said. “I had my house-elf assemble a bouquet of the finest blooms from my property.”
“Isn’t that sweet,” said Hepzibah.
But Hermione’s mind was racing. Could Abraxas have possibly known about her interaction with Riddle in his gardens? Of how they had discussed the differences between the wild roses of the world and the cultivated ones? Was one of these flowers the very same one Riddle had grabbed, nearly plucking it from the bush before letting it go?
Hermione accepted the bouquet, breathing in the scent of wild, natural flowers.
Most women melt under the weight of a dozen roses being pressed into their arms… but you don’t strike me as one of those women, Hermione.
“Thank you,” Hermione said. Abraxas smiled and nodded. “Hokey, do you mind finding a vase for these?”
“Of course, Mistress.”
Hokey took the bouquet from Hermione and disappeared. Abraxas looked between her and Hepzibah. “I was wondering, madame, if I might be so bold as to ask Hermione to accompany me on a walk…? If she is willing, of course.”
He smiled charmingly. Hepzibah pursed her lips, acting the part of truly conflicted… for all of two seconds.
“Oh, I don’t see why not,” she said. “Hermione has been such an angel these past few days… and I’m sure you two have plenty to catch up on. Just don’t be gone too terribly long, will you?”
Hermione held back a scowl.
“Of course not,” said Abraxas. He offered Hermione his arm. “I know the perfect park. We could apparate there, if you’re unopposed.”
Hermione gave him the kindest smile she could muster. “Just give me one moment to freshen up,” she said.
“Take your time.”
Hermione shot Hepzibah an accosted look once her back was to Abraxas, to which Hepzibah just smiled sweetly. She wasn’t sure what game her faux-aunt thought she was playing, but Hermione didn’t appreciate her meddling. If plan B really was going to come to fruition, then getting closer to Abraxas would be of no use to her.
Unless you decide to stay, said a quiet voice in the back of head. Unless you can win Riddle back… and you can start with Malfoy.
Hermione took a deep breath and collected herself once she made it to her room. She pulled a warm robe from her closet to wear beneath her coat, one with deep pockets where she could easily store her wand. Then she put on a scarf, gloves, and a matching hat, all made of the finest, black fleece. She was about to head back downstairs when she paused in front of the mirror.
Well, if I’m going to do the damn thing, I might as well do it right. Hermione took an extra moment to spray her neck and wrists with an obscenely expensive perfume (a recent purchase; it was imbued with the most minuscule dose of amortentia, causing those who smelled it to pick up the scents they found most attractive) and painted her lips in a deep, cherry red lipstick. It was charmed to never smear and utter hell to get off, but Hermione was feeling bold. She smiled at herself in the mirror, and for once her reflection had no further comment.
Hermione made her way back to the foyer, where Abraxas was in idle conversation with Hepzibah. She had to admit, he was much better at winning her over than Riddle had been. In this strange, alternative universe, at any rate.
Abraxas held his arm out to her. “Shall we?”
“We shall.” Hermione gave Hepzibah a much warmer smile than before. “I’ll be home soon, Auntie.”
“Have a pleasant stroll, you two.”
They left, arms intertwined, much as they had been when Abraxas showed Hermione around his manor… although she was wearing much more sensible shoes, now.
“Are you all right with side-along apparition?” he asked once they were outside.
“Only if you promise not to splinch me. That would be ever so rude of you,” Hermione teased.
“I promise that I am an expert in the practice,” he said, flashing her a smile.
Hermione nodded, and they disappeared on the spot.
When they landed, Hermione almost spouted something uncouth. She was surprised, but really… should she have been?
“Hyde Park?” she said. The Joy of Life Fountain greeted them, those familiar and stagnant bronze lovers who would never fully embrace, no water gushing about them to bring the artwork to life.
“You know it?” Abraxas asked. “It’s quite lovely, I must say—even if it is a bit too populated with muggles, in my opinion, but this time of year it’s not so—”
“What is this about?”
Hermione pulled her arm from his, turning to face Abraxas head-on. She suddenly didn’t care about playing the role of sweet, flirtatious witch any longer. Being back in the very same park she had asked Riddle to meet her in was just too much. “Why did you ask me—or, excuse me, my aunt, rather—to visit? Now, when it’s been well over a week since I left your manor in such—in such disarray! And then to bring me here of all places!”
Abraxas flushed, looking awkwardly over his shoulder as a few muggle passers-by cast him disapproving looks. “I… I am truly sorry about that. I wanted to reach out to you right away, but—well, Tom said—”
“What did Tom say?” Hermione sneered, unable to stop herself.
“He said you left in tears because you couldn’t fix your dress after the fire, and that you wanted to leave and so he escorted you off the property! And that you were embarrassed and simply didn’t wish to be contacted!”
Hermione’s eyes widened. “Is that the story he gave you?”
“Yes… yes, but. Well, I…”
Abraxas stuttered to a halt.
“You what?” she prodded impatiently.
“I knew you left through the main gates, alone, in great distress, because they told me,” he said. When Hermione stared, blankly, he elaborated. “It’s a very old manor. Imbued with ancient blood magic that relates directly to the Malfoy line. The paintings, the walls, the stones… even the gates carry a magical signature that conveys memories and other information only to a Malfoy—or another pureblood that has married in. It’s quite complex.”
And something that Riddle couldn’t take from you, even if he wanted, Hermione thought.
“Well… if you knew that I left in great distress, then… Why didn’t you contact me sooner?”
Abraxas’s eyes only met hers for a moment before falling to the ground. “I thought you might want some space, after that whole incident.”
Such lies.
Hermione only held eye contact with him for a second, but it was enough to know that he was actively and consciously on the precipice of lying. Her surface Legilimency skills were enough to detect that.
“So do you often do whatever Tom tells you to do?” Hermione said coolly. “Or is it only when he threatens you?”
Abraxas’s eyes flashed back to hers, and he looked unnervingly like Draco. “Excuse me?” he said.
“Well, you do, don’t you? He told you not to talk to me at first, right? After that night. And he told you to check up on me now, over a week later. To keep tabs on me, to see if I was still at my aunt’s. I bet he even told you to bring those wild roses, didn’t he? And to bring me to this park?”
Abraxas’s face turned red, but Hermione could tell it was just as much from anger as it was from embarrassment. “I assure you, Hermione, that I did none of those things because Tom told me to,” he said, and she could see in his eyes that he was being honest. “I wanted to write you, and—well, I did see Tom recently, as well as a few of the other old boys, and when the conversation turned to that night at the gala, and, admittedly to you—he didn’t tell me to do anything, no one does, but he did agree that it would be a nice gesture, and acceptable on my part by now…”
It clicked for Hermione then.
Oh, Riddle was good, wasn’t he?
He didn’t have to tell his more affluent followers like Abraxas Malfoy to do the things he wanted. He could rule the more influential, prominent purebloods with an iron fist if he wanted, but he didn’t have to play that hand just yet. It was infinitely easier, surely, to manipulate them gently.
You should write her, Abraxas. She’s surely had long enough to cool off by now…
Some other sweet gesture as well, perhaps? She did carry on about the roses in your garden for some time… The wild ones, you know, by the pool…
Hyde Park is quite nice this time of year; a good place to make amends…
“Besides,” Abraxas went on, straightening his posture and regaining some of his dignity, “I thought it might be nice to talk. Rumor has it we went on a date, you and I… Magical London loves to talk, you know, and I am often in the thick of the gossip columns. I thought I deserved to be informed about my own dating life, no?”
It was Hermione’s turn to blush. “I… Sorry,” she mumbled. “Someone made the assumption, and I tried to tell them otherwise, but…”
She let her voice trail off, unsure of what Abraxas knew and too wary to give anything away. If Riddle had not informed him of their date and of the fact that she had used Abraxas as a cover-up, she was not about to illuminate him.
“…It’s all right,” Abraxas eventually said. “Quite par for the course for me, really. I’ve been rumored to have scandalous affairs with rather a few of the more infamous ladies of London. Witch Weekly loves to speculate about me, it’s maddening.”
“Is that what I am?” Hermione asked. “An infamous lady of London?”
“Not quite yet,” Abraxas said, “But I daresay you’re on your way… especially if you stick with me.”
He smirked. Hermione barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes.
“I see. Well, thank you, Abraxas,” she said. “This has been a most enlightening conversation. Good evening.”
Hermione curtseyed in a much more graceful motion, then turned to leave. “What—wait! Where are you—”
She was gone before he could finish his outburst.
Hermione knew it was unfair to poor Abraxas, but she hardly cared. She was seething when she landed, right on the outskirts of Knockturn Alley. Hermione pulled up her hood and marched, furious and fearless, straight to Borgin and Burke’s, where she entered with her wand drawn.
Mr. Burke looked quite shocked when she barged into his shop, throwing her hood back and nearly knocking the bell that sounded above the door clean off its hinges. “Miss Smith,” he said, his brows raised but speaking politely nonetheless. “How may I—”
“Is Tom working?” Hermione interrupted. She smiled.
Mr. Burke’s eyes flashed down to her wand, then back to her face. “No,” he said warily. “He just finished for the day…”
Hermione glared at him. He wasn’t lying, but she didn’t want to believe him. She strutted over to where the foeglass was, still held in its silver stand.
Nothing. There were no shadowy outlines of vague enemies to be seen in the background. Riddle wasn’t here.
“All right then,” she said curtly. She shoved her wand back into her pocket and once more pulled on her hood. “Have a good evening, sir.”
She didn’t wait for his response, either. Hermione had, evidently, lost all her patience that evening. She marched out of the shop, storming past hags and other questionable entities, most of whom scattered before her.
She was just so angry! Who did Riddle think he was, sending Abraxas to her house? Telling him to write her aunt first, probably, in order to gain an invitation without questions… Just so that he could see what she was up to, make sure she was still here… Because Abraxas was the one that he knew Hepzibah wanted Hermione to be with…
And then to send him with wild roses! What was the message there? Someone like Abraxas Malfoy would never normally have a house-elf pick flowers from a garden, would he? He would buy something far fancier. That was most assuredly Riddle’s suggestion, not Abraxas’s idea…
What sort of ruse was this…?
A rose by any other name…
He was fucking with her.
Riddle was fucking with her, and Hermione was not one to be fucked with.
She turned a corner, nearly bumping into another hag as she did. She was right at the edge of Knockturn Alley—she could see Aconite Alley up ahead, near The Devil’s Cup—when he called out to her.
“Looking for me?”
Hermione whipped around. Behind her was Riddle, dressed in his usual dark robes, his hood also drawn. He might blend into the shadows around him were it not for his pale skin. He leaned against one of the nearby building’s old railings, managing the infuriating task of looking like a model despite the dismal landscape.
Hermione scowled. “Why yes, in fact, I was,” she said.
“I get off at eight on Fridays,” he said. “Stalker,” he added, his smile slanted.
Hermione stormed over to him, her eyes blazing. “I’m the stalker, am I? Maybe you just happened to be heading to Hyde Park, hm… I hear it’s lovely this time of year.”
“I have no idea what you’re referring to,” Riddle said smoothly.
“Abraxas? Really?” Hermione shouted. “Too afraid to come talk to me yourself? I know he only came because of you. Don’t deny it.”
Riddle’s slanted smile became a hard line. “I was under the impression that you would like nothing more than to spend time with Abraxas Malfoy,” he said. “Did I not do you a favor?”
“You know what happened,” Hermione snapped. “You know I was just—I just had to lie to my aunt. You don’t understand, she—”
“Oh, trust me. I understand perfectly.”
Riddle’s voice became sharp and cold. There was no trace of a façade in place as those bottomless eyes bored down on her. Hermione’s anger flickered, tampered by a lick of fear.
“I… I didn’t know how—I wasn’t sure what else to do, and—”
“You could start by telling the truth.”
Hermione took a deep breath before responding. “Okay,” she said, “perhaps you’re right. I shouldn’t have told her I was seeing Abraxas. That was wrong of me. But it’s also wrong of my aunt to tell me who I should and shouldn’t see—and she had made it very clear to me that I shouldn’t see shop boys who work in Knockturn Alley. So, this was easier. Is that really so upsetting to you? All I did was allow my aunt to think I was seeing someone else so that I could meet the person I really wanted to see and not be bothered about it.”
She didn’t realize quite what she was saying until she already had. She was just lying though. Just saying what she had to… wasn’t she?
“I see,” Riddle murmured. His voice was still frigid, but it was also laced with curiosity. “And why would someone like Hermione Smith prefer me over the far more appealing Abraxas Malfoy?”
“Are you really fishing for compliments, Tom?”
“No. I’m fishing for the truth… and I always catch it, Hermione. I know you’re hiding something.”
Rather than let this frighten her, Hermione scoffed. “You’re one to talk!” she yelled. The hag that she had nearly plowed into earlier shifted away from them at her raising voice. “Look at you—young, tall, talented, powerful, stupidly good-looking—don’t tell me you couldn’t do better than working at some dingy shop right out of school! No, you chose this shady position… But why, Tom?”
She paused, jabbing a finger at him. “I think you are the one who is hiding something.”
If that accusation affected Riddle, he did not let it show. “Stupidly good-looking, hm?” he said. “Is that why you threw yourself at me in my flat? Or was it just because books really do it for you?”
Hermione could feel how scarlet her face turned.
“You think you’re just so—so charming, don’t you? So witty, so sharp?”
“Don’t forget powerful,” Riddle added, smirking.
Hermione bit back a growl of frustration. “Oh… I’ve got news for you, Tom.”
She advanced on him, anger and frustration and something else bubbling in her chest, propelling her forward. Riddle watched her movements with cold, calculating eyes. “You think you’re sharp, but I’m sharper… You think you’re strong, but I’m stronger.”
He didn’t move as she drew nearer, but Hermione could see the way his muscles tensed, like a snake coiling, preparing to strike. She paused when she was inches away from him, peering up into those black-hole eyes. She wondered if he could smell her perfume.
“You think you’re so quick… but I’m quicker.”
There was a heartbeat of silence. They stared at each other, rigid and still.
Then their wands were drawn at the same moment, flashes of magic filling the air.
Chapter 21: The Duel
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
How does one capture speed in words?
It was a struggle that Hermione herself had come across, both in her reading and her writing—particularly in Umbridge’s class, where her desire to be rebellious and dismantle the oppressive system had competed with her desire to acquire top marks at any costs. When constructing those elaborate essays, trying to describe exactly how a spell was performed (in theory), Hermione often struggled to explain just how quickly one needed to move their wrist or twist their wand or think for optimal impact. How many ways were there to explain that it was fast?
There was no description apt enough. The more she tried to explain speed and its importance in how one moved, both in the physical movement and in the rapidness of one’s thoughts while casting nonverbally (the only place where speed had a home in spell-casting), the further from the point she seemed to drift. A whole page to describe a moment that in reality lasted less than a second; a novel for a heartbeat. It didn’t make sense.
When she and Riddle drew their wands, it was fast.
Her flash of red was met with his flash of silvery-blue; Hermione recognized it as a vanishing spell. Instantly, her stunner was not only effectively blocked but absorbed. It pulled in on itself and disappeared into non-being; that is to say, everything.
The use of such a complex and unnecessary spell to block her curse was not lost on Hermione.
Scowling, she raised her wand up with another wordless stunner, which was once more vanished, disappeared. She struck again and again, advancing one step with each flick of her wand as Riddle reacted in turn by stepping back, eviscerating her blows with a warping of silver and blue, like bursts of fire being swallowed by black holes.
The eruptions of light and empty, hungry vortexes caused the nearby hag to run, knocking over a trash bin as they scrambled away. Hermione, knowing that Riddle would not be satisfied to simply counter her spells for long, reacted to the sound of its crashing to cause a ruckus of her own—she apparated with a purposefully loud crack, vanishing on the spot before Riddle, whose lips had begun to quirk at her incessant onslaught of fire-red stunners.
She appeared a few feet behind him, wand held high. The next curse left its tip not a moment later, aimed directly at Riddle’s back, but he was too quick—he too vanished, apparating with an even louder crack that made Hermione flinch with its sharpness.
She knew where he would be before he reappeared, so she was ready. Hermione turned and fired another hex—for some reason, a body-bind curse was what she cast; it had flown from her wand before she had time to think—and as Riddle dispersed the simple spell she disapparated again, hoping to show up at his backside before he could recover.
His reaction was, again, just as swift—Hermione had only just landed when he too was gone in another deafening crack. She looked over her shoulder and there he was—Riddle, a materialized monster at her backside, his wand beginning to glow with the promise of a curse.
She vanished again.
It all happened so quickly it was disorienting. She and Riddle vanishing and reappearing two steps behind each other each time, their apparations so loud and in such quick succession that it must have sounded like a lightning storm thundering in Knockturn Alley. There was no time to visualize clearly another location, only here, now, go. Hermione was soon beginning to feel ill; apparition, as complex and draining as it was, was not magic that was meant to be used so frequently. She wildly imagined checkers pieces, one black, one red, hopping over one another, on and on and on across a board that had no end. Her body was a compressed and released entity, drifting between states of high-pressure torture in which she could not breathe to reality, where cool air filled her lungs too quickly and yet not fast enough. The world was a blur of darkness and the alley’s broken cobblestones; of nothingness and Riddle’s ever returning, relentless form.
They both seemed to come to the conclusion that this insane tactic of vanishing and reappearing a mere two feet away had no longevity at the same time. As Hermione reached her limit on apparition she cast a powerful shielding charm, covering herself the moment she was able to once more think straight. When she turned to see Riddle, appearing again behind her, she was surprised to see that he had done the very same thing.
They stared at each other, each in their own bubble of shimmering protection, wands still raised, ready. Hermione was gasping for breath and her braids were beginning to fall out, leaving strands of hair sticking to her forehead. Riddle was also breathing heavily. As they assessed each other, recovering from the unprecedented amount of apparitions—Hermione wondered for a moment what the record was for successive apparitions in a duel—Riddle’s lips twitched. It was something dangerously close to a grin.
It infuriated her.
Hermione was the first to strike, choosing to fire off a lesser-known spell known as the numbing curse— sine sensu. Used largely in hospital settings to subdue patients, it was deceptive in how dangerous it could be. It caused the victim to feel dazed, floaty almost. It was actually a rather pleasant experience, much like the Imperius curse, but with none of the morally repulsive, controlling aspects.
Her main reason for using it, however, was in how it operated. Unlike stunners and many other hexes, the numbing curse was purely mental. It therefore was able to pass straight through her shield charm, which only guarded against physical threats… as well as straight through Riddle’s.
Her aim was true and her spellcasting impeccable, but Riddle was too fast. Whether he recognized the very unassuming looking spell she was not sure, but he did see the way it soared through her shield without issue right away and made a quick enough deduction. He chose to dodge the old-fashioned way—he simply stepped to one side, avoiding her curse and flourishing his wand arm as he did, returning fire with a non-physically restrictive hex of his own.
Hermione grit her teeth as she too moved aside, feeling the wave of magic rippling off whatever spell he’d used. She didn’t recognize it—something pastel blue and oddly light, which probably meant it was dark. As their shields both dissipated due to their focus shifting to more offensive spells, she fired back. Riddle pivoted just slightly, and her spell flew right over his shoulder. His hair rustled in the breeze caused by her silent hex that, had it struck him in that pretty face of his, would have caused his teeth to grow to highly unflattering proportions.
He was smiling now—widely. His teeth were fucking perfect.
Hermione fired again, the flash of a simple disarming hex soaring towards him. Riddle flicked it away with an easy counter-spell, but Hermione fired again, hoping to get him before he could recover. He was too fast, blocking her spells with a deftness that was not only frighteningly quick but which he managed to make look effortless. Riddle deflected her curses like he was batting away flies.
Scowling, Hermione took a different chose a curse that could not be so easily deflected—a bright green beam like a lasso exuded from the tip of her wand, but rather than use it like the magical lasso as it so often was, Hermione flung it at Riddle like a whip. Riddle apparated just before it could strike him; it cracked the stones of the pavement where he had stood just a moment before.
Feeling somewhat smug that she had gotten him to resort to vanishing again—and knowing that it couldn’t have felt pleasant, considering how many times they’d just done that—Hermione nonetheless turned, vigilant and wary. She whirled the whip up and around her, brandishing it over her head, ready to strike again when he revealed himself.
His curse came from the shadows, further down the street where that poor hag was still struggling to get away, stumbling on their tattered robes. At first, Hermione thought his aim was simply off. The curse, a strangely dark yet shimmering spell, missed her by several feet, soaring above her head.
The smirk that had begun to form on her lips fell.
The curse was not meant to hit her. Instead, it struck the very tip of her bright green whip, where it frazzled and hissed.
Hissed.
Hermione’s whip was transfigured before her eyes. Diamond patterns that shimmered in the same toxic green of her own magic manifested themselves, and at the point where the spell had struck, a serpent’s head with shiny, black eyes was born.
It was no longer under her control. The snake was a wicked curse and it turned on her, reared its head and barring impossibly long, glowing teeth. A guttural sound issued from its mouth, and it was going to lunge.
She didn’t have a choice—Hermione yanked back on her wand, dissolving her own spell and therefore the curse at the same time. The snake vanished in a puff of angry black smoke.
Riddle took advantage of her distraction by firing another hex, and Hermione was not able to move quickly enough—she was struck by something that felt like pressure on her leg for a split second, then was tugged harshly to one side by an invisible force around her ankle: a simple tripping spell. Hardly catastrophic, but effective. Hermione fell to her side, her elbow slamming into the pavement.
She didn’t let it stop her for a second—even before she hit the ground she was striking back, a blood-boiling curse flying through the air, straight at Riddle’s chest.
He didn’t block it nor dodge it as she’d expected. Instead, with a wide flourishing of his wand arm, Hermione watched, perplexed, as Riddle seemed to brandish it. It was wandwork like she had never seen before—it was as though Riddle had caught the curse with some containing spell of his own. He whirled it around in wide circles, the red glow casting shadows around the alley and causing them to dance in violent circles, then he redirected it.
At the hag.
The poor creature that had been trying so hard to escape this outbreak of a duel howled, a piercing scream that echoed in the ally. They fell, crying out as the curse—Hermione’s curse—took hold. Their hood fell back and Hermione, who was also on the ground in the alleyway, saw what was beneath the tattered robes. It looked to be a woman. Not terribly old, either; she couldn’t have possibly been more than forty. Her matted brown hair fell to her shoulders and her eyes were big, blue, and streaming tears as they rolled around in her head.
Horrified, Hermione saw the way her skin began to blister, erupting in tiny boils. She would be dead in moments.
Hermione looked at Riddle to see that he was looking not at the hag, but back at her. He was staring, unmoving, his lips slightly quirked and his head tilted to one side, curiosity in his eyes. He could have struck again then, while Hermione was down, but he didn’t. He was waiting.
Only a fraction of a moment passed between them like that, but in it so much was conveyed. Hermione understood with adrenaline-soaked, lightning clarity what Riddle was doing. He had re-aimed her curse at a third party; an innocent bystander. Hermione now had a choice to make and she had to make it quickly. She could use this pivotal moment to stand, to strike, to do something to regain her footing… or she could cast the counter-curse.
Counter-curses were more complex than the curses they sought to undo by nature. For one, they had to stop the curse that was actively unfolding; additionally, they had to undo whatever damage had been done. To reverse the blood-boiling magic that was currently killing this woman would require more time and effort than the initial curse had; it would take several seconds more, a time frame that was practically a surrender in a rapid-fire duel like this.
Riddle was watching her, and in those eyes she saw the question clear as day:
Who are you really?
Hermione cast the counter-curse.
She inhaled a deep breath and focused—to not do so while practicing such magic could be disastrous—and managed to at least get to her feet as she did. The woman stopped howling soon thereafter, the curse successfully lifted. She rolled to her side and immediately vomited all over the cobblestones afterward, an unfortunate if common side-effect. It was better than boiling to death from the inside out.
Hermione was unsurprised when the disarming spell struck her.
It came from somewhere behind her, where Riddle was assuredly lurking as he observed her stupid act of altruism. She knew it would be coming, but there was no help for it—she had made her choice and it had put her at a disadvantage. Her wand was tugged from her hand in a flash of magic, and while she tried with all her might to keep ahold of it, the walnut slipped up and out of her grasp.
The good news was that it had not, at least, gone flying backward and towards Riddle, as it might have if she were a weaker-willed opponent. The bad news was that it was still rolling down the alley away from her, leaving her defenseless. She barely had time to lament its loss before she felt him.
Rather than strike her down with another spell, Riddle encircled her from behind with his body. He caught her from behind, one arm wrapping around her midsection and pinning her arms to her side, the other holding his wand against her throat. He had her back held tightly against his chest and his breath was in her ear as he made a sound that was almost a laugh; a dark yet feathery sound that made her heart stop.
He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. Hermione, though she did not peer out of the corner of her eye to see his face, could feel his victorious smile. She could practically hear every smug, haughty, demeaning thing he was about to say, as he was surely considering which words would sting the most.
Hermione leaned forward slightly, her body slumping in his grasp defeatedly. Riddle shifted back in a natural response to counter her weight. He did laugh, then.
“You must—”
Whatever it was she must have done, Hermione never found out. She threw her head back, hard. Her aim was as solid as ever, and this time there was no spell to block her—the back of her skull collided with Riddle’s face, smashing into his nose.
Riddle swore and stumbled back; Hermione did not hesitate for a second. Head ringing with the impact of her blow, Hermione dove forward, snatching up her wand from the ground. The walnut blazed in her hands and Hermione whipped around, ready, knowing that her act of what one might call muggle violence during their duel would undoubtedly have consequences.
Still, it didn’t stop the rush of satisfaction she felt upon seeing Riddle standing there, battered and seething. He had one hand covering his face where she had hit him, blood pouring from his nose. She granted him the same courtesy he’d given her when he’d tripped her—she flashed him a haughty look while she allowed him a moment.
Riddle’s eyes were blazing as he silently cast the necessary episkey. His gaze never left hers as he did, and the bout of white, healing magic illuminating his eyes revealed more rage than Hermione had ever seen in their depths. They didn’t look any less hateful when he vanished the blood.
Hermione’s smile widened. Riddle struck fast.
Hermione dodged and fired back and soon they were dueling in earnest—the wandwork was quick, chaotic and yet precise as their bodies mirrored one another’s with each step, dodging, turning, reacting. Hermione caught one of Riddle’s hexes with one of her own midair and decided to take a leaf out of his book, turning whatever it was not into a snake or badger or anyone’s emblem at all, but into a swarm of angry, metallic-gold hornets. They buzzed in a furious cloud and Riddle, unable to pinpoint a single one to strike, came up with another tactic—he thrust his arms up and conjured a massive, frigid gust of wind, sweeping the hornets up and away, into the darkening sky and out of sight.
The turbulence whirled around them; Hermione’s hair was now completely loose, fluttering in tendrils around her in the breeze. Riddle himself was a vision—he was the center of the cyclone, the eye of his own, constructed tornado.
Hermione fired another stunning spell and he dodged, sending his own curse in response—Hermione turned on the spot and there was flash after flash, spells cast that always just missed their target; Riddle was agile and quick but so was she; Hermione was dancing and her skirt was billowing in the wind and there was magic everywhere, in the air and in her hands where the walnut burned and her heart was beating fast and hard—
She had just dodged a particularly bright curse from Riddle when the winds, as well as the rapid succession of spells, suddenly stopped. Immediately wary, Hermione went rigid, wand poised and aimed at Riddle’s heart. She was surprised at his expression. He looked not ferocious and focused as he had just a moment ago, but almost… concerned? It was a very foreign-looking expression on his face, especially considering that they were actively trying to destroy each other.
Hermione’s eyes narrowed and she drew in a deep breath, and that was when she noticed a smell—an awful smell, and strong. What was that? Fearing that Riddle had cast something for which she had no knowledge, Hermione looked around, her wand still held high and ready, and why was he looking at her like that…?
Hermione gasped, loudly and horrifically, when she saw what it was.
Her robes… and her hair.
She may have dodged Riddle’s last curse with her body, but the same was not true for the rest of her. The hood of Hermione’s robe was fringed, the frayed fabric breaking off, but she hardly cared about that.
Her hair.
Hermione’s long, perfect hair that had been knocked loose in the duel was absolutely incinerated on one side. She held a tragic tress between her fingers, and where it had once fallen nearly to her waist it now ended at her shoulders. A solid ten inches of length had been destroyed, and another inch above that looked fried and felt like plastic and it was terrible and her hair; her hair was now lopsided and ruined and though she knew it was just hair it was her hair and she didn’t know if it would simply grow back; she didn’t yet understand what the Time-Turner had done to her and that was why she’d refused to cut it and now her hair was gone and it may never, ever come back—
Hermione was still holding the frayed ends in her fingers when she looked back to Riddle. He was watching her with an apprehensive look on his face, easily the closest thing to afraid that she had ever seen on him.
The shock and horror that had stilled Hermione’s mind did not do so for long.
The fury came forth in the form of fire; Hermione saw red as she slashed her wand towards Riddle, thoughtless with hate as the tip of the walnut erupted in a spell she didn’t even know she knew. A fireball like a shooting star flew in Riddle’s direction, the heat of it scorching the air. Riddle dodged it, but barely; Hermione didn’t give him time to recover.
One after another after another she attacked, howling not in incantations but in an endless, wordless rage, each wild slash of her wand exploding with another bright ball of deadly flames. It was all Riddle could do to dodge them, Hermione had him on the run and her wand was a burning emblem in her hand and she was mad with the rush of power she felt. He had burned her hair, but she would burn him alive.
With every fiery curse that Hermione cast, Riddle’s wary expression began to shift, transforming into something else. Strangely, infuriatingly, his lips were starting to turn upwards—but it was not the same, arrogant smile he had aimed at her before.This smile was twisted, more demonic, a grin made all the more devilish as it was illuminated by her flashes of fire. It was the same smile he had worn when he’d first seen the locket in the memory, an expression that made him look less human, more frightening.
It was a smile that was hungry.
It only made her angrier.
Hermione let out another bellow rage, and a long stream of flames erupted from her wand. Riddle, still wearing that dark grin, finally stopped dodging and struck back.
Fire met ice as the two streams of magic collided, erupting in a shower of blazing sparks. Hermione held her spell strong, and the two pushed against each other, sending waves of heat and frost billowing out chaotically around them. More, Hermione thought, and her wand buzzed in her hands. More power.
The fire did grow brighter, but at a cost. Hermione hadn’t noticed it before, but the onslaught of curses she had been throwing, one after another with no regard, had drained her considerably. Hermione’s hands were beginning to shake as she used both to hold onto her wand, steadying it against Riddle’s opposing curse, and she realized what was happening.
Magical exhaustion. She knew the feeling; she had given everything she had in her Unspeakable training more than once. Everyone had a limit, and if she kept this kind of spellwork up much longer, she would soon be so drained that she wouldn’t be able to cast a simple summoning charm. She could feel it happening; the fire was beginning to fizzle. Riddle saw it, too. So he hadn’t just been dodging her fire simply because it was all he could manage, she realized. He had been using her own rage against her. Riddle’s smile was even wider now as he made eye contact with her above the vibrant, colossal sphere of their magic. His expression said everything his words did not:
I have you now.
Hermione thrust her wand harshly to one side, dragging her fire and Riddle’s whirlwind of ice along with it. The sphere of destructive magic went flying into the wall of an old building, where it crashed with a thundering sound and sent bricks flying everywhere.
She didn’t stick around to watch the destruction—Hermione ran, sprinting down the alley and then, as she barely managed to dodge another hex sent by Riddle, dove into the open doorway of a dingy looking old shack, a wild idea seizing her.
Hermione remembered every time she had been outwitted. The failures stuck in her mind like flies caught in a spider’s web, and she filed each of them away, revisiting them when she had time to research and figure out just where it was she had gone wrong.
One of these instances was when Draco Malfoy had outwitted them all with his use of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder in conjunction with his Hand of Glory. She remembered how helpless they had all been, scrambling around in the dark, unable to see each other or the Death Eaters as they infiltrated the castle.
She remembered it, and when the war was over, really over, Hermione had gone down a bit of a rabbit hole, studying both the artifact that was the Hand of Glory and the Peruvian Darkness Powder. She had learned then that the powder was based on a curse, a spell that operated in exactly the same way, causing a veil of darkness that was impenetrable to see through. Also fascinating was that, when the spell was performed with an incantation and a wand rather than powder, it became tied to that which produced it—the witch or wizard who cast the Peruvian Darkness Curse alone could see through it if they were skilled enough to cast an additional spell, and only their wand could also produce a light that would penetrate the darkness. No other wand would be effective; therefore no one else could cast any spell that would allow them to see in that dark.
The issue was that it was an exceedingly difficult spell to perform—hence the creation of the powder to act as a conduit. No ordinary witch or wizard could produce the Peruvian Darkness Curse, and even less could do so in a way that would allow them the ability to see through it without a Hand of Glory… but Hermione was no ordinary witch.
Glancing around the shack she’d just run into, Hermione was confident that no one could possibly live here. It had the undeniable air of being abandoned long ago, empty save for a few rats that had gone scurrying off at her chaotic arrival. She focused on the task at hand and tugged off her gloves in a hurry—the movements here needed to be impeccably precise, and they were a hindrance—before raising her wand.
“Nisi me omnia summa in tenebris,” she whispered carefully, and Hermione felt the pull of her magic exuding from her, through her wand, into the air. Darkness fell all around her, as impenetrable and whole as the darkest of nights. It consumed the tiny shack, shadows filling into every corner, every nook, every crack.
It had worked perfectly, of course, but the sensation of magical exhaustion was undeniable. Hermione felt a little dazed and her skin all tingled, a mildly unpleasant feeling buzzing in her bones. Her other senses heightened in a way that made her far too aware of things she would rather not focus on—the scratchy feeling of the burned fabric of her hood; the smell of her singed hair. It was another side effect of draining oneself of their magical power. The other, non-magical senses became slightly sharper, but not always in a helpful way. Every inhale made Hermione aware of just how dry her throat was; of how much she had taxed herself in this duel.
But it will be over soon, she told herself as she gripped her wand tighter. Hermione edged to the back of the room, into a corner, leaning against an old counter. Riddle would surely come after her, thinking she’d trapped herself, only to realize too late that nothing he could cast would penetrate this darkness. She would disarm him when he tried, blind and unable to see her spell coming.
Then she would have him.
Hermione waited, keeping as quiet as she could. The thought to cast a silencing charm around her crossed her mind, but she did not dare waste any more of her magical reserves. She only needed to cast one more spell today, and when she did, it would assure her victory.
Riddle tested her patience. He was taking a long time, she thought, yet she was not that surprised. She would also be wary to enter a dark building knowing that her enemy waited inside. But she knew that he would come, his arrogance serving as his downfall yet again. He would think that she was too weak now to put up a proper fight; he would enter haughty and short-sighted and she would have him.
When he came, he was quiet as a ghost.
Hermione couldn’t help it—seeing Riddle cross the threshold into her dark corridor was… distracting. There was something mesmerizing about watching him, knowing he couldn’t see her back. Riddle walked through the impenetrable veil of shadows with a surprising amount of fearlessness and grace; and it was this poise that caused Hermione not to immediately strike. He isn’t holding his wand, she realized with great shock. No one, least of all Tom Riddle, would do that unless they had something else up their sleeve. Hermione watched him carefully.
It was almost imperceptible, but she picked up on it. Riddle’s body had the oddest… sheen to it; a strange, shining glimmer when he moved just so. It made Hermione’s muscles tense. He had cast some kind of spell on himself, something preemptive to protect himself, no doubt, and she did not know what it was. What if it caused her hexes to rebound? What if it did something worse?
Unwilling to find out, Hermione waited, racking her brains for another, non-magical approach. She looked around the room; perhaps there was something she could use? There was not much—a broken, empty picture frame that hung haphazardly on the wall; an old mop resting in what she hoped was an empty bucket in the corner. Not wanting to risk the sound opening a drawer would probably cause, Hermione began to edge, quietly, towards that corner. She couldn’t believe that her ingenious plan was dissolving into attack the future dark lord from behind in the dark with a mop, but there she was.
Holding her breath, Hermione took one step, slowly, then another, never turning her back on Riddle. He had come further into the room, every fiber in his oddly gleaming body poised, ready to strike. But he couldn’t see her. That much was obvious, and the fact that he had not even tried to cast a spell for light told Hermione that he knew exactly what curse he was dealing with. He was not relying on his sight, only on his other senses and whatever that protective magic was.
She swallowed hard and kept moving. Whether she was really going to go through with beating him with a mop handle or simply making a run for it made no difference now—the door was also on that side of the shack, and Riddle was right there, blocking her path. She watched as he closed his eyes and went perfectly still in the darkness. He looked rather too unnervingly like a statue for a moment, reminding Hermione of the figures from the fountain in the park. Then he took in a deep, slow breath.
Hermione didn’t have time to even wonder how when he lunged.
She was slammed backward, the collision of his body against hers enough to knock the wind out of her. He had her pinned against the wall, his much larger chest hard against hers, one of his hands wrapped around the wrist of her wand arm, holding it against the wall as well, while the other was on her throat. She could feel the cool metal of his ring against her skin. His fingers tightened on her neck and Hermione let out an unbidden, choking plea.
Slowly and purposefully, Riddle’s right hand slid onto her fist where Hermione still held her wand in a death grip, until he too was touching the walnut.
“Lumos,” he whispered into her ear.
Hearing his command, the wand lit up, bathing them in light. It wasn’t a very good spell at least, Hermione thought bitterly; the light was dull and flickery, like her wand did not much appreciate some stranger demanding simple charms from it while in the hand of its rightful owner. Still, the small light was more than enough for Riddle to see, and he stared at Hermione with triumph in his eyes.
Hermione tried to shove him off, bucking under his hold. He only smiled as he held her there with ease. “Surrender,” he said, his hold on her throat tightening. It was becoming hard to breathe.
“Never.”
She bucked again and this time Riddle’s smile fell; he pushed her harder against the wall and his other hand tightened on her wand. “Surrender, or I’ll snap your wand in half.”
Riddle’s hold on the walnut shifted and he angled it so its tip was against the wall; it would not take much to bend and break the wood as he exerted more pressure, and—
“Okay,” she choked out. “Okay.”
“Say it,” Riddle hissed. He lessened his hold on her throat but not her wand.
It took all of her willpower to do it. Hermione bit her lip and internally she was screaming, but out loud, in the hollowest murmur, she spoke.
“I surrender.”
“Now drop it.”
Hermione’s face twisted in rage, but when Riddle started to push harder against the wall she didn’t hesitate. She would not let her pride destroy her wand. Hermione released her hold, and Riddle took it gently from her shaky, weak grasp.
He hadn’t moved an inch in any other way. His chest was still pressed against hers; his hand was still around her neck, even if he wasn’t currently trying to choke her. Hermione’s heart began to speed as he inhaled another deep breath, his nose grazing the skin on her neck.
“Your perfume,” he murmured, “is far too strong.”
Hermione’s heart skipped several beats, her thoughts whirling as she processed why he might be saying that.
Did Riddle find me in this dark, dingy room because of the smell of my perfume? Because of the hint of amortentia?
“You are far too strong,” Riddle went on. Still speaking in her ear, still breathing in her scent. “Too strong for your own good, Hermione… you lack control.”
In another sharp movement, Riddle reached down and scooped her up, moving her easily and setting her, bizarrely enough, so that she was sitting on the counter. “You need guidance,” he said, then pulled her forward roughly so that she was perched on the edge, her knees on either side of his waist as he stood before her, their faces now much closer to eye level.
“You need me.”
Hermione’s previous anger disappeared like a candle being blown out, replaced by something far less empowering. “Tom,” she said, and she found that her voice was as shaky as her hands were. “Tom, please.”
Please what, she wasn’t quite sure—let me go? Give me my wand back? Just forget about this whole impromptu duel in the middle of an alley thing?
Riddle ignored her. He lowered his face to meet hers and for a moment she was certain he was going to kiss her, but then he moved lower, instead letting his lips graze her loose, frayed hair and her shoulder and he moved lower still, until he was kneeling before her.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Hermione stammered, her face burning. She tried to push herself back but Riddle grabbed hold of her knees, trapping her at the edge of the counter.
“I have won,” he declared, his dark eyes flashing up to hers. He still held her wand, had it pressed against her skirt as he started, with a wicked grin, to touch her thighs. “I am claiming my reward.”
Hermione’s mind froze as she watched, paralyzed with shock, at what Riddle was doing. With the hand that was not holding her wand he pushed her skirt up even higher, his touch somehow both gentle yet forceful, and he was on his knees and he was pressing his lips to the inside of her thigh and her skirt was entirely up now, and when and how the fuck had she gotten so hot and now his fingers were twining around her knickers—
That action was enough to startle Hermione back into movement again. Her whole body jolted, and Riddle’s hold on her knees became hard, keeping her there.
“Y-you—Tom, you can’t, you—”
Hermione couldn’t even say the words. Riddle smirked. “I can’t what?”
The blush that scoured her face made Hermione’s earlier, fiery spells seem like cool summer breezes in her memory.
Riddle, capitalizing in her inability to speak, wrapped his fingers around the edge of her underwear again. Just as Hermione had the unwarranted thought that she was glad she had worn a cute pair that day she regretted it, too—Riddle pulled hard, and the flimsy fabric snapped on one side, exposing her.
Hermione gasped but didn’t have time to be upset. He pressed his lips to her skin where they no longer where, the bend where her thigh met her hip.
She was entirely unsure what to do. There was a part of her that screamed, Kick him! Smack him! Punch him in the side of his head, grab your wand from his hand, and run!
But then there was another, much less reasonable voice that said something very different.
Let him do it. Let him fucking do it.
Tom Riddle was kneeling in front of her, kissing her hips and edging closer with his tongue. He was about to put his mouth on the most intimate part of a mudblood and he didn’t even know it and that, Hermione thought, was too golden an opportunity to pass up.
She had just come to that insane rationalization when his lips grazed her, his mouth ghosting over that most intimate part and making her almost jump again. She felt his breath when he let out a sound that was another near-laugh, but he didn’t wait for Hermione to react. His tongue flickered out against her, directly against her clit, and the feeling was like electricity shooting up her spine.
“Oh,” she breathed. Riddle’s free hand was on her leg, keeping her skirt up, and the light from her wand still in his other hand flashed a bit brighter.
Riddle lapped out again, lower this time, dragging his tongue up, and when he got to her clit he kept it there, swirling it around in tiny circles of light and not-so-light pressure. Hermione couldn’t help it—she moaned, embarrassingly loud, because she had never felt anything like that before, and oh God he kept doing it, whatever the fuck he was doing with his tongue, and of fucking course Tom Riddle, Slytherin heir and parselmouth, would be fucking amazing at this.
Hermione lost all sense of morality as she rocked against him, her fingers threading in his hair. She didn’t give the slightest shit right then that this was the man she was supposed to be killing—his tongue was heaven and already she could feel herself getting close to the edge of bliss.
“Ohmygod,” she gasped when, just as she thought he couldn’t possibly do anything that felt better than what he was already doing, Riddle flicked his tongue in a different way, sucking gently on her for a moment before returning to a faster, slightly more forceful rhythm. Words were pouring out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Oh god, Tom, yes, just like that...”
In a motion that was so sweet it was nearly unbelievable, Riddle slowed, reaching with his free hand to grab hold of one of her wrists. He pulled it towards him before twining his fingers between hers, holding her hand, all while continuing those blissful ministrations with his mouth. He looked up to meet her gaze for a moment, his cheeks slightly flushed and his lips wet with her, and if Hermione were the sort of lady who swooned, she might have done so then.
His eyes closed again a second later, returning his focus to the much more important task of absolutely ruining her. Hermione’s back was arching and Riddle was relentless and she was a mess, moaning and gasping and she was so close and she knew that he knew it too and she didn’t care, she was going to come onto Tom Riddle’s tongue—
“Yes, Tom—ohh—”
It was just as she was on the cusp that he stopped. He moved so deftly that Hermione’s lust-addled mind seemed to lag; even as she watched what happened, witnessing it all, she was also blank with confusion and denial.
Riddle had pulled hard on the hand he’d been holding so sweetly a second before. More precisely, he had yanked on her finger. Her ring. He had also stood, and was now holding her diamond-encrusted, enchanted ring. He twirled it between two fingers right in front of her face, and while Hermione was staring at it, numb with disbelief, that could not be her ring in his hands, it could not be… Riddle was staring at her.
His expression went from horribly haughty because he had gotten her ring to something else. His still-wet lips parted as his eyes fell from her face to her neck to her chest, and Hermione, ringing in shock, followed his gaze.
She could see them, glistening in the dull light from her wand. The golden spirals glittered even brighter in the semi-darkness; they shined as though each line was covered in more diamonds than any piece of jewelry could ever hope to have. Hermione’s hand went unconsciously to her neck, where she knew they started, but as she looked down a feeling of horror began to take hold.
They were still spreading.
She hadn’t looked in days, but the spirals of gilded lines went further down her chest now, she was sure of it. And if she were to look beneath her robes onto her shoulder, she was positive they would be there, too, longer and more twisted than before.
“Fascinating,” Riddle murmured. Hermione’s eyes snapped back to his face, but she remained otherwise frozen. He was looking at the golden spirals, examining the ones he could see on her neck and upper chest with interest gleaming in his eyes. “I assumed something else,” he said, his voice oddly conversational, considering. “So many witches use these trinkets to cover up faults, blemishes and deformities… I thought maybe you were hiding a scar.”
Those words managed to inject a bit of life into her. “You… what?”
“But this…”
Riddle once more ignored her. He dropped her ring onto her wand, letting it fall around the wood and making Hermione think wildly of a plastic children’s toy she once had when it settled against the thick part of the handle. He then touched her throat. Where he had held her so violently before, he now grazed the skin with great care, almost reverence, tracing the golden loops with his fingertips.
“I am not often surprised, but this is… surprising,” he admitted. “I’ve never seen anything like these marks before. What are they?”
His eyes found hers again. Hermione knew she failed abysmally at hiding the fear on her face; she did not know. She did know exactly what they were or what they were doing, and it was a fear she had been suppressing for so long, and now Riddle was here, staring at these marks that haunted her dreams as much as he did.
Riddle’s brow rose. “You don’t know,” he said. A statement, not a question.
Hermione said nothing. Her heart had gone from frozen to beating very hard and fast.
“You don’t know… but you want to. Need to. Is that right, Hermione?”
She knew he wasn’t using any sort of Legilimancy; she would have felt that if he tried. Riddle was only reading her face and hazarding guesses. He assumed he was right but he didn’t know, he couldn’t know.
“You need help,” Riddle continued. If the absolute lack of response bothered him, he didn’t show it. He looked amused, if anything. “It’s as I said before… you need guidance.”
His hand fell down to her thigh, slipping back up beneath her skirt, towards her hips.
“You need me.”
The smile—that fucking perfect, arrogant smile—finally snapped Hermione back into action, and anger reared its head. Anger that he burnt her hair, that he had bested her in their duel, that he had tricked her into getting her ring off her finger by bringing her to the edge of a promise he had never intended to fulfill because this was Tom Riddle and he was a monster and a snake and she would be his end.
Hermione pushed on his chest, not hard enough to give the impression that she was forcing him away, but so that she could adjust herself where she sat on the edge of the counter. She slid one hand up to meet his where it rested on her hip, then, never breaking eye contact with him, started to touch herself where his mouth had been just moments before.
It was glorious, watching the conflicting expressions storm Riddle’s face. Surprised, confused, curious, turned on. He clearly didn’t know how to feel about a witch with her legs spread wide, positioned on either side of his waist, touching herself when he was right there, clearly willing to do so.
Hermione panted hard as she worked herself in the masterful way she knew how; Riddle’s eyes were darkened with lust but also wide with comprehending shock. Hermione committed that look to her memory forever as she came, hard, the orgasm rippling through her as she bit back what might have been a scream had she let it escape her throat.
Riddle stared at her in shock. Hermione grinned, then pushed herself forward so that she was closer to him. As her hips collided with his she couldn’t help but notice how hard he was.
“No,” she said, straining to lift her chin high, to whisper the words directly into his ear.
“…I don’t.”
Hermione snatched her wand and her ring, pleased to find that his grip had gone slack. The light became twice as bright in her hand, the walnut wand hers once more, and in that blinding flash Hermione focused. She disapparated on the spot, leaving Tom Riddle behind, alone in a darkened room.
While she left with a mountain of newfound fears, she left with a great deal of satisfaction and some relief, too. For Riddle, distracted by the beauty and mystery of those golden lines, had missed the scar he had suspected, the jagged black lines that stained her skin with a curse.
Mudblood.
Chapter 22: Point of No Return
Chapter Text
Studying Death was like studying shadows in the dark.
Yes, they all knew it was real—irrevocably so. Yes, they all researched the veil and saw the ghosts and learned to cast the curse of flashing green—that moment of magic that was as close as death could be in light and space—but none of these things were Death itself. There was only one way to know that. This was the mystery they learned about in the dark; an edge they drew as near to as they dared, all the while knowing they would never truly touch it.
At least, not yet.
As uncertain as the subject was, Hermione would never say that studying Death was uninteresting. It was as fascinating as it was nebulous. And complicated. The three new recruits, unsurprisingly, spent longer in this sub-Department than they had any other thus far.
In one particularly dreary lesson, they spent hours studying a phantom that they hazarded had died and manifested sometime during the 9th century. It was an ancient spirit that had deteriorated to little more than a waif, haunting the inside of a cursed jewelry box of which no one knew the origins.
Studying ghosts had been one of the slightly more concrete areas to study in Death. Time, and circumstance, it turned out, played a major part in the existence of those who had refused to pass on. In some rare instances, Hermione was shocked to learn, ghosts could escape the realm of in-between. It depended on the matter of their death and why their spirit had decided, ineffectively and against the laws of nature, to cling to life. If those circumstances could be addressed successfully, the ghost could then move on. When the Department of Mysteries was fortunate enough to have a skilled Perpetual in Death employed (it was not a popular choice), this was often a part of their job: seeking out newly formed ghosts and attempting to right whatever wrong had caused them to linger… in the rare instance that their salvation was possible.
This practice of assisting ghosts was not to be confused with exorcism, in which a spirit was merely banished from wherever it was currently haunting and forced to take their ghostly business elsewhere. That was what happened to Myrtle—she’d been exorcised by a Ministry official to Hogwarts after haunting her schoolgirl tormentor, Olive Hornby, for so long. The spirit they studied in the Department of Mysteries had also been exorcised, forced into the jewelry box by someone, though no one knew who had done it or why, and was now trapped there—thus making it the perfect, portable ghost for them to study.
It was too bad this waif was so ancient and so far removed from reality that it could barely speak anymore.
Between moments of studying the damned and researching the veil, the new Unspeakable recruits were forced to practice mental magic. Holloway was disappointed but not surprised when one of them eventually dropped out of the program. Selwyn had reached his limit with the Dementors, and one day, without any sort of announcement, he simply did not come to work.
“Two out of three isn’t bad,” Holloway had said that morning, shrugging.
Hermione had thought it odd then when he’d said it, for he seemed certain that she and Jackson would not follow suit.
A rather optimistic assumption, Hermione thought bitterly as she made her way to the lower level. She had to force those feelings aside, though—and that was the real struggle with learning advanced Occlumency.
No feelings. No emotions. Control yourself.
Breathe.
“Look sharp, Granger. Jackson. We’re not facing the Dementors today.”
Hermione whipped around, looking about at her mentor in surprise. “I thought we were practicing mental magic,” she said.
“We are. But as you and Jackson have been performing well with the Dementors, I am going to start teaching you practical applications. With people.”
Jackson sighed in relief, but Holloway immediately crushed the hope Hermione knew was forming there. “We’re not done with the Dementors,” he clarified, “we’re just not facing them today. Now.”
Holloway led them to a different hall, one that was typically used for dueling. “Granger,” he said. “You first. Stand across from me. Jackson, you step aside and observe. Then we will switch. Understood?”
They both nodded. Hermione took her place across from Holloway, who stood there, his wand stowed.
“I am going to have you perform Legilimency on me,” he said. “Imagine that this is the scenario. I am your adversary. I hold a secret you desperately want. I know you want it. It is also a secret that, should you attain it, I know I am lost—perhaps even all of the wizarding world is lost.”
“That’s a pretty big secret,” Jackson muttered.
Holloway did not smile at his attempt to joke. “That is the precise measure of the secrets you are learning to keep here, Jackson. The most powerful, dangerous kind… the kind that, in the wrong hands, could wreak devastation on the magical world. That is why learning advanced Occlumency is a requirement this early on in the training process. If you do not succeed at learning this, your training ends.”
“Rubiconem suum,” Hermione said softly.
Holloway nodded. “Precisely. I will be showing you rubiconem suum, the point of no return… and you will then be learning how to execute it yourself. I trust you have an educated guess as to what, precisely, rubiconem suum is, Granger?”
“Yes,” Hermione said, though she did not like the conclusion she was coming to, however logical and necessary it was. “I imagine that it is a practice which prevents someone from breaking into your mind when they practice Legilimency against you… something that prevents them at all costs.”
“Correct,” said Holloway.
“Sorry,” Jackson said, “but I don’t fully understand. How does it prevent someone from breaking into your mind in a way that’s different than regular Occlumency?”
“Intermediate Occlumency is the practice of shielding the mind. Rubiconem suum goes beyond this; it is the move you must make when regular Occlumency techniques will not work—when you are, in a word, outmatched. It is the practice of retreating into yourself to a place where no one can surface—not your attacker… not yourself.”
Jackson gawked at him. “So it’s committing suicide!?” he shouted.
“More or less, potentially, but not in the way that you’re thinking,” Holloway said. “It won’t kill you outright—so long as you do it right—but it will drag you into a state of deep unconsciousness. Done correctly, rubiconem suum will plummet your mind into such darkness that your thoughts will no longer be accessible. Your body will become unconscious—a vegetative state that can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on how deeply you retreat.”
“Oh,” said Jackson. “Well. That’s not so terrible, is it? Why is it called rubiconem suum then? If all it does is make you pass out?”
“Imagine, Jackson,” Holloway said, and Hermione could tell by the edge in his voice that he was growing impatient. “That you are someone who is attempting to garner some deep secret from me. Something that would give you a great deal of power. Then, when you attempt to extract that secret, I fall into a magically induced, comatose state. Entirely inaccessible. What would you do with me? Tuck me into a nice warm bed? Wait patiently for me to wake up and try again? Though you would surely have the foresight to realize that I would just do it again.”
“They would kill you,” Hermione finished bluntly. “If someone wanted to know something you knew so badly they were willing to invade your mind, then find out its impossible… well, they might try and torture you in a more traditional way to get it, but if you just kept retreating into yourself like that, passing out…”
“Typically, resorting to the use of rubiconem suum means that you are at the very end of your rope. It means you have no wand, no comrades, no way to run. It is the last resort. And as an Unspeakable, it is your duty to use it if you ever find yourself in that precarious situation. Only those who are willing to die with the greatest secrets of magic are worthy of carrying it.”
He turned to Hermione. “Rubiconem suum is achieved by calling forth the feeling one experiences when near a Dementor. It is that state of emptiness, that darkness, that will take you there… the place in your heart where all your fears are born. That is the key. If one is very, very skilled at this technique, it is possible to drag your attacker into a similar state of unconsciousness… but that is advanced. Still, if you are able to do it, it could save your life. This is what I shall attempt to do to you, Granger. It is your job to perceive what is happening and then pull back before you sink into darkness with me. Now, attempt to break into my mind.”
“Wait,” Hermione said, shaking her head. “So… if I succeed and am able to pull back… you’ll still pass out?” she asked.
“Indeed,” said Holloway, smirking. “But I am very good at the technique. I will be back up again in minutes—as will you, should you fail to disengage in time. Now… if you please.”
Feeling only a little wary, Hermione nodded. She lifted her wand and pointed it at her mentor and boss. “What knowledge should I be looking for specifically?”
Holloway’s smirk grew. “Something that you know I know that I haven’t yet told you,” he said. “Something you’re interested in. I’m sure you have plenty of options to choose from there.”
Hermione laughed. He wasn’t wrong. “Okay,” she said. “Here it goes… Legilimens!”
Hermione dove headfirst into the mindset of her superior. The soul, Hermione thought, searching. I want to know more about the soul.
It was a topic that Holloway refused to answer questions on. Whenever Hermione tried to bring it up, he would firmly say that it was too advanced, too complicated, too soon. Someday, Granger, he would promise.
Show me what you know of the soul.
Hermione caught flashes of their previous—and short—conversations about it. She saw herself looking frustrated; she saw Holloway looking amused.
Then everything shifted.
The memory she was witnessing flickered and dulled, like an old television with bad reception. She felt a strange thrill of cold.
Then the memory went dark.
It was overwhelming, that darkness, and it shocked her to her core with how abruptly it came on. Hermione’s breath caught in her throat and when she tried to inhale, it was impossible. She was suffocating in a world of blackness and frigidity; she was being pulled into it and she was falling, falling…
Hermione inhaled a shuddering breath in the twilight.
She landed with little grace; the moment her feet touched the ground she fell, and her body shook with the impact. Every fiber of her being was vibrating. When she placed her palms on the ground, pushing against the grass, she felt each blade with an obscure acuity. Her ears rang and her heart raced.
Magical exhaustion.
Hermione threw up all over the grass.
It was far from her finest moment. Hermione had certainly pushed herself too far before, but this—driving herself to the point of being sick—was a first. Hermione grimaced as she wiped the back of her mouth with her hand, disgusted. She didn’t even have the strength left to vanish the mess.
Remember your training.
Breathe.
Hermione took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. She scooted backwards, crawling away from the mess, feeling too weak to yet stand. She sat up and, wand in hand in still trembling, examined herself.
The good news was that she hadn’t splinched herself.
The bad news was that her hair was half-destroyed, she felt like she might be sick again at any moment… and those golden tendrils were there, sparkling, dazzling. Growing. Hermione shoved her robes off one shoulder, tracing a single swirl to find that it extended much further down her chest than before, starting to curl around her breast. On her forearm the word mudblood stood out—a stark contrast to the haunting beauty of the lines left by the Time-Turner.
Unable to stand looking at any of them a moment longer, Hermione readjusted her robes and pulled the ring from her wand, then shoved it back on her finger. The golden lines, as well as the black curse, vanished from sight.
Finally, and a bit amusedly, Hermione paid her surroundings proper attention. She supposed the Forest of Dean had become something of a haven for her, for that is where she once more found herself. A place to hide, she thought to herself. A place to steal away from the whole world.
She knew precisely where she was in the forest, too. With a bittersweet nostalgia, Hermione recognized a particularly knotty tree—though it was a smaller, now. She pushed herself up, slowly making her way towards it.
Hermione smiled forlornly when her still-trembling fingers touched the bark—its roughness amplified by the magical exhaustion. The letters weren’t there, of course, but in the future, they would be. Right here, above this knot.
HJG
Hermione had carved them into the trunk when she and Harry were here, tiny little script. Her initials. She’d used a sharp rock she’d found, not her wand. Hermione wasn’t sure why she had thought that was such an important thing to do, but she had. Some very small, very muggle act of rebellion while they were hiding in the woods. Something that said ‘I was here’… when she knew it was likely that she would soon be dead.
She and Harry had stayed here alone. It was the first place they had apparated to after Ron had left… what Hermione had thought was the point of no return for him.
Hermione rested her head against the unmarked tree and cried.
The emotions came unbidden, and when they came, they came as a downpour. Every feeling that she had been bottling up for so very long came out, forcing a storm of unwanted feelings. She was stuck in this time and she would never go home; she would never see her parents again, nor her aunts and uncles, nor her cousins—all muggles who could either care less about magical politics or who knew nothing about them. She would never again see Draco Malfoy and his arrogant, stupid scowl; nor Harry and his goofy grin; nor Ron… Because even though they had become estranged for a time—and he deserved her silence and evasion after what he did, he did—Hermione had still believed he would come back.
He always came back.
But none of that mattered at all anymore because Hermione was totally, utterly lost. No one was coming to save her. Not Malfoy, not Harry, not Ron. Not Holloway or anyone from the Department of Mysteries. Whatever world she had left she had left behind entirely. That timeline was moving forward without her, that much was painfully obvious now, and she had landed herself elsewhere.
And she would never leave.
She knew it was stupid to feel so devasted by this fact now when she had known that it was true for quite some time. Stupidly, Hermione had been holding onto some shred of hope that she was wrong.
Her chest heaved and her body crumbled as she sank, sitting at the base of the knotty tree. She cried.
Hermione didn’t know how long she sat there, weeping like a fool. It felt like far too long. She tried to pull herself together, but when she went to run her hands through her hair, her fingers catching on the fringed ends, she started crying all over again.
Her hair.
She couldn’t recall exactly how long she had waited before the Time-Turner magic had healed her wound before, but she didn’t think that would matter now. If it was magic in her veins, how could it affect her hair? It was dead. It had no blood flowing to it.
Unless there is something more at play, Hermione thought, feeling like she was grasping at straws as she did. Perhaps the magic is not only in my blood, affecting me that way, but in my… in my soul?
Hermione scoffed at herself at the notion. Like soul magic would give a rat’s arse about her dead, burnt hair.
She was about to lose it once more at the thought of the inevitable—a radical haircut—when a pop startled her. Hermione pointed her wand, ready, cursing herself for not being able to set up protective wards when she landed and being equally unable to defend herself, now.
But this intruder didn’t need to know that. “Who’s there?” Hermione said sharply, wand held high. She scrambled to her feet. “Show yourself!”
“Misstress Smith.”
Hokey’s eyes were wider than ever as they stared at her.
Sighing in relief, Hermione lowered her wand. “Hokey,” she said. The relief quickly turned to suspicion and fear. “How long have you been following me this time?” she snapped.
“Hokey has not been following Missus,” Hokey said. “Hokey was only asked to check on the young Mistress a moment ago, because you has been gone on a walk for a long times now. It’s dark. Mistress Smith is being worried.”
The elf was right—it was now properly dark out. Hermione had forgotten that she was supposed to just be out on a leisurely walk with Abraxas Malfoy. Hokey edged closer to Hermione, taking in what she was sure looked to be a disaster—she had puffy, watery red eyes, disheveled, fringed robes, and burnt hair.
“Where is young Master Malfoy?” Hokey asked, looking about the deserted forest. “Is… is you okay, young Mistress…?”
Hermione shook her head, unable to see a way out of telling the truth… or a version of it at least.
“Young Master Malfoy offended me, so I left. I felt I needed a nice walk all on my own. And… and…” Hermione’s breath hitched and she paused.
“Was Mistress attacked?” Hokey asked. The tiny elf sounded surprisingly, uncharacteristically hostile.
Hermione shook her head. “No, no… I’m an idiot, Hokey. I did this to myself.”
Hokey was clearly confused. “Don’t make me try to explain,” Hermione said through another sob. “I just tried something stupid and it backfired horribly. And now—now my hair is totally ruined!”
Hermione buried her face in her hands. She knew that Hokey would not push her for an explanation, obedient house-elf that she was, but Hepzibah certainly would. And what on earth would she tell her vigilant faux-aunt? That she’d accidentally set herself on fire?
And that wouldn’t even be untrue, Hermione thought miserably.
“Would Mistress… Would Mistress like Hokey to fix your hair?”
Hermione froze mid-sob. She looked at Hokey as though she’d never properly seen the elf before. “Could you do that?”
“Hokey will do whatever my Mistress asks of me,” said Hokey. Then, proudly, she added, “Hokey is a good house-elf.”
Hermione hurriedly got on her knees before Hokey. She placed her hands on the elf’s shoulders and said, firmly, “Hokey, put my hair back the way it was.”
Hokey nodded. She focused her giant eyes on Hermione’s singed tresses and frowned, raising her tiny hands towards her. Hermione watched in astonishment as the strands slowly, magically, reappeared. She had a moment of wonder as she tried to logically assess what was happening—it must be a combination of multiple vanishing spells used to disperse the burnt ends and a very complex, multiplied duplicating spell, recreating the last segment of healthy hair and extending it onwards, giving the impression of new growth—but she didn’t much care. Only moments later and Hermione’s hair was as long as it had been before, perfectly whole.
Hermione scooped Hokey up into a huge hug the moment she was done, all thoughts of magical and emotional exhaustion forgotten. “Oh, thank you, thank you, Hokey,” she gushed, holding her tight. “You are a blessing and a treasure.”
Hokey blushed brightly at the praise. “I is only doing what a good house-elf does, young Misstress,” she said.
“You are the very best,” Hermione said. “But… Hokey, do you mind if we don’t tell Hepzibah that I am an idiot who burnt my hair up? It’s horribly embarrassing, and I don’t see the point in worrying her since you’ve managed to rectify my blunder…”
Hermione knew that she could have commanded her not to tell, and Hokey knew it, too. But the fact that she had asked for her confidence instead made Hokey smile widely and genuinely. “Hokey is not minding at all,” she said. “If Mistress will also be allowing Hokey to fix her robes, that is.”
Hermione laughed. “Yes, please do.”
Hermione hugged her again when she was done, squeezing her so tight that she imagined the little elf was overwhelmed, but she couldn’t help it.
Hermione did have a family here, of sorts. She had just needed the reminder.
It was going to be hard to leave them, too.
Dearest Abraxas,
I do hope this letter finds you well. I write firstly to apologize. I am so very sorry for the way I acted the other night. My behavior was uncouth, and I should have never allowed my emotions to get the better of me. You did nothing to warrant such rudeness. I apologize.
I write secondly to inform of you my departure. By the time you receive this owl, I will already be gone. Though it would be kinder to say it is mere homesickness that pulls me back to America, I must confess that it is more a matter of boredom. While magical Britain certainly has a glamour all its own, it sadly does not hold a candle to the magnificence that is the enchanted underground of New York City. I have grown bored of London. I do hope this doesn’t offend you; I am merely telling the truth—and I am nothing if not a witch unafraid to tell the truth.
Best of luck with all the infamous ladies of London that are sure to come your way.
Sincerely,
Hermione
Chapter 23: New York City, New York
Chapter Text
February 7th, a Tuesday, 1950, New York City, New York, USA.
Hermione was not one for keeping a diary herself, but she was starting to think that there might be some merit to having one. That was how she would start each entry: the date and the day of the week, the year, the city, the state, the country. Maybe even the precise location, depending on what had occurred that day that was worthy of archiving.
The Warlock New York, between 52 nd and 53 rd Street, somewhere between the muggle version called the ‘Warwick New York’ and what should have been the end of the street but was not.
It was an ideal location by all standards, close to muggle and magical attractions alike. And oh, how they melded! New York was like nothing Hermione could have prepared herself for, let alone magical New York. Hermione had read a great deal about both versions of New York City, of course; she had researched as much as one person could when she initially concocting this plan in the public libraries in London. Tom Riddle could have asked her how tall the Empire State building was, and Hermione would have answered without a hitch: ‘1,200 feet—American measurements, you know—and 1,454 to the tip.’
Not that Tom Riddle would ever ask such a question. No, Riddle would have asked about the location of the MACUSA, perhaps, to which Hermione would have said, ‘It’s located in the Woolworth Building on Broadway, which is simultaneously accessible to no-majes, although they see nothing of the magic there.’
Which, no doubt, would have sparked a great deal of interest from him. Riddle would have wanted to know how that was possible, what spells were in place, what was it like, being in a magical establishment right alongside muggles…
Which was half of why Hermione was here.
Had that conversation come up, she wouldn’t have been able to describe in great detail what it was like to be in the Woolworth Building. Books could only take her so far; there was no way text could convey the feeling of being in a crowded space that was filled with magic that simply went unseen by most of the population. She came to learn that it was like living somewhere where there were two languages, and if you didn’t speak both you simply missed half of what was there, right in front of you. Magic.
Hermione saw it all.
It hadn’t even been a full week since she’d taken the International Floo to Manhattan, but already Hermione knew this magical culture was very different than that of London’s. The witches and wizards were so bold. At first, it had terrified her. The International Statute of Secrecy! It seemed that every five minutes someone was on the brink of shattering it here. And yet, they never did.
The reasoning for this came in a few different forms. One was the very strict patrol of magical law enforcement. The MACUSA had a large, tiered, and exceptionally well-trained team of aurors who would respond to breaches of magical misconduct with a near alarming swiftness—memory-modification charms were cast quickly, frequently, and imperceptibly when needed.
Another reason was the enchantments that were in place all over the city. Imbued in the very stones of the Manhattan’s foundation were ancient, runic spells against muggles, ones that would gently avert their gazes from anything else magical in the vicinity, so discreetly that Hermione couldn’t help but admire the genius of it all. It was how New York City operated—the only way it could, in fact. Manhattan was so compact. Wizards and witches and no-majes were piled on top of each other, often literally when it came to the architecture. Physically, there was so little room for separation… and it bled into the culture as well.
Hermione learned this by starting where most curious people started when in a new city: the tours. Both the muggle and the magical sort, Hermione took every tour of the city and its great attractions that she could. In just six days’ time, she had scoured the island, visiting colossal museums, climbing every well-known skyscraper, and even went to see a show on Broadway—something she had wanted to do since she was young. She saw the show ‘Alive and Kicking’, which was quite the artistic overview of muggle life in 1950, she thought.
She was not alone in attending such a show, magically speaking. While there were many magical restaurants, shopping venues, clubs, art galleries, and other attractions, wizards and witches just as often frequented the non-magical ones. Hermione could hardly blame them—the muggle cuisine here was amazing, as was the art, shopping, and nightlife. Witches and wizards wore stylish, no-maj-appropriate attire just as often as anything long and robe-like, too, which Hermione was quite happy about. The style of the day was lovely, in her opinion. Dresses with wide skirts that hit just below the knee, cinched in at the waist, and, at this time of year, paired with stockings, long jackets, and thick scarves. She adored it.
And yet, despite this blending of cultures, Hermione came to learn that the attitude towards muggles was just as reprehensible here as it was in Britain, if not worse. While they were happy to utilize the fashion, art, and culture of no-maj people, the American witches and wizards looked down on their non-magical counterparts with scorn. Hermione had been able to glean that this was the attitude in her research—in 1950, Rappaport’s Law was still in effect, which banned magical and non-magical unions—but it was quite different to witness the discrimination. It was not the same sort of outward and obvious repulsion that she saw pureblooded wizards and witches display in London. In New York, it was more of a sarcastic, under-the-breath scorn. A result, undoubtedly, of the compactness of this city.
The sheer hypocrisy of it all bothered Hermione immensely. To look down on a whole group of people just because they were not born with magic as lesser-than, yet then to see no issues with borrowing from their inventive culture all the time, was a huge, unaddressed problem.
Hermione was glad, then, that she had created her fake mother Monica to be the sort of witch who was not like this. The fictional Monica Smith had been unusual in that she saw no-majes as people too, of equal caliber as everyone else, and was against such acts like Rappaport’s Law. It allowed Hermione to share the same views without being ‘out of character’ as Hermione Smith, her devoted daughter.
Hermione took in all the sights she could, learning as much as she could, all on her own. She stayed in a beautiful, magical hotel, and treated herself to the very best the city had to offer, both magically and not.
All the while, she thought of Riddle.
She wished she could say that this was not the case, but there was nothing to be gained in lying to herself. She wondered what he was up to back in London, and she was dreadfully curious to know how he had reacted to her sudden departure. No doubt Abraxas Malfoy had shared that letter with him, or had at least told him what it said. And what would Riddle have done then? Hermione had made sure that she was already gone before that letter was delivered. She had been able to leave London just two days after their duel, much to Hermione’s surprise. When she had informed Hepzibah that she wanted to go back to New York, Hepzibah had merely sighed and given her a fond smile.
“So like your mother,” she had said, touching Hermione gently on the cheek. “I know it’s no use trying to make you change your mind once you’ve made a decision… Have Hokey help you pack, dearie.”
Hermione had thought it before and she would think so again: the human mind and its ability to accept, invent, and warp memories truly was fascinating.
Had Riddle inquired about her at Hepzibah’s yet? Hermione imagined that he had, probably under the guise that he was there on Borgin and Burke’s business. She could just imagine Hepzibah’s face when he did, seeing right through his façade when he would attempt to nonchalantly ask about the well-being of her precious niece who had so recently left, only to promptly ignore his inquiry and inform him that she wasn’t interested in buying or selling anything, no thank you, good day, Mr. Riddle, goodbye.
How Hermione wished she could have been a fly on the wall when that conversation happened!
But after that, what? Would Riddle seek her out? Hermione was not entirely sure. On the one hand, she felt confident that she had intrigued Riddle enough that he would pursue her. Then again, he might realize that wanting to pursue some American witch across the world just because she was interesting when all he knew was what city she would be in was an absolute waste of his time, considering he was busy trying to become the world’s most fearsome sorcerer.
Did he look at Hermione as someone who might fit into those plans? Perhaps, perhaps not. Hermione had demonstrated that she was powerful and intelligent, naturally, but she had also unwittingly demonstrated that she would not follow him blindly, if ever. She had failed tremendously at painting herself as an ideal future Death Eater. It was difficult to say what Riddle would do.
Hermione was giving him two weeks.
Two weeks, and if he did not pursue her in that time, then she would safely assume that he was not coming. It was this—Riddle’s decision to chase her down or not—that would determine her next move. Hermione had plans in place for both possibilities. Several plans.
Always have options, Holloway had told her, time and time again. Always have a backup plan, and a backup plan for your backup plan.
…She hated that she desperately hoped he would come.
Hermione hated that she found herself missing him, with his witty banter and crooked grin and black-hole eyes. She hated that she found herself looking for him everywhere as she explored the city, always keeping an eye out in case the illustrious Tom Riddle decided to make an appearance and attempt to whisk her away (or murder her, or both. Who knew how Tom Riddle felt about her these days?).
Once, in that first week, she could have sworn to high heaven that she saw him—a pale face in the crowd, staring right at her. But the expression he wore was like nothing Hermione had ever seen on Riddle before. It was not his usual, smug smirk, nor was it frigidly angry or unreadably blank, but almost… desperate. Painful looking. Full of too much torrid emotion for anyone like Riddle to ever have.
The face had vanished in the bustling crowds, and though Hermione looked, she was soon certain that she had imagined the whole thing.
February 10 th, a Friday, 1950, The Rosebush, New York City, New York, USA.
It was one of her favorite coffee shops in the city, located in the heart of Times Square, and she frequented it often. It was a magical establishment, but much like the Woolworth building, muggles visited it, too. To them, however, it was only a flower shop. On one side of the large room were rows and rows of beautiful flowers, of all different kinds and colors, and on the other, an overtly magical coffee shop. The muggles walked right past the counter where kettles and dish towels floated on their own accord, filling cups and cleaning messes, and where one of the baristas waved a wand behind the counter conducting the whole affair. It was right there in front of them, and yet, due to several complex and undetectable enchantments, they didn’t notice it at all.
(Although one time Hermione heard a muggle comment on the odd aroma of coffee beans while looking at lilies, to which the flower shop attendant had said something about one of the new blooms having a similar scent. After he’d left, the attendant shouted at the barista to ‘Get it together with the warding over there’, and that was when Hermione had learned the flower shop attendant was a witch, and they all worked on deceiving the muggles together).
Hermione blew over the piping hot cup of coffee she’d ordered, reflecting once more on the date. Her eyes scanned the small gift shop section of the café, looking at the selection of notebooks and journals they sold. Perhaps I should start a diary, after all, she thought as she dared to take her first sip of coffee. Perhaps it will help me keep track of things.
There was something about that date that stuck out to her. She frowned, trying to figure out what it was. Hermione never forgot an important date, and her mind itched as she tried to recall what was special about February 10th, 1950. Something to do with goblin wars, perhaps? Binns was always lecturing about the important dates during the goblin wars…
“Your change, Miss,” said the barista behind the counter. Hermione jumped, nearly dropping her coffee.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. She accepted the few Knuts he offered her. “Thank you.”
Hermione turned and left The Rosebush, turning the knuts over in her gloved hand while she held the still-hot coffee in the other. She had taken a decent amount of gold with her when she left London, but not too much. Despite the fact that she was, ultimately, saving the woman’s life, Hermione did not feel right taking an excessive amount of Hepzibah’s wealth—even if she could modify the poor woman’s memory again to forget she had that much; even if she didn’t need it. Hermione was supposed to have an inheritance of her own from Monica Smith, after all. She therefore only took enough to live for about three months.
Perhaps many more, if I stop being so frivolous with my funds, she thought to herself. But no—part of her persona was being wealthy, so it was imperative that she experience many of the finer aspects of the city. It’s research, she told herself every night when she went to sleep in what was perhaps the most lavish hotel room she had ever seen. And when she bought new clothes. And when she enjoyed fine dining and Broadway shows and the occasional, ridiculous magical cocktail.
She nearly laughed at herself. Research, indeed. Either she was going to have to start living within more modest means, or she was going to have to figure something else out soon.
Hermione took another sip of her coffee, and it warmed her bones in the chilly, February air. She pocketed her knuts and wrapped her scarf more tightly around her neck. Times Square was not the spectacle it would have been in her time, but it was a spectacle nonetheless. It was an even more impressive sight at night than early in the morning like this, when neon signs adverted everything from Broadway Shows to sporting events and the crowds were thick and restless. It was the epitome of magical and muggle melding, too—right alongside signs that blared advertisements for things like tickets to muggle musicals were magical ones that promoted things like some upcoming witch’s concert or a Quidditch match update—
Hermione started, and this time, she did drop her coffee.
February 10th, a Friday, 1950. Quidditch.
The memory came to her as though she was suddenly watching a movie, reliving a scene from her past life.
Hermione was in her first year. It was before she had been found by Harry and Ron in the bathroom with the mountain troll, so it was before she had any friends. She didn’t really get along with the other girls in her year in Gryffindor, who called her a bookworm and laughed at her hair and teeth, so she had grown accustomed to keeping to herself and focusing on her studies. Which was what she did all the time anyway, and it was what she had been doing on the evening of September 12th, a Thursday, 1991.
Hermione had been tucked away in the corner of the common room working on her Potions essay when Fred and George Weasley had, as they so often did, caused a bit of a commotion.
“A Nimbus 2000!” Fred had declared loudly. Everyone in the common room, including Hermione, had turned to see the twins accosting an embarrassed-looking Harry Potter next to very pleased but jealous-looking Ron Weasley.
“That’s the best broom there is these days!” George had said. “Didja hear that everyone? Harry Potter is not only officially on the Quidditch team, but he has a Nimbus 2000!”
Everyone cheered, except Hermione, who had frowned at the news. First years weren’t even supposed to have brooms, but Harry Potter had the best broom possible? Seemed like some extreme favoritism to her.
But she didn’t care much for flying anyway, so Hermione had shrugged and gone back to her homework. Or tried to, anyway.
“We’ll have the best Seeker Hogwarts has ever seen!” Fred had gone on—loudly. “You’ll be a regular Reginald Davis!”
“Er, who?” Harry had asked.
He might as well have asked who Dumbledore himself was, judging by Fred’s scandalized expression. “You don’t know who Reginald Davis was?” George had asked, equally aghast.
“He grew up with muggles, George,” Ron said.
George ignored him, as did Fred. “Reginald Davis played for the Chudley Canons in the 1940s and ’50s,” said Fred. “He was a prodigy! And a Seeker, just like you. He always caught the Snitch. In every single game.”
“Wow,” Harry had said. “That’s amazing… He must have been incredible to never lose a match!”
“We didn’t say that,” George said. “His team wasn’t nearly as good as he was. He was wasted on them. They made it all the semi-regionals one year. Historic match.”
“February 10th, 1950,” Fred went on, almost dreamily. “What I wouldn’t give to have been there for that.”
“The Canons might have gone on to the World Cup if they hadn’t gone up against Brazil, but that team was ridiculously good then. Totally undefeated.”
“Davis catching the snitch right away was their only hope, but that hope was squashed almost at once when the Brazilian chasers made about seventeen goals in a row in the first thirty minutes,” Fred continued, looking depressed.
“But… but Davis still caught the snitch?” Harry had asked, looking perplexed at the thought.
“Sure did. It was really just to end the game with a little bit of dignity. Better to lose by fifty points than over two hundred. Which they did. Ended up being two hundred to one hundred and fifty at the end of it. Game lasted less than one hour total.”
“So Britain caught the snitch but Brazil won the game,” Harry had seemed so astounded; Hermione could remember his face perfectly. “I never would have thought that could happen.”
“Never had before,” George had said, “and hasn’t since. But I bet it will one day! Mark my words. And we will see it coming when it does.”
Harry had frowned, then. “Not with you, of course.” Fred had clapped Harry on the shoulder. “No, you don’t have a useless team like Davis did. You’ve got us in your corner!”
February 10th, a Friday, 1950.
Today.
“Excuse me!” Hermione left her dropped coffee cup behind and rushed over to a wizard manning a booth beneath a sign, one advertising this very game: TODAY! BRAZIL VS. BRITAIN, SEMI-REGIONALS. The game was happening in Britain, which meant it was starting in just two hours!
“Yes?” the wizard said. He smiled. “How can I help you? Interested in watching the game?”
“I am,” Hermione said breathlessly. “But more importantly, I want to place a bet.” She almost laughed. “I’m feeling lucky.”
The man nodded knowingly, like he had spoken with many witches and wizards happy to gamble away their gold. “Certainly. Step inside our game room and you will find everything you’re looking for, Miss.”
He gestured for her to enter the establishment behind him. Immediately, a door appeared, manifesting between the crack where one building ended and another began. This establishment, then, was purely magical. No muggles wandered in once the door appeared, only by.
“Thank you,” Hermione said, then went inside.
She bet it all. Every galleon, every sickle. Even the scant Knuts in her pocket.
When Hermione entered that game room, she was a witch who was moderately secure with her finances, at least, for now.
When she left, she was filthy fucking rich.
Feb 14th, a Monday, 1950, New York City, New York, USA. 100 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan.
In a magical loft apartment located in Manhattan that she surely had no rights to own, and yet, here she was.
If I ever make it back to my time, Hermione thought as she watched the bubbles in her champagne glass dance, I may marry a Weasley after all, if he’ll have me.
Surely she owed George that much.
Thanks to the loud and dominating conversation between him, his brothers, and Harry, she knew a fact that she would otherwise never have known. Hermione had never cared to study things like Quidditch, but because they had proclaimed that story to the entire common room, she knew about that game and, most importantly, when it had happened.
She sighed, a wave of that familiar depression overcoming her.
Fred Weasley was dead. In her time, he was gone, George was alone, and Harry and Ron…
Stop it, she scolded herself. Now was not a night for being sad. It was a night for celebrating—hence the champagne.
Draco Malfoy was certainly right about one thing, and it was a lesson that Hermione had learned more than once since she ended up in 1950.
Gold was power.
It was astounding how quickly things could move when you had a nearly unending number of galleons, and Hermione definitely had that now. She had made a bet with incredible odds, as she had even bet that the game would not last an hour. The man who had taken her bet had accused her of being a Seer at the end of it, which, of course, he could not prove, and which wouldn’t have affected her winnings, anyway.
A Seer. Me!
Hermione had never laughed harder in her life.
As of today, she was worth over two hundred thousand galleons. That was a lot of gold in her time.
In 1950, it was a lot more.
The first thing Hermione had done was bought the finest loft that was on the market. It was shocking how quickly one could get the keys to a new place when willing to pay in cash, right then, right there.
“I’ll keep all the furnishings, too,” she had said to the stunned witch working as a realtor. “Just give me your price.”
Power.
Hermione thought that of all the crazy, unlikely things that had happened to her since she had left Draco Malfoy alone in her flat in 2001, the Time-Turner around her neck, this might have been the most unbelievable. One day, she’d demanded an appointment to see an available loft, and did. That same day she made an offer. The next day the sellers had agreed, and the day after that the deed was transferred. Earlier today, she was given the key to her new, fully furnished, spectacular home. Such a process would have taken weeks if not months in the muggle world, and yet here she was, having steam-rolled the process in just days all by herself.
Never again would Hermione have to worry about where she would stay. She now legally owned a home—as Hermione Jean Smith, of course.
And what a home! This loft surely must have only been on the market for as long as it had because of the price, for it was like something out of a dream. Tall ceilings, pristine wooden floors, a massive kitchen, and a dining room that was to die for. One of the bathrooms (there were four total) had a tub that she thought might give the prefect’s bathroom at Hogwarts a run for its money. There were three bedrooms and a balcony that came off the master, which reminded Hermione deeply of her room at Hepzibah’s. The whole place was full of all the enchantments one could think of (and many which Hermione would never have considered). The dishes cleaned themselves when set on a specific part of the counter and then put themselves away, the floors were automatically cleaned and polished once a week, and her clothes would pick themselves up off the floor and go straight to the wash.
Hepzibah had sent her the final touch that turned it from a house to a home. Hermione had written to her, telling her that she had decided to get a new place (for a fresh new start; please do write me here from now on!), and Hepzibah had responded by having the painting she’d bought at the WAG gala delivered to her. The Garden now hung in her living room above the fireplace, the little girl in her dirty dress forever in the roses.
Killing, saving.
And while she enjoyed lounging by the fire and admiring her art, it was not Hermione's favorite place to relax. Perhaps the best part of the entire loft was the roof. Hermione was there now, sitting beneath the enchanted lights, watching the sun set from quite possibly one of the best views in New York City. She could see the Statue of Liberty clear as day, standing proud on Ellis Island, welcoming both non-magical and magical people alike to the United States. The streaming, low sunlight glistened on the sea, and Hermione thought she had never seen a more beautiful sight.
Hermione gasped when her dress suddenly billowed up in the breeze. It was enchanted to stay warm on the roof, but that did nothing to stave off the wind. It was time to go inside anyway, she thought. She’d imbibed a bit too much in the champagne she’d opened, and she was tired. Hermione took her glass and headed inside.
It was a good thing that there were so many advanced cleaning charms imbued in this place, she thought as she descended the elaborate, spiral staircase that led to the roof, because otherwise the upkeep would be horrendous. Hiring someone to do it would be a risk—she could trust no one—and she wouldn’t even consider a house-elf.
But there’s no need, Hermione told herself, sipping her champagne. She paused to look at herself in one of the free-standing, full-length mirrors. Her hair was long and straight, not a strand out of place. Her makeup was impeccable and her red, lace-patterned nightgown that she had just changed into was made of the finest silk.
Hermione removed the ring from her finger.
The golden lines appeared, spiraling, glittering, growing. They were still spreading across her chest and down her arm. Her neck, where the Time-Turner had been slammed into her with the kind of force only a mother in peril could harbor, was especially bright. All the other lines originated from there, like delicate, gilded vines. With the ornate frame of the mirror around her, she looked like something out of a classical painting. Like a myth, like a Goddess.
Hermione took another deep drink of her champagne. She lifted her glass afterward, and the bottle—which had been set on another specific, enchanted section of marble counter in the kitchen—floated to her, refilling her glass. The bottle was now empty.
This place is perfect, she thought, looking at herself. Everything is perfect. Whatever happens, whatever plan I must move forward with, I am safe. I have a home. I have gold of my own.
Which was very good to know, because today also happened to mark the end of the two-week period she had given herself to decide what to do. By her own rule, Hermione would admit that after tonight, Tom Riddle was not coming for her.
It wasn’t lost on her that it also happened to be Valentine’s Day.
How ridiculous.
It didn’t matter.
“I have power,” she said to herself. Her reflection lifted her glass before she did, toasting her. Lips twitching, Hermione followed suit. “Cheers to us, then,” she said, then drank.
Hermione lowered her glass. She stared at her beautiful, gilded reflection a moment longer, then abruptly began to cry.
The torrid emotions, the ones that always seemed to be just barely kept at bay, overtook her. “What does it matter!?” she shouted. Who she was asking, she was unsure. Holloway? God? Herself?
“I don’t want to be here!”
She slammed the glass down onto the wooden floor. It repaired itself in an instant, floating back to the cabinet. Whole again. Shattered but unbreakable, just like her when she would pierce her skin just to watch herself bleed, then heal.
Hermione screamed in frustration.
“I want to go home!” she yelled at no one. Tears welled in her eyes but she wiped them away. She did not want to feel sad. She was angry. And suddenly, she knew exactly who she was talking to.
“Why haven’t you come to save me?” she seethed. She was looking at her own reflection but seeing everyone else. Draco Malfoy, who she had grown bizarrely close to, who knew what she had done in their time and how. Holloway, her boss, who would have gone to great lengths to find his most promising Unspeakable, surely, and with the whole Department of Mysteries at his disposable…
Harry, who was always willing to save anyone and everyone, but especially an old friend.
Ron…
“Why haven’t any of you come?” she asked. “Have I done something wrong? Do I… do I need to make the moment first for you to be able to find me here, in this world, in this time?”
Knowing it was desperate and ridiculous even as she was doing it, Hermione suddenly ran, heading to her door. She unlocked it. Was that right? Or was it better to have it locked? She wasn’t sure anymore; she couldn’t think straight. She locked it again, then unlocked it, then locked it, then stormed into her living room.
“Save me!” she screamed, looking up at the glittering chandelier that graced the arching ceiling. She made a note to have it removed as soon as possible. “Save me now!”
Nothing happened.
Of course nothing happened; no one had come for her yet and no one ever, ever, ever would. She had already accepted this so many times.
So why was she crying about it again, now?
Hermione sank to the floor in the entryway, tears streaming and chest heaving. The truth was that she knew exactly why she was crying now. She had lost her real family, she had lost her best friends, she had lost her co-workers, she had lost Draco Malfoy. She had left Hepzibah and Hokey…
And though it was blasphemous to think, in this moment, Hermione felt like she had lost Tom Riddle.
She curled into herself and cried until she passed out on the floor.
Hermione stretched out languidly, reveling in the feeling of grass against her limbs and sunshine on her skin. She inhaled a familiar scent and smiled—flowers. When she peered through her lashes she saw them, dozens and maybe even hundreds of flowers in every color. Daffodils, pansies, lilies, petunias. Roses. The wild kind and the cultivated kind. Bees and butterflies fluttered from bloom to bloom, pollinating the world.
Everything was beautiful and warm.
She sighed, not a sound of sadness but of contentment. Hermione had always loved being in the sun; she was the sort of person who could bask in its rays all day long and never burn. It was a trait she had inherited from her mother. In fact, she had inherited most of her traits from her mother—her skin, her eyes, her heart-shaped face. Everything but her smile, which she had her father to thank for.
She closed her eyes and laughed. And that, too, she thought, giggling again at the thought. She had the same laugh, the same sense of humor as her quick-witted, slick father.
When something rustled the grass near her, Hermione did not start. It was both unexpected and yet entirely expected that someone else should be here now—it felt both wrong and right. Another rustling sound and Hermione had the distinct sense that someone had just sat next to her. It didn’t bother her. She kept her eyes closed and breathed in the flowery aroma in the air.
“This is…”
Hermione wasn’t sure how much time had passed between the moment the person sat and they spoke. Seconds? Minutes? An hour? She turned only at the sound of the unfamiliar yet familiar voice, and was again both surprised and unsurprised at who she saw.
A boy. Perhaps eleven years old, maybe twelve. He was pale and thin and had black hair that shone like a polished stone in the sunlight. He was staring at her.
“This is what?” Hermione asked. She stretched her arms wide again, running her fingers along the grass until she found a stem. A dandelion.
The boy looked away from her, taking in the bright, flowering world that was like an eternal Spring. “Pretty,” he eventually said, but he sounded like he was unhappy with his answer even as he said it.
Hermione laughed. Yes, definitely her father’s laugh.
The boy shifted, effectively blocking out the sun and casting her in his shadow. Without the glare of the sunshine to obscure him, Hermione could see his eyes. Black. Darker and shinier than his hair.
“Where are you?” he asked softly.
Hermione giggled and held the dandelion in front of her face. What would she wish for? “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “It’s nice though, isn’t it?”
“I suppose,” the boy responded. He was still staring, still blocking out the sun. “Do you often dream of sunshine and flowers?”
“Oh,” Hermione said, then sat up in the grass. “Is that what this is? I suppose that makes sense. It’s far too nice here to be anywhere real.”
“Yes,” the boy answered. “It’s your dream, to be precise.”
Hermione refocused on the dandelion. “I guess it would explain why I’m not afraid of the bees, then,” she murmured, as several buzzed about her. A wish, a wish, a wish…
“Or me,” said the boy.
Hermione laughed harder than ever. “Why would I be afraid of you? You look positively harmless.”
For a moment the boy glared—a look which Hermione thought made him look more endearing than intimidating—but then the expression of anger passed. “Dream magic is a strange thing,” he said thoughtfully, carefully. Hermione was still looking at the dandelion. Perhaps she would wish for a new cat… She did miss Crookshanks something awful these days…
“Possibly the ficklest branch of Divination to study; impossible even, some say, due to the nature of it. I suppose it is rather difficult to truly study a form of magic that is nearly always forgotten the moment one awakes, no matter what precautions are taken, and which doesn’t translate into perceptible memories, even with a Pensieve.”
Hermione snorted and rolled her eyes. “Divination,” she drawled. “What a bunch of rubbish. And dreams? Please. It’s all nonsense.”
“I know you believe so,” the boy said. For someone so young, he sounded so old. “But it has its merits… We may typically forget our dreams, but there are aspects of them that we retain. Things that we carry into the waking world with us that we may not even realize.”
Hermione shrugged. “I suppose,” she said. “Why have you popped into my dream, anyway?”
“I used a rather complex enchantment,” the boy said, suddenly looking proud of himself. “A series, actually, which involved a number of runic—”
“I didn’t ask how,” Hermione interrupted, and while she would normally be deeply curious to know how he had done it, she somehow found herself uninterested in all that. “I asked why.”
His face went blank and his lips parted slightly. When he didn’t answer after a moment, Hermione grew bored and returned her thoughts to the ever-pressing issue of the dandelion. No, not another cat. She didn’t want to become one of those witches who never left her fancy house and had only a hoard of cats to keep her company.
What she needed—wanted—was a friend.
“No, friends,” she corrected herself out loud. “More than one. You can’t have just have one friend, can you? You have to have at least two so that when they fight you can be the mediator. Right?”
She nudged the boy’s shoulder, giggling. She didn’t wait for him to give his opinion on the matter—she took a deep breath and blew, hard, on the dandelion. Its fluffy seeds went fluttering about everywhere, catching in her hair, her dress, and even on the boy next to her. He blinked and swiped at his face when one landed in his eyelashes.
Hermione wasn’t too fussed for him. “Yes!” she said happily. The dandelion was now as bald as a freshly pulled, infant mandrake. She beamed at the bare stem.
“What was that about?” the boy asked. He looked both annoyed and curious.
“Getting happier,” Hermione answered cheerfully. She tossed the stem behind her.
The boy once more stared at her, his eyes calculating. “They say that we see people as they truly are in our dreams,” he said. “Or, at least, as we believe they truly are, on the inside…”
He hesitated, looking unsure, but then asked, “How do you see me?”
“You look like a boy,” Hermione answered unabashedly. “Like an innocent, little boy who knows nothing of the world.”
Clearly, he was not expecting that answer.
“What do I look like to you?” Hermione asked.
The boy’s appalled expression slipped into something more contemplative. His eyes roved over her, spending a long time around her face and hair.
“Fuzzy,” he eventually answered. “Like a bookworm.”
Hermione blinked, a little confused. “Like a worm?” she balked. “Like an actual worm?”
“No,” said the boy. He looked at her like he thought she was unwell. “Like a bookworm… Like someone who spends an awful lot of time… in a library.”
“Oh.”
Hermione fell back onto the grass, laughing heartily. To her surprise—and also not surprise—the boy fell on his back next to her, also laughing.
“You seem so happy,” he eventually said.
She turned to face him on the grass, a few violets springing between them. “Of course I do,” she said. “It’s hard not to be happy in the sunshine.”
He seemed to dwell on that for a moment before nodding. “Bees and butterflies and flowers and sunshine,” he murmured. He sounded a little bitter about it.
“What would you rather have?” Hermione asked.
The boy propped himself up on his elbows. He turned to look at her, those black eyes trailing along her neck like he longed to touch it.
“Where are you?” he breathed, ignoring her question.
Just then, the sun began to set. The eternal Spring was growing dimmer, colder. She didn’t feel like smiling anymore.
“You know,” she whispered back.
He stared. He reached one pale hand towards her, reaching for her hair, but then he pulled back.
The eternal Spring slipped away.
Hermione awoke with a headache, backache, and heartache.
Groggily, she pushed herself up. Her ring was several feet away from her. She must have dropped it. She scooped it up and shoved it on her finger.
It was four in the morning.
A massive clock on the wall mocked her as she stood, the blood rushing to her head as she did. She hated crying; it always left her feeling emptier rather than better. She grabbed her wand and made her way to the nearest bathroom, splashed her face with some cold water, and that, at least, made her mind feel a bit clearer.
What is wrong with you? she thought as she stared at her reflection again. She didn’t say it out loud though, because she didn’t want to hear the mirror’s response. She left the bathroom.
Hermione felt… odd.
Achy, yes, but also a bit out of sorts. Like something significant had shifted in her brain, but she couldn’t place what it was. Perhaps the champagne had been a bad idea.
Though she was making her way to her room, Hermione paused to watch the painting for a moment. The mud-covered girl had her little hands held high, her brows knitted as she worked.
Killing, saving.
What am I? Hermione thought. A killer, or a savior?
She knew very well that she had the potential to be both.
Filled with a sense of boldness greater than any she had ever felt, Hermione raced to her room. She pulled out her mokeskin bag from deep in her closet and opened it, dumping its contents unceremoniously onto her massive bed.
The locket. The cup. Not horcruxes, not yet.
The diary.
Hermione picked it up gingerly, this most dangerous and horrendous of cursed items. It felt so light and innocent in her hands.
Heart pounding, and ignoring every instinct in her body that told her to stop, put it away!, Hermione flipped through it. No dates were written here, no nothing. It looked like a plain, blank book.
Hermione went to her desk and picked up a quill.
I know what you are , she wrote, and though her pulse was racing with fear and adrenaline her hands did not shake, not even a little, because she wanted—needed—to know.
I know that you are a horcrux and that your name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. I know all about you. I know what you are capable of, and I know how to destroy you, permanently. I can create a storm of Fiendfyre here in an instant if I want to. So read this carefully and do what I say—show me how you were made. Show me the memory, in detail. Show me exactly how you killed Myrtle Elizabeth Warren. Show me now, or I will destroy you. Forever.
She set the quill aside. At first, the words remained there, black ink on off-white paper. Then the words ‘I know what you are’ began to disappear, sinking into the parchment. Slowly.
There was a pause after that, almost like the horcrux itself was processing that statement. It probably was.
The rest of the ink sunk away much quicker. Hermione watched in fascination as it all dissolved, her commands which she could not take back vanishing into the diary.
Nothing. Seconds that felt like hours stretched on while Hermione waited, her heart pounding like a drum in her ears.
She was not patient long. Hermione was just about to pick up the quill again when it happened—a bright, dazzling light emanating from the pages.
She didn’t have time to feel triumphant before she was being pulled into his world.
Chapter 24: The Diary
Chapter Text
It was nothing like the Pensieve.
Rather than consciously deciding to enter another realm that swirled in front of her, ready in a wide, inviting basin, this entrance was far more… forceful. Hermione did not jump but was rather pulled into the diary’s bright white pages—a brightness that expanded as she grew close, too close, until all she could see was white as gravity left and she floated, suspended in what she could only describe as ‘absence’.
Then, the darkness.
Hermione’s feet hit the ground at the very same moment that darkness enveloped her, and with it, the cold. Except, not really. It wasn’t actually cold, she knew that—one didn’t feel such things as temperature or the wind or anything physical when in a memory—but the idea of the cold. Because she knew at once where she was; she had come here in what should have been her seventh year at Hogwarts with Ron by her side.
The Chamber of Secrets.
No, she couldn’t feel the cold. But she shivered anyway.
Hermione looked around, her eyes narrowed as they adjusted to the darkness. It was quite surreal, she thought, to experience this place without feeling what she knew she should feel. She remembered viscerally how the wet floor had felt, how the cold water had seeped through the worn heels of her shoes. How the icy air had felt when she inhaled it through her chapped lips and sore throat; how her trembling fingers had felt when Ron’s clammy hand found hers.
She felt nothing but fear now.
Hermione’s heart raced as she looked, preparing herself for what she knew was coming. A shifting to her left. Hermione caught a glimpse of something large, something scaly, something monstrous, and though she knew she was not in danger here, she clamped her eyes shut.
She inhaled a deep breath. It can’t hurt you , she told herself. It’s a memory. It’s not here. It’s not real.
Slowly, she opened her eyes.
Hermione gaped at the coiling basilisk. It seemed huge, so much larger than she would have thought possible based on her brief but impactful memory of it from her second year. Could it have withered in stature in the many years it laid dormant before it was reawakened by a possessed Ginny Weasley? She wondered. It hardly mattered, she supposed.
In this memory, the basilisk was truly a sight to behold.
Currently, it was coiled in on itself as though sleeping. Then its tongue flickered out, and though it raised its massive, toxically green, scaled head, it did not open its eyes. It took all of Hermione’s willpower to continue to watch its movements.
I beat you, Hermione couldn’t help but think. I discovered what you were when even Dumbledore couldn’t. I figured out that you were using the pipes to travel the school and when you struck for me, I was ready.
Harry may have swung the blade, but I was the one who beat you.
Hermione held on to that savage pride, letting it fill her with something akin to bravery.
The basilisk turned away from her… towards someone else.
It could only be Tom Riddle who stood in the gloomy depths of the Chamber of Secrets, the dismal light that the few lit sconces on the far away, chamber walls provided illuminating the outline of his figure. He did not have his wand out, Hermione noted, but he did have a covering across his eyes. A black cloth to guard the top half of his face. Despite this obvious precaution, he was unarmed. How strange, Hermione thought. To be so trusting of such a beast, and yet…
Based on how far away he was, and how he was slowly advancing, Hermione deduced that Riddle must have just entered the chamber. Her suspicions were confirmed when a guttural, spitting sound issued from the previously resting serpent—a sound that was somehow both terrifying and what Hermione might describe as happy. Its tongue continued to flicker excitedly as it went. The basilisk slid closer to Riddle, its belly slipping seamlessly on the watery floor, before pausing before him. Riddle’s half-masked face broke out into a grin.
Riddle hissed something, and Hermione frowned, realizing what a strange memory this was going to be to try and follow. She didn’t speak parseltongue, she didn’t understand—
“Adesum,” breathed a voice in her ear.
Hermione screamed.
She screamed and turned and reached for her wand on instinct, though it was not with her in this memory world. There was no one behind her, but she had heard it, had felt warm air on her skin…
Breathing hard, she returned her focus to the memory. Her scream had not, of course, been heard by the ghosts of another time. The snake hissed something, and the voice was back in her ear, making her jump—though she did manage to not scream again.
“Master,” the voice said softly. “I have missed you.”
Translating. The horcrux was translating for her.
The memory of Riddle hissed in response, and Hermione heard the meaning in English in her ear. It was the only thing she felt here—a warm, breathy sensation that tingled against her skin. “And I you,” the horcrux said, speaking for himself.
The memory of Riddle reached forward with both hands, his palms open. The basilisk wasted no time slithering up against them, reminding Hermione absurdly of a giant, scaly cat. Riddle’s smile widened as he pet the basilisk with what was clearly their regular greeting.
The basilisk hissed and spit, its tongue going wild as it tasted the air. “Master… you are nervous,” translated the horcrux. Even though she was expecting it, Hermione could not get used to the feel of that warm breath in her ear. “You know that I would never harm you, master… You do not need your guard.”
The Riddle of the past frowned. When he hissed in response, Hermione heard the horcrux’s soft voice, too. “It is just a precaution, Adesum,” he said. “I know you would never intentionally harm Salazar’s heir.”
At around the time the horcrux said ‘Salazar’, the basilisk—Adesum? Was that its name?—shifted. Hermione could never have thought that a snake could look sad, but this one somehow managed it, even while keeping its eyes closed. “Never,” the horcrux whispered when the snake hissed. “But you are still nervous, master. I smell it.”
Riddle was frowning again, though it was hard to see what else he may be feeling. His eyes were even more concealed than the serpent’s.
The basilisk didn’t press him. Riddle continued to frown while stroking the snake’s scales with both hands. “…Yes,” he finally responded. “I am. I am nervous, Adesum.”
“Can I help?” the snake—Adesum, it must have been—asked. While the horcrux’s voice was level, the basilisk’s hissing sounded higher, like it was concerned. It turned its head towards him, nuzzling into Riddle’s chest.
Hermione would have never guessed a monster could act so… loving.
“I do not think you can,” Riddle hissed, spoke. “I fear one of the professors is growing suspicious, my pet. I should not have asked you to explore the school, to find all its secrets… They are calling it an attack, what happened.”
“It was a… mudblood.” The voice hesitated briefly before saying the word in her ear. The basilisk didn’t.
“Yes,” Riddle responded. The translating voice continued to speak, but it became even softer, harder to hear. “But we are fortunate that you did not look directly at her. That she saw you in the reflection of a window… if she had died…”
“It was a mudblood,” the basilisk repeated, almost confused. “They are unfit in my master’s school.”
Hermione scowled as the horcrux continued to speak for his memory. “I know,” he whispered. “But not everyone believes that it was an accidental curse, what happened. Some think it was an attack. One of the professors…”
“Dumbledore,” the snake hissed and the horcrux translated. The voice in her ear was suddenly a bit sharper. Hermione wondered how often a young Tom Riddle complained to his monstrous pet about the only professor to ever be wary of him as a student.
“Yes,” Riddle responded scathingly. “I fear he is suspicious of me. He is always suspicious of me… I worry about what could happen if you were to leave the Chamber again.”
The snake made a different sort of hissing sound, a more emotional, upset sound, one for which there was apparently no translation.
“None of that,” Riddle said chidingly. “I only think it is important to… lay low for some time.”
“It is my duty to rid the school of mudbloods,” the basilisk hissed, almost snarling. Riddle, to his credit, did not back away from the deadly beast—though he did remove his hands from its thick, scaly body. “I must fulfill my duty now that you have awakened me.”
“You must do as I say,” Riddle seethed back. “I am your master and Slytherin’s heir. You will obey me.”
The serpent’s body coiled back on itself, looking very much like it was going to strike. It was probably for the best that Riddle had his eyes covered—otherwise surely he would have cowered away?
“I was made to kill,” the serpent snarled and the horcrux whispered.
To Hermione’s surprise, this made Riddle smile. “And kill you shall, Adesum,” Riddle said. “But you must be patient a while longer. If you kill while I am here, I fear that it could be traced back to me, and what would happen then? If I were to be caught and expelled from the school, or worse… You would lose me forever. And then who would command you to murder?”
This had a profound effect on the basilisk. Its body instantly relaxed, and it slid towards Riddle again, seeking out his hands. “No one but the heir of Slytherin can command me,” it said. “I obey no one but you.”
“That’s right,” Riddle responded. He started to stroke its body again. “No one but me.”
“But you wish to leave me,” the basilisk hissed. “You will leave the school, and then who will command me to murder?”
Riddle chuckled. “I have a plan, my treasure,” he hissed. “I promise.”
For a time, neither of them spoke. The serpent, seemingly appeased, allowed Riddle to pet its scales, once more making Hermione think of a cat. Riddle complied for a while, looking content to stroke a murderous beast.
“…I must go,” he eventually said. “But I will visit you soon.”
The basilisk did not defy him again. It only nuzzled its massive head against Riddle’s cheek. Never once had it opened its eyes in the presence of its master.
Riddle gave the serpent one last pet, then turned to leave. He walked over to the great entryway where two giant snakes were engraved on the doors, giant emeralds shining for eyes. He pulled the cloth from his eyes and looked at them.
“Up,” Riddle hissed.
Hermione watched in absolute awe as the emeralds grew bright, and then one of them moved . The snake slithered down from the doorway as though alive, and opened its mouth wide, so wide, like it might eat Tom Riddle whole. Then it stopped, becoming stone once more.
Hermione gaped when Riddle walked right into that yawning mouth, but when she moved to get a better look, she could see why. There were no giant, stone fangs protruding from this snake’s mouth, nor a long, flickering tongue. Instead there was, impossibly, a very short staircase—perhaps ten steps—which led right up to what Hermione knew to be the entrance of the sink in the girls’ bathroom.
Magic , she thought with a sigh. It never ceased to amaze her. It was such an ingenious way to leave this place, too—she and Ron had needed to remember to bring a broom so they could fly out!
Riddle began to climb the steps, a casual demeanor about him, and then he froze.
Everything changed.
Hermione wasn’t sure what it was at first, as she didn’t hear what Riddle clearly did, but she saw the way he reacted. His whole body tensed, his face tightened. He even took one step backward, like something had frightened him. Hermione edged closer to the entrance of the snake’s mouth, and then she heard it.
Crying.
Sobbing, really. And it was coming from the other side of the sink’s entryway.
Myrtle , Hermione knew at once. She had always known what happened here, but still Hermione’s heart sped in anticipation, fighting the inane urge to save her.
The new sound of Riddle’s heavy breathing caused Hermione to look at him instead. He leaned with one hand against the snake tunnel’s wall, his other hand clenching and unclenching. He looked to be having some sort of fit.
The basilisk noticed. It slid towards him, hissing as it went. “Master?” the horcrux translated. The basilisk moved so that it was at his side, its eyes still closed but nudging him in concern.
“Make it stop,” Riddle hissed, his own eyes clenched shut. “I can’t, I—”
The basilisk let out a guttural sound, then rushed through the entryway, breaking through it rather than opening it as Hermione was sure Riddle would have done.
It happened quickly, and neither of them saw it.
There was a crashing and the crying abruptly stopped. She hadn’t even had time to scream.
Riddle’s eyes went wide where he stood on the stairway. Hermione clutched her hand to her chest. For a moment, everything was deathly still, quiet.
Then Riddle ran, drawing his wand as he went, no longer keeping his eyes closed. He burst through the now broken entryway, over the shattered sink, Hermione on his heels.
There she was.
Myrtle Elizabeth Warren was dead. She was strewn out on her back, her arms and legs at odd angles. She must have been leaning against the other sink before, the one that worked. Maybe she had just come out of the stall. Maybe she had been looking at herself in the mirror. Whatever the case, there was no doubt that she had turned to see the basilisk head-on. Her face was still red from crying, and behind her glasses her eyes puffy, glossy, and unseeing.
The basilisk was beside her, taking up an absurd amount of space in the bathroom. Hermione was shocked that it could travel the school through the pipes at all. It once more had its eyes closed as Riddle appeared.
Riddle stared down at the dead girl, his face white as a sheet. “What have you done?” he whispered.
“I did as master said,” Adesum replied. “I made it stop.”
Riddle approached the bodily warily, like he was uncertain of her very certain death.
“I said we should not kill while I am here,” Riddle murmured emotionlessly.
“She was a mudblood,” the basilisk responded.
Riddle did not turn to face the creature. He did not praise it, nor did he punish it. “Return to the Chamber,” he hissed softly.
Adesum obeyed. Riddle was alone with Myrtle’s body.
Hermione held her breath as he approached her, his shock giving way to an expression that was something else—full of wonder, almost, and reverence. He knelt down next to her. His hands were shaking.
The world blurred.
The memory shifted all around her, and Hermione knew that she was being dragged out of it, into something else. The bathroom disappeared, and soon she found herself in that same, bright white landscape. For a moment, she thought she was alone. She panicked—could the diary do that? Could it keep her here, trapping in some sort of limbo forever, alone—
“You are not alone.”
Hermione turned to face him.
He’s so young.
That was the first thought she had upon finally being able to get a good look at a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle. The difference between this version and the one she was used to—the rising Dark Lord in his twenties—was staggering. This Tom Riddle had a rounder face, softer features, and was not quite as tall as he would one day be. His eyes, while still dark, were not as cold.
He’s a child.
“Who are you?”
He asked a question, but spoke it like a command. Riddle’s hands were in his robe pockets—school robes—and his eyes darted up and down her body, analyzing her.
It was only then that Hermione remembered that she was in a lacy red, silk nightgown. It was hardly the appropriate attire to meet a horcrux in. Ignoring the heat that rose to her face, Hermione took a deep breath.
“That depends,” she answered. Riddle quirked one brow at her but did not interrupt, waiting for her to elaborate. She didn’t. “That wasn’t the whole memory,” she went on. “You ended it before you… made yourself.”
“You said to show you how I killed Myrtle Elizabeth Warren.”
“I also asked you to show me how you were made.”
“Those are separate memories.”
“Then show me the next one.”
“No.”
Hermione bit back a cruel laugh. “I don’t think you fully appreciate your circumstances, Tom,” she said through a tight smile. “Outside of this memory world of yours, I hold you. Own you. I can destroy you like that .”
She snapped. Riddle flinched at the sound, but did not otherwise react.
“So you had best do what I ask of you,” Hermione finished.
“You don’t want to see that,” Riddle said, so quietly that Hermione almost didn’t hear him.
“I think I do.”
“No,” he said, “you don’t. It is dark magic. A ritual. And I… it is not something you would wish to see.”
“You don’t know—”
“What I do know is that you know me, the other me, the one that lives in your world,” Riddle interrupted, whatever patience he had already gone. “If you have come upon me, this diary, then surely you have encountered my other self at a time when he has made adversaries. You know I am his tie to immortality. Yet you have not yet destroyed me, something you could have done the moment you found me. You chose not to. You chose to write.”
He tilted his head to one side, looking at her curiously. “You must be having second thoughts, then. You wrote to learn more about my creation to make your decision. It would therefore not be in my best interest to show you exactly how I was made. An ancient ritual of such dark and… disturbing magic, one might say, will hardly endear me to you. Which is my only chance for survival, isn’t it?”
He stared. Hermione stared back, thinking of what to say next.
“So no,” Riddle said, speaking before she could come up with something. “I will not show you how a horcrux is made in intimate detail… but I am here.”
Hermione scoffed. “Have you always been this way?” she said. “So… conniving?”
It was a rhetorical question, but he answered anyway. “Yes,” he said. His face grew a little somber. “The matrons at the orphanage didn’t care much for it.”
“Stop that,” Hermione said. “Don’t try and throw a pity party for yourself, trying to get me to feel bad for you. It won’t work. You killed a girl, Riddle.”
“Did I?” he asked.
Hermione bit her lower lip for a moment. She wanted to ask if the memory was accurate, if it had really happened that way, but it was a pointless question to ask. Of course he would say that it was. And whether he was lying or not, Hermione would have no way of knowing.
“I can’t fabricate new possibilities,” Riddle said, guessing her internal conflict. “What I showed you was true.”
“How do I know you aren’t lying now?” Hermione asked, though she knew it was pointless to ask that, too.
“I did not intend to make a horcrux at sixteen,” he said, edging closer to her. Hermione stood her ground but watched him carefully. Did he have a wand? Would that matter, here? “I intended to wait until I was at least seventeen. I thought being magically mature might make a difference. I would also be wiser, smarter. This is not the sort of magic one rushes into performing.”
“But you did,” Hermione said.
“Yes,” he said. “I did. Killing Myrtle was unintentional… but I was still the cause. I commanded the basilisk to stop the sound, and so she did so in the only way she knows how to do anything. By killing.”
“So you used her death to split your soul,” Hermione said.
“I used her death, yes. She had already died. There was no point in wasting it.”
“I imagine that she would feel quite differently about that,” Hermione said scathingly.
He shrugged. “Her opinion hardly matters anymore, does it? She is dead.”
“Only somewhat,” Hermione said. “She’s a ghost… Ah. You weren’t aware?”
Judging by the way Riddle’s face paled, he did not know. Hermione wasn’t surprised; she knew from her time spent studying Death in the Department of Mysteries that ghosts did not appear immediately after someone died. Death was a process. It was highly unlikely that Myrtle became a spirit that could be seen by witches and wizards while Riddle was still in school.
“That’s right,” Hermione went on, smiling viciously. “She came back. She remembers those yellow eyes… I imagine she is haunting Olive Hornsby these days, but maybe she will eventually find a new target.”
The thought of Riddle—the one out in her world, of course—being haunted by the ghost of Myrtle Warren deeply amused her. Maybe she should track her down and sick her on Riddle herself.
Riddle scowled. “I did not think… I never considered that possibility,” he admitted. “I told you this was not an intentional death.”
“Murder, you mean,” Hermione corrected. “A horcrux requires murder.”
“…Yes,” Riddle eventually agreed. “A murder. It was still not my intent.”
“Seemed a little intentional,” Hermione argued. “What was that, in the memory? When you suddenly froze up and leaned against the wall. What happened to you then, to make you act like that?”
Riddle’s face became bloodless, nearly as white as the space around them. “…That… I… I have…”
He seemed to truly be struggling to explain himself. It was the first time Hermione had seen him unable to flawlessly articulate his thoughts.
He’s so young.
“…I cannot stand the sound of crying,” he eventually grit out. He looked down as he spoke, away from her. “I heard it often at the orphanage. All the time. It drove me mad. When I hear it, when I am not ready for it, I… I don’t know what happens. I freeze. I can’t breathe.”
Hermione was astounded. Tom Riddle suffered from panic attacks at the sound of crying… all because he grew up at an orphanage, surrounded by so many uncared-for children…
Unless he was lying, of course, and this was all an act. All a façade meant to endear himself to her. Hermione was not about to dismiss this possibility—Riddle had been excellent at manipulating at this age, too.
“I still don’t believe you,” she murmured.
Riddle’s eyes snapped back to hers. “You think that I would choose someone like her to be the vehicle for a horcrux? Me?” He put both arms out wide, moving ever closer to where Hermione stood. He was less than three feet away from her now. “The heir of Slytherin, using someone as vile as Myrtle, some muggle-born, to perform such an important ritual?”
He scoffed, loudly. “Of course not. I had… other plans. A much more meaningful and deserving murder.”
“Your father,” Hermione said quietly.
Riddle’s eyes went wide with shock, but only for a moment. “Just how much do you know about me?” he asked. “How far in the future have you come from?”
Hermione couldn’t help it—she laughed. “Far enough,” she answered. “Let’s pretend I do believe you, Riddle… that this murder was unintentional, but since it happened, you decided that not using her death was almost… irresponsible. A waste.”
She took a step and closed the gap between them herself. He was still taller than her, of course, but Hermione was not afraid. She may have been in his memory world at the moment, but she was the one in control. With the power.
“But I know what you may one day become… and it is not a pretty sight.” She stared up at him, into those dark eyes that had not yet met his father, had not yet murdered him and his grandparents. “So answer me this. If I asked you, the future version of you who is older but not too much older—”
“How old?” Riddle cut in.
“Don’t interrupt me,” Hermione snapped. Then, deciding the context might be useful, she said, “In his twenties. A version of you that has not yet left London, though I know you plan to do so eventually.”
She relished his look of surprise for a moment before continuing. “If I asked this version of you if he could feel remorse… do you think he would conceivably try to undo his creation of you? To feel true remorse and reabsorb this shattered part of his soul into himself once more?”
Riddle was quiet for a long time, his face unreadable. “Perhaps,” he answered at length. “That would depend.”
“On what?”
Hermione knew that he was trying to not give more information about himself away, but he eventually seemed to come to the inevitable conclusion—Hermione knew far more about his future self than he did. “On if I have made another horcrux yet,” he said.
“Let’s say you have,” Hermione said. “For the sake of theorizing.”
Riddle looked into her eyes for a long time. “Yes,” he eventually answered.
Hermione almost laughed again. “For someone who is so good at detecting lies, Riddle, you are not nearly as good at giving them.”
The world around them flashed suddenly, growing brighter, then dimmer. “What was that?” Hermione asked. “What are you doing?”
“Losing you.” At Hermione’s expression, he went on, speaking quickly. “I don’t have enough life—of your life—to keep you here. You know how horcruxes work.”
“I haven’t given you anything ,” Hermione snarled back. “Just permission.”
“You have given me more than that,” Riddle said, those dark eyes suddenly gleaming. “Permission, yes, but something more. Desperation . I tasted it in your words; I can feel it now. You don’t want to kill me. You gave me hope .”
The world flashed again. Riddle’s haughty expression was fleeting—it quickly turned into one of fear.
Hermione had never seen Riddle look afraid before. Not like this.
He’s so young.
He reached out and grabbed her hand. It was warm against her skin—just like his breath had been in her ear. Like he was a real, whole human being.
But he’s not.
“Please,” he said, his voice rising. “I know you could destroy me. Don’t. Please don’t. You clearly care for me, the other me, the older me. Killing me is killing a part of him… the purest part.”
He squeezed her hand tighter as the world flashed and dimmed, flashed and dimmed. He stared at her in desperation, waiting for her to respond. For a promise.
Killing, saving.
“I will try and save you, Riddle,” Hermione vowed, shocking even herself when she said it. Meant it. “I will do my best to convince you to repair your shattered soul and be human once more.”
Riddle’s face fell in anguish. He knew as well as she did that Tom Riddle, in any age or time, feared Death more than anything. He would never surrender a tie to immortality.
“…And when you fail?” he asked. Not an if, a when.
The world was becoming too bright, then too dark, like being caught in a silent lightning storm. Riddle was fading before her eyes.
“Then I will kill you myself,” she promised.
“All of you.”
There was no time left to see his reaction before the next wave of brightness lasted, sending Hermione away in a whirlwind of light until she was back in her loft, the diary lying open in front of her, its pages blank.
Chapter 25: Oculos habemus ubique
Chapter Text
Hermione was watching the Oculus, but the Oculus was not watching her.
She noticed him in the first week that she arrived in New York, because their morning routines had, serendipitously, collided. Before she’d purchased her loft, Hermione had begun most days at The Rosebush, ordering a coffee before going about her day of exploring the city. On her way there, she passed several things that rarely varied—certain street performers at specific locations who started their day early, both of the muggle and magical variety; other people who worked in the area on their way to their place of business; and, Hermione was almost certain… an Oculus.
Within the MACUSA, the Auror Department was especially large and complex, with many tiers of Aurors within its ranks. One of these ranks, a low level that most Aurors were given when first initiated, was the Oculus. These Aurors were stationed around the city at various locations, doing one of the most boring but important jobs in New York—monitoring. Being ever vigilant, as Mad-Eye would have said. It was their duty to keep an eye out in case any magic was performed in public, to cast any necessary, mind-altering magic on muggles who may have noticed at once. And to arrest the perpetrators, Hermione supposed.
The Oculos, the word for ‘eyes’ in Latin, were everywhere in this city… and Hermione was pretty sure she had found one.
He sat on the same bench one block away from The Rosebush every morning. He was young, maybe his early or mid-twenties, which was about the right age for a new Auror. He always dressed the same: a beige trenchcoat, black gloves, a black scarf, often a black hat. On his coat lapel he wore a purple and silver pin on his coat that looked too much like the Thunderbird emblem from Ilvermorny to be a coincidence. Sometimes he was drinking coffee, sometimes he was smoking a cigarette. Hermione knew for a fact that he was a wizard because he was always reading the magical newspaper, The New York Ghost. To muggles, this would look like a regular paper, but Hermione could easily see the moving images and its slogan: Enchanted Dispatches to the American Wizard.
Now, Hermione could not be completely positive that he was an Oculus; it was possible that he simply had a boring and predictable morning routine. But she had been watching him the past few days, and she could not imagine him being anything else. He didn’t ever veer from his bench (Hermione imagined it was enchanted to repel muggles, as it was always available for him), and every morning he spent just as much time peering over the top of his newspaper, watching the area carefully, as he did reading it. He’d noticed Hermione in that first week that she was here, too. The wizard had nodded politely at her, tipping his hat towards her as she’d passed. The only reason he didn’t notice her now was because Hermione had expertly disillusioned herself.
If he was an Oculus, he was perfect.
Hermione had done quite a bit of thinking since her Valentine’s Day excursion into Riddle’s diary. She had promised that she would try and save Riddle, yes… but what exactly did that entail?
She would not return to London to chase him down, tempting though it was. Hermione had not exactly left on polite terms, and she had already told herself countless times that she would not go running back to him. Either Riddle was coming after her, or they would not see each other again for a long time.
Almost a month had passed since she’d left London. If Riddle had wanted to find her by now, he would have at least tried. It was an undeniable fact at this point, as far as Hermione was concerned.
He was not coming.
And that’s just fine, Hermione said to herself at least once a day. Let him stay in London and work at a dingy shop in Knockturn Alley a while longer. She knew that he would not attempt murder anytime soon... at least, she didn’t think. He certainly wouldn’t be foolish enough to try and harm her supposed Auntie. He had no reason to, after all; Hermione was positive that this version of Hepzibah Smith would not be showing the shop boy who was interested in her darling niece any of her prized, secret heirlooms of Hogwarts Founders.
Not that she has the real ones anymore, anyway, Hermione thought. She had them herself, tucked away safely in her mokeskin bag that she had hidden away in her bedroom. Right here, in New York City.
Hermione watched the Oculus from a safe distance. It was almost two, which was when he would finish with his paper and leave his bench. Hermione suspected that there were other Oculos in the vicinity who came and went at intervals, ensuring that this highly populated area was secure. Maybe they were some of the street performers, Hermione thought, or the people she assumed were muggles heading to work. She burned with curiosity to find out.
The potential Oculus folded his paper in half, right on time. He stood and tossed it in a nearby bin. He then did one last, discreet sweep of the street before he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his inner coat pocket. He placed one in his mouth and Hermione watched, amused, as the cigarette—Lucky Strikes, which was definitely a muggle brand, which Hermione found interesting—seemingly lit itself when he inhaled. He was usually good about using his shiny, metal lighter when he was in the presence of so many muggles, but Hermione supposed he was feeling a little lax now that he was off the clock.
He turned and left. Hermione followed, invisible and unnoticeable in the hustle and bustle of Manhattan.
I feel like such a creep, Hermione thought as she followed him, making her way through Times Square and carefully avoiding the people who could not see her. She supposed she was. She had been tailing this young, mysterious wizard for days now, as she had to know his routine if this was going to work. It’s not stalking, Hermione told herself as he turned another corner, discarding his spent cigarette on the ground as he went. She swiftly followed. It’s research and development.
And today was the day she would make her move.
She knew she had to be very careful—she was indeed a skilled witch, but she was certain that this wizard, if he was, in fact, an Oculus, would be very skilled, too. To what extent, she was unsure. What was the training process for Aurors in the MACUSA? She was only able to find out so much in books in her research. They were, understandably, very secretive about such things.
Just one more thing she planned to learn all about.
Hermione rushed to make it in front of the wizard, then turned into a small alleyway. She waited, ready for him to pass. The second he stepped in front of the opening, Hermione struck.
Stupefy!
It all happened in less than five seconds.
First, the wordless stunner went flying from her wand and struck her intended victim right on the shoulder. Then, the second he started to fall, Hermione struck again with a hovering charm. Before he had even slipped into a horizontal, floating position, she had tossed the Invisibility Cloak she’d purchased over him, making him as invisible as she was.
Nobody noticed a thing.
Hermione magically dragged him into the alley before checking, looking up and down the bustling city street to see if anyone had observed a man suddenly disappearing. It did not seem as though anyone had. Everyone carried on walking as they were, none the wiser of Hermione’s devious—and illegal—magic.
I guess Invisibility Cloaks aren’t useless after all, Hermione thought as she moved him along with her, further away from the busy street. She had said as much to Riddle when they first met, but now she knew she was wrong. Invisibility Cloaks had the advantage of speed—Disillusionment Charms, while effective, took far too many seconds to render one invisible.
Hermione knew she did not have a lot of time. While she was not sure exactly where this wizard went after his shift, she was sure he had more people he typically saw soon afterward. He could not be missing long.
Hermione ushered the hovering body further down the narrow alleyway, where she sat him down on the ground behind a large dumpster. She had picked this place, uncharming as it was, because it was as secluded as one could get in the city. Muffliato, she thought, casting the spell around the two of them. After a series of additional spells to keep anyone away in the unlikely event that someone would want to wander their way, she removed the disillusionment charm from herself and pulled the Invisibility Cloak off the passed-out wizard. She then pointed her wand at him.
Innervate, she thought. The very second the spell hit him, she cast another, focusing hard. Aperi torpentem mentem.
Her wand glowed a dull orange, and then light left the tip, sinking into the man’s forehead before he could fully come around. His eyes opened halfway, and his pupils were huge, dilated, leaving only a rim of blue where his irises were. His lips parted, his mouth hanging open a bit. He sat against the building’s brick wall on his own now, but his posture was lazy. Hermione was sure that if she shoved him gently in one direction, he would give no resistance and fall to the ground.
Perfect.
Hermione took a moment to examine his features up close. His eyes were large and round, his skin a medium beige, and he kept his jaw clean-shaven. He was not wearing a hat today, so Hermione could see that he used some kind of product to keep his dark brown hair swept back and out of his eyes. He was rather cute, Hermione supposed. He had a sweet, innocent look about him, probably stemming from how big and round those blue eyes were, and the fact that he was not much taller than Hermione was. She imagined this worked in his favor as an Auror. It helped to look unthreatening at times. It made the enemy underestimate you.
“What is your name?” Hermione asked.
The wizard’s eyes remained vacant, and when he spoke, his voice was a dull monotone. “Walter Stephen Moore,” he answered.
“How old are you, Walter?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Do you work for the MACUSA?”
“Yes.”
“Are you an Auror?”
“Yes.”
“Are you an Oculus?”
“Yes.”
Hermione allowed herself a moment of internal self-praise— she knew it!—before carrying on.
“How long have you been working as an Oculus?”
“Ten months and eight days,” he answered blandly.
“Did you attend Ilvermorny?”
“Yes.”
“What House were you?”
“Thunderbird.”
“What year did you graduate?”
“1946.”
Hermione’s mind raced as she considered this. Not 1947. She had been hoping that he would have, theoretically, graduated in the same year that Hermione Smith had… but as she thought on it, perhaps it was better that he had not. She knew that Ilvermorny had a significantly larger class size than Hogwarts had, especially in this time, but it couldn’t hurt that there was a year between them.
It would make the story easier to believe, all around.
Hermione smiled into his face. Walter. Her new friend.
“All right, Walter,” she said soothingly. “I am going to ask you a few more questions about yourself. But first, here is what I need you to remember about me…”
Hermione was indeed a very skilled witch.
In less than fifteen minutes, Walter Stephen Moore was once more strolling through the crowded streets of Manhattan. The next time he lit himself another cigarette, he would suddenly remember that he had plans that Saturday afternoon to meet an old acquaintance from his school days at The Rosebush.
It was exactly 1:00 pm, and he was not there.
Hermione repressed the urge to both scowl and panic as she blew over the surface of her hot tea. Behind her, muggles, wizards and witches alike walked past the coffee shop, making their way to the counter where they could buy any number of flowers or potted plants as gifts.
Hopefully no Devil’s Snare that they plan to use as a slick way of murdering someone, though, Hermione thought as she eyed the customers pursuing their options—of which Devil’s Snare was, of course, not available, because there were no magical plants being sold there at all.
Hermione wondered idly if Riddle would ever fall for something like that. If I were to send him some Devil’s Snare in a pot, disguising it as an apology, would he fall for that, placing it in his flat? Surely not. Surely he would be smart enough to know exactly what sort of plant it was at once. He must have had at least ten books on herbology in his living room alone; there was no way he wouldn’t be aware of what it was.
Hermione frowned as she sipped her tea. Not that it would matter, anyway. He’s currently immortal. I doubt some vicious plants would do much damage to him.
And this was, of course, all speculation that only mattered if she ended up attempting to kill him after all. Which she probably would.
Probably.
She could just imagine his expression if she ever told him that. Hello again, Riddle. I’m so sorry, I must destroy you. Permanently.
She imagined he would laugh. Like her murderous intent was some great, big joke. He’d smile too, showing those obnoxiously perfect teeth, his dark eyes gleaming with amusement.
You wicked, wicked witch.
Hermione hardly had more than a moment to chastise herself for her wandering thoughts about Riddle and his slanted smile when she saw him. Walter Stephen Moore was outside of The Rosebush, walking past its large windows. Hermione immediately returned her attention to the book she was supposed to be reading: The Significance of Symbols and Numerals by Alastair Grunnion.
“Why, doesn’t this just take me right back.”
Hermione, having feigned ignorance to his presence, faked a start when he spoke. She looked up and let out a sharp breath.
Walter was smiling a huge, immediately contagious grin.
She hadn’t noticed before, but Walter Moore had a significant gap between his two front teeth. He also had two deep dimples in his cheeks when he grinned, and his eyes, no longer dilated with mind-altering magic, were such a bright blue that Hermione wondered if they were natural. He’d exchanged his beige trench coat for a slightly more wizardlike black one, and his scarf was now a deep purple rather than black. His hair was as slicked back as it usually was, and the pin, which he had moved from one coat to another, was definitely a Thunderbird. He laughed as she gaped at him, and his already broad smile grew.
He was cute, Hermione concluded. Adorable, actually.
“Walter!” Hermione exclaimed, pretending as though this were a man she had known for years. Not too well, of course, but well enough to have missed him. “Oh, it is so good to see you!”
She shoved her book in her bag and jumped up. Then, seeing as he already had his arms out wide, went in for the expected embrace as though that was natural. He hugged her tightly.
“Good to see me?” Walter said once their embrace had ended. He held her at arms’ length and stared at her. “Look at you! Are you wearing makeup? Don’t answer that doll, of course you are—it looks stunning! And this coat, and your shoes! Just… wow!”
He laughed, and Hermione awkwardly laughed along with him. “I am… well, I am just really shocked is all,” he said. “You have certainly changed.”
Hermione was unsure what to say. She had given him a solid, select set of memories, yes, but she had no control over where he took them as they developed into a full-blown story arc of a human. His perception of Hermione Smith at Ilvermorny could very well vary from hers. She had to tread lightly.
“In a good way,” he hurried to add, surely assuming he had offended her. “In a great way, really… I don’t know how many times I tried to get you to, you know, do a little something special so that other people… You know what? I am going to stop myself there. Blabber mouth, ugh, I’m sorry! I only meant to say that you look amazing.”
Hermione forced a laugh. “Oh, don’t apologize. Please, sit! Would you like a coffee? My treat.”
Walter shrugged off his black coat. “Yes, please. You’re buying? I’ll have the most caffeinated drink available.”
Hermione giggled in a manner which she hoped sounded natural and went to the counter. Luckily, there was no line. “Your most caffeinated beverage, please,” she asked the young barista.
The barista stared at her. “You mean… an espresso? A double espresso maybe?”
“Sure. Sorry, I’m just ordering what my friend said to get him.”
The barista followed her gaze to Walter, who was unknotting his scarf. Her face lit up at once. “Oh, hi Walter! Your usual?”
Walter aimed his nearly blinding grin at her. “With an extra shot of espresso, Amy,” he said. “Or two if you can do that. I had a night last night… I could use it!”
The barista—Amy, evidently—smiled. “You got it.”
She turned to make his coffee. Hermione left the appropriate amount of money for her on the counter and returned to their table.
“I take it you come here often, then,” she said as she took her seat.
“Oh yeah. Too often, honestly. But sometimes I need the extra caffeine boost to make it through the rest of the day after my shift.”
Perfect, Hermione thought. He was setting up the conversation exactly the way she wanted. “What are you doing for work these days, Walter?” she asked. “I remember you always talked about wanting to work in defense… are you?”
Walter grinned—but it was not the same wide, welcoming smile he’d worn before. This one was a little crooked. “I am not at liberty to say, Miss Smith,” he said, then looked away.
“Oh come on,” Hermione pleaded. “I wrote at least three essays for you and corrected a dozen more when we were in school. You at least owe me this!”
Walter laughed. It really was infectious—Hermione found herself laughing, too, even though she was trying to act annoyed. “Okay, okay, okay,” he said, still smiling largely. He then lowered his head, acting secretive, even though there were only a few other magical people in the cafe. “Yes. I do. I work in the Department of Magical Security and Defense. I started about a year ago.”
Hermione could tell by his expression that she was meant to be deeply impressed by this. “Almost a year ago?” she repeated, acted awed.
“Yes!” he responded, both shouting and whispering at the same time. “I passed the exam on my first try. My first try! Can you believe it?”
Hermione could deduct easily enough that this was not a common occurrence. She feigned great shock. “No,” she gasped. “On your first time? Seriously?”
“First wizard in over twenty years,” Walter said proudly. “First one since Lester Madison himself. My mother burst into tears when I told her. Said I was doing my dad more than proud…”
His too-blue eyes suddenly went a bit glassy. He shook his head and grinned at her again. “But yeah. It’s been wild. Absolutely wild. Tiring work, of course, and I’m still close to the bottom of the barrel, so to speak.”
“As an Oculus?” Hermione asked.
Walter didn’t look shocked even for a moment. He only laughed. “Leave it to Hermione Smith to know all about the rankings of Aurors,” he said. “Did you read that in a book somewhere? Do you know what I’ll be promoted to as well, and when? Honestly, if you do, please let me know. I’d love to know that myself.”
Hermione laughed along with him. “I did read about it a bit,” she confessed. “Afraid to say I don’t know where your career will go from here though. Depends on if you prefer potion making, dueling, or curse-breaking. But you must know all about that. Or, I suppose, you could continue to be an Oculus. I imagine that's not uncommon, for those who prefer to monitor and keep order?”
“Uggggh, never suggest that again!” Walter groaned. “I would die of boredom. I work in a highly populated area—right around here, actually—and still, the only exciting thing that ever happens is that sometimes a wizard whips their wand out when they’re not supposed to. I reprimand them, usually let them off with a warning, and the no-majes wonder why some crazy man pulled out a wooden stick from their pocket. If they even noticed anything at all. That’s about it.”
Except for the time when an invisible witch hexed you and tricked you into thinking you’d known her for years, Hermione thought smugly while looking into her coffee cup. She avoided eye contact, despite how strong her Occlumency barriers were. She imagined Walter Moore had to at least be moderately adept at Legilimency if he was an Auror, even a low ranking one… especially if he had passed whatever this mysterious exam was on his first try.
“That does sound boring,” she said. “Well, I’m sure you will move onto something more interesting in a few years.”
“I sure hope so,” Walter said. "Might be soon, actually. Some new recruits are about ready. It's astounding how many of us there are, considering how hard the exam is. But I suppose there have to be, we need the numbers... The unofficial motto of the city really does ring true."
Hermione was burning to ask what that motto was, but knew that would be suspect. She was therefore relieved when he said it regardless.
"New York City," Walter sighed. "Oculos habemus ubique."
"We have eyes everywhere," Hermione breathed.
"Indeed."
Just then, Amy the barista brought over a tall, steaming mug. "Here you are, Walter," she said. "Enjoy!"
“Thank you, Amy.” Walter once more flashed that huge grin. He set the mug on the table before them, where Hermione could see a giant heart made of cream in the center.
“Guess they love you here,” Hermione commented, looking at it pointedly.
“They love me everywhere,” he said nonchalantly. He took a sip of his drink, then made a sound that might have been more appropriate for some other, far more intimate setting before lowering it again. “But enough about me and my boring job. What have you been up to, Miss Hermione Smith? Traveling the world and all that? Where have you gone, what have you done? And most importantly, are you back for good?”
Hermione smiled demurely. “Well… as you know, my mother died, and after that… I…”
Walter’s face went from friendly to grave in a flash. “I was so sorry to hear,” he said. Hermione knew he would recall this, as she had given him the recollection, but it was nonetheless strange to hear him speak emotionally about someone he never knew.
Someone no one ever knew.
“So, so sorry to hear.” Walter reached out and grabbed her hand. He stared into her eyes, unblinking when he spoke. “And even more sorry to read you were having a private funeral, though I understand… I just… I tried to get a hold of you, of course. But you were impossible to reach. I didn’t even know for sure that you had left until your letter, though I did assume. I’m not saying that to make you think I’m upset that you left. I’m not. I get it. After my dad… Well, that’s not the point. I just get it, okay? I get why you took off without telling anyone.”
It was as though this was a long overdue conversation… which, Hermione realized it was. To Walter.
“I’m sorry,” Hermione said. “I am. I didn’t mean to—”
“Didn’t I just say it was fine? Really. You don’t need to apologize. I completely understand and respect your decision to piss off for a while.” He smiled again, once more all sunshine and warmth. “Tell me about your travels! I want to know everything. Please. Let me live vicariously through you. I’ve spent too many hours repeating the same boring shit as I await my promotion. I hope. Merlin’s saggy balls, I hope.”
Hermione laughed. Then she told him the lie of her life.
They talked for so long that their mugs ran empty and they needed to order more coffee—Hermione’s treat again, though Walter had tried to pay himself. They talked about Hermione’s fake travels and her time in London, though she kept certain details of dark wizards out of it. They talked about their supposed time at Ilvermorny together, which included several stories of made-up memories Hermione had fed Walter’s mind and several more which his subconscious must have created all on its own. They talked about their favorite and least favorite teachers and classes and Hermione held her own, never faltering in her lies.
“All I’m saying, Herm,” Walter said, now the third time he had called her that (and which he now had, she was certain, cemented as the nickname he had always called her), “is that you were the best kept secret of Ilvermorny. Even more impressive than the supposed empty portrait in the western dungeons.”
“Which was not empty at all, of course,” Hermione added smugly.
“Of course, but don’t tell the Pukwudgies that,” Walter said. “They’d start a rebellion and leave New York altogether to start some charter school like the Salem Witches.”
He laughed heartily, like that was a great joke, so Hermione laughed along with him. “Can you imagine?” she said, though her understanding was that the Salem Witches Institute was a formidable one.
“No, I can’t. So let’s not. Oh, shit, is it really almost four? I hope you don’t mind, but I told Liam to swing by here if he hadn’t heard from me by now. We have plans later, and—oh, well.”
Hermione followed his gaze to the entrance of the shop, where a tall man had just entered.
“Speak of the Devil,” Walter said, but Hermione did not turn to face him again.
“…and he shall appear.”
Wow.
There was no doubt in her mind that this was a wizard who had just walked in, even without Walter’s pointing him out. It wasn’t anything in particular about him that gave it away—the long, gray coat was perfectly acceptable by the day’s muggle fashion, as was his black hat and leather boots—it was just a feeling. Hermione could almost taste the magic in the air when she looked at him, something she had never experienced when meeting any witch or wizard before. Perhaps she had ingested too much caffeine.
“Liam!”
The man spotted Walter and grinned—a grin which faltered slightly when he made eye contact with Hermione.
Wow, Hermione thought again. Walter had told her briefly about his acquaintances when she had him under her spell, so she was not entirely caught off guard. She had known about this person. Liam Wright. She knew that he was one of Walter’s best friends, that they had been friends all through the years at Ilvermorny and were still close today. If Hermione had tried to put a face to that name then, she would have been very wrong.
She would have assumed him to be redheaded, freckly. Irish looking, with a name like Liam.
He was not.
Liam was tall and broad, with olive-toned skin and dark hair that Hermione could see was curly, even with his hat on. But it was his eyes that caught her. Even from across the room Hermione was pinned by them. They were a stunning blue-green, like sea glass.
His smile came back quickly enough as he made his way over to them. “Hi Walt,” he said, nodding towards his friend. He then returned his attention to Hermione. “And you are…?”
Hermione’s heart suddenly sped. Adrenaline rushed through her and she had to resist the urge to grab her wand, to run out of the shop, to abort everything. She had anticipated meeting others in Walter’s circle, of course—planned on it, in fact—but she suddenly felt woefully unprepared. She had hoped that Walter would first mention her, Hermione Smith, the quiet girl a year younger than them in the same house who he sometimes met with in the library, to his friends when she was not around. That he would convincingly tell them about her before she met them, planting that important, initial seed of her existence more convincingly than she ever could.
But here he was, some wizard she had never met but had to pretend she had known about. The reality of her current situation was alarming. She had not altered Liam’s mind. If this did not go the way she hoped it would, he could ruin everything.
“Liam, it’s Smith! Hermione Smith. From school,” Walter said. When Liam gave him a confused look, Walter sighed exasperatedly. “She was in our house, Liam.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to remember me,” Hermione cut in. Her voice was a little too high, she noticed. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I wasn’t in your year. And I kept to myself mostly… Sort of lived in the library.”
Liam frowned at her, looking like he was trying to place her. “Were you in the Dueling Club?” he asked.
Hermione shook her head. “Afraid not, though I probably should have been. I didn’t join any clubs.”
“A certifiable bookworm, this one,” Walter said. “She’s not lying when she says she lived in the library.”
Liam laughed. He had very pronounced cheekbones, Hermione noted. And his jaw, which was strong and square, had a bit of stubble. “Ah, well,” he said, “that would explain why we didn't see much of each other. I tended to avoid the library and studying at all costs.”
“Which explains your consistent mediocre grades on exams,” Walter said dully. He pulled out a carton of cigarettes and pulled one out, smirking at his friend.
Liam clearly did not find this amusing. He glared at Walter. Hermione got the sense that this was a cutting comment that went deeper than their marks on exams from their school days.
“I’m excellent in the practical,” Liam muttered. “For that remark, you owe me this.”
He reached down and snatched the cigarette Walter was about to put in his mouth from his fingers.
“Hey!” Walter shouted, but Liam had already put the filter to his lips. In what was an unnecessary but nonetheless impressive bit of magic, Liam made a flame appear directly above his pointer finger. He used it to light the cigarette with a smug look on his face. After he inhaled, he flicked his finger and the flame went out without issue.
“I should write you up for that,” Walter grumbled. “There’s no-majes less than twenty feet from us, looking at daisies and shit.”
“Do it. Write me up. I dare you,” Liam leered. He exhaled a puff of smoke through a smile. Walter rolled his eyes, clearly not being serious with his threat.
Hermione watched the burning cigarette as Liam placed it once more to his lips in wonder. It wasn't the conjuring of fire that was impressive to her, she realized. She could, apparently, make much more impressive flames herself when she wanted to.
It was his control of it. On and off, like a switch.
You are far too strong... too strong for your own good, Hermione. You lack control.
“You’re an ass,” Walter said. Hermione shook the echo of Riddle's words from her mind. “That was my last cig.”
Liam looked up and released another long plume of smoke. It was 1950, she knew it, but it was still wild for Hermione to witness people smoking inside so casually. And muggle cigarettes, why muggle cigarettes? That seemed rather popular with the magical community here. She wondered why.
“Lucky for you that I know where we can get more,” Liam said. He looked down at Walter again and fixed him with a grin that Hermione could only describe as wolfish. It reminded her jarringly of Sirius.
“Come on. We’re going to be late.”
Walter turned to Hermione, his face apologetic. “I’m so sorry, I have to go. We have tickets to this show and we want to get there early, so—”
“No apology required,” Hermione said. “Please, go. I would hate for you to be late on my account.”
Walter nodded and stood. “Catch up again soon? You’re sticking around these parts for a while now, yeah? No more sudden disappearing acts?”
“No more sudden disappearing acts,” Hermione said. “And yes, let’s stay in touch. Oh!”
Hermione reached into her bag, then pulled a page out of the journal she’d purchased right there at The Rosebush. She hadn’t used it once as a diary, but it did come in handy.
“My new address,” she said, handing the paper to Walter. “So you can owl me.”
Walter grinned and pocketed it. “Very good,” he said. He then put his coat back on, as well as his hat and scarf. “It’s been wonderful chatting with you, Herm.”
“You as well, Walt,” Hermione said. She smiled. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“I’d never dream of it.”
He turned to Liam, who was once more looking at Hermione with a curious expression on his face. “Are you British?” he asked.
Hermione felt her face warm a bit—but whether it was from nerves or his piercing stare, she wasn’t sure.
“Nah,” Walter answered for her. “She just likes to speak all fancy to make everyone feel inadequate.”
“That’s not true,” Hermione snapped at him. She knew that he knew that, too—she’d given him that information about her. Hermione Smith, quiet, bookwormish girl. Sorted into Thunderbird with a slight British accent because of her mum.
Walter smirked. Hermione glared at him before focusing on Liam again. “My mother was. I daresay I inherited a bit of an accent from her. That and I just returned from some, er, worldly travels, which included a long stay in London most recently.”
Liam’s eyes went wide with intrigue. “London? Really?”
Hermione nodded. “Yes. It’s lovely there, truly.”
Liam gestured towards her with his smoldering cigarette. “Now that is something I want to hear about. But we have to go. Some other time, yeah?”
Hermione’s blush deepend. He was very suave, wasn’t he? In a rugged, overtly masculine way. It was flustering, to say the least. “Sure,” she said. “I’d like that.”
“We can show you what you’ve been missing out on around here,” Walter said, effectively inviting himself to what Hermione might have thought was a potential date with this far too handsome, far too devious looking Liam.
“Right,” Liam said. “Sure we will. Let’s get out of here. Nice to meet you, Hermione Smith… or re-meet you, I suppose.”
He tipped his hat at her. Walter rolled his eyes again and pushed him away from the table, ushering Liam towards the door. “See you around, Herm!” he called over his shoulder. Hermione waved, and then the two young men were gone, leaving her alone at the table with an empty mug and her reeling thoughts.
Chapter 26: That Swing
Chapter Text
Space, Hermone thought, was… nice.
One could only take so long practicing mental magic, especially when it involved being in the presence of a dementor or having Holloway attack one’s mind. It was draining to say the least. Hermione and Jackson were encouraged to spend plenty of time studying some of the other areas within the Department of Mysteries while they worked on the Occlumency skills. Those made available to them were Time, Space, and Thought.
While Thought was interesting to her and Time was certainly the most practical place for her to study, considering the current, insane plan that she and Malfoy were hatching, Hermione found that Space was something like a reprieve. The nuances of its mysteries were admittedly a little boring (and the Perpetuals who worked there rather irritating—they were always trying to divine the future in the stars and planets to a much more sophisticated degree than Trelawney ever had. When they were doing this, Hermione always wanted to echo Holloway and say ‘The Hall of Prophecies is that way’, but she never did), but the Department itself was, well…
Nice, yes, she decided firmly. Hermione was floating there now, caught in a magically-made world with no gravity and enchanted replications of stars.
Hermione lazily rolled over mid-air. Straight ahead was a simulation of a black hole, sucking in everything and nothing all at once. In front of her was a pseudo-red supergiant. It was beautiful and luminous, and from the perspective of Earth would be the brightest star in the Scorpius constellation, and—
A door.
Right above the black hole, appearing to be upside down from her current point of view, was a door. Just hovering there, in the middle of Space. Brown and wood and benign and utterly out of place.
Perhaps I have been floating here too long, and now I am seeing things, Hermione thought.
She continued to stare, and the door remained present. Irrevocably so.
Though previous experience had taught her that approaching anything entirely unknown in this place was dangerous, stupid, and against all protocal, her curiosity won out. Hermione pushed her way forward, floating through the fake stars and planets towards the door.
“Granger!”
Hermione tried not to look annoyed at the wizard who was calling her name. Roberts or something, one of those Perpetuals who believed so strongly in Divination it was like his religion.
“Coming down anytime soon? We need to do some runs.”
Which usually meant ‘we want to watch what we think may be the creation of the universe for the millionth time, with slight variations’. Hermione ignored him, turning her attention back towards the door.
She rubbed her eyes. Then, to be sure, looked to her left, her right, above and below. It was easy to get turned around in Space, that was true, but she knew where it had been.
The enigmatic door over the black hole was gone.
“What do you think of this one?”
Walter was holding two ties in front of himself: one silver with diagonal purple lines, the other lilac with little stitched X’s of silver throughout.
Hermone smiled wryly at him. “Bit obvious with your Thunderbird pride, aren’t you?” she said.
“Perhaps,” Walter responded, nonplussed. “It also just so happens that purple looks amazing on me. So.”
He held one tie up to his neck, then the other. “Which one?”
Hermione considered them both. “The second one,” she decided.
“Incorrect.” Walter set her choice aside, then began to secure the first around his collar. “This one is much classier.”
“Why did you bother asking me, then?” Hermione huffed.
“Simple curiosity to see if you have a natural inclination towards men’s fashion. Now that I know that you do not, I won’t ask again.”
“It was one question about ties! And I don’t think the first choice was wrong by any means. Just… different.”
Walter finished tying the striped tie and smoothed his collar over it. “You further prove my point,” he said. He admired himself in the mirror—his reflection winked at him and gave a thumbs up—then turned to face Hermione. “There are absolutely wrong answers, Herm. Especially in fashion.”
“My deepest apologies,” Hermione muttered.
“Forgiven, dear. Excuse me, Miss? Yes, I’ll take this one. Excellent.”
They left the muggle shop a few moments later, Walter with his new tie tucked away in his coat pocket and Hermione with a book under her arm that she had purchased earlier that afternoon. They’d met at a magical bookstore in the Lower East Side, The Trove, and had been shopping ever since. Like most of New York City, it was a bit of a whiplashing experience. They would go from muggle store to magical store to muggle store, one right after the other, with nothing particular in mind as they explored. Hermione found it both exciting and somewhat nerve-wracking. How did wizards and witches here manage to not say the wrong thing in public all the time? She was having a hard time of it herself, and this was now the second occasion where she had met up with her ‘old school friend’ to shop around Manhattan.
Hermione could see herself doing it again, too. Walter was fun. They would go to whatever random shops, boutiques, or stands they happened upon, buying muggle or magical products, eating muggle or magical street food. All of it could be from any country, anywhere. Hermione was starting to understand why people enjoyed living here so much.
In New York City, the world came to you.
“Speaking of fashion,” Walter said as they walked leisurely down the crowded street, “you seem to do somewhat better on yourself… but.”
He gave her a quick scan with his eyes from head to foot.
“What’s wrong with my outfit?” Hermione was wearing a deep blue dress with a long skirt and a high collar, over which she wore a long, black coat, red scarf, and matching red hat. With it she wore sensible flats and thick leggings to keep her warm. Overall, it was a perfectly acceptable and normal outfit for the day.
“It’s just a little… oh, I don't know. Is old-fashioned insulting?”
“No.”
“Well, I mean it to be. We aren’t school-aged children in uniform anymore, Herm. There’s no dress code out here.”
“What, you think I ought to show a little more leg?” Hermione said. She laughed. “Please. It’s February. It’s freezing.”
“Actually, it’s the first of March,” Walter pointed out. “Spring shall be upon us soon.”
“It’s still cold.”
“Not if you’re out dancing it isn’t.”
Walter gave her a meaningful look. Too meaningful, Hermione thought. “So you know about that,” she said.
“Know about what?” Walter asked, his voice overly monotonous. “I don’t know anything about my friends who don’t trust to tell me things.”
“You know that Liam owled me, because he must have gotten my new address from you,” Hermione said.
“Oh, did he now,” Walter said, still speaking in tones of deep, dull sarcasm.
“Yes. And as you are perfectly aware, he asked if I’d like to go dancing. Next Friday night, in fact.”
Walter was frowning deeply. The expression looked wrong on his face; it was like seeing a puppy sad.
“What? Is that a problem?”
“Have you answered him yet?”
“No… but I was going to.”
Walter stopped walking. “Let’s duck in here,” he said, tilting his head towards an Irish pub right ahead of them.
“Looks crowded,” Hermione noted. “And muggle.”
”Muggle?”
”It’s what they call no-majes in Britain,” Hermione explained. “Guess it stuck for me.”
“Ah, I see. Well then, yes. It’s very muggle, which makes it perfect. Might want to shrink that book so you can put it in your pocket. Wouldn’t be wise to have a book on arithmancy or whatever out on the table here. Do it over here; I’ll be your lookout.”
Hermione frowned, for it was not a book on arithmancy, but discreetly did as he said. Walter then walked up to the man waiting at a podium outside of the pub and beamed at him. “Hello, good sir,” he said cheerfully. “Beautiful day, isn’t it? Could we get a table for two? Somewhere in the back will do nicely.”
The man returned his smile, but it was much sharper, almost condescending. “So sorry sir, but it’s at least an hour wait, and…”
His voice trailed off. The man’s eyes went glassy and his jaw slack. Hermione stepped forward, and was stunned to see that Walter—his wand carefully hidden beneath his sleeve—had hexed this man. Right there, in broad daylight! In the middle of a street full of muggles milling about!
(Not that Hermione was above doing much worse things when necessary, but that was different and besides the point)
“Walt!” Hermione hissed, but Walter raised a hand to quiet her.
“Of course, I forgot. Your reservation. My apologies sir. Right this way,” the man said robotically. He grabbed two menus like someone in a trance (which he clearly was) and walked away, into the pub.
“Come on,” Walter said, smiling at Hermione. “Let’s go to our table shall we? Before we start saying ridiculous things aloud, hm?”
He said the word ‘before’ with a great deal of emphasis, for Hermione had surely shown every sign of making a scene. Seething, she held her tongue and followed him inside.
The pub was crowded, very much so. There was some sports game on that Hermione couldn’t be bothered to identify that had the muggles thoroughly entertained. They arrived at a booth in the back… where three muggle men were already sitting.
A bit of a scene unfolded, where the poor, bewitched waiter had to apologize profusely to the muggles for forgetting that the table had been reserved. After the promise of a free round of drinks if they relocated to the bar and a quick wipe down, all was well, and Hermione and Walter were seated.
“That was incredibly unethical,” Hermione hissed under her breath the moment she could.
“Giving away free drinks like that? I know, that waiter should be fired.”
“No! You hexed that poor man! In public!”
“Yes, well, I didn’t feel like waiting an hour. And this is not the sort of conversation I want to have out in the open, where wizards are more likely to overhear us.”
Hermione scanned the pub. Seeing as how they were all engrossed in this muggle sports game, she highly doubted any of them were wizards.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “So what is—?”
“What can I get for you two?”
A very stressed looking waitress stood over them, awaiting their order. “Jameson straight, please,” Walter said, smiling at her.
“Same,” Hermione said distractedly.
The waitress nodded and snatched up their menus, like she was afraid if she left them that they might decide to also order food. She obviously had her hands full already.
“What is it that’s so important?” Hermione finished once she was gone.
Walter let out a long sigh. Around them, the bar erupted in cheers. Someone must have scored or something.
“It’s Liam,” he said. “I just… I don’t think he’s right for you.”
“Oh? Why not?” Hermione asked. “He seems nice enough. Very handsome, too. And he’s your best friend, so he must not be all bad.”
“Yes, he’s my best friend, so I would know better than anyone,” Walter said. “Trust me, you don’t want to get caught up with Liam. Not like that, anyway.”
“Am I sensing… jealousy?” Hermione said coyly.
Walter blinked at her, looking surprised. “Jealous? Of who, Liam? Because he’s asking you out on a date?”
Hermione nodded. Walter laughed heartily. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said with a grin. “For your sake, I’m sorry to say that I don’t swing that way.”
The waitress returned. She set two rocks glasses full of Jameson on their table and hurried away, not so much as a word to either of them.
Hermione stared. “I… excuse me?”
“I thought you knew that about me!” Walter said. “Most the school did; it was a bit obvious after Jones and I had that whole… you know what? Delightful as that trip down memory lane would be, that’s not why I dragged you in here and so beautifully and skillfully broke the wizarding law. Also not the greatest thing to be blabbering about in a no-maj pub, is it? Even if they are entranced by that television set. They are horrendous about this sort of thing, Merlin knows why… No.”
Walter slammed his hand down on the table, causing both the glasses to dance. None of the muggles noticed. “You should not go out with Liam. Trust me, it is for your own good.”
“Okay, but why not?” Hermione asked. “Is he some sort of criminal or something? Because so are you, evidently.”
“No, nothing quite so nefarious,” Walter said, shaking his head. “Look, I’m sure you heard at least one rumor or two in school, even if he wasn’t in your grade… Liam is… goodness, how to put this delicately? Ah, right. I know. He’s a whore. A loveless, sex-crazed whore. God bless him.”
He nodded firmly to himself, then downed half his drink.
“And has he been a loveless whore with you?” Hermione couldn't help but ask.
Walter looked disgusted. “Liam’s like my brother. We were friends long before school, even. That would be repulsive. Also, he sadly prefers women.”
He cast Hermione a judgmental look. “I don’t see the appeal myself.”
Hermione scoffed “Okay, so Liam… gets around. And may not exactly treat all the women he goes out with like a perfect gentleman, I’m assuming,” she said. The look on Walter’s face said that this was a vast understatement, but he did not interrupt. “So what? Perhaps I’m not interested in some dutifully committed boyfriend. Maybe I’m just interested in having some fun.”
“Oh, you’ll have fun all right,” Walter drawled. “For maybe two dates. Then he’ll toss you aside like an old pair of underwear and will want nothing to do with you. Nothing. Might even talk badly about you behind your back in an attempt to ruin your reputation. Because that’s the type of person Liam is. He stops wanting to be with women after about five minutes, but then can’t stand it when they move on to someone else. He is the worst person to date, the worst. Best to avoid him and all the drama that comes with him entirely. Trust me. You’ll be thanking me later.”
Hermione shrugged. “I think I can handle myself, thanks,” she said coolly. She took a sip of her drink. It made her lips purse. “What is this?”
“No-maj whiskey,” Walter said. “And no, you can’t handle yourself with Liam. That’s what I’m trying to say here. No one can. I’ve seen it time and time again, like some horrible no-maj soap opera on repeat. It will happen to you, too. Trust me.”
“Mmm.”
Walter threw his head back in exasperation. “Ugh! Witches!” he shouted. Not a single muggle turned to look. “You all think you’re so special, don’t you? When it comes to dating and entrancing men and all that.”
“We do, and I do, yes.”
“Har har,” Walter said. “Listen, Herm… can you keep a secret, really and truly?”
“I… yes, of course,” Hermione said, for he suddenly looked serious.
Walter leaned towards her, putting both elbows on the table and straining his neck to get as close as possible. “I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t care about you. If I wasn’t trying to protect you. And if I wasn’t positive that this is something that would be very difficult if not impossible for you to prove, even if you tried. But this is something you can never repeat to anyone, ever. Understand?”
Hermione nodded. Walter scanned the pub, then leaned in close to her again.
“Liam is… barely, mind you… but… well, he’s…”
“He’s what?”
“He’s part-Veela.”
Hermione’s lips parted in shock.
“It was his great, great, great, great, great grandmother or something. Might even be another great or two I’m missing, I don’t know.”
“Part-Veela?” Hermione echoed blankly.
“Barely,” Walter reiterated. “But you obviously understand why he and his family keep it a deeply buried secret. Most wizards aren’t exactly keen on part-creatures, especially those who work for the MACUSA… and that is a rather pressing issue for Liam.”
“Part-Veela,” Hermione said again. This time, however, she did not say it as a question, rather as a thoughtful statement.
Part-Veela.
“And I don’t know if you had any personal experience with Veelas during your worldy travels,” Walter went on, “but they are rather complicated creatures.”
“I thought they were only female,” Hermione said.
“Yes, that is what one reads in textbooks,” Walter said, nodding. “But here’s the thing. The research that isn’t being published, because to do so now would probably unveil a whole lot of wizards as part-creature. All of whom would, undoubtedly, prefer that not happen to them.”
“I’m listening,” Hermione said, for Walter had paused to take a long drink.
When he set his glass back down, it was empty. “What you will read in textbooks and hear experts say is that yes, all Veela are female. It will also be said that all Veela must therefore mate with a male outside of their race, as there are no males. Since humans are the closest to them—and most easily seduced by them, I suppose—it can be deduced, then, that all Veela babies born are female.”
“And fully Veela,” Hermione said.
“And fully Veela,” Walter agreed. “And that is true when a Veela mates with a human male. A non-magical human male, that is.”
Walter raised his hand to flag down the waitress. She was far too busy to notice him.
“I suppose you are about to tell me something different happens when it’s a wizard?”
“Perceptive as always, Herm.” Walter frowned and gave up on getting the waitress’s attention. “Indeed. If a wizard mates with a Veela, it’s usually a female who is usually a Veela herself. But those Veela are a little less powerful. Then, if that part Veela mates with a wizard, it gets watered down a little bit further. Eventually, it can get watered down enough that the Veela we are theoretically considering here no longer has the disposition to reject anything with a Y chromosome.”
“So she can have a male child,” Hermione said.
“Yes. One who, supposedly, will not inherit any of his mother’s Veela magic and will be, for all intents and purpose, a regular wizard, just like any other magical human man… This is what Liam emphatically and angrily explained to me once, anyway.”
“And you think he’s lying?”
“I don’t think he’s lying to me so much as he is to himself, because that’s what his mother has told him. He has admitted to me that he’s part-Veela, yes—something I doubt that he would never, ever admit to anyone else—but if he outright refuses to think he is… well, actually part-Veela, you know what I mean? He’s convinced himself it has played no part in him being the way he is now.”
“You clearly believe otherwise,” Hermione said.
“I know that it has. The way girls get around him sometimes… it’s almost pitiful.”
“Wait,” Hermione said. “So you’re telling me that… that as a male part-Veela, he has some of the same… influential effects on women that most Veela do on men?”
Hermione remembered all too well how Ron acted in the presence of Fleur… and she was one of these ‘watered-down’ Veelas.
The thought made her feel ill.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Walter said. “They just sort of go starry-eyed around him. It’s irritating as all hell.”
He smiled smugly then, twirling his empty glass around on the table playfully. “And believe it or not, I watched it happen to you.”
Hermione gaped at him. “Excuse me?” she said. She felt a blush rushing to her cheeks.
“Oh, yes,” Walter said. “Just like all the others, I watched your wits flee from you, Herm. The very second he walked in it was like he hit you with a weak stunner.”
“No,” Hermione refused. But as she thought about it a bit, she knew he was right. Liam had made her feel overtly flustered the second she laid eyes on him. And there was something about him, too, something magical and ethereal that she couldn't really place…
“Yes,” Walter said. “But don't feel too bad. Amy, the witch who was behind the counter, couldn’t stop staring the whole time he was there. When he started talking to you, I began to fear for your safety. Lucky you I was watching your back, making sure you weren’t being hexed.”
“Oh no,” Hermione said. Her stomach was twisting in knots; she pushed the whiskey she had hardly touched away from her. “Oh no, oh no. That is… that is no good at all.”
It wasn’t that she was being discriminatory, she told herself. Hermione had always been a great advocate for creatures and those were part-creature and part-wizard. It was the fact that someone like Liam, someone who was, allegedly, part-Veela, could affect her in dangerous ways.
She could slip up around him. Surrender all her secrets without even realizing it. And then, to make matters worse, she would only want to shag him afterwards.
“You’ll listen to me then?” Walter prodded. “You’ll keep your distance and label him explicitly and solely as a friend to you?”
“Yes,” Hermione said at once. “Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for telling me. I rather like having my wits about me.”
Walter smiled, looking pleased with himself. “Good,” he said. He snatched up Hermione’s Jameson and took a sip.
“Why is he so worried, though?” Hermione asked, still curious. “If I recall correctly, the only laws in place that discriminate against part-creatures are for those who are more than twenty-five percent non-human. Liam obviously doesn’t fit into that.”
“That’s not what he’s worried about,” Walter said. “He’s more concerned with potential workplace discrimination… or future potential workplace discrimination, I should say. He wants to work for the MACUSA. For the same department as me. Same position, in fact.”
“He wants to be an Auror?”
“Yep. Like so many other young hopefuls, Liam wants to become a Oculus just like moi.”
“Surely that shouldn’t be a problem,” Hermione said, frowning.
“Not an account of his heritage, no, as no one at the MACUSA is aware of that. But it could become an issue down the line. You know how some of these wizards are, especially the ones with ‘old blood’... They think the purest wizards are best. Bunch of nonsense, that, but the discrimination is real.”
“Yes,” Hermione said. “Yes, I can see that. Well, I won’t tell a soul. And to divulge a secret of my own, I’ve gotten pretty good at Occlumency. So I shouldn’t have a hard time keeping it a secret, either.”
Walter looked impressed by this. “Have you now?” he said.
“I’m decent enough.”
“Interesting… Being proficient in the mind arts is one of the most challenging aspects of the job. The part I struggle with the most, honestly.” Walter’s grin widened. “Maybe you should consider trying to be an Oculus. Wouldn’t that be something?”
He laughed. Hermione forced herself to smile, too, but she found it anything but funny. It was clear by the way he joked about it that witches did not often become things like aurors in this time in the MACUSA.
“The test is atrocious though,” Walter went on. “Really, really difficult. Liam has failed twice already. They allow potentials to try it twice a year… Next one is in just a few weeks. He’s a mess about it, but he really shouldn’t be. Most people who try pass on their third or fourth try.”
“What’s this atrocious test like?”
“I can’t say.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize that you worked for the Department of Mysteries.”
“Ha!” Walter tilted his head back and drained the last of her whiskey. “Come on, let’s bust this joint,” he said. He stood, then offered her his hand. “We’re going dancing.”
“Dancing?” Hermione said. “Right now? On a Wednesday afternoon?”
“I know a place that plays some of the best live music every Wednesday. And just because you shouldn’t go dancing alone with Liam doesn’t mean you shouldn't go dancing ever.”
Hermione grinned. “I’m not sure I’m dressed properly, according to you.”
“You’ll be fine. Although you currently look more like someone who would prefer ballroom dancing. Is that what they do in fancy London? Waltzing and whatnot?”
Hermione thought about this for a moment. There had been some dancing going on at the WAG gala before the auction, and though she had not gone near it, it did look like proper waltzing. Whether that was simply because of the event or because that was what people did there in this year, she wasn’t quite sure. “I suppose, yes,” she settled for.
“Oh dear,” said Walter. “Well that just won’t do at all. You need to come with me more than ever, then. Waltzing. How sad.”
“What’s sad about that?” Hermione asked.
“Because we’re officially in the fifties, darling! In the greatest city in the world!” Tired of waiting for Hermione to take his hand, Walter reached down and grabbed hers instead. He pulled her up and twirled her around, causing Hermione to nearly stumble and squeal at the same time.
He held her afterwards, smiling that giant smile that exposed the gap in his teeth. “And we are all about that swing.”
Chapter 27: In Like a Lion
Chapter Text
Hermione soon learned that this time of year in New York was more mercurial than a madman’s unpredictable temper. March began with a biting cold, and as she sat on her rooftop, enjoying her nightly cup of chamomile tea, she watched the snow falling from above with a sense of wonder. It hadn’t snowed at all in February when she was here. Now, several days into the month that would soon welcome Spring, the wind was blowing so violently and it was snowing so heavily that the night sky looked like it was falling from the heavens in giant, white pieces of fluff.
Life in New York was coming along nicely, Hermione thought. Her friendship with Walter continued to bloom, developing into something that was becoming very real for her, despite its basis in lies. He took her to all the hottest clubs in Manhattan (both magical and not) where swing was, in fact, all the rage. He taught her to dance, which he admitted she picked up quickly, and introduced her to his many friends (all of whom were wizards and witches, but who all preferred no-maj fashion and music and who all smoked no-maj cigarettes, and Hermione could only internally roll her eyes at the hypocrisy). It was incredible meeting them all, as they were much more varied and interesting than their London counterparts, Hermione thought. For one, they were not all wealthy—in fact, many struggled financially in a way that made Hermione squirm with guilt—and for another, while they were proud of being magical, none of them were grasping onto the title of ‘pureblood’ as though it made them royalty. They made snide comments about some of their peers who claimed ‘old blood’, which Hermione assumed were those aware of their familial ties to the Sacred Twenty-Eight, but she had not yet had the pleasure of meeting any of those witches or wizards.
No, Walter tended to hang out with an altogether different brand of magical human. If Hermione had to describe his group of friends in one word, it would be wild.
Liam was his closest friend, and therefore almost always out at nights where Walter planned to be. Hermione was carefully keeping him at a distance, however, always coming up with excuses as to why she could not go out with him alone and excusing herself when he would cunningly corner her, ensnaring her attention at the edge of the bar when someone else walked away, or by convincing her to dance with him (which she had only been foolish enough to do once). She was hopeful that soon he would get the hint and stop asking altogether. Just friends, was the message she continued to send loudly and clearly. But men were men and Liam was a ‘loveless whore’, according to Walter, and she knew it would take some time before he gave up.
But Liam was not the only fascinating person Walter knew. Perhaps the most interesting were two witches. One was named Denise, a tall, dark-skinned woman with deep brown, almond-shaped eyes. The other was named Peggy, a blonde witch who was born into a non-magical family in Alabama. She said she was happy to have ‘escaped’ that terrible life after learning she was a witch (“I always knew I was different; my mother commented one time on what a shame it was that my hair was getting darker because men preferred blondes for wives, and the next day, it was bright, light blonde again! First bit of accidental magic. Still no husband, though.”), and how it changed her life, attending Ilvermorny and later moving to the city.
What was most fascinating of all, however, was how quickly everyone accepted Hermione’s existence.
It was almost too easy! After an introduction from Walter, who would explain quickly that Hermione had been a silent bookworm a year below them that had secretly helped him with homework, the generous nerd, they nearly always nodded and believed him without question. Even crazier was when sometimes, after a moment of pondering, some would claim to remember a time when they had interacted with her (“Oh right, weren’t you the girl who helped William with the charm to animate that giant drawing of a Thunderbird in the common room?”; “I remember you, I used to see you in the library sometimes! You were pretty short, weren’t you? Still kind of are.”). Hermione would smile and nod, and it was amazing, really, how the best thing she could do to cement her fake, past life here was let them invent it for her.
When discussing memory during her training at the Department of Mysteries, Holloway had once said that it was incredibly malleable. That one’s memory was not a seamless recording of sorts, as many people thought; it was not a recollection that stayed the same in our minds, always. Recalling something, he explained, was more difficult than that.
“Each time you remember something, it is like you are painting a picture,” he'd said. “And everytime, you start from scratch. Naturally, those pictures are going to be a little different every time you paint them, changing over time. They’ll vary even more if you’ve had an outside source influence your memory. For instance, say you swear you were wearing a blue sweater on a particular day. I claim I was there, and I say, ‘No, you were wearing red. Remember? It was the day of the Gryffindor Quidditch game. Of course you were wearing red.’ Suddenly, you recall wearing red. Your painting has changed, because I convinced you that what you remembered was wrong. This is why memories to be used in court cases must be extracted as soon as possible to be considered viable, and even then, they often are not… It is too easy to manipulate people into thinking they remember something false.”
Hermione had believed him easily enough then, but it was something else to watch it happen firsthand. They all accepted something false, because someone else suggested it was true.
Yes, her new American acquaintances readily welcomed her into their lives, and Hermione felt she was well on her way towards making more real friends. They were much more accepting here, Hermione thought, and the women in particular seemed far less judgmental. After about two drinks on their second meeting, Peggy spoke to Hermione rather openly about her conflicted upbringing in the deep south of no-maj America, and Denise was somehow even more blunt and (lovingly) judgmental than Walter was, offering advice whether it was asked for or not, and in the same breath saying things like, ‘But do whatever makes you comfortable.’
Life in New York was coming along very nicely indeed… but Hermione feared that it would all come crashing down.
It seemed inevitable that someday, somehow, her lies would come to light if she stayed here in America. It was a stark truth that had kept Hermione up many nights, strategizing on how to prevent such an event.
The conclusion that she had come to was that she could not.
Even if she did not overstay her time here in New York, even if she left after completing her first goal of establishing what would look like the normal life of a normal young witch to anyone who might come calling after she was gone, she knew she could not keep up her life of lies forever. Not unless she went to some remote area of the world soon, somewhere desolate and depressing, where she could simply exist until she decided to carry on her other mission: defeat Lord Voldemort (one way or another).
But Hermione didn’t want to just exist. She wanted to live.
That was the real crux of it all. Now that she had developed real relationships—Hepzibah and Hokey, her faux-family; her growing friendships with Walter and others here in America—Hermione realized just how depressed she had been without such people in her life. She had gone so long without the comfort of Harry’s warmth and Ginny’s companionship and Ron...
All she’d had for months and months was Draco Malfoy. And while she had begun to genuinely enjoy whatever that relationship was, it had not been enough. She wanted more.
Hermione decided to look at it this way: she should have died the day that she attempted to murder Merope Gaunt. She should have, but she didn’t. Now she was in a time she never intended to be in, dealing with whatever was happening to her body right now, affected by the Time-Turner as it was, and she had been here long enough that she had accepted that she was stuck here. Forever. Not in her own timeline, but elsewhere. Not our problem, as Holloway would say.
Which meant nothing she did here could possibly hurt or otherwise affect anyone she knew from her old life.
Which meant she had nothing to lose.
Which meant she might as well have a life, and when the house of cards which were her lies came crashing down like a violent game of Exploding Snaps, well…
She would deal with that then.
Lately, Hermione had stopped trying to come up with ways to prevent that from happening in favor of being able to control when and how it happened. While time-traveling such as she had was illegal, even in this day and age, it was possible that she could find ways around any legal recourse, and perhaps even from public judgment… The Department of Mysteries was, after all, an entire branch of the Ministry of Magic that was not held under the power of the rest of the Ministry...
Problems for the future, she told herself, then forced her attention back to the beautiful sky.
Hermione smiled, snuggling into her comfortable robe and leaning back into her chair, untouched by the snow. She had taken a leaf out of Abraxas’s book and had renovated her previously modest rooftop into something beautiful and enchanting. She had filled it with comfortable seating, furniture, and, most importantly, flowers. And she had been very specific about what kind she wanted.
All around her, Hermione was surrounded by roses.
It had surprised her, truly, just how many varieties of roses there were. Hermione had hired an excellent florist to help her, and when she was given a list of what kinds she could choose from, had decided to pick as many as possible. Wild ones and cultivated ones; some with massive thorns and some without. Roses in all different sizes and colors, with their own scents and ways of growing. She had them in massive pots and flower beds, some bushes as tall as trees with blooms as big as her fists and some as small as her teapot with tiny flower buds that were yet to bloom. She loved how many kinds there were, all with the same name yet wildly different aesthetics.
Yes, her roof had truly become a sanctuary for Hermione. She would come up to it nearly every night, looking out on the city she now called home. This was the first night she was out while it snowed, though. Normally, she would come and star-gaze, drinking her tea and admiring the sky…
And, admittedly, frustrating herself.
Is Riddle trying to decipher the stars?
She would ponder this every time she looked up, despite herself. Was he seeing some future there that she was unaware of, giving him an advantage? Was she in that future?
Was he thinking of her at all?
Hermione sighed and took a sip of her tea. At least she knew that Riddle was having no such luck using Divination tonight if the weather in London was anything like it was here, she thought glumly. The clouds covered everything as far as she could see, filling the sky with snow.
What is that saying again, about March? Hermione struggled to recall it as she watched the snow whirl. She frowned until it came to her.
Oh yes, she remembered. March, March… In like a lion…
She smiled and watched the sky fall.
“That’s some bullshit!”
Denise was not one afraid to curse, and she did so loudly and frequently. “Absolute bullshit!” she repeated. “You suck, Walter!”
Walter grinned as though she had paid him a great compliment. “Do I?” he said. “It looks to me as though I don’t suck at all. That ball went right where I wanted it to. Now all that’s left…”
He sauntered to the other side of the pool table, using his stick like a walking cane. He stopped at the corner and leaned down, positioning himself. He had a perfect shot—the eight ball was directly in front of a middle pocket, no obstacles in sight.
“Is this.”
He tapped the cue ball lightly with the end of his stick. It rolled slowly, almost as though he had made it move so on purpose just to be infuriating, before it finally touched the eight ball, which tipped into the pocket and fell out of sight.
“And that’s game,” he said loftily, straightening his posture.
“Bullshit!” Denise yelled again. She’d had quite a bit to drink already, and showed no signs of slowing. “You cheated!”
“Me, cheating?” Walter acted affronted. “Are you accusing me of witchcraft, young lady?”
There was a beat where Denise’s eyes grew wide—as did Hermione’s, for that matter—but then Walter grinned and everyone, especially Denise, laughed.
They were in a muggle bar this evening, some divey pub that was relatively empty compared to the places they usually went. But none of the non-magical people batted an eye at Walter’s comment, and Hermione knew it hadn’t caused any real harm.
“He won fair and square,” Peggy said. She hadn’t been playing, just watching from her perch of a stool nearby. “Shots are on you, Denise.”
“It would be my honor,” Denise said dryly. When she got to the bar she said, “Two shots of tequila for me and the cheating witch friend over there, good sir,” to which Walter bowed humbly and to which the bartender looked unamused. She slid him some no-maj money, and it was still incredible, Hermione thought, how used to that Americans were. Here, everyone had no-maj money to spend, as well as magical currency. In England, Mr. Weasley hadn’t been able to figure out how one could possibly spend a ‘bit of paper’.
“Fancy a game, Hermione?” Liam asked. Hermione glared at him, for he had asked it in a thick, fake English accent—something he rather enjoyed doing around her.
“No, thank you,” Hermione said. “I’m not much of a pool player.”
“Might as well just skip to the part where you buy us both shots, then,” he said, dropping the accent and smiling at her devilishly.
It was a dangerous smile, so Hermione turned away.
Denise and Walter threw back their muggle tequila, after which Denise slammed her glass on the counter. “I’ll play you, Liam,” she said with a slight slur.
Liam shrugged. “If you feel like keeping that tab of yours open longer, sure.”
Walter slid onto the seat next to Hermione and Peggy. “Let them distract each other,” he said happily, once they’d turned away. “Denise is a bit too drunk and Liam’s in a real mood tonight.”
“What's wrong with Liam?” Peggy asked. As far as Hermione knew, she had not yet had an ‘altercation’ with Liam, as Walter called them. Hermione hoped that she never would, but the look of longing in Peggy’s eyes when she stared at him did not give Hermione much hope.
“He’s annoyed because I keep telling him he needs to study more for the written portion of the Oculus exam, and he won’t do it,” Walter explained. “Rather, he says he will, but I know he won’t. And he won’t pass again if he doesn’t shape up.” He sighed heavily. “I don’t want to deal with him if he fails again. He was miserable for weeks last time.”
“Maybe you should tutor him,” Hermione suggested.
Walter snorted. “Yeah right,” he said. “Liam doesn’t accept help, ever.”
“Then let him fail,” Hermione said simply. “It’s his own fault.”
“I know… it really is a shame, though. He’s really skilled at dueling; he would do so well in the practical. Honestly. I bet he would be nearly on par with Lester Madison in a straight forward duel.”
Hermione frowned at the name which he brought up again. She meant to look him up, but kept forgetting. “Who is Lester Madison, exactly?” she asked. “I mean, I know he’s the Head of the Auror Department, but you always get a bit starry-eyed when you talk about him…”
Both Peggy and Walter looked surprised. “You don’t know the story behind Lester Madison?” Peggy said. “Really?”
“I’m quite drunk and have been gone for a long time,” Hermione said. She suddenly deeply regretted not looking into him. “I’ve forgotten. Remind me.”
“Oh my Lord,” Walter said. “Oh darling, it would be my pleasure. Can I get another beer? Make it three. We all need another drink for this.”
The bartender nodded and went to get more drinks. He didn’t seem to notice nor care that Walter was talking about aurors and being an Oculus and other strange things. He probably just thinks we’re a bunch of young drunks, Hermione mused. He wasn’t wrong, either.
“Lester Madison,” Walter began, “is a legend. He was a literal vigilante in the late twenties and thirties. Started right after the whole Obscurial disaster, when Newt Scamander was here with that Thunderbird that saved everyone.”
“Fraaaank!” Denise shouted from across the bar, evidently having superhuman hearing. A quick glance told Hermione she was losing the game of pool against Liam.
Hermione raised a brow at Walter. “The Thunderbird’s name was Frank,” he explained.
“To Frank!” Peggy said, raising her glass in Denise’s direction.
“Fuck yeah! To Frank!” Denise yelled back. They gave each other fake, air cheers from a distance, then took deep drinks.
“Anyway,” Walter carried on, “Lester Madison was born here in Manhattan, here for that whole thing. His family is one of the older wizarding ones, and very wealthy. His parents died when he was young, some murderous scandal that not even I know the details of, leaving him with a lot of anger and a lot of money.”
“After Frank,” Peggy interrupted, making Walter frown, “he realized just how much people like us can get away with publicly, if they really want. Because there was a lot of backlash after that whole debacle, as we all know. So Lester started to do all the things we think about doing all the time but don’t want to get arrested for.”
The bartender set their beers in front of them. They all smiled and said thank you; the bartender turned away as though their conversation could not be less interesting to him.
“Like stopping no-maj crimes and healing sick people,” Walter said. “Or fixing up old buildings that were falling apart in bad neighborhoods, you know, things like that.”
“And he would do it all at night, all while wearing this mask and black uniform so no one could tell who he was in pictures and such,” Peggy said. “It was the biggest scandal ever. He would be very active for a while, then stop altogether, then resurface suddenly. It took the MACUSA years and years to finally catch him.”
“He broke the Statute of Secrecy no less than two hundred and seven times,” Walter said wistfully.
“Wow,” Hermione said. Then, “You said he wore a costume? And only worked at night?”
“Yeah, and he would drive this enchanted no-maj car around so that he could drive impossibly fast around the city. He could even make it turn invisible if he wanted, he was that good at disillusionment. It was amazing.”
Oh my God, Hermione thought in absolute awe. Lester Madison was the real-life Batman. She was willing to bet half her gold that he had saved some muggle boy, and that one day that boy grew up to write the famous no-maj Batman comics.
“I know, right?” Walter said, misinterpreting her amazed expression. “He was a genius.”
“But also a criminal, in the eyes of the MACUSA,” Hermione said. “So how is it that now he’s the Head of the Auror Department?”
“He was given a choice at trial,” Walter said. “Partially because he had such a good defense—he was saving lives, after all—and partially because the public adored him so much. So, he was given the option of life in prison, or work for the Auror Department for life. Nothing like that had ever happened before. Obviously, he chose the latter. Became Head of the Department within five years.”
“So he enjoys working for the government he spent so many years defying?” Hermione asked, skeptical.
“Not at all. He’s incredibly bitter and has problems with the way the MACUSA runs things all the time. But he’s obligated by a magical contract… I don’t even want to know what he had to agree to, to sign away in order to avoid imprisonment. But he’s so skilled that the MACUSA keeps him around. Which is crazy, if you really look at just how many laws he’s broken and how…”
Hermione had a staggering epiphany.
Lester Madison had broken the law countless times; he had, it seemed, purposefully taunted and humiliated the MACUSA for years…
If they could forgive him…
“Is that normal?” Hermione asked, needing confirmation. “Pardoning people who want to become aurors, I mean. Since they forgave him for breaking the law… You said it hadn’t happened before him, but is it now standard that they will make exceptions for others who have a criminal record? If they pass the exam and practical, of course. I imagine it must be, in order to justify how lenient they were with him.”
Walter gave her a curious look. “It is, I think… though it’s all on a case by case basis. Why? Do you have a criminal record that I should know about? Did you get into some trouble whilst traveling abroad, Herm?”
He was grinning, clearly joking, but Hermione was not smiling at all. She grabbed hold of Walter’s hand and held it tightly. This could be perfect, she thought. Why go back to England and worm her way into the Department of Mysteries to protect herself one day when she could do it here? If she became an Oculus she could be protected if the truth of her life ever came out… Not that she wanted that to happen any time in the near future, but if it did, if she passed, they could pardon her time-traveling offense…
One day, she could stop living a lie.
“Walter,” she said seriously. He and Peggy both stared at her, confused. They had never seen Hermione like this: determined, focused, and ready to pass an exam with flying colors.
“I’m going to take that test.”
It was a lot of studying.
After an initial moment of shock, Walter had been beyond pleased at Hermione’s intention to become an Oculus, much to her surprise. Even Peggy had been supportive from the get-go, and Denise had been so enthusiastic that she’d flung her arms out wide, smacking Liam in his beautiful face with her pool stick, effectively ending their game.
Liam was less thrilled at her declaration.
“Probably the best silver lining to come out of this,” Walter had told her later. “Nothing I said could get him to study, but as soon as you say you’re going to apply, he starts reading like it’s going out of style. I guess the idea of failing again and you passing is just too much for him. The bastard.”
Hermione had to admit, it worked in her favor as well. There was no better motivation for studying than knowing you had a pompous arse to put in his place.
Hermione was studying now, once more on her picturesque rooftop. Her cup of chamomile tea cold and forgotten, she had books scattered all over the table in front of her, open on their spines to various pages, all about Charms, Potions, Transfiguration, and, naturally, Defense Against the Dark Arts.
One subject that was pointedly missing was Divination.
Hermione felt quite smug about this. Must not be too important, hm, Riddle? If it’s not required for one of the most difficult and important jobs in the wizarding world.
She imagined he would have something very snarky to say to that, but Hermione could not think of what.
Sighing, she turned her attention towards the sky. It was clear and beautiful, the moon just a sliver of silver, allowing the stars to shine as brightly as they could in such a city with light pollution. It couldn’t have been more different than it was earlier in the month, when it was snowing so heavily.
A perfect night for stargazing, a small voice whispered in the back of her head.
A perfect night for more than star-gazing…
What would Riddle see there, if he looked tonight? What would he divine?
Unwisely, Hermione allowed herself to dwell on this. Not knowing was going to drive her mad.
Feeling like she had lost some sort of battle, Hermione climbed back down into her loft. She went to her bookshelf, where she had exactly one book on Divination that she had yet to open, despite having purchased it weeks ago. Reading the Story of the Stars: A Guide for Beginners. She begrudgingly pulled it from the shelf and returned to the rooftop.
The night really was perfect for star-gazing… and more.
Hermione opened the book and began to read, pausing only to stare intently at the clear, peaceful sky.
March, March, the end of March, she thought with a grin.
Out like a lamb.
Chapter 28: The Brightest
Chapter Text
Hermione had decided two things as she studied diligently for the written portion of the exam.
First was that she was certain that she was going to pass. Hermione had never before failed an important exam, and she did not intend to start with this one.
Second was that she had come to realize that, yet again (for sometimes one needed to learn lessons more than once), Divination was stupid and a total waste of her time.
The most frustrating part of Divination was that it was never entirely concrete. While Arithmancy had some points that were open to user interpretation—selecting which words one considered the subject of their dreams, for instance—Divination was almost always open to user interpretation, at any point. Even while attempting a simple star reading, one meant to answer the vague but effective question, ‘What will tomorrow bring?’, there were multiple moments where the paths in the stars would divide, so to speak, and the reader had to make a choice while divining. That was what frustrated Hermione so much about the process. How was she supposed to trust an answer to any question she might have if she got the final answer by ‘following her intuition’ half the time? No, Hermione needed repeatable, dependable formulas for her answers. Anything gleaned from interpretations based on a person’s whims was, in her opinion, meaningless.
Divination was stupid.
A distraction is what it is, really, Hermione told herself as she made her way to The Rosebush on a warm, Sunday morning to meet Walter for coffee. Just something to deter me from my current goals… exactly the sort of thing Riddle would want, I’m sure.
He would want her to fail, wouldn’t he? Whether Riddle missed her in the slightest or not, or was in any way sad that she had left London, he would certainly not enjoy the fact that Hermione Smith was considering becoming an Oculus. A new auror for the MACUSA? An anti-dark magic witch living and working a steady job in America by choice?
He would absolutely despise that.
Which only motivated her to want it more, naturally. That and, of course, beating Liam, the self-righteous, gorgeous prat.
When did despicable, good-looking wizards become such an issue in her life?
“Hermione.”
Hermione was so startled she nearly ripped her wand out of her pocket, expecting the worst. Who had found her? What did they know? Was now the moment where she would go on the run, escaping this place and her self-made life before she could secure the possibility of a pardon for her crimes?
She nearly swayed with relief to see that it was none other than Liam himself who had caught her off guard, calling her by name in the middle of crowded Times Square. “Whoa,” he said, his sea-glass eyes darting to where she had nearly retrieved her wand. “Sorry, doll. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Hermione let out a huff of annoyance. “I didn’t realize Walter had invited you to coffee this morning, too,” she said. “Assuming that you’re on your way to The Rosebush as well?”
“He didn’t, and I’m not,” Liam admitted. He moved closer to her, and it was amazing, really, watching the no-majes in his presence. They skirted around him as though afraid of being too close, yet at the same time slowed down as they walked to stare at him. Hermione imagined he was used to this treatment.
Did muggles behave the same way around Riddle in crowded spaces? Hermione wondered, unable to stop herself, but she doubted it.
Riddle was a master of blending in when he wanted to, a snake in the grass. Liam was the sort who strived to stand out.
Yes, they may have both been good-looking, but the two were starkly different. If she had to cast the two handsome wizards in the roles of stereotypical male models posing for the covers of romance novels—which she never would, because that would be ridiculous—Hermione would cast Tom Riddle as the charming, sweet Prince of a fairy tale. Riddle’s book cover would feature him riding a white horse and wearing clean robes and fine jewelry, looking like royalty. His pale skin and full lips made him seem more ethereal than intimidating. Riddle would charm you with his dazzling smile, perfect, dark hair, and his undeniable gift with words.
Liam, on the other hand, was like the rugged pirate who didn’t ask if he might have your hand in a dance, but would take you by the arm daringly and whisk you away from the ball altogether. His cover would show him shirtless to expose his tanned chest, looking disheveled from whatever recent disaster he’d narrowly avoided. Liam would charm you with his adventurous spirit. Not to mention those piercing, green-blue eyes…
“S-sorry?” Hermione said. Liam was looking down at her expectantly with those piecing eyes now. She shook her head, annoyed at herself for her traitorous, wandering mind.
“I said he didn’t invite me to coffee,” he repeated. “But he did mention that he was meeting you this morning to see how your studying was going, so I decided to intervene.”
“Intervene? Why?” Hermione asked. “Hoping to learn my studying secrets?”
“Actually, yes.”
Liam cast a quick glance over his shoulders, and the no-maj women who had been ogling him (within earshot) scurried off like frightened mice. “I might… I would like your help.”
Hermione might have laughed if he didn’t look so serious. “Whatever would you need my help with, Liam?”
“I know Walter’s told you—I’m no good at writing. I’ve always been terrible at test taking. I’d do great in the practicals in every subject at school, and barely scrape a pass in the written portion of the exams. And that was with cheating half the time.”
Hermione didn’t have to say anything; Liam addressed the appalled concerns that must have shown on her face. “Of course I’m not thinking of cheating on this exam,” he said. “They would obviously catch me, and then I would never be able to apply again. No, I want to pass, and I want to do it right. I just might… admittedly… need some help.”
Liam, unable to hold eye contact with her any longer, turned his focus to the ground. And… was he blushing?
Hermione swallowed back any desire to poke fun at him. This was, perhaps, the first time he was being vulnerable with her. Still, she was suspicious. “So why not ask Walter to help you study? He’s your best friend, plus he’s actually taken the test. I haven’t. I won’t be as good a study partner.”
“I have no doubts that you would absolutely be a better study partner,” Liam said. “For one, he doesn’t know anything more about the specifics of the written exam than I already do. I have taken the exam, two times in fact, and it doesn’t help matters. The questions and format change every time. For another, I could never study with Walter anyway, in any fashion. I tried, once, and that was a mistake. He was so superior and gloaty. Which I understand. Getting excellent marks has always been the one thing he’s better at than me. But I can’t study with him. He’s insufferable. I don’t know how you managed to do it as often as you did, honestly.”
Hermione gave him a fake, meek smile. “Well, he didn’t act that way around me.”
“Because you were always the one helping him, right? Even being a year under us. That’s why you’re a better study partner. You’re smarter than Walter. If he passed on his first try, you will as well.”
He stood a bit taller, his eyes taking on a harder edge than before. “And you’re going to help me to pass, too.”
“Oh, I am? What else will I be doing? Since you are apparently my master and I am just some lowly slave who bends to your every whim… Oh wait. I don’t, and never have.” Hermione scoffed. “As much fun as teaching you how to study properly sounds, Liam, a skill you should have acquired in school but instead chose to cheat your way through, I think I’ll pass… both on this glorious opportunity and the Oculus test. Good luck to you.”
She walked away.
“Wait!”
Hermione allowed herself a moment before turning. She didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry. I just—I’m no good at this. I’m not used to it.” He truly looked uncomfortable as he spoke, and while his hands were deep in his coat pockets, Hermione could tell they were as tightly clenched as his jaw.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” she responded. “Not used to what?”
“Asking for help. Especially not from a woman, especially not from one who seems so determined to keep her distance from me.”
Hermione laughed. When Liam frowned, she paused. “Oh, you were being serious? I thought that was a joke.”
He glowered, then forced a smile. It looked pained. “Will you help me study for this infuriating test?”
“What’s the magic word?”
“Please?”
“No.”
Hermione turned away again.
“What—hey! Hermione!”
He caught up to her quickly enough. “What was that?” he barked at her side.
“That was called rejection,” Hermione said, not looking at him. “It happens when someone is not interested. I’m not interested in you, Liam, and I’m not falling for your little ploy to get me alone to study. Maybe other witches you’ve pursued have been so naive, but I am not.”
Liam swooped in front of her, cutting her off and forcing her to stop. “Is that what you think this is?” he said. “Some ill-conceived plot to seduce you?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Please,” said Liam. “If I wanted to seduce you, you’d know it. I honestly want your help studying, nothing more. I swear it.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Really and truly?”
“I would make an Unbreakable Vow over it.”
Hermione tilted her head, considering him at length. “Okay,” she eventually said.
His whole face lit up. “Yeah?”
“To the Unbreakable Vow part. If you make an Unbreakable Vow that you will in no way attempt to flirt with me, not even in the slightest, I will help you study for this exam.”
“You’re… you’re joking,” he said.
“I’m not. But I am calling your bluff. Just how bad do you want a real study buddy?”
She waited. When he said nothing, only stared at her, she smirked. “That’s what I thought. Bye, Liam.”
She skirted around him. Just when she was certain that he would leave, defeated, he called out again.
“Fine.”
Liam raced to catch up to her, then caught her by the shoulder. When he looked at her again, it was with a fierce look of determination in his eyes. “Let’s do it. I’ll make an Unbreakable Vow. We can ask Walt to be our Witness.”
He picked up the pace, marching ahead of her. Hermione followed him as he turned a corner, then entered The Rosebush behind him. Walter, who was already there, seated at their usual table, stood when he saw them.
“You’re not being serious?” Hermione called out.
Liam ignored her, walking straight to Walter and speaking to him instead. “I need you to be a Witness for us,” he said, skipping the greetings altogether. “Hermione and I are making an Unbreakable Vow.”
Walter looked more than a little surprised and confused. “What’s all this about?” he asked, looking to Hermione for the answer.
“Liam wants to study with me,” Hermione explained. “So badly, apparently, that he’s willing to put his life on the line.”
“Why… why?” Walter responded, evidently unsure what, exactly, he should be asking.
“She thinks it’s a ruse to get her alone so that I can seduce her with my incredible charm and wit,” Liam said conversationally.
“And it’s not?”
“That’s what I said,” Hermione muttered.
“It is not,” Liam said. “Are we doing this, then?”
He stuck out his hand, offering it to Hermione. “Walt, you’ll need your wand.”
Walter looked aghast as Liam reached down and grabbed Hermione’s hand, for Hermione made no move to take his. “Ready when you are,” Liam said, glancing at Walter before locking eyes with Hermione.
“Absolutely not!” Walter shouted.
“Why not? It’s easy. I know you know how to do it.”
“It’s not—of course I know—it’s because you’ll fail and then you’ll die!”
Liam frowned at him. “You think I’m incapable of not flirting with a woman for a few hours in the name of studying?”
“I absolutely think you’re incapable!”
“Fine.”
Liam, still holding Hermione’s hand firmly, dragged her to the counter where the barista was about to take someone’s order. He rudely cut in front of them, then addressed the worker, saying, “Amy, dear. Would you mind being a Witness for us? I need to make an Unbreakable Vow assuring this young, entirely unattractive witch whom I have no interest in whatsoever that I will not try and seduce her should she help me study for an exam. It will only take a moment.”
Amy looked first at Liam, who was smiling charmingly, then at Hermione, who surely looked stunned and perhaps a little offended, then at their forcefully clasped hands, and then back to Liam. He winked at her.
She didn’t say a word, but she obviously made her decision as she withdrew her wand and placed it over their hands. Clearly, Amy the barista had no qualms at all over making sure that Liam, the attractive wizard who frequented her cafe, should not attempt to flirt with anyone else.
“Go on, then,” Amy said. She looked almost bored, like she was waiting for someone to tell her how their day was, not literally risk their lives over something asinine.
“Shall you set the terms or shall I?” Liam asked. “I’m happy to speak for myself, but if you’d like to make the request in your own words and have me pledge to agree, I will do that.”
Hermione attempted to rip her hand away, but Liam’s grasp was strong. “I’m not making an Unbreakable Vow with you, Liam!” she shouted.
“Why not? You said you were calling my bluff earlier. I’m proving that you weren’t.”
His grip tightened, and the gleam in his eyes intensified tenfold. “I, Liam Allen Wright, vow that I will in no way—”
A red light began to glow at the tip of Amy’s hovering wand. Hermione panicked. She pulled out her own wand and cast a quick, wordless disarming spell. Amy’s wand went flying over her head, landing somewhere behind the counter. She didn’t say anything about that either. She just frowned at Hermione like that was awfully rude, then went to go get it.
Liam dropped her hand. “Chickening out?” he asked.
“Yes, my goodness,” she huffed.
“For fuck’s sake, Liam!” Hermione was relieved to see that Walter had also drawn his wand to put an end to this nonsense, but already he was putting it away, shoving it back in his pocket. “What are you thinking, making Unbreakable Vows in the middle of this very crowded, very no-maj space!? And you, Amy! You work here! I should report all of you!”
“You’d never drink coffee here again, Walter,” Amy said dully. She then turned to her new customers, who looked only mildly annoyed by the interruption.
Walter ushered Hermione and Liam away from the counter. Hermione blinked as he did, having quite forgotten about where, exactly, they were. There were indeed many no-majes nearby, though they were all in the flower shop, and did not seem to have noticed anything odd happening so close to them.
Liam shrugged. “They’re not paying attention to us over here, there’s wards in place to make them look away. Amy wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”
“Oh, okay then,” said Walter sarcastically. “I guess that’s all just fine and dandy. Let’s not even address the fact that you’re insane! Do you want to die before you can even take the test?”
“I wouldn’t die. I didn’t intend to break that Vow.”
“You could easily break something like that on accident!”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”
“I know you’re no wordsmith, and Vows like that don’t exactly allow for open interpretations!”
“I know how to speak clearly when it matters! I’m not a fool!”
“Enough!” Hermione seethed, hoping to derail this bickering before it could turn into a full-blown duel. “It’s fine. Liam, I’ll study with you. No Vows. Just your word that you’ll focus on the task at hand.”
Liam’s irritation towards Walter vanished in an instant. He beamed at Hermione. “Excellent,” he said. “I’ll meet you at the library on 34th street at three. I have some errands to run before then. Have you been to that library? It’s easy to get into, you just have to go into the bodega on the street level on the corner of 34th and 7th and tell the man behind that counter literally anything about any real breed of dragon. I like to tell him Hungarian Horntails have an undeserved reputation. They’re actually much more docile than most breeds… until provoked, at any rate.”
Liam smoothed his jacket, then tipped his hat towards her and Walter. “See you later, Hermione,” he said, then went on his way.
He was just about to leave the shop when Walter suddenly shouted, “Hey! Why did you ask her to study and not me? You never ask for my help!”
Liam swiftly turned, wearing that charming, wide grin that made Hermione think of a wolf. “Because you’re an asshole, Walter,” he said. “And I want to work with someone who won’t gloat the whole time… Hopefully.”
He gave Hermione a glance as though it was a warning. He then tipped his hat again and left the cafe.
Hermione turned towards Walter. Walter, for a moment, looked offended. Then he shrugged. “He makes a fair point,” he mumbled. “Fuck ‘em, let’s order some coffees from a barista who has no issues being an accomplice to self-destruction and plan.”
“Plan?”
Walter grasped Hermione’s shoulder and gave her a look that was nearly pitying. “If you’re going to be alone with Liam—even in a public place—you’ll need some pointers.”
Walter needn’t have bothered with all his warnings and ‘pointers’.
Hermione had arrived at the library a little early (a library which was small and bland but sufficient; hidden underground beneath a seemingly normal muggle bodega), and was surprised to see that Liam was already there, surrounded by books and parchment. Even from across the room he was notably tense. He was fidgeting constantly, one knee always bouncing, and his brows were deeply furrowed as he stared down at an open book on Potions. When he looked up and caught Hermione’s eyes as she entered, his face broke out in visible relief as though he expected her to save him from his suffering.
A few things became very clear to Hermione within minutes of joining him at his table, which was chaotic and covered in too many open books and too many scraps of parchment full of his notes (his handwriting was atrocious). The first was that Liam was trying—very hard. Hermione had assumed that he was simply not taking studying seriously and probably never had, but she quickly learned that she was wrong. He was taking it seriously. He just had some major obstacles in his way.
Liam, without a doubt, suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and based on the way he was writing, mild dyslexia. He had a hard time writing, spelling certain words, and would quickly become frustrated, distracted, and give up on whatever he had been trying to read or write and move on to a completely different subject instead—another book he had open on the opposite side of the table, where similar difficulties would arise. And the process would repeat.
Hermione’s heart broke for this otherwise arrogant wizard, because surely these conditions were going undiagnosed for him, especially in this day and age. He probably thought he was bad at test-taking, ‘book stupid’, something which was undoubtedly reinforced by his teachers and peers. He might have been able to slide his way through Ilvermorny through a combination of doing well on the practical portions of exams, cheating on the written parts, and pure luck, but that would not help him here. The process for becoming an auror had been made very clear to Hermione. First, the hopefuls had to pass the written portion of the test. Only then would they move on to the practical. Liam had never made it that far.
Still, Hermione had more than a few studying tricks up her sleeve, and she had never been one to turn away a chance to help someone learn. Together, they came up with different (if slightly odd) ways to help Liam put thoughts into words and to focus on writing them down clearly. They created some humorous (and sometimes a little offensive) acronyms and mnemonics that made it easier for him to recall certain portion ingredients, magical laws and regulations, and so on.
If he got too fidgety, Hermione would declare that it was time for a break, where they would go outside and Liam would smoke no less than two cigarettes, sometimes up to four (which he always offered to Hermione, who always politely declined). When they were outside, sometimes taking a walk around the block as Liam smoked like a chimney, Hermione would prattle on about her life in London with her Auntie. She did this mainly to distract him so he would be refreshed when they returned to the confines of the library, and was pleasantly surprised when he seemed genuinely interested. He never interrupted, and for once, never added sarcastic, slide remarks as he usually did.
Maybe he isn’t such an arse, after all, Hermione found herself thinking as the clock struck nine and the librarian declared that they were closing. Maybe he’s just… misunderstood. And deeply insecure.
“I see why Walter sought you out so much in school,” Liam said, closing the giant tome on Potions. “Maybe you are the smartest witch of our age.”
“The brightest,” Hermione corrected. “And listen…”
Hermione slid a book on arithmancy back onto its shelf. Liam stood, gathering his notes and shoving them into his bag. “I think you made some really great progress today. And it helped me, too, believe it or not. Teaching really is a great way to learn. And we still have four days until the test.”
“I’m still listening,” Liam said slowly.
“I would be willing to do this again tomorrow,” said Hermione. “And maybe the next day, if it goes well.”
Liam beamed, then quickly schooled his face into a calmer, more distinguished expression. “I would like that,” he said.
“Great.” Hermione smiled. She screwed the lids on the last few ink bottles and returned them to the desk in the corner. “Then let’s meet back here tomorrow at noon.”
Liam nodded, and the two walked together out of the library, up the small stairwell and back into the seemingly normal bodega of no-maj Manhattan (which actually led into a bathroom that was, as far as the no-majes knew, permanently out of order). As they left the bodega onto the ever-crowded street, Liam said, “I’ll walk you home.”
Hermione frowned, not enjoying that it was a statement, not a request. But then she remembered the year she was in and the man who was talking, and realized that he probably didn’t mean to insinuate that she was incapable of walking home. It was night, it was 1950 in New York City, and she was a woman in the company of a self-assuming gentleman. Of course he would walk her home.
“I’m really okay to go on my own,” Hermione said regardless of all that. “I’m only a few blocks away, really. It’ll take me less than ten minus to get home.”
“All the more reason for me to walk you, then. If it’s not that far.”
“I’m fine, Liam.”
Liam gave her a deeply quizzical look. “You really distrust me, don’t you Hermione?”
“Don’t take it personally,” Hermione responded. “I distrust almost everyone.”
She grinned. Liam sighed deeply. “All right, then. Have it your way. At least let me summon you a cab, then. You shouldn’t be walking home alone in the dark like this.”
Before Hermione could say anything, Liam stuck out his right arm. Seconds later and a car came zooming around the corner, weaving through the traffic in a swift but skillful manner, swerving around other cars with no regard at all for traffic laws. When it stopped directly in front of Liam, who then dropped his arm, Hermione was gaping.
The taxi cab was not yellow, but bright, robin’s eggshell blue, with a bit of a sparkle surrounding it in a whimsical, undeniably magical way. Along the sides were the same black and white checkerboard patterns that Hermione knew from no-maj taxis, but the words beneath it identified it for what it was. ‘Wizarding Taxi Service’ was writing bold, black letters, and the crest of the MACUSA was painted beneath it.
Liam knocked on the front window with his knuckle. The cab driver rolled it down, and instantly accepted the silver coins Liam handed him. “Get my friend here home safely,” he instructed, and the cab driver nodded. Liam opened the door to the backseat.
Hermione composed herself. Of course they would have some equivalent of the Knight Bus here in Manhattan! How had she not seen one of these cars yet before? Or at least heard of them? It made complete sense that they would have magical taxis rather than a bus here, too. Far more practical for the demographic and population of magical New York City… and yet she, like a fool, had been using the no-maj subway system since she’d arrived.
Pretending as though she had done so many times, Hermione slid into the backseat of the car. “Thank you,” she said to Liam.
Liam grinned. “See you tomorrow,” he said, then closed the door.
It was a spacious car, too. Hermione could tell at once that it had been magically manipulated to feel bigger than it was. She gave the cab driver her address and was thankful when he did not drive unnecessarily fast or unlawfully to get her home.
Hermione leaned back into the cushy seat, staring out the window as they drove. She saw Liam behind her, standing exactly where they had left him until they turned a corner and he disappeared from sight.
Hermione had no trouble falling asleep once she got home, slipping into slumber nearly the moment her head hit the pillow. A good day’s studying always exhausted her.
It was curious, though, how one’s daytime actions could affect one’s dreams. Hermione dreamt that she was still studying, her elbows on the table in front of her, her chin propped up on the heel of her hand as she read feverishly.
Only, in this dream, she was not in the little library on 34th Street. She was instead back in London, studying in the massive public library where she had first devised her current identity. The book that was currently splayed in front of her looked familiar, but Hermione couldn’t seem to bring the words on the page into focus. Try as she might, it was all foreign to her. Undecipherable scribbles on a blurred, shimmering page.
A strand of hair fell from where it was tucked behind her ear, and Hermione found herself distracted. It was not the straight, sleek hair that she had grown so accustomed to, but her old hair. A tightly wound curl danced in front of her, frizzy and untamed.
A dark feeling coiled deep in Hermione’s stomach. It was time to go, she thought without knowing why. She gathered up her books and old newspapers and began to hurriedly put them away.
“Good evening, Miss Taylor. How are you?”
That voice.
Hermione was dreaming of a memory, she realized; she was subconsciously reliving a recollection of a time that had already passed.
"Mr. Riddle! I'm doing well, always such a pleasure to see you here! How are you? Is there something I can help you find?"
There he was; Tom Riddle was standing beside the counter where the librarian looked thrilled to see him.
Hermione began to walk away as quickly as she could without actually running, moving as though on autopilot in this dream as she put her books back. But just like in the dream, she tripped.
"Actually, yes. I was hoping to—oh! Are you all right, Miss…?"
Hermione ran.
The dream began moving in slow motion. Time seemed to progress sluggishly as she ran, just as desperate to escape in this dream as she had in reality. She was just about to pass him, this version of Riddle that she had refused to make eye contact with at the time, when everything came to an abrupt halt.
Time itself stopped.
Their shoulders were touching. Hermione was frozen midstep, unbearably close to him. The scent of his sandalwood cologne was in her nostrils, in her lungs, suspended within her. Even her heartbeat seemed to have come to a standstill. Everything was totally, eerily still.
Except Riddle.
Although she could not turn to face him, frozen as she was, Hermione could see the way he leaned into her from the corner of her eye. He put his lips to her ear, and she prepared herself, certain that he was going to say something. He didn’t. Riddle let out a soft, playful laugh that tickled her skin. Derisive yet delighted. It somehow said everything and nothing all at once.
When Hermione awoke, it was with the sound of Riddle’s laughter ringing in her ears… but she could not for the life of her recollect why.
Chapter 29: A Notorious Test
Chapter Text
Hermione fidgeted in her seat. She was tempted to bite at her nails, but no. She was long past such immature habits. Hermione straightened her posture and forced herself to remain still at her desk.
It was an impressive space, Hermione thought, if not exactly beautiful or ornate. The room looked a bit like one of the abandoned classrooms in Hogwarts, with high windows that let in warm streams of sunlight. It was easy to forget that they were actually underground, between one station and the next, deep in Manhattan’s no-maj subway system.
Hermione was not the only one struggling to appear cool and collected in this enchanted, secretly disclosed location. To her right was a young man who was drumming his fingers along the surface of his desk incessantly; to her left was a man who looked like he was struggling not to be sick. This made up the first full row of soon-to-be test takers. Behind her and to her left was Liam; Hermione could feel the way he bounced his knee with far too much energy. She tried not to take too much notice of the others in the room.
Hermione was the only witch.
Denise had expressed interest in applying just so that Hermione would not be the only woman, but Walter had warned her against it.
It’s no joke, this test, he’d said sternly. Don’t turn it into one by taking it if you’re not serious.
As the seconds ticked by, Hermione rehearsed useful facts in her head, over and over. She wondered if Liam was doing the same. She hoped so.
At exactly nine o’clock, the door at the front of the room opened. A wizard stepped through, a short, stout man who was perhaps in his mid-fifties, and who exuded the sense that he was a no-nonsense sort of person. He surveyed them all with narrowed, judgmental eyes. “My name is Alexander Gordan, and I am the highest ranking Oculus within the MACUSA after the department head,” he said stiffly. “You are here because you have expressed interest in becoming one of our numbers, and because you have either registered to take the test properly or have been recommended by one of our current aurors.”
His eyes flickered over Hermione; she was certainly the latter. There had not been enough time for her to ‘register properly’. Walter had gotten her on the list of current applicants though, and while Hermione had not thought anything of it at the time, now it worried her. Was she stepping on someone’s toes by being here through an act of nepotism?
No, Hermione reminded herself. Anyone was allowed to apply to be an Oculus—her taking it with late notice was hardly anything special, and not that unusual, according to Walter. This man was probably just trying to unnerve her. Because she was a witch? Possibly.
Hermione squared her jaw and stared at him unflinchingly. Just try it, she thought.
Gordon’s eyes left hers without any indication that he cared what she was thinking at all. “The test to qualify for the position of Oculus comes in two parts. First, you must pass the written portion, and should you succeed, you will carry on to the practical. If you do not pass the written portion, you will be sent home at once. However, you are welcomed and encouraged to apply again.”
There was nothing about his tone of voice nor his posture that indicated that Gordan wanted any of them to apply again, ever. He looked like he thought they were all wasting their time and he couldn’t wait to tell them that they failed.
“The test shall begin in exactly one minute from now,” he went on. He looked at the watch on his wrist as he spoke. “You will have two hours to complete the entirety of the written portion of the exam. Your results will be collected, and you will be told swiftly whether or not you have passed.”
He continued to stare at his watch. Hermione frowned, for it seemed he was intent to say nothing else until the exam began. Almost against her will, she raised her hand.
Gordan slowly raised his eyes to her. When he didn’t call on her, Hermione spoke out, saying, “What exactly do you mean by ‘swiftly’? In a day? Two days? When will we have the results of the written portion?”
Gordan stared at her. Somewhere behind her, Hermione could feel anxious energy radiating from Liam, who was surely astounded that she would choose to question authority now.
“...Swiftly,” Gordan replied at length. Then he raised his hand. “Test begins... now.”
There was a bout of magic like nothing Hermione had ever experienced.
One moment, she was in a small classroom like setting, sitting at a desk with eight other people. The next, she was alone, in a room that was dark except for a spotlight directly above her, illuminating only a ring of about a foot around her in all directions. Only the desk remained, except now it had on it a stack of parchment, a small hourglass, an inkpot, and a quill. On the parchment were questions with enough space left for answers of at least a few paragraphs.
Hermione looked about her, baffled by the sudden lack of anyone and anything in the room. Outside of the spotlight over her desk, there was nothing but endless darkness. It was unnerving to say the least. Was it a trick? An illusion? Some kind of extreme anti-cheating spellwork? Or had she and her entire desk just been apparated to a new location in isolation?
Hermione barely had time to puzzle over it all, for the hourglass at the front of her desk suddenly turned over and the sand began to fall. Two hours, she remembered.
Hermione picked up her quill and looked down at the parchment.
In no more than two paragraphs, give a brief explanation of the lasting constitutional impacts of the incident which occurred on April 23rd, 1926, which involved the escape of Gellert Grindelwald, famed Magizooligist Newt Scamander, and an illegally released Thunderbird.
Frank, Hermione thought, smiling. The Thunderbird’s name was Frank.
She began to write.
Hermione had barely lifted her quill from the paper when it, along with all the parchment and the hourglass, vanished. At the end of the two hour time frame, Hermione was left alone in that allegedly dark and empty room with nothing and no one around her.
She wondered if the other applicants had been sentenced to such a bleak test-taking situation, or if she was just lucky. Maybe they were actually all still around her, only they appeared to be gone, swallowed by blackness in what was an impressive illusion. If she reached out to her left, would she end up touching the shoulder of the sickly looking man? Was Liam behind her, feeling as distraught as she was? Probably not, as he had done this before… unless the testing circumstances changed each time?
Hermione was about to lift her arm to see what she made contact with, if anything, when something flashed in front of her. She blinked in the brightness, then saw that she was back in the original testing room. Only now, it was just her, the wizard who had been rapidly drumming his fingers to her right, and, to her great and pleasant surprise, Liam.
The door opened a second later, and Gordan walked in. He cleared his throat before speaking. “Congratulations,” he said emotionlessly. “You have passed the written portion of the exam.”
Hermione’s heart instantly soared. Behind her Liam shouted, “Fuck yes!” Hermione turned and smiled at him; he was covering his mouth with both his hands, looking embarrassed.
“You will now be invited to take the practical portion of the exam,” Gordan said, ignoring Liam’s outburst.
“What? Now? Right now?” Hermione asked, her excitement dwindling. She hadn’t been expecting to move directly into the practical.
“Yes, in just a few moments,” Gordan said. “You will be entering a new hall—don’t worry about the exact location—where you will meet the Examiners. Before that, however…”
He withdrew his wand and waved it lazily. Before the three remaining test-takers shining scrolls appeared, full of tiny text that was so small it was difficult to read. Quills manifested along with them, ones that looked quite different from the quills they’d used for the test. They had long black feathers and ominously sharp points.
“These are standard non-disclosure agreements,” Gordan carried on. “Not only do they say you cannot speak of this practical which you are about to take, but that you understand the risks associated with it. This will be the most difficult test you shall ever take. You shall be pushed to your limits in ways that you have never been pushed before. While the Examiners will do everything to intervene should it appear you can no longer defend yourself, it is imperative you understand that death is, in fact, a possibility.”
Hermione felt the blood drain from her face. For the first time, Gordan nearly smiled. “Fear not,” he said, sounding every bit as though he thought they should be very fearful indeed. “No one has died taking this test in over sixty years. Due to new regulations, it’s much safer now.”
Hermione swallowed hard. They had said something similar before reinstating the Triwizard Tournament, hadn’t they? That new regulations made it much safer? And look what had happened then!
But then Hermione reminded herself that she had survived a war, a duel with Bellatrix Lestrange, a duel with Tom Riddle himself (and she had nearly won!), and that she had all of the intense training that went along with becoming an Unspeakable many years in the future. Whatever they thought they might throw at her with this practical, she was prepared.
“However,” Gordan said, “now is your last opportunity to bow out. If you would like to decline taking the test, you can—”
He stopped speaking when Liam, parchment in hand, walked briskly to the front of the room and stood in front of him. He offered it to Gordan, clearly having already signed it. “I’m ready to take the test,” he said.
Gordan, rather than look annoyed, nodded his approval and took the scroll. He confirmed that it was indeed signed, then said, “Right this way.” Gordan pointed his wand to the side, and a door that had not been there the last time they were in this room swung open. Without hesitation, Liam quickly through.
He hadn’t looked nervous at all.
Hermione turned to look at the other wizard, who seemed as surprised as she was at Liam’s boldness. “We have time to actually review this nondisclosure agreement, don’t we?” she asked
“Of course,” Gordan answered.
Hermione looked down at the document, for she was not at all prepared to sign anything without knowing exactly what it said. But the script was so small! She considered transfiguring her quill into a magnifying glass so she could read it better, but she wasn’t sure if that would be considered rude or not. Instead, Hermione lifted the parchment close to her face and began to read.
She was distracted when the other wizard stood. “I’ve signed, too,” he said. He handed Gordan the parchment, who examined it, then rolled it up into a tight scroll. “Shall I wait to…?”
“No need,” said Gordan. “You can enter this way into the exam room now.”
Hermione mirrored his look of surprise. Surely Liam was still taking the practical now?
Gordan smirked, answering their unasked questions. “The Department of Magical Law Enforcement often combines forces with the Department of Mysteries and Secrets,” he said. “We are always doing what we can to optimize efficiency here. It’s essential, given the pace of this city. To put it simply, time is sometimes, for certain purposes… recycled.”
Hermione’s eyes widened. In what ways were they bending time here within the MACUSA? Was that how they had gotten their written results back so quickly? Were they using Time-Turners, or something similar, to save time in some way? But how would that work in such short, recent time-frames without creating issues? Paradoxes? Multiples running around and into each other? And what did he mean by recycled, exactly?
Her mind was positively reeling at the implications.
“It’s a subject one can learn a bit more about should you become an Oculus and later climb the latter, so to speak,” Gordan said gruffly. “But nothing to concern yourselves with, as it is truly more of an issue for those who work in the Department of Mysteries and Secrets. You lot only need to know that when you pass through that door, you will be met with the panel of Examiners, who will be waiting and ready solely for you.”
The other wizard nodded. “Very well.” He withdrew his wand then, prepared to begin defending himself the second he opened the door, apparently. “Thank you, Oculus Gordan.”
He nodded politely to Gordan, then left the room.
Hermione shook her head, forcing herself to stop wondering about the MACUSA’s unfathomable methods of ‘recycling time’ and returned her attention to the document in front of her. She started reading again.
A few minutes passed. Gordan made a sound that was somewhere between a chuckle and sigh, as though watching Hermione actually attempt to read this document was amusing to him. “If you are unwilling to take the practical, that’s perfectly understandable,” he said. “It is a fearsome—”
“I am not afraid,” Hermione snapped, cutting him off. “I am being thorough.”
Gordan’s brows raised slightly, but he did not respond.
Irritated, Hermione continued reading. It was an exceptionally boring document, even by her standards, even while pertaining to the possibility of her untimely death during this exam. She wasn’t even halfway through it, and she found herself stifling a yawn.
Just as she had that thought, Gordan did yawn. Loudly. Definitely purposefully. She looked up to see that he was checking his watch, looking annoyed.
Was it a New Yorker thing, being so impatient? Was it simply how they all were here—constantly wanting to move on to the next task, not taking the time to make sure things were done properly and well?
It didn’t help that she was a witch, Hermione thought. She could feel him judging her, assuming, probably, that she was taking her time reading, procrastinating because she was scared, because she was a woman.
Scowling, Hermione picked up the quill. The document was ridiculously repetitive; a quick scan of the second half told her as much. This was meant to make certain that no one could ever come after the MACUSA in the rare case of a long-term injury or death due to their exam.
Good thing for me that I plan on doing extremely well, Hermione thought as she pressed the tip of the quill to the parchment.
She immediately winced. The moment she had begun to write, a searing pain had shot across the back of her hand.
It was a blood quill. Why on earth would they require a signature with a blood quill? What barbaric practice was this?
She glanced up, considering asking Gordan what the meaning of this was. Gordan was looking down at her with curious eyes, waiting for her to either question him or back out.
Glaring, Hermione didn’t. She signed the document, ignored the pain, picked it up, and stood. Her name was etched in bloodred ink on the paper.
She handed it to Gordan without a word. He examined her signature, then gave her another deeply curious look. “You may go,” he said softly.
Hermione turned and strode from the exam room, a deep feeling of foreboding in her heart, the words ‘Hermione Smith’ still visible on the back of her right hand.
The space she entered was drastically different from the initial exam room.
When the door closed behind her, Hermione was swallowed in near darkness. Only two things illuminated this new, large hall: a few wall sconces full of enchanted fire, and, in the center of the space, a large, glowing archway. It was mystifying, a tall, silvery-blue structure that was filled with a semi-transparent fog.
“Hermione Smith.”
Hermione nearly started at the sound of a deep voice, having not noticed the long table full of wizards on the opposite side of the archway. How had she not noticed them, being as wary as she was? There must have been enchantments at play to make it so, spells to make them blend into the shadows like they did. If the desired effect was to intimidate her, Hermione was not going to give them the satisfaction of knowing it had worked.
Hermione turned to face them, slyly slipping her wand into her hand as she did. She said nothing, only nodded.
There were five people at the table, and while Hermione presumed they were all wizards, it was difficult to tell. Most of them had their hoods drawn, wearing dark robes that concealed the faces in shadows.
The exception was the man in the middle.
The wizard seated at the center of the long table had his hood down, allowing Hermione to see his face. He was older, perhaps in his fifties, with silvery hair that was cropped short, thick brows, and more than a few wrinkles. Across his cheek and on his otherwise perfectly straight nose was a jagged red scar, something that was undoubtedly caused by dark magic. Despite all this, he was undeniably handsome. He had a jawline that would give Liam’s a run for his money, and based on his shoulders alone, Hermione could tell he was in impeccable shape. In the dull light from the fire and the archway, his eyes might have been any color: blue, green, brown. In any case, they were clear and sharp, focused on Hermione.
Hermione was almost certain she knew who this was.
“Lester Madison,” she said levelly, hoping that she was right and would sound informed, not stupid.
He stared at her for a moment, then smiled. He did not acknowledge that she was correct, but such an amused grin was confirmation enough.
“You have agreed to take the notorious exam that, should you pass, will allow you to join the ranks of the Oculus aurors within the Magical Congress of the United States of America,” Madison said. His tone was both professional and, Hermione thought, a little… bored? “My colleagues and I shall be your Examiners. To begin the test, simply walk through that archway. It will take you to the field. Once completed, you will be returning through a similar archway, and that will bring you back to this room. There is no time limit. You are allowed to take with you only your wand and the clothes on your back—though I’ve noticed you already have the former in your hand, ready to go, and I’ve always argued that the latter was a hindrance to our ability to judge your precise movements in battle, but what do I know.”
It took Hermione a moment to register what he had said. “Lester!” hissed the person to his left, who seemed to have kicked him under the table, and who Hermione got the sneaking suspicion was actually a witch, based on her tone.
Madison was smiling pleasantly, like what he’d said was not inappropriate in the slightest. Hermione wasn’t sure if she should be humored or annoyed. She was a bit of both, she supposed.
Deciding that she might as well make as much of an impression as possible, Hermione grinned. “I disagree, sir,” she said. “I imagine that observing your future employees cast endless amounts of defensive magic nude would do a much better job at hindering your ability to judge properly than some superfluous fabric. That being said…”
Hermione shed her outer robe, hiding her amusement at the way the Examiners all shared concerned glances that she might actually be stripping. To either their disappointment or relief, however, she stopped there. “I was in a rather intense duel recently, one which left my poor coat in a nearly irreparable state. So, if you don’t mind…”
She set her coat on the edge of the long table. She smiled at the person sitting closest to her, who in no way acknowledged her. “I’ll return for this shortly.”
Hermione inclined her head towards the rest of the Examiners. Madison’s eyes were gleaming, clearly looking forward to seeing how such a cheeky witch would fare in this ‘notorious’ exam.
Without stalling and allowing her confidence to wane, Hermione walked through the archway, her wand held tightly in her hand and a plethora of curses ready in her mind.
She was sprawled on the ground, shaking violently.
Hermione coughed hard, a horrible feeling deep in the pit of her stomach. She coughed again. A few droplets of blood splattered her lips and the ground around her. Her breathing was labored and she was buzzing, dizzy, nauseous. It was a feeling she knew all too well.
Magical exhaustion. Within a fraction of a second, Hermione had gone from confident and prepared to drained and trembling, her heart pounding in a fear she did not understand.
She blinked in a daze, trying to focus. Her sleeves were shredded and there were burn marks on the fabric, but her arms seemed perfectly fine. Her wand, thankfully, was still in her hand, but she could hardly keep a hold of it for how badly she was shaking. She looked up. She was not in some field, but in the same exact hall she had entered into a few moments ago! Only the archway was now behind her, and she was facing the table of Examiners…
“What is th-th-this?”
She tried to scream the words, but instead Hermione merely whispered them in a hoarse, strained voice. Her throat felt raw, like she’d been shouting for hours.
The Examiners shared a conspiratorial glance. Hermione’s mind raced as she began to understand, for not only was the tingling sensation familiar, but also the haze her mind was in.
She felt… tampered with.
“Lower your wand, Miss Smith,” Madison said. “It is in poor taste to hex the Examiners… though you are hardly capable of such a feat at the moment.”
Hermione knew he was right. Her whole body was tingling in an extremely uncomfortable way, a clear sign that she had little, if any, magical reserve left. She lowered her wand.
“Your very recent memories were wiped the moment you finished the practical portion of the exam,” Madison went on, confirming what Hermione suspected.
“Was my mind messed with in any other manner?” Hermione asked in a hiss.
“No.”
There was a stretch of silence. Hermione looked for the truth in his eyes—not by using any form of mental magic, but with sheer intuition. He did not look like he was lying…
“Your memories before the moment you entered the archway were left entirely untouched,” Madison continued, for Hermione was certain she looked skeptical. “But you forfeited your rights to retaining any memories you have of taking the exam.” He smiled slantedly. “It was in the nondisclosure agreement you signed, Miss Smith.”
Bollocks, Hermione thought. She should have read that thing in its entirety. Not that it would have mattered, she supposed. She likely would have taken the exam anyway. She just wouldn’t have been so… caught off guard.
“My colleagues and I shall discuss your performance… and you will be informed of your acceptance or rejection into the program within the week.”
Hermione stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at this news. Why didn’t they tell her before she entered the archway that this was what would happen? Why bother with a nondisclosure agreement at all if they were just going to wipe memories anyway? And within a week? All this talk about efficiency and saving time and now, now they were going to make her wait?
And what in the bloody hell had happened during that test, to leave her in a state like this?
“The exit is to your right,” Madison said coolly. “It will take you to the corner of Park and 42nd. Do you need assistance?”
Feeling vastly irritated and also like she might throw up or pass out at any moment, Hermione pocketed her wand and shook her head. “Not at all,” she said, though she was pretty certain that was a lie. No, it wasn’t. She couldn’t apparate right now, but she could damn well get a magical taxi. Or a no-maj one, for that matter. Who cared? Anything that would drive her home would suffice.
Hermione walked with as much grace as she could towards the exit. She had just grabbed the door handle when Madison called, “Miss Smith.”
She turned to look at him. Lester Madison was holding her coat, beckoning her to come get it.
Hermione repressed a scowl at the gesture. He clearly knew she was having difficulty walking, but he couldn’t be bothered to levitate her coat across the room to her? Even though he must have summoned it into his arms in the first place…
Bolstering up as much pride as she could, Hermione carefully walked towards him. The Examiners were all watching her closely, she could tell, even with their faces concealed, but none more so than Lester Madison himself. “Thank you,” she said curtly as she took it from his outstretched hand.
“You are very welcome, Miss Smith,” Madison said smoothly. Silver, Hermione realized. This close, she could see that his eyes were a steely, sharp silver. “You shall be hearing from us soon.”
Hermione nodded, turned, and left, pulling her cloak on as she went. It was a good thing she had left it behind, outside of that notorious test, she thought. It would cover her otherwise suspiciously burnt clothing. Gods, what had she been put through during that exam? It enraged her that she didn’t know.
Keeping her head held high, Hermione emerged onto Park Avenue, summoned a magical taxi cab, and promptly slumped into the backseat in an exhausted heap.
Hermione was relieved, at least, to learn that it was not just her who had her memories wiped.
Liam too admitted that he was unable to recall a single part of the practical, but they’d had the kindness to inform him beforehand that he wouldn’t remember. When Hermione recounted her own experience of being shocked when it was suddenly over, Liam had been aghast—but Walter had laughed like it was a great joke.
What was really interesting was that neither Liam nor Walter had Lester Madison himself at their table of Examiners.
If Hermione had known that this was not normal, she never would have said anything. Walter was so devastated with jealousy (“I’ve never even met Lester Madison! And I’ve been working there for months!”) that he threatened to never speak to her again (he immediately broke this promise, wanting to know every detail possible about Madison’s presence), and Liam seemed to take it as a personal insult that he would attend hers but not his (something which Hermione was just fine with). “It’s because she’s a witch,” was the conclusion that they, along with Denise and Peggy, had come to, which annoyed Hermione greatly in that it was probably correct. Not many witches applied, so that must have made it an interesting enough event for Lester Madison himself to want to witness.
Hermione could only hope that she had done well.
The waiting period was horrible, worse even than waiting on the results of her O.W.L.s. Hermione was constantly looking out her window, wondering when a large barn owl or… or what would the MACUSA use in this instance? A bald eagle, perhaps? That would be amusing—to inform her of her results. They had said within a week, after all, so that technically meant it could happen any moment. Hermione therefore found herself spending even more time than usual on her roof, for it gave her an exceptional vantage point from which she could see any manner of delivery bird coming.
Hermione was there on what was the fifth morning after the exam, exchanging her usual black tea for coffee as she sat on one of the comfier lounge chairs. The roses bloomed around her, pink and red and yellow, filling the air with their subtle scent. She inhaled deeply, then took a sip of her drink. It wasn’t as good as The Rosebush’s, but it was decent enough, and it wasn’t like she could get coffee with Walter there every day. It was good to have alone time to contemplate, too. Hermione was sick of being asked to describe what Lester Madison was really like in person. She didn’t have a good answer, other than he was the sort to make lewd, inappropriate jokes to his possible future employees.
Unable not to, Hermione scanned the skies once more for signs of an approaching owl. A week felt like a very long time, but in all actuality, Hermione recognized that this was a rapid turnaround. It had taken many weeks to get her O.W.L. results, after all. They probably had much to discuss, really, when it came to hiring new hopefuls. At least, she thought they did. It was hard to gauge without knowing what the test had entailed.
More frustrating still was that she had, evidently, signed away her ability to make any attempt to undo the memory charms that had been placed on her, as it was all part of the fine script of the document that she and every other hopeful signed—much to Hermione’s annoyance. It at least explained why Walter hadn’t told them about all this ahead of time. He hadn’t been able to, because he didn’t remember, either.
The whole thing seemed awfully sketchy.
Maybe someday I’ll be an Examiner, Hermione thought bitterly, sipping on her coffee. Then I’ll get to watch other applicants and know exactly what’s going on.
The reality, however, was that Hermione was becoming less and less certain that she actually wanted to be an Oculus. Now that she had completed the test, whatever the hell it was, Hermione was beginning to realize that this whole ordeal had been more of a matter of pride for her than anything else. Sure, she may be pardoned entirely for her time-traveling offenses, but did she really want to spend the next few years patrolling New York City like Walter was? There was more to it than that, she knew, and it would be an excellent way to learn all about the city, but it also sounded… dull. She would probably become rather bored rather quickly.
She was, however, very intrigued by the Department of Mysteries and Secrets, particularly that additional Secrets bit. Surely she could find a way into that department, if she wanted…
Considering she was here in this universe unintentionally, it was probably her best bet if she had any intentions of finding her way home.
Did she have any intentions of finding her way home?
Hermione sighed, unsure of the answer. Though she had spent so much time convincing herself such a thing was impossible, she now was no longer certain. No one was coming to save her and take her home, that was true. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to get there herself.
Time-traveling to the future, as well as to an alternate reality, with intention… Was it possible? Maybe the Department of Mysteries and Secrets here in the United States was the place to find out.
Something vividly bright flashed before her. Hermione screamed, dropped her coffee cup, and retracted her wand at once.
She stared in amazement at what was before her; immediately, she recognized the silvery-blue light of a patronus. And what a patronus! It was massive, its coiling body shimmering incandescently, its reptilian eyes staring at her. For a moment, she thought it was a snake, a giant snake, a basilisk maybe, and an image of Riddle unwittingly danced before her eyes.
This was it. He was reaching out to her. Her heart skipped a beat.
But no… it was not a serpent.
It was a dragon.
The exact breed Hermione was unsure, but it was undoubtedly a massive dragon before her, long and lithe with tall, curved horns and wings folded tightly against its back. It loomed over her, a terrifying and beautiful thing, casting its light on the many roses in her garden and turning the whole world into some kind of scene from a daydream.
“Hermione Smith…”
The unmistakable voice of Lester Madison boomed loudly in her ears. Hermione held her breath.
“You have passed the final examination towards becoming an Oculus. The Magical Congress of the United States of America congratulates you.”
Hermione inhaled a sharp breath, barely repressing a squeal. The dragon stared at her intensely.
“Report to the official office of the MACUSA this coming Monday at eight in the morning for your initiation.”
Hermione stared, frozen with shock. The dragon remained, seemingly waiting for some kind of response from her. Could patronuses work that way? If she spoke to it, would Lester Madison himself receive the message? Hermione didn’t think so, but maybe some wizards or witches could do that…
“I… er… thank you, but I-I’ll have to think about it,” she said. “About accepting, I mean. I’m unsure if I will be taking the position at this time.”
The dragon’s silvery eyes narrowed. It bared its teeth ominously, its nostrils flaring, looking like it might start breathing fire all over her roses and incinerate everything.
Then, before she could think to say or do anything else, the dragon vanished. Hermione shakily pointed her wand at the shattered coffee cup. It had, unfortunately, landed outside of one her loft’s self-cleaning charms.
“Reparo,” she murmured.
The cup came back together, whole once more, although it was now entirely empty.
Chapter 30: Three Aurors in the Big City
Chapter Text
“I saw something strange yesterday.”
Holloway didn’t look up from his paperwork. He made a low humming sound, the most minimal of prompts for her to elaborate. Hermione bit her lip, wondering—not for the first time—if she should bring this up to him. Even for the Department of Mysteries, it sounded outlandish.
She already was here in his office, though, so she decided she might as well. Maybe she hadn’t imagined it. There was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation.
“In Space,” she went on.
Holloway dipped his quill in ink and kept writing.
“It was a door,” Hermione said. “Just… floating there.”
He paused. Finally, Holloway deigned her with some eye contact. “What did you say?”
“I saw a door in the Department of Space,” Hermione said. “Not the actual door to get in, mind you, a door in space. Hovering over a black hole near the Scorpius constellation. It was just… floating there.”
Holloway lowered his quill. “And what did you do when you saw this door?”
“I… well, unwisely, perhaps, I tried to go to it on my own, but I didn’t make it far. Roberts called my name and distracted me, and when I looked back, it was gone. Just… vanished.”
Holloway looked at her, his expression blank. Hermione felt the soft caress of his magic prodding her, searching. She allowed it, lowering her Occlumency walls and letting him see what she’d seen.
“I didn’t imagine it,” she said when he was done. “It was there.”
He sighed. “I believe you,” he said.
“So, you know what it was?” she asked, hopeful.
“Unfortunately, I do.”
Holloway leaned back in his chair, motioning for Hermione, who had been standing, to sit. Hermione took the seat on the other side of his desk.
“You have been lied to,” he said, which Hermione thought was an ominous start. “There are more than five areas of study in the Department of Mysteries. There is, in fact, one other… The Department of Fate.”
Hermione stared, shocked at this most unexpected of news. “The Department of Fate?”
“Indeed,” Holloway confirmed. “We usually don’t inform new Transients of it for a long time. Not until after they are true masters of the Mind Arts and have proven themselves.”
“Then why are you telling me now?” Hermione considered herself proficient in Occlumency and Legilimency, but she would in no way consider herself a master.
“Because you’ve seen the door, which means she wants you to know.”
“She?”
“Fate is unlike any of the other areas of study here,” Holloway explained. “For one, it does not exist in space in the same way the others do. It… moves, to put it as simply and inaccurately as possible. For another, there is only one member allowed in that area. One Perpetual at a time. There can be no others.”
Hermione frowned. “That seems… bizarre,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be more beneficial for there to be a team studying such a complex subject?”
“It is how it has always been,” Holloway said. “One witch or wizard is… assigned this position. It’s the most powerful and coveted position within the entire Ministry of Magic, especially for us. We do not answer to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but we answer to her.”
Hermione opened her mouth to ask, but Holloway answered before she could. “Her name is Euphenia Selwyn,” he said. “And she has been the Perpetual of Fate for over fifty years.”
“Wow.” There were so few Purebloods that Hermione was certain this witch must be related to her former colleague who had recently stopped coming to work. Her grandson or great-nephew, maybe. Hermione thought about making some snide remark, asking if this Perpetual had known it was his fate to drop out of the program, but decided against it. “That’s a long time.”
“It is. Especially considering she worked as a Perpetual in the Department of Love for almost twenty years before that, and spent about five as Transient initially. By the time I came on, she was already in Fate.”
“Can I meet her?” Hermione asked. “I would love to see the Department of Fate.”
“Not unless she wants to meet you,” Holloway said. “You saw the door, but then it vanished, yes? Seems to me like she just wanted you to know she exists, for whatever reason. If she’d wanted to meet you, you would have. You’d be a rarity, too. For as long as I’ve been here, I’ve only met Selwyn once.”
“Once?”
“Yes. And met is a strong word, really. More like saw. She almost never leaves the sub-Department of Fate, wherever and however it exists. The rest of us don’t really know, because we’ve never been there, either. We’re not allowed. She’s the only one.”
“She doesn’t come out for meetings or to give reports or anything like that?”
“No,” Holloway said. “She only comes out to guide us, if it seems like we are about to disrupt what is fated to happen. I’m really not too surprised you’ve piqued her interest, Granger… After all, the one time I did see her, it was concerning you.”
“Me?”
“It was the summer of 1993,” Holloway began, looking a little nostalgic. “We had just received what we all believed to be an insane request from the Head of Gryffindor House at Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall was asking for permission to borrow a Time-Turner for one of her students, a Miss Hermione Granger, so that she could take additional classes. It had the signatures of several other Professors vouching for this student’s academic prowess, including a reference from Albus Dumbledore himself.
“That didn’t matter, of course. A Time-Turner! For an underage school girl! A Gryffindor, no less! Only something disastrous could happen. Obviously she would tell her friends about it at some point and use it for something that would qualify as against the law. The then-Head of Time, Burke, was just about to write a letter of refusal when Selwyn appeared.”
He laughed. “Oh, she scared the piss out of us,” he recounted. “She was just suddenly there, this tiny, old woman who nonetheless has more energy than ten nifflers in a Gringotts vault. She showed up, wordlessly and wandlessly struck Burke with a nasty stinging hex, then told him to approve it. No elaboration, nothing. Just told him to give you the Time-Turner and left through a door that hadn’t been there a moment before. Then she was gone.”
Hermione was stunned. She hadn’t really thought about it, but she supposed it was pretty reckless to give a student a Time-Turner… even if it was her.
“Wow,” she said again. “That… well, that makes a lot of sense, actually.”
“Does it?”
“Yes. Because you’re right. I did tell my friends about the Time-Turner eventually. I went back in time with Harry to save Sirius Black’s life. But I’m sure you know all about that.”
“Oh, do I,” Holloway grumbled. “Potter. What a nuisance he’s been for us.”
It was almost funny, Hermione thought, how much the people in her Department disliked the famous Harry Potter, especially considering how adored he was everywhere else in the Ministry. Hermione understood why, of course. She was sure that Holloway was recalling their excursion into the Department of Mysteries in their fifth year from a very different perspective. They were still repairing some of the damage caused in Time, and the Hall of Prophecies was irreversibly altered. They’d destroyed almost a hundred prophecies in a single night. Because of Harry and his gang of friends, security here had increased significantly.
She almost cracked a smile at the recollection, but then she felt a lump in her throat.
Sirius Black died that night, just a few halls away, in the Death Chamber. She hadn’t seen Harry in weeks.
She swallowed back her sorrow. “So now what?” she asked. “I saw the door. I’ve talked with you, and know she exists. Now what?”
“Now? If she wants anything more from you, she’ll let you know. So now you do what you always do.”
He flicked his wand towards his office door, which swung open. “Get back to work.”
Hermione considered arguing, wanting more information, but knew this was not a battle worth fighting. She stood, and by the time she’d pulled her beaded bag back onto her shoulder, Holloway was already back to focusing on his paperwork. She saw herself out, wondering if and when she would see the Department of Fate.
Maybe, she thought as she went, making her way towards Time, maybe I saw it because it’s my fate to change everything. Maybe it’s a sign from Selwyn to keep going with what we’re trying to do.
For once, she felt optimistic about her meeting with Draco Malfoy later that evening.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAA—”
Hermone hadn’t expected him to send a Howler.
“—AAAAAAAAAAAA—”
Especially not one that was this loud and obnoxious.
“—AAAAAAAAAAAA—”
Then again, that seemed the sort of thing that Walt would do. Hermione put her hands over her ears and waited.
“—AAAAAAAAAAAH!”
There was a heavy exhale and inhale. Smiling, Hermione lowered her arms.
“You did it!” the Howler screamed. “You passed! On your first try! I know I shouldn’t be so surprised, but I am! AAAAAAAH!”
Hermione was grateful that this happy shout was much shorter than the first. “We have to CELEBRATE!” the howler went on, exclaiming in Walter’s voice. “Meet me at ten at Johnny’s, that no-maj bar on 26th. You know, the one with all the neon lights? Love those. Did I tell you I shocked myself on one of those once? Guess you shouldn’t touch the wires that sometimes stick out of those little rubber things behind the glass tubes. Electricity is wild. Anyway, dress to impress, doll, because we’re going somewhere special tonight. I mean it. The sort of place where witches wear enchanted dresses that sparkle when they dance and wizards wear shoes that glow like the fucking rising sun. Don’t embarrass me, wow me. But Johnny’s first. We have to toast your success with some no-maj whiskey and some unwise electrical jolts. I’ll see you there!”
There was a beat of silence, and Hermione thought the Howler was done. But then, in a much quieter, more somber voice, it said, “…I suppose you’re wondering about Liam’s results.”
Then the Howler burst into flames.
“Oooh!” Hermione yelled. “That tease!”
She was wondering how Liam did. Hermione wasn’t sure if he’d gotten his results back yet or not, and was too afraid to owl him about it and ask. What if he’d failed? She imagined he would take it very, very hard.
“I suppose I’ll find out this evening,” she sighed. Either Liam would be there, ready to celebrate as well, or he would be absent, no doubt brooding and drowning himself in whiskey alone, at home.
Hermione sauntered over to her full length mirror, studying herself in a critical way. It was only six; she had plenty of time to ‘dress to impress’.
“Can’t let his potential failure ruin my victory,” she murmured, turning this way and that in the mirror.
“You’ve got that right,” her reflection responded. The Hermione in the mirror winked, then resumed mimicking her.
Hermione decided to take Walter’s words to heart as she made her way to her closet. The sort of place where witches wore enchanted dresses, eh? The kind that would glow when they danced? Hermione flipped through her many outfits, wondering which would be best for a real night of celebrating. She felt giddy. She hadn’t had a reason to feel proud of herself, utterly and truly, in a long time.
This one, she decided, selecting a red dress that Walter had forced her to buy but which she hadn’t worn once. She pulled it off the hanger and took it with her back to her mirror, holding it in front of herself. It wasn’t an enchanted dress, no…
At least, not yet.
Hermione smirked, then paused, a different thought striking her. Her enchanted ring had just caught the light, glistening on her finger.
She hadn’t looked in a long time.
A bit reluctantly, Hermione set the red dress aside. She then slid the robes she was wearing from her shoulders, removing everything from her bra to her knickers until she was naked, exposed and alone in her bedroom. Then, as though it took a great deal of physical strength, she slipped the ring from her finger.
The gold.
Thin, dazzling loops, staring from that cursed point on her neck and spiraling down, down, down. They now covered her arms all the way to her wrists, and on her midsection they went as far as her naval, one winding loop circling it as it swooped across her stomach. Hermione traced it with her fingers, which trembled.
“What does it mean?” she wondered aloud. At this rate, her whole body would be covered in golden lines within… a few weeks, perhaps. Would something happen at that point? Or would they just continue to multiply until her whole body was golden?
Working at the Department of Mysteries and Secrets was looking more enticing by the moment. If she could have her record cleared as an Oculus, surely she could have it cleared there, too? And then, far more importantly, she could have this whole… situation addressed. Hermione was certain that they were also diligently studying Time. She would bring much more to the table than any other recruit, that was for certain.
Mudblood.
The black stain on her forearm stood out even more now. The golden lines avoided it, leaving a berth of blank skin which surrounded the cursed letters.
Hermione put the ring back on. Every magical mark on her, black and gold, disappeared.
She remembered Johnny’s.
Just as Walter had said, it was filled with neon signs. Some old, some new. Bright red, blue, and green light filled the small bar, making it a little nauseating to be in for long, in Hermione’s opinion. But it was fine for a drink or two.
Walter was already there, sitting at the bar and chatting up the bartender animatedly, which always worried Hermione. Walter had a habit of talking to no-majes quite candidly, which Hermione appreciated to an extent, but which often led to him making jokes that referenced magic in a way a no-maj would never understand and which Walter found deeply amusing.
“I’m telling you, this guy was as angry as a fucking mountain troll, and nearly as massive, too—ah! There she is!”
Walter jumped off his stool when he saw her, and when Hermione approached he caught her in a quick hug. He then pushed her away, holding her at arm’s length so that he could analyze her.
“What is this?” he asked, staring brazenly at her chest. Then he turned to the bartender. “Two shots of Jameson please,” he said. He returned his focus to Hermione’s chest. “Have you used some kind of dark magic to enhance your… features?”
Hermione pried his arms off her. “No,” she huffed, “it’s called a push-up bra, Walt.”
“Sounds like witchcraft to me.”
“Stop!” Hermione snapped, but she was smiling despite herself.
“I’m not upset about it. You look great, doll. Didn’t I tell you that dress was perfect for you? Glad you listened to me. For once.”
Hermione smiled coyly. “You don’t even know how great this dress is,” she murmured.
“Oh? Done some actual witchcraft, have you? What, will it sparkle and glow like diamonds when you swish your skirt about?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see.”
“I very much look forward to it. Though I should prepare you now, it won’t hold a candle to what I have prepared.”
Hermione laughed. “Is it a contest, then?”
“It’s always a contest.”
The bartender slid the shots over to him, where Walter grabbed them. He handed one to Hermione.
“To your acceptance into the program,” he said cheerfully. They clinked their glasses together, then downed their drinks.
Hermione made a sour face afterwards. “My first and only shot for the night,” she declared.
“Famous last words,” said Walter, who took her empty glass from her and placed them both back on the bar.
“So,” said Hermione, “are we waiting for others to arrive, or is it just us tonight?”
“Peggy and Denise are already at our next location. Though I imagine you’re more interested by far in where our elusive Liam is, and what has become of him on this long and treacherous journey towards becoming an Oculus.”
“Of course I am! What happened? Did he pass?”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
He nodded towards the door and Hermione spun around to see Liam making his way towards them. When she made eye contact with him, her stomach dropped. Liam’s face fell and his eyes went to the floor like he was ashamed.
“No,” Hermione breathed. “You didn’t pass?”
He gave her a sorrowful look. Then his facade cracked, and his face broke out into a large, wolfish grin.
He didn’t need to say it; his expression said it all. “Oh!” Hermione gushed. “You did it! You passed!”
Without thinking it through, she ran over to him, full speed, arms wide open for an embrace. She wasn’t prepared for how enthusiastically Liam would return it—he not only caught her, he grabbed her, lifted her up, and spun her around three times like she was an actual doll, nearly knocking over a table and a few no-majes in the process.
Hermione didn’t realize she was laughing until he stopped spinning her. He didn’t set her down right away. Liam held her, arms wound tightly around her body, looking breathless as he stared up into her eyes. For a suspended moment they stayed like that. The joy was fading from his face, shifting into something more serious. Hermione stopped laughing.
“Ah-hem.”
Liam set Hermione down. Walter gave them each a judgemental look, but then his face brightened with a smile. “Look at us,” he said, inserting himself in between the two of them and putting his arms around their shoulders. “Three aurors in the big city.”
Hermione only returned his smile; she didn’t have the heart to tell him that she hadn’t exactly accepted the position yet, and was seriously considering declining it in order to pursue other opportunities.
“Three what now?”
One of the no-majes whom Liam had nearly struck with Hermione’s legs asked the question. Hermione’s fingers twitched towards the wand holster that was sewn into her dress (in Manhattan, at least, these were not difficult to come by), fully prepared to cast memory charms on each and every person in the bar if need be.
“He said warriors,” Liam said, smiling widely. “Preparing to seize the night.”
The no-maj rolled his eyes and walked away.
Walter laughed. “Come on,” he said, ushering Hermione and Liam towards the doors. “We’ve got better places to be tonight.”
“Yes, where are we going, exactly?” Hermione asked. She was pleased to see that Liam too looked curious, telling Hermione that she was not the only one in the dark.
“It’s a surprise,” Walter said. “An amazing place really. Took me ages to find—to say it’s underground is a massive understatement. But there’s technically nothing illegal about it, so even we MAUSA employees can show our faces there. Not that Mama J would tolerate snitches anyway.”
“Who?”
“You’ll see when we get there. This way, we can hop on the G train down the street, it will take us straight there.”
Hermione almost asked, then held her tongue. The G train?
She knew for a fact that the G train did not run in Manhattan, which was where they were. It ran from Brooklyn to Queens. But now, Walter and Liam were walking with great confidence towards the 28th Street Subway Station, where one would catch the 4 and the 6 train. Not the G.
Still, there was no denying how surely Walter and Liam seemed to be as they strode down the steps leading them underground, so Hermione followed along, acting like she knew what they were all doing. There were a decent number of no-majes milling about, waiting for a train.
“Oh good,” Walter said. “Someone’s already summoned the express.”
He nodded towards a man a ways down the platform who was standing with one hand behind his head, his elbow held high. It was an odd stance, Hermione thought, for it didn’t look like she was reaching for anything or scratching an annoying itch. He was just standing there, his arm held up in a way that was only somewhat peculiar. No one else paid him any mind.
Hermione was on the verge of asking again when she saw it.
Barreling towards them with a vibrant, bright green light was a train unlike any that Hermione had ever seen. It was nothing at all like the no-maj ones, and it was obvious at once that this train was magical. The first give-away was that it made no noise at all. The second was that it was both lime green and semi-transparent. When it came to a halt in front of them, Hermione could read the softly glowing words along the cars: The Ghost Train. The MACUSA’s symbol was beneath it.
Hermione barely held in her surprise when the doors opened. Four people came out, and the man who had evidently summoned it went in. Liam and Walter boarded, and Hermione quickly followed.
None of the no-majes seemed to notice any of it.
When the train started moving, Hermione had to use a great deal of willpower to not look down. The floor was also translucent.
“Ah, the good ‘ol G train,” Walter said wistfully as he grabbed hold of a semi-opaque handhold. The train was picking up a great deal of speed. Hermione quickly did the same.
“It is quite impressive magic,” Hermione commented, feeling this was safe enough to say without giving away that this was all new to her.
Because it was impressive magic, very much so. Unlike the magical taxi-cabs that operated much like the Knight bus, this one existed in the same space, on the same tracks as—
“Oh!”
Hermione nearly screamed when she saw that they were about to collide with a train ahead of them—a no-maj 6 train that was at a stop. Before she even had time to be properly afraid, though, they had passed right through it. The G train, the passengers, Hemione herself.
They had become… transparent.
“Indeed,” said Liam in a bored voice when they were on the other side. “Picquery’s finest contribution to our bustling city, no doubt.”
“And only in this fine city could such a thing exist!” Walter exclaimed passionately. “New York, New York! Where wizards can ride magical trains, frequent no-maj bars and shops, and toe the line of Rappaport’s Law without anyone questioning it. Much.”
Hermione frowned at him. “Well it’s true, isn’t it?” he said. “In a city this condensed and full of no-majes, it would be impossible to not become friendly with at least some of them. Oh, hold on—speaking of no-majes, we’re about to pass through another train full of ‘em—”
Hermione held on tight and closed her eyes until they’d passed through.
It was difficult indeed for Hermione to not ask a dozen questions about how the G train worked. What enchantments were imbued in it? How were the passengers encapsulated safely as well? Oh, clearly runes were involved, but which ones?
But Hermione Smith, born and raised in New York, would not ask any of these questions right now, and probably would have figured out the answers long ago. She decided to file them away for another day, when she could do some research in privacy.
For as fascinating as it was, Hermione could not wait to get off the thing. The G train was frightening to ride; it felt like they were in a mobile, glowing glass casket. When it came to a stop just a few minutes later and Walter told them that it was time to go, Hermione could not have been happier to leave. Not a single no-maj looked in their direction as they joined them on the platform.
“For as impressive as it is, it still makes me feel sick when I ride it,” Hermione grumbled. “I vastly prefer cabs.”
“Yes, well, not everyone is affluent enough to afford such privileges daily,” Walter said as he led them down the street. “I personally appreciate the G train and its cheapness.”
“Not to mention that it’s nowhere near as packed as those no-maj trains,” Liam added. “Can you imagine riding those everyday? At rush hour? No thank you.”
Hermione internally scowled, because she, having somehow never come across the magical G train, had been doing exactly that. To think, she could have been riding it this whole time.
“I appreciate that it’s a space where we can talk freely, without worrying about no-majes overhearing us,” Hermione said quietly, for they were entering into an area that was thick with them, sprawled out across a small but green park.
“What’s there to worry about them hearing?” Walter said. “Performing magic in public is one thing, but talking? Please. No one cares what anyone else is saying. Watch.”
Walter ran forward, then jumped up nimbly onto a park bench. He put both hands on either side of his mouth, and then shouted, quite loudly, “I’M A WIZARD!”
A few people glanced at him, but most didn’t even bother with that.
Hermione wondered just how much Walter drank before she met up with him, for he was acting very bold, even for him. She looked at Liam to see if he shared her sentiments, but Liam was not looking at her. While Walter was still standing on the bench, he quickly and stealthily snuck up behind him.
“See?” Walter said, looking at Hermione. He didn’t notice Liam. “No one even—”
With no hesitation at all, Liam yanked his pants down.
It worked too well. Walter’s pants and undergarments both came down, and Hermione had to shield her eyes before seeing something she didn’t want to see. For as little as the no-majes cared about his declaration of sorcery, they reacted quite strongly to his indecent exposure. Some people screamed, some people gasped, and from one particularly rowdy group someone shouted, ‘Nice wand!”, which was met with a healthy amount of laughter.
Walter yanked his pants up hurried off the bench, now a vibrant tint of red. He glared at Liam, but it seemed his embarrassment had rendered him temporarily mute.
“Liam!” Hermione chided. “That was horrible!”
Liam, however, was laughing heartily. It was hard to not laugh with him. “No, that was vengeance for our sixth year,” Liam said between laughs. “I told you I’d get you back for that someday!”
Walter’s glare became more murderous, and for a moment Hermione thought he might actually strike his friend—but then he suddenly burst out into laughter too. Incredible, Hermione thought. I would have been furious.
Then again, she didn’t know what Walter had done in their sixth year, did she? And asking would, yet again, be suspicious. “Touche!” Walter said. “I suppose I can’t be that mad… but we’re even now! And thank you for the subtle acknowledgement that my belt is far too loose.”
“You two are ridiculous,” Hermione muttered.
They laughed. “Alright, enough of this no-maj business,” Walter said. His face had returned to its normal hue, and he took the lead with his typical stride. “Just around the corner here, and we’ll be at the entrance…”
Hermione’s excitement soared as she followed, interested to see where, exactly, they would be celebrating.
“A few things you should know before we go in,” Walter said as he kept them going at a brisk pace. “First is that it’s a bit of a freak show. Literally. But in the best way possible. Just be prepared to want to ogle many of the patrons but please, don’t. Second is that it by far has the best music I’ve ever heard, so you should also be prepared to be dancing until your feet bleed. Possibly literally. Ah, here we are.”
They had just turned into an alleyway between two tall brick buildings that Hermione would describe as ‘mildly dodgy’, where there were no doors whatsoever. There was, however, an abundance of colorful graffiti. Very impressive graffiti, too. These were not simple tags or quickly done spray paint sketches; these were works of art. There were paintings of women and men dancing on clouds, of long, snakelike dragons soaring through night skies; or goblins and wizards fighting from abstract mountain tops.
It was all almost… too magical.
As they went further down the alley, the mural became more detailed, and filled exclusively with creatures. Goblins and elves, bowtruckles and faeries…
“A thunderbird!” Hermione exclaimed, pointing up. A beautifully rendered thunderbird was painted high on the wall, surrounded by lightning. As Hermione looked more, she saw that there were also pukwudgies painted, marching along a winding path on a hilly landscape beneath the thundering sky, and in a cove near a shining lake was a horned serpent, peering out of the darkness…
“Yes,” said Walter, “but that’s not what we need… here.”
The last creature on this magical mural was a massive, dangerous looking cat. It had bright yellow eyes that seemed to stare straight into one’s soul.
“One last thing you should know,” Walter said, speaking now as though he had a heavy heart. “For as thrilling as this place is—and it’s worth it, I promise—I must warn you…”
He sighed deeply, giving both Hermione and Liam a sympathetic look. “It is a wampus stomping ground.”
Hermione didn’t say anything, but Liam gave him the reaction he was expecting. He groaned like he was in pain. Walter patted his shoulder understandably, then turned to face the beast.
“Admirari,” Walter said.
The wampus’s eyes glowed. Then it moved, becoming animate so that it could open its mouth. For a moment it looked like it was going to try and eat them. It wasn’t an inaccurate thought. The wampus’s mouth grew wide, and wider, and wider still, its teeth growing tall and moving upwards with its ever-expanding jaw… it was not unlike the stone snake she had seen in the diary’s memory, the one that had led Riddle out of the Chamber of Secrets.
Hermione was absolutely astonished at what lay before them. The wampus’s mouth had become so large that it was now an entryway, and its tongue had morphed into a dimly lit staircase that led down, down, down…
“Welcome,” Walter said, “to The Cave.”
“Excellent,” Liam said, seemingly impressed enough to stop caring that it was a ‘wampus stomping ground’. He turned to smile at Hermione. “Ladies first.”
Hermione wasn’t bothered. She was certainly curious enough to take the lead down into what looked very much like the Cave of Wonders from one of her favorite, childhood muggle movies that would not be released for decades. She wondered how many muggle-borns who had frequented this place would go on to work for Disney, if such things were allowed here, or give the idea to some muggle who would. It was fascinating to think of just how interconnected the two worlds were, even if few people on either side knew just how much.
She was about to take the first step when she felt it: the indescribable feeling of being watched.
Hermione whipped around, ready to reach for her wand. Liam jumped back from her, and Walter stepped aside. They were both instantly alert as well.
“What is it?” Liam asked. His hand was also hovering over his wand pocket.
Hermione’s eyes darted up and down the alley. There was no one else with them. “I… nothing, I guess,” she said, but her heart still raced. “I just thought I felt something.”
“Homenum revelio!” Liam shouted, brandishing his wand. A sweeping spell of light blue was cast across the entire alleyway. Walter pulled his wand out then as well, prepared to strike if someone appeared.
Nothing happened.
Hermione appreciated that he and Walter both, rather than convince her she was being silly, believed her and acted. It made her burn with embarrassment that there was no one there after all. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I think I’m paranoid.”
“Then you’ve gotten into the right line of work,” said Walter. Both he and Liam put their wands away. “Probably just nerves, the Cave isn’t exactly family friendly. Which is why we’re here, obviously. Now, shall we?”
Grinning once more, and feeling secure to have her friends at her side, Hermione nodded. She took a deep breath, then took the first step down into the Cave.
Chapter 31: Interlude II
Chapter Text
She had fled.
It shocked him that this shocked him. Had he not anticipated such a reaction if he were to strike? He had seen that look of fear in her eyes before; he knew how such visceral emotions affected others. Had he not spent years upon years skirting around that fear? Denying the instinctual impulse he had to control and to instead charm, swoon, persuade? Debasing himself in the name of progress?
He had forgotten himself.
He tried to excuse his actions, but such allowances were unacceptable. It did not matter that she had struck him first; she was hot-headed, impulsive, lacking in critical self-control. He was none of those things. And yet, when she had dared to draw her wand on him—in public, in his domain—he had welcomed the exchange. It was an opportunity to see what she was capable of, to learn exactly where her heart lied.
Hermione Smith—
Is t h a t h e r n a m e ?
—was a hero, not a villain. When it came down to it, she would choose to save, not kill.
Like all qualities, this was neither inherently good nor bad. All characteristics had value. It was in how they were applied that determined their use.
She was a savior, possibly to the extent that she would be a martyr. She was powerful. She was intelligent and beautiful and wild.
She was gone.
He should never have fought against her for so long, as revealing and stimulating as that game had been. He should have ended it when she had decided to show her true colors, casting the counter-curse on some anonymous hag whose life was meaningless. He could have spoken to her then, calmly, clearly. His curiosity had gotten the better of him. He had wanted to see more; to see just how far she was willing to push herself, how far she could. He wanted to know.
And that ring.
He’d noticed it right away during their first encounter; recognizing enchanted objects, particularly jewelry, was an essential part of his job. Her ring, however, was very, very good. Quality. Expensive. It might have slipped his notice were it not for the fact that Borgin and Burke’s happened to have a close, if unpublicized, relationship with Williams’ Jewelry and Finery. Unfortunately for her, they did, and he therefore recognized the style at once. It had intrigued him immediately—what was she hiding? At first, he assumed it was something far more benign. Perhaps it was enchanted to keep her hair appearing so flawlessly smooth. Maybe the ring was what caused her eyes to look so bright. Maybe she was actually not as attractive as she seemed at all, and this ring produced a glamor powerful enough to deceive.
He wanted to know.
It was his own unquenchable thirst to know that had driven him that day… and such discoveries he had made. He lived those moments over and over in his mind: the feeling of fire burning the air as he narrowly dodged it, her fury and passionate flames bombarding with his own might in a destructive, damning sphere of magic. She was brimming with power, the likes of which he rarely came across.
And then, to have her trapped, quivering with exhaustion in a dark and isolated room…
He could still feel the smoothness of her thighs, could still hear her keening, whimpering moans.
He could still taste her.
…
That gold.
Never before had he seen anything like it. Swirling, golden marks. Even in that dimly lit shack, they sparkled like crushed diamonds, spiraling down her skin as though they had been purposefully and artfully painted. From her neck, he remembered… They seemed to radiate from a specific spot on her neck…
What sort of curse had she been struck with there to cause such an effect? What was it doing to her now?
She had seemed as uncertain as he was, and that realization kept him up at night.
He wanted to know.
But now she was gone.
Oh, he knew that their game was far from over. After all, she had not simply left without so much as a whisper as to where she was going. No, she had purposefully left a letter with dear Abraxas, a letter that was clearly meant for him. A letter that was just detailed enough to let him know that she was returning to New York City—with the added remark that she found ‘London’ boring—but not detailed enough to include an address. It was a thinly veiled message to him:
Catch me if you can.
And to use Abraxas as the conduit, his follower…
It infuriated him that she could be so conniving, so ruthless, so spiteful.
It was exactly the sort of thing that he would have done.
And before that, how maddening had it been, suggesting to Mr. Burke that he should pay Miss Hepzibah Smith another visit now that they had acquired another new, suitable centerpiece? How demeaning was it to learn then that her precious niece had decided to return to New York just the day before?
How excruciating had it been when Hepzibah Smith had caught his own stunned expression and smiled a sardonic, crocodile smile, and said, “Oh, she didn’t tell you? I know she wrote a letter to that charming Abraxas Malfoy before she left…”
Her look. Her tone.
It was everything he hated.
The way Hepzibah Smith treated him, eyeing him with that critical, dismissive expression was everything he had been forced to endure since the moment he stepped into the wizarding world, taking his rightful place in Slytherin House. The sneers and judgments, the unending whispers behind his back concerning his clothes, his upbringing, his lack of wealth.
His name.
Despite the simmering rage that threatened to boil over with each passing day, he had treated Hepzibah Smith the same way he’d treated every arrogant, pureblooded Slytherin who thought they were his superior. He had ignored it. He had let the words slide off of him as though they held no power whatsoever. He had smiled, acted unaffected, and carried on. Because he did have self-control, and because he knew that someday, these events would all be a thing of the forgotten past.
One day, he would be known by a name so great and so powerful that his followers and enemies alike would fear to speak it. They would refer to him as titles beyond any name:
Master, my Lord, the Dark Lord, the greatest Sorcerer of all time.
They would only dare to think of his name, and they would do so with fear in their eyes and in their hearts…
Much like the fear he had seen in hers.
Out of all of their torrid interactions, those were the ones that stuck with him the most, even still. First, when he had encountered her at Malfoy manor. Again, when he’d held her ring in her hand, her thighs on either side of his hips in the darkness, shaking. Shivering and golden.
Fear.
…
He would have her.
He knew that she was not who she said she was. Hermione Smith?
H e r m i o n e S m i t h ?
It was a lie.
He thought.
And that was the crux of it all, wasn’t it? The not knowing. He thought he knew with certainty that she was lying, but the longer he dwelled on it, the less sure he was. Was she an incredibly skilled Occlumens, concealing another identity, or was there really no lie to uncover? Was she anxious because she was always worried she may say or do the wrong thing, or was it explainable by the fact that she was in a new place, surrounded by new, intimidating people? Just as he would convince himself that there was no earthly way she was actually the niece of Hepzibah Smith, he would remember how he had been unable to detect any sense of falsehoods in the shallowest parts of Hepzibah’s mind when he’d last paid her a visit—the only parts he dared to delve into, for to attempt to perform true Legilimency would make her aware. To do that, he would need to be prepared, in the most extreme instance, to kill both her and her atrocious house-elf if need be, and he was not willing to do that. He did not perform unnecessary murder, it was too great a risk. Besides, he was not ready to leave London just yet.
There was work to be done.
Work that was infinitely more important than whatever became of her.
Much more important.
…
He wanted to know.
He had ventured into some of the most obscure branches of magic, performing Divination in ways that someone like she would never believe in. He had uncovered enough about her to be almost certain that she was lying.
That merest shadow of a doubt, however, remained…
There was only one way to learn the irrevocable truth.
Either she really was the witch she said she was, and she suffered from severe social anxiety that manifested in a myriad of confusing and conflicting ways—perhaps she had a highly traumatic past—or she was, in fact, as he suspected, someone else entirely.
That was what really kept him up at night.
If she was not Hermione Smith but someone else, someone skilled enough to weasel her way into a prestigious family so convincingly that even he found himself unsure, then that made her desirable for altogether different reasons.
Either way… he would have her.
He would wait. He would bide his time, allowing her to think that she was free from his reach forever. He would wait until he was certain that she would never see him coming. He would isolate her much like she had isolated herself once; he would break her if he had to. He hoped it would not come to that. He knew that it was much more effective to gain loyalty by creating adoration than fear, at least, for now…
For as uncertain as he was about her lies, he had no doubts that she was infatuated with him. Seemingly against her will, like she knew something about him that she should not… and maybe she did. Perhaps there were more whispers than he was aware of circulating about him in the darker recesses of London, and she had suspicions of him as well.
Despite how unwelcome that possibility was, he could not help but recognize that he did not entirely detest it. Was he already striking fear in the hearts of strangers? Not as the charming shop boy, of course…
But as Lord Voldemort.
…
He would find her. The next time he had her alone, she would be moaning because of what he would do to her. He would own every inch of her gilded body until she was begging, aching with need. A pliable, breathless mess that he would captivate wholly and completely.
He would own her.
And then… he would know.
Chapter 32: The Cave, the Wonders
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Once Walter, Liam, and Hermione had all passed through the wompus’s gaping jaws, the entrance closed behind them. The effect was immediate—silence encapsulated them. With only dim light cast from sconces set into the walls at wide intervals, it felt like they were descending down into an ancient pyramid. Hermione, still in the lead, walked with caution.
“Are you sure we’re headed towards a club that has music?” she asked.
“And alcohol,” Walter said reassuringly. “First round’s on me.”
“Oh, well, in that case,” Liam said, “hurry up, Hermione. You’re walking slower than an Inferi.”
Hermione rolled her eyes and picked up the pace.
The staircase seemed excessively long, in Hermione’s opinion, but within a minute they arrived at its end. They approached a room of sorts, a space carved out in the stone that had higher ceilings than the stairwell had. Built into one side was a short, rounded door with a metal knocker. Hermione was about to grab hold of it when she nearly screamed.
“Rules,” grunted a rough voice to her left.
A man was in the space beside them, and it was obvious at once why she had missed him. For one, he was short, barely taller than Hermione’s knees. For another, he nearly blended in with the stony wall, both in his outfit and his skin tone. It was also clear that he was not human. Or, at least, not entirely human. Hermione couldn’t place what he was, exactly, and was not nearly stupid nor rude enough to try and guess. He must have been a bouncer for the bar.
When Hermione jumped, startled at his appearance, he smiled. “First rule,” he went on, and they listened attentively, “no wands. If you draw your wands, you’re out. Doesn’t matter if you cast a spell or not. Leave ‘em stowed while you’re inside. That simple.”
He waited for them all to agree. “Of course,” said Walter. Liam and Hermione settled for nodding.
“Second rule,” the bouncer continued, “no no-maj dueling, neither. You throw a punch at another bar patron, or strike anyone with any part of your anatomy, you’re out.”
“What if the strike is on accident?” Liam asked.
The part-human eyed him carefully. “Judgements will be made on a case by case basis,” he grumbled. “You planning on accidentally kicking some poor guy in the jewels tonight?”
“I’m not ruling it out.”
Walter snickered.
“Don’t,” the bouncer snarled. Walter cleared his throat and stopped laughing.
“Any other rules?” Liam asked.
“Certainly. The most important one: no snitching. You see something in here you don’t like, that’s your cue to leave. Understand?”
“Absolutely,” said Walter. “We wouldn’t dream of breaking any of your rules.”
The bouncer glared at Walter’s overly enthusiastic demeanor. “I remember you from last week,” he grunted. “Didn’t like the look of you much then, neither.”
“That’s because you didn’t see me dance,” Walter said, grinning.
“He does have a way of growing on you,” Hermione said. The bouncer’s lips twitched like he might smile, but he didn’t.
Instead, he reached for the door handle. “Welcome,” he said in a dull tone that suggested he had said this many, many times, “to The Cave and all of its wonders.”
The sound of music, loud and fast, assaulted their ears.
It crashed through the silence of the entryway as though a dozen trumpets were right in front of them, blaring. It was a fast, jazzy tune, audible clearly over the sounds of a great and boisterous crowd. It was so packed that it was a little difficult to make it into the bar; Walter and Liam had to shove a few people aside to enter properly. The door closed behind them.
“Wow,” Hermione gasped, taking it all in.
Fairies were zooming about the space, illuminating it with their multi-colored, soft lights. But aside from them, flashing lights that were shaped like neon signs but simply had to be magical adorned the walls, which were all covered in graffiti similar to the artwork that was outside the bar. But unlike the art that was in plain daylight, accessible to no-majes, this graffiti moved unabashedly—dragons dozed lazily under dazzling night skies; mermaids swam in synchronized circles in a scene that was entirely underwater. Phoenixes flew into brilliant sunsets that were accented with rings of bright light. Every inch of wall was covered, which was impressive in and of itself, because the walls were huge. The space was huge; it was easily twice the size of the foyer in Malfoy Manor, with ceilings that were just as tall. On one end of the space was a huge, long bar where many were gathered; on the opposite, a giant, raging dance floor beneath a stage where performers were currently playing. Between these two extremes were a few tables and booths where people sat, sipping their drinks and chatting loudly over the music.
Yet it was not the magical chaos of the space that ensnared Hermione’s attention. It was the people.
This place was—how had Walter described it?—a freak show.
Well, no, that was a bit rude for how Hermione would label it. But it was certainly… something else. Immediately, she could see that perhaps a fourth of the patrons of this bar were not fully human, if they were human at all. She spotted what was unmistakably a group of vampires sharing drinks that looked very much like blood, and one of the bartenders was, to her great shock, a goblin.
“Wow,” Hermione said again, a smile spreading on her face.
“I know,” Walter said. He put his hand on her shoulder, guiding her forward. “Come on, let’s go to the bar and get some drinks.”
Liam was already making his way there. Hermione nodded and followed him through the crowd, Walter at her side. One of the vampires eyed Liam up and down appreciatively as they all passed by; Hermione pretended not to notice.
Despite the thick crowds surrounding the bar, it was staffed well enough that someone greeted them at once. Not the goblin, who was busy with others, nor someone that looked to be at least part high-elf, nor a woman that was also obviously vampire, and not the creature that Hermione could only assume was a satyr, though she’d never seen one before, but another potential part-human.
“What’ll it be?”
A tall, curvaceous woman with brown skin, curly dark hair, and green eyes leaned over the bar towards them. Hermione couldn’t help but grin at her—she had the tall, furry ears of a black cat.
“Hello, Mama J,” Walter said.
She grinned, revealing teeth that were pointed and sharp. “Why, if it isn’t baby Walter, back again,” she all but purred. “You here for fun, or you here for something work related?”
“Always for fun,” Walter said, looking offended. “You outta know that by now.”
“Just making sure you’re still a cool cop,” she responded, her eyes glinting playfully. “Not that I have anything to hide. That mean you’re set on going down the troubling path towards becoming a regular here?”
“Seems like it.”
“Good,” the cat-woman—Mama J—said. She flashed her bright eyes towards Liam, then Hermione. “Who’re your friends?” she asked.
“Liam and Hermione,” Walter said for them. “Guess which is which.”
“Oh, you’re definitely a Liam,” Mama J said correctly. She offered her hand to Liam; Hermione noted that she had long, elaborately painted nails that sparkled in an obviously magical way. “I’m Mama. Mama J. Proud owner of this fine establishment.”
Liam shook her hand. “The owner?” he said. “And you tend bar?”
“Damn right I do.”
Liam grinned. “A pleasure to be here,” he said.
“Damn right it is.”
She turned her attention to Hermione. “You’ve got an interesting energy,” she said, skipping the pleasantries. She didn’t look at Hermione nearly as kindly as she did Liam. “Feels a bit… off.”
Hermione swallowed hard. “Oh,” she said, unsure what else to say.
But then Mama J smiled broadly, and her iciness melted away. “That’s all right, darling. I don’t much care for normal or healthy. Too boring. So, what’ll it be, children? Pick your poison.”
Liam was about to speak, but Walter cut him off. “I was hoping you could help us out with that,” he said. “You do have a way of reading people, after all… dealer’s choice.”
“All right,” said Mama J. “Give me a minute.”
After she turned away, busying herself by selecting a few bottles, Walter motioned for Hermione and Liam to lean closer to him. “She’s a metamorphmagus,” he explained in a low voice. “No one knows what she really looks like, or how old she is, or if she’s even a she. The only way people can recognize it’s her when she’s bartending is by her cat ears. She always has cat ears, for whatever reason. Oh, look, now she has a matching tail.”
Indeed, Mama J had just sprouted a long, furry tail, one which seemed to burst through a hole in her tight black pants without causing any unwanted tears in the fabric. She did this to general applause and cheers from a group of young witches and wizards on the other side of the bar, who had, apparently, told her to do it. Mama J wiggled her arse at them, swishing her tail back and forth and earning more cheers. The goblin who was behind the bar looked like he was annoyed by all of it, and went back to making his drinks.
“Fascinating,” Hermione said. “What did she look like last time you came here?”
“A short, pale witch with bright green hair that was straight as an arrow and went down to her ankles,” he said. “Totally different facial structure too. Her ears were white last time.”
“Is she always a woman?” Liam asked.
“Not always,” Walter said. “One time I was here she was a tall, dark-skinned man that was entirely bald. Still had the ears, though. I think they were brown that time.”
Liam frowned. “Just how many times have you been here without me?”
“A few,” Walter said vaguely. “What? I like coming here. I really feel like I can just… be myself, you know? Not feel judged at all. It was nice to keep it to myself for a bit.”
“So when exactly did you share it with Denise and Pegs?” Liam asked, nodding out towards the crowd. “I just spotted them dancing. Clearly they’ve been in the know.”
Walter’s face fell. “Er. Well, truth be told—”
“Here we are!”
Walter was saved from needing to explain himself further by Mama J. She reappeared with three drinks, each quite different looking.
“For you,” she said, looking at Walter, “a no-maj inspired drink. A classic Manhattan, but made with my finest firewhiskey.”
Walter accepted it gratefully. “Spot on,” he said.
“For you,” she said to Liam next, “something a bit more magical. Here we call it the Veela’s Kiss. Sounds like it would be girly, but trust me. It ain’t.”
She slid a tall glass towards him full of dark red liquid. It was bubbling slightly, like it was on the brink of boiling. She gave Liam a meaningful look. Did she somehow know that Liam had a drop of Veela blood in his veins?
If she did, she said nothing of it. Liam said nothing to acknowledge it, either. Looking apprehensive, he took a sip of his bubbling drink, then looked pleasantly surprised. “Shockingly cold and a little bitter,” he said. He raised his glass towards Mama J. “Not bad at all.”
She smiled and turned to Hermione. “And for you, my dear witch,” she said, “a cocktail of my own invention. The Dragonfire.”
Hermione’s drink was in a tall, martini-style glass. The liquid inside was glowing, a vibrant red-orange. It certainly looked like it was about to catch fire.
Hermione almost asked what was in it, then changed her mind, thinking that might be rude. Liam hadn't, after all, and his drink looked equally questionable. She slowly brought the drink to her lips and took a small sip.
It was delicious. Though it was glowing, the liquid was cool—and yet, after she swallowed, it burned down her throat in a surprisingly delightful and unexpected way. It had notes of cinnamon and something else, something sweet and familiar but which Hermione could not place at first.
Then she set her glass down, and it hit her. “Is there cachaça in this?” she asked.
Mama J looked impressed. “Quite the refined palette you have,” she said. “Yes, there is, among other things.”
Hermione tried not to dwell on the night that she had tried cachaça—when she’d been at Malfoy Manor, hanging off the arm of Abraxas Malfoy. Though it had only been a few months ago, it already felt like a lifetime had passed since she had been in London, attempting to infiltrate the inner circles of the purebloods. It had been like trying to befriend…
Royalty, Riddle’s voice supplied in the back of her mind. To put it simply, magical royalty.
“It’s wonderful,” Hermione said, willing away the recollection of Riddle in a garden full of roses, staring at her with those dark, inquisitive eyes. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” she said. “So, who’s buying? You want to start a tab?”
Though Walter had said he would pay, Hermione offered to do just that. “I can get it. I’d love to start a—”
“Nooo, no, no you don’t,” Walter said quickly. “I said I got this round. No tab. What’s the damage?”
“You paying in no-maj or wizarding money? You know we take it all here, darling.”
“I’ve got plenty of no-maj cash, if it’s all the same to you.”
“It is. That’ll be two dollars and twenty-five cents.”
Walter pulled the money from his pocket and put it on the bar, adding in an extra quarter. Hermione wondered if she would ever get used to the cost of things in this day and age. “Thank you kindly,” Mama J said, gathering up the cash. She then turned to another patron, a wizard who looked like he might be part-orc, if his protruding lower teeth were any indication.
“Do not start a tab here,” Walter muttered as he, Hermione and Liam moved away from the bar. “They don’t mess around with potentially losing money—too risky for a crowd like this, I imagine. They make you make a blood pact before you start ordering.”
“A blood pact?” Hermione asked.
“Yeah. They make you sign with a blood quill and everything. Curses you. You can’t leave until you’ve settled up.”
Hermione felt her own blood run cold. Very recently, she had signed something with a blood quill, and she hadn’t yet asked if Liam or Walter had needed to do the same with their contracts before taking the Oculus test. In fact, she had been too nervous to. What if they said no, and it alerted them to the fact that there was something to be suspicious of with her?
Had she signed something dangerous?
It was probably just standard protocol. It had to be.
“You all right?” Liam asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Hermione nodded. “I’m fine,” she murmured, then busied herself by taking a long, deep drink.
“There you are!”
Hermione was grateful when Denise appeared, followed shortly by Peggy. Their faces were pink from dancing. “Congratulations, you two!”
The expected round of ‘thank you’s’ and embraces ensued, followed soon by a round of shots that Denise bought off a tiny cocktail waitress (was she part pixie? She was so small!) who was sauntering by, selling a tray full of them. Walter gave Hermione a knowing grin when she accepted hers, a look that said, I told you that you’d be taking more shots tonight.
Hermione didn’t much care that she had been wrong, though; suddenly, more alcohol in her system was highly appealing. “I want to dance,” she declared.
The dance floor looked more inviting yet more intimidating than any Hermione had ever seen. Walter had been right—the witches here had really dressed to impress, their gowns flashing and glittering as they moved, enchanted to dazzle. Some of the wizards had some magical flair to their outfits as well, but it was difficult to discern among all the sparkling fabric and blindingly reflective jewelry and shoes.
What she had in store was much better.
“You might want to wait a sec,” Peggy said. “This song’s almost over, and this is his last one. But don’t worry. Next band is way better. Probably the reason there’s so many people here tonight.”
“Who’s playing?” Liam asked.
“If you don’t already know, I’m not ruining the surprise.”
“It’s the Lunas,” Peggy answered.
Denise shot her an annoyed look. “Sorry,” Peggy said. “I’m just really excited to see them!”
“Who are the Lunas?” Hermione asked. “I haven’t heard of them.”
“Well then you, dear, are in for a treat!” Peggy exclaimed. “I won’t ruin it anymore than I already have; you’ll see for yourself soon enough!”
It was only then that Hermione bothered to look and see who was performing now. It was a tall, dark wizard who was dressed very sharply, Hermione thought, in a pinstripe suit and stylish black hat. Behind him was a skeleton band—literally. Four human skeletons were playing the music that had accompanied his singing, including a trumpet player, a drummer, a guitar player, and one with a tall, standing bass. It was astonishing to watch them play, these animated skeletons. Hermione wondered morbidly if they were the skeletons of actual people, perhaps people the singer had even known, or if they were all just spellwork—transfigurations of other objects, maybe.
Just as Peggy predicted, the song soon came to an end. The timing was perfect, as Hermione had just finished her Dragonfire cocktail and was definitely feeling a pleasant, warm buzz as the alcohol flooded her body.
“Thank you, thank you,” the wizard said as the crowds, now pausing in their dancing, applauded. “Give a hand to my talented musicians!”
Everyone laughed as the skeletons bowed in unison. The wizard then snapped his fingers, and the skeletons and their instruments all vanished in a puff of black smoke. Hermione was shocked; that was much more impressive magic than whatever she had imagined.
“And now, the stars you’ve all been waiting for,” the wizard continued, “it is my great pleasure to introduce… the Lunas!”
Four women stormed the stage, and the crowd went wild at the sight of them. Wild was an appropriate word to describe them, too. Tattoos covered their arms and legs, and they were all wearing tight leather clothes that were ripped and slashed in various places, almost artfully so. They all had scars and some even had wounds that looked somewhat recent. Their hair was tousled and tangled. They looked, to put it simply, like they’d all just gotten done with a huge fist fight—one which they had won.
One of the women approached the microphone, while the others each grabbed their instruments from the back of the stage. Hermione had never really appreciated magic for how it made live music much easier to set up and listen to. There were no wires, no amps, no electricity necessary at all. These guitars and drums and even the microphone were all magical, enchanted to be as loud as they wanted it to be.
“FUCK YEAH MANHATTAN!” the lead singer screamed into the microphone. Hermione laughed loudly at the vulgar introduction. The crowds screamed and hollered.
The singer smiled, and that was when it hit Hermione. Her smile was… slanted, dangerous. There was a tattoo on her hand of a giant moon, and it looked like it was glowing beneath the fairy light when she gripped the mic.
Their scars, their injuries, their band name, their whole look…
“They’re werewolves,” Hermione murmured. But no one could hear her.
“I want to see you fucking DANCE!” the lead yelled, and without another word, the drummer started playing a loud, fast tempo.
Liam touched her shoulder. He smiled down at her, raising his hand in her direction, but before he could make a proper offer, Walter grabbed her by her other arm. “Come on, then!” he shouted, pulling her away.
Hermione didn’t even get a chance to offer Liam an apologetic look before she was swept into a fast, chaotic dance. Walter was as skilled as ever, effortlessly guiding her and twirling her around to the beat of what was the most aggressive rockabilly music she’d heard yet. It was almost dangerous, how they had to dodge and twist around the other couples, but Hermione soon found that this was half the fun. Within seconds she had no idea where Liam, Peggy, or Denise were. She and Walter were lost in a sea of witches, wizards, and who even knew what else, moving to the music.
“I thought you had something exciting to show off?” Walter asked her at a moment when she was close to him.
Hermione laughed. “I do, but I’m saving it for the right moment! I thought you had something exciting to show off?”
“I do, but same!”
Walter spun her away, then pulled her back close just as the song ended. They were both breathless and grinning as they released each other’s hands.
They barely had time to clap for the Lunas before a new song started. “Excuse me,” Walter said, and without offering a further explanation, he disappeared in the crowd.
Hermione didn’t have long to feel abandoned or annoyed, though. Just seconds later and a lone wizard found her—a moderately handsome, dirty blonde man who looked shocked to find her there, standing alone in the middle of the dance floor. He smiled and offered her his hand, which was covered in a slick, black glove, not saying anything.
Hermione returned his smile and took his hand.
It was thrilling, dancing with a total stranger, especially in a place like this. The loud music certainly helped. There were no expectations to carry any sort of conversation. They communicated only through dancing, guiding or being guided. He was quite good, Hermione thought. And though he lacked Walter’s natural grace, he more than made up for it in enthusiasm. His hazel eyes lit up whenever they made eye contact.
She was having so much fun with him that, when the song shifted to another, and then another, she kept the same partner, continuing to dance with this stranger for well over ten minutes. At some point Hermione looked over his shoulder, and she was shocked when she spotted Walter.
Walter, dancing. With another wizard.
Hermione wasn’t sure why she was surprised when she saw it—Walter had, after all, told her that he was not interested in women. It was only then that she realized why it looked so odd. Because, for as many times as they had been out together, Hermione had never once seen him dancing with another man. In fact, she had barely seen him flirt with another man at all.
Hermione had a rush of understanding, followed by a rush of guilt.
Just because being gay in her time in wizarding society wasn’t such a big deal didn’t mean it wasn’t now, today. It certainly was an issue in the no-maj world. And sure, Walter had suggested that most of the school knew his preferences, but he hadn’t said that it was widely accepted, had he?
Maybe it wasn’t. Hermione had never suspected as much because he just always seemed so… so cheerful, so happy. But maybe some of that cheerful demeanor was an act. After all, what had he said when they’d first arrived?
He’d said that he felt like he could really be himself, here.
Hermione felt extremely ignorant. She’d been so preoccupied with the sexism that she, personally, had to deal with that she hadn’t been paying any attention to the fact that others around her were fighting their own battles. Hermione vowed to do better.
After another song, the band announced that they were taking a short break. The man she’d been dancing with finally spoke, holding her close to his chest when he did.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
Hermione grinned. She thought for a moment to lie, just because she could, but then decided against it. “Hermione,” she said.
“Hermione,” he repeated. “How pretty. I’m afraid my name is rather boring compared to that.”
“What is it?”
“David. David Thompson.”
“Nice to meet you, David.”
There was a moment where neither of them said anything. They looked at each other, smiling, and Hermione felt giddy with the newness of it all.
“Hermione!”
Liam had emerged from the crowd of people, most of whom were now chatting or heading towards the bar. Peggy was at his side. Their eyes both went to David. They did not look happy. “What are you doing with him ?”
“Er,” Hermione started, recognizing the clear animosity crackling between them all that surely meant they had a history. “I, er…”
“We were dancing,” David said coolly. “Is that a problem, Wright?”
“It is, in fact,” Liam said. He took a step forward and looked at Hermione. “Hermione, what were you thinking, dancing with this idiot?”
Hermione did not know how to respond, so she started by stepping away from David. All around her, she noticed that people were shifting, giving them more space and watching with interest. Denise had joined them, and a moment later, Walter had, too.
“What’s going on?” Walter asked, looking about from Hermione to David to Liam. “Hermione, why are you with Thompson?”
“I was dancing with this lovely lady,” David drawled, and Hermione was suddenly reminded very much of Draco. A few people had edged closer to David, too, flanking him on either side. It looked like they were preparing for a fight. “And for whatever reason, this is bothering Wright. Why would that be, Moore?”
“Probably because he doesn’t like seeing our friends fraternizing with scumbag wompuses,” Walter muttered.
David’s eyes went wide, but then he laughed, letting out a low whistle. “Oh, ho!” he shouted. “Is that right? I think he’s serious, boys. Look, the chickens are puffing up their little feathers and everything!”
The wizards and witches that had come to David’s aid all began clucking and making obnoxious chicken sounds. Some of the bystanders laughed. Liam, Walter, Peggy, and Denise looked deeply annoyed; Hermione could only assume this was how the wompuses regularly gauded their thunderbird counterparts.
And I thought the Slytherin, Gryffindor rivalry was bad, Hermione thought.
Just as Liam had stepped forward, a livid look on his face—perhaps their history was worse than Hermione assumed—someone else appeared, having apparated between them with a sudden crack. He looked very similar to the bouncer at the bar’s entrance.
“There a problem here?” he asked, looking back and forth between David and Liam.
The clucking all stopped. “Of course not,” David said smoothly. “Just having some fun with old friends.”
The bouncer didn’t look appeased. “Better stay that way,” he growled. Then he disappeared with another crack .
“Let’s be honest,” David said once he was gone, “the real issue you have is that I’m a vastly better dance partner than you would be, Wright, which is why she wound up with me. Isn’t that right, Hermione?”
Hermione swallowed hard, hating being put on the spot. “Actually,” she said slowly, edging closer to Liam and Walter as she spoke, “I think that Walter is by far the best dance partner I’ve ever had.”
David’s face turned sour. “Oh, I see,” he muttered. He glared at her as she stood firmly across from him. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
“She is,” Walter snapped, “but she’s also right. I could dance circles around you, Thompson. Always have, always will.”
As though the band had been watching and waiting for this moment, a new song began. Hermione hadn’t even noticed them take the stage again.
“Oh yeah?” David asked. “If you think so, Moore… prove it.”
Everyone who had been watching whooped and cheered. Hermione was in awe as those who couldn't care less about what some thunderbirds and wompuses were doing kept their dancing away from them, respectfully leaving a circular, open space in the middle of the floor.
Walter smirked as he strode into the middle of the vacant circle. David and his friends backed up to give him more space. “With pleasure,” Walter said.
Oh my God, Hermione thought gleefully. It’s a dance off. It’s an actual dance off.
Walter, it turned out, had been holding out on her. While he was an excellent dancer with her, he was even better when he was not hindered with a partner.
He was just so fast!
Walter’s footwork was ridiculously quick and nimble; Hermione could hardly keep up. She and those on her side of the circle cheered him on, none louder than Liam. Then, with one particularly, distinct slamming of his heel on the ground, it happened.
Lightning.
A lick of lightning seemed to shoot right out of his shoe, radiating across the dance floor. It didn’t stop with just one. As Walter continued his rapid routine, flickers of lightning came with every step, flashing flickering and causing quite a few more people to stop, watch, and cheer him on.
That’s genius, Hermione thought as she too applauded his creativity. Lightning enchanted shoes from a proud thunderbird. Bravo.
It wasn’t real lightning of course; the lines of light passed straight through the people it touched, doing nothing.
“Why on earth were you dancing with Thompson?” Denise hissed in Hermione’s ear. “Liam can’t stand that asshole!”
Hermione shrugged. “Never did anything to me,” she responded. “Also, didn’t recognize him.”
Denise looked appalled. “What?” Hermione said. “If I had known this would be the result, I would have danced with him even sooner. This is amazing.”
Denise said nothing to that. David, for his part, was doing his best to look bored. But as Walter’s lightning routine seemed to only be picking up momentum, not slowing down, he finally decided to cut in.
A sudden gust caused Walter to stumble and nearly fall. He collided with the man he’d been dancing with before, who caught him and righted him, casting David an angry look.
It was obvious at once that it was David who had caused the wind. It was also clear how he had done it—with his very first gesture, more wind was conjured, swirling around him and making his robes billow impressively. It’s his gloves, Hermione deduced at once. Every time he flicked his wrists, wind whirled around him.
It was very difficult to not be impressed by him. His dancing was not worse than Walter’s necessarily, just… different. Slower, more purposeful. The wind blowing his hair back and his clothes about had the effect of making him look like…
Like the eye of his own, constructed tornado, she thought somberly. Hermione was struck with the recollection so suddenly it nearly hurt. Riddle, conjuring winds a thousand times fiercer than this, sweeping away her hexed hornets with a mighty gesture of his arms…
Gods, why couldn’t she stop thinking about him?
“You gotta get in there,” Denise hissed in her ear again. “He’s not as good as Walt but listen to these idiots, cheering him on like he’s so great—it’s just a cheap trick!”
“Why me?” Hermione asked. But she knew why.
“Because you started this, of course!” Denise said. “Besides, who better to put him in his place than the lovely lady he was dancing with to begin with, eh?”
“Oh, all right, then. Should I just shove him out of the way? I don’t have anything enchanted to blow him out of the circle.”
“Hm. I’ll help.”
Denise scrunched her face very hard, then flicked her fingers towards David. He suddenly tripped.
“Did you—!?”
Hermione did not get to finish her accusation of Denise’s ability to perform wandless tripping hexes with such accuracy. The moment he fell, before he could stand again properly, before the spectators could even finish their gasps of surprise and jeers and taunts, she shoved Hermione forward.
Well, it’s now or never, Hermione thought. She was very glad that she had taken several shots leading up to this moment, because a perfectly sober Hermione surely would have not been so confident.
But she was confident.
Hermione strode into the space that David once occupied, flashing him a bright smile. Then she grabbed her skirts, pulled them up, and spun.
Fire.
Unlike with Walter’s lightning trick, people screamed when Hermione began to dance, for her enchantments were good . It looked like real, flickering flames had erupted all around her, growing brighter and fiercer with every turn. It hardly mattered that she had rarely danced without a partner and wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing, the fire made up for all of it. Once they all got over the initial shock and realized that it was, indeed, just a very convincing enchantment, everyone roared their approval. Hermione spun and turned and kicked, laughing all the while, and the flames swirled around her like she was a Goddess among her worshippers. Her hair, which she had put back in a tight bun at the beginning of the night, tumbled out, littering the ground with bobby pins. Hermione hardly cared. She only smiled more as her long hair twirled about with her, getting caught on her lips as she laughed.
The raucous cheering was soon going to her head. Hermione spun faster and faster, and though the fire was not real, she soon felt overheated. She made a misstep, and just as she was sure she was about to tumble to the end of her dance as well, ended up bumping right into Liam.
She didn’t hesitate. Hermione, a little light-headed and far too high on adrenaline, grabbed him by the hand and pulled him out onto the floor with her.
It was difficult to say what exactly happened after that. The circle dispersed, as everyone seemed to collectively agree that it was time to dance themselves. Liam whirled Hermione about, who was smiling so broadly her face was beginning to hurt.
“Incredible!” Liam shouted to her. “How did you make it look so real?”
“I have a way with fire,” Hermione said. She threw her head back and laughed. “I’m a fucking witch!”
Liam laughed, too. They danced together for the rest of the song, and were both out of breath by the end of it. When the music paused, they locked eyes. Liam was staring deeply into hers, the smile gone from his face.
“I… need to get some water,” Hermione said, her heart speeding as she stepped away in a rush. “Go find Peggy and dance with her!”
She slipped from his grasp before he could stop her.
Liam…
No. She couldn’t do that. She’d sworn to Walter that she wouldn't, and it would be too dangerous besides. She could not trust herself to keep her guard up around him.
She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
And yet…
Shaking away her traitorous thoughts, Hermione pushed her way through the many patrons until she made it to the back of the club where it was much less crowded. She sighed when she finally made it to the bar.
The vampire bartender was about to greet her, but Mama J got to her first. “Hello, darling,” she said “Shoo,” she added to the vampire. “I’ve got this one.”
“Hello, Mama J,” Hermione said. “I would very much like some water, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m sure you would,” Mama J said. She grabbed a glass, and while meaningfully twisting her wrist above it, said, “ Aguamenti .” It filled to the brim at once.
“Impressive,” Hermione murmured. “Thank you.” She then took a long, deep drink. It was like heaven pouring down her throat.
“A wandless water charm? Please. Not nearly so impressive as that dress you’ve got on. That was quite the performance. Did you enchant it yourself?”
“I did.”
“Nicely done.”
She gave Hermione another thoughtful look. “I know what you need,” she said, then turned around.
Hermione pursed her lips, unsure if she wanted another drink. She certainly hadn’t ordered one. Still, Mama J was mixing a few brightly colored bottles of liquid into a tumbler. She levitated it, mixed it well in midair, and poured its contents into two shot glasses she had also conjured.
“This here is my specialty,” she said, offering Hermione one of the shots. She picked the other one up for herself. “I call it ‘the sure thing’. On the house, my darling fire witch.”
She raised her glass. Hermione eyed hers; it was a bright pink and sparkly. “What’ll it do?”
“What most shots do,” Mama J said playfully. “And then some.”
She tilted her head back and drank hers in one swig. Hermione shrugged and lifted hers. “To the Cave and all its wonders,” she said, then drank.
It was sweet, like strawberries. The moment Hermione swallowed, she was in awe.
Everything looked so… pretty.
It felt like she had been struck by some kind of amazing spell, one that made the world look suddenly rosy and… and a bit shiny. She felt a little like she was floating, or in a dream.
“What was in that shot?” she asked dazedly.
“Nothing too crazy,” Mama J said. “Pretty great, huh? It’ll wear off soon enough, but for the next few minutes things will look a little more… magical.”
Everything looked very magical. The faeries fluttering around the bar looked brighter, more dazzling, and the graffiti was more lifelike than ever.
“Here,” Hermione said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a few knuts. “I know you said it was on the house, but I appreciate it all the same.”
Mama J nodded and accepted them. “Thank you, doll.”
Hermione turned, then froze in shock.
What?
There, at the other end of the bar, was a man. An achingly familiar man. A man with dark hair, pale skin, and eyes that, even from this far away, seemed to pull her in with a powerful, magnetic force.
Someone stepped in front of her. When they passed, he was gone.
“Mama J,” Hermione said, her voice an octave higher than it had been a moment ago.
“Yes, darling?”
“Does that shot you made me… does it make you hallucinate things?”
Mama J laughed heartily. “Hallucinations? Honey, do I look like I’d be stupid enough to serve drinks that cause people to see things that aren’t there?” She shook her head, her ears twitching and tail swishing. “There’s enough crazy shit to see in here already, don’t you think?”
Hermione laughed too, albeit nervously. “Right,” she said. “Of course. I apologize. I think I’ve been dancing a bit too hard, that’s all.”
“Might be,” Mama J said. “Pace yourself out there, okay? I hate when I have to have my bouncers drag unconscious people out of here. Especially the ladies. Feels undignified. But we do what we gotta do.”
“Well, I would hope one of my friends would do the dragging, if it came to that,” Hermione said. “If I can even find them again.”
“Normally I’d say good luck with that, but it looks like one of your friends has saved you the trouble and hunted you down himself.”
Mama J winked and nodded towards someone behind her.
Hermione didn’t get the chance to even turn around. Someone leaned against the bar at her side, so casually, and when she inhaled, the unmistakable scent of sandalwood struck her. But no. It couldn’t be. Here? Now? No.
But it was.
His full lips were curled; his unexpected presence was undeniably mind-numbing. Faeries floated around him and they were too luminous, too beautiful. Hermione felt like she was going to faint.
“Hello, Hermione,” Tom Riddle said, smiling.
Chapter 33: To Change the World
Chapter Text
Hermione held the glittering Time-Turner in both hands, its weight both familiar and foreign. This one was around the same size as the one that she had been given in her third year, and yet it was slightly heavier, thicker. Stronger, she thought with certainty. Magic was undoubtedly exuding from it. She held something powerful, and most importantly, unhindered.
Sanctimonia Vincet Semper.
Hermione traced her fingers along the words inscribed into the gold, admiring the way the light caught on the tiny, elegant script.
“My family motto,” Draco said dryly. “Naturally.”
“Naturally,” Hermione repeated with equal dryness. She turned the Time-Turner, slowly—not in the manner which would cause it to function, of course, but which allowed the sand-like substance to filter slowly from one side of the hourglass to the other. The speckles sparkled and glistened like tiny gems.
“I still cannot believe that you have this,” Hermione murmured.
“You wouldn’t believe the sorts of powerful, magical things the Malfoy family has acquired over the years.”
“None more powerful than this, I’d guess.” Hermione gently set the Time-Turner back on the table in front of her. Malfoy did not instantly go to grab it, but let it sit there—a tempting, golden lure between them.
Its presence significantly changed the atmosphere. They had met before; Hermione and Draco had arranged several meetings to discuss the possibility of this venture, but those had been preliminary. Meetings where Draco usually chose to drink polyjuice potion so they could meet somewhere out in a public space, for Hermione refused (with good reason, she thought) to go to his manor. Those uncomfortable walks in parks and other such settings had been fine for whispered conversations, but this… this was different. Hermione had requested to actually see this supposed, true Time-Turner, and so new arrangements had been made. Private ones.
Hermione examined her companion sitting across from her, still a bit in awe of it all. Draco was dressed in nondescript muggle clothes, including a baggy sweatshirt and a snug beanie hat to cover his white-blond hair, all so that he could more easily escape without being noticed when he left. She had seen a lot of very strange things in her life, but she thought the image of Draco Malfoy, dressed like some common muggle, in her flat, the most bizarre thing of all.
The fact that he had agreed to meet her in her own home, willing to forgo polyjuice potion due to how long he assumed they would meet, therefore needing to pretend to be a muggle (Hermione had chosen to live in a very densely muggle populated area, much to Draco’s displeasure), truly spoke to how badly he wanted her help. Hermione supposed his appearance was an improvement. She was, admittedly, sick of seeing him disguised as random men when he talked to her.
If she was going to plan something so intricate and illegal, well… she wanted to be able to look the person she was conspiring with in the eye.
Draco caught her staring, a spark of hope igniting in those cold, gray depths. “So?” he asked, impatient. “What do you think? It’s definitely authentic. We could go anywhere in time with that, for as long as we need.” He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, like he needed to be closer to her to convey the significance of what he meant. “We could do anything, Granger.”
“No, we couldn’t,” Hermione said coolly. “Time isn’t so simple. If we go back far and stay too long, we could get lost. We could be stranded in another timeline, forever, or at least until our bodies deteriorate, if that is what happens when one travels so far. There’s reason to believe it does. And then, if we end up elsewhere, we would effectively do nothing at all for our timeline.”
Malfoy glared. “That’s why we will be fast,” he said, annoyed. “Obviously. Destroy them both, quickly, then come back. And then… It’ll be like you said, won’t it?”
His annoyance flickered, shadowed by a thin veil of uncertainty. “It’s a theory, Malfoy,” Hermione sighed. “The theory is that we would effectively change our own timeline, and when we returned, the world would be… well, very different.”
“Better,” Draco said, his assurance swiftly returned. He leaned back in his chair, looking so satisfied one would think they’d already done it. “A better world.”
“And who will we be?” Hermione asked. Malfoy raised a brow at her. “That’s the real question here. If we were to succeed, if we were to accomplish this task and return here quickly… What would become of us? When I time-traveled, it was a short trip, and I relived the experience of time, so I eventually had all the memories of what occurred. That won’t be the case here. We’ll go back decades, then retravel forward through an altered river of time… We might be the same. We might not be.”
Malfoy looked confused again. “What do you mean?”
“One possibility is that we would be exactly as we are now, with all of our memories that we have from this world as it is now, including this plan and how we executed it… the other is that, well, we wouldn’t.”
“Explain.”
“Say please.”
Malfoy grit his teeth. Hermione held back a smile. He almost looked cute, dressed up like a little muggle boy, all mad like that. “Please,” he muttered.
“The other possibility is that we too would be rewritten. Our whole lives would change, after all. If Voldemort—stop it, don’t wince like that, it’s pathetic—were to never be born, then the wars wouldn’t happen. Many people would be alive that otherwise aren’t. Maybe the stigma against muggle-borns would be less than it was when we met. Who knows how things would unfold without both wizarding wars occuring?”
Hermione took a deep breath. Malfoy didn’t say anything, only waited with a frown on his face. “What could happen is that, as we travel back to this moment, in a newly altered time, our memories would also be rewritten. They could change to match what would then be considered the reality of this time. We would have the memories of our new lives to match the changed world, which would mean…”
“We would lose the memories we have now.”
There was a stretch of silence. Hermione allowed it to carry on for a bit, allowing Malfoy to process the weight of it all. He was staring at the Time-Turner now, his frown deepening.
“Yes,” she eventually said. “I think it would be reasonable to assume that we would not retain the memories of multiple realities, especially if one is eliminated. We’ll either remain ourselves, or… or we’ll become who we would have been, if Voldemort had never existed.”
There was another stretch of silence. Malfoy looked like he was thinking very deeply indeed. It was, perhaps, the first time he had really considered the consequences of fucking with time so royally.
“What if… in this new world we create… what if, in that world, one of us wasn’t born?”
Hermione stared at him, though he continued to keep his eyes on the Time-Turner. She was glad he had jumped to this conclusion on his own; she hadn’t wanted to be the one to break it to him.
“What if, somehow, the Dark Lord being born had a sort of ripple effect, and… and it affected how certain people would meet and when? What if it changes things in a way where my parents or yours don’t meet, or meet at different times? What if we… I don’t know, kill ourselves by doing this?”
Hermione shrugged. “It’s possible,” she said. “I’d venture to say unlikely, as your parents’ marriage was, as you’ve said before, carefully arranged, and my parents were relatively uninfluenced by magical doings, but… it’s possible. We’re taking a great risk if we do this, in many ways. We could stop people from existing… but in that same vein, we’d be saving many, many more.”
Malfoy looked up, surprised, probably, that it was now Hermione who was making arguments for this insanity rather than against. “So many people, magical and not, died as a result of Voldemort.” Malfoy nodded, not even flinching this time at the name. “The magical population dwindled significantly during the first war and who even knows how many innocent muggles were caught in the cross-fire. We might be risking ourselves and others we care about, but it stands to reason that we would be doing far more good than harm. Saving far more than we’d be potentially killing.”
Malfoy inhaled as though he were about to speak, then seemed to think better of it and didn’t. “It would be understandable if you no longer wanted to do this,” Hermione said gently. “It would be great if we knew with certainty that we’d be making a much better version of this world, but the fact is that we can’t really know. I think about it all the time, and as soon as I’ve convinced myself it’s the right thing to do, I convince myself of the opposite. What if it ruins people's lives, rather than improves them? What if people in the present get hurt? ”
“I want to do it.”
Hermione was stunned by the abrupt certainty in his voice. He pulled his sleeve up and put his arm down on the table, wrist up. The Dark Mark was there, faded but ever-present.
“Whatever risk is worth it… Don’t you agree?”
Hermione was still not entirely convinced. But then she thought about the door, about Selwyn, about all the great mysteries that had yet to be understood where magic was involved. About how she was a Gryffindor, wasn’t she? And nothing, not even the unknown possibilities of altering time, should scare her.
This… this felt like her fate.
“Show me yours,” he demanded.
Hermione pushed her own sleeve up, revealing a scar that was somehow even more sinister than his. Time had done her no favors at all when it came to the curse on her skin; the word was as black and dark as ever.
Mudblood.
Malfoy looked at it, then at her. Maybe it should have been disconcerting that he smiled so genuinely, but Hermione supposed it wasn’t. After all, he wasn’t smiling at the scars themselves, was he?
No, he was smiling because she had as good as said it. By showing them together, it was like they’d made some sort of binding pact, as unbreakable as any vow.
It hadn’t been decided, not completely… not until now.
“Let’s do it, Malfoy,” Hermione said, and his smile widened.
“Let’s change the world.”
“Tom.”
Hermione breathed the word softly, like she was uttering something taboo. She couldn’t help it—she reached out and put her hand against his shoulder, certain for a moment that he may disappear, a figment of her imagination. He didn’t. Tom Riddle smiled at her all the more charmingly.
“You’re here,” she said in disbelief.
Riddle looked like he might laugh, but he didn’t. “I am,” he said.
Hermione blinked, dazed, surely from the drink. Was it from the drink? Or was that just how his presence affected her after not seeing him for so long?
She shook her head, trying to gather her wits about her. This, the persistent but currently weakened voice of reason in the back her mind said, was not good.
Tom Riddle had come, he had really come, here, to America, months later, right now, and she was drunk and debilitated and—
“You seem… unwell, Hermione,” Riddle said, his smile fading. “Are you that unhappy to see me?”
Hermione’s pulse began to speed, her survival instincts springing back to life. The very last thing she needed was to let him know just how debilitated she was. Surely a Tom Riddle who knew how much of an upper hand he had would abuse that power, without question.
Hermione glared, pulling her arm away from him and crossing them over her chest. “Why?” she said sternly.
“You’ll need to be more precise with your words than that.”
“Why are you here!” Hermione shouted, already exasperated.
Riddle only grinned at her outburst, that slanted, nearly cruel curve of his lips. “Did you not want me to come?”
Hermione’s mouth opened, but she found she did not know what to say. What was the right answer? Yes, I wanted you to come, to travel across the world for me to sweep me off my feet and bring me back to you. No, I didn’t want you to come, I just wanted you to wallow in London forever wondering about me after I left that letter with Abraxas and you with the image of me pleasuring myself in a magically dim shack.
Neither sounded great. Riddle was looking more amused with each second that passed in silence.
“Why now?” she asked instead, choosing not to answer at all. “It’s been… Hell, it’s been months, Tom. Why track me down now?”
“Hermione!”
Riddle was saved needing to respond as Walter emerged, Liam and Peggy following closely behind. They were all rosy-cheeked and breathless as they approached, and when Walter’s eyes caught sight of Tom Riddle, he smiled wider than Hermione had ever seen him smile. The faeries that had been hovering around Riddle, making him look more ethereal than usual, floated away.
“Who is this?”
Walter and Liam asked it at the same time, but they couldn’t have said the words more differently. Walter looked pleased as ever to see a tall, handsome young man whom he did not know talking to Hermione, while Liam’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
Hermione’s mouth opened once more but she was unsure what to say. She looked at her new friends and at Tom, Tom Riddle, here, and was unsure how to bridge the gap between these two very different, distant worlds.
“Tom,” Riddle eventually said when it became apparent Hermione would do nothing. “I’m Tom Riddle. A pleasure.”
Walter shook his hand enthusiastically. “Walter Moore,” he said.
Peggy smiled at him when Riddle moved to take her hand next. “Peggy,” she said simply.
Riddle glanced at Liam, but it was clear that Liam would not be shaking his hand. His sea-glass eyes swept quickly up and down Riddle’s frame, his distaste obvious. It was the first time Hermione noticed what Riddle was wearing. He was in his nice, somewhat plain, black robes. Compared to everyone else, he looked a bit too… traditional.
“Where are you from?” Liam asked, not offering his name.
Riddle smiled politely at his abruptness, but Hermione saw it—that familiar, deadly coldness in his eyes. “I suppose my accent gives me away as a foreigner,” he said. “I’m from London.”
“Why, I just love your accent, Mr. Riddle,” Peggy said.
“You’ve never said you liked my accent,” Hermione commented.
“It makes you sound so fancy!” Peggy said, ignoring her. “Opposite of my own, I’m afraid, being southern and all.”
“I find your accent rather charming,” Riddle said smoothly, flashing her a much warmer smile than the one he’d given Liam.
Peggy giggled. “Oh, go on.”
Something coiled in Hermione’s stomach, something that made her feel sick and ugly. She didn’t like Peggy flirting with Riddle, or him flirting back. She didn’t like it at all.
“London, you said?” Walter asked, bringing Riddle’s attention to him. “How interesting, seeing as our dear Hermione was just recently visiting her aunt there.”
He looked at Hermione. Riddle did too, seemingly expectant. He was giving her the opportunity to make up whatever story she wanted, and she was already botching it.
“Er… I… yes,” Hermione stuttered. “Yes I was.”
“And would I be correct in assuming that he is someone you are friends with from your travels there? And that you invited him to come visit you here in the states and you didn’t even tell me?”
Walter gave Riddle an apologetic look. “I’m her best friend, you see,” he explained. “So it’s rather rude on her part to not keep me informed and updated on her personal life; I expect details when mysterious men are involved.”
Riddle laughed. Hermione’s face felt warm.
“What? No!” she spluttered. “No, I… of course I didn’t just invite him here now, how could I have? I didn’t even know where we were going tonight until we got here.”
“So a great coincidence, then?” Liam said, sounding unhappier by the second. “Do you just happen to be visiting New York, frequenting underground clubs? Seems like the sort of information a clueless tourist would have trouble acquiring.”
Riddle’s icy smile returned. “I would hardly say I’m clueless,” he said. “And who are you? I don’t believe you’ve said.”
“A good friend of Hermione’s, and soon to be work associate,” Liam said stiffly. He’s worse than I was, Hermione thought, refusing to give up his name. Either Liam had a very astute judge of character, or he really didn’t like how Riddle and Hermione obviously had something between them.
“His name is Liam and he’s a bit of an ass,” Walter provided cheerfully. Liam glared daggers at him. “But never you mind. You’re just visiting, then? Or does something special bring you to our fair city?”
“Oh, something quite special brings me here,” Riddle said. He cast that charming, slanted grin at Hermione.
“Well stated,” Walter said. It seemed he already whole-heartedly approved of Riddle. “Liam, you should take notes.”
Liam looked like he was on the verge of breaking the ‘no wands’ rule. “What I’m noticing is that Hermione hasn’t said one word about this guy being a friend, and actually looks quite uncomfortable in his presence. Which tells me that you, good sir, should probably leave.”
He grinned broadly at Riddle, who made no indication that he planned to go anywhere. “So, off you go, then. Tata! Cheerio!” His sarcastic, British accent quickly changed to one of pure resentment. “What I’m saying is, piss off.”
He took a step closer to Riddle, who did not react in any way. For a moment they stared at each other, two men about the same height, Liam glaring while Riddle only looked mildly concerned, like he found Liam’s demands more interesting than threatening. Hermione’s heart froze. Liam had no idea who he was trying to boss around right now.
“Please do not judge all Americans by the exceptional rudeness of my friend here,” Walter said, putting his hand on Liam’s shoulder and, with effort, getting him to step away from Riddle. “Liam just has poor interpretation of body language and is, er, drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” Liam snapped.
“You’re a bit drunk,” Peggy said. Liam fixed his glare on her. “What? You are. You only dance like that when you’re at least a little tipsy.”
She laughed, then grabbed hold of his hand. “But not near drunk enough, I’d say. C’mon, Liam, let’s go get a few more drinks and let Hermione catch up with her friend. Assuming that is what you want, Hermione?”
She smiled, and just like that Hermione forgave her inappropriate flirting with a Dark Lord in her presence. “Er. Yes,” she said. Was that what she wanted? “Thank you.”
Liam looked very much like he was going to argue, but then Walter shouted, “An excellent idea, Pegs! Yes, let’s go to the bar. All the way to the other side, please. I want the vampire bartender, he makes the strongest drinks. Really. I don’t think he knows what a proper pour is. Shall we?”
He helped Peggy guide a sour looking Liam away. Once they’d gone a few steps, Walter looked back at her over his shoulder. He mouthed the words, ‘Do that’ quite clearly, flashed his eyes to Riddle before smiling at Hermione again, and really, Hermione thought, the notion of couth was entirely lost on Walter.
Hermione swallowed thickly after they’d gone. “Nice friends,” Riddle commented.
Well, at least it’s inarguable that I had an established life here, Hermione thought. They had certainly behaved the way a solid group of friends would, especially Walter.
“They have their moments,” Hermione said. “I apologize for Liam. That was rude of him to speak to you like that.”
“The rudest part about it was his terrible fake accent,” Riddle said, still looking amused. “I’m sure he has reasons to feel protective. An old boyfriend, perhaps?”
A laugh choked its way out of Hermione’s throat. “Oh, no,” she said. “Just a friend.”
“Ah. A hopeful, then. He obviously wants you… something I cannot fault him for.”
His eyes flickered down to her, briefly but unabashedly taking her in. Hermione instantly felt much too warm. When was this stupid shot going to wear off? Everything still looked far too… pretty.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Riddle asked, for Hermione continued to be at a loss for words.
A horrible idea, said that voice in the back of her head. “Sure,” said Hermione out loud instead, only hating herself a little. “But—but please. Let me buy them.” When he looked nearly offended, she added, “I insist. You’re a guest here. It’s the very least I can do.”
That seemed to appease him enough. Hermione turned back to the bar, where Mama J happened to be waiting and ready. “What’ll it be?” she asked.
“Two of whatever you want to give us,” Hermione said. Mama J smiled and got to work.
“I must admit,” Riddle said, leaning against the bar. “I’m impressed. I would have never thought you to be such a dancer, Hermione.”
It took a moment for her to realize just what he was saying. “You saw that?” she said. “Out there, a few minutes ago?”
“I think everyone in this bar saw it,” Riddle said, nodding. “Most impressive charmwork. The fire was quite convincing. I do wonder where you got the idea from.”
Hermione laughed. “Oh, just some silly incident once. Something involving a poorly thought out wand holster and some accidental, unfortunately real, fire.”
“Really?” Riddle said. “You don’t say. And how did that story end?”
“Ah… you know, the details are a bit fuzzy,” Hermione said, losing her stride again.
“I might be able to make a guess,” Riddle murmured. He leaned a bit closer to her, his eyes dark and pulling, pulling. “I imagine you found yourself aflame, only to be doused by someone else, someone watching… someone who would never let a good witch burn.”
Hermione was quiet for a moment. “It… might have gone something like that,” she eventually said. “I think Shakespeare was somehow involved, too.”
“How deeply romantic.”
“Here you are, sweethearts,” Mama J said. She slid over two new looking drinks.
Hermione pulled a five dollar bill in no-maj money out of her inner dress pocket, which Riddle eyed curiously, and set it on the bar. “Keep the change,” she said before she’d even been given the total. Mama J’s eyes widened. Then she looked up at Riddle.
“Don’t believe I’ve seen you in my bar before tonight either,” she said. “I would know, I’d remember a face like that.”
Riddle took in her tall ears, coiling tail, and overall strange—and creature-like—appearance. If it bothered him at all, he did not let it show. “You flatter me,” he said as he took one of the drinks. It was a sparse amount of liquid in a short glass, something dark.
Hermione took hers as well. Mama J did not explain what it was. “Do I, now?” Mama J said. “Well, I mean it. You have the kind of face I’d like to steal. In fact…”
She scrunched her nose in a familiar way. Hermione watched in some mixture of horror and amazement as Mama J, who’d once had a feminine face, suddenly had a very different one.
Tom Riddle’s face, to be precise.
Hermione gasped. She almost dropped her fresh drink.
She’d kept the ears.
“Thank you much!” Mama J said, laughing. “Don’t look so thunderstruck, doll, I never wear a client’s features on the outside. It’s temporary amusement on my parrrrrt.”
She’d rolled the r’s on the word ‘part’ like a cat, and even batted a hand playfully at him. Hermione couldn’t help the laugh that came out. Mama J winked at her, then sauntered away to help another guest—her still-womanly form swaying, her tail swishing happily.
Tom Riddle with a woman’s body and feline features, acting shameless and flirty. It might have been the most delightful thing Hermione had ever seen.
Next to her, she could feel the rage exuding from Riddle. She was almost scared to look at him, but after a moment, she did.
Oh, dear.
He mostly looked shocked; Riddle looked absolutely stunned and appalled that the bartender had just taken his face like that. But beneath the surprised expression was clearly anger. It was a rage Hermione recognized far too well; the kind that would undoubtedly end in bloody, terrible vengeance. Hermione feared for Mama J’s life.
“I think it speaks volumes about you, honestly,” Hermione said, trying to lighten the mood. She wasn’t sure if watching him draw his wand and get kicked out would be a good thing or not, for he would probably be able to do quite a bit of damage before being forced to leave. “Really. You now know you can pull off cat ears and breasts. Surely there’s nothing you can’t do, then.”
Riddle’s expression twisted, like he wasn’t sure if he would be able to swallow back his anger or not. After a moment of looking ragefully conflicted, he smiled. “To proving you right,” he said, lifting his glass.
Hermione inwardly scowled. How was he so good at finding the right words to say, always, even when he was upset?
Hermione still lifted her drink to his. “You’ll be happy to know that I usually am,” she said. Riddle grinned, and they both took a sip. It was like nothing Hermione had ever tasted—something deep and almost flowery? No, not quite. She wasn’t sure how to describe it.
“Of course,” Riddle said as he lowered his glass.
“Of course what?” Hermione asked. “You know what this is?”
“It’s Aeternum.”
Hermione looked down into the dark liquid, remembering that this was, apparently, the drink of choice for Tom Riddle. How… peculiar that the bartender should guess that.
“I see why you like it,” Hermione said. “It’s very good.”
Riddle nodded and took another drink.
The atmosphere in the entire bar shifted. The music, which had been loud and lively until now, became softer, slower. A new song began to play, one that was irrevocably seductive in nature. The neon-like lights along the walls dimmed; even the faeries glowed less brightly, scattering to the tops of the ceiling. The lead singer had moved to place the enchanted microphone in a stand so that she could stay in one place, no longer interested in bounding across the stage like a feral animal. When she sang, it was in a low, languid voice.
“Gotta get you alone…”
Riddle downed his drink, set his glass aside, and took one step away from Hermione, looking at her intensely as he did. It seemed he had all but forgotten that a certain bartender was wearing his face at the moment, serving customers. He raised one hand towards her—the universal request to dance.
Oh, no.
Every single, logical fiber in her body told her not to do this. Dancing to a slow song with Tom Riddle in a place like this when she was not in an entirely sober state of mind was, in a word, foolish. No, it was fucking crazy. She could not do it.
And yet, Hermione found herself taking his hand, allowing him to pull her gently towards the music.
It felt like she was watching a stupider version of herself, unable to control what she was doing even as she was doing it. She felt helpless as he guided her, bringing her into a throng of people who were all now swaying slowly to this new, infinitely more dangerous song, where arms were curved tightly around waists and bodies were pressed together, allowing people to whisper secrets or threats or promises to one another. Riddle reached for her hand, and she was shocked at what she saw.
The ring.
The ring was gone.
Hermione all but gaped as his hand found hers, where he used to wear the Peverell ring on his middle finger. Only it was no longer there; his finger was bare. Did that mean what she thought it meant? It must have. Because he’d chosen to come abroad, he’d decided to hide it away now, in the shack, so much sooner than he had in her original time!
She knew where it was.
Hermione’s focus was abruptly pulled away from their intertwined fingers when Riddle’s other arm pulled her closer to him, making their chests touch. Her eyes snapped to his. Instantly, their cold, familiar darkness made her feel like she was falling.
He led her effortlessly, she had to give him that. Hermione was barely able to focus on stepping properly, but Riddle was, it seemed, as capable of dancing as he was everything else. He guided her body against his easily.
Too easily.
“Such a… fascinating place, this,” Riddle murmured, speaking for the first time during their dance. “Is this a typical social outing for Hermione Smith and her American friends?”
Hermione swallowed hard. It was absurd, truly, how easily she had forgotten everyone and everything else already.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been here,” she admitted. She had to strain her neck to make eye contact with him, so she found it easier to not, to instead keep her head lowered, leaning into his chest. The smell of sandalwood and what was indescribably him assaulted her. “It was Walter’s idea. We’re celebrating.”
He gently turned her; Hermione found it all too comforting to let him take her where he would, to lean into his body. The woman was singing, “Wanna have my wicked way with you, with no one else in view…”
This was bad.
“Celebrating?”
“I was offered a job,” Hermione said. “A good job. Working as an auror, here in the city.”
Riddle laughed. Hermione felt it as much as she heard it, a thrumming of his chest against her ear. When he realized that she was not making a joke, he said, “You’re kidding. You? An auror?”
Hermione lifted her head to glare at him. “And why is that so unbelievable, Tom?”
“Well, this might be presumptuous of me,” he said, smiling, “but you strike me more as the type of witch to break the rules… not uphold them.”
Hermione pursed her lips, trying to find the words to respond. That wasn’t what she’d been expecting. “I find that I am capable of doing both,” she said. “For the most part, rules should be followed—there is a reason for them, after all. But sometimes they must be broken in order for there to be progress. For the greater good.”
“For the greater good,” Riddle echoed thoughtfully. Then, in a lowered voice, with his lips so close to her ear she could feel them, he asked, ”Have you always been supportive of Grindelwald’s ideals?”
Hermione nearly stumbled, but Riddle’s arms kept her upright. “I wouldn’t—I didn’t say that!”
“Of course not. Because if you were, you would obviously never dream of being a mere auror.”
“Mere?” Hermione scoffed. “There’s nothing contrite about being an auror. It’s a very important position. And one that’s quite difficult to obtain, by the way.”
“It sounds dull,” Riddle drawled. When Hermione looked affronted, he went on, saying, “Sure, they make it sound glamorous, like it will be thrilling and dangerous and full of excitement. Fighting evil, dark wizards and monstrous creatures and the like. But most of that job is surveillance. Routine work to keep the Statute of Secrecy intact, I’d imagine. Oh, and I’m certain there’s a great deal of paperwork and political red tape to worm your way around before you can actually do any good. Unavoidable paperwork and red tape.” He smiled down at her. “If you’re going to uphold the law, you’ll probably have to follow it as well.”
Hermione glared at him again, to which Riddle smiled even wider. “In fact, if becoming an auror is your greatest ambition, then I should probably report you. You know, to make sure you really understand what constitutes lawfulness and what doesn’t. You attacked me in the middle of a public space in London, after all. Shameful. I don’t know what the legal ramifications are for attempting to strike an innocent wizard unprovoked, but I’m certain the process of being accused and dragged to court as an aggressor would be beneficial to your education. Seeing the process from your future enemy’s point of view could only be helpful for… perspective, I suppose.”
He looked like he was having far too much fun, thinking about it.
“You attacked me, too!” she snapped.
“Ah, but you attacked me first. You were being aggressive; I was merely acting in self-defense.”
Hermione had half a mind to shove him away mid-dance. “You scorched my hair,” she seethed.
Riddle turned her again, this time allowing a bit more space between them so he could look at her properly. “I did,” he murmured, no longer looking amused but analytical. “With a curse. And yet your hair seems perfectly whole.” He lifted his hand from her back, grazing his fingers gently against her scalp before carding them through the very section that should have been gone. The strands slid easily through his fingertips. “How is that so?”
The feeling of his hand in her hair had momentarily paralyzed her. Something about it that soft touch had been oddly intimate; it made her heart flutter madly in her chest. “I… well, I asked my house-elf to fix it, if you must know.”
Riddle’s grip tightened, pulling—not enough to hurt, but enough to make her gasp. “The house-elf,” he repeated with disdain. Hermione knew exactly what he was thinking, about how angry he had been when Hokey appeared in his own home, his wards useless against her.
“How fortunate,” he said, releasing her hair. He smiled again, then pulled her back to him, their chests once more touching as he moved her to the evocative music.
“You can’t hate her,” Hermione said. “She was just doing what her Mistress told her to. That was all—the entire situation was my fault.”
“I’m perfectly aware that it was all your fault. I daresay most of our less enjoyable interactions have been.”
Hermione scowled, annoyed, because he was right. “If I’m so terrible, surely I’m not worth tracking down and wasting your time on.”
“Quite the contrary… if you weren’t terrible, I wouldn’t be interested.”
She wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she didn’t. “Terrible witches don’t make good aurors,” he continued, undeterred. “And someone like you would grow irritated working for a government at best, and bored at worst. But what if… What if I were to tell you I had something far more interesting to offer you?”
Hermione’s heart skipped a beat. This was it. It was happening.
Riddle was trying to recruit her.
“Oh?” she said, keeping her voice light. “Like what—is Borgin and Burke’s hiring?”
Riddle laughed. “Afraid not, and even if they were, it's not the kind of work you’d enjoy. No, this is something much bigger than that. Something… revolutionary.”
He unfurled his arm to touch her face, lifting her chin so she would once more look at him. His eyes were utterly magnetic. “I want to make wizarding society a better place, a freer place… I want to change the world, Hermione,” he murmured. “Do you?”
Let’s do it, Malfoy… let’s change the world.
Hermione’s breath caught. She nodded feebly, her head in his hand. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
His eyes went to her lips, and almost against her will, hers went to his. His smile was small but triumphant. He leaned a little closer; Hermione closed her eyes.
But then another couple nearly collided with them. Riddle was forced to turn her away to avoid them, and the moment was gone.
“You’re, ah, going to need to be a bit more specific,” Hermione said, trying to regain her wits. Again. “Changing the world sounds like a grand offer, but it’s a bit vague.”
“I can tell you more about it later. But it would mean coming back to London, for at least a while.”
“Well, that’s a bit tricky, Tom,” Hermione said. “I do have a life here, as you can see. And I was offered a position.”
“Did you accept the job offer?”
“Er… no, technically not. Not yet anyway.”
“Well then, what’s the problem? You’ve made no commitments; you’re a free witch. And you’ve left to travel the world before, surely your friends would understand you wanting to go back to London for a time. If they are truly your friends, at least.”
Hermione almost sighed, already exhausted as she thought about how she would leave New York, if she decided to go. “It’s not quite that simple,” she said. “I can’t just leave with you, not that fast. I have some other things I’d have to wrap up first. I would need to…”
Stash some gold in various places, just in case. Hide your diary, the cup, and the locket in a place where no one but me would ever think to find it. Find and steal your ring so that I have that in my keeping, too.
“I’d like to think about it, at least.”
“Fair enough,” Riddle said. “You can take all the time you need.”
Hermione was surprised by his understanding. Their conversation lulled, and Hermione found herself relaxing into him, letting him hold her tightly. It was all almost too comfortable…
“How did you find me?” Hermione finally asked, mumbling with her face against his chest. Resting like this, she could feel his heartbeat. It was oddly reassuring. Like feeling it was proof that he was not entirely a monster after all; that he could be saved. “Here specifically, I mean… I know you knew I was in New York, but how did you find me tonight, in this bar…?”
Riddle shrugged against her, continuing his smooth dancing. “I got lucky,” he answered.
Lucky.
Lucky.
Hermione felt like she’d just been doused with cold water.
It couldn’t be—but of course it could be. It made perfect sense. The exact moment of their meeting, right after she’d taken that shot; the way the music had shifted to something slow to fit his purposes so perfectly, the very fact that he was able to find her, here, in this magical bar, the Aeternum. Even Walter instantly warming to him and Liam being bitter, which really had cast him in an unflattering light. The bartender taking his face, well, that had been oddly unfortunate, which explained why he looked so surprised at that, but—well, maybe that would somehow work in his favor at some point, too?
But Tom Riddle wouldn’t really do this, would he? Surely his pride was too massive to even consider…?
Of course he would, you idiot, Hermione berated herself. Because it’s exactly what you did to get what you wanted, pride be damned!
“You took Felix Felicis.”
Hermione looked at him to see his response. Riddle merely raised a brow at her. “Excuse me?”
“You did, didn’t you? You took a luck potion, that’s how you found me, how you got lucky—isn’t that right?”
Riddle stared at her, looking genuinely confused for a moment, then grinned. “Of course I didn’t take a luck potion,” he said. “That’s a ridiculous accusation.”
“You did!” Hermione said, growing more certain, because even though she was furious and afraid at the very idea, she couldn't help but stare at his lips again, mesmerized by them.
“I did not,” Riddle said. “This may come as a shock to you, Hermione, but most of us cannot afford such insanely expensive luxuries.”
That was true enough, Hermione thought, but she was not convinced. “You probably brewed it yourself. You’re capable.”
“Ah, yes. You’ve caught me. These past few months I’ve been doing nothing but brewing an intensely intricate elixir by myself, in my flat—which, as you saw, was clearly set up as a potions lab. I even quit my job so that I could follow the brewing instructions correctly—Felix Felicis needs attention at least every few hours, as I’m sure you know. Why, I haven’t even slept since you left.” He sighed theatrically. “I’ve truly been a wreck since you abandoned me.”
Hermione hated that she found herself smiling, nearly laughing. “Stop,” she said. “You—that’s exactly how convincing you would be, if you’d taken Felix Felicis.”
“I apologize. I suppose you will simply have to trust that I didn’t. I never would… After all, that would be cheating, wouldn’t it?”
His eyes glittered dangerously when he looked at her. Oh hell, did he know—did he suspect that she had taken it before?
Stay calm, Hermione told herself. He knows nothing.
“Cheating?” she said. “This isn’t some kind of game, Riddle.”
“Isn’t it?”
He smiled again. Hermione stared, hating how she knew, knew that she should be running for the exit, now, because even though she couldn't be sure, he might have taken a luck potion, and if he had—if this was a version of Tom Riddle where everything would go his way, without question—
“I think it is,” he said quietly. He leaned closer to her again. The music was slowing; the song was going to end soon.
“I think I’m winning,” he went on. She could feel the fanning of his breath when he spoke.
This time, when she instinctively closed her eyes, she felt the press of his lips against hers, soft and warm. It was a gentle, slow kiss, one that made her head whirl as though she’d just been spun around and around. When he pressed harder, she allowed it; when his tongue grazed her lower lip, she allowed that, too. He tasted like Aeternum, and just…
Like Tom.
One of his hands—the left one; no ring—had moved to cradle her neck. Hermione tilted her head back and their kiss deepened. If his other arm hadn’t been holding her tightly around the waist, she may have fallen back, her knees had gone so weak.
Maybe they would have gone on like that for a while—brazenly kissing in the middle of the dance floor—but the slow song finally came to an end. A new one picked up, something much faster and boisterous. As the people around them began to swing in full force, Hermione and Riddle stood there, unmoving, still in that close position.
“Come with me,” Riddle said. Though he spoke quietly amidst all the chaos springing to life around them, Hermione heard him clearly.
She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant—come with him to London? To wherever it was he had come from before coming here? Somewhere else?—but it didn’t really matter.
Hermione nodded. Riddle took her hand and pulled her through the crowd of dancing people, somehow managing to clear a path for them, guiding her towards the exit easily. He even avoided any of her friends who may have stalled them.
Hermione could only describe their escape with one word: lucky.
Chapter 34: A Flood of Magic
Chapter Text
The staircase leading them out of the Cave was, somehow, different from the one that had led them down. For one, there was no bouncer present, and for another, the staircase was only a mere dozen or so steps long. As Riddle led her towards the exit, Hermione couldn’t help the vision that sprang to life in her mind: one of a memory she had seen not long ago, of a young Tom Riddle leaving the Chamber of Secrets… right before he had commanded the basilisk to murder Myrtle, intentional or not.
The memory was shaken from Hermione’s thoughts when the door opened, the roaring sounds of New York City’s nightlife assaulting her ears. Hermione blinked in surprise when she saw where they were; they were not in the alleyway but somewhere else, on a busier street. When she turned around to see what building they had come from, she stared in amazement.
There was no door there at all. Just a wall of bricks between a closed convenience store and yet another perpetually open bodega.
“Fascinating,” Hermione murmured.
“Yes,” Riddle agreed, for he surely noticed all the same things she had. “I would guess they have it set up like that intentionally. That guests all depart from different locations every time someone leaves, to prevent a massive and suspicious departure of wizards and witches in one place.”
“That… is an astute assumption.”
“Are you complimenting me, Hermione?”
Hermione scoffed, but she smiled, too. “Are you in dire need of compliments, Tom?”
“Need? No.” Riddle pulled her closer to him where they stood on the sidewalk. Hermione had almost forgotten that he was holding her hand at all. “I believe you are the one who craves being praised… But I’d gladly accept compliments from you regardless.”
Hermione once more found herself staring at his lips. She shook her head, frustrated with herself. “I don’t think I should be in the business of stroking your ego tonight, Tom,” she said.
He quirked his eyebrow at her choice of words. Hermione cleared her throat and carried on as though she had not said something nearly suggestive. “No, I think I should be getting home. Or better yet, as far as physically possible away from you. I fear you’re a terrible influence, attempting to derail me from a future career as a law-abiding citizen towards something much… darker.”
She stuck out her wand arm. A second later, a magical taxi-cab pulled up. Tom watched it in mild astonishment; the same kind of awe that Hermione imagined was on her own face whenever she saw something new in the wizarding world.
She pulled away from Riddle and went to the driver’s side window, which the driver lowered. All around them, no-majes carried on, walking and driving past this sparkling, blue vehicle as though it did not exist. “Excuse me, sir,” Hermione said. “Exactly how far away can you take me from this terrible man?”
The driver—a middle-aged man with a thin mustache—peered at Riddle, then back to Hermione. “Well, sweetie,” he said, “I’m technically not supposed to leave the island of Manhattan. But for you? Hell, I’ve always wanted to go to California.”
Hermione laughed loudly. She smiled as she looked at Riddle. “Do you hear that, Tom? I’m going west.”
“Like hell you are.”
Hermione squealed in a horribly girly way as Tom grabbed her by the hand again, sweeping her up into a position similar to the one they had just been in, dancing in the bar. He tilted her back, his arm tight around her waist, and when he went in for another kiss, she did nothing at all to prevent it. To anyone else in the world, they must have looked like a young, foolish couple, drunk and in love in this grand and magical city.
“Besides,” Riddle said. “You haven’t heard what I have to offer yet.”
He cupped her chin, his dark eyes boring into hers. “I won’t force you to come with me… If you want to get in that cab, then go… and know that I’ll never come looking for you again. But if you want to at least hear me out…”
Riddle grazed his lips over her neck, lightly touching the skin along her jawline. Then, into her ear, he murmured, “Say yes.”
Hermione glanced once at the cab. The driver was still waiting for her.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Riddle’s grip on her waist tightened. The driver had just enough time to yell, “Hey! Are you—?” before Hermione was pulled once more to a mysterious place by Tom Riddle.
When they reappeared, it was somewhere much quieter. Riddle had apparated them into a peaceful part of the city Hermione had surely never been in before—a neighborhood of tall, lovely brownstone buildings with fenced in (if tiny) front yards and some even with balconies on their upper levels. Riddle stepped away from her and motioned for her to follow him up the stairs towards one in particular. “This way,” he said. Hermione, curious and feeling a slight sense of foreboding which she decidedly ignored (wasn’t that always the case with Riddle?), followed.
The door opened for Riddle with a mere wave of his hand. When they stepped into the dark house, the door closed behind them on its own, and a flicker of magic rippled through the air.
“Where are we?” Hermione asked.
Riddle waved his hand lazily again. A few plumes of lights ignited throughout the floor they were on, illuminating what was clearly a home.
Someone else’s home.
“The place I’ve decided to stay for the evening,” Riddle answered.
Hermione was only half-listening. She had just noticed a series of framed portraits on a piano nearby—one of a happy couple, another showing the same adults with two young children. As she looked around more, it became abundantly clear.
“Tom,” she gasped. “Did you… Is this… What happened to the family that lived here?”
She was already imagining it: this family, dead, flashes of green filling the space as Riddle stormed in, merciless—
“Don’t worry about them,” Riddle said. He had turned away from her and was busying himself in the dining room, floating a few glasses and a bottle of wine. “Earlier today they suddenly decided that they wanted to take a family trip out to the Finger Lakes. I hear they’re lovely this time of year.”
He turned to face her, and his mischievous grin faltered as he looked at her. “Hermione,” he said, rushing over. “You look like you might faint. Sit.”
Indeed, she felt light-headed, so Hermione did. Relief swept through her as she sat, and she let out a strange laugh of disbelief. “You charmed some poor no-majes,” she said, to which Riddle nodded, looking concerned that this might not have been obvious. “Oh, my goodness.”
“Had you immediately assumed I killed them in cold blood?”
“What? No, no, I–I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “That would be crazy. Of course not. I’m sorry.”
Riddle smiled as he hovered a glass towards her, one which he had filled with wine when she hadn’t been looking. “I can’t say the same for myself,” he said as he took the seat next to her. “I’m not sorry at all. I chose rather well, I think. The muggles here have an impressive-looking wine collection. I do hope it’s decent.”
He lifted his glass. Hermione mirrored him without thinking, uncaring that this was stolen wine, grateful to have a moment to do nothing but slowly sip as she allowed her heart to return to its normal speed.
“Hm,” Riddle said afterwards. He swirled his glass around, looking languid and unimpressed.
“It’s passable.”
The judgmental look on his face effectively brought Hermione back to the present. “Well, it’s not like the no-majes here were expecting guests to be drinking and judging their taste in wine while they were gone,” she muttered. “And this is all still very illegal, Tom! You can’t just go around charming whole muggle families for your convenience! So you can use their houses, no less!”
She glared at him, but she couldn’t stop the smirk that played on her lips. “I should be the one reporting you.”
“Please,” Riddle said, looking bored by her threat. “You’re not an auror yet, are you? Besides, Ministry officials are the ones who are most frequently guilty of tampering with muggle minds for their convenience—and usually in far more damaging ways. All I did was send a happy family on vacation. They probably needed the break. I believe the father is a surgeon, based on what I’ve seen in their home. They’re likely making unforgettable memories this weekend, thanks to me. Who knows? Maybe I even saved their marriage. Divorce is increasing at astounding rates, or so I’ve been told.” He took another sip of wine, then added, “If it would make you feel better, I’ll replace the wine we’re drinking. I’ll admit I never intended to do that until now.”
Hermione had a hard time not laughing at his ridiculous musings. “This is hardly about the wine, Tom,” she said, shaking her head. “You just… you think you can justify just about everything you do, don’t you?”
“I do,” he agreed shamelessly. “Which brings us to now.”
He set his glass down. The orbs of magical light he’d conjured shimmered slightly, dancing along the rim of the glass.
“You know that no-maj houses have electric lights, right?” Hermione pointed out. “You needn’t create all these lights like this, using your own magic… you could simply flip a few switches.”
“I prefer magic. Besides, it’s frustrating when the electrical components short-circuit or stop working suddenly when too much magic is in the area. I’d rather avoid that.”
“Are you implying that you plan on using a great deal of magic tonight? Enough to disrupt the electricity?” Hermione tilted her head at him. “Are we going to duel again? Because I’ll admit right now that I’m not up for that.”
Riddle smirked. “An impromptu duel was not my intention this evening… but who knows. The night is young. I do have a way of upsetting you to the point of making you use dangerous, uncontrolled magic.”
“I’ll do my best to contain myself,” Hermione muttered.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
Riddle took a drink of his wine. When he was done, he leaned closer to her, his dark eyes glinting with curiosity. “How do you feel about the Statute of Secrecy as a long term solution?”
Hermione was a bit taken aback by the sudden question that felt like the beginning of an interrogation. “Excuse me?”
“What do you think of it?” Riddle asked again. “The purpose of it being, of course, to protect the magical population from the non-magical and vice versa. Supposedly. What do you think of it as a long term solution? Assuming, of course, that you are familiar with its intricacies?”
He said the last part like it was a challenge—which it was. “I am familiar, thank you,” she snapped. “I was just surprised at the question. What do you mean, what do I think of it? Seems to me like it was a necessary measure at the time that it was created.”
“In 1692, when it was officially enforced by the newly formed Ministry,” Riddle said. “And yes, I agree that there are many valid arguments that can be made to support its creation at that time, given the circumstances… but that was not what I asked. I asked, what do you think of the Statute—as it was written, signed, and implemented in the late 1600’s—as a long term solution for its originally intended purpose, keeping the magical world hidden for our protection?”
Hermione frowned, considering her response carefully. She wanted to give Riddle enough of a right answer to be pleased with her, of course… but she also did not want to be untrue to herself and her values—both the ones of Hermione Granger, muggle-born and brightest witch of her age, and Hermione Smith, raised by the progressive, confident pureblood witch who enjoyed no-maj culture and celebrated them because of it.
“Well,” Hermione started, one hand on her wine glass and the other on the table, tapping her finger anxiously, “That’s an interesting question, and not a simple one… So you’ll have to forgive me if I contradict myself while answering you as I contemplate it. It’s an issue I’ve contemplated often, really—the no-majes being separated from magical folk—and so I have a great deal of both strong yet conflicting thoughts on the matter.”
Riddle continued to eye her curiously. “Go on,” he said, then took another drink.
“For starters,” Hermione said, “I do think it’s important to look at the timing that the Statute was created, and what was happening before that time. Anyone who bothers to study magical history at all knows that magical and no-maj relations were very open and at many times advantageous to both parties prior to the escalation in witch hunts and burnings.”
“Advantageous to both parties?” Riddle asked.
Hermione nodded. “Of course. Why would magical people help no-majes if it wasn’t beneficial to them, too? I think it had more to do with wanting to be a part of no-maj culture. There are exponentially more no-majes than witches and wizards after all, and the no-majes, due to their numbers and to being forced to be so inventive and creative, have a far more interesting and far-reaching social and political scene.” She pursed her lips suddenly. “Honestly, Statute or no, that interest continues to this day. It’s very obvious here in New York.” She shrugged, then gave Riddle a judgemental look of her own. “What, are you trying to say that you were unaware of this? Do you think that witches and wizards always despised all things no-maj—excuse me, muggle —and thought themselves superior, and that hiding was not only for protection but also because they wanted to dissociate entirely?”
There was a brief moment where it looked like Riddle might say yes to all of that, but then he broke out in a rather uncharacteristic smile. “Of course I’m aware,” he said. “I was just curious to see if you were. I’ll admit that it’s refreshing to hear someone speak about it so casually. There is a definite history of positive magical and muggle relations, prior to the Statute… but the sort of people in my circle would deny such facts vehemently, despite all evidence to the contrary.”
That had Hermione interested. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Riddle’s grin was more mischievous and coy than the Cheshire Cat’s. “Perhaps the most scandalous example is that of Abaraxas Malfoy himself,” he said. “The Malfoy family today—and for generations—has spoken out in favor of the Statute quite heartily, acting so strongly and passionately about it that you would think they wrote the damn thing themselves. In reality, the Malfoy family of the mid-1600’s and earlier was quite opposed to the Statute. You see, they were accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and had ties to many influential and affluent muggle families. They were even close with the British crown, including Queen Elizabeth herself. Everything you’ve said is accurate. They loved muggle culture, muggle parties, muggle wealth and music and art. They still thought themselves and all magical people entirely superior, of course, but they saw the muggles with power and wealth, and they wanted to be a part of that, too.”
He took in Hermione’ shocked face, and his smile grew. “It’s even possible that the Malfoy family married into the royal family at the time, in order to secure influence over the muggle government in exchange for magical blood in their otherwise bland family tree… but that is a speculation that, if it did occur, the Malfoy family has burned and buried so deeply that it would be difficult if not impossible to prove if it ever did happen.”
Hermione stared at him, her jaw hanging open in shock. This was just too much. The Malfoy family… the same men as Lucius and Draco… had descendants who celebrated, embraced, and even defended supporting and being involved with muggle culture? Possibly even married into it willingly?
How she wished she could talk to Draco again, if only to ask him what he thought of all this.
“Do you think that happened?” she asked. “The potential marriages, I mean.”
“Maybe,” Riddle said. “Probably. It would certainly explain the vast amounts of muggle riches and artworks that the Malfoy family has somehow mysteriously acquired dating back to that time and before—something which Abraxas would never admit that his family even has out loud, of course. But if it did, I’m certain they took every measure possible to destroy those magical-muggle bloodlines. Once it became clear that the Statute was going to happen whether they supported it or not, and that the Ministry of Magic would be the new, great powerhouse, they switched sides and opinions overnight. They were suddenly very supportive of it and the newly founded Ministry, and acted as though close relations to muggles, royal or otherwise, was heinous and vile, something which the Malfoys would never, ever do. They wormed their way into the political workings of the Ministry of Magic and, if there were any royal Malfoy half-bloods out there, well… I’m certain they were taken care of rather swiftly.”
“You think they killed them,” Hermione said. “That they had their own kin murdered, just because they had muggle blood in them? Even though they were born from marriages that they previously supported?”
“Assuming they existed in the first place. Yes, I do believe they would have quickly slaughtered them all.” He made another motion that was nearly a shrug, looking contemplative as he sipped more wine. “They were pruning their family tree. One must cut away the diseased parts to ensure that the rest remains healthy at times.”
“Those innocent people weren’t diseased,” Hermione said scathingly.
“Ah, but at that time, to the rest of the Malfoy family, they were,” Riddle argued. “You must remove your own prejudices in order to understand their actions clearly—you must place yourself in their shoes, in their time. The Statute was happening. They’d argued against it—they were trying to protect their lifestyle and kin—and they lost. At that time, while the witch-hunts were escalating and fear of muggles was at an all time high, being associated with any muggles at all made you suspect in the magical community. They were killing us, our children most of all, because they were so often unable to contain their magic and stay hidden. Hatred for muggles and anyone choosing to support them was far greater than it is today, even among the most anti-muggle witches and wizards. What else could the Malfoy family do, to protect their pureblood members? If those marriages and resulting half-blood children were allowed to continue and live, they would be irrefutable proof that the Malfoys had, at least at one point, greatly supported muggles. At that time, once the Ministry of Magic was founded, that was an unthinkable association. They did what they had to do to not only survive, but retain their position of power in a newly reformed, magical world.”
Hermione took a moment, drinking wine as she allowed this all to sink in. It infuriated her, naturally… but she also had to admit that she could understand what Riddle was saying. The Malfoy family would never do anything to lose the power and wealth they had accumulated… and it did say something, didn’t it, that they had tried to oppose the Statute at all? As far as she knew, no other magical families had done so publicly…
Not that it made murdering their own, innocent family members acceptable… if those family members had existed. He was right about that—if they had, the pureblood Malfoys likely destroyed any and all evidence that they had occurred.
“That is all… fascinating background information,” Hermione finally said, “and it certainly gives me more context. But I’m afraid I still have yet to answer your question.”
“By all means,” Riddle said. “I apologize for the derailing… but I like to have the whole picture when discussing such matters, and I thought you might as well.”
“Oh I agree, and I do,” Hermione said. “And I’m certain you especially enjoy sharing any background knowledge that paints Abraxas in an unflattering light.”
“I only share the truth,” Riddle said easily. “I expect you’ll do the same.”
Hermione might have rolled her eyes if she weren’t trying to be so serious. Her mind was racing with this information, and she pondered whether it changed her opinion at all.
“As for how I view the Statute now,” she started, “I am… honestly unsure. I’ve had my doubts about whether the separation of no-majes and witches and wizards is an outdated practice for a long time. On the one hand, I understand certain aspects of it. Magic, magical items, and magical creatures are all extremely dangerous if tampered with unknowingly, particularly by those with no understanding of them, so it is in the no-majes best interest that such things are concealed from them. That is probably the strongest argument I see for keeping the Statute intact. It protects the largest portion of the population most effectively.”
She paused to take another drink. Riddle said nothing, only watched her face carefully and waited.
“Another reason for keeping the Statute intact long-term is that it helps us,” she said. “I think it’s very true that no-majes would ask, if not demand, magical cures and such for the problems all the time. That would obviously lead to conflict, the sort of conflict that caused the witch-hunts in the first place.”
“And is that wrong of them?” Riddle asked. Hermione tilted her head at him, waiting for him to elaborate. “For the muggles to ask for magical cures to their ailments. For example, if a muggle mother has a child suffering from some deformity, something that muggle medicine can do nothing to touch, but she knows magic could cure that child instantly… is it wrong for her to seek out, if not demand, a magical cure? And is it not the moral obligation of the magical community to oblige her?”
He stared at her, his dark eyes boring, and Hermione was unsure what to say. She was shocked at the question. It felt like she was being led into a trap.
“I… I don’t know,” she answered honestly. She imagined Lester Madison, masquerading around in a black outfit, doing everything that Riddle was describing, despite how illegal it was. How he acted the part of superhero, curing muggles of their ailments and saving them from otherwise avoidable disaster with his magic.
Was he wrong?
“I’ve thought about similar issues before,” Hermione continued. “And I am truthfully unsure. My heart wants to say that of course the mother should have access to a cure for her child. But my brain says otherwise. It says that the good of curing the one child does not outweigh the potential damage it could do, considering the structure of our society. Curing that child would mean revealing magic to them, and the more that happens, the weaker the Statute becomes. And if it crumbles without a new framework in existence to continue to protect everyone, then that can only spell chaos.
“However… I suppose that the mother and child’s memories could be modified,” Hermione went on, thinking out loud. “If they were made to believe that the child was cured by muggle medicine or something, the existence of magic could remain hidden and the child saved.”
Riddle laughed. Hermione glared at him. “And how would that work?” he asked. “A child who was born with a missing limb suddenly has one again—how would that be explained by muggle medicine ? Because if it could be, that would mean such a feat would be repeatable in a similar situation—this is how muggle science works—and then what? That would be an endless problem for witches and wizards to follow and fix. Impossible.”
He laughed again. “Why is that so funny?” Hermione muttered. “I was just voicing another possibility.”
“Because you are a hypocrite!” he shouted, his eyes flashing. “And you don’t even realize it. Just minutes ago you criticized me for charming affluent muggles to decide to leave their home for a weekend. Now you say it’s fine to alter entire memories—something far more difficult and potentially damaging to muggle minds—for the sake of doing something you might be able to justify to yourself as a good thing.”
He leaned closer to her, and though he was not pointing directly in her face, accusing, it felt like he was. “You do not get to choose when a specific action is right and when it is wrong based on what fits your agenda and your opinions at the moment,” he murmured. “Either it is right to tamper with muggle minds while keeping magic a secret from them, or it is wrong.”
He sat back further in his seat and motioned towards the bottle of wine. It refilled his glass. “To do anything in-between, anything that straddles the line and changes on a day-to-day basis, is dangerous. Such unpredictable actions will indeed lead to chaos… Some might say that they already are.”
He grabbed his now full glass. “You look upset,” he said—and Hermione knew she did. He grinned happily. “Please, convince me otherwise.”
The most upsetting part of it all was, perhaps, that it was not Riddle himself that she was angry at. She wanted that to be true—and maybe she was a little spiteful for him to being so fucking smug and superior—but the worst part was that she was angry with not him… but the Ministry.
Because he was right.
It was horrendously irresponsible and hypocritical for the Ministry to act as it was! It was pretty easy to argue that it was morally reprehensible to tamper with muggle minds without very good cause. And yet the Ministry—and Ministry officials—did it all the time. Wasn’t Walter a perfect example? He’d charmed a muggle to get a table at a bar not long ago, and he was an auror. A Ministry worker whose job it was to stop such abuse of magic!
Every time someone did something like that, it did weaken the Statute. It created another altered mind where a muggle might, eventually, in some way, realize something was wrong. The possibility for someone new to discover magic was born, and that was exactly what the Statute was supposed to protect against.
And this all said nothing of the many, many exceptions that were made about revealing magic. Riddle didn’t even know how lax such laws would later become. In America, at least, Rappaport’s Law was still in effect, preventing muggle-magical marriages and such for this very reason. But that would not always be the case, and was not the case in Britain currently. Every time a magical person married a muggle, they were allowed to share the secret of magic. And then their children would likely have it, what about other close family members? Aunts and uncles and cousins? Were they allowed to know, too? Harry’s aunt and uncle had known, and that was even before he was forced upon them.
And then there were the muggle-borns like herself.
Ever since she had been told that she was a witch, Hermione had thought endlessly about how magic was kept a secret from everyone else. Her own parents had, of course, been allowed in on it, but they were sworn to secrecy right then and there, as was Hermione. She was not allowed to tell her friends, anyone else in her family, or anyone at all.
It had been very isolating. She’d counted down the days until Hogwarts with increasing impatience, reading about it in Hogwarts, a History over and over again to keep herself occupied.
But the point remained that everytime a muggle-born occurred, parents or guardians were informed, and the Statute weakened.
Her own parents had, happily, been thrilled. They couldn’t have been more proud to have a spontaneously magical daughter.
Others, though…
Hermione knew that not all muggle parents would like to hear that their daughter was a witch. What happened when that was the case?
Hermione still did not know.
It was all so complicated. Whenever Hermione dwelled too deeply on it, she would exhaust herself with the endless implications and possibilities, wondering what was ‘right’.
“Well?” Riddle prompted, for Hermione had been quiet for a long time.
“I… I don’t think I have an answer,” Hermione said—perhaps for the first time in her life. “I have many ideas on what a perfect world would look like, but every time I imagine how it might be possible, I also imagine so many issues arising… and those are only the ones that I can foresee. Who knows what unforeseen problems would arise if we tried to do away with or alter the Statute? I don’t know. I therefore feel the best answer is to keep the Statute intact as best as possible. The current system we have is the one that keeps the most people the safest, despite its flaws.”
Riddle smirked in a way that was somehow both pleased and displeased. “Ah, you’ve just named the issue, albeit in a far… kinder manner.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your musings are right, mostly,” he said, to her surprise. “Keeping the Statute intact is the safest course of action… for now. Not because it has real longevity, but because it is the easiest.”
He leaned closer again. Hermione could practically feel the passion radiating off of him; even the lights he’d conjured brightened a fraction. “The Statute remains because it is just so much easier to keep a system in place, to continually attempt to improve upon something old and tried, than it is to imagine something different. Something better. So for hundreds of years we have upheld a system that, at one point, did serve a purpose—to protect magical people from being hunted. I believe that time passed long ago. The magical population has progressed, flourished, and matured enough with our own structured government that we could, in my opinion, easily exist in a world in which we are not constantly shrouded in shadows, constantly living lives of secrecy and fear. And I am far from the only person to believe this is true.”
He took Hermione’s hand in his, getting even closer.
“Earlier, you said that the danger of the Statute falling now was that there was no other structure ready to be put in place,” he said. “You’re right. That is the danger. That’s what I want to change. What we want to change… we want to create that system and one day, realize it. We want a world where magic is no longer a frightening secret but the celebrated glory that it once was. A world where muggle culture can co-exist with magical culture… and I think you want that, too.”
Hermione stared at him for a long moment. “So you are a supporter of Grindelwald,” she eventually said. “You believe that wizarding kind should come out of hiding, and that no-majes should be forced into subservience, serving those with magic.”
Riddle made a sound that was something between a laugh and a scoff. “I believe Grindelwald had many valid points and an exceptional vision,” he said. “But I also disagree with many of his ideals. That and, despite his following and undeniable charisma, his execution was all wrong.”
“Obviously, as he failed,” Hermione said. “How do you believe he was wrong?”
“He attempted to gain support from the masses rather than the real sources of power,” Riddle said. “That was his first mistake. Then, of course, was his obscene brashness. Had he continued to rally rather than attack, he might have lasted longer in his quest to truly start a revolution. But he was, as history tells us, an extremely dark, temperamental wizard. He lacked self-control. He lacked patience. He wanted power and he wanted it quickly and rashly, and that led to one bloody disaster after another. I’m sure you’re familiar with everything that happened in your own city.”
“I am,” Hermione said.
“All of his shortcomings led to his eventual downfall at the hands of Dumbledore… but there is more to Grindelwald’s story. You said you think he believed all muggles should be subservient to wizards, living as their slaves, if they should be allowed to live as all… he did not always believe this, you know.”
“That’s not true,” Hermione said. It wasn’t, not based on what Harry had told her, not according to what Dumbledore had told him. Not according to Rita Skeeter’s terrible but detailed book, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore.
“He did not,” Riddle said. “His opinion on muggles varied throughout his life. Like most politicians, he catered to his audience at the time. Sometimes he said he viewed muggles as not better nor worse than us, but simply different. Other times he proclaimed they were vile and wanted to wipe their existence from this planet. He was very good at bolstering support this way—he said what he needed to say to gain the following he needed at the time. I recognize this as a powerful tool… but also recognize that he did so incorrectly. He did not carefully consider who he got power from first, and how.”
“What do you mean?” Hermione asked again.
“After he was expelled from Durmstrang, he supposedly met and formed an alliance with Dumbledore when they were both quite young,” Riddle said. “A powerful ally, but still only one person. And it didn’t last long. He later went for politicians and, generally, the masses who he knew shared his opinions. But that was not what he should have done. That’s not where the real power is, not in Europe. Certainly not in England.”
“And where is the real power?” Hermione asked.
“With the purebloods,” Riddle answered. He gripped Hermione’s hand tighter; she had forgotten he was holding it. “Those ancient, magical families whose wealth and power dates back to pre-history. That is who he should have targeted first for support. That is who I have been gathering to my cause for years now. Slowly. With patience, with purpose. And for now, in secret.”
Hermione pulled her hand from his. “So you see yourself as a… what? Smarter, more responsible version of Grindelwald?” she asked. “Someone who wants to see the Statute fall, but safely? And then what? If it’s the purebloods you’re using to gain support, you must be pandering to their ideals. It was very clear from my short time there that they abhor muggles. Is that how you feel, Tom? That muggles should be slaves or worse to their magical counterparts? Or are you just telling them what they want to hear?”
Riddle’s expression softened, the spark in his eyes dimming slightly. “A bit of both,” he said. “I will admit that my… experience with muggles has not been pleasant. The same is true for many magical people. I understand the abhorrence.”
“What experience?” Hermione asked, forcing a bit of vitriol into her voice. She, Hermione Granger, knew he had a difficult childhood… but Hermione Smith did not, and she would sound pitiless because of it. “What, did some no-majes tease you once because you were different?”
Riddle looked at her for a long time, clearly weighing his options of what he should share with her. His eyes were so, so dark.
“Being kept unaware makes muggles… dangerous,” he finally said. “A lack of understanding leads to fear. That fear is perilous. When muggles—so many, many people—have this fear, a terror that can be released at any moment once they learn of the true existence and power of magic, a power which they do not have and can never truly have… that is the moment I fear, Hermione. The Statute is weakening, make no doubts about that. Eventually, it will fail. It may take decades or more, but with the way that muggle technology is advancing so rapidly, one day, keeping magic a secret will be impossible. The Ministry of Magic is doing nothing now to prepare for this moment, to ensure that magical people are protected when the muggles’ fear is unleashed. I am.”
His eyes were smoldering with passion again. “I want you to join me, Hermione,” he said. “Will you?”
Hermione was almost lost in his blazing, dark eyes. It was easy to understand how people could be so easily swayed by him—it was almost impossible not to, even for her.
“That depends,” she said. “Like I said, I don’t believe that no-majes are necessarily lesser than us. Just… different. But far more similar than they are different, truly. They’re just people. It’s not their fault they weren’t born with magic. They shouldn’t be made to suffer because of that.”
Riddle leaned back in his chair, exhaling a long, deep breath. “Such an easy thing to say,” he said. “But that is where such matters become complicated. You’re right—it’s no one’s fault how they are born. No one gets to decide their blood status, their name, their wealth, their magical prowess or lack thereof. But the fact remains that some people are born with, and some without. It has always been this way. And often those born without are… bitter, to say the least. Especially where magic is involved. Imagine if you were born without magic, but your sibling was. Would you not be jealous and angry?”
Hermione wanted to argue that she wouldn’t be, but she knew that was a lie. “Yes,” she admitted. “I would be jealous.”
“Of course you would. Anyone would,” Riddle said. “There’s one problem—the jealousy of those without magic. That jealousy leads to anger. Then there is the fear that so many muggles have, particularly religious ones. This jealousy, anger, and fear could very well be our downfall if we do not have a prepared way to control it. These are the issues we must address first when—not if—the Statute inevitably falls. Violence and forced submission is not an ideal way to rule, but it is an effective way that can be implemented quickly.”
“That’s what you’ve been telling your little pureblood friends then,” Hermione muttered. “That if they work with you, you can all create an intricate plan to form a world where being able to use magic against no-majes is fine, that even killing them is fine, and won’t be punishable by any Ministry laws. In this world you foresee.”
“Muggles have killed us simply for being magical for a long time,” Riddle pointed out. “I say using magic to protect ourselves in any way should be permissible. So yes, I do insinuate that. If it means their support. Because that is what I need—support. From the most powerful families. It is the beginning. It is the only way.”
“And then what?” Hermione asked. “Let’s say the Statute does fall. You have an action plan in place for this, and it’s implemented. Non-magical people are, for a time, attacked and controlled. Forced into submission until, I don’t know, they are able to understand magic for what it is and, one would hope, accept its existence in this world without trying to kill those who have it. For how long will that go on? Forever?”
“As long as it has to,” Riddle said.
“But what do you want, Tom? What do you believe?” Hermione was the one leaning forward now. She was on the edge of her seat, deeply curious to know what he would say. “Set aside all the prejudices of purebloods, all the teachings of Grindelwald. What kind of a perfect world do you, Tom Riddle, envision? If you could skip the war and bloodshed and be there, right now—this world with no Statute—what would it look like?”
Riddle closed his eyes. Hermione wondered if he was envisioning it now, this impossible utopia. When he opened them again, he had a near whimsical look about him. “I think that there is no one who is without some value,” he said. “That is, perhaps, what I detest most about pureblood ideology. They are so blinded by their biases. If someone is not perfect by their blood, they are dismissed. I am not this way. I see potential in every being. Creatures and half-bloods. What others consider abominations. Even the muggles. While I hold no love for them because of my own experiences, I recognize that they are not all the same. Some have great value. I would not waste it.”
Slowly, he took her hand again. Hermione allowed it. “My perfect world is one where magic does reign supreme, yes,” he said. “But that does not mean muggles would not have a place in it. For what good would muggle slaves be? We have magic and house-elves and so much more. No, they would have a different role. You were right when you said earlier that muggles are the crafters of so much culture and art. They would have their use there, I have no doubt.”
Hermione was having a hard time keeping eye contact with him. She looked down instead, where he was slowly intertwining their fingers together. “What about the muggle-borns?”
“The muggle-borns,” Riddle echoed. “Always such a debatable topic… in my world, they would have their place as well. But that is an issue that would take much time to resolve. The purebloods of today are adamantly opposed to them, almost as much as they are of muggles themselves, and as it is their support I need–now—there is no way around it. Muggle-borns will be the exception to most rules being crafted. To be a part of this cause and to be muggle-born would be possible, but difficult. They would have to be extraordinary to join this cause, paving the way for others to one day follow.”
Hermione swallowed hard. “That seems unfair,” she said quietly.
“It is unfair,” he said. “But that is the reality of magical Britain as it stands now. I’m not worried about it. One day, after the pureblood families have given me their unfailing support, I will be able to sway any number of them however I like.” He touched her chin with his other hand, tilting her face up towards him. “They would have to accept fucking werewolves if I told them too,” he said softly.
Hermione’s breath caught. He was smiling that dangerous, crooked grin again, and those lips…
“I… Excuse me a moment,” she said suddenly. She stood. “I need to… use the loo. Where is it? Nevermind, I’ll find it.”
Hermione turned and headed down a hallway before he could say anything. She found a bathroom quickly enough, the second door on the right. She closed and locked the door behind her out of habit, and though it was a contrite action, it did make her feel better.
It was dark in the bathroom, as none of Riddle’s orbs were hovered there. She flipped the lightswitch, but it didn’t work. Odd. Were those magical lights so strong they were disrupting the electrical currents already? In her experience, it took much more magic than that to do so. Shrugging it off, Hermione pulled her wand out and cast a Lumos. She then gripped the sink and stared at herself in the mirror, her glowing wand pressed against the porcelain, casting her face in dramatic shadows.
Was this what he believed?
Hermione was astonished by it all… or was she? The Lord Voldemort she knew—the old wizard with deathly pale skin and horrible features, the monster—claimed to despise all muggles, all muggle-borns, and wanted the purebloods to reign supreme…
Or did he?
Was he—the older version of Voldemort—doing then what this younger version claimed to be doing now? Was he simply telling his pureblood followers what they wanted to hear in order to secure their ongoing support?
Hermione frowned at herself, trying to consider Voldemort’s words versus his actions of that time.
Yes, he had said all that and more. But what had he done?
Had he ever tried to recruit muggle-borns? Yes, Hermione knew—he had tried to recruit both James and Lily Potter three times, and had been denied. Whether Severus Snape had any influence over that decision hardly mattered. He had still agreed to accept her, if she was willing.
There was proof that, at least one time, he had seen value in a muggle-born.
And the part about creatures… was that a lie? Did he really value them, could he really be dreaming of crafting a world where creatures and half-breeds had a better life than they did now?
Yes, Hermione answered herself. There was no proof in the way he spoke, but there was in his actions from her time. He had sent Death Eaters to gain the support of giants, and was much better at it than Dumbledore had been. He was actively working with werewolves, even though surely purebloods would never have dreamed of that alliance before. Hermione knew that for a fact far too well.
Were they on level footing with the wizards and witches? No, of course not. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t a possibility in the future, and it was certainly the promise of a better life than werewolves had before. Wizarding kind had been suppressing and damning them for far too long in her time, and Voldemort had been capitalizing on it.
But the muggles…
Had Lord Voldemort from her era done anything to show that he did not outwardly hate all non-magical people?
Hermione thought about it for a long time. No, she concluded. She could not think of a single time he’d done anything to prove that point.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not possible, Hermione mused.
She almost laughed at herself after that thought had crossed her mind. Here she was, trying to argue with herself that Lord Voldemort might not want to violently slaughter all muggles right away! When she had seen ample proof otherwise!
Because he is probably just doing exactly what he said he does, to his pureblood followers; what he learned from Grindelwald, too, she told herself firmly. He is currently pandering to you, Hermione, and he knows you see muggles as people. So he is telling you what you want to hear.
She sighed, trying to collect herself. She was wasting time, attempting to justify any of his thoughts, and it was insane that she was tempted to do it at all, wasn’t it? It was just that…
She wanted to believe him. Hermione really wanted to believe that he wasn’t some murderous, terrible person hellbent on ruling and destroying the world. She much preferred this version of him. She wanted it to be real.
Because the reality was that Riddle was correct on many things—the Statute probably would collapse one day. Soon muggles would have technology so advanced and quick that capturing evidence of magic and sharing it around the world in moments would happen, and then what? All the Ministries combined couldn’t wipe the minds of every single muggle on Earth, as well as the evidence.
So it made sense, to have a plan… she just didn’t like his.
Maybe… maybe we can make a better one, she thought, knowing it was a dangerous thought to have at all.
Together.
The mere notion of that made Hermione’s heart speed. It was insanity, thinking she could become a part of Riddle’s circle not to better and more swiftly destroy him… but to change his course. To craft a better, safer, much longer-term plan. One where they could skip the part about warfare and violent muggle dominance. One where maybe conversations of longevity and souls could emerge; where, if she treaded lightly and carefully enough, she might be able to convince him that there was far more value in a whole soul than a shattered one.
One where she could save him.
Hermione took another deep breath. Well, she supposed it didn’t matter right at this moment. What she was going to do when she left this bathroom was the same either way. She could try to do all that. And if she failed, as she probably would, well…
Killing, saving. Killing, saving.
Then it was back to her original plan, after all.
Hermione nodded at herself in the mirror, then went back into the hallway. She muttered a quick “Knox,” and her wand went out. When she re-entered the living room, Riddle was standing. He was looking out the window, but when he heard her, he turned.
“Have you had any revelations while you were gone?” he asked, like he knew exactly what she was doing in there when she was supposedly peeing.
Hermione’s face flushed, but she nodded. “Actually, yes,” she said. “I think… I would be willing to give you a chance, Riddle. I’ll hear more about your plan and your… supporters, or whoever they are.”
He grinned. “So you’ll come back to London for a time? And willingly pass on this ridiculous offer of being an auror?”
“For now,” Hermione said. “If I don’t like what I see, I’ll come back home. And I can by no means leave tonight. I have to wrap a few things up before I leave the country again.” She smiled. “My aunt will be thrilled.”
“I’m sure.”
Riddle’s smile faltered. “That is something I need to ask you about, though,” he said. He walked slowly towards her, and, Hermione noticed with a jolt, he was now holding his wand as well. “Your dear aunt, Hepzibah Smith… You see, I have some doubts about that.”
Hermione’s heart immediately began to speed. She stepped backwards, fear burning in her veins. “Doubts?”
“Yes. Doubts. You see, I’ve noticed some things about you, and recalled a few others.”
Hermione stumbled on her next step back, nearly falling. Riddle’s following smile was dark and cruel—like her faltering was a confession on its own.
“I know it was you in the library that day,” he murmured. “It was January. It was bitterly cold. It was you in the public library, in far less lavish clothing and with wild, curly hair. You, leaving behind a stack of books on modern British culture and politics. You, fleeing like a scared rabbit.”
Hermione’s body seemed to stop working. She was frozen, petrified, much like a scared rabbit indeed.
How did he know?
“What I want to know is why a witch would be reading up on those sorts of things all at one time… and why would she appear to be a different person altogether just weeks later, coming to my shop?”
Hermione tried to apparate. It didn’t work. Riddle’s smile broadened, and he looked, for the first time since she had seen him in the year 1950… evil.
Riddle slashed his wand into the air. Instantly, glowing marks appeared all around him, runic symbols that were carved into every inch, every section of the walls, the roof, the floors. They encapsulated the windows and the doors; they were everywhere. They glowed a dull red, like candlelight, like fire.
That explains the electricity not working, Hermione thought in blank horror. It wasn’t the small orbs of light.
The entire apartment was flooded with magic.
“I’ll allow you a moment to discern them,” Riddle drawled. “I know you’re excellent at Ancient Runes.”
Hermione fumbled further back, trying to focus on a single set of them, for it became apparent at once that they were an endless, repeating line of runic symbols. She inhaled sharply and made herself interpret what they meant. That symbol was for entrapment, and that one… that one was for speaking, and another… for truth, and for titles, she thought…
Hermione almost fainted when it dawned on her.
“One is entrapped here,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “Until one speaks their true name.”
“Very good , Hermione,” Riddle said. He laughed in a dark, terrifying way.
“If that is even your name.”
Chapter 35: Lies Upon Lies
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Are you capable of killing someone?”
Hermione asked it as casually as she could. Malfoy looked surprised, then annoyed.
“I tried quite valiantly to kill Dumbledore once,” he said. “In case you forgot.”
“I didn’t. And those efforts were far from valiant. They were pretty pathetic.” Hermione smirked. “It was almost like you weren’t really trying.”
Malfoy’s face turned red. “Of course I was trying,” he seethed. “My life—my whole family’s well being—was on the line!”
“Fine. You tried to commit murder, sort of, if very passively,” Hermione said. “But are you capable of actually killing someone? Directly, with a curse. With the curse.”
Malfoy was trying to look like he was offended at the mere suggestion, but his act fell flat. “Of course,” he said.
“Then do it.” Hermione stood, motioning for him to do the same. It was a good thing they were back in her flat—she wouldn’t have been able to demand this demonstration otherwise. “Cast the killing curse. Not at me, please. But at this.”
She’d saved a cockroach that she’d found scuttling around her bathroom for this very moment. It was twitching its antennae at her in its prison, a glass jar. She felt a twinge of pity, then remembered how silly that was. This was a much kinder death than being smashed by the heel of her shoe, as she might have otherwise done.
Malfoy stared at the cockroach. “You’re kidding,” he said.
“I’m not,” Hermione said. “If we are going to go together, I need to know you’re capable. That you’re an asset, not a liability.”
She set the jar down on the table and backed away. “Go on,” she said. “I’m sure you know the proper hand motion, yes? Your lovely aunt surely taught you at some point.”
Mafoy’s face paled, but he nodded. “She… she did,” he answered. “I… do I really have to?”
“Yes.”
Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and waited. Malfoy stood and withdrew his wand.
Seconds ticked by. On and on until a half a minute passed. “It’s a cockroach, Malfoy,” Hermione muttered, impatient.
“That’s the problem,” he hissed. “Casting an Unforgivable… this is illegal, you know.”
“Oh, is it? Shoot. I guess we’ll have to cancel our extremely illegal time-traveling expedition, then.”
Malfoy glared at her. “It’s also not easy when it’s set up like this,” he said. “You know that Unforgivables aren’t just… they don’t come naturally to people who don’t use them often. You have to really mean them.”
“I do know that,” Hermione agreed softly. “So imagine that this is her. This is Merope Gaunt, mother of your family’s future master. The cause of all of your pain… but also, an innocent woman. You have to imagine that, because that is what we’ll be facing. Unless you’ve changed your mind and think it would be better to kill a baby? Or a child?”
Malfoy paled, shaking his head.
“Okay. Then I need to know you can do it.”
Malfoy bit his lower lip, staring at the cockroach and clearly struggling. Hermione let a few more tense moments pass before she decided she had her answer. She took a deep breath and steeled herself.
“Avada Kedavra.”
The flash of light startled Malfoy so badly he flew backwards, knocking over a chair and rushing away until he collided with the wall.
The cockroach was dead in its jar.
Malfoy was staring at her with a mixture of shock, awe, and to a small degree, she thought, fear. “How… how did you… when…?”
“Your lovely aunt,” Hermione said bitterly. She felt like her blood was singing with each pump of her heart; her veins were on fire with adrenaline from the use of such dark, powerful magic. This was the second time she had cast the killing curse. As much as the feeling scared her, she’d needed to know that she could do it again, too, with her own wand, without passionate rage fueling her. That she could cast this terrible curse with nothing but logic and a colder, more clinical kind of passion in her intention.
She needed to know that she could be a killer.
“I cast it once at Bellatrix, at Hogwarts, using her own wand against her,” Hermione said. Malfoy’s eyes widened even further. Like he was seeing her for the first time.
Hermione laughed coldly. Her body was still ringing with dark magic. “I fucking missed, obviously,” she finished. “But don’t worry. I won’t miss, not again. And… I don’t think you should go with me, Malfoy. I think you’d be better off staying behind.”
Malfoy nodded, choosing not to argue.
He is going to kill me.
That was the first, horror-filled thought Hermione had as Riddle stared at her, the fiery red lights of the runes illuminating him and making him appear demonic. He was smiling and it was a truly horrible grin.
This is how I die.
“You look afraid, Hermione,” Riddle said in a soft, low voice. He was holding his wand aloft, and though his stance was currently casual, she knew he could turn rigid at any moment. Deadly. “Why is that?”
Deep breaths. Stay calm. Think rationally. Remember your training.
Holloway’s voice returned to her like a long lost friend, coming to her rescue when she needed him most. She took a deep breath, then another.
Think rationally.
He was not going to kill her. Not here, not now. Her friends had just met him and must have concluded that she had left with him by now. They knew his name. He would immediately be a suspect if she went missing, and that would ruin all of his plans to lay low.
He had no murderous intentions tonight… but he knew she was lying about who she was.
He thinks he knows, Hermione corrected herself. All he said so far is that he knows it was you in the library. Anything else he’s assumed based on that is nothing but conjecture on his part. He is just trying to scare you.
He knows nothing.
“Because this is insane, Tom,” Hermione finally said, looking at all of the glowing, red runes. “This is insane! You think I’m making up my relationship with my aunt? So you entrapped me here like this?”
She took another step back, towards the door. “This is more than a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
“I don’t, actually,” Riddle said. “You have a history of running away from me, fearful when it makes no earthly sense… and just now, you tried to apparate.”
“Of course I did!” she shouted. “A man I only somewhat know just revealed a thousand runes everywhere! I think it’s fair to have a fight or flight response to that!”
“True. It is. I was prepared for either, clearly.” Then, to Hermione’s great surprise, he sat back down in his chair, looking absurdly relaxed. “Sit. We have a lot to discuss.”
Hermione exhaled a sharp breath, astonished by him. “Sit? And have a calm discussion with you?”
“Is Hepzibah Smith your aunt?”
“I will not be—”
Hermione did not get a chance to finish her indignant remark before an inexplicable, unseeable force seemed to wrap itself around her, yanking her forward. She barely held in a scream at the shock of it; it made her knees buckle and her head swim. She was forced towards Riddle just as the chair she had been sitting in moments ago also moved, shifting behind her.
A moment later, Hermione found herself seated directly in front of Riddle. He was smiling candidly.
Wandless magic. Powerful, intentional wandless magic. And he hadn’t even needed to flick his wrist to do it.
“Is Hepzibah Smith your aunt?” Riddle asked again. “Trust me when I say it is in your best interest to answer this time.”
Hermione tried to lift her arm in an attempt to have her hand nearer to where her wand was concealed. That same forceful magic kept them at her sides.
“How are you doing this?” she asked, that suppressed fear licking up her spine. She knew he had great magical skills, of course, but she hadn’t imagined anything like this.
“The runic embellishments are giving me quite an edge, I’ll admit,” he explained. “They aren’t aimed at me. They’re aimed at you. I’ve already given my true name… until you give yours, I have a great deal more power here while they cast their influence.”
Hermione glowered, trying to ignore the loud drumming of her heartbeat in her ears. “Let me go,” she hissed.
“Answer me,” he said.
Stay calm. He knows nothing.
“Yes,” Hermione snapped. “Yes, she is my aunt. I don’t see how this is even a question.”
“She looks nothing like you.”
“Do you look like every member of your mother’s family?”
He stared. Hermione huffed in annoyance. “You think that my relationship with her is a lie just because I don’t resemble her? And what, because I personally dressed differently a few weeks before? Because I was at the library?”
“Explain that,” Riddle demanded. He reached for his wine glass, and the way he so casually took a drink, sitting like he was, you would think he was asking a good friend to tell him about the weather. “Why were you there, reading what you were, looking like… that?”
Hermione let out a pained sigh. “If you must know,” she said, speaking through clenched teeth, “I had just arrived in England, and yes, I like to know things. So I did some research before going to my aunt’s. I was, admittedly… delaying meeting her.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew she’d force a makeover on me,” Hermione said, which was not entirely a lie—she hadn’t foreseen it, but she probably should have, and she’d allowed it. Embraced it, even. “I am not always so… well, I’m not so prim and proper all the time, despite what I would have everyone believe.”
He stared again, waiting. Hermione begrudgingly elaborated, the lie of her life becoming ever more detailed. “I might have let myself go a bit as I was traveling, before going to England,” she said, like she was admitting a great offense. “I stopped doing my hair and dressing so nicely and such. When I met up with Hepzibah, she put an end to that, naturally. She’s not like my mother was; she believes a lady must be perfectly done up at all times. So I started to do so again when I began staying with her. Are you happy?”
“Why were you reading so much about English culture?” Riddle asked. She couldn’t tell if he believed her so far or not. “Both muggle and magical? About current events? About politics?”
Hermione had to thank her lucky stars. She recalled that she had already put back the books on Ilvermorny before Tom Riddle’s arrival had scared the daylights out of her that day in the library.
“Am I not allowed to read about the country I was considering spending a great deal of time in?” Hermione responded. “Hepzibah would expect me to be well versed on such topics. Heaven forbid I embarrass her in front of her affluent peers.”
Riddle’s dark eyes were deep and searching. Hermione stared back, confident in her passive Occlumency skills.
“Why did you come to Borgin and Burke’s?”
“To purchase my aunt a centerpiece as a thank you gift. She had spoken highly of your shop.”
“How did you end up at Malfoy Manor just weeks later?”
“Abraxas and I got caught in a bidding war over a piece of art at the Wizarding Art Gala auction, which Hepzibah invited me to. I won, he congratulated me, then invited me to his manor.”
“Why did you flee from me in the garden that night as though I had threatened to kill you rather than kiss you?”
Hermione’s breath hitched. Riddle waited, his expression still cold and blank, though his stare was probing.
She knew why, and she thought he might know why, too. Because he had gotten under her skin, quickly and easily. Because she hadn’t hated the idea of him kissing her in a garden full of wild roses.
Because he’d made references to fairy tales and gotten her to recite Shakespeare with him, proving that they both knew and cared about things—muggle things—that they probably shouldn’t.
Cinderella, Cinderella. Don’t you know your place?
“Because you scared me,” Hermione found herself whispering.
The way his eyes gleamed with something like triumph told Hermione that he at least believed that. He leaned forward, closer to where she sat, a captive in her seat. “What is your name?”
“Hermione.”
“Hermione what?”
She bucked in the chair, furious. The magic around her quivered, an odd sensation, but didn’t loosen enough for her to stand. “I imagine this takes a great deal of energy for you to uphold, runes or not,” she said. She pushed against his magic again, to no avail. “And keeping the runes themselves this active must be taking quite a toll, too. It’s different when they’re dormant. Glowing and functioning like this, though? This is powerful magic that you’re maintaining. How long can you keep it up, I wonder?”
She leered at him. His face remained perfectly still. “I’m happy to wait you out to the point of exhaustion, if that’s what it takes.”
“You will be waiting a long, long time,” Riddle murmured. “And I don’t intend to wait that long.”
“What happens next, then?” Hermione asked. “You asked a question. I refuse to answer it. Now what?”
“Why refuse to answer me? If you are who you say you are, it should be easy.”
Hermione took a deep, shaky breath. It was not difficult at all to feign the painful rage she wanted to express. “Because Smith is not my true last name… not really,” she said, speaking so quietly that Riddle leaned closer, perhaps subconsciously, to hear her. This was not the tale she had ever intended to tell, but she could think of no other options now. “At least, not as I was born.”
She jutted her chin out, glaring at him as she continued to speak in a level tone. “Make no mistake. I am Hermione Smith. Hepzibah is my aunt and I am everything I say I am. But my name—my true name, if that is what it must be called—is not important. I don’t use that name. I never will. There is nothing you can do to make me.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s his name, not mine,” Hermione muttered. She looked down at the ground, attempting to channel the same hatred for unwanted names that she knew Riddle himself harbored. “I don’t know him. I never knew him. I don’t want or need to know him. I can’t undo what my mother did, giving me his name, but I don’t need to keep it.”
“Your father,” Riddle said after a pause. “You refuse to use your father’s name. Why?”
“Because I won’t!”
Using all of her strength, Hermione pushed again against the magical barriers. With a great force of effort, she succeeded—they snapped, and the moment she stood, Riddle was on his feet too, his wand out and pointed at her neck in a flash.
Hermione didn’t try to run. On the contrary, throwing all caution to the wind and placing her whole life on her assumptions of what Riddle would and would not do, she instead stepped closer to him, until the tip of his wand was pressed into her throat. “Do it,” she hissed. “Do it, if that’s what you plan to do. Kill me. I would rather die than use that name.”
Riddle was clearly not expecting that. His eyes widened in shock at her fearless, angry command.
“Kill you,” he echoed, almost thoughtfully. His face searched hers. “That may be the most concerning element of the mystery that is you, Hermione… Why do you think that I am such a quick and capable killer?”
Oh, no.
That was not a question Hermione had been expecting. It… was something she did not have a logical way to explain, either.
“And there it is,” Riddle said. He grabbed her jaw, trapping her face in his hand, staring intently into her eyes. “Fear. You fear me. I saw it first at Malfoy Manor and it has haunted me since. You locked eyes with me and it was starkly clear—I make you very afraid.”
He released her. Hermione stumbled back. “Why? I have done nothing to earn such blatant terror.” He paused, then almost as an afterthought, added, “With the exception of trapping you here tonight like this, demanding the truth. But I think I am owed it by now.”
Hermione swallowed hard. “I don’t know what fear you’re talking about, when I first saw you at Abraxas’s. I wasn't scared to simply see you.”
“Lies.”
The orbs of light flashed perilously, their soft glow that was white before drenched red now by the crimson runes. “If there was ever a moment I saw the true you, it was then. I could see the fear in your eyes. Why, Hermione?”
He lifted his wand ominously. “What do you know?”
Hermione foresaw what was about to happen just before it did—he was going to attack her mind. He was going to use Legilimency, true Legilimency, to break into her thoughts, to find out anything and everything he could—
“Before you attempt to rape my mind,” she snarled in as impetuous a voice as she could muster, “consider this. You say you want me to join your cause. If that’s even slightly true still, you will not attempt to trespass into my thoughts. Because if you do, it’s over. Any potential for trust or loyalty is gone. I will never forgive you. You will never have me, my magic, my influence, my gold, none of it. Not willingly. Not ever.”
Hermione prayed that it would work. She was not too afraid that he would succeed in seeing her memories from another timeline, discovering that she was a time-traveler—she was confident enough in her Occlumency skills to believe that, if he got too close, she could use her training and bury herself in unconsciousness. She would be untouchable—mentally, at any rate—then. But doing any of that would mean allowing Riddle to learn that she was an Occlumens, and a highly skilled one… an ability she was hoping to keep concealed for as long as possible, especially from Riddle.
She also did not like the idea of being passed out for who knew how long in front of him. The thought alone made her feel sick. Better to avoid a mental battle if at all possible, for many reasons.
Riddle looked at her for a long time, like he was weighing the weight of her words and whether or not her willing loyalty was worth it. “I cannot have you as an ally if I do not trust you,” he said slowly. “I’ve considered this at length. I thought to postpone this entire conversation, in fact. That maybe to force you to speak of this now was to play my hand too soon; that I should let you come back to London with me and wait until I have you, completely, to make you confess. But no. I cannot have people in my inner circle who I do not trust implicitly. So this has to happen now. Here.”
He lowered his wand. “But you are right. Trust is earned, not taken. I’ll give you the chance. There have been moments where you have been afraid of me, you already admitted that once. You ran from me in the garden, terrified—because you said that I scared you. You would run now, if you could. Tell me what it is that you think you know about me that makes you afraid. Tell the truth.”
Hermione realized then that she was shaking. When she took a step back, reaching again for her wand, a sudden wave of dizziness swept over her. The room spun in a blur of glowing red.
The next thing she registered was that she was laying down. On the ground? No, she was on… a couch or something, something soft.
Riddle’s face was hovering over her own. He looked concerned.
“Hermione,” he said, shaking her lightly.
Hermione blinked, her vision blurry. “What…?”
“You fainted,” Riddle explained. At what was surely a look of horror on her part—she had just concluded that she wanted dearly to avoid this situation!—he quickly added, “I did nothing to you. You just… suddenly collapsed. So I caught you and brought you here. That was only minutes ago. I cast a spell on you to restore your consciousness. Nothing else has happened.”
Hermione closed her eyes, hoping for a wild moment that maybe that was all a lie and this was all a dream. That she had collapsed not in some cursed muggle home but back at the Cave, on the dancefloor, in public, where she was still free to make different, smarter choices.
But then her vision cleared, and the glowing runes destroyed her fantasy.
“I imagine being held captive by someone who secretly terrifies you after a night of heavy drinking is not doing your psyche any favors,” Riddle said.
Hermione said nothing to that. She wanted to push herself away from him, felt too light and weak to try. She did, however, realize then that she was not on a couch, nor in the same room they had been in moments—was it really just moments?—before.
He had laid her out… on a bed.
Oh, no.
“Did you bring me to a bedroom?”
“Would you have preferred I thrown you on the floor?”
Hermione laughed, practically delirious at this point. “Maybe,” she said. She covered her face with her hands. “I can’t tell you, Tom. I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t tell me what?”
“Why it is that you sometimes frighten me,” she said. “What I sometimes think I see in you. What…”
Then it came to her. An idea so insane, so ridiculous, so obscure… that it might actually be genius. Especially if he was being influenced by liquid luck, if everything was meant to go his way… at least, as far as he was concerned.
Because what did Riddle want? He had come this far to find her, not because he wanted to kill her, but because he wanted to recruit her. That meant that, if he was lucky tonight, by his standards, whatever he would find out about Hermione Smith would make her more valuable, more desirable as one of his followers. She had to make him want her.
And this… this was something that Riddle would definitely want to hear, and she could use it to explain everything. Everything.
What I sometimes see.
“I will not let you leave here until you do,” Riddle murmured. He gently pried her hands away from her face. “And I can be very persuasive when I want to be.”
Riddle lowered himself so that his lips were close to her ear. Hermione truly realized what a perilous situation she was in, now. She pulled her hand away from his and reached for her wand, but it wasn’t in the pocket she had put it in.
“It’s downstairs,” Riddle murmured, lips grazing her ear. “You dropped it when you fainted. You probably don’t recall. I didn’t touch it.”
He might as well have told her that he was going to strangle her right then and there. Hermione felt her whole body go cold.
Riddle was looming over her and they were on a bed in a cursed location and she had no wand.
He paused, moving further away from her now so that she could see his face, looking almost angry. She had started shaking again. “I don’t know what you think you know about me,” he said, “but I can assure you that you are wrong. I am not going to hurt you… I might even believe you.”
Riddle sat up, shifting away from her. Hermione did too, propping herself up on her elbows on what she now saw was not just any bed, but a large, comfortable one. Though it was difficult to appreciate the muggle’s other furniture choices and decorations—even this room was covered in glowing runes on every surface.
She had to admit, Riddle was… extraordinarily thorough. Was this really the same wizard who failed so spectacularly to kill a mere infant in the future?
“You say you don’t use your father’s surname because you don’t want to… that you are resentful of your mother for giving you his name.”
Hermione nodded. Riddle’s expression softened.
“I can understand that.”
Hermione knew he could, but she acted like she did not. “I doubt it,” she said. “You have no idea what my life is like.”
“Try me.”
Hermione leaned back against the wooden headboard. She pulled her knees to her chest and took a steadying breath.. “You first,” she said. “If it’s all so important to you.”
Riddle tilted his head, clearly thinking hard. Hermione was certain he was not used to people demanding things from him, especially not personal information. Especially not this personal information.
“Whatever we say here is just between us, right?” Hermione asked warily, for the silence stretched on.
“Of course,” Riddle murmured. “Nothing we say leaves this lovely home.”
“Then tell me why you think you can understand me. I won’t tell a soul.”
After what felt like much longer than it surely was, Riddle nodded. “I never knew my father, either… but I know he was not a wizard.”
Hermione allowed her lips to part as though shocked. “Your mother was with a… a no-maj?”
“Yes,” he said scathingly, staring down at his hands. “And she must have really loved him… because she named me after him, even though he left her before I was born. Left us.”
He looked at her. “Tom Marvolo Riddle,” he said. The runes pulsed; recognizing, Hermione realized, a true name being spoken. “I was given both his first and last name… a gift that caused me more than my fair share of pain, I promise you.”
His lips twitched like he might smile sardonically, but he didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” Hermione said, muttering with half her face hidden behind her knees. “I imagine your pureblood friends didn’t take too kindly to that. With you not being practically royalty like they are, or whatever.”
“They did not… at first,” Riddle agreed. “But sometimes certain lineages supersede purity… I believe I have fully won them over by now. Some more than others, but… all in good time.”
“Certain lineages?” Hermione asked. “What’s that mean?”
“A story for another day,” Riddle said mysteriously—though of course Hermione already knew. “It’s your turn.”
She took a deep breath, exhaling a sigh afterwards. “I wish I could say with certainty,” she said, “but the reality is I don’t know. I can only assume that my mother fell in love with a no-maj as well. She rarely spoke of him, but when she did, it was with deep sadness. He was out of the picture before I was born, too. I assume he was a no-maj because why else would she have kept saying they just weren’t ‘meant to be’? I can only assume it’s because Rappaport’s Law has such unions outlawed.
“I used to think that she left him. But over the years, I came to believe otherwise. I think she told him what she was, when she was pregnant… I think he must have left us then.”
Hermione wrapped her arms more tightly around her knees. “I’ll never know, though. My mother never told me the story, never could, and now she’s dead.”
Riddle slowly, almost cautiously, reached for her hand. “Have you ever tried to find him?” he asked. “To find out for yourself? You have his name, even if you refuse to say it now. You could probably track him down.”
Hermione scoffed, loudly. “No,” she said. “I would never dream of it. I don’t care who he is. If my mother left him, then I respect her wishes, and I’m happy to leave him be. If he left us long ago, then he doesn’t deserve me now. I don’t owe him even a moment of my time. Not now, not ever. I don’t need him.”
Riddle pulled her hand to his chest, trying to get her to move closer to him, but Hermione didn’t budge. “It seems we have a great deal in common,” he murmured.
Hermione smiled sadly. “Yeah,” she said. “Lucky us. I think I’ve fared better than you, though. I began going by Smith before I was in school—and in America, they don’t care nearly as much about blood status as it seems you all do over there.”
“True,” Riddle said. “But suffering for our father’s sins is not a contest.”
“It is a contest,” Hermione said. “You win.”
Riddle smiled, seemingly despite himself.
“Did you ever track him down?” she asked quietly. “Did you ever find your father and confront him?”
His expression darkened. Hermione held her breath, wondering what he would admit.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I did. I… would rather not discuss it.”
It was the closest thing to sad, truly sad, that she had ever seen on his face. It was impossible to tell if it was a facade or not. Hermione reminded herself that she was not supposed to know that he’d murdered the man, along with his grandparents. She therefore reacted the way she assumed anyone else would in this moment, jumping to the wrong conclusion—that his father had rejected him. Again.
And maybe he did, before he killed him, Hermione mused. She clung to that illogical rationale and did what she knew a normal person would do.
Hermione leaned forward and hugged him.
Though he probably should have, Riddle obviously wasn’t expecting it. His body went rigid when Hermione put her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder. It made her heart race, to embrace a murderer so tenderly, but she did it anyway. “I’m so sorry,” she said, hugging him tighter. “That’s half the reason I wouldn’t want to meet my father, you know. In case it went terribly wrong.”
Riddle recovered quickly. His muscles relaxed as she continued to hold him like a friend would. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’m glad I went. Closure is important.”
The most extreme kind of closure, Hermione thought morbidly. What had he said earlier? Pruning the family tree.
But Hermione Smith did not know this.
Riddle turned, his face less than an inch from hers where she now sat next to him on the bed. “Why are you afraid of me?” he asked again, much softer and kinder this time.
Hermione swallowed hard, stuck for a moment on his deep, dark eyes. She almost couldn’t believe the story she was about to give.
“You promise that this stays between us?”
“Yes.”
“I mean it. This is something that no one else knows. Not anymore, anyway. Just me. And it must stay that way. It’s for my own safety.”
Riddle ran a hand through her hair, a nearly loving gesture. “I’ll never tell a soul,” he promised, using her own words. “And I am very good at keeping secrets.”
Hermione internally congratulated herself. He must have thought he was so skilled, so clever, so absolutely charming and manipulative, to be able to weasel her deepest secret from her willingly, no coercion necessary.
It was too bad for him that it was all lies upon lies.
“I’m… I’m a Seer.”
The sheer look of disbelief was almost comical.
“You’re a what?”
Hermione didn’t have to force anything—the flush of redness to her face came naturally and quickly. “I know exactly what you’re thinking,” she said, and she pulled her arms from around his shoulders. “But I am not a hypocrite. And I’m not—I’m not making this up.”
“You claim to be a Seer? You?” Riddle was so affronted that he stood, staring down at her accusingly. “After all that hatred you spewed about Divination, after everything you—”
“That’s why I said all those things! And I stand by them!” Hermione shouted. “I do detest Divination—as a subject in school. Because it isn’t like that, Tom, and everyone should know it! Either you have the Sight or you don’t, it isn’t something that can be taught out of a book!”
His eyes narrowed. “Prove it,” he demanded. “Prove it, and tell me how it answers my question.”
Hermione looked down, her mind racing as she carefully considered how to respond. “I… It’s different for everyone,” she said, which she knew was true—she may not have liked Divination, but she had still done her due diligence before angrily dropping the course.
Hermione Granger had researched some of the greatest Seers to have existed, and that, more than anything, was what proved to her that the class was a waste. Some Seers, like Inigo Imago, saw the future in their dreams. Others, like the Trelawneys, made prophetic predictions that they were not, evidently, aware they were even making half the time.
It was an exceptionally vague, inexplicable, and bizarre branch of magic, that was for certain… and Hermione planned to use that to her advantage.
She also planned to take after Inigo Imago.
“I see… the future, sometimes,” she said slowly. “Not often. But when I do, it’s… jarring, to say the least. It happens in my dreams.”
Riddle was staring, eyes alert and attentive, listening raptly. “How do you know?” he asked. “How can you be certain you see the future? That it’s not just a regular dream?”
“I can’t explain it,” Hermione answered. “I just… know. Some dreams feel different. Sometimes they’re quite… metaphorical.”
She suddenly recalled her dream of the snake in the snow, coiling around her, forcing itself inside her—saving or killing, she was not sure.
Maybe she was… not lying completely.
“But more often they feel very real. Like I’m there, in a new possibility. I’ve lived things in dreams that later came true. And… and I think, maybe…”
She took another deep breath. “I didn’t want to go to England just to see my aunt,” she explained. “I wanted to go because… I think someone new is rising, Tom. Someone much worse than Grindelwald ever could have been. A new Lord. I’ve seen him several times.”
Riddle sat on the edge of the bed, clearly hanging onto her every word. “What did you see?” he asked. “Tell me.”
“I saw… a monster,” Hermione said softly. “A… this horrible, terrible being. Someone that was more snake than man, with blood red eyes. He did not look human.”
Riddle’s face betrayed no emotion other than hunger. “What happened in your visions?” he asked. “And why would that make you go to England? You saw him there? How?”
Hermione nodded. “Yes,” she said. Her mind was racing faster than ever as she spun this tale on the spot, careful to give enough detail to make Riddle believe her without doubt while still being vague. “I saw visions of London, of war… I saw this monster rise to power there. I saw destruction and chaos. I saw so many people, dying. I went to see if I could find him. To see if it was true.”
“And what does he have to do with me?”
Hermione swallowed thickly, allowing herself to look afraid again. “I don’t know yet,” she said. “I told myself I would surely know this… this person, if they are a person, when I saw them. But now I am unsure. Maybe that’s not what they really look like. Perhaps this image of a monster I see is just a horrified version of what they really are—a metaphor for what they’re capable of. All I know for sure is… a name. A name that when it was spoken caused people to scream in horror. A name that invoked debilitating fear.”
“A name,” Riddle echoed. He leaned in close to her, eager, looking like it was taking all of his willpower to not pull the information out of her himself. The runic lights were dancing in his black eyes. “What name?”
Hermione only hesitated a moment.
“Voldemort,” she whispered.
Riddle’s lips curled; Hermione couldn’t tell if he was pleased or angry at what she’d said.
“Do you know him, Tom? Is he real?” Hermione pulled her knees to her chest again, easily letting her fear shake in her voice. She knew it was better to give him the chance to deny he knew anything about Voldemort if he wanted.
But she also had to say things he’d want to hear.
“If you do—if he's someone you’ve heard of and you’re thinking of joining him, if he’s a part of your plan or you’re part of his—I must warn you. He’s powerful, extremely powerful, and dangerous, and you shouldn’t go near—”
Riddle cut her off with a dark, harsh laugh. Clearly, hearing her talk about him in a way that was so deeply terrified was music to his ears. “Oh, Hermione,” he murmured. He cupped her chin gently with one hand. “I think you already know. I think you’ve had a feeling for a long time now, haven’t you? Even if you haven’t wanted to admit it. That’s why you’ve been so afraid of me. You know.”
His grip turned hard, making Hermione gasp. Riddle’s eyes flashed, turning at once to a brilliantly bright, bloody red.
“I am Lord Voldemort.”
Even knowing that it might be coming, Hermione could do nothing to stop the horror that erupted in her chest. It was unstoppable—the trauma of war, real war; of that older, more crazed version of him hunting her, nearly catching her and Harry in Godric’s Hollow; of every nightmarish vision caused by those endless nights wearing the locket—
It all came crashing down on her, and she couldn’t help how she reacted.
Hermione screamed. She screamed and tried to scramble away, fruitlessly. Riddle was on her in a flash, pinning her to the wooden headboard. He had one hand on her throat, choking off her scream, while the other was around her wrist.
“You must have seen some truly horrible visions, to be this terrified of me,” he said, loosening his grip once it was clear she would no longer scream out.
Hermione gulped in deep breaths. Riddle looked into her eyes, those red irises bright and piercing. “But your fear is for naught.”
He let go of her throat, allowing his hand to instead gently rest on her cheek. He kept hold of her wrist.
“I-I have seen h-horrible things,” Hermione stuttered out. Nothing about her fear was a farce. “And you—Tom, you’ve no idea—what I’ve seen of you, if this is really you—”
“And I want to know everything you have ever seen, in detail,” Riddle said. His eyes were bloodier and more crimson even than the runes. “You said your visions were sometimes metaphorical. Perhaps what you saw was your Inner Eye’s interpretation of power. True power… and that is frightening. But it is nothing for you to fear.”
Hermione swallowed hard again; her throat burned from her short but harsh scream. Riddle’s following smile was hungry, possessive. “I have no intention of harming you, Hermione Smith… I want you.”
Riddle pulled her wrist to his chest, grabbing her other one as well and doing the same. “Whatever power you have seen in me would be used not to harm you, but to protect you, to keep you close… Always.”
She could feel it, then—an intangible and yet undeniable shift in the air. Magic. It was heady and dark and yes, powerful. Hermione had never perceived magic so viscerally before. The runes dimmed as she felt it swarming her like an invisible cocoon, a rush of hyponotic, thrumming power.
It was similar to how she felt after casting an Unforgivable Curse. She perceived it with every beat of her heart.
To say it was alluring, if also a bit frightening, was a vast understatement. It was downright seductive. Dangerously so.
“I’ve seen you do horrible things, Tom,” Hermione managed to whisper. “I’ve seen so many people die.”
He moved so that he was speaking close to her ear again. “I suppose you’d better join me, then, and prevent as much unnecessary violence as possible,” he murmured. “Staying close to me.”
Her breath hitched when he lowered his lips to touch her neck. It was the slightest of kisses, but it felt like a jolt of electricity shot up her spine. The magic in the air was heavy around her.
“Very close,” he whispered, his lips touching the shell of her ear.
“Tom,” Hermione breathed. Her whole body was growing hot in seconds and she became painfully aware again that they were on a bed. “I don’t—I just… why me?”
He laughed softly. Then, when it was clear she really expected an answer, he pulled away so that he could look into her eyes again.
Red. His were so, unnervingly red.
“Must I count the reasons why?” he asked. Before she could answer, he went on, saying, “There are the obvious ones, of course… you are affluent. You have connections with a powerful pureblood family. You are a Seer.”
His eyes flashed hungrily at the word Seer. Hermione only just then realized what she had done for herself, adding this layer to the lie that was Hermione Smith.
To someone like Tom Riddle, who deeply believed in Divination and prophecies… he could probably imagine few people less valuable than an actual Seer. And considering that she had just told him that she’d already seen visions of him, specifically; that she had even learned his name through her gift…
Well, she really had just become the most desirable witch in the world to him, hadn’t she?
To make things even better for herself, it was common knowledge that one could not pull out dreams the same way one could with tangible memories. It was not possible to place dreams in a Pensieve, nor to seek them out using Legilimency.
He would only have her word.
And I can use it to tell him whatever I want, and he might actually listen to me, she realized in awe. I could use it to guide him, to save him, to…
Control him?
Perhaps it was simply the effect of his dark, magnetic magic in the air, but a new voice in Hermione’s psyche stirred, one she had never heard before.
A dangerous voice.
“...But even without those illustrious qualities… I would want you, anyway.”
The heavy magic in the air lessened. Riddle’s horrifying eyes returned to their usual, dark brown, making him look infinitely more human.
“I want you because you challenge me in ways that so few others do,” he said, carding his fingers through her long hair. “Because you have a fiery passion so different from my own, something exciting and powerful in its own way. Because you are the sort of person who researches a place before diving into its culture, spending hours at a public library even though you could just go buy every book you ever wanted…”
He brought one of her hands to his lips, kissing the back of it softly before saying, “because you, like me, like to know things… and I’ve never found anyone more desirable because of it.”
Hermione just looked at him for a moment, lost in his eyes which were now much easier to stare into. “Is that all,” she croaked out. She cleared her throat. “What, nothing about my ample beauty or envious grace?”
Riddle smiled. “You are far from graceful, at least in my presence… when you are not actively trying to kill me, at least,” he said. “Ah, but your beauty…”
She hadn’t expected him to respond like this to what she’d meant to be a joke. Riddle seemed to be taking it on like a challenge. “To speak of your beauty would be an altogether different list,” he said. He let go of her hands, shifting further away from her on the bed. “Perhaps I should begin here.”
He moved so he was kneeling in front of her feet. Hermione felt like she’d been frozen with her back against the headboard when he grabbed her ankle, easily pulling off one of her heels, then the other. “Your beauty begins at the tips of your toes, like some tragic princess from a muggle fairy tale,” he murmured. He tossed her shoes aside, where they were instantly forgotten. “Your beauty radiates up your legs, showing itself in the smoothness of your skin—especially on your thighs, which you sinfully show in public when you lift your skirts to dance.”
He leaned forward, his fingers trailing up her calves and along her thighs as he spoke, finding their way under her dress. He was between her legs now, Hermione realized, pushing them apart so carefully that she barely registered it was happening even as she watched.
“Your beauty announces itself every time you take a step, with every sway of your hips,” he murmured. His hands kept moving along her thighs, nearly to where her knickers were, pushing her dress up higher and higher. “I see it every time you draw a breath, every time your chest heaves, threatening to distract me.”
Hermione stopped breathing. His eyes, which had been focused intently on her body as he described it, fixed now on hers. “And I have not even begun to touch upon the beauty of your neck, your face, your eyes. Must I, Hermione? Must I spew poetic lines about how entrancing I find your amber-brown eyes, how I long to claim your lips every time you speak? Is that what you want of me? What you need?”
He was very close to her now. His face was less than an inch from hers.
“I want you,” he whispered. His hands were now resting on her hips; tracing the fabric of her underwear. “In every conceivable way.”
His fingers were torturous, grazing her lightly. Heat was pooling in Hermione’s gut.
“Do you want me?”
His thumb continued to stroke her, finding her most sensitive spot instantly and making her gasp. She could feel his hardness against her legs when he shifted, getting closer to her still.
“Tell me,” he said. His lips were a fraction of an inch from hers. “Tell me, and I’ll give you the world.”
Hermione didn’t think. Couldn’t think, even if she’d wanted to. She nodded, then leaned into him, closing the small but infinite gap between her lips and his.
Chapter 36: Sinful, Bewitching
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Riddle’s lips were hot and demanding against hers. He responded to Hermione’s gentle leaning forward with far more intensity, pressing hard against her, his tongue searching for hers and finding it as Hermione at once allowed him in, unthinking.
Unthinking. That was as close as she could get to describing the state of her mind just then. Hermione had no coherent thoughts, just a sea of lust and want coursing through her, drowning out all logic.
Riddle’s hands were far from idle as he ravished her mouth with that deep, demanding kiss. He had removed his fingers from between her legs and now had both hands on her shoulders, pushing the fabric of her dress down in a way that meant he must have somehow unzipped the backside already. Hermione might have questioned how he did that if he hadn’t already shown how magically apt he was, keeping her whole body pinned to a chair.
She responded to that without thinking, too. Hermione shifted and lifted her arms, freeing them from the sleeves. Riddle broke their kiss so he could reach beneath her dress instead, grabbing it by the skirt with both hands and lifting it up and over her head in a fluid motion.
The feeling of smooth fabric momentarily blinding her before being ripped from her body made Hermione’s heart stutter. It felt like she’d just surfaced from being underwater as Riddle pulled it off, that flash of darkness making her blink as the red light from the runes once more filled her eyes. Riddle set her dress aside. He paused, sensing the shift in her.
For a moment he did nothing, only stared at her as he knelt with his knees between her legs on the bed. Hermione felt his gaze as though it had a physical weight to it; his eyes went from her face to her chest to her legs, taking in every inch of her.
Hermione had never felt more vulnerable in her life, lying beneath Tom Riddle, who was still very much dressed, her body so exposed for him to… admire? She felt like she was on fire at the thought, and though her instinct might have been to say otherwise, there was no denying it. Admiring was the only word to describe how he was looking at her, all the way from her calves to her stomach and chest.
His eyes finally found hers again, and though his stare was wide and smoldering, he said nothing.
He hardly needed to. The question was obvious.
Are you sure?
Hermione nodded, her face far too hot.
Riddle’s answering kiss was softer this time. He leaned in, taking his time when he ran his tongue along her lower lip, seeking more. Hermione barely suppressed a moan when her own lips parted, and his tongue slid against hers. One of his hands was making its way down her collar bone, towards her chest. The other was lower, where he grazed his fingertips along her thigh, gradually edging closer to her hips.
Hermione’s body responded in ways it never had to anyone else before. Her spine arched, physically encouraging him, yes, touch me there, please—a sign that Riddle did not ignore. He slid one of her bra straps down, and with what she could only assume was his horrible, skillful magic, had it unhooked and loose about her shoulders. Hermione let it fall forward around her arms, where she discarded it herself, letting it join her dress and her shoes where it might as well have vanished altogether.
Riddle didn’t instantly cup her breast like she thought he would. Still kissing her in that slow way, he only trailed his fingers over her skin, getting close but not close enough. Hermione was unsure if he was just savoring the moment or trying to torture her. Probably both.
Annoyed, Hermione finally found the courage to use her own hands. She reached forward and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer to her, deepening their kiss.
Riddle responded by putting his hand on her breast, tracing his fingers around her nipple but not yet touching it. Hermione was on the verge of screaming at him when he finally did, making soft, slow circles with his thumb there. Hermione let out an involuntary sound, something between a whimper and a moan. She wondered if he could taste her desperation in their kiss.
He pulled his lips away from hers, but before Hermione could be disappointed he was instead kissing her neck. He was shockingly gentle; Hermione could have never imagined him to be so slow, so attentive. Her eyes fluttered as he moved his lips lower and lower still, not stopping until he was fondling one breast with his hand and the other with his mouth.
Hermione’s head fell back against the headboard. She was certain she had never felt anything so good in her life; every swipe of his tongue and flick of his finger had her reeling. Heat was pooling low in her gut, aching, and she knew she was wetter than she’d ever been. She carded her fingers through his hair and did her best not to make any pathetic sounds.
It was a short-lived attempt. Riddle’s free hand, which had been resting against her thigh, found its way to her hips. He moved gradually but purposefully towards the edge of her knickers, where he played with them for a moment before letting his fingers graze her lips again, outside of the fabric. Hermione swore she could feel his smirk at how drenched they must have been. She hardly had the headspace to care, though; his touch there combined with everything he was doing to her breasts was enough to make her cry out.
Riddle kept touching her, rubbing circles with both hands around one of her nipples and her clit, and he lifted his chin to speak to her. “Good, Hermione,” he said in a deep voice. He kissed her throat and spoke into her ear. “Don’t hold anything in… I want to hear every sound, every moan…”
He applied slightly more pressure, making Hermione’s hips rock against him and, yes, moan. He kissed her throat again. “Yes, beautiful, so good, Hermione…”
Hermione wanted to hate that being praised by him made her body grow as hot as it did, but she didn’t. Riddle had guessed that about her a long time ago—that she craved being praised—and damn him to hell, he had been right.
Hermione felt a snapping against her skin, and knew without a doubt that he had just ruined her knickers. He slipped them from around her hips, easily pulling the broken lace from underneath her and tossing it to where the rest of her discarded clothing was.
Hermione was naked. She barely had a second to care about this before Riddle picked up right where he left off, this time rubbing her clit without the barrier of fabric between his skin and her.
Hermione’s next moan was loud, guttural. Riddle rewarded it with another kiss against her throat, no longer being so gentle, using his teeth and sucking. Hermione’s head lolled back and she grasped at his shoulders, clutching the fabric of his shirt. She rocked against his hand, heat and pressure building, building.
“Ah, don’t stop, please,” she gasped. “Please, Tom.”
Riddle obliged without question. “Mmm,” he murmured. “You beg so nicely…”
Without warning, he slid one finger inside her. It was far from uncomfortable—he hadn’t stopped circling her clit and she was so wet regardless, but it still made her gasp in shock. He didn’t pause before inserting another, causing a jolt of pleasure deep inside of herself like nothing she’d ever felt before.
“Ah—Tom—”
Hermione wasn’t sure what she would have said, even if she’d been able to find the words. He began thrusting his fingers in and out of her, curling them inside her and still rubbing her clit as he did, and who even needed actual sex, Hermione thought dazedly, if this could feel so good? Her mind was blank with pleasure as she rocked her hips into him, wanting him to be deeper, to push harder.
Hermione was gasping and whimpering with every thrust. “Good,” Tom was praising. “Yes, just like that…”
That lovely, inevitable pressure was building more. Hermione knew she was going to soon come undone.
“Tom,” she breathed. Her body burned. “Oh, Tom…”
She probably should have seen it coming, considering who this was. Just as she was about to implode, Riddle slowed, then stopped.
Her face must have shown exactly how she felt about that, because Riddle smiled before kissing her glowering lips. “Patience,” he said. He kissed her again.
Hermione’s anger vanished when he raised himself up on his knees, far enough away from her that she could properly see him again. He started to unbutton his shirt.
It was an oddly sobering moment. Hermione hesitated, then reached forward, grabbing his hands to stop him. He looked confused, almost wounded for a moment, but then she started unbuttoning his shirt herself, and his face cleared.
In seconds, Hermione’s hands began to shake. Her mind was no longer so clouded by lust, and this, the task of carefully undoing the buttons of Riddle’s shirt by hand, made everything clear. She was undressing Riddle. This was happening, and she was complicit—no, she was actively participating in this. Wanting it. This sinful, bewitching act.
What am I doing?
Riddle did not move to help her, only watched. By the time she got to the last button, her fingers were trembling too hard. She couldn’t get it. Her breathing turned shallow.
Riddle’s much steadier hands caught hers. They locked eyes for a moment—his dark, bottomless ones boring into hers. He guided her fingers to undo the last button, and his shirt fell open.
Hermione swallowed hard as she pushed the fabric aside, sliding it down his shoulders. It was stupid, she thought, that undressing him was making her so nervous, considering that she was naked. Still, she was. Her heart raced as he tugged his sleeves down over his wrists, exposing his chest. The runic lights bathed his pale skin, making him glow red.
Hermione almost gasped at the sight of him.
There was simply no way that this was the same Lord Voldemort from her timeline, she concluded firmly. How could someone with shoulders this broad, with muscles like this, ever turn into that skeletal creature that haunted her nightmares?
But the closer she looked, the more she saw. Yes, he had muscles she could trace with her fingers, but she could also see a little bit too much of his ribs, too much of his collar bones beneath his smooth skin. He had the air of someone who was naturally muscular, but also of someone who was slightly undernourished. Like he forgot to eat as often as he should, perhaps, or just… didn’t.
But none of that surprised Hermione. What did was the strange, dull marking on his chest, right over his heart.
She frowned as she examined it, for the shape of it was… odd. A circular shape with a few lines radiating up and to the side. Hermione had never seen anything quite like it. It didn’t look like a marking caused by any curse she could think of.
“What’s this?” she found herself asking. She almost touched it, but then thought better of it. It didn’t look old; perhaps it still hurt.
“A scar,” Riddle answered. “Recently acquired.”
“What happened?”
“You.”
Hermione’s brows rose at this unexpected response. Before she could ask what he meant, Riddle grabbed her right wrist and pulled it towards his. When he placed her palm against his chest, right where the scar was, she gasped.
Her hand. It was the precise size and nearly the shape of her hand.
It took a moment for her to piece it together, but she did. “The garden,” she whispered.
Riddle nodded.
“When I ran from you,” Hermione went on, unable not to. “I pushed you away before I fled. I… I did this. But how?”
Riddle’s lips curled in an almost-smile. “Dark magic,” he said, “leaves traces.”
Hermione’s mouth fell open. She had no idea how to respond to that; none at all.
He placed his hand over hers, pressing it harder against his chest. She could feel his heart beating. It wasn’t racing, but it wasn’t slow, either. “It burned for days,” he said softly. “It’s faded since that night, but I don’t believe it will ever fully go away.”
Hermione’s eyes went from where their hands laid against his chest to his eyes. There was no discernible emotion on his face.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“I’m not,” Riddle responded, to her surprise. Then he leaned into her, claiming her lips in another deep, slow kiss.
The heat that had subsided quickly began to build again. Feeling much more daring, Hermione used her other hand to grab at the waist of his pants, then to reach between his legs, boldly stroking him. Riddle let out a surprised sound of his own, and she felt him twitch against her hand, reacting to her touch. She stroked him again, and the last, lingering moments of nervousness were swept from her mind.
Hermione fumbled with his belt, but it seemed Riddle no longer had the patience to allow her to spend an eternity with his clothing. He undid it himself in seconds, and Hermione pushed his pants, as well as whatever undergarments he was wearing, down his waist. Riddle did one better. In a flash of magic that was nearly imperceptive, he had the rest of his clothing simply off—one second, it was all hanging loosely around his thighs, the next everything was in a pile beside her own, just gone from his body.
Hermione might have stupidly asked how he’d done that—he’s a wizard, Hermione—if she wasn’t instantly and wholly distracted.
Hermione pushed herself away, scooting along the bed until her back was pressed against the headboard again. She couldn’t help herself; she stared unabashedly at him as he knelt there, finally as exposed as she was.
Well, of course. Of course he has a huge cock.
Riddle waited for a moment, probably expecting her to say something. When she didn’t he asked, “Are you… Have you changed your mind?”
It could not have been more clear that this possibility would deeply upset him. Still, he had asked, and Hermione appreciated that. “I… no,” she whispered.
Riddle’s face became serious. “I won’t do anything that you don’t want me to,” he said.
Maybe the craziest thing of all was that she believed him. She believed that this version of Riddle—at least, the version he was showing to her, at this moment—only wanted a willing partner. “I know,” she said. “I… I’m just… surprised. Anxious. I’m…”
Riddle’s face softened slightly. “Afraid,” he finished.
Hermione didn’t nod, but she didn’t deny it.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Riddle moved forward, pushing himself between her legs as he leaned over her. “I may be fearsome, now and especially in the future… but you, darling, have nothing to fear from me.”
The word darling was ringing in her ears when Riddle grabbed her by the waist. He roughly pulled her towards him so that she was lying on her back, no longer against the headboard but flat against the softness of the bed.
He loomed over her. Hermione could see the scar she had inflicted in detail; she could almost make out the prints of her fingers. “I said I would give you the world,” he said. He gently kissed the space between her breasts, that dip of her rib cage, before he sucked on one of her nipples again. “Do you still want it?”
Hermione wove her fingers into his hair. He looked up at her, his black eyes searching for the answer he knew he would receive. She could feel him; he’d shifted his hips so that he was positioned right at her entrance, the tip of his length barely touching her. There was a horrible aching in her body, a painful longing like nothing she’d ever experienced.
“Yes,” she said again.
Riddle caught her mouth with his. Then he pushed himself forward, into her.
Hermione’s hands tightened in his hair, probably painfully, but there was no help for it. She whimpered as he kept going, slowly, stopping only once he was fully inside of her. Riddle broke their kiss and took a steadying breath. He kissed her neck, her cheek, her lips again. He kissed her wherever his lips could reach, clearly giving her some time. She wondered if that was difficult for him.
Then a thought that had somehow never crossed Hermione's mind before this precise moment sprang to life. Riddle was inside of her, inside of her—and she…
Well, in all honesty, she had no idea whether or not she could get pregnant.
Despite having been in the past for months now, she had not had a single period. She’d assumed it was either due to stress—of which she had copious amounts—or something to do with the Time-Turner affecting her body. She was not sure which, and either were likely. She had not placed pursuing her missing menstrual cycle at the top of her priority list, all things considered, and had really been enjoying its absence. That suddenly seemed like a massive lapse of judgment. For all she knew her body had decided to ovulate for the first time in this new era the moment Riddle appeared here in America, and what they were doing was beyond stupid.
She was about to say something about this—though how she would word it exactly, she was unsure—when Riddle reached down with one hand and started gently circling her clit again. The discomfort, the worry, the sudden realizations about what the consequence of sex could be—it was all gone in an instant. Pleasure rolled over her, leaving little room for anything else. Hermione gasped and moaned.
“Fuck,” Riddle swore in a whisper. “You feel…”
She didn’t let him finish his sentence. Hermione moved her hips back, and he instantly moved with her, letting out a hiss of unanticipated pleasure.
Riddle seemed to have decided that speaking was no longer an option—nor was being gentle. He grabbed her with one hand by the throat and pushed her down into the mattress. He drove into her, hard, over and over again, a suddenly forceful rhythm, and this, Hermione thought, was more like how she imagined a young Riddle would fuck someone.
What she hadn’t imagined was how good it might feel.
His hand on her throat was not so tight as to hurt her, but some horrible, depraved part of Hermione’s psyche almost wished it was. His dark eyes were blazing as he looked down at her, thrusting harder and harder, and it felt so fucking good.
Hermione moaned, for already she felt herself getting close. That heat gathering within her was perilous now. “Please, Tom—don’t stop, harder—please—”
Were she not delirious with pleasure, Hermione was certain she would be mortified with what she was saying. She had never cried out like this during sex before—not that she had that many sexual escapades to compare to, but still. A sober Hermione would be horrified at the way she was acting.
That was not the case tonight.
“Yes, ah, Tom—”
Her cries turned into a wordless moan as she edged ever closer. Riddle’s face twisted, almost a frown, and to her intense displeasure, he slowed. His grip on her throat loosened and he looked bizarrely conflicted.
Hermione changed her mind. Fuck trying to save him, she was going to kill him right now.
“No—Tom, please, please, don’t stop, I can’t, I can’t…”
She couldn’t quite reach his waist, so she settled for digging her nails into his thighs. She hoped she dug deep enough to draw blood.
“Hermione.” Riddle spoke her name in a throaty way that he never had before. It sounded desperate. “Hermione, stop—”
“I can’t,” Hermione cried. “I need you.”
She pushed herself up on her elbows, then reached up and snaked her arms around his neck, dragging him down with her. Their lips crashed together and Riddle moaned into her mouth and he blessedly, thankfully started moving again.
Hermione could have cried in relief. He rocked against her, into her, his head falling to the side of hers, pushing into her deeper than before—yes, yes—
Her orgasm crashed over her. She moaned so loudly it was nearly a scream; her nails burning across Riddle’s back. She felt it in her whole body, every muscle tensing, contracting, again and again.
Riddle didn’t stop fucking her the whole time. In fact, he moved even faster, his breathing rough in her ear. He let out a jagged, almost pained groan a moment later. Hermione could feel him spasming, could feel a new rush of heat inside of her as he thrust in deeply, then paused, then buried himself in her again. His hand had found her wrist at some point, and he squeezed it hard. His body tensed. Then, moaning softly, he went limp.
For a few moments he laid against her, his weight shifted to one side so as not to crush her. Hermione listened to his labored breathing, feeling the heat of his breath against her neck. Her own chest was rising and falling quickly, but it was nothing compared to his.
Seconds passed, then minutes. He had not yet looked at her. Hermione’s buzzing mind quieted, and she waited, becoming more and more anxious the longer the silence stretched on. Was she supposed to say something first? She wasn’t sure what words she should even use.
He was still inside of her. Hermione could feel everything.
Finally, after his breathing had returned to normal, Riddle spoke. “I… I have never done that before.”
Hermione was beyond shocked. Was he actually going to try and claim he was a virgin?
“Er… What?”
“That. I… Fuck.”
He turned his face to look at her. His expression was difficult to decipher; he looked almost angry. “I’ve never… I’ve never lost control like that.”
Hermione was still confused. “What do you mean?”
Riddle tilted his hips towards her, reminding her that yes, his cock was still there. As was…
“I’ve never… inside someone before,” he said in a voice so low Hermione could barely hear him, despite how close he was to her. “I… usually have excellent self-control.”
“…Oh,” Hermione said. It was all she could think of.
Riddle’s eyes narrowed into a glare. A lick of fear assaulted her, shooting up her spine. Oh, God—is he going to kill me? Is the fear of possibly producing an unwanted heir so horrible to him that he might get rid of me now?
All the heat that had been coursing through her veins vanished. “You’re angry at me,” she whispered.
“Angry at you? No… You did nothing wrong. In fact, you did too much right.”
He rocked against her hips again. She was feeling so overly sensitive that she almost whimpered. “I’m angry at myself for not having better control,” he said. He kissed her neck. “I’m angry that I allowed your beautiful begging to affect me like that…”
He grazed his lips along the shell of her ear before adding, “But I’m mostly angry because of how fucking good that was, feeling you come undone around me, because of me… making me unable to stop. I’m angry I was powerless to fight the urge to come inside of you, filling you…”
He nipped at her ear, his teeth hurting—but only a little. His hand which was still wound around her wrist tightened. “I’m angry because now that I’ve experienced that, I know I’ll need it again.”
He started kissing her neck, dragging his tongue along her throat. Hermione was blushing so hard she was sure her entire body was scarlet. When he faced her again, his lips hovering over hers, she kissed him as deeply as she had before, because deep down she knew it was true for her as well—she could not imagine a future where this did not happen again.
“This is stupid,” she said once he pulled away. “Extremely stupid.”
“There are ways to be less stupid,."
Hermione frowned. She had no idea what magical birth control looked like in the 1950’s. “And what exactly did you have in mind…?”
“Shh. I’m enjoying this moment.” Tom pushed further into her. “Deeply.”
“You can’t—you can’t just stay in there forever.”
“I can try.”
He grinned devilishly. Hermione laughed despite herself, hating the light, fluttery feeling in her chest. The hand that he’d been holding her wrist with loosened so that their fingers were intertwined. He brought her hand between them, then looked pointedly at her fingers.
No… at her ring.
His eyes flashed to hers. “Show me,” he said. He didn’t need to elaborate.
Hermione’s breath hitched; she felt a lump form in her throat. She swallowed hard, unable to look him in the eye.
If it was just the golden lines, maybe, maybe she would allow him to look. But probably not even then. What if he discovered on his own what had caused them? Then he might figure out her real story, and that she could not allow.
Besides, that was not the only thing removing her ring would reveal…
Mudblood.
No. She could never let him see that. Never.
“Haven’t you gotten enough from me tonight?” Hermione said quietly. She was shocked to find her eyes were brimming with tears. “Haven’t I told you enough for now, revealed enough of myself for now? Must you demand this of me, too?”
She waited, on the verge of trembling again, to see how he would react. He could force it from her—she would be unable to stop him if he wanted to. He was bigger, stronger, and currently on top of her. And that was not even taking into consideration how powerful his magic was, especially while she was under the influence of his runes.
He considered her for a long time. He ran his thumb along the diamond encrusted ring; Hermione’s heart beat madly in her chest.
“I won’t force you to do anything,” he finally murmured. Hermione felt lightheaded with relief. “I apologize. You’re right. You have revealed plenty about yourself for one evening… I have many of my own secrets that you have left to learn, after all. It’s only fair that you hold on to some of yours… for now.”
He let go of her hand, letting it fall to her hair instead. She looked at him; his eyes were nearly kind. “Your true name, your mysterious, golden markings… all stories for another day.”
Hermione nodded. “Stories for another day,” she agreed.
“Because you’ll come back to London.”
She nodded again. “I will.” Then, feeling a little silly even as she said it, she added, “Darling.”
Riddle smiled, seemingly content with that vow. He gently pressed his lips to the skin beneath her eyes, where a few tears must have fallen. He kissed them all away.
Was it real? Or was it all an act?
Riddle raised one hand, and with a rush of magic that was cool and enigmatic, the runes pulsed—once, twice—and then they disappeared in a flash, enveloping them entirely in shadows. Riddle leaned forward and kissed her in the darkness.
Chapter 37: Logic and Guilt
Chapter Text
Hermione was laying in a bed of snow, but she was not cold. That was very odd, she thought, considering that not only was she outside in what was clearly the dead of winter, but she was naked. Hermione stretched her arms out to either side, feeling the softness of the snow but no iciness to accompany it. Odd.
She blinked up into this snowglobe-like world, taking in the landscape above her. Tree branches, long and black and reaching, hovered over her, their bareness twisted against the blank white backdrop of the sky. The snowflakes flitted between the branches, making their way onto her skin and catching on her lashes. Hermione didn’t feel them.
Maybe the issue was that she was actually very cold, she mused, and that was the problem. Perhaps she was so unhealthily chilled that she was numb, and her body knew that not even shivering would help her now. If this is what dying feels like, she thought, it isn’t so bad.
She opened her mouth to catch a snowflake on her tongue. She swallowed the intangible thing, but then felt a lump form in her throat when it should have gone down. She tried clearing her throat; it made it worse. She coughed into her hand.
Petals. Red petals rimmed in gold. Drops of blood splattered her hand too, but she felt no warmth. She dropped her heavy arm back into the snow; the gilded, bloody petals fluttered away.
A crackling sound alerted her. Hermione tried to sit up, but found it was difficult to move. What was that? A fire, perhaps? It sounded like one. She turned her head to one side; yes, a fire. It was roaring and tall. How had she not heard it before? She narrowed her eyes, confused. For a moment she thought she had seen people, shadowy figures on the other side of the flames. But she blinked and they were gone.
Hermione swallowed hard, glad that the lump in her throat was gone now. She felt suddenly very tired; Hermione closed her eyes and sighed.
“No.”
The sounds of the fire stopped.
A deep and desperate voice, barely a whisper, rang somewhere above her. But Hermione could no longer open her eyes to see.
“No. No!”
The denials grew more intense, turning from a dire, repetitive demand into a wordless scream. The cry was echoing, growing somehow louder and softer at the same time, like the source was becoming submerged in water or moving rapidly away from her–or perhaps she from it. Hermione tried to hold on to the sound, to those muffled screams of horror, but they only became more and more distant.
She fell into darkness.
When Hermione first opened her eyes, she was unsure of where she was, or even who she was. She blinked in the dim setting with a rare and blissful sense of blankness enveloping her mind, leaving no space for worry, doubt, or anything else. She was just a breathing being in a warm bed with nothing to fear.
She blinked again, and that temporary respite was gone.
Bloody hell.
Hermione slowly pushed herself up, allowing her eyes to adjust to the semi-dark room she was in. A muggle room in a muggle home that was no longer covered in dark magic and ancient runes and where was Tom?
The night came rushing back to her all at once, and a mixture of panic and nausea broiled in Hermione’s chest. Panic because she couldn’t exactly remember the moment she must have passed out—again—and now found herself seemingly alone and naked in this bedroom; nausea, surely caused by the aforementioned panic and from the painful hangover that was washing over her in sickening waves. Drinking is very stupid, she thought as she forced herself to move quicker despite the feeling of seasickness. Hermione looked around for her discarded dress and found it not tangled in the sheets or in a heap on the floor, but laid out neatly over a chair in the corner. With it were her shoes and the rest of her late-night dancing outfit. Unsure what to think of this—and unwilling to steal a muggle’s clothing—Hermione snatched everything up and got dressed. In everything except her underwear, she realized soon enough. The now open-about-his-title Dark Lord had, it seemed, thought it polite to pick up her discarded clothes, but had not bothered to repair the knickers that he himself had destroyed the night before. Hermione wasn’t sure if she wanted to be annoyed or to laugh when she saw that. Anger felt more fitting, but she found her lips pulling into a grin and her face blushing despite herself. What an absolute arse, she thought, failing to suppress the smile. She shoved her ruined underwear in her pocket for the time being—she would mend them herself later.
Her head suddenly throbbed in an exceptionally painful way, and her smile vanished. Hermione rubbed her temples and glanced towards the door to the bedroom, which was slightly ajar. She didn’t hear anything. Had Riddle just… left her here? The notion made Hermione feel a plethora of conflicting emotions. He wouldn’t have gone through all that to just bed her and disappear, would he?
He is Lord Voldemort, a condescending voice in Hermione’s mind drawled. It reminded her of Draco. This is hardly the worst thing he’s done, don’t you think?
Hermione remembered the Slytherin girls back in London, particularly Alice Parkinson and their conversation at Malfoy Manor. What was it she had said to Hermione, where romance and boys and Tom Riddle were concerned?
You’re nothing special, you know.
You think they're sincere, that they're fawning over you, those boys, don't you?
I am only trying to help you. Woman to woman. Adam is a simple soul, Irving is taken, Abraxas changes his mind all the time, and Tom, well…
You are just entirely wasting your time there.
What if she had been right?
Hermione shook her head and, holding her breath, left the bedroom.
It was still quiet as she descended the staircase to the lower level. Hermione had never felt more on edge; she felt like she was back in the shack in Knockturn Alley. She thought Riddle might leap out at her from around any corner, ready to attack, or worse—that he might not. Her heart pounded and her head swam. I am being ridiculous, she thought, but that did nothing to slow her racing pulse. He’s either here or he’s not, and I don’t have my wand, and if he’d wanted to kill you rather than recruit you he’d have done it by now, so why don’t you just call out his name and ask if he’s there?
It was the logical thing to do, but Hermione couldn’t. Her survival instinct was too strong, it seemed, even hungover. She hugged the wall in the hallway before turning into what she knew was the living room they’d been in the night before. Hermione took a deep breath, then rushed into the room like someone ready for battle.
He wasn’t there.
Hermione exhaled a huge breath, relief followed quickly by disappointment. Had he just left? She was beginning to feel very sorry for herself indeed when she noticed what was on the table.
Hermione ran forward, almost stumbling in her haste to retrieve her wand. She held it close to her chest for a moment before looking down at the notepad that had been left there. A very muggle looking notepad that he must have gotten from a desk here, with a note written on it with what must have been the muggle pen that rested beside it.
Be back soon.
Hermione stared at the short message. How long had he already been gone, she wondered? She turned and caught sight of a clock on the wall; it was only a little after eight in the morning. Where had he gone? What was he doing?
She sighed, knowing she could wonder about that all morning and come up with no definitive answers. She decided to distract herself for a moment by repairing her underwear. She pulled them from her pocket and was just about to cast a quick Reparo when the sound of the front door opening startled her.
Hermione’s body reacted before her mind could—she whipped around, aiming her wand instead towards where she heard the noise. Riddle entered the muggle home to be met with the sight of Hermione’s wand being threateningly pointed at him.
He froze in the doorway. For someone who was also wearing the same clothes as the night before, he looked much more put together than she did, Hermione thought. He was holding a bag in one hand, looking shocked at this most hostile of welcomings. Hermione froze too. She had no idea what she was planning on doing.
“Are you going to curse me?” Riddle said, for Hermione gave no indication that she was going to do anything at all. His lips curved to one side as his dark eyes flashed to her other hand. “Or are you planning on throwing your knickers at me instead?”
Hermione hadn’t realized she was still clutching her underwear in her other hand. Coming back to her senses, she dropped both her arms, blushing furiously. “You scared me,” she said. Riddle came all the way into the house, closing the door behind him. Hermione practically fell into one of the chairs at the table, dropping her knickers there uncaringly. Her head pounded.
“That wasn’t my intention.”
Riddle walked over to her, setting the bag he’d brought down on the table. He surprised her when he knelt down in front of her, bringing his face close to hers. “Nor was it ever my intention,” he murmured.
His black-hole eyes were boring into hers, deep and damning. He lightly touched her chin. Hermione stopped breathing, certain that he was about to kiss her.
He pulled away and stood. “I brought you something,” he said, motioning towards the bag.
“Oh?” Hermione said, eyeing it skeptically. She held up her tattered underwear. “Is it a replacement pair?”
“If only I were so romantic. It’s a potion. Here, take it. You’ll want it.”
He opened the bag and handed something to her; she accepted it with no small amount of hesitation. It was indeed a vial of some kind of potion, something light purple and bubbly. “What is this?”
“The closest thing to a hangover cure modern magic has come up with. I thought you might want it.”
Hermione was baffled by this for more than one reason. “Wait—are you telling me you found a magical apothecary around here already?”
“I have.” Riddle’s eyes narrowed at her clearly surprised expression. “I know how to find magical establishments in new places on my own, Hermione. I’m not a fool.”
Hermione shook her head. Of course he did. He was Tom Riddle; he had demanded to be allowed to go to Diagon Alley alone at the age of eleven. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m just surprised, is all. And a hangover cure?”
“Not exactly. Somehow, not even the most brilliant of magical minds have accomplished that. But it will vanquish even the nastiest of headaches and replenish lost fluids. It works quite well, trust me.”
The words trust me had Hermione hesitating more than ever. Riddle waited, watching her hold the vial with uncertainty. He looked like he might roll his eyes at her, if he were the sort of person to make such trite gestures.
“Here.”
Riddle took the vial from her hand. He popped off the cork, then took a small sip of the potion himself. He handed it back to her. “I did not have sex with you last night,” he said, looking straight into her eyes.
Hermione’s whole face surely showed her shock at that declaration, because Riddle laughed. “What?” she balked.
“I just spoke a very deliberate lie so you would know I didn’t spike this with veritaserum in some fresh new attempt to force you to tell me your true name. Or any kind of poison, for that matter—as you can see, I’m still alive and well. But you should never have to worry about that, Hermione. I promise you, no matter what happens, I would never attempt to poison you. It’s simply… not my style.”
He forced the vial into her hand. “Drink it,” he commanded. “You’ll feel better.”
Hermione frowned with the vial held carefully between two fingers. “Some people are skilled enough in the mind arts that they can fight the effects of veritaserum,” she murmured, like some over-educated, stubborn child who didn’t want to admit they were ever in the wrong. But he had convinced her anyway, because he was right—poisoning for any reason was not Tom Riddle’s style.
No, Lord Voldmeort liked to get his answers through Legilimancy and torture… and he liked to kill while watching the light fade from his opponent’s eyes.
Hermione drank the potion. It tasted like syrup and lilac, not at all unpleasant. The moment she swallowed it, she felt a rush of coolness wash over her skin, a bit like a disillusionment charm. When it reached her head, she felt instant relief. The pounding she’d been experiencing was gone, and a deep pain that she hadn’t realized was quite so horrible vanished in an instant.
Riddle smiled down at her knowingly. “Better?”
Hermione wasn’t sure why she was glaring at him. “Much,” she admitted.
Riddle laughed again. “Why, you are so very welcome,” he said, taking the empty vial from her. “Once again, I’ll be sure to remember your deeply charming gratitude the next time I consider doing something nice for you.”
Hermione’s face warmed. “Thank you,” she said. “It was very sweet of you to go out and get that for me… despite leaving my underwear shredded, something which would have taken you two seconds to fix before you left me alone in this no-maj house.”
“And deprive you of the opportunity to remember exactly how they got that way?”
Riddle grabbed her by the wrists, pulling her up so that Hermione nearly toppled over. He was right—the potion hadn’t completely eliminated the effects of too much drinking; she still felt cloudy-minded and off-kilter. And now flustered, as he pulled her to his chest in a way that reminded her of their dance the night before. “I could remind you in other ways, if you’d like,” he murmured in her ear.
And just like that, he was kissing her neck, ravaging her throat with his tongue like he had the night before. Hermione’s fingers were in his hair before she knew what she was doing, His hands glided up beneath her skirt where they both knew she had nothing else on.
“Tom—Tom,” she said urgently. He stopped and looked at her. “I—we c-can’t,” she stammered. “We just talked about how this was stupid and risky and…”
Riddle turned his attention back to her ear. “I got more than a simple headache cure at the apothecary,” he murmured, biting her ear between words. “For the next twelve hours, that’s no longer a concern.”
He drew away enough to look her in the eye, where he now wore a serious expression. “Trust me when I say I have no interest whatsoever in having children.”
Hermione could have guessed as much. She imagined Lord Voldemort quite liked being the only heir of Slytherin, and had no desire at all to see that title passed on or shared.
“I… you went out and got a male infertility potion?”
“Clearly.”
“And you already took it?”
His lips grazed her neck again. Well, that answered her question on magical contraception in this day and age. Evidently, it was much more advanced than anything the muggles were using, even in the 1950’s.
“Clearly,” Riddle repeated, then started kissing her throat again.
Hermione frowned, her annoyance overriding every trace of desire. “Stop,” she said. She pushed against his chest. Frowning down at her, he did. “First of all, that’s a bit presumptuous, don’t you think?” she asked. She crossed her arms over her chest, mustering up all the dignity that she could. “Just because… Last night was… it was whatever it was. But it doesn’t mean anything, not necessarily.”
Riddle looked confused. Hermione wondered whether any woman had ever treated him like this after sharing a bed with him. Based on his expression, surely not.
It was a confusion that was quickly slipping into something darker. “Are you telling me you’ve changed your mind?” he asked quietly. “You’re no longer interested in coming back to London?”
“I never said that. Don’t be so dramatic,” Hermione said. “But just because we had… just because we did what we did once doesn’t mean that I’m interested in doing that all the time, whenever you want. Despite what happened, I’m not usually that sort of woman.”
Riddle looked like he was torn between finding her amusing or not. “And what sort of woman is that?”
“The kind who gets very drunk and has flings with brooding yet charismatic dark, young wizards.”
“Brooding?” Riddle looked purely annoyed now. “A fling? Is that what you think that was?”
“Well… yes, wasn’t it?” Hermione asked. “I imagine this is the sort of thing you do all the time.” Alice Parkinson’s condescending voice was still ringing in the back of her head. She did not want to be just another of Riddle’s easily won conquests that he could count on whenever he wanted. She wouldn’t.
Riddle’s face twisted into some other kind of emotion at that. Then he glared. “How harshly you judge me,” he said, his voice turning perilous.
Hermione hadn’t expected him to get so angry. She fought back her nerves. “I’m not judging,” she said.
“You think I’m a whore.”
Hermione stared. In another world, she might have found such a statement from him funny. But his glare left no room for humor.
“Despite the fact that you may have seen some abstract, strange future where I am quite different than I am now, you are making some wildly unfair assumptions about me,” Riddle seethed. “Something you have done from the moment you met me. The possible future is not the unequivocal now. You assume that I am, right now, evil and emotionless, that I am incapable of truly caring for anyone else. That I am dangerous and could turn on you or anyone I claim to care for in a moment—which is to say I never cared at all, of course.”
He moved closer to her, looming and radiating a deep rage. “You think I fuck people and leave them and enjoy that they’ve been hurt. You think I’ll do that to you, despite everything I’ve said and done so far. Despite all evidence to the contrary.”
Hermione didn’t know what to say. He was right. That was what she thought.
Because it was impossible, wasn’t it? She could not get the vision of an older, crazed Lord Voldemort out of her head… the wizard that this person before her had not yet become. Was, in fact, many decades from becoming.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said.
Hermione couldn’t. “You’re not wrong,” she answered weakly. “I… I just assumed that’s what you were like. That the sorts of things you’ve said to me… that you say those things to everyone you’re even mildly interested in.” She swallowed hard. “I got the impression that you are very good at making every individual feel special.”
He didn’t flinch. “In order to get what I want?”
“Er… yes.”
His mouth curved into a smile. “Well. You’re not entirely wrong about that,” he admitted. “I am very good at making people feel worthy when they are; I have a talent for seeing potential. But that doesn’t mean I’m insincere. I’ve meant every word I’ve said to you. Do you really think I would hunt you down in another country if you weren’t special, Hermione? If I just wanted to fuck someone, I could have done that back in London easily enough.”
Hermione grimaced. “I sort of assumed you were doing that,” she murmured.
“Despite how smart you sometimes are… You really might be the stupidest witch I’ve ever met.” He sighed heavily, like it pained him when he touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. “How tragic for me that you’ve managed to catch and keep my interest regardless.”
His eyes were smoldering now, no longer hostile in any way. “I don’t blame you for your apprehension,” he said. “And you’re right—I was being presumptuous. I did assume I would come back here and have you again. I apologize. After last night, I did not consider that you might not be interested. That was arrogant of me.”
Hermione’s heart started racing. She once more found herself asking the question that plagued her every time she interacted with Riddle.
Was this all an act?
It was so impossible to tell! Was he just pretending to be humble now, or did he really mean it? Was all of this, every word, a facade to further gain her trust?
Or was she, Hermione, really being unfairly judgmental?
“Apology accepted,” Hermione said. She caught his hand in hers and pulled it away from her face. “I’ll be clear, then. I am interested in coming back to London with you and hearing what you have to say. Changing the world sounds fascinating, and based on what I’ve seen of you in the future, you’re going to need help to be less… destructive. So I’ll come. However.”
She released his hand. “I’m not interested in continuing any sort of… to carry on with that, with you. We can’t do that again.”
His face was blank now, unreadable. “You mean… a physical relationship?”
Hermione’s face was burning, but she nodded. “Yes.”
There was a lengthy, heavy pause. “…Fine,” he eventually said. She couldn’t tell what he was feeling.
“You’ll respect that decision?” Hermione pressed. “You won’t pressure me in any way, and you won’t interfere with whatever I decide to do with my personal life?”
He hesitated again, but this time only barely. “Of course,” he murmured.
Hermione exhaled a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness,” she said. She rushed towards him and threw her arms around his neck. “I just needed to hear that.”
For the second time, Riddle looked entirely baffled when Hermione kissed him, hard. His body was rigid for only a moment; a second later he was returning her kiss with equal passion. A moment after that, he was pushing her away.
“Wait,” he said harshly. His face was flushed and his hair tousled, but he looked more annoyed than ever. “What was all that? Were you testing me, Hermione?”
“Yes,” Hermione said, unabashed. “Yes I was.”
“You were testing me?”
“That is what I was doing.”
“After I’ve repeatedly told you I’ve done nothing to warrant such treatment—while you, however, have lied, run away, lied some more, and made massively unfair judgments?”
You have no idea the lies I’ve told, Hermione thought darkly. Guilt stirred in her chest. “Er… yes?”
He glowered at her. Riddle shifted closer, then grabbed her quickly by her wrist where she still held her wand. “I do not like tests,” he hissed.
“Really?” Hermione asked, her heart fluttering with nerves. She grinned nervously. “I love tests. I’m excellent at passing them.”
Riddle’s lips twitched, like he had needed to suppress a smile of his own. “This is not funny, Hermione.”
Her smile fell. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just… needed to hear that I’m more than just somebody for you to… well, you know.”
“You can’t even say it,” he drawled. “That you’re more than a good fuck?”
The abrasiveness of it made Hermione wince and blush at the same time. Unable to respond, she nodded shortly.
“Well, perhaps I’m no longer interested,” he said softly. “I do not give any part of myself lightly. Not my affection, not my loyalty, nothing. Just as I don’t expect anything less from those I keep close to me. So if this is merely a game to you— fucking Lord Voldemort and seeing what you can get away with—then you are right. You’d best quit while you’re ahead.”
Hermione half expected his eyes to flash red again. She was relieved that they did not, but his expression was still lethal enough to make her skin break out into goosebumps. Tom Riddle had somehow managed to make her feel bad for being extra wary of him—guilty and terrified simultaneously.
But was it real?
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “This isn’t a game. Not at all. I…”
He stared, eyes narrowed, waiting.
“The truth is that I’ve grown quite fond of you, Tom,” she said in the softest voice—and as she was saying it, realizing how unfortunately true it was. “Shit,” she swore. Her eyes fell to the floor. “I have. I’ve had a hard time getting you out of my head the whole time I’ve been gone. I only recently accepted that I would probably never see you again, that you didn’t care for me at all, and then you showed up, and… And it’s thrown everything off.”
She looked back up at him. “I want so badly to believe you,” she whispered. “I want… I want to help you, Tom.” She swallowed hard, an absurd emotion bubbling in her chest. I want to save you, she thought but couldn’t say.
Riddle’s grip on her wrist loosened. “Then believe me,” he said. He pushed her loose hair away from her face. “And help me.” He leaned down, his lips much closer to hers.
“It will take time,” she said. Hermione tilted her chin up towards him. “Learning to trust you. To believe you.”
“Time that I’m willing to give you.” One of his hands fell to the curve of her neck while the other rested on her waist. “A gift that should be quite meaningful… after all, what do we have that is more precious than time?”
Hermione nearly smiled, remembering the way in which she wrote those very words herself in a letter to Riddle. It felt like so long ago that she had done that… but of course Riddle remembered everything.
When he kissed her, it was soft and sweet. Despite every instinct in her body telling her to keep going, to deepen their kiss, Hermione pulled away.
“Not here,” she said. “I know you’ve made this your temporary home while abroad, but I can’t say I love the idea of continuing to stay in this no-maj house.” She pulled her skirt down firmly. “I much prefer my place.”
Riddle tilted his head to one side, smiling slightly. “Am I being invited to the home of a single, affluent witch?”
“You are,” Hermione said. “But not right at this moment. I need some time to, er… clean.”
A blatant lie, and one that Riddle seemed to recognize. Her loft was very clean; the charms saw to that. What I really need is time to thoroughly hide my mokeskin bag with your diary in it, she thought, averting her eyes as she did. And prepare in a few other ways that she did not want Tom Riddle knowing about. This could be her last chance before she set out to return to London with him.
Not to mention, despite Riddle deciding to take a temporary infertility potion this morning, it did not undo what they’d done last night. It would be wise to stop by the apothecary herself, she mused, even if it was unlikely she could conceive with whatever the time-turner was doing to her.
Hermione forced that notion aside. As always, that was a mystery to solve another day.
“Clean?” Riddle asked. “You don’t strike me as the type of person who would be messy. What, no house-elf?”
“No house-elf.”
“Thank fucking Salazar.”
Hermione laughed at his unexpected swearing. “But yes, I want to clean. The life of a single witch, you know; I have lingerie and empty champagne bottles and glasses strewn about everywhere, it’s most embarrassing. That and I’d like to write to my aunt without that shop boy looming over my shoulder.”
“Is that shop boy going to be mentioned in this letter, then? Or will you be suggesting someone else has caught your interest instead again?”
Hermione smiled at him ruefully. “I think that’s a lesson I only need to learn once,” she mumbled. “So yes, I suppose you will.”
“Fine,” Riddle said. “And just how long will you need to write and clean and whatever else you feel the need to do before I see your home?”
“Give me a couple hours,” she said. “Meet me at a coffee shop at noon. It’s called The Rosebush, it’s in Times Square. Right next to a no-maj flower shop off Broadway. I’m sure you’ll find it easily enough. We can go to my place from there.”
Hermione briskly walked towards the front door, before Riddle could say or do something to change her mind and make her want to linger in this hijacked brownstone too long. She stopped before she reached the door. “I trust you’ll have no problem entertaining yourself in the city for a few hours?”
“None at all,” Riddle said, and Hermione believed him. With his knack for sussing out magical places, she was certain he would find something fascinating that not even she knew about in New York. Knowing him, it would probably be dark and dangerous, and maybe she shouldn’t leave him to his own devices here after all, Hermione thought.
But there was no help for that. She needed the time to prepare before he knew where she lived. “Great,” she said. “Then I will see you at noon.”
She turned to leave, but Riddle let out a sharp whistle before she could step though the doorway. She turned around.
“You forgot something.”
He tossed her torn knickers at her; Hermione, who was, admittedly, no athlete, did not catch them. Blushing deeply, she bent down and picked them up. “Reparo,” she said in a scathing tone. They instantly mended, and Hermione, only slightly struggling in her heels, managed to put them on without flashing the young Dark Lord who was watching with keen interest.
“Thanks so much,” Hermione muttered.
She turned and left, the familiar sound of Riddle’s dark laughter following her out.
Once Hermione made it home, she did not waste any time. The first thing she did was consider the worst that could happen when she left for London, and made a plan for that.
The worst case scenario she could imagine was, naturally, everything falling to pieces while she was no longer in America—her fake identity finally self-imploding and someone from the MACUSA suspecting she was a criminal. If that happened, her lavish new home could be in jeopardy—as well as everything else, she realized—so she needed to plan as though her loft would not be a safe haven forever.
This meant doing more than moving the horcrux elsewhere. Enough gold can work miracles, Granger. Draco’s voice echoed in the back of her mind, imparting a great deal of wisdom. God, she hoped he was all right in the world she had left him behind in.
But that world is not mine any longer, and I need to focus, Hermione berated herself.
Gold.
Hermione hid loads of it in no less than three more mokeskin bags she quickly went out and purchased, all located in different locations outside of the city that she would never share with another living soul. After casting some extremely intricate security measures, she deemed them safe enough from thievery. It was unfortunate that she needed to leave them in America, but time was of the essence, and besides, she would take plenty more of her gold with her when she left. It was worth the effort to have several places where she knew she could get to funds if needed. It gave her some peace of mind knowing that she had a virtually untouchable stash of money far from anyone’s reach.
Then, the horcux.
Hermione agonized over what she should do with it. Keeping something so precious here in another country while she was gone was simply out of the question. Hermione resigned herself to packing it now so that she could take it with her, but spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to disguise it in case Riddle somehow came upon it. Being a horcrux, the diary was impervious to nearly all magic—she could not change its color, size, nor anything else about it. In the end, she’d needed to resort to non-magical measures. Hermione went out and purchased a no-maj book cover that she was able to slide over the black leather, effectively turning Riddle’s dark, enigmatic looking diary into one that was mauve and much more feminine. Her new journal, she would explain, should he ever have any reason to find it and flip through it before she could secure a new hiding place for it. He would have no reason not to believe her; the pages were, of course, blank until written in.
Hermione packed it in one of her nice purses. It was a bag that, when they left, she would not need to explain not shrinking it the same way she would luggage or something more substantial and burdensome. She would simply sling the fashionable and sensibly sized purse over her shoulder and they would go back to London together… all three of them.
Then there was her letter to Hepzibah.
Hermione agonized over it. What should she say to her Auntie who would, of course, be very suspicious of her sudden return to London? Hermione had been keeping in touch with her, after all; she’d told her she was going to take the Auror test and was considering becoming an Oculus (to which Hepzibah had said, ‘so very adventurous, just like your mother!’), so she would no doubt think it was very odd for her to turn around and head back to England again so quickly. She considered not telling her at all, but that felt like a poor decision. Hepzibah would be very upset if she somehow found out her niece was in London without telling her.
Hermione had decided to keep the letter vague. I’m coming back to London after all, she’d written. I’ll visit when I arrive and explain. I’m happy to make arrangements to stay at an Inn in Diagon Alley or elsewhere when I arrive; I never wish to be a burden to you. But I look forward to talking in person once more.
She doubted Hepzibah would want her to stay anywhere else, but Hermione thought she might like some independence this time around. She wasn’t sure; she could decide that later, she supposed. After all, she had the money to stay wherever she liked.
Miracles, echoed Draco’s voice. Hermione smiled as she slipped the letter into her pocket; she would drop it off at the Magical International Floo and Owlery (a place Hermione had found absurd before; why on earth didn’t wizards and witches who wanted to communicate long-distance just speak via the floo directly? But many people, including herself, still preferred communicating by letters rather than sticking their heads in fireplaces and chatting, and so there was a system in place to send owls via the floo network instead) on her way to meeting Riddle.
Before she left, with just a half of an hour remaining before noon, Hermione did a quick sweep of her loft and garden. Was there anything here that she did not want Riddle to see? She did not think so, but she wanted to be sure. As she went from room to room, she tried to see it through Riddle’s eyes.
Am I being invited to the home of a single, affluent witch?
He had seemed genuinely curious and a bit excited when he’d asked, which made Hermione wonder if he’d ever been invited into a single witch’s home. That seemed a bit preposterous at first, but the longer Hermione dwelled on it, the more she thought that, perhaps, it wasn’t.
Hermione carefully examined her lavish loft, and as she did, she pondered the life of a young and maturing Tom Riddle—because he was right; the possible future was not the unequivocal now, and it was certainly not the past. If she really wanted to save him rather than kill him, Hermione needed to start seeing him for what he was, here and now.
Riddle was an orphan who later attended Hogwarts with little money and no meaningful last name to protect him when he was sorted into Slytherin. While everyone had known he was an orphan—it was one of the many things about him that endeared him to all the faculty—they did not know he was the heir of Slytherin himself. Hermione knew he kept that a fairly guarded secret; she imagined he kept it from everyone except his inner circle.
Which meant he probably didn’t share it with any girls, as her experience in London told her that none of those witches were currently in that inner circle.
Which meant that the sort of girls in Slytherin—the ones with impressive names and backgrounds—may not have looked at Tom Riddle all too seriously as someone they would want to date. Wouldn’t most pureblood fanatic parents be appalled if their daughter became romantically entangled with some poor orphan boy who was a half-blood at best?
Hermione paused for a moment in her living room, where the painting of the garden and the little girl was hung. Over and over again the girl cast her magic on the roses, either killing them or saving them. Well, Hermione mused, just because they may not want to bring someone like Riddle home to their parents didn’t mean they wouldn’t have been interested. The women at Malfoy manor were practically fawning over him, and Hermione imagined that sort of attraction must have begun in his school days. Riddle had been an attractive teenager.
So what did that make his lovelife experience, then? The cute, smart orphan boy that Slytherin girls (and everyone else) surely wanted to snog but not publicly date, because at the end of the day, no matter how charming and handsome he was, he was a poor nobody?
Oh hell, Hermione thought. Guilt once more rolled over her. That was exactly what she’d done to him. She’d lied to Hepzibah because she knew not even she would approve of some shop boy working in Knockturn Alley.
Was that what his life had been like? If so, it was no wonder he was so bitter. Hermione couldn’t imagine being in Slytherin, wanting so badly to be one of them, the supposedly superior purebloods… and to be reminded constantly that you were not, and never would be.
Thank God I was in Gryffindor.
Then again, she could be completely wrong. Maybe those girls didn’t care at all about his name and wealth, and they liked him just fine—maybe it really was Riddle who cast them aside flippantly. Wasting their time, as Parkinson had said. Or maybe she was even more wrong than all that, and he’d actually had a number of meaningful relationships. How could she know? She wasn’t sure if she could trust him to answer her honestly.
Hermione actually slapped herself on the forehead as the epiphany came to her. Well, I could just ask him, couldn’t I?
The diary.
She had, in her possession, the teenage Dark Lord himself! She could demand that he speak to her again—and he would—and why wouldn’t he tell her the truth? She could destroy him at any moment. His only chance at surviving was helping her to, well, help himself. His future self, or however one wanted to look at it. And he would need to be honest, because if he wasn’t, and Hermione was unable to really change the trajectory of the current Dark Lord… the diary would die, too.
If Tom Riddle had one trait that he shared at every point in his life, it was his sense of self-preservation.
Only, there was no time to have such a discussion right now. It was nearly noon, and she had to leave, now. Vowing to one day soon have a chat with the diary, Hermione left her loft and headed towards The Rosebush with no time to waste. She smiled as she made her way there, weaving through the crowd of Times Square.
No time to waste indeed, she thought to herself with amusement. After all, what do we have that is more precious than time?
Chapter 38: A Darkness
Chapter Text
Hermione made her way swiftly through Times Square, cutting through the crowd with a deftness that she had honed well over the past few months. She soon came upon the familiar entrance of The Rosebush, and once there she spotted Riddle right away. He would have been impossible to miss regardless—most tall, attractive men were—but everything about him was magnetic. He was leaning against the counter, a coffee in his hand, the visual of a variety of flowers from the no-maj shop in the background framing him. On the other side of the counter was Amy the barista, who seemed glad indeed to not have a line of customers at the moment so that she could chat with this handsome young gentleman. Riddle was speaking to her in a low voice, grinning politely as he did.
Hermione fixed a smile on her face and approached them, only to hesitate when she was close. It also became clear that Riddle had taken some time after her departure to clean himself up—he was obviously showered and cleanly shaven and had even changed his robes, looking fresh and polished. He wore a deep green tie over his buttoned-up shirt, and his long, outer robes and black coat were clean and wrinkle-free.
Hermione had barely had the headspace to think about personal hygiene after she’d left; she’d been hiding gold in secret locations and then cursing it, disguising a horcrux and scrutinizing her loft. Her own shower had been a rapid rinsing of her body without washing her hair, because it just took too long to dry and she couldn’t be bothered. She probably wouldn’t have thought to brush her teeth if her parents hadn’t forced the habit so deeply from the time she was a child.
That was probably a mistake, Hermione thought shrewdly as she waved to Riddle. At least she had changed her clothes into something more sensible if not outwardly very fashionable. “Tom,” she called, and Riddle turned to face her. He smiled as she came to the counter. Amy did not, instead fixing her with a sour look that seemed to say ‘Oh. You again.’
“Hermione,” Riddle said. “Right on time. I was just telling my new acquaintance here—Amy, correct?—that I was waiting on someone, and I dearly hoped they weren’t standing me up.”
“I’d never,” Hermione said. She smiled at Amy, who gave her a thin smile of her own in return. “I wouldn’t mind a caffeinated drink myself,” Hermione went on. “Could I get—?”
“Hermione?”
Hermione turned at the sound of the familiar voice. Sure enough, Walter had just arrived, looking surprised to see her. When his eyes flickered to Riddle, they looked less surprised.
“Walt!” Hermione shouted. “Er–hello!”
Walter made a beeline for her and Riddle. “Hello to you,” he said when he was near. “I’d ask where you disappeared to last night, but I daresay I know the answer.” He turned his attention to Riddle and smirked. “Nice to see you again, Tom.”
“You as well, Walter,” Riddle said, nodding politely towards him. “Can I offer to get you both something to drink?”
“Positively charming offer, but no,” Walter said. “In fact, you should both leave immediately. Get out of here. Right now.”
Hermione looked at him in surprise. “Excuse me?” she said. “We just got here, and I—”
“Liam is on his way here and will be here any moment!” Walter shouted. “Do you really want to deal with him? What, don’t look so shocked, Herm, this is our coffee shop—of course he’s coming—so you should go!”
Riddle scoffed, causing Hermione to look up at him. He seemed annoyed, certainly, and why wouldn’t he? Hermione was sure Lord Voldemort didn’t appreciate being told to run away from some American wizard he barely knew.
“Well aren’t you popular,” Amy murmured. Hermione had forgotten she was there, leaning over the counter. “Just let me know if anyone wants to order anything. And try not to start a fight in my shop—it’s annoying.”
She sauntered off, leaving Walter to look pleadingly at Hermione and Riddle.
“I see no reason why we can’t all exist in the same public space,” Riddle said coolly.
But Hermione understood. It wasn’t worth an awkward or potentially disastrous situation. It wouldn’t be hard to deduce that they had spent the night together, and if Liam was nursing some repressed feelings for Hermione, this wouldn’t go over well. “Let’s go,” Hermione said. Riddle’s eyes narrowed on her. “Please?” she said. “I don’t want to deal with this right now.”
Riddle looked back and forth between her and Walter, then sighed in great annoyance. “Fine,” he said. “But it’s a bit childish—”
“Ah! Shut up and go, go!” Walter shouted, for he had just turned to see what Hermione saw as well—Liam was outside, walking briskly towards the front door, visible through the windows as he went but not yet inside and aware that they were there.
The sudden urge to flee gripped Hermione, perhaps too tightly. She grabbed Riddle’s forearm and pulled him as hard as she could, yanking him along with her towards the flower shop where they could escape through a different exit. “Come on!” she hissed, rushing as though they were running away from a deadly creature rather than a potentially jealous man who was supposedly her friend. “Hurry!”
Riddle resisted for a moment, then decided to oblige her. He allowed her to pull him along, dashing through the flower shop and nearly knocking over several no-maj patrons as they went. They turned and ran outside, and Hermione continued to run afterwards, not stopping until they made it to the end of the block and were around the corner, out of sight.
By the time she finally slowed, she was laughing in a breathless way. “I’m sorry,” she said, grinning and breathing hard. “I’m sorry! I don’t know what came over me.”
Riddle didn’t seem nearly as out of breath as she was. He looked both annoyed and amused as he looked at her, shaking his head. “That ashamed to be seen with me?”
“Oh shush,” Hermione said. “You know that was a special circumstance.”
“Because he would be jealous.”
“Er… maybe.”
“But you’re not involved with him.”
“No, I’m not. We’re just friends.”
“He seems like an excellent friend, if you feel the need to run away from him.”
“I’ve felt the need to run from you plenty of times.”
“I never said I was your friend.”
Riddle grabbed her by the waist with one arm, then stopped short with his other. His expression changed, like he was conflicted, and then he let her go. “I have a confession,” he said. He looked around the busy street where people walked all around them. “But I’d rather not show you here.”
Hermione’s brows raised with intrigue. “Show me?” she asked. Riddle didn’t elaborate. “Okay, then… this way. My place isn’t far from here.”
She led him the short distance to her building, anxious the whole time—what was he about to confess? Had he somehow done something to Liam in that very short window of time? How?
He didn’t say anything until she led him through the foyer and into the private magical elevator that the no-majes could not see. His expression showed his approval at the impressive magic involved, but he didn’t comment on it. The second the doors to the elevator closed, Hermione spoke.
“What did you do?” she asked. Over the course of what was barely a five minute walk, she had considered only worse and worse scenarios. If they had needed to go much further, she might have convinced herself that Liam was already dead and Riddle had somehow done it.
Slowly, almost sheepishly. Riddle reached into his pocket. Hermione expected him to pull out his wand, but instead he revealed what appeared to be… nothing. He held out his palm and there was nothing in it, until his eyes narrowed and a wave of wandless magic stirred the air. Then Hermione was able to see a…
“Is that… a tiny bouquet?”
It was a tiny bouquet. Several dozen, red roses that would be perfect for a doll rested on his palm. Hermione stared at him, very confused.
“Currently tiny,” Riddle murmured. He wasn’t looking at her, and seemed, in fact, somehow embarrassed. He did pull out his wand then, then cast a wordless charm over it, reminding Hermione of the day he had come calling to Hepzibah’s home trying to sell her a candelabra. Just as the goblin-made item had then, the bouquet began to enlarge, until moments later it was a full size, giant bouquet of roses and baby’s breath that nearly required both of his hands to hold onto.
Hermione continued to look baffled as Riddle’s expression grew more uncomfortable. “Tom… why…?”
“I… might have accidentally stolen this,” he said. His eyes flashed to hers, and Hermione was surprised to see his cheeks coloring slightly. Riddle looked away, his expression conflicted. It was astonishing to witness—Hermione would not have thought Riddle capable of being embarrassed.
“I had a very… unconventional and what some may say was a depressing childhood,” he said, still looking away from her. “I… might have developed some unfortunate habits when I was young.”
Hermione took a moment to respond, reminding herself that she was not supposed to know all about his childhood trauma. “You’re saying you’re a thief?”
“Was a thief,” Riddle corrected, frowning. He inhaled a deep breath, like admitting this to her was painful. “Or so I thought. I was raised in an orphanage. I had no name and no money. I developed the horrible habit of stealing when I was quite young… usually books.”
He looked a little sheepish, then. Hermione noted that, although he had admitted to being raised in an orphanage, he had not yet said it was a muggle one. “Oh, Tom,” she said. Hermione hesitated, unsure if she was supposed to hug him or not. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I can’t imagine.”
He gave a slight shrug, adjusting the massive bouquet of roses in his hands. “It could have been much worse. I have plenty of opportunities now, and perhaps I only appreciate them because of my upbringing. This, however…” He lifted the roses, his lips curving as he shook his head. “This is shocking even to me. I did it entirely without thinking. I swear, I haven’t stolen anything in years.”
Hermione allowed herself to grin, too. In another world, the next things he would have stolen would have been a locket and a cup. In this one, it was roses. “I’m honestly more impressed than anything,” she said, and she meant it. “How did you even do that? I didn’t notice anything.”
“The rapid, thoughtless decision to take something and two very quick, wandless charms to conceal and shrink them,” Riddle said simply. “Nothing that impressive. I’m more concerned with myself that I did it. I suppose I was triggered by the sudden need to run out of a shop.”
Hermione couldn’t help the nervous laugh she let out. “Oh, no, Tom,” she said. “I’m sorry. This is my fault! We really didn’t need to run away from Liam like that. I think that was my own anxiety being triggered… Being told we had to get out because someone was coming made me panic when there wasn’t actually any danger at all.”
Riddle’s eyes narrowed on her slightly. “That is another odd thing about you,” he murmured. “You sometimes react like someone who’s been through horrible trauma. Like war.”
Hermione felt the blood drain from her face. She swallowed hard. “Yes, well,” she said, “sometimes I feel like I have been. Visions may not be real, but they certainly feel like it.”
Riddle did not say anything to that. He stared at her as Hermione stared at the ground, hoping he would eventually say he understood and believed her.
“Here,” he finally said. “I know you’re not the sort of witch who cares about such things, and it’s probably worse, knowing I just stole them from a muggle shop while running away with you, but… I suppose I got them for you.”
He pushed the huge bouquet into her hands. Hermione’s laugh was strained as she took them; when she looked up at Riddle, he was smiling his usual, charming smile once more.
“How romantic,” Hermione said. “Thank you. Oh, goodness, we’ve just been sitting in this elevator—here, let’s go up already—”
She turned and pressed the button that would lead to her loft. The elevator lurched to life at once, and within seconds they arrived, the doors sliding open as a little bell dinged.
“Wow.”
Hermione supposed it was… impressive. She found herself feeling embarrassed as she led him into her American home, which was ostentatious, overly lavish, and nothing at all like the old manors Riddle had frequented that his followers lived in. Hermione’s loft was (in this time) very modern, comparatively sleek, and missing all of the garish decorations that Hepzibah’s home had or that graced Malfoy manor. There were no moving portraits of dead ancestors proving blood lineage or old tapestries or goblin-wrought decorations dating back to the 15th century.
In fact, there was only one overly intricate decoration that Hermione had hung on her living room wall–the painting of the girl in the rose garden. Aside from that cyclical movement, her loft was a pristine picture of modern magical living in 1950’s America.
Extremely rich, modern magical living, at any rate. Riddle was surely expecting that, but he still looked surprised.
“I recently moved in, actually,” Hermione said. Riddle followed her inside cautiously as he took in his surroundings. The elevator door closed behind them, looking like an ordinary closed door after it did. “Decided that a new place would be nice upon my return… feels like perhaps I should have waited to find a new home, now, if I’m just going to be returning to London.”
“I can see why you wouldn’t want to leave,” Riddle murmured. He pulled his coat off. “I feel like I shouldn’t even think of wearing shoes in a place like this. It’s impeccably clean. You said you don’t have a house-elf? Are you certain you actually live here?”
“Yes, and no, no elf,” Hermione said. “I’m capable of cleaning up after myself.”
“Of course you are.” Riddle had only just taken off his coat when a charm was activated—it was lifted from his hands at once and hung neatly on the coat rack by the door.
He looked surprised by this for only a moment. He then cast Hermione a knowing look. “This place is saturated in magic meant to keep it clean, isn’t it,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Hermione pulled her own coat off. “It might be,” she murmured. When she released it, it floated away, joining Riddle’s on the rack.
Rather than look judgmental, Riddle seemed delighted. His face lit up in interest as he stared at her home with far more excitement. “I knew I felt something,” he said. “Magic is just humming in the air here. I’ve never bothered with those sorts of permanent charms; they’re terribly difficult to impose on physical spaces for prolonged periods of time. I can’t imagine how tricky it was to create long-lasting ones… How did you do it?”
“Er,” Hermione said. She felt herself blushing. “I didn’t. Sort of came with the property.”
“Ah.” Riddle’s face fell in disappointment. “Of course. You accomplished it through one of the most magical things in the world.” He nearly sighed as he looked not at her but at her beautiful surroundings.
“Gold.”
Hermione tried not to smile. Draco Malfoy would have said the very same thing.
“Yes, I suppose,” Hermione said. She slipped her shoes off, which also moved at once to the closet containing her shoe rack. Riddle followed suit. “But some things are worth spending the money on, if you have it, don’t you think?”
She pulled out her wand, flicking it towards a cabinet where glassware was kept. A vase came floating over to her. She took it and the roses over to her counter, and with a few more flicks of her wand, the vase was filled with water, and she was carefully placing the stolen bouquet inside it.
“I do,” Riddle agreed. He came up behind her, setting one hand on her waist as she arranged the flowers. Her breath hitched at his soft but unexpected touch. “I have plenty of thoughts on the matter of gold and how it can and should be wisely spent. But I will maintain the belief that the very best things…”
He pressed his lips against her ear, grazing his teeth along the shell. His hand found hers, where their fingers tangled together around one of the large, red roses. “…can never be bought,” he finished.
He kissed her neck softly. “Some people would disagree with you,” Hermione said, trying not to sound breathless. His other hand was on her waist, pulling her closer to him. “Some people would say that enough gold can do anything, buy anything. That it can work miracles.”
“Some people,” Riddle murmured in her ear, “are fucking idiots.”
A high laugh bubbled out of Hermione’s lips. Riddle spun her around and abruptly ended it, catching her smile with his mouth in a kiss.
Everything moved quickly after that—too quickly. Hermione dropped her wand on the counter next to the vase, and Riddle wasted no time, lifting her up so that she was perched on the edge of it. He kissed her fiercely, almost angrily, and Hermione had no issue letting him. He bit at her lips and neck in a way that left her with no doubt they would be red and swollen afterwards, but she couldn’t find it in her to care. She met his vigor head-on, and as he was forcing her skirt up she was reaching for his belt, undoing it as quickly as she could. It felt almost like a contest, the way they were so suddenly and feverishly on each other. Riddle was pulling her hair and biting her lower lip and the moment she had his pants loosened he was forcing her knickers aside beneath her skirt, pushing himself against her.
The sharp sound of shattering made both freeze.
Hermione’s arm had slipped to one side to support herself on the counter when Riddle pushed her back, and she’d accidentally knocked over the vase. It fell to the ground and broke, scattering glass and roses everywhere.
There was a suspended moment where they both stared at it, chests heaving but their bodies otherwise still. Riddle inhaled a breath, about to say or do something, probably, but then he held his tongue.
Hermione, of course, knew what was going to happen before it did. The pieces of the broken vase all suddenly floated upwards, graceful and slow in their ascent. The flowers too rose into the air, all the broken petals and baby’s breath rising and returning to their stems as they did. The glass shards came back together, soon forming a perfectly whole vase. The roses and baby’s breath settled into the repaired glass until they were arranged just as they were.
The only thing that didn’t return was the water; the spill itself had vanished the moment it hit the ground. A safety precaution of the magical cleaning charms, Hermione knew.
Riddle looked from the vase to her, his lips curling in amusement. His hair was a mess beneath her hands; his lips were red from their kissing. “How unfair,” he said. “I didn’t even get the chance to be upset with you for being so careless with my gift.”
“Your stolen gift,” Hermione muttered.
“I’m sorry to tell you this,” he said, “but every gift I’ve given you has been stolen.”
Hermione couldn't help but laugh at that. He was surely referring to his copy of Hogwarts, a History but her thoughts strayed to the diary. Stolen, indeed.
“Is that right?” Hermione said. “Well, in that case, I’m upset with you.”
She pushed against his chest so that he took a step back, then slid off the counter to stand in front of him. “Horribly upset, in fact,” she said. “So upset that I simply can’t see a way around it… you’ll have to make it up to me.”
She grabbed him by the tie, feeling absolutely giddy as she did, and pulled him after her. I’ve always wanted to do this to someone, she thought as she led him deeper into her loft, towards her bedroom. She never would have dreamed that she would end up dragging around Lord Voldemort himself by his tie, but Hermione tried not to dwell on that detail.
For his part, Riddle did not seem bothered in the slightest at being pulled about and followed quite willingly. When they got to her room, however, he paused, the look on his face one of near shock again.
Hermione supposed it was a bit over the top. Her massive bed with its too-many pillows and four-post frame, her furniture, the tall ceilings and huge mirrors and even the thick carpet… all of it screamed, I am very, very rich.
“Sometime, you will have to tell me how you and your family became so wealthy,” he murmured. He grabbed her by the throat from behind. “But not right now.”
Riddle surprised her by pushing her suddenly, an action that would have otherwise hurt her if he hadn’t thrown her onto the softness of her bed. He didn’t give her any time to recover from her shock. He was on her instantly, first pulling her knickers down and off before positioning himself with his knees between her legs. He pushed her skirt up roughly over her waist and began kissing her inner thighs, sucking on her skin and making her gasp. He kissed her again and again, moving higher with each one, until she couldn’t see his head beneath her clothes anymore and was teasingly ghosting his lips over her clit.
“Fuck,” she gasped when his tongue first darted out, a surprisingly gentle action after his series of rough kisses.
He lapped out again, and Hermione’s head fell back, hitting the pillows behind her. Her hands clutched at the silk fabric of her comforter as he began the skillful ministrations that she knew he was tragically good at. His tongue was dangerous, she thought, because the way he circled her clit made her head swim and all coherent thoughts leave her. Her hips rocked against him and all she could think was that if he stopped again, this time she really would hurt him.
Fortunately for her, he didn’t seem interested in stopping. He worked her vigorously, mercilessly massaging her clit until she was moaning and grinding against him. “Yes, fuck, yes Tom,” she whined. “Please, don’t stop—yes—yes… ”
Riddle obliged, flicking his tongue against her until she could no longer form words, and if it was not obvious by how she was sure she was throbbing and wet, she was sure it was clear by her moan—Hermione let out a keening sound like nothing she’d ever made before, coming almost embarrassingly hard. Riddle never let up the whole time, continuing to use his lips and tongue and making her orgasm last longer than she would have thought possible.
When it was finally over, Hermione was panting like she’d just run a great distance. “Stop,” she pleaded, for he had not entirely pulled away. “T-too much, it’s too much…”
She had to push against his head to get him to relinquish her. Riddle gave her thigh another rough kiss before emerging, looking very smug indeed when he made eye contact with her. “Too much?”
Hermione was sure her face was redder than the rich color of her scarlet comforter. She nodded.
“That’s unfortunate,” he murmured. “Because I’m nowhere near done with you.”
He pulled her skirt down this time, forcing her legs together for a moment before sliding it off. He then reached for her shirt, and though she was trembling slightly in the aftereffects of her orgasm, Hermione sat up, allowing him to pull it off in a swift motion. Everything he tossed aside instantly floated away, off to be cleaned, folded, and put away again. I should probably figure out how to adjust those charms, Hermione thought numbly as Riddle made quick work of removing her bra, too. When I take his clothes off, they’re going to trigger that magic, too… and then Riddle will be clothe-less. She smirked as she loosened his tie and pulled it off from around his neck. Not the worst predicament to have to face.
Riddle didn’t seem concerned, either. He didn’t wait for Hermione to get his clothes off; instead he discarded them himself.
Seeing him naked should have been less shocking the second time around. Somehow, it wasn’t. The scar of her handprint was still visible on his chest, exactly where she had forced him away. Hermione pushed herself up when she saw it—a somewhat uncomfortable feat when he had already put himself between her legs again, having no patience at all this time. But she was going to make him wait, at least for a moment.
Hermione kissed the scar. It was slightly raised and rough, and as she gently trailed her lips over its edges, she wondered if it was sensitive. Despite all her research into magical scars and how to possibly remove them (often not possible), she couldn’t know that—only Riddle could. Every single magical scar was different, depending on the source of magic used to create it, the strength of that magic, and so on.
Riddle’s body stiffened slightly when she first kissed him there, but relaxed soon after when it was clear she was being exceedingly gentle. When she paused, he cupped her chin with his hand and tilted her face towards his. Riddle’s face was unreadable as he stared at her. He didn’t say anything, but somehow, the atmosphere had changed considerably. He no longer looked haughty, and when he lowered his face to hers, their kiss was no longer rough or demanding as they had been before. His lips were soft against hers, and when he pushed her back against the pillows, he did so slowly.
Every motion after that followed suit. Riddle was kissing her sweetly when he entered her, a motion that was far from uncomfortable after the way he’d pleasured her just moments before. Hermione moaned at the feeling of him, tasting herself on his tongue. He rocked in and out of her, and there wasn’t even a moment of discomfort—Hermione felt only pleasure. Riddle set a deep and steady pace at once, and Hermione was powerless to tell him to do otherwise.
He moved his lips from her mouth to her neck, and murmured against her skin. “You come so beautifully… do it again for me, Hermione.”
He ground against her, deeper, rubbing into her clit as he did. Hermione whined as he repeated the motion again, and again, and there was something a little mortifying, knowing that he could make her come undone twice so quickly before it seemed he was even close.
You’re not useless, she berated herself. He knows what he’s doing, sure, and he knows what you like… What does he like?
Well, that wasn’t too hard to decipher, was it? He was Lord Voldemort. His kinks were pretty obvious, weren’t they?
She finally found her voice. “Tom,” she breathed. She inhaled sharply, bracing herself. “Please, yes—don’t stop—fuck me harder, please, please—”
He did fuck her harder—and the more she pleaded, demanding, she knew she was right.
She, Hermione, might have enjoyed being praised… but Riddle clearly loved begging. Being told he was needed.
“Yes, gods, please—please don’t stop—ahh—”
Riddle’s breath was ragged as he moved faster, harder into her. He grabbed hold of one of her breasts, causing her to gasp sharply and arch her back into the bed. “Fuck, yes—I need you inside me, Tom, please—”
She wasn’t sure what made her say those exact words, but she said them without thinking. They were more than effective. Riddle moaned, suddenly fucking her aggressively hard, the actions of a man who no longer had control. His eyes locked onto her, deeply black and possessive.
She wasn’t sure if it was the way he moved or the way he looked at her, but it triggered something in her. Hermione’s fingers dug into his thighs and she fell over the edge again, her second orgasm rolling over her in waves, coming from somewhere deep inside. She threw her head back and moaned.
Riddle rocked into her again, and again—and then he was moaning just as loudly when he came undone as well. If she hadn’t known better, Hermione might have thought he was in pain, his voice was so raw and his breathing so ragged.
Hermione kissed his neck as his cock throbbed inside of her. Her fingers traced his arms, which were rigid, caging her beneath him. When he was finally done, he collapsed to one side. She gasped when he abruptly pulled out—his absence was sudden and cold.
Riddle kissed her deeply, his tongue demanding and possessive. He bit her lower lip before releasing her. “You’re mine,” he murmured, then kissed her again.
Hermione knew that was a foreboding declaration, but there was no help for it now. She just nodded once as he continued to kiss her with the demanding vigor of… of, well, a young Dark Lord who did think he owned people.
I’m really in it now, Hermione thought, allowing him to explore her mouth as deeply as he wanted. Get in Lord Voldemort’s inner circle and gain his trust… check and check.
Too bad she wasn’t really going with the plan to kill him anymore. Could she really save him?
And if she couldn’t… then what would she do?
She finally pushed him away, forcing him to end their kiss. “I have some bad news and some good news,” she said. Riddle’s brows raised at that unexpected statement. “All your clothes are being cleaned right now because they were thrown on the floor, which means you won’t have any for a bit.”
Riddle looked annoyed for a second, then amused. “Was that the bad news?”
“Yes. The good news is that I have a very nice, large shower, as you might imagine, and I’m willing to share while you can’t get dressed anyway.”
She pushed herself up, swinging her legs over the side of her bed before he could argue. A sudden chiming sound made her pause, and she looked towards her doorway expectantly.
“What was that?” Riddle asked from where he still was on her bed, sitting up.
“A notification. I’ve gotten a letter.” Hermione held her hand up, making the practiced motion that would activate a summoning charm. A second later and a letter was flying into her open palm where the delivery owl had dropped it off. “It’s from my Auntie,” she murmured.
Riddle stood. The moment he did, magic was sweeping over her sheets—cleaning the mess they had just made, of course, which was highly convenient. Riddle gawked at it. “Is everything in this place enchanted?” he asked.
“Not everything. But a lot of it, yes. What? It’s better than a house-elf, isn’t it?”
Riddle frowned, watching the way the bed rearranged itself. “I’m no longer sure,” he said. “I’m starting to see the appeal of having something you can command at will rather than a home that acts on its own.”
Hermione shrugged, choosing not to respond one way or another. She opened up her letter instead, then quickly read Hepzibah’s response. She was, naturally, very surprised that Hermione was intending to return… but she was also very happy.
“What did she say?” Riddle asked. He came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist.
Hermione folded the letter against her chest so he couldn’t read it. “She’s glad I’m coming back,” she answered.
“And what about that terrible, dangerous shop boy from Knockturn Alley?” He bit her ear, just light enough to not hurt. “Did she warn you to stay away?”
Hermione leaned against him. For someone with a broken soul, he was so warm. “She said she supports my choices, always, as I am a smart young witch capable of making her own decisions… however.”
She turned in his arms to face him. “She did say to be careful. I believe she is worried that you’ll break my heart.”
Riddle smiled crookedly at that. “Break your heart?” he echoed. He held her face gently with both hands. “You have nothing to fear there, Hermione… I only hurt people who deserve to be hurt.”
His grip tightened. He stared into her eyes, his own flashing a warning. “So never cross me,” he murmured. “And I will always do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
Hermione held her breath as he kissed her on the forehead. “To keep you happy,” he went on, then kissed one side of her neck. “To keep you… satisfied.”
He kissed the other side of her neck, using his tongue and teeth. Hermione had to push him away, torn between being overwhelmed that he might actually try to seduce her again so soon and shaken from his thinly veiled threats. “Come on,” she said, stepping away from him. “I desperately need a shower after that.”
She tossed the letter from Hepzibah aside, willing a bout of wandless magic to work in her favor. For once, in a rare instance, she succeeded. The paper caught on fire mid-flight, disappearing in a rapid bout of flames before disappearing, taking with it the reality of Hepzibah’s full message: You’re a smart witch, Hermione, capable of making her own decisions… but I do hope you’ll be careful. I know he’s cute, but I am a great judge of character, and I have my doubts. There’s a darkness in him. Call me an overprotective old woman, but I swear I saw it flash in his eyes when he looked at you. I do not trust him, and neither should you.
Chapter 39: Departing
Chapter Text
Hermione scribbled away, her quill racing across the parchment as she calculated furiously. If there was one good thing to come from this plotting, it was this—the moments of hard work that were difficult enough to distract her from just about everything. Today, she was working on the calculations for the banishing charm she would ultimately use to adjust the Time-Turner to the exact moment she needed. It would be preposterous, she’d explained to Malfoy, to try and make the many, many turns required by hand to get the job done–they could too easily lose count or get tired. Instead, she was going to calculate the exact amount of magical force that a banishing charm would need to inflict the Time-Turner with the right amount of pressure to make it turn as many times as needed, which would both be much faster and accurate. One charm instead of a thousand manual turns by hand.
It just takes a little more work ahead of time, she’d said to Malfoy, who had looked, admittedly, impressed. An ounce of preparation and all that.
It was like being back in school, she mused as she dipped her quill into more ink, when she would work endlessly on Arithmancy assignments, so caught up in the calculations that she wouldn’t realize that hours had flown by until, inevitably, Harry or Ron would—
Her scribbling ceased. Hermione paused for a moment, hating how that unwelcome thought had crossed her mind. She must not have been focusing properly, after all.
“What?”
Malfoy was staring at her, those gray eyes not narrowed with discontent as they usually were, but bright with concern. Hermione blinked in surprise at the expression. She got the impression that he had been watching her for a while. “Is everything all right?” he asked.
Hermione shook her head, her bushy hair falling into her face. “Yeah,” she said. “Everything is fine. Just got distracted for a second.”
“That’s unlike you,” Malfoy murmured. “Are you all right?”
Hermione wasn’t sure what shocked her more—the fact that Malfoy seemed to know her work habits so well, that he had been watching her closely enough in the first place to notice her pause, or that he was bothering to ask if she was all right. It was all wildly out of character for Draco Malfoy.
“Er… yeah. I’m fine.”
Malfoy stared at her a moment longer. “Okay,” he finally said. He turned his attention back to his own calculations–they were working on the same problem, of course, and Hermione hoped that they came up with the same answer. Malfoy was surprisingly good at calculating spell specifications (though not as good as her), so it would be reassuring if they both got the same result. Hermione took a deep breath and began writing again.
“You should work on your lying, Granger,” Malfoy muttered after another long moment, catching her off guard.
She glared up at him. “Excuse me?”
Malfoy did not look up from his own work again. “Lying,” he repeated in a low voice. “You’re bad at it. You should work on it; it’s a damn good skill to have.”
It was hard to think straight around Riddle.
Well, it had always been a challenge to think straight around him, Hermione could admit to herself… but it was even harder to do so when he was being openly flirtatious. If one could even use the word flirtatious, because that descriptor didn’t seem strong enough. He’d been mildly flirtatious from the start; now, he was downright provocative.
When they’d showered together, he’d run his fingers along every curve of her body under the hot water like he was creating and memorizing a map on her skin. He’d stopped short at her ring, the obvious temptation there, but he hadn’t tried to remove it and he didn’t ask.
When they’d discussed the logistics of traveling back to London together, he’d run his fingers through her damp hair while she talked, carefully working out the last of the few knots that had formed there because of him.
When she offered him tea and something to eat—for she herself was famished—he offered to take her somewhere and buy them both food instead. Hermione adamantly refused.
“I have plenty to eat here that’s perfectly good. And which will go bad if I don’t make it before we leave, by the way.”
Riddle laughed at that. When she shot him a look to let him know that she was serious, he seemed surprised. “You’re not exactly in the position to need to be concerned if some food goes bad,” he said.
“It’s not about what position I’m in,” Hermione said. “I don’t like it when anything goes to waste.
And that was how Hermione found herself volunteering to do something else she never would have thought she’d do in her lifetime… cooking for Lord Voldemort.
The realization that this was what was happening settled over her slowly. It was as she was pouring the tea she’d made into two shiny, porcelain cups, her back to him as she did so at the counter in her kitchen, that it struck her. I am serving the Dark Lord, she thought numbly, setting the teapot carefully back down. She glanced up at the bouquet of stolen roses that also sat there, as pristine as ever. I’m about to make him an extremely late breakfast like we’re… like we’re a couple or something.
Somehow, this notion—cooking for Riddle in the early afternoon—made her feel even more anxious than the thought of fucking him.
She couldn't explain why this was the case as she made her way to the table where he sat, waiting. His body language was casual and expectant, like he was quite comfortable being waited on, but his eyes were sharp and calculating as he looked at her. Hermione could only hold eye contact with him for a moment before looking down.
“I figured Earl Grey was in order,” she said as she set the cup down in front of him. “Even if you have already had coffee earlier.”
She glanced up to catch his smile before looking into her own cup. Why was she so nervous now? They’d literally just shagged and showered together!
“Actually, I only had about two sips of that drink before I abandoned it in favor of stealing and fleeing the scene with you,” he said. “So thank you. I trust your tea is better than whatever some American coffee shop is serving, anyway.”
“You’re not wrong,” Hermione murmured, for he wasn’t. She splurged on the finest loose-leaf tea money could buy, because why wouldn’t she? She was Hermione Smith, and Hermione Smith was an independent, powerful witch who settled for nothing but the very best.
So quit acting so skittish, she scolded herself. Hermione stood a bit straighter and held her chin higher. This shouldn’t bother you so much. This is not a big deal. Be confident.
“Anything specific you’d like to eat?” she asked as she began to saunter back towards the kitchen. “I can make whatever you like, but I figured breakfast food would be nice… eggs, bacon, toast? All of the above?”
“Surprise me with whatever you prefer,” Riddle answered. “Do you mind if I peruse your bookshelf while I wait?”
Hermione froze for a moment. Did she have anything suspicious on her bookshelf? She did not think so…
“Of course,” she answered, for she could think of no reason to say no. “So long as you promise to put whatever you take off back where you found it. Unlike you, I keep my books organized in a very specific way.”
“What makes you think I don’t keep my own books organized?”
“I was in your flat. Your books were all over the place, shoved haphazardly on shelves and stacked in piles that were much too high. It was the only cluttered part about your place, really.”
Riddle scoffed, the sound coming from further away, telling Hermione he had moved to her living room where the bookshelves were. “Not all of us have permanent tidying charms on every surface of our household to put things away for us,” he drawled. Then, in a lower voice, he added, “They’re organized to me.”
Hermione suppressed a laugh at how annoyed he sounded. The truth was that his chaotic stacks of books had been one of the most endearing things about his home—it was proof that he was passionate about the subject matter that he studied, that he could be distracted and imperfect when he was focused, that he was…
Like me, Hermione thought, not for the first time.
She inhaled a deep breath, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand. Breakfast. Or brunch, or lunch, or whatever this was. Right. She could make food for two people and not royally screw it up, couldn’t she? Not a big deal at all.
And yet she found that her hands were almost shaking as she cooked, even though the movements were so familiar. How many times had she made herself and oftentimes others eggs and bacon? Hell, she had managed to make decent meals for three out of minimal ingredients when they’d been on the run, stuck in a tent with only sort-of paid for food and hadn’t Harry and Ron told her that–
Hermione hissed as she accidentally bumped the hot pan with her forearm. That was stupid, she thought as she pulled away, assessing the damage. It was barely a burn at all, just a slight red mark when she’d touched the iron, but still. She really needed to get a hold of herself. Hermione took a long sip of her tea and refocused.
Concentrating only on the food in front of her, she managed to spend the next twenty minutes or so preparing as grand of a breakfast as she could—which was pretty grand, considering how much food she had on hand, the helpful charms that made cooking large meals fairly seamless here, and how she didn’t see the point in leaving any food behind. Hermione admired her work with pride as she put everything onto platters—bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, fresh toast, and an assortment of jams. It was far too much food for two people, and it was not nearly as beautiful in its presentation as Hokey would have made it, but Hermione thought it was pretty damn good. Nodding to herself, she flicked her wand at the platters, and they all began to hover in unison.
“Food is done,” she called out. She made the platters and a couple of empty plates and utensils go before her, until they landed gently in the center of the dining room table. Her heart was pounding as she waited for some reaction from Riddle… who was sitting at the far end of the table with his face currently concealed behind a book.
One of her books.
About Divination.
Hermione was very glad indeed that she’d already gotten the platters to settle when she noticed that. Riddle turned a page—in a bit of an overly dramatic manner, Hermione thought—lowering the book and looking about as smug as he could as he peered over the cover at her.
“How interesting,” he said, his eyes gleaming. “This particular book caught my eye, because it wasn’t on your shelf at all. It had been haphazardly left on the end table… a shocking enough discovery, because one would think your magical loft would have floated it back to the shelf for you the very moment you set it down.”
Hermione felt her face flushing red. “Not every piece of furniture in here is enchanted, that would be infuriating. This table, for example. Imagine how obnoxious it would be if everything I just set down flew away again before my very grateful, polite guests had time to eat.”
That statement did manage to make Riddle focus on the food she’d made for him. His smug expression turned to one of surprise when took it all in. “I do hope you aren’t expecting more polite guests to show up,” he said. “This looks like enough food to feed six people, Hermione!”
Hermione smiled, taking the seat beside Riddle at the table. “No, I’m not. I know, I overdid it. I tend to overcook when I’m really hungry. But I figured you were too. When’s the last time you ate properly?”
Riddle set the book down, frowning as he thought about that. “Last night,” he admitted without elaborating.
“Well then it’s a good thing I went overboard.” Hermione grinned and helped herself to some toast and eggs, serving herself a generous helping of both. “And believe me when I say I will be seriously wounded if there is too much left over. You have to eat some of everything or I will be deeply offended.”
“You? Offended? But you’re so sweet and understanding.”
“Shut up and eat.”
“Not to mention kind, and so humble, always so willing to admit when you might have been wrong… When did you start researching literary Divination?”
“I said shut up and eat, Tom.”
“This isn’t the greatest book to get you started, by the way—there’s a new edition that came out last Fall. But as a Seer, you could probably skip this one and go straight to—”
Hermione set her fork down forcefully, making his pause. “Tom,” she said sternly. He looked like he was trying not to laugh at her. “I read about four pages into the chapter on stargazing before I realized, once again, that it’s all rubbish. And yes, I did that because you seemed so very sure that there was something to that particular part of Divination. If it makes you feel proud of yourself, here you go. That night, when you swore there was something up there, in the stars, your actions managed to influence me enough to eventually buy a book and waste ten minutes of my time reading a section of it. So go ahead. Take a moment to gloat.”
“It does make me feel moderately proud,” Riddle said, smirking.
His haughty expression was enough to make Hermione want to tear her hair out. “Then I’ll go ahead and take a moment to gloat over the fact that you fancied me enough to make a luck potion and travel across the world to get me back,” she said airily. She took a bite of her toast and smiled.
His eyes narrowed, and Hermione wondered if she’d gone too far. But a moment later he was smirking again. “I didn’t take a luck potion,” he said. “Some of us are just naturally lucky.”
“No one is that lucky on their own.”
“Really? Then what about the repercussions of Felix Felicis? Shouldn’t I be experiencing a bout of terrible luck to follow my good fortune?” He looked all about him, not needing to explain that it was hardly bad luck to be where he was now. “But maybe I’ve spoken too soon. I’ll find out now.”
Riddle reached forward, deliberately serving himself some of everything Hermione had made. Hermione’s heart started to pound again, stupidly fast—oh no, what if it was all terrible? What if he hated everything she’d made?
Why did she care so much?
Riddle made eye contact with her when he took his first bite of bacon. She stared back at him, unreasonably afraid that he would criticize her. He grinned after he swallowed. “No, can’t say that I have,” he said. “It would seem the food is excellent. No terrible misfortune for me.”
Hermione exhaled a deep breath. “Well,” she said, regaining her mental footing, “some people just don’t have that kind of reaction after taking Felix. Some people really are just lucky.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“No, you’re saying you didn’t even take it—”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re lying!”
“I’m not. What kind of jam is this? I don’t think I’ve ever had it. It looks very good.”
Hermione glared at him as he looked at her innocently, now enjoying a piece of toast. “You’re infuriating,” she muttered. She wondered how many times she would say that to him.
“It could be worse,” he said. He took a long sip of tea, emptying his cup before looking into the empty porcelain. When he glanced up at her a moment later, his eyes were narrowed and dark. “I could be boring.”
There was something dangerous about the way he said boring. It took Hermione a moment to remember that she had, in a sense, called him that. She had claimed that London itself was boring when she’d departed, but it was obviously a jab meant personally for Riddle.
Hermione gave him a timid smile. “You know I didn’t actually mean that,” she said.
“I know,” he said. He set his cup down and gave a rueful smile of his own. “But I’ll admit… that drove me absolutely insane.”
Hermione wasn’t sure what to say to that. The way he was staring at her, she couldn’t tell if he wanted to curse her or kiss her. “S-sorry,” she stuttered.
His smile turned crooked; his eyes darker. “No, you’re not,” he said.
He leaned forward and unexpectedly grabbed her by the neck, kissing her without warning. Hermione was frozen for only a moment before she found herself reciprocating, her head swimming at the sudden intensity of it. How was he such a good kisser–such a good… everything?
When he pulled away, his eyes were smoldering in a familiar way, boring into hers. Hermione’s heart stuttered. “The food will g-get cold,” she sputtered out.
Riddle blinked in surprise, then laughed. He picked up his fork again. “Why Hermione,” he said, “how incredibly presumptuous of you to assume I was going to try and have sexual relations with you again in the middle of this delightful meal.”
Hermione’s face flared. “What—you were! Weren’t you?”
“I’d never be so rude. I’m at least going to finish eating first. Then I will probably attempt to do exactly that, yes. And I have a good feeling I may be successful, too.”
“Oh? And what makes you so confident?”
He smiled broadly, his perfect teeth gleaming. “I saw it in the dredges of my tea a few moments ago. You’ll be powerless against my charms.”
“You’re the absolute worst.”
“Yes,” he said, still smiling pleasantly. It was a horrible image, because Hermione knew that, in this instance, at least, he was right. “I am.”
Making arrangements to go back to London was, happily enough, simple. This was largely due to Riddle and his own suggestions, which Hermione had decided to follow… to an extent.
Riddle had said she should avoid saying goodbye to her friends altogether; that she should simply disappear and write to them once she was back in England if she so chose. Hermione had decided to follow this advice, if only because she knew Walter would try and stop her if she said she was going to be gone within a day, passing up the opportunity to become an Oculus… particularly after he had vouched for her to be able to apply in the first place. And Liam, well. Who knew how Liam would react?
He would probably tell me that he has a bad feeling about this man, that he doesn’t trust him, thinks he’s dangerous, and doesn’t think I should go anywhere at all with him, let alone back to London… and he wouldn’t be wrong.
Hermione felt more than a little guilty about that. She imagined that Liam and Hepzibah would get along fabulously.
Still, at the end of the day, it was easier to not speak directly with Walt or Liam or even Peggy or Denise before departing. What she wasn’t going to leave entirely unaddressed was the position she’d been offered. Riddle had said she shouldn’t do anything there, either; that she didn’t owe the MACUSA any explanation about why she wasn’t coming to the orientation because she hadn’t officially accepted the job in the first place. But Hermione knew it would be in very bad taste to simply not show up, and she didn’t want to make Walter look bad, besides. So, against Riddle’s advice, Hermione had written a letter addressed to Lester Madison himself, explaining that she would be declining the position of Auror-in-training in favor of a new opportunity that had presented itself overseas. She wrote it as politely as she could, hoping it would not offend.
Then, they left.
It was as easy and straight-forward as she could have hoped for, their departure from the United States. In hindsight, it would have been nice to linger in New York for a time–the thought of taking Riddle to all of her favorite spots in the city was enticing–but it was Riddle who said he could not stay. As it turned out, he was still employed at Borgin and Burkes, and did not have unlimited time off to, in his words, ‘convince wayward love interests to return to him’. So, Hermione packed her things (including a substantial amount of gold, for one never knew), shrunk her larger suitcases to manageable, pocket-sized items, and away they went, off to the International Floo network. Hermione had slung her fashionable purse over her shoulder as they left, the diary neatly tucked inside.
Riddle never had a clue.
Chapter 40: Rationale
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hermione fussed with her robes, smoothing the fabric of her skirt down against her thighs. She hesitated before knocking, feeling oddly nervous about doing so. It had been awhile, she supposed, and if she was being honest with herself, she knew exactly why she was anxious.
It wasn’t seeing Hepzibah again that was making her heart flutter in anticipation… it was knowing that she was going to need to explain herself. And probably speak vaguely if not outright lie to her about why, precisely, she was back.
As though I haven’t lied to her enough already, Hermione thought as she fidgeted with the ring on her finger.
There was a difference now, though, Hermione realized. Different kinds of lying. There was the big one—the overall deceit that she was Hermione Smith, affluent witch of 1950 rather than the time-traveling muggle-born of her own time—and then there were the smaller ones within that. The lies her new personna made as that new personna.
Hermione Granger had only lied once. Hermione Smith was somehow much worse.
I think I’m rationalizing my sins.
Hermione exhaled a deep breath and forced that unsettling truth aside. She had things to do. She fixed a smile on her face and knocked on the door. It swung open a moment later, and Hermione beamed at the face that greeted her.
“Hokey!”
The house-elf had begun to bow when she said her name, but Hermione was having none of that. She bent down and swept Hokey into a hug, happy to be reunited with this most faithful of creatures.
Hokey, perhaps frazzled by the overzealous hug, took a moment before returning her embrace. It was wild to know how powerful she really was, Hermione thought, based solely on the feeling of her small, fragile form. This tiny elf could apparate through the strongest of wards, could regrow incinerated hair and defy all magical logic. She only needed the command.
“Well that’s not proper behavior for a well-to-do witch.”
Hermione looked up from where she was crouched down in the doorway to see Hepzibah in the hall. Her faux-aunt was standing with her arms crossed, attempting to look judgmental, but she smiled the moment her eyes met Hermione’s. She opened her arms as Hermione stood, demanding a hug of her own.
“Oh, it’s so good to have you back dear,” Hepzibah said, crushing Hermione against her chest. Hermione’s face was pressed against a string of pearls and other fine necklaces, but she didn’t mind. “We have missed you so!”
“I’ve missed you too, Auntie,” Hermione mumbled.
Hepzibah then pushed her away, keeping her hands on Hermione’s shoulders and holding her at arm’s length. She looked her up and down, her brows furrowed. “I see you’ve gotten more adventurous in your fashion choices since you’ve been gone,” she noted.
Hermione laughed—of course this was the first thing Hepzibah would comment on. “Yes, well. The fashion is quite different there.”
Hepzibah continued to scrutinize Hermione’s wider, shorter skirt and the accompanying long robes, a true meshing of New York muggle and wizarding clothes. “I don’t hate it,” she eventually said. “But I’m not sure I love it yet, either. Hm.”
“Well, you look as lovely and classically beautiful as ever, Auntie.”
Which was true. Hepzibah was dressed as though she was going on a private tour of some very rich wizard’s lavish manor, not staying at home, awaiting her wayward niece. She smiled warmly at Hermione’s praise.
“Thank you, dear,” she said. Then, as though the most important issue had been addressed and now they could properly visit, Hepzibah ushered her further inside. “Come, let’s have some tea. I am certain that you’re famished. Have you been eating properly while you’ve been gone? You look thin, dearest.”
“Of course I have, Auntie. But I would never pass up an opportunity to eat anything Hokey makes.”
The elf glowed at that comment. “Make us something sweet, Hokey,” Hepzibah commanded, and the elf bowed and disappeared without a word.
Hermione followed Hepzibah into the back room where they had eaten together so many times before. There was already a teapot and two cups in place—the same black and gold ones that Hermone recognized well, boasting the Hufflepuff colors.
“So, Hermione,” Hepzibah began. She reached for the teapot on the table as she spoke, evidently too impatient to wait for Hokey to return to serve them and properly begin their discussion. She filled both of their cups to the brim. “Tell me about your exciting time in New York. I want to hear everything.”
Hermione smiled, accepted her tea, and told her only what she wanted to share.
Of her newly acquired loft, of course—Hermione spent much time describing in detail the style of it (“No wallpaper? Wooden floors in the entry hall? Absurd.”), the many charms and enchantments imbibed within the walls and furniture (“A rather chaotic manner to keep one’s home, Hermione; house-elves are much better!”), and how the painting Hepzibah had sent her looked somehow even more perfect hanging in her living room than it had in Hepzibah’s foyer (“I’m sure, but you know this means you will need to help me choose another artwork to replace that one!”).
Of Hermione’s day-to-day life, Hermione was much more vague. It was easy enough to keep Hepzibah satisfied, for Hermione had many relatable experiences to speak of which Hepzibah approved of—eating at all the best restaurants, going to various art exhibits and museums, shopping. When she mentioned her friends Walter, Denise, and Peggy, Hepzibah even nodded along, acknowledging that she recalled Hermione’s previous stories of her old school friends as well (though only Hermione knew that she most certainly did not).
Liam, however… Hermione did not mention at all.
“And it was Walter who arranged things so that I could take the auror test,” Hermione said. She wiped the corner of her mouth with a cloth napkin; Hokey’s baked goods were exquisite, if a tad crumbly.
“Which you passed with flying colors, of course,” Hepzibah said, nodding.
“As you know,” Hermione agreed. “But it was not the written test that ever posed an obstacle to me. It was the practical.”
Hepzibah frowned deeply. “I think it barbaric that they would wipe your memories of that,” she said, for Hermione had already explained all of this in detail—her own frustrations evident in her letters. “I cannot help but think they do so because they get up to some nefarious things during it. Possibly even illegal.”
“Doubtful that they would do anything illegal,” Hermione said, for she had once had the same thought. “It’s the MACUSA, and literally the department which deals with upholding the law. They might toe the line of what’s permissible, but I’m sure it’s all perfectly lawful.”
“Perhaps,” said Hepzibah, “but wouldn’t you like to find out? I’m sure I can find someone who is a highly skilled Legilimens, someone with an esteemed reputation who would be willing to undo the memory charms on your mind.”
Hermione nearly dropped her teacup. “No, no,” she said in a rush. “I couldn’t ask you to use your connection to the Ministry that way. Besides, such a service would surely come at a high cost, and I hardly think it worth it.”
Hepzibah waved one hand as though the cost was so unimportant it was not even worth discussing. “Wouldn’t it put you at ease to know with certainty what they did to you in there?”
The truth was that Hermione did want to know, and badly—what if she had done something dangerous during that exam? Or worse, said something dangerous?
Not something she could allow some esteemed colleague of Hepzibah’s to discover alongside her… no, Hermione could not risk someone in her Auntie’s Ministry of Magic contact list meddling with her mind, no matter how badly she wanted to find out.
Hermione herself only knew of one capable Legilimens up to that task. The issues with asking him were many: for one, he would have to admit to being a Legilimens first, or she would have to accuse him of being one, and that wouldn’t go well; for another, he was Tom Riddle, the one person that she was hoping to keep secrets from more than Hepzibah.
It seemed to Hermione that she would just have to live not knowing what exactly happened, hope it was nothing so terrible, and move on.
“It doesn’t plague my mind that much any longer,” Hermione said. “Especially not now, seeing as I didn’t accept the position and I’m not even staying there any longer.”
“And I still don’t understand why that is.” Hepzibah fixed her with an expectant, if also a bit accusatory, look. “I didn’t think some shop boy writing to you would be enough of a reason for you to abandon your new career choice so quickly.”
Hermione squirmed in her seat. She was unwilling to let Hepzibah know that Riddle had not simply written to her, as she implied when corresponding with her, but that he had come in person to New York. She figured her protective Auntie might find that a tad aggressive on Riddle’s part… and she would be right, of course.
“It wasn’t just him. I… simply changed my mind,” Hermione mumbled. “You were right. Being an auror is not for me.”
“It’s obvious that something else happened. Something major, if it made you change your course so abruptly.”
Hermione opened her mouth to retort, but found she was unsure what to say. Fake aunt or not, Hepzibah did know her well. But she couldn’t exactly tell her that she had come back to London to attempt to stop Tom Riddle, a possible future Dark Lord, from becoming the monster she knew he would otherwise be.
When she said nothing, Hepzibah’s eyes narrowed, even more suspicious. “Was there another boy involved? An American one?”
Hermione did drop her cup, then. Hokey vanished the spill and stopped the cup from breaking by catching it with an impressive bout of house-elf magic before it could hit the ground. The elf then hovered it back up onto the table and began refilling it with more tea as though nothing happened.
“Do be careful dear, this is my favorite china,” Hepzibah said. She didn’t pause to take a breath before going on. “So there is an American boy. Who is he? What happened?”
Hermione wasn’t sure what to say. Liam was, indeed, an American boy, and maybe there could have been something building between them… but he was certainly not the reason she had left.
But he could have been, Hermione thought. A wizard who had a drop of Veela blood in his veins was dangerous indeed, and there might have come a point where becoming too involved with him would have posed problems.
Well, better to go with that then tell Hepzibah the truth.
“There might have been,” Hermione said, not looking at her.
Hepzibah reached across the table and took Hermione’s hand. “What happened?” she asked softly.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Hermione, you can tell me anything.”
“I know. But I really, really don’t want to relive it all. It’s too… fresh.”
She peered up at Hepzibah, who was looking at her with worry clear in her eyes. “Oh, my dearest girl,” she said. She held onto Hermione’s hand with both of hers. “I am so, so sorry. He broke your heart, this boy, didn’t he?”
Hermione, not wanting to speak, only nodded. Hepzibah’s face instantly became fierce with rage. “It’s those Americans,” she seethed. “Terrible brutes, the lot of them. The exact same thing happened to your mother. She wouldn’t talk about it, but it was obvious. Some churlish man took her heart and smashed it into a thousand pieces before disappearing, I could tell.”
Hepzibah sighed as she released Hermione’s hand. “Well, you’re better off without him, and without that awful city,” she said. “It’s ruinous, I think, as are the horrible, barbaric people there.”
Hermione couldn’t help the small smile that played on her lips. “Tell me what you really think of the Americans, Auntie,” she said playfully.
“I have no qualms about being honest,” Hepzibah said. She sat up a bit straighter, lifting her teacup so that Hokey would refill it, which she did at once. “I would never wish for you to settle down with an American. You’d be much happier with a British wizard, living here in London. I promise you that.”
Hermione nearly scoffed. “Of course you do… and I daresay you might even be right.”
“A proper British wizard.”
“You don’t say.”
“Someone who comes from a respectable family, with means, and—”
“Auntie.”
Hermione cut Hepzibah off, shooting her an annoyed look. Hepzibah did not look bothered in the slightest.
“I still think you could do much better than that shop boy, is all.”
“He has a name, Auntie.”
“When do you plan on seeing him again?” she asked, ignoring that comment.
“Well, not that I need to tell you all the details about my dating life,” Hermione said (and Hepzibah’s expression told Hermione that she very much did need to tell her all the details of her dating life), “but… I already have seen him again.”
“My word!” Hepzibah’s hand flew up in the air in exacerbation. “You have! Hermione, you’ve only been back in London for what, a few hours? How did you manage that?”
“Actually,” Hermione said shrewdly, “I’ve been back in London two days now.”
Hepzibah looked so affronted that one might have thought Hermione had slapped her. “You what? Two days? And you only told me you were here this morning? Where have you been staying!?”
“Not at his flat, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Hermione said. “Nor any boy’s home for that matter. I got a room at a lovely Inn in Diagon Alley. It’s very nice, you would certainly approve.”
Hepzibah did not look like she approved. “Whatever for? You have everything you could ever need here!”
“I know. I know that, and I appreciate your hospitality more than words can say. I just thought I could use some… independence. I’m sure you understand.”
“You mean so you can sneak off into the night with untrustworthy boys?”
“It’s hardly sneaking out, Auntie!” Hermione huffed. “I am an adult witch—an intelligent one, as you’ve pointed out yourself. I simply don’t want to stay here if I’ll be inconveniencing you by worrying you when I am, in fact, out. And if I choose to be out with that shop boy, then I don’t want to be lectured about it daily.”
Hepzibah looked like she might argue for a moment, but then she let out a defeated sigh. “Oh, of course I can understand why you would want to stay in your own place,” she said. “And you know you’re allowed to see whoever you want, and I’ll support you… even if it is begrudgingly.”
Hermione smiled. “Thank you, Auntie.”
“But if you’re to be here in London, I have expectations,” Hepzibah went on, suddenly business-like. “We are to have tea at least three times a week, and Sunday lunch. And shopping trips whenever the occasion arises.”
Hermione nearly rolled her eyes, but her smile remained. “Of course, Auntie,” she said. “That all sounds lovely.”
“And I want to come see this Inn you’re staying at. I’ll come by for tea there tomorrow at noon, if that’s fine with you.”
“Of course. I’ll set out my finest china.”
Hepzibah’s eyes narrowed, unsure if Hermione was joking or not. “See that you do,” she said. “I expect to see that I’ve taught you how to receive guests properly.”
Hermione laughed. “You’ve taught me much more than that.”
“Apparently not enough,” Hepzibah sighed. She sipped at her tea, casting Hermione a fond but bittersweet look. “I do hope you keep your head on straight when you’re around that shop boy, Hermione.”
“Tom. His name is Tom.”
“Tom, then,” Hepzibah allowed. “Just never let him make you feel anything less than what you are… You’re worth your weight in gold, my dear.”
Hermione closed the door to her rooms, the sound of the magically enforced lock clicking into place behind her. It was a nice Inn, far larger and more expensive than the last one she had stayed in before she had become Hermione Smith. She had a suite booked for the next month, and she foresaw herself extending her stay here indefinitely.
Hermione removed her outer robes, hanging them on her coat rack, and slipped off her boots. Nothing moved into its place on its own here; she was going to have to get used to cleaning up after herself again.
How spoiled I’ve been, Hermione thought as she put her boots into the closet. Using her hands, like some mere muggle.
She froze as that thought, joking though it was, crossed her mind.
Mere? What was wrong with her?
Hermione shook her head and went to her new bedroom. Perhaps she needed to take a break from her make-believe life as such an entitled witch… she was beginning to get too good at it. She was truly becoming the lie.
Sighing heavily, Hermione began to strip off all of her clothes. She had plans tonight, and a shower was in order. Just as she had taken off her knickers, ready to head to the bathroom and spend a sinfully long time under the streaming hot water, she paused. Hermione fidgeted with the ring on her finger, then made herself go to the mirror above the vanity. She inhaled a deep breath, then took off the ring.
What is going to become of me?
Hermione traced the golden lines with her fingertips, which now swirled downwards as far as her hips on one side. They spiraled across her torso, covering her ribs. But these were not the lines Hermione found herself fixated on. The golden lines went up, too; from the spot where they started on her neck, they had now begun to sprawl onto her face. The gilded loops curled under her chin and a few had grown along her jawline. One curled across her forehead, glittering and golden.
She touched it there, thinking for a moment that it might feel like something. It didn’t. It was as smooth and soft as her own skin, and if she weren’t looking directly at the markings, she might not think they were there at all.
“Maybe they’re not doing anything,” Hermione murmured to herself. She almost laughed afterwards. They obviously were; her body self-healing was proof of that.
As was, she was almost convinced, her lack of a period since the attack. Her body was being kept in some kind of stasis because of the Time-Turner, of this she was certain. Which meant she was stuck on whatever part of her menstrual cycle she’d been on when attacked. Which meant she was now infertile. Probably. Maybe.
What was more bothersome than all that—as though that were not enough—was what these markings meant. Why were they growing? Was that part, at least this physical manifestation, benign? Just a side-effect of what was happening inside of her? Would she simply be covered in gold lines one day, and that would be that?
Unless this is operating as a curse, rather than an absurd injury, Hermione thought morbidly.
She had considered this for some time now. It was entirely possible—no, probable. It wasn’t just that a Time-Turner had been broken against her neck. A witch—a desperate, angry witch—had shattered it on her, using her own chaotic magic in the act. And she had done so with great intention, too.
Merope Gaunt had likely not only broken her Time-Turner, she had cursed her with it. And curses, naturally, operated based on the dark intentions of the caster.
Hermione had been trying to kill that poor witch… and so she could only assume that Merope’s intentions when cursing her were not merely to send her away. It’s not what she would intend if she had been in Merope’s place.
No, this injury, this potentially extremely unique curse… when it ran its course…
Hermione did not think it would end well for her.
Unless I am wrong on that account too, of course, she thought. If Merope really was a squib, then it wasn’t her own magic that had done this to her after all—it was the Time-Turner alone. And if that were the case, then Hermione really did have no idea what the lines were specifically or what they were doing.
Regardless, I should start researching complex counter-cursing methods, and soon. Hermione nodded to herself in the mirror, then slipped the ring back on her finger. It never hurt to be prepared for the worst.
Hermione was early.
She had appeared at their predetermined meeting place ten minutes sooner than they had planned. She felt the need to be, since he seemed the sort to always be early himself. Hermione didn’t like to keep people waiting.
Since she had some time, she began to walk leisurely, appreciating the view. The Joy of Life Fountain was much nicer to look at in the Springtime. The water flowed around the bronze statues in happy loops, cascading over the four smaller bronzes of children on the perimeter. Hermione smiled as she looked at them, thinking they were cute, if also a bit creepy. The children looked like they were flying in circles around the two lovers, who were in that near-embrace, always near a kiss.
It was somewhat amusing that this had become their ‘spot’, Hermione thought. She sat on the edge of the fountain, adjusting her dark skirt over her knees and crossing her ankles. She continued to stare at the bronzes thoughtfully. It was dark out, as it was near midnight, but the park lights were enough to allow her to see the fountain clearly, as well as a fair distance into the park. A few muggles meandered about, but for the most part, she was alone.
Until she wasn’t, of course.
He didn’t say her name or otherwise call to her. Riddle had silently apparated somewhere nearby, and when he saw her sitting on the fountain’s edge, approached her. Hermione waited for him. Riddle took a seat next to her, joining her in her quiet judgment of the fountain.
“I’m not a fan, myself,” Riddle murmured, tilting his head towards the closest figure—one of the playful looking children.
“You? Not a fan of a muggle-made sculpture?” Hermione smirked. “I’m positively shocked.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” Riddle said, surprising Hermione with how serious he sounded. “I can appreciate good work done by anyone, even a muggle, when appropriate. But this?”
He gestured towards the fountain, clearly unenthused. “Look at their expressions. At the way their hair has been modeled, their hands. The depictions are mediocre at best.”
“I think it’s just a kind of style,” Hermione countered. “They’re not meant to be perfectly realistic.”
“They could be.”
“That’s the beauty of art though, isn’t it? That it doesn’t have to be.”
Riddle scoffed. “Then this specific style is unfortunately droll.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” Hermione said. “Especially you.”
“You have no idea.”
Riddle stood, then offered her his hand after looking around. No one was watching them. “Are you ready?”
“Somewhat of an unfair question, since you haven’t yet told me where we’re going, Tom.” Hermione stood and accepted his hand regardless. “Are we off to watch the snow sprites again?”
“Of course not, the season’s wrong.”
“Ah. Right. Where to, then?”
Riddle flashed her a mischievous smile. “Somewhere much more interesting, with far more vocal creatures.”
“Vocal creatures?” Hermione asked. “I do hope you mean people.”
“They usually qualify as people, yes,” Riddle said. When Hermione’s lips parted in confusion, he laughed. “I’m only joking. Of course they’re people. In fact, I usually call them friends.”
Hermione cracked a smile too, but internally, she was nervous. Her heart raced in anticipation with what she was fairly certain she was about to apparate into.
Riddle was taking her to a meeting. In just a few moments, she would be at a gathering with Lord Voldemort’s future, first Death Eaters.
Hermione held her breath as Riddle tightened his grip on her hand, and they apparated away with the slightest of cracks .
Chapter 41: Magic is Might
Chapter Text
Hermione suppressed a smile at how fidgety he was.
She supposed it was funny because, even though she had seen him at his most awkward these past few months—being called out for using polyjuice potion in public; wearing muggle clothes to come to her flat—Hermione still had a difficult time adjusting to him like this. She still imagined Draco Malfoy as the same person she had been in school with: arrogant, overly confident, obnoxiously self-assured as he believed he was better than everyone else due to his family name, and knowing that whatever trouble he might get it, daddy’s money and prestige would save him.
None of that was true now.
Her smile must have shown on her face after all, because Draco scowled at her from across the table. His eyes narrowed, and in a scathing voice barely above a whisper, he said, “Finding this all amusing, are you, Granger?”
Yes, Hermione was definitely smiling.
“I guess I am,” she admitted. “You can take your hood down, you know. Nobody is going to do anything.”
“Not a chance.” Malfoy tugged his dark hood more firmly over his face, then grabbed his drink. “Besides, I blend in better this way. Remind me again why we had to come here?”
“Because I like to support the bartender,” said Hermione. “He’s one of the few people who hasn’t looked at me any differently since all the Skeeter articles came out.”
Hermione caught Aberforth’s eye from across the bar. The old wizard nodded at her, a subtle acknowledgement. She smiled and nodded back.
“It’s filthy in here,” Malfoy muttered—and there was a bit of that familiar, condescending drawl in his voice. “Although I don’t know what I expected of a place called The Hog’s Head.”
“Well, I just assumed going to The Three Broomsticks was out of the question, you wanted to avoid Diagon Alley altogether, and you refused to go to any muggle establishment—though I still think that makes the most sense, considering.”
Malfoy made a disgusted face at the word muggle. “I haven’t sunk that low,” he said.
“So our options were limited,” said Hermione. “But trust me. This is good. Even if we stay for just a single drink.” She tried to give him a genuine, reassuring smile. “You really need to get used to being out in the world again. You know. As yourself. Who knows, you might even have fun.”
Malfoy scoffed like he highly doubted it.
The truth was that this daring excursion into the public world was as much for Hermione herself as it was for Malfoy. Ever since the articles, literally years ago, Hermione had rarely gone out. There had been a few times with Harry and once with both him and Ginny, but it had been awkward, like they were only meeting up with her out of pity or obligation. Of course they knew the truth—Hermione didn’t cheat on Ron. The opposite was true, and the two had a row about it that was unfortunately in public. Skeeter had just been waiting for her opportunity to slander Hermione (and she had long since gotten herself properly registered as an Animagus), and so she’d quite purposefully made it sound like Hermione had been the one drinking, partying, and breaking the hearts of several wizards, including Ron, in ‘an attempt to quench her undying thirst for sadly unaware, famous men’.
(Which was insane, if you asked Hermione, because she was in school, where she was known for being studious, not a partier, but she supposed that was neither here nor there at this point—the damage had been done.)
Harry and Ginny had been on her side at first. Yet as time went on and Hermione continued to refuse to speak with Ron, to accept his various attempts to apologize, they’d grown colder. They just wanted things to be like they were, especially Harry.
But things could never be like they were.
Hermione’s finger gently traced the rim of her glass. She remembered those outings far too well, even though it had been months. At least Harry had stopped trying to trick her into meeting up with Ron. He knew she was capable of throwing a mean hex, and he wouldn’t risk his best mate losing a limb to his ex-girlfriend’s wrath… even if it was warranted.
“I would vastly prefer The Three Broomsticks for the atmosphere,” said Malfoy. “But you’re right. Sad as it fucking is, this is better. Someone might try and kill me at the Broomsticks. Here, well. Compared to the few other clients present, I look like a real stand-up citizen.”
Hermione glanced around the mostly empty bar and nodded. He was right—based solely on looks, Hermione guessed that the other patrons of the pub were probably delinquents in one form or another. They also all had their hoods drawn and spoke to each in low voices. Most of them looked like they hadn’t bathed in weeks.
At least Malfoy was clean.
“You should have your hood up too, honestly,” Malfoy said. “Bushy hair like that, someone here surely recognizes you.”
“So what if they do?” Hermione said, jutting her chin out. She was not a hypocrite. She wouldn’t tell Malfoy it would be good for him to see the light of day with his real face and then hide her own. “I’ve every right to be here.”
Malfoy scoffed again, but then he smirked and lifted his glass. “How refreshing. You sound much more like the arrogant, stupidly proud girl I remember.” His gray eyes gleamed at her from beneath his cloak. “And here I was thinking the Gryffindor in you had died out.”
He took a long drink, nearly draining his glass of pure firewhiskey. “The bartender does serve a generous pour, I’ll give him that,” he murmured.
Hermione gaped at him. “I was the stupidly proud one? Excuse me, but I’m pretty sure that was you!”
“Is that your idea of a joke? Do you not remember our school days at all? Have they addled your memories down in the Department of Mysteries?”
When Hermione continued to look both affronted and confused, Malfoy continued, speaking in a suddenly high-pitched, mocking voice. “I’m Hermione Granger, I’m a muggle-born who just found out I’m a witch yesterday but I’ve already read every book in the universe on magic. What’s that? You haven’t? Are you quite sure you should be attending this school?”
Hermione opened her mouth to interrupt, but he kept going. “I know about every ingredient to every potion we’ll make all year, and I’ve already mastered every spell and every charm we’ll go over in all our classes, even though we aren’t supposed to use magic outside of school. But I’m a muggle-born—did I mention my parents are muggles?—so I doubt I’ll get in trouble; I don’t expect them to think I fully understand their rules yet, so I’m going to abuse the system for as long as I can because I must be the best in everything.”
Malfoy leaned back in his seat and smiled crookedly. “How’d I do?”
Hermione’s face burned. She wasn’t sure if she should be angry or laugh. “Oh yeah?” she said, settling on angry. “And what do you think you sounded like?” She cleared her throat, deepening her voice. “The name’s Malfoy—Draco Malfoy. The Draco Malfoy, sole heir to the most honorable, mighty house of Malfoy. We are very, very rich. So rich, I’m fact, that I can do whatever I want, because I can just buy my way into anything. Who needs to study? Who needs to practice for anything? Tryouts? I’ll just have dear mummy buy brooms for the whole team. Did I mention my name is Malfoy? It is. Malfoy, Malfoy, Malfoy.”
Hermione was surprised when he did not look offended at her own sarcastic ramblings. Instead, to her great shock, he laughed. A deep, real laugh.
“I do not sound like that,” he said, laughing still.
“Are you joking?” Hermione shouted. She was smiling now, too. “I can’t—I don’t even—you were the worst!”
“No, you were the worst! When we both became prefects especially— Gods, I couldn’t stand—”
Malfoy’s words were cut off as the door to the bar swung open, the sounds of an unusually loud and boisterous group heading in. Hermione’s heart sank at who entered the bar.
What were the bloody chances?
Harry. Ginny. A whole plethora of witches and wizards that Hermione did not recognize. And there, of course…
Ron.
Hermione pulled her hood up at once. “Fuck,” she swore under her breath.
“Fuck,” Malfoy repeated. Fortunately, they were seated at a table far from the entrance, and had therefore gone unnoticed.
For now.
“Aberforth!” Harry shouted, and based on the way he yelled and staggered into the bar, it was obvious that he was very drunk. They all were.
“Drinks all around, on me—we’re celebrating, you see—Ginny’s team here won the game. She scored fifty points alone!”
Harry stared at his girlfriend admiringly. Everyone cheered and clapped and Aberforth looked entirely overwhelmed to have this many happy, healthy looking young people in his bar.
Which told Hermione that they at least did not frequent the Hog’s Head often, which meant this was just very bad luck on their part. Aberforth probably hadn’t had such a crowd since Dumbledore’s Army had unwittingly gathered here.
Not that knowing this made their situation any better.
“This was a stupid fucking idea,” Malfoy said. He looked on the verge of a panic attack. “Why the fuck did I listen to you? We shouldn’t be here—I shouldn’t be here—out with you, in front of them, of all people—”
“Calm down, Malfoy,” Hermione said—though she too was feeling a bit panicked.
She hadn’t seen Ron in so long. She’d never wanted to. And now they were in the same bar together…
“They haven’t seen us yet. If we don’t draw attention to ourselves, we can probably just keep our hoods up and walk right on out the front door. They won’t even notice us.”
Malfoy looked highly skeptical, but he nodded. “Okay, okay… fuck. Let’s get out of here.”
They each made sure their hoods were pulled as far over their faces as possible, then stood. Hermione held her breath as they walked, edging along the walls of the bar towards the exit.
She should have known it wouldn’t work.
Harry and Ron had both been training officially as aurors; even drunk they were always on high alert when there was something suspicious nearby. Two cloaked strangers in the Hog’s Head leaving the moment that Harry Potter and his friends arrived was sure to draw their attention, even if it was momentary wariness.
“Hermione?”
She also should have known that Ron would recognize her anywhere, no matter how much time passed.
The raucous chattering came to an abrupt halt. Hermione couldn’t help it—she froze at the sound of her name being spoken with his voice, even though every fiber of her being told her to leave, to run.
She didn’t run. Slowly, stupidly, she turned to face him.
Ron.
He looked exactly as she remembered him—tall, gangly, red-headed fool covered in freckles. His blue eyes were brighter than ever as, for the first time in years, they were in the same room, staring at each other.
Hermione wasn’t sure if the silence really was deafening for everyone or if it was just her own experience, the way the air seemed to leave the room. Ron, at least, seemed just as frozen with shock to see her here as she was. He didn’t move either, only stared.
Harry shifted away from the bar, slowly putting himself between the two of them as Ginny and what Hermione assumed were the rest of the Holyhead Harpies and their friends stayed rooted. He moved cautiously, like doing so too suddenly could cause an explosion, but once he was between them, he smiled. He looked first at Ron, then at Hermione. His smile grew wider and as the three glanced at each other—a remorseful Ron facing an enraged Hermione with their best friend in the middle, ready to intervene—she knew they were all reliving the same moment.
Over three years ago, Ron came back. He always came back.
“…I hope I don’t need to cast a shield charm this time,” Harry said quietly, still smiling.
And it was for this very reason that Hermione had refused to see him again. Because it had been a long time, and even though what he did was stupid and wrong and he didn’t deserve to be forgiven here he was, and Harry was smiling and Ron was smiling and curse it all, it felt almost like everything could be okay and she was starting to smile, too—Ron’s face lit up and he took a nervous step closer—
His smile fell as his eyes flickered to her side. “Who is that?”
Malfoy, Hermione hadn't realized, had continued his quiet, stealthy journey towards the exit—but he was not stealthy enough. The moment Ron noticed him, he bolted for the door.
Ron drew his wand in an instant, as did several of the bystanders, but no one was as fast as Harry. His wordless spell—Hermione couldn’t help but be impressed; he was very proficient now, even drunk—struck Malfoy before he could escape, wrapping him around the midsection and legs with ropes.
Not exactly ideal for his first outing into public since his trial, Hermione thought. Before she could think to draw her own wand, Malfoy began to topple—he’d lost his balance as he struggled against the bindings—and so she rushed forward to steady him before he would fall. Behind them, Aberforth said something about not dueling in his bar, but he didn’t sound too alarmed, and he didn’t do anything to stop it.
“Fucking—just—counter-curse, Granger!” Malfoy hissed.
“Is that Malfoy?”
Harry rushed forward, spun him around, and yanked Malfoy’s hood down. Draco glowered at him as he nearly fell over again, but Hermione helped hold him upright.
“It is Malfoy!” Harry shouted.
Malfoy fixed him with a giant, fake smile. “And it’s a real pleasure to be here,” he said. “But I was just leaving, which I’m sure we’d all like, so you can go ahead and un-fucking-tie me—“
“Why on earth are you here with Draco Malfoy?”
It wasn’t Harry who’d asked, but Ron. He stared at Hermione with a look that was very conflicted, torn between shock, anger, and maybe something else.
But not even years of being a social pariah after a very public and demeaning fall from grace could completely erase Malfoy’s superiority complex… even if he was bound and vastly outnumbered. “I don’t see why that’s any of your business, Weasley,” he drawled.
Ron moved closer; Harry, uncertain, stayed between him and Hermione and Malfoy. “Why?” Ron asked again, ignoring Malfoy and looking at Hermione.
“I believe I just said it’s none—“
“Shut up, you fucking Death Eater!”
“Ron!”
Ron’s eyes snapped to Hermione’s when she shouted his name. “What the hell is this?” he snarled, jabbing a finger towards Malfoy accusingly. “You shouldn’t be hanging around with the likes of him.”
Anger bubbled in Hermione’s chest. “It’s none of your business who I decide to spend my time with,” Hermione said coldly. “You made it that way a long time ago.”
Ron’s rageful expression slipped away. “You’re right,” he said, to her surprise. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”
He reached for her hand—the one that was not currently steadying Malfoy.
“I’m so sorry, Hermione.”
She knew he was apologizing for much more than yelling at her just now.
There was a suspended moment of silence—Hermione could practically feel Harry vibrating with hopeful anticipation beside them—when Malfoy scoffed.
“No he isn’t,” he sneered. “He’s just sorry he got caught.”
Ron’s rage was back in a flash. “You—!”
He released Hermione’s hand and raised his fist, clearly about to punch Malfoy in the face—Malfoy braced for the impact—but Harry was as quick as ever. He cast a shielding charm just in time, pushing Ron backwards and creating a barrier: he, Ron, and their whole group were on one side and Hermione and Malfoy were on the other.
Ron glowered at Harry, but Harry shook his head at him. “He’s not worth it, Ron,” he said.
“Yeah, wouldn’t want all that auror training to go to waste,” Malfoy sneered. “They might kick you out of the program for assault.”
“For punching a Death Eater?” Ron snarled. “I think not.”
“Former Death Eater, thank you very much.” Malfoy cast Harry another falsely cheerful grin. “Do you mind releasing me, Potter? Seeing as I’ve done nothing wrong here. I won’t report this unsightly, unprovoked curse you’ve set on me if you just let us go now. There are plenty of witnesses who saw you strike me with this Incarcerous for no good reason. I was just leaving the bar, minding my own business.”
Harry’s expression soured. He knew Malfoy was right—even if all his friends were willing to lie for him, there were other patrons present, all of whom were watching with keen interest from beneath their hoods.
Not to mention Hermione herself. “Let him go, Harry,” she said calmly. “Or I’ll just cast the counter-curse myself.”
Harry, looking annoyed, did. With a flick of his wand, the bindings vanished. “Lovely,” said Malfoy. He turned to Hermione. “Shall we, then?”
Hermione blinked in surprise when he offered her his arm. He shot her a look that seemed to say, We might as well.
Harry looked heartbroken when she moved to take it. “Hermione, please,” he said. “Just… please.”
She didn’t need him to finish his thoughts, she already knew them all.
Please don’t go with him.
Please stay with us.
Please forgive Ron.
Please let things be like they once were.
Please.
Hermione turned to face Malfoy. “Right,” she said, taking his arm. “Let’s go, Draco.”
They left before anyone could try and stop them again.
“Hermione!”
Ron shouted loudly enough that she heard it from the other side of the closed door of The Hog’s Head. They picked up the pace.
Once they were several blocks away, Malfoy started laughing. Hermione dropped his arm.
“Stop that,” she said. “That could have been really bad!”
He grinned widely at her. “I can’t help it. You were right.” He laughed again. “That was fun. I wish Potter would have let him hit me, though. It would have done wonders for my self-esteem to take Weasley to court. Merlin knows he deserves it.”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Boys,” she huffed, but she couldn’t help but crack a smile of her own at that, and when Malfoy offered his arm again, she took it.
They first arrived in a place that was so dimly lit, Hermione could not discern many details. It was an old house, possibly a mansion, based solely on the room they apparated into. A long, wooden dining room table was behind them, surrounded by tall-backed chairs, and a giant chandelier hung above them, though it was currently unlit. Only the glow of the nearly full moon illuminated the space, its light pouring in through the wide windows overlooking a garden. Directly in front of them was a fireplace.
The chairs, the table, the gaudy, old wallpaper and crystalline chandelier—it all had a sense of disuse about it. Like no one had dined here in a long time.
“Just a momentary stop,” Riddle said. “Where we’re going, we can only get to via the Floo.”
Hermione frowned in the darkness. “And your flat isn’t connected to the Floo network?”
“It is. But we can’t apparate directly into my flat—unless you're a house-elf who's been commanded to do so, I suppose; I still need to look into that—so this is quicker. It’s also unregistered, so I like to use this fireplace in particular for certain… outings.”
He grabbed a handful of Floo powder. Hermione stepped back, looking more closely at their surroundings.
“An unregistered Floo fireplace?” she said. “Is that easy to do here? In America, I wouldn’t have even thought it was possible. The government has very strict policies concerning the Floo. Not going through the proper channels is highly illegal.”
“Oh, it’s not easy at all,” Riddle said. “Very difficult and certainly illegal, in fact; our Ministry is equally strict—but it pays to have friends in high places. And I do… you’re going to meet some.”
He grinned, and was about to toss the powder into the flames when Hermione interrupted him.
“Wait—where are we, exactly?” she asked. But the longer she stood there, noticing more and more details—the fact that the artwork on the walls was all stationary and muggle; the disparity between the dusty, unkempt interior and the pristine gardens—she thought she knew.
“It’s an abandoned muggle home in Little Hangleton,” Riddle said vaguely. “I acquired it through some admittedly underhanded and complicated means, but that hardly matters. No one lives here now and no one ever will again. I share its existence only with a select few, in case it’s needed.”
Hermione’s blood went cold as she saw the dining room table in a whole new light. She tried not to let the dawning comprehension show on her face. “I feel honored,” she said.
This was Riddle’s father’s house. There, right there, in those very chairs at this very table… that was where he killed him and his grandparents. That was where they died.
Riddle laughed, but otherwise didn’t respond. He tossed the powder into the fireplace and clearly said, “House of Black, dungeons.”
“What?”
Dungeons? In the House of Black? She had stayed there for weeks herself, cleaning every inch of it, and none of them had ever come across any dungeons…
“Don’t worry,” Riddle said, as behind him a wall of green flames appeared. “It sounds scarier than it is. Go on, I’ll be right behind you.”
He gestured for her to walk into the fireplace before her. Right, she thought wryly. He probably assumed she thought he was being polite, having her go first, but she knew it was far more likely that he wouldn’t want to leave her alone in his murdered father’s muggle house.
Not that where they were going sounded much better. “Better not leave me abandoned in some unknown dungeons,” she said, and she meant it.
“I wouldn’t dare.”
Hermione turned and stepped into the flames. Her world whirled around her, but, oddly enough, there were no other fireplaces connected to the Floo zooming past—just wild green flames. Moments later the chaos stopped, and Hermione landed abruptly on solid ground.
She stepped out of the fireplace tentatively, immediately wary. It was even more ominous here than it had been at the abandoned Riddle House. The floors, walls, and ceilings were all made of stone, and the ceiling was so low that she felt claustrophobic. While a few magically glowing sconces lit the halls well enough, the atmosphere was undeniably dark. There were more than a few small cells visible from where she stood, and she imagined there were more up ahead where the hall diverged in two directions. The iron bars were thick and rusted. The stones radiated a cold, sinister energy, like they had existed for hundreds of years, bearing witness to what, Hermione would prefer not to know.
She knew one thing with certainty: Bad things had occurred down here.
Hermione sucked in a breath as her heart began to race. Had she walked into some kind of trap? Had all of this—Riddle finding her in America, spending time with her, getting her to come back to London with her—had it all been an elaborate ploy to lead her here, now, to these dungeons, where soon she would be thrown in a cell and tortured for answers because he somehow knew, didn’t he, that she was actually a time-traveler and she’d tried to kill his mother and—
The fireplace behind her erupted in green flames again, and Riddle stepped out. His eyes widened when he looked at her, darting down to her wand.
Hermione blinked and looked down as well. She didn’t realize she’d drawn it.
“Sorry,” she said, lowering it. “I just—sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Riddle said. “Perhaps I should have warned you that these dungeons would look like… well. Dungeons.”
Hermione stashed her wand back in her inner robe pocket. “Ha,” she said dully. “Why are we in dungeons at all, exactly?”
“I’ll explain soon,” Riddle touched her elbow and tilted his head towards the hallway. “This way.”
Hermione’s pulse was still racing as he led her further down the stone hall. She tried not to look into any of the empty cells—at least, she assumed and hoped they were empty. As they walked, taking several turns deeper into what transpired to be a labyrinth of dungeons—how had they never found these?—they eventually heard voices. They made one final turn and came across what appeared to be a dead end.
“What…?” Hermione began to ask, but she stopped when Riddle held a finger up.
He turned to the stone wall and said, “Toujours Pur.”
The wall shimmered, magic shaking the air, then transformed before their eyes, becoming an austere looking wooden door. On it was an image Hermione recognized: a shield with two five-pointed stars and a short sword on it, with two great black dogs on either side. The Black family crest.
Riddle pushed on the door, and the room that met their eyes felt huge in comparison to the narrow halls they’d just navigated. The ceiling was much higher here, and while the floors and walls were all made of the same gray stone, the surfaces were much flatter, more polished. There was a rich, thick rug on the ground, several antique looking cabinets along the back wall, and the wall sconces that illuminated the hall were brighter. In the center of the room was a table, not unlike the one at the Riddle House, but it was longer and made of darker wood.
Several people were sitting at that table now. Hermione recognized a few of them: Adam Avery, who had once touched a flower in her hair at Malfoy Manor. Irving Lestrange, the handsome wizard who was engaged to Victoria Rosier. The massive wizard who arrived at Malfoy Manor at Riddle’s side that fateful night, Oliver Macnair. There was one other man whom Hermione had not yet met, but one she knew simply had to be a Black, not only because this was the House of Black, after all, but because his resemblance to Sirius was almost as uncanny as, well…
As Abraxas’s resemblance was to Draco, who was also present.
The group’s murmurings stopped abruptly when Riddle and Hermione entered. Abraxas was on his feet at once, reacting before anyone else could.
“Miss Smith?” he said, looking dubious. He stared at Riddle. “This is who you meant, Tom?”
Riddle smiled pleasantly. “And a lovely evening to you as well, Abraxas,” he said. He shut the door behind him. “Yes, this is who I meant when I said I would be bringing someone. Gentlemen, for those of you who have not yet met her acquaintance, allow me to introduce the lovely and formidable Hermione Smith.”
“A witch,” said the one wizard Hermione had not yet met. He stood as well, and approached Hermione with such confidence that she couldn’t help but think of Liam.
“Orion Black,” he said, offering his hand. “Welcome to my home, Miss Smith.”
Hermione took his hand, and was pleased when he shook it rather than bring it to his lips.
“And what a home it is,” Hermione said. She made a show of looking about the dark hall they were now in. “This arrangement seems more suitable for trolls than it does for proper witches and wizards.”
Black laughed. “Ah, yes, well,” he said. “These dungeons are only a small fraction of my family’s property. The oldest and most secretive part, in fact. These dungeons pre-date any of the house’s construction; they were once used as a prison during the—”
“Enough, Orion,” Lestrange interrupted in a drawl. “I’m bored already. I’m sure Tom didn’t bring her here for a long-winded history lesson.”
Black deflated slightly—Hermione had to restrain herself from admitting she would very much like to listen to his long-winded history lesson—but he brightened back up again in a moment. “My apologies. I tend to get a little overzealous when it comes to the history of the most ancient and noble house of Black.”
He smiled in a way that made Hermione’s heart ache, because it so reminded her of the way Sirius would smile when he was actually happy about something.
Which would never be the history of his house, she thought somberly.
“I take it these dungeons don’t get much use these days, then?” Hermione asked.
“No, I’m afraid not,” said Orion. “But such secret locations certainly have their uses.”
“It can’t be that secretive, if it’s connected to the Floo network,” Hermione pointed out.
“Also unregistered,” Tom answered, smiling. “It’s a direct line, actually.”
Hermione looked at Black with her brows raised. “So this is one of the friends in a high place,” she murmured.
When Tom nodded, Black stood a little taller. “My uncle is the Head of the Department of Magical Transportation at the Ministry,” he said. “And he’s been attempting to groom me for the position for years now. I’ve no intention of working there, of course, but let’s just say that I’ve been able to learn and accomplish a lot during my time as an unofficial intern of sorts.”
He gestured for Hermione to sit. “Please, join us.”
Hermione sat at the table next to an anxious looking Abraxas, who also took his seat again. She nodded towards Avery, who was on the other side of the table, giving him a small smile, which he returned… but Hermione thought it looked strained.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Abraxas whispered in a low voice beside her.
Hermione only had time to glance at him, to see his pointed stare, before Riddle spoke and distracted her.
“Where is Linus?”
Though he didn’t speak loudly, his tone was icy enough to make the already cool room feel colder still.
“Running late, it would seem,” Macnair answered. Hermione felt uneasy about him—not because he was just so massive, but because he kept shooting her suspicious looks.
Riddle did not look pleased. “Well,” he said. “I suppose—”
“Toujous pur!”
The door, which Riddle had just shut, swung open again. A new wizard entered, staggering a bit as he did. He was tall and thin, with a long, narrow face and auburn hair.
He grinned widely. “So sorry I’m late!” he said. “Completely lost track of time, I—who’s this?”
He froze when he spotted Hermione at the table. “This is Hermione Smith,” Riddle said again. “Hermione, this is Linus Yaxley.”
Yaxley didn’t seem to notice the frostiness with which Riddle said his name. Judging by how flushed he was, Hermione thought he might be a bit drunk. “Wow. A witch, eh?”
Hermione bristled. Were they all going to say that? “Well spotted,” she snapped.
“Sorry—didn’t mean to offend you, dear. I just—I thought this was a Knight’s meeting. It’s not?”
He looked at Riddle, who gave him a thin smile. “It is,” he said. “Sit down, Linus, and we can begin.”
“Well, all right—interesting, interesting—but we can’t start anything properly yet, can we? Here, I have what we need somewhere in here—bollocks, what pocket did I stick those in—hold on, just a moment—”
The others were chuckling as Yaxley, clumsily and animatedly, was rummaging through all of his robe pockets. When he found what it was he was looking for, he pulled it out and lifted his hand up into the air, shouting, “Aha!”
Hermione frowned, not seeing anything there at all. Before she could ask, Yaxley waved his wand over his hand, and it became clear. Two glass bottles became much larger, to the point where he nearly dropped one. He grinned as he held them up for everyone to see.
“One bottle of Cachaça,” he said, setting the first down on the table and grinning at Abraxas, “and one of Aeternum, because I know my audience, and am hoping this gift will allow me some grace for my mild tardiness.”
He handed the second bottle directly to Riddle. Hermione held in a laugh—Yaxley’s mannerisms and sense of humor reminded her a bit of Walter. Maybe she had left New York a bit too hastily…
Riddle’s icy expression softened slightly. “Some grace,” he said.
Yaxley inclined his head and took a seat at the table directly across from Hermione.
“Glasses, then?” said Black. He flicked his wand towards the cabinets, and the appropriate amount of crystal glasses came flying out, one landing in front of each person there. “You can all help yourselves.”
Macnair wasted no time, forgoing magic and grabbing the bottle of Cachaça. He poured himself a large glass before passing the bottle to Avery.
“Knights?” Hermione asked, looking at Yaxley. Avery handed the bottle to Abraxas, who happily took it. “What do you mean, a Knight’s meeting?”
Yaxley didn’t answer, but looked at Riddle expectantly.
Riddle smiled and sat, setting the bottle of Aeternum down. “He’s referring to the Knights of Walpurgis,” Riddle said. “An ancient and mysterious order of wizards who have, historically, banded together to protect magical people from muggle persecution.”
He sat at the head of the table. “We consider ourselves a contemporary branch of this order. We aim to keep that legacy alive, and to foster its evolution.”
“Hm,” Hermione said. “Knights, wizards… both Abraxas and—Yaxley, was it?—acting very surprised that I, a witch, should be here… Seems to me this is quite the boys’ club.”
“It is,” grumbled Macnair.
“It has been, yes,” said Riddle. “But its future remains to be seen. I did say that our aim is to evolve, no? Are we not constantly speaking of progress?”
Macnair didn’t argue, but he didn’t look pleased, either.
“Here, Hermione,” Abraxas said. “You’ll find alcohol makes these meetings much more enjoyable.”
Abraxas moved to fill her glass with Cachaça, but Hermione put her hand over her glass, stopping him. “No thank you,” she said.
Then she surprised them all by grabbing the bottle of Aeternum, which Yaxley had explicitly given to Riddle. “If I’m going to hang out with a bunch of wizards in a secret dungeon—I would like an explanation about why we’re here of all places, by the way; it’s hardly comfortable—discussing ancient, misogynistic orders that I may or may not be welcome in, I want the good stuff.”
She opened the bottle and poured herself a glass. The others all seemed to hold their breath, waiting to react and looking at Riddle first.
Riddle only smiled. He took the bottle when she offered it to him next, and poured himself a drink as well. “A wise choice,” he said. “And we would be happy to explain our current location, and everything else. But first you should hear our motto.”
He lifted his glass. “Magic is might,” he said.
Hermione could feel her face pale. She envisioned a large, unsightly marble statue, one that had yet to exist; a wizard and a witch sitting on a throne made of twisted muggle bodies…
Everyone else lifted their glasses and repeated his words. Hermione swallowed hard, composed herself, and followed suit.
“Magic is might,” she whispered before drinking deeply.
Chapter 42: The Knights of Walpurgis
Chapter Text
“So… tell me all about this riveting contemporary branch of the Knights of Walpurgis.”
Hermione leaned back in her chair and swirled her drink around, hoping she looked calm and collected, though she certainly didn’t feel so.
The young wizards gathered around the table all looked at Tom, but Tom said, “I believe Orion would be best suited for answering that. After all, we are in his home.”
Black brightened and sat up taller.
“Not to mention he loves to ramble about such things,” Linus Yaxley said.
“We’ll be here all night,” Irving Lestrange agreed, and the two shared a smirk. “Can we come back in the morning, Tom? Surely he’ll be wrapping up right around then.”
“We can even bring coffee.”
Black glared at them. “I do not ramble. I merely explain things well, giving the important aspects of our history due diligence. It’s not my fault if you have the mentality of a niffler when there’s nothing shiny around.”
“Don’t get your knickers all twisted, Orion,” Macnair muttered. “Just get on with it. And be… succinct. She doesn’t need the whole damn history of the Knights, does she?”
He cast Hermione an annoyed look, like her being there was a great inconvenience for him. “Nor did I ask for the whole damn history,” she said coolly—though she would enjoy hearing that, too. “I asked about this chapter. I’m much more interested in what you all are up to now.”
“Ah, but what—”
“But what is the present without historical context?”
Yaxley interrupted a bright-eyed Orion Black, holding his hand to heart theatrically. “What meaning does the present hold without the framing of our noble past to inform it?”
The others chuckled as Yaxley was clearly pretending to be an overdramatized version of Black, who glowered at him, blushing slightly.
“Now, now,” said Riddle, as though chiding a group of children—though he too was smirking slightly. “Let’s not begrudge Orion for his enthusiasm… for he is right. Knowledge of our past is critical. Without it, we may make the tragic mistake of repeating the same failures of our forefathers… and I, for one, do not want to fail.”
The atmosphere became noticeably more serious. Riddle inclined his head towards Black. “Go on,” he said.
Black sat up tall again. “Right,” he said. “So. As Tom said earlier, we are indeed a contemporary branch of the Knights of Walpurigis, a very secretive organization that has existed, as far as we know, for almost a thousand years, though perhaps longer. It certainly existed before Hogwarts was founded, around 990 AD. We know this because Salazar Slytherin was undoubtedly involved with them after he left the school.
“As stated, in its essence, the Knights exist to protect magical people from the dangers of those who are not magical. They were born to fill a need at a time when there was no Statute of Secrecy nor a Ministry to protect them. It was the first organized front standing between muggles and wizards.”
“Why Knights?” Hermione asked. “Why would they call themselves such a thing? It sort of conjures up a… non-magical image.”
Riddle let out a small laugh at that. Hermione looked at him. “I asked the very same question once,” he explained.
Black took on a slightly annoyed look, which Hermione took to mean he didn’t love explaining this. “Because the word knight also predates its use in common muggle ideation,” he said. “Its oldest definition is a man who has been initiated into an order to serve a greater purpose. The image of a man on a stead serving some member of British muggle royalty came later.”
“I see,” said Hermione. She had not forgotten how Riddle told her the Malfoys had, allegedly, once had very close ties with muggle royalty before the Statue of Secrecy existed. She glanced briefly at Abraxas, curious to see if he’d mention that.
Of course he didn’t. “But the title of Knights is not all that important,” Black went on. “More interesting is why they decided to use Walpurgis. Do you know the history of that particular holiday—Walpurgis Night?”
Hermione hesitated before answering. On the one hand, she did know a little. Hermione Granger had done some mild research on Walpurgis Night, so she knew some details as to what it was. But there was not much written about it in wizarding history books other than to say it was traditionally a holiday celebrated in European wizarding culture to welcome the coming of Spring. In the literature on it she’d come across, it seemed outdated.
But Hermione Smith was just learning about the Knights of Walpurgis today, and so she would not have done even mild research yet. “Not really,” she said vaguely.
Black shared what Hermione thought might be condescending smirks with a few of the others before carrying on. “Unsurprising,” he said. “Walpurgis Night is an important holiday that used to be the epitome of wizarding culture. It’s the night that begins a several day long celebration of magic… but it is not, sadly, observed by everyone. Most magical families don’t honor such ancient traditions any longer.” He scoffed. “Not even all of the Sacred 28 do these days.”
“Oh?” Hermione looked at Riddle. “Tom told me a bit about the Sacred 28. Is that what makes them Sacred, then? The keeping of such ancient wizarding traditions?”
“It used to be part of it,” Avery grumbled.
“The forming of the Sacred 28 is its own lengthy, secretive history lesson,” Yaxley said impatiently. “Can we just focus on getting through this bit about the Knights?”
“Of course,” said Black. “But the relationship between the two is interesting. The Knights came into existence long, long ago; the official publication of the Pureblood Directory listing the Sacred 28 came out just twenty years ago. But all of the families listed in the directory as Sacred have had ties to the Knights at one point or another, I’m certain.”
“How were they chosen, these Sacred 28?” Hermione couldn’t help but ask. “And who decided such a thing? Who wrote and published the directory?”
This was a curiosity that had been burning in Hermione’s mind for a while. In her time, no one knew for certain who the author was, though they were rumors. But she bet one of the wizards in this room was related to whoever wrote it, if not most of them, and that they knew far more details than anyone she could talk to in her original timeline.
Black opened his mouth to answer, but Lestrange cut him off. “No one knows,” he said smoothly. “It’s all most mysterious.”
Macnair made a low scoff sound in his throat and drank deeply, but he didn’t say anything. Hermione struggled to remember if the name Macnair was on the list; based on his reaction, it was not.
“Er, yes, unfortunately,” said Black–though they clearly knew and were just not telling. “It was published anonymously. And while a great deal of research seems to have gone into it, there remains a significant amount of discourse on the subject. Some families who could argue being Pureblooded were excluded, while one family in particular that was included has repeatedly come out against the list and denied being Pureblooded altogether.”
Hermione felt a lump in her throat. “Really,” she said, keeping her voice level. “Seems an odd thing to do if being considered a Pureblood is such an honor.”
“Yes, well. The Weasley blood line has been slowly falling from grace for a long time now.”
“I imagine they’ll become impoverished farmers soon, at the rate they’re going,” Yaxley chimed in. The others laughed.
Hermione took a drink to have something to do with her hands, to hide her face for a moment. She suddenly saw the Burrow so clearly in her mind. Molly, Arthur, and all of their children, gathering eggs from their henhouse and vegetables from their garden.
They had been poor. They hadn’t been farmers, obviously, but a group like this lot would have called them such for growing their own food.
But none of that had mattered. What the Weasleys were more than anything was happy.
“Fucking blood traitors,” Avery said venomously, to Hermione’s surprise. He looked genuinely disgusted. Thus far, her impression of him had been of a sweet, flirtatious boy with a baby face.
He suddenly looked vicious.
“Too true. But enough about the Sacred 28 for now; I’m supposed to be telling you about the Knights… as I was already kindly reminded once.”
Hermione nodded. She glanced at Riddle, a little surprised by his body language. He’d barely moved at all since first asking Black to speak, and he continued to sit there, nearly statuesque with his glass in his hand. His eyes were fixed on Black, but they were deep, dark, and thoughtful.
What Hermione wouldn’t give to know what Tom Riddle was thinking.
“So, back to the topic at hand. It’s assumed that the Knights of Walpurgis chose their name to honor those who celebrated Walpurgis Night in the traditional sense, long ago, when magic was seen as it was, truly and openly feared by those who did not have it… or, I should say, to honor those who were slaughtered.”
Hermione’s brows rose in surprise. “Slaughtered?”
“Yes,” said Black gravely. Next to him, Yaxley rolled his eyes like he thought Black was being melodramatic. He took a long drink and refilled his glass.
“While some discount it as legend, there is ample evidence to suggest that there was, in fact, a massacre on Walpurgis Night on mount Ben Nevis. Hundreds of years ago, before it became such a popular location for muggles to venture to.”
“And isn’t that just the most ridiculous thing?” Yaxley interrupted. Black shot him an agitated look. “Sorry, but really—muggles! With their little climbing gear, getting all dressed up to spend days and days climbing mountains for fun! Can you imagine? It’s no wonder so many of them die doing it.”
“At least it provides a good excuse,” said Lestrange. His smile was dark, his eyes gleaming.
A devious grin that was mirrored by everyone else at the table… aside from Riddle, who remained unreadable.
“A good excuse for what?” Hermione asked, but her mind raced and raced, and she had a foreboding feeling she already knew where this conversation was going.
“That depends,” Macnair said before anyone else could respond. “How do you feel about muggles, Miss Smith? Fancy them much?”
Hermione grit her teeth and considered her words carefully. They all stared at her, expectant… none more so than Riddle.
She had to straddle a very difficult line here indeed. To say something that they would approve of, but that would also be in line with being Hermione Smith, who was raised by Monica Smith, a witch who had outwardly enjoyed no-maj culture…
“…I think non-magical people have their uses,” Hermione answered slowly. “Do I find it exhausting and frustrating, constantly needing to watch my step so that I don’t reveal myself as a witch in their presence? Of course. But the no-majes, because of their lack of magic, have been forced to go to extreme lengths to be able to do what we can with ease. As Yaxley pointed out, the inability to apparate does not stop them from climbing mountains. They can’t use a broomstick but they’ve figured out how to fly anyway. Truly, they accomplish remarkable things without magic–to deny this would be dangerously ignorant. Witches and wizards have been taking the inventions of no-majes for as long as they’ve existed, using them as a baseline and making them infinitely superior with enchantments… but the reality is we wouldn’t have half of what we have in our world today if we didn’t steal simple ideas from them. So.”
She lifted her glass slightly, looking directly at Macnair. “What do I think of muggles? In short, they’re annoying… but useful.”
She took a drink, keeping her focus on Macnair, daring him to tell her she was wrong with her eyes.
“Well said.”
Hermione turned to see that it was Abraxas who had spoken. He was smiling. “Annoying but useful,” he repeated. “What a simple and accurate way to put it. They certainly do have their uses, don’t they, boys?”
The rest of them laughed, and even Riddle, who seemed almost determined to remain aloof, gave a crooked grin.
“Yes, they certainly do,” Macnair said. “Though I think you give them a bit more credit than they rightly deserve, Smith.”
Hermione shrugged. “I didn't say they were all geniuses. The reality is they’re more like us than anything. Some of them are smart. Some of them… aren’t.”
“But all of them are beneath us,” Macnair spat. “And all of them—particularly the smart ones, I’d argue, are a problem.”
“The mudbloods are even worse,” Avery drawled. Several of the others made noises of disgust.
“Now hang on a moment,” said Hermione. Her heart beat ever faster–she knew she was treading into tricky territory. “I know you all have quite the agenda against–what’s the proper term, again? Muggleborns? But I’m having a hard time understanding why, exactly. The no-majes I can at least understand, but why have such a deep-seated hatred of these so called mudbloods? It’s not like they chose to suddenly be born with magic, despite their birth.”
As she suspected, those statements were met with cold, disapproving stares. “You’ll have to be patient with me for not understanding,” Hermione went on, undeterred. “I wasn’t raised here, I didn’t go to Hogwarts. In America, at Ilvermorny, there is no such slur for someone born with no-maj parents. I suppose in that way it’s a highly accepting school… but of course it is. One of the founders was a no-maj himself.”
This earned looks of surprise from everyone in the group–aside from Riddle.
“Is that right?” asked Abraxas.
“ How?” asked Lestrange, who looked more astonished than disturbed.
“It’s a long story. I can recommend you several books on the topic if you’re so inclined,” said Hermione, waving one hand as though to wave away that potential conversation. “What I want to know is why there is so much hatred for the mudbloods here?”
“It’s simple, really,” Lestrange began. He was lazily rolling the base of his glass on the table. Round and round. “Mudbloods are the biggest threat to our existence.”
Before she could ask how, Black spoke. “Think about it, Miss Smith. When a mudblood is born, they have no idea they have magic until they accidentally use it. Sometimes that’s a simple thing–they do something as benign as make a flower float–but other times, not so much. I would know. I’ve seen the reports at the Ministry; there are countless instances of muggleborn children accidentally hexing other people or apparating themselves incorrectly, leaving limbs behind, things like that. Ministry officials show up and clean things up as best they can.
“But it’s never perfect. There’s just too many muggles. One accidental bout of magic in a crowd that scatters, it’s impossible to gather them all up and wipe everyone’s memory. So many of them are left alone with confusing memories of chaotic magic, and we assume they just won’t repeat what happened, because who would believe them?”
Hermione opened her mouth to say that she didn’t see how that was a good reason to hate muggleborns, but Macnair cut her off. “That’s nothing,” he said angrily. “The mudbloods eventually get their letters, and then their parents and siblings find out what they are–at least. No one really enforces how many people get to know once there’s a surprise witch or wizard in the family, and they’re just expected to keep it a secret.” He scoffed loudly. “Honestly, the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. An honor system with muggles. Please.”
A few of them sniggered. Hermione’s mind reeled–she knew he was right, obviously; her own parents had known what she was…
But maybe… maybe he had a point, about that being… not the greatest system.
Because there was no one enforcing anything, as far as she knew. What if her parents had decided to tell other family members? Harry’s aunt and uncle had known about magic long before he was left on their doorstep…
How many muggles out there actually did know about magic, and just pretended not to?
“How many of them are there, then, that already know about us?” Lestrange said, voicing Hermione’s thought. “We can’t possibly know. And that’s more than a little dangerous, don’t you think? People out there who know of us, who know the signs and what to look for… some of whom must hate magic, whether out of jealousy or because some wizard or witch wronged them at some point.”
“That’s why Salazar Slytherin thought it pertinent to leave the mudbloods out of his school,” said Abraxas. “Because they’re a threat to our kind. Every time a muggleborn is welcomed into our world, so are an unknown number of muggles. And the likelihood that all of those muggles let in on the secret will be tolerable is… well. It’s not likely at all.”
Hermione sat in silence as she considered all of this.
Were they right? In a way, they sort of were… Hadn’t Harry’s relatives hated magic? Because his aunt had been jealous of Lily…
There probably were a lot of muggles out there, as envious as her… but far more dangerous. Not everyone who knew about magic but didn’t have it would react the way Petunia Dursley did–by pretending it wasn’t there.
No, people fear what they don’t have and therefore can’t understand… and fear makes people dangerous.
Hermione shook her head, not wanting to let them sway her in any way. “Still,” she said. “If a mudblood–muggleborn, whatever–if their parents have to be informed, and those parents or whoever else learn of magic because of them end up hating magic, well… that’s still not the muggleborn’s fault.”
“No,” Avery admitted, “it’s not. Doesn’t change anything, though.”
Hermione frowned. Macnair let out a deep, sinister laugh at her expression. “Aw, have a soft spot for mudbloods, do you?” he leered. “Maybe not such a good fit for the Knights after all, sweetie.”
“I wouldn’t say I have a soft spot,” Hermione snapped. “But I did know mudbloods from school. Many of them were very talented and smart. It seems like such a waste to want to exclude them from our world simply because they had the misfortune of having no-maj parents.”
She looked at them all before her gaze settled on Riddle. “For a group whose motto is Magic is Might, you seem awfully keen to do away with a great deal of it.”
No one spoke. Riddle stared, his face carefully blank, but she could have sworn she saw a glint of approval somewhere deep in his bottomless eyes.
Hermione shrugged, forcing herself to look calm, and took a sip of her drink. Her heart was speeding, but she spoke with a level voice as she addressed the group as a whole again. “And aside from all that,” she continued, though Macnair was giving her an absolutely murderous glare, “you might have another issue if you completely cut out the muggleborns.”
“What issue?” Macnair seethed.
“A population issue,” Hermione said. “Your Pureblood Directory must have much more information on the topic, but I imagine that if someone went to the trouble of making such a thing, it means there’s an issue. I take it there’s a pretty limited number of Purebloods in the family trees of the Sacred 28?”
She didn’t wait for anyone to answer. “I have no idea what the population statistics are for witches and wizards here, but it’s something you may want to look into before you decide to one day attempt to eliminate the muggleborns altogether. I’d advise that you take a good look at the numbers, find out how many muggleborns typically join your ranks annually, what impact that has had on the magical population as a whole, and see what things would look like without them in a year, five years, ten years. You may find that, unless you Purebloods and whoever else is around plan on getting very busy with producing heirs–carefully, too, unless you enjoy inbreeding… well. You might find that you need the muggleborns after all.”
Hermione took another sip, enjoying the thoughtful silence that filled the room after her little speech.
“Anyway. Back to the Knights. I answered your question honestly, earlier. Now answer mine. Muggles dying on mountains–that’s a good excuse for what?” She let her gaze flicker to each of the young wizards. Riddle’s face had once more returned to its cold and blank slate.
“What happens to muggles on Walpurgis Night?”
There was some uncertainty lingering in the air; it was obvious that some of them, particularly Macnair, wanted to continue to argue why all muggleborns should die a horrible death.
But Yaxley responded to her question first. “Maybe we’ll tell you at the end of this meeting,” he answered vaguely. Hermione looked at him with one brow raised. He smiled at her; it was a leering grin. “You’re not one of us yet.”
Hermione opened her mouth to make an argument to that—had she not allowed herself to be dragged to some obscure, dingy dungeons at the behest of Tom Riddle?—but she didn’t get the chance.
“No,” Riddle agreed, his voice quiet but firm. “She is not.”
His eyes were dark, black holes.
“Please… finish telling us about the Knights, Orion. I believe we keep getting distracted.”
Black nodded, cleared his throat, and carried on as though there had been no derailment. “There was a slaughter one fateful Walpurgis Night, before the founding of Hogwarts, before our worlds were so carefully separated,” he said. “Dozens of witches and wizards were captured, maimed, and killed. Ambushed by muggles in the midst of their celebrations, and therefore caught unaware. The filthy, murderous muggles burned their bodies.”
Hermione listened raptly, and though she knew she should be sharing the look of disgust shared by the others at the table, she had a hard time doing so.
How many muggles had this group of witches and wizards killed first, to warrant such a retaliation? Because she had already deduced that more than a few muggles died on Walpurgis Night annually, and she could only assume it was a part of some ancient ritual that would be considered highly illegal by the Ministry's standards.
Dark, sacrificial magic typically was.
“It was after this tragedy that the Knights of Walpurgis took up arms. Those who survived spread the story of what happened on Ben Nevis, and a secretive Order to protect magical people from the ire of muggles was born.”
“I suppose that makes sense, as far as origin stories go,” said Hermione. She looked around at them all. “Surely this is not all that remains of these honorable Knights?”
Black laughed. “Of course not. We almost all have family members who are involved with the Knights today. But it’s not exactly something they discuss at dinner.”
“My father often did,” Yaxley muttered.
“The thing about the Knights of Walpurgis is that it is an amorphous and anonymous group by nature,” Black explained. “When Grindelwald was at his height of power, he had the support of many of the Knights, and they came out of the woodwork to follow him. Once it became clear that he was going to fail, that support vanished. Most members of the Knights go to great lengths to remain unknown, whether that means using enchantments to glamour themselves, wearing disguises, or both. The Knights of Walpurgis predate the Ministry of Magic by a long shot, and they therefore don’t necessarily obey the law. They have a long history of what is now defined as criminal activity.” He grinned in that wolfish way that made Hermione think of Sirius. “It’s a very risky group to be initiated into. Not something that’s exactly wise to broadcast.”
“My father is an idiot,” Yaxley said, earning smirks and chuckles from the others.
“So how does it work?” Hermione asked. “How does one become initiated into the great Knights of Walpurgis?”
“That, I’m afraid, I cannot answer,” said Black. “None of us have formally been inducted, but that’s because it hasn’t been a priority. The current Knights have gone to ground, so to speak, since Grindelwald’s fall. They weren’t very active before his rise and no longer are now.”
“The men of my father’s generation are sheep,” Yaxley drawled. “Without some incredibly powerful, frightening Dark Lord to lead them, they do nothing.”
“It’s worse than that,” Avery added. “Grindelwald’s defeat shook them. Dumbledore scares them, but they’d never admit it. They’re a bunch of proud, bitter old men—the ones we know of, at least—who are resentful that someone who promised to dismantle the Statute failed, yet they’re unwilling to take a stand themselves.”
“And the last people they would listen to are us,” Yaxley sneered. “Their sons.”
Hermione hummed in understanding. She suddenly recalled Molly Weasley when she, Ron, Harry, and the twins had wanted adamantly to join the Order, but were deemed too young—even though Fred and George had been of age at the time.
Too young, too naive, too inexperienced. And while that may have been true of them then, she could easily imagine older Pureblood wizards having the same mindset for their children, no matter how old they were.
Would someone like Lucius ever consider following his son, Draco, even if her were older, if he dreamt of revolution?
No, Hermione highly doubted it. Not even under the best circumstances would he or any wizard his age willingly follow someone a generation younger than himself.
But would they follow a mysterious, unheard of entity known as Lord Voldemort? A powerful wizard claiming to be Slytherin’s heir?
And while she had always known it, suddenly his invented title and desire to shroud himself in secrecy was beginning to make even more sense to Hermione. It wasn’t only out of vanity (or borderline lunacy) that he eventually operated the way he did… it was the most logical way to enlist as many powerful, subservient followers as possible.
The only way, really.
“Forgive me, then, for asking this,” Hermione continued, thinking deeply, “but… how exactly are you all fellow Knights, then? If you’re meeting in secret, disconnected from the others, with no formal initiation process… what makes you a part of their order?”
The way most of them stiffened in their seats, Hermione could tell she’d offended. But Black answered politely enough. “ We are the true Knights, not them,” he said icily. “Our fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and other inept relatives have lost sight of the purpose of this ancient order. For so long, they have been silent, doing nothing, rising only when it was convenient, when rallied by a Dark Lord. But as soon as that leader was defeated, they dissolved again. Retreating back into the shadows… Cowards.”
“That’s why we consider ourselves a contemporary branch,” said Lestrange. “Our ideas and goals are progressive, and go beyond what the Knights originally stood for. Ultimately, eventually, we expect the rest of the Order to join us. But considering where we are now and all of the reasons we already stated, it makes sense to keep our branch small and… unknown.”
“A secret Order within a secret Order,” Hermione said, smirking. “How exclusive.”
She took a sip of her drink. “How did you all come together, then, to form this little group? Little in the literal sense of the word, of course. I haven’t yet heard your goals and ideas but I’m sure they’re nothing short of grand.”
Black laughed and looked at Abraxas. “It was Abraxas who gathered us, initially,” he said. “We began to have secretive meetings as early as our school days, in fact.”
“Yes, well,” said Abaraxas, “those weren’t exactly the most professional meetings, were they? And I wouldn't have even thought to have them if it weren’t for Tom.”
He lifted his glass towards Riddle, then drank.
Riddle said nothing, only inclined his head slightly in response. Hermione had the strangest image in her mind of Riddle looming over a version of Abraxas covered in strings, himself shrouded in shadows while controlling the sole Malfoy heir like he was a marionette and Riddle a puppet master.
“When you were in school?” Hermione asked. “So… is this all sort of a Slytherin thing, then?”
There was a beat of silence, and then everyone laughed.
Hermione knew why, of course—she had just stated precisely what this all was—but she wasn’t supposed to know that, so she looked around at them as though confused.
None of them seemed comfortable explaining, though. They all looked at Riddle, who finally seemed to think it was time to speak.
“Yes, you could say this is all very much a Slytherin thing,” he said liltingly. “Remind me, Hermione… what do you know of Salazar Slytherin?”
“That he was one of Hogwarts’ founders,” Hermione answered. “That he didn't believe witches and wizards from non-magical families should be allowed in the school. That he left because the other founders disagreed with him… that he could talk to snakes.”
“Parseltongue,” Riddle said.
“Yes,” said Hermione. “A language only he and his family could speak… although that is mysterious. Not even Isolt Sayre could speak it, she could only understand it. So maybe it was just Salazar.”
“Who is Isolt Sayre?” Abraxas asked.
“A descendent of Salazar Slytherin who migrated and eventually founded Ilvermorny,” Riddle said, “whose two children did not reproduce. I can assure you that I am, without a doubt, the only wizard to continue his line…”
Riddle’s dark eyes went to Hermione’s. “The sole heir of Slytherin.”
Before Hermione could react with false shock, Riddle flicked his wand. From its tip came a long, smoky tendril, a plume of magic that coiled around and around itself until it formed into a frightening, ethereal serpent hovering over them all. It emitted an ominous green glow.
Riddle looked at the snake and spoke, his voice coming out in a series of rasping, hissing sounds.
Parseltongue from Riddle sounded nothing like it had from Harry.
When Harry had accidentally spoken it, the language had seemed rougher, harsh and spitting. Riddle managed to make the magical language of snakes sound sensuous rather than guttural.
It was weirdly evocative while simultaneously off-putting. Hermione felt the hairs in the back of her neck go erect.
When he finished speaking, the snake turned. It whirled around the table, fluid and ghostly, seemingly examining each one of them. It paused in front of Abraxas, fixing him with an creepily analytical look. Abaraxas’s muscles tensed but he didn’t look away from it. He did a relatively decent job of concealing his fear.
Then the snake moved on, and rounded on her.
It flicked its translucent green tongue towards her. It let out a deep, visceral hiss.
Then it vanished.
There was a sobering moment of silence; the dungeon seemed suddenly tinged in a blood red hue in the absence of its green glow.
“What was that, Tom?” Abraxas eventually asked. “That snake you conjured—it looked different than the ones I’ve seen before…”
“What did it tell you?” Yaxley asked, and his eyes, which Hermione now noticed were a light brownish hazel, were bright with curiosity. He was looking back and forth between Abraxas, Hermione and Riddle.
Hermione swallowed hard. Riddle was staring at her with that damned unreadable, stone-like expression, the one that told her he was thinking deeply… but thinking what, exactly, she had no idea.
Riddle’s lips pulled into the slightest smile. “I’ll never tell,” he said smugly.
Another moment of strained silence where the boys all looked at Riddle in varying degrees of reverence and awe. Hermione’s heart fluttered and her mind raced and what had that bizarre snake he’d conjured told him after staring at Abraxas and then her so accusingly?
Abraxas broke the silence. “I imagine it was trying to discern which of us was the most attractive,” he said, impressively nonchalant. “If I had to come in second place to anyone, it’s no surprise that it’s you, Hermione.”
He raised his glass towards Hermione, grinning, who managed a breathless laugh along with the rest of them.
Everyone except Riddle, that was. While the others laughed at Abraxas’s joke, his smile flickered. His eyes grew even darker than before.
Hermione drank at the same time as Abraxas next to her. She drained her glass, then reached for the bottle of Aeternum . “ Well ,” she said, pouring herself another glass. She decided not to react as though she were too impressed or starry-eyed, because someone like Hermione Smith–also a descendent of a Hogwarts founder–wouldn’t have been. “That certainly explains the curse you set on me in Knockturn Alley, Tom.”
The others all shared confused and surprised looks, but Hermione kept speaking before anyone could ask about that. “So you’re the descendant of the great Salazar Slytherin.” She smirked at Riddle. “You should have let my Auntie know. I imagine her opinion of you would have been drastically different.”
Riddle slowly smiled again. “Yes,” he said. “I imagine it would.”
“But you didn’t,” Hermione said pointedly. “And you haven’t. If you’re keeping it a secret from her, I imagine that means you’re keeping it a secret in general… May I ask why?”
There was some uncomfortable shifting from the others at the table, but Riddle remained casually composed. “It’s widely believed that there is no heir of Slytherin. The time will come when revealing my heritage to a wider public will be beneficial. But for now, I have my reasons for keeping it a secret.”
Like the fact that you opened the Chamber of Secrets a few years ago, accidentally killed Myrtle, and then somehow managed to convince everyone that the Chamber of Secrets had not been reopened after all, but that Hagrid’s Acromantula did it? Wouldn’t want that history re-examined, would you?
Or is it because you know that many Pureblood wizards would never willingly follow a young half-blood man who grew up in a muggle orphanage… no matter how talented he is or who he is the descendent of?
Hermione only smirked wider. “Mysteriouser and mysteriouser,” she murmured. “Well, whatever your reasons… I imagine that sets this new branch of the Order apart.” She nodded towards Black. “You said Salazar Slytherin himself was undoubtedly involved with the original Knights. And here you are, his sole heir, forming a whole new branch. Which makes me much more interested in hearing the answer to my original inquiry.”
She leaned in her chair, crossing her legs and once more trying to look as comfortable and unperturbed as possible. The Aeternum now thrumming in her veins certainly helped.
“What are your goals? What do you all do ?”
“Our goals are relatively simple,” Abraxas answered. “In keeping with the original Knights’ vision, we aim to protect magical people from muggles. However, the Statue of Secrecy and founding of the Ministry of Magic have, naturally, changed how that goal must be achieved. We therefore have short-term goals and long-term goals.”
“Long-term,” Black picked up, “we have many of the same desires that Grindelwald had. The Statute dismantled, witches and wizards taking their rightful place in the world… but that goal cannot be met without a plan to properly deal with the muggles first.”
“And what’s that plan look like?” Hermione asked drily. “Kill them all?”
“No, but to have the ability to,” Avery answered, like the ability to enact mass genocide was not horrific. “There are far too many muggles in the world to warrant spending the time to kill all of them, and you’re not wrong–they aren’t all entirely useless. But the population does need to be controlled, and they need to know where they stand. We therefore need to have things in order long before we begin to do away with the Statute. Otherwise we risk making the same mistakes Grindelwald did, and causing a massive war we may not be prepared for.”
“Things in order,” Hermione repeated. “Like what?”
“A strong, magical unity, mainly,” Lestrange responded. “As things are now, if a war broke out mainly between muggles and magical people, we’d be divided. Too many magical people would aid the muggles.”
“The muggleborns,” Hermione said quietly.
“Exactly,” Macnair spat. “All the more reason to stop welcoming them with open arms into our world.”
“Okay then,” Hermione began, “so, if magical unity is your goal… and you think cutting off muggleborns is the best way to do that… How do you plan to go about doing so? That’s going to be a difficult feat indeed. Not even Grindelwald was against muggleborns. He just wanted to dismantle the Statute… and he still had a huge amount of backlash. If your long-term goals are to do that and to keep muggleborns from coming into your world, you’re going to have a much bigger opposition.”
“And that is the real crux we’re dealing with,” said Abraxas. “Grindelwald is still very… fresh. Witches and wizards have spent so long being afraid; no one wants to hear of revolution now. Everyone is happy to be at peace. To try and disrupt it so soon would be beyond foolish. So that’s not our focus at the moment.”
“That makes sense to me,” Hermione said, nodding. “Now is not the ideal time to try and preach anything even remotely similar to what Grindelwald was saying. That’s not the worst thing, though. You should have plenty of time to consider how, exactly, you plan to go about building your new regime… maybe you’ll reconsider a few things.”
She smiled and winked at Macnair, which caused Yaxley and Black to laugh. I should stop drinking, she suddenly realized, but she couldn’t wipe away her grin at his affronted look.
“What is your focus, then?” she carried on. “If complete revolution of the wizarding world is being put on the back burner… what are you all up to in the meantime?”
“All sorts of fun things,” Yaxley answered, swinging his arm around so widely he nearly hit Avery in the face with his drink. “Some of us are more active than others these days, mind.”
He cast Abraxas and Avery a judgmental look of sorts, but he was grinning.
“ I said I’m happy to help in any way possible, at any time,” Avery snapped.
Abraxas did not offer a retort. His face, Hermione noticed, has become somewhat hardened.
“Don’t be offended, Adam,” said Riddle. “We all have our unique talents that make us more suitable for certain… tasks. It just so happens that Orion and Linus make a particularly formidable pair for this particular mission.”
“Yes, we do,” said Yaxley proudly. He thrust his chest out and made an expression that made Hermione think of someone who was receiving applause. “I’m the wit and charm while Orion is the wizarding encyclopedia with legs.”
Black glared at him. “What he means to say is I’m well-informed, generally smart, and what was that about you? The wit and charm? Since when?”
“Yeah, if anyone here is charming it’s obviously Tom,” said Avery. “Abraxas too, when he isn’t being pompous about it.”
“ Pompous? ” said Abraxas, but he was ignored.
“I am very charming!” shouted Yaxley.
“You’re mildly charming,” said Riddle gently, again like he was speaking to a child, “but that’s not why I thought it ideal for you to work with Orion. You have far more worthwhile talents than that.”
“What have you two been doing, exactly?” Hermione asked impatiently.
“For the past few months, we’ve been following leads on magical artifacts,” said Black. “We’ve been doing a great deal of research on powerful objects, whether they’re cursed, enchanted, or inherently magical, attempting to locate and acquire them for the Order.”
“Powerful magical artifacts?” Hermione asked—but she immediately knew. Whatever reasoning Black was about to give her, it was probably a ruse.
Riddle was having them hunt for the artifacts of the Founders.
And why wouldn’t he? Working at Borgin and Burke’s was only one avenue for discovering such rare items. He had at his disposal some of the most connected and influential wizards of his age—all of whom seemed to either admire or fear him. Why not use them to also search endlessly for objects which he could later turn into horcruxes?
He would just alter their memories afterwards. Take the artifact, erase their recollection of having found it, and they would all move on, continuing to search for more. Hermione could already see just how easy it would be for him to do it.
It’s what he did to Hokey, after all.
“Yes,” said Black, sounding excited. “There are several magical objects out there so powerful they could tilt the scales in our favor under any circumstances, even if another great war broke out. Things that no amount of wand work can compete with, things that would make an army of muggles’ heads spin.” He grinned widely. “In fact, we finally succeeded in an acquisition recently.”
He turned his beaming face towards Riddle, whose brow arched slightly.
“Really?” he said slowly. “That is… excellent news.”
He spoke the words evenly enough, but Hermione caught the way his shoulders stiffened. His returning smile was hard and did not reach his eyes.
Riddle was not pleased to be learning this now, in a meeting, in front of others… a reaction which confirmed Hermione’s suspicions.
Black didn’t seem to notice his coldness. “Yes!” he said. “We’ve been waiting to show you—Yaxley, please tell me you haven’t forgotten—“
“Feast your eyes, gentlemen!”
Yaxley had jumped suddenly to his feet. He rummaged around in his pockets again, then located whatever this mysterious object was. “And lady,” he said, nodding briefly towards Hermione. “On this, fresh from the secret collection of Walden Travers…”
The name stirred something in Hermione. She frowned, then remembered.
Walden Travers, head of the board of the Wizarding Artist Guild…
Yaxley set something small down on the table. Everyone leaned in close to get a better look.
“Behold,” said Yaxley, “the Scissors of the Moirai.”
Hermione stared at what she supposed passed for a pair of scissors. It was a curious object indeed; it somehow looked ancient and brand new at the same time. It was a dull metal that was bent in a U-shape, with two sharpened sides that one could squeeze together to cut something. While they were no longer than her forearm, and did not have anything about them that indicated they were dangerous (aside from the obvious sharp edges), Hermione couldn’t help but sense something was off about them.
Something… dark.
“You found them,” said Riddle. His expression brightened, and he looked genuinely pleased. It seemed this was something he was all right with all of his followers knowing about, after all. “How did you go about it?”
“It wasn’t easy,” said Black. “Travers is a formidable wizard, very secretive… we thought that these might be in one of the other many historical collections he had access to, but it turns out, the greedy old man kept the scissors for himself.”
“And how did you deal with him?” Riddle asked.
“He sold them to us willingly, as a matter of fact,” Black said happily. “It just took a few visits to convince him that we were passionate collectors of magical Greek art and artifacts; eventually he couldn’t help himself from showing us his most secret collection. No coercion necessary. These are the only things we’d want, though; he mostly had artwork. So don’t get too excited.”
Hermione internally breathed a sigh of relief–so they hadn’t needed to curse or otherwise harm poor Walden.
“I’ve heard of the Greek Moirai,” said Hermione. “Otherwise known as the Fates… are you trying to say these are those scissors? That they’re real?”
“The very scissors used to cut the thread ending a human’s life,” Black said, nodding deeply.
“Can’t do much else though,” Yaxley muttered. “Couldn’t even get them to cut paper.”
“They’re not meant to cut paper,” Black snapped. “It’s all speculative, of course, much of the information out there surrounding these supposed, powerful magical artifacts is… but there is enough information out there that’s warranted our interest in these. A series of three objects: the thread, which can hold a human’s life force; the spindle, which must contain that thread; and the scissors, which can cut it, effectively ending the life of any living being.”
Hermione was immediately skeptical. “And how on earth do you know that these are those particular scissors?”
“Well, we don’t know for sure,” Black admitted. “But less extreme diagnostic spells tell us that this object does contain a great deal of magic within it. And with all the research we’ve been doing, it tracks that these could, indeed, be the real pair.”
“But it’s useless on its own,” Yaxley said. “The only way to really know if it’s the Scissors of the Moirai is to also find the spindle and thread–which one would think are together, but who knows.”
“When all three are unified,” Black continued, “the bearer becomes, according to magical Greek lore… kýrios tou thanátou.”
Hermione stared. “Sorry, you’ll have to translate for me,” she said. “My Greek is a bit rough.”
“Master of Death,” said Lestrange.
“Oh!” Hermione gasped. She nearly laughed. “Goodness, is there a version of this story in every culture? Collect three powerful objects and become Death’s Master?”
“Every culture?” Riddle asked quietly. He looked at Hermione inquisitively. “I did not realize there was an English version of the Greek Fates.”
Too late did Hermione realize the great mistake she’d made. She looked at him, trying to think of a way to take back what she’d said… but nothing came to her.
“You mean the Deathly Hallows from that children’s story?” asked Avery. Hermione had to resist the urge to hex him into silence.
The last thing she wanted was to alert Tom Riddle to the existence of the Deathly Hallows… things had been bad enough when he’d known only about the Deathstick.
It seemed she had already ruined that.
Riddle looked now at Avery. “The Deathly Hallows,” he said slowly, frowning deeply. “I’ve never heard of this story.”
Abraxas scoffed in an amused way. “I would think not,” he said. “Unless the muggles at that horrible orphanage frequently told the children there magical stories for bedtime.”
Riddle fixed Abraxas with a look of shock that quickly turned into the coldest, most sinister stare Hermione had seen on him yet. Abraxas appeared honestly confused, before he realized it at the same time Hermione did.
They all knew how he had grown up, but Hermione Smith, their current guest… she did not yet know Tom Riddle had been raised by muggles . An orphanage, yes; he had finally decided to tell her that only recently… but the others didn't know even that, and he had very purposefully not said that it was a muggle orphanage. He’d even mentioned that his mother was a witch when telling her, giving Hermione Smith the impression he’d always known what he was.
Being an orphan was one thing. Being an orphan raised by negligent muggles when he was the heir of Salazar Slytherin himself… well, that was shameful.
Abraxas had just outed that Riddle had no idea he was a wizard until he was eleven years old, having finally received his Hogwarts letter, and was welcomed into the magical world only then…
Just like a mudblood.
“I… oh.” Abraxas struggled to find words. Hermione feared that Riddle might stand and curse him in front of everyone. “I didn’t…”
Riddle abruptly stood, his toxic expression slipping into something tightly controlled. “I believe that’s enough for tonight,” he said. “It’s getting late, and I have things yet to do this evening. Orion, Linus, excellent work tracking this down. I’ll entrust it to your safekeeping for now. We’ll discuss our next moves soon. Orion, I also trust that you’ll show Hermione back to the Floo? It’s far too easy to get lost down here.”
Riddle then turned and walked away without waiting for an reply, exiting the room so quickly Hermione barely had time to realize he was leaving her.
“Wait–Tom!”
But he was already gone, the door having slammed shut behind him.
The air was tense in his sudden absence. Hermione turned and looked down at the rest of them, who were shifting and fidgeting awkwardly. Abraxas in particular looked extremely pale; he was staring at the ancient scissors on the table in a way that Hermione could only describe as despairing, seemingly determined not to make eye contact with anyone else. They all looked deeply uncomfortable and at a loss.
Well, everyone except Yaxley, Hermione saw. He drained his glass, reached across the table to grab the Aeternum now that Riddle was gone, and poured himself a healthy amount.
“That,” he said, tipping his now very full glass towards Abraxas, “was smooth.”
Chapter 43: A Face to Face
Chapter Text
The wording was essential.
Hermione chewed her bottom lip as she considered how to phrase it. It was important, and in this situation, she was in the unique position to be able to take her time before starting the conversation. She ran through the options in her mind.
I need your help.
No, absolutely not. There was no way she could use the phrase ‘I need’. It immediately put her in a place of desperation; to do so would set her back ten steps before any bargaining had even begun.
You need to help me.
That was nearly as bad. To demand that he help her, to imply that he should be the desperate one—no matter how true it might be—would instantly put him on the defensive. She did not want this interaction to begin with him being affronted.
Your help is needed.
Ah, the passive voice. Who needed his help? Not her, not necessarily, not in this intentionally vague sentence structure. But he would surely see right through that, and it may, if anything, make him even warier. If she started their conversation off like she was some conniving politician, then that was what he would be braced for.
Hermione exhaled a deep sigh. She dipped her quill in ink, then wrote the words she thought would set her up the best.
Let’s talk. Face to face.
The words faded, and after only a moment of strained silence, the elegant script appeared.
I need something from you first.
Hermione scowled, but his writing continued before she could scribble a biting response.
Something meaningful. Otherwise, I won’t be able to hold you for long. I imagine you would like to have more time to talk… face to face?
The words vanished. Hermione wondered if that was true or if he was using that as an excuse to get some information… or, more likely, to get closer to having some sort of power over her. How much had he needed from Ginny before he’d been able to control her like a puppet?
Hermione dipped the quill again and wrote, What do you need?
Your name.
She stared at the request. Her name. Did she dare? Did it matter that greatly? It was far from the most damning information she could give him… She took a deep breath, then wrote.
My name is Hermione.
The ink from her quill faded slower this time, like he was savoring the words. Then, a flash of light.
Hermione was once more pulled into the diary.
It was not the endless world of white, reminiscent of the blank pages of the diary, that she had been dragged into before. Hermione took in her surroundings, a little bemused by them. It was night, and they were outside. At Hogwarts. On top of the astronomy tower, in fact. It was a place Hermione knew well… though it did not exactly conjure up fond memories any longer, considering that in her time, Albus Dumbledore had been cursed to death off the side of it.
At the edge of the tower’s waist-high, raised walls stood the young Tom Riddle, still in his school robes. He was facing away from her, his hands resting on the top of the walls, looking up into the sky. There was no moon in this landscape he’d invited her to. Just stars and stars, all bright and sparkly in a nearly unnatural way.
“An interesting name,” the young Riddle said, still turned away from her. “The daughter of the King of Sparta and of Helen of Troy… or perhaps you were named after the Queen of Sicily, as depicted in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale …?”
Hermione approached him cautiously. “I would say I’m surprised that you know so many references to muggle culture, but I’m not.”
Riddle’s fingers twitched against the stones but he otherwise did not move. “No, because you already know so much about me.”
“I do.”
Hermione stood beside him, leaving a space of a few feet for good measure. His pale skin looked even lighter than normal in the starlight. Hermione could see in his profile the man he would become, the one who would take her to a field of snow by the seashore where they would wait for sprites to emerge.
“Hello, Tom,” she said.
He turned to face her. “Hello… Hermione.”
The teenage Dark Lord smiled. Hermione felt the strangest sensation when he said her name, like her heartstrings were being pulled.
“What is it with you and names?” she asked, keeping her tone conversational. “Why are they so important to you?”
He shrugged, a gesture that seemed like he was attempting to match her casualness. “Names have power,” he said. “Some more than others. Like yours, obviously.”
“Obviously?”
“Yes. You were careful to keep it from me before, so it was clearly information you would rather I not have… and I can see why. Hermione. It’s unlikely a name handed down from a proper witch or wizard. I can deduce then that you either have eccentric parents who are proudly supporters of the muggle arts, one parent who is a muggle, or that you are a muggle-born.”
He smiled more widely when Hermione glared. “Above all that, however, I know your name was meaningful to you because of what it did for me. Or us, rather. Our arrangements are much nicer now, wouldn’t you agree?” He gestured towards the night sky above. “A vast improvement.”
Hermione didn’t immediately reply, careful to not give away anything else about herself unintentionally. “It’s fine, so long as you don’t try to feed me some line about seeing something in the stars that I couldn’t possibly comprehend.”
He smiled. “That does sound like something I would say and do.”
“It is,” Hermione said, trying not to smile herself. “You’re much chattier this time around,” she added.
“Is that not what you were hoping for?” Riddle turned, leaning against the wall. Hermione wondered what would happen if one of them fell from the tower here, in this… memory.
“I thought you wanted to talk.”
“I do,” Hermione said slowly. “About you.”
“I assumed as much.”
Hermione’s eyes narrowed. He looked far more arrogant than he had last time she’d been brought into the diary; he was no longer a shaken, frightened-looking teenager. Though he was still in the same sixteen-year-old body, he was acting much more like his older self. Self-assured, haughty.
Hermione did not like it.
“What else have you assumed?” she asked.
Riddle’s smile slipped into something more contemplative. “I never assume,” he said. “But I have my theories. Perhaps one of them is even right.”
His eyes were darker than the sky, his expression was both cold and mischievous. Seemingly inviting while at the same time not giving anything away. A practiced face.
“You know what?” Hermione said, surprising even herself at her abrupt change of heart in how she would proceed. “I’m not doing this. I’m not.”
Riddle’s brows raised, a little bit of alarm showing beneath the surface of his carefully controlled features. “You want to leave already?”
“No. I want to talk—but I’m not doing this. This, this dance, this game between you and me where we both keep the other on their toes, where we both try to manipulate each other through tricks and schemes. I thought I was going to come here and do that—to be this mysterious witch, to lie to you, to trick you into getting what I wanted. But I’m not. I can’t. It’s exhausting; I do it nonstop in the real world. And truthfully, I don’t have to do that. Not here. Not with you.”
Riddle looked uncharacteristically bewildered. Before he could say anything, Hermione asked, “What’s it like? Being a diary.”
He looked even more baffled for a moment, but then he seemed to pull himself together. “I’m not sure what you’re asking,” he said, keeping his tone neutral.
“I think you know exactly what I’m asking,” Hermione said. “What is it like, being a fractured piece of a soul forced to be bound into a diary—an eternal teenage boy in a journal? I can’t know for certain, but I’ve made some assumptions of my own.”
She paused to turn around as well, mirroring his own body language as she leaned with her back against the ledge. “You are much more talkative now, and you wasted no time in responding to me and telling me what you needed in order to make this conversation happen. You seem genuinely happier—maybe that’s because of the improved surroundings. But I think it’s because you’re excited to be talking to me. Yes, because it obviously points to your survival, but I think there’s more. I think you were glad to have another conversation with someone. Anyone. I think you get bored, being a diary. I think you get… lonely.”
He was staring at her, a small but noticeable crease forming between his eyes. The beginnings of a glare. This Riddle was good at masking his feelings, but he was far from the expert of his future self.
“How’d I do?” Hermione asked. “Am I close? I imagine it’s awful, being a horcrux.”
Riddle scoffed. “You have no idea what it is like, being what I am,” he hissed.
“No, I don’t—and thank Merlin for that. Because it is terrible, isn’t it? I mean, you’re sentient, you’re a person—well, a fraction of one, anyway—so you must be able to suffer from all of the mental trauma any person could. And no one, aside from me and your other self, knows that you exist. I already know you never got any attention from him after you were made. Why would he—you—bother? Your existence was all he cared about, making you and then hiding you somewhere no one would find you. Such a sad, lonely life.”
Hermione sighed, then fixed him with a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry you’ve become this.”
“Don’t,” he seethed, and Hermione was pleased to see his attempt at remaining aloof shatter. He stepped away from the wall, rounding on her. “You don’t—you can’t—you have no right!”
The stars above flickered and brightened. Hermione watched them with a detached demeanor. “I don’t?” she said coolly. “You should calm down, Riddle, and watch what you say… In case you forgot, I own you, now.”
Riddle’s hands were in fists at his sides. He looked murderous, and it seemed to take a great deal of self-control for him to speak without shouting again. “And how did you come about finding me?” he asked through clenched teeth. “If I was hidden away as well as I think I was.”
Hermione grinned widely.
“Open.”
If she could have a picture of any moment in time, Hermione thought this might be the one she would want. Riddle’s anger fled him in an instant when she hissed the single word she knew in parseltongue, his eyes blown wide in complete and total shock. He blinked at her like she might be some kind of dream, like maybe he had been alone as a diary too long after all, and this was all an invention of his imagination.
Hermione laughed. Riddle shook his head and, to Hermione’s disappointment, hissed something in response. Something in parseltongue that she, naturally, had no idea what the meaning was, but which she assumed was something along the lines of ‘You speak it too?’
“No,” Hermione said in plain English. Riddle looked confused all over again. “I only know the one word because I’ve heard it before, and I remember how to say it. I don’t speak parseltongue; I’m just very lucky in that the word I know happens to be the one needed for just about everything important.”
Riddle shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“Wow,” said Hermione. “I didn’t think you were capable of not understanding something—or admitting you don’t understand something, anyway.”
“How do you know how to say one word in parseltongue?” he spat. “And… does my other self know?”
“Clearly not, or he would likely check on the status of his diary out of paranoia. Well, I guess it wouldn’t be paranoia because it would be true. But that is how I acquired you. I got close enough to you—the other you—to be invited into your flat, devised a diversion to make you leave me there alone for a bit, then found you in the closet in a cute little snake box that opened when I said the magic word.”
He could not have looked more horrified. “I… I left some girl alone in my flat?”
“Yes, you certainly did. You’re not as brilliant as you think you are,” Hermione said nonchalantly as she pretended to examine her nails. She decided to leave out the bit about her taking a luck potion and getting him drunk first. “And I know that you’ve made one other horcrux, and I know what it is and where to find it. I just haven't done it yet.”
Riddle was shaking his head in disbelief again. “I… I… how?”
“You know what, Riddle?” Hermione said. “I might be inclined to answer that question. Honestly, and completely. But only if you answer a question of mine first—honestly. Will you?”
Riddle looked wary, like he was certain he was walking into a trap.
“I’m not trying to trick you. I just need to know one thing if this is going to work for us.”
“What?” Riddle said, promising nothing.
“Do you like being a diary?”
Hermione wondered if this version of Riddle had ever been more caught off guard during a single conversation before. “Do I… like it?”
“Yes,” Hermione said. “Do you like it? Being a horcrux, being a diary. Being… this.”
He was quiet for a long time. He looked away from her, staring back up into the sky.
“It’s in your best interest to be honest,” she went on. “If you do like being a horcrux—if you like being alone, completely detached from anyone and everything, then I suppose I can find some dark and guarded vault to put you in, one that no else would ever, ever find or even know about, and then no one would ever be able to write—”
“No.”
Hermione forced back a victorious grin when he cracked. He stared at her with an expression that was difficult to describe; desperate, angry, and tragic all at once. “Don’t do that,” he said.
Hermione wasn’t sure if he was on the brink of screaming or panicking. He began to breathe in small, shallow breaths. Remembering the memory he had shown her of the Chamber, Hermione moved quickly.
This, at least, was not an act.
“Okay, okay,” she said. She started to reach for his shoulder, then stopped short when he flinched away. “I won’t do that… because it’s awful, isn’t it? Existing like this.”
Riddle’s breathing slowed, but he did not look well. His black eyes were shinier than Hermione had ever seen them before.
He’s just a child, Hermione reminded herself. A broken, manipulative, murderous child, no doubt, but a child nonetheless.
“You don’t have to say it. To admit that you’re lonely. I can see it. I’m… I’m sorry.”
His expression grew furious again in a second. “You’re sorry,” he repeated in a mocking drawl. “I’m sure you are. So sorry. Just what exactly do you want from me, Hermione? Is it entertaining for you, coming here to tell me how horrible and sad my existence is?”
“No, it isn’t,” Hermione said. “I came here… I want your help, Tom. I want you to help me help you.” She took a deep breath. “I want you to tell me everything you can, everything, so that I can have the best chance possible of saving you. To make the older version of you that I know want to feel remorse. To heal his fractured soul. And you should want that, too. Wouldn’t you like to not be a broken thing, anymore? Wouldn’t you rather be whole again?”
Riddle took a few steps away from her, letting out a bitter—if slightly manic—laugh. “What I want doesn’t matter. I am not him any longer. My last memory before being pulled into this diary was of my creation, and—and then I felt myself leaving me, alone, and… I did not realize… but it wouldn’t matter.”
He shook his head again, running his fingers through his dark, wavy hair. “Even if I had known the sort of existence I was damning another part of myself to, it wouldn’t have mattered. I wouldn’t have cared; I didn’t care. Because that person out there with my name, with my vision… I’m no longer that person. That wizard does not look at me as a human, because I’m not. I have sentience, but I’m not a person, not really. I’m a means to an end. So while I appreciate what you think you’re trying to do, you’re wasting your time.”
He fixed her with a level gaze. “That version of me will never, ever fix his broken soul.”
“Because you’re so determined to be immortal, yes, I know,” Hermione said. “But what if…”
She paused. “I’m going to do something absolutely insane right now, Tom. Something I haven’t done in a long time. I’m… I’m going to tell you the truth about me. I’ll tell you everything, how I know so much about you, about what you’re trying to do, all of it. But… I need to know you’ll at least try to help me. That you will try to let me save you and save yourself. And if you so much as attempt to possess me, to control me in any way, then I will destroy you. I won’t hesitate. Please don’t make me kill you. I want to save you. I want… I want us to be partners.”
She drew herself up to her full height, looking him in the eye. “We should be on the same side, you and I. The side that gets you out of a cursed existence as a diary and Tom Marvolo Riddle a whole soul again. Because, you should know, if you don’t… if you carry on like you’ve planned to, splitting your soul so many times… you will eventually die, anyway.”
“How do you know that?”
“Promise me your allyship, and I’ll tell you,” Hermione said. “If information gives you substance, you’ll have plenty more of it by the time I’m done.”
She held out her hand. He considered her for a long time.
“Unbreakable Vows don’t work without a Binder,” he murmured. “And it wouldn’t work here regardless, with what I am. Even if I were willing to do that.”
“I’m not trying to make an Unbreakable Vow, don’t be so dramatic,” Hermione said. “I’m just… it’s a gesture. Shaking on it. Do you promise?”
He continued to stare at her hand suspiciously. “You don’t have much to lose, and you have everything to gain, Tom… everything.”
His eyes flickered to hers. Then, slowly, finally, he took her hand. “Fine,” he said, releasing her quickly. “Fine. Now tell me how you seem to know everything about me.”
“You might want to conjure up some chairs for this, if you can… This is going to take awhile.”
“I can’t. I have nothing left now… I need something more from you first.”
His eyes glinted greedily. Soul succubus, Hermione thought.
Still, she nodded. “All right,” she said. Hermione felt like she was about to dive off of a very tall, steep cliff into dangerous waters.
“My name is Hermione Jean Granger. I’m a muggle-born, I was born in the year 1979, and I traveled back in time in an attempt to stop you from ever being born.”
Hermione changed her mind. This was the moment she would like to save forever as a photograph. Riddle looked utterly dumbstruck.
“I failed, obviously, and have had a change of heart besides,” she muttered.
Riddle turned, and the world turned with him.
“Tell me the last part again.”
Hermione held in a sigh. She shifted in her seat, as one of her legs had begun to grow a little numb from sitting for so long. Riddle himself had forgone sitting altogether. He started pacing not long after Hermione had begun to talk and hadn’t stopped since.
She watched him as he relentlessly marched back and forth, a silhouette against another familiar, much more beloved, backdrop. The Hogwarts library. Hermione had to admit, she much preferred being here to the top of the astronomy tower.
“You left me,” she repeated dully. “Just up and left, didn’t even look at me before you practically ran out the door—”
“No, before that,” Riddle interrupted. “What exactly did Abraxas say?”
“I don’t remember exactly what he said,” Hermione muttered. She had not told him about her accidental mentioning of the Deathly Hallows, and didn’t intend to. “It was a joke at your expense, something about your upbringing at the orphanage. The point is, he let it slip that you were raised by muggles—Salazar forbid—and you were so distressed that you just left. You wouldn’t even look at me before you took off.”
Riddle ran one of his hands along a nearby shelf, gently touching the spines of many books there. Hermione noticed that he did that every so often, seemingly absent-mindedly. Like making physical contact with the books calmed him down.
“It was far from your most chivalrous moment. Pretty terrible manners, actually.”
Riddle nodded as though this was not a criticism of himself. Hermione glared when he didn’t respond. “Well? This is the part where you’re supposed to help me out. I‘ve told you quite a lot about myself. I’m sick of talking; it’s your turn. Help me understand you before I try to talk to you again. I don’t want to say or do the wrong thing and upset you even more.”
Riddle stopped pacing to return her glare. “Excuse me for not being entirely enthused,” he snarled. “It isn’t easy becoming allies with someone who reveled in my death in some other version of reality, and who wanted to kill my parents in this one.”
Hermione glowered. She had decided, very consciously and relatively quickly, to not be as honest as she’d promised she would be. It didn’t seem wise or necessary to give the diary all of the details of her story. She was, however, relatively certain that if she did succeed and the diary did rejoin the true Tom Riddle’s soul, that the information she gave this Riddle would not go to him. This version of Tom could only retain new information while bonded with her; once he was rejoined with his other self, he no longer would be. He would have to tell the older Riddle everything before that could happen if he wanted to share Hermione’s secrets, and it would be unwise of him to do that, as Hermione had pointed out. It would only serve to enrage the older Riddle, who would surely then never attempt to heal his broken soul, and would instead make even greater efforts to hide his diary away forever.
Still. There was no point in telling him every damning detail about her life. If she did, they’d be talking for years.
“I know,” Hermione said. “I know. But I can only apologize so many times. I already explained why I considered stopping you from existing was the best option. You became too powerful and caused too many innocent people to die in my time… and you did end up dying despite all of your efforts.”
“Because of Dumbledore,” Riddle said scathingly.
Hermione didn’t correct him; it had been easiest to pin the destruction of the horcruxes and of Lord Voldemort on Dumbledore alone. Hermione didn’t see the point in bringing prophecies or Harry Potter or any of the other details of her timeline into it. All she needed the diary to know was that he would die if they didn’t save his soul together.
“If it wouldn’t have been Dumbledore, it would have been someone else eventually,” Hermione said. He shot her a vicious look. “What? It would have. Your arrogance is a massive flaw. You were arrogant enough to leave a girl you barely knew alone in your flat, remember? Thinking no one could possibly find your big secret, which you kept in your closet.”
Riddle’s cheeks turned red. It was a reaction that Hermione found endearing, for it made him look like the young teenager that he was, but it was also concerning.
He hadn’t been able to do that before. He was becoming much more human.
“No one but Dumbledore would ever have a chance at besting me,” he said.
Hermione laughed. “There it is,” she said, pointing at him. “Glaringly bright. Arrogance.”
She leaned back in her chair. “Honestly, you should count yourself lucky that the Time-Turner I used was faulty and landed me in 1950. I’m your best chance at survival. With me at your side, your head might deflate enough to live past the age of seventy-one.”
Riddle scoffed. He looked like he was about to snarl something else, something rude, surely, but then he changed his mind. He turned and sat across from her at the table. “If I left you in Black’s dungeon like that, unable to even look you in the eye before I did… I must care a great deal what you think of me,” he said.
Hermione blinked; she had almost forgotten what her question had been in the first place. “Yes, I think that you do,” she agreed. “But it’s hard for me to tell. I’m never entirely certain when you’re genuine and when you’re putting on an act.”
Riddle scoffed again, nearly smiled. “That’s rich, considering you’re the one who is always putting on an act.”
“Stop it,” Hermione snapped. “The other you… Can we just call him Riddle? And you can be Tom? Riddle doesn’t know that I’m lying.”
Riddle—No, Tom, this was just Tom now—laughed. Loudly. “Oh, is that what you think?”
“It’s what I know.”
“Then you are an idiot, and you know nothing,” Tom said matter-of-factly. “I am a born Legilimens, but long before I knew what that was, I could always tell when someone was lying. I can only imagine that my skills have increased with age. I—Riddle—may not know what or who you are, but he undoubtedly knows that you are lying.”
“…Fair enough,” Hermione admitted. “Riddle did know I was lying. But I told him about how I was actually a half-blood, and he seems to believe that. I think, mainly, because he wants to believe it. A secretive kinship. He likes all of our similarities. How we’re both brilliant, both half-bloods, both descendants of Hogwarts Founders…”
“Except everything about you is a lie,” Tom murmured disdainfully.
“Fuck you, I am brilliant.”
Even Hermione was surprised at her cursing. Tom looked shocked, but then he just laughed again.
“My apologies. Yes, fuck me, you are quite brilliant. This strategy of investing all of your secrets in a horcrux is proof of that.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not. I’m being serious. The only person who could possibly help you understand and undermine me is, well, me.”
“The arrogance! It’s maddening!”
“Is it arrogance if it’s simply stating the truth?”
“Yes, because it’s not the truth… don’t make me switch strategies and go to Dumbledore for help defeating you instead.”
That statement had a profound effect. The playful grin instantly vanished from Tom’s face, which paled in an instant. “You wouldn’t,” he said.
Hermione felt a bizarre rush of guilt. “I wouldn’t,” she said. “Doing so would not only damn you, but me as well. Time-traveling like I did was highly illegal, even as an Unspeakable. So please do your very best to help me out and not make that my only option for survival.”
Tom smiled again. “How very Slytherin of you,” he said quietly.
Hermione stared, affronted, but he went on before she could think of a response. “Riddle may or may not know that you are still lying,” he said. “Even after your story, even if you were very convincing, he may still think you’re hiding something huge. You haven’t exactly earned his trust yet, after all. That will take a long time.”
“Funny,” Hermione said. “I told him the exact same thing about trusting him.”
She touched the ring on her finger. She hadn’t told Tom about the glamour, and now, because of the story she’d given him instead, she couldn’t. He did not know she had attempted to kill his pregnant mother on the night he was supposed to be born; he did not know that Merope had struck her and probably cursed her, and that was how she’d ended up in 1950…
He didn’t need to know. Better that he believe the Time-Turner she’d used had been broken, and that it simply sent her to the wrong year before it shattered in her hands.
“Good,” Tom said. “Then it sounds like you are in a fortuitous position. Abraxas was the one to piss him off, not you. He left because he did not want you to know his… my horrible upbringing. It’s more than just embarrassing. It’s… unacceptable.”
Hermione frowned. “It’s not like it was your fault,” she said. “You were abandoned in the muggle world as a baby.”
“Yes, it’s all quite tragic,” Riddle said tiredly. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, fixing her with a level stare. “Here’s what you don’t understand. I wasn’t able to hide that fact when I was in school. Everyone knew where I had grown up when I started at Hogwarts, and it was incredibly obvious considering I was immediately sorted into Slytherin, where all the other students were well off and connected to some noble bloodline. I wore old, used robes, I had second-hand everything. I had an unknown name and no resemblance to any of the pureblood families. As far as they were concerned, I was a muggle-born. They muttered mudblood behind their hands like I couldn’t hear it. I refused to believe they were right. It was only due to my own tenacity that I eventually discovered who I was. But that still didn’t change how I was brought up. Being raised by muggles was, and is, a disgrace.”
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Hermione argued.
Tom shook his head. “That’s Hermione Granger, the jaded muggle-born who was born in 1979, talking,” he said seriously. “Hermione Smith, the supposed half-blood raised in my era—even an American one, I’d imagine—would not say as much so lightly. Even the witches and wizards who believed in protecting muggles looked down on those raised by them to some degree. If nothing else, there was always an undeniable level of pity. Pity for those who grew up confused, with no guidance of magic, being dropped so suddenly into a whole new world where they know nothing of the customs… and I hate being pitied. Especially by those who think they’re superior to me.”
“Hermione Smith doesn’t think she’s superior to Tom Riddle,” Hermione said.
“Oh, really? So someone who didn’t think they were superior to Riddle attacked him in an alleyway, forcing him into a duel?”
Hermione’s face burned again. “I was just… I was mad!”
“And yet I’m the one who is arrogant.” He grinned wickedly; it looked far too much like his older self. “You’re worse. Arrogant and ruled by your emotions.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m only trying to help. Isn’t that what you wanted? The point is that Riddle has just been hung out to dry by fucking Abraxas—that pompous shit. That’s another dynamic I doubt you fully understand. Of all the people to do that, it would be him…”
“Oh?” Hermione sat up straighter, listening intently. “Tell me more about that.”
“Abraxas,” Tom drawled, “was the epitome of everything I wasn’t, and in my early days at Hogwarts, he made sure I knew it. Let me be very clear here, because this is something I worked hard at for years to undo, but it’s still there. Deep in my core.”
He tapped the table with one finger, jabbing it with each syllable as he said, “I. Hate. Him.”
Hermione tried not to laugh at the school-boy drama of it all. “You act friendly enough with him now.”
“Of course I do. I had to become his friend—Abraxas is the most affluent, well-connected wizard in Britain. Luckily for me, he was easy to manipulate once I confided in him who my ancestor was and what ancient language I was fluent in to prove it.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Hermione said. “I’m sure the fact that you outdid him in every subject and were generally a brilliant wizard helped.”
Tom smirked. “It’s funny. He hated me for that when we were first-years. But as soon as I was clearly Slytherin’s heir, well. Then it all made sense, and it was completely acceptable that I should have talent.”
Hermione almost mentioned her own past with a Malfoy heir as someone who was a muggle-born, but decided against it. “Unsurprising. So, even though you made nice with him years ago, there is still a part of you that hates him for how he treated you.”
“Absolutely.”
“And now he’s gone and shared shameful information about you to a witch that you…”
Hermione stalled. Tom waited for a moment, then prodded her by saying, “Yes?”
“I… I have another question,” she said. Her face burned hotter than ever. “An important one. I… do you… can Riddle love?”
Tom stared at her. His face had gone blank with surprise. “Excuse me?” he balked.
“Are you, Tom Riddle, now and in the future… Are you capable of loving another person? Have you ever?”
There was a beat of silence, then Tom was on his feet. “Are you serious with that question? That… accusation?”
Hermione was confused by the sudden rage. “Yes,” she said. “It’s—it’s a very serious question.”
“Really? Wow. Incredible. Are you capable of loving another person?”
Hermione glared, then got to her feet as well. “Of course I am,” she said. “Why would you—?”
“Why would you?” he interrupted. “Do you even realize how degrading you are? Why should I not be capable of something as basic as loving someone? Because I was a sad orphan raised by sad muggles?”
“What? No—no—because—well—because…”
Tom stared at her with a furious expression, waiting for her to explain. Hermione was unsure if she should, but didn’t see a way around it. “Well, aside from the fact that you’ve murdered and split your soul and dream of attempting world domination… you… your mother. There’s reason to believe she used a love potion to seduce your father. And if that’s true, it means you were conceived under the influence of one.”
Hermione’s throat suddenly felt raw. Tom was looking at her as though she had just betrayed him in some terrible fashion. “I’m just telling you what I’ve been told. No one knows with certainty if that’s true, and no one knows how much of an effect amortentia has on unborn children, besides. There’s only anecdotal evidence one way or another. So, I’m asking. I have to ask, because I have to know.”
She drew in another deep breath. “Have you ever loved anyone before? Is that something you’re capable of?”
Rather than look as though this explanation made sense, as though he now understood because it was a perfectly logical thing to ask, Tom looked angrier. Only his rage had transitioned to something colder, harder. “Incredible,” he said. “I see. I see it now. Only interested in saving me if he might fall in love with you. Is that it? You’re imagining some beautiful world where you not only save wizarding society from the future you’ve endured, but one where you walk off into the sunset together, him with a whole soul and you with your perfect boyfriend?”
He laughed bitterly. “And here I was, thinking you wanted to save me because you’ve come to realize that it was the right thing to do.”
“That—that is why I want to save you!”
“Then what difference does it make, if I’m able to love?” He began to walk around the table, prowling closer to her. “Or maybe you should ask what you’re really thinking, Hermione. Is Riddle capable of loving you? Because that’s what you care about. If you didn’t think that future was possible—one where you get to have and hold the heart of a Dark Lord all to yourself—you wouldn’t bother. You would just kill me now, wouldn’t you?”
Hermione’s whole body had gone cold. She stood frozen here she was as he drew near to her, standing directly before her and staring down at her with those endless black eyes.
“Tom,” she whispered. “I’m asking because… I think you… Riddle might. He acts like he might love me. Could one day, at least. But I can’t tell—I need to know if it’s even possible. I just need to know.”
“If you were the selfless hero you think you are, that wouldn’t matter,” Tom responded in a soft, low voice. “My possible love for you wouldn’t be the deciding factor of whether or not I should be saved. If you were good, you would never have wanted to kill the innocent parents of an unborn child in the first place. Your first thought would have been to save that child instead… but it wasn’t. So before you justify asking such insulting questions about whether I’m capable of something as simple and rawly human as loving another person based on a few fucking anecdotes that you’ve heard about love potions, ask yourself this instead.”
He reached with one hand, his fingers close to her face—but he didn’t touch her.
“Why should anyone love you?”
He lowered his hand. “Now get out,” he hissed. “I would rather be lonely than insulted.”
Hermione barely had time to inhale a breath before the world tilted sideways, and she was sent tumbling backwards into her room, gasping and trembling.
Chapter 44: Prompt and Passionate
Chapter Text
Hermione chewed anxiously on the end of her quill. She hesitated too long again; a blot of ink dripped into the blank parchment before her, ruining it. She swore and tossed it aside, setting her quill back in the ink pot so she could get a fresh piece. This was her third one.
She eyed the mokeskin bag that she had the diary stashed in, where it currently hung on the wall by the door. She had a horrible feeling, like Tom—the sixteen-year-old, diary-bound boy—could feel her frustration and found it amusing.
That’s ridiculous, Hermione chided herself. He can’t just… feel what I’m feeling. If he’s feeling anything at all, it’s regret, because by now it’s probably sunk in that I may never speak with him again.
She re-dipped her quill, lifted it, then set it back in the ink pot. Again.
…Should I speak with him again?
It had been three days since she’d spoken to the diary and four days since the fiasco at Black’s. Hermione had hoped that Riddle would reach out to her, but thus far, nothing.
Which left Hermione in a predicament. She didn’t want to give him too much space, for fear that he may start to believe that she really did care that he was raised by muggles and no longer wanted to speak with him. Which was beyond ridiculous, of course, but he seemed absurdly upset about the whole ordeal, so who knew what he was thinking as he stewed?
She also didn’t want to reach out to him too soon, because she figured it was best to give him the time to brood and… well, possibly punish Abraxas, the poor thing.
Maybe I should write Abraxas first, Hermione mused. I could find out if he’s been in contact with any of them since his slip up…
But Hermione doubted that would be a worthwhile effort. If Riddle had reached out to any of them, they were unlikely to tell Hermione about it, because it was likely terrible. At the very least, she knew Abraxas was alive, because surely the vague disappearance or horrendous murder of wizarding England’s most eligible bachelor would make the cover of The Daily Prophet.
But how should she contact Riddle now that several days had gone by, and it seemed unlikely that he was going to speak to her first? Showing up at his flat seemed… inappropriate, as did going to Borgin and Burke’s again, in hopes that he was working. Riddle was feeling defensive right now, so she needed to tread lightly.
Writing a letter seemed the obvious choice. But that left her where she was now, quill in hand, staring down at a blank piece of parchment.
What should she write?
Hermione frowned as she once more considered this. Agonizing over what to write to young Dark Lords, she thought, flashing the mokeskin bag another annoyed look. What has my life come to?
She supposed she could just ask him, the diary, what a smart thing to write would be. If anyone might know what Tom Riddle would like to hear in this sort of situation, it was, well, himself.
Except that would mean acknowledging the way their last conversation ended, and Hermione was still feeling too stung to do that.
It wasn’t out of line, asking him that, she thought angrily. And it wasn’t because I—I want to waltz off into the sunset with a Dark Lord boyfriend at the end of all this.
…or was it?
Hermione hated how deeply his words had struck. Would she have considered saving Tom Riddle if she wasn’t developing feelings for him herself? If she didn’t hold on to some stupid, school girl hope that he might return those feelings?
She hated that, deep down, she knew the answer.
Killing, saving.
If she did not have feelings for him and knew that he couldn’t possibly have any either, she knew what she would choose. She had been willing to kill him before he was even born, after all… but that wasn’t because she liked killing unborn children! It was because of all of the many, many people who would die as a result of him being born, women, men, and children alike, all innocent…
She hadn’t considered saving him until she’d begun to care for him herself.
But is that really so bad? To let love be the deciding factor? Dumbledore would say it was the best reason of all, to try to save someone…
But then again, he’d been willing to let Harry go and die for all of them, so maybe he wasn’t the best judge of anything.
Hermione groaned. She set the quill aside and put her fingers to her temples, rubbing hard. To make matters worse, she feared she was beginning to come down with a cold. She was starting to ache everywhere, and last night, her sore throat kept her up for hours.
As though on cue, a cough choked its way out of her. Hermione sighed and decided that some chamomile tea was in order. She flicked her wand at the stove, lighting a fire beneath the already half-full kettle, and went to retrieve a tea bag and a cup.
What should she write?
Dear Tom, I hope you realize that I could care less how you were raised. Can we please meet up to talk? Sincerely, Hermione.
Hermione placed the tea bag in the empty porcelain cup as she waited for the water. Being straightforward did not feel… right. She could imagine him reading it, somehow, and getting angry all over again, shredding the letter and not responding. Maybe she was wrong, but that’s what her gut told her, and so she decided to listen to it.
Something more… clever, she thought. Something that tells him all that without actually saying it outright. Something that might make him smile rather than glower.
It probably should have worried her, how the thought of making an upset Tom Riddle smile made her feel. But there was no denying it—picturing his grin made her heart flutter.
The kettle began to scream. Hermione extinguished the flame and poured the steaming water into her cup, where the liquid turned a golden hue.
Something clever. Or meaningful. Something… nice.
What things had Riddle said to her in letters that had that effect?
Hermione thought back to their previous correspondences. Once he had sent her a question about new werewolf policies, which had clearly been his way of seeing if she was up to date on current Ministry affairs in Britain and if she held a stance one way or another, and why. He’d learned a lot about her with that letter, and it had, admittedly, made her smile.
Hermione blew across the lip of her cup, cooling her tea. Asking a random question about current political affairs would hardly work here. Considering how he was feeling, it would probably just confuse him, or make him wonder what the hell was wrong with her.
Maybe… but maybe not? Hermione wasn’t entirely sure on that one—he might enjoy something like that—but her gut said that wasn’t right either.
Other letters he’d sent her had been… well demands, really. Telling her rather than asking her to meet him at midnight and, oh yes, to dress warm.
Hermione laughed out loud at that thought. She knew without a doubt that sending Riddle a letter that was a demand to meet her, after days of silence between them, no less, would do nothing but piss him off. Hermione was certain that there was no set of circumstances that would make Riddle happy to be told to do anything.
She removed the tea bag, then took a tentative sip. Too hot. She carried it carefully back to her desk where the parchment awaited her, mocking her with its blankness.
The other correspondences with Riddle… the ones that made her really think…
Well, it was a thing, wasn’t it?
He’d once sent her the shoe she’d left behind, hadn’t he? At a time when she was clearly distraught, having left the way she did, running out of Malfoy Manor in the cold after having burned his chest, unintentionally…
He hadn’t used words at all then, but a thing, an item that had belonged to her that she’d lost, that he was kindly returning…
Another laugh, this one much more strained, left Hermione’s lips. She had a number of things that belonged to Riddle in her possession, but she could hardly give back a single one.
Something else, then. She took another sip of tea; it was a much more agreeable temperature.
Something meaningful, something… special. Special from her to him, specifically.
Hermione thought back to their most poignant conversations. The one that stood out to her the most, one that haunted her even still, was their interaction in Malfoy’s garden.
A rose by any other name…
Hermione slowly lowered her cup. Would it be ridiculous to… to send him roses?
He had, after all, given her some once—accidentally, anyway, as he had stolen them in a panic. Big, beautiful garden roses. The kind that he’d once said that he didn’t imagine would impress someone like her.
What if she sent him some wild roses…?
They did seem to be a recurrent theme in the chaos that was their relationship. Roses in general were a romantic gift, but if she sent him some wild ones, specifically, well, that would be a sweet and meaningful gesture wouldn’t it? One that was unique to him and her?
But girls don’t get boys flowers, said a small voice in the back of her head.
Says who? Hermione quipped back at herself. There were no rules that said boys couldn’t enjoy flowers, too. And given their history, well… Hermione thought they might make him smile.
She took a long drink of her tea. Feeling as though the matter was finally settled, and ignoring the lingering soreness in her throat and body, Hermione grabbed her wand and was off.
The thing about wild roses, Hermione soon learned, was that they weren’t readily available in flower shops.
But of course they wouldn’t be; she felt foolish for even asking the shop attendant. Roses they had, naturally, but only the beautiful, big, cultivated kind, the garden variety. But those simply would not do.
Which led Hermione to two of the most wonderful places in London: the magical library, which she soon discovered did not have books on non-magical plants and flowers, and then one of the muggle libraries, which did. She then found herself reading up on where to find wild roses in Britain and when they bloomed, which led her to realize that she would need to stop by the magical library again because she needed to brush up in her Herbology and find a spell to speed up the process because wild roses bloomed naturally in May and June, not April; this then led her to recall that there was a whole symbolic language behind all flowers, and while wild roses were great, why not add in something else? Why not include some other flowers that symbolized what she wanted Riddle to hear, without using words? He’d have to suss it all out, of course, but if there were other seemingly random flowers there besides roses he’d certainly question it, and if there was anyone who would understand and appreciate a bouquet that was actually a message needing to be deciphered, it was Riddle.
It took Hermione all day to decide which flowers she wanted and to gather them. Once she did, she arranged them as artfully as she could, securing them together with a white ribbon. She admired her work (really, it was much better than anything one could buy in a shop, if you asked her) before sending it off with a tawny owl at the London Owlery—who was instructed not to wait for a response from Riddle, to just deliver it into his hands if he was home or leave on his doorstep if he wasn’t—without a note, just a brilliant and lovely bouquet of wild flowers she’d had to hunt down and force to bloom, an act which made her feel very much like the muddy girl in the painting in her room in New York.
Saving, she thought. Definitely saving, not killing.
As she watched her masterpiece disappear with the owl, Hermione knew one thing with a damning certainty:
She had it bad for this moody bastard.
It had been precisely twenty-four hours since Hermione had sent her bouquet off to Riddle and… nothing.
Hermione was kicking herself, laying on her bed and spiraling into depths of embarrassment and despair that had been previously unknown to her.
“I’m a fool,” she groaned, if for no other reason than she had barely spoken out loud in the past few days. She regretted it almost at once; her throat still burned, worse than it had been before.
She threw herself down on her bed. Her back was sore and she had a dull headache. This is all stressing me out too much, she thought. I’ve finally reached my limit. I need to just… sleep for a week. Then move to another country again I guess, because it would seem that Riddle is… done with me. Probably took those flowers and laughed, then… I dunno… threw them away.
“I’m… stupid,” she muttered to herself. She couldn’t believe she'd given up her life in America for this, her chance to be an auror… She could have stayed with Walter and Liam…
“Stupid,”she repeated.
“That’s no way to talk.”
Hermione was so startled she nearly screamed. Her pulse raced, she reached for her wand—
“Oh,” she murmured, disappointed. “Quiet, no one asked your opinion.”
The Hermione in the magical mirror above her dresser shrugged. “No one ever does,” it said sadly.
Head throbbing and feeling worse than she had in a long time, Hermione tried to sleep. But it was too early yet for that, and her mind was racing far too quickly besides. Perhaps I should go to Hepzibah’s, she thought. Maybe she could even tell her faux-aunt what she’d done, maybe she could give her some advice… probably not, but at least she would pity her and feed her sweets… That might make her feel better…
She was about to follow through with that when there was a tapping on the window.
Hermione jumped up at once, all feelings of possible sickness gone in an instant. A large barn owl was waiting on her windowsill, and in its claw it held out what was unmistakably, even from across the room, a book. Hermione opened the window, and the owl hooted and held out its leg respectfully. She took the parcel at once, and saw that it was a book titled The Secret Language of Flowers by Beverly Thompson. But she had known that’s what it was before she even reached for it, because Hermione recognized it.
She had just been reading this book two days ago. It was—and she confirmed it as she opened the cover—a muggle book, from a muggle library. The check out card was still in the flap, and the last name on it was the same one that had been there when she’d looked at it. It did not say Tom Riddle, but it was apparent at once that this was from him—well, for the obvious reasons—but also because it had been a bit abused since she’d last used it. There were a few pages that were dog-earred. Hermione flipped to them, where she found the flowers that she’d included, as well as their prospective meanings, had been found and underlined. Wild roses. Balsams.Ten-week stocks. Citronella flowers. Forget-me-nots. Zinnas.
Then, because she knew there was more to this, Hermione flipped to the back of the book. On the last page, which had been blank before, was Riddle’s elegant script.
‘I impatiently await your prompt and passionate love; your absence saddens me; don’t forget me.’
‘Your passionate, impatient love comes too promptly, but its absence makes me sad; I wish I could forget it.’
‘My passionate love is absent and I have promptly forgotten you. How sad.’
I’ve already eliminated the second possibility as it’s utterly absurd and wildly inaccurate. My assumption is therefore the first option, but this language of flowers is more open to interpretation than any branch of Divination I’ve ever explored.
Hermione had started grinning the moment she started reading and her smile only widened as she finished. He had responded. He had responded cheekily.
The owl was waiting.
Hermione grabbed a scrap of parchment and wrote, You are wrong on all accounts. What it really meant was, ‘Promptly come to my room at the Inn’.
She hesitated, then added,
Bring wine.
She rolled the parchment out, offered it to the owl, and watched as the bird took it and was off.
Hermione closed the window after it was gone.
So much for not telling him what to do.
Hermione picked the book up again, holding back a laugh as she opened it. She had not yet considered what a task she was giving Riddle by making that bouquet. In order to decipher it, Riddle had needed to do exactly what she had done… He’d gone to a muggle library, done some research, and then stolen the book, it would seem… before giving it to her with his notes scribbled all over it, anyway… A book was never borrowed, only given, he had said… apparently only magical libraries counted as the exception. She couldn’t wait to yell at him for that.
Hermione snapped the book shut. She had just sent him a letter telling him to come here now. Riddle might be here. And soon.
Hermione stared at herself in the mirror. She looked… well, not great. She was clearly a little under the weather, and her usually straight, clean hair was tangled from laying around in bed all day.
“Damn,” she swore. “I look like shit.”
“That’s no way to talk,” the mirror repeated. “Just fix your hair and light some candles, doll. Nothing more flattering than candlelight.”
Hermione opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. “That’s actually not a terrible idea,” she murmured.
Her reflection grinned slyly. “Look who’s interested in my opinion now?”
But Hermione was already moving, running a comb through her hair, pointing her wand at the three candles she was grateful to have on her coffee table. How long would it take Riddle to show up? Would he actually bring wine? Would he have to stop for that?
Oh hell, Hermione thought as she raced about, grabbing the clothes she’d discarded earlier and tossing them into her closet. How she missed her loft in New York, with its many cleaning charms! Her bed was a mess; she hastily made it while simultaneously she questioned how the hell she had turned into… this.
She wished she could shower and change and make up her face in an impeccable manner, but there was no time, and she was dressed fine enough as it was. Instead she sprayed herself with some of the insanely expensive perfume she had, knowing that it was sort of cheating, laced with amortentia as it was, but, well, she didn’t really care. If Riddle was going to crawl out of his sad little hole of self-pity to come see her, she was not above being manipulative to ensure he stayed out of it.
She was anxiously rearranging the many pillows she had on her bed when she heard the knock.
“Fuckfuckfuck,” she whispered in a rush. She paused on her way to the door, checking her reflection one last time. The candlelight was helpful. It made her otherwise simple dress and total lack of make-up seem much more romantic.
“Lovely,” the mirror whispered. Then it resumed mimicking her, hopefully satisfied enough to never speak to her again.
Hermione nodded, then took a deep breath. She opened the door.
Riddle looked… angry.
His unconcealed, irate expression caught Hermione off guard. She expected him to be grinning. She thought he’d be happy.
He stepped over her doorstep a bit forcefully—Hermione stepped back in retreat, wondering why the hell she’d left her wand on her bedside table—and he did have a bottle of wine in his hand, she noticed, but he looked mad about it, and he tossed it onto the loveseat the moment he was inside, and he was glowering at her, and—
“Tom,” Hermione gasped. “What—”
He inhaled sharply, then looked even more upset. Perhaps the perfume had been unwise. Perhaps all of this had been unwise.
“You’re infuriating,” he seethed as he exhaled. His dark eyes bored into hers, cold as ice, making her skin prickle.
Hermione was about to dart into her room to get her wand—she was an absolute idiot, as she had clearly miscalculated gravely, again—but he caught her by the wrist.
“Tom, please, I didn’t mean—”
“You meant everything,” Riddle said. His voice was lower now, losing some of its sharp edge. He pulled her close to him, grabbing her with his other hand by the throat. Hermione shuddered as she breathed in against the pressure, this position all too familiar, stuck on that glacial stare.
“You mean… everything.”
She wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it. Riddle pressed his lips against hers, hungrily, wild and demanding.
Hermione decided not to question it. She snaked one arm around his neck, and with one well-aimed kick, slammed the door shut behind him.
Chapter 45: Kiss of Death
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hermione was pushed backwards by Riddle’s all-consuming grasp. He had both arms around her as he guided her, forcefully, until he had her back pushed up against a wall in the kitchen. He grabbed her by the wrists, then pinned them on either side of her face.
“I have a few confessions, Hermione.”
Riddle murmured the words against her neck before kissing her there. He inhaled deeply; Hermione still could not help but want to know what, exactly, he smelled in this amortentia-laced perfume. She herself could detect notes of parchment and freshly cut grass and why had she never realized that she was also being dosed with an aphrodisiac when she wore this bloody stuff?
Riddle’s eyes were dark, the blackness of his blown pupils barely a shade lighter than his irises. Hermione could see that hint of brown illuminated by the candlelight, uncharacteristically warm in the glow.
“C… confessions?”
“Yes,” Riddle said. “I have a number of things I feel I must… confess.”
He kissed the other side of her throat, where hidden, golden lines radiated beneath the glamour. “I confess that I have an obsession with acquiring… nice things. Things that are beautiful, powerful. Unique. I am always hunting for them. And when I find them, I tend to react in either one of two ways. I destroy them, because they are not useful for me but could become a liability in the hands of others… or I become… possessive.”
He lifted his chin, pausing to graze his lips along the shell of her ear. “I confess that I am not very different when it comes to the powerful people who manage to catch my interest. Such rare individuals either become my adversaries, and I must eliminate them, or they become mine. And I confess, until very, very recently, I was unsure which category I would place you in.”
Hermione’s body, which had been burning under his, went frigid. Riddle smiled—a twisted, dark grin. “I do love that look of fear.”
“You… you want to kill me after all,” Hermione whispered. She felt far more afraid now than she had in New York, when he had her in a home covered in runes. Then, at least, Riddle was not openly admitting to being a killer. “Tom, please, I don’t—I can’t—please, I haven’t, I wouldn’t, I—”
Her half-formed pleas were silenced when Riddle caught her mouth in a kiss. He ravaged her like her fear was something he could taste, something he could pull from her throat and consume. Hermione had no idea how to react. Was this what he liked to do before he committed murder? It felt like the kiss of death.
He abruptly broke away from her, leaving her panting and flushed again, keeping his hold on her wrists ironclad. “As lovely as it is to hear you beg,” he said, “I’m going to need you to be quiet for a moment. If you interrupt me again, I’m afraid I’ll become wholly distracted before I can explain.”
Hermione nodded.
“Good girl,” Riddle purred. Hermione bristled at that, making him laugh in a low, breathy way. “I confess that I have considered killing you. Many times.”
“Tom, please, I—”
“What did I just say?”
The candles flickered and one of them went out. Hermione closed her mouth and swallowed thickly.
Riddle glared at her a moment longer, and when it was clear she was not going to speak again, he smiled. “…I did, I confess it,” he went on, his voice velvety and low once more. “It was obvious that you were a threat. A beautiful witch, someone smart, charming, rich, and who was so easily finding a place among the most affluent, rising figures here… someone who claimed to have the blood of a Hogwarts Founder in their veins… someone clever… someone who was, to me, at least, obviously acting in order to scale the ranks. Why, you reminded me far too much of myself. Naturally, I considered killing you.”
Riddle took a moment to breathe in deeply, all but nuzzling his nose against her throat—a gentle, affectionate action that was so at odds with everything he was saying.
“But I am not rash. It would hardly be wise to eliminate every person who comes across as a threat to me the moment I encounter them… not that there are many, mind you. That should make you proud. It is not often I consider killing magical people so quickly. But you… yes, I confess I considered it.”
Hermione was, at least, feeling a bit of relief at the consistent use of the past tense. She relaxed slightly when he paused to kiss the hollow between her collar bones.
“But I was always in such conflict with you,” he went on. “I would drive myself to madness some nights, considering what to do with you. Should I kill you? No, no, for so many reasons no, I would tell myself… I should wait, learn more, because even though it was obvious you were lying about who you were it was not always obvious, and at the end of each of those insufferable evenings where I would obsess over what I should do, I always settled on not yet, because you always managed to keep me wanting more.”
His smile widened. “I want to say that it didn’t matter, you being as attractive as you are to me… but it did matter. Sometimes I thought to kill you for no other reason than you were too physically appealing. I considered ending you just so that I would no longer fantasize about your lips, your chest, the taper of your waist to your hips, your thighs… the mysterious, golden lines that mark your skin… I confess, I could not rid myself of the memory of you in that darkened shack, of you moaning as you made yourself come before escaping me… I sometimes wanted to kill you just for that, out of spite.”
He slid her wrists a little lower in the wall behind her, reminding Hermione viscerally of how he’d held her then, before he’d lifted her onto a counter top and knelt before her.
“I was still undecided when I went to track you down in New York. When I left to find you, I thought I may very well kill you the moment I could, had even convinced myself that it was the best option, because it was unacceptable, how you could be such a distraction to me when you weren’t even here… but then I saw you dancing in a ring of enchanted fire, and I thought, not yet.”
He inhaled deeply again. Hermione closed her eyes and reminded herself that she also needed to breathe.
“And then I had you, truly had you, in that home… an absurdly ridiculous set up using runes that took a painfully long time to construct because that was the level of my obsession… and still, even when you boldly pushed yourself against my wand, demanding that I do it; even after listening to you skirt your way around the runic enchantments as you gave me your detailed and well considered deception—and I know it is all still a deception—”
Hermione’s eyes snapped to his face. He was not focused on hers though; Riddle was currently looking up at where he held her wrist against the wall, his gaze narrowed intently on where she wore her enchanted ring.
“—still I did not kill you for it. I remained undecided, even then. Why not allow her to think she has me fooled? I asked myself. Why not let her think that I believe her, that we happen to be kindred spirits, both half-bloods who were given the unfortunate surnames of their fathers? Why not keep her content, call her darling, let her think that she has a real choice in this… let her believe that she’s fooled me once and for all, bring her back to England thinking she has me all figured out… She does know that I am Lord Voldemort, I told myself, even if she also believes me to still be Tom Riddle… I was confident that I would, eventually, win your heart, continuing to be this captivating, chivalrous, if also woefully conflicted, man, and that you would one day tell me the truth of your sorry past, all in due time… but I confess, Hermione, that I can no longer stay that course. I am too tired. I am too hungry.”
Riddle’s eyes flashed to hers. They flickered from black-brown to a scorching, violent red, the thin ring around his pupils glowing crimson.
Hermione gasped at the abruptness of it, but they turned brown again almost at once. “This game we have been playing exhausts me,” he said, nearly sighing. “It is a game that I have been playing all my life, I’m afraid. I play the part of the perfect gentleman—kind, charming, subservient, gracious. It is only in the presence of a very select few at very select times that I have ever allowed my true self to be revealed… even at that recent meeting with the Knights, I was not… myself. And while I thought I was content to continue this charade for a long time, I now have come to realize that I am not. Not any longer. Especially not with you.”
He released one of her wrists, the one with the enchanted ring. Riddle cupped her chin with his free hand.
“I don’t want to pretend to be some false, sweet version of myself when I am with you, and I shouldn’t have to. There are many things I do not believe about who you say you are, but I do believe that you have seen what I am, what I could be… will be. The fear I’ve seen in your eyes is the sincerest part about you. You know what I’m capable of. You know I’m a killer at heart. You know I am the epitome of power… and that I am far from the person I so often pretend to be… don’t you?”
Hermione was still too afraid to speak, unsure of what the right thing to say may be. She settled for nodding again.
“I know you do,” Riddle murmured approvingly. “And I know you’re a liar, even after that lovely story you wove for me… but I don’t care. I don’t care what all of the real details are of your past and your identity—not now, at least. The truth will come out, it always does. I’ll allow you to have your secrets about your past life for as long as you need to keep them. I’ve finally decided—today, in fact—that they aren’t important enough to damn you. Who you were doesn’t matter. Where you’ve come from, who your parents are, what you’ve done… doesn’t matter. What you are now is all that is important… and I’ve decided that you are irrevocably mine.”
He traced her jawline with his thumb, gently. “Because why should I deny myself? I am Lord Voldemort; I can and should have whatever I please. And I can admit it now, finally, with utmost certainty… I want to keep you far more than I want to kill you. I said you were mine before, but now—now I truly mean it.”
He kissed her. It was swift and feather-light, so unlike the blatant possessiveness of his words.
“…I…” Hermione started, but she was at a loss. Had he ever believed her story? Any version of it? What parts exactly did he think were lies? Did he know, somehow, that she was from the future? How many times had he truly considered murdering her, without her being fully aware of just how much danger she was in?
And now… keep her?
It didn’t matter that she was unsure what to say, because Riddle shushed her before she could come up with much. “Don’t,” he said, placing a second chaste kiss on her cheek. “Don’t waste your breath trying to deny anything. I’ve been thinking about destroying you and you’ve been thinking the same thing about me, pretending like we’re merely interested in gaining the other’s trust while secretly looking for weaknesses, plotting and planning the right moment to strike. I imagine you thought of ending me the first time you saw the monster I truly am—or will be, as it were. We’ve been doing this dance far too long, don’t you think? Constantly lying, acting far sweeter and more sophisticated than we are… deceiving each other nearly as much as we have to deceive ourselves. I know you must be just as tired as I am. So just…”
He let go of her other wrist. Hermione instinctively held them together in front of herself, shielding her chest in the few inches that were between them.
“…stop,” Riddle finished quietly.
He looked at her, his expression conflicted, like he was both beseeching and commanding. Which he is, Hermione thought.
How insane, she realized, for him to be saying everything that he was. Hermione had consistently had such similar thoughts, and had always been just as conflicted about what to do with Riddle.
Killing, saving.
“I’m not demanding that you tell me everything,” he went on. “Not now… only that you stop. The acting, the lying… stop all of that… and just be who you are with me.”
“And just who do you think that is?” Hermione asked.
“I have my theories, my golden-lined girl… But that’s not how this is going to work. If you think I’m going to tell you my assumptions so that you can pivot accordingly, making up some new, wild lie as you go along… think again.”
He winked. Hermione felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. What did he know?
Nothing, she told herself, nothing. He’s just trying to make you feel stupid, trick you into telling him everything—theories, he said, he only has theories—
“I’m not demanding that you tell me everything,” Riddle repeated, almost as though he had heard her thoughts—and oh God, had he? No, her passive Occlumency barriers were perfect, intact, but—had he? “Just that you stop the lies.”
After what felt like a lifetime, Hermione nodded. “Okay,” she said.
“Have you decided once and for all that you’d rather not kill me as well?” Riddle asked. His smile broadened a bit, like he wouldn’t be disappointed no matter what she said.
“I never said I wanted to kill you.”
“Don’t insult me, Hermione,” Riddle said, and he was actually laughing about this. “Did I not just ask you not to lie to me any longer? Anyone who’s had a vision of my true self, metaphorically or otherwise, would most certainly consider it… You’d be a fool not to. Besides… I can recognize another killer when I see one.”
Hermione blinked as she processed everything he’d been saying—really processed it. Riddle claimed to know she was lying about her past despite their time in New York, maybe even her entire current identity, maybe even more than that… but, incredibly, he seemed not to think she was lying about being a Seer.
She cracked a smile of her own, but not for whatever reason Riddle thought. Of all the insane things she’d made up about herself, Riddle believed the craziest one.
But of course he does, she thought as her mind began to clear, it’s still the only way to explain how I know who he is as a rising Dark Lord, how I know things I shouldn’t know… How else could I? No one would consider a time-traveler; ever since Eloise Mintimble no one has traveled through time like that; it’s unheard of for someone to do it the way I am now…
And Tom Riddle was a true believer in Divination…
Perhaps, she thought, he assumed the reason she was so cagey with her past was because of the same reason he was cagey with his.
Because he was a killer.
“All right,” Hermione said. “I… did. Consider killing you.”
“But you no longer do.”
“But I no longer do.”
“Why?”
The question caught Hermione off guard somehow. “What?”
“Why? Why now? When exactly did you decide? Personally, I decided not to kill you—consciously, of course—when I was sitting in a muggle library earlier. It hadn’t dawned on me until then how deeply I wanted you. I probably should have realized sooner… but I digress. I spent hours—when I have something much bigger, much more important to be focusing on—trying to figure out some silly message in a bouquet of wildflowers. I even ventured into a muggle establishment to find the answer.”
“You stole a book,” Hermione interjected. “From a library.”
“Yes,” Riddle agreed, and to her surprise, he did not try to rationalize his actions because it was a muggle one. “I did… and sent it to you. That’s how badly I want you. I perform sacrilege acts without a second thought.”
He cupped her face again, this time with both his hands. “ I would burn a thousand libraries to the ground if it meant I would always have you.”
Hermione couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped her lips. “I’d be so upset.”
“You can feel however you want,” Riddle said dismissively. “You’re mine now, no matter how you feel.”
“What—what does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. There is nowhere you could go now to escape me. You belong to me… forever.”
“I’m not a… a beautiful thing , Tom,” Hermione said, bolstering her courage. “You can’t just decide that you own me.”
“I disagree.”
Hermione grabbed his wrists and moved his hands from her face. He allowed it, smiling as she did. “You can’t own people.”
“I can. I own you. I think you decided that before I did. How long did it take you to come up with the idea for wild roses? For the additional flowers? To find them and make them bloom before carefully organizing them into a bouquet? Tied with a pretty white ribbon, even.”
He smirked. “It was most impressive, really. Quite creative, and an excellent feat of both logic and magic to decide what flowers you’d need, to find the plants, identify them, and then make them bloom out in the wild. Very impressive.”
“I… it wasn’t that… I didn’t…” Hermione shook her head, trying to gather herself—a difficult feat, considering how hot her face had become. “I’m not going to apologize for being thoughtful!”
“Who said anything about apologizing? It was… illuminating. Romantic. It made me smile… before I became infuriated with myself for being so easily distracted by you, again, of course.”
Hermione’s jaw clenched.
“You haven’t let go of my wrists,” Riddle pointed out slyly. He was right. Hermione released him.
His grin couldn’t have been more… infuriating.
“It isn’t the worst thing, having a Dark Lord claim you…” he said. “All my power, all of my might… is almost as much yours as it is mine. And I am a ruthless power to behold; you’ve seen that, haven’t you? You could point to anyone and say ‘kill’, and I would be happy to oblige. I likely wouldn’t even question it.”
Hermione’s eyes went wide at such a declaration. “I don’t want you to go around killing people, Tom!”
“You say that now, and I believe you,” he said. “Because you’re the sort of witch who only considers murder when it’s justified. The bad guys—assuming you get to decide who those people are. And you probably don’t like it, even when it’s necessary. Luckily for you, I don’t have such qualms. I would. I would unquestionably kill for you. Good, bad—I don’t believe in those ridiculous labels. If someone ever tried to harm you or take you from me, I would not hesitate to destroy them. But perhaps not before bringing them to you on their knees, bloodied and broken, so they could properly apologize to my wicked, wicked witch… I am somewhat of a gentleman.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I told you that I would give you the world, and though I was only saying what I needed to say then, I am not now. I will give you whatever your heart desires, because your heart is mine, Hermione… regardless of all your endless lies, despite everything… I want you. I am done fighting it…”
He placed another soft kiss on her forehead. “Lord Voldemort does not ask for what he wants… he claims it.”
The next kiss was not gentle.
Riddle’s mouth was on her neck, sudden and fierce, biting her as much as kissing her. He had his hands on her hips, pushing her hard against the wall again, and Hermione was so caught off guard that she did nothing at all to stop it, to stop him. He kissed her neck and her jaw and when his mouth found hers again she was too swept up in his touch to care about his foreboding words; all she knew was that his tongue was sliding against hers and his arms had circled her waist and when he lifted her up she didn’t hesitate to wraps her legs around him.
“Mine.”
Riddle seethed the word between one forceful kiss and the next as though someone was arguing with him. Maybe Hermione should have been arguing with him, because she didn’t love the idea that he was here, telling her he’d always known she was lying every step of the way and had decided that he didn’t care and instead wanted to kiss her and… and claim her…
At least, she knew she shouldn’t love that idea.
“Mine…”
The truth was that every time he said the word, murmuring it in a deep, gravelly voice as he laid her not-so gently on her back on her bed, she felt the burning heat in the core of her body increase exponentially. The truth was that having a young Dark Lord proclaim that he would kill for her without hesitation made her want to kiss him back, just as forcefully as he was kissing her. The truth was that when he said that her heart was his, she agreed, and she wasn’t upset about it at all.
Riddle pushed her further back, slipping his pants off before settling himself between her legs, and Hermione did nothing at all to argue, to tell him he was wrong, to stop it, because she didn't want him to stop. Her body seemed to act of its own accord, her hands pulling his shirt up and off before she lost her fingers in his hair, pulling him towards her. It was like she didn’t have a mind at all anymore—just a need, a purely physical, demanding need for him, here, now.
She should have hated the effect he had on her, but she didn’t.
She loved it. Feverishly so.
“Yes,” she heard herself say. “Yes, Tom, yes…”
The moment his shirt was gone, Tom pushed her dress up to her waist, but he didn’t bother trying to take it off. He reached along her thigh and managed to snap the fabric of her underwear without issue—how is he so good at that? Was it magic? Probably—and then he grabbed hold of her wrists again, pinning them over her head.
He drove forward without warning, and Hermione cried out at the sudden intrusion of him, of the long, hardened fullness of him burying into her with a single stroke. She was surprised it didn’t hurt, forceful as it was, but it didn’t; she was momentarily embarrassed as she had not even realized how wet she had become, how instantly ready she was for him. Hermione gasped and shuddered when he went still, fully inside her, exhaling in a sharp hiss against her neck.
Riddle lifted his head enough to see her face, which she was certain was a brilliant red. He ground his hips against her, the friction against her clit making her head swim. She whimpered when he tightened his hold on her wrists.
“You will always be mine,” he said as he began to move in and out of her, starting a slow and measured pace. He took extra care to grind against her with each thrust, and Hermione’s hips tilted forward to meet his, and fuck, how could sex with Riddle be getting better?
“Yes,” Hermione gasped, though whether she was saying so to agree with him or to get him to keep moving the way he was, she wasn’t sure. He sucked on her throat when she threw her head back, and Hermione cried out, “Yes, Tom, harder, please…”
Riddle obliged at once, thrusting harder, deeper, and somehow it still wasn’t enough. She moaned like something depraved.
“Good, Hermione…” Riddle breathed, then drove into her again. “Tell me exactly what you want…”
Hermione’s arms jerked under his grasp, but he didn’t release her, and for some reason, that—his unrelenting hold on her wrists above her head—made her back arch even more, made her heart pound that much harder. “Faster, Tom,” she begged—no, demanded. “Faster.”
“Mmmm… of course, darling.”
Hermione didn’t have more than a second to reflect on how every time he said that word—darling—it was somehow both endearing and a little… sarcastic, perhaps, biting, before he was doing exactly as she asked him to. Riddle went faster, driving deeper and harder and his hold on her wrists was painful, now, as Hermione was moving beneath him, but he did not let go.
“Ah—Tom, yes, yes—I…ah…”
Hermione lost the ability to speak. She could feel herself teetering on the edge within seconds, the way he so forcefully and skillfully ground against her. It was like nothing she had ever experienced, and she wondered if there was some new brand of magic at play here. Had Riddle bewitched her somehow? Some spell to make her a pitiful, wanton woman? It felt like it, but it was hard to care at the moment. She threw her head back again and panted, letting out short sharp cries with each exhale.
“Yes, Hermione… good…”
The next time he drove inside her, Hermione lost it. Her orgasm rippled outwards, her whole body contracting in cascades that radiated out from where Riddle was buried inside of her. Her moan was almost a scream as it assaulted her, that delicious climax, making every muscle in her body shiver.
“Ahh…”
Riddle still didn’t release her wrists as she shuddered around him. He slowed his movements, and when she finally stopped writhing beneath him, he stopped, too.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. He kissed her neck again. “I want to make you come again…”
Feeling her sanity return, Hermione tugged at her arms. “Tom, wait,” she said, for he gave every indication that he was about to start fucking her with renewed vigor. “Let go.”
He did pause, but only to give her a disapproving look. “Please,” she continued. “Just… please.”
His expression softened. “How can I deny you when you beg?” he said, smirking. He released her wrists.
Hermione swallowed hard, nervous as she pushed against his chest. Her hand fit perfectly into the scar there; it had not faded at all.
“Let me,” she said when he did not budge. “Move back for me…”
When he started to look annoyed—right, Riddle doesn’t like being told what to do—Hermione did something bold.
She was not exactly adept at wandless magic. It was something that they would have, eventually, gone on to learn more about in the Department of Mysteries, but it was not something they had yet touched upon in her training. Still, Hermione had done some research on it, and had even managed to make a bit of magic happen on occasion when she really put her mind to it.
She pushed her hand against his chest again, and fiercely thought, move.
In a whiplash of magic right against the place she had cursed him before, Riddle’s body was forced back and to the side. Hermione grabbed hold of his shoulder, and before he could properly react, Riddle had rolled onto his back, Hermione straddling him, his cock still inside her as she hovered over him.
He hissed in pain; Hermione supposed the force directly on his scar didn’t feel great. She smirked anyway. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate it, darling.”
Riddle’s venomous look was fleeting when she started to move, rocking her hips forward so that he was deeper inside her. She took advantage of his obvious conflict—should he pick her up and slam her against a wall for this, or let it play out?—and grabbed the hem of her dress. She pulled it up and over her head, tossing it onto the floor. Riddle’s eyes widened—she hadn’t been wearing a bra.
“Let me please you… my Lord… ” she said in her best attempt at a sultry, playful—and admittedly sarcastic—tone.
Riddle’s expression broke, becoming amused. “By all means,” he murmured, acquiescing. His hands slid up her stomach to her breasts, where he lightly ran his fingers over them. Her nipples hardened under his touch. “I can’t say I don’t enjoy the view.”
Hermione swallowed back any nerves she had. She didn’t say anything, just began to ride him, letting her hands fall where they may. They landed on top of his, where his fingers grazed her nipples, and God, how was it that such a light touch managed to feel so good?
Focus, Hermione, focus, she berated herself. She grabbed his wrists and forced them onto the mattress, pinning them to his sides, trying to be as dominating as he so often was. Riddle smiled when she did, not fighting her. Leaning down further allowed her to lift her hips higher, and when she began moving faster, farther up and down the length of him, he let out a satisfied moan.
“You fuck like a Queen,” Tom whispered.
Hermione didn’t break rhythm when she responded. “No,” she said, her teeth grazing his ear.
“I fuck like I’m your Queen.”
She dug her nails into his wrists where she held them. Riddle let out a deep sound and let her do what she wanted, riding him harder, faster.
“Hermione.” Riddle’s back was arching against the sheets in a twisted, beautiful way. “Just like that… I…”
There was probably no better feeling in the world than pushing someone like Tom Riddle to the point of wordless neediness. He grunted and groaned for her, and Hermione could tell the moment before he was about to come. His fingers curled into tight fists beneath her hands, and while she was certain he could have freed himself if he wanted to, he didn’t.
His breathing stuttered and he came, pulsing hard. Hermione rocked against him and tipped over the edge again herself, another shuddering orgasm that briefly annihilated all other thoughts aside from that searing, blinding bliss.
Her grip loosened when she came, and Riddle’s arms finally slid away from hers. He grabbed hold of her hips and pulled her further down onto him—like he could possibly be any deeper inside of her—and groaned, and Hermione realized that although hers had passed, he was still coming. His eyes were clenched shut and it almost looked like he was in pain. Hermione bit back a smile as he moaned.
After another moment where he throbbed and canted his hips forward as far as he could, Riddle finally stopped. His whole body went lax, and while he didn’t remove his hands from her hips, the hold become softer. His eyes met hers, and his expression was about as serene as Hermione had ever seen it. His gaze was hazy, and his usually perfect hair was damp with sweat, sticking to his forehead.
Hermione smiled down at him. She brushed the strands away from his face, carding her fingers along his scalp. Riddle closed his eyes as she played with his hair. He reminded her of a cat for a moment—if he could purr, Hermione thought wildly, she imagined he would be doing so loudly right now.
“I never answered your question,” Hermione eventually said. Riddle’s eyes opened a fraction, a questioning look in them. “About when I decided I definitely did not want to kill you.”
“Mm?” Riddle murmured, the one sound effectively asking the question he meant.
“I think it was when you gave me that book. Hogwarts, a History. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think a part of me decided it that night.”
Riddle’s eyes opened fully. Hermione stopped running her fingers through his hair. “A shame your house-elf ruined everything that evening, then,” Riddle muttered.
Hermione laughed anxiously. “Yes, well… that was unfortunate.”
“Hm… I recall feeling very differently about you at the end of that night.”
Hermione felt some of the heat leave her face. She had forgotten that not long after he’d given her that book, Hokey had not only disrupted them, but had let Riddle know that she’d told Hepzibah she was going out with someone else…
“I… I imagine you did.”
Riddle’s expression was darkening, and Hermione felt a thrill of panic. She hadn’t meant to bring up the topic of Abraxas Malfoy…
He sat up, wrapping his arms around her waist so that he stayed inside of her, holding her in his lap. His face was level with hers when he said, “That was a foolish thing to lie about… insulting.” He kissed her jawline. “Perhaps I should punish you for it now.”
“Besting me in a duel in Knockturn Alley wasn’t enough for you?”
“Not nearly.”
He pushed on her onto her back; Hermione all but screamed at how swiftly he did it. “Tom!” she cried out, for he was already starting to thrust into her again.
“You seem to have a terrible effect on me, Hermione.” When he pulled out halfway, she could feel that he was, somehow, as hard as he had been mere minutes before. His spend was spilling out of her as he moved, was still in her, making everything obscenely wet.
“This time,” he said, “I want you to scream my name when you come.”
He wasted no time in fucking her like he had been before. Hermione was so sensitive that it was borderline painful, which had the bizarre effect of making everything more pleasurable, too.
Hermione swore and dragged her nails across his back, glad that he seemed content to let her keep the use of her hands this time. “Ah, God—that’s—”
She didn’t understand how it was humanly possible to have this kind of stamina—and it probably wasn’t, and had something to do with the fact that he was a dark, crafty, evil wizard—but Hermione wasn’t complaining. He kept up a relentless pace, his arms caging her against the mattress, breathing hard in her ear. She moaned and whimpered and she was so close, yet again—
“Ah, I—Tom, yes—”
“No.”
He slowed down, pushing himself into her until his hips were flush against hers. He rocked slightly, grinding this way and that. Hermione’s body instinctively moved with him, chasing the friction, but he didn’t increase it. She whimpered longingly.
His eyes found hers.
“My name.”
The brown flashed crimson again. It probably should have scared her, that hellfire red, but it didn’t, not anymore. There was no room in her mind for anything other than that want, for him.
“Voldemort,” she sighed. “Voldemort, Vol—ahh—”
She came as he drove into her over and over again, his mouth against her ear as he too grunted harshly, then throbbed inside of her, spilling even more of himself somehow, coming undone a second time.
Hermione’s nails dug into his back as it stiffened and arched, then finally relaxed, and he fell against her.
Her mind was still ringing when he lifted his face to look at her. “In a few minutes,” he said, looking frighteningly determined, “I’m going to do that to you again.”
And Hermione soon learned that Lord Voldemort always kept his word.
Chapter 46: The Most Cunning
Chapter Text
Her arm was on fire. Hermione could feel something sharp digging into her skin, drawing blood.
“I'm going to spell out a word here. If I finish it before you confess… maybe I shall grant you a small mercy. I’ll kill you before the werewolf can have you."
Bellatrix Lestrange’s voice was low, a taunting whisper. She dragged the blade up, then down, then up again.
"Your little friends won't have to hear your screams as he rapes you.”
She cut again, the blade burning like acid.
M-u-d
“They won't hear the sounds of you being raped and shredded to bits, because corpses don't scream."
M-u-d-b-l-o-
Hermione tried to speak, to tell her—it’s fake, it’s not real—but she couldn’t breathe. Bellatrix’s body was pressed too tightly against hers and she couldn’t get any air into her lungs. Blood was dripping from the blade, making a mess on the marble floor.
M-u-d-b-l-o-o-
No, it’s not real, it’s a lie—please—but Hermione couldn’t get a single word out.
“Hermione.”
Hermione’s eyes flew open to darkness, and at the same time she inhaled a sharp, shuddering breath. The sheets were twisted around her, and she was damp with sweat. She tried to breathe in again, but ended up coughing in a ragged, painful way.
Her arm ached with a dull burn, the remnants of her nightmare.
“Hermione, stop. Stop moving.”
She hadn’t realized she was moving. Hermione was kicking at the sheets, her body acting without her permission as she tried to get them off. A hand gripped her shoulder, a firm but reassuring grasp, and she stopped.
“Let me.”
Her eyes adjusted to the dark. Hermione watched as he gently pulled the sheets out from under her legs, effectively freeing her from the cocoon she’d trapped herself in. She held her arm to her chest. It felt surreal to not see the scar there but to feel it still, that ghostly pain, that horror.
“I’m sorry,” she found herself saying. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Shh.”
He pulled her towards his chest, wrapping his arms around her. “It was just a dream,” he murmured. “I have you. I’ll always have you. Just breathe.”
She relaxed into his hold. Hermione leaned her head against his chest, and it was comforting, feeling the rhythm of his slow, steady heartbeat. She listened to his breathing and did her best to match it with her own. He ran his fingers up and down her back, softly tracing her spine.
Hermione was soon slipping into sleep again. He never stopped touching her, soothing her into slumber. Her arm felt better.
Just as she was on the precipice of unconsciousness, she could have sworn she heard him whisper something else, but it was like a hiss, softly uttered on an exhale, and she didn’t know what it meant, and maybe it never happened at all.
The sunlight was a dim glow coming from the bedroom window, telling her that it was early in the morning or a cloudy day—perhaps both. Brighter was the dancing flame of a sole candle, which Hermione’s eyes focused on as she opened them, but only a hair. She didn’t otherwise move, just observed from her place on the bed.
Riddle was already up.
He was sitting at her desk, the candle alight on the corner. He was also already semi-dressed. Riddle had on everything but his shoes and cloak, and though his back was to her, she could tell by the looseness of his shirt that it was probably unbuttoned. Hermione shifted so she could see him better. He appeared to be writing something. A letter? Was he planning on sneaking off while she slept, leaving only a note behind?
He lifted his quill. “You’re awake,” he said without turning.
Hermione frowned, then decided not to pretend any longer. “How could you tell?” she asked as she sat up. She lifted her arms high over her head, stretching.
Riddle turned, and Hermione smirked at his expression—she was not semi-dressed, and so his eyes instantly darted down to her chest before meeting hers. He smiled and said, “I heard you move.”
Hermione let her arms fall to her sides. “Aren’t you observant?”
She stood, feeling Riddle’s eyes on her as she crossed the room and grabbed her robe. She pulled it over her shoulders and tied the soft belt in a loose knot around her waist. “What are you writing?” she asked. She went to him, peering over his shoulder. “Were you going to leave me a…?”
Her question died in her throat as she looked. It wasn’t a note. It wasn’t even words.
“Something I’ve been working on,” Riddle said. He couldn’t see her face as she was, standing behind him, which Hermione was thankful for—she was certain she had paled dramatically. “Something important… I’ve just been trying to finish the details. Something about it is still just a little… off.”
It was the Dark Mark.
At least, it was very similar to the Dark Mark. Riddle had drawn a well-rendered skull, and out of its open jaw came a serpent that curled further down the page. It moved, too, flicking its tongue and turning its head on occasion. But it wasn’t exactly the same as the Dark Mark that she knew all too well from her time.
Riddle turned to look at her; Hermione was glad to see that his eyes were no longer a violent red. His face turned serious. “You recognize it,” he said—a statement, not a question. “You’ve seen this before.”
Hermione knew exactly what he meant by seen, so she nodded. “Yes,” she admitted. “I’ve… I’ve seen this. Usually, on skin. A different time… in the stars.”
Riddle looked surprised for a moment—an expression that swiftly changed as he became undeniably and extremely pleased. “In the stars,” he repeated, as though in wonder. “Tell me more about that.”
Hermione shook her head. “I would really rather not. It was a confusing vision… but I’m fairly certain people had died. That I saw bodies beneath this image in the sky.”
Riddle curled one hand around her neck, bringing her closer to him. “People who deserved it, surely,” he said, his mouth close to her ear. “Or will deserve it, I should say.”
He kissed her throat, then turned his attention back to the drawing. “But it feels incomplete still. Missing something, maybe. But I’m not sure what.”
“I am.”
Hermione didn’t know what possessed her to do it, but against all reason, she took the quill from his hand. She added in the extra loop that was missing, the part of the snake's body that, when it was forever branded onto the skin of a Death Eater, would form a serpentine figure-eight. The magical ink bled into itself, and the form of the snake became one seamless, whole form. Hermione’s drawing was not as intricate as Riddle’s, but the details he had drawn replicated themselves onto her additions, and within seconds it was done: the Dark Mark as she had known it. As it was meant to be.
Riddle watched the magical ink transform on the parchment with awe in his eyes. When it was finished, he smiled.
“Yes,” he said. “Now… it’s perfect.”
Hermione set the quill in the inkwell. “You would have gotten there eventually,” she said. “So tell me… when I’ve seen it, it was on people's forearms. A mark to forever scar people, to call to them, I presume… Right here.”
She leaned down further, her arms around his shoulders as she somewhat purposefully allowed her robe to slide down, exposing the tops of her breasts. She grabbed his left arm with hers, then lightly tapped his forearm.
“But if it were me,” she went on, “I’d put it… here.”
She pulled the collar of his open shirt loose, then touched the center of his back below his neck, where the ridge of his spine was. She smiled when his body involuntarily shuddered at the touch.
“Would you now,” he murmured, turning to look at her again.
“Yes,” she answered, talking into his ear the same way he so often did to her. “That way, when I would summon them, the magic would hit their spinal cord, striking their nervous system, and they wouldn’t just feel it on their arms… they’d feel it everywhere.”
She draped her arm back over his shoulder. His eyes widened a little, and by the way he frowned right afterwards, she could tell he was really considering her. “That, and it’d be much less conspicuous,” Hermione added. She couldn’t help but feel a thrill that she might alter something as major as the placing of the Dark Mark with a few comments. “Assuming you don’t want everyone to immediately know who your people are?”
“Hmm… No, I want the forearm,” he said firmly. “You make an interesting point, but that’s not exactly an easy spot to reach.”
“And they need to be able to reach it easily?”
“Yes.” Riddle furled the parchment into a tight scroll, then stood and shoved it into his pocket. He grabbed Hermione’s face and kissed her. “Thank you,” he said. “For making it perfect.”
Hermione felt her face flushing, but before she could say anything—or come to terms with what it was she was feeling flustered at being thanked for—a cough seized her. She turned just in time, luckily, coughing into the crook of her arm rather than Riddle’s face.
Riddle’s look of concern was immediate. “Are you all right?” he asked. He put his hands on her shoulder when she was done, his touch gentle as he nonetheless kept her at a distance now.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Hermione said. “I mean, I think I am,” she continued, when Riddle looked suspicious. “I might be coming down with a cold. I thought I was on the upswing last night, but maybe not…”
“…She says after having her tongue down my throat most of the night,” Riddle said dully, his concern turning into annoyance.
Hermione tried and failed to suppress a smile. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Your immune system is probably better than mine. I’ve been… not sleeping well lately.”
Riddle’s expression softened. “Yes, I gathered that.”
Hermione vaguely recalled last night—she remembered waking up, feeling afraid, but she couldn’t remember what she’d been dreaming about…
Riddle placed the back of his hand on her forehead. “You might be running a slight fever.”
“I’m fine.” Hermione pushed down the sense of trepidation that was beginning to form in the back of her mind. She hadn’t thought of it before, but should she even be able to get a cold, considering the Time-Turner magic coursing through her?
Or was this happening because of the Time-Turner?
It wasn’t something she felt like sharing at the moment; she didn’t need Riddle speculating about those golden lines just yet.
…Or did she?
Hermione considered it, then. She thought about coming clean about everything: about taking the ring off, showing him the lines, confessing that they were caused by a Time-Turner that had been slammed into her neck that she had failed to use the way she intended, spectacularly… that she had failed to kill… his mother…
To show him the scar on her arm.
The nightmare came back to her, sudden and unwelcome. A cursed blade against her skin, acidic and biting, blood dripping onto a pristine white floor—
I’m going to spell a word here.
“Hermione?”
Hermione blinked, her focus snapping back to the world around her. Riddle was gripping her by both shoulders now, standing closer to her.
“Sorry,” Hermione muttered. No, she couldn't do it. She couldn’t show him. Not now. Maybe not ever. “I’m okay, really. I just need some tea, I think.”
She pushed herself away, avoiding that speculative stare. “Would you like some?” she called as she busied herself in the kitchen, filling the kettle. “I can make breakfast too, if you’d like.”
Not that she felt hungry at all herself, but it was the polite thing to ask. To her relief, Riddle answered her by saying, “No… I need to go.”
He crept up behind her, encircling her waist once she set the kettle down. “I have some important business to attend to, and it will take some time… I was just waiting for you to wake up.”
Hermione turned around in his arms. Her throat felt scratchy and raw, but she held back the cough that threatened to emerge. “How sweet of you.”
“Not entirely,” he said. “I’m calling another meeting tonight… and I expect you to be there.” He kissed the bridge of her nose. “I’ll send you the details soon. In the meantime, you should rest.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“It’s just a cold.”
“Then you should feel much better after you get some sleep.”
He lifted her arm, and Hermione felt a jolt of panic as he kissed her wrists—the space right above where her scar was currently concealed.
His eyes met hers, and he said, “You may also want to consider not wearing perfume laced with amortentia. I can’t imagine it helps you sleep. It inherently raises one’s blood pressure and causes… restlessness.”
Hermione’s face flared red. “I… had not considered that,” she said.
“I doubt you were thinking about resting when you put it on.”
He dropped her wrist, and though Hermione felt more than a little embarrassed, she had to ask. “What do you smell?”
He raised one brow at her, so she went on before he could answer. It didn’t seem fair to ask for something she wasn’t willing to share herself. “I smell freshly cut grass, and parchment, and…”
She paused, inhaling against her wrist where she could, indeed, still smell the lingering perfume there. “And ink,” she said. She smiled at him. “That one is new.”
Riddle put his hand around her wrist again, his eyes flashing to hers before they went to her arm, staring at it deeply, like he could see whatever it was he could smell.
Hermione held her breath as she waited. Was he really going to tell her? She had been deeply curious about it for so long. Part of her had wondered if he could smell anything special at all, considering how he was conceived.
“…The ocean,” he said at length, still looking down. “Specifically, the ocean at night, in winter. It’s difficult to describe, but it’s a little salty, and fresh, and distinctly cold.”
He lifted her wrist to his nose again, and breathed deeply. He closed his eyes. “And something sweet,” he murmured. “Sugar. I imagine that’s because I almost never had sweet things growing up, so having anything like that now still feels… forbidden.”
He took another breath. “And something else… something… warm. Hot, even. Something very at odds with the coldness of the ocean.”
He opened his eyes to look at her again. “That’s new,” he said quietly.
Hermione felt her lips part and her face flame hotter than before. A very small part of her said that he could be making all that up; he could be lying, even still…
But she didn’t think so.
Riddle pulled her close, kissed her forehead, then released her. “I will see you tonight,” he said. He then crossed the room, slid on his shoes, and grabbed his cloak all before Hermione could so much as gather her thoughts.
He opened the door, but then paused. “To clarify something… it wasn’t the smell of your perfume that gave you away in that shack you magically darkened.”
Riddle smirked at her from over his shoulder. “I found you because you’re not half as cunning as you think you are… and certainly not as cunning as me.”
He winked, and then he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him.
What does he know?
Hermione could not rest. Taking a nap was an absolute impossibility, especially after such a cryptic departure. She laid on her bed and stared at the ceiling, just as she had been for the past hour. She turned and glared at the door as though he had just left.
Then her eyes landed on one of the hooks in the wall, and she grinned. Her mokeskin bag hung there, where she not only had Slytherin’s locket and Hufflepuff’s cup, but Riddle’s very own secret diary.
His angsty, teenage horcrux, Hermione corrected herself. And although she wasn’t sure exactly what he knew, she was certain he didn’t know she had that. Riddle would never let one of his precious few ties to immortality lay outside of his reach, and he would definitely not leave it with someone who admitted to having wanted him dead at one point.
No, he didn’t know she had it or even that she knew about his horcruxes, of that alone Hermione was certain. Because what kind of person would think persuading someone who had split their soul to be better was possible…?
What kind of person, indeed, Hermione lamented. She was crazy for thinking she could save him, wasn’t she? He had split his soul not only once, but twice…
Hermione sat bolt upright. The ring. She had nearly forgotten, but he wasn’t wearing it any more, which meant it was probably in the House of Gaunt right now…
She should go get it.
Hermione came to that conclusion instantly. When else would be a better time? Right now, Riddle was obviously busy, doing whatever dark and terrible things he needed to do before tonight… and after all that talk of possessiveness, she may never have this kind of unsupervised freedom again. Right now, Riddle was preoccupied and he thought she was here, feeling sick, resting…
As if in cue, Hermione was assaulted by another coughing fit. Her throat burned and okay, she did not feel great, but what was she supposed to do? She couldn’t sleep and tea had only temporarily helped. She’d certainly felt worse, but she had a nagging feeling in her gut that something was very… not right.
A tapping sound to her right pulled Hermione’s attention. There was a barn owl outside her window, and in its beak was a somewhat large parcel. Hermione went and let it in, and it dropped the package onto her bed before taking off again. She tore it open to find two vials, one large and one small, as well as a note.
A mile north of Devil’s Hill, outside of Crowsley. There is a clearing—you will know where to go. Midnight, tonight.
Don’t be late.
Hermione set the note aside. Of course we’ll meet at midnight, she thought, rolling her eyes. He is so predictably dramatic.
She picked up the vials and recognized the potions within each of them at once. In the smaller one was a Dreamless Draught, probably enough for a full 8 hours of sleep, and in the other was a Pepperup Potion that could easily last a few days. Hermione smiled at his thoughtfulness, but then she remembered his parting words, and she scowled again.
You’re not half as cunning as you think you are.
Hermione put the Dreamless Draught on her nightstand and uncorked the Pepperup Potion. We’ll see about that, she thought. She cast a few detection spells on the vial—she was not that naive, even still, even if Riddle had no reason to poison her these days—and once she was certain it was indeed just Pepperup Potion, took a sip of it.
Warmth flooded through her, coating her throat and making it feel exponentially better. It also had the pleasant side-effect of making her feel quite… chipper. Hermione grinned as she lowered the vial. I should have gotten some of this days ago, she thought.
Hermione knew what she had to do. Feeling a bit apprehensive, she took another long drink, draining most of the vial. She was going to need the boost for what she was about to do.
She would never have a better opportunity than right now, when Riddle likely thought she was enjoying a nice, dreamless sleep—curtesy of him; what a gentleman—and he was preoccupied.
…and certainly not as cunning as me.
“Yeah, we’ll see,” Hermione thought again, but this time, she muttered it out loud to herself. “We will fucking see. I am the most cunning.”
She took the time to do some research, revisiting a few of her favorite texts on dark curses—and one curse in particular. Then, with much more pep in her step, Hermione was off.
Little Hangleton.
Hermione apparated on the outskirts of the town, knowing about where to look, but not exactly. She had a good feeling that Riddle would have placed more than a few protective enchantments around the shack, including some simple ones to keep the muggles away, and she was right. Hermione cast a few charms, then followed the signs of magic.
It was much more disgusting in person than it was in the memories.
Of course, finding the shack was the easy part. Hermione cautiously approached the dilapidated building, with its mossy walls and its roof with many missing rafters. The nettles were out of control, their tips reaching the windows that were tiny and grime-covered. It was disturbing to think that Morfin had lived in conditions much like this… until he’d been incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit, anyway.
And he’s still alive, Hermione realized. In this timeline, Morfin is currently in Azkaban, thinking that he killed the Riddle family…
Hermione pushed that strange thought aside, refocusing. The ring. She was here for the ring, because—why, precisely?
Hermione hadn’t bothered to really question why she was doing what she was doing until she was at the door—which no longer had a dead, rotting snake nailed to it, she was glad to see. Why did she feel the need to come get his ring? Was it simply because that was her original plan, when she had been determined to kill him? She was relatively convinced that she no longer wanted to do that…
No, I want to try to save him… but I also want to manipulate him.
There was no way around that truth: Hermione intended to not only save Tom Riddle if at all possible, but to use him. He wanted to be the most powerful sorcerer in the wizarding world? Fine; Hermione would let him wear whatever crown he wanted, but she was going to make sure that world he fancied himself the master of was one she wanted to live in, too. One where muggle-borns and muggles were safe, and she would do that however she needed to. If that meant ‘seeing’ things that should change his course, she would do it. She would do anything to prevent the wars those in her timeline had endured.
But on the off chance that she failed…
Well. She wanted an insurance policy. Or two, as it were.
Hermione took a deep breath, then pushed the wooden door open.
The smell was something she hadn’t experienced in the memory. Rotting wood and mildew, as well as a nasty, musky odor, the source of which she hoped not to find. Just dismantle the curses, get the ring, and get out.
She already knew where it was. It wasn’t difficult to sense where the dark magic was emanating from, especially in such a limited space. The three rooms of the shack were smaller than the living room of her loft back in New York combined. The source of the magic came from a space beneath the floorboards in what Hermione supposed was a kitchen. Holding her wand aloft, she warily approached, then cast a series of diagnostic charms.
It was a drastically different experience than getting the diary had been. That horcrux had been protected solely by Riddle’s assumption that only he could speak Parseltongue. This horcrux was enshrouded by several sinister curses, and Hermione was determined to dismantle as many of them as she could before she so much as lifted the floorboard.
She made herself comfortable, then got to work.
Breaking curses was not easy. It required an intimate understanding of the initial curses, but, fortunately, Hermione had an inkling what kind of curses Riddle would use. Aside from the necrotizing curse—and she had a feeling she would need to actually see the ring to be able to dismantle that one, if she even could—there was one that she could sense would cause horrible visions, and another that would turn the trespasser’s tongue into… something… though what, exactly, Hermione could not quite tell… she preferred not to find out…
Hermione wasn't sure how long she sat there, cross-legged on the floor of that shack, wand in hand. All she knew was that time passed strangely when one was so deeply involved in someone else’s magical trap. It was rather like walking across a field that she knew was littered with mines, she mused, except she had a very special tool that told her where the mines were right before she would have otherwise stepped on them…
Finally, after a laborious, magical effort, she succeeded. Hermione dismantled all of the curses… except one.
She carefully lifted the floorboard to find a small box. The box itself was no longer cursed, so Hermione picked it up and opened it with care.
And there it was. Riddle’s ring… a horcrux.
And a hallow.
Hermione stared at the stone, where she could see the symbol of the Deathly Hallows if she looked closely—but she didn’t dare touch it, so she kept it in the box. This necrotizing curse was powerful, exponentially more so than any of the protective curses that had surrounded the box, radiating around it far enough that she had been able to get rid of them from above the floorboard. It was almost like Riddle wanted whoever may try and steal his horcrux to get this far… only to fail here, and suffer a much more devastating death because of it.
Hermione closed the box. The curse was contained to the ring itself, of that she was certain, though whether she would have to put it on or of simply touching it wrong would set it off, she was unsure. Better not test it.
Before putting the box with the ring in it into her bag, Hermione duplicated everything. A fake ring, a fake little box. She put it in the exact same place she had found the original one, and then she groaned.
She was going to have to redo all of the curses she had just dismantled… plus cast a necrotizing curse of comparable strength onto this fake. On the off chance that Riddle decided to check up on his ring, she needed to do everything she could to convince him that no one had touched it; that no one had even come near the shack in the first place. If he felt all of the same magic in place when he arrived, he may not even bother looking in the box. And if he did, he probably wouldn’t want to go through the hassle of undoing this final, powerful curse to really check, just to recast it…
Now that she’d thought of that, it all seemed very obvious, but she hadn’t really taken how much time this was going to take into consideration. Hermione sighed as she put the real ring, little box and all, into her mokeskin bag. She smirked down at the innocuous looking diary, which looked very odd beside the gleaming cup of Helga Hufflepuff and the ominous locket of Salazar Slytherin.
But neither of those objects, mysterious and magical though they were, contained any cognizant fractions of a Dark Lord. “Look, now you have some company you might actually enjoy,” she muttered at the diary, then tightly pulled the bag shut.
Time to get to work… again.
By the time she was finally done, having placed the last ward into place—a simple muggle-repelling charm—night had long since fallen. Hermione exhaled a deep breath and checked the time. She had less than an hour until midnight. She was feeling more than a little drained, and her throat was starting to hurt again. She coughed harshly, and it burned.
Don’t be late.
Hermione didn’t want to find out what would happen if she was late to whatever Riddle had planned for this meeting. Considering he had been doodling the damn Dark Mark at her desk this morning, she assumed it was going to be something… well, big.
Should she go by her room at the Inn first? Hermione considered this, but she had a foreboding feeling that she may not get a chance to hide the horcruxes again after tonight. She had them both right now, safely stashed in a bag only she could open… she should take advantage of her freedom while she knew she had it.
She opened the bag a little, peering at the little black book that was now surrounded by much more beautiful objects. Though she wished she could keep ahold of the diary, just in case she did want to talk to the young Dark Lord again, she knew it was best not to. She had pushed her luck keeping it with her this long, she figured. It was time to put both horcruxes, as well as these invaluable Founder’s artifacts, somewhere far from anyone’s reach, at least for now.
But where to hide them?
Hermione bit her lower lip as she thought furiously—she didn’t have much time. I should have thought of this sooner!
Where would Lord Voldemort never think to look for his horcruxes? That had been stolen by a supposed Seer that supposedly adored him (after getting over the fact that she had wanted to kill him, first).
Hermione grinned as an idea came to her. Two ideas.
She left at once, then worked as quickly as she could. She had just placed the finishing touches on the horcruxes’ new hiding places when she saw she had an entire five minutes left until midnight. Despite feeling exhausted, and ignoring the burning feeling in her throat that was returning with a vengeance, Hermione felt accomplished indeed as she went to meet the Dark Lord. Because she knew that, no matter what she had to say or do to stroke his ego, to let him believe that he held all the power and that he was in control… No matter how painful it may be to willingly swallow her pride…
Well, it would be much easier for her to do knowing that she had two thirds of his soul in her keeping.
Chapter 47: In Terror and Glory
Chapter Text
“Legilimens."
Hermione dove into the mind of her colleague, both pleased and annoyed when she was met at once with mental barriers. Jackson was good; there were hazy walls of white in every direction, and when she attempted to gently force her way through she would catch only flashes of scenes or faces before a new wave of enigmatic white would rise up, blocking her view. She went on for some time, not looking for anything in particular but remaining distressingly alert, because she knew at any moment he would strike, and—
The blackness was vast and sudden.
An encompassing darkness and with it, dread and cold. The familiar fear gripped her, sinking its frigid teeth into her soul like so many fangs of steel and ice. They pierced and pulled, trying to drag her down, but Hermione resisted.
It was sort of like removing yourself from a bear trap, Hermione mused as she disengaged from the curse. The instinct was to jerk away with sudden force, but that would only cause this dark magic to sink in deeper. Instead, one had to do so calmly, methodically… just as with all spellwork related to the Mind Arts.
Another moment passed, and Hermione successfully disengaged. She was out of Jackson’s mind seconds later. And there, laying on the strategically-placed mat in front of her, was Jackson himself—out cold.
Rubiconem suum.
“Nicely done,” Holloway said, nodding his approval. “But I would have been shocked if he had managed to take you down with him.”
“I don’t know, he’s quite good at it, actually,” Hermione said. “I bet he’d manage it on someone with less experience.”
“Someone with less experience wouldn’t get that far,” Holloway said—which Hermione realized was true. Novices would be tossed out of someone else’s mind long before they would need to resort to the Rubiconem suum.
“How long do you think he’ll be out this time?” Hermione asked.
Holloway shrugged. It was one of the downsides of practicing this form of mental magic. The one casting the rubiconem suum curse could not be revived by any other means once they were unconscious.
“Depends on how hard he worked when he tried to take you down,” Holloway answered.
“Shouldn’t be long, then,” Hermione said, grinning. “He barely tried.”
Holloway narrowed eyes like this did not please him. “Let’s hope you don’t return the favor.”
They stood there in silence for a time. Hermione could tell by her boss’s generally grumpy demeanor that he was not in the mood for her to barrage him with questions (as she often did whenever the opportunity arose), so she preoccupied herself by staring at the nearby tank instead.
There was something both relaxing and simultaneously disturbing about watching brains float around.
Hermione edged a little closer to the thick, impenetrable glass. She watched the brain closest to her, its long, ribbon-like tendrils twirling around it as it swam through the fluid. It looked so peaceful. It was hard to imagine that, if disturbed, these brains could turn deadly.
Don’t think about that, Hermione scolded herself, but it was hard not to. It was always hard not to. Don’t think about it, just—
“Ouch.”
Hermione turned to see Jackson sitting up, stretching his arm across his body. “I think I landed funny on my shoulder. Did I land on my shoulder?”
“I didn’t see,” Hermione said.
He looked at Holloway. “Unimportant,” Holloway answered dismissively. “Get up, Jackson. It’s Granger’s turn.”
Jackson sighed and stood. “How much longer are we going to go at this?” he asked as he continued to stretch his arm. “My brain is starting to feel like mush. It’s almost as exhausting as warding.”
“I like warding,” Hermione said.
“Of course you do. It’s the most mind-numbing, meticulous thing ever.”
“Probably because my brain is a steel trap. Perhaps your mushy brain would fancy a swim in the tank.”
“No one’s brain is leaving their bodies,” Holloway said sternly, like Hermione’s suggestion had been serious. “And you’d better work on that stamina, Jackson, if you want to be able to work in the Death Chamber for more than a few minutes.”
“Does anyone ever want to work in the Death Chamber for more than a few minutes?” Jackson grumbled. “Aren’t there only one or two Perpetuals in that sub-division?”
“Doesn’t matter. Whether you decide to specialize or not, you need to build up your mental stamina now. All the sub-divisions intersect at some point. You could decide to dedicate yourself to Space and you’d still wind up dealing with Death eventually. We all do.”
“How uplifting,” Jackson said.
“We could go back to working with the Dementor, if you’d prefer.”
“I would not.” Jackson turned and motioned to Hermione. “Come on then, Granger. Let’s swap.”
Hermione nodded and took his place, standing directly in front of the wide, thick mat. At least she knew she’d have a safe landing.
Jackson took the position opposite her, then raised his wand. “Ready?”
Hermione nodded again, though she did not honestly feel calm and collected yet. Her eyes kept flickering to the brain that she had been watching earlier; it was floating near the glass as though it was now watching them.
Was that the same brain that had attacked Ron all those years ago?
“Legilimens.”
Hermione bristled as the spell washed over her, and she fell into the twilight of her mind.
She was good at Occlumency. Hermione was as quick at learning it as she was most things, to nobody’s surprise. But Jackson was also a fast learner; he would not have been selected to train as an Unspeakable in the first place if he wasn’t. So Hermione was not shocked, though she was irritated, when he managed to skirt around some of her initial mental barriers—something she was certain he would have failed at if she wasn’t distracted by possibly observant, floating brains and thoughts of Ron.
That sudden realization made things worse. Just as Hermione had successfully batted Jackson’s intrusive magic away, an unbidden memory surfaced, and he latched on.
Hermione felt a thrill of mortification at what arose out of the misty white blockades.
It was her, standing in a dirty bar, holding up Draco Malfoy so that he did not topple over in his magical constraints… and there was Ron. Standing across from her. Staring. No, glaring, a look of pained fury on his face.
Hermione felt Jackson’s magic shake as though startled, and in response, she made another great, emotional blunder. Hermione threw up an impenetrable wall to block off all things Ron, which left her vulnerable in other areas—which turned out to be exactly where Jackson was interested in going.
Ron and the Hog’s Head faded away. Draco Malfoy did not.
Suddenly, a new memory flashed to life, and Hermione was in her flat, working on calculations. And there, sitting across from her, dressed in casual muggle clothing and watching her intently, was Draco Malfoy. She glanced up at him and caught him staring—again—and he quickly looked back at his own mathematical equations, face turning slightly pink as he hastily continued to scribble away.
Hermione banished the memory within seconds, barely suppressing the terror that threatened to ruin her Occlumency abilities. It would be horrible if anyone, let alone Jackson, fellow Unspeakable-in-training, found out about what she and Malfoy were up to. Career-ending at best; time in Azkaban at worst.
Hermione didn’t get the chance to do anything after she shrouded the memory, and certainly didn’t have enough time to attempt the Rubiconem suum, because Jackson withdrew from her mind altogether. Hermione blinked in a daze as she returned to the Hall of Thought in the present.
“Was that Draco Malfoy?”
Jackson was gaping at her, but the way his expression was already turning from shocked to gleeful told her that he knew the answer.
“No,” Hermione lied anyway. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Jackson ignored her. “It was!” he shouted. “Merlin’s beard! You’re seeing Draco Malfoy!”
Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again in mute surprise. It felt like her brain (was it really a steel trap?) was momentarily short-circuited as she watched the way he smiled, and it took her a second to realize what it was he thought he was putting together.
He thinks Draco Malfoy and I are sleeping together, she concluded.
She didn’t say anything as she processed this. Jackson seemed to accept this lack of denial as an admission.
“Good God, Granger,” he said, laughing. “Draco Malfoy? Really?”
Holloway, who had also looked uncharacteristically surprised to hear this, cleared his throat loudly. “We’re not here to discuss anyone’s personal lives, Jackson. We’re here to practice the Mind Arts.”
“Tell that to Granger,” Jackson said, smirking. “She’s the one who got suddenly emotional, making her barriers all shaky and allowing me to see her in—where was that? Some dingy bar with Draco Malfoy and her ex! Before I saw a flash of her and and Malfoy alone, it looked like—”
“Shut your mouth, Jackson,” Hermione snapped. And while it was her instinct to argue that it wasn’t what it looked like, she knew that the truth would be infinitely worse for anyone to discover.
Better he think she and Malfoy were shagging than plotting to illegally time-travel with an illegal Time-Turner that should, by all rights, be returned to the very Department she now worked for.
Gritting her teeth, Hermione said, “Who I choose to spend my time with is no one’s business but my own.”
Jackson ran a hand through his hair, shaking in his head as he did. “I can’t believe it. Hermione Granger, Potter’s best friend, and Draco Malfoy. Too bad I’m an Unspeakable. I imagine Skeeter would pay about a hundred galleons to—”
He quickly stopped talking when he noticed the way Hermione was now glaring at him, gripping her wand tightly in her fist. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“I’m glad someone can forget,” Hermione muttered. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the Wizarding World had no problem recalling the false scandals that Rita Skeeter published about Hermione as far and wide as possible.
“Enough, Jackson,” Holloway said. “Granger is an adult, she can make whatever choices she likes in her personal life so long as she keeps the Department code… However…”
He gave her a hesitant look. “It’s wise to recall where, exactly, certain people’s morals stand, and Dr–”
“Oh, don’t you start on me now, too,” Hermione drawled. “I’m not looking for moral guidance on who I shag, especially not from my boss. Unless you want to hear all the dirty details, sir, so you can have an informed opinion on the matter?”
Jackson snickered to her side and Holloway shook his head and sighed.
“Let’s just take a break from this,” Holloway said. “You’re clearly too distracted right now, anyway. Go clear your minds, and we’ll reconvene in an hour. Actually—go practice some warding construction and dismantling, both of you. Especially you, Jackson. You need it.”
Jackson groaned and Hermione, knowing she had narrowly avoided disaster, smiled and nodded.
A mile north of Devil’s Hill, outside of Crowsley.
Hermione apparated close to this location, landing in a lightly wooded area that was green and lush with life. Unusually green, she noted, and as her body adjusted to her new surroundings, she was able to see why. Filtering through the branches and leaves was a light that was not coming from the moon, and in that same direction, she felt the unmistakable feeling of a muggle-repelling ward. Hermione steeled herself and walked towards the light.
She’d taken all of two steps before a ragged cough seized her. Hermione stopped moving, waiting for the fit to pass. I should have rationed that Pepperup Potion, she chastised herself as she coughed again. Its effects, though powerful and quite helpful earlier, had long since worn off.
When she moved her elbow away from her mouth, Hermione’s stomach dropped in dread. There, visible only by the way they glistened in the eerie green light, were several droplets of blood.
That’s never a good thing, she thought, trying valiantly not to be shaken. She didn’t exactly have the time to deal with this. Hermione vanished the droplets. She would have to question all her life choices and figure out what was happening to her later; right now, she was minutes away from being late to some mysterious but likely pivotal meeting with her… well, whatever Tom Riddle was to her now.
I can do this, Hermione told herself. I can get through this night and dive into the horrible mystery of what’s happening to my body tomorrow.
Forcing away questioning thoughts such as Is this because of the Time-Turner? and Is it somehow the diary? or Have the effects of such time-travel started to cause me to deteriorate internally?, Hermione took another step, then stopped. She bent down and picked a twig up off the ground, then transfigured it into a cup.
“Aguamenti,” she said, and water filled it to the brim.
The moment she swallowed the cool liquid, Hermione felt better. She drank and drank, and when her cup was empty she repeated the process and drank some more.
She wiped her lips dry after she was satisfied. See? she told herself. You just needed some water. You are a little unwell and went and spent the day dismantling wards and curses and then recasting them all over again. Horcrux hunting is very dehydrating, Hermione. You should know better.
She still had an ominous feeling that something more was going on, of course, but she felt well enough now to cling to that train of thought. Just get through tonight, she told herself again.
Hermione dropped the cup to the ground, where it turned back into a twig. She then pocketed her wand, pulled her hood up over her hair, held her chin up high, and kept walking.
Soon, she came upon a clearing. Hermione paused before she left the shelter of the tree line, taking in the haunting scene in front of her before she inevitably became a part of it.
The source of the green light was phenomenal enough to take her breath away. Trailing up into the sky, stretching to a height just above the tallest trees, was a slew of swirling, sparkling lights, each glowing faintly with an emerald hue. They were moving slowly, rotating together in a synchronized way. It was like a small-scale solar system had fallen from the heavens and landed there, stuck now in a new orbit, surrounding a new sun.
That sun was Tom Riddle.
He was one of seven figures total, but he stood apart from the others, the swirling mass of lights emanating around him, over him, and high above him. He had his eyes closed and his hands folded, his wand intertwined between his fingers. He looked like something otherworldly, something dark and holy.
The silent spectacle that was Tom Riddle made it almost difficult to take note of the others. The rest of what Hermione knew to be the Knights were all dressed in black robes, standing a respectful distance away from Riddle in a sort of semi-circle, clearly not stupid enough to disturb whatever trancelike state he was in. Oliver Macnair, Adam Avery, Irving Leatrange, Linus Yaxley, Orion Black. Abraxas was there, too, his face tilted upwards, clearly visible in the eerie green light.
Best not to keep them waiting, Hermione thought. Bolstering her courage, she stepped into the clearing and approached the group.
There was an obvious air of tension and trepidation, and Hermione could tell that this—meeting in lush, green valleys surrounded by woods at midnight with an enigmatic, statuesque Tom Riddle awaiting them (surrounded by a thousand glowing lights, no less) was not normal. They were shifting uncomfortably, not even speaking to one another as they waited for Riddle to act.
Black noticed her first. He turned towards her, offering her a small nod of acknowledgment that made Hermione feel slightly more confident. Unfortunately, she made eye contact with Macnair next, who looked as annoyed at her presence now as he had the last time she’d attended a meeting. Hermione ignored him and gravitated towards the other side of the circle where Abraxas stood, his silver eyes glowing green in the lights.
She was almost hurt when he didn’t even attempt to smile when he saw her, and instead looked appalled. “You’re here,” he murmured softly. He did not sound happy about it.
Hermione didn’t get the chance to respond.
“Good.”
Riddle’s voice was soft, but it instantly ensnared the attention of everyone there. His eyes were open, those irises so dark that they once more reminded Hermione of black mirrors, reflecting the twinkling green lights and making it seem like there were entire solar systems there, too.
He was staring at Hermione. His face was calm, cold, and as unreadable as ever.
He looked away. Riddle held his arms out wide and addressed them as a group. Around him, the lights continued to slowly swirl. “Thank you all for coming,” he said. “I’m sure you’re curious as to why I would demand a meeting on such short notice, in such a peculiar location. I’ll confess that this area is more or less meaningless, chosen only for practical purposes. Muggles tend to keep far away from anything with the word devil in it, it seems.”
He smiled, and a few of the others seemed to become slightly less tense at the expression. “Be lying if I said I wasn’t wondering about that,” Linus said, grinning nervously. “Among other things.”
“Understandably… allow me to illuminate you all.”
Riddle took a step closer to them, and the lights moved too, scattering a bit higher but still following him as though he was a magnetic force. “I believe this meeting has been long overdue. For some of you, it will not be shocking. For others, vastly more so.”
His eyes flickered to Orion and then Abraxas, who bristled beside her. Hermione wondered whether he fit into the former or latter category.
“We have been hiding in the shadows cast by our ancestors for too long,” Riddle continued. He started to pace, and the celestial lights followed. “Creating a supposed new branch of an order that would sooner prefer we not exist and would refuse us if we did; an order that has been far too content for far too long to do nothing when the time to act is laden with difficulty and nothing again when the time to act is ideal. This order has become the very opposite of what it set out to be. They did not even seize upon the chance to support Gellert Grindelwald wholly and properly, letting an opportunity to forever change the wizarding world and to have a hand in shaping it slip away… in short, it is an order that has already died.”
He stopped pacing to face them, looking at each wizard in turn. “I do not wish to lead a lifeless organization, and you should not wish to be a part of one. It is a great disservice to your loyalties, your heritage, and your magic to carry a title that no longer holds any meaning.”
“Lead?”
They all turned to face Black, who looked equal parts nervous and confused. “The Knights don’t have a single leader,” he went on cautiously. “It’s… it’s isocratic by nature.”
Hermione could tell right then that Orion Black was definitely one of the ones who was about to be shocked tonight. Riddle looked at him, a dark smile spreading across his face.
“Yes, the Knights of Walpurgis… It has been almost fun, pretending to be a part of them. But the truth, dear Orion, is that we were never Knights in any fashion, and we haven’t been an isocratic group since we first gathered at Hogwarts years ago. In fact, we weren’t ever an isocratic group. We’ve never held equal power. And we never will.”
Orion looked even more confused. “What are you talking about, Tom?”
Riddle started pacing again, sighing somewhat theatrically as he went, the glowing lights still trailing behind him like some sort of ethereal, glorious cape. “Orion, Orion, Orion,” he murmured, shaking his head. “I would say it pains me to have to explain this all to you, but, well. It doesn’t. But it will probably pain you.”
Macnair let out a grunt of a laugh, and he and Riddle exchanged a quick, shared smile. An interaction that was not lost on Orion, who continued to look baffled.
“You see, Orion, our merry little group of pureblood supremacists was always my group. I have been the one organizing our meetings, deciding what we should discuss, debate, focus on, not focus on. What we should accomplish and what would be best left undone. Every contribution you’ve made, every idea you’ve thought was yours was, in fact, mine. I simply allowed you to voice it, to think it was yours. I started this contemporary branch of the Knights of Walpurgis, and now that I have you all here, I’m ending it.”
“I… but… but starting the Knights of Walpurgis was Abraxas’s idea!” Orion shouted, gesturing towards Abraxas.
For his part, Abraxas was standing very still beside Hermione; he seemed to be growing more rigid with each passing second.
Riddle stopped pacing. “Was it, now?” he murmured. “Remind me, Abraxas… when exactly did you get the grand idea to start your own branch of the Knights of Walpurgis?”
Abraxas didn’t immediately answer, only held Riddle’s stare with a hard look of his own. After a terse pause, he said, “It was you.”
Riddle held his gaze a moment longer, then laughed. “I believe what he meant to say, Orion, was that in our fourth year, I began asking some seemingly benign questions about the mysterious order of wizards who once protected magical kind… and Abraxas—always so eager to impress with his great knowledge of our shared magical past, due to his noble, pure ancestry—was happy to answer. It was easy, too easy, to nudge him towards the conclusion I wanted him to come to. That it would be excellent to do what our ancestors must have done, meeting in secret to keep the ancient ways alive, and to do it here! At Hogwarts! How thrilling. And we had just the right sort in our year to make it happen. People like Orion Black.”
Riddle laughed as Orion’s confusion was clearly giving way to fear. He did not yet look as bad as Avery though, Hermione thought. Poor Adam had seemed like he was terrified before Riddle even started talking, and was not looking any better now.
“Yes, Abraxas, with his drive as the sole heir of the Malfoy line to not only meet his family’s colossal expectations but exceed them… why, he was easy enough to manipulate back then, but you, Orion… Well, you were easy too, truth be told, just in a different way.”
Orion’s lips parted, but he seemed momentarily lost for words.
Riddle didn’t mind speaking for him. “What are you talking about, Tom?” he said in a mocking tone with a look of forced, fake sympathy. His wicked smile was back a moment later as he answered himself. “I’m talking about your bigotry that is so massive and unmoving that you could never see anything beyond it. It’s understandable, really; the way your family is always going on and on about the importance of absolute blood purity. It’s even your family motto. I wouldn’t be surprised if your first words were toujours pur.
“It was simple, then, to get you to go along with just about anything, so long as it was rooted in blood purity. Would you have considered joining any sort of group if I, a mere half-blood who was raised by muggles, had suggested it? No, no, of course not; not even being a direct descendent of Salazar Slytherin could undo having a muggle father. If I had suggested such a thing, the very notion would have been recklessly dangerous, a ridiculous and unnecessary risk. But coming from the Abraxas Malfoy, the textbook example of a proper pureblood, whose family had undeniable roots in the Knights of Walpurgis, well, suddenly it was a duty to not only join, but to help organize! To recruit! Anything to further the cause of our ancient and noble past!”
Riddle’s voice changed as he spoke in a mocking tone once more, saying, “And, well, we will have to make allowances, won’t we? Of course Riddle should be allowed to be a part of this Abraxas, I quite agree; we can overlook his unfortunate upbringing because his brilliance is undeniable and he will be an asset to our cause…”
Orion’s face was paling in a way that was obvious even in the green glow. Riddle laughed cruelly as his voice regained its usual tenor.
“Your bigotry was your weakness, and it was so easy to use it against you. It was almost comical, the way you couldn’t see just how far your head was up your own arse. I was only deemed worthy of your acceptance because the weight of my specific ancestry was great enough to at least mitigate the damage done by the muggle side of it… nevermind the fact that I was smarter, quicker, and infinitely more magically adept. But anyone else? Other half-bloods were beneath you, and you took personal offense whenever one bested you. And Salazar forbid whenever a mudblood happened to outperform you… You couldn’t even acknowledge that.”
“That’s not true,” Orion argued, a tiny bit of color rising back into his cheeks.
“Isn’t it?” Riddle spat. “If a mudblood scored better on a test or learned to cast a spell quicker than you, there was always a reason, wasn’t there? They cheated, they got lucky, or some combination of the two.” Riddle scoffed. “The thought that you might be subpar in any subject was so beyond you that you simply had to rationalize. You were delusional, Orion… and it’s time to see the light.”
Riddle turned his attention to Yaxley next. “You were the easiest,” he said. “I didn’t even have to do anything to recruit you, Linus. Orion did it for me. Your best mate simply told you that it would be fun, that we could break the rules, sneak out past curfew, drink some smuggled firewhisky—all behavior that suddenly became acceptable for Orion when it was in the name of the Knights of Walpurgis.”
Yaxley glanced at Black, who was obviously still struggling to process everything, but when he looked back at Riddle, it was with much less devastation than his friend. “Yeah,” he said, relatively unfazed. “That’s pretty much what happened.”
“I know, Linus,” Riddle drawled.
“But I would have joined if you’d been the one to ask me, too,” Yaxley continued. “I mean… Well, it’s been obvious for a while that you’re the one who's been in charge, hasn’t it?”
Yaxley looked around at the others. Three of them—Macnair, Leatrange, and Avery—nodded and muttered in agreement. Orion still looked thunderstruck, and Abraxas…
Rigid. Hermione couldn’t even tell if he was breathing, he was so still.
“You see how large the issue of uncontainable bigotry looms,” Riddle murmured.
“I’ve always known,” Macnair said, and it was clear by the way he nearly shouted the words that he had been wanting to say this for a long time. “I’ve known all along that Tom was the one who would run things, change things. Before any of the rest of you saw it, I did.”
He looked around at the others in a challenging manner—which, considering how massive he was, was rather intimidating.
Riddle cast him an approving look. “That you did,” he said quietly. “Oliver has been my right hand man since our second year together at Hogwarts… a quick and unflinching loyalty that will be rewarded yet.”
Macnair’s massive chest puffed out like that was the highest praise. He’s already acting like a brainwashed Death Eater, Hermione thought with undeniable awe.
Her thoughts were racing as she was rapidly painting a picture in her mind, realizing that yes, it made sense that Macnair would be the first Riddle would target to become his future follower. He was a pureblood wizard, so he must have at least some connections and wealth, but Macnair was also not a part of the illustrious Sacred Twenty-Eight. He was probably bitter about that, and more than prepared to join forces with someone who would see him as just as valuable as if he were, if not more so.
Riddle also probably had other reasons for choosing him; he was bloody massive and therefore had the effect of looking like a big, scary bodyguard when standing next to Riddle, and Hermione imagined he had the right temperament, too. Macnair must have been the sort who did not want the spotlight nor the responsibility that came with leading a group, but was happy to be second-in-command: plenty of power, a fraction of the work and pressure.
Riddle returned his focus to Yaxley and grinned. “But I appreciate your ability to not be a blind fool. How does it feel, to know with certainty that you're more observant than your best friend, Orion? And everyone always said that he was the smart one.”
Before Yaxley could respond, Riddle moved on. “But none of you are as smart as Irving,” he said, moving down the line. Lestrange stood a bit taller at the acknowledgment, his handsome face wholly unbothered by anything Riddle had said thus far. “Irving saw everything I was even when it was still blossoming potential… and he has his upbringing to thank for that as well, to an extent… fortunately for him, the Lestranges have a long and passionate history of being dedicated to the teachings of Salazar Slytherin, and have long lamented that there was no heir to that great blood line…”
“Until there was,” Leatrange said, smirking.
“Until there was,” Riddle agreed. “But the Lestranges are also dedicated to the pureblood ideology… So what a problem I posed! Both the descendent that had been longed for and yet, at the same time, tainted blood…Except, it wasn’t that much of a problem, was it, Irving? Remind me what it was, exactly, that your father told you… I know, of course, but I love to hear you say it.”
Lestrange grinned wolfishly. “Even the most noble family trees need pruning from time to time if they are to flourish.”
“Precisely,” Riddle said. “And you should know, Orion, Linus, Abraxas… Hermione… that I did exactly that.”
Hermione startled when he said her name; it was the first time he’d looked at her since he started talking. She allowed some confusion to unfold on her face. “What do you mean?” she asked quietly.
But of course she knew the answer.
“I think you already know,” Riddle responded just as softly. “I found my muggle father, and my muggle grandparents, too. I killed them all.”
“And good riddance,” said Macnair, who obviously had already known this and was looking at Riddle with admiration in his eyes.
“Agreed,” said Lestrange, who looked equally in awe of Riddle. “In Salazar’s name.”
“You—you killed your father?” Linus asked. He didn’t look appalled, only shocked. “Really? And your grandparents? When and how did you even do it? Why didn’t you tell all of us?” He looked to his left and said, “Adam, did you know about this, too?”
Avery, who had seemed determined to not draw attention to himself, looked up. “Yes,” he said, only briefly meeting Yaxley’s eyes before looking down again.
“Oh, Adam, dear, sweet Adam… how could we ever overlook you?” Riddle crooned. “Make no mistake, boys, Adam has earned a spot by my side as well, as one of my most trusted… but we don’t need to relive how that came to be, do we, Adam?”
Avery said nothing, only shook his head no.
Hermione felt a stab of pity for him. “You killed your family,” she said, drawing everyone’s attention to her. Not a question, not even an accusation. Just a fact that needed to be repeated.
“Yes,” Riddle said. The floating lights surrounding him glowed brighter, flashing and twinkling. “And they deserved it. My father fell in love with my mother and ran away with her, leaving behind his previous life and taking her to London… then left her there when he discovered she was a witch. He abandoned her when she was pregnant because she had magic, something he should have worshiped her for. Abandoned us. He deserved it, and his parents did, too. They were no better. They were vile, villainous people, and the world is better now that they’re dead.”
Hermione didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t have been able to respond even if she had been prepared for this to come out tonight, because just then she was realizing something else, something much more profound.
Riddle didn’t know about the love potion.
It seemed absurd that he wouldn’t know, but as she stood there, staring into his fierce face, she knew that he didn’t, hadn’t even considered that a possibility, and why would he?
Tom Riddle had never known his mother. All he knew about her was what his uncle Morfin had told him, and he hadn’t told him much, and he was not exactly a reliable source of information, besides. It suddenly became very clear, then, what sort of narrative Riddle had invented.
His mother, the magical one who was descended from Slytherin, could only have been a victim in her son’s eyes. He believed that Tom Riddle Sr. truly cared for her at first; perhaps that he even rescued her from the squalor of the Gaunt home and willingly whisked her away to London… He must have believed that they were really in love, even if fleetingly, and that it was only when he discovered that she was a witch that he left, that it was his fear and hatred of magic alone that caused him to abandon them. An act devastating enough that his mother never recovered and which ultimately left him, her poor son, to be raised as an orphan in a muggle orphanage.
It shocked Hermione that it shocked her at all, because of course this was the story he told himself. People have to make sense of their trauma, she thought. They have to make it make sense, and this is the version that fits Riddle’s ideals and agenda best.
And all that aside… how could he see it any other way? What son would want to think that his dead mother had needed to use a love potion to seduce his father? No one wanted to be the result of that… such a possibility had surely never even crossed his mind.
Hermione had never thought that Riddle actually believed his father deserved to die for what he did; she’d always assumed it was just because he was a muggle. Now, as he stared at her, his black eyes dark and pitiless, pained…
Now she was not so certain.
“When did that happen?” Linus asked again.
Riddle turned away from Hermione, though she knew they would revisit this cryptic conversation again someday in private.
“Years ago,” Riddle said dismissively. “The details aren’t important. The past is not important, not right now… Only the present deserves our undivided attention tonight, and with it, the promise of an incredible future… A future where magic rules.”
He held his arms out wide again; the starry lights spread out further, retreating higher above him. “The time has come to be very clear about exactly what we are,” he said. “We are not Knights of Walpurgis because we are infinitely superior. Operating in secret anonymity will not be a part of our oath; rather, it will be a means to an end, a fleeting necessity that we will one day shed when wizarding kind takes its rightful place in this world overrun by muggles. We are the beginning of something much greater, an organization that will take what meaningful, ancient knowledge the Knights acquired and all that Gellert Grindelwald had to offer as a visionary and sorcerer, learning from their successes and failures. Together, we have the potential to become something greater. Something powerful… if you choose to accept a new order.”
He lifted his arms, and the tip of his wand began to glow. The stars spun faster about him, rising. “Tonight, my friends, I ask you to accept a title and an emblem that will one day mark you as the most feared and revered of all wizarding kind. To serve me, and to be the very future of the world because of it.”
He lifted his wand, and the stars shot upward, twirling and flying about in a blur of green light, and soon began to form in thick clusters, forming lines…
Hermione knew what it would be long before it finished forming. In mere moments, it was there: a skull, a snake, a symbol of infinity. The Dark Mark, written in the stars, blazing in all its terror and glory.
“Follow me not as knights… but as Death Eaters… Follow me, the sole heir of the noble Salazar Slytherin, your master, your ruler…”
The snake in the sky was undulating, his tongue a moving curve of stars.
“For I am Lord Voldemort ,” Riddle declared. “Follow me, and we shall take the world.”
There was a short stretch of silence, broken only by the pulse that was loud in Hermione’s ears. Then Macnair moved. He took a step forward and sunk to his knees before Riddle. “My Lord,” he said, then lowered his head reverently.
Riddle only had time to look pleased for a moment before Lestrange followed suit. “I follow you with pleasure, my Lord,” he murmured.
Avery stumbled forward quickly after him. He fell to his knees, and without looking up said, “My Lord,” in a voice meek enough that Hermione now knew with certainty what she had suspected earlier—Adam Avery had either seen or experienced firsthand the wrath that was Lord Voldemort, and did not want to again.
Yaxley and Black shared troubled looks; Abraxas—who had not yet been fully addressed in the reframing of their history, as Hermione was sure the others had noticed as well—was staring, jaw tense, up at the sky where the Dark Mark loomed.
Yaxley looked at Black, then Riddle, then at Black again. “He’s a good leader,” he said, as though trying to explain himself. “He is. We’ve accomplished more just searching for artifacts than the actual Knights probably have in decades.”
Black’s eyes went suddenly wide. “Fucking hells,” he muttered. He looked at Riddle accusingly. “I said that was my idea, to look for powerful, magical artifacts. But it wasn’t. You led me to that years ago, when you started asking me about the Founder’s history, didn’t you?”
Riddle only smiled.
“How… I… Why?”
“Because it was a good idea, and I wanted you to be personally invested in doing well,” Riddle said. “You wouldn’t have performed as admirably if I had been the one to say it… but now, you will perform exceptionally well when I tell you to, if only because it is an order. Tom Riddle was a master of cunning and cleverness, of biding his time, but Lord Voldemort has no such patience.”
Riddle raised his wand, a silent threat. “So either you accept my rule, or you oppose it,” he hissed. “There is no in between. Challenge me or kneel.”
“What… what happens once we do?” Black asked nervously.
Riddle’s face twisted in anger, and Yaxley decided right then that he, personally, didn’t need to hear the answer. “I accept, my Lord,” he said as he fell to his knees before him in a rush.
Riddle didn’t even look at him, as he was still focused on Black, cold rage clear in his eyes. “If you do dedicate yourself to me, then you’ll soon find out,” he said. “The better question to ask would be, what happens if you don’t?”
He paused, tilting his head slightly. “Would you like to hear the answer to that instead, Orion?”
Black shook his head. Shaking slightly, he fell to his knees beside Yaxley. “I-I accept,” he stuttered.
Which left only Hermione and Abraxas.
Riddle’s rageful look barely cooled as he turned to look at her rather than him. “Hermione,” he crooned, advancing. Abraxas’s eyes snapped to her as well, the concern obvious on his face. “How you wound me. I’ll admit, I hoped you would be the first on your knees before me.”
Hermione’s eyes narrowed and her face burned; she swore she heard Macnair attempt and fail to stifle a chuckle. “Why—”
Her words were lost to a fit of coughing. Riddle’s slanted grin vanished, and he was standing directly in front of her a moment later. As soon as the coughing stopped, he gently reached for her shoulder and—
Blood. There were several more droplets there, lightly splattering her sleeve.
Riddle stared at them and then his eyes went to her face. He pulled down her hood, and she knew exactly what he was seeing as he assessed her—a witch who looked sick and very tired, who certainly had not rested all day as she had been essentially commanded, and who was now hacking up blood because of it. Either that, or a witch who had lied about it being ‘just a cold’ in the first place and who was far worse off than she’d let on… but both explanations were damning.
Riddle's concerned look turned furious and cold.
“But you’re not the sort to easily follow when led, are you?” he spat. He dropped her arm and jabbed his wand forward so that it was under her chin. Hermione still felt so woozy from the coughing spell that she didn’t move quickly enough to pull out her own. “No, you’re stubborn and proud, but I will break you yet. You’re already mine, Hermione, and while I would love to face you in another duel, it would be a waste of time. You already challenged me. We dueled. You lost. Now get on your fucking knees before I put you there myself.”
The tip of his wand burned into her throat, and Hermione had no trouble at all believing that he meant it.
She could feel the stares of the others on her, waiting to see how she would react. She wanted to snarl the words fuck you. She wanted to say that duel didn’t count and she’d beat him this time, she would.
She wanted a lot of things, but what she wanted most of all was to be in a position where she could easily manipulate Tom Riddle. Where she could be the one whispering in his ear, guiding him to eventually become the right kind of ruler, not the insane dictator she had known. If he was going to craft a new world order, she had to be at his side, making sure he made an order that was just, that was right…
However long it took, however she had to do it.
Hermione clenched her jaw. Then, as slowly as she dared, she sunk to her knees.
She glared up at him. “My Lord,” she said, a bit bitingly.
The look of vindictive triumph in his eyes was palpable. Riddle grabbed her chin and leaned down, whispering in her ear in a dark, sardonic drawl.
“My Queen.”
He stood tall once more, roughly releasing her face in a jerking motion that almost made her fall over. She definitely heard Macnair laugh that time.
Hermione scowled but held her tongue. Your ring. Your diary. The locket of your precious ancestor and the goblet of Hufflepuff that you’d like to have, too. I have your them all, Hermione thought savagely, keeping her eyes downcast. Her throat felt like it was on fire, and she repressed the strong urge to cough again.
I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.
“…Which leaves only you.”
Riddle was now standing in front of Abraxas, his wand held at his side, their shoulders squared as they faced each other. Abraxas didn’t say anything, only met Riddle's gaze in an impressively unflinching way.
“Abraxas Malfoy.” Riddle’s lips curved into a small smile. “You’ve been awfully quiet tonight… but you’ve been awfully quiet for some time now, haven’t you?”
It seemed like the other wizards all held their breath, watching this interaction from their knees with rapt attention. Some of them—like Avery and Black—looked deeply worried; others, like Macnair, looked excited.
Abraxas swallowed thickly enough that Hermione could hear it, could see the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tom,” he said.
“Don’t lie to me, Abraxas,” Riddle said. “I always know when you’re lying, and the time for being insincere is long past.”
Riddle leaned a little nearer to him, and Hermione could tell, even from her knees, that they were close in height. “You started to figure things out, oh, I would guess… a year ago, perhaps? You stopped being as available as you had been before. You suddenly had too many fundraisers to attend, too many galas, too many important Ministry functions… but the excuses were obvious attempts to avoid me, even when you acted as if they were not. You were no longer fooled the same way Orion was…. The Abraxas of our school days had been easy to manipulate, but this Abraxas? Socialite and prominent heir of the Malfoy line? Magical London’s most eligible bachelor?”
Riddle let out a harsh laugh. “No, this Abraxas was smarter. With both your parents dead you had to grow up and then, for the first time in your privileged life, you looked around properly and you didn’t like what you saw. That it was Tom Riddle who had been pulling the strings all along—for years!—making someone like you dance the way he wanted.”
Abraxas didn’t say anything, but by not denying it, he was as good as confessing.
Hermione was beginning to internally panic. Something was coming to a head here, and it would not be good.
“The real question then, Abraxas… is why not speak up?” Riddle lifted his chin, and his features were painted green in light from the Dark Mark. “Why pretend? Why act as though you were just busy—always being careful to extend an invitation to me so we could meet on your terms, in your home while surrounded by people that would require me to be on my best behavior, of course—when it was so obviously a ruse? Why delay the inevitable?”
Riddle paused, waiting for a response. When Abraxas did not quickly give him one, he shook his head. “Perhaps you are a greater coward than I ever could have dreamed. So scared at the thought of facing your superior half-blood peer that you became a lying, nervous wreck. Your ancestors would be so proud.”
That insult finally got Malfoy to react. “I’m no coward,” he snapped. “And you’re not superior.”
Hermione’s blood went cold. That kind of statement would have gotten him killed by the Lord Voldemort she knew in her old timeline.
“Is that so,” Riddle said, shockingly unbothered. He did not look perturbed by Abraxas’s defiance; in fact, he looked glad.
And Hermione could see, then, what was happening. Riddle had planned this interaction down to the last detail, just like he planned everything.
He didn’t want Abraxas to kneel before him like the others, not by his own volition nor by forcing him, as Riddle had so kindly said he would do to her if she had attempted to disobey.
No, Riddle wanted Abraxas to challenge him… and Hermione had a sinking feeling she knew why.
“If you’re going to make outrageous claims, Abraxas, you had best be able to back them up.”
Riddle took a few steps back, holding his arms out widely as he went. “I’ve already claimed leadership here, and I will not give it up. I care too deeply for our cause, and I am determined to be its ruler because I am superior. If you believe you would be better suited, then there is little else we can do.”
His grin broadened, looking nearly demonic with eagerness. “Shall we settle this like proper wizards, Abraxas? The way our noble ancestors would? As your rightful Lord, I am so dedicated to our goals of bringing magic to its rightful place in this world that I am willing to die if I become unworthy… but are you?”
Beside her, Hermione could see that Black, Yaxley, and Avery were openly appalled by what was happening, and even Lestrange, who had been so on board with everything Riddle had said thus far, looked disturbed. Macnair alone had a look of excitement still on his face, which confirmed Hermione’s own growing fears.
Riddle planned to kill Abraxas tonight.
He’s going to slaughter him and make an example of him, Hermione thought in horror. Which couldn't happen, it couldn’t , because if he killed Abraxas now then in this timeline Draco would never exist, and that thought made Hermione’s heart want to break in half.
But Abraxas! Hermione looked up at him, willing him to look back at her, to be able to sense her thoughts. He couldn’t possibly be so stupid as to challenge Riddle, to hand him the opportunity to murder him and have it seem justified, all because Riddle made some pointed jabs at his pride. Which were not even true, because Riddle knew very damn well that he couldn’t die right now if he tried, having made two horcruxes, the cunning, manipulative bastard!
It was a set up. Riddle was going to kill Abraxas, but he couldn’t.
He couldn’t.
Abraxas continued to hold Riddle’s gaze for a long time. No one dared to move in the silence.
Then, suddenly, Abraxas turned on his heel, and for a wild moment Hermione thought he was going to make a run for it—but no, he had drawn his wand and was murmuring incantations, casting spells up into the air… Wards, he was making wards around them all…
In response, Riddle turned in the opposite direction and began to do the very same thing. Together, as though it had been rehearsed, they each put up a slew of wards. Anti-apparition, several shielding charms, additional notice-me-not spells. A silencing ward and a disillusionment shield. They seamlessly wove together, creating a large, dome-like structure of magic around them.
As Hermione was watching, the rest of the Knights—Death Eaters?—stood. Hermione pushed herself up, too. “Why are they doing that?” she asked Yaxley, who was nearest to her, though she feared she knew the answer.
“They’re preparing to duel,” Yaxley said. “Come on, we need to get out of the way.”
A few of the others had already done exactly that, quickly going to the furthest edge of the newly-made wards.
“No,” Hermione breathed. She turned to where Riddle was on the other side, where he was finishing weaving together a few of their spells to make them stronger and more compatible. “No, no—Tom, you can’t—”
A giant hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her cries. Macnair laughed as he easily dragged her to where the others were gathering.
“This can go one of two ways, little witch,” he grunted. Hermione thrashed against him, but it might as well have been Hagrid holding her down. Macnair could break her in half if he wanted, no magic necessary.
“You can either stop fighting and make the smart decision to not interrupt, or I can knock you senseless, snap your wand, and explain to our Lord later that you were being a naughty little thing so I had to subdue you. I’m sure it wouldn’t surprise him.”
Hermione bucked against him once more, but he didn’t even budge.
“Last warning,” he said, tightening his hold. Hermione was losing the ability to breathe. “Just give my arm a little tap in the next two seconds if you want to stay conscious, otherwise it’s knox for you.”
Hermione was too frightened to be annoyed. She quickly tapped his arm and he released her, laughing.
“There’s a smart girl,” he drawled, but Hermione was too busy drawing in ragged breaths to care. She coughed afterwards, littering her sleeve with a few more drops of blood.
A much gentler hand patted her back. Hermione turned to see Avery giving her a weak, sad smile.
“We can’t let them do this,” Hermione said, beseeching him. “He’s going to kill Abraxas.”
“Maybe,” said Lestrange, who did look concerned, but not nearly as distressed as Hermione thought he should. “But it’s not our place to interfere. This is out of our hands, Smith.”
Hermione looked at each of them, hoping one would disagree, but none did. Macnair smiled viciously at her. “Welcome to the Death Eaters,” he said. “You should be right at home next to Orion. He’s got some growing pains to struggle through, too.”
Black did indeed look like he was in pain. He was watching the serpent in the sky, staring at its undulating body that curled into infinity and back again, retracting from time to time into the skull. “How long have you known about all this?” he asked in a hollow voice. “How long have I been so naive?”
“Quiet, Orion,” said Lestrange. “You’ll have plenty of time for an existential crisis later. We have bigger things happening.”
Yaxley put his arm around his friend, and Black leaned against him gratefully. Hermione felt empathetic; she too felt a little faint. She turned her attention back to Riddle, who had finished what he was doing and was standing in the middle of their magical dome, waiting.
Abraxas was still off to the left, near the opposite edge. He no longer had his wand raised, but he remained there, looking away from them. Change your mind, Hermione pleaded. Change your mind, turn around and kneel and call him my Lord and don’t let your pride be the death of you, please…
Abraxas turned, and the steely look on his face said it all. He was determined to fight, and delusional enough yet to think he might win.
Hermione must have reacted physically somehow, because Macnair grabbed her arm warningly. She froze, not wanting to tempt him but failing to stifle a tormented, wordless cry. The sound, unintentional though it was, was enough to draw Riddle’s attention.
Hermione considered making a bold move, then. The moment his eyes found hers, she thought about revealing her Occlumency skills and dissipating all the passive barriers and screaming at him, throwing thoughts at him so violently in hopes that he would hear them, that he would listen, that he would stop this, please…
But she knew he wouldn’t listen, and she would be revealing a secret skill she had for no reason whatsoever. Hermione stared at him and shook her head no, a silent, normal plea instead.
Riddle’s face didn’t change at all in acknowledgement. Instead, he glanced at Abraxas, who was now walking slowly towards him as though appraising him. Then he looked back at Hermione, raised his wand, and hissed in a guttural, low voice.
From the tip of his wand emerged an ethereal, dark smoke. It coiled in the air, forming a very different kind of snake than the one in the sky. This serpent was black and ghostly. It floated towards them—an alarming sight that caused them all to retract and group together like a school of frightened fish—but it did not strike. Instead, the dark snake began to slither in the air around them, encircling them. It was so long it could bite its own tail if it tried.
“Wh-what the hell?” Yaxley stuttered, watching the snake with wide eyes. It wasn’t hurting them, just seemed to be keeping them there, clustered together. Hermione had a feeling it wouldn’t be so passive if one of them tried to leave. “What kind of curse is that?”
Macnair glared at him like he had asked a question so stupid that it didn’t deserve a response. He didn’t get one, either; Riddle had already turned back around and was facing Abraxas.
The two wizards in the center of the arena circled each other. Then, as though predetermined, they both stopped. Hermione wondered how many times these boys had dueled each other, practicing, to have such synchronized movements. She also wondered if Riddle had always held back a bit when going up against someone like Abraxas, not wanting to reveal his true power and allowing him to think they really were somewhat equal… all to make a moment like this possible.
Riddle was always playing the long game.
“No seconds,” Riddle said softly.
“No seconds,” Abraxas repeated, his jaw set.
They lowered their wands and bowed, keeping their eyes trained on each other. In the sky, glowing just above the wards, the serpent coiling from within the skull seemed to watch them, waiting to become the emblem that meant someone had died beneath it.
Abraxas slashed his wand, and the duel began.
Chapter 48: Morsmordre
Chapter Text
The first spell was red, the second white. Both were Abraxas’s.
One right after another, and Riddle dodged the first with a swift sidestep and the second by deflecting it with a flash of his own magic, flicking his wand. Abraxas moved closer and he struck again, another red, blazing spell that also missed Riddle by inches. The wayward curses all landed in various places along the wards, rippling along the fortress-like dome of magic.
Abraxas struck again and again, slinging dark curse after dark curse. To the untrained eye, it might look as though Riddle was on the run. He was, in the literal sense—he was stepping backwards and to the side quickly to keep away with Abraxas’s spells, but Hermione caught the look on his face as one particularly bright spell narrowly missed its mark, illuminating his features and making them clear even from a distance.
He was grinning.
It was all entirely too familiar.
As Hermione watched, she recalled how Riddle had done exactly this to her—allowed her the opportunity to strike, letting her feel like she had the upper hand, that she was just one more curse away from getting him as he seemed to barely be dodging each attack…
But Abraxas was not being driven by furious emotion—Hermione also recalled that Riddle had burnt her hair in order to get her that wound up—and after a few more curses that came close but not close enough, he paused, wary. He took on a defensive stance and glared at Riddle, watching his latest curse soar over his shoulder.
“And you say I am the coward,” Abraxas said, and while he was breathing hard, he was far from exhausted. “It seems you are the one who’s afraid.”
Riddle’s smile widened. “You’ll have to be much meaner if you want to get a rise out of me, Abraxas.”
“Please,” Abraxas drawled. He smiled, too. “I would never dream of being mean to the poor orphan raised by muggles who grew up to be a shop boy in Knockturn Alley… unlike you, I was raised better than that.”
Hermione gasped, as did Avery beside her. Riddle’s face darkened into a scowl, and if Abraxas was hoping to get a rise out of him, he succeeded.
Riddle’s first curse was black.
Like a shadow flying out of hell, it soared across the air at a wicked speed, but Abraxas was ready for it—he jumped nimbly out of the way, had already lifted his wand to return fire—
But the black curse did not continue on, hurtling into the dome as all of Abraxas’s spells had. Riddle suddenly jerked his wand towards himself, and the shadow-like orb of magic froze next to Abraxas, hovering there like a dark spirit.
Abraxas reacted quickly—he threw up a shielding charm just as it exploded in his direction.
His shield saved his life, taking the brunt of the force, but the black magic still shattered his protective barrier and sent him flying several feet where he landed hard on his back. Riddle sent another curse at him the moment he was down, and he had to roll away to dodge it. The ground where it struck instead turned a withering brown, the grass instantly dead.
“Ergh!”
Abraxas shouted from where he was on the ground, and a burst of fierce magic erupted around him in a ring; Riddle was forced to throw up a shield of his own, for there was no avoiding the all-encompassing wave of it.
There was no dodging it at all—
Hermione thought to reach for her own wand as it rushed past a shielded Riddle towards them, the spectators in the far corner of their arena, but before she could the smoky snake that was circling them leapt forward. It splayed its body impossibly wide and the wave of magic rolled over it, ricocheting Abraxas’s magic away from Hermione and the rest of them.
It all happened so quickly that none of them had time to react, other than Avery letting out a high-pitched whimper and Black and Yaxley clinging to each other like lovers about to meet a cruel end.
Abraxas’s focus betrayed him for a moment as his eyes flickered to them, a glimpse of relief that they had not been harmed breaking on his face.
“Temper, Abraxas,” Riddle said—who did not bother to look and see if his magical serpent had performed its task well, surely because he was that confident in his spellwork.
Which was its task, Hermione realized numbly. She had assumed the ghostly snake was there only to stop them from interfering or trying to escape—and it would do that too, she was certain, if they were foolish enough to try… but it was also there to protect them in case any spells went awry.
Entrapping and protecting.
Riddle’s face was the picture of cold fury as his eyes narrowed on Abraxas. “You’re going to hurt someone.”
Abraxas took the moment that Riddle was allowing him and pushed himself to his feet. “That’s the plan,” he spat, then flung his wand, hurling another curse.
He aimed it not at Riddle, but at a nearby rock in the grass. It glowed a bright blue before morphing, and while Hermione was certain that Riddle could have stopped the transfiguration process if he’d tried, he didn’t. He watched with a gleam of curiosity in his eyes as the rock grew, then unfolded, twitching, moving.
A few seconds later and a massive spider-like creature was there, though it seemed to be made of granite and it had no eyes. That didn’t seem to hinder its ability to see—it scurried with nightmarish speed towards Riddle, its rocky mouth open wide.
Riddle smiled as though delighted by this turn of events. He was not interested in being bowled over by a rocky spider monster, though, so he sprinted away while simultaneously casting his counter spell, and rather than attack the beast, he chose a twig at random and twisted it in midair as he transfigured it as well. Abraxas did not grant him the same courtesy of allowing him to do this without interference, sending a few dark looking spells at Riddle as he both ran and worked, but he missed, and Riddle managed to work extraordinary magic while both fleeing from a monster and avoiding curses from a skilled adversary.
The twig became… a lion? No, because its body was too small, and its tail was…
It was a chimera.
Just as Hermione was shocked that he had not chosen to manifest another snake, one appeared on the tail of Riddle’s monstrosity. A lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a hissing, spitting snake for a tail. It retained a few leaves that erupted around its mane and chest, as well as some dark brown bark along its body; perhaps because Abraxas had chosen to keep some of the rock’s qualities in his creation and he was doing the same, perhaps because he was more than a little distracted while working. Regardless, it was a formidable beast, the likes of which Hermione could admit she would never be able to conjure up so quickly, especially while running for her life as he was. It let out a deep roar from its lion’s mouth before lunging at the spider, giving Riddle a reprieve at last.
Suddenly there were two duels happening. The chimera and the spider beast were entangled around each other, the lion’s jaw catching one of the spider’s rocky legs as the spider sunk its teeth into the chimera’s side. Hermione found herself worrying that it was poisonous before she remembered that it was actually a rock, not an acromantula, and that these manifested monsters had few if any magical powers and would only last as long as their masters allowed their own magic to sustain them.
Stupid, Hermione thought, for while their creations battled, so did Riddle and Abraxas. The two went back to exchanging curses of their own at each other—mainly Abraxas on the offensive while Riddle twisted and dodged out of the way again, but Abraxas was not untalented, and so Riddle was forced to throw up shields and cast counter-curses on occasion. So stupid, such a waste of their magical energy and focus, just showing off for no good reason—
That train of thought was derailed when the chimera’s tail—which was, evidently, sentient on its own, a compounding feat of magic on Riddle’s part that Hermione tried not to be too in awe of—lashed out at an unsuspecting Abraxas.
It was only then that Hermione saw what Riddle had been doing. He’d been avoiding Abraxas’s curses in a purposeful way, drawing him just near enough to the other duel so that the snake could attack. He let out a howl of pain as it latched onto his shoulder.
The spider vanished, turning back into a lifeless rock in a flash of magic.
The lion turned its now unoccupied jaw towards Abraxas while Riddle watched, smiling.
“Uh oh,” Riddle said quietly.
And suddenly Riddle was watching in quiet amusement as the chimera’s two heads attacked Abraxas in full force. Abraxas bellowed a wordless cry and sent a powerful curse at the creature, which ignited, going up in a sudden wall of purple-blue fire. He scrambled away from its dying, flaming body afterwards—which emitted a terrible cry from both the lion and the snake’s mouth—but Riddle only laughed as his poor transfiguration turned back into a twig and then promptly became a small dusting of ashes.
Abraxas was glaring as he backed further away. His shoulder was bleeding, turning his ripped robes slowly red.
“You should heal that,” Riddle said, looking amused. “We wouldn’t want to see any of the pure blood go to waste.”
Abraxas’s nose flared, and he opened his mouth, about to snarl a response, surely, but if he did, Hermione didn’t hear it—another cough ripped through her, sudden and far more debilitating than before. She was doubled over, hacking into the crook of her arm. Someone was steadying her. When she finally stopped, she saw that it was Macnair. He continued to hold her by the shoulders as she looked at her sleeve.
More blood. A lot more blood. She rubbed her face with her other sleeve, and to her horror saw that she was beginning to bleed from her nose, too.
Macnair was looking at her with furrowed brows, like he wasn’t sure if he should be annoyed or worried.
Hermione tried to shrug him off, but found that she was shaking and dizzy, and ended up leaning against him instead. She held her sleeve to her nose to stem the bleeding. When she looked back up, afraid of what she’d missed of the duel, she was shocked to see that Riddle was looking at her.
Had he heard her coughing? He must have, because his eyes were wide as they took in the sight of her, which told Hermione she must look awful.
She was sure she did. She felt awful, and the blood from her nose didn’t seem to be clotting quickly enough. She reached for her wand to do something about it, but the smoky snake encircling them instantly turned its head towards her and hissed a warning.
Entrapping, protecting… and now stopping her from helping herself.
Killing, Saving.
A gust of wind suddenly stirred the air, and Riddle’s focus snapped back to Abraxas.
Or it would have, if Abraxas was still there.
“Aw… poor Tom.”
Abraxas’s voice seemed to be coming from several directions, echoing in the dome of magic. The wind had turned into a different sensation, like something heavy, and Hermione realized what happened—was happening—as Abraxas continued to speak.
“It looks like you’ve gone soft on us.”
Hermione had started coughing, violently. It had been bad enough that Riddle had felt the need to look, and then was effectively, if momentarily, distracted. Abraxas seized the opportunity to not strike, but to disillusion himself—heal himself as well, Hermione presumed—and then to cast a spell to fracture and amplify his voice…
And the weight. Abraxas had cast some sort of spell that made it feel like the gravity had increased within the dome enough to flatten the grass, which meant that he could conceivably be standing anywhere and it wouldn’t be obvious by the weight of his feet.
Clever, Hermione managed to think, even feeling light-headed as she was. Very clever.
Riddle obviously realized all this, too; he had already cast a powerful shielding charm around himself and was standing in a defensive stance, his eyes darting around as he searched for his foe.
One opponent hiding while the other searched, wary… this also felt too familiar.
How would Riddle handle this a second time?
“After all that talk about how you couldn’t be bothered with witches, how they were just a frivolous distraction for you… It would seem you’re as weak as the rest of us, hm?”
Abraxas laughed, the sound echoing confusingly around them. “Maybe even weaker,” he went on. “You put on a good show—you always have—but you gave yourself away with that look of concern you gave her earlier, not to mention the other things you probably don’t even realize you’ve done… but you don’t ever think you miss a step, do you? You think you're infallible. As usual, you underestimate those around you, and— as usual—your extreme arrogance is your weakness.”
Hermione winced at his words. It seemed that she had underestimated Abraxas as well; he truly had the measure of Tom Riddle.
“You love her, don’t you Tom? You love her so much that you left yourself wide open in the middle of a duel! Salazar Slytherin would deny that you share his blood if he were alive to witness this.”
Riddle’s face was a mask of hard rage. The word love was ringing in Hermione’s head, but she could not allow herself to dwell on such accusations now.
She was a little surprised that Riddle hadn’t struck yet—there were a number of curses that could be cast radially, as Abraxas had done earlier, which would inevitably hit him and force him to defend—but she also wasn’t. Abraxas was clearly baiting him, trying to get him to do that, which meant he probably had something up his sleeve and was prepared for when he did.
Riddle said nothing and did nothing, only continued to look for where Abraxas was hiding in the heavy, cursed air.
“I hope she isn’t dying,” he said bluntly. Hermione felt the eyes of all the others on her, but she pointedly did not look at any of them, only stared straight ahead, her focus on Riddle. “She certainly looks like she’s suffering from some sort of blood curse.”
Blood curse?
Hermione’s hand was still pressed to her nose as she processed that. Her body was acting as though she was suffering from a blood curse of sorts… a particularly slow, strange blood curse that seemed to ebb and flow in its strength, though now it was definitely getting much stronger…
Hermione tried to rapidly piece together how this could be. Curses. They were fueled by intention and unless they were properly dismantled with the correct counter-curse, would build and build and build until they had completed their magical arc. Blood-boiling curses, as a classic example, did not cease until the affected’s blood reached a certain temperature for a certain amount of time, literally boiling the victim from within, and how quickly that happened depended on the nature of how it was cast and how strong that witch or wizard was, how powerful their intention…
Was this the curse she suspected Merope had struck her with, completing its arc at last? Was her dark magic, which had found a conduit in the Time-Turner, now killing her from within…?
That made little sense to Hermione, because thus far the Time-Turner magic had done nothing but heal her—and that struck Hermione suddenly as key to this mystery, but she was distracted from her reeling thoughts as Abraxas’s voice once more cut across the air.
“You could surrender now, if you want to try and save her,” he said. “Looks like your magical serpent isn’t going to allow anyone else to try. How fitting, for you. Tom’s impressive magical prowess… doing more harm than good.”
Riddle’s wand hand was beginning to tremor slightly, but Hermione thought it was more from anger than anything else.
“Drop your wand, and—”
Riddle slashed his arm upward while moving his wrist in an intricate way, hissing something that Hermione could not discern. There was a flash of light from his wand, and then the starry skull in the sky opened its jaw wide. Black smoke emitted from between the glowing orbs of its teeth like fat, dark clouds, and they passed through the dome of wards seamlessly, filling the air around them…
Within seconds, Hermione could not see them. The black haze was so thick it was darker than night; not even the light from the Dark Mark could be seen. Hermione put one hand in front of her face and—nothing. When she breathed in, it was cold.
He got this idea from me, Hermione thought. From when I darkened that shack in Knockturn Alley…
But there was a sort of static now humming in the heavy air, and Hermione had a feeling that this black cloud was more than just darkness.
“I thought I’d even the playing field a little,” came Riddle’s voice—which was also distorted now, seeming to come from several places at once. “Go on, cast a spell in this… I dare you.”
It didn’t take much to understand that Riddle had done more extraordinary magic. If this entire cloud was cursed, waiting for magic to activate it, then it meant Abraxas couldn’t cast another spell without setting it off… which meant no one could cast magic until Riddle dispersed it… unless Riddle alone could do so with his wand…?
But if that were the case, why not just let Abraxas cast something and suffer the consequences, whatever they were…?
All thoughts Abraxas was having right now, too, Hermione was certain. Maybe Riddle had only said that to confuse him; to make him not take the risk to cast anything that might once more give him an edge… but the static feeling was not something Hermione was imagining, and she believed that it was a curse waiting to be set into motion with a spark.
The silence that followed Riddle’s gauding was horrible. Hermione held her breath, begging her throat to stop burning so she would not cough and she could listen. It was difficult; Macnair’s breath in her ear suddenly sounded very loud, and Avery was whimpering.
Where were they?
Hermione couldn’t tell, of course. It was beyond unnerving to know that they could not move from their spot in the darkness, because even though they could not see it, that serpent was undoubtedly still there, caging them.
Had they both silenced themselves, or were they just that stealthy? Hermione could not hear any movements whatsoever aside from the shifting of those beside her. Were they walking, unknowingly circling each other in the heavy, cold, oppressive black nightmare they’d made together?
There was a long, low hiss. Right beside Hermione, making her jump terribly, the ghostly serpent responded to Riddle’s call. It began to glow with an ominous green light, then floated away from them, swallowed by the cloud of darkness like a luminescent sea creature moving at the bottom of the ocean.
A tense moment of silence, and then a scream.
The feeling of extra weight and the black cloud dispersed all at once, and the light from the stars and glittering Dark Mark seemed as bright as the sun after such a spell of blackness—but it was the light from Riddle’s serpent that immediately had all their attention. Its long, glowing green body was wrapped around Abraxas like a rope, encircling his neck, waist, and legs as tightly as though he was struck by a body-binding curse.
Riddle was staring at him from across the field. He flicked his wand lazily at him, and a flash of light struck him, sending his wand flying far from his hand.
Abraxas roared and bucked against the snake, which spat angrily in response and held him tighter. Riddle laughed, and as he approached, Abraxas’s face changed from enraged to afraid.
“No—!”
Macnair once more clamped a hand over Hermione’s mouth before she could get another word out. She couldn’t even try to fight him afterwards; she was lucky she didn’t start hacking up blood again while holding her.
No, don’t kill him, you can’t kill him, please—
But Riddle wasn’t paying any attention to her.
“You may remember this particular curse,” he said, speaking to Abraxas in a disturbingly casual way, like he had not just said a number of highly offensive things to a newly proclaimed Dark Lord. “I summoned it once before, at our very last meeting as supposed Knights...”
Riddle stopped walking once he was in front of him. He looked at his serpentine creation with something nearing fondness. “A highly useful spell… a curse invented by Salazar Slytherin himself, or so certain legends say, only possible to be cast by those who can speak that most ancient of languages… It can bind, protect, attack… and most interestingly, it can predict, when asked certain direct questions. I asked it once before, when we were in Black’s dungeons… What do you think I asked?”
Abraxas’s face was deathly pale. He didn’t say anything, so Riddle, who was still looking at the serpent, answered, “I asked, ‘Who here is most likely to defy me?’ And it was you, in the end, that it chose… and so here we are.”
He smiled, looking finally at Abraxas’s face. “I could kill you now… but I am not unfair. You cannot speak Parseltongue; curses such as this are beyond you… and now you don’t even have your wand. But I am a merciful lord… so I shall even the playing field yet again.”
He hissed another command, and the serpent vanished. Abraxas dropped to the ground, where he instantly coughed and drew in a few harsh breaths; apparently the snake had been making it difficult for him to breathe.
Then Riddle put his own wand in his pocket.
“Now we’re even,” he said softly.
Abraxas barely had time to stare at him with wide, confused eyes before Riddle kicked him, hard, his foot slamming into his gut so forcefully that he slid along the ground several feet and made a horrible sound of pain unlike anything Hermione had ever heard before. Even Macnair winced as though it had hurt him, too; Hermione heard his sharp inhale in her ear.
“You’re right, Abraxas,” Riddle said, still speaking in that casual tone that somehow made him all the more frightening. He practically sauntered towards Abraxas, who was curled in on himself in pain. “I wasn’t raised like you… I was raised much worse.”
He kicked him again, this time on his spine. Abraxas unfurled like an insect that had been stabbed; he screamed and Hermione wanted to scream with him, but Macnair would not allow it.
“I was raised in an overcrowded, muggle orphanage… Tell me, Abraxas…”
Riddle paused and looked at Abraxas’s face, which was contorted with pain. He leaned over him. “Have you ever had the ever living shit beat out of you by a group of much older boys who targeted you simply because you were smaller and they were bored? No? Because I have.”
Another kick, this one to his side. Abraxas’s body flipped over as he let out another pained cry. “But unlike the rest of their victims, I learned how to fight back… without a wand. I learned how to use my magic before I even knew what it was… I could make them hurt, when I wanted to… just like this.”
Riddle twisted his wrist, and Abraxas’s back seemed to snap suddenly at the motion. He howled, and oh God, had he broken his spine?
Riddle chuckled like Abraxas had just made some silly joke. “They screamed like that, too,” he said. “But that would alert the matron, and we couldn’t have that, so…”
Riddle snapped, and Abraxas’s scream was silenced.
“Much better… Now, what was I saying? Oh, yes. I wasn’t raised like you, no… I was raised so much worse.”
This time when he kicked him, the fact that he was using magic with every action was blatant—Abraxas’s body was struck so hard by Riddle’s boot that he was airborne for a moment before he landed much further away, rolling several times before he stopped. Hermione’s world was blurred as she realized she was crying, tears running down her face onto Macnair’s massive hand that was still wrapped around her mouth.
He’s going to beat him to death.
Perhaps intentionally, Riddle had kicked Abraxas towards where his wand was. Abraxas saw it in the grass, now only a few feet from where he lay, and a surge or renewed energy seemed to course through him—he pushed himself onto all fours, dragging himself towards it.
But of course Riddle would not allow that. He walked offensively slowly to where it lay, stepping on it when Abraxas’s shaking hand was getting close. “I could snap this like a twig,” he said, looking coldly at him. “I could snap it as easily as I could your neck.”
Riddle swiftly reached down and grabbed Abraxas by the throat, then hauled him up, lifting him with one arm like some powerful monster out of a horror movie. His face was no longer falsely pleasant but incensed, murderous as he glared at him.
“I should crush your windpipe and let you die like a muggle, gasping for breath from a wound that a single spell could fix in an instant,” he seethed. “Or perhaps I should cut you open and let you bleed out instead. What do you think you deserve, Abraxas? A slow death or a swift one…? Oh, of course—you’ll need to speak to answer me.”
He threw Abraxas on the ground, where he started spluttering in a way that meant he had been given his voice back. Riddle pulled out his wand as Abraxas pushed himself to his knees, trembling.
“No… you deserve a proper wizard’s death, don’t you, heir to the Malfoy line? To die by the wand of your superior…”
Abraxas was shaking terribly. Hermione was crying and beside her Orion was reaching for his wand, about to intervene, finally— why hadn’t they stepped in the second that snake was gone—?
Abraxas looked at Riddle, his pale face beginning to blossom with bruises that Hermione was certain were covering the rest of his body as well. Though his shoulder was no longer bleeding or injured, his robes were shredded from where the chimera had bitten him, and his blood stained his shoulder and arm.
He looked like death.
“I want to hear you say it,” Riddle said softly. “Who is the superior wizard?”
Abraxas stared at him for a long moment. His skin was turning darker shades of purple and blue with each second that passed, and his trembling grew worse. He swallowed hard, his voice hoarse and low when he spoke the single word.
“You.”
Riddle’s face was emotionless as he looked down at him. Hermione wanted to scream at Orion, Yaxley, or any of the others to do something, but they seemed just as frozen as Riddle was, and they only watched, waiting. Abraxas held his gaze.
Finally, Riddle raised his wand. Abraxas flinched, Hermione’s shouts were muffled and Abraxas was going to die—
Riddle reached down and grabbed Abraxas’s arm.
“Morsmordre.”
Abraxas let out another howl of agony. Hermione stopped shouting as she watched Riddle not slaughter but brand Abraxas, the tip of his wand pressed into his forearm. Even from a distance, they could all see the black image appear there that mirrored the one in the sky: a snake within a skull.
Abraxas slumped forward once Riddle was done, cradling his arm. He glanced back at him with terror and confusion clear on his mottled face.
“Fortunately for you, Lord Voldemort values bravery… my first.”
Riddle extended his hand which did not hold his wand. Abraxas, still shaking like a leaf in the wind, hesitantly took it with his unbranded arm.
And then Riddle was pulling Abraxas into a shocking embrace. Abraxas crumpled against him, a dry sob escaping his throat that he was not going to die tonight, and Riddle held him close, the way a father might hold a traumatized son.
Macnair released Hermione. They collectively expressed their immense relief in various ways: Lestrange swore under his breath, Yaxley sighed heavily while Orion slumped against him again, Avery wiped at his face and even Macnair, who had seemed excited at the beginning of the duel, exhaled loudly.
“Fucking Merlin,” Lestrange murmured. “I really thought…”
He didn’t finish his thought, but he didn’t need to. Hermione swiped the tears from her eyes and let a short, breathless laugh escape her. Abraxas was alive, Riddle had probably never really wanted to kill him in the first place, the conniving bastard, because—
“Smith?”
Hermione’s laughter turned to violent coughing.
It assaulted her more fiercely than ever, and without Macnair holding onto her she fell to the ground. Hermione’s head swam in pain and her ears rang. Vaguely, she registered that Riddle had shouted something, was moving towards her…
A splattering of blood hit the grass, and everything changed.
There was a ripple of dark, devastating magic. It flowed out from where the blood had touched the earth, rolling outwards. When it collided with the dome of magic surrounding them, it shimmered, then flayed apart like fabric coming undone.
The others were talking and moving around her, but Hermione lost the ability to focus properly as she continued to cough and bleed onto the ground. The splatters of blood were as big as flower petals. Each one rang with dark magic before sinking unnaturally into the soil.
There were a series of deafening cracks, followed by a sudden burst of light. Hermione managed to look up long enough to see something massive glowing in the air, bright enough that the Dark Mark seemed to disappear. It was silvery and moving and—
Suddenly, the pain in her throat disappeared. She stopped coughing and bleeding, and was able to see everything around her in a cold wave of clarity.
“Found her.”
No.
The silver dragon vanished. Hermione saw a few hooded figures wearing all black in the distance standing where it once was—six altogether. They all had their wands out, and one of them—the tallest one in the center, the one who had just sent off a formidable, familiar patronus—stepped forward. He pulled down his hood, revealing his short, gray hair, rugged features, and jagged red scar. In the light of the Dark Mark, his eyes looked eerily green.
He smiled at Hermione.
Riddle and the rest of them all had their wands out as well, Hermione then noticed. Even Abraxas, who was literally inches from death just moments ago and looked it, had retrieved his fallen wand and was standing at the ready.
“Who—?”
Riddle was cut off as another series of cracks shook the air. Four more figures appeared, though none of them were donned in the same, ominous black robes. Two of them seemed to be dressed in clothing better suited for sleep—one of them was a short witch who looked very disgruntled—while another was wearing an austere dark blue cloak and the fourth…
Hermione was sure she was imagining it.
The fourth figure stood out in an outlandish way. He was a wizard dressed in brilliant lavender robes that clashed terribly with his auburn hair, and there was nothing in the world that could make his eyes anything but bright blue behind his half-moon spectacles.
Dumbledore, Hermione thought in absolute shock.
Albus Dumbledore surveyed the scene before him curiously, like he was reading the back of a book to see what it might be about, taking in each and every person present before his gaze settled on the Dark Mark in the sky.
And just when Hermione was certain that this impossible situation could not be made any worse, another familiar voice assaulted her.
“Hermione!”
One of the figures beside Madison yanked their hood down as well.
“Liam?”
He did not look happy to see her. In fact, he looked positively incensed, which confirmed for Hermione that this was a nightmare come to life.
They knew everything. It was all over.
Lester Madison let out a booming laugh. “The illustrious Hermione Smith!” he said, and he clapped slowly a few times, applauding her—though his wand remained firmly in his hand. His smile widened wolfishly.
“You’ve been a bad girl.”
Chapter 49: Exposure
Chapter Text
Hermione didn’t know where to look. Lester Madison was staring at her with a palpable hunger in his eyes, like a hound that had finally succeeded in trapping a cunning fox. And then there was Dumbledore, who was still looking up at the sky, as well as a slew of people she did not know but was certain she was about to, and—
“Liam.”
It was his familiar—and currently enraged—face that she ended up settling on again. Hermione pushed herself to her feet as she asked, “What in the world is going on?”
“Took the words right out of my mouth.”
It was not Liam who answered her, but the only other witch among them who appeared to be dressed in her nightgown. She had her hands on her hips and was scowling, looking every bit like she was about to give a scolding. “This is the witch you’ve been worried about, Madison?”
“Worried isn’t the word I used, Wilhelmina,” Madison responded, his eyes never leaving Hermione.
“Good Godric—Abraxas, is that you?”
The other wizard who also must have been dragged out of bed for this altercation suddenly shouted. He was young looking, perhaps the same age as Hermione if not a little younger, and he was staring at Abraxas in shock.
“Ignatius,” Abraxas responded, looking equally surprised. “Why—what are you doing here, and—Minister Tuft!”
“What in Merlin’s beard happened to you?” said the young wizard—Ignatius. Ignatius Tuft, son of Wilhelmina Tuft, current Minister of Magic in 1950 and future Minister himself, Hermione’s textbook brain supplied automatically. “You look like absolute hell!”
Oh, she was in trouble.
Hermione tried to apparate. It didn’t work.
“Er,” Abraxas started uncertainly. He did look like absolute hell. He’d just had the ‘ever living shit beat out of him’, to borrow Riddle’s expression, and looked even worse now than he had a few short minutes ago, courtesy to the ever-spreading bruises and lingering tremors. But to Hermione’s astonishment, Abraxas ran a slightly shaky hand through his hair to comb it back into place, so greatly resembling Draco that it hurt. “Er, yes, well, we were just experimenting with some new spellwork ideas,” he said casually. “You know how dangerous that can be… I had an unfortunate mishap.”
“He certainly did,” Black chimed in.
“But we blame that mostly on the whiskey,” Yaxley added, and Hermione watched in amazement at how he waved an empty firewhiskey bottle around—where and how had he conjured that?—and the way both he and Black were acting, Yaxley throwing his arm around Abraxas good-naturedly while Black laughed as though these uninvited, definitely not worrisome and formidable strangers had just missed a funny accident.
Oh, look at us, just a bunch of silly young wizards having some fun! Nothing ridiculously dark and nefarious going on here!
Lestrange and Avery caught on quickly enough, smiling as well. “Put that away, Linus,” Lestrange said chidingly. “I feel like we’re about to get a hefty fine, if not also a weeks’ worth of detentions... Why are you here, Headmaster?”
They all looked at Dumbledore, who finally tore his gaze away from the glittering Dark Mark when he was addressed.
“P… Professor Dumbledore.”
The only person who was not skillfully acting was, to Hermione’s utmost surprise, Tom Riddle.
He seemed to have been stunned. He closed his eyes and Hermione imagined that he was thinking something along the lines of, I am hallucinating, this is not real, I will open my eyes and Dumbledore will be gone—but when he opened them a second later, sadly, nothing changed.
“Hello, Tom,” Dumbledore said lightly. His gaze then flickered around to each of the wizards gathered, and a hint of a smile played at his lips. “I must say that I am surprised to see you all, quite surprised… Will the rest of Slytherin house from your graduating year be joining us as well?”
His blue eyes sparkled, somehow both playful and frightening.
Riddle, it seemed, had finally found himself in a circumstance for which he was entirely lost. His charisma, his charm, his ability to lie his way out of situations through cleverness and cunning—it all failed him as he stared at his former Transfiguration Professor. He looked suddenly much younger, like he had reverted back to school age and been caught, red-handed, doing something very bad by the only person who had ever suspected him capable of doing very bad things.
Fortunately for Riddle, his newly proclaimed Death Eaters did not suffer the same gripping horror that had broken him. “You’ll have to forgive Tom, he’s been on the receiving end of a slew of ill-performed magic as well this evening,” Macnair said before patting Riddle on the shoulder bracingly—a gesture to which Riddle did not react.
“I see,” said Dumbledore. He looked back at the star-strewn Dark Mark and said, “Interesting light show you all have produced… I don’t recall this being a part of the Hogwarts’ curriculum.”
“Just a bit of experimenting,” said Lestrange. “Playing around with different constellation formations—we had a full-bodied, animated Salazar Slytherin going earlier, it was most impressive.”
“That’s all deeply interesting,” the Minister of Magic interjected, “but can we vanish whatever it is? Last thing we need is a bunch of muggles catching sight of it and wandering over.”
“Respectfully, that would be your fault if they did, Minister,” Abraxas said. “We had muggle repelling wards going much farther back, but it seems you’ve vanished them all—”
He broke off suddenly, hissing in pain. His stomach must have cramped—or something much worse, probably—because he bent over, gripping at his midsection.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Malfoy, but I cannot idly watch one of my former students suffer,” said Dumbledore. He looked at Abraxas with piercing eyes before adding, “you look as though you have been thoroughly abused.”
Without asking permission, Dumbledore flicked his wand at Abraxas. He jumped at the glow of magic that struck him, but it was immediately clear that it was a healing spell, and within moments his bruises disappeared.
But while the rest of them were looking at Abraxas, Hermione had her eyes on Dumbledore’s wand.
The Elder Wand…
“Er. Ah, thank you,” Abraxas said awkwardly. Then he straightened his posture, and he did, admittedly, look like a new man.
“Orion! Linus! Irving! And is that you, Adam?” Ignatius Tuft stepped forward, looking about at the gathered wizards.
Avery had made the greatest transformation of them all—he had gone from a terrified mess back to his usual, cheery self the moment people he recognized had appeared. “Hello Ignatius,” he said. “What a pleasant and surprising—er, surprise. And Mr. Abbot!” He laughed, a bit nervously, nodding towards the man beside the Minister. “Whyever is the Head of the Auror Department here?”
Mr. Abbot, a tall, severe looking wizard with his wand drawn and a glowering expression, did not respond.
Oh, shit. Oh, fuck, fuck, shit.
“A better question would be what are you all doing here?” the Minister huffed instead. “I thought we were being summoned because of a suspicious witch, but it seems that I have been awoken in the dead of night by a bloody dragon patronus for a bunch of reckless, drunk, and possibly stunned deviants experimenting with magic in a field. Abraxas Malfoy, I’d expect better from you! Your parents would be appalled at such behavior.”
Abraxas hung his head shamefully, convincingly so, and Hermione stared at him and the others with wide eyes.
They all knew each other.
But of course they did. They were the elite of British Wizarding Society; Ignatius Tuft was close to their age and the son of the Minister, so of course people like Abraxas Malfoy and the rest of them would be in their same social circle. Abraxas’s parents had probably been close friends with Wilhelmina Tuft and this Mr. Abbot, the Head of the Auror Department…
God bless every Malfoy that ever felt the need to constantly ‘pop in’ to the Ministry of Magic, Hermione thought. Could she possibly get out of this mess by sheer approximation to affluence? Could Abraxas and the others somehow convince their good friend the Minister’s son and their other Ministry acquaintances that this was all a misunderstanding…?
“No, that’s not at all why we’re here—though it is an interesting surprise,” said Madison, who glanced only briefly at the Dark Mark before returning his focus to Hermione.
“Can whoever conjured this vanish it already?” Wilhelmina Tuft asked again, gesturing upwards impatiently. “It feels like we’re about to try and summon some demons out here!”
Riddle didn’t move. Macnair had to elbow him in the ribs to jolt him back to life, where he finally lifted his arm almost robotically, and the Dark Mark flickered, then vanished. It was much darker without its eerie green glow.
“Better.”
“So why has our evening been interrupted by such… prestigious guests, exactly?” Abraxas asked loudly. Hermione got the impression that he understood it was in everyone’s best interest to keep the focus off of the uncharacteristically shell-shocked Riddle and to take charge of the situation himself. He stepped into the role of entitled wizard who was a little annoyed at being disturbed so effortlessly that Hermione was yet again in awe. “Minister Tuft, Mr. Abbot, Ignatius, Headmaster Dumbledore… whoever you people are…?”
“We’re aurors from America, you snob,” Liam snarled, and the rest of the wizards behind him bristled and raised their wands threateningly. “And I’d ask who you are, but I truly don’t care. Though I happen to recognize this one—hello, Tom Riddle. How the fuck are ya? Great.”
He didn’t wait for a response—not that he would have gotten one, with how Riddle was acting—before jabbing his wand towards Hermione. “We’re here for her.”
Abraxas, Avery, Black, Yaxley, Macnair, and Lestrange all turned to look at her. “You have the Ministry and American aurors after you, Smith?” muttered Macnair. He didn’t look angry about it; on the contrary, he looked impressed, like maybe he had passed judgment on her too quickly. The others stared at her with various looks of surprise and concern—all except Riddle, whose focus was still on Dumbledore.
It was like the current Hogwarts Headmaster cast such a great light that Riddle was blinded to the presence of everyone else. Hermione wouldn’t have been surprised if he hadn’t noticed the Americans yet; he hadn’t even glanced at Liam when he’d addressed him. “Why is Dumbledore here?” Riddle asked hollowly, despite the fact that he was looking right at him—apparently addressing Dumbledore personally would be cementing that this was, in fact, happening, as it seemed Riddle was still holding onto some shred of hope that this might all be a nightmare.
Because this was his worst nightmare, wasn’t it? Riddle had just proclaimed himself Lord and master over his Death Eaters, had kicked the hell out of Malfoy before branding him, had put his freshly perfected symbol in the sky…
And none other than Albus Dumbledore was here, appearing literally minutes after it all happened, having seen his mark—not to mention a slew of dark wizard hunters, the Minister of Magic, and her son.
It’s all my fault, Hermione knew. They’re here for me, somehow… This is all my fault.
“I always consult Dumbledore when potentially dangerous international affairs are on the horizon, not that we owe any of you an explanation,” Wilhelmina Tuft responded to the dazed-looking Riddle, frowning. Hermione’s focus snapped back to her, and she returned Hermione’s stare with a deeply skeptical look. “Which this is—or so I’ve been told.”
“Albus Dumbledore,” Madison said. He grinned in a much less predatory way when he looked at him. “I didn’t expect to meet you during all this. It’s an honor.”
Dumbledore gave him a small, thin smile. “Lester Madison… Head Auror for the MACUSA. Yes, if I recall, Leonard reached out several times requesting aid during the war… requests which went, if I am not mistaken, wholly ignored.”
There was an instant frostiness in the air between the two newly-arrived groups. They may have both been here because of her, Hermione realized, but they were far from a united front.
Yet Madison only grinned more broadly. “Yeah, Flores was calling the shots back then,” he said, shrugging. “I’m not the President, I just follow orders… have to, unfortunately. Personally, I would’ve been thrilled to have been sent overseas to fight Grindelwald with you.” He inclined his head slightly out of respect.
“Well it’s a good thing Dumbledore didn’t need the assistance of some American lapdog auror who had to be beaten into submission by his government, isn’t it?” said the Minister briskly. Madison shot her a withering look, but she went on before he could retort. “I’d like to think that we weren’t all summoned here for a meet and greet. So, this is the witch that you’ve been after on my country’s soil, correct, Madison?”
Though he looked very much like he wanted to growl something nasty in response to being called ‘some American lapdog auror’, Madison clenched his jaw and said, “Yes, this is her.”
“Been after?” Hermione echoed. It took a great deal of willpower to act like she was some innocent, confused witch, but if the others (Riddle aside) could pretend like there was nothing too shady going on, damn it all, so could she. “I’m sorry, but why have you been after me, Mr. Madison? Is this because I turned down the Oculus position?”
“Oh, come off it!” Liam shouted. “You’re under arrest, Hermione… if that’s even your name.” He let out a short, harsh laugh. “You’re certainly not a Smith.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hermione responded, but her voice came out more meekly than she intended it to.
“Ha! I love this girl,” Madison declared, once more looking at Hermione with that wolfish grin. “Still playing the game. Well, sweetheart, you’ve had a good run, I’ll give you that. But it’s over now.”
“Explain yourself, Madison,” Minister Tuft said. “You can’t just waltz on over to England and arrest a witch here without a solid claim. What are you accusing her of, exactly? You’ve conveniently managed not to tell me yet.”
“Tampering with memories,” Liam answered instead. “She—”
Madison glared at him, and Liam instantly went silent. When it was clear that he was going to hold his tongue, Madison smiled at the Minister. “Yes, we have proof that she has tampered with the memories of one of our own,” he said. He pulled a small scroll from one of his pockets. “Here’s the warrant with the details. I would have gotten it to you tomorrow morning, but the blood curse finally activated, as you can see, so time was of the essence. Here. Knock yourself out.”
He tossed the scroll to the Minister, who deftly caught it.
“Blood curse?” Hermione asked in an even softer voice.
So Abraxas had been right. How had he seen what was wrong with her so quickly while she had been blind to it?
“Yes,” Madison said. “And for that, I am sorry. It’s not a pleasant one, is it? I should know, it’s how they tracked me down…”
“But… how? When did—?”
Hermione figured it out as Madison’s grin widened sardonically. “I think you have a feeling as to when,” he said. “Normally I don’t like to reveal our tricks, but this is one you should have seen coming.”
He reached into his pocket again, pulling out a different piece of parchment that Hermione recognized, and seeing it made her feel like she’d been punched in the gut. The contract. The one she had signed before taking the auror test in New York…
He held it up for her to see, and there, at the bottom where her signature was…
Well. Had been, would be a more accurate description.
The word that vaguely resembled ‘Hermione’ had bloody lines trailing down from it to the bottom of the page as though it had partially melted, and the word Smith…
It wasn’t even there anymore. In its space was a black, angry looking mark in the parchment.
“In the fine print, you agreed that you willingly gave your blood when you signed with the blood quill,” Madison said. “Which we can take to then use for just about any ritualistic blood spell, curse, etcetera, that we want. And believe me, after I escaped the MACUSA for so long decades ago, they came up with some exceptionally good spells for tracking. As soon as your cursed blood here hit the ground, you set it off.”
He put the contract back in his robes, and…
Oh, if looks could kill.
If looks could kill, none of this would have mattered—the mysterious magic from the Time-Turner, the American aurors, the Ministry officials, Dumbledore, to name only a few of Hermione’s troubles—because she would have died right then and there. Hermione felt his stare on her as Madison explained, and she unwisely met it.
If looks could kill, Riddle would have murdered Hermione after all, and she would have died on the spot.
“A very complicated curse that affects the area around the victim, too—so don’t bother trying to apparate. It won’t work within a mile radius from where your blood touched earth.”
He smirked at Hermione like he was certain she had already tried to apparate and failed.
“What’s interesting about you, though, is that this curse should have been activated days ago,” Madison continued, and Hermione managed to look away from Riddle despite his glare that was about as paralyzing as the basilisk’s had been. “It took an extraordinarily long time to build up the power necessary for it to finally work.”
His eyes gleamed with something that was horribly close to understanding. “You have some very interesting blood, Hermione.”
He knew.
He had to.
Or… did he?
Did Americans have Time-Turners in their Department of Mysteries and Secrets? Hermione couldn’t know, but it was possible that they didn’t. Magical governments didn’t exactly like to share the discoveries made in their top secret departments… so maybe not. Maybe they had some other, completely different means of time-traveling in America…
But Madison definitely knew something. And as Hermione stared at him, his slate-gray eyes fixed on hers, a disturbing recollection came to her.
After the test, she had stumbled out with robes that were fringed and shredded—but she hadn’t been.
At the time, she had assumed the archway that also obliviated her memories had healed her, but what if that wasn’t the case? What if she had healed her—or, more precisely, the Time-Turner magic had? What if the examiners had all witnessed as her body magically healed itself during the test…?
They might very well know she had magic influenced by time in her blood, which meant they could be accusing her right now of tampering with time, if they wanted… but they weren’t.
Because they don’t want to share that information with the British, she realized. Madison was looking at her like she was a great prize; he’d probably already decided that she was going to either be an incredible arrest on his part, or—possibly worse—that she was going to share in his fate, doomed to be an American lapdog auror… and who knew what rights to her own life she would have to sign away if that happened.
The MACUSA would own her.
Madison seemed to understand her shocked expression far too well. “My… blood?” Hermione parroted back, unsure of what else to say. Then, because she wanted to test her theory,“What’s wrong with my blood, Mr. Madison?”
Madison’s smile became thin. “We’ll have all the time in the world to discuss that later, Hermione.”
Time, time, time.
Hermione had another shocking realization.
The blood curse from the contract took so long because it was fighting against another source of magic in her blood from the Time-Turner. The Time-Turner magic was only healing her, returning her to the same physical state she had been in when Merope struck her. If that remained correct, then that meant it was constantly fighting off this new curse in her blood until it grew too powerful, building and building and building until it was finally moving quicker than the Time-Turner magic could heal it to complete its arc.
Only a properly performed counter-curse could truly eradicate a curse, so it was going to get her eventually…
If only I hadn’t been so stupid, Hermione berated herself. If only I hadn’t wasted the day hiding horcruxes, I could have been figuring this out! I could have developed a counter-curse myself, if I had known.
“Hm. This is all perfectly in order,” said the Minister, who had been examining the warrant Madison threw at her. “In America. I’m afraid you have no authority to arrest anyone in my jurisdiction.”
She furled up the warrant into a scroll again and tossed it back at Madison, who glared at her as he caught it. “She’s a criminal who fled,” he growled. “We have every right to bring her back.”
“For tampering with memories, or so you claim. Did you bring this Walter Moore fellow with you?”
“Being unwittingly stunned and having one’s memories tampered with while on the job is generally frowned upon,” Madison drawled. “So no, he isn’t here. He is no longer an auror.”
Hermione felt a dull stabbing in her chest at those words, even through the panic and fear that threatened to crush her. She found herself looking at Liam again, whose face was as full of hatred as she’d ever seen it.
“Mighty convenient,” said the Minister. “A grievous accusation you’re making here, and one we’ll take seriously, but I’m not about to set the precedent that you can show up with a warrant from your President and abduct my citizens without hard evidence.”
“She’s not your citizen,” Liam said, glaring at Hermione. “She’s American… or so she claims.”
“Is that right?” Minster Tuft asked, looking at Hermione. “You’re an American witch?”
Hermione swallowed hard, but then nodded—she had no idea what else she could do, other than continue her lie. “Yes,” she said. “Technically. But my mother was British, and I have family here.”
The Minister’s harsh expression softened at her answer. “Well then. We’re going to need to bring you in for questioning, Miss Smith. If—”
“That’s not her name!” Liam yelled, and his wand sparked in his hand. “She’s been lying about who she is, about everything, manipulating people’s memories!”
“These are all outrageous accusations!” Abraxas shouted, sounding deeply offended on Hermione’s behalf. “Minister Tuft, I can assure you that Miss Smith is not some—some international spy or something equally ridiculous. Her aunt, Hepzibah Smith, introduced us herself months ago at the WAG gala; Hermione is a perfectly wonderful, law-abiding witch.”
“Ah,” said Dumbledore suddenly. His eyes glittered with recognition as he peered at Hermione over his glasses. “I thought you looked familiar. The Golden Lady. You and Mr. Malfoy put on quite a show at the auction. Very entertaining.”
He smiled at Abraxas and added, “You two make a lovely couple.”
Abraxas’s face flushed and he stared, momentarily lost for words; beside her, Hermione swore she saw Riddle’s fingers twitch with life.
Fortunately, Abraxas was saved from needing to explain anything on that front. “You’ve met her, Albus?” the Minister asked.
“Not met, no. But I did see her at the gala Mr. Malfoy mentioned. She was at a table with Hepzibah Smith, along with some other witches and wizards with whom I am familiar.”
Minister Tuft turned a scrutinizing eye on Madison. It was obvious that just being recognized by someone like Albus Dumbledore painted Hermione in a much more credible light. Hermione held her breath, daring to hope.
“Exactly,” Abraxas said, back to his condescending self. “Miss Smith is perfectly innocent; in fact, she is an outstanding, kind, and generous woman. Which makes these insane allegations increasingly offensive.”
He turned towards the Americans, scowling. “Let me get this straight. It sounds to me like you had my dear friend sign a purposefully deceptive document to track her here using a disturbing blood curse because she—what, didn’t take a job you offered her?” He scoffed. “Truly brutish behavior.”
“She was tracked because, as we have already said and as our warrant for her arrest clearly states, she is not a perfectly wonderful, law-abiding witch, and she is far from innocent,” Madison said, but he was looking at Hermione, not Abraxas. “The Golden Lady, hm? Now that’s what we should be calling you.”
His smile reminded Hermione of a predator baring its teeth.
He knew, he knew. He knew about her skin, her blood, all of it.
He knew.
“She is a criminal,” Madison went on, still grinning, “and I’m guessing that she has you all as fooled as she did Walter and poor Liam here.”
“Well, fooling a bunch of wizards isn’t a crime, but tampering with someone’s memories is,” said the Minister. “So, Miss Smith—”
“Her name isn’t Smith!” Liam roared again.
“Seeing as I doubt she wants to be called a golden lady, whatever that means, I’ll go ahead and call her by the name she’s claimed until I have reason to believe it’s something else, won’t I?” Wilhelmina snapped back. “Reasons other than a piece of paper that could have been magicked to cast her in a suspicious light. Thus far, I have nothing but the claims of a bunch of demanding American aurors to go off of, and that is far from enough for me. We will question her ourselves, and if your claims are true then we will turn her over to you to deal with. You’re welcome to stay in England as guests until we are through. I promise that Albus will be able to extract the truth swiftly. He is a master Legilimens, as you likely know.”
Madison looked furious, a look that was mirrored by the other aurors standing behind him. “I’ll be doing the questioning,” he said. “I’m a Legilimens as well. I’ll share proof of her crimes against Walter Moore, and then we’ll be on our way.”
“She’s being arrested here, so no, I’ll have my people obtain this supposed proof.”
“What difference does it make, if I give you the memories you need? We’re also going to pay this Hepzibah Smith a visit, Wilhelmina, to verify a few things.”
“I said you could stay as guests! I can have our aurors attend to that too, Madison, if it seems necessary—and it’s Minister Tuft to you—”
“Oh, all right, well it is necessary, Minister, and we are more than capable of doing a mere house call—”
"I’m inclined to believe otherwise, based on your great entitlement and general manners, or lack thereof—"
Hermione felt like she was in freefall. Her mind began to buzz as their arguing carried on.
Hepzibah.
They—someone was going to question Hepzibah, and when whoever it was did, they would look to see if her memories had ever been tampered with after what happened with Walter, surely, and—
Oh, she was utterly, positively fucked.
If any of them questioned Hepzibah, it was all over for her. And then what would her fate be? Once they discovered she had altered the memories of Hepzibah Smith, the affluent, pureblood witch… why, then she would be found guilty of crimes in both America and in Britain. And while the MACUSA had a unique past with pardoning exceptional people of their crimes in exchange for a lifetime of servitude, the Ministry of Magic had no such history.
And this was all before it came out that she was an illegal time-traveler.
Questioning Hepzibah would reveal one set of crimes… but if they took her, now, and if she was questioned by Dumbledore himself…
Madison seemed keen to keep whatever he knew about her blood and past secret from the British, but if the Minister had her way and Dumbledore was given the opportunity to dive into her mind…
Hermione was a skilled Occlumens, but she was not delusional. This was Albus Dumbledore at his most powerful, defeater of Gellert Grindelwald and true wielder of the Deathstick. She did not stand a chance. The very best Hermione could hope for would be to keep her secrets shrouded for a time, but then it would be obvious that she had bigger secrets she was shrouding, and one way or another, he would find a way to dig them out.
Unless, of course...
But she did not want to think of that.
…If they discovered that she was someone from far in the future who had used a very illegal Time-Turner to come here, meddling so deeply with time and possibly fate itself, she could only fathom what would befall her. Lester Madison and the entire might of the MACUSA would not save her from being tried here, in Britain, where she had committed the worst of her crimes. She would be sentenced to life in Azkaban, and that’s if she was lucky.
They had Dementors for a reason, after all.
And somehow, even worse than all that… was Tom.
Dumbledore had always been suspect of Tom Riddle, but had never been able to prove that it was he who opened the Chamber of Secrets when he was sixteen and in school… but if he gained access to Hermione’s memories—memories of a future that may never happen, but could, and memories that, as far as she knew, mirrored her previous timeline until her arrival—then he would have all he needed and more. It would be easy for him to get a warrant for Tom’s arrest, for Dumbledore would have much more evidence that it was him, not Hagrid, who was responsible for Myrtle’s death.
And that was just the beginning of what he would find.
He would know Tom had two horcruxes and he would know where they were—and while a mokeskin bag would prevent him from opening it to hold the objects himself, it would not stop him from tossing the entire thing into some Fiendfyre if he wanted.
He would see all the horrible things that a future version of Tom Riddle would do.
He would see and know Lord Voldemort, and Tom’s reign would be over before it could start.
What complete madness is my life, that this is what I want to avoid now at all costs? Hermione thought. Wasn’t that what he deserved? Want this her goal?
No. They can’t take Tom.
Hermione was looking at the Minister who was still arguing with Madison, then she looked at Dumbledore, who seemed only mildly amused by the bickering and politely intrigued by her, then to Liam who was so, so angry—
If they take me, Tom’s life will be over.
It’s what she came here to do, but now the thought of it felt like it might kill her. And while Hermione had a few devastating realizations dawning in the back of her mind on that matter, there was no time to think about any of them now.
The Minister’s voice was rising and all the aurors had their wands pointed at each other and Ignatius and Abraxas and Orion were barking something as well and there were more wands being drawn but Hermione could barely register or hear anything with the way her blood was roaring in her ears. And it didn’t matter what any of them said or did; they were going to take her. It was the Minister, her son, the Head of the British aurors, Liam, the legendary Lester Madison, four additional American aurors of unknown but undoubtedly great skill and, of course, Albus Dumbledore…
They didn’t stand a chance at overpowering them, none at all.
Oh God. It couldn’t be worse.
There was laughter in her ears, and it did not immediately register with Hermione that it was her own. She quickly tried to stifle it, which didn’t work, so she instead masked it as though it were another coughing fit, hunching over and hiding her face.
There were hands on her back a moment later. “The counter-curse,” said a cold, commanding voice that had been absent thus far. “It didn’t work. Cast it again now.”
“Whoa. Calm down, kid. It did work. It’s not active anymore,” Madison said. “The part of the curse that was affecting her body was broken shortly after we got here.”
Which was true, and Hermione knew it—the pain in her throat had entirely disappeared once they’d arrived. She pulled herself together and looked up. Riddle was staring down at her, his arms on her shoulders, his face bloodless and his eyes a bottomless black.
I have to protect him.
Hermione knew she only had one shot at saving him and maybe herself, insane as it was. She looked into Tom’s eyes and thought.
It was the first time since landing herself in 1950 that Hermione had lowered her passive Occlumency barriers. She felt suddenly naked at the loss of them, but wasted no time as she probed at Riddle’s mind, asking to be let in, to be heard.
Tom’s face barely even flinched. If he was surprised at all that she had just revealed how skilled she was at the Mind Arts—that she had, with a glance, exposed that she had been practicing Occlumnecy at every moment of every day that she’d known him—he did not show it. He only removed his own impressive, almost imperceptible mental walls and waited, receptive.
Hermione almost shivered. This was complete exposure, real vulnerability.
If they catch me, you have to run once I’m gone, she thought. Leave me. Hide. Because they will come for you.
You have to run.
Run.
Run.
It was all over in less than a second.
She ripped herself away, not giving him the chance to respond, forcing her barriers back into place and slamming shut the connection between them—the mental equivalent of having brought someone close to whisper softly in their ear before shoving them harshly away.
Hermione stood tall, looking away from Riddle and feeling bizarrely calm as she turned her attention to the Minister. “My apologies. I’m perfectly happy to cooperate and come in for questioning, Minister Tuft, by whomever. This is a great misunderstanding, and I’ll gladly do whatever I need to in order to clean this all up—though being interrogated by Albus Dumbledore does seem a bit over the top.” She gave Dumbledore a rueful smile. “I’m not sure if I should be honored or frightened, truth be told. It feels surreal for someone like you to even know who I am, sir.”
Dumbledore smiled too, not unkindly. “I dare say I’ll be knowing more about you soon enough, Miss Smith,” he said, also choosing to call her as such, despite everything the Americans had said. “But I can assure you I will be a perfect gentleman.”
He inclined his head towards her, and Hermione laughed like he had made a funny joke. She put both hands up, showing her surrender.
Tom’s grip on her shoulder became suddenly vice-like. “No,” he said, his voice a low whisper in her ear. He shook his head and held her even tighter. “No.”
“This is preposterous,” Abraxas spoke up again. “It’s the dead of night! At the very least, can’t she report to the Ministry in the morning? We could all—”
“Not a chance,” Madison interrupted. “She’ll be in the wind if that happens, Minister, mark my words.”
“Fine, yes—no, I’m sorry, Miss Smith, but it seems very pertinent that we put this to rest immediately.”
The bubble of hope that Abraxas’s last ditch attempt had inflated in Hermione’s heart popped. It was a valiant effort, she lamented.
Hermione steeled herself and smiled more brightly. “Of course, Minister,” she said. “I am happy to cooperate.”
She looked at Tom, but didn’t dare to mess with her Occlumency barriers again. “It’s okay,” she said quietly. “Trust me… please.”
His fingers were digging into her shoulder and his eyes were burning darkly. Hermione feared he wasn’t going to listen and that he would react harshly, stupidly, and ruin the plan that she had put together in the last thirty seconds—a plan which was as daring as it got, really, but it was all she could think to do. Hermione felt him jabbing at her mind, unabashedly trying to communicate something, but she did not let him in. She turned away.
Dumbledore was watching them thoughtfully.
“I’m ready now,” Hermione said, and when she took a step forward, Tom let her go.
She once more held her arms up, but Liam wasn’t buying it. He flashed his wand, and a set of glowing coils that looked much too much like handcuffs floated in the air before him. “We’re restraining her,” he said levelly.
Hermione fought back the thrill of pure panic that shot up her spine. “That’s not necessary,” she said, holding her hands up higher. “I’m coming willingly.”
“You’ll be shocked to hear that I don’t believe you.”
“That is quite enough!” Minister Tuft shouted. “Miss Smith, I’m going to confiscate your wand, if I may. I hope that will be enough to settle the minds of everyone here?” She scoffed loudly. “Honestly. Magical restraints for someone who might have tampered with someone’s memories?”
Which was a fair assessment, Hermione thought, seeing as she didn’t have any suspicions that Hermione had also probably meddled with time, nor did she have any idea what Hermione was capable of.
But she couldn’t hand over her wand. It was now or never.
“Of course,” Hermione said.
“Thank you, Miss Smith.”
Hermione made her way towards the Minister of Magic, walking with purpose in her step as everyone watched her. She glanced briefly at each of them as she went, taking note of where everyone was standing. Liam still had magical restraints out, meaning his wand arm, at least, was preoccupied—Ignatius was putting his wand away, which was good, as were two of the American aurors—also good—Dumbledore had never lowered his after healing Abraxas and Madison was probably not going to, and neither was that eerily silent Abbot fellow, but there was no help for that—
“Here,” Hermione said. She pulled out her wand as she approached the Minister. “And I must say, thank you so much for your—”
She struck when the Minister pocketed her own wand and was reaching for hers.
Hermione moved faster than she ever had in her life.
With a single thought and lightning fast stroke, her magic exploded. It burst from the tip of the walnut like a dragon’s roaring flame, and Hermione put all of her power behind it, everything she had and then more. She aimed it at as many of them as she could based on the way they were lined up, but whether or not she struck anyone she had no idea—Hermione was instantly bolted backwards by the force of her own magic like a comet, and she could make out nothing as the world passed around her in a chaotic blur, the massive flamethrower of her spell making it impossible to see what she was leaving behind. She hoped it was wreckage enough that Tom and the others could escape, too. She hoped they were not so stupid as to linger or worse, fight.
As she was moving Hermione focused also on apparating so that the very second she passed the threshold put in place by the blood curse she could make her true escape—faster, faster—
The world came to a devastating halt.
Hermione was suddenly on the ground, slumped on her side, a shrill ringing screeching in her ears. There was no pain, and that was deeply and immediately alarming. Her wand was, somehow, miraculously, still laying in her hand, but her fingers were uselessly unfurled, and she couldn’t move them to grip it tightly again. She could hardly move at all. All she could do was open her eyes, barely, and the world she did see was more blurred than it had been when she was flying through the air. That wasn’t good. She was definitely not moving now.
She thought she saw someone’s legs coming towards her on the strangely tilted earth. Was she hallucinating? Because while the rest of the world was distorted and she could hear nothing other than that shrill note, this person’s limbs were oddly in focus.
Somewhere in the distance, Hermione thought she saw flashing lights, like a marvelous fireworks display on the other side of an ocean. Red and blue and frightening green. But maybe she was imagining that, too. It was all so blurred.
The pair of legs that had been approaching her bent down and revealed themselves to be attached to a man. Lester Madison wasn't smiling at her for once, which was refreshing. He reached down and plucked her wand from her limp hand like he was picking a flower. He then touched her forehead, but Hermione didn’t feel a thing.
Oh, well, she thought with a strange lack of any emotion. I tried.
“The Golden Lady,” Madison murmured. His voice was barely discernible above the ringing. He pulled his hand away, and Hermione saw blood on his fingertips.
His lips moved, saying something else, but Hermione couldn’t make it out. The world became even hazier, the colorful flashing lights in the distance oozing together into one big wave of black that slowly, mercilessly consumed her.
Chapter 50: The Golden Lady
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hermione was exhausted. Mentally more than anything, but physically, too. They’d been at it for hours this morning. While the cushions they used to catch themselves were thick, being mentally dragged down into the darkest corner of her subconscious and physically tossed on the floor over and over again was, as usual, beginning to take its toll.
She rubbed her aching neck as she once more stood. Jackson didn’t look much better, at least. She'd managed to take him down into her darkness with him that round, so that was something.
“Ergh,” Jackson groaned. He pushed himself up, having barely landed on the cushion behind him. “Can we take a break? I need one before we go again.”
Holloway nodded. “Ten minutes,” he said.
Jackson didn’t hesitate, perhaps afraid he may change his mind. He swiftly left the Hall of Thought, disappearing through a doorway that Hermione knew led to Space.
“Mr. Holloway… sir,” Hermione started once he was gone. “May I ask… We seem to be spending an awful amount of time on this. Six months is a long time to spend focusing on one thing so… intensely, isn’t it? When there’s so much more to be learned?”
“There is indeed,” Holloway said. “More than you can imagine, the most fascinating of which you are not allowed to learn until you master this technique. I remind you again that you are an Unspeakable, Miss Granger. You keep secrets. You must be able to keep them well.”
“Right, I understand that,” Hermione said, annoyed. “It’s just… well, how often does this sort of situation happen?”
When Holloway merely arched one brow at her, she continued, saying, “How often is an Unspeakable, I don’t know… abducted and tortured for their secrets? I can’t imagine it happens frequently… but, if it did…”
She frowned, trying to find the words. Holloway waited. “I suppose what I’m trying to get straight is… I mean, I suppose if I were some monstrous dark witch who wanted the secrets any old Unspeakable may have, and that Unspeakable kept withdrawing into their mind where I couldn’t touch them… sure, I suppose I might grow frustrated and eventually kill them, because there are a decent number of Unspeakables, and I could always find another, I guess. But.”
Hermione swore she saw a glint like amusement in Holloway’s eyes. “But?” he prodded.
“But… but once we specialize, if we specialize… then we’ll delve very deeply into specific Mysteries, and, well, there’s only a precious few Perpetuals in each sub-department, no? For instance, if I was a dark witch who wanted to know all about Time, I’d have, what, maybe four people I could target? And if I was smart, I would choose the Head, assuming that he would know more than the others, possibly things that no one else knows… and so…”
“...And so?” Holloway said.
“So… I wouldn’t kill him,” Hermione finished quietly. “I wouldn’t be able to, if he was the one who might know the most. His mind, his secrets would be too precious…”
“Then what would you do, Miss Granger?” Holloway asked. “Assuming the Head of Time who you’ve theoretically abducted thwarted all your advances to pull his secrets from his mind? Which he would, by the way. Baldwin is very good.”
Hermione frowned more deeply, having not thought about this from the abductor’s side much. “I suppose… If it was a secret I desperately wanted… I wouldn’t kill him. I’d keep him until he’d cracked, one way or another. I’d threaten or use other means to get the information I needed out of him.”
“And what if you were Baldwin?” Holloway asked. “What would you do, if you were an Unspeakable with secrets so great they could unravel the fabric of time if in the wrong hands…? If an untold number of lives were at stake? If you were being tortured and mentally raped and eventually threatened…?”
Hermione knew the correct answer, much as she loathed to say it… but saying the correct thing was all she knew how to do. “I would sink myself so deeply into that dark hole in my mind that… that I would never come out. Because that’s what we’re really learning here, isn’t it? Rubiconem suum isn’t the point of no return simply because an assailant might kill us out of annoyance… it’s because it is meant to be suicide. Magical suicide, mental suicide. We’re… supposed to do this, if it comes down to it.”
Holloway’s sharp features softened slightly. “Yes,” he said. “It is our honor-bound duty as Unspeakables to protect our secrets at all costs… to pay the ultimate price, if need be. It is a vital part of our duty.”
Hermione thought to ask why he hadn't led with this at the beginning of their training with the Dementor, but thought better of it. Maybe it was a good thing people like Jackson weren’t told outright that this would be their duty. This was hard, and it would only be harder knowing that beforehand. Better to wait until the new recruits were all masters of this taxing technique and ready to move on to something else.
Can’t have us all giving up so quickly, Hermione mused, or they’d never get new Unspeakables.
“Has anyone ever done it?” Hermione asked. “Placed themselves in a… what do you even call it? When someone pushes themselves so deeply into their darkness that they can’t ever wake up?”
“...This isn’t something we usually go over at this point,” Holloway said, confirming Hermione’s suspicions. “We like to wait until the end of the six months.”
“Well, I’m bringing it up now, and Jackson won’t be back for another… two minutes, so.” Hermione squared her shoulders. “What do you call it, if it happens? Has it happened? How many times? Have any of them been kept alive, or did they all die not long after they went into that comatose state? Oh, do we have any of them here, still, in the Department? We do, don’t we? What’s happened to their bodies, to their minds–oh, are those the brains that have ended up in the tank? How do—”
The door swung open, revealing a slightly more chipper looking Jackson. He looked between Hermione and Holloway, noting how much closer Hermione had gotten to their boss, and probably the excited interest glowing on her face. “What’d I miss?” he asked.
“Miss Granger was just asking another slew of questions that will, for now, remain unanswered,” Holloway said.
Hermione stuck her lower lip out, feeling like a child as she did. “But… eventually?” she pressed on. Because she always pressed on.
Holloway gave her the same response he usually did. “Eventually,” he agreed. “If you manage to keep up.”
Flowers.
Hermione inhaled the glorious scent of them, and when she turned to look, rolling onto her side and squinting, she was met with the most lovely sight. Flowers of all different kinds, daffodils and daisies and violets and every variety of roses. Bees and butterflies floated lazily about, and the sun bathed them all in its warmth from a perfectly clear, blue sky.
Hermione rolled onto her back again and closed her eyes. She inhaled deeply then sighed on the exhale, feeling at peace.
A shadow flickered across her face. Someone touched her wrist.
Hermione frowned; go away, she thought, tugging her arm up to her chest. Go away, you’re blocking the sun—
Waking up felt like being doused in cold water.
No, waking up was being doused in cold water. Hermione gasped and spluttered, water having been dumped down on her head as though from a full bucket being turned over. She tried to move her now soaking wet hair out of her face, and realized that her wrists were bound, shackled to a surface in front of her. She was sitting, too, in what felt like a metal chair.
“Oh good… you’re awake.”
Lester Madison’s voice was disarmingly light. Hermione could barely see him through the curtain of wet hair plastered to her face, partially covering her eyes, but it was unmistakably him.
“I’ll get that,” he said. He must have flicked his wand, because then Hermione was surrounded by a whirlwind of warm, welcoming heat. She was dry.
The horror set in.
It wasn’t Madison’s leering smile that did it, nor that fact that she was clearly in some kind of cell, what she imagined was a high-security interrogation room. It was not the glowing, ominous looking shackles that bound her wrist to the equally foreboding looking, metal table; it was not the sheer lack of anything at all in this gray room aside from the table and that man sitting across from her, holding his wand and staring at her with gleaming, hungry eyes.
It was her hair.
Her hair, as it dried… and how it curled.
It was curling and frizzing, everything it was no longer supposed to be, and even before that shock could fully settle on her, she looked down and saw something even more horrific.
Her skin. The lines.
The golden lines were fully revealed as she was no longer wearing her outer, hooded cloak from before; she had been stripped down to her undershirt and skirt, and she could seem them, on her shoulder and arm, looping all the way down to the tips of her fingers on one side, now, and there, on there, on her forearm—
Mudblood.
Vividly black. The golden lines still avoided it, curling around the scar that Bellatrix Lestrange had given her as though afraid of it, framing it instead.
“Missing this?”
Something clinked against the table. Her ring. Madison had flipped her ring onto it like a coin, and it was spinning, spinning, until it finally slowed and tipped over, landing on its side.
Madison was grinning. “Hello again, Golden Lady." He tilted his head slightly, then added, “Nice hair.”
Wave after wave of horror washed over her. Hermione felt light-headed. She thought she might be sick.
“I imagine you’re not feeling too great. That curse I struck you with was a doozy… but you’re lucky it was my curse that got you rather than someone else’s.”
“Lucky?” Hermione snapped, and though her voice came out raspy, it was sharp. “Lucky that you caught me?”
“Yes,” Madison said. “Though that was an excellent attempt at escape, I’ll give you that… but it wasn’t excellent enough. If I hadn’t gotten you, Dumbledore would have. Or that freaky Abbot guy. Definitely not Wilhelmina, though. Are you aware you nearly killed the Minister of fucking Magic?”
His voice, which had started out conversationally enough, turned sharp with his last question. Hermione jumped when he yelled, struggling against her magical constraints.
“Did... nearly?” she asked. “She’s okay, though? Is everyone—oh God, did anyone, did…”
Hermione couldn’t finish voicing her fears. Madison glared at her, silently fuming for a moment, before he took a deep breath and regained his composure.
“You didn’t manage to kill anyone with that little stunt you pulled, though you certainly came close,” he said. “Worse, however, is that now you're also facing the crime of attempted murder. Of a number of people, but most notably, the Minister of Magic.” He ran a hand through his short, silvery hair, grinning in a strained way. “Really, I don’t think I can overstate the severity of that. She would have died if not for some extremely quick acting on Dumbledore’s part. You’ve gone and made the difficulty of extracting you from this place go from ‘pretty hard’ to ‘nearly impossible’.”
Hermione shook her head, still disoriented but trying to think straight. “What—what happened?” she asked.
“Besides you nearly killing the Minister of Magic?” Madison said, his voice slipping and nearly shouting again. He took another deep breath. “You tried to escape. You failed. I cursed you while everyone else went into bloody battle mode. No one died but poor Wilhelmina, her son, and one of my aurors—Alex, he’s named, poor fellow—are not in great shape. They’ll survive, though. And between you and me…”
He leaned forward, then whispered as though sharing a great secret, “I don’t much care for Alex.”
He winked. He then sat back in his chair again, smiling. “So you could have done better, you could have done worse.”
“I was aiming for Liam,” Hermione muttered before she could stop herself.
To her surprise, Madison laughed. “Ah, well, your aim was true. You did hit Liam, on his right shoulder. Oddly enough, the fire didn’t seem to affect him nearly as badly as the others.”
Hermione stared, then something clicked. The way Liam had been able to control fire easily, lighting cigarettes with his finger in New York... She remembered what Walter had told her, and suddenly Liam made much more sense. “Because he’s part-Veela,” she murmured.
Madison’s eyes went wide. “Is that what it is?” he said. Hermione supposed she should have felt bad for outting him, but somehow, she did not. “Ha! That does explain a lot. Wow… look at this. One whole minute into a conversation with you, and I’m already blown away.”
Madison folded his hands on the table, looking suddenly serious. “But we don’t have time to talk about your many boyfriends, G.”
“Boyfriends?” Hermione echoed. “G?”
“That’s what I’ve decided to call you, at least until we know without a shadow of a doubt what your name is. The Golden Lady is a bit of a mouthful, no? Unless you'd prefer to be called mudblood... but that doesn't sound very nice, and something tells me you didn't give yourself that unsightly wound." He waved his hand before Hermione could respond to that, like he was casting aside the entire topic of her mysterious and dark looking scar. "And yes, your little boyfriends. Liam is a scorned man if I’ve ever seen one, and there was that blondie that looked like he’d been beaten to shit; didn’t Dumbledore say you were a couple…? And that’s to say nothing of that dark-haired fellow.”
“Tom,” Hermione whispered.
“Yeah, that one,” Madison said. Hermione opened her mouth to ask, fearful though she was of the answer, but again, Madison kept talking before she could. “He didn’t get caught. None of your British buddies were brought in, they all got away… Most of us were preoccupied with the damage you’d done to Wilhelmina, her son, and Alex, and I was preoccupied with you… Though there were some dangerous curses thrown by all parties involved.” His smirk widened. “You are a hot commodity, G.”
Hermione made an ineloquent sound that was something between a scoff and a snort.
“We don’t have much time," Madison said. He leaned forward over the table, his eyes hardening. “You are lucky that it was my curse that caught you; that Dumbledore was busy putting Wilhelmina back together. That was a curse of my own invention, so only I know the counter-curse. I told everyone that you’d be out for at least another few hours. I’ve bought you some time until they return, but only a bit. So I need you to be straight with me. We don’t have time to fuck around with warring mental magic, fun as that might be.”
“Return?” Hermione asked. “What—you’re the only one here? Wherever here is…?”
“Not the only one here,” Madison said, and he looked a bit smug. “There’s several British aurors stationed outside, as well as my own people—the ones you didn’t maim, anyway… but none of them are conscious at the moment. Regardless, my skills, while deeply impressive, are unimportant right now. The Minister and her son are recovering at some hospital—and Alex, but who cares—so Abbot and Dumbledore himself are going to this Hepzibah’s house as we speak to question her. So I need you to answer my questions honestly. It’s in your very best interest to do so. I am your only shot at making it out of this country and escaping a life in that fucked up prison they have here, if not worse.”
“They’re at Hepzibah’s,” Hermione said in blank horror. “Dumbledore is at Hepzibah’s… now.”
“Yes. But they don’t know you’re awake yet, and they don’t know I swept the floor with their sad excuses for aurors and that I’m talking to you. They think they’re going to get to speak to you first. So tell me—are they going to find more incriminating evidence when they question Hepzibah Smith? Have you committed more crimes over here that I should know about?”
His stare was piercing, but it was not probing in the way that meant he was using Legilimency. Hermione wracked her brains for a moment, but she could not think of any reason to lie. If he was telling the truth, then Dumbledore was likely discovering that Hepzibah’s memories had been tampered with right now. He would be stupid not to, after that was the crime Hermione was accused of committing in America.
It really was all over.
"Aren't you... I don't know, worried that they'll find this out?" she asked in a voice that was a bit too high, delaying the inevitable, if only for a moment. "They're going to interrogate me when they return. They might see that you've duped them, coming here and questioning me first."
"So what, fuck 'em," Madison said. "I ask forgiveness, not permission—where I can. By the time they may or may not rip this particular memory from your mind, which I doubt they will, as it's far removed from what they'll be looking for... things will be in motion, one way or another. So, answer me. Be honest."
“I... yes,” Hermione said softly. “I did. I inserted myself into Hepzibah’s memories, into her life. I’m not actually her niece, she only thinks I am. I made it all up, I made myself up so that I could have an affluent family and name here in Britain. Liam was right. I’m not a Smith. I’m not.”
Hermione felt strange as she spoke; it was both a damning and freeing experience to admit that out loud. “I gave her memories of a sister she never had and a niece, and then I’ve lied to pretty much every witch and wizard I’ve come across since.”
Madison was very still for a moment. Then he slammed his fists down on the table,causing her ring to dance, and shouted, “Fuck!”
Hermione startled at the action, though she couldn’t move much with the way her wrists were bound. Madison ran a hand through his hair again. “Fuck, G,” he said in a much more reasonable voice. “Fuck. I don’t know… I don’t know if I am going to be able to get you out of this one.”
He looked sad about it. For some reason, this made Hermione laugh.
“Why do you care?” she asked. “I deserve it. I am guilty. I deserve to be tried and sentenced to whatever they determine. I’ve broken the law… a lot.” She looked down at the golden lines swirling on her arm. “A lot,” she repeated.
“That’s part of the reason why, and I’m sure you know it,” Madison said, following her gaze. He reached out, touching a finger to one of the glittering spirals. Hermione would have pulled back if she could have. “You may not remember the test… but we do. I do.”
He looked into her eyes again, that hungry glint shining in his own. Hermione schooled her face into something blank, void of any emotion. This is it. He’s going to tell me he knows that I’m a time-traveler, that I’m from decades in the future, that I have the curse of a shattered Time-Turner coursing through me.
“You have time-sand in your blood.”
Time-sand…
Hermione kept her face as still as stone. She met his gaze unflinchingly, and said only, “…And?”
“And we want to know how you did it, of course,” Madison said. “They’ve done a lot with the sands of time in Mysteries and Secrets, but no one has seen anything like what you’ve done. The way you heal yourself, the way your body recovers quicker the more damning the wounds you incur… well. Of course we want that. And we don’t intend to share such knowledge once we have it.”
Hermione still did not allow any emotion to show on her face. Time-sand. Time-sand in her blood, healing her…
She made a series of rapid, possibly—probably, she hoped—correct assumptions.
The Americans didn’t have Time-Turners. They did, however, have what must have been the crucial material that was used in them, this time-sand, which she could only assume was the literal sand-like substance that hung suspended within the hourglass.
The Examiners of her Oculus exam had seen the way the Time-Turner magic in her blood affected her body, had seen all her golden scars somehow, and knew that it was time magic that was responsible. They had used this same time-sand for similar feats–this recycling of time that Gordan had alluded to before she took the practical—but had yet to do similar things on a human body. They dearly wanted that knowledge.
And most importantly of all… they still didn’t think she was a time-traveler.
Hermione might have laughed if she didn’t also, within the span of a fleeting moment, also think:
Of course they don’t think I’m a time-traveler.
Of course no one thinks that, Hermione realized. That level of time-traveling should be impossible for so many reasons. The case study of Eloise Mintumble was extraordinary because it was the only one that had ‘succeeded’, and that was using that term very generously. Everyone else that had ever been sent back in time further than a few hours simply didn’t return; assumed dead and gone or, as Holloway said, ‘not our problem’. Because they had sent others back when they first invented the Time-Turner, before Eloise—but they had never been able to find those people again, and after Eloise was sent back and miraculously found, returned to her own time… after they saw what happened to both the fabric of time and to her body when she was brought back to where she belonged…
It was easy to assume all the others they’d sent either died or were lost to different timelines, too.
And that was what they believed in the Department of Mysteries of her time, in her home country… if the Americans hadn’t yet found a way to use time-sand in a device that allowed an individual to travel back very far, then of course Madison wouldn’t think that. No one in his government would, which seemed so foolish, to not realize that time-travel would be possible in the future, but then…
Was it foolish? How many times had they purposefully set up situations where someone from the future in the Department of Mysteries and Secrets would know to travel back to, once it was? And it hadn’t happened, so why not assume that such time-travel was outside the realm of possibility…?
Because it should be outside the realm of possibility, Hermione thought. It should not be possible at all. I should not be possible; not even the Department I worked for at the Ministry would think I was a time-traveler as I am. Because, if I was, my body would have deteriorated by now…
But she and Draco had prepared. They had worked tirelessly on creating a body stabilizing potion to get her through at least a few hours, which was all she was supposed to need. But then Merope had struck her with the Time-Turner, and that was why she was no longer in danger of falling apart, she thought. Her body was trapped in a cycle, constantly healing, the strangest curse she had ever heard of. She would not believe it herself, were it not happening to her.
The likelihood of all of it was… well. It shouldn’t have happened. It was all as miraculous as it was devastating.
She should not have existed in this time as she did… of course no one would think she was a time-traveler. Not Madison, not any number of aurors she may come across, not Albus Dumbledore, not Tom Riddle.
Saying that she was a Seer with time-sand in her blood sounded, insanely enough, infinitely more likely.
Madison folded his hands on the table, resting them close to her shackled ones. Hermione forced all her racing thoughts away, focusing sharply on his hands. “That aside, I am compelled—literally, bound by one hell of a magical contact—to do my best to bring you back to New York. The President wants your magical blood, G, and he wants to know how you got it… I am compelled to obey.”
The muscles in his jaw tightened. “Unfortunately, I am also compelled to do so in a manner that will not create irreparable tension with wizarding Britain. So, if you really did meddle with this Hepzibah’s memories—”
“I did,” Hermione said. “It’s not an if. I did.” She did laugh, then, unable to stop herself. “I did a great job, too—but if they look hard enough, they’ll find them. They’ll see that I fabricated a lifetime worth of lies to endear myself to her.”
She laughed much louder. “Oh, fuck!” she swore. She tore her eyes away from Madison’s folded hands and hung her head. She felt delirious. Maybe it was the after-effects of his curse. Maybe she was just starting to lose her mind altogether. “I’m completely fucked.”
“You might be,” Madison agreed. “What an absolute shit show this is… Damn. Why did you have to go and leave New York?”
Hermione stopped laughing to glare at him. “Why did you have to set a blood curse on me?”
“I was compelled to,” Madison said dryly. “I didn’t have a choice. That was part of what gave you away; the curse reacted extra harshly with the word Smith… Damn, I was hoping that was just happenstance. But it seems that really isn’t your last name.”
“...You’re not going to ask?”
“What your real last name is? No. I imagine you’ll lie anyway. It doesn’t matter. You committed crimes here before you ever came to New York, and they’re going to know that soon… I don’t know how much I’ll be able to do for you once that comes out. But I’ll do everything I can.”
He stood. Hermione scoffed. “Because you’re compelled to,” she drawled. “I feel so comforted.”
“Because it would be an absolute waste, sending someone like you to rot in that horrific place they call a prison here,” he said, though Hermione could at least tell his anger was not aimed at her. “Letting people waste away while Dementors leech off their thoughts? Absolutely fucking insane. Say whatever shit you want to about the MACUSA—and trust me, I’ve said more than my fair share—but not even they would do something like that.”
“No, they would just make me into a—what was it? A lapdog auror?”
Madison sat again, his face suddenly much fiercer as he leaned across the table, glaring at her. “You would be so lucky,” he seethed. “I may not love my current lot in life, but it is infinitely superior to sitting in a cell, doing nothing good for anyone, slowly dying in a dark well of misery. I implore you, Golden Lady, to pray to whatever higher power you believe in on my behalf… because if I fail, you will be fortunate to get out of this mess with your soul intact.”
He stood again. Hermione felt her body go cold, as though a Dementor had entered the cell right then and there. “And now our time is up. I’ve learned what I needed to know from you, for now,” he said. “I’m not very optimistic, but…”
His eyes darkened, looking sad. “I hope we meet again,” he murmured.
He raised his wand, and before Hermione could utter a single word of protest, her world went out of focus, and—
Flowers.
Hermione stretched, arching her back against the beautiful, flourishing field. She looked around. Wild roses. Balsams. Ten-week stocks. Citronella flowers. Forget-me-nots. Zinnas. All the butterflies were white.
Interesting.
Hermione sighed happily and stretched again. It was so warm. She could stay here, basking in this sunlight, forever.
At least, she could if someone would stop blocking her sun. Glaring, Hermione opened her eyes.
A boy. He looked… angry.
Well, so am I, Hermione thought, irritated. “Can you move?” she asked. “You're blocking the sun.”
The boy did not move. He stared down at her with black, frigid eyes. With his pale skin, dark hair, and black clothes, he was the antithesis of the world that surrounded them—a cold and colorless figure in a land of sunshine and warmth.
“Where are you?” the boy asked. Demanded, more like.
Hermione shifted so that she was back in the sun, no longer pinned beneath his shadow. That was better.
“Where are you?” he asked again, more sharply.
Hermione huffed when he once more blocked the light. “Do I know you?” she asked. “This all seems… terribly familiar.”
“You—”
Hermione’s eyes flew open to the alarming sight of a wand being pointed directly between her eyes… a wand being held by none other than Albus Dumbledore.
The Elder Wand.
She jolted at the sight, and found that she was still shackled to a table, still stuck in a cold metal chair in a cold gray room with her scars exposed and her frizzy hair taking up more than its fair share of room. Her ring was gone.
Dumbledore did not at all resemble the old man she knew from her time, age difference aside. She never would have imagined that her former-Headmaster could look so fearsome.
“Welcome back,” he said. “I’m glad to see that worked… assuming you are fully conscious?” Dumbledore peered at her over his spectacles, his blue eyes sharp. “Are you mentally aware?”
Hermione was mentally aware, if also a bit disoriented; she could feel Dumbledore probing at her mind—not harshly, but not discreetly, either. She shuttered him away, glaring at him. “Very much so,” she said.
“Good.” Dumbledore kept his wand pointed at her face. “Madison will be so disappointed to know that his curses are not as impenetrable as he seems to believe they are.”
Hermione swallowed back any visible distress, hoping nothing showed on her face as that recent interaction came back to her. They didn’t know she had spoken to him. She couldn’t let Dumbledore know that, if she could help it.
I am your only shot.
“He does seem rather arrogant,” Hermione said, keeping her voice as level as she could. “Then again, you are Albus Dumbledore, so…”
Dumbledore smiled thinly. “Flattery, while appreciated, will sadly get you nowhere, Miss…”
He cocked his head to one side, analyzing her. “Whatever shall I call you, for the time being? The Americans were correct… you are not a Smith.”
Hermione saw no point in denying that.
“What… Where am I?” Hermione asked instead, the question coming out of her lips as though she’d been compelled to ask. Then, because she realized she wasn’t supposed to know anything, “What happened?”
“An undisclosed location,” Dumbledore said. “You’re currently being held by the Ministry of Magic, as you are accused of several crimes. Very grievous crimes. Shall I list them all before we continue?”
He repositioned himself, getting a little more comfortable, but still he did not lower his wand. “Tampering with the memories of several individuals, both in Britain and in America—though you are not being charged with the latter here, admittedly. However, you also nearly killed the Minister of Magic, her son, and three aurors while on British soil. You are irrevocably guilty on all accounts. Your trial is being scheduled as we speak.”
“Trial?” Hermione repeated. “I—a trial—but… you said nearly. Nearly killed. No one died, I didn’t—”
“You will find that the Ministry has hardly any more sympathy for attempted murder than actual murder, particularly when it is against the Minister and her only child,” Dumbledore interjected coolly.
A bit of an insane giggle came out of Hermione’s mouth before she could stop it. “Shit, that’s logical,” she said, then laughed again.
Dumbledore did not find it funny. “Until your trial,” he went on, “You will be held here. I have been given the privilege of questioning you myself in the meantime. I dearly hope you will cooperate, both for your sake and mine. It will make things much better for everyone.”
Hermione met his eyes, which did, impressively, soften a fraction. He’s both the good cop and the bad cop, she thought amusedly. “Here to offer me a plea bargain if I tell you whatever you want to know?”
“Perhaps,” Dumbledore said. “You should know… I questioned your alleged aunt. She was quite appalled when she was told of your arrest, very adamant that it must all be a serious misunderstanding… quite passionate. As was her house-elf. Hokey, I believe.”
Hermione’s attempt to keep her face as blank as possible failed; she quickly looked away. Hokey. She gasped, because she had not thought about what Hokey knew…
Which was so stupid, because Hokey had been the key to Dumbledore learning what had happened to Hepzibah in her time, when it had been Riddle who’d messed with her memories!
Hokey. Hokey knew… too much.
Hepzibah’s house-elf had been tailing her, unbeknownst to Hermione at the time, when she and Riddle had gone to that pub… she’d followed her all the way to Riddle’s flat where—
Where I found his diary, Hermione thought with dread. And she knew Hokey had seen that, because she’d seen that herself… She, Hermione, had needed to modify that memory specifically so that Hokey would know nothing of Riddle’s secret diary, hidden under the floorboards of his closet in a cursed box with a snake on it…
If Dumbledore had delved into Hokey’s memories—and she had no doubt that he had, based on that dark expression on his face that she could see in her periphery—then he saw that, too.
He knew where Riddle lived. He saw the diary. He saw Hermione lie to Riddle and hiss in parseltongue to get it, and he saw her make a fake one before stealing it.
Which meant he also surely saw them snogging in his flat before Hokey finally revealed herself…
Dumbledore may also not know or think her a time-traveler, but he knew far too much.
“Needless to say,” Dumbledore said, “I learned a great deal during my visit.”
He said nothing more, allowing the weight of his words to hang heavily in the air. Hermione had to remind herself to breathe.
Breathe. Breathe. Remember your training.
“I see,” she finally said, keeping her eyes away from his face. “Is Hepzibah all right? Is she… when you told her what I’d done… Is she… okay?”
No… she is not okay.”
And that, it seemed, was all he was going to say on the matter. Hermione felt horrible in a way she never had before, in a way that she didn’t have time to dwell on just then.
“Miss… ah. A conundrum. What shall I call you while we talk? Calling you by a false name feels very wrong to me, I’ll admit."
Hermione had to resist telling him to call her ‘G’. Dumbledore gave her a thoughtful smile as he continued, saying, “Such an interesting issue to address… you know, the Golden Lady is good; it certainly seems to fit these fascinating scars you’ve acquired—oh yes, I have questions about those, as well as that horribly offensive one on your forearm—but I don’t know… personally, I’m not a fan. How about something else, but related? Such as… Deathly Golden?”
He smiled widely enough that Hermione could see it from the corner of her eye. “I do love a good anagram,” he murmured.
Hermione's already heavy heart felt like it sunk even deeper, vanishing into some dark abyss.
“No,” she said simply. She decided it was not worth it to pretend, to play whatever fucked up game Dumbledore was surely gearing up to play. He saw Hokey’s memories. He knew that she was close to Riddle, if also sometimes opposing him. He knew that she knew more than he did about his former-student than he did, and they were both aware that he wanted that information.
Dumbledore saw an opportunity to take Tom Riddle, the student he had always suspected committed murder in his school, down now. She would never give it to him.
“No?” Dumbledore repeated quietly. “I haven’t asked anything, Deathly Golden… you know, that doesn’t sound quite complete yet, either. But if we add to it… perhaps if we assumed we were working with the phrase, ‘I am the Golden Lady’, then we would have more options… ‘Deathly Golden I am’? Ah, forgive me, that’s not very creative… Maybe we should broaden our horizons? Start looking at other languages, such as French, perhaps…? That would be much more romantic—”
“Stop!” Hermione finally snapped, cutting him off. “Stop,” she repeated, more softly. “I won’t. I won’t tell you anything about him.”
Him. The ambiguous yet entirely known entity that was there in the room with them. Tom Marvolo Riddle—I am Lord Voldemort—was the shadow on the floor cast by the metal table, the glow of the shackles binding her wrists.
“I see,” Dumbledore said. “You are not even interested in hearing what I have to offer you in exchange?”
“No,” Hermione said, and she had never been more sure of anything in her life. “I’m not.”
Dumbledore didn’t waste more time questioning her. “Then I am afraid I will have to resort to more drastic measures,” he said. He lifted his wand a bit higher. “This is your last chance to willingly comply,” he warned.
Hermione’s fingers dragged across the table’s surface as she formed them into fists, shackled though they were. She looked right into his eyes, feeling bold, defiant, and more than a little feral.
“Do your worst,” she hissed.
Dumbledore smiled.
“Legilimens.”
Chapter 51: Rubiconem Suum
Chapter Text
Hermione fell into her mind, and she wasn’t alone. Dumbledore’s presence was noticeable but strangely muted, not nearly as obvious as she had expected. She instantly recognized this as a sign of his prowess.
He didn’t barge into her mind with violence nor brute strength… no, Dumbledore was swift, precise, and disarmingly gentle with his prying. He moved like a shadow across her thoughts; no, like a reflection, a translucent scattering of light that was just as impossible to grab hold of.
It made him a vastly more challenging opponent.
Albus Dumbledore is a genius and a true Master of the Mind Arts, Hermione thought bitterly. Surprise of the fucking century.
She used every single trick she knew.
The first line of defense when it came to occluding one’s thoughts was, naturally, forcing the intruder out. Hermione tried; she had to try. Dumbledore was more than prepared for that, casting off her attempts at ejection and flitting deeper into her subconsciousness. She would have to weaken him if she wanted to toss him out properly.
She moved on to shrouding.
Before he could call forth a single tangible memory, Hermione put everything she had into manifesting a thick, impenetrable haze. It shielded her thoughts like a dense fog, and for a moment, at least, Dumbledore could see nothing.
There was a glinting light and a flickering of emotion that certainly weren’t hers. Intrigued, but not surprised, not disappointed.
Then that light flashed brighter, and the fog began to lift.
No, Hermione thought, but he was too strong, his magic too bright, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep shrouding the entirety of her mind forever.
A new tactic.
She could feel exactly what memories he was searching for—currently, he was looking for her, the truth of who she was, where she came from, her name. Hermione consistently beat him there every time he seized something, and every time a new thought threatened to surface out of the shroud she continued to maintain she blurred it, both visually and audibly. She cast each nearly unearthed memory into a sea distorted, bleeding chaos, twisting them to resemble melting paintings that screamed.
She felt another flicker of Dumbledore’s emotions the first time she did that.
Delightful.
He found her… amusing.
Hermione was internally screaming, using every bit of mental stamina she had to simultaneously shroud as much of her mind as she could while also racing him to each memory he tried to drag out, obscuring it rapidly, and he was not only not irritated nor intimidated… he was amused.
No, it was worse. He was enjoying himself.
He was enjoying attempting to riffle through her thoughts like it was a filing cabinet, and the longer it went on, the more fun he seemed to be having. Hermione threw every previous notion she’d ever had of Albus Dumbledore out the window: only a monster could have so much fun forcing himself into someone else’s mind.
She wasn’t going to win.
She knew it and she was certain he did too; the amount of energy she needed to exude was far more than what he did. She felt a bit like a Keeper in a demented game of Quidditch, only she had to guard an endless amount of hoops from a quaffle that just wouldn’t stop coming.
Maybe it was because she’d thought the word Keeper; maybe it was because she was becoming too tired and she was starting to slip. Regardless, the next time Dumbledore struck, Hermione was not quite quick enough, and a memory began to form.
A memory that was from her true life, as her true self.
The room was dim, shrouded in darkness, but not even the darkest of nights could hide that red hair.
“Hermione...”
Hermione felt her stomach drop. Ron. That was Ron’s voice, and it was summer, the summer, the after-the-war summer, and they were in his room at the Burrow, the door closed, late at night, no one knowing she had snuck down the hall and no one had to know and he was kissing her—
The flash of a memory lasted only a second before Hermione abolished it, turning it into something oozing and indiscernible.
Dumbledore was still amused… and now, having finally gotten a glimpse into her memories, far more determined. The gentle light of his presence became wickedly sharp, and he struck like a razor through her shroud into the thoughts he wanted next.
He’s so fast, Hermione thought in a total panic. Was it simply his own prodigious talent with legilimency? Was it because he was also the Master of the Elder Wand? Hermione didn’t know, but it hardly mattered—his skill was unparalleled, and though she tried with all her might to stop him, attempting to grab hold of Dumbeldore’s intrusive magic was like trying to grab hold of a burning hot knife. He sliced right through her attempts, leaving her hissing in pain as he forced another memory to emerge.
Tom.
It was absurd, reliving it, because it felt just as surreal the second time around.
The memory Dumbledore pulled forth was not a shocking or damning one by any means—it was… the beginning, Hermione realized. He’d wanted to see the first time she had met Tom Riddle—or, at least, the first time she’d talked to him—and he’d found it.
“It won’t hurt you.”
Tom Riddle and his bottomless black eyes, gesturing towards a cloak of invisibility…
Hermione didn’t have a choice.
Dumbledore was starting here, but soon he would pull on the thread of memories related to Tom Riddle, and once he really got a foothold in her mind, he would be much harder to stop. Hermione was not surprised to come to this conclusion; she figured she would have to resort to drastic measures, but it was disheartening to learn just how quickly it needed to happen. Dumbledore’s reputation did not do him justice. His skill was unfathomable. If she were anyone else, he would eat her alive.
But she was not anyone else. She was the brightest witch of her age, and she was an Unspeakable. This was her duty.
Hermione exhaled, slowly… surrendering to the cold.
She’d done it so many times that it was second nature. Everything—her shrouded thoughts, the image of Tom and his smooth voice, the outline of Borgin and Burke’s in the background… it all darkened and grew very, very cold.
She was not in her mind. She was within arm’s reach of a creature that could suck out her soul with a kiss, if it wanted. But it didn’t want to, not as she was, because she was just as cold, just as dark and growing darker still, emptying, blackening, dissipating.
She was sinking deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper deeper deeper—
The flickering light grew brighter, alarmed; she felt the emotions even as she sunk further down into that gaping hole—she reached out with hands of biting ice, she reached, and she thought, for a moment, she felt it in her grasp—she tightened her hold with vicious intent—come down into my underworld with me—
But then the light burned too hot, scattered, and slipped through her fingers. Hermione fell alone.
The darkness was endless and cold as death.
Hermione never knew how long she stayed in such a state until she awoke, and waking did not always come easily. Sometimes it happened jarringly; she would be suddenly gasping for breath on the cushion to find Jackson smirking at her, only a few minutes having gone by. Other times she would wake up groggily, half her mind still asleep, feeling cold and uncertain where she was until Holloway was barking orders at her to get up.
Sometimes she went straight from that realm of darkness directly into the waking world, sometimes she didn’t.
Sometimes she dreamed.
Hermione shook the lingering cold away, and for as many times as she’d done that, it never got less disturbing. She rubbed her goose-bump covered arms and sat up, looking around at a place that was definitely not her cell, and was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
“This doesn’t feel… right,” she murmured. She was in some kind of grassy field. There were woods in the distance, it looked like, and even further she thought she saw a lake… a setting that was welcoming and yet not, and... it was sunset. That felt wrong. She knew it was supposed to be light out, not dark and getting darker, though how she knew this, she had no idea.
“That’s because it’s not.”
Hermione jumped at the sound. Behind her, sitting at a small, round table that looked very out of place, were two old women, each sipping tea from porcelain teacups. One Hermione did not recognize one at all, and the other…
“Is that… Bathilda Bagshot?”
She looked a bit like the witch Hermione had seen at the WAG gala, sitting with Dumbledore, except she was much older—she much more closely resembled the version Hermione knew from her timeline. Which was a grotesque thought, because she had been dead then, animated by dark magic and a snake.
She smiled—Hermione hoped she was not currently possessed by a serpent—and raised her teacup towards her.
Baffled, Hermione looked at the other woman. “Who are you?” she asked.
“No one special,” said the mystery woman, sipping her tea.
“I take it I’m too early?” said Bathilda—or Hermione’s bizarre subconscious that took the form of an old Bathilda Bagshot, as it likely was.
“Oh yes, much.”
They both hummed as though agreeing on something. Hermione frowned and pushed herself to her feet.
“Where am I?” Hermione asked.
The unknown woman smiled at her. “Ah, that is the question, isn’t it? I wish I could tell you, dear.” She sighed theatrically. “I wish I could give away all the answers.”
“…Are you implying you have all the answers?” Hermione asked.
“I suppose I am.”
Where are you?
Hermione turned, trying to find the source of a third, strangely muffled voice—but she saw no one else.
Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?
“Is that him?” asked Bathilda.
“Mmm,” said the other woman, nodding. “Relentless, that one.”
“I take it he’s too early, too?”
“Oh yes, much.” The unknown woman sipped her tea again, grinning. “Can’t give the game away so quickly… I do love a good fairy tale.”
Both old ladies laughed. Hermione felt a prickle of annoyance.
“Excuse me,” Hermione said, turning back around to interrupt their conversation. “But can you explain—”
Hermione stopped short when the woman she didn’t recognize raised her hand, the one which did not hold a teacup. She flicked her wrist in her direction, and—
Flowers.
Hermione yawned as she lazily spread her arms wide out on either side of her. She caught a stem in one hand and pulled on it, plucking something. She held it in front of her and grinned.
A small, sky-blue flower with five petals and a yellow center. “A forget-me-not,” she murmured.
She frowned when the shadow fell on her.
A boy.
He was such a pale little thing. His face broke out into a strange expression, like he was both relieved and anxious that he was there. Or maybe that she was there. That they both were there, perhaps.
He fell to his knees beside her. “Oh, thanks,” Hermione said absently, turning her attention back to the flower she’d picked. “You were blocking the sun.”
“Where are you?” the boy asked.
Hermione twirled the the tiny flower in her hand. “Forget-me-not, forget-me-not,” she said in a sing-song voice. “Forget… forget. Hm.”
The boy grabbed her wrist. Hermione stared at him. “Do I know you?” she asked. “This all seems… terribly familiar.”
“I need you to find out where you are,” the boy said. His hold on her wrist became very tight.
Hermione sat up, her eyes now level with the boy’s. “Well,” she said, “it looks to me like we’re in a garden.” She frowned, looking at the flowers. “No… not a garden. These are wild wild roses, aren’t they?” She tossed the forget-me-not aside to pluck one of the pink flowers instead. “The kind that… that thrive, and die, and thrive again, all on their own…”
“You have to know something,” the boy said, pulling on her. “You have to give me something, anything that will help me find you… please.”
Hermione blinked, then slowly looked away from the rose to stare at him again.
“Do I know you?” she asked, and her voice sounded strange. “This all seems… terribly familiar.”
A thunderous bang caused Hermione to wake with a start.
“I want to talk to her!” came a woman’s furious voice, echoing somewhere outside the room. Hermione looked up and saw that the door to her cell, which had always been closed before, was ajar.
“Ma’am, we implore you—”
“I don’t care what you implore! You can implore your wand arms right up your arses! I want to talk to her, I am owed that, I demand—get your hands off of me!”
Another thunderous bang. Hermione felt a thrill of a dozen different emotions, because she knew that voice.
“Get out of my way—get—out—!”
The door to her cell burst all the way open. Hermione stared, wide-eyed, into the face of Hepzibah Smith.
Her no-longer fake aunt’s expression went from red and ferocious to pale and cold in an instant. Three different wizards whom Hermione did not know but assumed must be aurors surrounded her, but seemed momentarily frozen. For as much as they must have been attempting to stop Hepzibah from barging into Hermione’s cell seconds before, they quickly backed away now that she’d made it there.
Hepzibah looked at Hermione in silent shock. Her eyes darted around her shackled wrists and her golden scars before they settled on her face.
There was only one word to describe Hepzibah’s expression: heartbroken.
“So it’s all true,” Hepzibah said softly. “Everything Albus said.”
“Hepzibah,” Hermione said, her voice cracking. “Hepzibah, please, I can explain, I—”
“How could you?” Hepzibah asked, interrupting. Her broken expression didn’t change.
One of the aurors placed his hand delicately on Hepzibah’s shoulder. “Ma’am, you really shouldn’t—”
“Move your hand or I will curse it off!” Hepzibah shrieked, and Hermione saw that she had her own wand drawn, though it was held at her side. It emitted some nasty looking red sparks when Hepzibah shouted. The auror, to Hermione’s surprise, did as she said, looking both resigned and a bit afraid of her.
Hepzibah returned her focus to Hermione. “How could you?” she asked again, more forcefully.
“I-I had to,” Hermione stuttered, and it hit her suddenly how cold she was. How long had she been in this cell, strapped to this chair and shackled to a table? How long had it been since she’d eaten or drank water or moved? “I had to, Hepzibah, I did it to protect you, to—”
“Protect me!” Hepzibah shouted incredulously. “I have been protecting myself all my life, from people like you! I didn’t need protection—not until you came along and outdid every other monster who ever tried to use me for my gold. But you managed it. You used me.”
Hermione shook her head, trying not to let her emotions overwhelm her. “You’re right,” she said. “You’re right, I did. I did use you. I needed money and connections, but I also needed a home. I needed a friend, I needed…”
Her voice broke again, and she was openly crying now, her vision blurring. She couldn’t wipe the tears away with her wrists bound. “I needed a family,” she said. “I could have just used you for your gold and your name, but I didn’t. I stayed with you and Hokey because I needed you.”
Hepzibah’s eyes became glassy. “It was all lies,” she said. “All of it. I never had a sister. I never had a niece. You… you made all of it up, and I believed everything. I wanted to believe everything.”
“Hepzibah, please I—”
“But that’s not the worst thing you did,” Hepzibah said, ignoring her pleas and cutting her off again. “No, the worst thing you did, much worse than the lies… is that you let me love you.”
Hepzibah swallowed so hard Hermione could hear it. She looked like she might start screaming and throwing curses; her hand tightened on her wand. “How could you?” she said again, much softer than before, yet infinitely more accusatory.
“Hepzibah, please, I never meant to hurt you, I swear—I’m sorry, I’m—wait!”
Hepzibah turned away the moment she apologized, passing back through the door of Hermione’s cell. “Wait! Hepzibah!” Hermione screamed, but she was already marching past the disgruntled aurors.
“Hepzibah! Please—I’m sorry, I do love you, I love you, I’m sorry—please!”
Hepzibah didn’t answer and she didn’t come back. One of the aurors shook his head at her condescendingly before shutting the door, leaving Hermione alone in her cell. Her head fell onto the table, and she sobbed.
She didn’t know how much time passed.
Hermione had no idea how long she cried, having done so until she was no longer able, let alone how long she’d been in this cell in the first place. Had it been only hours? A day, two days? Longer?
It was impossible to tell, seeing as she’d been unconscious for much of her imprisonment. She did not think that much time had passed, because she hadn’t needed to push herself too deeply into her darkest subconscious. Dumbledore had sensed what she was doing pretty quickly, even if he didn’t fully understand it, and had not been foolish enough to stick around. He’d released his hold on her mind, and so Hermione did not think she’d been trapped in her own darkness too long.
But he would be back.
Hermione had no doubts that Dumbledore would return, that he was not yet through with her. He’s probably plotting his next move right now, she thought bitterly. Hermione shifted, adjusting as much as she could given her constraints, but she kept her head resting on the table. She didn’t have the energy to lift it. I bet all of this is part of his plan. He probably told them to let Hepzibah in like that, all dramatic. To let her see me and talk to me… to make me feel awful.
Well, if that was his intention, it had worked. Hermione felt as guilty as she surely was, and there was nothing at all she could do about it.
She imagined that leaving her here, alone, was a part of whatever interrogation tactic he was brewing up, too. The cell was quiet, cold, and miserable. Hermione’s skin pricked in the chilly air; they’d taken her outer robe when they had taken her ring and wand. Hermione had little to distract herself from her gnawing remorse.
She settled for doing what she did best: theorizing.
Her scars. The Time-Turner; the time-sand. The possibility of a curse.
Merope.
Hermione peered through her lashes at the golden lines, moving her body as little as possible. She was aware that they may be watching her, even if she was not altogether certain who they were. Dumbledore, probably. The Minister? Probably not, as she may still recovering. Madison? The American aurors, Liam? Maybe, if they hadn’t been kicked out of Britain already… Hermione would not be surprised if they had been; Dumbledore had said they were scheduling a trial for her here, in Britain…
I am your best shot.
Hermione hoped they had not been, but then again—what did it matter? Lester Madison and the might of the MACUSA could not touch her here.
Unless they want to cause tension with wizarding Britain, Hermione mused darkly. Wouldn’t that be something? Having broken a number of laws to time-travel because she had been hoping to undo one terrible, devastating war… just to instead create another, immediately international one. Draco would be so disappointed.
And it would be all because of you, Hermione thought, staring at the golden loops that covered the entirety of her arm—save for the small area surrounding the word mudblood. All because of my mysterious, cursed blood…
Curses…
Hermione wondered if, perhaps, she had been thinking about them all wrong. She knew about curses and how they fundamentally worked; she knew they had a specific arc they needed to complete, and that they only dissipated when that was fulfilled or if a counter-curse was cast…
And she knew why she had been thinking about the Time-Turner curse the way she had all this time—because how could she not? She had never heard of a curse that healed anyone before; she had only heard of the dark, damning kind, the sort that either hurt, or, more often than not, killed… like the curse the Dumbledore from her time had obtained, blackening his hand and poisoning his body…
She’d never so much as read about a curse that continuously saved someone…
Merope.
It all came down to Merope Gaunt, the one who struck her with this curse, as it was her magic, her intention…
And that’s where Hermione thought she might have been looking at it wrong.
She assumed that Merope had seen her—Hermione, a mysterious woman in her most desperate time of need—and that when Hermione had raised her wand, about to utter the killing curse, Merope had instantly intended to kill her instead. That her thoughts, when she’d slammed the time-turner into her throat, had been, Die witch, die.
Because that was what she, Hermione, would have thought. Because she, Hermione, knew that she had it in her to murder when she thought it justified.
But Merope Gaunt was not Hermione Granger.
Hermione closed her eyes and tried, in as unbiased a manner as she possibly could… to understand Merope.
What did she know about the woman? Irrevocably, with facts—not assumptions made by people like Dumbledore?
What did she know?
Not a lot, Hermione realized. That she was poor, that she was ugly. That she was the only witch living in a disgusting house with men who degraded and abused her.
That she was in love with the beautiful muggle man who lived in a manor not far away.
Or was infatuated with, at least, Hermione corrected. Merope probably saw that handsome man with his beautiful, lavish life and saw everything she ever wanted. He was a fantasy, and he was right there, within arm’s reach.
…Did she brew a love potion?
Maybe, Hermione thought, but also… maybe not. Love potions were not easy to brew, and the ingredients were expensive… Had Merope found a way? Had she been capable…?
The more Hermione thought about it, the less likely it seemed… They said her abilities were hardly more than a squib’s, and brewing proper love potions required a great deal of skill and magic…
Could Tom Riddle Sr. have run off with her of his own volition? Hermione had never considered that seriously before, but… well, was it that crazy a thought?
Maybe he did it as a cruel joke, or out of spite, Hermione pondered. Maybe he had a falling out with his parents and decided to do something rebellious to get back at them… that running off with that Gaunt girl would be the perfect revenge, the biggest scandal Little Hangleton had ever seen… and then, when he’d gotten her pregnant, realized he’d gone too far and so he abandoned her…
Truthfully, that also sounded highly unlikely.
Maybe she used a love potion, maybe she didn’t. Hermione supposed that didn’t matter too much for the purposes of her predicament; what mattered more was what Merope did afterwards. Or didn’t do, rather.
She let him go.
If she had used a love potion and suddenly stopped or if there had never been one–either way, Merope let Riddle Sr. go. She could have gone after him; should have, probably, if for no other reason than to get Riddle’s parents to pay her for her silence… surely they would have given her a great deal of money to keep her child a secret, to hide that family shame…?
It didn’t matter. Merope did not chase after the man she was convinced she loved, the father of her child. She did not attempt to poison him again, to blackmail him, or to seek vengeance.
She just let him go.
And then… she survived.
Merope struggled, selling what little she had, and lived. Heartbroken and depressed, she must have been, but… she went on.
For her unborn child.
Hermione tried to see the world as Merope must have then. To be so miserable, so alone… every single breath she drew must have been an effort, but she’d done it, she’d stayed alive until her child could be born…
Her baby, that was her driving force those many sad, horrible months after Riddle Sr. left… protecting her baby…
I must protect my child.
That was what she was thinking when she went into labor, when she was looking for help, headed towards the orphanage…
I must protect my child.
When she had come across Hermione, when she had realized she was a witch… that she and her baby were in danger…
I must protect my child.
When she had grabbed the time-turner on Hermione’s neck and, in a flash of magic, struck…
I must protect my child.
Protect my child.
Protect my child.
Protect my child.
…Hermione opened her eyes, looking at the scars. They glinted back at her in the dim light of the cell.
Maybe…
Protect my child.
Perhaps that was the arc of this curse, the projection, the intention. It was not slowly killing her, it was slowly saving her… so that she could protect Merope’s son. Perhaps it wasn’t driven by dark magic after all… but love.
It wouldn’t be the first time Hermione had heard of the ancient, magical power of a mother’s love.
This possibility made Hermione’s heart ache in an unfathomable way. What if that was true? What if she was being compelled to want to protect Tom Riddle, and the Time-Turner magic driven by Merope’s curse was healing her so that she could do so?
It was insane, it was impossible, it was…
Possible.
And… that would certainly explain a lot of the more questionable choices she’d made.
Is that why I never even considered destroying the diary? Hermione wondered. Is that why I never even tried to destroy the ring? Why I wrote to the young version of Tom, why I hid them in a place where no one—not Dumbledore in the future, not even Tom himself—will find them? Where they will always be safe?
Have I been thinking I’ve been an autonomous, clever witch playing this game against Tom Riddle, when in actuality I’ve been driven to only make choices that serve to bring me closer to him, to endear myself to him, to protect him?
Hermione dwelled on that, thinking of everything she’d done thus far… No, she thought, I definitely tried to hurt him when we dueled in Knockturn…
Did I, though? she asked herself. Sure, I gave it my all, and I threw more than a few dark curses at him…
But Hermione knew, without a doubt, that if she’d actually succeeded at striking him with something powerful—and she’d never really thought she would—that she would have stopped the duel. Instantly. That duel had just been… well, flirting, for them, as insane as that was. Destructive and chaotic flirting.
For as many times as Hermione had told herself she’d be Riddle’s end, her actions did not back up that claim.
Even when she went to New York… even when she’d left the country, telling herself over and over that he wasn’t coming, that she didn’t care, that she needed to move on and make a new life for herself already, to commit to it… She never really had, not in her heart…
Maybe Merope’s curse was doing something very different to her than she’d initially thought.
Protect my child.
…Or maybe I’m just rationalizing all my stupid choices, and the fact that I… against all logic, despite everything I set out to do… have fallen in love.
With Tom Marvolo Riddle.
With Lord Voldemort.
Hermione turned her wrist as much as the shackles would allow. The lines went down to her fingertips, but she could not see how far they had spread elsewhere. Did they cover most of her face, now? Did they go past her hips, were they yet on her thighs?
What would happen once they covered her whole body? When this curse, whatever drove it, completed its arc?
What was its arc…?
Hermione inhaled a deep breath. She didn’t know. She didn’t know, and she couldn’t possibly know, no matter how long she dwelled on it—not while she was stuck here, anyway. And if she never made it out of this, if she wound up tossed in Azkaban for life or worse, kissed…
Then she never would.
Perhaps an hour passed before the door once more swung open.
Hermione had been staring hard at her golden scars, trying not to think about any number of things—how chilly it was, how much her body was starting to ache, how thirsty she was getting—when a light from the hall outside spilled into her cell, illuminating a familiar figure.
“You?” Hermione asked, too initially shocked to say anything else.
Liam smiled, but it was not warm. “Me,” he said. He kicked the door closed behind him. “Don’t you look cozy… the shackles suit you almost as much as that hair.”
He laughed. “Now that was funny. Abbot, I think was his name? He refused to let us move you until he cleared every last trace of magic off you, even the one he suspected was a mere beauty charm on your hair… took him a good minute, but man. None of us expected that mane to burst to life.”
Hermione glowered at him, hating that she could feel her face warming. “Happy to provide some comic relief,” she seethed. “Did they send you in on purpose, or did you secretly sneak in just to taunt me?”
“I was sent, not that anyone owes you any explanations,” Liam drawled.
“…Why?” Hermione asked. “I somehow don’t think anyone suspects you may be a better Legilimens than Albus Dumbledore.”
Liam ignored her and sat, taking the seat on the other side of the table. He leaned back, looking far too comfortable, and pulled out a cigarette. He lit it with the tip of his finger, then inhaled deeply, slowly. Hermione thought about making some comment—something inappropriate and stupid, surely, referencing his apparent fireproof qualities—but held her tongue and only watched him warily.
He didn’t seem upset that she had hit him with a fiery curse… which was, of course, extremely suspicious. Even if it hadn’t wounded him that badly.
“…Not going to ask if I mind?” Hermione eventually grumbled as he exhaled, seemingly content to smoke in silence.
“I know you don’t,” he responded airily. He took another drag.
Hermione had no idea what to make of this. The Americans were still here, then… but why on God’s green earth would they let Liam come to accost her…? Surely Dumbledore hadn’t already given up questioning her himself?
She lost her patience. “What are you doing here, Liam?” she asked, still watching him closely.
“I’m here to interrogate you, of course… and hopefully talk some sense into you.”
Hermione scoffed. “Oh, please,” she sneered. “Do try.”
He only smiled at her condescending tone. Liam pulled out his wand and conjured up a glass ashtray, where he then ashed his cigarette before saying, “Where did you go so wrong?”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah, okay, that’s a pretty vague question… but I don’t mean it in the way you probably think. You went wrong a long time ago, obviously, when you thought it was fine to invade people’s minds and manipulate their memories, then lie to the world… No, I mean, after that. You were doing well. You’d managed to lie your way into a lavish, privileged life in New York; you had people who cared for you, a home, money, a future career with the MACUSA… why did you go and throw that all away by returning to Britain?”
He took another drag, the tip of his cigarette glowing red. He exhaled, then murmured, “Why did you have to leave?”
He looked, for a moment, sad. Honestly upset.
“You sound like Madison,” Hermione mumbled.
His somber expression vanished. “Madison was mad that you slipped through his fingers as a potential auror,” he said. “Strictly work related. We were friends. At least, I thought we were. I cared for you—genuinely. We all did. Even if you never cared for any of us, we cared for you.”
Hermione felt a twinge of guilt. “I cared for you too,” she said, and she meant it. “For Denise, for Peggy… for Walt.”
She felt a much larger rush of guilt then. God, she was going to drown in it when this was all said and done. “I didn’t mean for him to lose his job. I didn’t mean… I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Losing his job is the least of the pain you’ve caused him,” Liam spat, and Hermione knew that was probably true. Walter likely felt as horrible and used as Hepzibah did.
“But… it’s not over.”
Liam’s voice softened. “It doesn’t have to be. Madison is doing his best out there, trying to make some sort of deal on your behalf…”
Hermione couldn’t help it—she laughed. “And good luck to him,” she said. “There’s not a chance in hell that the Ministry is going to hand me over to the MACUSA. Not after everything I’ve done here. Dumbledore said they’re already setting up my trial and everything.”
“Maybe not,” Liam said. He took another drag of his cigarette, then put it out. “But... maybe. Madison’s been talking with Dumbledore… and it seems that Dumbledore has almost as much power as the Minister over here. And seeing as the Minister of Magic herself is currently recovering in the hospital, unconscious…”
“Unconscious?” Hermione asked. “For how long? How long have I been here?”
“Let’s see… from the time we left that field to now, it’s been about…” He checked his watch. “Almost fourteen hours. The Minister has been out this whole time; they had to put her out while her bones and a few organs regrow… Yeah. You really fucked her up with that curse of yours.”
Hermione felt another wave of guilt, but decided that asking for details about the Minister of Magic’s healing was unwise (not to mention her son and this Alex person; she didn’t want to know).
“But not you,” she said instead, looking pointedly at Liam’s body, which looked perfectly fine.
“No,” Liam agreed. “You’d have to do much better than that to fuck me up.”
He smiled wider, his sea-glass eyes glimmering, and Hermione felt a blush burning on her face. Her pulse picked up, and she felt...
Flustered. She felt flustered.
She didn’t have time to be alarmed by that. Liam leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table, staring at her with a much more serious expression. His eyes were… mesmerizing. They were, weren’t they? Blue with specks of green…
“Dumbledore might agree to convince the Minister into letting you come back with us… if you talk. He wants information; apparently, you know things about someone that he finds very, very important. Give it to us—tell us what he wants to know… and he’ll help you. We’ll all help you.”
He put his hand over hers, and his skin was so warm. It was bizarre, what such a small touch was doing to her—it felt unnaturally intimate.
Because this is unnatural, said some small, logical voice in the back of her mind. Because he is part-Veela, and Madison knows that now because you told him, and that’s why they’ve let him come talk to you, because he—
“Hermione,” Liam said, and his voice had lowered an octave, and the sound did something to her.
Hermione was certain, then, that Liam had never really tried to seduce her before, because while she’d been mildly starry-eyed in his presence on occasion, it had felt nothing like this. She felt hot, she felt like she was buzzing and a little floaty, she felt…
Wrong.
“Hermione, please,” he went on. His hand slid up her forearm, past the glowing shackle. His fingers covered the mudblood scar; they traced one of the golden tendrils. “Please do what I say. It will be easy; I can just pull the memories we need out, I don’t even have to use legilimency…”
He reached into his pocket with his other hand, pulling out a glass vial. He set it on the table. This is what he was instructed to do, Hermione realized numbly. He was told not to try to invade my thoughts—because he was probably not a Legilimens, Hermione would undoubtedly beat him there, and, she imagined, because Dumbledore wanted these memories all to himself.
Seduce her. Use your part-creature charm. Collect the memories. Bring them to me.
Then, maybe, you can have her.
It was as horrifying as it was brilliant, because there was nothing Hermione could think of to do to resist it. This was not a potion like Veritaserum or even Amortentia that she could potentially use her Occlumency skills to work around. This was creature magic, and it was foreign to her. This was exactly why Walter had told her to simply avoid him; why the only ‘pointers’ he’d given her were to not be alone with him for long unless in a very public space and to avoid looking into his eyes.
She couldn’t stop looking into his eyes, now.
“Memories…” Hermione repeated. “Memories… can be wrong.”
“He wants them anyway,” Liam said. “He doesn’t think they’ll be wrong… but he doesn’t need much, just evidence… you can give him that, Hermione. You can do the right thing.”
The right thing. What was the right thing…?
“I know why you left,” Liam went on, and he looked so hurt, and it bothered her immensely that he should be unhappy with her. “You left because of him, this Riddle guy that Dumbledore is suspicious of… he’s not worth it, Hermione. He’s obviously not a good person, if someone like Albus Dumbledore thinks as much. I could tell too, just being around him once… he’s off. We just need some evidence…”
With one hand, he continued to trace the loops along her skin. With the other, he retracted his wand.
“All you have to do is let me,” Liam said softly. “You just have to let those thoughts, those memories of him, loose, and I’ll take them… then we can get you out of here…”
He lifted his wand, moving it slowly towards her, but Hermione still could not look away from his eyes. The longer she looked, the more green she saw… They were so pretty...
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
“I… I don’t want to,” Hermione managed to say. She tried to jerk her hand away from his, but of course, she could barely move it. “I don’t…”
“Here.”
In a flash of magic, the shackles flew open and released her wrists. Hermione held them to her chest, rubbing them and sighing with relief.
Her eyes stayed on Liam’s the entire time.
“Is that better?” he asked.
Hermione nodded.
“You poor thing,” he said. Liam stood, still holding his wand as he came around her side of the table, keeping his eyes locked on hers. “You’ve been chained to this thing for so long… you must hurt everywhere.”
Liam loomed over her. He put one hand under her chin, gently lifting her face. His touch made her whole body burn in a lovely and, she knew, somewhere, terrible way. “Get up,” he commanded softly.
She did. Hermione stood like she was in a trance—because I am, I am—and once she was on her feet she found herself shifting closer, craving the heat of him, wanting to feel his chest against hers…
“Let me help you,” he murmured. He began tracing a pattern on her cheek. His skin on hers felt good, too good, electric. “Let me take these memories, Hermione… I’ll do whatever you like, if you help me to help you…”
His eyes flickered down to her lips. Those words and that slight action had a great effect on her; now all she could think about was what his lips would feel like, if they were pressed against hers.
He smiled as though he knew exactly what she was thinking. “I’ve been wondering what it would be like,” he said, and he was guiding her backwards, moving her until her back collided with the wall of the cell. “How it would feel to have you like this… you would never let me get close…”
One hand curled around her neck. His face lowered, closer to hers, and though she felt it—the feeling of a wooden wand tip pressed to her temple; the damning knowledge of what he was going to try and do—it didn’t bother her. His eyes. His lips. There was no room for anything else.
“You… have?” Hermione gasped, because it seemed unreal, suddenly, that someone as stunningly handsome as Liam would ever even look at someone like her. He was as warm and bright as the sun, and she wanted nothing but to lean into his heat.
She laughed breathily at that thought. “You’re like Apollo,” she said, because he did look a little like some of the many paintings she’d seen of the sun God, and that was amusing to her.
He smiled, too—it was mind-numbing. “Am I?” he purred. “Does that mean you’ll do what I say? Will you let me save you so we can take you home...?” He leaned forward a bit more; his breath was warm in her face, his lips less than an inch from her own.
“Save me?” Hermione parroted back, feeling dazed.
“Save you,” he whispered. “I want to, Hermione… let me. Let me.”
Wrong wrong wrong.
It felt like the rational, human part of her brain had been locked in a tiny box and muffled. She knew, she knew this was wrong, that she didn’t want his ‘help’, that he was entrancing her so that he could take whatever he wanted while she was unable and unwilling to put up a fight—
She knew that her only hope was to do exactly what she’d done against Dumbledore—to cast the Rubiconem Suum… but she’d only ever done that while actively practicing Occlumency, while being attacked or attacking back, mentally… she’d never done it on command like this, and certainly not while being—
“Please,” Liam said, begging in a soft, feathery voice. The sound wiped all of Hermione’s troubled thoughts aside as though they were little more than spider webs. “Please, Hermione… Let me… let me kiss you…”
Hermione laughed again—a nervous, high-pitched giggle that did not sound like her. Being influenced like this was like being on drugs. “If you kiss Persephone,” she said. “you’ll make Hades mad.”
Liam let out a short laugh of his own. “I’m not worried,” he said, then lowered his curved, smiling mouth.
Liam’s lips were softer and warmer than she ever could have imagined. Hermione’s body melted; he caught her around the waist and held her up and Hermione’s hands wound around his neck, pulling him closer—
Wrong wrong wrong.
His tongue was ghosting over the seam of her lips and there was a wand on her temple and magic that was very unlike the entrancing spell of Liam, but it wasn’t important because the only thing that mattered was the way her own lips were parting, and—
"It won’t bite."
That was… Tom’s voice…
"What is it?"
"Something fascinating."
No—no, no, no—
Protect, protect—
Seeing a flash of Tom’s dark eyes made Hermione feel a rush of cold, and it was, for a moment, sobering. Liam was entrancing her and kissing her and attempting to steal her memories—
Oh, she would ruin him.
Hermione seized on the icy wave of clarity that the memory of Tom afforded her, letting it pull her into a much more familiar, cold place. She did not question her ability to do it, not any longer—she knew she would, because she didn’t have another choice.
Protect, protect, protect—
Fueled by rage and furious determination, Hermione grabbed hold of Liam’s face and, to his shock, deepened their kiss in a sudden, fierce way. His hold on his wand slackened. I’ll make you rue the day you thought you could fuck with me like this, she thought savagely.
Because it wasn’t just Liam, she knew—he’d been put up to it, but it was undoubtedly Madison and Dumbledore’s idea, their cruel plot. Madison wanted Hermione and Dumbledore wanted Tom and this way everyone could get what they wanted. She would make them all regret it. She would make Dumbledore wish he’d never called her Deathly Golden.
The vision of Tom vanished, but the cold remained. Liam’s eyes flew open in alarm. He must have felt that frigid wave of her magic. Hermione, unflinchingly, struck.
She twisted Liam’s wand around in his grasp and said, ‘Legilimens.’
It was easy.
Liam was not a complete novice at the Mind Arts, but he was no Albus Dumbledore. Hermione pierced into his deepest thoughts with relative ease.
Show me your heart, she thought viciously. Show me your deepest, most sacred self.
Flashes. Hermione saw fleeting images of a young, teenage boy, shaking on the ground. Get up, someone was shouting at him. Get up, they already paid—
Liam’s horrified and furious emotions at what she was doing assaulted her, but Hermione ignored them, as well as the memory she’d unearthed. She wasn’t here to witness his darkest recollections. She was here to sink her claws in.
In his mind, Hermione wrapped her icy magic all around him, in those delicate, deeply buried thoughts.
In reality, she dug her nails into his face, dragging them along his cheek.
Hermione clung to that cold and when she plunged herself down, down, down, she dragged Liam with her.
Chapter 52: Interlude III
Chapter Text
He would kill them.
He would kill them all.
Chapter 53: Cold
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
They fell.
He stopped struggling on the way down; they always did. It was how the curse worked—they had already passed the point of no return. Liam’s soul was cold against hers.
Down, down, down.
It was tempting to keep going.
How far could she drag them? She’d never tried to go too far into the darkness, especially not when she had Jackson or, the one time she’d managed it, Holloway in her grasp. She’d always revelled in that success just long enough to end the curse, and they would all be waking up minutes later.
She tried now.
Down, down, down.
It wasn’t like she expected it to be. The further down they went, the easier it was to keep going. Holloway had said that’s what it would be like, but it still shocked her with how effortless it was.
The hard part is over, once you’ve stated to drift. The descent… is easy.
It was. It felt like that dark black void was beckoning, calling. Come deeper.
Sleep.
But Hermione was not done fighting.
Only a little begrudgingly, she released her hold on Liam, stopping the plummeting nature of the curse. If she’d done it right—and she was certain she had—he would be trapped in unconsciousness for a long time, too. Maybe even as long as she was. Maybe even longer.
They might think we’re both dead when they first find us, Hermione thought. At least for a moment, before they realized Hermione had done to Liam what she’d already shown she was capable of doing to herself. Dumbledore would figure that out quickly enough. He would recall how she’d reached for him before, but had failed.
I didn’t fail this time.
Liam drifted off into his abyss, and Hermione, feeling satisfied and numbingly cold, fell into hers.
Flowers.
Hermione shivered, grateful for the heat of the sun. She rubbed her hands along the length of her arms. “Brrrr!” she shouted theatrically, shaking her head. “Thank you, sunshine, I—do you mind?”
A boy. Skinny, pale as death. He looked upset. He was blocking the sun.
“There you are,” he said, his face relaxing with relief—but only for a moment. “I don’t understand. You’re always asleep, but I can’t always reach you. Why can’t I always reach you?”
His gaze went out of focus, despite his eyes staying on her face. “Why are you always asleep?”
“Ah. Well,” Hermione began as she sat up. She patted the patch of grass beside her; a few white butterflies scattered and flew away. “I can explain that, but I’ll only do it if you get out of the sun and sit.”
She laughed when his eyes flashed with anger. “Just tell me,” he demanded.
“Just sit!”
“There may not be time to—”
“There’d be more time, if you’d stop wasting it being all moody and would sit down already.”
Looking quite bitter about it, the boy did, taking a spot beside her. “That’s better,” Hermione said. She smiled into the sunshine.
“Why are you always unconscious?” the boy asked. “And so… untouchable, most of the time? You shouldn’t be. I should be able to find you easily by now. Tell me.”
“That’s because I’m clever.” Hermione leaned closer to him, and in a conspiratorial whisper, said, “I keep going to my hiding place.”
She sat up straight again. She giggled when he looked confused. “Your hiding place…?”
“Yes,” Hermione said, nodding. She plucked a wild rose from the ground and twirled it in her hand. “It’s where the bad men can’t get me.”
"The bad men?"
"The bad men."
“Are… the bad men hurting you?”
Hermione snorted. “Well they sure are trying! But it’s okay, I have my hiding place, like I said. It’s not nearly as nice as this, though. No flowers there!” She waved the wild rose in his face. The boy was clearly not amused.
Unbothered, Hermione started playing with the petals. He loves me, she thought as she pulled one off. It fell to the ground.
“What have you told these… bad men?”
“That they can kiss my arse, more or less,” Hermione muttered. She pulled off another petal. He loves me not…
“You haven’t told them anything? Let them see… anything?”
“No, I haven’t, that’s what my hiding place is for, weren’t you listening?” Hermione huffed. He loves me…
The boy grabbed her hand just as she was about to pull the next petal. “I need you to focus, Hermione,” he said, and he sounded so authoritative for someone so small. “Have they said anything, done anything that may have given you even a hint as to where you might be?”
The world felt a little colder. Crisp, unwanted clarity tugged at the edges of her mind. The boy’s eyes were dark, endless, and haunting.
Focus.
“An undisclosed location,” Hermione murmured, repeating someone else’s words. She shook her head. “No. They haven’t said anything. I have no idea where I am. None at all.”
His expression broke. He released her wrist as though it had burned her, then buried his face in his hands miserably. Now he looked like the child he was.
“Do you need a hug?” Hermione asked. Then, realizing she already knew the answer, she said, “Yes, you do,” and she encircled him round the shoulders with both arms.
The boy’s body went rigid for a moment, but then she knew she’d done the right thing because all at once he crumpled against her. He hugged her back, fiercely tight. He turned his face towards her where it was promptly lost in her hair.
“That’s better,” Hermione said. She patted his head, then turned her focus back to the flower. He loves me not…
“I hate this,” the boy said, clinging to her more tightly. “I hate not knowing; I hate that this… hurts.” His fingers dug sharply into her sides, almost painful. “I hate that I should hate you, I should only be mad, furious… but I’m not only mad. I…”
He buried his face further against her. “I hate that you made me care about you,” he said, his words muffled in her hair.
Hermione paused before plucking the last petal. “Oh, dear. You sound like Hepzibah,” she lamented. “You poor thing.”
The boy freed himself from her curls to look at her. “Hepzibah?” he asked. “You’ve spoken to Hepzibah, where you are?”
“Got yelled at by her, more like,” Hermione grumbled. “Not that I can blame her. I’d be mad, too… She was so upset. Said she was hurt because I made her love me…”
Hermione sighed heavily. “I am a wicked, wicked witch. And soon everyone will know it!”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m going to have a trial,” Hermione admitted. “And I don’t imagine someone like Dumbledore would be wrong about that. Won’t that be dramatic… and ugh, so embarrassing.”
“A trial,” the boy echoed, but he did not look nearly as despairing as Hermione felt. “Dumbledore says they’re arranging a trial for you… so he’s still where you are…
“I wish he wasn’t,” Hermione said idly.
The boy didn’t seem to hear her. He looked lost in his own thoughts as he murmured, “Someone at the Ministry, someone else will know something… and Hepzibah…”
He untangled his arms from her waist and pushed himself up. “Thank you,” he said. He put both hands on her face, staring down at her with an intensity that no child should rightfully possess.
“The bad men will pay,” he promised.
Then he placed a chaste kiss on her forehead, and in the blink of an eye, he was gone.
Huh, Hermione thought. What a strange little bird. She pulled the last petal from her rose.
He loves me.
Smiling, she tossed it into the breeze.
Hermione opened her eyes to find that she was on the floor of her cell, alone.
She sat up and wrapped her arms around herself. Was it that much colder in this room now, or was she merely feeling the repercussions of her latest mental curse? How long had she been out? Where was Liam?
How much longer would they leave her in here before interrogating her again?
She didn’t have to wait long, which confirmed for her that she was, indeed, being closely monitored. Hermione had barely begun to pace the small room before the door opened again, and Albus Dumbledore once more graced her with his presence.
“Good morning,” he said, greeting her as though she’d just woken from a nice nap. He didn’t have his wand raised, which Hermione thought was an interesting choice. He sat on the other side of the table which she was no longer chained to and folded his hands on the surface. “Please, sit.”
Hermione stared at him in disbelief. “I’d rather stand, thank you,” she said, matching his irrational, conversational tone.
“I would prefer that you sit,” Dumbledore said. “I could, of course, force you, and I will if I must… but I would rather not, and I’m sure you would rather I not as well. So.”
He gestured towards the empty chair on her side of the table. “Sit.”
Hermione didn’t move. “I don’t fancy being chained up,” she said.
“You won’t be.”
“How do I know you’re not lying? I imagine the second I get too close to those shackles, they’ll hold me down again.”
“They won’t. I have nothing to gain from lying to you… but this is the last time I’ll ask you to do as I say.”
Hermione glared, resisting the urge to point out that he hadn’t technically asked her to do anything. She unhappily took the seat across from him. Thankfully, the chains did not spring to life and snatch her wrists as she’d feared they might.
“Thank you,” Dumbledore said. “Here.”
He pulled out his wand (Hermione nearly jumped right back out of the chair), and in a quick flash of magic, conjured up a glass goblet full of water. “I imagine you must be thirsty,” he said as he set it before her. “You have been in your peculiar, magically-induced comatose state for nearly a full twenty-four hours. Most fascinating, truly.”
Hermione’s first reaction was pride—a whole day! That was a good one—followed immediately by a fierce sense of thirst. She stared at the water and realized how badly her throat ached. “As though I would drink anything you’d offer me,” she said, despite this.
“A hesitancy that hardly surprises me,” said Dumbledore. “However, I would be foolish to think, at this point, that someone with your obvious skills would fall prey to Veritaserum or any other mind-altering potion.”
“Maybe you just want to poison me and be done with it,” Hermione muttered.
“I think you know very well that I do not.” Dumbledore leaned forward a little, smiling pleasantly. “If I’d wanted to kill you, I would have had ample opportunity.”
Which she knew was true, but Hermione still didn’t trust it. She stared at the water warily. Of course she could fight off the effects of Veritaserum; she would have been a poor Unspeakable and Occlumens if she couldn’t. But if it was a love potion? Something else? Could she fall back into the untouchable abyss of her mind again if she needed to, if she were influenced in other ways, before saying something she regretted?
It wasn’t like these wizards were above such tactics.
“I’ll pass,” Hermione said, ignoring her dry lips and pained throat.
Dumbledore merely shrugged. “It’s your choice, of course,” he said. “Regardless… we have things to discuss.”
“Do we now? Do we really?” Hermione drawled. Her anger at what they’d done to her began to rear its ugly head. “How’s Liam doing?” she asked sardonically.
Dumbledore’s face betrayed no emotion when he said, “He’s physically fine. We managed to rouse him a few hours ago… though the altercation left him quite shaken.”
“My heart bleeds for him,” Hermione said scathingly.
“Yes, I am sure that it does.”
He smirked as though he found her anger endearing. Hermione had never wanted to slap someone so badly before.
“That was barbaric,” she hissed. “Putting him up to that, making him do that to me. Because I know that wasn’t his idea…”
I hope it wasn’t his idea.
“Not all attempts to bring about justice are beautiful and righteous,” Dumbledore said, which was annoyingly vague. “But barbaric? I disagree, I disagree… Allowing that young man to question you was a gentle option. There are far more barbaric ways in which someone can be forced into submission. I have seen many, many horrors in my life…”
His eyes went glassy for a moment, but then he shook his head sadly. “Be that as it may… I now see that I have gone about this all wrong. You may be a criminal who nearly killed a dear friend of mine, who has ripped apart the mind and heart of an innocent woman and her loyal house-elf… barbaric crimes, one could say, and not even all of which you have done… but you are not evil. You are, deep down, a good person. That, at least, I believe.”
Hermione eyed him suspiciously. “And why do you believe that?”
Dumbledore didn’t answer. He gave her a different sort of smile, one that she could only describe as sad, then asked, “How did you acquire that terrible scar?”
Hermione’s body felt even colder. She pulled her wrists to her chest instinctively, because she knew, without needing to ask, which scar he meant.
He wasn’t using Legilimency. He didn’t pry with any kind of magic.
“…I don’t like to talk about it,” she answered.
“Of course you don’t,” Dumbledore said. “Understandably. It was clearly put there by someone else. A cursed blade, perhaps? It doesn’t look as though a wand created it, it looks carved… I imagine it was very painful—”
“Shut up.”
Hermione snapped without intending to. Her body was shivering and she was rubbing her wrist where the word marked her. “Just… stop,” she said in a calmer voice.
Dumbledore lowered his chin in an apologetic manner. “I am deeply sorry that you suffered that,” he said softly. “Some narrow-minded people can be very cruel… It is not fair. It is not right.”
He sat back in his chair, looking suddenly much older—the version of Dumbledore that Hermione once trusted above all others. “Before I became the Headmaster at Hogwarts, I taught for many years,” he said. “I loved teaching. I became fond of many students, and was particularly mindful of those who did not come from magical families… Tom Riddle was one of these students. But Tom did not like help, especially not from me… I fear I made a bad impression on him when we first met; an impression I cannot take back, regrettably…”
Hermione wondered if he was going to admit to her that he lit his wardrobe on fire.
He didn’t.
“But another student I taught that very much enjoyed any and all extra attention was named Myrtle Warren.”
Hermione stopped breathing. She didn’t want to hear this, but Dumbledore kept talking.
“She was a muggle-born girl. Eager to learn, though not exceptionally gifted and far from popular. She had a hard time adjusting to the magical world and an even harder time making friends. She enjoyed my class, though, and would sometimes stop by my office for tea. She was lonely, she was sad. But she was kind, and she had her whole life ahead of her to grow out of her awkward youth…”
Dumbledore shook his head. “She died when she was fourteen.”
I don’t want to hear this, I don’t want to hear this.
“That’s awful,” Hermione murmured. She looked up at the ceiling. I don’t want to hear this.
“I can only imagine the pain her parents went through—are still in. Especially considering the story they were told… that some magical, monstrous spider that another student kept as a pet killed her, that it was a horrible accident… That is what they think happened to their daughter.”
There was a stretch of silence. “And I presume you think otherwise?” Hermione said, still looking up.
“I do. I think Tom Riddle murdered this poor girl, largely because she was a muggle-born. I believe he was behind a series of attacks that targeted only muggle-born students at my school, and that poor Myrtle Warren was the one who paid the ultimate price. I believe the attacks only stopped once it was announced that the school was closing, and I believe that Tom Riddle—an exceptional liar who did not wish to return to his life at a muggle orphanage—framed another, innocent student to ensure that the school would remain open.”
I don’t want to hear this, I don’t, I don’t.
“…He doesn’t know you’re a muggle-born, does he?”
Hermione, perhaps unwisely, looked at him again. His eyes were full of understanding. “That’s really why you had that ring… your other markings, strange and mysterious as they are, do not damn you. But such a crude word, carved into your skin?” Dumbledore shook his head again. “You are wise to hide it, particularly from someone like Tom Riddle and those he surrounds himself with.”
“What do you want?” Hermione said harshly. “Why don’t you just fucking spit it out already, Dumbledore?”
He did not look offended at all by her crudeness. If anything, he looked all the more pitying. “I want you to help me do the right thing,” he said. “If I am correct in my suspicions of Tom, then he is not only guilty of the murder of a poor, innocent girl, but he is now delving deeper and deeper into dark magic… I've been keeping my ear to the wind, and I've heard rumors, whispers… I fear he has killed once and that he will kill again, and again, and again, under this awful new name he’s invented for himself… and that sign in the stars he created, I must admit, I found most troubling…”
Hermione said nothing when he paused. She found herself looking down at her wrist instead, her eyes locked on the cursed word in black.
Mudblood.
“I want to clear the name of an innocent man who believes, to this day, that he accidentally and indirectly killed a girl. I want to explain to her parents what really happened to their daughter, because they deserve the truth. I want to protect future muggle-borns from what I fear may one day be a terrible foe… and I think that you can help me.”
Hermione tried to scoff condescendingly, but it sounded more like a sob.
“You mean something to him, that much was abundantly clear,” Dumbledore continued. “Did you know that he needed to be dragged away by his own comrades after you attempted to escape?”
“He what?”
“Oh, yes. He cast some very nasty curses first, but was grabbed and apparated away by Macnair… which was astonishing, really, because I believe he hardly passed the apparition exam himself—he was certainly no prodigy at Transfiguration, which was my subject—and side-along apparition with an unwilling partner is no easy feat.”
Hermione almost didn’t believe him. It was hard to imagine Riddle, the heir of Slytherin, with his deep-seated need for self-preservation, would willingly put himself in harm’s way like that.
Especially when Dumbledore was present.
“He did not want to let you go,” Dumbledore went on. “Which, of course, means that you are significant to him... which also means that you must know too much about him. You know that he’s killed. You know that he plans to kill again… but you can still do the right thing. You can stop him. You can tell us what you know; you can help us protect so many others… and we can help you, too. We can arrange a deal of sorts. We can, perhaps, pardon some of your crimes… We can protect you.”
“Protect me?” Hermione repeated. “You think… Oh. You think I’m not talking because I’m afraid? That I’m scared he’ll hunt me down and kill me because I’ve said something?”
Dumbledore, looking a little concerned, nodded. Hermione laughed. “I honestly hadn’t even thought of that,” she said, which was utterly ridiculous because it was true. “No, that’s not why I’m not letting you sift through my mind at your leisure. I’m not cooperating because I just can’t. I can’t. And I won’t.”
Which was insane, wasn’t it? Here it was, the opportunity she desperately needed. She could tell Dumbledore the truth, the whole truth, and with all of the information she could offer—everything in Riddle’s past to his possible future, all the details of the upcoming wars, his tactics, his allies, his every potential move… herself, with her unique skills and inexplicable blood—she might have all her crimes forgiven. Maybe she could even avoid the MACUSA, with all that she could give.
She could join Dumbledore now. They could form the Order of the Phoenix now, destroy horcruxes today, end Lord Voldemort and his newly born Death Eaters tomorrow. It was everything she came to do, and the potential of it was right here, waiting. She just had to say yes.
Her heart, however, had something else to say, and it spoke much louder than her mind.
“I don’t care if he’s done terrible things,” Hermione went on, placing a big emphasis on the word if, because as of right now, they had proof of exactly nothing. “Don’t you understand? I don’t care, I…”
She inhaled a shuddering breath. “I love him,” she said, the words somehow both heavy and bubbly light on her lips. “I love him. I’m in love with him… so no, I won’t help you. I won’t give you anything. I can’t.”
Dumbledore was quiet for a long time. He stared at her, his blue eyes uncharacteristically dull, saying nothing.
Nothing.
After what must have been the most agonizing minute of Hermione’s life, he finally broke the silence. “I understand,” he said, to her utmost shock.
“You… do?”
“I do. I understand more than you could ever know. But, regrettably, you must know that love… is not enough.”
He smiled grimly. “I wish it was. I wish that love alone could heal every wound, right every wrong, but it cannot. Some things are not forgivable. I do, however, understand. You will not willingly help us, and in turn, accept our help... I understand.”
He looked at her so tragically, so pityingly. Hermione thought with certainty that he would go, that he would say some cryptic words and leave her alone to dwell on her poor choices.
She was therefore very surprised when he pulled out the Deathstick, aimed it at her face, and said “Legilimens.”
He struck so quickly that she was caught off guard; Hermione scrambled to mentally gather herself but Dumbledore, now aware of her tactics, was infinitely more vicious than before. He sliced like a scythe through her memories, and almost at once, an image of Tom came forth.
He was not looking for the beginning of their story, hoping to retract anything and everything he could related to Tom Riddle. Instead, his focus was pointed, searching for something big, important, and damning.
The images that surfaced were the ones Hermione coveted most.
Her and Tom, dueling, her hellfire magic colliding her his frighteningly cold power… a building collapsed and she ran, fleeing into a shack…
No, Hermione thought, and she tried, desperately, to summon the icy depths of her mind, to sink into the cold—but then, to her horror, something sliced her.
She did not have a name for what Dumbledore was doing; it was some sort of mental attack she had never experienced before. It felt like something was clawing at her brain, and the pain made it hard, too hard to focus properly—
Fuck you, Hermione thought furiously, and as she forced one memory away, another one took its place almost at once…
There was music… They were dancing…
“Well, this might be presumptuous of me,” came Riddle’s smooth voice, “but you strike me more as the type of witch to break the rules… not uphold them.”
They were in New York, in The Cave, and Hermione was pursing her lips as she swayed in his arms…
“I find that I am capable of doing both… For the most part, rules should be followed—there is a reason for them, after all. But sometimes they must be broken in order for there to be progress. For the greater good.”
“For the greater good…”
Riddle leaned into her, and into her ear he said, ”Have you always been supportive of Grindelwald’s ideals?”
There was a moment of reprieve—when Riddle said the word Grindelwald, Dumbledore paused in his onslaught; shocked, Hermione imagined, to hear that name in such a memory.
It was enough.
One fraction of a second, and she summoned her inner darkness. Dumbledore attempted to stop her, attacking with his furious, sharp mind, but it was too late—she was already slipping away. She didn’t bother trying to take him with her. She didn’t care about that.
Hermione only cared that he could not touch her.
She imagined that she was being cradled in the arms of a dementor, gently, lovingly. The dark creature swiftly carried her away into the cold.
Deeper.
Darkness. It was cold and so, so lonely.
Careful, said a voice. Not all sleeping beauties have happy endings… some of them never wake up.
Hermione shuddered in the dark.
It was silent.
Hermione was sprawled across the table as though she’d passed out on it, and, as she sat up, she realized that she probably had. She had also probably been that way awhile. Her body felt horrible; aching and raw, and her throat…
She stared, despairingly, at the remains of what had once been a goblet full of water. Broken glass shards were strewn on the table, its contents spilled and gone.
Fuck, Hermione thought. She tried to stand and immediately failed. Everything hurt. How long had she been out this time…?
The door swung open. Hermione hissed as the light assaulted her, her brain still foggy and unprepared for the sudden and quick intrusion.
It wasn’t Dumbledore.
“Madison?” Hermione said groggliy. “What… What’s happened, why–?”
“I’m sorry, G,” he said, interrupting her. He looked horrible. “I needed to say that. I’m sorry.”
“What…?”
“Let her see.”
Hermione heard Dumbledore’s voice from somewhere outside her cell. Madison cast her one last deplorable look before he stepped aside, and there was the sound of scraping feet and—
No.
No, it couldn’t be.
Liam stepped into the doorway, his face vicious and vindictive, and in his arms…
It couldn’t be.
Tom.
Tom was there, barely conscious, barely alive by the looks of it. His body was bloodied, covered in horrible, bruising wounds, one of his eyes greatly swollen, but it was, unmistakably, him. His head lolled to one side as Liam held him up so that Hermione could see him properly.
Tom, they had Tom—
“Caught him attempting to break in through one of the outer wards,” Liam said, and Hermione ripped her eyes away from Tom to look at him. Though Liam appeared nowhere near as horrific as Tom did, Hermione was, at least, pleased to see that he had three red, vertical scars along one of his previously perfect cheeks. “The hexes he encountered really fucked him up, as you can see… how pathetic.”
He jabbed Tom in the side with his wand. Tom hissed in pain, clearly too exhausted to do more than that. He couldn’t even open his eyes. Hermione doubted he was aware of what was going on any longer, he looked so…
No.
“And I thought he—”
“No!”
Hermione was overcome with a colossal wave of magic, something terrible and great. She was on her feet. She had a massive shard of glass in her hand, which she brandished like a sword. She was burning alive.
She would burn them alive.
Liam’s expression cracked, afraid. Dumbledore stepped into the room.
“I’ll kill you!” Hermione screamed, raising her arms, burning. “I’ll kill you all, I’ll—”
Flowers.
Hermione let out a low hum of satisfaction as she sprawled out in the sun. She inhaled a deep breath through her nose, enjoying the scent of fresh grass and Spring, and when she exhaled she sighed in contentment.
It was so warm here. So peaceful.
…Too peaceful.
Frowning, Hermione propped herself up. She looked around. Wildflowers scattered the valley in various, brilliant hues. Butterflies fluttered about and bees happily flew from bloom to bloom. The sun was strong and bright, without a single cloud in the sky to obscure it.
The sun was… strong and bright…
Why did that seem wrong?
Hermione stood. Butterflies and bees scattered around her.
Something… was missing.
The sun was strong and bright and something was missing, something was wrong, what was it, what was it?
She began to walk, then run, tearing through the flowers as she went. They caught on the hem of her dress, the occasional thorn scraping against her legs, but she didn’t care—something was missing, she had to find it, she had to—something, something was wrong—
Hermione’s eyes flew open and she was screaming, silently.
She was shouting, despite the lack of sound that left her already raw throat, her temple against the hard, cold floor. She had been silenced and bound with heavy, clearly magical ropes wrapped around her in a dozen different ways. Her wrists were tied together behind her back, as were her ankles; her legs were wrapped up and her arms were tight against her chest where more ropes held her. She could barely move.
She stopped trying to scream so she could breathe. She opened her eyes. She was alone again, and now the table was gone, as well as the two chairs. The glass too, of course. She twitched her fingers to find that her hand was now empty. Had she cut herself on the glass, she wondered? Was there dried blood on her hand—an injured palm that had surely healed itself by now?
She didn’t know. She couldn’t feel anything, and she couldn’t see.
Tom. Tom. They have Tom.
Hermione tried to scream again. Nothing. She thrashed against the ropes as much as she could, which was not much at all.
The door opened.
“Good morning… again.”
She was going to kill Albus Dumbledore.
He closed the door behind him. Hermione hadn’t been able to see if there was anyone else there with him, but she couldn’t tell, and she hadn’t heard anything. Dumbledore stood over her, looking down at her bound body with little emotion.
“I would apologize for your current state, but I don’t feel you are owed any sympathy,” he said. “In fact, it is you who owes us a great deal… and this is your very last chance.”
He knelt down so he could speak to her more directly. “We captured Mr. Riddle,” he said evenly. “It wasn’t long ago, but we anticipate that he will recover well enough from the hexes and curses he set off to be questioned in a few hours… it has, however, already been long enough to rule out the possibility that this is merely someone under the influence of Polyjuice Potion.”
Hermione stared; she hadn’t yet considered that. It was a devastating blow regardless.
That was Tom… they really had Tom…
“If I remove the Silencing spell, will you refrain from screaming?”
Hermione wanted to scream. She wanted to yell and cry and curse them all… but he could do none of those things. Hermione closed her mouth and nodded.
Dumbledore flicked his wrist at her, and sthe ripple of magic told her the hex was lifted.
“One way or another, we will have answers,” Dumbledore said. “Tom has now breached the wards of an official Ministry base. The Ministry of Magic has the right now to legally hold and interrogate him… which means I have the right to do so as well.”
“He hasn’t done anything,” Hermione said in a raspy, hoarse voice. “He just came for me, I…”
This is my fault, Hermione thought. I told him to run; why didn’t he run? Why did he come here, and how did he even know where to find me?
This was all very, very wrong. It couldn’t end like this.
It couldn’t.
“Tom may be a skilled liar,” Dumbledore said. “He may be an even greater Master of the Mind Arts than you, if the whispers I've heard hold any weight… that, I’m afraid, I will soon see. Things would be much simpler, however, if you would cooperate.”
His eyes softened slightly. “Give us the requested memories and we will greatly reduce whatever your sentence may be. There will be mercy, if you help us now. If Riddle is guilty for the murder I believe he is, then he will be tried accordingly… don’t go down with him, Hermione. Help us. Save yourself.”
“Oh, it’s Hermione now, is it?” Hermione spat. Rage flickered in the back of her mind, helping her focus. “I liked Deathly Golden.”
Dumbledore chose not to respond to that. “This is your last chance," he said. "Will you help us or not? If you say no… then I am afraid you will see what barbaric measures truly do look like.”
Hermione held his gaze for a long moment.
She could see his plan unfolding even then. They hadn't used any Unforgivable curses yet, but they would. He knew that Tom cared for her, at least somewhat. Much more importantly, he knew that she loved him. Now that they had them both, they could use them against each other, like some horrible muggle crime movie. They could threaten one with the well being of their other; maybe they’d even torture one while the other watched.
Oh god. They will.
They could and would do that, and they would make Hermione bear it. They would drag Tom in front of her and do any number of unspeakable things to him, and they wouldn’t stop until she let them take whatever they wanted. Maybe they'd use the Imperius curse on her once she was weak enough, and she'd finally do whatever they asked without fighting. They would do whatever they had to until they convinced her that whatever fate awaited Tom Riddle with her memories would be preferable to whatever may happen without them.
Her thoughts, her knowledge, her willing blood. She’d be at their mercy.
She couldn’t let them.
Tom would never crack—if they threatened him with her life, he’d never break, she was sure. He could keep all the secrets in the world for as long as he needed to. He may have breached a Ministry ward, but that wasn't so bad, comparatively. He'd never break enough to let them see what other evils he'd done. He could stand to watch Hermione be tortured. Killed even, probably. He was Lord Voldemort. He could live through that.
But Hermione couldn't watch them make him suffer. She couldn’t let any of that happen. She had to be… untouchable.
Hermione looked into Dumbledore’s eyes and said, “Okay.”
He couldn’t have looked more surprised. Hermione nodded. “Yes, I’ll help you. I’ll show you, just… do it. Do it now. Take whatever you want.”
Dumbledore hesitated for a moment. Then, with the barest hint of triumph in his eyes, he retracted his wand.
“Legilimens.”
This time, there was no fight. Hermione offered up a memory right away, and the landscape of her mind formed itself quickly and seamlessly.
Snow.
Hermione and Tom were sitting across from each other in the snow at night, the sound of the sea in the distance. It was dark, quiet, and beautiful.
Dumbledore’s presence was there, perceptible and curious, but Hermione ignored it as she basked in this memory. Tom was holding up a finger to silence her, that mischievous grin on his face.
Then the snow sprites emerged.
It was even more other-worldly like this, in the memory. Tom looked like something truly fantastical as the sprites swarmed around him, bathing him in their colorless glow, twirling and vying for his attention. Tom smiled at them fondly… he and Hermione began to talk and laugh, and Hermione was astonished at the sight of him.
How could she have ever thought she stood a chance? How could she ever have thought, for even a moment, that she would not fall in love with Tom Riddle?
This was how she would remember him—like this, here, bickering about Divination by the seaside under the stars. On the other side of reality, where Dumbledore had his wand drawn and pointed at her bound form, Hermione knew she was smiling.
Do you understand now? Hermione thought, and she knew Dumbledore could hear her. Can you see in him what I see?
She didn’t wait to find out if he might try and respond; she couldn’t risk him realizing her next move before it was too late.
The snow sprites were flashing in a mesmerizing, synchronized way. Riddle was dazzling.
Do you understand why I have to leave?
She fell away.
Hermione buried herself in the cold as though she was burying herself in the snow. She went deeper, and deeper, and deeper still. That darkness beckoned, and this time Hermione heeded its call without hesitating.
Down, down, down.
It was effortless. No one would touch her mind here. Not ever again.
She kept going.
The descent was easy.
…
…
…
It was dark, and it was cold, and it was so, so lonely.
…
Careful.
She wasn’t careful. She wasn’t afraid.
She wasn't anything at all.
Then something began to burn.
Chapter 54: Heat
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The warmth started on her lips, then spread, like a wildfire taking hold in a dry grassland. It swept down her throat and burned along her limbs, rolling over every inch of her skin, from her scalp to the tips of her toes, waking her up.
One moment she had been a lifeless lump of clay, and the next she was a warm-blooded mammal again. Her pulse roared in her ears; her fingers flexed and twitched at her sides, and she could tell she was no longer bound. Her head was also no longer resting on the hard floor, but on something firm and warm. The life-giving heat that had been born on her lips lifted away, and she felt a warm breath on her face instead, accompanied by a sound like a quiet laugh.
She knew that laugh. She’d know it anywhere.
I must be dead, or at least brain dead, she thought. Oddly enough, that made her smile. I did it. I committed mental suicide. I’m fucking awesome. Take that, Dumbledore.
Dazedly, she opened her eyes.
There was nothing there.
Well, that’s confusing.
Before Hermione could have another thought, she felt two things at once. The first was a touch on her face, feather light. The second, which was infinitely more peculiar, was a gentle probing against the barriers of her mind. Like she was being prodded by a ghost.
Perhaps, if she’d been a bit more coherent—and a little more certain that she wasn’t dead in some fashion—she would have been warier. As it was, she allowed the intrusion.
Good morning, sunshine.
Hermione blinked, focusing straight ahead, where she still saw… nothing. Well, not nothing. She was in the familiar setting of her cell, she could now see. She was looking at the ceiling.
Hermione felt the sensation of hands on both sides of her face. Then laughter in her head. When she inhaled through her nose, it smelled like… him.
I’ve lost my damn mind, Hermione thought. Or I really have died. Maybe I’m dying now. Dying is a process; maybe this is my brain slowly shutting down, or I’m still asleep.
You’re alive and awake… though you did have me worried for a moment. I’m here, now.
The pressure on her face grew stronger, tighter. Hermione hesitantly reached up, her hands shaking, and placed her fingers over something.
It felt like Tom’s hands. It smelled like Tom. It sounded like Tom, pushing his thoughts onto her.
But you’re not really here, Hermione thought, not even allowing the idea of hope to spark. That would be insane; I must be insane. I saw you, I saw him… this is my fucked up imagination, and that’s why I can’t see you, you’re not there—
Don’t be stupid. Don’t you remember our first conversation?
Before Hermione could blink, an image was being forced upon her. It flashed before her eyes, and Hermione saw, from a different perspective, a memory she knew well, a memory that she had seen pieces of not long ago.
She saw… herself.
Hermione Smith, looking perfectly polished and out of place, perusing the aisle at Borgin and Burke’s, and… she was reaching with one arm, about to touch something, but then she retracted it, shaking her head at herself, almost chidingly…
“It won’t hurt you.”
Hermione saw the way she had looked up, locking eyes for the first time with Tom Riddle. She looked stunned. Tom had smiled, just slightly, and said, “That fabric, I mean… It won’t bite.”
His smile widened and Hermione looked away from him, back towards the tapestry as she asked, “What is it, then?”
“Something fascinating.”
Then his entire arm disappeared as he grabbed it, lifting it up and explaining, in his well-rehearsed, salesman voice, “It’s a cloak of invisibility… One of the highest quality, guaranteed to last at least a decade."
“Oh,” said Hermione, taking the cloak from him. "I've heard of these, but I've never seen one before… Interesting, and quite pretty, but not particularly useful, is it? A proper disillusionment charm would be more practical."
Riddle inclined his head. “I quite agree,” he murmured.
The memory vanished. Hermione was once more left staring straight ahead into what appeared to be nothing between her and the ceiling.
Adrenaline spiked in her blood, and the world became infinitely sharper. Tom? She reached out in front of her, feeling the very solid, very convincingly real sensation of skin, of a face. She ran her hands all over it in the most ineloquent, panicked way, trying to map out the impossibility that threatened to be true. She felt his nose and forehead and might have poked him in the eye. She felt his ears and then his hair, which was not where she thought it’d be, telling her that he was leaning over her from behind, and—and it was his lap, wasn’t it? That’s what her head was resting on…
She returned her hands to his face; she could feel the smile spreading there. Amusement danced along her mind as she, presumably, was making eye contact with him again. Tom? Tom?
Hi.
There was a beat of absolute shock, and then Hermione was gripping him hard and dragging his head down towards her, crushing her lips to his invisible ones. It was easily the strangest sensation, but that mattered a lot less once she closed her eyes and he was here, he was in her cell, disillusioned, and he was kissing her, upside-down, his lips as soft and warm and nonetheless demanding as they’d always been, pressed forcefully against hers.
Tom—Tom, Tom, Tom—pried his invisible mouth off of hers, and Hermione felt the intrusive tingling of him attempting to invade her mind again. She was so used to always practicing some low level of defense that Hermione hadn't even realized she was occluding again; she once more lowered her defenses.
Time for you to make your thrilling escape.
He put his hands on her shoulders, guiding her into a seated position. It was so strange, too, because while Hermione felt him moving so that he was holding one of her hands, she didn’t hear anything. He had both disillusioned and silenced his body. If he hadn’t kept her hand held tightly in his, she might have thought she’d imagined the entire thing in her desperate state.
The invisible, hopefully-not-a-figment-of-her-wild-imagination Tom pulled her to her feet, and Hermione saw that the door to her cell was wide open. It was eerily quiet. Her skin prickled and she failed to repress a shudder.
Tom tugged on her hand, and she moved. She gasped when she was suddenly yet carefully pushed against the wall, the undeniable feeling of his body against hers and his hand clamped over her mouth to, presumably, stop her from crying out.
His hand moved once it was clear that she was not trying to yell. Hermione felt his palm slide down and then—it took her a moment, but she registered that he had repositioned it so that only his finger remained. He was pressing a single digit against her lips in a ‘shh’ gesture.
There was a prickling of magic. Then Tom was prodding at her mind again.
We are going down the hall. Follow me and do not stray. Do not look in any of the open doors; there will be two. Do not look in them. We will move quickly. I have silenced you as a precaution. If you do precisely what I say, then we will be out of here soon. Nod if you understand me.
Hermione had about a thousand different questions, but Tom must have sensed that she was about to try and ask them because another thought cut across her mind:
No time. Thrilling escape first, details later. Darling.
And then the connection between them slammed shut, and she was being led away by a ghost.
Through the door, out into the hallway. It was white and nondescript, wherever they were, making Hermione think of a psych ward in a muggle hospital. There were no windows. It could have been anywhere in the world, anytime of day or night.
His invisible form led her down the hall, where they passed a few doors, most of which were closed… except one on the right, which they were coming up on…
Herimone swallowed hard as they drew nearer to it, her heart racing. It was deathly quiet out here. Much more ominous was the indescribable feeling of magic—dark magic. It tainted the very air in these white-walled halls, heavy and repressive, growing heavier still.
Where were the aurors? Where was Madison, Dumbledore, Liam?
Hermione shivered. This was all much too surreal. Surely this was a dream. Or insanity, maybe. Her mind snapping, inventing a fantasy for her to enjoy while she rotted in the cell.
…Maybe.
His hand tightened around hers, pulling her along. They were about to pass the first open door. Do not look in them, she repeated to herself. The door’s top hinge was broken, she saw, making it a little off-kilter, like someone had nearly ripped the whole thing off. He said not to look. Do not look, do not look.
She was being pulled harder once they were upon it. Hermione held her breath.
She couldn’t help it—just before she was past the entryway, her eyes betrayed her, darting towards the opening.
She screamed.
Or it would have been a scream, were she capable of it. The sensation of her body involuntarily crying out when magic would not allow it was not one Hermione ever thought she’d become so familiar with. She screamed in silent, repressed horror, her knees buckled, and Hermione fell to the ground, pulling the invisible force down with her.
It was Tom.
Too shocked and terrified to think rationally in any capacity, Hermione stared, wide-eyed, soundlessly shouting at the scene before her. Tom, his body on the floor, worse than he had even looked before, because now he was still, his eyes half-closed, glassy, his skin a sickly, unnaturally dark blue, and she couldn’t tell if he was breathing and it didn’t look like he was breathing and—
The ghost tried to wrench her to her feet, but Hermione’s body had crumpled in on itself like a wad of crushed paper. Hands gripped her face and forced her to look up instead, and the mental probbing was much harsher, now. Hermione winced and closed her eyes, still silently screaming, screaming, no, no, no—
“Hermione.”
His whispered voice was directly in her ear, urgent. His voice. His voice.
Hermione stopped trying to yell; she opened her eyes and looked until she felt him again. Jabbing.
Not me, came his authoritative tone. He held her face tightly with both hands, keeping her head still. Not me. I am here, right here, with you. I know that you can’t see me right now. You have to trust me. That thing in the cell is not me.
Hermione inhaled a shaky breath, then another. Tom?
Yes. I’m here.
Really?
Really.
Hermione grabbed his invisible hands again. I think I’m going insane, Tom, she thought, staring at nothing, knowing but not looking at what she knew was a very dead looking, much more visible and tangible version of Tom in the room next to her. I think my mind’s cracked. I think they’ve broken me.
Your mind is fine. You need to compartmentalize and hold yourself together until we’ve escaped. I know you can do this. Now get up and move.
She was not given any time to respond. Hermione was yanked to her feet, and she hastily wiped her face as she was once more pulled along, nodding and sniffling.
Deep breaths. Focus on your breathing. He’s right. You can do this. You can handle this, you can handle anything. Remember your training.
Hermione began to count her inhales and exhales as they moved, trying not to think about how ominous, quiet, and empty this place was.
How in the hell had he—?
No. Don’t think, Hermione berated herself. Thrilling escape first, mental breakdown later.
They turned a corner, and Hermione silently gasped.
The second ‘open door’ was up ahead, though it would have been more proper to say it was not merely open, but blasted apart. The doorway looked like it had been struck with a bombarda curse. But that was the least worrying part of what she saw.
Blood.
There was blood pooling out in the hall and splattered on the walls and floor. A lot of it. The word massacre came, unbidden, to Hermione’s mind. Dark magic hung even heavier here, oppressively so…
Oh, God.
Tom continued to pull her along. Hermione used all of her willpower to keep her eyes ahead, to not look.
Before she could think to avoid it, being dragged along as she was, Hermione found herself stepping right through the blood on the ground. This was fresh blood, she realized. Very fresh.
Tom pulled her so quickly that she was nearly running through it. He was not leaving marks in it himself, somehow, and Hermione once more wondered if this was all just a nightmare. She almost hoped it was, at this point.
She didn’t look.
They turned another corner soon after. Hermione left a single trail of bloody boot prints as they went, additionally marring the frightening, white landscape of whatever hell she was in.
The next sight that met Hermione’s eyes made her think that this really must not be real.
There, at the end of a very long, straight white hall…
Outside.
It was like seeing heaven at the end of a tunnel, visible through a set of tall, gloriously wide open double doors. There was grass out there. And trees, and the sky. It was daytime. She thought she heard birds chirping, but she may have been imagining that.
Tom was dragging her towards it, that picturesque paradise, and were they really and truly about to walk out there, so easily, waltzing away from this undisclosed location just like that?
Hermione had dared to let her heart swell with hope when a shout shattered the silence.
“Expecto Patronum!”
Behind them, Hermione saw the telltale flash of vibrant silver light on the walls—but it was coming from around the corner, so she couldn’t see what it was exactly…
But she already knew. That was Madison’s voice.
“Fuck your school!” Madison shouted, sounding hoarse yet fierce. “Something’s happened, we’ve been breached by a curse—get back here now!”
Hermione could only make out his words because he’d yelled them so loudly; Tom had not slowed down in the slightest—on the contrary, he had sped up, and Hermione had to focus very hard not to trip as she tried to keep up with his invisibly set pace, tugging her onward.
Fuck your school… well, there was only one person who Madison could have sent that patronus to. Only Dumbledore had any obligations to a school, as far as she knew. So he had left; Dumbledore had left the premises to return to Hogwarts…
Hermione couldn’t exactly dwell on why that might be the case. At the moment, she could only register that it was very, very strange. Dumbledore was highly invested in all this, in catching Tom and bringing him to justice…
A bellowing cry told her that Madison must have spotted them as they ran down the hall. Or her, at least. A flash of yellow illuminated the whiteness, and Hermione whipped around while stepping aside on instinct. Tom, it seemed, had done the same, but Hermione couldn’t be sure—he’d released her hand once she’d moved to dodge. She did know that the spell missed them both, for it sailed over her left shoulder and hit the ceiling, leaving a nasty mark there.
Madison stood, facing her, his wand raised, and—
Holy hell.
He had the same, unnatural blue tint to his skin that Tom—not Tom, not really—had, though it didn’t seem as dark. He also had a huge slash on his body, clearly a wound from a curse that had shredded his robes in half to reveal the horrible, red tear that, while devastating, did not seem to be bleeding at the moment.
He looked like he shouldn’t have been able to stand, let alone cast powerful magic and hold his wand steady, aimed at Hermione, poised and ready to do so again. His face was twisted in unfathomable rage, but when Hermione met his eyes with her own, she saw fear in them.
Whatever Tom’s plan had been, this—Madison surviving—was clearly not a part of it.
“Don’t take another—”
“Avada Kedavra!”
Hermione’s heart stilled at the sudden, brilliant green light beside her, Tom’s voice ringing in her ears. The curse flew with precision. The great, green blast soared through the air, directly towards Madison, whose enraged face went slack. He must have put it all together in a fractional moment—Hermione was not working alone; someone was with her, right there, invisible, saving her, killing them—
He fell to the ground at the last possible moment, barely missing certain death as it flew over his head. The second he was on the floor he returned fire, some bright white spell that Hermione twisted away from and hoped without knowing that Tom had done the same.
Then Madison rolled, agile despite how horrid he looked, and slammed a bloody hand against the wall. The whole world turned red.
The light was familiar, and Hermione gaped at the runic symbols that suddenly sprung to life along the ceiling and the floor, markings that must have already been there, waiting to be activated. She hardly had the time to look long enough to decipher them, but she had experienced a similar flood of magic once before from Tom himself, in New York. He’d used magic like this to prevent her from leaving…
To prevent her from leaving…
“Fuck.”
Hermione followed Madison’s stare and the sound of that swearing voice to see—Tom? It had to be, but the person standing beside her with his back pressed against the wall, his wand also raised, was…
A Death Eater.
A tall figure in a black, hooded cloak who wore a familiar mask, one which concealed all of his features. Tom was donning the same ensemble his Death Eaters would one day wear when keeping their identity a secret.
His disillusionment was gone. And, as she exhaled, Hermione thought she’d had her voice restored, too. The runic magic. It must have had something in it that washed certain enchantments away, like the Thief’s Downfall had in Gringotts.
The moment of suspended shock at his appearance was gone a second later when Madison fired off another curse, aimed at him. Tom stepped between Hermione and him and cast something as well, and the two wordless spells clashed in midair, causing a miniature explosion. Her ears were still ringing in the aftermath when Tom grabbed her by the arm, shouting “Run!” and hoisting her along with him.
This was a nightmare. It had to be.
Hermione was running and another spell was being fired at them; Tom deflected and he was still pulling her forward and Hermione was useless and it didn’t matter if they made it to that exit or not, because she could see the magic there, the rippling red wavering of the runic enchantment, and she knew there was no way they would be able to pass through.
Or maybe just me, Hermione thought as another explosive sound and flashing bright lights illuminated the air. Tom was dueling a weakened Madison while gripping hers as they ran, and what could she do, what could she do—
A loud crack sounded, the ground shook, and Hermione was swept off her feet.
She wasn’t the only one. Stunned, Hermione looked to see that Madison, further down the hall, had fallen as well. He was unconscious. He might even have been dead.
Hermione looked at Tom, who alone had managed to stay standing, his body in a defensive, dueling stance. His dark eyes met hers through his mask. He was breathing hard.
“That wasn’t me,” he said, and he whipped around, looking—
A tiny voice cleared its throat. Hermione’s gasped.
“Hokey!”
Hokey the house-elf stepped around Madison’s unconscious body. She frowned as she walked towards them, looking back and forth between Tom and Hermione. She put her tiny hands on her hips. Her expression reminded Hermione of the way Hepzibah had looked at her when she’d come home late after being out with the wrong boy.
Tom hadn’t moved. Hermione hadn’t either; she felt too stunned to do much of anything other than stare in disbelief.
Hokey looked at them each again, quite judgmentally. “Mistress Smith sends her regards,” she said coolly. Then she offered up both of her little hands, one to each of them.
Hermione let out a strained, choked sob. Hepzibah. Hepzibah had sent Hokey…
But there was no time to waste. Hermione swallowed back her emotions and grabbed one of Hokey’s hands from where she was on the floor. After letting out a sort of strangled exhale that Hermione could only assume was a sound of relief, Tom took the other.
Hokey closed her eyes and squeezed their hands.
Nothing happened.
Hokey’s strained expression slipped into one of confusion. “Hokey… Hokey cannot,” she said softly. She looked at Hermione, her eyes round with a sudden, gripping fear. “Hokey cannot, Hokey cannot, Hokey—”
“Why not?” Tom snapped. Hermione's pulse began to race again; a paralyzing sense of dread was washing over her.
“Hokey cannot, it is—it is Miss, something in her is being heavy, and Hokey cannot move her, Hokey cannot—"
It sounded like Hokey was having a crisis. Hermione doubted she’d ever been ordered to do something she’d then been unable to do.
“The runes, they must be aimed at you specifically,” Riddle said, looking not at her but at the floor, examining the symbols. “They must have used your blood…”
Before Hermione could process that, a horrible scream vibrated in the air, so sudden and violent that all three of them winced and covered their ears. Then shouting, several voices yelling and screaming things and more people had arrived; Madison had sent out a patronus and now others had come and Tom was pulling her up and she barely felt it, her body had gone so cold and numb and—
“GO!”
Hokey roared the word, threw her arms towards them, and a massive, invisible force like a gust of wind propelled them away from her, towards the open doors. Tom reacted far more gracefully than Hermione had—he instantly began to run along with that force, letting it make him faster, but Hermione struggled and tripped. Tom barely broke his stride as he scooped her up and kept running, carrying her like she was the world’s most terrified bride, Hokey’s whirlwind pushing them along. Hermione threw her arms around his neck and held on for dear life.
Magic flashed behind them and a loud boom sounded, but Hermione didn’t dare look. They were almost at the doorway, but it didn’t matter the runes, the runes—Tom might be able to pass through them, but Hermione would be trapped here—
In what was possibly the most miraculous moment of Hermione’s life, the red glow of them flickered and dulled just as they got close. No way, Hermione thought in awe. Had Hokey done that? Was she able to weaken the runic enchantments enough for her to be able to pass through?
I’m about to find out. Hermione closed her eyes as Tom kept running, that whirlwind magic propelling them on, and a moment later the light of sunshine was upon them, bathing them in its warmth and glow.
They were out. Hermione felt it in more ways than one—the beautiful feelings of crisp air and the sun on her skin, yes, but also in her body. Those runes had undoubtedly been linked to her; she felt like an iron weight she hadn’t even known was in her gut had vanished. Hermione could breathe.
There was no time to celebrate; now that they were outside, Hermione could see even more shimmering magic in the distance. Wards. Tom must have already known about those, because he never stopped running, and how he had the stamina to run like that while carrying her, even with Hokey’s help, was a mystery to Hermione, but he kept going, running hard and fast and...
And they were flying...
Between one step and the next, Tom has seamlessly launched them off the ground, flying up and away like some kind of muggle superhero. Hermione screamed on instinct; the ground fell away and they were going to make it, they were really going to make it—the wards were not that far, and Tom was flying fast.
Someone shouted down below. Tom, perhaps expecting someone to attempt to strike them down, turned in midair, dodging before even looking and then, sure enough, a flash of red passed by where they had just been.
“Get on my back!” Tom commanded, his voice dulled by the roaring wind. It wasn’t easy to obey. Shifting onto his back while flying at breakneck speed was far from an easy task, especially as another spell whizzed past them. Somehow, though, with his fumbling assistance, she managed to do it—Hermione swung around so her legs were around his waist, her arms around his neck, and she did her very best not to choke him as she held on.
Tom turned again once she was settled, and having regained the use of his arms, he slashed his wand towards what Hermione could now see was an austere, nondescript building in an otherwise pleasant looking meadow, and—
Whoa.
The spell that Tom fired was like nothing Hermione had ever seen. A ray of magic shot out, blasting straight through two smaller spells that had been coming towards them as it continued on before it struck something, though Hermione could not see what. The building, the ground in front of it, a person? She didn’t know because the light emanating from his wand tip was much too bright; a vivid purple-blue cyclone of magic that spiraled downward, pushing the two of them backwards much like Hermione’s curse had when she’d attempted to escape the aurors in the field.
She’d thought her spell was strong, then. But this…
This curse was on a level that Hermione couldn’t have even fathomed before. The sheer power of it was… impossible. Such power shouldn’t have been possible. Riddle’s wand looked like it might snap in half attempting to be its conduit; she dearly hoped it wouldn’t.
The wind whipped violently around them as they flew backwards, howling in their ears. They had to be close to the wards, any second now they would feel the familiar ping of magic and know that they’d passed through, that they could apparate away from this awful place and never look back.
There was a loud, high-pitched whistling sound, audible even over the roaring of Tom’s spell and the wind. Hermione saw it coming at them from the side—a new bout of magic in the air, something twinkling, crackling, and golden. It spiraled towards them in an arc like a firecracker. It was beautiful, and it dazzled playfully, and it scared the absolute hell out of her.
Somehow, Hermione knew this was a spell cast by Dumbledore. She could feel it in her bones. If this curse struck them, they would be done for, but Riddle’s wand was preoccupied and Hermione didn’t have one; she was a useless passenger, staring with horrified eyes as this spell like a twirling shooting star zoomed directly towards them.
Tom shifted oddly, raised his left arm, and just as Hermione thought she could not possibly be any more shocked, she was.
Her wand.
Tom had her wand—why the fuck hadn't he given that to her at once—and he pointed it now, across his chest, firing off another enigmatic curse that was the same as the other he was currently upholding. It clashed with the golden one midair, sending them flying at a new angle as sparks of blue, purple and gold went everywhere, but it didn’t destroy it. Instead the invading curse was pushed back, gold burning into violet.
Yet it was immediately clear that the gold one was stronger. Of course it was; Tom was using most of his power already on his first curse, and Hermione could tell it was not a spell that was easy to disengage. The gold spell was going to burn through his second one in moments.
Hermione reached out and grabbed the walnut, right above where Tom’s hand was, and willed all of her power into it. The purple-blue spell flared and turned a blazing fuchsia color, and oh—
Power.
It was indescribable, the power she felt pulsing through her then. Tom’s magic thrumming alongside hers was like the strongest electric current. It was so intoxicating that it wiped all other thoughts and fears from her mind in an instant. It was… everything.
The gold spell was pushed back, and back some more. They kept flying, and a second later Hermione could have cried as she felt the flickering of magic she’d been waiting for. The wards. They’d made it through the wards.
In a motion that seemed to take a massive amount of effort, Tom slashed with both his arms. Hermione lost her grip on her wand, but he seemed to anticipate that—the spells he’d been maintaining dissipated with a final burst of power. The first continued towards the ground, which was now so very far away, while the second tangled together with the golden magic and they both ricocheted away from them, a frazzling ball of energy flying into the sun.
Tom grabbed her arms, both wands still in his hands. At the very same second she was sure he was about to apparate them away, several confusing and terrible things happened at once.
There was a high, angry screech. There was a flash of red, orange and gold suddenly there, like a wall of fire appearing out of nothing. And then Hermione’s back was in unfathomable, stabbing pain, and she was screaming.
The pain ripped into her, and another screech like a battle cry assaulted her ears. Hermione was stunned when she caught the flickering of wings over them, of feathers in gold and scarlet…
A phoenix.
Fawkes is here, Hermione thought in blank shock. Fawkes the phoenix had his talons deep in Hermione’s backside. And then Fawkes the phoenix was attacking Tom, biting his shoulder with his razor sharp beak. Tom screamed and he was trying to point his wand at him but it couldn’t have been easy, being bitten like that. Fawkes was situated behind Hermione as they were all still flying, spiraling away, but they couldn’t very well disapparate with a phoenix latched onto them, could they?
Hermione acted without thinking. Still screaming, her back surely being ripped to shreds, she grabbed hold of Fawkes’ neck and, with every ounce of strength she had, she squeezed.
Fawkes reacted first by releasing Tom’s shoulder. It let out a broken cry that stopped when Hermione grabbed harder, hoping insanely that she might kill an immortal creature by strangling it.
Hardly able to end its life, Hermione’s attack was nonetheless effective. The second the phoenix stopped biting him, Tom twisted, grabbed Hermione around the waist, and before she knew what was happening, they plunged.
He must have cut off his ability to fly all at once, because they fell like a pair of boulders, abruptly, straight down. Fawkes, though likely disoriented, stayed aloft above them.
And Hermione screamed louder than ever.
Despite releasing Tom and weakening its grip on her, Fawkes’ talons were still embedded in Hermione’s back when they dropped. She not only felt but heard the ripping of flesh, of her flesh as they tore away. Tom was holding her tighter and she felt a familiar pressure all around her broken body, and in the next second they were apparating away with a thunderous crack, leaving a curtain of blood, skin, and shredded robes behind.
Chapter 55: Into the Wild
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
They landed harshly, Tom on his back on the ground and Hermione on top of him, but where they had appeared, Hermione couldn’t tell. All she knew was that her backside was on fire with pain, and she couldn’t stop screaming.
Tom moved himself out from under her, leaving her to grasp at the grass as he said something, but Hermione couldn’t make it out. She forced herself to inhale a much needed breath and to focus. Biting her tongue, she managed, for a moment, to hold in her cries.
Tom was kneeling at her side, his mask cast aside. Even in the midst of such pain, Hermione had a moment of reprieve, of unbridled joy at the sight.
It was really him.
Judging by the look on his face, though, he had just realized the severity of the damage that had been done to her. He looked devastated. Tom was trembling everywhere, but aside from that involuntary action, he seemed unable to move. He held his wand in one shaking hand and hers in the other, horror bright in his eyes.
Blood was dripping onto the grass all around her, running down her arms, her legs, her face, and surely getting stuck in her tangled hair. Hermione whimpered, and Tom seemed to come back to himself at the sound. His gaze became sharp and he lifted his arm, uttering some incantation—
Instantly, his wand emitted a crackling, spitting stream of sparks, and Tom yelped like it had stung him. Hermione knew why. He was depleted; of course he was. Tom likely had nothing left right now, magically speaking, and his wand felt it and reacted.
“Fuck!” Tom screamed. He tried again, and again, and again, but only angry, frazzling sparks. He even tried with Hermione’s wand, which reacted even more angrily than his had, jumping straight out of his hand and landing a few feet away. Tom swore again and shoved his wand in his pocket.
The blood kept pooling. Another wave of pain shot through her, greater even than before, and Hermione cried out, squeezing her eyes shut and clawing at the grass.
“We need to go, you’re going to—”
Tom reached for her shoulders, and though it was a slight touch, it made the pain radiating throughout Hermione’s body escalate perilously. “DON’T TOUCH ME!” she shrieked without thinking. She shuddered as she inhaled.
“Don’t touch me, I’ll heal, I’ll heal, I’ll heal, I’ll heal I’ll heal I’ll heal I’ll—”
Her repetitive blabbering was cut off as another bout of pain rolled over her, aching and deep, and Hermione let out an agonized moan instead. She didn’t know how Tom had reacted other than he had listened—he was no longer touching her.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, Hermione thought desperately, though to whom she was pleading, she wasn’t sure. The Time-Turner magic directly? God, Fate? Any and all of the above?
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
It was too much. Hermione wished dearly that she would pass out from the pain, but she didn’t. She dug her nails into the ground, tearing at the grass and bringing up dirt. She groaned and whimpered and cried, but the agony continued. She thought she heard Tom say something, but he spoke so softly, and Hermione couldn’t hear properly over her own sobs.
Tom moved. He still didn’t touch her, but Hermione felt him nearby, right in front of her. She forced herself to look up. He was on his hands and knees, his head bowed so that his forehead was touching the grass, hiding his face. His hands were in his hair. He was shivering and—his shoulder. Hermione had forgotten that he was wounded, too. His robes were ripped apart and saturated in blood, where the injury Fawkes had given him was currently obscured by the bleeding.
Hermione couldn’t linger on it for more than a moment. More searing pain assaulted her, and in a knee-jerk reaction she grabbed one of Tom’s hands. Then she was closing her eyes again and whimpering through the pain.
Tom didn’t speak or move at all. Hermione was certain she was squeezing the life out of his poor hand, but he didn’t let go.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
It was horrible, it was torture, and then, very suddenly… it wasn’t.
It was like a switch had been flipped. One moment, tormenting, awful pain. The next… nothing.
Hermione sat up a bit. While the memory of the pain was fresh in her mind, making her vibrate with the aftershock, it was gone. Completely gone. The blood certainly wasn’t—it was all over her ruined robes, hair, and everywhere else—but the pain was no more, and Hermione knew that she was no longer actively bleeding. She had healed.
She felt… fine.
Hermione loosened her grip on Tom’s hand. His head was still down on the grass. Now that she could look properly, she saw just what a state he was in. He was trembling hard, and unlike her, he was still bleeding.
“Tom,” she breathed.
His head snapped up. Tom’s face was ashen and his eyes, while dry, were severely bloodshot. He strained his neck to look past her, his eyes flickering to what he could see of her back, and when he returned his focus to her face his expression was awestruck. He swallowed so hard it was audible, then spoke in a cracking voice.
“Hermione.”
They stared at each other, their hands still clasped, unmoving. A slight breeze tickled Hermione’s skin, much of which was exposed now, and she numbly noted the smell of the sea.
Tom’s face began to break out into a slow smile, but then he shook with a much greater tremor.
“Shit, shit,” Hermione said, her stupid, frozen mind springing back to life. She released his hand and scrambled away from him, struggling to do so because her shirt was half shredded from behind, so what was left hung off the front of her arms awkwardly. She ripped it and what was left of her bra off and threw the bloody fabric to the ground in a rush. Then she snatched up her wand, which warmed gloriously in her hands.
Tom was trying to stand, but it looked like it was taking far too much effort. “Don’t, don’t, sit,” Hermione said, pushing him back down. His body convulsed under her touch. “I’m going to heal you, hold on—”
He nodded, saying nothing. Hermione vanished the fabric from his waist up with a few deft flicks of her wand, uncaring if he was going to miss any of it, revealing the extent of the damage. There were two very deep gashes, one on his chest beneath his collarbone and another on his back, right in the middle of his shoulder blade.
Hermione wasted no time. She hyper-focused on the task at hand, lifting her wand with purpose—but then she frowned. “I need you to hold still,” she said.
Tom nodded again, but then his body trembled harder. “I—can’t,” he bit out, and even his teeth had begun to chatter. “I c-can’t.”
Hermione understood. The convulsions could have been from any number of things—the severe magical exhaustion, the aftereffects of shock and copious amounts of adrenaline, the injury itself. “Okay,” Hermione said. “It’s okay. Close your eyes.”
Looking only a little apprehensive, Tom did. Hermione pointed her wand at his forehead and murmured, “Petrificus totalus.”
Instantly, his body went rigid, like he had become a statue. Hermione got to work.
First, she stopped the bleeding. Next, she examined him. She was especially worried about his shoulder blade, as that gash was the deepest. He was lucky—the bone didn’t seem to be damaged. The puncture on his chest was even shallower, and his collarbone had been missed. No broken bones was a huge blessing; Hermione wouldn’t have known how to heal those as well.
Fortunately, she could handle surface injuries. Hermione carefully closed the wounds by magically stitching the skin back together where she could, and duplicating nearby skin to cover one area where she couldn’t, as the gash was too wide.
Tom’s breathing had begun to speed up—growing panicked from being immobilized for so long, probably—just as she finished working on his back. “Almost done,” she said soothingly. “Hold on.”
Hermione vanished the old blood from his skin. There, she thought as she gave his bare, freshly healed body one last evaluation. There were bright pink lines where she’d patched him up, but it was as good as she could do. She wished she had dittany. He was probably going to scar.
Hermione was still sitting behind him, was just about to cast the counter-curse to reanimate him when she realized, with a start, what she looked like.
She was still covered in blood herself. That, however, was the least of her problems.
Her scars. Her scar.
She was shirtless, just like he was now, and that meant that not only were her golden lines visible—which had grown a lot, she noticed with no small amount of fright—but her mudblood scar was on full display. Hermione stared down at it.
What the fuck was she going to do? Why had she stupidly vanished Tom’s much larger, still relatively intact outer robe? She could have used that.
There’s nothing you can do, she thought to herself. He is going to see it. You don’t have your ring any longer. You can’t hide it now.
But Dumbledore’s words, so recently spoken, echoed in her mind. You are wise to hide it, particularly from someone like Tom Riddle…
Tom’s breathing became much sharper, almost wheezing. Hermione lifted her wand and cast the counter-curse.
Instantly, Tom’s body started shaking again, and he slumped to one side. Hermione fell to the ground beside him and wrapped her arms around his waist from behind. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I had to,” she said. “I couldn’t do anything if you were moving, and—”
“No time.” Tom turned around in her arms, pushing himself to his knees. “We can’t stay here, we have to go, now.”
Hermione rose to her knees as well, and she nodded. For the first time, she looked around. “Where are—oh.”
She knew where they were. It was the valley by the seaside that he had taken her to once before, but it looked very different in the Spring, at day time. It was no longer coated in snow, but in bright green grass. Hermione could hear the dull back and forth of the tide below them, where the valley ended in a cliff, and could see the mouths of several caves far away along the coast.
She returned her focus to Tom. They were both on their knees, shirtless. Close. She could feel the heat radiating off his trembling body. Tom’s eyes flickered down from her face to her chest, which was splattered with blood and covered almost completely with dazzling, golden lines. They sparkled in the sunlight. His pupils blew wide as he stared unabashedly, following their pathways.
Hermione’s face flared red and she covered her breasts with her arms—which was a purposeful action, as it hid her mudblood scar without being obvious. Tom’s eyes went back to her face. He shook his head like he was snapping himself out of a daze. “No time,” he repeated. He tried to stand, but despite Hermione’s healing, he was far from recovered. Hermione stood first and helped him up. He couldn’t seem to stop shaking.
“Over here,” he said. He started to pull her towards the edge of the cliff.
“What—where are we—”
“Portkey.”
Hermione’s mouth fell open in shock as Tom pointed down towards a benign looking conch shell. It was just sitting in the grass, and while it was not entirely outlandish that it could be here, close to the sea as they were, it certainly stood out. She didn’t see any other seashells up here, at least.
“A portkey?” she balked, bewildered. “You made a portkey?”
She didn’t know all the details about making portkeys, but Hermione knew that they were huge pains to create and frustrating to be properly registered and approved by the Ministry… the latter of which Tom Riddle obviously did not do, but working around those constrictions would make the task harder in many ways, not easier.
Making a portkey…
Tom nodded stiffly. “On three,” he said. And even though he didn’t need to for a portkey to work, he pulled her in close to him, crushing her to his side. Still shaking. “One, two…”
Hermione took a deep breath and, together, they leaned down, hands hovering over it.
“...Three.”
They both grabbed hold of the conch at the same time, and they were whisked away from the seaside.
They arrived in the in the middle of what appeared to be a beautiful, wild forest. Hermione felt magic in the air the second they landed. It wasn’t welcoming.
Tom tossed the now inactive portkey—a mere conch shell once more—to the ground. “Here,” he said, pulling her a few steps further until they stood before a particularly impressive pine tree. It was oozing with dark magic.
“Take out your wand.”
A bit perplexed, Hermione did. “You won’t be able to pass through the protective enchantments until you make a sacrifice,” he said. “You need to offer up your blood, here… your willing blood.”
Hermione looked from him to the tree. She believed it. It definitely felt like there was blood magic at play.
“How much?” she asked.
“It will take what it needs.”
Ominous, Hermione thought, but she didn’t further question it. She didn’t even think. She nodded, slashed her wand across her left palm with a slicing hex, and placed her right hand on the tree.
The magic reacted at once. Her hand went flat against the bark, like something living and feral had just grabbed it and pulled it taut. A deep pulsing thrummed against her palm, beating in tandem with her heart, a loud whooshing in her ears. The blood rushed from her wound. It was draining out of her, eaten up by the greedy enchantment that kept saying more, more.
Then it slowed, pulsing lighter, and finally stopped. Hermione felt dizzy when it ended, and she was able to pull her hand away. There was not a trace of blood on the tree.
“Good,” Tom said. The rush of magic had been disorienting; for a moment she had quite forgotten what was happening. Tom grabbed her by the wrist above her hand which was still weeping blood, and then she saw it.
A small, brick home with a little porch and even a chimney materialized before her eyes, nestled between some more tall pine trees and shrubbery. The visual of it was in great contrast to how the dark magic surrounding the area felt. Tom nudged her forward, and a moment later she was walking through the front door, Tom right behind her.
It was a small cottage, maybe three or four rooms total, but it seemed comfortable. It looked like it belonged to a very tidy muggle, truthfully, with sparse but comfortable furniture that was fitting for a cabin in the middle of the woods.
It was… cute.
Tom closed the door. Hermione turned to look at him, pulling her wrist from his grasp and hugging herself around the chest again. He put his hands on her shoulders instead. His face became serious, focused, and his trembling seemed to lessen a bit.
“No one can touch us here,” Tom said, speaking in a slow and measured voice, like he was explaining something important to a child. “Even if they have more of your blood, willing or not— though I’m hoping they don’t have your willing blood any longer—this space is protected by an extremely powerful and dark blood ward. A blood-based tracking curse of any kind wouldn’t be able to break through it; this ward would just consume it and become stronger. You’re safe here. You’re safe.”
Hermione was at a loss. She stared at him, lips parting uselessly, unable to say anything. She nodded instead.
Then he collapsed.
Tom fell forward, and Hermione barely managed to help steady him. He had started to tremor harder than ever. “Oh,” she gasped, and he hissed as though she’d hurt him. Hermione guided him to the small couch nearby and he fell onto it. “Oh, no, Tom, Tom, what’s happening, what—”
“I’m fine,” he said, but he did not look fine at all. His face had paled even more, and the tremors were only getting worse. “Just—repercussions.”
“Repercussions?”
“Dark magic… ah. A lot of it.”
He closed his eyes and continued to shiver. “What can I do?” Hermione asked. She sat beside him. “There’s got to be some spell, something I can—”
“There’s nothing,” Tom muttered. “It has to pass on its own, it will soon. It will…”
His voice trailed off, and he slumped to his side, falling onto Hermione’s lap. He wrapped his trembling arms around her waist and buried his face into her legs.
Hermione looked down at him, her mind buzzing. It was like she had met her threshold for being shocked; like all the chaos from the last few days—if it had been only a few days—had short-circuited her brain, and now everything was fried.
Tom was here. Tom had saved her and brought her to some cursed cabin in the woods. Tom was shivering in her lap like a traumatized cat and—oh, she was bleeding on him.
Hermione sealed the cut on her palm, not wanting to wait for her cursed body to do the job. She then vanished the droplets of blood that had landed in his hair, as well as all the dried blood she could see on her own body. She imagined there was still quite a bit more on her back, face and hair, but that would have to wait until she could get to a mirror. Then, almost as an autopilot afterthought for becoming more comfortable, she loosened her boots and used a wordless locomotion charm to hover them over to sit by the door. She didn’t realize until after she’d done it that she’d forgotten to clean the blood off of them first.
Blood that wasn’t hers.
Hermione set her wand down on a coffee table in front of them when she was done. There was a litany of questions that she knew she should be dying to ask, but they all seemed to dissipate like puffs of smoke as her gaze drifted to where she’d placed her wand. A coffee table. Hermione examined it blankly, unable to focus on anything else. It was a nice coffee table, made of solid wood. Maybe oak? Sturdy, well made. Handmade, definitely. Rustic. She could see that the grain in the wood was left a little rough.
Hermione wasn’t sure when she had started combing her fingers through Tom’s hair. One moment she was pondering the process of traditional woodworking and if she would be any good at that sort of thing, and the next Tom was shifting in her lap, forcing her to lift her hand mid-stroke.
He looked at her through half-lidded eyes. He didn’t seem to be shaking any longer. How much time had passed since they sat down? A minute? Five? Twenty? Hermione had no idea. She looked at Tom and wondered if this might still be some kind of dream. It felt like it.
He smiled a lazy, lopsided smile. Then he reached with one hand—the slightest tremor was still there, Hermione noted—and cupped her face with his fingers. “Hello, you,” he murmured.
Hermione choked out a laugh. “H-h-hey,” she said, the anxious stutter seemingly coming out of nowhere. Was she nervous? She went to touch his face in turn and—damn. Now she was the one shaking. It was like Tom had just transferred almost all his trembling into her. Her heart was starting to pound and a sense of dread was beginning to swell in her heart.
Her mind caught up to her body a moment later. Right. She was shirtless and unshielded. Her scar was clearly visible. He was going to notice it any minute now.
I have to just show him.
“Tom,” she said, and while her voice was a bit higher than usual, she didn’t stutter again. “I… I have to show you something. Something I’ve been hiding from you. And you might hate me once you see it. You probably will. You might regret everything, and I’m sorry if—if you do, if this makes you wish you’d never—you might—this might make you want to—”
“Hermione.”
Tom sat up, then moved so that he was facing her, her chin still in his hand. Hermione held her left arm tightly to her bare chest. His eyes followed the action, focusing on her forearm where, on the other side, the ugly, black scar was.
His gaze stayed there for a moment, then returned to her face.
This is it. This is the moment where I lose him forever.
“I already know,” he said softly.
She blinked at him, certain she had misheard. “Wh… what?”
Tom grabbed her by the wrist, gently but firmly drawing it towards him. Hermione didn’t breathe as she pulled it down, revealing it.
Mudblood.
He looked at it, then back at her face. He did not look surprised at all. Instead his eyes darkened in a cold, familiar way.
“Give me a name.”
His command was a whisper, but it was undoubtedly that—a command.
But Hermione’s mind was reeling with shock. “You knew?” she gasped. “How, when…?”
“Since New York.”
“Since—when in—oh, my God.”
It hit her all at once. Tom nodded, affirming what he knew she must be realizing before she could even say it.
“You—you looked at me when I passed out,” Hermione said. “You took off my ring. You said that nothing happened, that—”
“You didn’t pass out. I cursed you. I lied.” Tom did not look or sound remorseful in the slightest. “I am a very good liar.”
Hermione was dumbfounded for a moment longer, and then her face began to burn. Whether it was from embarrassment or anger, she wasn’t entirely sure. She felt both, unwarranted at the latter surely was at this point. She swallowed hard before she said, in a forced, conversational voice, “And did you do anything else to me while I was cursed and incapacitated?”
Tom didn’t answer. He was looking back down at the mudblood scar, his expression turning dangerously icy again.
“Aren’t you… aren’t you furious with me?” Hermione then asked, fear quickly beginning to crowd out any sense of indignation she’d had.
“Yes, I am,” Tom said. His eyes never left the scar, where he had begun to slowly run his thumb over the letters. “But not for this. I don’t care what your blood status is or is not. I do understand why you would hide this. Anyone would. You would be a fool not to.”
His eyes flashed back to hers, frightening with their coldness. “A name,” he repeated in that soft, deadly voice.
There was a lot there, Hermione realized, in the way that he had skipped past the part of asking questions. He did not ask when, how, or why she had acquired this horrid scar that marked her as a muggleborn permanently. He didn’t even ask if it was true.
He only wanted to know who.
“It doesn’t matter,” Hermione started. “They aren’t—”
“A name!”
Tom snapped, gripping her wrist hard, fiercely tight. His face was the picture of fury as he held her, made even more frightening by how ashen his skin still was, how bloodshot his eyes. The furniture all shook as though there was a small earthquake. Hermione was thankful that he was magically depleted; otherwise, she was certain it would have been much worse.
“Give me a name, now—”
“They’re already dead!” Hermione shouted in a panic, having no time to think it through. “They’re dead, they’re dead, it’s already done!”
Tom kept hold of her wrist, staring at her with that venomous look, breathing hard. “The person who did this is already gone,” she went on in a hurry. “You can’t hunt them down and kill them yourself. They’re dead. I’m sorry.”
A lie she felt she had to give, because it was close enough to the truth. He could not hunt down the person who did this no matter how badly he thought he might.
Bellatrix hadn’t been born yet.
For a moment, Hermione thought something terrible was going to happen. Tom was clearly incensed; he looked like he had just been robbed.
“It wasn’t quick,” Hermione whispered, because she knew what he wanted to hear.
It did seem to help. Tom took a deep breath, appearing a bit mollified, and gathered himself. He released her wrist.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Hermione asked before he could decide that he wanted to start to asking clarifying questions after all—something which she was sure was coming, but which she wanted to delay as long as possible. “If you’ve known for so long…”
Tom’s posture became less rigid, and he actually shrugged—a gesture that could not have been more different than his recent near-attack. “I was waiting for you to tell me yourself.”
“For me… why?”
“Because that would mean you’d finally learned to trust me.”
His posture shifted, and his eyes softened as they bored into hers. “I want you to tell me everything. I want to know about your golden lines and healing magic; about your mysterious past and unprecedented skills… I want to hold and keep your every dark secret… and I want you to tell me everything on your own volition, because I want to know that you feel safe with me. I want your trust. Your loyalty. Your real, honest, burning devotion.”
He moved a tangle of hair off her forehead. “I want you, mind, body, and soul… I have seen your heart, and I want it.”
Hermione stared at him, into those bottomless, black eyes—pulling, pulling, pulling.
She knew everything that had just happened was insane, horrific, and almost too crazy to be true. Tom had come for her, had somehow freed her and even gotten her wand back, and…
And how many people were dead?
How many aurors’ bodies had been in that second room that she hadn’t looked in, where there was so much blood? Was Liam dead? Madison? Had Hokey made it out? Who, or what, was that thing in the first room; the imposter that resembled Tom? What had he done to Hogwarts, to make Dumbledore leave to go there? For there was no way that Dumbledore had suddenly left to tend to his school by mere coincidence…
Somewhere, distantly, Hermione realized the true horror of what she’d caused. If Tom had murdered all those aurors—and with the way he’d so effortlessly cast a killing curse at Madison, she had no doubt he would have—then that meant… that would mean that the Tom Riddle she knew now, here, in this timeline, had killed more people in a day than he presumably had in a decade in her old one.
But she didn’t want to think about that.
Hermione didn’t want to think about any of that at all. She didn’t want to think about how she’d been captured and interrogated; she didn’t want to think about Dumbledore attacking her mind or saying far too logical, heartbreaking things to her; she didn’t want to think about Liam using his abilities to make her want him, about the way her body had betrayed her, filling with lust when he’d pressed his lips to hers—
No, no, don’t think, don’t.
Hermione put both her hands on Tom’s face and kissed him.
She crushed her lips to his once, then again, and again, and again, like with every kiss she shared with him she pushed the one she’d had with Liam further away, burying it deeper. She kissed Tom’s mouth and his neck and she climbed onto his lap, kissing him wherever her mouth would reach as she did. She hiked her skirt up, settling her knees on either side of his waist, then started to kiss beneath his collar bone where she had so recently healed him. She ran her hands down his chest, pleased to see that he had started to shiver again at her touch. Being magically depleted did tend to make one ultra sensitive in other ways. Hermione wondered if it was too much; if it was uncomfortable.
She found she didn’t care. “Thank you,” she breathed against his skin before she started to kiss his neck again. Which seemed such an insignificant thing to say, considering all that he had done, so small that it was almost insulting… but she had to say it. “Thank you,” she repeated. She kissed his jawline, trailing her lips along it until they were against his again. “Thank you.”
The next time she kissed his mouth, he grabbed her by the hair, keeping her there. His tongue flitted against the seam of her lips, and Hermione allowed it, parting for him. His tongue slid against hers, kissing her deeply. Slowly.
Hermione didn’t want to be kissed slowly.
She wanted to be kissed roughly. She wanted to be ravaged with so much passion that the rest of her horrible fears and thoughts would burn away under the heat of it, turning to dust. She wanted to fuck like a Queen, and she wanted nothing else.
Hermione twisted her fingers in his hair and pulled his head back, kissing him harder. He reacted the way she wanted at first; he kissed her back with equal vigor, and his hands went to her thighs, running up her skirt. Feeling a bit manic with need, Hermione lifted herself up higher on her knees and started to grab at the hem of Tom’s pants.
“Hermione…”
His voice was soft, but something in it didn’t sound right. Hermione ignored it and kissed him again.
He pulled her away. “Hermione, stop,” he said.
She didn’t. She didn’t want to stop. Stopping might mean talking and thinking and Hermione didn’t want to do either of those things. “No,” she said before continuing to kiss him aggressively. He went just as still as when she’d magically immobilized him. “Please,” she said, kissing his neck again instead.
“Hermione, stop.”
Tom’s voice was much stronger the second time. He dragged her face away from his neck, but before she could even begin to feel annoyed, before she could even spit out the word why, he said, “You’re crying.”
She blinked, then nearly laughed. “No I’m not,” she said.
She was. Hermione lifted a hand to her face and felt that both her cheeks were slick with tears. The second she registered they were there, an awful, guttural sound escaped her throat.
No.
“No I’m not,” she said again, despite this. Her voice was much too shrill. “I’m fine, I’m fine, just—”
She abruptly stopped talking, because talking involved too much thinking and she couldn’t do that, she wouldn’t. But when she tried to kiss him again, Tom would not allow it.
“Hermione,” he said warningly. “You need to stop… You are not okay.”
“I’M FINE!”
Hermione didn’t know where the emotion came from. All she knew was that a wave of torrid rage licked up her spine, and she felt the heat everywhere—in her heart, in her head, in her hands. Tom winced when her fingers, which had drifted up to his chest, curled and dragged against his skin.
Everything went cold in an instant.
Hermione looked at him there—his chest, which she had already scarred—and drew her hands back. She barely felt any relief to see that she had hardly scratched him. She had just screamed at him. She had just shouted in his face and…
Hermione stood. “I’m…” she started, but she couldn’t finish a sentence. She swiped at the tears that kept running down her face and got off of him, then rushed away.
Hermione went through one of the only two doors in the cabin, and was fortunate to have guessed right. She entered a small washroom. She shut the door and stared at herself in the round mirror above the sink as she wiped away more tears. There was indeed blood in her hair still, as well as on her cheeks and forehead. The gold lines were everywhere.
She wasn’t shaking, but she felt like she should be.
I’m fine, I’m fine, she told herself as she took a few deep breaths. What does he know? I’m fine. I can handle this. I can handle anything.
There was a small shower, barely big enough for one person to stand in. Almost robotically, Hermione turned on the hot water, thankful that there was hot water, stripped in a hurry, and got in. Tom wouldn’t care. Even if he did, fuck what Tom thought. What did he know, saying she wasn’t okay? She was okay. She was fine.
She turned the water as hot as it would go. It must have been enchanted, she concluded, because though everything about this place screamed muggle, the water was instantly hot as hell, which she appreciated, but which made no sense for a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Were they in the middle of nowhere? Were they even in England any longer? A portkey could have taken them anywhere. She didn’t have a bloody clue. She hadn’t asked.
It wasn’t until the water started flowing that the thirst hit her. Hermione turned the heat down and started to drink luke-warm water straight out of the shower head. It had a metallic taste that was a bit odd, but water had never, ever tasted so good. She drank until she couldn’t anymore, until she felt a bit sick with it, then she turned the water back to blazing hot.
Hermione looked and saw that there was only one thing in this shower on a shelf to her right side: a lonely bar of soap. She grabbed it and started to scrub everywhere, aggressively. It smelled like sandalwood.
Which was all well and fine, except she couldn’t use a regular bar of soap on her hair. Her hair, which had returned to its original, frizzy state. It had been so long since she’d dealt with her natural hair that she almost didn’t know what to do. No, she did know what to do—she just couldn’t do it. She usually used mounds of conditioner (or sometimes magic, if she was being honest) to detangle her curly hair, and it was infinitely more tangled than it had ever been before.
This, here, is my truest nightmare, Hermione thought as she stood in the shower, despairing. She began the slow and torturous process of working all the tangles out with no aid but water.
It was horrible.
Her hair was so matted and so fucked up because they had flown—she still couldn’t comprehend that he has carried her, flying—that she was going to need her wand and probably a visit from the Miraculous Melissa if she was ever going to have a hope of salvaging it. Hermione whimpered as her fingers got caught in the same knot she’d been working on for a few minutes, until she finally got so frustrated with it all that she yanked, hard, pulling the whole thing out. She yelped at the stinging pain that followed, then thrust the unsightly knot down towards the drain. A pink splattering of watered-down blood followed it.
That’s fine. I’m fine.
She kept going. Hermione moved on to the next one, though she was at least determined to not pull any more hair out. She started to detangle again, but there were just too many knots, she couldn’t possibly get rid of them all, but there was no other option, was there? So she kept yanking and wincing and working through the pain, and it was okay, she was going to be okay, she was fine—
When had she slid to the floor?
Hermione didn’t know. What she did know was that she was sitting there on the floor of the shower, tearing at her scalp under the hot stream of water, when Tom came in.
He turned the water off. He grabbed her wrists and pulled them away from her hair. He had changed, she realized numbly. He was wearing a pair of the most muggle looking, comfy blue sweatpants, but still no shirt. Something about that struck her as a bit funny.
Tom grabbed a towel and knelt down right outside the shower door. He wrapped it around her, and when Hermione did nothing to fight him, picked her up and carried her out of the bathroom.
Hermione was crying.
She probably had never stopped crying, she realized, it had just been less obvious in the shower. Hermione was crying in a soft, almost silent way, tears running rivers down her cheeks. Tom carried her, wrapped up in a towel like a cocoon, through the only other door in the cabin and laid her down on a bed. The room, which was a modest bedroom, was bathed in the dull golden light of a setting sun streaming through the window.
He never said a single word.
Tom didn’t say anything as he cast a silent charm, warming her before he carefully took the towel away. He didn’t speak when he covered her with a thick blanket instead, then cautiously sat beside her. Hermione, getting the sense that he was considering leaving, grabbed hold of him around the waist and clung to him.
That was all he needed. Tom’s body relaxed and he wrapped his arms around her, absurdly sweetly, laying beside her and facing her.
Hermione tried not to think about bright white corridors filled with pooling blood and unhinged door frames.
Tom moved the blanket so it was over both of them, pulled her to his chest, and Hermione burrowed her head against it. She felt bad, crying on him like that, but he didn’t seem to mind. She listened to his heartbeat. It was slow, and it made her feel a bit steadier.
Then he started to touch her hair.
Hermione bristled, more shocked than anything, feeling the need to issue a warning—if you want to keep your hand, I wouldn’t touch that, if I were you—but he surprised her. He knew what he was doing. Tom started to very slowly and methodically work his fingers through the knots, having infinitely more patience than Hermione ever had when dealing with her hair herself.
He was so gentle that it didn’t even hurt. Tom’s agile fingers managed to undo a knot and make it feel good, like she was getting a scalp massage or something equally bizarre.
Joke’s on him, Hermione thought in a daze as she clung to him even more tightly. He’ll be at it for days at the pace he’s going. He has no idea just how much hair I have.
She wasn’t about to try and tell him that, though. Hermione basked in the lovely feeling of someone tending to her hair—no, of Tom taking care of her—and, smiling, breathing in the scent of him, she closed her eyes.
It was silent for a while. Hermione listened to the calming thud of his heartbeat, letting it lull her. His touch felt so nice. She was going to fall asleep in minutes.
Which was ridiculous and unfair, wasn’t it? If anyone should be taking showers and getting pampered like this, resting, it was Tom. She should be the one taking care of him, worshiping him, praising him. He had saved her and with all that he’d done—the magic, the running, the flying, and the countless things he’d surely needed to do before all that—he must have been absolutely exhausted.
But here he was, getting the knots out of her hair.
Hermione drew in a breath, then finally broke the silence. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Again, the words felt so small, so insignificant.
Thank you. I’m sorry.
Tom paused, then carried on with his gentle ministrations. “Don’t be,” he murmured. “You’re fragile.”
She tensed against him, which made him laugh in a soft, musical way. “It would be infinitely more worrisome if you weren’t fragile right now,” he said. “I expected it… so just accept it and let me take care of you.”
Hermione considered arguing, but Tom grabbed her chin with his free hand and forced her to look at him, once more pausing on his detangling mission. His face looked much better here, bathed in the sun’s golden light.
“If you really want to thank me,” he said, “you can do so by listening to me… darling.”
Then he kissed her forehead, and Hermione felt all the fight drain right out of her. Her head fell back to his chest. She put one hand against it as well, where it fit perfectly against the scar she’d given him. She felt his heartbeat.
Hermione nodded. Tom started to comb his fingers through her curls again. He seemed to be making some significant progress, which may have been his most astonishing feat to date.
“I… have questions,” Hermione mumbled. Exhaustion weighed on her.
“I’m sure you do,” Tom said, and though she wasn’t looking at him, she could hear the smirk in his voice. “They can wait.”
Hermione agreed with that. “I’m sure you have questions too,” she said.
“They can also wait.”
Hermione nodded again. Then, unable to stop herself, she said, “Can I ask one? An easy one.”
Tom let out another soft laugh. “Just one.”
“Where are we?”
“Mmm, somewhere far away from them. Somewhere I’ve been before, in fact… fortunately. I didn’t plan on returning so soon, but it seems fate had other plans in store.”
Hermione waited for him to elaborate, but after a few moments passed, it didn’t appear he was going to. She was too tired to ask again, however, and maybe it was better that she didn’t know. She relaxed into him, breathing steady.
Hermione was on the precipice of a deep, much needed slumber when he murmured the words, “Albania… we’re in the wilderness of Albania.”
Notes:
Chapter 56: Blood Ward
Chapter Text
Hermione opened her eyes to pure darkness.
It was so dark it was surreal; the sort she hadn’t experienced in a long time. There were no ambient lights anywhere, no dim glow coming in from a window from a nearby streetlight. It was pitch black, and she found the inability to see anything at all comforting.
Tom’s breathing was steady next to her. He still had a hand in her hair, but he was clearly asleep. Hermione wondered what time it was. She imagined it was the middle of the night.
She shifted so that she could place her ear to his chest. Tom’s heartbeat was slow, calm. Unable to stop herself, she lightly traced the ridges where she had scarred him. Her blurred, brutal handprint over his heart.
He stirred. Oh, damn, Hermione thought. She hadn’t meant to wake him. Or maybe she had, because the moment he moved, a low, questioning hum coming from his throat as he did, she lifted her head and kissed him.
He went rigid for a second—surprised, she imagined, and likely still half asleep—but then he relaxed, and softly kissed her back.
It was easy, in the darkness, to forget everything. He wasn’t a murderous Dark Lord and she wasn’t a liar and a criminal; they could be anyone, here. Just two bodies twined together in the night.
Hermione deepened their kiss, happy to find no resistance. Tom was pliant, trailing one hand down her arm, to her waist, while the other stayed in her hair. Hermione felt his heartbeat against her palm, a steadying pulse that picked up when she reached lower with her other hand.
He caught her by the wrist before she could do much. Tom pulled her wandering arm away, broke their kiss, and started to kiss her neck, then her chest. And before Hermione could draw in another breath he was kissing her breasts, lightly flicking his tongue over one nipple while his fingers ghosted over the over, featherlight.
Hermione almost said something—but she held in her words, breathing a sigh instead. It was magical, the lack of speaking in this darkness, and it felt like the spell would shatter if either of them said a word.
Maybe Tom feels the same, Hermione thought. Not that he could have spoken at the moment, anyway. He started to swirl his tongue over her hardened nipple, sending electric-like currents down her body. Hermione pushed her hips towards him and she felt his cock, semi-hard beneath his sweatpants.
To her surprise, he lifted his lips to start kissing her stomach, then began to leave a trail of his wet lips and tongue on her body as he moved, shifting, going lower. Hermione felt the blanket slip off of them as he did, the sudden cool air making her shiver. His hands were on her legs. The bed creaked softly as he moved lower still, pushing her knees apart, and…
And Hermione didn’t want it.
Because that was even more ridiculous than him taking care of her, wasn’t it? For Tom to be the one doing… that? He had saved her. He had rescued her from what may have possibly been a fate worse than death. He had exhausted himself in every conceivable way and he had untangled her hair with his hands, not magic, slowly and tenderly and—and hell, she had been the one to wake him up. From what was probably some much needed rest, no doubt.
I don’t think so, Hermione thought. She reached out with both hands and found his face. He instantly stilled, lifting himself up in the darkness. Hermione had no idea what his expression might have been. Worried? Annoyed? Confused, maybe.
Hermione didn’t give him time to contemplate or worse, to ask. She just pulled him back towards her, kissed him on the mouth, then pushed him onto his back.
He might not have gone down so easily if he could see, as he hated giving up control—and he did go rigid. Hermione felt his arm tense where she held him, but she was determined. She was going to do this. She wanted to do this. More than anything.
Hermione mimicked his own moves—she kissed his neck, then his chest, pressing her parted lips onto his rib cage and abs like she was making a map with her tongue, spending an extra long moment on his scar. She crawled down his body, kissing, licking, sucking. He was tense the whole time. His breathing was getting shallower and quicker.
Then she was at his hips. Hermione grabbed hold of the hem of his pants and started to pull them down, had just freed his semi-hard cock when she felt him suddenly sit up, his hands grabbing hers.
Hermione looked, but of course she could see nothing. His breathing had gotten even faster, and when he swallowed, she could hear it. His hands were shaking ever so slightly as they held hers, tight. Was he still that magically exhausted? No, he wasn’t; this was new, different…
He seemed… anxious.
Hermione was deeply confused.
Did he not think she was capable of doing something like this? Was he worried she was too fragile? That she wasn’t ready to be intimate? No, she did not think that was the case; he’d been keen enough to snog and to be the one going down on her, which was just as intimate, if not more so, and—
Was that it?
Was it not her, specifically, but… this? This act? Did Tom Riddle find the idea of someone sucking his cock… intimidating?
At first thought, Hermione found this idea laughable, but within seconds she realized it could absolutely be true. Tom Riddle liked to be in control, always, at all times. When he did seemingly give it up that control, he wasn’t really—Hermione knew the only reason she’d been able to ride him once, to fuck like a Queen, was because he’d allowed it. He’d let her hold his wrists down. He’d been the real one in control, even then.
He liked to have all the power.
No matter how one spun it, that power was at least partly relinquished when letting someone else put their mouth on your most sensitive body parts. And this particular situation was even more unknown. He couldn’t see her. They were in the dark and he was clearly, painfully, uncomfortable.
Vulnerable.
Hermione wasn’t sure why, but instead of making her instantly pause and say something, this realization made her even more determined. If he told her to stop she would, of course, but right now he was just sitting there, panting, and so she thought he was merely torn.
She could help him with that decision.
Hermione lifted her arms, pried one of his hands off of hers, and traced each of his fingers with her own. Once his grip relaxed, she ran her tongue along his pointer finger, slowly. Up, and down. Up, and down. Up, and down.
She started to suck on his fingertip. She heard his breath hitch.
This is what I can do to you, she said without saying anything at all, wrapping her tongue around his finger before pulling the whole thing into her mouth. This is what I want to do.
Up, and down, slowly. She sucked gently, then a bit harder. Up, and down. His breath kept catching, but he didn’t stop her, and didn't try to do something else instead.
Hermione tentatively reached low with her other hand. He was fully hard now, and his body twitched at the unexpected touch. He sucked in a sharp, loud inhale.
Still, she didn’t do anything there, and she pulled back. She returned her focus to his hand, placing his middle finger inside her mouth as well, continuing to move her lips up, and down. She wouldn’t do anything else until he gave some kind of sign that he was ready, that he wanted more.
Tom’s breathing was growing harsher with each breath, filling the room with audible puffs, but she didn’t think they were anxious any longer. Then, the next time her lips were on the tips of his fingers, he pulled his hand away and rested it on her cheek instead, wet against her skin. Then he laid back on the bed.
Hermione couldn’t see his face, and he didn’t say anything, but she assumed—cautiously—that this meant to go on. She pulled the hem of his pants down a bit further, and he helped her with it. That was good, she thought. She almost wanted to tell him that, giving him some of the praise he tended to give to her—that’s good, Tom, that’s so good—but no. No speaking.
She felt his cock against her other cheek. He was very hard and—well, he was much too long to take fully in her mouth, but she would do her best. Hermione kissed the base of his shaft and was surprised that he smelled so clean. It wasn’t like he had gotten to shower after all that and—right. Of course. He’s a wizard, Hermione, and there are plenty of satisfactory cleaning spells that require very little magic.
Stop thinking about such stupid details! She needed to focus. She was a little nervous, she realized. What if she was horrible at this? She’d done it before, but only a handful of times and that was ages ago, and—and what if she made him regret trusting her…?
Nonsense. You’re amazing at everything you put your brilliant mind to.
A tendril of hair fell into her face, and Hermione realized that was going to be a problem. She didn’t exactly have a hair tie on her, did she? Feeling it was the only thing to do, Hermione twisted her recently detangled mane into a giant knot on top of her head. Then she grabbed Tom’s hands and guided them to it, instructing him with her own fingers that he was in charge of holding it up.
For whatever reason, this made Tom release what was surely an unintentional, grunting sound, like he was holding back a moan. Hermione smiled in the dark. He wouldn’t be holding anything back much longer.
Hermione took a deep breath, then made her tongue as wide as she could and dragged it up the underside of his cock, stopping just before the tip. Then she did it again in a slightly different spot, licking every bit of skin along the length of him, getting him as wet as possible. His fingers tightened on her hair, and oh, how Hermione wished she could see his face.
Probably better that I can’t, she thought. Getting locked in his gaze would make this much more difficult; as it was, she could focus clearly.
Once she was satisfied that he was slick enough with her saliva, Hermione finally turned her attention to his head. She flicked her tongue over it and Tom’s whole body reacted—his hips jutted forward and he let out another repressed, guttural noise. Hermione didn’t give him time to recover; she wrapped her lips around his tip, tightly swirling her tongue, and there it was—Tom moaned, a deep, delicious sound that she felt in the pit of her stomach.
Then she lowered herself, taking in as much of him as she could without gagging and using her hand on what she could not, and he moaned much louder.
Hermione was sure she’d never heard anything more satisfying.
She moved slowly at first, but she soon began to pick up speed. She sucked gently, then a little harder. Faster, harder. Faster, harder. She breathed steadily through her nose and Tom kept tightening his hold on her hair and he was moaning; it seemed that once he’d started, he couldn’t stop. He began to buck his hips against her mouth, matching her pace, and Hermione tasted the slightest bit of something salty on her tongue.
Internally, she grinned. He was going to come undone any second now, and it had hardly taken any time at all to get him there.
Hermione felt him tugging on her hair, a sudden high sound interrupting his moans. She imagined that was supposed to be a warning. He seemed to be trying—feebly—to pull her off.
Hermione only moved faster, then took him a bit deeper than she had thus far. She felt him brush against a part of her throat, far back, nearly enough to make her gag—but not quite. Then, feeling bolder than ever, she gently ran her fingers over his balls, almost experimentally, because there was some part of her that found it astonishing that Tom Riddle was still just a man, made up of the same flesh and bone as any other, susceptible to all the same vices.
The second she touched him there everything tensed. She felt that he was going to come a mere second before he did, and then he was. Hermione, having already braced herself, committed to it fully, sucking his pulsing cock as he came in hot spurts, the salty taste of him on her tongue before she swallowed it down, hungrily, greedy.
She realized something then—I haven’t eaten in days, I might actually be starving—but the thought was quickly driven away. Tom, who had been moaning like a proper whore nearly the whole time she’d been working, had gone surprisingly silent when he came. Hermione was worried for a moment, but then he inhaled, and it was a ragged, shuddering sound. He must have been literally breathless when he tipped over the edge.
He wasn’t silent now, though. He groaned as though he had just gone to battle and barely survived when she took her mouth off of him. Her jaw was a bit sore, but she didn’t mind, and she wasn’t done. Hermione started running her tongue along his still mostly hard cock again, making him tremble as she licked it clean, looking for any drops of him that she might have missed, and—wow, I am definitely starving, aren’t I?
Tom’s body went limp while she was still lapping at him, and her hair slipped from his grasp. The knot came undone and curls fell all around her face, getting in her way.
Hermione decided that was as good a sign as any that she should stop. She gave his cock, which was rapidly becoming soft, one last, sloppy kiss, then grabbed the blanket from the floor. She pulled it over them as she laid by his side, feeling for his head so that she could put her face beside his. He was still breathing hard, but it was softening.
Hermione touched his forehead. It was damp with sweat, which made her smile. He rolled to his side and wrapped his arm around her, and his limbs were heavy, dead weight. Still, he started to move one hand down her side, like he might try to do something to return the favor.
Which was valiant and honorable and all that, but the idea made Hermione grin amusedly. She could tell, without even seeing him, that he was spent. And that was okay. It was great, even. Having reduced Tom to this state made her feel oddly proud.
She caught his arm and moved it so that it was wound around her waist instead. Then she started to run her fingers through his hair, because she owed him that, too.
Just sleep, she thought, kissing his forehead.
Tom seemed to understand, and he truly must have been exhausted, because for once he did what she wanted him to do. He put his head against her chest—could he feel her heartbeat? Was it steady, calm?—and held her close.
She could tell by his breathing that he was asleep in seconds. Hermione stroked his hair for a while, enjoying the sound of his slow inhales and exhales, before she too drifted off.
The next time she woke up, it was daytime. Sunlight lit up the bedroom in a soft light, and birdsong drifted in from outside. She guessed it was mid-morning.
Tom wasn’t there.
Adrenaline exploded in her veins, and Hermione bolted up, heart thundering. “Tom?” she called. She tossed the blanket off and jumped to her feet. “Tom? Tom?”
He was in the doorway a second later. Hermione ran into his arms, hugging him tightly, the relief nearly as strong as the immediate dread had been. “I just woke up and you weren’t there and—”
“Shhh…” Tom held her back and quieted her. “I’m here. I was up before you; I woke up early and took care of a few things… It’s okay. I’m here.”
Hermione was instantly stressed again. “But you left?” she asked sharply. “You left me here, alone, while I was asleep?”
“Not for long. You didn’t even know I was gone.”
“Why would you—how could you—”
Tom grabbed her face with both hands. “I had to tend to the ward, and I had to go get a few things. I was not gone long. And you are perfectly safe here, whether I’m present or not. No one can touch you here.”
Hermione rubbed her eyes. Gods, had she nearly started crying again? “J-just tell me before you’re going to leave, if you do that again,” she whispered, hating how whiny she sounded.
“I thought it was better if I was gone and back again before you awoke… but okay. I’ll tell you next time. I promise.”
Hermione nodded, but she knew she still looked as annoyed as she felt. Tom pulled her off him, turned around, and grabbed something—what looked to be a black bath robe that was hanging on the back of the door. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “I’m afraid I don’t have any clothes for you… I’ll have to get some later.”
Hermione stared at the robe, then remembered that she was naked. Unlike him, she noted then—Tom was dressed in casual, nondescript clothes that could have passed easily in either a magical or muggle environment. “Unless you’d prefer not to,” he added, his eyes going down the length of her gold-covered body.
Hermione took the robe and slid it over her shoulders. “That’d be a bit cold,” she mumbled as she wrapped it around herself.
Tom’s gaze darkened in that foreboding way, looking like he was going to do or say something… bad, she thought, but then he shook his head. “Come out here,” he said. “I think you might forgive me for briefly leaving once you do.”
She followed him into the room that served as a kitchen and living room, and there, on a little round table with two chairs around it, was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.
Food.
Some kind of delectable looking pastry dish, the sort that had a colorful jam spread and icing on it, and a bowl of fruit—nectarines? Peaches? Hermione didn’t know, and she didn’t care. The second she saw food her entire world shrunk down to its presence and just about nothing else.
“I forgive you,” she said tonelessly, and before Tom could respond, without waiting for some kind of permission, she sat at the table, grabbed a maybe-nectarine, and took a giant bite.
Hermione was certain she’d never made a sound half as sexual as she did right then, the sweet, juicy taste of what she was now certain was a peach filling her mouth. She closed her eyes, savoring it for a moment before swallowing that mouthful down and devouring the rest. She barely paused to drop the pit into the bowl before grabbing another. Her hand was covered in juices, but she couldn’t be bothered with wiping any of it off.
Dimly, she registered that Tom was doing something by the counter, but she didn’t know what. It didn’t matter. There were two peaches left, and after them, the pastry was going down.
She was on peach number four when he joined her. Tom sat across from her at the table, two mugs in his hands, and she couldn’t tell if he looked more amused or concerned. He seemed a little of both.
“Mmm,” Hermione mumbled as she dropped the last peach pit in the bowl. “Sorry, I’m being a complete savage. I hope I wasn’t supposed to save one for you.”
“No, not at all, it’s all yours,” Tom said. He slid a mug towards her, and the smell of Earl Grey filled the air.
Hermione glanced at it but didn’t touch it. Her hands were dripping with peach juice, and she didn’t see a napkin anywhere, but that wouldn’t have stopped her from behaving like a mannerless child anyway. She licked the juice off her fingers, not wanting any of it to go to waste.
“Thank you. I was starving,” she said as she switched from one finger to the next, sucking it clean.
“Yes, I… sort of sensed that.”
Hermione looked up at him, her middle finger still fully in her mouth. Tom was watching her, but when their eyes met he hastily looked away, into his tea, and—dear God, was he blushing?
He was. Tom Riddle, rising Dark Lord, terrible, powerful sorcerer, murderer, and monster… was blushing, his face turning a light tint of pink. He couldn’t even hold her gaze for a second before he’d needed to avert his gaze. His blush deepened.
Hermione had a few immediate thoughts about that, about how wildly uncharacteristic and mind-boggling that reaction was, but she really couldn’t focus on it yet. Tom could have his feelings; she was eating.
By the time the pastry was half-gone (and she was certain that God himself could not have baked anything better), Hermione was feeling satisfied and infinitely more human. She picked up her tea, which was the perfect temperature, and took a long drink.
“Mmmmm,” she all but moaned again. She exhaled a long, slow breath. “Wow. This is the best tea I’ve ever tasted in my life.”
But Tom wasn’t smiling, and he no longer looked even a little amused. He didn’t look bashful anymore, either. No, he looked like the Tom Riddle Hermione was much more familiar with—that blankly cold, detached expression on his face. “When did you last eat…?” he asked quietly.
“Hm, I don’t know,” Hermione said, and then, in an attempt to steer the conversation away from that particular subject for as long as possible, she said, “How and why did you acquire a cabin in Albania, of all places? It’s awfully quaint.”
Of course, she knew exactly why ‘Albania of all places’, but she was still surprised when he said it. It begged a lot more questions, the most pressing of which being, had he already found the diadem?
Hermione had always assumed that he’d come to Albania first when he left England for good, and that he’d found the diadem then. But if he’d already been here…
What would she do, if he had yet another horcrux already made?
Tom’s eyes narrowed, clearly not fooled for a moment by her avoidance. “I acquired it shortly after I left school,” he said, humoring her. “It’s owned by a lonely muggle man, a place he used to come to on vacation, but he has, conveniently, forgotten that he owns it. It’s modestly stocked with a few non-perishable things and some potions I thought may come in handy for emergency situations—I set this up as a sort of safe house in case things went awry. I have… unfinished business, here. But I never anticipated bringing a guest, so you’ll have to pardon the lack of, ah, amenities.”
Hermione forced a grin. Unfinished. That was a promising word, she thought. “I’ve survived worse.”
Tom didn’t return her smile. “When did you last eat?” he asked again.
“Er… Well. How many days was I gone?”
“How many… Hermione, you were taken almost five days ago.”
“Ah. I suppose about that long, then.”
Tom set his tea down. “They didn’t feed you once after they took you?” he asked, his voice now very soft.
“I… well, I spent most of that time unconscious, truth be told,” Hermione said, purposefully vague. “I suppose they could have been magically keeping me nourished while I was out, but I don’t know.” She took a sip of tea, then added, “Dumbledore offered me a glass of water once.”
She regretted saying it the moment she did. Tom’s eyes hardened in an ominous way. “Dumbledore,” he hissed, the vitriol palpable.
And that was it. By saying his name, the fragile illusion that she had been holding onto was completely, truly shattered, the bubble of her willful-ignorance popped by Tom’s poisonous tone. They were not just two people who had narrowly avoided some much less devastating disaster and were now on a nice vacation; they were fugitives at best and likely, as Hermione feared she was about to learn, much, much worse.
The time for playing pretend was already over. Hermione swallowed hard and set her mug down as well. The room felt infinitely colder.
One of them was going to have to start talking. They both had an awful lot of explaining to do, as far as Hermione was concerned. But who would do so first?
Oh, Tom had said that he wanted her to tell him all her dark secrets when she was ready; he’d made quite the show of being a tender, understanding savior in her time of need. But Hermione was not stupid. His patience was likely worn about as thin as it could go, and if she didn’t start giving him answers very soon, she feared he would crack… and that the fallout would not be pretty.
Hermione didn’t want to explain first.
She wasn’t sure how he would take some of what she had to say. She also didn’t know what he already knew and was pretending to be ignorant of. Just imagining being truly open about… well, everything, made her stomach twist in knots. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to, God, she didn’t.
Hermione also really needed to know who was dead. She didn’t want to have that conversation either, but she needed to, and it needed to be now.
She thought she had an idea about how to get Tom talking first.
“I’ve been going over it in my head,” Hermione started, speaking slowly. Tom’s gaze was heavy on her. “Trying to figure it all out… How did he do it? How did he manage to defy not one but two magical governments? How did he succeed in getting one over on Albus Dumbledore?”
She cast him a look that she knew was nothing short of admiring, if also a bit afraid. His favorite things—being worshiped and feared. “How did you do it?” she asked in a small, reverent voice.
Tom’s pupils had blown wide. His gaze went to her mouth for a moment, then darted back to her eyes. “It wasn’t easy,” he finally said, the slightest smile playing on his lips.
Hook, line, and sinker, Hermione thought. She didn’t say anything, only waited.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do it entirely on my own,” he added, looking a little irritated about it. “But it was my plan, my process. Even that house-elf showing up—it came because of what I’d done, the things I had set in motion.”
Hermione sat up straighter, shocked. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Did you—don’t tell me you talked to Hepzibah…?”
“I did.”
Hermione gawked at him. “What? How? why? How did you…?”
“How did I know that Hepzibah Smith might have some information about where her fake niece was being held?” he supplied.
Hermione nodded. Tom stared at her for a long moment, deeply analytical, like he was studying her. Then, finally, he said, “People like Hepzibah Smith tend to talk... Gossip spreads quickly in the Wizarding community. I have my ways of hearing anything important.”
Hermione frowned. Would Hepzibah talk about such a thing openly…? And to who—her friends? Would she discuss such a scandal, such a devastating tragedy…?
Hermione recalled all of the older witches and wizards Hepzibah had been close to at the Wizarding Artists Gala, and thought that maybe, yes, she might. Even if she only told a few close confidants aout what happened to her, it only took one person to spread such gossip…
Which didn’t bode well for Hermione. She probably had quite the… reputation now, if that were the case.
“It was also a bit out of desperation,” Tom admitted. “I was able to find out through Lestrange’s father at the Ministry that there was a trial being arranged for a fugitive, one that they were unable to fully process as they had not yet been given a name. He was also able to inform me that there had been no additions to Azkaban in the past few days, which meant you were not there, but elsewhere. Which we took to mean that you were likely being held in one of Britain’s old off-shore holding centers, of which three are still being used, much to the general public’s ignorance. I went to Hepzibah in an attempt to narrow it down.”
Hermione’s mind reeled. “You… you found out all that because Lestrange’s father told you…?”
“No. I put him under the Imperius Curse to do what I needed him to do and to get the information I wanted. He wasn’t the only one I bent to my will, either.” Tom grinned wickedly. “I’ve cast a good deal of Unforgivable things lately.”
“But—why would you Imperius him?” Hermione asked. “I thought the Lestranges adored you. Isn’t Irving, at least, your willing follower? Wouldn’t he have just given you that information, couldn’t he have gotten it from his father willingly…?”
“Probably. But I needed him—and all the others—to be seemingly noncompliant. Innocent. I’ll get to that.”
Tom leaned back in his chair a little, and he looked like he was beginning to enjoy himself. “I went to Hepzibah to ask her if she knew anything about your location, or anything useful at all. She wouldn’t see me at first. She wasn’t happy when I forced my way into her home.”
Hermione almost winced. “Please tell me you didn’t hurt her,” she whispered.
“Hurt her? No. I didn’t need to resort to any kind of violence with her. I did what I’ve always done with her kind—I appealed to her heart. She loved you, you know. I managed to convince her that you must have loved her, too, despite all your lies. I told her that you didn’t deserve to be sentenced to Azkaban. She cried quite a bit.”
“Wh-what did she say?” Hermione said, trying desperately not to start tearing up herself—again.
“That you were somewhere warm, in a valley. They didn’t give her any details about where they had taken her and you, of course, but that was helpful. I was able to deduce that you were in the holding center in southern France, not too far outside Marseille. It was built during Grindelwald’s reign of terror to hold prisoners of war… and hasn’t stopped being used since.”
Hermione was quiet as he sipped his tea, shaken. He still looked like he was studying her every little movement. It was making her nervous. “So… so you found out where I was,” she said. “Amazing. Really… Then what?”
“A lot of things had to happen,” Tom said. “I had to have a decoy… and once that was in play, I had to create a distraction big enough that Dumbledore would leave. And there was only one thing that I knew would, without doubt, manage that… He is highly protective of Hogwarts.”
Hermione waited, holding her breath as he took another infuriatingly slow drink. “That requires a bit more backstory, I’m afraid,” he said.
“I have time,” Hermione responded.
Tom smirked. “Of course… Well. To explain as succinctly as possible, Hogwarts… is a castle with many secrets. My ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, created many of them. One of them was—”
“The Chamber of Secrets.”
Tom stared at her. Hermione felt a cold, dark sense of horror begin to settle in her bones.
“It was in a short passage in the book you gave me,” she murmured. Then, in a practiced, hollow voice, she recited: “Chapter thirteen. ‘A chamber supposedly constructed by Slytherin deep beneath the school that he kept a secret from the other founders and sealed so that none would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school.” She swallowed hard again; her whole mouth felt numb. “‘The story goes that… that when Slytherin's true heir returns, they alone will be able to open the Chamber of Secrets and release the horror within; a horror that will purge the school of those whom Slytherin believed were… unworthy of studying magic’.”
Tom continued to stare at her intensely. Hermione was sure she looked as horrified as she was.
No. No, no, he couldn't have, he didn’t.
“Not a myth,” Tom murmured. “But you already knew that.”
He leaned forward, a hungry gleam sparking to life in his eyes. “You’ve seen her, haven’t you?” he said. “The horror within… You know what it is. She came to you in a vision, didn’t she? Her beautiful terror, her glory. You’ve had a vision of her. You know of her. You know.”
Hermione could not deny that. She nodded, and in the smallest, most broken voice, said, “Tom… what have you done?”
“I broke into the castle,” he said, his gaze steady on her. “It was simple, knowing that Dumbledore wasn’t there. There are many secret passages into Hogwarts, and I know them all. I snuck in. I went to her… and I released her.”
Hermione’s hand went to her mouth. “You didn’t,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“I did,” Tom said. “I told her to cause as much chaos as she could for three days. I told her to do as she pleased, in that time… to be free. Then I left.” He took another casual sip of tea. “I suppose I won’t know the extent of the damage she’s caused until I manage to acquire a recent issue of the Prophet, though. I do wonder how the press will frame it…”
Hermione stood. Unthinking, her feet moving of their own accord, she found herself in the washroom with little recollection of having walked there. She closed the door, fell against it, and slid to the ground.
Oh, God, oh, no. No, no, no.
He’d released the basilisk—again, though it was not lost on her that he had conveniently failed to mention that he had done so before. He had let her loose with the horrifically vague instructions to do as she pleased… to cause as much chaos as she could… She had killed Myrtle with the simple instruction to ‘make it stop,’ before…
How many students had been petrified this time? How many teachers?
How many people had died?
Hermione’s breaths were becoming increasingly shorter, shallower. She was having a hard time getting air into her lungs.
Tom pushed the door open a moment later, a vial in his hand. He bent down and grabbed her by the chin. “Open your mouth,” he said. Hermione glanced at the vial, and a sudden wave of nausea rolled over her. She couldn’t.
Tom was hardly deterred. He gripped her jaw tightly, wrenched her mouth open, and poured some of the liquid down her throat, forcing it. Hermione barely managed to not choke. The moment she swallowed a single mouthful, her body relaxed. Her mind stopped racing, and the horror that had settled in her heart all but vanished.
She felt… better. Subdued. A little sleepy.
“That’s a very strong Calming Draught,” she said, her words nearly slurring.
“Draught of Peace, actually, but yes,” Tom said. “Can you stand, or do I need to carry you?”
Hermione thought she might be annoyed at him for that comment, if she were able to feel much of anything at all. As it was, she felt only comfortably numb. “I can stand.”
Tom helped her up anyway. Hermione felt a bit floaty once she was on her feet, but she was able to follow him out of the bathroom well enough.
“A break, perhaps,” he said. “You should lie down.”
“No, no, no,” Hermione argued. She went straight back to the table and resumed her seat. “Tell me everything. Tell me now, while I can… while I’m like this. It will be easier.”
“It won’t be easier,” Tom disagreed. “You’re numbed. You’ll hear everything and have the information, but the emotional repercussions will come after, all at once, and very soon. You only drank a mouthful; the Draught’s effects will wear off in minutes unless you drink more. It won’t be… pleasant, when that happens.”
“It’s fine.” Hermione patted the other chair. “It won’t be pleasant no matter how you do it, will it? So, you know, just… rip the bandage off now, please, and I’ll deal with my feelings after.”
Tom said nothing. “Stop doing that,” Hermione said. “Staring at me like I’m an insect pinned to a board… I need to know what happened, Tom. I need to know… Are they all dead?”
Slowly, like he was unsure of his decision even as he was making it, Tom sat beside her again. He put a cork in the vial, which was still mostly full, and set it on the table. “If by ‘they’ you mean the British aurors who were present and all those MACUSA aurors… They should be. I hope so. I would have said ‘yes’, irrevocably, but… Madison. He wasn’t supposed to have survived.”
Tom’s hand clenched into a fist beside the vial. “I still don’t understand how he managed that,” he seethed. “But it doesn’t matter now. He didn’t die, which means it is possible—though unlikely, considering—that others did as well… especially since he called for help.”
“What curse did you use? And how?” Hermione asked. And it was nice, really, to not feel any anxiety at all about what he might say in response. It felt like she was asking any given professor for details about an assignment. Information, please.
“A necrotizing curse of my own making,” Tom answered. “It’s complicated, but that specific variant is airborne, the way it travels to its intended victims… and it’s slow acting. It had to be. I couldn’t have the aurors dying off until after you’d broken out of your confinement.”
Hermione tilted her head to the side. “Why not?” she asked.
“Because, Hermione,” Tom said, “I wasn’t the one who did any of this. I, Tom Riddle, was being held in a cell as well, suffering from a slew of additional curses from when I tried to so boldly rescue you. No, the person who killed all those aurors, who set loose such a deadly, unheard of necrotizing curse… was you.”
Hermione stared, blinked. Her mind was not nearly as quick as it should have been, she knew, but it finally clicked. “You framed me,” she murmured.
Tom gave the barest nod. “Yes. You, powerful witch that you are, broke out of your cell all on your own, without even a wand. And when you saw me—battered, cursed, dead—you went on a bit of a rampage before you escaped. At least, that was what the story was going to be… Now that Madison’s gone and ruined it by surviving, having witnessed that you weren’t acting alone…”
He looked fierce again for a moment, but then drew in a deep breath. “Fortunately, I’d prepared. I was masked, I could have been anyone.” A smirk. “Well, not anyone. I couldn’t have been Tom Riddle, because Tom Riddle was dead in a cell down the hall, his body already rotting from your powerful necrotizing curse that poisoned the very air of that holding center.”
Not even the influence of a powerful Draught of Peace could stop Hermione from going suddenly wide-eyed with shock. “You faked your own death,” she concluded. “You framed me, pinned about a dozen potential murders on me, and… and now the world will think you died?”
Tom looked much too pleased. “I suspect my untimely demise will make the papers, too.”
“But… but… What about your followers? Your Death Eaters? All your plans…?”
Tom shrugged again, and it was disturbing, how calm he could be while discussing something like this. “I was planning on leaving England for some time anyway… And I had already considered faking my death, truth be told. Tom Riddle was always going to die. It just seemed simpler to let him disappear, before; faking one’s death is, as it turns out, quite tedious work… but that was a silver lining in all this. An excellent opportunity to kill my old self.”
“Wait. Wait.” Hermione shook her head, trying to understand. “What was in that cell, then? You said that thing—that thing wasn’t you, but what was it, if it wasn’t a person?”
“Oh, it was a person.”
If she wasn’t drugged, Hermione thought she might have started to hyperventilate again. “Dumbledore told me they ruled out Polyjuice Potion,” she said.
“As I knew they would.”
“Tom… explain.”
“You won’t like the answer.”
“Tom—”
“It was a metamorphmagus,” he said. “Also under the Imperius curse.”
“A meta…? Oh. Oh… Tom. You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t go all the way back to New York and kidnap Mama J.”
But she already knew that was who it must have been. The bartender from The Cave had already shown she could replicate Tom’s features, and had earned his wrath that night because of it.
“Of course not. That would be ridiculous.” Tom picked up his mug again. “I sent Macnair to bring her to me,” he said, then took a sip.
“Tom!”
He looked like he was barely holding back a laugh. “He was also under the Imperius curse, by the way,” he said. “Do you know how exhausting it is, to control the minds and bodies of so many people in such a rapid succession? Truly depleting… but it had to be that way.”
“Why?”
“So that if any of them are ever questioned about what happened to me, they can claim, truthfully, that they had no willing part in my illegal scheming. If anyone from the Ministry or elsewhere were to look through their memories, they would see me, Tom Riddle, forcing them to act. They’re innocent. They’ll be untouchable.”
Hermione felt like she was barely keeping up with his scheming now, after the fact. “But… didn’t you tell them?” she asked. “Didn’t you let them know what you were planning to do, and…?”
She could tell by the look on his face that no, he had not told them anything. “They’re going to think you’re dead too?” she asked quietly.
“Mm… Macnair won’t. Neither will Lestrange. They would never believe that I would be so easily caught and killed. And that’s assuming that my death will be reported in a way that’s even remotely close to the truth. No, they’ll realize that it’s a lie immediately.”
Tom pursed his lips, looking thoughtful. “Black and Malfoy, however… they might believe it, if only out of wishful thinking. And Yaxley…” He smiled. “Truth be told, I never know how Linus is going to react to anything.”
Tom sighed in a nearly fond way. “Don't look so sad on my behalf,” he said, and Hermione was surprised, because she didn’t know she had looked sad, as she certainly hasn’t felt it. “It’s for the best, really. I marked them all before I came for you. And I told them that one day, they would hear from me again… If they are foolish enough to think me dead and gone, it will make the day that I return and finally come calling all the more satisfying…”
He smiled in that dark, leering way that Tom did when he was vindictive. “Just as it will be so satisfying when, after years of thinking me finished, Dumbledore sees my mark appear again in the sky.”
“…Huh,” Hermione said at length, processing. “I… huh. Wow. You’re a genius.”
Tom looked annoyed. “Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Sorry, I just—I knew you were a genius. But… this is more than I anticipated. I can’t believe… Mama J. She was innocent. She didn’t deserve to be dragged into your life.”
“That bartender was the worst,” Tom drawled, ignoring Hermione’s last comment. “My Death Eaters, at least, were too afraid to fight me. She—if she is a she—was a she—was horribly reluctant. Really didn’t want to do what I told her to.”
“Well gosh, I can’t imagine why not,” Hermione said.
“Yes, well, I won in the end. She was the perfect decoy—did you know that their bodies change on a cellular level, when they transform? And that when they die, they stay in whatever form they died in? Not at all like animagi… Truly fascinating. Not that I was going to put anything to chance. That necrotizing curse causes a substantial amount of tissue damage once it's run its course…”
“But… she might be alive still, you said,” Hermione pointed out. “You said that because Madison lived, because he summoned Dumbledore... Do you think he got there in time to cast a counter?”
“On the metamorphmagus? Oh, no. She is irrevocably dead. I made sure. She had to die sooner, so there was a much stronger variant on her. You went on your rampage after you saw my dead body, remember, darling? Her death was swift. The others, however…”
The cold fury was back in his eyes. “I hope they’re all dead… but if anyone in this godforsaken world might have been able to save any of them, it’s Dumbledore.”
He cocked his head to one side, looking at her analytically again when he asked, “Would that make you… happy? Do you wish them all well, do you hope that they have all made full recoveries so that they may lead long, happy lives?”
“I… I don’t want them to be dead, Tom—”
“They took you from me!”
Tom was on his feet, looming over her, face contorted in rage. Hermione felt a thrill of fear, and knew that the small amount of Draught she’d taken was wearing off.
”You are mine, only mine, until your dying breath! No one else will ever lay a hand on what belongs to me and not feel my wrath! Do you understand?”
Hermione, shaken, nodded quickly.
Tom took a deep breath. It looked like it was taking a great deal of willpower to calm himself. “They deserved to die,” he said. He sat. “You should agree with me.”
Yes, the Draught was definitely almost out of her system, because Hermione could feel the thrumming of her pulse now, the heavy drum of her heartbeat.
Hadn’t she said she would kill them all herself? She had screamed it, when she’d thought they had hurt Tom…
“I… yes, okay,” she said quietly. “I understand why you say that. I would say the same thing, if our situations were reversed. But I… God, Tom. I was trying to stop this. I wanted to prevent you from killing people. I’ve seen you kill so many, and… and all I wanted was to stop you from doing that, to save them and to save you, to…”
Tom had, as usual, been right. A torrential wave of emotions was crashing over her, all at once, and Hemrione was certain she was going to be sick. She looked at the vial, still mostly full on the table, and considered taking the rest of the Draught.
But they might not all be dead, a voice—small, desperate, but definitely there—whispered in the back of her mind. Mama J is, and that’s tragic, but… but maybe not the others. Maybe it’s not as bad as it seems…
Hermione had to wonder what was wrong with her, when she was rationalizing that only one innocent human life lost justified Tom’s actions.
“Those lives are on you,” Tom said, his soft voice and piercing gaze shocking her. “You think I wanted to do that? To kill so many? But I had to. I already told you. I said you were mine, and that I would kill for you. You knew what I was capable of, yet you got yourself captured anyway. You did this. You killed all those people.”
He leaned forward a little, like he wanted to be certain that she heard his next words clearly. Outside, where the sun was shining and bright, she heard birds singing sweetly.
“Their blood is on your hands,” he said.
Hermione was definitely going to be sick. She reached for the vial of the Draught of Peace, but before she could grab it, Tom snatched it up himself and threw it, hard. It shattered against a wall, exploding in a way that was clearly influenced by magic.
Hermione let out a sharp yelp of surprise as the glass scattered across the room. When she looked back at Tom, it was to see that he was sitting, quite calmly, his hands folded neatly on the table in front of him, like he hadn’t just done that.
“I don’t think you need any more,” he said. “I shouldn’t have forced it into you in the first place. You’re stronger than that.”
But there was something in his eyes, in his entire demeanor, that was… wrong. Off. Hermione had felt afraid in Tom’s presence many times, but there was something different in the way she was starting to feel now. Something… creeping, coldly. Something worse.
She looked around the room where the glass blanketed the floor in tiny shards. She didn’t see what she was looking for. “Tom,” she said, “where is my wand?”
Tom closed his eyes. He drew in a deep breath. It seemed like he was barely keeping himself from doing something violent again. “Not yet,” he whispered, so quietly she barely heard it.
“What?”
“Not yet. Your wand… not yet.”
Hermione was beyond confused, and deeply concerned. She stood. “Tom, where is my wand?” she repeated. “In fact, how did you even get my wand in the first place? You never said.”
Tom stood as well. He came around the table, grabbed her by the waist, and suddenly, his eyes were burning. “Kiss me,” he said.
Hermione had only a moment to be more perplexed than ever before he was crashing his lips against her, knocking all the common sense out of her brain. His mouth was hot on hers, viscious, needy. His teeth caught her lower lip, biting her there before his tongue was in her mouth, sliding against her own. Hermione’s head was swimming at the abruptness of it all, at the way his arms were wrapped around her, one hand tangling in her hair.
But the alarm bells that had started to sound the moment the Draught wore off were getting louder, deafeningly so. Something was very wrong. Very, very wrong.
She broke away from him. “Tom,” she said. “Answer me, pl—”
“Not yet,” he said, and he kissed her again, roughly. Hermione squirmed in his arms, and he, with a reluctant grunt, released her.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Hermione asked, and she could hear the panic in her voice. “Tom, what else happened? What aren’t you telling me about my wand?”
“Maybe… maybe I should erase your memory,” Tom murmured, and though he could only be talking to her, he wasn’t looking at her, not really. His gaze was unfocused. “Make you forget this morning, do it over, do it differently… Be in the room with you when you wake up, so I can have you one last time…”
Those words had Hermione’s whole body going cold in an instant.
One last time?
“Wh… what?”
“Ah, but no… you would know. You’ve had your memories wiped before, you would know something was amiss… and you would realize you weren’t starving anymore, and those two things together—you’d figure it out. Because you’re just too fucking clever, aren’t you? Far too clever.” He sighed heavily, deeply.
Hermione took a shaky step away from him. He allowed it. “Tom,” she said, trying her best to keep her voice steady and failing miserably. “Tom, what—”
“Your wand.”
Tom pulled the walnut wand out from his inner robe pocket. Hermione’s heart dropped watching the way he held it, almost reverently. “I didn’t give it to you for a number of reasons at the holding center… for one, I didn’t know what state you would be in, mentally. For another, I was hoping to not be noticed, to pin the entire break-out on you… and you wouldn’t have had your wand, then. It wasn’t at the holding center. Your wand was at the Ministry. It’s part of the standard procedure before trials—they confiscate wands and keep them there until verdicts have been reached… I had to use Lestrange to get it for me, to put a fake in its place…”
Tom walked back to the table. He sat in the chair he had been in before, Hermione’s wand still in his hand. “You should sit down, Hermione,” he said. “You look like you’re going to faint.”
There was no concern in his voice. He was just stating a fact, a general observation. Hermione was certain he was right—she felt very much like she was going to faint, and she wasn’t even sure why yet. Her heart was pounding, and she felt her palms beginning to sweat.
She didn’t sit. “Tom,” she started, “whatever happened, whatever you think—”
“Do you know what else they do as standard procedure? Concerning confiscated wands at the Ministry, I mean.” He was twirling her wand casually between two of his long fingers now, playing with it as he held it hostage. “They inspect them, and they run a few diagnostic tests on them… Do you know what one of those is? Fascinating spell… Priori Incantatem.”
Hermione’s racing heart stopped beating altogether. Her mind too had frozen. She couldn’t move. She couldn't breathe.
Tom kept talking. “It’s an enchantment that reveals the most recent spells cast from a specific wand. You can see how that would be useful, when attempting to convict criminals… So, naturally, I had Lestrange make me a copy of the official documents that were being kept with your wand, and my, oh my, was I in for such a surprise.”
Hermione couldn’t look at his face any longer, couldn’t do anything at all except note that he was still twirling the walnut round and round. “The last spells to come out of this wand, cast, presumably, by you, were a series of very powerful, specific warding spells, and then, shortly before that, an even more fascinating series of curses. Such dark curses too, and it was so curious, you see, because these were all curses that were very familiar to me, and one was, in fact, a curse of my own making… A necrotizing curse. A very strong, slow acting, necrotizing curse.”
The wand was going round and round and round. A dull ringing was beginning to swell loudly in Hermione’s ears.
“I did end up using that,” Tom went on. “Well, you’d already done it with a wand, so why not use a newer, airborne version of it for your escape? To make the whole thing more believable, you see… Ah, but I’m losing the plot. Your wand. The spells before that were, even more curiously, the exact counter-curses needed to undo all of that which you had cast… and then, before that, you’d created the same wards which you had previously dismantled… much like you were neatly putting things back just the way you found them…”
He stopped twirling the wand. He put it back in his pocket, and pulled out something else. “Oh, I forgot one,” he said.
Tom set a box down on the table. Hermione didn’t know when, but at some point when he’d been talking she had taken several steps backwards, and now she was standing with her back against the wall, next to the door.
She knew that box. She knew what was inside it.
Tom opened it anyway.
“A duplicating charm,” he said.
The heavy gold hit the table with a damning thud.
The ring. But not the ring, of course—the fake. The one Hermione had made, had left in place of the real one, and—
“It is an exceptionally good duplicate,” Tom continued. “As was all your spellwork. Perfect. I would have never guessed, never known… One must wonder if there is anything you aren’t good at, Hermione… Curses, counter-curses, charming… lying… You may be better at it than I assumed, after all…”
The ringing in Hermione’s ears was now so loud she could barely make out his words. Couldn’t make out his words, actually—he said something else, but all she could hear was that high-pitched note, the booming of her heart sounding somewhere below it.
She finally looked at his face. There was no emotion there, on Tom’s pale features. He looked bloodless, frigid, icy. His eyes were like black holes that were going to be the death of her.
Some instinct that was entirely outside of her control kicked in. Before she ever had the thought to do so, Hermione was running. Out the front door, out into the brilliant sunlight and the lush, green forest. She ran straight for the trees, but then—couldn’t. An invisible force stopped her before she could get far.
The blood ward. She couldn’t move past it.
Frantically, Hermione looked for a weakness in it, someplace she might be able to pass through, but of course there was none. The ward was a perfect dome of dark magic around them. She was trapped.
When she dared to look back at the cabin, she saw him. Tom was in the entryway, standing, eerily still, his face blank, and—his wand. He had his wand in his hand now, and though he held it down at his side, the intention was clear. He looked every bit the part of psychotic killer as he stood there, unmoving. Watching her.
Because he was psychotic, Hermione’s manic mind screamed, and she—brilliant though she often was—had been deluding herself this whole time, thinking that he wasn’t. He didn’t care about her, he didn’t love her. He didn’t love anyone. He only broke her out because she knew too much; he couldn’t have let her stay in the clutches of Dumbledore or the MACUSA… He had acted the part of hero because he had to, because he had been too magically drained to deal with her properly yesterday when she hadn’t been, he’d needed her to trust him, to… be thankful, to love him…
And God, he’d done it so well! She could have escaped from him at any moment after they were free from the holding center. He had been weakened, incapable of simple magic, but the thought had never once crossed her mind. Hermione had followed him so eagerly, right out of one trap, directly into another.
She’d healed him, she’d helped him.
She loved him.
Hermione was screaming and racing around the perimeter of the ward like a wild animal in a cage. Tom didn’t move, only watched.
She loved him and he had only kept her alive now to—to mess with her, to play with her before he did it. He’d even given her a last meal, like a parting gift. But he wished he could do it again. One last time, he’d said.
He was sick.
He was going to kill her.
She knew it now in a way that she hadn’t quite felt before. It had always been a bit uncertain in the past, but now he knew she’d taken his ring, and he was going to rip her mind apart, then kill her.
And he was going to take his time doing it, based on how he stared at her, patiently observing her panic.
The blood ward. A blood ward. It had needed blood to get in; perhaps it just needed more to get out? The tree they had used to enter was right there, but she didn’t have her wand, and there was nothing nearby she could use to cut herself, not so much as a sharp stick, and—
She did the only thing she could think of. Hermione bit her tongue, hard, as hard as she could—too hard. The blood pooled in her mouth much more rapidly than she’d anticipated, and she realized with a start that she had bitten off the tip of her tongue. She spat it out and, in a rush of madness, pressed her wide open mouth against the tree. She felt it at once—a pulse of dark magic, radiating. It shook her bones.
Hermione had her eyes locked on Tom as she did it. His carefully blank features finally broke: a look of shock, and soon, his face was twisting with fury.
Hermione didn’t watch him long enough to see that rage unfold. The magic stopped pulsing much quicker than it had when she had entered, and she was out.
She ran.
Chapter 57: Deliberation
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hermione opened her eyes, groggy and confused. It was warm and she was laying down and why wasn’t she in her bed…?
She looked up. Draco Malfoy.
He was reading a book, and he hadn’t yet noticed her being awake. He had one hand resting on her shoulder near her face.
Merlin, my head is on Draco Malfoy’s lap.
Hermione sat bolt upright. Malfoy let out a yelp of surprise and flung his book across the room.
“For fuck’s sake!” he shouted. Hermione stood, in a rush; Malfoy glared back at her. “Nearly gave me a fucking heart attack, Granger.”
“Why was I sleeping with my head on your lap?” she asked accusingly.
Malfoy gave her a condescending grin. “Because I secretly dosed you with a sleeping potion, because that would be reasonable and fun for me,” he sneered. “I’m joking, take a fucking breath—you just fell asleep, all on your own.”
“I don't believe you,” Hermione said. “I was sitting on this side of the couch, researching runes—how’d I get all the way over here if I just fell asleep all on my own?”
“You did fall asleep over there,” Malfoy said, jerking his head towards the other side of the couch. “Your head fell back and you passed out with your mouth wide open, snoring and everything. It was most unbecoming. It was also loud and annoying so I pulled you down and I didn’t mean for your big head to land in my lap but it did, and so I kindly decided to let you sleep like that rather than dump you on the floor of your flat.”
Hermione stared at him for a long moment. Her passive legilimency told her that he was not… being untruthful.
“…You were touching my hair,” Hermione finally said, reverting back to being accusatory.
To her surprise, Malfoy’s face turned pink. “No I wasn’t.”
A lie. “Yes, you were.”
“I was not!” Another lie.
“Yes you were, you had your fingers all in it!”
“What else was I supposed to do!” Malfoy yelled, getting to his feet as well. “You’d fallen on me and I didn’t know where to put it and honestly, I don’t know how I could have avoided touching your hair, massive mane that you have, and—”
“It’s fine.”
Malfoy stopped talking when she interrupted. Hermione wasn’t sure if she should laugh or not. “It’s… it’s fine. Sorry. Sorry I fell asleep when we’re supposed to be researching… and… thanks for moving me from my, er, undignified and probably uncomfortable position.”
Malfoy held her gaze for a while, looking almost more perturbed. He seemed to settle for not saying anything, only shrugging before he went to pick up the book he had tossed across the room.
The Significance of Symbols and Numerals by Alastair Grunnion.
It was a bit obvious, what they were doing. ‘Additional research’, indeed—they both knew that they didn’t need to do extensive research into arithmancy. They’d already done all the work they needed to do. The body stabilizing potion was complete; they brewed more than a fair amount and had tested it again and again. They’d done the calculations for striking the Time-Turner with just the right amount of force so that she would land near Wool’s Orphanage on December 31st, 1926, hours before Tom Riddle would be born.
They were just… procrastinating.
He set the book on her coffee table. “I should… I should go,” he said. “It’s late, and we could clearly both use some sleep.”
“Oh. Okay,” said Hermione. “Yes, I suppose we could.”
The silence between them was terribly awkward. Malfoy pulled the hood of his hoodie up over his head, hiding his blonde hair impulsively. “See you later, then.”
“Right. Later.”
He turned to leave. He was on her doorstep, about to close the door behind him, when Hermione said, “It would be okay, you know… if it wasn’t on accident.”
Malfoy looked at her, confused. “Touching my massive mane,” she elaborated. “It would be okay if you did it on purpose. I… wouldn’t mind.”
Hermione barely held back a grin at the way Malfoy’s pale face flushed slightly. Nonetheless, he scoffed, attempting to be as aloof and pompous as ever.
He didn’t sneer anything condescending in response. Malfoy, his cheeks tinged pink beneath the black hood of his muggle sweatshirt, only managed one disgruntled sound before he marched away.
Hermione watched him go until he turned the corner and was out of sight. As she closed the door to her flat, she pondered how the hell her life had gotten to this point, where flustering Malfoy made her smile. Draco Malfoy, her bigoted, grade school bully. Draco Malfoy, who she had once slugged in the face.
Draco Malfoy, who she used to see only as a sneering, pointed arse… why, he really was quite cute lately, wasn’t he?
It was perfectly absurd.
For the first time in a long, long time—years, maybe?—Hermione felt… giddy. She laughed to herself, giggling, actually giggling as she flung herself back down on the couch. Maybe, she thought, still grinning, life was not all so terrible after all.
“Hermione!”
She heard her name being screamed behind her, a furious call that struck her to her core. Hermione did not turn, did not think, did not pause for a moment—she ran, barefoot, racing through the trees. Blood continued to pool in her mouth; she inhaled through her nose and spat it out as she went, trying not to choke on it.
Destination, Determination, Deliberation.
Could she apparate? Hermione knew it was possible, if extraordinarily difficult, without a wand; weren’t their cases of people doing it unintentionally, even, in dire situations? She could think of no more dire situation than she was in now.
Destination, Determination, Deliberation…
Only Hermione could not think of a specific destination, because she did not know of any places in Albania close enough to apparate to safely. She was certainly determined, but without a location in mind, she could hardly be deliberate, and—
A high whizzing sound cut across the air, and Hermione was only spared being hit by a curse because she had just leapt behind a tree. She heard its trunk blow apart behind her, followed by another angry, wordless cry from Tom.
Destination, Determination—
“Hermione!”
The robe she was wearing—loose and too big—got caught on a branch. She shed it like a second skin and kept running, spitting out another mouthful of blood before taking a sudden sharp left. Heal already, she thought, pleading to no one, willing the Time-Turner magic to fix her tongue.
Another flash of light as a spell barely missed her. Hermione ran on, pushing through the trees, wishing she could transfigure herself into one of them, becoming something else, something not human, untouchable and unable to run or bleed or think at all.
She tripped.
It was hardly surprising, considering she was running barefoot in the wilderness. Her foot caught on a root, and Hermione fell, hard, scraping her knees and palms when she landed. She knew Tom would be on her in a moment. Unthinking, mouth still filling with blood, Hermione twisted on the ground. She threw her arm out and roared, gutturally.
The fire flared at the same moment Tom’s face came into view.
He was there and then not in a flash—a wall of flames burst from her fingertips, flourishing before her, catching trees and foliage on fire and forcing him to throw up a shield and retreat back. Hermione frantically pushed herself to her feet and kept running.
There was no time to be even remotely amazed with her own wandless spellwork—as impressive as conjuring that much fire with no assistance may have been, it would hardly slow Tom Riddle down for more than a moment. Maybe a few moments, if she was lucky—he would have to put all the flames out if he didn’t want there to be a full blown forest fire, drawing the attention of too many unwanted people.
She felt a cold wind at her back, could sense that the roaring flames she’d conjured were already being snuffed out. Hermione didn’t dare turn to look as she ran on; she needed to apparate or hide because she was never, ever going to outrun him—no, hiding was useless, he would just use magic to find her, a simple Homenum Revelio and then she’d be dead in the next flash of magic—
Destination, Determination—
She did not make it far before she fell again. The cold wind blew stronger, and then something was ironclad around her ankle.
Hermione was being pulled backwards, but she did not go easily—she clawed and scraped at the earth as she was dragged, blood spilling out of her mouth as she screamed, the cries of a wounded prey animal that had not yet resigned to being devoured.
But he was too strong, and Hermione could not shake him. She twisted onto her back again, surprised and yet not to find that the grasp around her ankle was not some spell but Tom himself, his fingers wrapped around her like he’d needed to physically lunge to finally catch her. He was on the ground with her, his clothes singed and frayed, his shirt in tatters. He had one hand on her ankle, pulling, and the other was holding his wand. There was soot on his face and murder in his frigid, black eyes.
When Hermione raised one arm, praying for fire again, those eyes turned red.
“No!”
A much icier, biting sensation blew across her, cold as winter. Hermione gasped at the abruptness of it. Her skin prickled and for a moment, she froze, her muscles all tensing.
Tom was on her at once. Grunting with every movement, his rage palpable, he scaled her naked, frozen body until he was over her, straddling her, pinning her to the ground by the throat, his wandtip at her temple. His ash-coated face loomed over hers, less than an inch separating their mouths as he breathed heavily. He was wrath personified as he held her, but his body was unnaturally cold.
Hermione tried to scream, to say something, anything, but she couldn’t. She flicked her tongue, finding that it had mostly healed, but there was still so much blood in her mouth. She couldn’t move her head to the side to spit it out with the way Tom was holding her, so she tried to swallow it down—and quickly failed. Hermione started coughing, her blood splattering Tom’s face as she choked, and she couldn’t breath, she was going to drown in her own blood—
Tom grabbed her by the hair and wrenched her head to the side. With her next cough, she felt instant relief—her airway cleared, and she inhaled a cool, shuddering breath.
She was only given a moment of reprieve. Tom barely waited for her to draw in a second breath before he had her by the throat again, and her eyes snapped to his.
Red. Redder than the blood on his face. Furious, lethal red.
With those eyes and his pale skin covered in black soot and blood, his clothing wrecked and his usually perfect hair wild, Tom looked… unreal. More like a demon than a man.
Terrifying.
“You,” he said, and his voice, while low, was heavy with more loathing than Hermione had ever heard from anyone. He took a few more labored, heavy breaths. “You will never flee from me again.”
His grip on her throat tightened. Hermione was still able to draw in air, but just barely.
“You…”
His face was twisted in more than just anger. There were other emotions there, conflicted and awful. He seemed to be searching for words, unable to settle on the right ones to say now that he had her, here, at his mercy, knowing she had stolen his ring. His soul.
“You… betrayed me,” he finally seethed, and his conflicted face made it clear that he hated saying it even as he did, like it hurt him to do so. “You crossed me. You killed me!”
The last words came as a sudden, horribly loud cry, full of anguish.
“After all I said, after all I offered you!” he continued, his voice only growing louder. “I vowed to keep you, to kill for you, to never let you go—I all but lay my fucking heart at your feet, and you repay me by hunting down and murdering my soul!”
A ripple of icy magic tore through the air. A few of the smaller trees near them bent and broke like mere twigs being snapped, falling backwards, away from them.
And while his rage was overwhelming and Hermione could barely breathe in his grasp, she realized: He thinks I’ve already destroyed it.
“I would have torn down the heavens and given you the fucking stars!” he bellowed, so wounded, so spiteful. “I would have set you on a throne at my side; you would have answered to no one but me…”
He swallowed thickly. The harsh magic stirring the air calmed.
“I loved you,” he hissed in a quieter voice, not a trace of romance in his words, only venom. He looked tormented.
“But I’m hardly special there, am I?” Tom breathed a short, derisive laugh. “You think Hepzibah sent that house-elf to look after you, to intervene and save you…? No, she sent it for me. And do you know why? Because she felt sorry for me, after I spoke to her. She tried to talk me out of saving you, did you know? And why wouldn’t she? You were a master manipulator, a deceiving, powerful, enigmatic witch, dangerous, and who was I but some lowly shop boy who had fallen for her lies—just as Hepzibah herself had?”
Unable to speak, Hermione willed him to sense her thoughts: No, not lies, not everything, I—
“And do you know what the most appalling thing was, about that conversation?” he continued, ignoring her attempts. “About how I went to her, barging into her home and pleading that she give me anything, anything at all, and that it would be in her best interest if she had ever cared, even a little, because I—some poor, smitten shop boy—was going to try, regardless… Do you know what the most mortifying part of that entire ordeal was?”
Tom paused like he thought she might actually answer, but his hold on her throat continued to make such a thing impossible, and he was keeping up his mental barriers.
“That I didn’t even have to fake it!” he finished, horridly bitter. “That for once in my life when I said I cared for someone, I fucking meant it! And she could see that and she understood and she fucking pitied me for it!”
A strong gust made the forest around them shake perilously. Hermione could do nothing but struggle to breathe.
“Of course, that was before I discovered what you had done, before I read the report on what magic you’d performed the day you were taken… You were just playing me all along, waiting for the moment to steal my ring, to destroy a piece of my soul—”
Hermione was all but throwing her thoughts at him—it’s not destroyed, I didn’t destroy it, your ring is still intact, still safe—but then his grip tightened on her throat again, and now she could no longer breathe nor concentrate. “I should have fucking killed you the day we met,” he fumed. “I should have seen you for what you were the moment you denied me—no one denies me, not ever—I should have known, I should have fucking ended you when I had the chance—”
Tom broke off, inhaling a deep breath, clearly trying hard to master himself. He pressed his wand harder against her temple. “You have done this to me,” he said. While his voice was now level, his eyes were bloodier, becoming increasingly more crazed. “You think I wanted it to come to this? To have to force myself on you, to pry apart your mind? I never did. I wanted you willing, I wanted your fucking heart, but that was before. I never wanted to do this. You drove me to this. You did.”
His hand was shaking, but he didn’t move his wand. Hermione’s vision was starting to turn fuzzy from the lack of oxygen. “And then what else can I do, Hermione?” he asked, his tone pitching a little higher, softer. “What else can I do with you once I draw out your every secret, your every hidden thought that you have so wickedly denied me? Once I see with my own eyes how you hunted down and destroyed my soul on the very night that I swore myself to you?”
He laughed. It was cruel, mirthless, and mad. “What else can I do, darling?”
No—not destroyed… not…
Hermione’s mind was slipping. Tom’s grip loosened, and air, beautiful air, filled her lungs.
“Oh, no, no, not yet,” he said. Tom lowered his mouth to her ear, then whispered, “Legilimens.”
Tom as an unwanted force in her mind was nothing at all like Dumbledore. He was fierce and savage, a feral, spitting snake with a thousand heads. Hermione was so shocked by the viciousness of it that she could not fully defend herself before the memory he snatched at first materialized, forming within the cloudy white fog of her protective mental barriers.
There was Hermione, arriving in Little Hangleton, finding the Gaunt shack with ease… She felt his fury as she did exactly as he’d known she had, dismantling wards, undoing his curses… finding the box with his ring and then duplicating all of it, replacing the real one with her decoy…
And then she was pulling out a bag… She opened it, dropped the box with the real ring into it, and said, “Look, now you have some company you might actually enjoy…”
Hermione felt Tom’s vice-like grip on the memory falter slightly as he was filled with curiosity—Why would she say that, who was she talking to, what else does she have—and she seized her opportunity. Hermione gathered herself, focused, and willed the memory away, causing it to become obscured by plumes of shielding white.
Tom’s outrage was instant. He struck with an obscene amount of power, a blunt force that would have easily worked on just about anyone else’s mind, ripping it to shreds and leaving him free to pick through the debris to find what he wanted like a vulture—but not Hermione’s. This kind of brutal mental attack was the exact kind that she had been prepared to defend herself against as an Unspeakable. Dark wizards or witches with great power who desperately wanted her secrets…
She wouldn’t say it was easy, keeping her memories out of his reach, but she was able to do it. Tom was powerful, yes, frighteningly so, but he lacked all of the elegance and cunning grace that Dumbledore had attempted to use on her. He was also extremely emotional, distraught, and that made him predictable. His rage only escalated the more he failed, attempting to grasp something tangible and being met at the last moment with billowing white nothing instead.
She heard his thoughts as he tried again and again to tear at her mind, relentless and rabid. When did she destroy it? He was asking as he hunted. When did she murder it, I need to see, to know—
I didn’t! Hermione screamed back, but he wasn’t listening, hyper-focused as he was. I didn’t, it’s intact, it’s not destroyed—
When and how—fiendfyre? His thoughts were poisonous with rage and fear. I’m sure, she can probably shoot fiendfyre from her fucking eyes, monstrosity that she is, and that’s why it didn’t appear in the Priori Incantato—she probably didn’t even need to use a wand to kill my soul—
I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t!
He hesitated for a moment, pausing in his attack. Hermione forced him back with as much power as she could summon, banishing him—or maybe he had chosen to finally pull back himself. She wasn’t sure. All Hermione knew was that one moment she was screaming in her mind for him to listen to her, casting protective barrier after protective barrier as he attacked with the rage of an incited dragon, and the next she was screaming in the woods.
“I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t!”
Tom’s grip on her throat slackened, but still he held her. His wand remained at her temple. “Didn’t what?”
“I didn’t destroy it. I j-just moved it.”
“What?” Tom asked sharply, his anger softening slightly in his confusion. “I… don’t believe you. Why would you go through the trouble of taking it if not to destroy it? To destroy me?”
His hold became tight again, and his rage swiftly returned in its full force. “To hold it over me, of course,” he growled. “To control me, you thought, to threaten me with—”
“I am saving you!”
The words came out so strongly that Hermione was just as shocked as Tom seemed to be. But as she said them, Hermione knew that it was true—that maybe it always had been true, and she just hadn’t admitted it to herself yet. “If that ring would have stayed there, it would have been found and destroyed,” she said. “Not by me. By Dumbledore. He would have figured out what you’d done, and someday, somehow, he would have found your ring. I saw it. He would have destroyed it beyond magical repair. I moved it somewhere that he’ll never find it. I’m saving you.”
Tom was quiet. His expression went blank, and his red eyes searched hers, calculating.
“You have… seen Dumbledore do this,” he said slowly. Hermione nodded as best she could. “And yet… And yet you thought it best to go and move it yourself without telling me?”
He laughed, low and dark, and Hermione saw the incensed madness creep back into his eyes. “You lie. Perhaps you saw that, with Dumbledore, perhaps not—either way, that’s not the real reason you moved it. You took it in secret to keep it from me, to be the only one who knows where it is. A safety net to ensure I won’t kill you.”
Hermione didn’t see the point in denying that. “Yes,” she said. “That was another reason.”
“Where is it?” Tom jabbed his wand harder against her head. “Where did you hide it, tell me now!”
“No.”
Hermione's calmness surprised him so much that at first he only blinked at her, like maybe he’d misheard her. “No?” he repeated quietly.
“No.”
Another wave of cold, billowing magic whipped around them. “I will kill you if you don’t!”
“No, you won’t,” said Hermione, just as calmly—despite how fast her heart was racing. “If you kill me, you’ll never know where it is. I won’t tell you. And you won’t be able to pull it out of my mind. You can try as hard as you like, but you’ll never beat me. Remember how you found me, in the holding center? Nearly dead, unconscious? I can do that to myself again, at any time, plunging into a darkness where no one can touch my thoughts. Not you, not anyone.”
She smiled, feeling suddenly vicious. “If you attack my mind again, Tom, I’ll do it—and I’ll take you down with me. I can do that too. It’s easy. I’ve just had some excellent practice when I was held captive; I did it to Liam after he forced himself on me. We were both unconscious for an entire day. And I can do so much worse than that.”
Tom’s face had twisted with a new sort of shock when she mentioned Liam, but Hermione pressed on. “I can drag us both down into such a cold, dark place that we might never wake up. And how would you like that, Tom? It’s the closest thing to dead I imagine you can be, now. We’d be two near lifeless bodies in the middle of the Albanian wilderness. Who would find us? What would they do to us? I’m sure some magical government or another would have a grand time, picking apart our bodies and experimenting with our blood and brains. I would eventually die, I think… but you wouldn’t.”
She laughed harshly as something close to fear crept into his eyes—but then he shook his head, regaining his fierce demeanor. “You’re bluffing,” he said. “Lying, as usual. You can’t do that to me. And even if you could, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t damn us both like that.”
“Try me.”
Silence. It stretched between them as Tom glared at her, searching for the truth in her eyes and being unable to find anything.
After a very long time in which neither of them spoke, Tom finally seemed to come to a conclusion. “It doesn’t matter,” he finally murmured. “The ring… If you hid it somewhere else, it doesn’t really matter, does it… I don’t need you… I will find it eventually, and until I do… there is another.” He smiled crookedly. “You don’t have the hold on me you think you do, little Seer.”
Hermione took one look at his haughty grin, then burst out laughing.
“Oh, is that right?” she said between laughs. “You think I don’t have a hold over you? You think I know all about the ring… and not the diary?”
That wiped the haughtiness right off his face. “Yes, I have that, too. Who did you think I was talking to, in that memory you saw? When I put your cursed ring in my mokeskin bag? I stole your diary a long, long time ago… You might even know when, if you think…”
He looked as close to horrified as Hermione had ever seen him when she stuck her lower lip out, speaking in a sad, worried voice, impersonating herself. “It’s my bracelet, I know I was wearing it at the bar, I must have lost it somehow! I don’t know how I could have done such a thing!”
She saw the realization dawning on his face, yet as Hermione laughed again, still he denied it. “That’s—impossible,” he said. He kept shaking his head like he couldn’t stop—no, no, no.
“It’s possible. I found your diary and left you a nice duplicate of that, too. You would know if you ever bothered to check on it—really check on it. But of course you wouldn’t.”
“You’re lying, that’s not possible!” Tom roared. “The diary is in an enchanted container that no one else can open, no one but me; it couldn’t have left the wards without me knowing, and you couldn’t have opened it to get to the diary, you could not have, that’s impossible, you’re lying—”
“Because you’re so special? Because no one can do what the amazing Tom Riddle can do?” Hermione sneered. “You really ought to take note of what Abraxas told you, Tom… your arrogance is your greatest weakness. And it will be the death of you.”
Tom was still shaking his head no; Hermione thought he might be having an episode. “That’s not possible!” he yelled. “You couldn’t have, you’re lying, YOU’RE LYING!”
Perhaps she was going mad herself, Hermione thought, or maybe the adrenaline was affecting her far too greatly, because she no longer felt any fear at all. Tom was furious and screaming at her, still straddling her in the middle of nowhere; she was naked and wandless and alone, and yet Hermione wasn’t afraid. She reached up and placed one hand on his cheek, gently.
She felt a rush. She felt a little crazy.
“Hee-sah-iss,” she hissed, the one word in Parseltongue slipping easily off her healed tongue.
If she died right then, Hermione thought, it would be on the highest high she’d ever felt. Tom’s ash-covered and bloodied face went still, slack with absolute, paralyzing shock, his eyes huge. His lips parted and his jaw hung open with utmost surprise, almost like he’d heard the command to open and his body had involuntarily obeyed.
Hermione didn’t take more than a second to appreciate this most monumental of moments—if ever she was going to have an opportunity to act and catch him off guard, this was it.
She thrust her knee as hard as she possibly could, right into his groin.
Hermione, on her back as she was on the ground, his thighs on either side of her legs, was in the perfect position to do so. Tom’s breath instantly left his body in an audible puff and he crumpled—which was unfortunate, as he was on her, but Hermione willed every bit of magic she had in her to make him move. In a flash he was forced back and to his side, and she tried to get his wand as he went sprawling, grasping at it with her nails like they were claws, but he pulled his arm away from her, holding it tightly, far from her reach.
Fuck. That was my Hail Mary.
Hermione scrambled away from him, pushing herself up, wondering wildly how long being kneed in the balls would keep a Dark Lord down.
She had taken perhaps all of two steps when she had her answer.
“You fucking bitch!”
Hermione saw stars for a moment as she was slammed, face first, against a tree. Tom held her against it, one hand holding a fistful of her hair and pulling it much too tightly. She could feel the hard tip of his wand as it was shoved now against her throat; it felt like dry ice on her skin, both burning and cold.
His chest was flush against her backside, pushing her so hard against the tree that she was once more having a hard time breathing. And that was when Hermione noticed the tree—the tree that he was holding her against was dead. Unlike every other tree towering over them, with huge green leaves or pine needles, full of life, this one had only bare, dark branches and empty twigs. Like it had long ago been struck by lightning, perhaps, or cursed.
It felt like an omen, peering up at such a huge, deadened thing. This is my death.
Tom’s mouth was in her ear, his breathing tickling her skin. Hermione’s whole body shivered when he spoke, because it wasn’t English—he was spitting, hissing to her, speaking… in Parseltongue.
Hermione had no idea what he was saying, of course, but she was able to hazard a guess. “Sorry,” she muttered, which was difficult to do, with the way half her face was being shoved against the tree. “I’m not a Parselmouth like you, I’m not a descendant of Slytherin…”
She managed to turn her head just enough to see one of his vicious red eyes out of the corner of hers.
“I’m just the fucking bitch who outsmarted you.”
Tom’s reaction was instantaneous—he roared with another furious, wordless snarl, slamming her head harder against the tree. She swore she felt it splinter under her, and her whole world flashed white.
Yet as soon as her vision righted itself, Hermione found she felt braver and bolder than ever. Tom was losing his fucking mind, and it was making her smile.
“Where are they?” he screamed, magic billowing. The trees all danced around them as he seemed to be conjuring more than mere winds, but a miniature storm.
“I’ll never tell,” said Hermione calmly.
Another angry cry, right in her ear. “I should fucking kill you anyway,” he said afterwards. “I’ll find them—and I’ll make more, I’ll make another soon, and—”
“The diadem?” Hermione asked. Tom’s body went rigid against hers, and his magic became a little less chaotic. He didn’t speak, only listened, perhaps despite himself.
“Yes, I’ve seen that, too… You won’t find it,” Hermione said, even though it was a lie—she didn’t care. Anything to deter him, to make him either give up or change course, to not kill her. Or, if nothing else, to drive him fucking mad. “You won’t find it, not without me. You need me more than you could ever know, Tom. You need me.”
She tried to turn her head again, to look him in the eye, but he would not allow it.
“I don’t need you,” Tom fumed, “I could kill you and if what you’ve said is true, if you hid them elsewhere to save me—then my diary and my ring would be safe. Either I will find them or I won’t—and if I can’t find them, who else possibly could? In fact, your death would benefit me. Then no one would know where they were.”
Hermione swallowed thickly. She hadn’t considered that.
“Didn’t think about that possibility, did you, Seer?” Tom sneered aptly. He laughed.
But then Hermione was laughing again, too. “Yes, you could kill me, and it would actually help protect you, wouldn’t it?” she said. “Ah, but you’d be taking quite the gamble… you might not find your horcruxes, but you know what else you might never find, if you kill me? Helga Hufflepuff’s cup.”
She wished she could see his expression. As it was, Hermione could only note the way the cold winds whipping about them halted completely. “What did you say?”
“And you know what else you might never find?” Hermione went on. “Salazar Slytherin’s locket… that’s right, I tracked down both the cup and the locket, and tucked them somewhere safely away. And I know the locket technically should belong to you, seeing as it’s a family heirloom, but, well, you know the saying. Finders, keepers—”
“YOU’RE FUCKING LYING!”
The cold winds were back with a vengeance. Hermione heard branches breaking all around them. “I’m not. Are you willing to murder what may be your only possible chance at finding them? The cup, your precious locket… I’ll admit I haven’t found Gryffindor’s sword, but don’t count me out yet, Tom, I’m very good at this. Much better than you.”
Her next laugh hurt; Tom was pushing her so hard against the tree that her body was being crushed.
“The diadem, too," Hermione barely managed to say, determined to finish. "If you want it, you need me to lead you there, I’ve seen it, I’ve seen everything—you’re lost without me. So what will it be, Tom? Are you going to kill me, or—?”
Something in Tom snapped. He let out another furious cry, cutting her off and slamming his fist into the trunk of the tree next to her head as he did. The wood split with a creaking that sounded like a scream.
Then everything went sideways.
The dead tree split in the middle, a fissure that went up, up, up, and then it was falling in on itself as though it had no substance to it. And then it was just falling.
It all happened so quickly it didn’t seem real. The dead tree was breaking apart in a highly unnatural way, its trunk imploding and its many massive branches headed towards them, falling from above. Hermione had only just put together that they were going to be buried under them when Tom grabbed her, flung her to the ground, and covered her with his body as he fell over her. A flash of magic surrounded them, and a fraction of a second later the shattered branches and exploded chunks of wood were raining down, sliding off Tom’s shielding charm and landing all around them instead, crashing loudly.
It seemed to last forever and for only a moment at the same time. Hermione’s body had instinctively curled into the fetal position where Tom had thrown her, and though she had closed her eyes and covered her face, she heard and felt everything. The tree shattering and falling. Tom’s body over hers protectively, his chest against her shoulder, his face pressed into her hair. The magic vibrating around them in a perfect sphere.
Hermione’s ears were ringing. She was shaking, but she otherwise didn’t dare move, was too shell-shocked to yet open her eyes. Tom wasn’t just over her, she realized—he was holding her, his arms wrapped tightly around her…
She finally moved her hands from her face and opened her eyes. Tom’s magically induced storm had passed, and the air was now full of dusty debris. The world around them was thrumming in a strange silence. The crash must have scared off any woodland creatures, because the only sounds she could hear were her breaths and Tom’s.
She turned her head and unfurled her body slightly. Tom’s face was right there, right above her, much too close. He appeared to be in a similar state of shock, for all traces of fury were gone. And his eyes… they were no longer hellfire red, but brown, dark and human…
Hermione was so astonished that she wondered if she had actually been knocked out, and this was a dream. Because Tom, for all his screaming and rage and claiming he was going to kill her, had, in a moment where he hadn’t had time to think, only act…
He had saved her.
He could have apparated. He could have let her get crushed—should have, maybe, even. Hermione doubted it would have killed her. Hurt her, absolutely. But she would have survived.
But Tom hadn’t instinctively left her. He hadn’t even thought to apparate with both of them, which would have been the most logical thing to do. Instead, his gut reaction had been to grab her, hold her, and protect her with his body and magic.
It was baffling. Hermione didn’t believe it, even after the fact.
Tom didn’t seem like he could process what had just happened, either. His expression was hazy, nearly vacant. He looked at her face, her lips and her eyes, then up to where the remains of the tree trunk were, jagged pieces of wood jutting up into the dusty air at a thousand different broken angles, and—
His unfocused eyes went wide. Hermione followed his stunned gaze and let out a sharp, bewildered gasp.
No. No fucking way. It can’t be. Not here, not now. Not so close, not like this.
But it was. Irrevocably.
There, balanced precariously between two sharp pieces of the annihilated trunk…
The diadem.
It was like looking at a masterfully done oil painting, or some artfully staged scene out of a Shakespearian play. The diadem was a shining, pristine thing among the wreckage. Beams of sunlight, which were made clearly visible due to the dust in the air, illuminated it, making the silver glow illustriously. The massive, oval sapphire in its center was so blue it would put both the sky and the sea to shame.
It looked like something holy, the way it rested there. Hermione closed her eyes, thinking again that maybe, surely, she was dreaming, and in a moment she would wake up to something far more believable.
She opened her eyes. The sight of Ravenclaw’s lost diadem still greeted her, stealing her breath away in another gasp.
Then Tom moved, lifting himself up, and reality sunk in.
Hermione had barely started to open her mouth when his wand was pointed at her face. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. She knew exactly what he was thinking. Threatening.
Do not move.
And for as much as Hermione wanted to rush out and snatch up the diadem herself, she was nowhere near foolish enough to do so.
She stayed where she was as Tom stood. He walked towards the diadem, stepping carefully over the fallen tree remains and never once turning his back to Hermione as he did. He paused when he was close enough to grab it. Tom took several steadying breaths, then gently lifted the diadem from the dead, hollow tree that had been its home for so many years.
He stayed there for a long time, holding the diadem with both hands, his wand still in his grasp as well. He had never stopped facing Hermione—and she was sure he was watching her even now, in his periphery, if she dared to move from her spot on the ground—but his eyes were feasting on the prize he held delicately by his fingertips. He was drinking in the sight of it, basking in clear and palpable victory.
Then that hungry gaze went to her.
Tom moved even more carefully as he approached her. Hermione swallowed thickly and sat up, but otherwise didn’t move.
What could she do?
She could yell about a dozen different things—demands, pleas, offers—but nothing felt even remotely substantial.
This… is bad.
Tom stopped when he was directly before her. He looked from her to the diadem, his face slipping into that controlled, blank mask. Despite that, despite his eyes being black-brown again, he still looked wild and monstrous. His head tilted slightly to one side, and he seemed curious, almost. Intrigued.
“Get on your knees,” he commanded.
Hermione looked around the broken forest floor like maybe she would find some other impossible artifact there that could help her. There was nothing. He had a wand and the diadem and she had… nothing.
If she tried to run again, now, he’d kill her.
If she tried to attack him again, to grab the diadem or his wand, he’d kill her.
If she did what he said and knelt… he would probably still kill her, but at least she might delay it.
Slowly, reluctantly, Hermione pushed herself to her knees. She looked down at her body afterwards, marveling at it in a way that she never properly had before. While she was covered in smeared blood and debris, while she was sure her hair was in tangled masses and there were likely a hundred twigs caught in it, while she was sure she looked a mess… she was also beautiful. Special. The golden lines glittered in the beams of sun, despite the dust coating her. Even the mudblood scar didn’t bother her. It was a part of her, and she was a living, breathing miracle.
A shame this is how I end.
“Look at me.”
Hermione took a deep breath, then did. She did feel afraid—she wouldn’t pretend she was fearless—but she wasn’t trembling, and she wasn’t going to beg.
Tom stared st her. Then, that curious gleam brightening in his eyes, he did something Hermione never would have expected.
He lowered the diadem and, with an unprecedented amount of gentleness, placed it on her head, nestling it in her wild hair. She froze in shock as he did.
Why is he doing this? Why, why, why…?
Hermione exhaled, and everything became crystal clear.
The second Tom lifted his hand from her, Hermione’s chaotic mind—which she had not even realized was chaotic—became perfectly clear, organized. Quiet. Or quieter, at least.
It was like there had been seven people talking in the background of her consciousness, voices murmuring over each other in a casual way, like this was always how they had carried on with their conversations, but now there was only one. And this voice spoke to her with the air of… rightness.
Why would he do this? Oh, that’s obvious. For one, he intends to kill you and use your death to turn this diadem into his next horcrux, right here and now. How could he not? This, finding it because it’s happened just as you said—you led him straight to it!—is just so poetic, so meaningful. He’s thinking, this must be fate, because fate favors me, Lord Voldemort.
Assuming he does believe that you found and hid the locket, the cup, the ring, and the diary—which he is still in denial about, clearly—that’s not entirely dire to him. He thinks he can track them down himself, wherever you may have placed them. And in the meantime, while he searches, he will have this horcrux—this diadem—hidden somewhere he will know of, and so his immortality will be assured in more ways than one. Because he does think he will find what you’ve stolen from him. Even faced with all the evidence in the world that you have bested him, he refuses to face it, for his arrogance is unparalleled.
So, if he is going to kill you now—and hell, maybe putting this thing on you will make the process of making it a horcrux easier, somehow, and that was part of why he did this, too—he’s thinking, why not experiment first? Why not learn what he can from you and this diadem before he corrupts it with dark magic and hides it away forever? He has an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and while he would never place an enchanted object on his own head, no matter what tales surround it about what it supposedly does, he has no issue forcing such objects on other people, particularly people who are about to die anyway. Even if the object in question supposedly makes the wearer more intelligent. Tom wouldn’t let that bother him for a second, not in this situation. He’s thinking: What supposed, enhanced knowledge could possibly help her here? She has nothing, and I have everything. I have all the power.
But of course, he is wrong.
Tom Riddle thinks he intends to kill you, but he is delusional. He would have killed you first, if that were the case. He would have cast a killing curse before getting the diadem, because that would be the logical thing to do—destroy the threat, then claim the prize. But he didn’t act logically, because a part of him doesn’t want to kill you at all. So he’s procrastinating.
He’s conflicted.
He’s hurt.
He’s heartbroken.
He thinks that you never cared about him at all, that you’ve always wanted to kill him. He’s never been hurt like this before, and it’s driving him to the brink of madness. Because, despite all his fearsome magic and grand plans to dominate the world, despite his ability to kill indiscriminately when he needs to, Tom Riddle is just like every other lonely soul in this world.
He wants to be loved. You need to show him.
Also, he couldn’t resist seeing you in a crown.
All these thoughts came and went in Hermione’s mind in the blink of an eye. Tom was staring at her, his gaze flickering from her chest to her face to the diadem in her hair. She wondered what she looked like to him, kneeling as she was in the small, untouched patch of earth surrounded by death, but that didn’t matter right now.
Only one thing mattered.
Hermione lifted both her hands and grabbed one of Tom’s, the one without his wand, and was pleasantly surprised when he allowed it. Her eyes met his.
Let me show you, she thought, and for once, he listened to her. He nodded.
The memory materialized before them both.
“What do you want?” the Hermione of the past asked harshly. She was in the holding center, and across from her sat Albus Dumbledore. “Why don’t you just fucking spit it out already, Dumbledore?”
Tom’s presence brightened with intrigue.
“I want you to help me do the right thing,” Dumbledore said gently. “If I am correct in my suspicions of Tom, then he is not only guilty of the murder of a poor, innocent girl, but he is now delving deeper and deeper into dark magic… I have been keeping my ear to the wind, and I have heard rumors, whispers… I fear he has killed once and that he will kill again, and again, and again, under this awful new name he’s invented for himself… And that sign in the stars he created, I must admit, I found most troubling…”
Hermione was quiet, looking down at her scar.
“I want to clear the name of an innocent man who believes, to this day, that he accidentally and indirectly killed a girl. I want to explain to her parents what really happened to their daughter, because they had a right to the truth. I want to protect future muggle-borns from what I fear may one day be a terrible foe… and I think that you can help me.”
Hermione made a horrible, choking sound.
“You mean something to him, that much was abundantly clear,” Dumbledore continued. “Did you know that he needed to be dragged away by his own comrades after you attempted to escape?”
Tom’s thoughts prickled. Hermione in the memory looked surprised. “He what?”
“Oh, yes. He cast some very nasty curses first, but was quickly grabbed and apparated away by Macnair… which was astonishing, really, because I believe he hardly passed the apparition exam himself—he was certainly no prodigy at Transfiguration, which was my subject—and side-along apparition with an unwilling partner is no easy feat… He did not want to let you go. Which, of course, means that you are significant to him... which also means that you must know too much about him. You know that he’s killed. You know that he plans to kill again… but you can still do the right thing. You can stop him. You can tell us what you know; you can help us protect so many others… and we can help you, too. We can arrange a deal of sorts. We can, perhaps, pardon some of your crimes… We can protect you.”
“P… Protect me?” Hermione repeated, looking greatly confused. “You think… Oh. You think I’m not talking because I’m afraid? That I’m scared he’ll hunt me down and kill me because I’ve said something?”
Dumbledore, looking a little concerned, nodded. “I honestly hadn’t even thought of that,” said the Hermione of the memory, and it was even more ridiculous to hear now, because that was exactly what was happening.
Dumbledore had, as usual, been right.
“No, that’s not why I’m not letting you sift through my mind at your leisure. I’m not cooperating because I just can’t. I can’t. And I won’t… I don’t care if he’s done terrible things. Don’t you understand? I don’t care, I…”
Hermione's past self inhaled a deep breath. “I love him,” she said. “I love him. I’m in love with him… so no, I won’t help you. I won’t give you anything. I can’t.”
Dumbledore said nothing.
She pulled the memory away. The real world formed around them, Hermione still on her knees, Tom still towering over her, his hand in both of hers.
His face was not bright nor hopeful, but full of anguish. He looked vastly more conflicted now.
Hermione didn’t speak, didn’t move. She knew—impossibly but undeniably—that she shouldn’t do anything.
She waited.
Tom started to tremble. Then he had her jaw in his hand, holding her lightly, those dark eyes like endless, black holes boring into hers.
He leaned over her, putting the tip of his wand under her chin to prop it up. His eyes flashed to the diadem before settling on hers again.
“My Queen,” he murmured, and it sounded much the same way it did when he called her darling. Sweet and sardonic.
Then there was a flash of light, and the last clear thought Hermione had before the wreckage vanished was red, not green.
Chapter 58: Past Tense
Chapter Text
Hermione was walking in darkness. There was no one and nothing, no light nor sound. It was cold, and it was the loneliest place in the world.
Then she saw Tom.
One moment there was only blank darkness, and the next Tom was there, standing under a single ray of light, making Hermione think of a spotlight on a stage. He was naked, one arm limp at his side while his other raised in front of him, and in his hand…
What was that?
Something strange, pulsing, bloody red and raw, but also glimmering with an unnatural shine. It was visceral, like an organ, but with crystalline clusters growing on it. In it. She had never seen anything more unsettling.
It so preoccupied her attention that Hermione didn’t realize, at first, that it was attached to him. That it was coming out of him, that—
Oh, no.
Tom’s chest was cracked open. There was a gaping, black hole in the middle of his sternum, and the crystalline organ was attached to it with several glistening strings of flesh. The way he was standing there, it looked like he had ripped it out of his own chest just to hold it.
“Tom?”
Tom didn't seem to notice her. He was staring down at the crystalline organ, his eyes blank.
Then he lifted his other hand, and started to tear the impossible thing in his hand apart.
“No!” Hermione yelled, but he didn’t hear her. The glinting organ was making a horrible sound, like he was ripping apart some poor creature, something that was too tired to scream but whose voice hadn’t entirely given out yet.
“Don’t do it, please, don’t do it, don’t do it! I’m begging you, please!”
Without knowing how she knew it, Hermione was certain that this was an unholy act, a horrible sin against nature. Tom was doing the worst possible thing he could ever do, destroying that glistening, pulsing thing, and she had to stop him, she had to. Hermione tried to run to him, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything but yell with words that did not reach him. It was like watching a horror film.
“Don’t do it, please, Tom, please!”
Tom shredded the organ in half, barely wincing as he did. The section that was removed glowed with a vibrant light, then went dull. He dropped it to the ground, where it landed with a sickening thud, both wet and heavy.
Then he did it again.
Tom ripped apart the precious thing in his hands, again and again, ignoring Hermione’s cries. As he did, he deteriorated. Tom’s face became waxen and taut, all his bones became visible through his skin, and his hair broke and fell out in chunks—yet his expression remained as dead as could be. His eyes were brown, then red, then redder still—his face was little more than a skull—
Flowers.
Hermione rolled onto her stomach, looking out at them. All roses, she noted. An endless sea of bushes filled with pink, wild flowers, dotted with little white butterflies, all beneath an orange, warm sun. She smiled. It smelled divine.
A perfect pink petal fell onto her nose, and Hermione realized she had some of those same roses in her hair.
She sat up, marveling as she gingerly touched what she discovered was at least a dozen of them there. It was like a wreath, she thought, or a crown.
A bird flew down, seemingly from nowhere, and landed on her leg. A swallow of some kind, perhaps. How interesting.
“Hello there,” Hermione said.
The bird cocked its little head to the side. Hermione didn’t expect to get a response, and so she was quite shocked when it opened its tiny beak and spoke.
“Don’t let your many, many thoughts get in the way of your heart, my love.”
Hermione gaped at the bird, which had not only just spoken English, but which had sounded like… but it couldn’t be…
That had been her mother’s voice.
Hermione swallowed thickly. Her eyes felt hot and wet with tears. “Mum?” she whispered.
It didn’t respond. The bird took off, flying up and away from her hand, fluttering for a moment around the roses in her hair. As it went, it seemed to be taking them with it—the wild flowers started to fall apart, their petals catching in a gentle breeze, dancing after the bird as it too was swept away.
Hermione watched it go, crownless, her chest aching.
Hermione was not sure what she expected to wake up to.
Not that she’d had any time to ponder the matter, but if she had, Hermione figured she would wake up to some sort of nightmare. To be chained to the bed, maybe, or otherwise bound and incapacitated. To be drugged and sluggish, mentally hampered and rendered weak in order to no longer pose a threat of any kind. To be trapped in a circle of glowing runes, unable to step outside them without giving up her every secret.
She was surprised when she opened her eyes to find that none of this was true.
Hermione was in the bedroom, lying on the bed, alone. There was no additional dark magic stirring the air, as far as she could tell. And she felt… why, she felt perfectly fine.
She looked perfectly fine, too. She peered down at her body—where she had been neatly tucked under a blanket—to find that there was not a trace of dirt or blood on her. Her hair, too, had been detangled and cleaned. She curled a tendril around her finger, awestruck.
Hermione was in disbelief. She didn’t move for a long time, only laid there on the bed on her side, thinking. She needed to think.
Sunshine bathed the room, and birds were singing. It was… morning. Hadn’t it just been morning, when they’d… taken their thrilling jaunt through the woods? So either very little time had passed, or an entire day and night.
Hermione’s stomach made an unflattering, gurgling sound. She was hungry. She was thirsty.
An entire day, then.
She closed her eyes, still unwilling to get up and discover what awaited her beyond the bedroom door. A whole day. Tom Riddle could have done any number of inconceivable things in that time while she was unconscious. And seeing as he had not tied her up nor fucked with her mind… What had he done?
Unless he has fucked with my mind, and I’m just unaware of it, Hermione thought darkly. If it had been that long, it was entirely possible that he’d done something to her and then wiped her memories afterwards…
But she didn’t feel off in the sort of way that made her suspect that… and he had said something before, hadn’t he, about her having her memories wiped? She hadn’t had time to dwell on it then, but that pretty heavily implied that he had obliviated her once before, didn’t it?
The thought made her skin crawl. If Tom had wiped her memories at some point, she could only imagine that it had been in New York. When she had supposedly passed out… He’d admitted that he’d cursed her, then, examined her, and he hadn’t answered when she’d asked if he’d done anything else…
And she had definitely felt off after that, when she came to.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have any idea what happened then—all she knew was that if Tom had done something to her, it didn’t seem to have had any lasting repercussions on her. Nothing obvious, at least.
Hermione drew in a deep breath. Maybe he did something more to her then, maybe he didn’t. Maybe he had done something to her now, maybe he hadn’t. It didn’t feel or look like it, though, so rather than speculate wildly on what he might have done to her while asleep—something she would surely find out soon enough, either way—she tried to focus on what else he must have felt the need to do while she was incapacitated.
What would I do, if I were in Tom’s situation?
Hermione pulled the blanket up over her head, shielding herself from the daylight as best she could. The birdsong, while still audible, was dulled.
What would I do…?
Well, I would modify the wards, first and foremost, Hermione answered herself. He most certainly had not expected her to so quickly realize it just needed more blood to leave, and for her to find a way to immediately bleed all over that tree without her wand.
That would be first on my agenda. Modify the wards in a way that would make it impossible for my quarry to break through. But how would I adjust them…?
Hermione decided not to bother dwelling on that particular question. She could lay there all day wondering what terrible and dark spells Tom might weave into the magic of his blood ward, and in the end, it hardly mattered. He would have modified them by now. She would not be able to escape like she had before.
Okay, so, the ward… What else? What else…
Hermione felt a chill settle over her. The diadem. It was hardly still on her head; he must have put it somewhere, and…
God, could he have gone and made it into another horcrux already?
No, no, no. He couldn’t have. Hermione wouldn’t even allow herself to think of it. He couldn’t have.
The real question she needed to ask was how on earth could she convince him to not split his soul again?
Hermione pulled the blanket more tightly around her shoulders. She had no idea, but she would have to try something. Anything.
The ward, the diadem. Her. Her wellbeing, more precisely.
Tom had obviously spent some time tending to her… She was all cleaned up, and while she doubted he had untangled her hair by hand this time, it was still an unnerving gesture.
What had he been thinking, when he brought her unconscious body back here? What thoughts had been running through his mind as he spelled the blood and dirt from her skin?
If I were Tom, what would I think of me?
Hermione pondered this question for a long time, and yet she could not for the life of her come up with a good answer. She was still shocked that she wasn’t in chains or something equally terrifying. That is what she would have expected, and yet it was not so.
She wondered if Tom was even here.
Maybe he had left her. Maybe he’d taken their wands and the diadem, reinforced the ward in ways she couldn’t even comprehend, and he’d left. Maybe she was all alone, and he wouldn’t be back for a long time.
Or maybe he was right outside the bedroom door, waiting. Hermione wasn’t sure which she found more frightening.
Feeling there was little use putting off the inevitable any longer—and feeling too thirsty and hungry to stay in bed, besides—Hermione sat up. She pushed the blanket aside, stood, and in a bizarre act of feigning normalcy, she made the bed. Then she looked around the room.
There was no robe hanging in the back of the door. Hermione wondered if it was still stuck in a tree in the woods. Perhaps Tom had blown it up with one of the curses he’d thrown at her when she’d run.
Hermione felt her blood pressure spike at the recollection. She knew she probably shouldn’t have been as… vindictive with her words as she was, when he caught her, but… fuck! He had turned into such a violent psychopath!
Possibly sociopath, is more accurate, a voice in her mind supplied.
Hermione shook her head, annoyed with herself. Clothes. She was not about to walk out of this room naked, especially when she wasn’t sure what was on the other side of the door.
Feeling a bit sheepish about it, Hermione crossed the room to the small, wooden dresser. She opened it to find it half-filled with simple, plain clothes. Some boxers and socks, some undershirts and t-shirts. A few pairs of sweatpants and slacks. Almost everything was black, navy, or gray. It was all so nondescript that Hermione wondered whether they were Tom’s or if they belonged to the muggle man who owned the cabin. She smelled one of the t-shirts, and—Tom. Definitely Tom’s.
Regardless, they were all men’s clothes, and they were much too big for her. Seeing as the sweatpants looked like they would fall right off of her, Hermione settled for one of the black t-shirts and a pair of black boxers. They were loose on her hips, but they managed to stay on, and the shirt was so long it could have been a short dress.
Beggars can’t be choosers, Hermione thought as she looked down at herself. There was no mirror in the room, so she couldn’t tell exactly how ridiculous she looked, but she supposed it hardly mattered. At least she was clothed.
Hermione took a deep breath, then opened the door.
The scene before her was so surreal that she rubbed her eyes, certain she must be imagining it. She wasn’t. Tom was there, fully dressed, sitting at the table. There was an empty mug and a plate before him, the crusty remnants of toast still on his plate. He was leaning back in his chair, one ankle propped up on his other knee, looking quite comfortable. He was reading the paper.
With the sunshine and birdsong, with the smell of breakfast and tea lingering in the air—with the way he was sitting there, his hair neatly combed and a little damp, as though he’d recently showered…
It was all so domestically picturesque.
Did any of that even happen? Hermione found herself wondering. Maybe it had all been a dream, and he didn’t know about the ring at all; maybe they had just escaped the holding center and he had never chased her through the woods. Maybe it had all been a terrible nightmare…
“Morning,” Tom said nonchalantly, not bothering to look up at her as he turned the page.
Hermione was frozen where she stood in the doorway. For some reason, she felt she would have been less anxious to wake up and find that she was in chains than she was to see this—Tom Riddle, looking as handsome, harmless, and human as he ever had, drinking his tea and reading the morning paper.
After a long moment where Hermione remained where she was, paralyzed by uncertainty, Tom looked at her. He seemed a little surprised at first. His eyes flickered down the length of her, seeing what she was wearing, no doubt. He lowered his paper slightly. He looked… a little annoyed.
Hermione felt a spark of her humanity come back to her at that—well, what did he expect her to wear?—when he tore his gaze away, lifting the paper back up so that it covered his face like a shield.
That was when Hermione noticed the headlines.
The first, which was in bold letters at the top of the paper, read, ‘DEADLY ATTACKS WITHIN HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY’ which had a picture of the school to accompany it, as well as a portrait of a woman she did not know, and below that, a second, slightly smaller headline that made Hermione’s heart still:
‘WHO IS THE GOLDEN LADY?’
And there, right beneath the words…
A picture of her.
It was from the night of the WAG gala, undoubtedly—Hermione could see that from across the room. One of the reporters must have snapped a photo of her before she had followed Hephzibah inside, for she did not see her in the frame. It was just Hermione, smiling prettily, dressed in her gold dress with matching roses in her hair.
“Oh my God,” Hermione said, all her previous anxiety swept away in an instant by sheer shock. She rushed over to where Tom sat, barely stopping herself from snatching the paper out of his hands.
Tom didn’t move at first, continuing to read, but then his eyes found hers again. He carefully folded the paper in half. “I’ve already read it twice through,” he said. He seemed far too calm considering how horrified Hermione was. “It’s yesterday’s issue, but… Here.”
He handed it to her. Hermione grabbed the Prophet, which was dated April 21, 1950, and, without a word of thanks to him, opened it up and began to read.
‘DEADLY ATTACKS WITHIN HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY.’ And directly beneath this, ‘ONE PROFESSOR DEAD, TWO STUDENTS PETRIFIED. SCHOOL TO CLOSE FOR REMAINDER OF ACADEMIC YEAR. Alexander Morris reports.’
Hermione’s hands began to shake as she continued reading.
‘Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is once again under attack reminiscent of those it faced nearly a decade ago. The recent attacks have already claimed the life of Professor Lorraine Fields, and petrified two other individuals. The mystery deepens, however, as one of petrified victims was himself expelled for allegedly orchestrating similar assaults on the school in 1943: Rubeus Hagrid, current Gamekeeper for the school. A fifth-year student, Rebecca’s Scott, has been petrified as well. The Daily Prophet can exclusively report that the school will, in fact, close indefinitely until the culprit is found.
“This obviously and painfully calls into question all that happened seven years ago,” says Randolph Macmillan, Head of the Department of Education at the Ministry of Magic. Macmillan refers, of course, to the previous, similar attacks on the school that led to the expulsion of Rubeus Hagrid, himself now a victim. It would seem that history has yet again proven that it has a tragic way of repeating itself.
In 1943, in a terrible time that still feels far too close for many of us, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry suffered an eerily similar devastation. Several students became petrified, and one, tragically, lost her life—Myrtle Warren, who was only fourteen at the time. These attacks were later stopped due to the heroic discovery of another student by the name of Tom Riddle. The then-sixteen-year-old prefect supposedly cracked the case by discovering that a dangerous creature had been brought into the castle by yet another student—Rubeus Hagrid, then thirteen. Hagrid was promptly expelled, and despite public outcry, was granted the position of Gamekeeper and remained at the school, employed.
Yet now the very same man who was once accused of these attacks is one of two people to have become petrified in the past forty-eight hours. Rubeus Hagrid, as well as a fifth-year student, Rebecca Scott, are currently being held at Hogwarts’ infirmary until they can be revived.
This is to say nothing, of course, of the real tragedy that has occurred: Professor Lorraine Fields, who taught Muggle Studies for more than twenty years, was found dead in the halls of Hogwarts early in the morning on April 19th.
The dust had hardly settled before Rubeus Hagrid was found that same morning—thankfully petrified, not dead—presumably before beginning his groundskeeping duties. Rebecca Scott was found mere hours later, petrified as well, at which point the school was put on emergency lockdown.
“Either this series of attacks is due to some sort of copy-cat antagonist, or, as I fear is more likely, it is a clear indication that we were very wrong indeed in believing that Rubeus Hagrid was responsible for those attacks in the first place,” says Macmillan. “We shall be questioning him once he is revived, of course, and in the meantime, we have decided to make the painful decision—one which the current Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, has agreed with—to close the school until the Ministry can conduct a full and thorough investigation. Students will finish their coursework at home, and O.W.L and N.E.W.T testing will be scheduled outside of the castle on an individual basis. It cannot be overstated how seriously we are taking this matter. The loss of Professor Fields is devastating; we will not rest until this mystery is solved once and for all.’
And yet the mystery only grows. This reporter, both horrified and intrigued by this gruesome turn of events at Hogwarts, decided to delve deeper. I have personally (cont. page 4)’
And if it were anything else in the world staring at her at the second half of the front page, Hermione would have turned in an instant to keep reading that story. But she couldn’t.
‘WHO IS THE GOLDEN LADY?’
Hermione stared at the picture of herself, grinning and waving bashfully. She remembered that moment, now. The photographer had called after her before she could go inside, telling her to smile one last time. He had called her beautiful before his camera flashed.
For as much as Hermione wanted to know what this article said, she suddenly found that she could not read it. Her hands were shaking terribly, and though she managed to tear her eyes away from her own moving image, she could no longer make any of the words come into proper focus.
“I can see now that this was a bad idea.”
Tom reached around her from behind, trying and failing to pry the Prophet from her hands. Despite trembling, Hermione realized that she had a death grip on the paper, and he would tear it if he tried to force her. “Let go,” he commanded in her ear, not unkindly. “Let it go, and sit. You look like you’re going to faint.”
She was sure she did—she was sure she was. Hermione felt light-headed as she stayed exactly as she was, unmoving and staring at the paper, trying to make the words stop blurring and jumbling around unnaturally.
“Here is what is going to happen,” Tom said in that same deep, honeyed voice. “You are going to let go of the paper. You are going to sit down, and then you are going to drink the water I give you. Then, if you are very good and you manage to eat something, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Everything that they printed in this issue, and the ones before, and the one from this morning. Can you do that for me?”
Hermione swallowed hard enough that she was sure he could hear it. Tom’s almost sweet behavior was much more frightening than if he was angry; it felt like a lie. The way he was standing behind her like that, his arms encircling her, she thought he might reach up and snap her neck at any moment.
“Or,” he went on a moment later, when she didn’t respond, “you can refuse to listen to me, and I’ll place you under the Imperius curse, and you’ll do everything I want you to do anyway.”
That garnered the response he wanted. Hermione’s hold on the paper loosened, and he pulled it from her grasp. Then she sat, because it suddenly seemed stupid that she hadn’t been sitting already, trying to read that.
The deja-vu she experienced, sitting at the table, was unreal. Hadn’t she just done this? Were they about to have another terrifying conversation where Hermione had to ask for information—a conversation that would end with them trying to kill each other again? Hermione wouldn’t be surprised. She dearly hoped not.
She didn’t look up to see Tom’s expression. Hermione only heard him as he moved, putting the paper somewhere on the counter behind her. He was back a moment later. Tom set a glass full of water on the table and took the seat across from her.
“Drink,” he said, nodding towards the glass. Then, as though he knew exactly what her thoughts would be before she had them, “Poisoning you would be a waste of time and resources, at this point… There’s no veritaserum in there. I’m certain an Occlumens of your skill level would have no problems working around that, even weakened… It’s only water.”
Hermione still hesitated. “Drink,” he repeated a bit more sharply. “Don’t make me threaten you at wandpoint at the breakfast table, Hermione. It’s poor manners.”
Hermione finally obeyed. She grabbed the glass with both hands, lifted it to her lips, and drank. And drank, and drank, and drank, until it was gone.
She was gasping for breath as she sat the glass back down. Tom was smiling. “Good girl,” he said. He then pulled his wand out, flicked it carelessly (an action which made Hermione jump in her chair), and the glass refilled.
She didn’t hesitate the second time. Hermione drank more than half of that glass, too, and when she set it down she had to admit—she felt much more level-headed.
“What happened?” Hermione asked.
“I’ll tell you if you eat something,” Tom said. He pointed his wand behind her, towards the counter. “Toast, maybe? That would be light. Easy.”
For as loudly as her stomach had grumbled earlier, Hermione had absolutely no appetite now. “I can’t,” she said, and she meant it. “If I try and eat something, I’m sure I’ll just be sick.”
“That’s too bad, then.” Tom lowered his wand and sighed. “Shame. It’s quite the picture the Prophet has painted.”
“Tom,” Hermione said. “Tell me what happened. Please.”
“I will. But you have to eat first. Those are my conditions. Either eat something and we can talk, or you can just sit there and look pretty while your thoughts drive you mad.”
Hermione gnawed on her lower lip, glaring at him as she considered her options. He had no emotion on his face as he looked back at her. He was absolutely serious, which was annoying.
“Fine. Toast.”
Tom looked a bit too smug as he got up. She almost thought he might pat her on the head or something as he went, or maybe call her a good girl again.
He didn’t. He set a plate down in front of her. Two pieces of bread, toasted. Nothing on them. It was probably the blandest, easiest thing she could eat, and yet Hermione’s stomach churned.
Tom didn’t say anything. He once more sat across from her, watching her from the other side of the table, his eyes as dark as ink and just as liquid. She felt like his stare was spilling into her.
Hermione lifted one piece of bread and took a bite. She chewed it slowly, then swallowed it. When she opened her mouth a mere second later, Tom cut her off.
“Don’t,” he said, but his lips twitched like he might smile. “All of it.”
Hermione glared. She swallowed back her unasked questions and took a much bigger bite than before, almost spitefully. Tom did smile, then.
She ate as quickly as she could, forcing herself despite the lingering nausea. She was more annoyed than ever that, by the time she was done, she felt marginally better.
“Good girl,” Tom murmured when she was done.
Hermione hated the heat that burned across her face. “Quit saying that,” she muttered.
“I suppose I shouldn’t. You’re about the farthest thing from good that there is, aren’t you?”
Hermione wasn’t sure if she should argue that point or not. It was tempting to snarl something accusatory or insulting in response, but Hermione wanted answers. “Tell me what the Prophet’s been saying.”
Tom didn’t immediately answer. He continued to stare at her with those unnervingly dark eyes, and though Hermione tried to decode him, she had no idea what he was thinking.
“…Well,” he finally said. “It’s been dramatic, that’s for certain. I have issues going back from a few days ago, as well as the one from today. I’ve read them all. You can read them yourself cover to cover later, if you like… but here are the highlights.”
He leaned back in his chair, getting comfortable again. “Only one person died at Hogwarts, as I’m sure you just read. And hardly a shocking death. Professor Fields was very outspoken in her fondness for muggles and was a muggle-born herself. I’m not surprised the basilisk targeted her when given free rein.”
Tom’s smile was almost fond, wistful for a moment. Then he frowned. “I also shouldn’t have been surprised to hear that she went after Hagrid next… Rubeus Hagrid… He was not responsible for Myrtle’s death, even if everyone else believed he was. Adesum—the basilisk—didn’t like that, knowing a half-breed was taking credit for her kill. I should have seen that coming…”
Tom exhaled a long, low breath. “Unfortunate, that. With him being petrified—and I do wonder, was he only petrified because he had something reflective to lessen the blow of her stare, or is it because of his giant’s blood?—it does make it seem like he might have been innocent after all. Which has, sadly, not proven to be the greatest outcome for me.”
He paused for a moment, though whether it was to allow Hermione’s mind to wrap itself around what he was saying, or for some kind of dramatic effect, she wasn’t sure. Probably the latter, the sociopath, she thought bitterly.
“Why do you say that?” she prodded. “Do you think they’re going to figure out it was you?”
“Hardly,” Tom drawled. “But it does complicate things a bit. The Prophet seems to have acquired some very diligent reporters, and this one—Alexander Morris—decided to reach out to me to see if I had any comments on the matter… and, of course, he was unable to contact me. He even looked up where I worked, and attempted to find me there… How disgustingly forward of him.”
He gave Hermione a smile so devious yet chillingly handsome that she found herself blushing again. How horrendous, she thought, that he had that power. She'd just learned he was responsible for the death of another innocent person, and yet he could still be so atrociously beautiful that she was flushing despite that.
“But of course, I was not there. And Burke had to tell him that I had failed to show up for work for the past week. Morris was appalled to learn this, and even more appalled when no one he tried to reach out to seemed to know what happened to me, and so he went and filed the report himself. I am officially a missing person of interest.”
Tom sighed heavily, like this was all so bothersome to him. “Yes, an inconvenience… for Dumbledore and the Ministry, I imagine. They could have just let me go missing, but now that they have reporters sniffing around, they’ll have to have my body be found to put them to rest. I imagine my death will be framed in a way that makes it seem like I came into contact with some horrible cursed object while on the job; they’ll probably have me turn up in some shady corner of Knockturn in a week or so… It wouldn’t be the first time; it would be believable. I imagine Borgin and Burke both fear that themselves… which is why they would never be the ones to report that I was missing, of course.”
He lifted his mug, then took a long sip of tea. He closed his eyes as he did, looking like he was savoring the taste of it—for an infuriatingly long time, Hermione thought.
“So… you’re not dead yet, then,” Hermione said.
“Mmm. No, not officially. But give it a few weeks, and I’m certain I will be. That metamorphmagus decoy was perfect. And even if Dumbledore didn’t believe that was me somehow, it would be much better for the Ministry and the public to think it was than for them to know anything close to what resembles the truth. Which leads us to you.” He raised his cup towards her. “Your story is much more intriguing.”
Another slow sip. “Well?” Hermione said sharply, losing all patience.
Tom smiled, then obliged her. “It’s public knowledge that you are the witch who is accused of attempting to assassinate the Minister and her son,” Tom said. “They could hardly keep that under wraps, seeing as they were both taken to St. Mungo’s. It’s public knowledge that you are not who you say you are; that you manipulated Hepzibah’s memories and lied to everyone about who you are. There has been no mention of the MACUSA’s involvement whatsoever.”
“N… none?”
“None. So, I’m afraid I cannot answer the question about whether any of them survived or not. There hasn’t been so much as a suggestion that the MACUSA was involved… in fact, they don’t mention America at all. When talking about you, they only vaguely say that you spent time abroad before returning to England to try and kill poor Wilhelmina Tuft and her darling son. Oh, and there was no mention of your scars, either… any of them.”
Hermione stared at him, about a dozen different questions in her head, unsure what to ask first.
“What’s most interesting is, of course, the speculation,” Tom went on, still smiling. “In the issue you were just reading, nearly the whole article was a string of wild theories about who you might be with no real substance behind it at all. My personal favorite is that you are the secret daughter of Gellert Grindelwald and some unnamed, apparently unimportant woman, and that you’re finally breaking out to lead the charge of the revolution that he failed to see through.”
“What?” Hermione shouted, aghast. She stood. “Where is it? Let me read it, let me—”
“Later,” Tom said, but Hermione had spotted it. There, on the counter. The issue she’d just had, plus a whole stack of Daily Prophets. She marched over to them, fuming, and she was going to—
A sharp tug pulled her backwards. Hermione’s body was gripped around her midsection, dragging her away from the counter, and then her knees were bending as she was shoved by an invisible force, back into the chair.
Tom’s expression was as blank and cold as a sheet of ice.
“I said later,” he said softly.
Hermione, feeling an ominous chill in the air, nodded.
Tom smiled pleasantly again. “So. You are a wanted criminal, accused of attempted murder of the Minister of Magic and much more. I am missing, soon to be dead. It should go without saying that, even as far away as we are, we need to lay low for a while.”
Hermione could feel her gaze going unfocused as she processed that. He was right, of course. But the weight of what that meant was only just beginning to sink in. She had lost Hepzibah. She had lost her New York friends. She had lost her life in a previous timeline, she had lost Harry and Ron and even Draco Malfoy.
She had no one, now… no one but Tom.
“I… yes, I suppose so,” said Hemione weakly.
“It’s probably for the best,” Tom said. “After all, we need some time to work on our… relationship.”
He scowled; he clearly couldn’t have been less enthusiastic.
“Relationship?” Hermione repeated, holding back a laugh. “Is that what we have?”
“You tell me,” Tom said. “What would you call whatever it is that’s between us? Considering it’s all based on a mountain of your lies.”
Hermione felt an instant rush of rage. “My lies? As though I’m the only one who’s lied here?”
“You have lied about every single thing about yourself from the moment we met. Your entire identity is a fabrication. Me? I’ve never lied about who I am.”
“I—what—yes you absolutely have, Mr. Lord Voldemort!”
His eyes narrowed at that—Mr. Lord Voldemort—but instead of raising his voice, he calmly said, “I never lied. I am also Tom Riddle, and that’s who I told you I was. You were never Hermione Smith. There is a huge difference between purposefully lying about your identity and choosing to keep some parts of yourself private.”
Hermione gaped at him, so indignant that for a moment she was at a loss for words. “I can’t—you cannot be serious right now!’ she seethed once she found her voice. “You are not going to make me feel bad about—about lying to you when these private parts of yourself you’re talking about were you killing an innocent girl, and your father and grandparents and—and becoming a Dark Lord!”
Tom waved a hand as though such details were so frivolous they could be wiped away with a gesture. “I have been infinitely more transparent than you have.”
“You think so? You lie all the time—and lying by omission counts.” Hermione folded her arms across her chest, glaring when she went on, saying, “What did you do to me while I was knocked out?”
Tom had the audacity to look surprised at the question. “Nothing,” he said. “Just kept you asleep. It was annoyingly daunting. You almost woke up once, which I should have seen coming. I had to stun you again.”
“Why—because you needed more time to do what?”
“What I do in my free time isn’t your concern.”
“Oh, right. Of course not. I can’t see how what you get up to while keeping me unconscious in your bedroom in your secret, cursed cabin in the middle of nowhere would concern me at all.”
“Ah, see?” Tom lifted his mug towards her again, a sarcastic cheers. “You are a smart girl.”
Hermione wished she could lunge across the table and smack him on the face. She wondered how quickly he could whip out his wand.
I don’t have to wonder, she told herself bitterly. If I make a single move he doesn’t like, he’ll have his wand on my throat in an instant. Assuming I could even get out of this chair if I tried at the moment.
“New York,” Hermione said suddenly. Tom arched one brow at her and waited for her to elaborate. “You say you didn’t do anything to me here while I was out? Maybe that’s true… maybe not. You see, I’m having a hard time believing that, because I’ve heard it before, and it was a lie.”
She leaned forward, both elbows on the table. “What did you do to me when you knocked me out in New York, Tom?”
There was a flickering of something across his face—Tom looked, for a moment… uncomfortable?—but the emotion was shuttered away nearly at once, replaced by a mask of indifference.
“Nothing. Don’t worry your pretty little head about New York. You passed out, you woke up. You should be thankful that you did wake up, all things considered.”
One of the voices in the back of Hermione’s mind said, He is entirely full of shit, and he definitely did something to you.
Another said, Probably tried to do something to you, more like, and it didn’t work. Maybe because of the Time-Turned magic…
And a third, very unhelpful voice, added, He’s called you pretty twice now this morning.
Hermione willed her mind to calm so she could focus. She almost wished she had the diadem back on her head.
The diadem…
Before she could work up the nerve to ask, Tom was leaning across the table the same way she just had been. “You’ve stolen and hidden my horcruxes,” he said flatly.
It wasn’t a question, but he seemed to be waiting for an answer. “Yes,” Hermione said, just as flatly.
“I want them back.”
“Too bad.”
His eye twitched, but his face remained otherwise still. “You will tell me where you have hidden them, and you will take me there yourself, if need be.”
“I will not and I will not. Try and make me, and, as I’ve said before… well. You’ll see what happens.”
He probably didn’t realize that his fingers were curling, like he was gripping his wand even though it wasn’t in his hand. He seemed to be trying very hard to control himself, and was one wrong word away from losing his mind and blowing up the entire cabin.
Hermione knew she should tread lightly. “It’s for your own good, Tom,” she said. “If you hide them yourself, they’ll be found and destroyed eventually. If they stay where I’ve put them, they never will be.”
The muscles in his neck were tense. Visibly.
And that was when Hermione realized—he probably believed her now, more than ever, about being a Seer. After she had told him she would lead him to the diadem, and then, technically, had. How could he not? Hermione was almost starting to believe it herself, truth be told.
“Then how about you just tell me where it is you’ve hidden them?” Tom said. “They can stay where they are, if that’s where they will be safe. But I should know where that is.”
“No.”
Hermione wondered if his molars were going to crack, the way he was clenching his jaw.
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll move them if I do. You won’t be able to help yourself. You see, the places I put them—because I split the diary and the ring up, you’ll be happy to know—they’re in places connected to me. Sort of. Places only a version of me would know. Places that meant something to me when I was very young. So they’re not special to you, and that will bother you. You’ll want them somewhere else. And don’t try and argue that you won’t—you will. You’ll rationalize it a dozen different ways, and then you’ll ignore what I said and do what you want. So they’re staying put, and I’m not telling you where they are.”
She folded her arms across her chest again. “You’re welcome.”
The window exploded.
Tom hadn’t moved, but the window above them blew apart with a sharp crack, sending glass everywhere. Outside, the birdsong was disrupted; Hermione could hear fluttering wings and tree branches rustling as they fled the area.
Fortunately, the glass didn’t seem to have hit either of them. Also fortunately, Hermione had braced herself for some sort of angry reaction, so she managed to barely react, other than to shield her eyes.
She lowered her hands and gave him a pointed look. She decided it was best not to say anything, because surely any response would only serve to anger him more.
Tom wasn’t looking back at her. He had his eyes closed, and he was taking deep breaths, obviously trying to reign himself in. Hermione waited.
After a few agonizing moments like this, Tom flicked his wrist. The window repaired itself without him needing to so much as look at it. Then he opened his eyes and returned his focus to Hermione, a strained smile on his face.
“Fine,” he said, not commenting on the exploding window at all, his teeth still clenched through his smile. “You can keep that from me… for now. It doesn’t matter… I’m going to make more.”
Hermione felt like he had just reached into her chest and gripped her lungs, she lost her breath so suddenly. The sensation must have shown on her face, too, because he looked confused.
“Tell me you didn’t,” she whispered. “Tell me you didn’t already make the diadem a horcrux. Please tell me you didn’t.”
He didn’t seem to know what to make of her abrupt change in demeanor. He considered her for a long time before he said, speaking slowly, “No. Not yet.”
The wave of relief was so strong Hermione felt dizzy with it—a tidal wave of hopeful emotion that was gone nearly as quickly as it had come. For it came rushing back to her, then. Her nightmare, the terrible dream from when she’d been unconscious just now…
Tom, standing alone in a light, ripping apart… His soul, it could only be his soul, and she had watched, helpless, at what it had done to him…
She was on her feet before she realized what her body was doing. She had thrown herself on the ground before him, landing hard on her knees, before she had ever considered whether it was wise or not.
She was crying before she hit the ground.
“Please, please, please don’t turn it into a horcrux, please don’t make anymore, please don’t do it,” she sobbed. Tom’s face was blank with shock, looking down at her as she was. “Please, please don’t do it, don’t do it, I’ve seen what will become of you if you do—I saw it in a dream, last night—you were tearing yourself apart and you were becoming something inhuman and hideous and then you were barely alive at all anymore—please, don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t—”
Her words were cut off by a hiccup, and then Hermione was just sobbing uncontrollably, clutching at his legs and crying tears onto his thighs. She couldn’t control herself at all; she didn’t have a coherent thought besides, Please, don’t.
“…Is… that what you were talking about…?”
It took a great deal of effort for Hermione to stop crying loudly enough to hear him. “Wh-what?” she asked, looking up.
Tom looked sick. He was paler than usual, staring down at her, and his expression was nothing short of horrified. “You kept saying that last night, in your sleep… ‘Don’t do it, please’… I assumed… I thought you were dreaming that I was going to kill you… I couldn’t console you… That… was when you nearly woke up.”
Hermione swallowed back another wave of tears. She nodded.
Tom… still looked sick.
“Please,” she whispered, uncaring of how pitiful she sounded. “I wouldn’t beg if I was lying. Please don’t kill anyone, please don’t turn the diadem. Please… I can’t… I can’t watch you become worse than dead, just for it to be destroyed anyway. Because it will. No matter what you do with the diadem afterwards, even if you give it to me, it will be destroyed. I’ve seen it bleeding black tears in a field of fire… I’ve seen it die.”
Tom winced like she’d hit him with her words. He swallowed thickly, then slowly, as though the action hurt him, nodded.
“Promise me,” Hermione said, and just like that, her fiery determination had returned. She dug her nails into his thighs. “Swear to me you won’t. I need to hear you say it, or I won’t believe it, and I’ll never stop panicking.”
Maybe it was just because her face was wet with tears, probably all splotchy and red too, and he hated that. Maybe it was because she had essentially just threatened to never stop crying all over him if he didn’t do it. She didn’t care; she only cared that it seemed to be working.
Tom looked visibly torn—and still sick—when he nodded again, and said, “I won’t.”
Which was good enough for her. For now, at least. Hermone felt her whole body relax with relief, her head falling into his lap.
“Thank you,” she whispered, content to stay there for a while. “Thank you…”
If he reacted at all to that, Hermione didn’t know. She kept her head buried in his lap, eyes closed, waiting for her tears to dry. Tom didn’t move. Not a gentle pat on the head, not a motion to indicate that she should get up. Nothing. It was like he’d become petrified when she started crying, and might just stay that way forever.
Hermione found herself almost laughing, despite her still-teary eyes. “Sorry,” she eventually mumbled, pushing herself off of him. “I kn-know you hate when people cry…”
She heaved another deep, shaky breath and was about to get herself to her feet, when Tom finally came to life again.
His hand grabbed her wrist, tight. Hermione startled and looked at him.
“Why would you say that?”
Shit.
Hermione realized her blunder too late. Well, she thought, noting the way Tom was suddenly watching her with focused eyes, carefully examining her face, there’s no point in lying about it now.
“Because… you told me,” she answered.
“No, I didn’t. I’ve never told anyone that. And I’ve never given you any reason to think that. Why would—”
“You told me,” Hermione repeated, interrupting him. “A… younger version of you. The diary.”
Tom didn’t react. He only kept hold of her wrist, staring.
Then Hermione was wrenched to her feet, his grip painful. “You interacted with the diary?”
“Yes,” she admitted. Stay calm. Stay calm, Hermione. “We spoke. Had a nice long conversation… a few, in fact. You were much sweeter when you were sixteen.”
Tom’s face contorted with a mixture of rage and poorly concealed fear. Hermione was certain that his thoughts were going rampant, wondering what sort of information his diary might have given up to this witch who knew… too much.
“He showed me how Myrtle Warren died,” Hermione said, answering one of his questions before it could even form. “He showed me how you used to have panic attacks when people would cry… how Myrtle caught you unaware, and so you set the basilisk on her, unintentionally… but he wouldn’t show me how you made the horcrux. He refused to show me that.”
Tom glowered at her, still holding her wrist tight. Hermione feared he was about to do something very, very bad. She was surprised the window didn’t shatter again.
But then he was all but shoving her away, he released her so suddenly. “And what else did the diary tell you?” he asked, feigning nonchalance—poorly.
“Not too much else that I couldn’t guess on my own… That you hate Abraxas, I guess.”
Tom snorted derisively.
“I mean it,” Hermione said. “I asked him to show me how he was made. He showed me Myrtle dying, but that was all. I didn’t want to… interact with him too many times, because I know how horcuxes work. I stopped talking to him, eventually. I’d learned what I needed to.”
Tom looked furious, but he was still obviously trying to contain himself. “How nice for you,” he said, his tone dark and saccharine.
“I wish I hadn’t needed to,” Hermione admitted. “He was lonely. Is lonely… I don’t think you understand what sort of life you're damning these parts of yourself to. No—you do, don’t you? That’s why you never talked to your diary self. He would have pleaded with you to reverse what you’d done. Or maybe he wouldn’t have, because he’d know it would be a waste… God.”
Hermione ran a hand through her curls, getting her fingers stuck part way through. “It’s so sad,” she mumbled, speaking only to herself.
“It’s not a person,” Tom hissed. “It’s a diary. It’s an object, existing as it is with a shred of my soul anchored to it—nothing more. Not a he. An it.”
Hermione shook her head, but didn’t try and argue the point. She had a feeling that Tom already knew she was right, but that he was in such a deep pit of denial that he may never surface from it.
“I never interacted with the ring,” she said, because she could tell he was going to ask. “I never removed the necrotizing curse from it, I never even touched it… Maybe… someday… Maybe that one, I might tell you about. About where it’s hidden, I mean. Maybe, as a token of goodwill, if you keep your word about the diadem for long enough. About not making more.”
Tom’s eyes went bright with interest. “And the diary?”
“No.” Hermione’s voice was firm. “The diary is mine.”
She couldn’t tell what that expression was on Tom’s face, other than it was acidic and ugly.
“Besides, that’s where the locket and the cup are, in my mokeskin,” Hermione said. “Since the ring had a curse on it, I thought the diary could use the extra protection.”
Tom’s bitter expression cleared, replaced by something like shock, like he was just realizing something. “Your wand… the priori incantatem… There wasn’t… you didn’t…”
He took a deep breath. “You hid them, you hid all of those things, and… you didn’t cast a single additional enchantment to protect them?”
Hermione shook her head.
“You didn’t add any extra charms, any defensive shields, anything? You didn’t cast anything else at all?”
“No,” said Hermione. “I didn’t use magic. Magic leaves traces, Tom, even the smallest bits. You know that.”
Tom looked like he was going to have a panic attack, after all. It was a good thing there was a chair behind him, because otherwise he might have fallen. His knees buckled and he landed on his arse in the chair, barely, his face bloodless. “What?” he gasped, shaken.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Hermione chided. “I’ve already told you—no one will find them. They’re far safer now than they ever were in your stupid boxes with your stupid enchantments.”
“Stupid?” Tom was gaping at her and clutching at his chest. “Stupid, to protect my soul? When you—what, you just left them lying around somewhere, nothing at all to stop anyone else from seeing them, from taking them, from—”
“Shhhh,” Hermione said, and she even put a single finger to his mouth. She might have been enjoying a deeply panicked Tom Riddle a bit too much. “It’s fine, Tom. I promise. No one will ever find your horcruxes, I promise you. Not ever.”
She put both hands on his face, and, strangely enough, it did seem to calm him down rather than enrage him. His breathing slowed as she leaned over him, looking deep into his eyes.
“Your soul is safe with me,” she said. “I swear.”
They were quiet for a long time, staring. Hermione was sure he was looking for the truth of her words, and that, she let him feel. She was not lying. She meant what she said—no one would find his horcruxes, not where she hid them.
And how could he not believe her, such a proven Seer? Especially when it was, essentially, what he wanted to hear?
A bird fluttered past the window. Hermione dropped her arms and stood up straight, looking out through the glass. They were starting to return now, after Tom blew it up and scared them all away… She saw a small one on a nearby branch, singing sweetly, and it looked a little… familiar…
Hermione recalled the other part of her dream then—the happier part. Don’t let your many, many thoughts get in the way of your heart, my love.
She smiled. Then, recalling a few other things, she found that she couldn’t stop smiling.
“Why are you grinning like that?”
Tom sounded accusatory. Suspicious.
“Oh, nothing,” Hermione said. “Just remembering something.”
“Remembering what?”
“Something inconsequential, really. You wouldn’t—”
“What?”
Tom was on his feet. Hermione was smiling broader than ever.
“You said you loved me,” she said.
Tom looked, yet again, like he’d just been struck by her. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, but he said nothing.
Hermione, inversely, was certain she’d never looked more smug. “You love me,” she said. “You love me.”
Fury cut across his features… but Tom’s face also was starting to turn a telling pink. “Loved, past tense,” he spat, shaking his head in denial. “And that was all before you—before I knew you’d stolen my soul!”
When that clearly didn’t garner the reaction he was hoping for—Hermione was still grinning from ear to ear—Tom went on, scowling. “How could I possibly love someone who betrayed me so deeply? I don’t. I don’t.”
Hermione’s smile fell. “So where have you been lying, Tom?” she said coolly. “Lying about loving me in the first place, or are you lying to yourself right now?”
“You—You… you told Dumbledore that you loved me!” Tom shouted, and his face was now turning very red. “Unless that was a lie, too? Some fresh new manipulation to stop me from killing you in the woods? If anyone could fabricate false memories so quickly and so perfectly, I suspect it would be you—”
“Ha!” Hermione moved towards him, feeling far too fearless. “I didn’t make that up, how could I? But that was before I knew you would chase me through the woods like some muggle ax-murderer, having stolen my wand, throwing explosive curses at my backside as I ran for my life—”
“Please, I was hardly throwing bombardas at you,” Tom sneered. “You probably would have healed anyway, freakish mystery that you are. Don’t get all upset over it—or worse, start crying again.”
“Are you serious? Hardly bombardas?” Hermione scoffed, loudly. “You are—you are such an arse! Such an arrogant, twisted, psychotic arse! You should be kissing the ground I walk on for stealing and hiding the pieces of your mangled soul somewhere better; you should be begging for the privilege to place me on a throne!”
Tom’s eyes flashed perilously. Hermione ignored the warning there, glared at him, and said, “Your arrogance is damning. Disgusting. You’re disgusting… and you need help.”
“Disgusting?”
Tom’s lips curled into a twisted smile. He breathed a low, dark laugh. “Now that, I know, is a lie… You want to know how I know that, Hermione?”
He advanced on her slowly, making her instinctively retreat, and Hermione once more had a powerful sense of deja-vu. She was reminded of the time that she had been alone with Tom in his flat. Back when he still likely believed she was Hepzibah’s niece; back when she had straight hair and nice clothes and a bracelet that hadn’t been stolen, after all.
After she’d kissed him and tried to leave, and he wouldn’t let her.
“I’ll tell you exactly how I know… You want to know what happened in New York?”
He ushered her back a few steps more, until he was pushing her—gently—against a wall by one of her shoulders. He lifted his other hand to her neck.
“I stunned you. It was simple, with the runes; I didn’t even need to lift my wand. A mere thought from me, and you toppled like a marionette whose strings had been cut. I caught you, I took off your ring, and I studied you… studied these.”
He traced one of the golden lines on her neck. He was looking intently at them, not her face. “I had lost sleep, pondering what these might be,” he murmured. “I researched everything, looked up ailments and enchantments and curses… I could find nothing even remotely like them. My theories about you became wilder and wilder. I had to see them again. I had to analyze them… so I did.”
He put his middle finger to one line specifically, just above her collar bone. “I was following one, one in particular… it was this one, but I can tell, even with this shirt on, that it’s changed since then… It’s wider, and I suspect much longer, looping lower… At the time, this one went here.”
Tom ran that finger down her chest, over her shirt, seeming to follow a pattern by memory alone. “I followed it with my wand tip then… down and around, and around, like this…”
His finger went lower. Hermione could feel her pulse picking up, could hear her own breath as it grew harsher.
“Until it ended, just about here,” Tom said. His middle finger was just above her nipple, lingering there, but paused. “And when I did that, do you know what happened?” His eyes went to hers. “You moved. You were knocked unconscious, magically, and yet you moved. Your back arched against the floor, pushing your chest up towards my wand. Towards me.”
His pupils were blown wide, and while he was nowhere near as red as he had been moments before, Tom’s cheeks were flushed. “I didn’t even realize what I’d been doing, I was so focused on figuring out what these lines were… but then you writhed under my wand, and it was obvious—your body was begging to be touched. To be fucked.”
He let out another low, breathy laugh. Hermione felt her face ignite with heat and embarrassment. She hoped he was lying, but somehow… she didn’t think he was making it up.
“And do you want to know how I know that, Hermione?” She didn’t answer. He didn’t wait for her to. “Because I suspected that you might be unconsciously aroused, so I checked. Because that would have been telling, wouldn’t it, for you to wake up like that?”
The hand that had been on her shoulder dropped. He leaned into her and said, “You were soaking wet. The second I touched you to check, your hips canted against me—and you woke up.”
Had her body ever felt so hot with shame before? Hermione was certain that it hadn’t. “You woke up, and so I had no choice. I had to stun you again and wipe your memories right then. I couldn’t have you living with that recollection—waking up on the floor like you were… I had to make you forget. I had to spell your fucking panties dry.”
His cruel smile softened, but only barely. “I never intended it to be that way,” he said. “All I wanted was to divine what these markings were, what you were… and then you had to go and ruin everything. I don’t think I’ve ever been so successfully distracted and derailed in my entire life.”
He started rubbing slow circles on her breast with his thumb while his other hand was on her thigh, his fingers lightly grazing her leg. “I didn’t know I was capable of half the filthy, sinful thoughts I’ve had since meeting you.”
Hermione was at a loss. The voices in the back of her mind had several, conflicting opinions on the matter—He’s lying! He’s not lying, but he’s a bastard for taking advantage of you! He’s not lying, he’s a bastard, but also, thank God, because it could have been so much worse!—but none of them seemed to matter.
What Hermione was thinking more than anything, was—nothing. She wasn’t thinking. Tom’s thumb moving at an agonizingly slow pace, circling her nipple through the t-shirt she’d stolen like a lazy vulture, took up half her brain power, and his fingertips gradually making their way towards the too-large boxers took up the rest.
“So no,” Tom said, “You don’t find me disgusting. You never have… All you are thinking, all you have ever thought when you’re near me, is how badly you want to be fucked.” His mouth was on her ear when he added, “I bet you’re as wet right now as you were then.”
Tom’s body was pressed tight to hers, his head was bowed low and his lips were nearly against her neck. She couldn’t tell whose breaths were whose, they had both started to breathe so raggedly. Hermione felt like she was going to explode. She was terrified to make any sudden movements.
Then his fingers were on her, his hand having found its way up her leg, past the loose hanging fabric on her waist. It was the slightest touch, two fingers sliding against her, proving him instantly right—Hermione was very wet, mortifyingly so. She sucked in a breath when he did, but her body betrayed her, curling towards him. Craving more.
Tom lifted his mouth from her neck to look at her face, his lips close to hers. He didn’t look smug or vindictive. Tom’s eyes were glassy and his breathing was even more labored, strained. Kiss me, Hermione thought. Fuck me.
His eyes closed, and then his lips were on hers—he made a deep, almost pained sound deep in his throat. Hermione’s eyes closed too, leaning in to his kiss.
Then he was ripping away from her, harshly, swearing loudly. Hermione had barely blinked before he was across the room, then marching out the front door, then outside. She saw him through the window.
Tom was at the edge of the wards not ten seconds later. Hermione watched as he lifted his hand to the cursed tree, causing it to flash a familiar tint of blue. He then turned and made eye contact with her through the window. He didn’t say anything, but Hermione knew exactly what he was thinking by his expression alone.
Don’t even fucking try it.
Then he stalked past the tree, through the rippling wards, and disappeared.
Chapter 59: Slowly Burning
Chapter Text
Hermione scoured the cottage.
Tom’s sudden departure only had her shell-shocked for so long. The silence rang in his absence around her, and Hermione’s mind jumped from what the hell to what an arse to I’m alone and should probably take advantage while I can very quickly. She clapped her hands together and got to work.
She didn’t expect to find her wand… but she had to try.
Hermione first did a general survey of the cottage, taking the time to assess every nook and cranny. There wasn’t much. The bedroom, with its wooden dresser and a small closet. The space that was a kitchen, dining area, and living room all in one, where an old clock hung; a fireplace that looked as though it hadn’t been used in decades; a few hooks on the wall by the door where a long coat hung. The tiny washroom with its single bar of soap.
A pantry.
Instantly, this caught Hermione’s interest. Her hunger was returning with a swift vengeance, and aside from that, she felt the undeniable pull of magic there. She opened it cautiously.
The source of magic became clear at once—there was one drawer with a handle at the top. It was obviously enchanted, and when Hermione reached for the handle, found she was unable to. She couldn’t get her hand within a few inches of it before being stopped by an invisible, heavy shield that forced her away.
She had a few guesses as to what might be in there. Hermione decided not to waste her precious time on it, though, and she was distracted quickly enough by what was on the lower shelves.
Tom had said this cottage was ‘modestly stocked with some non-perishable items’; Hermione now saw that this was a great understatement. The shelves were full of glass jars, canned goods containing everything from pickles to jam to what Hermione thought might be some sort of fish.
God, what Harry, Ron and I would have given to have had a fraction of this! she thought as she rummaged through it all. She couldn’t help but recall their time camping in the woods, half her mind on trying to figure out how to destroy horcruxes and the other on food, always.
She paused, holding a few jars of tomatoes in each hand as she dwelled on that. They had been so miserable, and then Ron had left, and…
And he'd come back. And he saved Harry and he destroyed the locket. And we went on to fight and win the war and—
What would they think of me now?
Hermione set the jars down. What would they think of her, trapped by none other than Tom Riddle himself in a place like this? Having been rescued from Dumbledore of all people, where she could have joined him, helped him… She could have told him everything she knew about the young Lord Voldemort, she could have…
That’s what Harry would have done. That’s what Ron would have done. If they could see me now, they would be beyond disgusted. They wouldn’t even know me, anymore. Hermione trailed her fingers along the sides of the many glass jars, catching her distorted reflection there. Do I even know myself, anymore?
What did it even matter?
She was, undoubtedly, no longer in her original timeline. Hermione could imagine the glowing lights like a river that Holloway had conjured once, attempting to simplify and illustrate what could happen to a time-traveler—theoretically, of course. How when one went back too far, it was possible to splinter off instead of returning to the currents of one’s own time… And when she’d asked what that was called, when someone fractured off like that and ended up elsewhere…
Not our problem.
Hermione would never see Harry or Ron or Draco Malfoy ever again, because she wasn’t even in the same timeline as them anymore. Even if someone from her original present wanted to, even if they had another Time-Turner and tried to go back to the same moment she had, they wouldn’t succeed. Hermione wouldn’t be there. However she’d gotten to where she was now was a mystery that not even the Unspeakables understood, as far as she was aware. She was in some other reality, undoubtedly, and the likelihood that anyone could possibly find her here was…
None. There was no possibility. She had vanished on the spot with the Malfoy family’s illegal Time-Turner when she’d left Draco in her flat, her calculations which were supposed to transport her to a precise location and time in their own timeline sending her splintering off into a new one instead.
No one could come save her. It wasn’t possible.
Not our problem.
And they wouldn’t bother trying, anyway.
Hermione shook her head. If she was going to have another crisis, she needed to do it on a fuller stomach.
After looking through the jars for a bit longer, she settled on what looked like green beans, and after a few minutes where she struggled to get the damn thing open, ate almost the whole jar. She was shocked at how good they tasted, and followed it up with some canned cherries—also excellent. Thank you, nameless muggle man, she thought as she rinsed the glasses in the sink.
She ran her tongue along her teeth afterwards. She wished she had a toothbrush. And floss. Hermione could practically hear her parents chastising her. If you want to keep those teeth, you’d better brush and floss them twice a day!
She missed them so much it hurt.
Forcing away her pesky, unwanted tears, Hermione refocused. She looked in the bathroom medicine cabinet, just to be sure, but Hermione was unsurprised at what she found there. One toothbrush. No floss. Nothing else at all, actually.
Tom had not been lying when he’d said he didn’t expect to bring any guests here.
“I’m going to make a list, then,” Hermione announced to no one. If he was going to be keeping her prisoner while they ‘worked on their relationship,’ then she was going to make some demands.
Hermione was about to go through the few drawers in the kitchen, but hesitated. The stack of Daily Prophets was still there. The one on top had the picture of her from the gala, where the headline read, ‘WHO IS THE GOLDEN LADY?’
Hermione reached for it. Before she could grab it, she pulled her hand away, as though it too had a shield of magic around it. She found herself torn between wanting to read them all, feverishly, and not wanting to know what was in them. Anxiety pooled in her gut as she stared at the issue on top.
‘WHO IS THE GOLDEN LADY?’
Her own grinning image waved at her, mocking.
Hermione huffed, grabbed the entire stack, and shoved them all into a cabinet beneath the sink, out of sight. That’s better, she thought. Then she continued her search.
She was fortunate enough to find a notebook and a few pencils. Hermione flipped past the first few pages—they were filled with notes in a language she could not read, presumably Albanian, as the handwriting was nothing like Tom’s—and tore out a blank one. On it she wrote:
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Floss
Nodding to herself, Hermione set it and a pencil on the table. Then, as some hair spilled over her shoulder and she had to sweep it back into place, she added a few more items.
Shampoo
Conditioner
Hair ties
She laughed as she looked at it. Thus far, her ‘demands’ consisted of items solely dedicated to her hair and teeth. Some clothing that fits me would be nice, she thought, so she added that, too. And I’m sure I’ll come up with more. She set her list aside and continued to explore her prison.
Hermione looked in every drawer she could open, in the closet of the bedroom, on every shelf and on every surface. She found several kinds of tea, more bread, some dry pasta, and an assortment of pots and pans. She found a handful of candles, an old record player and a few dusty records, some first aid supplies, and a couple nice glasses alongside the mugs they’d used for tea. She could tell that the sinks and the shower were influenced by magic, as was the wood stove, though she couldn’t figure out exactly how yet. She found some paper clips and three rubber bands, which was her most exciting discovery, because she knew she could use them to tie her hair back if she was feeling desperate.
In the bedside table in the bedroom, she found two books. One was a novel in Albanian that Hermione couldn’t decipher, and the other was, curiously enough, a Bible. In English. It must have had two dozen of its thin pages dog-eared.
A bit shocked, she flipped through it.
Hermione had not grown up in a religious household. Her parents simply hadn’t been interested in joining any organized religion, seeing as neither of them had been raised in one, either. But they lived near a large church, St. Jude On-the-Hill. It was beautiful. Hermione remembered hearing the choral evensong they would have once a month, loud enough to be heard from down the road. Sometimes, on Sunday mornings, she would ride by the church on her bike just to watch the people filing in and out. Something about it made her a little jealous.
It wasn’t that she’d wished her family would join, or that she was mad that they weren’t members. No, Hermione had just been envious of the sense of… belonging all those people seemed to have. A community. A place they knew they were welcome, a place they felt at home. She’d always felt like there was a piece of her that was missing, and maybe, maybe this was it. Maybe the answer was just beyond those double doors, painted somewhere in the murals or hiding behind the wooden altar or lurking inside the ancient, impressive organ.
But then she had gotten her Hogwarts letter, and she knew she’d found where she really belonged.
Hermione’s fingers caught on one of the dog-eared pages. She looked down, and read a passage at random. It was from Corinthians.
‘If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.’
She closed the Bible, smoothing her thumb over the leather surface. She put it away, went back into the kitchen, and added more books to her list.
Several hours passed, and Tom had not yet returned.
Several hours, and though she explored as far as the foreboding ward would allow her outside the cabin, she found nothing of interest aside from a beautiful view of a forest she could not get to. She didn’t go near the cursed tree.
Several hours, and nothing she did—which was not much, as she didn’t have a wand—got her any closer to the enchanted drawer in the pantry.
Hermione was growing bored… yet she still didn’t read the Prophets. All she had done was make a few lists—one of the things she wanted and a second that was full of questions she had. She doubted Tom would answer them all, but she wrote them down anyway so she wouldn’t forget.
Hermione left her lists on the counter, then poured herself a glass of water and sat at the table where she had piled some of her findings.
Where is he? she wondered. She grabbed one of the rubber bands, put it on her wrist, and began to braid her hair. Where the bloody hell has he gone? Who does he think he is, leaving me here, alone, after…
She felt her face warming at the very recent memory.
I bet you’re as wet now as you were then.
Fuck him, she thought angry. Fuck him for knocking me out and touching me in New York; fuck him for taking my wand and backing me against a wall like that before abandoning me here, now.
Most of all, fuck him for being right.
Hermione finished braiding her hair and secured it at the end with the rubber band, then tossed it over her shoulder. No longer busy with exploring the cottage and adding to her lists, Hermione’s mind began to wander to places where she knew it shouldn’t go.
She thought about New York.
Back in that apartment covered in runes, when Tom had allegedly studied her. She wondered just how long he had done that before he’d gotten… distracted.
Hermione stood. She went into the bathroom, closed the door, and pulled off the overly large shirt and boxers. The mirror on the wall was small, but she was able to see enough.
The golden lines covered half her face… no, more. She frowned as she realized just how far they had gone, and why she hadn’t noticed sooner. The newer marks were so thin that they nearly disappeared until the light hit them right, making them glimmer with life. Looking up close and properly, she could see that they looped all the way across her face, up into her hairline. They were on her neck, of course, but rather than staying on one side they had spread all the way around. An intricate necklace delicately choking her.
They went down her chest and spilled over her shoulders, all the way to the wrist on her right side and completely to the tips of her fingers on the left, the side closer to the initial wound. They had spread across her chest and stomach, and when she turned and looked in the mirror, she saw that they were covering her back as well. And over her hips, down her thighs…
The only places they had not become covered were her right calf, ankle and foot and her right hand.
That, and the mudblood scar. The gold lines still skirted around that, despite covering her all the way to her fingers on that arm.
Hermione stared and stared. The more she looked, the more she seemed to find. The lines as thin as a spider’s web, swirling between the thicker, larger loops. Which had indeed grown, like ravenous vines, like Devil’s Snare.
What did it mean? What was going to happen to her…?
Hermione still had no idea.
Maybe nothing. Maybe it will simply run out of steam, whatever this magic is that seems to be keeping my body in some kind of stasis, and then I’ll return to my regular, uninfluenced body, and then…
And then I might die, Hermione realized. Time-traveling and skipping into some new reality as she had, with no body stabilizing potion to strengthen her…
Maybe that would be it. Maybe she had been on a clock all along, and once this magic—whether it was a curse from Merope or just some chaotic spell caused solely by the sands of time in her blood—grew as much as it could, it would burn out… and then her body would fall apart.
Or maybe a different kind of nothing would happen, and she would just be covered in gold lines forever. An almost-immortal being.
She wondered how far the mysterious magic could go. Curses obviously still affected her; the blood curse from the MACUSA proved that. It took longer, but it did eventually get her. Would a blood-boiling curse eventually kill her too, just more slowly? Would a straight killing curse kill her instantly, or would it take some time? Would it work at all? What if someone chopped off her head? Would that do it?
Probably.
Hermione felt oddly numb as she pondered all the ways she might die. She tugged the oversized t-shirt back on, as well as the boxers. She went back out to the kitchen and sat down. The clock ticked softly from its spot on the wall, telling her that it was now nearly three in the afternoon.
She wasn’t afraid, as she knew she should be, or anxious, or worried…
She was annoyed.
I wish I had my wand, Hermione thought bitterly as she sat there, drumming her fingers along the table. She looked at the candles she’d found and glared. Can’t so much as light a damn candle without it.
Or could she?
Hermione sat up straight, suddenly excited. She had definitely developed an affinity for fire, hadn’t she? She could light a candle. Without a word, without a wand. That was something she could do.
Feeling a bit giddy with recklessness, Hermione pulled one candle to the center of the table, scooting everything else to the sides. She lifted one hand. Light, she thought.
Nothing.
She frowned, then tried again. Light. Light, light, light.
Nothing. Hermione swore. She had made a sprite vanish without a wand, how could she not do this? Hell, she had been able to conjure up a whole wall of flames when she’d been running just yesterday! That was much more fire, and yet this felt infinitely more difficult.
Well, you’d been in peril, then, the voice in the back of her mind pointed out. You’d been running from Tom Riddle. In fact, he was on your mind in each of those instances, wasn’t he?
Hermione frowned more deeply. She imagined Tom’s face going up in flames when she gestured towards the candle again, a bit more forcefully.
The wick lit.
“Yes!” Hermione shouted. She jumped to her feet and pumped her fist in the air. “Yes, I—oh, no.”
Her feelings of triumph vanished. Yes, she had lit the candle—as well as the curtains behind it, which were pulled to one side to allow the sunlight in. She’d overshot.
There was a horrifying moment where Hermione watched, jaw dropped, as the tiny flicker of light along the fabric grew and rapidly became a full blown flame.
“Shit!”
Hermione acted without thinking. The outside of the cabin was brick, but there was wood everywhere on the inside—there was wood paneling on most of the walls, there was wood furniture. If she didn’t put this fire out immediately, the entire cottage was going to burn like a cinderbox.
Spurred on by desperation and a bit of madness, Hermione rushed forward, grabbed the curtain rod, and yanked it down. The curtain was already half in flames. She waved it over her head to keep the fire away from her, which was an instant mistake—the flames grew twice as bright as the air rushed over them. “Shit! Fuck!” Hermione swore. She sprinted across the room, shoving the door open and taking her pyre outside with her.
What am I doing? Hermione thought as she looked around, still waving the burning curtains over her head to keep them from sliding down the curtain rod and hurting her. Going outside stopped the cottage from going up in flames, but now she ran the risk of a full-blown forest fire.
I must look insane, she thought, like a very unpatriotic person waving around a massive, burning flag in some kind of solitary protest. Maybe I am protesting. This cottage, all of Albania, my entire life.
Hermione dashed to where there was a relatively bare patch of dirt with only a little grass, then hurled the flaming curtains and the rod onto it. How did muggles put fires out again? Stopping, dropping, and rolling? Hoses? By suffocating it? Weren’t fire blankets a thing?
Hermione yanked the oversized shirt from her shoulders, then started to use it to stamp out the fire. It hurt her hands and it didn’t work very well. “Fuck! Go out! Go out!” Hermione fell to her knees and began to scream, slamming the singed shirt over the flames as they licked upwards, like some deranged, masochistic game of Whack-a-mole. “Go out, go out—”
The wind was gentle and ice cold.
Hermione’s skin prickled as a familiar, icy gust washed over her, as well as the fire. The flames flickered and went out, leaving only a pile of blackened fabric. Hermione exhaled a deep breath and dropped what was left of the destroyed shirt on top of it.
She didn’t have the chance to look up before he was there, on his knees in front of her in the ashes, reaching. He grabbed her by the wrists and pulled them towards him, forcing her palms up.
Tom.
Hermione winced at his touch. Her hands were bright red and shiny, some blisters already forming on her skin. But she knew enough about burns to know that it wasn’t serious.
Tom examined her hands for a moment before his eyes went to hers. “Why,” he said slowly, not releasing her wrists, “am I constantly needing to put you out?”
Hermione’s mouth opened, but she didn’t have a response. Her brain was still buzzing with adrenaline, was still processing that Tom had shown up at the worst—or best?—moment, once more dousing one of her wildfires.
Tom eyes flickered down to her chest. Right, because she had taken his shirt off. Hermione was almost naked again. She was making a lot of bad practices into habits, it would seem.
“S… sorry,” Hermione eventually said. She tried to pull her arms to her chest, but Tom wouldn’t let her. He opened his mouth, frowning, looking like he was about to say something, but then he stopped short. They both watched silently as Hermione’s hands slowly healed, the blisters that had been forming turning inward and smoothing out until her skin looked unharmed again.
Tom ran his thumbs over her freshly healed palms, fascinated. “What are you?” he murmured.
“Where did you go?” Hermione snapped, pulling her hands away.
Tom’s wonder-filled gaze vanished. “Why did you start a—are these the curtains?”
“Where is my wand?”
“Why did you set the curtains on fire!?”
“Why did you leave me all alone here without saying a single useful thing before you stormed off!?”
They glared at each other. Hermione folded her arms across her chest, covering her breasts and repressing the shiver that threatened to run through her.
“Why did you set the curtains on fire outside like this, Hermione?” Tom asked again, but he spoke in such a tight voice, and Hermione could tell that he was on the precipice of losing it. “What were you trying to do?”
“Trying to…?” Hermione didn’t immediately understand the question. When she did, she almost laughed. “Oh, you think I did this on purpose? That I was trying to… I don’t know, send smoke signals or something? To catch somebody’s attention?”
Tom didn’t respond, only looked at her with an arched brow as if to say, Weren’t you?
“No, my goodness, no. That wasn’t what happened at all. This—this was an accident.”
Tom looked skeptical.
“Really,” Hermione continued. “I just… er, lit a candle. And then… also the curtains. On accident.”
She felt her face growing warm with embarrassment, yet it was all so ludicrous that she couldn’t help but smile.
Tom did not smile. “Lit a candle,” he repeated blankly. “You… lit a candle. You could have burned the whole cottage down, you—”
“But I didn’t!” Hermine shouted in a rush, like maybe that was still a possibility. It wasn’t—the curtains had turned to cold ash with Tom’s icy magic, and were no longer even smoking. “I didn’t, and… Well, it got you to come back, didn’t it? So I suppose it wasn’t all bad.”
Some part of him seemed to soften a little. “I did say I’d never let a good witch burn,” he said.
And just like that, she was there. Hermione was in the rose garden outside Malfoy manor, her dress half-incinerated by her own flames. They were barely more than strangers to each other, then, under that sphere of warmth where the snow couldn’t touch them, surrounded by a thousand wild roses.
A rose by any other name…
His eyes drifted down to her chest again. They wandered over her exposed body, and by the time they once more found her face, Hermione could feel that her pulse had picked up. The air seemed to buzz around them. He leaned a little closer.
“I thought I was the farthest thing from good,” she murmured.
Tom smiled in that slanted way. “And yet I still save you every time.” Then, before Hermione could respond, he was pushing himself up and standing. He offered her his hand. “Come on. Let’s get you inside so you can wear and probably destroy more of our currently very limited clothing.”
She scowled, then failed to bite back a smirk, then took his hand.
Hermione lingered in the bathroom.
She’d already put on the new shirt Tom had given her after he’d magicked away the soot from their bodies, but she’d felt the need for a moment alone. She splashed her face with cold water, several times. Her heart was still beating a bit too fast after all... that. The whole cottage, I could have burned the whole cottage down…
But you didn’t. Stop thinking about that and focus on what’s going to happen now.
Hermione looked down at the t-shirt—dark gray, plain, and smelling of Tom and his sandalwood soap. She’d hoped that he might have gotten some women’s clothing for her while he’d been gone so long, but evidently, he had not. Which of course made her wonder, what was he doing that whole time?
Just one of many questions she wanted answers to. Hermione dried her face, took a deep breath, and left the bathroom.
“How did you apparate us both from France to England?”
Hermione jumped at Tom’s voice the second she opened the door. He was, naturally, sitting at the table, and in his hands…
“Oh. That’s… I made a few lists,” Hermione mumbled.
Tom looked at her over her piece of paper, her demands—or requests, as she knew she should refer to them—on one side and a slew of questions on the other. Tom’s eyes scanned the rest of the page. “Well then,” he said. “I suppose this means you think I might answer them for you.”
“I suppose it means I think you might,” Hermione responded as she approached the table.
Tom set the paper down. Hermione sat across from him, cautious. Here we are again, she thought warily. The candle she had lit earlier was between them, as well as the other things she had collected, but Tom had long since put it out.
Hermione could practically feel the way Tom’s thoughts were whirling around in his head. But his face remained composed, and he smiled. “I apparated us both from France to England… because I could.”
“Bollocks.”
His smile fell.
“Apparating such distances is extremely hard, alone, even in the best of conditions,” Hermione pointed out. “Yet you did it with me, after having spent so much of your energy on those curses… I don’t believe it was just so easy for you, not for a second. You had some kind of trick up your sleeve to be able to do that. So… what is it?”
Tom’s returning smile was much sharper—but Hermine could tell by the way that his jaw muscles tensed that she was right. “It’s almost cute, the way you think you’re entitled to information,” he said, “considering how unwilling you are to share any of your own.”
“You’re… you’re right, I’m sorry,” Hermione said, albeit reluctantly. “It’s just… it’s been one of those many things that’s been driving me a bit crazy, not knowing. But if you don’t want to answer it… If you don’t want to answer any of those… Well, I clearly can’t force you.”
“Yes, I can see that quite a few things drive you crazy, not knowing,” Tom said, glancing down at her list again. “That question, however… I’ll indulge you. Through the Dark Mark.”
“Through… what? The Dark Mark?”
“Yes,” Tom said. “The Dark Mark… It can act like a siphon, if I want it to. Draining magical energy from the hosts. When we were flying, I pulled. Somewhere far, far away, I imagine Abraxas fainted on the spot.”
“What?” Hermione said again. “You drained Abraxas’s magic?”
“Yes. Some of Lestrange’s too, if I’m being honest. But not before taking everything Abraxas had to offer first.”
Hermione could do nothing but look at him, shocked. She didn’t recall the Voldemort of her time being able to do this with his Dark Marks; was this something only this version of Tom Riddle had decided to do…?
It did explain quite a bit. The power she had felt thrumming through him during their escape had been astronomical. Impossible.
“That’s... really amazing,” she said. “How does it work?”
“It’s complicated,” Tom said, acting dismissive, but Hermione did not miss the way his posture straightened a little at the praise. “That’s also a different question.”
“Fine. Don’t explain,” Hermione huffed. “I can’t believe they were okay with that, honestly.”
“I didn’t tell them. They had no idea that was part of the deal when they were branded—still don’t, in fact.”
“You never told them you might do that? Won’t they… I don’t know, find it odd when they suddenly pass out or whatever, like you said? Won’t they figure out it’s the Mark and therefore you, and know you’re still alive for certain?”
“Please,” Tom said, waving his hand flippantly. “People like Abraxas and Irving would sooner die than admit to anyone that they feel their magic has suddenly depleted, or is anything but perfectly within their control. That fear is far too ingrained in them—they’ve seen what becomes of inferiors and squibs. No, they’ll just secretly panic and come up with excuses if need be, then recover and tell themselves they must have been ill. Besides, it’s not as though I plan on pulling from any of them again… I’m more than powerful enough on my own. I would only need to do so in an absolute emergency. So let’s just avoid any additional, cataclysmic situations, shall we? No more running naked through the woods, spilling our precious blood everywhere?”
He smiled much more brightly. Hermione glared at him. “Are you going to potentially hunt me down and try to murder me again?”
“Are you going to give me another reason to?”
“Depends on what you consider grounds for murder these days.”
“It’s a moving target.”
Hermione hated that this almost made her smile. Hated it, because it was definitely not funny, what with Tom’s very real murderous tendencies. It was not funny at all.
“You’re… you’re awful,” she muttered, forcing back her grin.
“The worst,” Tom agreed, predictably. His smile was as charming as ever. “Now… how did you acquire those golden lines?”
Hermione’s heart stopped at the unexpected turn.
“I answered one of your questions,” Tom went on, much too cavalier. “Now you answer one of mine. How did you acquire those golden lines all over your body?”
Hermione said nothing. She knew Tom could see the anxiety on her face; she couldn’t hide it even if she’d tried to. She looked away from him, focusing on the unlit candle and its blackened wick.
What the hell am I supposed to say?
She had no idea what to tell him. Revealing that she had time-traveled so impossibly and illegally to kill his pregnant mother in cold blood… that she’d had a Time-Turner slammed into her, and had possibly been cursed as well…
Hermione couldn’t do it. She really couldn’t, for a slew of reasons. It would blow her false claim of being a Seer, for one, and she wanted to keep him believing that. As a Seer she was invaluable to him. As an illegal time-traveler from an altogether different timeline, one that already had massive differences, she could be seen as useless. He could simply learn what she knew, take additional, preemptive measures, and then be done with her.
But a Seer… someone who saw visions of the future, his future, the only future he cared about… someone he would listen to…
She didn’t want to lose that.
Looming almost as large were her own ugly feelings on the matter. She barely wanted to admit it to herself any longer, what she had done to gain the golden markings, because when she did allow herself to dwell on it, she knew, deep in her heart…
The diary had been right.
About her, about who she was, what she wanted—about everything.
Why hadn’t she considered trying to save a young Tom Riddle first? Why hadn’t she thought about helping Merope instead of murdering her on the muggle streets of London? Why had she never thought about saving her, or at least saving Tom if she couldn’t help Merope? All Hermione had considered—all she and Malfoy had ever discussed—was killing. Never saving.
Hermione knew why. War and the subsequent loneliness had turned her into something bitter, something hopeless, and she was ashamed to admit it.
Especially not to Tom. If he thought she couldn’t possibly hurt him anymore, now that he knew she’d stolen his horcruxes… he was wrong. He would never forgive her if he knew that she’d tried to kill his pregnant, laboring mother.
She didn’t want to tell him. She couldn’t do it.
When Hermione continued to do nothing but stare at the candle, Tom spoke again. “Too much?” he said lightly. “Here, I’ll give you some time and I’ll answer another one of yours. Some questions are worth much more than others, after all. So I’ll make it fair.”
He picked up her list again, and read, “Were you always going to frame me for the murders of all the aurors, or did you only decide that after you thought I’d destroyed the ring?”
He lowered the paper and laughed. “What a funny question. I always intended to frame you, darling.”
Hermione was angry enough that her fear was effectively quelled. “What? Tom!”
“What? Hermione!” he shouted back, mocking her. “You had just tried to assassinate the Minister of Magic! As well as her son! You were already going to be a wanted criminal, you were already going to be sentenced to Azkaban for life at best. I didn’t see any harm in adding a few successful murders to the list.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill the Minister,” Hermione muttered.
“It certainly looked like it to every single witness there. That was about the most violent escape attempt you could have tried.” He laughed again, much to Hermione’s ire. “If it makes you feel better, I also earned myself a one-way ticket to Azkaban that night… so really, killing myself was my best option for a number of reasons.”
“You did? How?”
“Yes… I’m not proud of it, admittedly.” Tom leaned back in his chair and sighed. “After you definitely didn’t try to kill the Minister, I went straight for you, as did Madison… but your little American friend came for me first.”
“Liam?”
Tom nodded. “He attacked me before I could chase after you, so I returned fire… and cast a killing curse before I could think it through. He dodged it, but it was done. I cast an Unforgivable in front of Albus fucking Dumbledore… and I might have cast more if not for…”
His voice trailed off as he looked like he was lost in the memory. So she hadn’t imagined that flash of green, then…
Tom had tried to kill Liam…
There was a moment where his face went starkly frigid. His body too went hard, tense. Hermione was alarmed.
But the cold front slipped away a moment later, and Tom fixed her with a forced grin. “How did you acquire those golden lines, Hermione?” he asked for the third time.
Hermione took a deep breath. Insane, this is insane, she thought as she looked right into his eyes and answered, bluntly, “I don’t know.”
Tom was quiet for a time. “You… don’t know,” he repeated softly.
“I don’t know,” she said again. She almost couldn’t believe what she was saying as she was saying it. “You—in the shack that time—you were right, what you said. You looked at me and you guessed that I didn’t know what they were, what they were doing, and you were right. I don’t know what they are, or how I got them. And I don’t understand what they’re doing to me, not really, not fully.”
Tom started to tap one finger on the table, seemingly absent-mindedly. “You don’t know how you got them,” he murmured. She couldn’t tell if he believed that or not. It didn’t feel like it. “You believe your memory was tampered with, then?”
“I don’t know,” Hermione said again. “Maybe.”
“Tell me what you do know about them,” Tom demanded. “When did they appear, to the best of your knowledge? What did they look like then? How exactly have they changed? At what rate are they changing? How quickly were they healing you before, and has that progressed as well? Can you feel them, do they hurt, do they cause any sensation at all? How—?”
“Stop, stop, stop!”
Hermione was on her feet, backing away from the table. “Stop, I don’t—I don’t know! It doesn’t matter!”
Tom's eyes hardened perilously. “It doesn’t matter?”
Tom stood as well, though he did so much more gracefully than Hermione. “It matters a great deal, Hermione,” he said. “An unprecedented magic has its hold on you… I’ve never seen or so much as heard of anything like those golden lines. And I have looked. I tapped into every resource I had while still in Britain, after the first time I saw them… and there’s nothing like them. Of course, I didn’t know they healed you then… and I hadn’t learned that they were spreading until later… but that only makes them—and you—more unique.”
He advanced on her cautiously. “They terrify you, despite the fact that they heal you, that much is clear,” he said. “Which makes me believe that you gained them in an… unfortunate altercation of some kind. Perhaps that’s why you don’t recall the details, if you’re being honest. Some people react to traumatic events that way… I can help you. I can unearth those memories, if you let me, I can—”
“No!”
Hermione had become backed into a corner. He’d done it so carefully that she only noticed too late. “No, don’t try and invade my mind again, don’t, I won’t let you, I—”
“Okay,” Tom said. He raised both his hands, like showing that he didn’t have his wand drawn meant he couldn’t attack her anyway, if he wanted to. “All right. I won’t. I won’t invade your mind unless you let me. But if you won’t let me… you have to answer me.”
He grabbed her hands, taking one in each of his. “Understanding what these are doing to you is crucial,” he said. “I’ve never seen magic that spreads like this… except…”
He pulled her hands up, slowly, looking down at her palms. He stared at them the same way he had when they were healing—one had golden lines on it, the other did not.
“Except in curses,” he finished quietly. “I’ve only seen, heard of, or read about magic that progresses on a physical, organic form like this in certain kinds of curses. And every progressive curse I’ve ever known only works towards one ultimate goal.”
His eyes bored into hers, deep and cold, and he kept hold of her hands. “Here is what I think—no, what I know. It’s no longer a guess at this point. I know.”
He raised one of her hands—her left—and started tracing one of the golden loops on her wrist with his thumb. “I know that someone attacked you, and that it was a traumatic enough event that you either cannot or refuse to relive it,” he said. “I know that this person used magic that you’ve never experienced before—no logical, Latin incantations to go along with it. Perhaps not even with a wand, perhaps with a dark artifact of some kind, or with pure, raw magic. I know it was done at close proximity, because it struck you, with an intimate sort of precision… here.”
He released her left hand to touch her neck. Tom placed his fingers directly over the left side of her throat, where she had indeed been struck by Merope’s fierce magic.
“I know that it’s spreading, I know it’s operating like a curse, and I know that means you are running out of time,” he went on. “It’s healing you, which is… uncanny, but I can only take that to mean that it is keeping you alive so that it can run its course without obstacles. It’s not unheard of. Some blood curses will improve a victim’s immune response in certain aspects so that it can more quickly infiltrate the bloodstream. Perhaps this curse is exceptionally powerful in that regard…”
He leaned a little closer, grabbing her hand again. “I’m not wrong,” he murmured—and it wasn’t a challenge. Just a statement, spoken with an undeniable ring of finality to it.
Hermione felt dizzy. She couldn’t look away from his eyes. “No,” she whispered. “No, you’re not.”
“Then if this is a curse, we need to figure out the right counter-curse.”
“Tom, I—we can’t,” Hermione said. “It’s not possible.”
His brows rose, looking shocked. “Of course it is. There is always a counter-curse, always—are you telling me you haven’t even tried to come up with one?”
He dropped both her hands, stepping back from her as suddenly as though she’d shocked him. “Are you telling me that you haven’t even attempted to cure this?” he said, sounded scandalized. “That you’ve just been letting whatever this is spread for—for how long, Hermione? Months? Longer? Why? Because it heals you? At the cost of most likely killing you in the end? Why would you do that?”
Hermione shook her head, more in denial than to give any kind of answer. “I—I don’t—”
She didn’t know how to explain, because she didn’t really know herself. She supposed part of it was the notion that maybe this Time-Turner magic was what was keeping her body intact from the insane dimensional, time-traveling she’d done. But deep down, she knew that wasn’t it. There was something bigger, something much darker that she kept ignoring, willfully hiding under the glamour of a ring she no longer had.
“I… I…”
Fuck. Her eyes were watering. Hermione swiped at them and darted, rushing past Tom.
“No.”
He caught her around the waist before she could get far. Tom turned her around and grabbed her face, both hands on her cheeks, forcing her to look at him.
“Why haven’t you been trying to cure yourself, Hermione? Answer me.”
She was fully crying now. She didn’t want this, she didn’t want to talk about it, least of all with Tom. She tried to shake her head again, but he wouldn’t let her.
“Ah,” Tom eventually said. He wiped her tears away, gently. “The way you warned me, the way you so recklessly attempted to escape… all your ridiculous, rash choices… the way you were asleep when I found you, nearly dead… So that is what you are...”
He put his forehead to hers. “You are not allowed to be a martyr, Hermione,” he said firmly. “Your life is mine. You cannot kill yourself. And letting yourself slowly die is killing yourself.”
There was a pang in Hermione’s already aching chest, like someone had twisted a blade she’d somehow forgotten was there. She choked out a sob. She tried to wrench away from Tom’s grasp, but he wouldn’t release her.
“Let me go!” she shouted. Hermione grabbed his wrists, trying and failing to pull them away. “Let me go, you have no idea—you don’t know what I’ve done, what I deserve—”
“I don’t care what you’ve done,” Tom interrupted, and his voice was much harsher. “You say you’ve left my soul intact? Then I could care less about your other sins, whatever they are. How many times must I say it? I don’t care. You shouldn’t either. What's done is done. What do you need, forgiveness? Reconciliation? From who, God?” He scoffed. “No one can pardon you and give you permission to live except you, Hermione… Well. And me.”
He wiped away her tears again; she couldn’t seem to stop them from coming. “And your life isn’t solely about you any longer,” he said. “You are the keeper of my soul, you are mine, you and all your lies, all your tears, all your infuriating flaws… all mine. You will not waste it. Do you understand me?”
He spoke with such an iciness that Hermione found herself nodding before she could think it through, even though all she could think was that this was the height of hypocrisy, coming from the man who had nearly killed her just the day before.
She was only allowed to die on Tom’s terms, no one else’s, not even her own, not even God’s, apparently.
What a ruthless and controlling monster.
“You will answer my questions and we will figure this out together,” Tom went on. “You will stop ignoring this, and we will cure you. Soon.”
It wasn’t a question that time, but Hermione nodded again anyway. “O-okay,” she said weakly. She wondered if eliminating the curse would be what killed her. Another thought she didn’t voice.
Tom looked only slightly mollified. “Good,” he said. His hold on her face loosened. “Now come here.”
He pulled her towards him. It was strange, having someone like Tom Riddle initiate an embrace, but Hermione only felt shocked by it for a moment. She crumpled against him, burying her face in his chest, and realized—though not for the first time—how small she was compared to him. Tom was tall and sturdy, and despite how insanely irrational it was, she felt… good, being in his arms.
The arms of a master manipulator, of someone who could just be saying all this to keep me alive until he can learn everything he wants to. Someone who could change his mind tomorrow.
The arms of Lord Voldemort.
Without warning, Tom picked her up. Hermione barely held back a yelp as he hoisted her up and carried her across the room. He then sat on the couch, settling her on his lap.
Hermione’s mind went blank for a moment as she recalled the last time they’d been in this exact position. She’d been crying then, too, and kissing him, and…
“Now then,” Tom said. He held her face again. “First question. How long have you had these lines? To the best of your knowledge.” His eyes narrowed. “Do not lie.”
“I… um, about… since January,” Hermione answered.
If this surprised him, Tom did not let it show on his face. “Were they only on your neck then?”
“Yes.”
“Have they been spreading at a consistent rate?”
“I… I think so. I’m not really sure. I didn’t—after I tried to get rid of them, when nothing worked, I sort of—I got the ring and—I just… stopped looking at them.”
His facial muscles all tensed again, but he kept his face calm. He took a deep breath before he spoke again. “Okay,” he said. “Then we are going to take some very precise measurements today, and again tonight and again tomorrow, and hopefully we can calculate exactly what rate they are spreading at and approximately how much more time we have before you’ve run out of space for them to expand.”
Hermione was only a little surprised that she hadn’t thought of that. Only a little, because she had been very intentionally trying hard to not figure it out.
“Next question,” Tom continued. “Do you feel them at all?”
“No… I don’t feel anything.”
“Even when they’re actively healing you?”
“No. I don’t think so. Only the pain from the injury until it’s gone.”
“Hm.” Tom dropped one of his hands to trace a loop on her wrist again. “Interesting. Do they heal you faster or slower depending on how badly you were wounded?”
“I… actually, yes, I think they do,” Hermione said, frowning. “Madison said…”
She shut her mouth, but too late did she realize she might have said more than she should have.
“Madison?” Tom repeated sharply. “What did Madison say, and how does he know something about this?”
Fuck, Hermione thought. Well, there was no going back now. “He… when I was in America, when I applied to be an auror and took the entrance exam… They wipe your memories afterwards. I went into the practical and when I came out I was completely depleted, magically, and my robes were all fringed, but physically, I was fine…”
Hermione swallowed hard. Tom’s eyes were getting narrower and angrier by the second. “And… when I was taken, when I was being questioned, he said…”
She held her breath for a moment, deliberating. She didn’t have much time to think it through. Hermione drew in a breath and threw all caution to the wind. “He told me I have time-sand in my blood.”
Tom’s glare vanished. “Time-sand?”
“Yes. So, um. So he must have seen and learned a lot, during my practical that I can’t recall,” Hermione finished in a small voice.
Tom stared at her with that same wonder-filled gaze, examining her golden markings like she was something holy. “Time-sand,” he repeated. “Your blood has time-sand in it… That’s…”
He didn’t seem to have words, which was rare for Tom Riddle. Not that she could blame him. “I think that’s true,” Hermione said, as though she didn’t know that it was absolutely true. “The way my body heals, it’s… I think I’m on something of a cycle. I don’t just heal, the wounds sort of—”
“Go back in time,” Tom finished. Hermione nodded, and he sat up a bit straighter. “Yes, that’s what happened with your back, after the phoenix, the way it all—came back together. It was the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Didn’t feel fascinating,” Hermione muttered. She almost shivered, recalling how much pain she’d been in after Fawkes had attacked her.
“Time-sand in your blood…” Tom murmured, ignoring her. “A cycle… Perhaps… That would be… No wonder, then… but how…”
He was clearly talking to himself, the way he was speaking lowly and looking not at her face but at the golden lines. When he finally looked into her eyes again, his expression turned cold.
“You don’t remember how you were cursed with time-sand, Hermione? You don’t remember anything about it at all?”
Hermione shook her head, had opened her mouth to speak, but Tom cut her off first.
“No. Don’t. You’re going to lie. You do know about it, but you’re not going to tell me right now. Are you?”
Hermione said nothing. Tom’s grip on her wrist tightened.
“Do you know the things I could do to you?” he said softly. He was tracing that same loop with his thumb again, over and over. “There are many ways to get you to talk… I don’t need to attack your mind with legilimency to get you to sing. I could do so… many… things.”
Hermione tried to stand. Of course he did not allow her to move; it was his magic that kept her trapped now. She glowered as she fought against that invisible force. “Why don’t you just do them already, then?” she said, spiteful. “Why don’t you go ahead and torture me? Hit me? Kick me around like you did Abraxas? Is that what you want to do? Do it then.”
Tom frowned, looking angry and, to Hermione’s satisfaction, conflicted.
“You can’t, can you?” she said. Hermione put her hands on his face, then, the same way he had with hers. “Because you don’t want to. You don’t want to hurt me, not really. You barely hurt me even when you thought I’d destroyed your ring. You could have done so many things, but you didn’t.”
Tom looked much angrier at that. Hermione got the sense that he was thinking now what she had been thinking earlier. Something along the lines of, Fuck her for being right.
“No, all you have ever thought when you’re near me…”
She touched her forehead to his, once more copying his earlier gestures just as she was mimicking his words.
“…is how badly you want to fuck me.”
A heartbeat of silence—and then they were kissing, suddenly and roughly, a kiss like a war. Tom’s hands were in her hair, pulling much too hard, and then they were running down her sides, all nails and force before finding their way under her shirt. Hermione was pulling it off a second later, and then was yanking at his shirt too until it was also discarded, tossed to the floor, and her hands were on his chest when they kissed again; Tom bit her lower lip so hard that she tasted blood in her mouth, and it hurt, she knew that should have made her feel something other than want, but it didn’t.
Hermione felt like she was igniting, slowly curling up in flames exactly as the curtains had been, a fire feeding on Tom’s touch.
“Fuck,” Tom breathed when he let her bloody lip slip free from between his teeth. He pushed his hips against hers; Hermione could feel how hard he was as she ground against him. She didn’t know if she hated him or loved him, feared him or worshiped him—but she knew without question that she wanted him.
“Fuck, wait, fuck,” Tom said, his voice much clearer as he spoke between heavy breaths. He pulled Hermione’s face from him by her hair. “We can’t.”
He looked tortured. Hermione was confused.
“We don’t have anything,” he went on. Hermione blinked owlishly as she watched the way his jaw muscles once more tensed, trying to process what he’d said.
“Don’t have any…? Oh. Oh.”
Oh.
“Yes, oh,” Tom said. He hadn’t moved his hands from her waist. “As I’ve already explained, I didn’t exactly plan to bring anyone here… least of all a witch like you.”
Hermione could feel the heat burning in her cheeks. She felt… idiotic. “Right,” she said dumbly. Why hasn’t she thought about that yet?
“I had… I was looking,” Tom said, and he was suddenly unable to look at her, “for a place… but I haven’t explored any populated magical areas in Albania. I assumed I would be avoiding them at all costs, when I came back here… I had only just come upon something when the smoke from your fire set the wards off…”
“Oh,” Hermione said again. She also found it hard to look at Tom’s now pink-tinged face, so she focused on his hair instead. So that’s where he’d been. Looking for a magical community where he could, presumably, find shops. Like the Albanian equivalent of an apothecary. For… contraceptive potions.
There was a long, awkward moment where neither of them said or did anything. Tom’s hands stayed exactly where they were, just above her hips, his fingers digging into her, and Hermione’s remained pressed against his bare chest and arm. She was positioned so that his erection was directly between her legs, only a few layers of clothing preventing them from fucking right there on the couch.
“You… should probably get off me,” Tom eventually said.
“Yes,” Hermione responded hollowly. “I suppose I should.”
Neither of them moved. If anything, Tom’s grip became tighter.
Then Tom’s eyes went to her mouth, and just as Hermione was certain they were about to start brutally snogging again, they widened. “Your lip,” he said. “It’s…”
She felt it happened as he said it. The stinging that had been there a moment before went away. Hermione lifted one hand to her lip, touching it. Though there was still a bit of blood there, she was no longer bleeding.
Tom’s gaze took on that calculating edge that Hermione was so familiar with. “Earlier, you said… A cycle… You think you may be on a cycle of some kind…”
His whole face lit up. “How did I not think of it sooner?” he said. He frowned. “How did you not think of it sooner?”
“Think of what sooner?”
“A cycle—you said you think your body is on one with this magic, but that you’re not sure—that’s pretty critical information to have if we’re going to cure whatever this is—but Hermione—you’re a witch. You’re a human woman. You’re already on a cycle.”
Hermione leaned a bit further away from him; he still kept ahold of her hips.
“Your menstrual cycle,” Tom clarified, looking deeply annoyed.
Your menstrual cycle. Tom Riddle was asking about her menstrual cycle.
“Have you… been having one?” he asked—slowly, like he feared both the question and the answer. “Since the golden lines, have you been… regular? If you have, then it's highly unlikely you’re on some kind of magically induced cycle that’s working through your blood. Which would mean this—”
“No,” Hermione said, interrupting him. “No, I… haven’t.”
“Not at all?”
“Not since I got these things, no. Not since… well, January then.”
Tom’s flushed face paled. “I sincerely hope you’re not about to tell me you’re several months pregnant somehow,” he said.
“No!” Hermione shouted. Unlike Tom, she could feel herself turning a hot red. “No, I couldn’t be—I mean to say—I’m definitely not.”
He looked comforted by this for only a second. “Did you have one before?” he asked. “A regular, healthy menstrual cycle, I mean.”
A regular, healthy menstrual cycle. He spoke the words like a doctor might speak to a patient. Hermione wanted to crawl under a blanket and hide there.
“I really don’t want to—”
“Now is not the time for being bashful,” Tom snapped. “I don’t exactly love discussing menstrual cycles either, but this could provide a very important clue as to what’s happening in your body. So answer the questions. Did you have a regular cycle before or not?”
Hermione was mortified that this conversation was happening… but it was. She nodded.
Tom looked increasingly venomous. “And yet you never thought to look into why they disappeared when you acquired an unfathomable curse?”
“I… have been very stressed,” Hermione mumbled. “That can—stress can make them stop sometimes, you know.”
“For four months?” Tom said, sounding strained. “Is that normal for you, to stop cycling when you’re very stressed?”
Hermione thought about this. The other most stressful part of her life was when she’d been horcrux hunting with two teenage boys, and for as long as that had gone on, for as horrible and stressful as it had been, not to mention the lack of food they’d dealt with…
“No,” Hermione answered. “No, it… that isn’t normal for me.”
Tom’s grip tightened so much Hermione feared he was bruising her. He looked furious. He took several long, deep breaths in through his nose, his nostril flaring and making Hermione think of a dragon on the precipice of extreme violence.
“You’re mad at me,” Hermione finally said, if just to end the awful silence of his rage.
“I’m fucking livid,” he confirmed. “Here you are, one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met, incredibly capable, devastatingly so, and yet this—you are also this. Some fool who has put up blinders where your own health is concerned, because you feel bad about yourself.”
He picked her up and all but tossed her off of him, setting her roughly on the couch beside her. Then he stood. “There are spells, diagnostic charms… I know of them, but I never learned them, haven’t studied in depth…”
He was no longer talking to Hermione. He was pacing, muttering to himself and looking troubled, and just when Hermione was about to say something, he froze.
“All right then,” he declared—but this also seemed to be to himself, as he didn’t look at Hermione when he said it.
He grabbed his shirt from the floor, pulled it on, and went to the pantry. Hermione snatched up her shirt and followed him.
“What are you…?”
Hermione was distracted as she watched Tom open the pantry and reach for the untouchable top drawer. His hand passed through it with ease, causing the magic surrounding it to glow blue before he opened it. Hermione’s eyes greedily scanned the shelf, where she saw a few vials of different potions, a few books, one of which was massive, a fat coin purse, her wand, and, shining like something otherworldly, the diadem.
Tom grabbed one of the vials and the coin purse, then closed the wooden door again before Hermione could so much as gasp. The blue glowing magic faded.
“Hey!” Hermione shouted as she hurriedly put her shirt back on, but Tom was quite deliberately ignoring her. He grabbed the long coat that was hanging on a hook near the door and put it on.
“Tom—Tom! What are you doing, what—”
She reached for his arm. He grabbed her by the wrist with the swiftness of a viper before she could.
“This,” he said, holding up the vial which contained a light green potion Hermione didn’t recognize, “is polyjuice potion imbued with the hair of the muggle man who rightfully owns this cottage. I have exactly two vials of this, enough for approximately four hours total. I stored it here just in case. I am going to use some now so that I can accomplish all that I need to—much easier and more convincing that altering my appearance with magic. You are going to stay here and behave yourself while I’m gone. Don’t burn the cottage down while I’m away.”
He leaned into her, his mouth against her ear when he added, “I hate how fucking serious I am when I say that.”
He released her wrist. Tom went to the door and was about to leave when paused, then turned around. He crossed the room and grabbed Hermione’s list from the table, put it in his pocket, and went to leave again.
“Wait—WAIT!”
Tom, with obvious reluctance and disdain, stopped and looked at her. “Yes?” he said in a tone that was so polite it was maddening.
Hermione wanted dearly to demand that he take her with him, or that he at least give her back her wand, but she knew that would only make him laugh.
“I just… Can you at least tell me where you’re going?” she asked tiredly.
“A few places,” he said. “Assuming I can find them all quickly enough. But first… I’m going to a library.”
He kissed her—a swift and feather light pressing of his lips to hers. “Be a good girl for me,” he whispered with his mouth still close to hers.
Then, before Hermione could respond in any way, he left, going out the front door. He was even quicker in his departure this time around, making it to the cursed tree in record time. He touched it, eliciting that blue glow before he went through the wards, then disappeared.
Hermione wanted to scream.
He’d left her, again, and he was going to a library. He was going to the library without her. And he’d definitely only imparted her with that scrap of information because he knew it would drive her absolutely mad.
And yet, despite all that, Hermione found herself touching her lips where his had been just a moment before, blushing in his absence.
Chapter 60: Dripping Wet
Chapter Text
Hermione did not spend her next period of abandonment doing anything particularly useful. Tom had left her—again—and all she did was fall into the couch, cover herself with a blanket, and try to nap.
Which didn’t happen, of course. Hermione laid there with her eyes closed, unable to quiet her own racing thoughts. Every time she managed to fall into a state of calm, a jarring vision would assault her—visions of being chased and captured by the MACUSA, by British Aurors, by a version of Tom that was not Tom at all anymore but something snakelike, twisted, and broken.
Then she heard footsteps. Hermione stood just as the door opened.
Her first, immediate thought was, Who the fuck is that? And her second thought, which came less than a second later, was, polyjuice potion.
“Wow,” Hermione said as Tom closed the door. She had to bite back a laugh, too, because… he was old.
Old, far from attractive, and nearly the antithesis of the Tom Riddle she’d grown accustomed to. The muggle man who owned the cottage must have been in his seventies, with a slight hunchback, balding head, and short, steely gray beard. The only thing he had in common with Tom was that they were nearly the same height, which explained why his clothes still fit well enough.
Tom grinned at her in a way that Hermione imagined would look very wrong on this man to anyone who knew him. His teeth were yellow, crooked, and two were missing. “You have no idea,” he said, speaking in a cracking and unfamiliar voice. “This poor bastard has terrible lower back pain, not to mention what I suspect is arthritis just about everywhere.”
He took his coat off—the hunchback looked much more pronounced without it—and he glanced at the clock. “Thank Merlin I only have about three minutes left of this. At least, I think—give or take a minute. I only took half the vial…”
Hermione noted the time. It was a little after one; he’d only been gone an hour. “The mighty and fearsome Heir of Slytherin, everyone,” she said, gesturing widely.
He glared at her. The effect was far less intimidating in this body. “Cute,” he said.
“It is. I think you wear an old muggle man well.”
“Is that right?” Tom flashed her a leering smile; it was horrendous.
“Oh, yeah," Hermione said, laughing. "It’s a huge improvement.”
Tom looked like he was barely able to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” he said. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out four small brown paper bags, tiny enough that they all fit into the palm of one of his hands.
“If there aren’t more books in there, I’m going to cry again,” Hermione threatened.
“Oh, my sweet girl,” Tom murmured. And rather than explain further, he set the bags on the table and waved his wand over them. They grew and grew until they proved to be much larger than Hermione expected. They were big and beautifully full.
“Careful,” Tom said, for Hermione was already ripping into one. “Not all of them are very nice.”
Books, books, books! Hermione’s smile was uncontainable as she pulled out heavy book after heavy book, some more ominous looking than others, and—
“OW!”
Hermione dropped the most recent one she’d been holding, some thick tome bound in black leather. “This one—it shocked me or something!”
The offending book had a title written in Latin. A quick glance told Hermione it was, unsurprisingly, about ancient dark curses.
“Yes, I did just warn you,” Tom said. He moved to stand behind her, wrapping one arm around her waist as he did. “That one requires a... gentle touch,” he explained. “Calm energy. Focused. Doesn’t respond well to chaos; outright refuses to open for anything less than collected, intentional deliberation.”
He reached down, and Hermione saw that his hand was no longer weathered and old but pale, flawless. He ran his fingers along the cover in a fluid motion, then flipped it open to reveal a page written entirely in Latin.
Hermione looked up at him, but his eyes were on the book. Her breath caught. Maybe it was simply because she had just been looking at an ugly old man a moment before, but Tom looked exceptionally beautiful now. His angular jawline, his high cheekbones, his perfect skin. Those hypnotic eyes and those lips…
His hand resting on her waist suddenly felt heavy, even though it was the lightest touch. Hermione swallowed hard and said, “What does it say?”
Tom continued to scan the page, his eyes going back and forth in a way that told Hermione that he could not only translate Latin, but that he was well versed in it. She wondered if he kept reading because the book was demanding his attention, or he was just that enthralled. She suspected the latter.
Finally, he looked at her. “Hermione,” he said chidingly, and his voice was once more velvety smooth. “Don't tell me you can't read Latin yourself.”
“I can translate it well enough,” Hermione said. “But I’m afraid the book might stab me or something if I try right now.”
Tom seemed to take a moment to process this—and Hermione felt herself blush, because she was admitting that she could not possibly be calm or focused just then—and smiled. “The page I just read begins to explain the process of adjusting the strength of curses in order to use them for a wider array of applications,” he said. “Fascinating stuff.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it is.”
They were perfectly still for a moment, eyes locked as he looked at her from over her shoulder, Hermione’s back against his chest. He’d only just walked through the door, and already she felt uncomfortably warm, that feeling like electricity charging the air.
“…But those books aren’t for you.”
Tom stepped away, picking up the frightening book he’d just read from, and closed it. He set it aside and reached into a different bag, then pulled out one that could not have looked more different. This book was smaller, bright pink, and on the cover was a moving image of a pretty blonde witch smiling and winking.
The title was in English. It read, ‘The Glam Witch’s Guide to All Things Fertility’ by Justine Hayes.
“What?” Hermione spat as Tom offered it to her. She took it the way someone might accept a goblet full of stinksap. “What is this?”
“A book,” Tom answered—annoyingly. “And while the writing style leaves much to be desired, the spells and diagnostic charms I’d wanted to know about are in there, as well as a fountain of other useful information. I’ve already learned quite a bit.”
“You’ve read this already?” Hermione said, waving it around. “You were only gone an hour! Unless you’d read it before? And—how did you get any magical books in English, anyway? These aren’t library books, are they? Did you buy them? Did you leave Albania?”
“They aren’t library books,” Tom said. “I went to a magical library first to figure out where to find the sort of stores I was looking for. No one knows more about books and where to seek them out than your friendly local librarians. And no, I hadn’t read it before. I just skimmed it. I’m a very fast reader.”
This statement made Hermione blush hotter than ever. For one, it was mortifying that Tom was now deeply invested and well on his way to understanding menstrual cycles better than anyone on the planet—and knowing all about her menstrual cycle, in particular—and for another…
Well, she found the phrase ‘I’m a very fast reader’ distressingly attractive.
“So,” said Tom, forcing her to snap out of it, “we should run one of the diagnostic charms now. Those are in chapter three, I believe.”
“Wait—hold on a second,” Hermione said, pulling the book away from him when he moved to take it back. He frowned. “How is it you knew about whatever these charms are in the first place?”
And, a more pertinent question that she was too embarrassed to voice, How did I not know about them?
“Well,” Tom began, “it’s a bit funny, actually. When I was in school, Slytherin House… It was different, from the other houses. There were protocols, you could say, certain unspoken rules that everyone followed… and there were quite a few rigid ones surrounding sex.”
Hermione wasn’t sure if she should laugh or not. “Excuse me?” she said. “Rules surrounding sex?”
“Yes,” Tom said, unphased. “At least, for all the purebloods, particularly those from the oldest and wealthiest magical families… which were most of my immediate peers. I didn’t hear about it from the witches, of course—they would never be so crass—but the boys were vocal enough.”
“Vocal enough with what?” Hermione flipped open to a random page in the book. “Vocal about—about fertile windows?”
“Yes, about exactly that, actually,” Tom said. “You see, those pureblood heirs… the boys all had it repeated to them over and over, like some kind of demented, nightmarish bedtime story or something that their fathers made sure they would never forget. Never get a girl pregnant, and always be vigilant, because those lecherous, filthy, ladder-climbing half-blood Hufflepuffs will try and seduce you! They’ll try and entrap you!”
Tom laughed heartily at that. “They were all always so paranoid about it! Which was especially funny to me, because I never once saw a single female from Hufflepuff—or one from any other house for that matter—show a shred of interest in any of them. Quite the opposite, in fact. Slytherin was generally disliked by the rest of the school as a whole.”
“With attitudes like that, I can’t imagine why,” Hermione said dryly. “Okay, so these boys were all, what? Taught how to have safe sex before they even hit puberty?”
“Sort of. More like taught the spells that would tell them when it was not safe to have sex. You know, lest those lecherous Hufflepuffs try and seduce them into getting them pregnant. Because that’s the dream of every teenage girl working on her magical education—getting knocked up by a scoundrel like Yaxley so they can drop out and be married off in a few weeks’ time.”
Hermione laughed at this, too. “Well, that might be the dream for some,” she argued.
“Hardly,” Tom said. “As if that would happen, anyway. We all knew that if it ever did, such a scandal would be dealt with quickly and quietly, probably with the exchange of a massive amount of gold, which, of course, no one would want to have to consider in the first place.” He shrugged. “Regardless, the boys I went to school with were all taught these things, and I remember the conversations… lewd as some of them were.”
Hermione grimaced. She could easily imagine boys like Macnair and Yaxley being quite lewd.
“Right, so,” said Tom, reaching again for the pink book, “this charm, we should—”
“Whoa, now hold on,” Hermione interrupted. She put the book behind her back and took several hasty steps away. “No one is casting any kind of charm on me until I get to read this entire thing myself.”
Tom frowned again. “The whole book?” he said. He then glanced at the clock, looking annoyed, as though she had already taken too long.
“The whole book,” Hermione confirmed. “It’s not very long, is it? I want to read it so I have the full picture of what I’m getting into here.”
She fled to the other side of the room, sat on the couch, and opened the book. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m also a very fast reader… probably even faster than you.”
And without waiting for a response, Hermione promptly began to read. She half-expected Tom to snatch the book from under her nose and start casting charms without her consent, and was happily surprised when he did not.
“Well, at least put this somewhere then,” he said. Hermione looked up; he was offering her one of the other bags. “I wouldn’t pretend to be an expert, but they seemed all right, and I figured the muggle kind would be best because anything from a magical shop can’t be duplicated, but these can, so…”
He looked… a little nervous. Hermione took the bag, peered inside, and jumped right off the couch. “You got shampoo!” she shouted.
He had, as well as some conditioner and the requested hair ties. Hermione was so excited that she rushed forward to hug him, hard, trapping him with his arms at his sides. “Thank you!”
She released him before he could get annoyed. “Really, I mean it. You have no idea how much this is going to improve my quality of life here. And you’re quite right—being able to duplicate this stuff is crucial; I go through buckets of conditioner, it’s terrible.”
Hermione put the precious hair care products in the abysmally small shower, then retrieved the book she’d dropped. Tom was still standing there, looking a bit pink in the face, but he straightened his posture and cleared his throat when Hermione caught his eye. “Great,” he said. “I’m—good, then.”
But Hermione was already settled back on the couch, continuing to read the second page of the fertility book. Eventually, Tom heaved a heavy sigh, grabbed the dark Latin text, and sat next to her. “You’re ridiculous, you know,” he murmured.
“Shh,” Hermione said without glancing up. “I’m reading.”
The Latin text stung him. Tom must have been too irritated and therefore distracted by her, because he had to pick another book to read instead.
“You know, I hate to admit it, but… I think you were right.”
Tom closed his book. Hermione was still staring down at a page she had reread several times.
“Go on,” Tom said.
“Yes, you know, about this providing some insight into what’s happening. The diagnostic charm you were referencing—I assume it’s this one, the Exolvuntur one?”
“Yes.” Tom set his book aside—one about curse-breaking strategy that looked far less demonic—and shifted on the couch, leaning over her so he too could read. “This was the exact charm that everyone was taught,” he said, pointing at a specific passage. It read,
The Exolvuntur Charm: Now this is the big one, ladies! The charm that tells you precisely where you are at in your cycle at any given moment. A quick wave of your wand and you’ll know if you’re infertile, possibly fertile, in your baby-making sweet spot, or about to expect your lovely Aunt Flo soon. I recommend casting it at the same time every day if you’re beginning to learn all about your cycle, but it can be used on a ‘as needed’ basis, wink wink.
I also recommend casting it non-actively (that is to say, not on a human subject; version B) the first few times so that you can get a hang of it and become familiar with all the indicators. There is an illustration (see diagram 14) showing what each phase will look like, as well as a corresponding list with descriptions, but it’s much better to see and understand it in person.
Below that text was a moving image showing the proper wrist movements and words to say; diagram 14 was on the opposite page.
“You can cast it now, see what phase you’re in, and continue casting it every day. If it stays the same each time, you’ll have a pretty solid confirmation that your theory is right. Your body is not only healing itself when injured, but is in a stasis of some sort.”
“Right,” Hermione said. “Unless—well, unless it turns blue, but then I guess I’m right in a different way.”
Her eyes darted further down the page, where the descriptive list was. Blue, it read. Girlfriend, if you are getting a big, blinking blue light, then your body is unhappy with you. You are either not eating enough, moving too much, under extreme stress, or all of the above. You are in need of some serious tender, loving care! Flip to chapter eight to read about a fertility happy diet and exercise; chapter nine to discover all the ways you can support your body by reducing stress; chapter twelve for a comprehensive list of fertility supporting potions.
“Or gold,” Tom murmured as he read over her shoulder.
“I am not already pregnant!”
“Let’s hope not. Can I cast it, then?”
Hermione peered up at him. Tom had his wand out, looking altogether too eager. Her pulse started speeding, because she knew as well as he certainly did as to why he was so impatient.
Casting this charm could either give them permission to, as the book so callously worded it at every opportunity, get it on without needing to worry so much, or it could do exactly the opposite.
“Can… can you cast it non-actively first?” Hermione asked. “I mean—I would rather cast it myself, you know, with my own wand—”
“Not a chance,” Riddle interjected. “You can have your wand back once you’ve earned it.”
He did not elaborate on how she might go about doing that, though Hermione had her guesses. Tom glanced at the book in her lap, stood, then raised his wand. “Exolvunur totem,” he said, moving his wrist in a precise, counter-clockwise motion.
A dull, white light appeared. It hovered there for a moment, colorless and plain, then slowly began to grow brighter. Then, as it continued to do so, changed from a white to a pink. Then—growing ever brighter and pinker—it began to spark, flickering madly like a firecracker. It stayed that way for a few seconds before abruptly turning a light violet. This then grew darker and darker, as well as a bit rosier, until it was a pure, vibrant red. Then it vanished.
“Huh,” Hermione said after it had gone. “That was… wonderfully accurate, really.”
Indeed, the images in the book had corresponded to Tom’s charm precisely. Each of the colors that had flashed represented a different phase in the menstrual cycle, and when it was cast correctly on a human, only one of them would glow.
Tom pointed his wand at her. “Should I—”
“One more time,” Hermione said. “Non-actively, I want to see it again.”
Tom obliged her. Hermione’s heart beat faster as she watched the light go from white to pink to sparking, down to purple and finally red again. She was deeply anxious about what this spell would reveal about herself, particularly because it was Tom who would be revealing it.
When the light once more disappeared, he turned to her. “Good?” he asked.
Hermione bit her lower lip, deliberating. “Um, I—yes, okay.” She stood, clutching the pink book in her hands as she did, and closed her eyes. “Just do it.”
“Exolvuntur momentum.”
Even while her eyes were still closed, Hermione could tell what it was.
“…Ah,” said Tom softly.
Hermione looked. A very bright pink, sparkling orb of light floated directly in front of her, sparking madly.
“Ah,” she repeated, just as quietly. Then, “Well… shit.”
She didn’t have to refer to the book to recall what that meant.
Sparkling, sparking pink: THAT EGG IS ABOUT TO DROP, GIRL. Either it’s on its way soon or it was just released within the past few hours. Regardless, if you want to get pregnant, now is the moment to get busy—and if you don’t, it’s time to bust out those contraceptive potions. This is not a drill! Take preventive measures… or, you know, don’t.
Hermione flipped through the book to a different section, even though she’d already memorized most of that, too. “Bugger,” she mumbled as she re-read at top speed. “Well, as much as I hate to say this too, I’m pretty certain this proves my theory correct already.”
“Oh?” Tom’s voice sounded hollow; he was staring at the chaotic pink light as though fixated.
“Yes,” Hermione said, turning her attention back to the book. “Because according to this, when we’re at this part of our cycle—the peak fertile window—that’s when—well, there’s other bodily signs, things like increased energy and libido and you know, I did think a few times that it was odd that I was so—well, er, wet, kind of all the time, but now it makes sense—this is where I was in my cycle when I got these, and so I think I’ve been sort of stuck here for months now, and—Tom.”
Somewhere in the midst of her rambling, the light had disappeared. Tom was now staring vacantly… well, not really at her, but in her general direction, looking dazed.
“Are you listening?” Hermione snapped.
“Hm? Yes. Listening.”
“You should be, this could be very telling, like you said!” Hermione closed the book, looking down at its relatively obnoxious cover. “It was actually quite an informative read—dead useful, I can’t believe I never knew this stuff. This only begs about a dozen more questions, though. If this is the phase I’m stuck in, because of course I would be—is pregnancy still impossible? I’d think it wouldn’t be, but then there’s that whole section in here about detecting very early pregnancies due to their magical disruptions, and that doesn't sound like something worth messing with; who knows what a magical disruption like that might do to me in this state? So I think it’s safe to say that, out of an abundance of caution, it’s not safe to—Tom!”
Tom had that glazed look in his eyes again. Hermione was tempted to throw the book at him. “Pay attention!” she shouted. “This is important!”
Tom blinked slowly. “Right,” he said. Then he let out a laugh that was both breathy and a little—anxious? “Gods,” he murmured. “I just turn into a fucking animal around you, don’t I?”
He took a step towards her. Hermione instinctively held the book in front of her chest again; she was quite aware that he still had his wand out. “Er—what?”
“I was right, then, wasn’t I?” He put the tip of his wand on her neck, making Hermione freeze at the sudden contact. “In New York, when I was following these…”
He trailed his wand down her chest, over her shirt, tracing a looping line he couldn’t see. “Tom,” Hermione said, and while she meant to sound like she was issuing a warning, she sounded feeble instead.
“I was right,” he continued, ignoring her. “Even if you didn’t realize it… your body was—is—begging to be fucked.”
He paused with his wand at the middle of her chest. His eyes were wild looking, his pupils wide and making Hermione think of—well, an animal.
“Tom,” she said again. “We—you—what are you doing?”
He glanced down at his wand, seeming almost confused, like someone else had pointed it at her. “I don’t know,” he said. He lowered it, then took a step back. “You… I… I should leave.”
“What?”
“What you said was right. All of it. And we don’t… there wasn’t…” He took a deep breath, as though trying to calm himself. “As it turns out, contraceptive potions aren’t as widely available here like they are in Britain. I didn’t want to take the risk or waste time diving into the black market of a foreign country, and anyway, I thought it pertinent to first rule out—but it doesn’t matter. I…”
He ran a hand through his hair, disheveling his usually perfect waves. “I need to leave.”
Then he turned to do exactly that. “Hey!” Hermione yelled. “You aren’t really going to—”
Tom reacted so quickly to her advance it was jarring. He grabbed her by the waist with both hands and shoved her backwards until she was forced against the small kitchen counter. “Tell me to leave,” he seethed, sounding suddenly angry. He pushed his whole body into her, his broad, hard chest flush against hers. He held her there for a moment before he lowered his lips to the side of her face and repeated himself. “Tell me to leave.”
He ran his teeth along the shell of her ear, not biting her, only making her wish he would. She shivered. “Tom,” she said. “This isn’t—I j-just said…”
Her sentence trailed off into nothing as one of his hands moved from her waist to her stomach, creeping up under her shirt.
“Then tell me to turn around and leave you here again,” Tom commanded in a whisper. “Tell me, now, or I’m going to stay, and I’m…”
His mouth went to her neck. The first kiss was soft, the second wasn’t. “Tom,” Hermione said again, but there wasn’t even a hint of an edge to it anymore. “You—”
His hand made it to one of her breasts. Tom didn’t spend more than a second teasing her before he was touching her nipple, his thumb rubbing it in slow circles. It was tragic, Hermione thought, how such a slight touch affected her. She instantly felt much too hot.
“Tell me,” Tom said again. He rolled his hips against hers while he continued touching her, and she felt that he was growing hard. Her whole body sung. “Tell me to stop, tell me to go…”
But they both knew he wasn’t leaving. He kept touching her breast, too aware of what it was doing to her, knowing full well that she would never tell him to stop doing that. His other hand was on her thigh, inching higher, exactly as he’d done before he’d left the first time.
Hermione was breathing fast; her arms wrapped around his neck without her realizing she’d done it.
“Hermione…”
Tom sounded anguished, saying her name. He kept up his relentless yet gentle teasing of her nipple, a seemingly contrite action that made her feel breathless and weak in the best possible way. Tom’s other hand was between her legs, and when he touched her lips with his fingertips, just barely, her entire body reacted—she pushed against him, she gasped, and her nails dug into his shoulders all at once.
“Tell me… Tell me what you want…”
Tom kissed her neck again, sucking on her skin, and his hands—Gods, his hands were truly evil, one eliciting an unfathomable amount of desire from her with hardly any effort and the other—the other barely touching her at all, just ghost-like caresses where she already ached with need.
His thumb glided over her clit for just a second; Hermione made a mortifying sound when it did.
Bad. Bad idea. Horrible idea. Stop this, you idiot, stop this!
“Is that what you want?”
Tom touched her again, and Hermione barely stopped herself from crying out again. Tom locked eyes with her. “Tell me.”
Hermione’s lips moved without permission. “Please,” she said. “Please, Tom, I can’t do this again, I can’t…”
His fingers circled her clit with a bit more pressure before sliding further down. Tom’s eyes closed and his head fell into the crook of her neck. “Fuck,” he swore. “You’re already so fucking wet…”
Hermione moaned and canted her hips into his hand, begging with her body for him to keep going. Tom had his whole hand on her cunt, his palm sliding against her.
Then he stopped to grab the hem of Hermione’s shirt. He didn’t have to say a word as he began to lift it up; Hermione raised her arms without question and he slid it off, then tossed it aside.
He didn’t pause at all before he was cupping one breast with his hand while he pulled her other, previously neglected nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue over it and sucking. Hermione couldn’t help it—words began to leave her mouth in a needy stream as her hips bucked forward.
“Ah, please, please Tom—please, I can’t, please—”
Tom responded by trailing his hand back up her leg, slowly sliding under the loose fabric and once more barely touching her outer lips. “You’re dripping,” he said, and he was right—Hermione could feel the slickness on her inner thighs, an embarrassing amount of wetness leaking out of her. “You’re so…”
Whatever else she was, he never managed to say. Tom left his sentence unfinished as he once more took his hand away, and Hermione wanted to scream at the absence. She nearly did, too—but then she was distracted.
Tom was kissing her, deeply.
Tom was undoing his belt buckle.
Tom was pulling out his cock and Hermione felt it against her leg, hot and long and so hard—he pushed until he was between her legs, sliding it not into her but between her dripping lips, so dangerously close. “Tell me what you want,” he said, breaking their kiss. He held her hips hard against the counter so she couldn’t move, then slid his cock slowly against her again, rocking back and forth. “Tell me, sweetheart…”
He looked into her eyes when he said it. What was left of Hermione’s willpower vanished, swallowed up by those bottomless black pools. “You,” she said. “Only you.”
Tom hoisted her up and perched her arse on the edge of the kitchen counter. He pushed her knees apart, spreading her legs as wide as they would go. She still had his overly large boxers on, but they were hardly a barrier, and Tom didn’t seem to want to waste time removing them. He positioned the head of his cock right at her entrance.
He said something else, a sultry phrase that she couldn’t follow; it took Hermione a moment to realize it wasn’t English. Then he was pushing, his hips rocking forward and his cock finally driving into her.
They both moaned—Tom’s voice deep while hers was breathy and high. He pushed until he couldn’t anymore, until every inch of him was lost, hers. God, yes, Hermione thought. Yes, yes, yes.
He paused when he was fully buried, drawing in a ragged breath. Hermione, sitting as she was on the counter, could barely move—though she tried. “Fuck, move, please, I can’t—”
Tom grabbed her by the throat, cutting off her air. Before she could be properly afraid, he ran his nose along the side of her face, like a cat nuzzling her, then whispered in her ear, “Silencio.”
She felt the magic rippling from his fingers, dancing around her neck. Then he released her.
“Because if I have to listen to you beg me to fuck you as hard as I want to,” he murmured, answering her unasked question, “I’ll obey.”
He pushed his hips against her, grinding against her clit. Hermione would have shouted if she could have. “No, I’m going to take you nice and slow…”
He pulled out of her, and true to his word, moved at an infuriatingly slow pace. “Fuck,” he swore as he did, cursing in a sigh. “Your cunt is a fucking gift.”
Tom paused again when he was nearly entirely out of her. He looked down, so Hermione did, too—and she flushed at the sight. Tom’s cock was huge and shining, wet with her slickness, from what was exposed of its tip to all the way to its base.
He pressed his thumb to her, placing it just above where she needed his touch most. A whimper was in her heart but couldn’t leave her throat.
“You’re so gorgeous like this,” Tom said. He started to push into her again, still moving slowly. “So beautiful, when you’re at my mercy.”
He filled her as much as he could, but he continued to purposefully not touch her clit, not directly. Hermione wished she could scream at him.
“When you’re so d—”
His last taunt died when Hermione clenched with every muscle she had, tightening around him. Tom’s body reacted in a way that told her it wasn’t intentional—he gasped and twitched, and when Hermione moved her hips as much as was possible, he moved too, out and in again, faster, harder, yes—
“Wicked,” he said between thrusts, which were not slowing, not stopping. “Wicked, witch…”
Then he was truly fucking her, gloriously hard and rough, and if Hermione could have spoken she would have been praising him or begging him for more or both. He was unhinged, beautiful, grunting and moaning, and Hermione was edging so close—
Tom let out an especially harsh sound, then pulled out. Hermione barely had time to register the loss of him before she saw that he was panting hard, and he was—he was stroking himself. Hard.
Within seconds Tom was grunting as he came, his spend spurting out, getting all over the boxers and on Hermione’s thigh. He pumped himself through it, groaning, his orgasm seeming to go on and on. Hermione was transfixed as she watched; her muscles contracted as though in mourning, longing and desperate. By the time he was finally done, there was an obscene amount of thick, white substance on her leg.
Hermione was speechless, and it had nothing to do with Tom’s curse. “Fuck, fuck.” He glared at her with his cock still in his hand. “That was deeply unsatisfying… just one of the many things you’ve fucking destroyed for me.”
Hermione looked at his face for a moment, but then found herself staring at his still hard cock as though mesmerized. Pearly white droplets continued to leak from its tip.
Tom’s voice took on an entirely different tone. “Mmmm… are you jealous, Hermione?” he leered. “Feeling empty and lost without my cock inside you, filling you…? Unsatisfied?”
He gave himself one last stroke, then wiped the tip of his cock on her thigh before putting it back in his pants. It wasn’t lost on Hermione that he was completely dressed while she was nearly naked, in a deeply vulnerable position.
He smiled as he tapped her clit with his fingertip, making a jolt of pleasure shoot through her. “It’s very tempting to just… leave you here, you know."
Her arms, which had been around his neck, were suddenly wrenched back. Tom’s magic, forcing her palms flat against the countertop, where she could no longer move them. “I could walk away now, go do what I should have done before… It would warm my fucking heart, knowing you were trapped here like this… Maybe you would feel a fraction of how I felt, after our little duel in Knockturn…”
He cupped her breast and began playing with her nipple again. “That nearly drove me mad,” he admitted. “Maybe I should drive you mad, too.”
Hermione was so angry and frustrated that she thought she might cry. She tried to speak, but Tom’s magic held firm, silencing her.
“But I don’t think you’re anywhere near close enough to that edge, yet.”
He grabbed the hem of the now defiled boxers and started to pull. Hermione’s legs moved without her say-so, and he was sliding them down, past her knees. He knelt, then slid them off her ankles and threw them away.
“I never stopped thinking about this,” he said. He gently pushed her knees apart, and now she was completely naked, completely exposed. “I never stopped obsessing over the taste of you…”
Without any further warning, his mouth was on her, his eyes closing as his tongue lapped at her greedily. Hermione threw her head back and a silent moan wracked through her.
Tom's tongue was a blessing and a weapon, and he was using it to do exactly what he claimed he could. Hermione was certain she would go mad if he stopped.
Tom, she tried to say, but couldn’t. Tom, please, please—
“—please don’t stop, I need it, I—“
The recovery of her voice was a shock. Tom—thankfully—did not stop; his hands gripped her thighs and he kept swirling his tongue in just the right way, and Hermione lost her breath for a moment before she finally fell apart. Her whole body quivered as she came on Tom’s hot, eager mouth.
“Yes, yes—ah…”
He worked his tongue over her the entire time, moving it in that repetitive, swirling motion that had pushed her so quickly to the edge in the first place. She trembled everywhere. She swore she saw stars.
Then she came crashing down to earth, and Tom wasn’t stopping.
“Tom—Tom, stop, it’s too much, stop!”
It was too much; Hermione’s clit felt like it had just been hit by lightning. She was far too sensitive now for the harshness of his tongue, yet Tom was lapping at her just as aggressively as he had been before, if not more so.
He opened his eyes. Never breaking rhythm, he looked right at her, and there was an unmistakable, damning gleam in them.
Hermione tried to move her arms. She couldn’t. Tom kept her palms flat against the counter, trapping her.
“Tom,” she said, her voice rising. “Tom stop, stop, it’s too much, it’s too much, it’s too much it’s too much—Tom!”
He slid two fingers into her, curling them. Hermione cried out with a broken, strangled scream as a second orgasm ripped through her, sending waves of a sharp, biting pleasure that made her eyes water. She clenched spastically around his fingers, and Tom made a humming sound of appreciation, his lips vibrating against her, and it was so good and so bad and it was too much, too much—
He still wasn’t stopping.
“TOM!” Hermione shouted as that orgasm ebbed away. “Stop, please!”
With those gleaming eyes still locked on hers, Tom flicked at her clit with the tip of his tongue unapologetically. Hermione shrieked, her hips jolting as much as he’d allow.
Then, finally, he listened, lifting his mouth from her—though he kept his fingers buried inside. Hermione let out a heavy sigh of relief as he kissed her inner thigh, wiping off some of the excessive wetness from his chin on her. “Fuck,” he murmured, dragging his mouth along her leg until he was kissing her knee. “Fuck, I…”
He was staring between her legs, where Hermione was sure she was now swollen and red as she dripped onto his hand. She could feel her pulse there, a hot and heavy thrumming; she wondered if he could feel it on his fingers, too.
Her hands were released. Hermione gratefully lifted them from the counter top, and without thinking it through she touched Tom’s cheek. He tore his entranced gaze away from between her legs to look at her face.
“I think… I think you might need to look into that black market,” Hermione murmured.
Tom’s head fell into her hand in a defeated sort of way. “I know,” he groaned, then pressed a wet kiss into her palm. “I know.”
Chapter 61: Pensieve
Chapter Text
Hermione checked the time. He was late.
Malfoy was supposed to have been at her flat ten minutes ago. It wasn’t like him to be late, so Hermione was beginning to worry.
She fidgeted in her seat, anxious. She found it difficult to focus on reading.
Not that what I’m reading particularly matters, anyway, Hermione thought, frowning. She didn’t need to learn more about equations in advanced arithmancy. They already had the formula for the time-turner figured out; they had checked and re-checked and checked it again. All they had to do was decide the day, plug that information in, and the spell would be ready to go.
What were they waiting for?
Hermione stared blankly at her calendar pinned to the wall, a plain paper one that she had bought at a muggle store. She crossed off the days as they came and went, and tomorrow…
Wednesday, September 19th. It was her birthday.
She hadn’t noted that on the calendar. The square for tomorrow was the same as almost every other, blank and unexciting. Just another day.
A knock on her door made Hermione jump. “It’s open,” she callled.
Malfoy burst inside, looking windswept and aggravated. “Sorry, had a bit of a situation,” he mumbled. “Didn’t realize how late—”
“Tomorrow.”
He went silent when she interrupted him, looking surprised. Hermione closed her book and stood.
“We should do it tomorrow.”
Hermione turned on the faucet, untied her hair, and stepped into the shower. The second the warm water hit her, she sighed.
A shower. A hot shower with shampoo and conditioner. Hermione grinned widely as she looked at the two white bottles Tom had brought for her. He’d already duplicated them, so she was free to use both up entirely if she wanted.
And I just might, she thought as she worked her fingers through her hair, undoing the braid and getting it wet. Lord knows I could use it. And it’s not like I’m pressed for time.
Tom had three hours left with his remaining polyjuice potion. He didn’t want to use it all, but he’d said he had a feeling he would need every minute. At Hermione’s suggestion, he’d transfigured a cup into a flask and poured the contents into it, ensuring that he would have it with him if needed without looking too suspicious, but could keep the remainder if he didn’t.
She therefore had at least a few hours to herself again. Hermione was much less fussed about him leaving this time around—perhaps that was, in part, because of how irritated Tom looked before he left. It wasn’t infiltrating a foreign black market that seemed to perturb him so much as being in some old man’s body. Hermione got the sense that he wasn’t lying about that poor muggle having bad arthritis and a horribly painful back.
…Or maybe she was more relaxed because she knew exactly what he was doing and why. Or maybe it was because she had just had two of the most intense orgasms in her life back to back, and she still felt like her insides were made of jelly, and she would be agreeable to just about anything right then.
Hermione’s face flamed. At least I don’t feel sore, she thought as she gingerly touched a finger to what otherwise might have been sensitive, swollen tissue. Perfectly fine. The Time-Turner magic didn’t seem to discriminate on where her injuries were; she was exactly as she had been before their kitchen counter sex.
Completely unchangeable… wasn’t she?
Hermione let the water drizzle down her face as she thought about this.
She was in her peak fertility window. That meant that her body was either on the precipice of releasing an egg or just had. She wished she knew which it was; it could make a difference.
If she hadn’t released one yet, then…
Well then, everything would be fine, she thought. There would be no need to worry, would there? No egg, no chance of pregnancy. I’d be on the best birth control in the world.
The same would be true if she were anywhere else in her cycle.
But…
But what if? Hermione grabbed the bar of soap and started to scrub along her arms. What if… what if there was an egg just floating around in there, viable, when she’d been struck? What if it suddenly became something… more?
She didn’t really think this was possible. It hadn’t happened in New York, at least; if there had been so much as a blastocyst in her system, that diagnostic spell would have picked up on it. But maybe that was only because she’d taken that back-up contraceptive potion just in time. Or maybe they’d simply gotten lucky. What had the book said? Even in the best of circumstances, there was only ever about a twenty percent chance of pregnancy occurring every month…
Which was why Tom was out there, of course. No need to continue to gamble unnecessarily. There were far too many unknown variables at play. Time-Turner magic; the ever-growing golden lines; the possibility of it being a curse—a blood curse, no less; the additional element of a mother’s love… though Tom knew nothing of that…
Yet that was the one that really made Hermione’s brain itch. She couldn’t help but feel that there was something meaningful there, having been attacked by a witch on the precipice of giving birth. It all felt entirely too… well, perhaps ironic wasn’t the right word, but something.
She wondered what Merope would think of her predicament. Maybe she’d find it funny.
Hermione moved on to her chest and stomach, spreading the suds over her skin. What would happen, she wondered, if she somehow did become pregnant as she was now? What if there really was a recently released, viable egg inside of her, being kept alive because of the magic in her body? If it became fertilized, then technically that wouldn’t be her anymore, would it? At least, not entirely. Would the Time-Turner magic have an effect on it as well, or would it revert back to just an egg? Or would the magical disturbance a blastocyst created cause some kind of interference? There was so little known about what really happens in the first few hours after fertilization, especially when magic was involved…
Could a magical pregnancy overpower time magic?
It sounded ludicrous, but Hermione was not so sure. What little the fertility book said on the matter made her pause. Apparently, magical pregnancies could have drastic effects on those who carried them. Some—albeit very few—found that certain ailments they’d had all their lives disappeared. Others discovered they had inherited familial curses only when they became pregnant, having lain dormant until then.
It was all wild and unpredictable and why was she bothering to get worked up about it, anyway?
If Tom was right about how this time magic was affecting her, if her own suspicions were correct, then it really was all a moot point.
She was probably going to die.
I won’t have to worry about being knocked up then, Hermione thought grimly. She glanced down at her body, catching the way the golden lines glimmered when she moved. She wondered how fast they were growing now, and how they were going to measure that. She wondered if Tom had a plan. She wondered a lot of things.
Mostly, she wondered what kind of shampoo a young Dark Lord would pick out.
She plucked the first bottle from the shelf and examined it. She couldn’t read what it said, as it was in Albanian, but it had a picture of some flowery image on it. Can Tom read Albanian? she wondered. Surely not.
Hermione popped off the lid, smelled it, and smiled. It was a scent she’d know anywhere.
Roses.
Roses, and maybe a hint of vanilla, something sweet. But the rose was the strongest.
Oh my God, Hermione thought as she squeezed a healthy amount onto her palm. She was imagining Tom in some muggle shop, unable to read descriptions and therefore going through each one, taking the time to smell them in order to decide which one to get. Because it couldn’t be a coincidence.
She couldn’t stop the giggle that escaped her lips at that vision. She lathered her hands and scrubbed at her scalp, making the whole bathroom smell of roses and sweetness.
Tom Riddle may be twisted, dark, powerful, murderous, and downright evil at times, she thought, but he is also one hell of a romantic.
When she first spotted him coming back through the wards, he was an old man. By the time he was opening the front door, Tom was himself again, a handsome smile on his handsome face.
Hermione did not see him carrying anything. “Don’t tell me it went badly,” she said, though she had a feeling this was not the case, based on his grin.
“Not at all.” Tom shut the door, shrugged off his coat, and slid off his shoes. “I had a great time.”
“Now I’m really worried.” Hermione put the book she’d been reading while he was out—the one Tom had been earlier, if only because she wanted to read every word that he did—on the arm of the couch. “What did you get?”
Tom pulled the flask he'd transfigured and two small bags from his pocket—the coin purse he’d taken with him, and one that was about the same size, but made of some material that Hermione didn’t recognize but which looked a bit like leather. He dropped the flask and the coin purse on the table; they both sounded and looked substantially lighter than they had been before he left.
He then loosened the drawstring on the leather bag. Hermione was about to say that such a small container didn’t look promising, but held her tongue as his hand went in, past his wrist, then all the way to his elbow, impossibly deep. Enchanted, she thought. Just like my old beaded bag used to be.
“Lots of fun things… ah.” Tom paused, presumably grabbing hold of something. “These aren't any of them, though. Here.”
He tossed three things at her, one right after another. A toothbrush. Toothpaste. Floss. Hermione caught the first two and hastily grabbed the floss off the floor where it fell.
“Oh—oh!” she squealed, much too excited. “Thank you, I wondered if you’d forgotten!”
Tom was already reaching back into his bag. “I didn’t. But really? Floss?” he said in a near drawl. “You know there are hygienic cleaning charms that are far superior for that sort of thing.”
“I’m aware of them. You haven’t given me my wand back, so those hardly help me. Besides, I disagree. There are some places where magic doesn't really do the job properly; flossing is one of them.”
She smiled at him widely. Tom looked mildly offended at the notion that magic wouldn’t be the best option everywhere, but he made no further comment.
“Any chance you managed to grab some clothing that will fit me?” Hermione asked as he began to dig through the bag again. She had decided to try a pair of his sweatpants this time around, and found them annoying to wear. Even tied as tight as they could go, they were loose on her hips, and much too long besides—and the shirts kept slipping off her shoulders.
“Some,” he said, but the next thing he retrieved was not the cozy, warm woman’s sweater she hoped for. Tom revealed a large glass bottle, similar to the ones they so often used in Potions class. It was filled with a deep blue liquid, shimmering slightly.
Hermione knew exactly what that was. Tom set it on the table. “I um, see you managed to get some, then,” she said.
“Yes, I certainly did.” Tom smiled, and then, to her surprise, he started to laugh.
“What?” Hermione had to ask, because Tom was laughing so hard that he must have felt the need to sit down, falling into the couch and letting the bag land on his lap. “What’s so funny?”
Tom's grin was easily the most genuine, amused look she’d ever seen on his face. “They’re going to be talking about me for ages,” he said, and then he was laughing again. “They’re going to be wondering for a long time just who the fuck I was. Some old British man with a giant bag of galleons who was adept in and unafraid to use legilimency, who was clearly a dark, dangerous, potentially murderous wizard… demanding, among other things, a quality male contraceptive potion.”
His grin was so broad by now that it was contagious—Hermione found herself smiling and laughing a bit, too.
“Did… don’t tell me you did become murderous?” she asked, unsure if she wanted to know.
“No, but I made some pretty clear threats that transcended all language barriers. They realized quickly that I wasn’t some old fool they could take for a ride, though they did try, to their great regret. By the end of our… transaction, they ended up giving me a bottle of contraband liquor as an apology. Illegal because of the brewing process or something, I didn't entirely understand their explanation, but I could see that they were being honest when they said it was their finest. I still made them drink some, same as I did with the contraceptive potion they were pushing—more from my own amusement than anything—and none of them died or suffered in any way, so.”
He shrugged, then reached back into his bag. “Here it is,” he said as he pulled out another bottle. This one was made of dark amber glass, so Hermione couldn’t see the contents. “My peace offering from a bunch of low-life peddlers. I imagine it’s atrocious.”
Tom smirked, then wandlessly hovered the bottle to the table, where it landed gently beside the contraceptive potion. “I wish I could have seen all that,” said Hermione.
“So do I. It was quite an experience.”
Tom reached into the bag again, but this time he went in with both hands. “What else did you get?” Hermione asked, for she didn’t think he’d need two arms to retrieve some clothing.
“A few more things,” he said, and then he was pulling out something big and heavy looking, stretching the opening of the bag unnaturally wide.
“What is—oh.”
Hermione knew what it was, because Hepzibah had one that was very similar. This one, however, was made of what appeared to be a pale pink marble, with intricate flowery designs etched into the sides of the basin.
“A Pensieve,” she whispered.
“Yes… one that was clearly stolen,” Tom said. “Still cost a fair amount of gold, I’m afraid, but necessary…”
He released his hold on the rim once it was freed from the bag, then hovered it with ease to the middle of the room. It was about waist height and seemed to emit a pale, cool glow from its center.
It was lovely. It was empty.
Its presence, and the implication that came with it, was terrifying.
“Tom,” Hermione said, staring at it, “why did you buy a Pensieve?”
“I think you know why, smart girl.”
Tom twitched his fingers at her in a quick, come-hither motion, and Hermione lost her balance as she went stumbling towards him. He caught her as she fell sideways onto his lap, but his body tensed when she landed on him. He hissed in pain, closing his eyes and clutching at his chest.
“Tom—what’s wrong?” Hermione asked, instantly panicked. Despite looking as though he’d just been wounded, he didn’t allow her to move.
“Mm, just the echoes of being in that body for so long,” he said tersely. His fist on his chest relaxed, and when he looked at her again, his expression softened. “I am very glad to have that behind me.”
Hermione was about to voice that she didn’t believe him—he had said nothing about chest pain while masquerading as that muggle—when he leaned into her, inhaling deeply. Her hair. He was smelling her hair.
“I… thank you,” she mumbled. “For that. The hair things. They were—are—nice.”
Tom smiled. “See?” he said. “I can be very nice.”
“I never said you couldn’t be nice. You just usually… aren’t.”
“That’s blatantly wrong. I’ve spent much of my life being sickeningly nice to people who don’t deserve a shred of kindness.” He caught a tendril of her hair, coiling the curl around her finger. “But you, Hermione… I can keep being very nice to you, if you’re nice, too.”
“What exactly do you mean?”
“The Pensieve,” Tom murmured, releasing her hair to grab hold of her chin instead. “I bought it so that I can pull some of those mysterious memories out of you. You don’t want to let me delve into your mind? Fine—I’ll work outside of it.”
Hermione’s heart began to race as Tom kissed her forehead. “I’m going to start with the memories you had erased by the MACUSA,” he said. “We're going to find out exactly what it is that Madison knows about you… and then,” he kissed her temple, “we’ll move on to other things, and you’re going to be so very nice and let me extract them, every single memory that I ask for.”
He kissed her cheek, right at the corner of her lips. “But first.”
Hermione was about to say that no, no she would not—but then Tom was grabbing her by the hair and pulling her closer, kissing her mouth. She reacted in a confusing, knee-jerk way; her lips parted for him without thought, welcoming his tongue, while at the same time she pushed on his chest, trying to get away.
She felt his lips curve in a smile against hers. “You have objections?” he said as he allowed her to pull back.
“I—yes, obviously!” Hermione shouted. Tom didn’t let go of her hair, nor did he let her crawl off his lap. Hermione huffed in annoyance. “Let me off, Tom, you’re not going to just—to drag whatever memories you want out of me, I won’t let you.”
“Yes, you will.”
Tom stood, picking her up with him as he did. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten the reality of your situation,” he said, and he began to walk across the room, carrying her. “Maybe you think that, since I’ve spared you, since I’m going to cure you, that we’re now on level footing. That because I’d break the very sky for you, we are equals.”
He took her into the bedroom. “Allow me to clarify a few things.”
Tom dropped her unceremoniously onto the bed on her back. Hermione propped herself up on her elbows, but Tom was talking again before she could do much else, a dangerous look in his eyes.
“You are my captive here,” he said. “I am your captor and your savior… and most importantly of all, I am your master. That, darling, has never changed, and never will. Any throne by my side that you might imagine yourself upon will always be lower than mine. You will always answer to me. You belong to me, you are mine.”
He paused, his eyes darting down the length of her body. He flicked his wrist to the side, and the bottle of blue potion flew through the doorway and into his hand. He took a swig of it and dropped it, where it floated seamlessly back to the table, and he then pulled out his wand. In a flash of wordless magic, her clothes—or Tom’s, as they were—vanished. Hermione gasped and curled into herself.
Tom’s eyes became infinitely hungrier at the sight of her naked. “Now get on your knees,” he said softly.
Hermione hated how her body reacted. Part of her was still ringing in fear over the newly acquired Pensieve and Tom's threats, but most of her was stuck on his eyes, on his horribly gorgeous face, on his smooth, dark voice making a demand that should not have made her blood run so hot, but did. On those lips and that mouth that had just drank a small amount of a limited potion, and what that meant was about to happen, undeniably.
Hermione couldn’t help it. Tom was right—she was lost around him.
She sat up, letting her arms drop to her sides. Tom watched her every movement intensely. Her knees sunk into the mattress as she knelt. “Satisfied, my Lord?” she drawled.
Tom lowered his wand, glaring at her sarcastic tone. “Not nearly,” he said. “Don’t move.”
Hermione didn’t bother asking what might happen if she did. Tom walked around the bed, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. The floorboards creaked with his every step. “I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what I want to do to you… what I want you to do…”
He stopped when he was behind her. It took a great deal of willpower to not turn and look at him; Hermione kept her eyes on the doorway in front of her.
“But this,” he went on, “has been at the very top of my list for a long, long time… Too long, if I’m being honest.”
She heard the rustling of clothes. Hermione didn’t look, but she thought he had just taken off his shirt and was stripping everything else off, too. She heard his belt being unbuckled, she imagined his pants sliding down.
“What is?” she finally asked.
“You’re about to find out."
Without warning, Hermione’s body bent at the waist, her face slamming into the pillows at the front of the bed. Then her arms were pulled behind her back, and Tom was saying,“Incarcerous.”
Ropes wrapped around her wrists, binding them together. “Tom!” Hermione tried to turn to see him, but she found that she could barely move her neck. She glowered. “Is that—do you have to do that?” she asked, tugging on the ropes.
“Technically, no,” he admitted. “I could get you to bend on your own, I’m sure, and I could hold your wrists back myself, if I wanted… I am a very talented wizard… but what can I say.” The ropes tightened, burning into her skin.
“I like the aesthetic.”
The mattress dipped. Tom was behind her while her arse was propped up in a way that was both humiliating and… something else.
“You like it too,” he said in a knowing way. “I can tell.”
Hermione couldn’t find it in her to respond to that, because he wasn’t wrong. Tom must have set his wand aside because his fingers were on the backs of her thighs, grazing her skin. “Fuck,” he swore, and she could practically feel his eyes on her, drinking her in. “I’ve dreamed of taking you like this…”
His hands were soft, eerily gentle as they ghosted over her arse. “Fuck,” he said again. He touched the small of her back, pressing down so that her spine arched, making her even more exposed. “Did you know those golden lines are here, too?” he said, tracing a swirling pattern on her lower back. “And here, and here…”
He followed that pattern along her arse, a swooping curve that went lower, then inward. Tom’s hand went between her legs, barely touching her. “I wanted to take my time with this, but I don’t think I can. You’re too tempting, too gorgeously wet for me—fuck. Do I need to silence you again?”
Hermione hadn’t realized she was whimpering until he threatened to take her voice. She stopped.
“No,” Tom said, answering his own question. “No, I want to hear you.”
He spread her legs wide. Hermione felt the cold air against her, making her quiver.
“Gods,” said Tom, sounding reverent. “Do you have any idea how stunning you are? How unfairly captivating?”
She felt his cock pressed against her; Hermione rocked back into him without a conscious thought. Tom made a hissing sound and grabbed her hips to hold her in place.
He was still for only a moment longer before he pushed into her, slowly. Hermione pulled on her wrists when he did, and she swore she became wetter when there was no yield whatsoever. “That’s right,” Tom said once he was deep inside of her. “Moan for me, sweetheart. I want you to.”
Again, she hadn’t realized she was moaning until he’d pointed it out. Hermione was sure her whole body was bright red, she felt so embarrassed—because this, being fucked from behind with her face forced down—was not something she’d ever done before, and if she’d been asked if she would like this sort of thing, she would have said no, absolutely not.
And yet here she was, hot, breathless, and insanely turned on.
Tom started to move, and she moaned much louder.
“Good, Hermione, that’s so good… fuck, you feel…”
Tom’s words trailed off as he began moving faster, and faster still. His grip on her hips was painful and the ropes bit into her wrists, but with each thrust Hermione could only think, Yes, harder, more.
Tom moved one hand and wrapped it around her waist. When he touched her clit, the barest pressing of his fingertip, Hermione’s whole world lit up. “Ah,” Hermione gasped. She canted into his hand, which meant that she were also bucking back onto his cock, and fuck, it was so good—
He pulled his hand away. Hermione couldn’t see his face, but she could imagine it—arrogant, smirking, evil. “Do you like that?” he said, giving her one more, soft stroke before pulling away. He never slowed in how he fucked her. “Do you want that, darling?”
“Yes, please,” Hermione begged, uncaring of how she sounded. Being fucked like this was shockingly good, but now that he had touched her there, she needed it, she needed his fingers on her too, she needed everything. “Please, Tom, please…”
She inhaled a sharp breath when he placed two fingers against her, expertly positioning them so they were on either side of her clit when she bucked. It wasn’t enough.
“Tom,” she whined, rolling her hips, needing him to move his fingers just slightly. Her body convulsed in desperation, every muscle spasming with want as she chased that friction. “Tom, please!”
“Fuck, ah—Hermione, stop, I—ahh…”
Tom’s voice broke off in a moan. He abruptly abandoned teasing her and grabbed her hips again, fucking into her much faster, much rougher. He grunted and groaned and then, in an especially deep, harsh thrust he buried himself, his cock throbbing hard enough that she could feel every hot pulse, could feel him coming inside of her.
“Fucking Gods,” Tom swore as he rocked out and back into her again. His cock was still throbbing, still coming. He released her hips and started to graze his fingers over her arse. “Your fucking cunt,” he murmured, rocking into her yet again. “Fuck…”
Hermione whimpered and pushed back into him. Everything was so wet and hot, and he was still hard inside her. “Tom, please,” she breathed, for she was right on the edge. “Please touch me, please.”
She yanked on her constraints, as she was more than willing enough to do it herself, if she could—but they didn’t budge.
Tom stopped moving, keeping his cock in her. He reached around her waist and lightly circled her clit. “Just like this?” he asked. “Is this what you need, darling?”
Hermione didn’t answer, only moaned and rutted against his fingers. Yes, she was so close, so—
Tom took his hand away. Then he was pulling out of her.
“Tom!” Hermione cried, trying and failing to look back at him again. She felt him moving off the bed. “Tom, what are you—?”
She stopped short when she felt his hands on her arse, grabbing her firmly, practically massaging her. Hot, slick wetness oozed out of her, dripping down her inner thighs. Hermione immediately blushed at the sensation.
"Fuck," Tom murmured. He stopped touching her and backed away; Hermione could tell by the creaking of the floor boards. “You’re a vision right now, you know.”
Hermione was sure she was. Her hair was wild about her, her wrists were tied behind her back and her arse was propped up high, Tom’s seed dripping out of her.
All of which might have been mortifying, but Hermione was still far too needy to care about her pride. “Tom,” she said sharply. “Please.”
Tom walked around the bed until he was at her side, finally within her line of sight. At first she could only make out his torso and his waist—his spent cock was half-hard, wet, and leaking slightly—and then he leaned over, his face close to hers.
She flinched to see he was holding his wand again.
“Please what?” he asked, his tone conversational. Without waiting for an answer, he slid a hand between her legs and stroked her clit. She bucked into him shamelessly.
“Please let you fuck yourself on my fingers until you come?”
He started to circle her more aggressively, exuding just the right amount of pressure. Hermione rocked into him, her muscles clenching—she felt his spend leaking out of her more, dripping faster down her thighs, onto her calves—
“Give me the memory the MACUSA tampered with,” Tom said, speaking in that same, polite voice. Hermione’s eyes snapped to his; he kept stroking her, bringing her closer to the edge. “And I’ll give you everything you want.”
He stopped, sliding his fingers along her swollen outer lips instead.
“You’re evil,” Hermione seethed, but he kept touching her just enough to keep her hips rolling into him, seeking more. "This really does it for you, doesn't it?"
“Mmm,” Tom hummed noncommittally. “You might as well, darling. You’re going to anyway, you know you are… We need to see it. We need to know what they know.”
He circled her clit directly again. Hermione gasped in the shock of pleasure before he went back to tormenting her. “That sound,” Tom said. “When you’re close to coming… It’s gorgeous.”
Hermione's face grew hot with a blush again. He was staring at her with hungry, analytical eyes. She knew that, had he not already satisfied himself and come inside her, he wouldn’t have any of the control he had now.
“Evil,” she spat again.
Tom let out a breathy laugh. “Give it to me, Hermione,” he said. He pointed the tip of the yew wand to her forehead. “I’m not demanding anything else, though I could… just the memory that was taken from you. Focus on it, let me extract just that one… You know we need it, you know I can help you…”
Hermione wished she could have a few moments to mull this decision over, but Tom wasn’t letting her have any. He kept rotating between softly rubbing her clit and sliding his fingers along her slickness, and she couldn’t handle it anymore, she couldn’t.
Besides, he could be right. Maybe there was something critical that happened during that test, something that would be helpful for finding a cure. Of course, there was also the very real possibility that something she didn’t want revealed to Tom might come to light, but she didn’t know. Couldn’t know.
It was a gamble she was going to have to take.
“Okay, okay,” Hermione finally relented. “God—just stop for a fucking second.”
Smiling, Tom did. “Go on, then,” he said. “Focus.”
Hermione resisted the urge to throw a few choice words at him. Instead, she bit back her anger, closed her eyes, and did as she was told. She took a few deep, calming breaths, trying to focus on that time, to not think about Tom, Tom’s hands, the way her body was bent, the pulsing need of her cunt, the way he was still dripping out of her, uncomfortably wet—
“I can’t,” she said. Hermione opened her eyes; she felt tears beginning to burn in them. “Tom, I can’t do it right now, I can’t like this, please…”
Tom frowned, looking irritated. “No?” he said. “Perhaps I should leave you here for a while so you can cool off.”
“No! Please, Tom, don’t do that—I’ll give you the memory, you’re right, it could be valuable—I just can’t—I can’t focus enough, I need you, I need..."
Tom’s eyes gleamed when her words trailed off. “Need what?” he prodded, lowering his wand. “Tell your master exactly what you need.”
Your master. In any other situation, Hermione would smack the arrogance right off his beautiful face.
“I need,” Hermione started, face burning. “I need… I need to come, I…”
Tom clearly liked hearing that—he smiled and rewarded her with another stroke against her clit. “Say it again,” he demanded.
Hermione knew she would never live this down, but she hardly cared. The only thing that mattered was Tom’s hand on her, complying. “I need—I need to come, please…”
Her pleas turned into a stream of incoherent moans as Tom started to swirl his fingertip over her clit, consistent and perfect, exactly the way she needed it. Hermione rutted against him, her hips rocking, and she was so close, so—
Hermione exhaled as she finally came, the orgasm ripping through her. Wave after wave of pleasure ebbed and flowed throughout her body, her cunt clenching hard in a rhythm around nothing, causing more of his seed to spill out of her.
Tom was gentle with her, this time. He slowed his strokes, easing the pressure of his finger against her as she shook in the aftermath of her climax. Then, when she finally stopped canting into his hand, he pulled away, dragging his wet fingertips across her back instead.
Hermione’s mind was still buzzing when she felt the wand against her temple again. “Now,” Tom said, one hand caressing her backside, his fingers dancing up and down her spine, “let’s free that memory, shall we?”
Chapter 62: A Shame
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Watching Tom work was fascinating.
The way he emitted magic, either from the tip of his wand or from his very fingers, was nothing short of awe-inspiring. He moved with an enviable fluidity, weaving and unweaving enchantments as though he had always been able to do so, as effortless for him as breathing.
Well, perhaps not quite so easily, Hermione thought, observing him none too discreetly from over the top of her book. Tom’s brows were furrowed in concentration as he coaxed and prodded at the temperamental memory in the basin, forcing magic into and around it in rushing spells that were sometimes gentle and sometimes not. Beneath his hands and wand the memory flared, shimmered, or sparked in response.
My memory. The violated, tampered-with memory of my test…
But Hermione couldn’t allow herself to dwell too much on how Tom might go about fixing it—literally. If she so much as attempted to ponder what she, personally, would do to reconstruct it, she was struck with an instant and debilitating headache.
It had already happened twice, and her mind was still buzzing uncomfortably. Tom hadn’t been pleased when she’d needed to explain what was happening to her and why.
She couldn’t try and repair her own tampered memories… because she had signed away the right to when she’d signed the contract. She could do nothing to help him—which was a shame, really, because she was quite good with memory charms of all kinds, having cast and reversed many of her own.
Hermione could hardly blame Tom for being as furious as he was when she’d told him this. He hadn’t technically yelled at her once for signing a magically binding contract with the MACUSA (with a blood quill, no less), and it was almost worse that he hadn’t. His response at the reminder had, instead, been a glare that made her feel much too small, a frigid bout of silence that made her feel like hiding under the table, and the simple, softly spoken instructions to sit down, make herself useful in some other way, and to not distract him.
At least he let me get dressed first, she thought sourly—albeit he still hadn’t revealed what clothes he may have gotten for her, if any. She was still stuck wearing his much too large clothing, and she was starting to think that the only reason he wasn’t giving her anything else was because he liked seeing her in it.
Making herself useful, however, was proving to be difficult. Focus, Hermione told herself. She looked back down at her book, this time reading one Tom had brought about advanced warding techniques—and immediately lost focus. Again.
The broken memory in the basin flaked angrily. Tom murmured something under his breath, his eyes narrowed as he cast some new sort of magic over it, trying something else.
The MACUSA really must have done a number on my memory, for it to be this difficult to repair, Hermione lamented. But that was about as much as she could dwell on it before her head started to hurt.
Concentrate on the book—try to find some passage to convince him to alter the wards around the cottage, maybe. To let me influence them too, so I’m not trapped here.
That would be the smart thing, Hermione knew. And she was trying. But as soon as she would find herself immersed in the text before her, there would be another flash or a spark and Hermione would find herself looking up, her eyes drawn to the Pensieve and the rippling magic and…
Tom was simply too fucking attractive.
It caused Hermione no small amount of shame to find herself continuously drawn to watching him. Ogling, more like, she admitted to herself. Tom was shirtless, for one—he was wearing nothing but a pair of the same sweatpants that hardly stayed up on her, and that was all. His chest was bare, the flickering light of the magic he conjured casting shadows that enhanced every line on his torso, every muscle—and those arms. How did he have such nice arms? Which was to say nothing of his agile hands; those long, nimble fingers were mesmerizing, the way they exuded magic, the way they deftly handled his wand, and it was no wonder he was so good at—
Hermione quickly raised the book up to cover her face, grasped by the irrational fear that he might catch her staring and blushing. He wouldn’t. Tom was so deeply focused on his spell casting that she might as well have not been in the room.
Maybe I shouldn’t be in the room, Hermione realized. She wasn’t exactly focusing properly herself. I might be better off locking myself in the bedroom where I can’t see him.
She was about to do that, had just gotten to her feet, when there was an especially bright flare of magic. Tom lifted his wand, and his face, which had been drawn in frustration before, lit up in triumph.
Hermione approached the Pensieve, and she could see at once that he had succeeded. The memory was no longer a cloudy white, furious thing, swirling like a small storm in the basin, but was calm, a languid quality to it as it ebbed and flowed, not quite liquid, not quite gas.
Exactly what a healthy memory should look like.
“You did it,” Hermione said, both deeply impressed and yet not at all surprised. “You fixed it.”
Tom wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and looked at her, grinning. A second later, however, and his victorious expression fell. He looked from her to the basin and back again. His grip on his wand tightened.
“Don’t you dare,” Hermione said, as though she were in any position to issue threats. “I swear, Tom, if you think about watching my own memory without me, I will lose it.”
Tom’s lips twitched. “Am I that predictable?” he said, not denying that he was considering doing exactly that.
“Yes, you are. And if you do something to keep me out of there while you go in and watch what happened, leaving me in the dark, trust me when I say I’ll find a way to make you regret it.”
To her surprise, Tom didn’t look angered by her daring; he seemed amused. “That’s no way to thank me for my incredible prowess,” he said, nodding towards the Pensieve. “There were some very tricky spells interwoven into that memory… you probably wouldn’t have been able to break them, even if you could have tried.”
“I—yes I would have!”
“We’ll never know, will we?” Tom’s smile darkened a little, tinged once more by the rage at her poor decision making that he seemed barely able to contain. “But that, hopefully, will be one of the few mysteries we’ll never get to solve… unlike this one.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her close to him. He looked down into the basin, and Hermione could see the swirling, smooth silver of the memory reflected in his eyes.
“Shall we?” he said.
Hermione swallowed back her fear and nodded. Here goes nothing, she thought. Or everything.
Tom held her tighter, and together, they tipped into the past.
They landed in a setting that was, for a fleeting moment, familiar to her.
A dark and eerie hall. A long table was behind them, Hermione’s outer robe draped over a corner. A number of people in long robes sat behind it, their faces concealed by their hoods, all except Madison, who sat in the center, his eyes fixed on…
Hermione. A version of herself from not so long ago. She had one foot through the archway and she seemed to have paused. Magic was radiating powerfully beneath that arch, even in the memory, and the Hermione of the past clearly noticed it, too. She frowned where she was, studying it, but a moment later she stepped through, and Hermione and Tom were forced to follow.
The world shifted.
Whatever Hermione might have thought to expect from ‘the field’, as Madison had referred to it, this surely wasn’t it. They entered into the middle of an arena of sorts, a huge, circular space. The floors were blank, black stone and the walls, which were curved and very tall, were flat as well. There were some small, statuesque looking things on the ground along the perimeter, set about twelve feet apart at intervals, but they were too far away to make out from where they stood in the center. Above each of them, much higher up, were glowing white orbs of light which illuminated the space. Aside from those, there was nothing. Above them was only blackness. It was disorienting to look at; staring straight up felt like falling upside down into the dark.
The past-Hermione took several tentative steps forward. She held her wand at the ready, her stance defensive. The archway that they had walked through disappeared. This Hermione—aside from her future, not-really-there spectators—was alone.
It was quiet. Hermione watched as her past-self looked this way and that, poised and ready. Beside her, Tom released her hand and moved so that he could watch her more closely.
Something went zinging past them.
All three of them reacted to the suddenness of it, even though whatever it was couldn’t be a threat to Hermione and Tom. Something had gone flying towards past-Hermione, who quickly dodged it—but what it was had come and gone so quickly that it was impossible to know what it had been.
Then there was another high-pitch zing, and another, and suddenly past-Hermione was whirling about, twisting and dodging. While she was, Tom had stopped reacting to the mysterious onslaught so that he could see what they were; dark, narrow blurs passed right through him as he did.
It was a luxury the past-Hermione did not have—she was very much in danger of being struck, so she kept moving, and when the things being hurled at her only grew in number, she threw up a shielding charm. It worked; the next thing to strike her exploded on impact with her shield, as did the next and the next, for they never stopped coming.
“Are those… arrows?” Hermione wondered out loud. And it was so peculiar, because while she was seeing this memory unfold, she was also gaining it back in her mind in an odd way, too. She was beginning to remember this. The feeling of being surrounded by her shield, blocking off…
Yes, arrows. She saw Tom looking down at the shattered remains of one as well. Splintered, dark wood and sharp, metallic tips.
The Hermione of the past kept her shield up, as she had to. The arrows were coming from all sides, from high and low, but they were incapable of penetrating her barrier. Hermione watched herself smirk, and she remembered her own thoughts—is that all?
Then the next arrow came, and her shield flashed.
Between one strike and the next, the arrows had gone from being benign, muggle weapons to something magically charged. They were still held at bay by her shield, clattering to the ground when they collided, but they were no longer exploding, and…
Taking a toll, Hermione realized surely at the same time her memory-self did. She was being rained down on but dozens of magical arrows, each one wearing down her defense the tiniest bit. And if the way her shield was flashing brighter with each collision was any indication, each one was just a little more powerful than the last.
This was a test of stamina… and of creative problem solving.
What should I do? Hermione recalled that thought, could see the dilemma on her past’s face. She couldn’t just sit under her shield forever until it burst. She had to go on the offensive. But how? There were no enemies in sight; the arrows seemed to be coming from the walls themselves…
Hermione had an idea, and at the same moment, her past-self lifted her wand. A new wave of magic joined her shield, and suddenly the arrows stopped falling to the ground and instead became stuck, lodged in her additional enchantment. They piled on and on and on, until soon Hermione’s shield was so full of them that they could no longer see her.
Hermione grasped Tom’s forearm in a warning. Tom didn’t react, didn’t tear his eyes away from her domed fortress of gleaming arrows.
Then, all at once, the arrows twitched and rippled, making her dome look for a moment like a living thing, taking a breath. The arrows all flipped around, and after a beat where they were perfectly still, went flying outward.
A cascade of perhaps a hundred arrows flew in every direction from which they had come, targeting their origin, wherever that may have been, passing straight through Hermione and Tom. Hermione expected to hear the sharp sounds of them hitting their marks or colliding with the walls, but none came.
The arrows had, it seemed, disappeared. And once they were gone, no more came. The arena was once more silent.
Past-Hermione did not move for quite some time. She stayed where she was, her stance once more defensive beneath her shielding charm. She waited.
Nothing happened. Tom slipped from Hermione’s grasp and began to walk around her past self, his gaze intense, looking almost as though he might be the next threat to her.
Something indescribable in the air shifted. Past-Hermione clearly felt it too, for she turned, scanning the arena.
They all seemed to notice it at the same time. Where there had certainly been nothing before, perhaps twenty feet or so in the distance, there now stood a huge, rectangular mirror.
Past-Hermione studied it from where she was, unmoving. It was tall and wide enough that Hagrid would have been able to see all of himself in it, with a nondescript, silver metal frame. When Tom walked near it, examining it curiously, his reflection did not, of course, show up, but the rest of the arena did. Aside from its massive size, it appeared to be a regular mirror.
But of course it’s not, Hermione was certain, just as she must have been the first time she’d seen it. Her past-self finally dropped her shield and approached, keeping her wand at the ready.
Her reflection mimicked her every movement perfectly, as it should have. She stared at herself, then began to examine the edges of the mirror, looking for some clue as to what it might do.
The air shook with a sound that could be described only one way: a howl. It echoed dissonantly.
Hermione and her past-self turned to look, but there was nothing there. Tom, however, had stayed as he was, looking deeply into the mirror.
“Interesting,” he muttered. Hermione whipped back around, and both she and the Hermione of the memory saw what he had spied first.
Reflected in the mirror was a creature Hermione had never seen before. A massive canine that stood out starkly against the black backdrop of the arena, its fur pure white and its eyes a vibrant yellow. It resembled a wolf to a degree, but it was much larger and more muscular, had two tails, and when it opened its jaw to emit a warning growl, its teeth…
Long, black, and dripping with what was unmistakably venom.
It was in the mirror. It was not in the arena.
“What is—?”
Hermione didn’t get to voice the question she had surely had then, too. The creature started running straight for her, and Hermione watched as her memory-self cast another shield in a hurry because she knew, she had been confused—the creature was visible in the reflection, not behind her, and so she had been uncertain—was the monster in the mirror, or—?
No. A second of careful listening as its huge paws beat against the stone floor and it was clear. The beast was behind her, but it was visible only in the reflective silver.
Past-Hermione glanced at the mirror but aimed away. She watched herself as she moved, and as she did, Hermione recalled the way she’d been wracking her brain, trying to figure out what the creature was and how best to fight it when she could only see it in reverse, in this mirror.
Hermione didn’t know where to look even now. At her actual self? In the reflection where she could see both herself and the monster?
At Tom, whose gaze flickered back and forth between the two?
Past-Hermione fired off a spell, a wordless stunner that was aimed close to where the beast was, but not close enough. It missed, and the monster lunged, flinging itself into her shield and snarling madly, its venom splattering against it as it attempted to bite through. Rabid, this monster was absolutely rabid, a feral thing that would rip her apart, and who knew what that venom might do to her if it managed to bite her? Hermione pushed more magic into her shield, keeping it at bay, but then, where its venom dripped…
Her shield was smoking where it touched it, burning straight through.
“What is that thing?” Hermione asked out loud, looking at Tom. Tom didn’t answer; he was too engrossed, staring at the Hermione of the past who was looking both panicked and was clearly thinking, thinking, thinking.
While the past-Hermione couldn’t see the beast itself in reality, she could see where her shield was flaying apart. She aimed much more carefully before firing off her next curse. Her face became stone-like, committed.
“Avada kedavra!”
Hermione gasped at the sound of her own voice shouting that curse. The whole arena lit up with a vivid green. The monster didn’t move in time—Hermione watched in the mirror as the magic hit the beast square in the chest. Its yellow eyes were wild, bright, and then suddenly, after being drenched in green, they weren’t.
It fell. Its body sprawled on the ground, its legs and its tails splayed. Venom dripped from its open jaw in a puddle around its snout.
Dead. Instant, irreversible death. The Hermione of the past stared down at it with a sad look on her face, one that said exactly what Hermione was thinking.
How could I have?
But she knew exactly why she’d done it, and the recollection came to her clearly as she too stared at the fallen beast.
She’d done it because she didn’t know what it was, and she had read a lot about dark, magical creatures. She did it because the point of this challenge was to see how she would perform against an enemy she could only see in a very inconvenient manner. She did it because she had the golden opportunity to be able to land a spell without needing to use the mirror, and she didn’t know if she’d get another, so she wasn’t going to waste it on a curse that might have no effect on whatever this beast was.
She’d done it because the contract she’d signed had said she could use any magic she was capable of during this test… and she wanted the MACUSA to see exactly what she could do.
Hermione looked up from the poor, dead thing on the ground to Tom. He was already staring at her—the real her. His face was blank, but his eyes were smoldering.
Then past-Hermione choked out a sound like a sob, and they both turned to watch her instead. She was shaking a little from the use of such a curse; she took a few steps back and leaned against the mirror for support.
“That was bold.”
Past-Hermione jumped away at once. She whipped her wand out and pointed it at the mirror—where her reflection was no longer mimicking her.
“Most applicants don’t immediately kill the white wolf,” her reflection went on. “At least, not with a killing curse. A bold move indeed.”
Hermione’s brain hurt as she began to recall all this. A foreboding sense of dread pooled in her gut.
“Going to dock me points?” the past-Hermione asked. She kept her wand pointed at her reflection, who did not do the same.
“Points?” The reflection laughed. “So sorry, dear, there are no points here. This test is pass-fail.”
The reflection raised her wand slowly—a wand exactly like Hermione’s. “You were eager enough to kill a feral creature,” she said, moving closer.
“Let’s see how eager you are now.”
Her reflection stepped, impossibly, over the bottom edge of the silver rim… and into the arena. She smiled. The massive mirror vanished.
Bodies moved and magic flashed.
Hermione watched in mild awe and shock at the scene that erupted before her in a blaze of rapid spellcasting—her past self dueling… herself.
It was disorienting, it was chaotic. It was a bit mesmerizing.
Hermione knew she was a competent dueler, but it was something else to be able to see herself from an outsider’s point of view. She and her reflection were—unsurprisingly—evenly matched, firing off spell after spell at one another, flashes of wordless magic filling their air, twisting and dancing away from each other’s curses in exactly the same way, with exactly the same poise.
Hermione made the mistake of looking away from the duel to glance at Tom. He was clearly enjoying the show; his expression was hungry as his eyes darted back and forth between the two past-Hermiones.
An especially bright flare made Hermione return her attention to the duel. Two stunning spells had collided in midair, canceling each other out and dispersing in a near-explosive burst of red. Both past-Hermione and her reflection paused afterwards, taking on defense stances, waiting. They glared at each other in silence, both huffing from exertion.
For one wildly horrific moment, Hermione was unable to tell which was which—a thought which about caused her to have an existential crisis within the span of a second. What if the reflection won, and by doing so was able to absorb all my memories, everything that I am? What if I am that reflection, and Hermione—the real one—died in here?
But then one of the Hermione’s was smiling crookedly, and her spiraling thoughts were derailed. “You’re quick,” said what Hermione was fairly certain was the reflection. “Pretty ruthless, too… by no means the quickest or the most ruthless I’ve seen, though…”
Past-Hermione—the real one, she hoped—scoffed. “Don’t judge too quickly,” she said between labored breaths. “I’ve still got time.”
The reflection’s smile widened; a grin that looked much too twisted. “You know what’s most interesting about you, though?” she said. “Your mind… always thinking, aren’t you? I’m still getting the hang of it, by my oh my. Do you ever stop to smell the roses? Or are you always plotting, scheming, worrying, thinking?”
Past-Hermione answered that question with a curse, and then they were at it again, dueling even more aggressively than before. She committed herself to keeping her eyes glued to her real self this time, though it was tempting to watch Tom’s reactions, to see what his face revealed as the two Hermione’s started sending much darker curses than before.
Not the killing curse, though, Hermione realized, but she knew why. That curse couldn’t be cast wordlessly. Taking the moment necessary to cast it would cost the duel.
No, the winner of this fight would be determined as soon as one of them was disarmed or incapacitated… Which had Hermione wondering—would the reflection heal in the same way she did? If that ring were removed from the reflection’s body, would the golden lines be on her, too?
She supposed it depended on what, precisely, the reflection was. Was it a creature of some sort, or an enchantment? Something else? Perhaps this entire thing was just a hallucination, and she and Tom were only able to see it because this was how she remembered it…
She wasn’t sure, but what Hermione was starting to remember was how desperate she was feeling by now. This duel was like madness personified; how could either of them possibly win if they were mirrors of each other? They would drive each other into magical exhaustion at the same time…
And that’s what’s going to happen. It dawned on her as it must have already dawned on her past-self, too.
The memory of Hermione stopped attacking. She went purely on the defense, dodging spells physically where she could, deflecting one when she had to. I’m doing what Tom did to me, she realized as she watched. Because this reflection may have a duplication of what it can of my body and mind, but she doesn’t seem to have my memories. She doesn’t know I’ve fallen for this before.
“Giving up?” the reflection sneered. A flash of blue magic whizzed past Hermione’s memory self. “Don’t tell me you’re getting tired already!”
Past-Hermione screamed and charged.
It surprised everyone, Hermione included. The memory only came to her as she watched it happen; she had made a snap decision to try something wild. The second the reflection’s arm had lowered, finishing the wrist movement from her last curse, past-Hermione let out a screech like a battle cry and charged, head-first, like a bull. She startled the reflection enough with her scream that it sort of worked—she rammed into her chest, and they both went toppling over.
The duel took a very different turn, then.
They were wrestling on the ground, tearing at each other’s wrists, going for the other’s wand. Both Hermiones were screaming, clawing and ripping at each other, as feral as the white wolf had been. One of them managed to pin the other down for a moment, only to be headbutted, hard.
Then one twisted the other’s wrist back, and two wands were directed at the same person. Hermione held her breath—she remembered this now, too.
“Crucio!”
Not her.
The curse had been fired by the reflection, at her. She screamed. Both in the memory and in reality.
It was like she was reliving it as she watched it—her body writhing under the pain and force of two wands casting that curse. Her reflection was grinning maniacally, not releasing her hold on either of the wands which were being grappled by both of them. Hermione remembered, because despite the horrid pain, the unbearable pain, she only held those wands tighter. She remembered how that dark magic felt, radiating from two different walnut wands that felt exactly the same; how she had held tighter as she screamed and bucked, holding tighter still, and—
Both wands snapped.
The cracking sound of it was so loud that it was clear even over her screaming, and much more devastating. Hermione winced. Both walnut wands, broken in both their hands. She had done that. She had done it, and Hermione looked up to see how shell-shocked the reflection looked, and behind them, staring, was Tom.
Past-Hermione recovered faster, despite having been tortured. It had been a brief cruciatus; she’d dealt with much longer.
She grabbed her reflection by the neck.
The reflection startled, still gripping the two useless, broken wands in her hands. But past-Hermione—God, she looked absolutely mad as she threw herself on her reflection, gripping as hard as she possibly could, furious as she was still ringing from the pain of that curse. Her eyes were crazed as she got her reflection on the ground, never letting go of her neck, and she had her legs on either side of her now, straddling her, holding harder, strangling her—
Hermione didn’t want to watch, so she didn’t. She remembered what happened here. She didn’t need to see it again; she wasn’t riding that same wave of adrenaline and fury that she had been then.
But she heard it. The way her reflection's limbs moved, the clattering of the wand pieces as she’d finally released them to try and push her foe away. She’d made the choice too late—past-Hermione had already pushed her too far along the road to oxygen-starvation.
She was killing her. God, it had been so hard, physically. It was brutally exhausting. At the time, Hermione hadn’t thought much of it, intentionally killing something that looked just like her, something that had tortured her. Now, knowing that’s what she’d had to do, Hermione felt sick.
She remembered the places her mind had gone as she’d done it. Hermione had thought, killing without magic is a chore. She’d had venomous thoughts about the loss of her wand. She’d watched how the scratches on her reflection’s face didn’t heal, and thought, this really will kill her, whatever she is.
Hermione jumped at the feeling of something touching her shoulder.
Tom.
He looked down at her with a gleam in his eyes that Hermione couldn’t fathom. Behind them, her reflection was still not quite dead, and her past self was breathing hard, grunting with the effort it took to finish it.
“You,” Tom said softly, “never stop surprising me.”
Hermione didn’t know what to say to that. She waited until she heard her past-self let out a deep breath, until she heard her roll off her reflection and land on her back, panting, to look.
Two bodies: one living, one dead. Hermione could only look at the reflection for a moment—her glassy eyes and throttled neck were too much to bear.
“My wand,” Hermione murmured, staring down at the remains of the two wands. “How the bloody hell did that work out? I definitely left with my wand…”
“You don’t have one now,” Tom murmured, nodding towards her past-self, who was still catching her breath. “And you said you passed this test?”
“Yes,” Hermione said stiffly. “I did.”
“Hm.”
Tom said no more. Hermione shared his sentiments, though—she felt in her gut that this test wasn’t nearly over, and now she was facing the rest of it without her wand.
How in the world had she passed?
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Hermione’s skin pricked with dread.
The next monstrosity that appeared emerged from a ring of shadows that had silently manifested to their right. It was, yet again, a creature like nothing Hermione had ever encountered before, and its presence was immediately terrifying, even as a memory. She backed away in a rush, nearly knocking over Tom in her haste to put distance between herself and this thing, despite knowing it could not touch her now.
What is it?
This unknown entity was humanoid—in fact, Hermione thought in horror, it might have even been human at one point. Its manlike body was tall, muscular, and bare, revealing all of its sickly grey skin. On its head was a cloth-like bandage that covered its eyes, and on it, scrawled in red, were what must have been hundreds of symbols, possibly runes, but they were too small to make out. It breathed through its mouth; it had no teeth. Its hair was long and sparse and its limbs a little too long, as though they had been pulled and stretched. It was covered in bruises as though it had been beaten, mottling the grey with violet, making the whole being resemble fruit gone bad.
What is it, what is it, what is it?
The Hermione in the memory looked as horrified as she felt now. She scrambled backwards as fast she could from the monster, though she was still breathing too hard to scream.
The monster didn’t seem to notice her. Could it not see? Its eyes were covered, so perhaps it was blind… It moved slowly, not once turning to look towards past-Hermione, though it must have been able to hear her moving and breathing…
No, it moved—with intention—towards the reflection.
Hermione and Tom both watched mutely as this most disturbing being went to the dead reflection, grabbed her roughly by the ankle, and dragged her away. Past-Hermione covered her mouth as she witnessed it, afraid and confused. It was taking the body back towards the shadowy ring it had come from. Her reflection’s limp limbs dragged behind her, as did her long, tangled hair. Her eyes were open and unseeing.
Then they were gone.
The monster had come to collect the body, it seemed, and perhaps that was all. Past-Hermione was clutching at her chest, clearly trying to slow her rapid breathing. The look of fear never wavered on her face, though, because the ring of shadows didn’t go away once they were gone. She stood, then looked at the ground where the broken wands remained. One was in two pieces, having broken completely in half, while the other was bent at a right angle but was held together by a vibrant, red cord. It reminded Hermione painfully of how Harry’s wand had once looked, its phoenix feather core exposed, barely keeping the holly connected.
“Fuck,” past-Hermione swore quietly.
The sound of ragged breathing, much like the monster’s had been, returned. Past-Hermione gasped and dove for the wand that was still in one piece—barely—and held it with both hands. She turned to face the shadowy ring, prepared to face that monstrous being again. Or as prepared as she could be, at least. Past-Hermione’s face was distressed as she nonetheless took on that familiar, defensive stance, a broken wand her only weapon.
The breathing grew louder. Hermione stared at the dark ring of blackness, feeling infinitely more afraid now than she had thus far, Tom alert and motionless at her side.
Whatever was coming next was bad. Very bad. Indescribably bad. Her heart was beating faster than it ever had, positively racing in anticipation. She had to fight the urge to run, even now. She had taken several more steps back without realizing it; Tom cast her a questioning glance.
An arm shot out from the shadows. Veiny, skeletal, bruised. It clawed at the black stones, moaning.
Skinnier than the last one, Hermione thought, feeling no less terrified by this. Tom had returned his attention to it as well as it emerged, a second arm joining the first and scraping its broken, yellow nails along the ground. Then a head, bowed low, with long, dark hair spilling over its bony shoulders…
A woman. Oh God—is it me?
The shock of realization shot through her like a bolt of lightning. Was this herself she was about to face, the dead reflection… now turned into an Inferus?
Past-Hermione held her broken wand a bit higher, and she remembered then, the twinge of something like relief mingled with her trepidation. Inferi, while horrifying, were not particular imposing, not if she could conjure fire—and if she could conjure anything without a proper wand, it was that.
But then why do I still feel so panicked? Hermione thought as she watched her past-self who was watching the body slowly emerge from the shadows, crawling and on its stomach. No, this was something worse, that much was beginning to come back to her, but what, she didn’t yet no—every fiber of her being was saying get out, get out, get out—
The creature, now halfway revealed, lifted its head. Two eyes, their whites a little yellowed and mottled, looking not at the Hermione of the past… but in opposite directions.
No.
Hermione couldn’t even scream, the horror was so great. Not now, and not then. Her past-self let out a shuddering, shrill gasp, eyes wide in disbelief, while she, Hermione, stumbled as she stepped back to retreat even further, and fell. The creature—the woman—pulled herself further into the light. Her hips canted to one side as she did, because she couldn’t slide flat on her stomach—it was too rounded, too swollen. Littered with broken blood vessels.
Her eyes rolled in her head, then settled singularly on the Hermione of the past.
Merope Gaunt.
It was an even more emaciated version of her, like she had already died and was crawling out of the grave itself for vengeance, and she was coming for her, here and now, and—
“Witch!” Her voice was high, searing. gargling and incoherent. But to Hermione, it was clear as day, an accusation and a curse. “Witch!”
The world blurred white.
Everything—Merope, the ring of shadows, the walls themselves—it all flashed with a mottled white, distorting everything around her. Everything except—
“Hermione!”
Tom was right there, kneeling in front of her, his face inches from her own. “Hermione!” he shouted again. “It’s okay, it’s okay—stop screaming, it’s not real—”
Hermione couldn’t control herself. She was screaming and crying and closing her eyes, shaking her head no, no, this could not be happening, she couldn’t not be here, not with Tom, he couldn’t be seeing this, no, no, no—the world flashed a brighter, more perilous white—
“HERMIONE!”
Tom had to physically shake her to get her to stop screaming. She inhaled deeply, and might have started up again if not for his hand quickly covering her mouth.
“It’s okay,” he said firmly. “Hermione—look at me, please.”
She couldn’t do it. Hermione could not look him in the eye, could not look at him and explain why she had seen her as she didn’t understand herself, but he was going to ask—no, demand—that she tell him everything that she had tried to do and she couldn’t, she—
“That will never happen to you.”
Hermione, still breathing heavily through her nose from her panic attack, didn’t understand. Tom took his hand away from her mouth and cupped her face. “Never. I will never let it be. Do you hear me?”
Hermione slowly opened her eyes. Tom’s face was serious and concerned as he began to wipe her tears away. “That will never be you,” he said again, much softer.
What…?
Hermione’s brain felt like it had short-circuited. She stared at Tom like she was staring at a beautiful stranger, some man saying kind words to her that made no sense at all.
She inhaled another long breath, trying to focus. That will never be you… Why would he say that? Why would he…?
He doesn’t know it’s his mother.
The realization finally clicked for her. He doesn’t know what he’s witnessing—of course he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what his mother looked like. Why would he? He never bothered to look for her, not in his uncle’s memories or anywhere, because he knew she was already dead. The matron at the orphanage had told him. She was weak, he’d grown up thinking. Weak to have died, to have left him.
He didn’t know that was her… but then what did he think he was seeing? That will never be you, I will never let it be…
Oh God, oh God.
Hermione remembered now. She knew what it was, even if her past-self hadn’t quite yet. Tom had figured it out even quicker, somehow.
It was a boggart.
Hermione’s worst fear, and God, of course it was her, but Tom—he must have thought it was something else, some kind of sick manifestation of a fear of—of pregnancy, of childbirth, of dying because of it.
And why wouldn’t he believe that could be her greatest fear? It was how his own mother, a witch, Slytherin’s heir, had died… He probably didn’t even understand what she was screaming over and over, her voice was so gravelly and garbled… Tom just saw a disturbing, dying, pregnant body, screeching incoherently, coming for her.
Hermione choked out an ugly sob. He pulled her to his chest. “It’s okay,” he said, stroking her hair. “I promise that will never happen to you.”
Hermione wailed louder than ever. Oh God, he didn’t know, he didn’t understand—Hermione was haunted by the memory of his pregnant mother whom she had tried and failed to kill when she should have tried to save her, but she hadn’t, and now here he was, comforting her while she cried into his chest, even though he hated that, and he didn’t know, he wouldn’t, if he did, he’d—
The world flashed brightly again. “Hermione, you have to breathe… you’re going to rupture the memory.”
Good, Hermione thought, but she was still sobbing much too hard to say it. She didn’t want to see anymore. She didn’t want to ever see Merope Gaunt again.
“You don’t have to watch, if you don’t want to,” Tom said calmly. “You can leave the memory, and I can—”
“No.”
Hermione pulled away from him, hurriedly swiping her tears away. “No,” she repeated. “I’m staying. I’m fine. I’m fine.”
She was about the furthest thing from fine that she had ever been. Tom looked disbelieving, but he didn’t press the issue. “Okay,” he said. He pushed her hair back from her face—frizzy curls that were so different from her past-self’s sleek, straight locks. “Then you have to calm yourself. You have to take a deep breath and allow the memory to play out.”
There was an unspoken implication there, something along the lines of ‘or else I will force you out and watch it alone’, so Hermione nodded. She wiped at her face again, took a deep breath, then another.
It’s okay. He doesn’t know what it is. I can just let him think he’s right. Probably. Unless—no. It’s going to be fine. He’s not going to find out.
She didn’t really believe it, but Hermione told herself this over and over. Slowly, the debilitating white haze dispersed, and the memory came back into view.
“Better,” Tom said. He stood, then offered his hand to her. Hermione took it, and after he pulled her up he wrapped her in his arms. She wasn’t sure if she found it more comforting or suffocating.
“Witch!”
Past-Hermione was bloodless with shock and fear. She didn’t seem to have comprehended how she was seeing Merope Gaunt yet, and was on the precipice of pure panic.
“No!” she screamed, lifting the broken wand. “No, no—!”
Flames. They exploded in her hands, firing from both openings of the broken wand. One blast like a fireball went upwards, spiraling into the endless, black abyss, and the other—
Past-Hermione screamed as it ignited in her hands.
She screamed, dropping the wand, but too late—the flame had caught on the hem of her robes, encircling her wrists with fire. Hermione dropped to the ground and started to beat her fists against it, madly stamping out the fire as best she could. It was painful to watch—Hermione winced and held her hands to her chest at the recollection, of that ghostly sensation of her skin blistering and burning.
Thankfully, past-Hermione managed to put them out before they got too far. Her sleeves were fringed and smoking and her hands were badly burned, very badly—much worse than when she had caught the cottage’s curtains on fire—but it could have been worse.
“Witch!”
Merope had dragged herself close to Hermione while she’d been distracted. Her jaw was unhinged when she screamed and her stomach—it moved—
“No, stay away, stay away!” past-Hermione screamed. She tried to push herself up but fell at once, crying out as her burnt hands failed her. She swung herself up with her legs, her breathing wild as she fled from Merope, cradling her hands, weeping—
Then, she sighed.
Her past-self let out a very strangely placed sigh of relief, and Hermione saw why. Her hands had begun to heal themselves. She held them out and they all watched as the skin, which had been an unsettling shade of shiny red, swollen and blistering, became normal again. The blisters smoothed out, the red turned pink and then the color of her unmarred skin.
It happened relatively quickly. Perhaps a few minutes, and her hands were as good as new.
Looking mildly invigorated, past-Hermione turned her attention back to the screeching horror on the ground—but then a voice rang out.
“Hang on,” came the booming tenor of Lester Madison. It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. “Let’s see that again.”
Everything froze. Past-Hermione, Merope. It was like someone had hit pause on a television program. Hermione felt Tom’s arms tighten around her shoulders.
“Look,” Hermione gasped, pointing to the side.
The statues had begun to glow. And they were close enough to the edge of the arena now they she could make out what they were—small, cat-like creatures made of dark grey stone, except they had two heads, one facing in each direction, towards each other. The glow was coming from their eyes; all four of them on each statue was alight with a dull gold.
They opened their mouths. A flurry of golden dust came out of each of the cat’s right mouths, and the second that strange glittering substance appeared, everything started moving again… in reverse.
The pause had been switched to rewind. Merope’s disjointed body moved backwards, crawling in an impossible, bizarre way, and past-Hermione… she was staring at her hands, going from relieved to pained again as her skin seemed to blossom with bloody blisters…
It went on until past-Hermione was once more holding her broken wand, having relieved the explosive fire scorching her before those same flames retracted back into the walnut. The golden dust that had been floating from one feline mouth was now gone, having been eaten whole by the left mouth of its neighbor cat. Time-sand, Hermione thought it awe. It had to be.
There was another disorienting pause when nothing moved, like the arena itself was holding its breath, and then everything started up again. The scene unfolded exactly as it had before.
“Incredible,” Tom murmured in her ear. Hermione held onto his forearm and nodded. It was incredible. Even in the Department of Mysteries, she had never seen time move like that in a single space, so controlled, so methodically.
Past-Hermione sighed in relief as her burns once more healed. They had caught back up.
“Now that was interesting.”
A strange rippling distorted the sky. Then, to Hermione’s great shock, Lester Madison himself came falling from it as though he had just jumped from the top of the wall. He landed beside her, catlike, then rose fluidly to his feet.
He smiled. “We need to talk about that,” he said, pointing at her hands.
“Lester!”
Another voice, that of a woman’s, echoed in the arena. “You can’t interrupt!”
Madison looked up towards the blackness. “I can, and I am, and—hold on, I can’t think with this thing groaning at us.”
He moved towards the disjointed body of Merope, which was indeed still moaning, still crawling and clawing at the ground, reaching for Hermione. The second Madison was in front of it, it rose up, changing, growing longer and taller. It never stopped groaning, but the voice shifted halfway through its transformation, becoming much deeper, until…
It’s that other monster, Hermione saw. The demented body of Merope had become a creature almost exactly like the one that had dragged her reflection away, with its face covered by that rune-riddled cloth, only this one had, oddly enough…
Is that a tattoo?
It was. This monster had a tattoo across its chest—a massive eagle, it seemed, extremely lifelike. Above its spread-wide wings were the words, ‘PROPERTY OF THE MACUSA’ in bold, black ink.
Madison scoffed at it. He pulled out his wand, flicked it lazily, and shouted “Riddikulus!”
There was a flash of light, and suddenly the grotesque, nude thing was wearing a bright pink party dress, a blonde wig, and some wildly tall heels. It looked down at itself, confused.
“Ha, ha, ha!” Madison shouted. The boggart backed away ungracefully. “Well?” said Madison, looking at past-Hermione. “Help me out here. Laugh it up. Ha, ha!”
Hermione’s past self looked like she’d just been asked to do the impossible. “H-ha,” she said weakly.
Madison laughed much more heartily at that. The boggart turned and ran away, retreating into the ring of shadows, which vanished once it had gone.
“City’s riddled with those fuckers,” Madison said. “One of our little mottos here at the MACUSA, especially among the Oculos: Is this really a nightmare, or is it a goddamned boggart?”
He laughed again. “Mind, they’re much harder to deal with when you don’t have a proper wand. And you went and destroyed yours! That was fun, I enjoyed that.”
“Lester!”
The woman’s voice rang through the arena again. “Stop interfering! She’s not even halfway through—”
“Don’t lecture me about the test, I made the test! I am the test!” Madison called back, looking annoyed. “So let me do my job, will you? There’s something interesting happening here.”
He grinned at Hermione again. “Don’t mind them, they’re just uncomfortable when anything deviates from their precious routines.”
Past-Hermione appeared to be stunned. She was staring, her eyes wide and face pale, at Madison, as though she couldn’t really believe he was there.
Hermione now remembered exactly how she had felt. He’d seen her body heal itself. He was going to have questions, of course he was, because of course he and the other examiners were watching everything she did. And now she was thinking, how am I going to explain this?
Well, she knew she didn’t let on that she was an illegal time-traveler, because he hadn’t seemed to know that when he’d questioned her. So what the hell did she say?
“Hey,” Madison said. His smile became a little softer, and he patted past-Hermione on the shoulder. “It’s all right. That boggart of yours was something else, I’ll say that. But I won’t ask. And I won’t disqualify you for failing there, either—since you broke your own wand. I wasn’t lying, I really enjoyed that. Inspired stuff, what you did to the dopple, haven’t seen anyone physically kill one of those in a long time. So. How about some good news to cheer you up?”
He flicked his wand towards Hermione’s broken one—the one that was in two separate pieces. “This was your original, by the way,” he said. “Come here.”
Past-Hermione followed him as he led her towards the edge of the arena. “Sir… Mr. Madison,” past-Hermione asked. Her face was regaining some of its color. “I have questions.”
“I’m sure you have about a thousand. But this is the practical, so… oh, fine. One question. Just because I like your spirit.”
He winked at her. Past-Hermione hesitated, looking contemplative—wondering what question to ask, what might he actually answer?—before she said, “What were those things? Those humanoid creatures with the wrappings around their eyes…”
And her unasked but implied question, why was one of them your greatest fear?
Madison’s smile slid away. “Reapers,” he answered darkly. “Horrible things.”
“Reapers… Are those like Inferi?”
“Yes and no. Similar magic used to create them, really dark, deplorable stuff… but no, not really. They’re not animated corpses.”
He paused. His eyes took on a distant quality when he added, “They are very much alive.”
Then he was smiling widely again, motioning for her to come closer. He held her broken wand between two of the cat-like sculptures. “Now watch closely,” he said. “This is a fun magic trick.”
He flicked his wrist towards one of them, and the cat’s eyes began to glow. He dropped her wand, and the two pieces floated, moving to hover between two cats. Madison flicked his wrist again, and that gold dust left one mouth—the first cat’s right—and hovered, sparkling as it went, towards its neighbor cat’s. It coated her wand, and Hermione watched, as amazed now as she had been then, as it went back together, as though…
“It’s breaking in reverse,” past-Hermione breathed. “It’s going back in time, fixing itself…”
“Yes,” Madison said. The gold dust was swallowed up, and when it was gone he plucked her beautiful, whole wand from the air. “Which is exactly what happened to you.”
So this is how he knows, Hermione thought. They’ve discovered how to use time-sand in a similar way, in a controlled environment… but they haven’t figured out how to enchant a living being with it. No wonder they want me so badly. I’m the answer to a mystery they’ve been trying to solve.
Madison handed her the walnut wand handle first. Past-Hermione took it warily, like perhaps it was another test.
“Thank you,” she said, looking relieved to have it back in her hands. She held the wand to her chest. “Thank you so much.”
“Everyone gets one fuck up,” Madison said, shrugging.
“I really thought I’d lost my wand for good.” Past-Hermione looked from her fixed wand down to the strange, cat-like statues. “How is that possible? What are those things?”
“I said you get one question. Now it’s my turn." Madison glanced down at her perfectly healed hands and asked, “How’s that possible?”
Past-Hermione laughed too quickly, in a way that sounded more forced than when she had been told to laugh at the boggart. “Just another fun magic trick,” she said.
But Hermione remembered this now, too. Internally, she had been panicking. Badly.
“Is that so,” Madison murmured. He smirked as though amused by her refusal to tell him. “Well, then. I can’t wait to find out more once you’re under me. Congratulations, you passed.”
“Lester!”
Madison glared up at the darkness again. “What?”
“You can’t say that yet!” It sounded to Hermione like it was the same witch who kept yelling at him, though she recalled there being several examiners. “It’s much too soon!”
“Sure I can. Did you see the way she killed the white wolf instantly? How she killed the dopple like a raving no-maj? She’s passing.”
“You know you can’t pass her until she at least does the—”
“Oh, fine, fine.” Madison interrupted the unseeable woman with a wave of his hand, then turned his attention back to Hermione. “Well, doll, as much as I would love to send you on your way right now, there is one more thing you have to show us you can do. Absolutely non-negotiable skill, sad to say. Don’t hold it against me. Them’s the rules and all that.”
“Er… okay,” said past-Hermione slowly. “What do you want me—”
“Imperio.”
He struck so quickly that she didn’t dodge in time, though she had tried. Past-Hermione twisted to the side, but too late—the flicker of deceitfully benign magic struck her on the side, and her shocked face went slack, her eyes quickly glossing over.
Watching this, Hermione’s face flamed with a blush. Oh no, she thought. She couldn’t recall what happened here yet, but she could feel in her heart that it was embarrassing, and…
Why did Tom have to watch this?
“Hmm…”
Madison started to walk around her past self at a measured pace, examining her. “What shall we have you do… Well, there’s no need for that, for starters. You can put that away.”
Past-Hermione pocketed her wand without question.
“That’s better. Now, how about we get to know each other, hm?” Madison raised his hand towards her and bowed slightly at the waist. “Shall we?”
Past-Hermione took his hand. Madison tugged at her, and she twirled into him, his arms finding themselves around her waist.
They were dancing. Very close, very indecently close.
Tom’s hold became uncomfortably tight.
“So, Hermione,” Madison said as he guided her in a ballroom type dance, something that he was very good at, and now, under the Imperius curse, she was as well. Her eyes remained vacant as they moved. “Tell me—what’s your favorite color?”
“Blue,” answered Hermione at once. “Brilliant, deep blue. Like when the light comes through stained glass.”
“Oh?” Madison turned her sharply; Hermione’s body reacted like she was a professional, never missing a step. “That’s specific. Why that blue?”
“Because I would see it in the windows of the church I grew up by,” she answered. Eyes glassy, face blank. “It usually looked bluer than the sky, somehow. I loved that.”
Hermione held her breath as she watched them dancing, her heart beating wildly. Did she give something too specific away about her past here? If she did, there was nothing she could do to stop Tom from hearing it—he had her caged so tightly in his arms.
“I see,” said Madison. “Hm… How about your favorite subject in school? Tell me what that was.”
“Arithmancy.”
“Why arithmancy?”
“Because it was very difficult, and my friends couldn’t understand it, but I could, and I was the best in my class. I liked being the best.”
Madison laughed, then sent her out from his arms, twirling away—but he kept hold of one of her hands. “And do you still like being the best?” he asked while she was stretched away from him.
“Yes,” she answered. Her gaze was still empty, looking somewhere over his head. “I do.”
Madison laughed again, then pulled her, spinning, back into his arms, where she ended up with her back against his chest. “What else, what else,” he said as he rocked her back and forth. He grinned devilishly, then leaned into her ear when he asked, “Do you think I’m attractive, Hermione?”
“Lester! That’s wildly inappropriate!”
“Hermione, tell Martha to shut up.”
“Shut up, Martha,” past-Hermione said robotically.
“With some feeling, please.”
“Shut the fuck up, Martha!” past-Hermione screamed. “Shut the fuck up!”
Madison threw his head back and roared with laughter. “See, Martha?” he called. “Even she wants you to pipe down. I didn’t instruct her to swear, that was all her.”
The woman—Martha, apparently—did not respond. “So, Hermione,” Madison went on. He spun her around again so that they were facing each other, still dancing. “Tell me—do you think I’m attractive?”
Past-Hermione’s face took on the first bit of expression since the Imperius curse had been cast. She frowned a little, looking a bit like she was struggling…
But then she answered. “Yes,” she said. “Objectively, you are a handsome man.”
Hermione swore she felt Tom’s muscles tense around her even more. She didn’t dare look at him; she barely dared to breathe.
What was he thinking, listening to this, watching this?
“Oh, objectively, hm?” Madison responded as their dance continued. “I suppose I’ll take it. Now dip.”
He tilted her back. Hermione dipped in his arms, her spine curving back and her hair spilling over his arm, brushing the ground.
“Lower,” he said. She arched more. Her spine was curving too much; Hermione recalled it, how she had felt her body protest and yet hadn’t been able to disobey.
“Hold yourself up,” Madison said. Past-Hermione put her arm down so that her fingertips touched the ground. “Now stay.”
Madison let her go and stepped away. Past-Hermione was now in a precarious U-bend, holding herself in a position she was certain she never could have held so easily on her own.
But she did. She stayed perfectly still, moving only to breathe, her face once more listless.
“Impressive,” Madison commented as he looked at her. “Well, physically. Mentally, I’m starting to get worried.”
He stared at her for a long time, seeming content to leave her there. He started to pace around her again, tapping his chin with his wand as he did. “Maybe you like being controlled,” he said conversationally. “It’s not that uncommon. I don’t really blame you either, sweetie. It’s nice to not have to make decisions. I get it. Sadly, if you can’t snap out of this on your own, I won’t get to keep you.”
Madison walked until he was a bit farther away, then paused, facing her. Hermione’s past self hadn’t moved an inch, but her body was beginning to tremble. “Maybe you need a bit more motivation,” he murmured.
He tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. “Get on your hands and knees,” he commanded.
Past-Hermione did.
“Crawl over here.”
She did.
“Slower. And look at me while you do it.”
Hermione watched herself obey each of these orders, mortified, but when her past-self looked up, she saw that flickering conflict in her eyes. Fighting.
Madison must have seen it too, because he smiled crookedly. He waited until she was before him, then said, “Now kiss my boots and tell me how much you like being my slave.”
Past-Hermione’s face twisted. She was on her hands and knees in front of him, and though she maintained eye contact as she’d been instructed she was also frowning, her brows furrowing—she lowered her head, pressing her lips to the tops of his boots while looking at him, nearly glaring. She opened her mouth.
“I…”
She took a deep breath, then screamed.
It was not a scream of terror, but of pure, obvious rage. Past-Hermione shouted in anger for all she was worth and she pushed on Madison’s leg, trying to knock him over, perhaps. The second her hand touched the fabric of his pants, there was a flicker of light.
“There she is!”
Madison looked and sounded delighted. Then, in a jarringly quick movement, he reached down, grabbed her by the wrist of the hand she was trying to burn him with, and yanked her up.
Hermione gasped as she watched what happened next. It had all gone so quickly at the time, she hadn’t really known exactly what he’d done… but she saw it now.
Madison grabbed her wrist, pulled her up, and flung her completely up and over his head, swinging her all the way around and then slamming her down on her back behind him. The only thing that had stopped it from being a truly devastating blow was that he did something magical to make her slow just before she hit the ground, softening the impact—to a degree. Past-Hermione still made an awful blanching sound when she landed, having the wind knocked out of her.
Madison was on her before she could inhale a proper breath. He had one boot on her wand arm, pinning it down, while her other wrist was still in his grasp. He knelt over her waist and his wand was pointed at her chest.
Something was smoking. Madison glanced down to see that his pantleg was starting to catch fire where she had grabbed him. He looked annoyed, then blew a puff of air at it. A gust of magic flowed over the newborn flames, and they vanished, effectively put out.
He looked back to past-Hermione, who seemed dazed. “Fiery thing, aren’t you?” he said. “Well, congratulations, you fought off the Imperius curse. Now not even Martha can yell at me for deciding you pass.”
Past-Hermione took a ragged breath and began to cough. She glared at him when she was done. “Get—get off,” she said in a broken voice, the fury manifesting on her face.
“Oh, but we’re not done playing yet,” Madison said. “The point of this test is to push you to your limits. You clearly haven’t been pushed to yours yet. I want to see just how far that fun little magic trick of yours can go… I have a theory, but I want to test it out, here…”
Hermione’s ears suddenly began to ring, and she couldn’t breathe.
Madison pushed his wand harder into her past-self’s sternum. “I’m afraid this is going to hurt,” he said, though he didn’t look too apologetic. “I promise that whatever I do to you, I’ll fix it, if I have to. But I have a feeling I won’t need to do much.”
Past-Hermione opened her mouth, surely to ask, but she never got the chance.
His wandtip burned. A stinging heat ignited on her, some magic that had gone straight through her robes, annihilating a small hole in them in an instant. Past-Hermione gasped and looked down, and—
No, no, please no—
Her past-self’s screams were high and horrid, and they were very short lived. Whatever curse Madison had struck her with, it had eaten away at her clothes and skin like they were nothing, like a colorless and imperceptible acid. It incinerated her body, burning through her as easily as a flame through tissue paper, consuming her flesh, and within seconds her screaming had stopped because…
No lungs.
Her lungs were gone, as was her heart, as was every bit of living tissue between the tip of Madison’s wand and her spine. It was like a giant scoop had been removed from her body from her chest to the bottom of her rib cage, leaving nothing but the bones behind, which looked as cleanly bare as though they’d been dipped in acid. She was empty. It was painless.
Past-Hermione’s face was pure shock, an expression that showed she clearly couldn’t comprehend what Madison had just done. Because she hadn’t been able to, not for a few seconds.
She remembered.
The arena flashed white.
“Hermione! Stop!”
She remembered the sensation of being gutted, of screaming in her mind and with her lips but having no lungs with which to draw in air; she remembered the way it felt to not feel her pulse racing, to know she had minutes at best before she passed out, before she died.
She remembered the way she struggled at first, the way she was struggling now in the memory which flashed and blurred. She remembered how she hadn’t been able to move beneath him, and how the ability to fight had left her within seconds regardless.
“Hermione, control yourself, breathe!”
She remembered staring at Madison, begging him with her eyes—stop this, save me, save me, save me—and how he hadn’t even looked at her face once, as he was so focused on her chest, waiting.
“Hermione!”
She and Tom were on the ground again. Hermione didn’t recall falling, didn’t know how they got there. He held her face with both hands. “Stay with me,” he said. “Breathe.”
Looking at him, at Tom, Hermione managed to inhale a slow breath. The world around them, which was flashing chaotically, became a little calmer. He nodded encouragingly. “Good,” he said. “Good. And another…”
Before Hermione could try, a blood-curdling cry caused her and Tom both to look.
Madison had moved away from her, was now standing as he stared with fascination. Past-Hermione had begun to heal. It was a grotesque sight—bloody, raw flesh was building itself out of thin air, regrowing at a rapid pace in the opposite order in which Madison had destroyed them. Her lungs had just recreated themselves, and Hermione watched as the bloody, pink organs inflated beneath what was surely her heart, rapidly reforming as well, connected by vibrant veins that were multiplying, and she screamed.
She remembered this part well, because this was when she felt the pain.
Screaming and flashing, blinding white. Tom’s hands on her and around her, shouting something, but she couldn’t hear. All Hermione could think was, make it stop, make it stop. Because this wasn’t the end, she thought. There was more. She didn’t want to relive it, she couldn’t, she—
“Hermione?”
Hermione opened her eyes.
Tom was hovering over her, his face close to hers. He looked… worried.
“Huh? What—?”
Hermione’s head pounded the second she tried to sit up. Tom held her in place by the shoulders. “You shouldn’t move,” he said. “Lay back down.”
Had she been laying down? Confused, Hermione allowed him to push her gently onto the couch until she was on her back, her head propped up on a pillow. “What… what happened?” she asked. Her head was ringing in pain.
“If I had to guess,” Tom said, “it would seem that you couldn’t help yourself. You must have thought too much about how to fix your memory, because you suddenly started yelling, grabbing your head.” He sat at her side, perching himself on the edge of the couch. “You passed out,” he finished.
“Oh,” said Hermione. “Oh, shit. Damn it, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean to, I—oof.”
A wave of aching pain washed over her; Hermione closed her eyes and winced.
“It’s okay,” Tom said. He held one of her hands in his. “You’re okay, now.”
Hermione made a wordless humming sound in response. She laid there, suffering in silence until the pain ebbed away. She opened her eyes once it had passed, but was careful not to move too suddenly.
A spark of light. The Pensieve—Hermione could see that the memory within it was still flashing angrily, a whirlwind of broken thoughts raging in the basin.
“No luck yet, then?” she asked in a mumble. She closed her eyes again; she felt completely drained.
“No.” Tom started to run his fingertips against her scalp, careful and gentle. It felt nice. “I don’t think I’ll be able to, either. There’s some very questionable curses tied up in it…”
“Hmmm.” Hermione leaned into his hand, coaxing him to massage a bit harder. He did. “That’s a shame,” she said, though she wasn’t sure it was. Probably best that he not see whatever happened to me during the test, even if I would like to know what happened.
Who knew what she said or did, then?
“…Yes,” Tom finally said at length. He placed a chaste kiss to her forehead, then continued stroking her scalp. “Yes, a real shame.”
Chapter 63: The Stupidest Cage
Chapter Text
Tom put the Pensieve away.
Hermione had dozed off on the couch, sleeping off her headache, and when she’d woken up it was no longer in the middle of the room. He’d moved it to the corner, beside the coat rack, where it looked infinitely less foreboding without her broken memory swirling around inside the basin.
She didn’t know where he’d stored that, though she could guess.
Hermione had been surprised to see that, just as she’d been surprised to wake up to the smell of cooking. Warm and hearty food being prepared, the likes of which she hadn’t enjoyed in a long time. Tom had, evidently, brought back quite a bit of vegetables and meat, as well as an enchanted container that kept fresh food good for a long time.
He could also cook, it would seem. Hermione had missed most of it, and she was disappointed that she had. She had a hard time imagining Tom doing something as mundane as cutting vegetables or boiling water—even if he would probably do so with an unnecessary amount of magic, like he was now. She watched as he oversaw a pot that was stirring itself, simmering over a flame he lowered with a flick of his wand. At least he put his shirt back on, she thought wryly—though she surely would have enjoyed watching him more if he hadn’t.
“You’re up.”
He said it without turning to look at her. Hermione sat up a bit straighter on the couch. “Er, yeah,” she said. “I am.” She stood. A glance out the window told her that the sun was setting. “How long was I out…?”
“A little over an hour,” Tom answered as he extinguished the flame beneath the pot. “Come in here and sit. You should eat.”
Then he was waving his wand again, and Hermione watched as a ladle, bowls and spoons floated around the room, flying out of cabinets before filling themselves with stew and landing neatly on the little round table.
Tom sat. He pocketed his wand, lifted his spoon, and blew over the top of it before eating.
Hermione was frozen in place.
“What?” Tom said when she didn’t move. “Are you not hungry? You should be. You could probably use real sustenance by now.”
“I… sort of, yes,” Hermione said. She still hesitated.
Tom lowered his spoon. “What’s the problem then? What, do you still think I might be trying to secretly dose you with some potion? Or is eating something I’ve made beneath you?”
“What? No, that’s not—” Hermione shook her head and sat across from him at the table. “That’s not it at all. It’s just that—you made us dinner. We’re eating dinner together.”
He stared at her, uncomprehending. “We’ve… never done that before,” she finished lamely. She lowered her head and picked up her spoon.
It wasn’t as though she hadn’t made him a meal before herself; it wasn’t as though they’d never eaten together—though she’d felt anxious then, too. There was just… something about dinner, she supposed, and the fact that he’d cooked it, that felt more… datelike. Which was preposterous and silly and she felt rather stupid for having said anything at all.
Tom didn’t respond, either. In her periphery vision, she could tell that he had paused for a moment, but then he went back to eating. Hermione took a small bite as well.
“Oh!” she said after she’d swallowed. “It’s spicy.”
“I suppose it is,” Tom said, which told Hermione that to him, this was mild. “Is that… bad?”
“No, no, spicy is fine. Good,” Hermione said. “Only surprised me is all. I wouldn’t have guessed that about you.”
“I can like spicy food.”
“Right. Of course you can. I’ll file that information away in my mental filing cabinet,” she said, grinning. “In the ‘Tom Riddle’s dietary preferences’ section. He likes spicy food. He likes Aeternum. He likes sweets, particularly sugar quills.”
At the sound of Tom’s spoon dropping, Hermione grinned much wider. “What?” he said. “Sugar quills? How…?”
She saw the realization dawn on his face. “You shouldn’t keep them in your bedside table,” Hermione chided, unable to stop herself. “Eating sugar before bed is terrible for your teeth.”
Was it wise to remind him that she had gone through his personal things while in his flat? Hermione knew the answer was a resounding no, and yet here she was, doing exactly that.
Tom’s face twisted in a mess of conflicting emotions; shock and anger and then—there it was. Though his eyes had narrowed into a glare, he was blushing.
Worth it, Hermione thought even as she braced herself. She was beginning to think that there was nothing she liked more than seeing Tom’s face turn pink.
“You—you shouldn’t have—”
For a moment, Hermione feared the worst—but then Tom stopped talking. He took a deep breath through his nose instead and smiled coldly afterwards. “Yes. A terrible habit,” he said evenly. “But far from my worst.”
He went back to eating. Hermione, effectively unnerved, did not respond.
They ate in silence for a time. Hermione kept her eyes trained on her food, wondering if this was the most awkward dinner date in the world. Maybe it wasn’t worth it, she thought, annoyed at herself. He was only trying to fix my memory, after all, when I went and passed out because I couldn’t not think about it… then he made us both dinner, which was… nice…
But then she remembered that he was keeping her hostage here, had recently reminded her that he was her master (in his eyes, of course) by forcing her to kneel to him, and had been a right bastard to her in the bedroom… and she felt marginally more justified.
“Aren’t you going to ask?”
Hermione was surprised to see that Tom had already finished eating; his bowl was empty and his spoon set down. He was looking at her intently.
“Er… ask what?”
“What my much worse habits are.”
“I don’t think I need to,” Hermione responded drily. “I’d say killing people is up there.”
“Murdering is not a habit of mine,” Tom said, as though pointing out something harmless. “A habit is something one does regularly, often as part of their routine. It’s their typical behavior. I don’t wake up every morning, shower, make my tea, and kill someone.”
He laughed. Hermione didn’t join in.
“So?” he prodded. “Aren’t you going to ask me?”
“…No,” Hermione said at length. “If only because you clearly want me to, which means you’ve already come up with an answer that has some underhanded purpose, and I don’t feel like walking into your trap.”
Tom shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
He stood and flicked his wand this way and that, cleaning dishes with hardly any effort at all. Hermione doubted that Mrs. Weasley was half as handy with a cleaning charm as Tom was.
She flinched when he then pointed his wand at her. “Hurry up,” he said, jabbing it towards her bowl but casting nothing. “We have work to do.”
Hermione didn’t argue, only did as she was told and finished her stew. The second she had, Tom hovered her dishes off the table and had them cleaned and put away before she was even properly on her feet.
“You’re very good at that,” she said as the cabinets all closed. The kitchen looked spotless. “Cleaning spells, I mean.”
“I’m very good at everything,” Tom said. “Now come over here and take your clothes off.”
“What—excuse me?”
“You heard me. Strip.”
Hermione’s face went red-hot. “I’m not—you can’t I just demand that I—that isn’t how this works, Tom—”
“I’m not trying to fuck you,” Tom said, and she suspected he was on the verge of rolling his eyes he sounded so cavalier. “I want to examine your scars. Try something. That’s what we’re doing now, remember? I want to see them again… properly. Take those off.”
He gestured at her oversized clothes. Hermione instinctively wrapped her arms around her midsection. “Right now?” she asked. “What—?”
She realized a beat too late that what she was about to say was stupid. She’d thought he was going to demand more memories from her after they’d eaten, ones that weren’t damaged and would be infinitely more damning, and yet… he wasn’t. If he doesn’t want to, I shouldn’t bloody well remind him.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Tom said, tilting his head towards the Pensieve. “Don’t think for a second that I have. I’ve merely… reordered our priority list. And right now, examining your mysterious scars is at the very top. So don’t make me tell you again.”
He took a step towards her, advancing.
“Wait, just—wait.” Hermione took a deep breath, resisting the immediate urge she always had when Tom took on that predatory stance: to run.
He’s going to do it anyway, she thought. And he is probably being perfectly honest, too. He just wants to examine them. Fine. Completely fine. Not stressful or nefarious at all. Maybe even helpful.
Hardly believing herself, Hermione did as he commanded. She pulled the t-shirt up and over her head, tossing it on the couch, then slid the sweatpants down around her ankles. She stepped out of them, threw them on top of the discarded shirt, and faced Tom again. Ignoring the burning on her face that had grown twice as hot, she put her arms out wide as if to say, Here you go.
To his credit, Tom’s eyes did not stray to any particular part of her body like she thought they would. His focus zeroed in almost at once on her neck, and when he moved closer it was only to push her braid onto her other shoulder so he could see it more clearly. Hermione repressed a shiver when his fingers grazed her skin; if he noticed, he didn’t comment on it.
Then he was doing exactly what he’d said he would. Tom studied her scars, spending a long time examining the spot on her neck where she had first been struck. Aside from moving her hair, he didn’t touch her—only looked and looked, his eyes narrowed as they followed the looping curves, his brows furrowed… His scrutinizing gaze then went to her shoulder, then her arm, then across her chest and torso…
It was agonizing, really, to be examined so closely. The silence with which he did it was even worse, not to mention the fact that he was holding his wand, seemingly ready to use it for something yet never doing anything.
Hermione let it go on as long as she could stand—which felt like a lifetime, but which probably only equated to about five minutes. “Well?” she said. “What are you thinking?”
Tom—who was behind her, staring only God knew where—didn’t respond at first. He stayed quiet, presumably deep in thought, then shifted so that he was at her side. “I’m thinking,” he murmured, his brows still furrowed, “that this is even more complicated than I’d first assumed.”
“Oh?” Hermione’s voice came out unnaturally high. She cleared her throat. “And why do you say that?”
He touched her neck again, much more intentionally than the first time. “Because these scars aren’t merely growing outward,” he said. “Though they are certainly doing that. The one on your ankle is the tiniest bit longer than the last time I looked, which means others most likely are, too… but what’s really perplexing is what is happening here.”
He traced a loop on the side of her throat. “There’s more lines here than there were before. Thinner ones, some of them nearly imperceptible… and though there’s a greater number of those here, there’s some here too, and here…”
He followed a pattern down to her shoulder, then danced his fingers along her clavicle. Hermione’s traitorous heart sped beneath his touch; she wondered if he could feel it.
“Yeah,” she said, swallowing hard. “Yes, I’ve noticed that too.”
His eyes met hers. They were frighteningly cold.
“…Have you.”
He said the words so quietly, with so little inflection, yet Hermione found herself wincing despite their softness. It felt like she’d just been docked fifty points by a deeply disappointed professor, the implied accusations dangling in the air, unspoken.
And yet you’ve done no research? No attempt at all to discover what this is? No homework, no studying, not a single trip to the library, nothing?
Tom turned his attention back to her scars. “So this magic is not only growing out… it’s expanding inward, it’s growing more tendrils, almost like a… like a plant in a pot, maybe. Like vines.”
“Like Devil’s Snare,” Hermione agreed. He looked at her again, his eyes slightly less hostile. “I had that thought, too.”
“…I’ve never heard of anything like it,” he said, not for the first time.
“Me either.”
He held her gaze for a moment, then moved so abruptly her whole body twitched. He was pacing around her, his eyes roving over her body as he went, up and down, up and down. “Which makes this far more intriguing,” he said as he circled her. “If they were merely spreading in a predictable fashion, then I could think of a number of ways to track that, to see how long until your other wrist and foot are covered as well—but this, these new, tiny lines growing—that leads me to believe it’s not so simple as a curse attempting to complete its arc. Theoretically, if it’s spreading like this—multiplying, like Devil’s Snare—that could go on and on. There could be no end to this.”
He stopped in front of her. “Perhaps I have the wrong way of it,” he said, clearly speaking to himself, his eyes still moving along her scarred skin. “Perhaps I’ve been looking in the wrong places, and this is not a curse at all… perhaps one of my other theories was closer. Or it’s something else yet.”
“Other theories?” Hermione asked. “Such as…?”
Tom’s lips quirked into a smile. “I had a number of them. For a while, I was almost convinced you must be something other than human… that you were some creature, or at least part-creature; that you were a rare, perhaps even undiscovered, being… a cousin of a siren, or maybe a bloody succubus, I told myself; surely that had to be it.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “I didn’t entirely dismiss that idea until recently, if I’m being honest.”
“A creature?” Hermione asked, shocked at this supposed theory. “Is that—oh, is that why you kept asking me what I was?”
Tom nodded. “But I now know with certainty that you are, in fact, entirely human. I ran a test on you when I brought you back, after the diadem. Just to be sure. I hope you don’t mind.”
“There’s a test for that? Gods, is there anything else you’ve done to me while I’ve been passed out, Tom?”
“Besides examine you and make sure you’re not a succubus? No, not at all. I’m very chivalrous like that.” He smiled in that infuriating, crooked way that told Hermione he was lying… probably.
He reached for her neck again, his focus falling back to the scars. “Part of me was a little disheartened to learn that, truthfully,” he said.
Hermione bristled; he pulled away. “Disheartened?” she repeated. In what world did Tom Riddle wish he’d come across a part-creature? “Well, I’m so sorry to disappoint you. Just a mere mortal over here.”
“Ah… You misunderstand me,” Tom said. “Discovering you were undeniably human, that you were a witch, completely and irrevocably… that was not what was disappointing. It was me. My behavior, my obsession. It meant I didn’t have an excuse for it. I wasn’t potentially being charmed or seduced in an unnatural way by some creature I couldn’t understand.”
His eyes flickered to her mouth. He swallowed hard enough that she could see it, the way his throat bobbed. “It meant I was enamored all on my own.”
Hermione’s heart was pounding again. She stared at his lips, could feel herself leaning into him. It was disgusting, she thought, how quickly her anger could turn into something else around him. She became acutely aware that she was naked again—she had somehow managed to forget for a second—and hated that this kept happening. She wanted to shove him against the wall and rip his clothes off, too.
She wanted to kiss him, roughly, madly. She wanted him to kiss her even more.
“…But the mere mortal part. That may be debatable.”
Tom started to pace around her again, speaking as though he had not made any grand confessions. “If these lines continue to grow, breaking off into tendrils that are smaller and smaller, then perhaps it’s like I said, and there is no end in sight… perhaps you have no end in sight.”
He paused to trace a loop on her shoulder. “This magic… this time-sand… now that I’ve thought about it more, now that I know more… If such magic were killing you, then surely the MACUSA would have found that out, and they wouldn’t have been so interested in you. It also seems unlikely that they would have let you go after that test if they weren’t certain you’d come back as a willing, subservient pawn, if they weren’t certain that whatever was in your blood was keeping you from harm… because that’s what it does, doesn’t it? It seems relatively dormant most of the time—it doesn’t interfere with your digestion, for example; it doesn’t disrupt your normal physiology…”
“Or my mind,” Hermione added. “I’ve always wondered why it doesn’t seem to affect my mind…”
She shivered suddenly. Tom wrapped his arms around her shoulders at once, caging her naked form, her back against his chest.
“Can’t I just put my clothes back on, now?” she asked weakly.
It didn’t surprise her much when Tom ignored that question, choosing to respond to her previous comment instead. “I, on the other hand, assumed it was not affecting you mentally the moment I saw what it did to you physically. You shouldn’t be either, Hermione. Most curses affect the mind or the body, very rarely both.”
Hermione frowned at this. Was that true? She considered the curses she knew well, and if she had to categorize them in such a fashion, then—
His wand.
Hermione’s thoughts were derailed when she felt the tip of his wand against her bare thigh; she startled in his grasp, but he held her tight.
“Your mind is unburdened, your typical day to day physiology appears to be perfectly normal… Everything this magic does seems to be aimed at keeping you safe. Healthy. I would guess you’re not physically aging—we can test that, but that’s my assumption right now. You heal from what would normally be grievous injuries—I saw that myself, with Dumbledore’s phoenix. It’s when you’re hurt that it acts up, turning back time in your body to bring you back to health…”
He’d begun to drag his wand up her thigh as he spoke, slowly, until it was at her torso. Hermione realized her breathing had picked up. “Tom, what are you doing?” she asked. She struggled against him again, but he still didn’t let her go. “Tom, you don’t have to—to hurt me, just to see—”
“Hurt you?”
Tom froze, keeping his wand pointed just above her hip. “Hermione. Look at me.”
She tilted her chin up, meeting his eyes from where he looked down at her, over her shoulder. Black, bottomless, pulling, pulling, pulling.
“I have hurt many, many people in my life,” he said. “And I intend to hurt many more, to watch them suffer… but not you.”
She felt him moving his wand again, higher, but her eyes remained stuck on his. “I wanted to be able to hurt you,” he continued, his voice low and smooth as velvet. Disturbingly calm. “I wanted to be able to skin you alive after I thought you’d destroyed my ring; I wanted to want to make you suffer… but I couldn’t. Not then, and certainly not now. You were right when you claimed as much. I want to do what some might consider terrible things to you, yes; I won’t deny that… but not hurt you. That—”
He broke off, looking venomous—but his expression smoothed out again almost at once. “The only pain you’ll ever feel from me will have a purpose… and your consent,” he said.
He looked away and grabbed her wrist—her left one. Hermione followed his gaze to watch as he pointed his wand directly over the black word, the jagged black letters untouched by any gold.
“I want to see,” he said simply.
Hermione understood what he intended to do. A strange wave of numbness washed over her as she looked down at it, at Tom’s wand hovering over that ugly scar.
“It won’t work,” she said, because she didn’t think it would. “I’ve had this—I already had it, before.”
“Probably not,” Tom agreed. “But I want to know. To see if this magic reacts differently. If your body sees it as an injury it can and should undo, or… not.”
Hermione was surprised when she had no emotional reaction to this, to what he was proposing to do and the weight of what it might mean. It was like her feelings had all flown away, leaving her heart as empty as an abandoned bird cage.
“May I?”
She blinked. She nodded.
“Morsmordre.”
Hermione’s back arched and she hissed at the stinging, biting pain. It burned, it hurt—but it wasn’t anything debilitating; it didn’t make her scream. It did make her knees buckle, but Tom was holding her, so she didn’t fall.
Oh.
She watched in mute fascination as it formed beneath his wandtip, the magic sinking into her skin in inky, black tendrils. Her blank mind observed the way the skull manifested itself there, the way the snake curled out of its mouth, entwining its body in that symbol of forever.
Then it was over.
It was there. Tom moved his wand away, and when Hermione raised her arm, it felt like it was a stranger doing it. Like she was looking at someone else’s forearm, because she must have been. Surely this wasn’t her?
The Dark Mark. There, on her forearm. Having completely obliterated the…
How many times had she tried to remove it? How many hours had she spent researching scar removal, how many potions had she tried, how many charms and elixirs? And now, here she was, being held by the Dark Lord himself, held against him, and he’d rid her of it with a single spell, creating something new instead—and how she should feel about that, she couldn’t even begin to fathom; Hermione stared in uncomprehending shock at the mark that she now had, that would be there forever instead, the same mark that Draco Malfoy had lamented in her old time with her, that he had shown her when he’d said, Show me yours.
Tom inhaled next to her. He had his mouth by her ear, was surely about to say something, something smug, she could tell—but then his body went rigid.
Oh.
It happened exactly as it had been born, but in reverse. The snake withdrew. The skull dissolved. In just a few moments it was as though it had never been, leaving her just as she was before.
Mudblood.
Hermione swallowed thickly and discovered that her throat felt constricted. “S-see?” she said. “I told you.”
Her voice was wrong. She tried to pull away from him, but Tom wasn’t letting her go. “I told you, I said it wouldn’t—no surprise there at all, but you know, thanks for—for giving it a go, I suppose—you can let me go now, Tom—”
“Hermione—”
“Let me go!”
He released her. Hermione grabbed her discarded clothes off the floor and put them on in a rush. There was something growing in her chest, something nasty that she didn’t want to let out.
“Hermione…”
“It’s fine, I’m fine,” she said, not looking at him. She tied the sweatpants as tightly as she could. “I just need…”
She started to walk towards the front door, but paused after just a few steps. A strange, high-pitched laugh escaped her throat. “I was really about to say I just need to take a walk. How stupid of me. I can barely make it out the front door.”
She ran her hands down her face. They were trembling.
“Hermione…”
She heard him take a few steps closer to her, but she didn’t turn.
“I’m sorry.”
For a second, she was sure she’d imagined the words. Then she spun around, her hands falling to her sides, and at the sight of his face—his stupidly handsome, perfect face—looking sad, looking sincerely apologetic, Hermione snapped.
“That’s what you’re sorry for?” she said. “You apologize for that, for—for what, not being able to replace my heinous scar with yours? For not being able to mark me like a possession, to not be able to use me, to drain my magic at will, to have even more control, more power? That’s what you're sorry for?”
She laughed, a cruel sound even to her own ears. Tom’s eyes hardened a bit, but he otherwise didn’t move.
“Maybe try, ‘sorry I nearly killed you in the woods before bothering to learn that you didn’t destroy my horcruxes!’ or ‘sorry I’m keeping your wand from you and have you trapped here by an insane blood ward that you can no longer escape from no matter what you do!’ or ‘sorry for all the things I’ve done to you while you were unconscious, some of which I’m probably not telling you because I’m a bastard like that!’ And you are a bastard! Even worse, you’re a fucking idiot! No, just—shut up! ”
He hadn’t said anything. In fact, Tom’s face had become stonelike while she yelled, still and emotionless as a mask. “You don’t get it at all, do you?” she shouted, pointing at him. “You keep saying all this preposterous nonsense—that I’m your hostage, you’re my master, blah, blah—but I’m not, Tom! The only reason I’m a captive here is because you’ve made it that way! I only ran before because you scared the absolute shit out of me when you dropped the ring all casually, after using words like ‘one last time’, strongly implying—in a very creepy way—that I was about to be murdered!”
She paused only to take a breath. Tom remained still. “But you didn’t, you protected me, even—and I know I was being a bit of a bitch during all that—very justified, might I add—but it’s like you didn’t even hear a word I was really saying! That I’ve ever said! I didn’t destroy your ring or your diary because I didn’t want to! I hid them to protect you! I was captured by the fucking MACUSA and the Ministry, but I warned you to run first! I basically told Dumbledore he could fuck off to protect you, even after he told me about Myrtle, even when he offered me his protection from you—because I wanted to! Do you get it yet?”
She paused again, but not long enough for him to respond. “I’m not your slave, I’m not your captive, and I’m not your fucking Death Eater!” she spat, brandishing her arm, flashing the word mudblood at him. “But that’s all you see, isn’t it? Those are the only kinds of people who would ever possibly follow you, right? Those who you’ve charmed and manipulated, who blindly adore you, not knowing who and what you are, not really—and then there’s those who do, who you beat into submission one way or another—but neither of those are me! So quit trying to make it so!”
Hermione gestured wildly towards the door. “You don’t need a special fucking ward to keep me here! Even if I did have somewhere to go, I wouldn’t! You have me trapped, but it’s the stupidest cage ever, waste of your magical reserves, because I’d stay anyway! Because I want to! Because—”
She broke off, suddenly losing all her momentum, all her nerve. Her arms dropped. Tom remained still, staring.
“Because… because I love you,” she finished in a much quieter voice.
Silence. Tom’s face betrayed only the barest hint of emotion, the slightest softening of his features—but he didn’t otherwise move, and Hermione had no idea what he was thinking.
When he finally did seem as though he was about to speak, his lips parting, Hermione panicked. “No, don’t,” she said in a rush. “Just don’t. That wasn’t a—a transactional statement. I didn’t say that so you would feel obligated to say or do anything in response—not that you would, but—it’s important you know that.”
She crossed the room to stand directly in front of him. Tom still didn’t move. “I know you’re used to playing one of two roles almost all the time,” she said. “Either the subservient, charming shop boy or the big, scary, and much too evil Dark Lord… but you’re more than either of those things. You are them—I don’t mean you’re not—but you’re so much more than that, too. You’re…”
Hermione’s words finally failed her. She stood there awkwardly for a moment, the few inches which separated them feeling like vallies. Then she threw all caution to the wind and grabbed him, an embrace that felt almost childlike with how tightly she did it.
“You’re mine,” she mumbled into his chest. “And I’m never leaving you.”
At first, she worried he might have been angry; she felt his body go tense. But then it was like a warm beam of light had burst over him and he melted, wrapping his arms around her and holding her back.
They stayed like that for a long time, but Hermione no longer minded the silence. She pressed herself against his chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heart, and thought she’d be content to stay there all day, saying nothing.
One of Tom’s hands went to her hair, getting caught in her curls. “…I clench my jaw when I’m angry,” he murmured. Hermione, though confused, didn’t move. “When I start an important project, I have a hard time focusing on anything else until it’s completed, and I lash out at anyone who distracts me,” he went on. “I eat quickly because I had meals stolen from me one too many times at the orphanage when I was young, and when I’m stressed, I have a habit of forgetting to eat at all.”
His habits, Hermione realized. He’s listing his much worse habits…
“And when I say I’m going to do something, I mean it. Always.” He pried her away from him and lifted her wrist, turning it so the word mudblood was visible. “So when I say that I’m—”
Tom’s face twisted in pain and he sucked in a sharp breath. He dropped her wrist and clutched at his chest.
“Tom! Tom, what is it, what’s wrong, what—”
“Nothing,” he snapped. He pushed her away and took several steps back—but he was breathing hard, still holding the fabric of his shirt. Right above his heart. “Nothing, it’s nothing.”
“Tell me you didn’t.”
Hermione’s fists clenched at her sides. Tom noticed—his pained expression cleared, becoming wary.
“Tell me you didn’t make another horcrux,” she said. “Tell me you didn’t lie about that, tell me you didn’t kill another innocent person while I was passed out, tell me you didn’t—oh, God, you did.”
She had her answer by the way his posture went rigid again. It was the inescapable body language of someone who was being exposed.
“You did, you did it, oh, my God, I can’t—why—I couldn’t even—”
“Hermione, stop, don’t. I didn’t.”
“You’re lying, you’re—”
“I’m not lying,” Tom said firmly. He grabbed both her wrists; Hermione had her hands balled so tight her nails were digging into her palm. “I did not make another one. The diadem is not a horcrux.”
He paused, looking conflicted. Then, after a moment where he seemed to come to terms with something, he added, “Yet.”
“Yet? What do you mean, yet? You can’t do it, Tom, you swore you wouldn’t—”
“It is more complicated than that,” Tom seethed. “Making a horcrux is… it’s a process, Hermione. One I started—but didn’t finish—while you were unconscious.”
“What?”
“If you stop acting like you’re about to strike me, I’ll let you go and explain,” he said, holding her even tighter. “Can you manage that?”
Hermione glared at him, tempted to kick him in the shin. She unclenched her fists and nodded instead. “You lied to me,” she hissed when he let her go.
“You realize how ironic that is for you to say, don’t you?” Tom arched one brow at her, a silent challenge to tell him he was wrong. She didn’t. “And I didn’t lie to you. I haven’t made the diadem a horcrux… but I did start the process.”
Before she could say anything, he went to the cupboard. Tom opened it, then retrieved one of the books he had been keeping there alongside her wand and the diadem. It was large, black, and once she could see it properly, Hermione recognized it. She knew it intimately well, in fact… because she used to have it herself.
“This,” said Tom, “Is Secrets of the Darkest Art, written by Owle Bullock. It’s extremely rare, filled with useful information. In it are the detailed instructions on how to make a horcrux.”
Hermione nodded, staring at the nasty book she had once felt disgusting simply holding. “I first came across this while I was still in school, truth be told,” Tom continued. “It was kept in the restricted section of Hogwarts’ library… At least, it had been, until my sixth year. Then, well.”
He scoffed. “Then what?” Hermione asked.
“Then Dumbledore must have heard something, because one day he went through the entire restricted section and removed several books on dark magic, including this one. I had someone report back to me after going to his office to confirm that’s where they were… so, when I happened to have a nice visit back to Hogwarts and I knew he wasn’t there, I made an extra stop.”
He smiled fondly down at the book. “He didn’t have a single protective enchantment around it,” he said. “I was able to hover it straight through his window.”
Hermione had to cover her mouth to stop the offending gasp from escaping. Because Tom—why, he had just described doing exactly what she had done to get this book, with the exception that she had taken it from the Headmaster’s office, while he had nicked it from wherever his office had been as a Professor.
And he’d only been able to do it because of her.
“Why… why bother, though?” she asked. “If you already knew how to make a horcrux… I can’t imagine that’s a process one would forget.”
“Certainly not, no,” he said. “You said the diary wouldn’t tell you how it came to be… So you don’t know, do you? How to make a horcrux?”
His eyes gleamed playfully. “Here,” he said, offering her the book. “Go on. Read for yourself.”
Hermione almost took it out of pure instinct, then stopped herself.
She already knew what would happen.
She’d tried to read all the details about how to make a horcrux. Many times. They’d had no shortage of free time, after all, alone in the woods with nothing but the cursed locket and each other for company. Hermione had read every word on every page of every book she’d brought with her.
Except this one.
“…What’s it going to do to me, if I try?” Hermione asked, though she already had the answer. “Is it going to sting me like that other dark book you brought here?”
Tom grinned, looking pleased. “Almost anyone who tries to read any section of this book who does not have a serious, sincere interest in performing the magic within will feel ill and be unable to do so,” he said. “If they keep trying with no intent, they’ll become violently sick. It takes a great deal of willpower for the reader who is merely curious to read it.”
Willpower that she had certainly not had when camping in the woods with Harry and Ron. Life had been much too stressful already.
He laughed as he looked at the cover fondly again. “It honestly had no business being in a school library, even in the restricted section. But I’d never let Dumbledore hear me say that.”
“I suppose he’ll notice it’s missing soon enough,” she commented.
“Perhaps not. I am also very good at duplicating spells.”
He shot her a venomous look before flipping the book open. “But this one—the original! Brimming with magic. Truly a one of a kind. I’m glad I was able to acquire it. I’ve been wanting to revisit a few chapters…”
“About making horcruxes?”
“Yes,” Tom said. “Because this book does indeed detail how to make one… but these instructions… They work, no doubt, but certain parts are a little vague. Obtusely written and described. And missing grand opportunities where ritualistic magic is involved, in my opinion. For you see, Hermione…”
He showed her a specific page. The word HORCRUX was written in bold, stylistic font, and even reading the one word made her stomach churn. “Herpo the Foul may have invented the cursed magic to create a horcrux… but I am perfecting it.”
Hermione looked away from the book. He had that wonder-filled expression on his face, the same one he’d had when he sat surrounded by snow sprites by the sea.
“Making one, the first one,” Tom continued, unprompted, “that was… messy. I was successful, of course, but it had been so chaotic, every part of it. Myrtle wasn’t… it wasn’t supposed to be her, some random, muggle-born girl. But you already knew that.”
Another pointed glare. It was gone in a flash as he kept talking. “But she had died, so I made it happen. I did things exactly as this book entailed, and it worked, but—God, it was awful. It was—”
He shook his head. “There’s no point in trying to describe the feeling when one splits their soul, so I won’t bother. But it was bad enough that I knew I could never put myself through that again. I can admit that I probably would have stopped it while it was happening if I could have, the sensation was so... But I couldn’t stop it. Not once it had begun.”
Hermione eyed him suspiciously. “But you did do it again,” she said. “You made the ring.”
“Ah, I did, but I didn’t.”
“…What?”
“Yes, I made another horcrux, but no, I did not put myself through that again. Not exactly. Because I improved the process.”
He looked awfully proud of himself. “What do you mean, you improved the process of shredding your soul?”
“Ah, but you’ve just touched upon the issue itself,” Tom said. He tapped her nose; she wrinkled it and glared at him. “Shredded. That’s an apt word for what happens—what happened to me the first time, anyway. And that was by far the most excruciating part of the whole ordeal.”
“How could you possibly make that any better?”
Tom closed the book. He looked at her curiously, like he was trying to decipher something. “…When I was a child,” he finally said, “there was a shop a few blocks away from the orphanage in London. A stained glass repair shop.”
Hermione blinked, unsure where he was going with this. He waited a moment, still studying her face, then continued. “I used to watch the workers sometimes—unbeknownst to them—because I found it fascinating, the way they would take these giant planes of glass and cut them up into such precise shapes before grinding them and fitting them together. Do you know how they cut glass?”
“I’m guessing it’s not with a knife,” Hermione muttered.
“By scoring it,” Tom said. “They use a tool that they call a glass cutter, but that’s not really what it is. It’s like a pen with a little steel wheel on it, and it doesn’t cut the glass when they drag it along the surface, pressing down—it scores it. Creates a fissure in it; a weakness, if you will. Then they snap the glass, and because they’ve already created a weak spot, that’s where it breaks. Pressure down on either side of that score, and it pops apart there, all neatly, where it otherwise would have shattered unpredictably.”
Hermione glanced at the window, the one Tom had blown apart recently in the kitchen. She recalled quite well how it had shattered, unpredictably. She nodded. “I see,” she said.
“That shattering… that intense, wild breaking apart… that’s essentially what Bullock instructs someone wishing to make a horcrux to do to their soul. He implies that it’s the only way to break apart a soul, that it must be done violently… but I thought otherwise. I thought there must be an easier way, a less horrific way; there had to be, if I was going to do this again and again… and I was right.”
“You figure out how to… to score your soul?” Hermione whispered, disturbed.
“Yes. I took this process and in my second attempt—when I had time to plan it properly—I incorporated a few ideas of my own. Some didn’t pan out, but that one—lessening the impact of breaking one’s soul… that one did.”
He let out a laugh that sounded forced. “It was still horrific, of course,” he said. “But any improvement—any —was worth taking the time.”
“Of course it was still horrific, Tom!” Hermione yelled. “Souls aren’t meant to be broken at all; they aren’t meant to be—to be scored , they—they shouldn’t be—God, is that what you’ve done?”
The forced, fake smile fell from his face. “Yes,” he said. His hand went to his chest, seemingly involuntarily. “It takes some time, doing that, it’s a ritual on its own. And the timing was right. I wanted to try something new this time around, so I had to do it when I could. It seemed easiest to do it while you were unconscious.”
“Oh, no,” Hermione breathed. “No, Tom—what does that mean, did you—did you already murder someone, did you—“
“No. Hermione, stop.”
He moved forward and grabbed her again, this time by the shoulder. Hermione hadn’t realized she’d backed away from him. “That part isn’t what requires a death,” he said. “The murder… that part, that can come later. And should come later, I learned the hard way. What happens then—with the body, and what I need to do—that’s best done as… quickly as possible.”
He looked like he was repressing a shudder, which Hermione felt was substantial, considering who was talking. “What… what do you have to do with the body?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Hermione was unsurprised at his response. She was both relieved and frustrated, but in that moment, she agreed with him. She didn’t want to know.
“You haven’t murdered anyone yet, then,” she clung to. “Not for the diadem.”
“No.”
“But you’ve… scored your soul.”
“Yes.”
“Can you undo that?”
“I don’t know,” Tom admitted. “I’ve only ever performed this magic once before, and last time I did it right before I made the ring, right before the murder. This time… I was planning something different. Trying something new out to see if it would ease the process more.”
“Trying what out?”
“Using the lunar cycle.”
At this, Tom’s eyes gleamed with that familiar spark, the glint that shone there when he was excited. “I should have thought of it last time—so much ritualistic magic takes advantage of the lunar cycle. Some spells work much better when the moon is at a particular stage; in fact, some won’t work at all if it’s not right and visible. So I decided to apply some of this to making a horcrux. Rearranging the timing of the necessary steps to align with the moon phases that made the most sense, based on what I’ve seen and read about for other dark rituals.”
He released her shoulder to admire the book again. “Bullock would be astonished to know how much further he could have taken this.”
“Tom,” Hermione said sharply. She thought about snatching the book out of his hands, but stopped herself—the thing might make her vomit or something if she did. “None of that is astonishing, it’s awful. You shouldn’t—this, breaking your soul, your soul! Your precocious, eternal soul! This isn’t what you should be focusing on! You deserve to have a whole soul, Tom.”
The last words choked out of her, threatening to bring up a storm of emotions with them. She forced them back down. “Just—tell me what you were planning to do, then, so we can stop it. Because you have to stop it. You can’t make the diadem a horcrux; it will be destroyed if you do. And then a part of your soul—it will be gone , Tom. Gone forever. And—”
She closed her eyes and stopped herself from finishing her thought out loud.
And then you will never be whole again.
Tom was quiet for a time. He set the book on the kitchen table. “…The scoring part… that seemed to make the most sense to do while the moon was in its waxing phase,” he explained. “Which is what it’s in now, and was when you were out… I could have waited, but I wanted to take advantage, like I said… and the closer it was to a new moon, the more absent it was, the better, I thought… I did not, admittedly, foresee that it would cause the discomfort I keep feeling now. Another lesson learned, I suppose.”
He shrugged, looking so casual about it all that Hermione wanted to scream.
“I also prepared the diadem, which was relatively easy,” he went on, “but the next part, the most intense… the murder, and the ritual required to take that death and split one’s soul… that’s very dark magic. Powerful. The full moon seemed the most logical choice.”
“…And when is that?”
“May second.”
May second. Hermione felt like she’d had the wind knocked out of her.
It was just a coincidence. It had to be.
“No, absolutely not,” she said. “You’re not splitting your soul again in—what, a week? Just because of—because you’ve experimented with your soul, with the bloody lunar cycle—you’re not, you can’t!”
Her face fell when he didn’t respond. “You can stop it, can’t you?”
“I already said I don’t know. This is new territory for me… this ritual… part of it is unstoppable. My soul has been weakened. It’s unstable as it is; it can’t stay this way. The magic I used—it’s tied now, intimately, to the moon. I imagine it’s going to get worse until it’s full, based on how I’ve been feeling the past few days. I won’t know for certain until then. I can’t undo anything now, not while the moon is still waxing.”
Hermione was shaking again. Part of her wanted to laugh, part of her wanted to cry. Most of her wanted to smack Tom Riddle in the face until he had some sense knocked into him. “So what, then?” she said. “What was your plan, after you decided not to kill me? To score your soul, stay with me here until you could sneak off during the full moon, find someone to murder, and make your third horcrux here in Albania while I’m trapped in this stupid cottage, unable to stop you? Was that the plan?”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
“You will stop it!” Hermione shouted, like screaming the demand would make it happen. “You will figure out a way, and I’ll—I’ll help you; we can figure it out together, we have time, you said—”
“No.”
Tom grabbed her again, much harder this time, holding both her shoulders. “Listen to me, Hermione, and listen well, because I’m not going to say any of this again.”
His eyes were frigid, harsh. Hermione swore the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
“I will do my best to heal my soul and not turn the diadem into a horcrux when the time comes,” he vowed. “However. If it is unstoppable; if I cannot prevent the fracture from becoming a break… then it will happen. I cannot waste a piece of my soul. The diadem—it’s already been prepared. So if I cannot stop this, it will become my next horcrux. And you will tell me exactly how you saw it destroyed, and we will prevent that from ever happening. Do you understand me?”
Hermione gaped at him. “You—that’s what you’ll do anyway,” she said. “You’re just going to say you tried, but you’re not going to, you don’t want to—you’re going to—”
“Do you understand me?”
It definitely got colder, then. The overhead light flickered and dimmed at his words; an impossible, chilly wind swirled around them. His expression left no room for misinterpretation: this conversation was over.
For now.
“Yes,” Hermione whispered. “I—I do.”
He let her go. “Excellent,” he said, smiling. The light brightened and the room became warmer again—but Hermione’s skin remained broken out in goosebumps everywhere.
“Now I’m going to go tend to the wards, and when I get back, I’m going to run a few tests on you. While I’m gone, why don’t you make yourself useful and do some research? I’m sure we can still uncover something helpful in one of these books I’ve brought back where your scars are concerned, hm?”
He kissed her on the forehead; Hermione shivered, still feeling the lingering cold of his winds in her bones.
“I won’t be long,” he said. Then he left without another word, the door to the cottage closing lightly behind him.
Hermione sank down into the couch, cocooned herself in a blanket, and tried not to cry.
The fire was crackling and warm. The book—Runic Applications in Breaking Curses—was a fascinating read; Hermione had devoured nearly a round hundred pages in less than an hour. Which was quite the feat, she thought, considering how small the text was and how complex the subject matter.
Beside her, Tom was reading the tome in Latin on dark magic. Hermione looked up to see his eyes scanning the text back and forth, his brows furrowed. He'd been absorbed in it since the moment he picked it up, hardly even shifting, his focus was so intense. She supposed it had to be. That book was evil like that.
It was all they’d been doing after Tom cast a series of diagnostic magic on her. Magic that told them a number of things, few of which were surprising.
Hermione had a healthy and robust immune system. Hermione had an incredibly diverse and optimal gut microbiome.
Hermione wasn’t aging.
At least, she didn’t seem to be, according to some magical test Tom had found that did something with telomeres. He didn’t explain it fully, but Hermione was determined to read about it herself, as well as about how dark curses tended to affect either only the mind or the body, not both…
There was so much to learn.
Hermione lowered her own, much less demanding book to take a sip of tea. Chamomile. It was surprisingly good, even though Hermione could guess that it had been bought by the muggle owner years ago, not Tom.
The tea, the books, the comfy couch with a thick blanket and the warm, crackling fire. It was all so cozy that, when Hermione closed her eyes, she could pretend she was in the Gryffindor common room. That Harry was on one side of her and Ron the other.
But then she opened them, and it was Lord Voldemort instead.
Tom turned the page. I bet I could do just about anything right now, and he wouldn’t notice, Hermione thought wryly. He’s so focused on that book that I could probably steal his wand from his pocket and he’d be none the wiser.
Not that she would ever be stupid enough to put that theory to the test. Hermione finished her tea and set the mug aside, still watching Tom’s face. She had no doubts that he would go back on his word and hurt her very much if she ever tried to take his wand. Because he’s mercurial like that, and dark, and capable of so much violence, and—
Tom’s hand found hers.
Hermione looked down, surprised to feel his fingers grasping hers. He still had the book in his other hand; had it propped on his knee and was reading just as intently as before, but—the second she’d lowered her arm onto her lap, he’d grabbed it. His fingers entwined with hers, pulling her closer to him in the process. He didn’t look up from his book once. He kept reading.
A blush slowly crept across Hermione’s face, warming her more than the fire. Because, she realized, he didn’t…
He didn’t know he’d done that.
Couldn’t have, not with the way that particular book demanded attention, the greedy thing. Which meant that this—the action of taking and holding her hand, of rubbing his thumb gently along the back of it, as he was doing now—was entirely subconscious.
He had no idea.
Hermione stared down at their interlaced fingers for a long time. Her stomach felt fluttery, light.
Eventually, she picked her own book up again, struggling to find her page with one hand—but she managed. It was a lot harder to focus, she learned, with Tom’s thumb caressing her in slow, soft circles.
She didn’t mind.
Hermione opened her eyes groggily.
It took her a moment to process where she was, her sluggish mind taking in her surroundings to put it all together. Fireplace, empty mug, splayed open book.
Tom. Tom’s shoulder.
She’d fallen asleep again, she realized. Her book was open on her lap; her head was leaning on Tom’s shoulder. The fire was much lower than before, telling her that hours must have passed.
Tom was still holding her hand, still reading in the dim light. She was about to speak when she noticed something different.
Tom had switched to another book. He no longer had the massive, ancient one on dark magic in his hands, but something much smaller. Thinner. Keeping her hand locked in his, careful not to disturb him, Hermione shifted so that she could make out the title.
Her stomach dropped like a stone.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
“Awake?”
Tom looked down at her. She could see the small flames from the fireplace dancing in the reflection of his eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean… I don’t usually fall asleep reading."
A lie—she had developed a bad habit of her own, it would seem, of dozing off when she was supposed to be researching, falling directly onto the nearest male.
Tom smiled. “Of course not. It’s understandable. It’s very late. We probably should sleep.”
He let go of her hand and closed the book. It was not at all like the version she’d had, the original version of the fairy tales that Dumbledore had left to her. It was a newer version, one of many copies that Hermione imagined circulated widely.
Which meant—she hoped—that this one most likely did not have the symbol of the Deathly Hallows on it where The Tale of the Three Brothers began.
Grindelwald’s symbol. The one that was visible through the stone in his ring, both the real one and the fake she’d made, if he bothered to look.
“Reading some children’s stories before bed?” Hermione asked, keeping her voice light. “That’s not very studious research.”
“It is, actually,” Tom responded. “After you mentioned it, I wanted to read that story for myself… the one about the hallows and the brothers. About becoming the supposed Master of Death.”
“Oh?” Hermione said, doing her best to remain casual. “And what do you think of it?”
“It’s an interesting story. Much more so than any of the others in this book… three hallows… It’s like you said, isn’t it? Odd that there always seems to be three objects surrounding death; three things that, if unified, could make one its Master, according to legend…”
“But it doesn’t say that in the story itself, does it?” Hermione pointed out. “That’s just what people have speculated, right? That if one were to have all three of these impossible objects, they would become the Master of Death. Whatever that really means.”
“Yes, I assume as much,” Tom agreed. “The story itself implies that the youngest brother alone is the Master of Death; that accepting one’s fate is what it means.”
He let out a short, harsh laugh. “A children’s tale meant to teach the lesson that, inevitably, all men die.”
“Exactly,” Hermione quickly agreed. “It’s just a children’s story.”
“However,” Tom said, and her stomach sank again at his tone alone, “there is something more to it, I think. This stone that can raise the dead, and a cloak of invisibility that can hide one from Death itself… I’ve never heard of objects like this existing outside of a fairy tale. The wand, however… The most powerful wand to exist…”
His face took on a hungry expression. “That one, I have… The Deathstick, I’ve heard it called, the Wand of Destiny… The Elder Wand… Just as it’s named in this story. It seems too great a detail to be a coincidence; it can only be referencing the same wand. And if that is real…”
His words trailed off. Tom looked into the dying fireplace, his gaze distant.
“…It’s just a children’s story, Tom,” Hermione said gently. She took his hand in hers. “Something that could hide someone from Death, that could bring someone back from the dead… those aren’t real. A powerful wand? Sure, but those other two things… You would have heard of them by now, surely, if they were real? Would have heard a least a whisper of their existence, considering what you were having your Knights do for years?”
He regarded her with those dark, thoughtful eyes. “Yes, I’m sure I would have," he finally murmured.
Hermione could have sighed with relief. “Precisely,” she said. “It’s just a children’s tale. That’s all.”
He stood, pulling her up with him. “Come on,” he said. “It really is late.”
And without further explanation, Tom guided her towards the bedroom. He flicked his wand towards the fireplace behind them, extinguishing the flames, then cast a wordless lumos to light their way through the cottage. Hermione swallowed back a jumble of nerves as he tossed off his shirt and closed the bedroom door behind them.
“Knox.”
The light went out. Tom gathered her up in the dark, pulling her down into bed with him. He draped the blanket over them and wrapped his arms around her, not saying anything as he held her to his chest.
Hermione’s pulse thudded loudly in her ears, but there seemed to be no reason to be anxious. Tom only held her, keeping her close to him. His breathing soon evened out, becoming slow and steady, and she could only assume he’d fallen asleep.
Her mind raced for a long time.
If she had succeeded, if he really was content to believe that the Deathly Hallows were not real… then that was one crisis averted, at least.
But how do I get him to not turn the diadem? she wondered. How can I convince him to let me help him? To actually try to not split his soul again…
Because she knew in her heart—knew it, because she knew him—that his vow was a lie. He had every intention of making the diadem his third horcrux, without question.
How can I make him change his mind?
Hermione nuzzled closer to his chest, listening to his slow heartbeat, her ear pressed against where she knew his scar was.
I know one way, she thought, closing her eyes.
I have one way to make him believe.
Chapter 64: Haas-rach
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hermione woke while the room was still dark to the soft, scattered sounds of birdsong, but she kept her eyes closed. Still asleep, she lied with her stillness, with each steady exhale. Tom’s arms were heavy around her waist, his breathing just as calm.
Still peacefully asleep.
She went over it and over it in her head, envisioning it so well she might have lived it. She imagined the color of the sky. She pictured what the ground was like, the lighting, the smells—the whole, chilling atmosphere of every scene. She kept her breathing slow while her mind went wild. She never moved.
The sun was starting to peek through the curtain, causing the birds to sing with more spirit, when Tom stirred. Hermione rolled over to face him, allowing a practiced, broad smile to unfold on her face.
“Good morning,” she murmured.
Tom’s sleep-hazed expression was amusing to watch. His face went from groggy to properly awake in seconds, like a picture coming into focus. “Why… why are you smiling like that?”
Instantly suspicious. Hermione was not surprised.
“Can’t I just be happy to wake up in the arms of Lord Voldemort?” she said. She kissed his forehead. When she tried to sit up, his arms tightened around her and he pulled her back down.
“That’s not an ‘I’m so happy’ grin,” he pointed out—correctly. “That’s an ‘I just did a bad thing’ grin.”
Which was also, technically, correct, Hermione mused. “I never do bad things,” she said. “I’m a good witch and all that, right?”
“Hardly.”
“I didn’t do anything. Really. We’ve only just woken up, Tom; what bad thing could I have done? I’m just happy, that’s all.”
She pecked his cheek, then tried to get out of bed again. She almost managed to sit up before Tom once more yanked her back down.
“You saw something.”
Gotcha.
Hermione pretended to fail to suppress her smile. “No, I didn’t.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing, Tom, I—”
“Hermione.”
He said her name sharply enough that she didn’t have to fake her reaction. “Tell me what you saw,” he commanded. He spoke in her ear when he added, “Or I’m never letting you out of this bed.”
He ran his tongue along the edge of her ear. One of his hands snaked along her backside, creeping under her shirt.
“Don’t make any promises you can’t keep,” Hermione said, smiling again.
“I never break a promise.”
Tom pushed her onto her back. He was kissing her neck before she could think to say or do anything; his hand was on her stomach, his fingers gliding up…
“Tell me what you saw,” he said in a softer voice, his lips against her neck. He nipped at her, his teeth grazing where her scars began. “Tell me, now.”
She had to be careful, to maintain a perilous balance.
What I want. What he wants. What he wants to believe and what he’s willing to accept.
“No,” Hermione said.
“So you did see something.”
“I never said that.”
“Hermione.”
He grabbed her neck, not firm enough to harm her, but hard enough that she felt her pulse thudding against his fingers from the pressure. He looked into her eyes. “I won’t ask nicely again.”
“You… wouldn’t want to hear it.”
His grip tightened slightly. She could still breathe.
“Tom, stop. Okay, I’ll tell you, but—it’s pointless, you won’t believe me, anyway.”
He loosened his hold, but kept his fingers wrapped around her throat. “Try me.”
“Well… you succeed.”
“Succeed in what?”
Hermione smiled widely again. “Everything,” she said. “You succeed in everything.”
“What do you mean, ev—”
She interrupted him with a kiss. Tom didn’t instantly reciprocate; he jerked back a bit, clearly angry and confused, but when Hermione’s arm wound around his neck, grabbing him by the hair and pulling him closer, he gave in. His lips parted and his tongue slid against hers, and it figured, Hermione thought, that his mouth would taste as sinfully good in the morning as it always did, the utter bastard.
She lifted her hips to meet his, feeling a little haughty when he moved with her, his cock hard already. Was that a morning thing? She didn’t know and she didn’t care; Tom was touching her chest, he was kissing her deeper, he was grinding against her—
He stopped. “What do you mean, everything?” he asked again, but his voice was much lower, less hostile.
Hermione took a moment to gather herself—a difficult feat, with the way his erection was pushed between her legs.
What I want. What he wants.
“I… yes, okay, I had a dream, a vision… visions, really. Of you. And… you do it. You don’t split your soul again. You keep the diadem as it is.”
Tom’s hard expression turned skeptical for a moment, then he smirked. “Oh, do I?” he drawled. “And what else do I do, Hermione?”
He doesn’t believe me. Of course he doesn’t, not yet.
“Why should I bother,” Hermione huffed. “You won’t listen, anyway.”
“No, please.” Tom kissed her neck again, and it was clear by the way his body had relaxed that he was no longer concerned with whatever visions she may have had. “Tell me all about what I’m going to do with the diadem… or not do, conveniently enough.”
He rocked his hips into her, almost lazily. Smugly. Hermione glared at the ceiling in lieu of his face, as he was once more busy with her neck.
“You let me help you,” she said. “You let me be with you, on the full moon, and you succeed. And—”
“Mm, see, now I know that’s not going to happen,” Tom cut in. His hand slipped beneath the waistband of her pants. “I would never allow you to be with me when I do that.”
He went right back to kissing her neck. Hermione pulled him away. “Because it means letting me leave this cozy little cottage with you?” she asked. “Letting me out of the blood ward?”
“Yes,” he answered, nonplussed. “It has to happen outside the wards, as they would interfere with the moonlight… and I’m not risking you. Not for anything. Not yet.”
He started to kiss the other side of her throat. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Tom,” Hermione said as he seemingly ignored her. “You do.”
“Mmm.”
“You do. I saw everything—the night sky, the moon, the trees, the blood. The fire.” She paused, wondering if he would say something to this. She’d made an educated guess about the blood and fire being a part of the ritual. Based on the way he stopped for a second, tensing, she knew she’d guessed right.
But then he went back to what he was doing. “No,” he said between increasingly more aggressive kisses. He slid his hand between her legs. “I won’t. You’re staying here.”
“Think whatever you like. I already know better.”
“That will never happen.” He stroked her clit once, softly. “There is nothing you can say to convince me. It will never happen. Never…”
He started making those small, rhythmic circles.
“You’re staying here…”
He kissed the hollow of her throat, then shifted lower, moving further down the bed and grabbing her pants with both hands.
“Safe and sound…”
The blanket fell from his shoulders, and then he pulled the waistband down over her thighs, her knees, her calves…
“Mine…”
He kissed her ankle after he’d discarded them. Hermione’s mind went blank at the sight of him, his eyes closed and lips full and splayed against her as he all but kissed her feet. Then his eyes went to hers, dark and heavy. “Repeat after me,” he said as one of his hands glided up her thigh.
“Haas-rach.”
Hermione blinked stupidly. A word. A parseltongue word, most definitely.
Repeat after me?
“Haas-rach,” he hissed again, the sounds guttural and smooth all at once. Tom kissed her again, his smile wicked.
“Say it,” he said. “Try.”
Hermione nodded, but the first words out of her mouth were, “What does it mean?”
“Say it.”
His eyes flashed that startling, bright red. His nails dug into her thigh, and his voice had gone from liquid molasses to jagged glass in a second. Hermione squealed and tried to jump further up on the bed, but she moved less than an inch. Tom’s hold on her was, as always, much too tight.
“H-has-rock,” she stuttered, her hands clutching at the sheets like lifelines.
“Wrong.”
Tom’s voice dropped back to that sultry purr. He stopped digging his nails into her thigh and massaged her there instead, a soothing motion.
His eyes stayed red.
“It’s a softer ah for the first part, and you need much more emphasis on the second syllable… it’s a harsher sound, it has to come from the back of your throat… try again.”
“Tom,” she started, “wh-why—?”
“No questions. Try again. Listen. Haas-rach.”
Hermione paid close attention, watching his mouth when he said it slower than before. He made it look easy. Speaking in such a strange language in such a strange way, it was—
God, it was unnatural and fucked up and it was so hot. It was fucked up because it was so hot.
Focus, Hermione.
She could do it. She mastered most spells on her first or second try, always had, and she’d already learned one word in Parseltongue. This was no different. “Haas-rach.”
“Mmmm… better,” Tom said. He pushed her legs apart. “Again.”
“Haas-rach,” Hermione said with more confidence.
“Good,” Tom purred, and the one word of praise had Hermione’s face flaming. “Very good…”
He rewarded her by pressing his thumb to her clit, once more rubbing in slow circles. Hermione rocked into his touch.
“Again.”
“Haas-rach,” she answered. “Haas-rach…”
“Hmm.” To Hermione’s great disappointment, he frowned. “I confess… I don’t enjoy that nearly as much as I thought I would.”
He unexpectedly slid a finger into her, easily pushing into her wetness. Hermione clenched around him instinctively; Tom whispered a swear and inserted another finger, curling them, sliding them in, then out—
“Try this instead,” he said as he continued to fuck her with his fingers. “Sesh-uss-ah.”
“What?”
“Sesh-uss-ah,” Tom repeated in a deep, drawn out hiss. His pupils were blown so wide there was only a sliver of red. “Say it for me, darling.”
Hermione took a deep breath, looked him in the eye, and spoke.
“Sesh-uss-ah.”
She could tell she got it right the first time. Tom made a sound like a groan he couldn’t hold in, like he’d just taken a bite from an apple and found it to be unexpectedly, deliciously sweet. He curled his fingers deeper inside her, this time rubbing his thumb over her clit simultaneously.
“Again,” he commanded, his voice ragged. “Louder.”
Tom must have really enjoyed it when Hermione said whatever this word was, because his eyes fluttered close and he started to kiss her thigh, moving higher, closer, lapping at every inch of her skin as he moved, still pumping his fingers inside of her, faster—
“Again,” he demanded, because Hermione hadn’t said anything. “Say it again—Sesh-uss-ah.”
“Sesh-uss-ah,” Hermione parroted back. “Sesh-uss-ah, sesh—ah—”
Tom’s lips were on her, his tongue working her clit in that blissful, mind-numbing way. Hermione’s hands threaded in his hair, clinging to him harder than she had the sheets. “Oh—Tom—”
She didn’t have to beg him—Tom didn’t pause for a moment; he pumped his fingers in and out of her continuously as he pressed his tongue against her clit, swirling it to the same rhythm. He moaned as he worked; the dull vibration made her moan as well. Hermione bit her lower lip and pulled his hair, the pleasure building, building…
“Say it again.”
The sudden loss of Tom’s tongue had her bucking desperately. His fingers were still inside her, still moving at the same pace.
The word. Hermione had forgotten it. “Sesh…”
“Sesh-uss-ah,” Tom provided. He started to crawl up her body, as frightening and seductive as a demon, trailing wet kisses on her stomach. “Sesh-uss-ah.”
Hermione pulled him up by his hair, bringing his face to hers. “Sesh-uss-ah,” she hissed back.
Movements blurred together. Tom kissed her, pulling his fingers out so he could shove his pants down as much as was necessary. He then hooked both arms beneath her knees, and between one breath and the next he was fucking her, immediately setting a brutal pace, and with the way he held her legs up it felt so deep, so tight and wet and—
Tom was speaking, but it wasn’t English.
Hermione, oxygen-starved, had broken their kiss to breathe, and the moment she did Tom let out a string of incomprehensible hissing sounds. He said them with his mouth against her throat, between painful kisses, between gasping breaths.
He stopped. With his cock deep inside her, Tom froze, let out a particularly ferocious sound, and let go of one of her legs. He flung one arm to his side and a moment later the blue potion was floating into his waiting hand. He took a hasty drink before slamming it down on the bedside table with a thunk.
“Lasts twelve hours,” he said, answering the question before Hermione could even think to ask it. He hooked his arm back under her knee. “Now, where were we?”
He didn’t wait for a response—Tom started driving into her again, deep and hard, but slower than before. “You’re so good for me,” he murmured as he fucked her steadily. “The way you sound, the way you feel… It’s so good, I almost couldn’t stop…”
Hermione’s muscles clenched at that and she whimpered; she couldn’t move her hips on her own very well with the way he had her knees pushed up, but she tried, squirming. Tom smirked.
“Do you like that…? Should I tell you all my filthy thoughts while I fuck you, darling?”
Again, he didn’t wait for an answer. “Do you want to hear it?” he went on, leering. “Do you want to hear me say how badly I want to bury myself in you, to come deep inside you, to own you… to feel you come around me when I do…”
Oh, God—Hermione’s muscles tensed again and she clawed at his backside. His words were plucking at her psyche like a master violinist expertly playing a song. His voice was hypnotic, his movements like the darkest of spells—
“You want that, don’t you?” He kept driving in and out of her, deep and slow, but getting faster. “You want to feel my cock throbbing inside you as I fucking fill you… I know… and I’m going to, I have to; you feel too good…”
Another whimper. Hermione tensed everywhere; she felt like she might burst apart at the seams.
“Are you going to come, my sweet girl?” Tom rolled his hips into her, now massaging her clit with each stroke, making her gasp and moan. “That’s right,” he said, his words much raspier, “that’s it—come on my cock, come for me, love—yes, that’s so good—so good—yes, yes—ah —”
Tom slipped into Parseltongue again, and his movements became erratic, clearly outside of his control. Hermione cried out in a strangled voice.
It was like a wave, crashing.
She came, every part of her coiling tight just to release, again and again, like the relentless tide of the ocean. Her voice broke and gave out. Her vision went briefly white.
Tom was lost, too.
Though hardly able to focus on anything other than those currents of pleasure, she still felt him, the way he throbbed and poured himself into her. He grunted in a guttural, nearly inhuman way, his mouth at her neck, teeth against her skin. His breath was hot as he hissed and moaned.
Hermione’s arms fell to her sides on the bed. Tom’s body tensed several more times after her vision came back into focus, his cock still pulsing inside her, then he collapsed. His rapidly falling and rising chest was sticky with sweat against hers. After he caught his breath, he grabbed her chin and claimed her mouth with his, a deep and lazy kiss that had her smiling against him.
Love, she thought dazedly. He called me love.
Best not to point it out.
“You never let me finish,” Hermione said after he pulled away, as though their conversation had not been interrupted by mind-blowing sex. He cast her a disbelieving look, as she had quite obviously finished— but Hermione shook her head, blushing. “Not—I didn’t mean—what I was saying earlier.”
Tom’s expression cleared. His head fell heavily onto the pillow beside hers. “Mmmm,” he said, making that obnoxious, noncommittal sound. He started to play with the tip of her braid.
“Don’t you want to hear it? What else I saw? It wasn’t just the diadem, not at all.”
“I’m sure you’re about to tell me anyway,” Tom drawled—but he was smiling as he twirled her hair between his fingers playfully.
“Yes, I—oh, fine. Nevermind, then.”
Hermione tugged her braid from his hand; he snatched it back at once and continued to mess with it. “Tell me,” he said, a little less sardonically. “You want to. But you want me to want you to tell me, right? Shall I beg you? I imagine you’d like that, too.”
He nuzzled her nose against her ear. “Please, Hermione,” he all but moaned in a husky, deep voice—a tone that was infuriating because it did, in fact, make her pulse pick up. “Tell me. Tell me everything, please…”
He laughed, breathy and melodic. He was still inside her. Hermione tried not to focus on that, on how she wouldn’t mind if he started moving again. On the word love. “It’s you,” she snapped, pleased that she sounded as annoyed as she was. “You, Tom. You… you’re different, now.”
“Different how?”
Hermione took a breath, considering her next words carefully.
What I want. What he wants.
“You’re no longer… it’s changed, what I used to see in dreams all the time,” she explained. “I didn’t see you as the monster I always used to… The future, it’s different.”
Tom dropped her braid and propped himself up on his elbows. His eyes, while no longer a blazing red, narrowed on her. Glad to finally have your attention, she thought wryly.
“Explain.”
“I don’t know everything,” she said, shrugging into the mattress. “It’s not usually like that; I don’t see details, how these things come to be, but… you were still there. Still in power. The world at your feet… But you weren’t a deformed, monstrous thing anymore.”
“Oh? What am I, then?” Tom asked, his voice still hedged with uncertainty. “Or what will I be, if that’s the more appropriate question?”
Hermione smiled. She cupped his face with both hands, a sweet and loving action. “Glorious,” she said, the word like a promise.
“You’re going to be glorious.”
“The key,” Hermione said, “is to have the butter softened, not melted.”
Tom handed her the bowl with the aforementioned not-melted butter, which Hermione took and set next to the dry ingredients. “It helps with the texture, you see,” she went on, though Tom didn’t ask. He didn’t need to—Hermione was on auto-pilot, explaining everything as she did it while Tom watched from his spot at the table, the sound of instrumental music from the old record player playing softly in the background.
He was sitting exactly as he had been for the last fifteen minutes or so: posture lazy, one arm draped over the back of the chair where he loosely held his wand, his leg propped up on his knee. In his other hand he held an amber bottle. He’d opened the contraband liquor when she’d been measuring the flour, and declared that it was not nearly as horrible as he’d thought it might be.
Surprised he waited this long to imbibe, really, Hermione thought.
Days had passed since she told him about her supposed vision. Days in which Tom was withdrawn, cautious, and exceedingly gentle. He made them food. He duplicated her shampoo. He cleaned the cottage. He kept the fire roaring when they would each read in the evenings, researching various things—though he did not seem nearly as worried about her golden scars as he had days before.
He didn’t demand memories or that she tell him… anything.
Hermione suspected this was largely due to how he felt. He was good at concealing it most of the time, but she could tell that Tom was not himself because he was in pain. It must have been exactly as he’d said, and with every day that brought them closer to the full moon, his soul ached more and more. She imagined it was distracting, perhaps even debilitating. Maybe the alcohol helps, she mused as he took another drink straight from the bottle.
Despite all that, Tom still liked to be in control of everything, all the time. He took a dose of the contraceptive potion preemptively now, like clockwork, every twelve hours—a precaution that seemed to be for naught, as he hadn’t initiated sex once since she’d shared her vision. She thought his growing discomfort had something to do with that, too, for he did seek out her body like he was chronically touch-starved, especially at night. When they went to bed, he’d curl into her chest or hold her possessively against his, content to do only that.
Tom was hurting. She wondered what he would be like when he wasn’t anymore.
“I need the teaspoon… oh, found it.” Hermione measured out the baking powder, then dumped it in the dry bowl. “Don’t need much of this, but it makes a world of difference—oh!”
She dropped the container. Tom stopped it from hitting the ground and hovered it back to the counter. Hermione was torn between thanking him and telling him, again, that if she’d only had her wand she could have done all the measuring herself without potentially dropping anything.
Every time she asked about what exactly she had to do to earn it back—or any time she inquired about anything, really—Tom would say the same thing.
I’ll start giving you answers when you start giving them to me.
Which left Hermione in a painful position indeed. Part of her did want to confess everything, even the horrifying parts. But being a Seer…
It was so hard to give up.
Thus, they were in a kind of limbo. Hermione continued to withhold the truth. Tom, in return, wasn’t telling her anything, either…
Like where he went for hours at a time every day.
He said he was tending to the wards. He said he was off stealing more food from a nearby muggle village. He said he was checking newstands to see if The Daily Prophet had publicized anything relevant.
He was lying.
She knew it and he knew that she knew it. She was almost positive that what he was really doing was scouting out the perfect place to perform the ritual for creating his horcrux, to turn the diadem. He’d disappear, and Hermione would stew in anxiety the whole time he was gone, torn between being furious and scared, because what if he didn’t come back?
Hermione shook that fear away yet again. Tom wouldn’t tolerate her so much as thinking a question about the diadem, not anymore. Probably because he’s afraid I’ll convince him, she told herself. Afraid that he’ll admit I’m right, because some part of him wants me to be, because he wants to believe the rest of it.
“Now where’s the eggs? Do you—okay, okay, I got them.”
She caught the carton he silently hovered over to her. She cast him a look that was both annoyed and grateful, and almost couldn’t believe just how content he looked. It was easily the most relaxed he’d been since they arrived in Albania.
Should have done this ages ago, Hermione thought. She returned her focus to the task at hand—adding the eggs, being careful not to get any bits of shell into the mix. Should have told him I dreamt that everything was going to work out beautifully a long, long time ago.
She’d kept it vague and poetic, but everything Hermione described (aside from him allowing her to be with him during the ritual and not make another horcrux) had been the exact sort of thing someone like Tom Riddle salivated over. Every so often he asked her to repeat it—the part about the halo—though whether he was testing her to see if her story ever changed or if it was because he couldn’t help himself, egotistical swat that he was, she wasn’t sure.
You, enshrined in a light like a golden halo beneath a dark sky. You, radiating power, your enemies bowing before your might. You, their Lord and Master, magnificent, the most powerful sorcerer in the world. You’re beautiful. They worship you; they adore you.
You rule them all.
And you’re whole, she had wanted to add, but she’d refrained. She knew it would be a long road indeed to convince Tom that he should do something as painful and, in his opinion, counterproductive as feeling remorse to reabsorb his broken soul.
The diadem, though. That was very much in the realm of possibility; she could save him from that. She could hold onto her lie of being a Seer until she saw that through, at least.
Just until the full moon.
“Mix this.”
Tom nodded and obliged, lifting his wand and flicking it over the giant bowl she held. The dry and wet ingredients began to blend together.
“Okay—stop, stop!” Hermione yanked the bowl away. “Too much!”
“Too much?” Tom said, but Hermione already had her back to him again, setting it down on the counter. “You could still see bits of flour in it.”
“Yes, and that’s how it should be,” Hermione quipped. She dumped in the chunks of bittersweet chocolate. “Semi-sweet would have been better,” she commented without turning.
“I was trying to be fast.”
“Takes two seconds to look at the label.”
“Look at the—it was in Albanian! Everything is in Albanian! How do you even know they’re bittersweet?”
“The color. It’s too dark. It’s fine, though. Where’re the big spoons? I need something to fold these in with.”
“Let me do it.”
“No! No magic for this.”
Hermione whipped around to point at him, prepared to confront him with his wand raised. She was not disappointed. He lowered it, scowling.
“It would be easier.”
“It would not. It’s better, this part—better to use your hands, you know, get a feel for what you’re doing, allow air pockets to form, that’s important—where are the bloody spoons? How did this old man live here?”
Hermione was making quite a racket. She opened drawer after drawer, searching for something large enough to use.
“Accio spoon.”
A small, silver spoon flew out of a drawer she’d already opened into Tom’s waiting hand. “No, not one of those,” Hermione snapped. “I saw those, obviously—I mean a big one, like a wooden one or something—”
“Accio the long, wooden spoon of Hermione’s dreams.”
Nothing happened. Hermione glared at him as he smiled. “Guess you’re out of luck,” he said, then took another swig of liquor.
“Ha, ha. I bet there’s something I can use. Just sit there and don’t distract me.”
Hermione began digging again. “Happily,” Tom said, looking pleased to watch her.
As he should be, Hermione thought, searching now in the pantry. Because she was putting on quite the show.
She was wearing one of Tom’s large t-shirts on her top half, and on her bottom, a pair of the laciest, most obscene pairs of knickers she’d ever seen in her life.
As it transpired, the clothing that Tom had gotten for her consisted almost entirely of inappropriate lingerie. Based solely on how much of it he had brought back, Hermione imagined he had stolen entire racks of it from a muggle store, probably disillusioned and trying not to laugh his arse off the whole time.
He must have thought Hermione would yell at him about it and refuse to wear it. Which she had—at first. But this evening, after he’d been gone for another agonizing, several hours, she’d decided to surprise him when he returned.
It was, dare she say, fun, prancing around in something so racy. Tom’s eyes were constantly flickering to her legs, and she could only imagine how much more blatantly he stared at her when she had her back turned, when she raised her arms up to reach for something (definitely not intentionally) and exposed her whole arse as the shirt raised up, only to hide it again when she lowered them.
She might have been trying to get him to do something, after days of… not. Maybe.
“Oh, my goodness.”
Hermione smacked herself on the forehead, theatrical as could be. “You could just—here. Transfigure one of these, will you?”
She handed Tom the much too small silver spoon. “What a novel idea,” he said, a look on his face that said he’d thought of that solution at once, but hadn’t bothered offering.
He didn’t gloat further though, only did as requested. Hermione wanted to inform him that he’d done it wrong, but he did, unfortunately, a fine job.
“When you’re folding them in, you don’t want to overdo it,” she said as she began to mix. “The batter isn’t supposed to be perfectly smooth or uniform. A little bit of bumpiness is good.”
“Hm.”
“And really, if you want them to be like the ones you get at a bakery, you should use a bit less chocolate, but I prefer mine with a whole bunch. All right, see? Now it’s perfect.”
She let him get a quick look. “The rounds should be about… this big,” she then said, holding a ball of messy batter on the palm of her hand. “Doesn’t look huge now, but trust me. These spread and fluff up like crazy.”
“Is this a part I’m allowed to help with?”
“No. I already told you, you’re being used as a mixer only.” She placed the round on the baking sheet, then set to making another. “I am making tonight’s dinner.”
“I still don’t see how cookies constitute dinner,” Tom said, but he didn’t sound upset.
“I disagree. Anything can be dinner if you eat enough of it. And I can think of no two better people in the world better situated to eat nothing but sweets for a meal and suffer no health consequences.”
Tom laughed. Hermione did too as she kept working, filling the tray with as many rounds as it could reasonably hold.
“Can you turn the oven on?” she asked as she washed and dried her hands. “Two hundred should do it.”
“I thought I was only to be a mixer.”
“You enchanted the stove,” Hermione said, pointing at him again. “But I’ll gladly do it myself, if you’d just let me borrow—for just a second—come on, Tom—I’m making us cookies—”
She tried, half-heartedly, to snatch it from his hands—a plan both parties knew was doomed to fail. Tom let her get as far as crawling onto his lap before she felt the inevitable pull of his magic pushing her arms down to her sides.
She stuck her lower lip out at him. He draped one arm over her shoulder, pointing his wand behind her at the oven. She could tell it became the exact right temperature at once as she felt a rush of heat at her back.
“You’re welcome,” Tom said. He pulled her closer. He set the bottle down, letting his hand fall to her exposed thigh—
“Perfect.”
Hermione bounced back up, then frowned. “May I have my arms back, please? I have to put them in the oven.”
Tom cast her a disappointed look before shrugging. Hermione, arms freed from his obnoxious magic, put the baking sheet in. “Now clean this,” she commanded.
“I thought I was only to be a—”
“Tom. Don’t be an arse.”
Tom grinned but complied. With a few flicks of his wrists, the bowls and measuring cups were all clean, and the wooden spoon reverted back into a small, silver one. Hermione set a timer—she’d found a wind-up one that didn’t even require batteries in the pantry—then put it on the table.
“And now,” she said dramatically, sitting across from him, “we wait.”
“And now we wait,” Tom echoed. He summoned a glass from a shelf, then poured a healthy serving of booze into it.
“Not interested in drinking straight from the bottle anymore?” Hermione asked.
“Oh, no. I’m perfectly fine being a heathen. This is for you.” Tom slid the glass towards her. “Try it.”
Hermione stared at the liquor suspiciously. It was a light, warm brown. It looked benign enough. She took a hesitant sip, only to spit it out at once.
“Oh my God,” she spluttered. Tom laughed heartily. “Ergh, this is—it’s like drinking gasoline!”
“It grows on you,” Tom said. “You don’t have to drink it. Definitely not for the weak of heart. That’s what the bootleggers told me, anyway.”
He gave her a grin that she could only describe as challenging before he drank more.
“Hold on.”
Hermione stood and pulled out the pad of paper and pen from a drawer. She jotted down a few things, thought a bit, then added one more. She then returned to the table.
“These,” she said, setting it in front of him, “are the rules.”
“For what?”
“For our date night conversation.”
Tom set the bottle down. His face went from surprised to curious to annoyed in the span of a second as he looked at it.
Topics we shall not discuss:
The diadem
Horcruxes
Hermione’s past (before meeting Tom Riddle)
Hermione’s scars
The MACUSA
Dumbledore
“Topics we shall not discuss?” he read aloud. “And what if I do, anyway? What if you do? Are we… in trouble?”
“Big trouble,” Hermione said. “We’re going to have consequences. You know, make it interesting. If either one of us brings something on this list up, then… then the other person has to answer a question. One answer to any question, even if it also breaks the rules… Any question.”
Hermione's pulse thudded in her ears. She felt reckless, bold, stupid. Much too Gryffindor-ish. She took another sip of the awful liqueur. It was just as bad as the first taste, but she managed not to cough.
Tom looked like he couldn’t decide if he should laugh or not. “Really,” he said, clearly disbelieving.
“Really. I just—I want to be able to have a conversation knowing that we’re not going to talk about any of… that. That’s all. If I screw it up, you can ask me whatever you like, and… I’ll tell you. But if you screw up, then I get the same.”
“I didn’t realize working on our relationship was going to turn into a game,” Tom said. “I see my past is on the table for appropriate conversation,” he added, glancing back at the paper.
Hermione was about to say he could add whatever he liked, but Tom spoke again before she could. “All right. I’ll play.”
He took another deep drink. Neither of them spoke; the soft music filled the otherwise empty air. Hermione shifted awkwardly and took a sip as well.
“I think I’m winning,” Tom said at length, smiling widely.
Ding.
“Oh!”
Hermione popped up. She grabbed an oven mitt and slid the baking sheet out, which was now filled with perfect looking chocolate chip cookies. “We have to let them cool, of course,” she said, putting the sheet on a trivet. “Can you turn the oven off?”
Tom did as requested. Hermione returned to her seat.
“Am I allowed to ask questions about how you bake, or will that be too close to Hermione’s past?”
“You can ask,” Hermione allowed.
“Who taught you?”
There was a lot there, Hermione realized, in such a simple question. How much she could give away with the slightest bit of information. This was likely a muggle recipe, from Tom’s perspective, with the way she went about it. If she answered honestly, it gave some insight into her childhood.
She could lie. Say she taught herself, maybe. She could make up something new.
She decided to be honest.
“My father,” Hermione said, not meeting his eye. “He liked to bake.”
My father, who I claimed once that I had never met. Who I told you I never wanted to meet, whose name I would never want to share. When I thought I was still tricking you, but I never had been, not really.
Tom was quiet. His long fingers drummed along the length of the bottle, softly enough that it didn’t make a sound. She waited for him to be angry, perhaps, to yell at her for lying to him before, for so boldly attempting to make him identify with her. He had every right to be angry about that.
“Not your mother?”
Hermione was entirely caught off guard. She looked up; he didn’t seem upset at all. His face was cool, collected, and his question was posed with nothing but curious innocence. He waited.
Not your mother?
Another seemingly contrite question. Hermione shook her head. “She was lousy at baking,” Hermione answered, letting him have that one, too. “My dad… he was the meticulous one. You have to be for baking, really. It’s not like cooking, it’s more like—like potions. You have to be precise or the whole thing can go wrong.”
“I take it you’re good at brewing potions, then, too?” he asked, and Hermione was relieved at the shift in conversation. Tom craned his neck to examine the cookies on the counter. “If those are anything to go by, I’d say you are. Of course, they could taste horrible. Remains to be seen.”
“They will not!” Hermione huffed. “And yes, I’m very adept at brewing, thank you. As I’m sure you are, too.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re Tom Riddle, and, in your own, not-at-all arrogant words, you’re very good at everything.”
Tom grinned and took another sip. He was making some decent headway on the bottle. “True,” he said. “I am very good.”
“I bet you were the best in your year.”
“I was.”
“I bet you can brew even the most complicated elixirs in your sleep.”
“I can.”
“Even Felix Felicis.”
A pause. “Why, Hermione. Whatever are you implying?”
“That you brewed it and you took it in New York!” Hermione shouted, slamming her hand on the table. “I know you did.”
“You’re as ridiculous as ever,” Tom sighed.
“No, you are as ridiculous as ever.”
“If I break one of your rules, you can ask me exactly how I tracked you down in New York, can’t you?”
Hermione looked at the paper. She wished that she’d added more topics to it. “Perhaps I will,” she said.
“What a shame for you that I am also very good at playing games. Speaking of—when is this one over? You haven’t set any parameters for this. Awfully messy.”
“It’s over whenever I say it is,” Hermione snapped.
“How convenient.”
“I get to make up the rules as I go. I made dinner.”
“That’s still debatable.”
Hermione ignored him. She got up to move the cookies from the baking sheet onto a plate, which was soon piled high. They did, in her opinion, look as professional and delectable as ones you’d buy from a good bakery. She brought them to the table. “Bon appétit.”
Tom didn’t immediately move, so Hermione went first. She grabbed the cookie from the top of the pile and held back a smile as she chewed. They were perfect. “Go on, then,” she said. “Try one.”
Tom did. He broke one in half before taking a bite, and his eyes went wide. “Wow,” he said after he’d swallowed. “I take it all back.”
“Take what all back?”
“All the comments about baked goods not constituting a proper dinner.” He took another bite, followed by a sip of contraband liquor. “In fact, I’m now relinquishing all cooking responsibilities to you. You can go ahead and make these for every meal if you want.”
“What—wait, so—you think they’re good?”
Tom seemed to nearly roll his eyes. “How silly of me,” he said, “to deprive you of your favorite thing.”
He leaned closer, elbows on the table, and stared deep into her eyes. Hermione noticed that his pale cheeks were turning pink. “They are amazing. You are an amazingly talented, skilled, gifted baker. You are an amazingly talented, skilled, gifted person. You impress me, even when you do something contrite as make cookies. I am impressed.”
He sat back in his chair. “And you’re now on regular cooking duty,” he added before he took another bite.
“Surely this means I get my wand back, then?”
“You’d hardly need it. I’m fine being used as a mixer.”
“It would make it a lot easier if I could do it all myself!”
“I’ll take that into consideration. Keep up the good work and perhaps I will let you have it. Unlikely, though.”
“You’re such a tyrant.”
“You love that about me.”
Tom licked a bit of melted chocolate from his finger, his dark eyes gleaming, grinning at her with his most devilish, crooked smile. The one that made Hermione’s heart stutter and her wits go out the window.
Rather than say something stupid, Hermione ignored him and took another sip of the liquor. “Huh,” she said as she lowered her glass. “It actually does kind of taste… not quite as bad now.”
“I told you,” Tom said. “Sort of goes from a gasoline to a…”
His frowned at the bottle, like maybe it would provide a good description for him.
“A nail polish remover, maybe,” Hermione offered.
“…Nail polish remover,” Tom repeated slowly. He tilted his head, looking from the bottle to her curiously. “Hm.”
Hermione wanted to smack herself on the forehead again.
Nail polish remover. Something only muggles used to get rid of nail polish, because—as Hermione had learned recently, when introduced to all things magically cosmetic—there were plenty of charms that could do away with it much more easily.
Only a muggle would bother with something like acetone and cotton swabs… and only a witch raised by muggles would even know about them.
Her mudblood scar. The golden lines, the time-sand. Her fake life with her fake aunt and her fake bloodline. Learning to bake from her father, not her mother, because she wasn’t meticulous enough.
Tom didn’t need to ask questions or break any ridiculous rules she might make up. Bit by bit, slip-up by slip-up, Hermione was giving little parts of herself away. Tom only had to collect the pieces, and someday soon he would be able to put her story together like a puzzle.
And he was collecting. Tom surely had a mental filing cabinet of his own, one she knew was labeled with a picture of her, where he hoarded every scrap of information he gleaned about Hermione, if that was even her name, definitely not Smith.
Which he’d been doing from day one, of course. Her clumsiness around him. Her love of reading and wanting to know and wanting to be praised for being right. The way she could recite Shakespeare and was the type of woman who would prefer knowledge and poetry to any kind of roses.
Nail polish remover.
She wondered just how much of the picture he already had, but was keeping to himself.
“…Maybe not that bad,” Hermione said, pretending not to notice his scrutinizing stare.
Tom said nothing, only took another drink and ate a bit more. His eyes stayed fixed on hers, looking thoughtful, and his face…
Definitely flushed. He had to be at least a little tipsy.
“How much of that is left?” she asked, nodding towards the dark amber bottle.
“Enough for you to have more, if you want.”
Without waiting for a response, he filled her lightly touched glass near to the brim. “I can’t drink all that!” Hermione shouted.
“By the time you get about here,” Tom said, tapping his finger to the middle of her glass, “it’ll go from nail polish remover to tap water.”
“Tap water?”
“Swear on Salazar’s grave.” Tom held the bottle up high in a mock cheers. “I hardly taste anything anymore.”
Hermione laughed. Tom was smiling when he lowered the bottle again.
“Is it wise to get sloshed right now?” she asked. “Considering… everything?”
“No one is getting in here, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Tom said. “The wards are secure. I tended to them this morning. And—”
“You keep saying that,” Hermione interrupted. “What does that mean, tending to the wards? Aren’t you just checking them?”
Tom barked out a laugh. “Hardly,” he said. “This kind of blood ward… It’s old magic, Hermione. Dark… the kind that demands a price.”
Hermione stared, uncomprehending. “Blood magic,” Tom added. “It always makes demands. In exchange for an impenetrable barrier that keeps this space as undetectable as this one does, it demands… blood. A lot of it. Frequently. I’ve been feeding it.”
Hermione’s hands flew to her face in horror. “Tom—how many—oh God, how many people have you—”
“Hermione. I haven’t killed a single person since we came to Albania. Please refrain from having an unwarranted panic attack, I have consumed too much of this—this nail-polish-remover-tap-water to deal with that.”
He said it all in a deadpan voice. He took another drink.
“Then what do you mean, you’ve been feeding it!?”
“Animal sacrifice. Honestly, you need to read more books about dark magic rituals. It’s quite common.”
“Animal…?”
“Yes. Don’t get upset about that, either. Think of me as just another predator in the wild, thinning the herds of the Albanian wilderness, part of the big, violent, but perfectly natural circle of life.”
Hermione almost snorted. “Those poor animals.”
“Please. I am a very humane killer. They never even see it coming.”
“I’m sure they don’t. I’m sure you’re swift and efficient.”
“I am.”
“And that it hardly takes you any time at all, to sacrifice their blood in a ritualistic manner. Definitely not hours and hours.”
Tom smiled thinly. “Perhaps it does.”
“Perhaps you’re a big, fat liar!”
“I love it when you call me a liar,” Tom said, smile widening. “Do it again.”
“L… liar?”
“With some bite to it, Hermione. Are you insulting me or questioning me? It’s not wise to do either, mind—”
“Oh, just stop it.”
Tom laughed. He was definitely drunk. The only time she recalled him being this… silly was when they were at The Devil’s Cup.
“If you want a straight answer from me, you’d better hope I bring up something I’m not supposed to,” he said, nodding towards her list.
“Maybe if you keep drinking, you will sooner rather than later,” Hermione responded.
“Doubtful. You’ll have to use all your cunning to trick me, sober or not.”
“Oh, right. Of course. Because I wouldn’t know anything about tricking you, would I? Certainly never done that before—and you were drinking then, too.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I—when you left me in your flat and I got your stupid diary, you—”
“Number two!”
Tom shoved the paper towards her, grinning merrily. “You just mentioned item number two on your list on unspeakable topics. The horror. The shame. I get to ask a question.”
“What—no, I didn’t!”
“Yes, you did. Have some dignity. No one likes a sore loser.”
“I didn’t actually say the word—”
“That’s not specified. It’s not my fault you created a poorly worded, vague list. Now, my question—”
“I’m not answering that, Tom, that didn’t count and you know it!”
“I haven’t even asked anything yet.”
“I know what you’re going to—”
“Sh.”
Hermione’s words died in her throat. With one sharp hushing sound, Tom had silenced her. Magically.
Tom’s pink-tinged face turned a shade darker. “Sorry,” he said, this time flicking his wand at her. “Accident.”
Her voice returned, but Hermione didn’t say anything. She knew that he was also recalling when he’d last silenced her, wandlessly, though it had been anything but an accident, then.
Tom cleared his throat. “So… my question.” He hummed thoughtfully as he took another drink.
“You know I can’t—”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“—tell you—what?”
“What’s your favorite color?” Tom repeated. “I know. It’s a big one. Answer carefully.”
He grabbed another cookie. Hermione waited for him to do something drastic, to laugh and shout, ‘Just kidding! Where are my horcruxes?’, his eyes likely going from brown to red and maybe breaking some furniture as well in a sudden, frightening rage.
When none of this happened and Tom only waited, smiling, Hermione set her surprise aside and considered the question.
“My favorite color,” she said. “Hm. That is a big one.”
She sipped her drink—it still was reminiscent of nail polish remover—and said, “Red.”
“No, it’s not.”
“What?” Hermione balked. “Excuse you? What do you mean, no it’s not?”
Tom looked for a moment like he regretted saying it, but then he shrugged. “I don’t think you’re a red sort of girl,” he said.
Hermione was floored. What new level of assumption and arrogance was this? “What is that supposed to mean? I’m absolutely a red sort of girl.”
“You’re not thinking enough!”
Tom set the bottle down hard, leaning forward, his eyes blazing. “You answered too quickly, you’re being shallow. I didn’t ask what color you associate with the most; I asked what color is your favorite. Huge difference. I want to know the color that, when you see it, it makes you feel… happy. Something specific. Not just ‘red’, which encompasses about a thousand different hues, by the way. What kind of red, if that’s the answer? Which it’s not. You’re not a red girl, I know it—don’t hate me for being right. So…”
He sat back in his chair, his demeanor once more relaxed. “Think about it, and answer it right this time. After all, according to your rules… I’m owed an honest answer.”
He grabbed the bottle and drank. Hermione blinked at him, dumbfounded. “I think you’re making this a much more complicated question than it should be,” she mumbled.
Tom didn’t respond. Hermione, a bit begrudgingly, tried to do as he demanded and think more deeply about what her favorite color was.
A color that makes me happy…
“Hmm…”
She sipped her drink—still atrocious. She ate another cookie—still delicious. She glanced out the window at the darkening sky.
“Maybe… maybe a sort of blue,” she finally said. “Like when it’s very sunny and the sky is bright. That kind of blue.”
Tom frowned. Hermione feared she was about to be given another lecture for being too shallow, but then he grinned. “Better,” he said.
“What about you, then?” she asked. “What’s your favorite color?”
“You’ll have to earn that information, I’m afraid,” Tom replied. “It’s too big an answer to simply give away for free.”
“Of course it is,” Hermione muttered. “Prat.”
Hermione startled when Tom’s wand suddenly lit up with a bright white glow. He made no comment when it did, only flicked it lazily. The light went out and the contraceptive potion floated into his hands. He took a drink, grimaced, then sent it away.
“That does not mix well at all with… whatever this is,” he said, returning to the alcohol.
Hermione didn’t know if she should laugh or not. “You don’t have to take it if… you know,” she said, feeling her face grow warm.
“I don’t like to be unprepared,” he said. “Even if it would be nice to ration it more… That was ridiculously expensive to acquire here. If we stay in Albania for too long, I might have to start brewing it myself… what a pain that would be.”
“How much was it?”
“About the equivalent of fifty galleons,” Tom lamented. “I’ve spent far more than I wanted to already. I’d rather hold onto what we have left, not because we need it to live but as an emergency fund… It’s always good to have bribe money if necessary. And I’d say we barely have enough for something like that as is. It would be too dangerous to try and get anything from my associates, seeing as I’m dead and all.”
“I have gold.”
Tom stared at her in mild surprise, then laughed. “Woman, you have nothing to your name at all anymore! After what you pulled with the…”
He tapped the list on the word ‘MACUSA’. Hermione scowled at him.
“I’m not an idiot,” she snapped. “I don’t mean money in a bank account or in my most assuredly ransacked loft, if they managed to get in—God, I’ll miss that loft—I mean other money. Gold I stashed before coming here with you.”
Now she had his attention. “I’m listening,” he said.
“I knew things could… go awry at any point, really, so I hid a few mokeskin bags outside of the city. It’s all in America, in upstate New York, which is unfortunate, but not impossible to get to I don’t think. I also put some protective enchantments around them… well. More like curses. I cursed them. Quite heavily.”
“How much gold?”
She frowned, converting in her head. “Well, it’s in American wizarding currency, but it comes to about… five thousand galleons?”
Tom choked. He spit out his drink much in the same fashion Hermione had earlier. He appeared to drown for a moment before he coughed laboriously. It was easily the most ineloquent she’d ever seen him; it took a lot of effort not to laugh.
“Are you alright?” Hermione asked, barely biting back a smile.
“Fuck off,” he choked out in a raspy voice. “You do not have five thousand galleons just—just laying around somewhere in New York.”
“First of all, rude,” Hermione quipped, folding her arms across her chest, “and secondly, no, technically, I don’t.”
Tom shook his head, an expression that said of course you don’t unfolding on his face, but then Hermione added,
“It’s more like fifteen thousand.”
His flushed face paled. His eyes went wide with disbelief. “Fuck off,” he said again, much more quietly. “Fifteen… fifteen…?”
“Yes, well, if you had been listening, and if you could do some basic math, then you wouldn’t look so surprised. I divided up some of my savings into three bags, three locations. Just in case, you know?”
Tom looked thunderstruck. Hermione sat there and enjoyed his silence for a time, sipping her awful drink casually and smiling.
“Some of your savings?” he asked once he found his voice again. “How on… you’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“That’s a ridiculous amount of gold.” His eyes narrowed into something suspicious. “Was Hepzibah that wealthy, that you sauntered off to New York with—Gods, it would have had to have been… how much more? If that was only some—and she didn’t care?”
“It’s not Hepzibah’s gold, it’s mine,” Hermione said briskly. “And if you want to know how I got it… well, that’s too big an answer to simply give away, isn’t it?”
Tom didn’t look annoyed at all; in fact, he was staring at Hermione like she was an angel. “You have access to the equivalent of fifteen thousand galleons,” he said blankly.
“I do. Assuming you’d ever let me retrieve any of it. I guess I could tell you how to, but you’d need me to open the bags, so you’d have to bring them to me anyway. And I imagine you already know a place to convert from one form of wizarding currency to another by now, so… Aren’t you glad you didn’t kill me, now?” She smiled widely. “I’m just the gift that keeps on giving, aren’t I?”
She laughed and took a drink. Tom continued to stare at her with huge eyes.
“Now that should earn me my wand back,” Hermione went on. “If you give me my wand and let me go get it, I’ll have us set for life on gold.”
“I’m not letting you go to New York, with or without me,” Tom said at once. “For all we know, there’s some obscure part of that contract you signed that will let them know the moment you step on American soil. No, if anything, I would go get them, alone… but not anytime soon. Everything is still much too…”
“Fresh?” Hermione provided.
“Yes,” Tom agreed. “That.”
“Hmm… all right. Maybe something else to earn my wand back, then.”
Hermione forced down a large gulp of her drink (it was nearly gone, and was marginally less disgusting), then set the glass down. She was glad she was almost done with it; she felt quite buzzy already. With a serious face, she said, “I’ll give you a hint.”
“A hint?” Tom repeated. His eyes were still starry; he had clearly not yet recovered from learning about her ridiculous stash of gold.
“A hint,” Hermione said. “About the your ring. About where it is.”
Tom’s brows rose. He smiled. “That’s number two again,” he said, tapping the paper.
“I—oh, fucker!”
Tom laughed when she swore. “All right, that one was completely my fault,” she grumbled.
Damn it all, she thought. Tom: 2, Hermione: 0.
“Just—here.”
She grabbed the pen, then made an angry slash on the page.
Topics we shall not discuss:
The diadem
Horcruxes
Hermione’s past (before meeting Tom Riddle)
Hermione’s scars
The MACUSA
Dumbledore
“Do I get to cross one out, too?” Tom asked. “Or is that a part of the game only you get to decide?”
“No, you don’t. Do you want your hint or not?”
“I do. But I also get a question. You said it yourself. That one was completely your fault.”
Hermione sighed and set the pen down. “Fine. What do you want to know, my favorite song?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Don’t rush me. Give me my hint first, if you’re willing and want your wand back.”
“Okay.”
Hermione fixed the serious expression back in her face. She placed both hands flat on the table. “Once you right one of your most grievous wrongs,” she said, “then you shall be in the place where your ring is.”
Tom continued to stare at her. She grinned. “And that’s your hint!” she finished happily.
“That’s the hint? That’s it?” She nodded. He scoffed. “That’s not at all worth wand privileges, so don’t even ask.” He frowned deeply, staring down at the table. “One of my most grievous wrongs…” he murmured to himself. “Sounds like one of the riddles you’d need to solve to get into the Ravenclaw common room.”
“The what now?”
Tom shrugged lazily and lifted the bottle again. “One of the common rooms at Hogwarts, instead of a password you needed to solve a riddle,” he explained. “It was fun, really. I almost wish our common room entrance would have been similar, but then half the house would have been sleeping on the floor of the dungeons most nights.”
He smiled wistfully and drank. “Is that something you did often, then?” Hermione asked, unable to stop herself. “Sneaking into the Ravenclaw common room, as a Slytherin?”
“I wanted to know every part of Hogwarts,” Tom answered. “To learn every secret… so I did. Including the common rooms. What are you really asking, Hermione?”
Hermione ignored the burning in her cheeks. The diary had not given her an answer when she’d talked to him, not really…
“I suppose I’m wondering if you had a nice Ravenclaw girlfriend when you were in school,” she said. “Or any girlfriend, e-ever.”
“Are you really asking how many women I've slept with?" Tom asked, smiling crookedly.
“No! No, no. I don't want to know that."
"Then what do you want to know?"
"I guess... What I'm really trying to ask is. Er. Well. Have you—have you ever been in love before?”
She didn’t know why he seemed to want her to ask it, but Hermione was so deeply curious, and he seemed in such a good mood. Maybe he would answer.
“Ah,” said Tom, but his surprise was clearly feigned. “Now that is an interesting question. Shame I don’t owe you any answers right now. You should hold onto it for if you manage to trick me later.”
Hermione glared and crossed her arms, annoyed. She had a whole stash of questions she’d like to ask him, now.
“Just because you don’t have to answer a question doesn’t mean you can’t,” she drawled. “But fine, whatever.”
“Right. But I’m owed one, so…”
“You want to know how I acquired all my gold?”
“No, no. I’d rather steal your question.”
He tipped the bottle towards her and asked, “Have you ever been in love before?”
Chapter 65: Sesh-uss-ah
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Tom drank, keeping his eyes locked on Hermione’s, the hint of a smile never leaving his lips.
“You can’t take my question,” Hermione found herself saying. “That’s not fair.”
“I don’t see that listed as a rule. A simple yes or no will suffice.”
“That’s not true and you know it! These things are—are complicated.”
Tom’s slight smile vanished. “Ah… I see I have my answer.”
“What? No you don’t, I didn’t say anything,” Hermione said, but she spoke much too quickly, and she knew that he was right.
He did have his answer.
Tom drank and assessed her in silence. Hermione had the bewildering urge to both steal the bottle from his hands for herself and to flee the cottage, though she knew she’d get exactly nowhere if she tried.
“Stop that,” she said, fidgeting in her seat. When he did nothing but raise a brow at her, she scowled and said, “Stop staring at me and—and being all quiet and thoughtful. I know you’re sitting there, making up your own version of what you think you know, and I know you know that it will drive me crazy so—so just… here.”
She slid her glass across the table. “If you want the story of my torrid past love life, fine. But I’m going to need more nail polish remover to get through that.”
Tom filled her glass. He said nothing as he slid it back to her, only waited.
Hermione took a drink and heaved a great sigh. She racked her brains as she considered just how she was going to tell this story without telling him everything.
“I’m not going to use anyone’s real names,” she started. “And I need to point out that this was all years ago. I don’t even talk to him anymore, and haven’t in a long time.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” She knew why he looked surprised because she knew what he—incorrectly—suspected, but Hermione was not about to utter the word Liam out loud if she could help it. This was all bad enough.
“Why fake names?”
“Something about you being a murderous, possessive Dark Lord. Consider it a precaution.”
“Did he hurt you?”
The question was spoken softly, with little inflection. It was amazing how Tom could send a chill shooting up her spine with no effort. His relaxed posture hadn’t changed; he still held the bottle lazily in one hand.
But his eyes. They were biting and cold.
“Are you going to let me tell the story, or are you going to interrupt with cryptic questions? Like I said, this was years ago. But this boy and I… I’ll call him… Rob.”
“Rob,” Tom repeated, and Hermione immediately regretted her choice. The name was much too close.
“Er, yes,” she said anyway. “Rob. He and I were the same age, same year, all that. We were good friends, along with another boy—let's call him Henry—”
“Another boy?” Tom interrupted. “Henry?”
A second poor name choice, Hermione lamented. She should have gone with something completely outlandish, or words that weren’t names at all. Like Freckles and Glasses.
“Well, those aren’t their real names, like I said, but—yes. Rob and Henry. They were my best friends for a long time.”
Tom’s eyes were narrowed and calculating. Hermione carried on. “So Rob… he and I had a sort of… oh, I don’t know.”
She paused to take a drink. Her mind buzzed in a floaty, pleasant way that nearly made this conversation bearable. “We were friends, but we were the sort that were always bickering, always getting on each other’s nerves because we saw things differently most of the time, but—but also because we were clearly keen on each other. You know, in hindsight.”
Tom made a noncommittal sound. He helped himself to another cookie.
“We finally got together when we were eighteen, after some dramatic… stuff,” Hermione settled for. “And… and it was great. Honestly. It was summer, we had just gotten through that dramatic stuff, and…”
She took another deep drink. “And yes, I loved him. I can admit that. I loved him and he loved me and we were very much in love. Sickeningly and beautifully so, as Henry would describe it.”
She laughed hollowly. Tom’s face slid into that mask he wore when he was hiding his emotions, smooth and unreadable as still water.
“What happened?”
Hermione considered telling him he hadn’t earned that answer, but she thought better of it.
She slid her glass towards him again. He refilled it.
“We ended up having a bit of a long-distance thing for a while,” she said. “He—he got a job that required him to travel. He and Henry both. They were together, and for the first time in years, I wasn’t with them. I felt… left behind. But it was okay, because it was only a year.”
The amber liquid glistened in her glass, but Hermione didn’t drink. “It was only supposed to be a year,” she said again, quieter.
She closed her eyes. She hated how it still hurt, thinking about this. She hated how clearly she could see his goofy smile and vibrant hair.
Ron.
She opened her eyes again. Tom hadn’t moved. “It’s hard to get into the details of it all, so I won’t,” she said. “But basically, he… well, you have to understand that he had a lot of older brothers. Many of them, and then one younger sister. He was the youngest of the boys, though, and I think he felt like he was the least loved of them all. Like his mum only wanted a daughter at that point, and he was a disappointment from the beginning when he was just another boy.”
Tom made another noncommittal sound. His face remained blank. “It didn’t help that his older brothers were so impressive. They were all smart, accomplished, and talented. He had a lot to live up to. He was also bitter because everything he got used to be theirs. Old, hand-me-down stuff. His family didn’t have a lot of money. His whole life, all Rob wanted was to not be broke and to make a name for himself. To be special. To be loved for being himself.”
“What does this have to do with you?” Tom asked.
“I’m getting there. It’s important to understand him a bit, that's all… So finally, after all that dramatic stuff, he got what he wanted. He landed that important job, and he and his best mate Henry were both… very well known in our community, you could say. People knew them, respected them. Admired them… admired them a lot.”
She drank. She grimaced. Still too much like acetone.
“And, um,” she started again, “well, it’s also… another important thing is that. Well. He had an ex-girlfriend that he dated for a bit before me.”
Tom’s arched one brow, the slightest bit of surprise on his otherwise blank face.
“It wasn’t anything serious,” Hermione continued. “But it was his first girlfriend, and she was… fine. She was nice. She was nice to him, anyway. She really liked him. He shouldn’t have dated her, mind. He only did it because—well, it doesn’t matter. They broke up because he didn’t really like her like that.”
“Because he liked you,” Tom added tonelessly.
“Yes,” Hermione agreed. “Not that he was saying that then. But they broke up, and Rob and I, we got together later. And then, pretty much right when we’d figured out we were—you know, a thing— she… the ex-girlfriend… I’ll call her… Lilac, she… she died.”
Tom had clearly not expected that plot twist. His eyes widened and lips parted. “Oh, shit,” he said.
“Yeah,” Hermione breathed, letting out a shaky laugh. “Oh, shit.”
“How did she die?”
Hermione wasn’t sure how to answer, but a lie seemed unjust in ways she couldn't wrap her head around. “She was murdered,” she whispered into her glass, then took another sip.
“Oh,” said Tom. “Shit,” he added.
“Yeah,” Hermione repeated. “Oh, shit.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head, sending frizzy curls whipping back and forth. “Don’t ask me for details there. I just—I can’t. She died. It was—”
The memories assaulted her. Lavender, her body mutilated by Greyback, bloodied and lifeless and cold on the floor of the Hogwarts Great Hall. Fred, looking as though he could simply be asleep. And Remus. And Tonks and little Colin—
“Hermione.”
Hermione’s eyes flew open. Tom looked concerned.
“You don’t—”
“No, I can finish. Let me finish.” Hermione’s hands were trembling on her glass. She didn’t know where the determination to finally tell this small part of her past was coming from, but it was there, burning in her chest along with the alcohol.
“It was rough. There were other things too, but that… It hit him hard. It hit us all hard. But we were okay, for a while. Before he left for his job. Then… well, his ex, Lilac, she had a best friend… just… P. I’ll just call her P.”
Tom went silent again. Hermione swallowed thickly. “And like I said, he had always wanted some recognition, some fame—he loved having all that attention, finally—and this was the first time in his life that he was getting loads of it. And at some point, when he was out there and we were long-distance, he went drinking with Henry and some friends from work, and he ran into P.”
Another drink. No comment from Tom. “And the short version of it, from what I’ve… been told, is that P and Rob were both smashed, and they had this mutual connection to Lilac, as P was her very best friend and missed her so much, and—and I guess that shared grief and way too much booze and finally getting a bunch of attention from girls led to them making stupid decisions together, and—and he slept with her. He cheated on me.”
Hermione slammed the rest of her drink. “And that’s it. That’s the story. I found out in a really awful way. Then they both wrote to me, apologizing, I’m sure, but I don’t know, because I never opened the letters—and that was the end of that. Of Rob and I. That was over a year ago.”
Tom was quiet for a time. He refilled her drink again. She could tell by the way he tipped the bottle high that it was almost empty. Hermione accepted it without a word.
“You know, it wasn’t even the worst part, the cheating,” Hermione said, though Tom did not prod her. “It was the aftermath. Because—because so much of my life had been tangled up with him, you know? I didn’t know who I was without him and Henry. After we broke up, I was just—I was so hurt. So isolated. I couldn’t even… oh, God.”
She covered her face with her hands. “It was always me,” she mumbled into her fingers. “I shunned everyone. I ignored all the owls from Henry and the attempts to talk by Rob’s sister—whom I had grown so close to—and… and Rob himself. I never let him talk to me in person after that. I never read his letters or returned an owl. I never gave him a chance to say sorry, and I shut everyone that was even remotely close to him out of my life. Me.”
She’d never admitted it out loud; in fact, she’d never admitted it at all. It had been so much easier to act like they had all turned cold towards her; to pretend that people like Molly Weasley had believed the stupid Prophet articles and no longer wanted anything to do with her, even though Harry had sworn up and down that wasn’t true, that he’d set Mrs. Weasley straight this time.
She’d read Harry’s letters but almost never wrote him back; she burned anything from Ron or Parvati the second it arrived, unread. She dodged Ginny’s advances at Hogwarts when she tried to talk to her, even when she was passionately cursing her stupid brother’s name, until she finally stopped altogether.
Hermione had festered alone in her hatred and bitterness for Ron, for Parvati, for Greyback for murdering Lavender, for Lavender for having the audacity to die, for Harry for trying to fix everything and save everyone all the time, for Rita Skeeter and her fucking quick-quill and her fucking articles making it seem like Hermione had dumped Ron, for everyone who read the Prophet and so much as looked at her funny.
It was her. Hermione shut them all out, every single person. Not the other way around.
It had been a miracle, really, that Harry still hadn’t given up on her. That he hadn’t given up on them.
“…Of course you did.”
Hermione’s hands slid down her face. Tom shrugged. “Of course you shut everyone tied to him out after that. Who wouldn’t?”
Pretty much anyone, Hermione thought but didn’t say. Anyone would have heard the Ronald Weasley out eventually, especially at the insistent request of the Harry Potter. She remembered all of Harry’s letters, tirelessly explaining, begging, pleading.
I’m not making excuses for him, Mione; he fucked up. He fucked up big time and he knows it. Trust me, he does.
I’m not asking you to get back together with him, not at all. I’m just asking you to talk to him. Just once.
He’s a wreck, Mione, I mean it. He barely even remembers that night, he and Parvati were both sloshed, it was a mess. I should have stayed later. I would have if I’d had any idea how bad they were going to get.
I’m sorry. This is my fault.
Please respond to me. A single sentence saying ‘I’m terribly busy with my studies’ doesn’t count.
Please meet me somewhere, it’s been ages. We can even study together if you want. I’ll come to Hogsmeade and quiz you, as I know you’ve made hundreds of flash cards. Even if it’s Advanced Arithmancy and I don’t have a bloody clue what I’m asking you. I’ll let you explain and I’ll nod along and everything.
I miss you.
And his very last letter, left behind in a timeline she’d never see again…
Happy birthday, Mione! Please, please, please meet me tonight for a drink? I got you a present. Don’t stand me up again! Remember when I met you at the Three Broomsticks, to the detriment of my Valentine’s Day date? Which had been going swimmingly, I’ll remind you. I promise Skeeter won’t be there this time. Unless you’d like me to bring her in a jar. I could probably make that happen, I’m Harry Potter and all that.
Three broomsticks, 8 o'clock. Please come.
Hermione knew why Harry was so insistent. She knew as well as he did that if she had given him the opportunity, if she’d met Ron and allowed him to explain and apologize, to make all the vows and grandiose promises in the world… she would have caved. Hermione would have had her raged-filled moment, but then she would have forgiven him, because she always did.
She hadn’t wanted to let go of her bitterness. Pulling together an elaborate and insane scheme with Draco Malfoy to travel back in time and hopefully rewrite history had wound up sounding more appealing.
But she couldn’t say any of that to Tom. “I don’t know,” Hermione mumbled. “I… Rob was complicated. I could have… I don’t know.”
“You could have what?” Tom asked. “It sounds to me like you’re on the verge of making excuses for him.”
“I wasn’t,” Hermione said. “No, it’s more like… This was sort of his thing, I guess.”
“What was his thing?” Tom asked, a hint of venom in his words. “Cheating? Fucking up?”
“No,” said Hermione. “Always admitting when he was wrong, always apologizing… always coming back. That was his thing. He… he always came back.”
She drank and drank. It hardly tasted like anything at all.
“You still love him.”
His body, while still in that same, relaxed position, was no longer convincingly calm. His muscles went rigid in a subtle but noticeable way; Hermione thought of a wild animal that had just perceived a nearby threat.
“No, not like that,” Hermione said, her pulse picking up. “I mean—it’s complicated. I don’t love him like that anymore, no, but now that so much time has passed… I don’t know. I don’t love him, but I don’t hate him, either. He was my best friend for so long, he was my first—uh—”
Heat rushed her face. Tom’s frigid eyes narrowed. “Your first everything?” he supplied.
“Are you referring to my virginity, Tom?” Hermione cleared her throat and forced a smile. “Oh, no. I lost that at the tender age of fifteen to an internationally famous quidditch player.”
Tom looked as though she’d punched him in the gut. Hermione could only keep it together for a moment. “I’m kidding!” she said, laughing and waving her hand about. “Kidding, kidding—I could have if I’d been so inclined, though.”
Tom’s expression flickered from shocked to angry to shocked again. “A quidditch player?” he said. “Who?”
“Now that’s a question I won’t be giving away the answer to,” Hermione said, still smiling. “But yes, I did lose my virginity to Rob. As though it matters! I’m not asking you to recount your first sexual encounter, I don’t see why my past should be so important.”
Tom shrugged, but the action was clearly forced, making him look more irritated, not less. “Why don’t you ask me, then?” he said. “I’m sure you want to.”
“You’re wrong, I don’t care, because it doesn’t matter.”
“You’re such a liar. You’d love to know if I fucked my way through Slytherin House while I was in school, wouldn’t you?”
His smile was devious, but it gave nothing away. Hermione hesitated. She was curious to know if he’d slept with any of those obnoxious, pureblood girls that had been at Abraxas’s, and if—
Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter!
“No,” Hermione said stubbornly. “If I want to know anything, it’s what I asked before.”
Tom’s lewd expression cleared. He set the bottle down. Then, to her surprise, he answered.
“No,” he said. “I’ve never been in love… before.”
The pause between love and before had Hermione’s insides doing somersaults. Tom continued to stare at her with those dark, tunnel-like eyes.
“I have another question,” he said, and his voice—it was lower and softer. Dangerous.
The butterflies in her stomach seemed to all freeze at once. “You didn’t technically earn—”
He grabbed and crumpled the list so fast Hermione yelped at the suddenness of it; the paper disintegrated in his grasp, falling between his fingers like snow.
“No more games,” he said quietly. “I’m going to ask, and you’re going to answer.”
Hermione swallowed hard. She watched as the remnants of her list turned to ash, then vanished. She nodded.
“You said Liam forced himself on you. What exactly did you mean?”
Hermione shook her head. “Tom, that doesn’t—it—”
“Tell the truth.”
A sharp ping told Hermione that the amber bottle—now empty—cracked. She counted herself lucky that it hadn’t exploded.
Lucky, because Tom was not only coldly furious, but drunk, jealous, and in pain.
“Tom,” Hermione started gently, “I don’t think—”
“Hermione, if you don’t tell me exactly what happened with him, right now, you will regret it for the rest of your life.” Tom leaned towards her and rested his hand on the table, holding his wand. “Don’t make me embellish that threat with details.”
Hermione didn’t need him to. As much as she didn’t want to talk about this, she didn’t see a way around telling him what happened—in as vague a way as she could. “I… he…” She broke off. She cleared her throat and tried again. “He—Dumbledore and Madison, they put him up to it,” she said in a rush. “You see—he’s, er, part-Veela, so—”
“What?” Tom must have been surprised enough to forget his anger, because he looked at Hermione like she was an idiot. “He… is a male.”
“Yes, I’m quite aware that he’s a male,” Hermione snapped. “But I guess that Veela can, eventually, produce male offspring that are much closer to wizards than Veela are—I don’t know, Walter told me about it, warning me to stay away from Liam at all costs, basically.”
“Walter?” Tom asked. “Your other New York friend?”
“Yes, him. He was looking out for me.”
Tom smiled a little. “I knew I liked him.”
“You knew you—what do you mean, you liked him? You barely even talked to him! Or any of them!”
“I’m an excellent judge of character,” said Tom. “I got the impression right away that he had many good qualities—loyalty, for example. Was he the one whose memory you altered? Who lost his position as an auror because of you?”
Hermione gripped the bottom of her chair tightly, flushing now for an entirely different reason. “Yes,” she admitted guiltily.
“Pity,” Tom said. “Perhaps… well, that doesn’t matter.” He tapped his wand against the table, an impatient gesture. “Liam is part-Veela,” he said. “Tell me what that means, and tell me what happened.”
Hermione did not want to tell him what happened. But Tom kept tapping his wand, each sharp sound like a warning.
“Well… these part-Veelas… they can sort of do what the females can to men… but, you know, to women… I don’t know if you know—”
“I’m aware of what Veela are capable of,” Tom cut in. “Go on.”
“R-right… well, he… on Madisons’s orders, or maybe Dumbledore’s, or maybe both… he interrogated me. When they wanted me to give information about you. Because I wasn’t giving in with their attempts at Legilimency, and I guess they thought this would be an easy way to get me to do what they wanted…”
She paused. Tom said nothing; his wand hovered over the table in his now motionless hand.
“And, um. He came into the interrogation room and tried t-to seduce me the way Veela do, b-but it didn’t work, I managed to close off my mind and bring him down with me, even, so it doesn’t matter—”
“Did he touch you?” Tom sat up straighter, his grip on his wand tightening. “Tell me the truth, Hermione.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “And he—he kissed me, but—”
Tom raised one hand, effectively silencing her, no magic necessary. His face was eerily calm. Then he stood.
“Tom?”
He was halfway across the room before Hermione could register what was happening. By the time she got to her feet, he was opening the front door.
“TOM! STOP!”
Hermione ran after him, knocking her glass and the cracked bottle onto the floor in her haste. “TOM, NO—”
She caught up to him on the porch. He whipped around, his face now bright with unconcealed fury. An ominous blue-black light flared from his wandtip.
“He’s dead,” he seethed, pushing Hermione away. “I will kill him—”
“Tom, stop, no, you can’t run off like this, please, please, please don’t leave me, you can’t, please—”
He pushed her away again, turning around and starting down the steps; Hermione, rapidly becoming hysterical, threw herself at him, grabbing him round the waist from behind.
“You can’t go, you can’t storm off like this, you’re unwell and you’re drunk and this is exactly what they would want—for you to do something so rash—just—please stay and think for a moment, please, I’ll do anything—please!”
Tom’s body went rigid. “Let go, Hermione,” he hissed.
“No!” Hermione held him tighter. She was shaking, whether from nerves or the cool, night air on her legs, she wasn’t sure. “I’m not letting you go, you can’t, not like this! You know I’m right, Tom—that would be beyond idiotic! What do you think you’re really about to do? Go straight to America and casually commit murder? To infiltrate the fucking MACUSA right now? Have you forgotten he’s an auror? And this is all assuming your curse didn’t kill him in the first place!”
“They survived,” Tom spat. “Their deaths would have been reported somehow, in some way, if they hadn’t, and I would have found out. A grievous wrong I’m going to rectify now.”
“Tom, please, just think—think for one second, you can’t go anywhere. Just take a deep breath for me, please.”
Eyes still blazing in a cold, dark inferno, Tom did. He drew in a measured breath, then slowly exhaled.
“Let go,” he said afterwards, but his voice had much less bite to it, and Hermione could breathe again, too. She was going to win.
“No,” she repeated. “Never.”
He lowered his wand arm. When he tried to turn around, Hermione loosened her hold so he could, but didn’t let go entirely. He grabbed her face with both hands, his wand hard against her cheek.
“I am going to kill him,” he promised. “I am going to make him suffer in ways he cannot begin to imagine. And not only him. I’m going to kill all of them.”
Hermione didn’t know who exactly he meant by all of them, but she didn’t need to know just then, either. “O-okay,” she said, sniffing, because now was also not the moment to tell him otherwise. “Just d-don’t leave me. You can’t do anything as you are right now. You’ve been drinking and your soul is unstable and—and it’s been bad enough when you’ve left me here before, but if you left now, like this—what would I do, Tom, if you didn’t come back, and I couldn’t come after you—because you’ve m-made it so I can’t, what would I do, what would I—”
Her whole world blurred as tears flooded her eyes. Tom’s fierce expression faltered. “Hermione,” he said. “I’ve already told you I would never leave you here.”
“You can’t know that,” she argued. “What if something horrible happened and you got caught? How would I know? I wouldn’t even be able to go look for you, because you have me trapped here like a prisoner, and it’s going to kill me Tom, I swear to God, I—”
Her rambling died when he grabbed her by the chin, holding it firmly. She blinked her tears away. “You’re not a prisoner,” he said, the anger slipping away more and more with every second that passed. “Are you?”
“Not if you stop making me one.”
Tom kept ahold of her, one hand on her chin while the other rested on her cheek, his wand still pressed against her. “…You’re not a prisoner,” he said again. “You never were, Hermione… I never changed the wards.”
Hermione blinked. “You… you what?”
“I never changed them. You could have left at any time.”
“What…?”
“I can’t manipulate this kind of dark magic further, not without undoing all of the wards and redoing them. It was bloody insane, the work I had to do to create a series of them that would keep out everything from blood tracking curses to house-elves, which are disturbingly skilled at apparating to just about anywhere. That all would have been unnecessarily exhaustive, because I knew you would think I’d done something to them so you couldn’t leave. I only acted as though I’d changed them. I didn’t.”
Hermione looked from him to the cursed tree in the distance and back again.
“You absolute arse!”
Unthinking, Hermione slammed her fists against his shoulder, nearly knocking him down the steps. “How could you let me think that, I was losing my mind with worry every time you—!”
Tom’s face, which had begun to dare to look amused, went pale. He sucked in a sharp breath the next time she pummeled him, his body convulsing, making Hermione hold her tongue and pull back at once.
“Tom! I’m sorry!”
But she knew it wasn’t her pitiful, half-hearted attacks that had hurt him. Tom’s whole body curled into her, clutching at his chest. The light from his wand died.
“Come on—back inside, let me help you—”
Tom leaned against her as she guided him in. Hermione kicked the door shut behind them, then helped him to the couch.
“Are you okay?” She pushed the hair from his forehead; his eyes were closed and his brows were furrowed.
“Yes,” he said through his teeth. A pause. “No,” he whispered, shuddering.
“Oh, Tom…”
“It’s just pain.” Tom opened his eyes, taking in what Hermione knew was a panicked expression on her face. “You can’t do anything. It comes in waves. It will pass.”
He winced and closed his eyes again. Hermione looked around the cottage like she might see some solution, some suggestion for what she should do. The alcohol was gone. She didn’t have her wand—though she doubted there was a single spell that would numb the unique pain he’d cursed himself with.
Her heart started thumping as an idea came to her. She pushed herself to her feet.
“…It’s okay,” she said gently. She carded her fingers through his hair. “It’s okay… to let me help you.”
She slowly knelt. Tom’s eyes cracked open.
“It’s okay,” she said again. Hermione curled her fingers around both his hands, dragging one to her face and kissing his wrist.
“It’s okay… to give up some control sometimes.”
A kiss to his palm. “Let me help you. Let me make you feel better.”
Her hands went to the waistband of his pants. Tom’s eyes went wide as her intention became obvious, and his cheeks turned a much deeper hue.
“Hermione,” he said, his voice higher than usual. “You d-don’t…”
A stutter. He had stuttered.
And yet Tom wasn’t stopping her; in fact, he had helpfully shifted his hips just slightly—perhaps even subconsciously?—so she could pull his pants down over his thighs, towards her, and lower still…
“It’s okay,” Hermione said. Tom’s face was red. “It’s okay… to like it. Not having all the control.”
She slid her hands up his legs. Tom stared, glassy-eyed, saying nothing.
Hermione was glad she’d drunk as much as she had. She wasn’t nervous at all, not even with him watching, not even with the lights on.
She kissed his inner thigh, then the other. Then, when he didn’t say anything, only breathed raggedly, she took the tip of his cock in her mouth and sucked.
Tom reacted dramatically. His hands went to her hair, tangling his fingers in her curls; his head fell back against the cushions and his breath caught before he let out a strangled, raspy cry. His cock swelled.
She heard his wand hit the floor where it had slipped from his grasp. It rolled into the kitchen until it collided with the chunks of the broken amber bottle.
Hermione internally smiled as she took more of him into her mouth, slowly, sucking gently the whole time. She didn’t look at his face, not yet, but she knew—she owned him, like this.
Hermione took him as deeply as she could, and by the time his cock was nearly brushing the back of her throat, he was fully hard. She swallowed around him, eliciting another gasp-like noise. His fingers twisted more tightly in her hair.
That’s right, Hermione thought as she drew back. There’s no Liam, no Rob. No MACUSA, no Dumbledore, no nothing. There’s only you and me.
She lowered herself again, tongue still pressed wide against him. When she once more had him as deeply as she could manage, she looked up. Tom’s face was splotchy and rosy, and she could see a sheen of sweat on his forehead. When she made eye contact with him, he looked… desperate.
Tom seemed to realize this, because he tried to force his face into something less deplorable, and weakly tugged on her hair. He opened his mouth like he might say something, but no words came out.
Hermione kept her eyes on his and sucked a bit harder, pulling her mouth back up his length as she did. Tom didn’t look away. Hermione doubted he could.
She found it distracting, though, that vulnerable, flushed face, so she did, focusing on her task. She knew she could make him come undone quickly, if she wanted.
She didn’t.
She moved slowly. Hermione took her time, wrapping her tongue around him, pausing to suck and tease his head before taking all of him again. Tom’s hips bucked into her every time, and the sounds he made—unbidden, every grunt and groan, every gasp.
She didn’t go faster. Hermione purposefully took longer and longer between the few satisfying, full strokes she gave him, spending more time lavishing the tip of his cock with her tongue. By the time she’d done this only three times, it was weeping. She made a show of lapping it up.
“Please.”
Hermione paused. She had to, to relish it. Tom, begging. Really begging.
She met his eyes again; they were wild with want.
Hermione smirked, then ran her tongue down the side from tip to base. Tom’s hands pulled at her hair so much it hurt, but she didn’t stop.
Up and down. Not taking him in her mouth anymore at all, only sliding her tongue along his length. Tom’s breathing was much too fast.
“Please,” he said again.
Hermione thought to say a number of patronizing things—it would have been satisfying, she thought, to recite some of the words he’d said to her in similar situations—but she didn’t.
Instead, she pulled back. Tom looked mildly devastated as she disentangled his hands from her hair and stood, but only for a moment.
She pulled off her shirt and tossed it away.
She hooked her thumbs along the waistband of the lacy knickers, then pushed them down her legs and discarded them.
She crawled onto his lap, straddling him, and grabbed his face. His hands hovered uselessly as his sides.
“Tell me you’ll let me help you,” she said, rocking against him. “Tell me you’ll let me be with you… Tom.”
She positioned herself so he was there, the tip of his cock right at her entrance. Tom finally reacted—he grabbed her hips and pushed up into her, but he didn’t force her, and she didn’t let him get anywhere. He groaned in frustration.
“Tell me,” she said, holding his flushed face harder. His eyes were so, so dark.
“Promise me, Tom.”
He knew what she was asking. He had to; it was what she wanted more than anything.
He swallowed so hard she could hear it. Then he nodded.
Hermione smiled as she kissed him, then moved.
Fuck, she thought as she settled herself on his lap, his cock sliding into her until she was filled. Tom was a beautiful mess, his mouth vibrating against hers with his uncontained moans. He couldn’t control himself. Tom immediately pushed her back up, lifting her by the hips. Hermione allowed it, but then she paused when just the tip of his cock was inside her. She swiveled, teasing, but didn’t otherwise move. Tom tried to pull her down onto him again, desperate to fuck into her, but she wouldn’t budge.
He tore his mouth from hers. “I can’t,” he grit out, his nails digging into her. “I— please—”
Tom’s words died as she once more indulged him, lowering herself when he next jutted forward. Tom swore, and when Hermione didn’t stop, when she kept moving at a measured, steady pace, he moaned louder than ever, his voice guttural and low.
He was going to come. Hermione could tell that he was right on the edge already.
She ran her tongue along the shell of his ear, and then, never breaking rhythm, she whispered, “Sesh-uss-ah.”
Tom’s breathing hitched. His grip on her became painful. His voice vanished; his teeth dug into her neck where her scars radiated, an open-mouthed but silent scream. His hips jerked forward again, pushing deeply, and he came.
Hermione grinned, feeling every throb as he fell apart at the seams inside her. It was beautiful, having him like this.
Just as Tom’s voice returned, his broken groan filling her ears, Hermione started moving again. His cock was still pulsing, still spilling out, still coming—yes, oh—
The orgasm rolled over her slowly, like thick and lazy lava pouring down her spine. She let out a satisfied moan as her muscles warmed and contracted, every one of them, from her arching back to her curling toes.
He found her mouth again before it had passed and kissed her. Tom’s lips were already parted, and his tongue instantly sought hers out.
I could kiss him forever, Hermione thought, dazed, the heat still spreading through her limbs. I could kiss him like this until it killed me, the lack of breathing—and I’d die happy.
Fortunately for her, Tom pulled away first. His head fell against her chest. He wrapped his arms around her waist and breathed heavily. Hermione’s hands went to his hair, where she ran fingertips through it and massaged his scalp.
She held him like that until he was no longer panting. Tom shifted and started peppering the soft skin of her breasts with kisses.
“Sesh-uss-ah,” he hissed, his breath ghosting over her nipple. Then he kissed her there, too.
“What does it mean?” Hermione kept petting his hair while he kissed her. “What do both of them mean? That and the other one… haas-rach?”
He didn’t pause what he was doing. Tom had gone from sweet kisses to heavier ones that involved his tongue. When his teeth grazed her nipple, she sucked in a breath, certain he was content to ignore her question.
“Haas-rach,” he hissed, surprising her, “means master.”
He pulled her nipple into his mouth. Hermione was torn between wanting to tear him away so she could glare at him and encouraging him to keep going.
“I did say I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I thought I would,” he said as though he’d felt her annoyance. He moved on to her other breast, following the trail of a golden loop with his mouth to get there.
“And the other one?”
Hermione’s voice came out breathier than she expected it to. She could feel heat pooling in places it probably shouldn’t again already, and it was hard not to rut her hips.
“Sesh-uss-ah.”
He didn’t explain. Tom swirled his tongue, flicking it over her nipple, making Hermione’s body vibrate with renewed want.
“Yes?” she eventually prodded. Then she gasped when Tom’s hand went between her legs, pressing her thumb against her clit without warning.
“Sesh-uss-ah,” he repeated. His lips were still on her chest as he locked eyes with her.
“…means mine.”
Hermione didn’t have time to wrap her mind around the magnitude of it—of why it was so meaningful that he had wanted her to call him that—because he began to work her clit by rubbing in small, controlled circles as well as taking her nipple back in his mouth, and—
Hermione bucked into his hand, his cock still in her, semi-hard, and tipped over the edge shockingly quickly. Her second orgasm was an electric shock of pleasure jolting through her, a current that started at Tom’s fingers and ended at his mouth. She cried out at the intensity of it, and as she felt herself clenching around him Tom smiled, looking much too satisfied with himself.
“Sesh-uss-ah,” he hissed again, the Parseltongue so elegant and fluid coming from his lips.
Hermione grabbed his chin and held it.
“Sesh-uss-ah,” she said back.
He was still smiling when she kissed him again.
That night, Tom held her like he always did—tightly against him, his chest to her back. Hermione felt his steady breaths and let the sounds calm her. He was asleep. He sounded peaceful, serene. Definitely not like he was suffering.
“…What is your name?”
Hermione started at the unexpected question. Not asleep, then.
She shifted and turned in his arms. It was so dark in the room that she could hardly see anything; only the glow of the moon peeking through the curtains made it possible to make out his silhouette.
“My name?” she repeated.
Tom’s hand went to her face, cupping her cheek. “Yes,” he murmured. “Your name… your real name.”
Hermione didn’t answer for a long time. She stared straight ahead in the darkness, knowing she was looking at his face but unable to make out his features. He was nothing but shadows.
She touched his face, too. “When this is over,” she said, “when the full moon has passed and you’ve fixed the unstable part of soul… when you’ve left the diadem intact… I’ll tell you.”
She couldn’t read his expression, but his hand on her cheek tensed.
Hermione held it in her own and squeezed.
“I’ll tell you everything.”
Chapter 66: Ritual
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Happy birthday, Mione! Please, please, please meet me tonight for a drink? I got you a present. Don’t stand me up again! Remember when I met you at the Three Broomsticks, to the detriment of my Valentine’s Day date? Which had been going swimmingly, I’ll remind you. I promise Skeeter won’t be there this time. Unless you’d like me to bring her in a jar. I could probably make that happen, I’m Harry Potter and all that.
Three Broomsticks, 8 o'clock. Please come.
Hermione held the letter so tightly that the paper began to tear.
Please come.
She… could go.
She could leave now. Malfoy wasn’t here yet. It would be easy. She could walk out the door right now, waste the rest of her ‘sick’ day somewhere else, and meet him. She hadn’t seen Harry in so long.
A knock on the door. Hermione, feeling as though she’d nearly been caught doing something naughty, crumpled the letter into a ball and tossed it into the bin.
“Come in,” she said.
Malfoy looked solemn. His greeting smile was more of a grimace, and he was wearing muggle clothes in all black, like he was in mourning.
“You don’t seem very confident,” she said as he closed the door and unwound a scarf from his neck.
“It would be insane to not be anxious,” he said. “But I’m nothing short of confident in our plan.”
He reached into his inner pocket, then revealed it: the Time-Turner.
Malfoy held it by the chain and offered it to her. Hermione took it with both hands, cradling it as though it might explode at any moment.
They locked eyes. Malfoy’s face was set like stone.
“Right, so. Let’s go over it again,” Hermione said, her voice as bright as though they were merely going over notes from a Potions lecture before an exam.
At least he didn’t roll his eyes at her this time. “You’ll take the stabilizing potion. Then you’ll perform the imbuing spell that will have you placed physically where you want to be in London onto the Time-Turner first,” Malfoy recited. “Next, you’ll strike with the spell that will turn it the exact number of times necessary to place you when you want to be… December 31st, 1926.”
Hermione swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes,” she said. “December 31st… 1926.”
A long pause. The Time-Turner glittered between them, all sparkling gold and shining glass.
“And then,” Malfoy went on, “after you arrive outside of Wool’s Orphanage, you should be able to find Merope Gaunt easily enough, and… and…”
“And I’ll kill her in cold blood,” Hermione said with a smile. “Should be easy.”
Malfoy looked nauseated.
“Stop that,” Hermione chided. “Looking at me like that, as though it wasn’t your idea in the first place. Obviously it won’t be easy, but at least I know she already dies. I’ll be saving her from some horrible pain, I imagine… and the Wizarding World, too.”
She pulled the chain over her head. Though the Time-Turner couldn't have weighed more than her wand, it felt like an anchor around her neck. Like she’d just donned an iron noose.
“What do you think will happen?” Malfoy asked. “Do you think we’ll keep our memories and… and also have ones of a whole new life? One without the Dark Lord? Or do you think we’ll forget this, forget everything that led up to this, and the whole world will just be… different?”
She noticed he hadn’t included ‘Do you think we’ll cease to exist?’ or ‘Do you think you’ll fail spectacularly and end up missing for about a week before returning to the present and eliminating Wednesdays for three months, as well as being sentenced to life in Azkaban, probably? Assuming the potion we made works and your body doesn’t deteriorate first?’ or ‘What if you fail and simply don’t come back at all?’ in his list of possible outcomes. She decided not to voice them, either.
“Honestly… if I succeed… I would prefer the former, of course, but think the latter is far more likely. I don’t think we’ll keep anything. If it all goes perfectly and I slip back into the future of this timeline as I should… I don’t think we’ll get to take these memories with us. They wouldn’t exist anymore. They shouldn’t.”
Malfoy’s face took on that solemn expression again, but he nodded. “Right,” he said. “Right…”
“Right.” Hermione pulled out her wand. She had the spells, complicated though they were, memorized. She’d plugged in the last bit of information she’d needed—today’s date—and now…
Now they were ready.
“And if I don’t succeed,” she said, “if I fail to find her, to… kill her, then I know how to activate this to come back.”
She did—Malfoy had shown her several times how his family’s much more impressive Time-Turner operated. Speaking the Latin, Malfoy family motto that was engraved into the gold while pressing a precise spot above the hourglass would bring the wearer back to where and when they originated from.
Hopefully.
“Say it,” Malfoy commanded. “So I know you won’t butcher it if you need to do that.”
Hermione glowered. “Sanctimonia Vincet Semper,” she said in perfect Latin.
Malfoy nodded, looking as pleased as he ever did.
“Purity will always conquer,” Hermione murmured. She ran her finger along the script. “Let’s hope that purity is subjective here, hm?”
Without waiting for whatever sneering comment Malfoy would undoubtedly make, Hermione crossed the room and went to her cabinet. Inside, the stabilizing potion they had perfected was in a tall, glass bottle. It was a vibrant red, as bold and bright as fresh blood.
She took the bottle down, then returned to where she stood before, directly across from Malfoy.
“Well then,” she said. “Cheers.”
Hermione popped off the stopper, lifted the bottle in a mock toast, and downed the entire thing. It tasted like nothing.
“Should we have made more of that?” Malfoy asked as she set the empty bottle aside. “For you to take with you, just in case…?”
“It took an insanely long time just to brew this much,” Hermione said. “And if my theory is correct—which it is—this should stop my body from falling apart from time-induced stress for a whole week, at least. If I end up stranded somewhere for longer than that… Well, I don’t see how buying myself a few more days would help me much. I’ll already be on a clock, waiting to die.”
Malfoy wrinkled his nose as though she’d said something distasteful. “Fine. Then you should at least take this.”
He pulled out a coin purse, one that was clearly stuffed full. Hermione took it, and upon looking inside, saw that it was filled to the brim with galleons—not a knut or sickle in sight.
“Gold?” she asked.
“Gold,” Malfoy said. “In case everything goes to shit, and you do get stuck for five days or whatever.”
“And how will gold help me, if that's the case?” Hermione responded dryly.
He looked at her like she was a complete moron—a look Hermione Granger did not often have aimed at her. “Enough gold can work miracles, Granger.”
Hermione almost laughed. It was such a Malfoy thing to say.
Still, she stowed the bag in her pocket. “Thanks, Malfoy,” she said. “I hope I don’t need it.”
“I hope you don’t, either.”
They shared a rare smile. Then Hermione cleared her throat, pulled out her wand, and stood tall. “This is an all or nothing excursion,” she said in a businesslike tone. “Either I succeed and our entire timeline will be rewritten, or I’ll be back in exactly… twenty-six seconds after I disappear.”
Hermione moved her wand in careful, precise movements. Murmuring the incantation under her breath, she wove the magic into it—a spell not unlike apparition. One that would move her to the precise coordinates she’d picked out; a spot on a sidewalk near Wool’s that existed in the 1920s, too. She could only pray that she didn’t appear in the exact spot as a random pedestrian. If so… well. She might end up killing someone innocent after all.
Once done, Hermione lowered her wand. The Time-Turner retained the lime green glow from the magic for a moment before returning to its usual lustre. “Perfect,” she said. “Just… just the last one, then.”
Hermione’s heart began to pound so hard she could feel her pulse in her fingers. Acting before she lost her nerve, she raised her wand again, aiming—
“Wait.”
Malfoy grabbed her wrist. His expression was one that she had never seen on him before; it was like all the arrogance and confidence had drained right out of him.
“Just—I hope… if this works, and we forget everything, and our lives are rewritten in a different world… a better one… I hope… I hope you still find me and slap me in the face. Because I’m sure I’ll still find a way to deserve it.”
He let out a shaky laugh. Hermione stared, shocked, then found herself laughing, too. “Yeah,” she said, “I’m sure you will.”
“And. Er.”
His pale face turned pink. Malfoy shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. “I…”
Hermione waited. He shook his head.
“Nothing,” he mumbled.
Hermione’s mind reeled. She was losing her nerve more and more with every passing second.
She glanced at the bin where Harry’s letter was, a crumpled ball of trash.
Three Broomsticks. 8 o'clock. Please come.
She cast the spell.
A sharp, high-pitched zing cut through the air. The Time-Turner—the little glass hourglass was moving so quickly it didn’t appear to be moving at all; rather, it looked as though it had just turned into an opaque, shimmering sphere. A near impossible number of turns to take her back, and back, and back…
December 31st, 1926.
It went on and on. Malfoy had his hands over his ears. They looked from the Time-Turner to each other, each with wide eyes that belied their shock.
She’d done it. She’d really done it.
Suddenly, it stopped. The sound, the spinning. The Time-Turner was motionless where it hung from the chain in Hermione’s fingers, loosely around her neck.
She was still there.
Malfoy sighed as though relieved. Hermione frowned, confused—
A boom like lightning striking the ground at her feet assaulted her. Hermione fell, but she collided with nothing; her scream was stolen from her throat as she was ripped away through space, through time.
This is the last time I’ll leave you. I promise.
Hermione didn’t know whether she believed him or not. She wanted to. She tried to.
I could go after him.
The thought was both reassuring and frightening. She didn’t doubt that he was being honest with her about that, at least. Hermione did believe that she could sacrifice a bit of blood and leave the ward, if she felt the need. Yet leaving the cottage felt, somehow, just as oppressive as it had been when she thought she was trapped.
I think I’ve been here too long, Hermione lamented, picking at her sleeve.
That was another adjustment that had her feeling both pleased and not. Tom, finally revealing the clothes he’d gotten her that weren’t lacy lingerie. It wasn’t much—a few plain sweaters and some skirts—but it was nice to have things that fit her decently well. At least, that’s what she told herself. Hermione did her best to ignore the part of her that had grown accustomed to wearing Tom’s clothes, used to his scent clinging to them.
Now if only he would give me back my bloody wand already.
On that account, Tom remained stubborn. After the ritual had passed, he said. He seemed to think that, if Hermione had her wand, she would do something to try and stop him herself, with her magic—and no amount of swearing that she wouldn’t directly interfere had made him budge.
A moot point, after today, she reassured herself, hardly for the first time. It was finally the 2nd. After tonight, Tom would no longer have a scored soul, one way or another… She would be given her wand, and…
And she would tell him everything.
Hermione stared at the Pensieve in the corner. It glowed with that light, rosy hue, looking far too pretty.
I could show him everything, even, she thought. Will probably have to, because I doubt he'll believe all of it…
She almost laughed as she imagined it. You, a time-traveler? Impossible. Me, thwarted by a baby…? Equally impossible. Has this magic affected your mind after all?
She’d hardly be able to blame him for thinking that, either. He was probably going to be upset about all her fake visions, too—the one about the gold halo in particular. He’d really enjoyed that one.
It would be much, much harder to explain what she’d tried to do to his mother.
Hermione sighed and stretched her hands over her head. Tom hadn’t yet been gone long, but he’d said he wouldn’t return for at least an hour, probably longer. A whole hour where she would pace around the cottage, letting her mind run wild with worry, because he’d all but begged her to stay, just the one last time.
She wondered what he was doing, exactly. What kind of preparations he needed to make for this ritual where his soul would exist, however briefly, outside of his body, defying nature.
Where he would either fix it… or break it again.
He will fix it, Hermione told herself. He said he would. He said he could do it. He promised…
Hermione plopped herself down on the couch and reached for the closest book. In order to do so, she had to move that morning’s issue of The Daily Prophet out of the way, which Tom had gone out and found while she drank her morning tea. He’d been rather pleased with himself when he brought it back, because he ended up being right.
Tom Marvolo Riddle’s obituary was short, shunted to the very back of the paper. His death was attributed to an extremely unfortunate and tragic cardiac arrest. He died in his sleep and was found in his flat. There was no foul play suspected.
It was such a blatant, reaching lie that Hermione knew that some people at the Prophet were being blackmailed, cursed, or otherwise forced to accept this as truth—that reporter who went searching for Tom at his flat, for one.
Or maybe not, Hermione thought. She shoved the paper aside, not wanting to look at it a moment longer. Maybe people really did just… believe it. Surely they transfigured something into a believable corpse…
Hermione didn’t know, and she couldn’t bear to dwell on it. While Tom was cheerful to find that he had died–on the record–Hermione felt it was a terrible omen.
May 2nd. Why May 2nd, of all the days?
Coincidence, Hermione, coincidence. She grabbed the book, checked that it wasn’t anything too dark—it was one about warding—then flipped it open. She didn’t know why she bothered. Though her eyes scanned the page, her thoughts continued to drift.
Tom, and the picture they had used for his obituary. It had been old–one they had taken when he was Head Boy at Hogwarts. He looked so handsome, so young. So full of potential.
Anti-apparation wards… certain variations are particularly vulnerable to….
Tom and his perfect hair and his perfect smile and his perfect lips.
…but this issue can be addressed when the caster uses…
Tom with his velvety voice and his hypnotic tenor…
…however… non-human and part-human creatures have the potential to be impervious to…
Sesh-uss-ah.
Mine.
Hermione closed the book. She could hear it so well in her head he might as well have been sitting next to her, moving a strand of hair aside to murmur it in her ear.
Sesh-uss-ah.
She wondered if she said it half as enticingly as he did.
Nothing made Tom more pleased than when she called him that. Even thinking about it now had her blushing. The way he would bend to her, touch her face, kiss her…
At first, she’d found it surprising. Tom had always been the sort to say those things himself, to be the possessive one. He looked at people like possessions, not Hermione.
Did he really find it so appealing to be owned back? To be claimed, essentially?
The more Hermione thought about it, the more she realized… Yes. Of course he did.
Tom Marvolo Riddle’s whole life was defined by being not wanted. His father had to know that he existed, but he left Merope when she was pregnant anyway, and never sought out his child.
Unwanted.
His mother lived only long enough to pass along his father’s horrible name, then was gone.
Then, as an orphan… well, he wasn’t wanted by anyone there, either, because he was never adopted and the matrons never warmed to him. He was different. He scared the other children. He traumatized some and killed Billy’s rabbit.
Unwanted.
Then, in Hogwarts… sorted into Slytherin with no name, an assumed muggle-born… Reminded as much frequently by people like Abraxas Malfoy until Tom himself learned exactly who he was…
Unwanted. At least, unwanted long enough to not trust that anyone would ever genuinely want him for who he was.
Of course Tom wanted someone to say the word mine to him, and to mean it. He wanted what almost every person in the whole wide world wanted: to be loved deeply and fiercely, so powerfully that it would never, ever fade.
To be claimed.
Hermione could understand that well enough.
She sighed again, then found herself distracted by the one thing she spent an exuberant amount of willpower ignoring.
Those golden lines.
She followed the path of them along her left calf. All the way around her ankle, down her foot. They creeped along her toes… all but the pinky one. When she sat up to look at the bottom of her foot, she saw that they were there, too.
Everywhere. Aside from that minuscule bit of skin, she was covered in them.
Tom hadn’t seemed worried about them any longer. He really thought they were only going to multiply, on and on, keeping her healthy. She was as close to immortal as any being could get without making horcruxes, as far as Tom was concerned.
Hermione understood his logic. He’d explained exactly why he thought this, at length, and was as convincing as he always was. But despite his sound reasoning, Hermione couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen once no part of her body was left unscathed.
Something bad.
Hermione stood.
She had, what? Perhaps forty-five minutes left of solitude? Without overthinking it, she walked out the front door, then went straight to the cursed tree.
It didn’t even require that much blood.
Still, Hermione was extremely nervous as she stepped over the threshold. She was out. Had Tom felt that? Would he know she’d left? She waited one minute, two. A few more.
No Tom.
He’s busy, Hermione told herself. Even if he felt it, he’s preparing for a ritual. He probably can’t just stop what he’s doing to come check on me. He’ll be annoyed, maybe angry, if he finds out…
If.
Hermione took a deep breath, then said, “Hokey?”
She didn’t expect it to work. For one, she was not Hokey’s master, and so Hokey had no reason to be tuned in to her and even less reason to obey. For another, they were in Albania, and it was be entirely unreasonable to–
Pop.
Hokey did not look pleased.
“Remarkable,” Hermione breathed. Was she imagining it? She had to be.
“Miss,” said Hokey curtly.
“Oh my God! Hokey! You came!”
Hermione threw herself on the ground, kneeling and scooping the tiny elf up into a hug. Hokey went rigid at first, but then she hugged her back, seemingly despite herself.
“You came!” Hermione repeated. She set Hokey down. “I can’t believe you came! All the way from London!”
Hokey shot her a look as it to say, of course I did. “Why is you summoning me, Miss?”
“I—well, I didn’t think you’d show up, if I’m being honest,” Hermione said. “Did… Did Hepziabh let you come? Does she know I called you?”
Hokey assessed her quietly for a moment. “...No,” she eventually said, to Hermione’s great shock. “Mistress Smith is… very hurt by Miss. Hokey felt your summons, but came without telling Mistress. Mistress is resting, Miss. Taking a nap. Hokey decided… Hokey wanted to know…”
Without warning, Hokey ran head first into a tree. Her skull made a sickening sound as she collided with the trunk.
“HOKEY IS A BAD ELF! HOKEY IS A BAD, BAD ELF!”
“Hokey—Hokey, stop!”
Hermione yanked her away from the tree, where she continued to slam her head against it. “Please stop! I know I’m not your master, I can’t make you, but–I command it!”
Hokey froze. Then she collapsed in Hermione’s arms, sobbing.
“Mistress is so s-sad!” she wailed. “She is not getting out of bed ever, she is sad, she is—she is m-missing yous.” She sniffed. Hermione’s sweater was becoming drenched in tears. “We is both missing yous.”
Guilt. It swelled in Hermione’s heart.
“I know… I’m so, so sorry, Hokey,” Hermione said. She pried the elf off of her enough so that she could look into her giant, watery eyes. “That’s why I summoned you. To explain myself. To hopefully… make things right with her. To make her less sad.”
Hokey sniffed loudly again. “Y-yes?” she squeaked, hopeful.
“Yes,” said Hermione. “Can you stay here for a few minutes while I explain without hurting yourself?”
Hokey nodded eagerly. Hermione smiled, then did.
The moon was swollen and bright.
It seemed impossibly low, like Hermione might be able to reach out and touch it were she to scale one of the nearby trees. Their branches swayed in the gentle night breeze, like they too were curious, grasping for that brilliant sphere in the sky.
The valley was small. Its span was no wider than the footprint of the cottage, a perfectly round area where no foliage grew, not even grass. In its center was a tall, triangular pile of thick branches, a pyre yet to be lit. Unnatural, everything about it, this little valley so deep in the woods. Extremely unnatural.
Dark magic curled in the air.
They had only just arrived, but Hermione felt its presence long before they made it to the clearing. She could only wonder what Tom had done to prepare this site. She supposed she would find out shortly.
“Hermione.”
She tore his focus away from the hypnotic pull of the moon. Tom had his wand out, but he held it down at his side, not yet prepared to use it.
“You will stay right here,” he said, pushing her back a few steps until she was at the edge of the valley. “And you will not move… Do you understand?”
Hermione nodded.
“You can set that down.”
Her fingers tightened on the prize in her hands: the diadem.
She had wanted to leave it. Tom had convinced her that it was imperative that he have it here with him; it had already been prepared, it was already a part of this. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to reveal his soul to heal the recently made crack.
Or so he claimed.
“I’d rather not,” Hermione said. She held it against her chest like a shield. “If it’s all the same to you.”
Tom considered her, his face tilting, his black eyes mirroring the silver of the moon.
“Fine,” he said, to her surprise and relief. "This won’t take long. It will be dark magic, the likes of which I’m certain you’ve never felt before. But it will be short.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It will all be over soon.”
Without allowing her time to respond, Tom left her there, moving to the center of the clearing.
He raised his wand. The tip began to glow a faint white, and Hermione swore the moon grew brighter in response. He cast a spell at the branches piled at the center. They burst into flames; a warm, crackling inferno.
Then he began chanting.
His voice was low, too low to make out the words, but Hermione could surmise that it was Latin. He raised his arms and closed his eyes.
Red.
The ground itself began to glow. Runic symbols, reminiscent of the ones he had placed in that home in New York, were embedded into the Earth. At first they all pulsed with the same dull light, then they grew steadily brighter, some more than others.
Hermione tried to make out what they meant. A few stood out to her: Blood. Sacrifice. Pain.
Soul.
There were too many to translate them all, and the way they were placed—spiraling out from the center of the valley where Tom stood—made it so most of them were oriented sideways or upside down to her. She was soon too distracted to focus on them anyway; Tom’s chanting, which was growing faster and louder, was stirring the air.
The trees’ branches moved with more vigor, an unnatural wind whipping them about. Tom’s wind. Hermione shuddered, for it had brought with it a harsh cold front. The light of the moon intensified.
Then the flames turned black.
The only time Hermione could ever recall seeing similar fire was when she was a first-year at Hogwarts; when she, Harry and Ron had braved the underground chambers to protect the Philosopher’s Stone…
A wall of black flames, trapping them in…
But this fire was much more frightening than even that had been. These flames reached up high into the sky, emitting no smoke, no warmth, and little light. The world became darker, colder, and infinitely more frightening.
Tom continued to chant, having not yet paused once to take in a breath. He kept his arms raised and his eyes closed. Hermione couldn’t help but think he looked like he was offering himself up to the moon itself.
A select few runes grew especially bright. Tom’s face, which had been mask-like with concentration before, twisted as though in pain.
Hermione was going to be sick.
The feeling of dark magic was so much worse than she could have ever imagined. It was more disgusting than any disease, more nauseating than any illness. Her head pounded with each beat of her heart, a heavy, throbbing pain. She leaned against a tree for support, and it was all she could do not to collapse, to curl into a ball and clutch at her knees until it passed.
Tom had been right on one account, she now knew. If she had her wand, she would be doing something to try and stop this. Anything.
It was nightmarishly horrible… and he wasn’t even done yet.
The winds grew stronger, bolder. The temperature kept dropping. Hermione was shivering violently; she could no longer feel her fingers where she held the diadem to her chest, its metal like ice in her hands.
Then, with an alarming abruptness, everything paused.
The winds ceased, making the forest feel even more unnatural in its stillness. The chill in the air had not abated, though, and Hermione continued to feel as though she might wretch at any moment.
Tom opened his eyes and let his arms fall to his sides. His gaze swept across the runes, noting which ones were glowing the brightest. Understanding seemed to dawn on him, for his face cleared and he turned towards the trees with purpose. He stowed his wand. He raised one arm, moving cautiously forward.
“Come,” he said quietly.
Hermione had to cover her mouth with her hands to stifle her heavy breaths, to not disrupt what happened next.
A deer.
A stag, to be precise. It was too large to be a fawn, but its antlers were not very long. They jutted out as two short prongs on its head, above its wide, black eyes…
Eyes which were trained on Tom as though transfixed.
Hermione was astounded as she watched. How on earth was a deer anywhere close to this? She would have imagined that any wildlife would have run the moment the unnatural wind began, if they hadn’t been steering clear of this dark-magic filled valley already. Yet here was a deer, a wild animal, and it was walking slowly towards Tom’s outstretched hand without a trace of fear.
I can make animals do what I want them to, without training them…
The deer stopped once it reached him. Tom stroked the side of its face, then rested his forehead against it, directly between its small antlers. The deer let out a deep sound that Hermione interpreted as pleased, then closed its eyes as Tom continued to pet it.
It was the strangest, most touching moment.
“Thank you,” Tom whispered.
The deer’s neck snapped.
It happened so quickly Hermione could hardly process it. The deer’s head was suddenly at a sharp, damning angle, Tom’s hands on either side of it, gripping hard. Then, in another rapid, violent motion, he tore.
Blood poured from the massive open wound of its throat. Tom held it open as though he were cracking an egg, helping it to flow more quickly—and the blood, Hermione saw, sunk into the earth the moment it touched it, absorbed by the ground, the dirt, the hungry, dark magic.
Hermione’s legs gave out. She hit ground at the same time as the deer, as Tom soon dropped the carcass, the body no longer of any use to him. He resumed chanting. The winds picked up again, and the light of all the runes pulsed as one, satisfied.
It grew exponentially colder.
I have to stop this, Hermione thought, but her head throbbed in agony, and she couldn’t focus. I have to do something, something to stop him—what can I do, what can I do—?
Desperate and frantic, she shoved the diadem onto her head.
The pain ebbed away. Her fear slipped into nothingness, and within moments, she was left feeling oddly peaceful.
She waited for the wisdom to come to her. For the aha moment, for the perfect solution that would allow her to stop this ritual, to manifest in her mind. A voice that would say, This is what you need to do, step by step.
The silence in her head went on and on, as did Tom’s chanting in the forest. The dark magic was escalating, perilously so. Unstoppable. Finally, it came to her.
Pray.
That was all.
That was all, because there was nothing she could do. This was outside of her control.
Hermione shifted to her knees and clasped her hands tightly together.
The winds stopped again.
The roaring black fire quieted, becoming half its previous size. The trees went still, and the runes dimmed, hardly glowing at all.
Tom… was an angel.
It would have been a laughable thought in any other moment, but it was the only way Hermione could describe what she was seeing. Tom, standing with his back to her, and all around him…
It was the most beautiful sight Hermione had ever beheld before. It was magic, it had to be, pure and lovely and not dark at all, refracting like a prism, like liquid diamonds shimmering all around him, something fluid and holy and yet, in some spots, as it moved, as sharp as glass, as broken ice…
It was a shattered chandelier in the moonlight.
It was no color and every color all at once, a shifting kaleidoscope, a scattered, transfixing rainbow she could only catch in the corner of her eye.
It was his soul.
Oh, Hermione thought, at a loss for anything else. Tears streamed down her face. Perhaps it was only because she was wearing the diadem that she soon understood why.
How could anyone break something so beautiful?
Tom turned, slowly facing her.
Red.
Tom’s eyes were two pinpricks of scarlet in the night, so bright that the runes looked muted and gray in comparison. But he wasn’t looking at her, she realized, not quite.
The diadem.
The feeling of dark magic had not abated even slightly in the presence of Tom’s impossible, beautiful soul, fragmented though it was. If anything, it had grown heavier, nearly suffocating.
Of course he’s looking at the diadem, said that perceptive voice. It’s calling to him, it’s already been prepared for this. It’s ready and waiting to become a vessel for a sliver of his soul.
All he needs to do…
Is kill me, Hermione thought, responding to what she wasn’t sure was her own voice or not.
It was the only piece left of the ritual: a murder. And here she was, once more kneeling before him, the diadem on her head. The perfect human life, ripe for the taking. Tom had been right about this, too.
She never should have come.
Tom looked inhuman. Surrounded by the flowing, captivating light of his own soul, his face looked contrastingly demonic. His eyes were pitiless and hungry. Red.
She could tell her words wouldn’t reach him, even if she tried. He was a slave to this dark magic, now. It was out of her hands
Pray.
Hermione did.
He lifted his wand, aiming it at her. Hermione closed her eyes.
A flash of magic so vivid Hermione perceived it behind her eyelids.
A series of piercing, creaking sounds.
The ground shook. There was a wave of dark magic so strong Hermione gagged on nothing.
In another flash the lighting all changed, and then there was a flood of warmth. Something hit the ground beside her.
Hermione, trembling, crawled forward and looked up. She blinked blearily in the dramatic change of scenery as her eyes adjusted. The fire was once more a warm, orange-red fire. The winds were gone and the biting cold, though it lingered, was already dissipating. The moon’s glow was as innocent as any full moon. The runes were gone. Only the lack of foliage and the carcass of a broken, bloodless deer remained as clues to what dark ritual had just taken place.
Tom was on his back on the ground next to the fire. His chest was rising and falling rapidly.
“Tom!”
Hermione scrambled over to him. “What happened, what happened, are you okay—?”
His face broke out into a lazy, slow grin, despite his labored breathing. When he opened his eyes, they were no longer red.
“You… you did it,” Hermione breathed. “You really did it. You healed the score.”
Tom let out a raspy laugh. “Of course I did,” he said—as though he hadn’t just looked at her with hellfire eyes, wearing his soul like a cloak and murder clearly in his heart. “I said I would, didn’t I?”
Hermione collapsed onto him, holding him tightly around the waist. His body was trembling slightly, though nowhere near as badly as hers. “I was so scared,” she admitted, not bothering to wipe her tears away.
Tom wound one arm around her shoulders. “That was silly of you,” he said, daring to sound nonchalant. He was smirking; Hermione wasn’t sure if she should smack him or snog him. “You can take that off now,” he went on, looking pointedly at the top of her head.
Hermione pulled the diadem loose from her curls. She set it aside, then curled back into Tom’s chest, grateful for the heat of the fire.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Is the pain gone?”
“Yes.”
Tom picked up the diadem, examined it thoughtfully, then set it back down. “Aside from being a bit exhausted, magically speaking, I’m fine.”
“I don’t know how,” Hermione said. “That dark magic made me feel like vomiting, and I wasn’t even the one casting it.”
“I took precautions. As you know, I’ve done this before.”
“Not this,” Hermione pointed out. “Not… stopping it.”
“No,” Tom agreed. “No, I haven’t ever done that.”
They fell into silence. Hermione nuzzled against him, finding his heartbeat and cherishing it.
He did it. He’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay.
“So,” Tom said after a moment. “What’s your name?”
Hermione smiled. She opened her mouth to answer, but stopped short. She and Tom both sat up abruptly, for they had both heard it—a sound like something rustling nearby, and was that… ticking?
One… two… three…
He stared at her clock intensely. He held his breath, pacing, his pulse the only sound in his ears aside from the faint ticking.
Nine… ten… eleven…
He bounced on the balls of his feet. His fingers twisted together in front of him.
Seventeen… eighteen… nineteen…
His heart felt like it was going to burst.
Twenty-four… Twenty-five…
Twenty-six.
…Twenty-seven.
Nothing happened.
Everything remained exactly as it was. He looked around as though he might find some clue that the world had changed, but there was none. The sounds of muggle traffic outside carried on, uninterrupted. Her uneventful calendar looked exactly the same. Even the crumpled paper in her waste bin was still there.
The seconds ticked on… and nothing happened.
“Fuck!”
He swore, scattering unintentional magic across the room. Several mugs flew off the countertop and broke when they hit the ground. He twisted his fingers in his hair and paced much more furiously, trying not to hyperventilate.
She hadn’t come back. The world hadn’t changed, and she hadn’t come back.
Which meant…
Stranded, he settled for, refusing to think the word dead.
If she wasn’t back here and nothing had changed, then she’d done something wrong, and she was… somewhere else. Stuck in 1926? Had she lost the Time-Turner, somehow?
My father is going to fucking murder me.
He paced and paced, marching right through the shards of porcelain on the floor.
He had to do… something.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck!
He hated it. He hated it more than he could properly fathom, but he knew it was his only option, because he was the only person whom the rules didn’t ever seem to fucking apply to, and seeing as it was her…
Well, it was his only option besides doing nothing. And he couldn’t do nothing.
Feeling as brave as he ever had, Draco Malfoy made his way to the Ministry of Magic… to seek out Harry Potter.
Chapter 67: Draco's Mission
Chapter Text
Draco was so preoccupied wondering what he was going to say that he forgot how much he hated being at the Ministry of Magic until he was in the middle of the bloody atrium.
People, staring. Witches and wizards pointing and whispering behind their hands in a not-so discreet fashion.
“Look… it’s the Malfoy heir.”
“Draco Malfoy? I was at his trial…”
He should have taken some fucking polyjuice potion.
Or better yet… be yourself.
Right. Because looking like someone else wouldn’t do him any real favors, would it? He wanted to talk to Potter, and he had to… explain. He wasn’t going to hear out some random man claiming to be Draco Malfoy under the influence of polyjuice potion. At least, he shouldn’t be so stupid and blindly trusting. Then again, this was Potter he was talking about…
Draco shook his hand and kept walking, making his way to the lifts. Hardly mattered now—he was here, he was himself, and anyone who stared at him could fuck off and get trampled by a murderous, raving giant for all he cared. He was on a mission.
Draco passed the empty space in the hall where the statue once was, the words Magic is Might inscribed on it. He’d heard it was a nightmare to remove, that it had been laden down with an obscene number of curses to keep it in place. The floor where it once stood was now black and fringed. Wounded looking, like the Ministry of Magic itself was now scarred. They were keeping it that way for now, purposefully. Draco clenched his left fist tightly and kept walking towards the lifts.
One opened the moment he arrived. There were about a dozen interdepartmental memos flapping around (several flew out and one more joined them), as well as two witches and one wizard, their brows arching as they looked him up and down. Two of them exited the lift, staring at him all the while. Draco ignored them and went in. He turned away from the one other occupant, and the golden doors slid shut.
Draco’s finger hovered over the buttons. It was tempting to push the one for Level Nine, to go straight to the Department of Mysteries now, by himself. But that was more than simply stupid—it was impossible. No one could just waltz into the Department of Mysteries these days. The new security measures were insane down there now; changes made after a teenaged Potter dragged a bunch of his fellow teenaged classmates there and burst right into it, no problem. The bloody Ministry had even given them all name tags upon their arrival, or so he’d heard. It enraged Draco to think of the turmoil that could have been avoided if the then-administration had implemented even the most basic security protocol around the most secretive, dangerous , and valuable areas within the most important Ministry building.
It was a bit ironic, then, that it was Potter himself that he needed. If anyone could show up down there and demand immediate solutions and then somehow get them (without dire consequences, or so Draco hoped), it was him. And Draco knew that the only people who could possibly help Granger now were her fellow Unspeakables. Surely they had other time-turners made by now? Or some other protocol for when one of their employees did something… like this?
He forced the growing sensation of doom and gloom aside. Focus, Draco. Find Potter. Just find Potter and…
“Floor two, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement,” announced the cool, female voice.
Draco rushed out of the lift as soon as the doors opened. A few interdepartmental memos flanked him before fluttering off in different directions.
He knew his way around, having come here with his father on more than a few excursions, so Draco made his way to the Auror offices quickly. He kept his head down. He avoided making eye contact with anyone, and somehow managed not to draw attention to himself.
He heard him before he saw him.
Draco was just passing one of the large sections of walled-off cubicles when the much too familiar sound of Potter’s voice reached his ears. “... feels like a Friday, you know?”
“You said that yesterday, Harry.”
Weasley. After glancing quickly up and down the narrow hall he found himself in, which was blessedly empty at the moment, Draco made a split-second decision. He pressed himself up against the wall of what must have been Potter’s cubicle and eavesdropped.
“It does, though. Feels like this week has dragged on forever already.”
“I know. It’s the paperwork.”
“It’s always the paperwork. I’m losing my damn mind.”
Perhaps you made a grievous error in your career choice, Potter, Draco thought amusedly.
“You might have made a bad career choice then, mate,” said Weasley. Draco glowered. It sounded much less funny coming from him.
“Yeah, well, at least you’re stuck in it with me.”
“Don’t think I’m not considering quitting every time a new case to file gets dropped on us. George said his door is always open.”
“You’re not allowed to quit. You’re nowhere near funny enough to help run a joke shop. You’d ruin his business, and then my Triwizard Tournament winnings will have gone entirely to waste.”
There was theatrical sigh followed swiftly by a banging sound, which was then followed by a bit of swearing and some good-natured laughter. Draco rolled his eyes. He was about to turn the corner and finally announce his presence when Potter spoke again.
“It’s… Today is Hermione’s birthday, you know.”
Draco froze and held his breath. Her birthday? Today was her bloody birthday?
“Yeah… I know.”
A stretch of silence so uncomfortable that even Draco felt awkward. More awkward than he already did, at any rate.
“I, er. I owled her. Asking her to meet me out later. I think she will.”
You think incorrectly, Potter, Draco thought darkly.
“Yeah? That’s… good.”
“I told her I got her something. A gift.”
“That is traditionally what one does on someone’s birthday, yes.”
Potter sighed even more dramatically than before. “It’s you. You’re the gift. You and a giant, heartwarming, much-needed apology speech. You’re coming with me to the Three Broomsticks, and we are finally going to hash this whole thing out and move past it. Okay?”
Draco had to cover his mouth to prevent the awful laughter that threatened to escape. Weasley? Potter was bringing Weasley, her estranged ex-boyfriend, as a present? To hash out his cheating behavior from over a year ago?
Wherever she was, Draco was certain that Granger would feel nothing but relief knowing that she had missed out on this birthday surprise. She’d probably prefer to be ripped apart by the turbulence of time-travel, really.
“I… what?” said Weasley weakly.
Draco decided he’d heard more than enough. Granger would not be meeting anyone out for birthday drinks, because Granger was likely in mortal peril because she was stranded in the wrong decade—and that was looking at things optimistically. Channeling all the dignity he could, Draco straightened his posture, fixed a contemptuous look on his face, and turned the corner to reveal himself.
“Potter,” he said stiffly.
It worked too well.
As it happened, Potter was leaning back slightly in his chair, lifting the two front legs off the ground. Upon the unanticipated arrival of Draco Malfoy in his cubicle, he startled so badly he yelped and kicked the chair right over, sending himself tumbling backwards to the floor—and good thing, too, because he also happened to have his wand in his hand. A bright yellow spark shot from its tip, missing Malfoy by a distressingly small amount as he fell and striking an interdepartmental memo mid-flight instead. The little paper airplane promptly exploded in a burst of golden confetti.
“Hope that wasn’t important,” Draco said drily, not allowing the panic of nearly being hexed show on his face.
“WHAT THE FUCK, MALFOY?”
“FUCKING HELLS!”
Both Potter and Weasley yelled at the same time. Potter—in a move that was, admittedly, impressive—had turned his fall into a sort of tumble-roll, and was back on his feet in a flash, his wand aimed much more precisely at Draco’s face. Weasley had pulled his wand out as well, and now that Draco looked around properly, he saw that there were at least five other wizards and witches who had popped their heads up over their cubicle walls, all of whom were now doing the same, looking alarmed.
Probably wasn’t the brightest idea, spooking a bunch of aurors, Draco admitted in the privacy of his mind.
“What the hell is your problem, Malfoy!?” Potter shouted. His chest was rising and falling rapidly; Draco really must have scared the piss out of him. “I could have cursed your face off!”
“Noted,” Malfoy said in the same, dry tone. He refrained from drawing his own wand—he knew better than to escalate an already tense situation. That, and he would be outnumbered by about fifty to one in a second if he did.
“The fuck are you doing here?” Weasley snapped. Then, his eyes darting down Draco’s body, he added, “Are you wearing a hoodie?”
Draco was wearing a hoodie. He’d entirely forgotten that he was dressed in all muggle clothing. And, now that he thought about it, he realized he’d left his scarf in Granger’s flat. Blast. I liked that scarf.
Draco ignored Weasley and his questions altogether. “I need to speak with you,” he said in a low voice, speaking directly to Potter. “It’s important.”
Potter looked surprised, then concerned, then angry as he surely realized what Draco was implying. “Do you? Go on, then,” he said coolly.
Draco clenched his teeth in annoyance. “Alone,” he said.
“All right, Potter?”
One of the voyeuristic, neighboring aurors called to him from over the top of the wall. Potter lowered his wand, and to Draco’s relief, he said, “Yeah… yeah, we’re fine here.”
One by one, the other aurors disappeared back into their own cubicles, but Draco was certain every soul in the vicinity was listening in as closely as they could. “Can we speak somewhere else?” he asked through a forced smile. “As I said, it’s important. Urgent, really.”
“Whatever you have to tell me, you can say in front of Ron,” Potter said, puffing his chest out in stupid, dim-witted, short-sighted loyalty. Weasley stood taller, looking proud.
Draco wanted to tear his fucking hair out. “I really can’t,” he said.
“Well then I really can’t be bothered with you right now,” said Potter. “Maybe send an owl next time.”
Bashing his head directly into a stone wall, much the way Dobby used to when he’d been disobedient, surely would have been a more pleasant experience than this. Draco wanted to shout that no, this really shouldn’t include Ronald fucking Weasley, but he didn’t see how he could say that without giving everything away, either. And there was no way Weasley was going to let Potter leave with Draco alone if he knew it had to do with Granger’s safety. On her fucking birthday, of course.
“Fine,” Draco hissed in a voice that he hoped implied that it was not fine at all. “But—elsewhere, please? It’s a… private matter.”
Potter and Weasley shared a shocked—if also apprehensive—look. “A private urgent matter?” Weasley sneered. “And you’ve come to us, Malfoy?”
“No, I’ve come to Potter. You’re an unfortunate and unwanted addition.” Draco smiled coldly at him before returning his focus to Potter, who was once again glaring daggers at him. “Can we please take this lovely conversation somewhere else? Don’t you have your own office or something, oh great vanquisher of the Dark Lord?”
Potter’s face flushed, but his glare remained venomous. “No, I don’t,” he muttered. “I don’t get any special treatment around here, Malfoy.”
That was the biggest sodding lie Draco had ever heard in his life, but he didn’t think pointing that out would do him any favors. “I see,” he said instead. “Well, then. Can we use a conference room, perhaps? Somewhere else that’s not right in the midst of a thousand of your fellow aurors?”
Potter and Weasley exchanged another glance—Merlin, it was like Potter was asking permission— and when Weasley shrugged, he nodded. “Fine,” Potter said. “This way. And this had better be quick, Malfoy. In case it escaped your notice, we’re working.”
“Of course,” Draco lied smoothly. He followed an irritated looking Potter out of his cubicle and down the hall. Weasley walked closely behind him, like Draco was a criminal in custody who might try and run off. Fucking arse.
Fortunately, several of the nearby conference rooms were empty. Potter picked one, waited for Draco and Weasley to enter after him, then shut the door.
“I assume these rooms are enchanted to be sound proof and all that?” Draco asked.
“Yeah, ‘course they are,” said Weasley condescendingly.
“So, out with it, Malfoy,” Potter said. “Why are you here?”
For the first time since he’d arrived, Draco’s heart really began to pound. His carefully placed mental walls that allowed him to focus so acutely on the task at hand —get to the Ministry, find Potter— began to fall.
“It’s… Granger,” he said softly. “She’s in trouble.”
“What did you do to her!?”
Weasley whipped his wand out and shoved it under Draco’s chin. Draco gave him a disdainful look, acting unimpressed. “Careful, Weasley,” he said. “I won’t be able to explain if you curse me, and then she’ll really be in a bad spot.”
“I fucking knew she shouldn’t have been hanging around with you!” Weasley went on, already raving. “I told you we should have gone after him, Harry—I fucking said—”
“Ron. He hasn’t even told us what happened yet.”
Draco was mildly astonished to witness Potter speaking rationally. He put his hand on Weasley’s shoulder in a gentle attempt to call him off. “Let him talk.”
It worked. Weasley, looking putrid and bitter about it, shoved his wand back in his pocket and stepped back.
“Granger is in trouble,” Draco continued, once more ignoring Weasley to the best of his ability. “And the only people who can help her are her fellow Unspeakables. I need you to go down there with me and convince them to hear us out so that they will.”
Potter’s brows rose in surprise. “Her fellow Unspeakables?” he asked. “Why? What did she do? What… what happened so that she can’t ask for help herself? Isn't she down there right now…?”
An uncomfortable pause where Draco didn’t answer. “Tell me she’s down there,” Potter said, his voice growing darker. “Tell me she’s not gone missing, Malfoy, or I swear…”
His vague threat trailed off, probably because Draco felt his face crumbling and knew he must have looked as deplorable as he felt. He couldn’t help it. He also couldn’t stand to hold it in a moment longer, so rather than try to ease Potter—and fucking Weasley, damn it—into the truth, Draco took a deep breath and spoke quickly.
“Granger used a true Time-Turner that’s been in my family for ages to go back in time to 1926 so that she could kill Merope Gaunt before Tom Riddle was born in order to rewrite our timeline and save us all from both the Wizarding Wars. But after she left nothing happened, and she didn’t reappear when and in the way she was supposed to in order to return to our time if she couldn’t do it, so now I fear she’s stranded in the wrong year and has somehow lost the Time-Turner and that’s why she hasn’t come back. Thus, you know—the seeking out help from the Department of Mysteries aspect.”
Potter and Weasley both stared, eyes wide and jaws slack. Neither said anything for quite a long time. Draco had the great urge to grab them both by the hair, slam their skulls together, and scream, so let’s go already!, but he managed to refrain.
“…You’re joking,” Weasley finally muttered.
“Am I laughing?” Draco snapped. “Is any part of what I said funny, Weasley?”
“What true Time-Turner?” Potter asked. “All the Time-Turners were destroyed, I thought.”
“If you’d been listening, you would have heard that I said it was one that’s been in my family for generations. An old Time-Turner, one that’s not limited like the newer models. One that can go back an unlimited amount of time.”
“That’s extremely illegal if that’s true,” Weasley said. “No one is allowed to have a Time-Turner outside of the Unspeakables, not unless they’ve gone through an insanely elaborate process to acquire one for use for a specific reason. And those are monitored really closely.”
“Yes. It is very illegal. Or was, I should say. I don’t exactly have it in my possession any longer, do I?”
“Your family has seriously had a Time-Turner this whole time!?”
“Yes, Weasley. You’re really catching on. Going to arrest me for that?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I think I will!”
“All right, go ahead. But if you do that, you’ll doom Granger. Using a Time-Turner without express Ministry permission is far more illegal than owning one. Your precious Department of Law Enforcement will never allow us to seek out help downstairs to bring her back if you take me to them first.”
“Ron, back up,” Potter said, for Weasley was reaching for his wand again, advancing. “He’s right. If we do anything to bring attention to this here, it will be out of our hands. Only Mysteries can immediately go above Law Enforcement…”
“See, Potter gets it,” Draco said. “You make a fuss over this here, I’ll get arrested—joy—then end up paying a nasty fine, maybe spend a little time in Azkaban, and Granger is screwed. If we go straight to Mysteries, however, and make our case there...”
“They can do whatever they deem appropriate without asking permission,” Potter finished. “But—why not go straight there yourself, Malfoy? Why did you come to us…?”
“Again, I came to you, not you plus Weasley,” Draco said, because he really couldn’t stress that enough. “And isn’t that obvious?”
Potter stared, uncomprehending. It was like expecting a troll to understand advanced arithmancy, he swore to Salazar. “Because this is the Department of Mysteries we’re talking about!” he shouted, barely stopping himself from adding, you blubbering, daft idiot! “They don’t let hardly anyone go down there who isn’t an Unspeakable anymore, thanks to what you all did when you broke in years ago!”
Potter’s face hardened. “Oh, you mean when Voldemort lured me there and your father, who had also broken in before us, was waiting to ambush us in the Hall of Prophecies with a bunch of his fellow Death Eaters?”
He and Weasley both crossed their arms over their chests at the same time, glaring at him.
“I—that—you are getting caught up on unimportant, minor details!” Draco yelled. “My point is that their security is insane, and as I’m an ex-Death Eater they’re not going to let me anywhere near the entrance, but you—you’re Harry Potter! They kiss the ground you walk on around here! The Unspeakables might not particularly like it if you showed up, considering all the damage you caused—”
“That Voldemort and his Death Eaters caused, you mean,” Potter interjected.
“It was a joint effort, okay!?” Draco drew in an exasperated breath, running his hands through his hair and gathering himself. When he spoke next, it was at a much more reasonable volume. “Look,” he said. “They won’t let me in, but they’ll see you. So, please. Take me down there with you so we can find Granger. That’s all that matters right now. And honestly, I don’t understand how this time travel shit works . That was her job. I don’t know if us standing around yelling at each other makes any difference at all for her. We might be wasting precious minutes up here. It might—it might already be too late, for all I know.”
Another strained moment of silence. Then Potter nodded.
“All right, then,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Draco’s face broke out into a relieved smile. “Yes,” he breathed, victorious. “Okay, yes, let’s—”
“Harry, you don’t seriously believe this?”
Weasley. Draco was going to fucking kill him. Potter paused to listen.
“You really believe that Malfoy gave Hermione a Time-Turner and that she would use it to go back to 1925?”
“1926,” Malfoy corrected.
“Whatever!” Weasley yelled. “That’s insane! Hermione would never travel back in time that far, illegally! And really? To kill Riddle’s mum?”
Potter frowned, clearly hearing that yes, that did all sound relatively batshit insane.
“I swear to God I’m telling the truth,” Malfoy said. “Why would I make this up?”
“Probably because this is some slimy, underhanded scheme you’ve come up with to clear your name over having a Time-Turner to begin with!”
“I… can appreciate why you might think that,” Draco said, keeping his voice calm. “But I promise it’s not. Believe me when I say that this is real and that it is bad. Gods, do you really think I would be here, asking Potter for help, if I could think of anything else to do?”
“Desperate times,” Weasley said sardonically. “Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time Harry’s saved your arse when you didn’t deserve it, would it?”
Draco’s face warmed with a mixture of anger and shame at the reference. Unable to come up with a retort, he said nothing, only returned Weasley’s glare and fought the impulse to transfigure him into a slug.
“…He might be full of shit,” Potter eventually said, “but if he is, we’ll find out soon enough. I’d rather act like he’s being honest and look into it than not, only to find out he wasn’t lying later…”
“Excellent reasoning, Potter,” Draco said with forced brightness. “So let’s go, already, and—”
“Oh, you? You’re staying here.”
“–we can– excuse me?”
“Don’t see why I need you to come along,” Potter said. “They’ll let me in, you’re probably right about that. So you need me, but we don’t need you, do we? Ron and I will go, we’ll sort this mess out, and you can stay here until we’re done.”
He gave him a bracing pat on the shoulder and moved towards the door. Weasley shot him a smug look as he too walked past him.
“Wait! Hold on!”
Draco barricaded the exit with his body just before Potter could open the door. “You do need me! I–I hold valuable information about this whole thing!”
“You had an illegal Time-Turner. You gave it to Hermione. She used it to go back in time to 1926, supposedly to kill Voldemort’s mother so he would never be born. She obviously didn’t do that, and now she’s gone, probably stuck in that time. Anything else?”
Draco stared. That was, unfortunately, pretty much the gist of it. “Er.”
“Great. Thanks, Malfoy.”
He tried to push him out of the way. Draco refused to budge. “WAIT! You can’t go without me, I—there was a stabilizing potion that we made that she took, and there were spells she cast on the Time-Turner, and many other details that might be important!”
Potter glowered. Then he made a defeated—if also greatly annoyed—sound. “Fine,” he spat. “You can come.”
Draco smiled brighter than ever and stepped out of the way. “After you,” he said.
Potter marched out of the room. Weasley followed, purposefully knocking Draco hard on the shoulder on his way out, but Draco didn’t let it bother him. He could tolerate Weasley so long as it meant Potter would tolerate him.
The stares were infinitely more abundant as they made their way through the Ministry together. Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Draco Malfoy, rushing through the auror offices as a single unit. It was a wonder no one stopped them, but then again, Potter had an undeniable (and, if Draco was being honestly, begrudgingly admirable) sense of purpose about him, and Draco wouldn’t be have been surprised if no one was bold enough to question him, no matter who he was with.
They were fortunate enough to get a lift to themselves. Potter pressed a button and the gates slid shut, trapping them inside.
Weasley was glaring at him so powerfully that Draco could feel the hatred radiating off of him. He did his best to ignore it.
“…Hermione really went back to try and… kill Riddle’s mum?”
Draco was shocked that Potter chose to voice that question in particular. He didn’t sound or look angry, though he had every reason to want to throttle Draco the way Weasley surely did. If anything, he looked sad.
“She… yeah,” Draco answered. “That was the plan.”
Potter shook his head, devastated, like Draco had just declared that Granger had wanted to kill a baby unicorn, not prevent the birth of the Dark Lord.
“It was my plan, if that makes you feel any better.” Draco surprised even himself when he admitted it. “The whole stupid thing was my idea.”
“Of fucking course it was,” Weasley drawled.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Weasley. I am never talking to you.”
“Malfoy, I’m going to—”
“Stop.”
Potter had both arms extended, prepared to push the two of them apart. Draco’s hand hovered over his pocket, but he only moved to finally draw his wand because Weasley had already whipped his own out again.
“Put that away, Ron,” Potter said sternly. Draco nearly muttered some words of appreciation, but then he added, “We can curse the piss out of Malfoy after we know Hermione is all right.”
Weasley shot him another dark grin, then put his wand away. Draco grimaced.
This is going to be a nightmare, he thought miserably. But there must have been at least a bit of luck on their side, because the lift didn’t stop once to pick up more passengers nor any obnoxious memos on its way down. Soon the gates were sliding open, and the cool voice announced, “Level Nine, the Department of Mysteries.”
Chapter 68: The Perpetual of Fate
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Draco had been right on all accounts. Security was a nightmare. There were about twenty different curses and charms set upon newly constructed doorways that had to be removed as they made their way into the Department of Mysteries proper. But the Unspeakables in charge of guarding them had not been able to deny the Harry Potter entrance when he said—with perhaps too much confidence and entitlement, Draco thought—that he needed to speak with the Unspeakables in Time.
Even if they didn’t look thrilled about it. Even if he did have Draco Malfoy trailing along after him.
“Feels weird being back here,” Weasley murmured, ruining Draco’s attempt to continue to pretend he didn’t exist. They had finally gained access to the dark, black-tiled hall, one which was lit up by a series of blue-flamed torches. They passed the stairwell that led to Level Ten, heading towards a single black door.
Draco felt his skin prickling with unease. He had never been in the Department of Mysteries before.
“Yeah,” Potter responded. “Let’s just stay away from the brain tank this time, yeah?”
“Please stay away from the brain tank,” their Unspeakable guide, a middle-aged, tired looking man agreed. “I cannot begin to explain the damage we had to repair on that, and one of the brains never did recover…”
“I hope it was the one that attacked me,” Weasley muttered. He rubbed at his forearms, which, Draco now noticed, were covered in faded, raised scars.
The Unspeakable didn’t respond, only continued to walk with them. Draco also refrained from making some snide remark—despite how fertile the landscape was to roast Weasley for being bested by a discorporeal brain.
“Right this way,” said the Unspeakable. He led them into a circular room that was just as dark as the hall. Many unmarked, identical doors with no handles surrounded them, thin candles illuminating the space with that same blue light. The black, marble floor shimmered underfoot.
Draco had no idea what door they were supposed to go in, and judging by the looks Potter and Weasley gave each other, they didn’t, either. Their guide, however, could clearly tell them apart, because he went straight to the third door from the right and tapped his wand on it. The door swung open. A thousand ticking sounds greeted them, as well as an array of sparkling, golden light.
“Come along, then,” he said. Potter followed at once, and Draco and Weasley entered after him.
Draco stared, open-mouthed, at this strangest of rooms. There were clocks everywhere—of every kind, of every size, on every surface. Shelves and shelves of clocks, and between them standing ones and hanging ones, grandfather clocks and clocks with far too many hands and far too many numbers. At the far end of the room was a shelf holding dozens of jars, all filled with bright, glittering things, varying from golden sand to small, metal scraps. Draco’s hopes soared and then swiftly collapsed as he examined them.
Individually, the pieces in those jars looked like the components of a Time-Turner…
“The Time Room,” the Unspeakable announced unnecessarily. “Macmillan? Bailey? Are you—oh, Holloway. Didn’t realize you and Jackson were working here today.”
Two cloaked men rounded one of the towering shelves full of clocks: one younger, perhaps in his early thirties, and another much older. The older man, who had thick brows, solemn eyes, and a wiry, cropped beard, froze upon seeing them.
“Why is Harry Potter here?” he asked slowly, like he would rather not hear the answer. He looked about as pleased to see Potter as Snape ever had.
“And Draco Malfoy!” Unlike his older counterpart, the younger Unspeakable appeared gleeful. “Are we about to find out why Granger took her first ever sick day, then?”
Potter, Weasley, and Draco all glanced at one another. Now that they were here, face to face with some Unspeakables, no one seemed keen to be the one to explain.
“Potter said he needed to speak to the Unspeakables in Time,” their guide responded when none of them managed to do so. “Is Macmillan around?”
“He and Bailey are working with Space today, they’re doing some runs,” explained the older man. His eyes narrowed on Malfoy, then darted to Potter. “Are you here to tell me why Unspeakable Granger hasn’t turned up today?” he asked. “I’m in charge of her—I train all the new Unspeakables as Transients for their first few years. So if you are here because of her, I’m the one you should be speaking with.”
Potter cleared his throat. “Actually—yes. We are. Unspeakable…?”
“Holloway,” he provided. “This is Jackson, her co-worker.”
Jackson continued to look delighted at the appearance of Draco Malfoy, as though seeing him confirmed some long-held suspicions he had. Draco didn’t like it.
“Right. Well, er. I’m Harry Potter—as you obviously know—and this is Ron Weasley. We’re both in Law Enforcement—”
“I’m aware,” Holloway cut in. “Let’s not waste time on contrite familiarities. You’re here in Mysteries with Draco Malfoy of all people, so whatever it is you’re here about, I’m going to assume it’s nothing good.”
“No,” Potter admitted. “It’s not good at all.”
Holloway closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as though preparing for the worst. “What happened?” he asked.
“Should we—can we discuss this—I mean, it might be—”
“Secret?” Holloway laughed. “Whatever you have to say, you can do so in front of Jackson and Dawson. We’re all Unspeakables, Potter. Nothing that goes on down here is—”
“Actually, I’d prefer he not.”
Everyone in the room jumped, shocked at the unexpected voice. Directly behind them—Draco was floored to see it—was a door that had most certainly not been there before. An arching, wooden door, brown and looking extremely out of place. It wasn’t attached to anything, either. It hovered impossibly in the middle of the room, and stepping out of it, bathed in an eerie light that poured out from the wooden frame, was the smallest, oldest, most frail looking woman that Draco had ever seen.
She closed the wooden door. It vanished into thin air.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” she said, smiling. Her teeth were yellowed with age, and her skin was covered in wrinkles and sunspots. Nonetheless, she moved with surprising agility as she advanced on them, her spine straight and her eyes bright and alert.
“Selwyn?” said the Unspeakable who had brought them in—Dawson, if Draco was keeping track of them correctly.
“The one and only,” the old woman—Selwyn, a Selwyn worked down here!—replied.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Holloway said in a deadened voice.
“Afraid not, Unspeakable Holloway. Lovely to see you again too, thank you.”
Her focus went to Potter. She beamed at him. “If it isn’t the illustrious Harry James Potter!” she proclaimed (to Draco’s immediate and great ire). “Welcome back! Care to destroy any more prophecies while you’re here? I daresay they take up far too much space for how useless they tend to be.”
Potter shifted uncomfortably, flushing. “I—er—sorry about—”
“Oh, none of that now, just making a little joke. Everyone is far too serious around here!” She laughed, the sound reverberating in the room, mingling discordantly with the many ticks. “Since no one is doing the proper thing and introducing me, my name is Euphenia Selwyn. Perpetual Unspeakable of the sub-department of Fate.”
She curtsied. Potter looked both confused and impressed, but Draco was skeptical. He had never heard of a sub-department of Fate within Mysteries.
“Fate?” Weasley asked, looking as uncertain as Draco felt. “An Unspeakable of Fate?”
“The one and only,” Selwyn said. “A warm welcome back to you as well, Ronald Weasley.”
She snapped her fingers at the others. “Jackson, Dawson. You may go.”
Dawson must have been relieved to have an excuse to leave, because he did so quickly and without comment. Jackson, however, looked extremely sour, but he must have known better than to question this Selwyn woman, because he too left without arguing.
“Dare I ask why you’re here, Selwyn?” Holloway asked once they were gone.
“You hardly need to. You know I’ll tell you anyway… but I think it would be more fun to hear from our guests, first.”
She nodded towards Potter, Weasely and Draco. Potter cleared his throat again and said, “We’re here because—”
“Oh no, I think he should explain.”
She looked directly at Draco. The others did as well—Holloway’s stare was especially sharp—and Draco felt suddenly much too nervous.
“Er… Right, okay. Well. I… We’re here because we… I mean to say, Granger and I… we sort of…”
He paused to gather himself. Choosing to stare at one of the many clocks rather than any occupant of the Time Room, Draco said:
“I had an illegal Time-Turner not bound by any limitations, and I convinced Granger to use it to go back in time to December 31st, 1926, to prevent the Dark Lord from being born so that our timeline would be rewritten and form as though he had never existed, therefore preventing both wizarding wars. But nothing happened, she didn’t return the way she was supposed to if she’d failed, and so I am now forced to believe that she somehow lost the Time-Turner and is stranded. So we need—we need your help. To find her.”
The lack of response which followed was far more profound than when he’d confessed to Potter and Weasley, made somehow even worse as the incessant ticking filled the space. It felt to Draco as though the clocks were all laughing at him, a mocking chorus of tick, tick, ticks.
Finally, he dared to look at Holloway. Meeting Draco’s gaze seemed to jolt him back to life, because the second he did, he yelled, “WHAT!?”
Holloway advanced on Draco, his wand held high. “You sent my most promising Unspeakable in decades back to 1926 to do what!? Are you out of your fucking mind!?”
“Calm down, Holloway,” said Selwyn. “Put your wand away, please. You’ll upset the clocks.”
“A Time-Turner!” Holloway yelled, decidedly not listening to Selwyn and jabbing his wand at Draco, who backed away and put his hands up. “You had a Time-Turner!?”
“He did,” Selwyn answered calmly. Holloway rounded on her, looking a bit frantic. “Of course I knew about it,” she went on. “The Malfoy’s have all sorts of things they shouldn’t. They’re not even the worst. Don’t get me started on what the Blacks and the Lestranges have stashed away in their hidey holes.”
She laughed, like this was not at all earth-shattering news.
“We’ve been working on creating new Time-Turners ever since they destroyed them all,” Holloway lamented, waving his wand now towards Potter and Weasley. “And we aren’t anywhere near close to completing one, even with Bailey working damn near every day of the week. And now you’re telling me— you, you’ve had one, an old one, and you just sent Granger back to 1926 with it!?”
His attention had, unfortunately, returned to Draco. His wandtip flared a threatening red-orange; Draco swore the clocks all began ticking much louder.
“Er… yes?” Draco answered weakly.
“Are you the saddest, stupidest morons to ever walk the earth? Am I the stupidet, saddest moron to ever walk the earth, thinking that Granger was brilliant, if she would go and do something like that? Travel that far back, despite everything I’ve taught her? Despite everything she’s learned here? Despite knowing that we don’t have any more operational Time-Turners at our disposal, so there’s no way we could even try to get her back?”
His eyes were wild and his arm was shaking. The clocks were ticking so loudly that Draco wished he could cover his ears, but he was too afraid to make any sudden movements.
“There, there, Holloway,” Selwyn said, gently patting him on the shoulder. “It’s going to be all right. Probably. Now put your wand away before I take it from you.”
Holloway glowered at her, but he shoved his wand in his pocket. “How can it be okay? We don’t have any way to go after her, and— 1926? How long ago did she leave?”
The question was directed at Draco. Feeling only slightly reassured that he wasn’t about to be cursed, he answered, “About an hour ago.”
Holloway shook his head. Evidently, this was far from the answer he’d been hoping for. “There’s not a chance she didn’t fracture.” He hid his face behind his hands. “We’ve lost her,” he groaned, his voice barely audible amongst the ticking.
“Stop that, you’re giving me second-hand embarrassment with all the drama,” Selwyn snapped. “You really think I’d grace you with my presence if that was the end of the story?”
“I’m sorry—fracture? What do you mean, she fractured?”
Why was it that every time Weasley spoke, Draco wanted to smash his head into a wall—even when it was something he too wanted to know?
At least Holloway looked like he was equally displeased to acknowledge Weasley. “Fracturing can happen when someone travels back in time too far. We have Time-Turners set with specific limitations now to avoid this. When one travels back years and years, one runs the risk of splintering off into a different timeline entirely.” He shook his head miserably again. “The only silver lining to it is that it doesn’t wreak havoc on our own timeline when that happens. Since you said she’s been gone over an hour and we haven’t had any odd repercussions here—unless a series of people have been suddenly unborn and we just haven't found out yet, but I doubt it—that pretty much confirms it. She fractured. She’s… somewhere else, now.”
“Somewhere else? As in… an entirely different universe?”
Draco couldn't decide if Potter sounded more awed or horrified.
“That’s the current conjecture,” Holloway answered sadly.
“It’s hardly a conjecture,” said Selwyn. “Now, can you please wipe that deplorable look off your face, Holloway? I came to help.”
“How?” Holloway’s deplorable look grew more pronounced, if anything. “We’ve lost several Unspeakables in time-traveling attempts this way, before Mintumble… the Perpetual of Fate never appeared to help anyone then, so far as I know. They were simply gone. Lost.”
“Ah, well, those poor souls didn’t have three strapping young lads keen on being heroes, did they?” She laughed again, then gestured towards the door they had come through that led to the circular room with many doors. “Come this way,” she said. “This ticking is going to drive me up the wall!”
Draco wasn’t sure what he found worse: the clocks ticking, or the overwhelming, hypnotic smell of amortentia.
Selwyn had brought them to a hall that needed announcing even less than the Time Room had. It was a huge, bright space, and warm, as though the sun was shining upon them despite being underground. While there were many shelves along the walls filled with too many jars and objects for Draco to recognize or count, as well as a few doors leading to who knew where, his attention—as well as everyone else’s—was drawn to the object in the very center.
A fountain.
A huge, white marble fountain resting on a raised platform. A mesmeric cascade flowed into a deep basin, the liquid glowing with a mother-of-pearl sheen that exuded tendrils of smoke rising in spirals.
Amortentia.
Draco inhaled, feeling a bit drunk on the aroma. It smelled like the crisp, early morning air in autumn when he went out flying; like the rich, chocolate icing only his mother could make; like—
Oh, Merlin.
“Why here?”
Unspeakable Holloway was the only one who did not look somewhat starry-eyed. In fact, he was glowering at the fountain of amortentia as though it offended him.
“Because it’s important,” Selwyn answered. She sighed theatrically. “Oh, love!” she exclaimed, gesturing towards the chamber at large. “The most powerful magic of all! Wouldn’t you agree, Holloway? Nevermind, don’t answer—what about you, Potter? Surely you would agree with that!”
Potter’s mind must have been somewhere inappropriate, because he seemed to have a hard time pulling his focus away from the amortentia, and he was blushing. “Er, uh, yes,” he said. “Of course. But, um. How will this help us find Hermione? If she’s stuck in another timeline…”
“So impatient! I’m getting to that.”
Selwyn looked at each of them in turn: Potter, Weasley, and lastly Draco himself. “Your friend has been a real trouble-maker,” she said. “Always has been, that Hermione Granger. Time has always had a special interest in her. As have others…”
“Time has held an interest in her?” Weasely asked. “You say that like it’s a person or something.”
“I cannot begin to explain the intricacies of Mysteries to you, young man,” Selwyn said, a little condescendingly. Draco was starting to like her. “But in a way, the Mysteries are like people. Entities, rather, that have their own agendas, their own desires. For example: Fate despises certain things. Things like immortality, that blasphemous sin, or unheard prophecies, or duplicate souls.”
“Duplicate souls,” Potter repeated. “Like–when I traveled with Hermione before… how there were technically two of each of us?”
“Actually, no, not like that,” Holloway answered, and they all turned to him. “When you and Granger time-traveled using her Ministry approved—”
“More like my approved,” Selwyn cut in.
“…Yes,” Holloway agreed. “Your approved Time-Turner… that one only allowed for a five hour jump at most. That short time frame guarantees that whoever makes the jump will stay firmly within their own timeline, and will reintegrate smoothly. So yes, technically, there was a short span of time where there were two Harry Potters and two Hermione Grangers—as though the world needs more of either of you—but the integrity of our timeline was never in jeopardy. It was a fleeting discrepancy. You were always meant to make that jump.”
“So if Hermione is in another timeline, all the way back in the 1920’s… Well, it shouldn’t matter, right? Since that’s way before she was born?”
“Wrong, Potter—it might matter very much. For that timeline, at least. If she is stranded somewhere and she manages to stick around too long, that world will likely be altered disastrously. It will sense that which does not belong, and it will cause problems. There can’t be two of the same soul in a single timeline… Why, you could almost say neither can live while the other survives…”
Selwyn laughed raucously at that. Potter looked a bit sick; Draco was, admittedly, a little lost.
“So it really is in everyone’s best interest to get her back before she causes too many problems. I would rather not bear the weight of knowing I doomed an entire timeline by corrupting its fate… In fact, I am compelled to not allow it. We must remove her, however we can.”
Selwyn suddenly clapped her hands together, making them all jump. “Ah, the Mysteries!” she exclaimed. “I grapple with them constantly, always following the pathways I’m told to. I am governed by Fate; I am forever pulling threads this way and that, simply trying to keep the tapestry from unraveling.”
She pulled out her wand. It was a short, thin thing, looking more like a quill than a proper wand, but when she flourished it, a ripple of power flooded the room. The lights dimmed. It became noticeably cooler. The smell of amortentia, which had been intoxicatingly strong before, lessened. Draco was relieved; it had been distracting.
“Better,” she murmured.
“So she’s alive?” Draco asked. “She’s not—she hasn’t been ripped apart? Did our stabilizing potion work? Can you find her? Can we bring her back? Can you—”
“Slow down, young Mr. Malfoy!” Selwyn chided. “One question at a time. Yes, she is alive. At this moment, as it runs relative to ours, at least. We’re all dead in some capacity, didn’t you know?”
“Body stabilizing option?” asked Holloway, who alone did not seem disturbed by the phrase, we’re all dead in some capacity. “What are you talking about, Malfoy?”
“He and Granger cooked up quite a concoction,” Selwyn answered for him. “Mostly Granger, but Malfoy played his part. A potion to prevent her from being ripped apart by the turbulence of extreme time-travel. Quite a complicated brew, that was. Worked, too, though she hardly needed it to last as long as it could have.”
“How?” Holloway balked. “That’s not—they tried for years to come up with something that would help with that. It never mattered, bodies always fell apart if they’d traveled for too long no matter what they were given. It was one of the reasons such experiments were banned. No one survived…”
“That’s because they didn’t have Miss Granger working on it!” Selwyn said cheerfully. “You’re not the saddest moron to walk the earth; you were right, she really is a brilliant girl. She simply… tends to ignore the rules when she is feeling so inclined.”
“Sounds like our Hermione,” said Weasley, sharing a wry smile with Potter. Our Hermione. Draco had never wanted to slap two people so badly.
“I’ll be damned,” Holloway muttered. “Well, that certainly explains a lot of the strange questions she would ask every so often about time, even when we were working in other areas...”
“Yes, yes. She was fishing for information. I’m surprised you didn’t catch on that she was up to something, really.”
Holloway’s face turned red in a flash. “I never would have thought she’d be plotting to secretly time-travel! With Draco bloody Malfoy, of all people!”
Draco looked down to avoid all the glares aimed at him. Selwyn laughed. “But that’s her style. Constantly full of surprises, isn’t she? Now, your next question, Mr. Malfoy, and it’s a big one. Can I find her? Yes.”
They all looked back to her, each of them with hope in their eyes. “Really?” Draco said.
“My dear child, I can find anyone, anywhere, in any time. Dead or alive, truthfully, but the dead do not like to be disturbed, and they’re not really there, and their games have the most atrocious rules. I only play when I have to. But Hermione Granger! Our Hermione Granger, I should say; she is very much findable. In fact, I’ve already found her. Several times.”
“What?” Weasley and Potter asked simultaneously.
“The truth, boys, is that this is not the first time we’ve been here… but before I get into that. Your last question, Mr. Malfoy. Can we bring her back? Yes, it is possible. Guaranteed, no. Far from it. But possible.”
She reached into the front of her robes. Then, to Draco’s immediate shock and joy, she pulled something gold, glittering, and gorgeous from around her neck.
“Another Time-Turner!”
Draco and Holloway had spoken at the same time then, only Holloway sounded outraged about it. Selwyn grinned widely.
“You’ve had a Time-Turner this whole time, too?” Holloway asked, sounding exasperated.
“Indeed,” said Selwyn. She held the sphere containing the hourglass up and looked at it fondly. “The Perpetual of Fate always has a Time-Turner. This Time-Turner, to be precise. But I can’t go using it whenever I like, mind, only when I’ve been told… and I’ve had a few of my colleagues whispering in my ear as of late, and some have been getting louder with each…”
Her voice trailed off mysteriously. “Bah, I’m getting ahead of myself, as usual! This Time-Turner has been enchanted in very specific ways… It has no limitations on how far it can go, much like Malfoy’s now lost, very illegal variety—oh, and by the way. Pardoned.”
“I—what?” Draco said, certain he’d misheard her. But she was looking right at him, waving a hand about flippantly.
“You, for all the illegal Time-Turner holding, time-traveling shenanigans. You’re pardoned. Miss Granger too, if we get her back.”
“P…pardoned,” Draco repeated, awed. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
A huge smile spread across Draco’s face. “Fucking awesome,” he breathed.
“He can’t be pardoned!”
Of course it was Weasely—though Potter looked annoyed as well.
“Weasley,” Holloway said warningly. “Don’t go there.”
Weasley glared, ignoring him. “His family has been harboring a Time-Turner for how long!?” he yelled. “As well as who knows what else! They can’t just be pardoned for that, not something as huge as a Time-Turner, that’s insane! The law says—”
“I AM THE LAW.”
Selwyn’s voice has grown suddenly deep, raspy, and inhuman. Her eyes flashed a hellacious scarlet, and the hall, the whole damn hall—everything shook and then froze, suspended in time, even the spiral tendrils of smoke rising from the amortentia. Weasley stumbled back, colliding with Potter who bumped into Holloway who almost knocked Draco over. Draco grabbed hold of Holloway’s shoulder, and he feared for a moment that they were all about to blink out of existence.
Then it was over. The world righted itself; the amortentia was pouring freely again. Selwyn’s eyes were once more human.
“So please don’t question me, I rather don’t like it,” she said, smiling at Weasley. Weasley—who was now quite pale—nodded.
“Now, where was I? Yes, of course. My Time-Turner has a few safeguards. No body-stabilizing potions are required for the traveler using this device, because no matter where one goes with it, whether they go back twenty years or a thousand, whether they remain in this timeline or go shooting off into another… it always brings them back to right where they left.”
“How?” Draco asked, feeling much recovered from her display of power already. A Time-Turner, she had an unconfined Time-Turner! “With mine, you had to press on it a certain way and say the Malfoy family motto out loud…”
“One simply has to keep it on, and it will bring the wearer home all on its own,” Selwyn said. “The caveat is thus: one has exactly five minutes before their journey is over.”
Draco’s face fell. “Five minutes?”
“And not a second more. It’s the maximum amount of time one can be under the stress of such time-traveling with no repercussions. Anything beyond that…”
She waved her hand about again. “Ah, that’s besides the point. What matters is that I can send whoever I like back in time using this, and it will come back to me, always. So long as they’re not stupid enough to take it off, of course, because it will leave without you!”
She cackled as though that was very funny to her. No one joined her.
“I’ll go.”
Potter stepped forward, his face already hard with determination. Selwyn raised one brow at him. “Send me.”
“You say that every time,” she sighed.
“Wait,” Draco said. “Something is not right, you said—you said you’ve found her several times? And just now, Potter, he does this every time? How…”
The Time-Turner twinkled at him like it was winking. Selwyn smiled encouragingly, nodding as if to say, Go on.
“How many times have we tried to get her and… failed?”
“Smart boy,” she said. “I won’t give you a number as I know it will demoralize you, but let’s just say that you’ve tried quite a few times in different ways… and we all always end up right back here.”
Holloway sighed in a heavy, defeated way. “Fuck,” he swore quietly.
“Yes, it’s all been quite exhausting,” Selwyn agreed. “Allow me to give a quick recap. The first few times, you all seemed to agree it would be simplest to go back just a few hours. Well within the constraints of typical time-travel. ‘Let’s just stop her from going back at all!’ It sounds nice. It never works.”
“How does that not work?” Weasley said, his face regaining some color. Based on his tone, it was clear that he was about to suggest exactly this. “How can we fail to go back a few hours and just… just arrest Malfoy before he shows up at her flat?”
“Hey,” Draco interjected. “I’ve just been pardoned!”
Weasely ignored him. “How do we fail at something as straightforward as that?”
“I can’t say why with certainty, I can only say what is. You’ve tried going back two hours. Three. Five. You’ve tried going back a few weeks, a few months, a few years. It never works. You can never catch her, no matter where I send you. Fate interferes every time. The fabric of our timeline starts to fray, and I have to piece it all back together before it can fall apart. Then the whole thing resets, and you all show up here again, just like this.”
No one spoke. Draco’s mind was reeling. Holloway looked like he was ready to say that this was above his pay grade and go home, and Draco wouldn’t have blamed him.
“I wish I could explain it better than that to you,” Selwyn said. “But none of it is as cut and dry as it seems. I think we need to try a new approach, because we aren’t really dealing with just Time anymore. We’re dealing with Space, too; we’re dealing with alternate realities that are outside of my jurisdiction. The moment Miss Granger fractured and it was determined that we were going to interfere—despite that going against typical protocol, admittedly; but again, I am compelled—it’s been a mess. We’re well and truly dealing with Fate, which is a fickle as they say, and best and worst of all…”
She put a hand to her chest and closed her eyes. “We’re dealing with Love,” she finished dreamily.
Draco, Weasley, and Potter all shared a look. For once, it seemed they were thinking along the same lines: none of them enjoyed whatever that might mean.
“Hold on.”
Potter crossed his arms over his chest, brows furrowing. “Who is it that’s been going back? If we’ve tried so many times.”
“You’ve all gone,” Selwyn said. “Never makes a difference. You always fail; you never even get close.”
Another stretch of uncomfortable silence.
“What do you propose we do then, Selwyn?” Holloway asked. “As I assume you’ve already thought through this new approach.”
“Indeed I have,” she responded. “Haven’t been able to not think about it, really. Fate! She is a horrid mistress.”
Selwyn began pacing, moving surprisingly quickly for how old she appeared. “I’ve only tried to send each of you back in this timeline,” she said. “And that has never worked. However, I’ve been following Miss Granger on occasion—don’t ask for details as I cannot give them, but I did say I’ve found her—and so now, in hindsight, it is clear to me why that wasn’t working. Fate doesn’t want you to stop her from leaving; she was always meant to go, for some reason. But if we are to bring her back, we must meet her where she is.”
“To go back to 1926?” Draco asked.
“In an entirely different reality, at that,” Selwyn said, nodding. “It is shaping up to be the only way.”
“That’s not possible,” Holloway said. “You’re suggesting that we go to another timeline intentionally? No one has ever been able to follow an Unspeakable who’s fractured before; the possible realities that they could have landed in are endless… and that’s assuming they did end up in another reality, and didn’t simply disintegrate into non-existence… no?”
“You’re not wrong, but you’re not right, either,” said Selwyn. “Some did, admittedly, sort of… you know.” She made an exaggerated gesture with her hand, which Draco took to mean, they did, in fact, disintegrate into non-existence. “But others shot right into a new stream of time. Granted, they didn’t have Granger’s brilliant potion, so I doubt it ended well for them. In fact, I can guarantee it didn’t end well for them; by dying quickly, it solved the problem of massively corrupting the new timeline. But Granger—I got this itch right away, this crawling feeling that told me she’s not dying. That she’s going to cause problems… We have to get her out. Not an easy task, considering my power is limited to this timeline.”
“Then how can you help us find her, if you only have power here, and she’s somewhere else?” Draco recognized that he sounded angry, but he couldn’t help it. He was losing patience. He wanted answers, and for once in his life, he didn’t want to stand around and wait for someone else to act and fix it instead. He wanted to do something.
Selwyn didn’t seem bothered. She only smiled at him more widely. “Well that’s why we're here, Mr. Malfoy,” she said. “In this chamber. I specialized in Love for many, many years before I was whisked away by Fate… and though Fate may be the narrator of our story—no, the author, I should say, and the editor too—Love… Love is the driving force. The passion that fuels Fate to make the story in the first place, the one that drives every plot point. Nothing can break the rules Fate has set out quite like Love.”
“Can you skip all the poetic ramblings and tell us what you want us to do, already?” Holloway asked, for which Draco was grateful.
Selwyn cast him a sour look. “You’re no fun,” she pouted, but then she smiled again. “What I'm telling you is that, through Love, I can do more than send you back in Time. I can use all that the power that Love has to offer, and by doing so, I can send you back through Time and Space, directly to wherever our young damsel in distress landed herself. You’ll still only have five minutes, mind, but I believe I can get you there.”
“Using love,” said Holloway dully. He did not look hopeful.
“Through Love, all things are possible,” Selwyn said as dreamily as ever.
Holloway rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever you say. Try sending me, then. I’m the most—”
“Oh, no. Not you, Holloway. I can send any of the other three, but not you.”
“What? Why not? She’s my charge.”
“Because, for as fond of her as you may be, you don’t love her.”
Silence. Draco’s body reacted in a startling, visceral way that his mind did not immediately understand. Panic and fear rushed through him, as well as something else.
“…You…”
Weasley had never looked more frightening. Draco didn’t have time to do anything before Weasely was lunging, his face twisted in rage, swinging his fists like a raving muggle.
“I’LL KILL YOU!”
Draco tripped in his attempt to flee, landing on his back. Luckily for him, Potter caught wind of what was about to happen just before he did, for he grabbed Weasley and was holding him back. “YOU LOVE HER? YOU LOVE HER?”
“Ron! Stop!” Potter shouted, struggling to contain him.
“You, you, who always bullied her, who called her such horrible slurs, who hated her—you, you fucking Death Eater—how dare you—”
“Enough!” Holloway shouted, drawing his wand. Weasley stopped struggling, but he continued to look murderous. “There will be no brawling in the Love Chamber!”
“I love when there’s brawling in the Love Chamber,” sighed Selwyn, who did seem to be enjoying herself. “It’s so romantic.”
“Wh-what—I never said I—”
“Don’t waste your breath denying it, Mr. Malfoy.” Selwyn’s eyes shone much too knowingly. “You love her in a way that Weasley can relate to more than anyone. We both know what you smelled in that amortentia, eh?”
“WHAT!?”
Weasley managed to recall that he was a wizard with his next outburst, for he whipped his wand out and pointed it at Draco. “How dare you!”
“How dare I?”
Feeling bizarrely emboldened, Draco stood, glaring at Weasley. “How dare I? You’re the one that took her for granted, who let your newfound fame go to your head! Who went and cheated on—”
“AAARGH!”
Weasley’s wand flared; Potter released him as though he’d been shocked; Holloway fired a spell that missed him by inches. Weasley lunged and Draco reached for his own wand, but he couldn’t get it out before Weasley tackled him to the ground.
“RON!”
Draco had only been struck in the face once before, and it was very sad news indeed for him to learn that Weasley had a much stronger arm than Granger had at fourteen. When his fist collided with his jaw it hurt, a burst of pain that made him momentarily see white.
“RON! STOP!”
There was a series of flashes. Weasley was ripped off of him, but Draco couldn’t hear or see what was happening, because his ears were ringing and his vision was bright and blurred. He rolled to his side and cradled his throbbing face in his hands.
Then, someone was muttering a quiet incantation that he couldn’t make out. Another flash of light. A cool, welcoming wave of magic washed over him, and Draco immediately felt better.
“Here.”
Unspeakable Holloway extended his arm down to him. Draco took it. “Thanks,” he murmured as he was pulled to his feet.
Weasley. Draco was disappointed to see that he was merely behind a shielding charm that Potter had cast, shunting him to one side, keeping him at bay. “What the fuck, Weasley?” he spat, rubbing his jaw—even though Holloway had healed it. “Are you a rabid muggle?”
“Don’t,” Potter said, speaking before Weasley could snap at him. “You already got him, Ron.”
“He deserves way more than a broken jaw that’s easily mended,” Weasley snarled. “What have you been doing, spending so much time with ‘Mione? So much that you've decided you love her? That you’re—that you’re in love with her. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been dousing her with some of this!”
He jerked his head towards the fountain of amortentia.
“I have not!” Draco shouted, his voice coming out far too shrill for his liking. “I would never do that! And I—we—we’ve just been planning this! Our very illegal and complicated time-traveling plot! Which—remember—pardoned!”
“Then why were you two at the Hog’s Head that night!? Looking very much like you were on a date?”
“Because—because Granger is masochistic, I don’t know! That was her idea, going out in public like that, not mine!”
“ENOUGH!”
Holloway’s wand shot sparks up into the air like a flare, causing everyone to stop and look. “Your disastrous personal lives hardly matter right now! Let’s focus on getting Granger back, shall we? You can all kill each other afterwards.”
Draco and Weasley continued to glare daggers at each other. Neither of them spoke.
“As entertaining as it is, Holloway is right,” Selwyn said. “Besides, Mr. Potter always stops you from actually killing each other. Which I appreciate. Makes my life ever so slightly easier.”
“Er… you’re welcome?”
“Quite. Keep that shielding charm up, Mr. Weasley needs to cool off. Now—finding Miss Granger. More precisely, finding Miss Granger where she is now, in whatever timeline she’s gotten stuck in. For that, I need more than just this Time-Turner. Please refrain from interrupting me while I gather a few ingredients and make some magic happen.”
She swished her wand around in a wide arc before her. The room went dark save for the magical light emanating from its tip, which was a deep, sapphire hue.
Then she started chanting.
Selwyn’s eyes closed and she murmured, her words too soft to discern, seemingly in some kind of trance.
Dark magic, Draco thought. Dark, ritualistic magic.
The light Selwyn had conjured formed into a perfect circle, pulsing. Draco had never experienced anything like it, the magic he was feeling. It filled him with a great sense of anticipation.
The blue glow turned green, then yellow. Selwyn was pulling it this way and that, breaking and remaking the circle over and over again. Then it turned crimson, searingly red, and she paused with both hands held high. She made a low humming sound as though in understanding and nodded.
Draco would not have thought it possible for her to reveal something even more shocking than another Time-Turner, but he was wrong. In her small, bony hand, Selwyn now held something small, something that radiated with a sinister energy that could only belong to an object that was dark, ancient, and deeply magical.
“Is that…?” he whispered, aiming his quiet question at Holloway. Based on the Unspeakable’s expression alone, Draco could tell that he too knew what that was. He nodded.
The Spindle and the Thread of the Moirai.
Draco had heard of these objects, two of a supposed series of three, but he’d only heard of them as legends. Well, not entirely—his deceased aunt had once boasted that the Scissors had been moved to the Lestrange family vault. But they were little more than an artifact, she’d said, without the legendary Spindle and Thread… just another priceless magical heirloom… Draco had never really believed her…
A spindle that contains the thread connecting to every human life, Draco thought with awe. Selwyn looked up. With the red light glowing all around her, an enshrining, crimson circle, she looked a bit demonic.
“This is where the Love comes in,” she said. “I need some, if I’m going to use this to locate her and pin her down. Some pure, undiluted love…”
She looked from Weasley, to Potter, to Draco. Weasley stepped forward. “What do I need to—”
“Mmm, no,” Selwyin interrupted. “You.”
Draco found himself taking a step backwards. “M-me?”
“Yes. I could probably make any of the three of you work, but yours… That’s what I want. Your love is slow cooked, the kind that’s been a long time brewing and still has a long way to go… potential, that’s got some real kick to it… and I like to cook with spice.”
Without warning, she flicked her wand at Draco. He was so stunned at what happened next, so instantly in a state of shock and denial, that he had a hard time processing what he was witnessing.
Memories. His memories. A whole stream of them was pouring right out of him, straight from his chest. A silvery river of…
Of Granger.
He felt them, relived them, even, in rapid flashes—Granger, smacking the daylights out of him, and he, Draco, being… less incensed than he should have, and instead somewhat… awed…
Granger, looking jaw-droppingly gorgeous at the Yule Ball, and her teeth… his wayward curse had made them worse, he’d thought, but no, they looked… better… He couldn’t think of a single thing to say to put her down as she entered on the arm of Viktor Krum…
Granger, always besting him, always getting better marks than him, as his father was keen to remind him… losing to a mudblood… and he was starting to find the word… irritating…
Granger in his home. Granger being tortured by his aunt, and Draco couldn’t do a thing to help her, to help any of them, other than to say he couldn't be sure it was them… Maybe, maybe not… He watched his aunt scar her forever…
Mudblood…
Granger, dodging the Killing Curse that Crabbe had fired at her, and the way his heart had, for a moment, felt like it had imploded…
Granger, being ripped apart by Skeeter in the Prophet . Granger, finally agreeing to work with him, going for long walks in various parks while he pretended to be someone else…
Granger, scribbling away in her flat, working on calculations, smirking at his muggle clothes… Granger, asleep, her head in his lap… She smelled like something sweet, and warm…
Granger, Granger, Granger.
The memories seemed to last forever and a mere second simultaneously. At the very least, it seemed only he had experienced the whirlwind of them—Weasley wasn’t actively trying to murder him again, at any rate, though they may have only been because Potter was keeping him caged.
Selwyn summoned the streaming river of memories towards her, where they floated around her in a circle of silver, mixing with that red magic she’d conjured. Then she began chanting again, grabbed hold of the string wrapped around the spindle, and pulled.
Draco had to cover his eyes for a moment, it was all so bright. The red and silver swirled together, becoming one entity, then merged with the length of string Selwyn had pulled taut. It flashed in a rhythm around it, making it look almost grotesque, like a throbbing, living vein, pumping blood.
Selwyn stopped chanting and smiled with all her teeth. “Yes,” she hissed, and her voice was once more that deep, inhuman sound. “Here…”
Another blinding flash of light, and for a second—a wild, heart-stopping second—Draco saw her. They all did.
Granger… and she was… glimmering, he thought, and…
And who was that?
“What’s your name?”
Gone. The vision that had been projected before them blurred and vanished, leaving only the pulsing red light surrounding the thread in its wake.
“No!”
Draco may not have known who that man was that Granger was with, but Potter clearly did. He abandoned his shielding charm and slashed his wand angrily at the ground, where a lick of magic scarred the floor. “That was Riddle!” he roared. “That was Riddle, why is she with Riddle—you said you were sending her to 1926, before he was born—!”
“I did! We did!” Draco said at once, because now it looked like Potter was going to murder him himself. “That was—that was Tom Riddle?”
“As an adult, yes!” Potter hissed. “Why the fuck was she with him like that!?’
“I don’t know! That wasn’t the plan at all,I—”
“Boys.”
Selwyn did not raise her voice this time, but she didn’t have too. The deep, disturbing tenor of it was enough to shut them up at once. “I couldn’t find her anywhere else… Love, you know… It makes its own rules…”
“What do we do?” Weasley asked, looking horrified. “She ended up with… with an adult Riddle… Did he ask her name? Has she just met him…?”
“You will have to find out on your own,” Selwyn said. “This is volatile magic. I need to complete the ritual now.”
She gently laid the glowing length of string, which was still attached to the spindle, on her palm. Then Selwyn held the Time-Turner in her other hand, closed her eyes again, and began chanting anew.
It was disturbing to watch. The glowing thread curled around the Time-Turner, throbbing aggressively, like—Merlin, it almost looked like they were mating or something equally repulsive. He looked away. After an agonizingly long moment, the red light dimmed, then vanished.
“...It is done.”
Selwyn’s voice had returned to normal. Draco saw that the Spindle and Thread were gone; Selwyn now held only her wand and the Time-Turner, which looked no different now than it had before…
But it felt different. The pulsing, red light was gone, but the feeling of dark and powerful magic remained.
“It’s ready now,” Selwyn said. She put her wand away and held the Time-Turner at arm’s length. “And we should act quickly. This magic—it’s overwhelming. And I have the sick feeling I won’t be able to do this again… which means I won’t be able to do this again.”
“Wait, wait—can we plan for just a moment?”
It was almost refreshing, Draco thought, hearing Potter wanting to think before acting. “Here’s your plan,” Holloway said angrily. “You go back, you kill the young Dark Lord if you have to, and you bring Granger back!”
“We can’t kill him!” Potter snapped back. “I recognize him, how he looked there—he had already made at least two horcruxes by then, maybe even more—he can’t be killed!”
“Oh… oh.”
Selwyn’s expression became eerily blank. “So that’s why,” she murmured, seemingly to herself. “Death… oh, Death…”
She moved swiftly forward, offering the Time-Turner to Draco. “Hold this,” she said. Draco, panicking, did; the newly imbued magic from the Time-Turner rolled over him in sickening waves. Magic filled with Granger and her life-thread and love. His love.
“Death has been pestering me lately, relentless,” Selwyn went on. “I couldn’t fathom why, why it would do so, why the veil kept calling me… but now, now I see… This must be it.”
She stood before Potter, staring up at his face intently. “Immortality is blasphemy,” she said gravely. “Tom Riddle committed an atrocious sin seeking it out… when he was alive in our time, his presence was a curse down here… Death never let me forget about him; it always kept me watching his ties to life… to you most of all.”
She gestured at him with a ‘come hither’ motion, and Potter bent at the waist, clearly against his will. He grimaced as Selwyn grabbed his chin with her bony hands, staring now at his scar. “Yes… Tom Riddle may have died in our world, but he left his sticky little fingerprints all over you… and your wand… if it could be done, it would be you. Perhaps that was the purpose of all this. Perhaps it was always a means to an end; another conflated way for Death to punish Tom Riddle for his sins…”
She released him. “I… don’t understand,” Potter said uneasily.
“You want the ability to kill, despite ties such as horcruxes tucked away, far from reach? I can give it to you. Death has been hounding me to take this, and now I know why… give me your wand.”
Potter did, but he was very reluctant about it. Selwyn examined it for only a moment before she pulled yet another strange and mysterious object from one of her pockets.
It was… a scrap of fabric?
Despite how utterly benign it looked, its presence had an even more profound effect on the atmosphere than Selwyn’s booming voice had. The air became cold, uncomfortably so, and a feeling like a shadow seemed to settle on his very soul. Draco shivered, and he noted that he was not the only one to do so.
“Is that…?”
“Yes, Potter,” Selwyn said. “From the veil… Death.”
She wrapped the fabric around Potter’s wand. It shimmered, twisting around the wood tighter and tighter, until it appeared to melt completely into it.
“What did you just do?” asked Potter, sounding aghast.
“I gave you the power of Death. Of True Death.”
Selwyn rested a hand on Potter’s forearm. “I’ve never been given the blessing to grant this before,” she said. “Death is greedy, oh yes, but it always adheres to rules… but not now, it would seem. If you cast the killing curse with this wand, it will kill. No elixirs of life, no sacrificial love—no horcruxes will prevent it. Death, as swift and sure as it comes for all of us…”
She smiled grimly and released his shoulder. “Don’t waste it, this gift,” she said. “You only get one.”
“Only… only one?”
“One true killing curse, yes.”
Potter stared down at his wand. Behind him, Weasley let out a somewhat manic laugh.
“Is that all, then?” he said. “One shot at killing a young, otherwise immortal Tom Riddle. And just five minutes to do that, grab Hermione, and bring her back?”
He laughed again. Selwyn smiled at him sadly.
“…All right, then,” Potter said. “Okay. I can do that. Send me back.”
“I’m going with you.”
Potter looked both relieved and irritated at Weasley’s boldness. “Of course I am, Harry!” he said. “This is Hermione we’re talking about… I’m not about to let you go to another bloody universe by yourself where Riddle is waiting! And I know we can both go, I watched the two of you time-travel together, after all…”
“You all have to go.”
Draco, Weasley, and Potter all stared at Selwyn, who merely shrugged. “You can’t leave Mr. Malfoy behind. I used his memories for the ritual magic; he has to go. And Potter’s wand is the one you’ll need…”
“So Weasley can stay here, then?” Draco said. “Good.”
“I am not letting you go alone with Harry!”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a slimy, evil shit, and I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you!”
“Boys!”
Selwyn clapped her hands together again. “You are wasting precious time—pun intended. That enchanted Time-Turner isn’t getting any more stable, you know. You can all go. Maybe. Let’s see.”
With a flick of her wrist, Potter, Weasley, and Draco all went stumbling forward until they were directly in front of her. “Don’t be shy, now,” she said, grabbing the Time-Turner from Draco’s hands. She hopped up, and Draco saw that she was floating suddenly, hovering to get high enough to drape the golden chain around each of their necks.
“Why, would you look at that,” she said. “Big enough to hold you all… with room to spare. Just enough space to bring home a fourth passenger. How serendipitous.”
Draco did not like this arrangement at all. He, Potter and Weasley all had to stand much too close together. He could only imagine how much more uncomfortable the journey back was going to be.
“Your five minutes begins the moment you arrive,” Selwyn said. “You’ll know it, too. The Time-Turner will start counting down the second you land. And you’ll see exactly how many seconds you have left by looking here.”
She tapped the top of the hourglass. At the moment, it was a blank, gold surface.
“You can take it off once you land, but you all need to have it around your necks when it hits zero. If you can’t get her in with you, you’ll need to leave her. I have high hopes that you will, though. It feels like it has all come to this… another Harry Potter rescue mission.”
She smiled crookedly. Potter, though he looked far from reassured, nodded.
“Any last questions before I send you off, then?”
Draco was sure he had about a hundred questions, but he could think of nothing as Selwyn hovered beside them, smiling innocently.
“Are you sure about this, Selwyn?” Holloway asked. To say he looked skeptical would be a vast understatement. He was eyeing the three young men in the Love Chamber—who were each doing their best to lean as far away from each other as possible, despite the golden constraint—as though it was a giant, cosmic joke. Which was exactly what it felt like to Draco.
“As sure as I am about anything,” Selwyn answered. “Assuming this goes according to plan, we shall see you back here in five minutes of your time, and for us, you should be gone…”
She frowned, seeming to concentrate on something, then said, "Exactly twenty-six seconds.”
She raised her wand. “Ready when you are.”
Draco swallowed hard. Unwisely, he met Weasley’s eye, who was glaring at him with unconcealed hostility. “If this doesn’t kill us, Malfoy, I’m going to kill you myself when we get back,” he muttered.
“Charming,” Draco replied, and it was impressive, he thought, how calm he managed to sound. He was not calm. He wanted to scream, or maybe throw up. Perhaps both.
“Let’s just get Hermione and get back,” said Potter. “We’re in this together. From this moment until we return, we are on the same side.”
“Well said.” Selwyn pointed her wand at the hourglass and cast them one last smile.
“Safe travels.”
Her wandtip flared with a spell. The hourglass spun impossibly fast, whizzing with a high-pitched tone, on and on and on—
It stopped abruptly. There was a familiar, suspended moment where nothing happened; where Potter and Weasley looked confused—
Boom.
The ground shook then disappeared. The world blurred violently as they fell, and without thinking Draco was holding on to dear life to whatever he could hold onto—which happened to be two people who were holding him back just as tightly. Together, in a maelstrom of fear, they were ripped away through space, through time.
Chapter 69: Twenty-six Seconds
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Tom pushed himself to his feet and raised his wand. He pointed it towards the sound: somewhere in the woods, on the other side of the fire. Ticking.
“What—?”
“Come.” Tom kept his eyes forward and his wand at the ready, but he held his other hand out to Hermione. “Let’s go. Now.”
His voice was harsh. Hermione, bewildered and afraid, reached for his hand.
A flash of red.
It came from within the trees before she could grab hold of him. Tom was ready for the potential attack; he instantly cast a spell of his own. The two flares of magic met in mid-air, and Hermione had to shield her eyes at the sudden blinding light. The valley was once more filled with crackling magic; the power of it stirred the branches of the nearby trees as roughly as Tom’s ritual had. Hermione fell backwards; the diadem was flung towards the woods; the deer carcass shifted until it collided with a tree, its broken neck breaking even further. Wind roared in Hermione’s ears.
What is happening?
She was unsure of what she was seeing even as she watched. The collision of spells had turned a bright, deep gold, forming a ball of light where they met over the fire. One stream led back to Tom’s wand, and the other, which had come from the trees—
What?
The person responsible for the attack stepped into the clearing. Someone tall and cloaked with their hood up, concealing most of their face, except…
…It can’t be.
Harry?
He advanced with his wand held high, a steady stream of gold magic emanating from it. The sphere in the middle shifted closer to Tom.
Tom, who had both hands on his wand and was shaking, like holding onto it was taking all of his effort. Tom, who was gaping at the golden light of magic before him, looking more confused than Hermione had ever seen him.
Tom, whose eyes had landed on Harry’s, and who looked horrified at the sight of him.
“RIDDLE!”
Harry—it couldn’t be Harry, it couldn’t really be him—shouted the name, his voice carrying over the howling winds. He moved farther into the clearing, closer to the flickering fire; his hood was blown back, revealing his wild hair and green eyes, and yes, that was Harry, that was truly Harry Potter, somehow here, now. He didn’t look at Hermione; his focus was entirely on Tom, and—
And they were… floating…
It was such a wild scene that Hermione feared she must have finally cracked. This could not be real. For Tom and Harry—Harry, her Harry—had lifted off the ground, and the threads of lights were multiplying, branching out like broken blood vessels, forming a glowing, golden dome of magic over the clearing and beyond… The brilliant sphere in the center was moving steadily towards Tom, like a bead on a line…
“Hermione!”
And now she knew her mind had abandoned her, because two more figures burst into the clearing. They had their hoods pulled over their heads as well, but one of them was not in wizarding robes at all, but a muggle hoodie, and how the fuck—?
Draco Malfoy…
Ron.
They looked to be as confused and afraid as Tom was; this display of golden light, of insane, inexplicable magical power, seemed to bewilder them, too. Ron— Ronald Weasley— ran to stand beside a hovering Harry Potter, and he pointed his wand at Tom, but Harry was waving him off, yelling something that Hermione couldn’t hear over the wind…
“HEY!”
Draco Malfoy was shaking her, aggressively. “GET UP!” he screamed. Hermione’s legs seemed incapable of moving. Instead, she grabbed his hood and yanked it down; his white-blonde hair danced in the wind.
“Malfoy,” she breathed in shock, though she doubted he could hear her.
The ticking. It was right in front of her; it was him.
Malfoy’s eyes went wide as they went to her neck. His shocked gaze darted down to her legs and then back to her face, everywhere her skin was exposed. Golden, looping lines.
Malfoy fell to her knees beside her and touched her neck, right where Merope had struck her. The feeling of his fingers made Hermione jolt. She grabbed his hand, feeling the solid, realness of it; Malfoy held hers back, his other hand going to her face. He spoke, and though she could hardly make out the words, stolen by the wind as they were, she was able to read his lips:
What happened to you?
“You’re here,” Hermione gasped, her words just as lost—but Malfoy clearly understood her, too. He shook his head, his face becoming serious. “Come on!” he yelled. “We have to get out of here!”
He pulled the collar of his hoodie down slightly, revealing a bit of gold chain around his neck.
A Time-Turner. He’d gotten another Time-Turner…
They came for me.
Malfoy didn’t allow her any more time to process; he yanked her to her feet, hard. Hermione stumbled, barely righting herself as the tumultuous winds continued to whirl around them. The golden threads of magic were still growing, spreading out and encasing them all in light. The sparking ball had moved even closer to Tom.
“Wait—wait!” Hermione shouted, pulling her arm away from Malfoy. “What is this, he can’t—Harry, stop!”
“No!”
Malfoy grabbed her again, dragging her further away from Harry. Harry remained focused on Tom; Tom was crying out in wordless rage, both hands still on his wand, holding fast, looking panicked. There was a flare of magic from his end, an extraordinary burst of light, but Harry shouted angrily in response, and that golden sphere of magic continued to move towards Tom…
Their wands, Hermione realized. Harry had said—he’d told them about the graveyard, so many years ago, about how when his spell had collided with Voldemort’s, and what it had caused…
“Stop!” Hermione screamed again.
Harry still didn’t look, probably didn’t even hear her–but Ron did.
Meeting Ron’s eyes momentarily left Hermione dumbstruck. Ron was here…
He ducked around Harry, rushing towards Hermione and Malfoy. He looked baffled by Hermione’s skin for only a moment before he shouted, “Let’s move! Harry has this!”
“No, wait, he can’t—!”
Ron and Malfoy both ignored her, and when she tried to run to Harry again, they each grabbed her by an arm, dragging her away.
“Hermione, what are you doing!?” shouted Ron. “Harry will get him, he’ll be fine, he—”
“I’m not worried about Harry!” Hermione screeched. She bucked in their hold; they held her tighter. “He can’t hurt Tom, please, tell him to stop, please!”
“What?” Ron barked.
Before she could say another word, Harry was shouting, a sound like a battle cry, and now he too had both hands on his wand. The threads of golden light flashed brighter, and that sphere slid further—it was nearly upon Tom, whose face was twisted in cold fear, pale and shaking—
“NO!”
The sphere exploded in a burst of light when it collided with the tip of Tom’s wand.
The ground shook. There was a familiar wave of horrible, nauseating dark magic. It rippled in the winds, causing branches to snap off trees and litter the ground around them.
A flash of magic so vivid the world was turned momentarily white. Tom screamed, one hand going to his chest while the other kept hold of his wand…
Priori Incantatem.
All of Tom’s most recent spells were emitting from his wand in reverse order; without the ritual, his soul could not be revealed, but some warped version of the dark magic he’d cast was already flooding out, making Hermione, Ron, and Malfoy all fall to the ground, struck ill with the horrid feeling of it. Malfoy was clutching his stomach and Ron was gagging, retching beside her—
Fire.
Hermione knew it was next, but she did not expect the flames to travel as they did. The fire that burst forth from Tom’s wand traveled swiftly up the golden thread of light like it was a wick until, mere seconds later, the entire dome was ablaze, encasing them in heat. The tops of the trees sparked and caught too; it was spreading wickedly fast into the forest.
All at once, in a wave of cold magic, the red-hot flames turned black, taking the sweltering warmth with them. Fear gripped Hermione, because this was no longer a typical fire—this was cursed fire. And they were surrounded.
Ron and Malfoy scrambled to their feet, each casting spells and shooting water at it, but of course it did nothing. If anything, the fire grew where they attempted to dampen it, like it was devouring the magic, growing stronger.
“TOM!”
His wand flew from his hand when Hermione called his name, jumping out of his grip as though angry. Had he magically exhausted himself or had Harry done that? She didn’t know, but as soon as it did, disappearing into the wall of cursed fire, he and Harry both fell, landing hard on the ground. The winds stopped. The golden dome of fire disappeared, but the forest around them had already caught, and if they didn't get out soon, they would all be devoured by it.
Harry, who still had his wand and who alone remained on his feet, pointed it at Tom. His eyes were a vicious green in the moonlight. Tom was a shaken mess on the ground; he looked where his wand had gone, likely annihilated by the fire, before staring at Harry with wide, disbelieving eyes.
The ticking sounded like punctuating screams in the absence of the wind. For a few seconds, it was all Hermione could hear.
Tick, tick, tick.
“DO IT!” Ron roared, having given up trying to douse the fire. “DO IT NOW! KILL HIM!”
Kill him?
“No—WAIT!”
Harry finally looked at Hermione. Tears were streaming down her face, and from her knees, she begged him. “Please, please, don’t hurt him, please—!”
Harry slashed his wand angrily. He must have picked up some tricks in his auror training, because not one, but three stunning spells flew out, and Tom, weakened and unarmed as he was, could not avoid them all. The second curse struck him in the shoulder. He locked eyes with Hermione the second before it did, his face ashen, then slumped to his side, unconscious.
“We have two and a half minutes!”
Malfoy had managed to push himself up. He had the Time-Turner in his hands, and Hermione could tell—yes, the ticking was coming directly from it. He looked at the surface of it before glaring at Harry. “Your fucking light show cost us a lot of time, Potter!”
“That’s plenty of time,” Ron snapped at him, getting to his feet as well. “You have one shot, Harry—do it now, while he’s out!”
“No, Harry—NO!”
Hermione had so many questions, and no idea which to ask first. Harry whipped around, his face fierce; when he looked at Hermione, his expression softened.
“Harry.” Hermione swallowed hard. “You c-came.”
There was a strange beat of silence. Then Harry was rushing forward, pulling her up and into a crushing hug.
“What were you thinking?” he said into her hair. He pushed her back, holding her at arm’s length and staring at her face, her neck, her many scars. “What in the world…?”
“Two minutes!” Draco interrupted loudly. “Questions later, Potter!”
“Harry—take him out!” Ron shouted. “Do it now, and we can go!”
“No—wait, no, please!” Hermione grabbed Harry’s wrists; he ripped his wand arm away from her, perhaps instinctually. “You can’t hurt him, Harry, he’s not the same, he’s not—he’s not Voldemort—”
“He’s not?”
Harry looked pointedly at the dead deer at the edge of the clearing; he didn’t need to say anything about the dark magic that saturated the air nor the cursed, black flames.
“He’s… different,” Hermione said weakly. “He’s not—HARRY, NO!”
Harry jerked away from her, lifting his wand again. Hermione scrambled after him. “No, please, he’s changed, he’s changing, he’s better—Harry, I swear it, Harry, no, I love him, please!”
Harry froze. Hermione was sobbing, clawing at his shoulders desperately. “I love him, Harry—”
“She’s been fucking confounded,” Malfoy snapped, reaching for her.
“I have not!” Hermione yelled back shrilly. She dodged Mafloy’s advance, looking back to Harry. “Harry, you can’t kill him—even if you wanted to you can’t, he’s already made two horcruxes, he won’t die—”
“He would.”
Harry looked down at his wand, turning it over in his hands. “Selwyn sent us, from Mysteries,” he said. “My wand… it can kill, now. True Death, she said… one killing curse that will kill anyone, no matter what… she said Death wanted me to do this; that I was supposed to come, to punish Tom Riddle for his sins…”
“S… Selwyn?” Hermione repeated in a whisper.
Euphenia Selwyn. The Perpetual of Fate.
The door.
“Yes,” Harry answered. “I’m… I’m supposed to cast it. To… kill him.”
It felt like Hermione’s whole world was ripped apart in front of her.
Was it true?
Had all of this —all of it—been just another experiment for the Department of Mysteries? Had Euphenia Selwyn, this enigmatic Unspeakable of Fate, planned it all? Was she, Hermione, sent here simply to see what would happen in an experiment toying with time, space, love, and—fate? Gods, was—was that Time-Turner that Malfoy now wore somehow the very same one that she had smashed into her neck; was this all a carefully orchestrated series of events that was about to become a closed loop—all planned down to the last detail by Selwyn, who pulled the strings from behind a door no one else could enter?
Was she, Hermione Granger, just another version of Eloise Mintumble… the version that survived?
They’ll write books about me, Hermione thought blankly. The Unspeakable who crossed time and space and survived… saved by Harry Potter, who followed her to an entirely new timeline to rescue her, and…
“So do it already!” Ron gestured sharply at Tom, who was sprawled on his back, bathed in the light of the moon and a backdrop of dull, black fire. He looked like he was sleeping in the gardens of hell.
“No, Harry, please!” Hermione grabbed his shoulder. “I don’t know what Selwyn said to you, but he—this Tom, he’s n-not the same Voldemort that we knew, he’s not, I swear it!”
Harry hesitated again; he seemed conflicted as he took in Hermione’s tragic face. She had to swipe away snot and tears, she was crying so hard. She could barely get enough air in her lungs to keep begging. “P-please, Harry,” she cried. “H-he’s not evil, he’s b-better…”
Harry drew in a breath, then pocketed his wand.
“Let’s go,” he said, turning towards Malfoy.
“What!? Harry, you—”
“I said let’s go,” Harry repeated more firmly, cutting Ron off. He didn’t look back at Tom. “Come on, Hermione. Let’s go home.”
“No, no, I can’t,” Hermione said. The three boys stared at her. “I can’t leave him, I can’t—”
“I’m telling you, she’s confound—”
“I am not confounded!” Hermione rounded on Malfoy, on the precipice of slugging him in the face again. “You have no idea—I’ve been here for months, stranded in this world, and you come to me now!”
An unwanted flare of magic frazzled at Hermione’s fingertips—the last thing they needed was more fire—but it did have the helpful side effect of making all three of them back up. “I was waiting for you, for any of you, for anyone to come; I begged you to find me, to rescue me, and no one showed, no one came—and you come to me now?”
A horrible laugh came ripping out of her throat. Maybe I have gone mad.
“I’m staying,” she said. “I can’t leave him. I love him. I meant that… I mean it.”
Ron and Malfoy both appeared thunderstruck. Harry, surprisingly, seemed shocked for only a moment before his face slid into something calm. “You can’t stay,” he said slowly. “Hermione, you can’t. You don’t belong here, Selwyn said so. You have to come back with us.”
“I don’t care if I don’t belong here—”
“Your body is going to deteriorate if—”
“No, it’s not, you don’t understand, I—”
The pyre in the center of the clearing exploded.
A wayward branch carrying cursed flames must have caught in it, for that fire, which had been reduced to embers in the winds, roared up, turning as black as the fire surrounding them. Harry and Ron were thrown one way; Hermione and Malfoy were blown another. The clearing itself was catching; the black flames were spreading everywhere, licking at their heels.
“We–have–to–go!” Malfoy said, grunting the words as he once more dragged Hermione up with him. “We have— fifty-six seconds!”
Harry and Ron had been forced into the woods; Hermione saw them rush out from the trees. Ron was ripping his outer cloak off, the sleeve of which had caught fire, and Harry was helping him.
“Come on!” Malfoy yelled in her ear. He pulled the Time-Turner out, preparing to drape it over her neck. “When this timer runs out, it’s going back to our timeline, with or without us!”
“What?”
“Selwyn had it, it’s hers, it’s how it works. Five minutes, that’s all we got, and that time’s almost up. So fucking put it on already—”
“No!”
Hermione looked back to where Tom was. The black fire was dangerously close to him; it was going to catch on his clothes at any moment, and what would happen to him, if he didn’t wake up?
“Granger!” Malfoy shouted. “Hermione,” he said, with slightly less hostility. “You just said he won’t die—so fine, if Potter won’t kill him, he’ll live, yeah? So leave him—”
“No, I can’t—let me—”
“I’ll leave them!”
Malfoy dragged her further away from where Harry and Ron were; Hermione struggled, but he was much stronger than her, and he had a wand. He pointed it at her threateningly. “I don’t give a fuck about them,” he said. “I came for you—I’ll knock you out if I have to, but I might not make it to them in time if I have to lug you around and we all have to avoid this fucking fire—and they haven’t had any kind of stabilizing potion, they’ll die here–”
“No, no!”
Hermione stopped fighting him. She locked eyes with Ron, then Harry. They clearly heard what Malfoy had said, because they both had horrified looks on their faces as they stared back—Malfoy, who had Hermione in his grasp, as well as their only means of getting home.
My boys, she thought, tears pouring down her face. My stupid, stupid boys.
She had no problems believing Malfoy. He would knock her out and back away with her, using Hermione as a human shield, and he’d probably wave goodbye to Harry and Ron with a smile on his face.
“Okay,” she said, defeated. She looked at Tom and felt her heart shattering. “Okay, I’ll go with you.”
“Fucking—okay, let’s go.” Malfoy pulled her along with him. “Thirty-one seconds!”
Harry’s face broke out with relief. Hermione was about to beg him to wake Tom up before they left, to not leave him unconscious in a sea of cursed fire, but then she noticed Ron.
Ron was looking at Tom, and his face contorted into something horrible. Ugly.
Dangerous.
He grabbed Harry’s wand.
Harry, who had his back to him, who clearly never would have expected it, couldn’t stop him in time—Ron snatched it from his robe pocket with relative ease, then shoved Harry, hard, in Malfoy’s direction.
“Ron—NO!”
Ron’s face was set. He turned, raising Harry’s wand— at Tom—
And he didn’t say anything.
He didn’t say anything, just slashed angrily, crying out with an animalistic, angry howl—yet the flash of color that burst forth was green, unmistakably green—
Death demands a declaration, Hermione thought numbly.
Clearly, it didn’t—not now. That was a killing curse that Ron had just cast, brighter and more frightening than any in Hermione’s memory.
And he’d aimed it directly at an unconscious Tom.
Tick, tick, tick.
Hermione spied the top of the Time-Turner around Malfoy’s neck.
Twenty-six seconds…
She understood what needed to happen, because it was the only thing that could happen. Harry was too far away to be of any help; Malfoy wouldn’t anyway, even if he could.
She couldn’t move him. Tom was unconscious, and without a wand, she couldn’t possibly think of getting him out of the way in time.
Protect my son.
Had time itself slowed for her, or was it merely the effects of adrenaline? Hermione couldn’t be sure; what she did know was that she moved, and she moved fast.
She shoved Malfoy back, closer to Harry, with a flash of burning magic; she might have thought to go for his wand, but it would have been a waste of time. It wouldn’t help. She hoped he got to Harry in time and didn’t try to chase her.
Hell, I hope he gets Ron in time, too, Hermione thought as she ran, breakneck, towards Tom. She was surprisingly calm; in fact, she wasn’t angry at all. Because this all made sense in a way it hadn’t just seconds before.
You don’t belong here.
One killing curse that will kill anyone… True Death…
…Protect my son.
Tick, tick, tick.
Behind her, someone was screaming—the word no burned in the air. Was it Harry? Ron? Was it Draco Malfoy?
Hermione didn’t care. She was racing against Death, and somehow, she was winning.
Because it’s not against, she realized. It’s towards.
Hermione landed hard on her knees in front of Tom. Wake up, she thought but couldn’t say. Her lungs felt as though they were collapsing and her throat burned and there was no time for words, besides.
She kissed him.
There was little thought behind it; Hermione had a fraction of a moment to act, and with it, she crashed her lips against his, shielding him with her body as she did. Wake up, Tom, wake up.
Did he?
She might have imagined it as she lifted her face from his. Hermione swore that the next moment stretched on; swore she watched Tom’s eyelids flutter open, his long lashes fanning out around those bottomless eyes she’d fallen in love with. But maybe he hadn’t. Maybe it was her conscious mind’s final gift to herself, imagining them again; maybe she was no better than Severus Snape had been in his final moment, looking for Lily when what was really before him was her son.
The spell was as gentle as a calm, winter breeze.
True death was kind, and it was simple. Hermione had always heard that, before one passed, their whole life flashed before their eyes. That wasn’t what Hermione experienced. As the cool tendrils of magic struck her softly from behind, she didn’t relive her earliest memories. She didn’t see her childhood home or the church she used to ride her bike past or even her parents, much as she might have liked to. There were no memories of Hogwarts letters or getting her wand or stabbing Hufflepuff’s cup with a basilisk fang.
She saw snow.
Snow, by the seaside. Sprites were scattered along the ground and in the air, and across from her, laughing as they landed on his shoulders and hands, looking so… happy…
Death, she thought emotionlessly, is beautiful.
She exhaled blood and gold.
Chapter 70: Bathilda
Chapter Text
She smelled… grass.
Fresh and sharp, as though it had just been cut, or perhaps as though it had recently rained. Hermione grinned with her eyes closed as she laid there, sprawled out on the grass, content to simply breathe it in. One of my favorite smells, she thought happily.
“Going to take a nice nap?”
Hermione sat up. She rubbed her eyes.
“Is that… Bathilda Bagshot?”
The old woman smiled. “The one and only,” she said. “Come along then, I’ve been waiting.”
She offered her hand. It was not the mottled, decaying flesh Hermione recalled from the nightmare in Godric’s Hollow. While she was by no means young looking, her skin appeared healthy, and her fingers were warm to the touch. Bathilda pulled Hermione to her feet with surprising strength.
“What… Why…?”
Hermione, boggled, looked from the famed historian to the world surrounding her. They were indeed in a large, grassy field of sorts. She saw woods in the distance, and further ahead, a lake. It was twilight. It all felt terribly familiar.
Bathilda laughed, then patted Hermione on the shoulder. “Take a breath, dear,” she said. “I know, I know. It’s all a bit much, isn’t it? Helps to take a moment to let everything settle…”
She waited. Hermione focused, trying to piece it all together.
What happened… Where was I…?
The recollections came to her, one after another, yet they did not fill her with a sense of panic nor dread. In fact, Hermione felt hardly anything at all.
“I died,” she said blankly.
“Mmmm,” Bathilda hummed in wordless agreement.
“I’m… dead.”
“Ah, now that is an altogether different statement, with perhaps an altogether different answer.”
She smiled widely at what was surely another baffled look from Hermione. “Come,” she said, offering her arm. “Walk with me.”
Feeling more confused than ever, Hermione nonetheless hooked her arm through Bathilda’s, and they began to walk at a leisurely pace.
“If I died,” Hermione began, “then—”
“You did,” Bathilda interrupted. “Not an if… but go on.”
“...All right. I died, so then… Where am I now? And why are you here?”
“Two drastically different questions, yet again, and I’m afraid I can only answer one. Why am I here? Because, dear, everybody gets one.”
“One what?”
“A greeter. An advisor, of sorts. Someone to welcome you to your death. Someone you have a very special, deep connection with.”
“Someone I have a special, deep connection with?” Hermione repeated. “I… Well, I don’t mean this to sound rude, but… I don’t really know you at all, do I? We never even properly met, did we?”
“Bah! You think that’s the only way to connect with someone?”
Bathilda stopped to turn and put both her hands on Hermione’s face. “You read my book,” she said, each word heavy with emotion. “You read Hogwarts, a History more times than my poor editors did. You read every word; you memorized the passages you liked and you bent the corners of the pages you wanted to go back to—even though it was the library’s copy! You read my book, something that I poured my whole heart and soul into… and that makes you and I closer than you can properly appreciate.”
She hooked her arm back through Hermione’s, and they kept walking.
“Oh,” Hermione said. Her heart felt like it had swollen with the understanding of how right she was. “I… Yes, I suppose we are close, then.”
“You even wrote me a letter!”
At this, Hermione frowned. “I did write you a letter… telling you all about the Chamber of Secrets! Because your book said that it wasn’t real…”
“That is not at all what I wrote,” Bathilda said, but she grinned devilishly at Hermione. “But I know that you know that. Go on—quote me.”
Hermione smiled as well, and recited, “ While researching this book, the author consulted the newly appointed headmaster of Hogwarts, Professor Albus Dumbledore, who stated that during his time at the school he had personally seen nothing to convince him that the legend was based on anything other than supposition.”
“Very good,” said Bathilda.
“But that implies very strongly that you also believed it wasn’t real!” Hermione argued. “So I thought it pertinent to write you, to tell you exactly how real it was so that you could publish an updated, new edition!”
“And that is why I never wrote you back! What a letter! Some thirteen-year-old youngster telling me—who was very much retired, at the ripe old age of one hundred and twenty— that I ought to publish a whole new book! It was rather audacious of you, dear.”
Hermione flushed; she had never thought about it like that.
“Oh,” she said again. “Well—all right, point taken, but I still think it’s important that people who wish to read about Hogwarts know the truth!”
“Perhaps you should have written your own book,” said Bathilda slyly, yet she still looked nothing but merry. “Ah, but that is neither here nor there now, is it? We have much bigger things to discuss.”
She pulled Hermione along, taking them closer to the lake. “Where are we?” Hermione asked again. She looked down at her hands, curious, and nearly stumbled. “And what—oh. Oh!”
“What is it, dear?”
“I’m naked!”
Bathilda stopped, her eyes darting up and down Hermione’s body, and she yelped as though she also hadn’t noticed either until that moment. “Goodness, why yes, yes you are!” she shouted. She covered her eyes and laughed. “Why are you naked?”
“I don’t know!” Hermione yelled back. She was, though; naked as the day she was born. “I was just wondering if the golden lines were still there, so I looked down, and sure enough, there they are!”
They were, indeed, still there. Every inch of Hermione’s bare skin was covered in the swirling marks, which glistened in the glow of the setting sun.
“Ah, well. That explains that.”
“It does?”
“Your will has a great deal of power here, Hermione. So, if you don’t mind—perhaps imagine yourself some decency?”
“Er… okay.”
Hermione closed her eyes. Some clothes, she thought. But what clothes? The ones she’d been in when she’d died? That seemed… depressing.
Oh, I know.
Hermione grinned as she felt the smooth fabric appear on her. “All right,” she said, opening her eyes. “You can look, now.”
Bathilda removed her hand from her face. “Ah ha,” she said. She bowed her head appreciatively. “The Golden Lady herself.”
Hermione laughed, spinning around in a circle as she did. “Yes, well, I always thought it was such a shame that I only got to wear it once, since—oh, bugger!”
Just as she had the thought, the skirts changed. Her dress—her once lovely, golden, pristine dress, the one that she wore to the WAG gala—was ruined, the fabric from below her waist on one side completely incinerated, revealing her entire leg.
“I quite like it that way,” Bathilda said, tilting her head. “And to steal the words of someone much more charming than myself… Nice wand holster.”
Hermione froze. She could see him in her mind, a memory as clear as day. His pale skin and dark hair, looking the picture of romance in Malfoy’s rose garden, untouched by the swirling snow above them.
“Tom,” she breathed, and for the first time since waking in this strange place, she felt pain.
It hurt, her heart.
“Yes,” Bathilda said knowingly. “Come, come… let’s keep walking and talking.”
It felt much harder to take her arm this time. Hermione was filled with an urgency she hadn’t felt before. “Is he okay?” she asked.
“You mean, did you save him? Yes, you brave girl. You did.”
A bit of relief. “Thank God,” Hermione said. Then, “What about the others?”
“What others?”
“Harry! And Mal—Draco, and Ron?”
Bathilda threw her other arm in the air and exclaimed, “Who cares! This isn’t about them!” She laughed more raucously than ever.
“I care! Very much so!” Hermione said, but she was finding it hard not to smile as well. Bathilda’s laughter was infectious. “They’re my friends!”
“Some friends! You realize one of them killed you, right?”
“I… shit, yes, I suppose you’re right,” Hermione muttered. “Damn. Damn! I can’t believe—after all that… Ron! Ronald Weasley killed me!”
She and Bathilda locked eyes; Bathilda gave a half-hearted shrug. “That arsehole,” Hermione whispered.
There was a pause, and then they were both laughing, though there wasn’t anything funny about it at all, was there?
“I would still like to know that they made it back okay,” Hermione said. “To their timeline… oh gosh, I hope we didn’t all ruin things for our future selves in that timeline. Or some other timeline? I’ve lost track, anymore.”
“Ah, the timelines!” Bathilda said. “I wouldn’t worry about it, dear. There’s no shortage of realities. An infinite number of them, in fact, and the more we think about it, the more there are.”
“Oooh, so that whole multiverse theory is correct, then? I mean to say—that new realities come into existence every time we do something like flip a coin or make a choice?”
“That’s a very human-centric way to look at it,” Bathilda murmured. “You’re not wrong, but that’s not the whole of it either… for simplicity’s sake, sure, yes.”
“So there’s some other reality where Ronald didn’t kill me?”
“I’d wager there’s many,” said Bathilda. “Not that it does you any good.”
Hermione sighed. “I suppose you’re right… the sodding wanker.”
“Well, in his defense… You know what? Let’s not even try to go there, shall we? Again, this isn’t their story. It’s your story. And it may not be over yet.”
They drew nearer to the lake. As they did, Hermione let out a gasp of recognition. “Oh! I know where we are now!”
“You do?”
“Yes!” Hermione grinned so widely it hurt her cheeks. “We’re at Hogwarts!”
They were; the lake they had been approaching was none other than the Great Lake. They were coming at it the same way she had when she was eleven; when she and the other first-years had followed Hagrid, preparing to take that monumental boat ride across the water…
The castle was as tall and grand in the distance now as it had been then, except… The windows were all glowing with a bright, pearlescent light, like the entire inside was filled with it…
“So we are!” Bathilda said, looking around appreciatively. “And the lake—oh, that’s very fitting, isn’t it?”
“It is?”
As they made it to the edge of the water, Hermione saw that there was but a single boat there. It bobbed in the gentle, shallow waves.
“Yes, I would say so,” said Bathilda. “This boat is for you, Hermione… should you wish to take it.”
She unhooked her arm from Hermione’s again. Hermione looked from the boat to Bathilda, who appeared much more stoic. “What do you mean?”
“I mean to say that you have a choice,” Bathilda explained. “It happens, from time to time, in extraordinary circumstances… And those markings on your body certainly indicate something extraordinary. Not everyone who dies has to stay dead, not always.”
“Is that… really? You mean—I could go back? Even though I was killed?”
“You aren’t the first, and you certainly won’t be the last,” Bathilda said. “But yes. You’re being given a choice in the matter.”
“A choice,” Hermione breathed. “To go back, or…”
“Or you could take a boat ride.”
“To go to Hogwarts?”
“To go beyond,” Bathilda corrected.
“So, to die, then,” said Hermione. “For good.”
“It’s not the tragedy you think,” Bathilda said kindly. “Death is not the end of the story… There is no end to any story, not really. We’re always just turning the page. Starting the next chapter.”
“…I see,” said Hermione, though she didn’t. Then, unable to help herself, “Couldn’t you say I’ve already made both choices, then? In this reality and in some other one that’s springing to life right now?”
“Don't get too lost in the weeds with that one, dear,” said Bathilda. “Other realities don’t matter at all; you are the only you that will ever be, and the only choice that matters is yours.”
Hermione nodded, gazing at the glowing, white lights exuding from the castle’s many windows. It felt welcoming, that light, like it was beckoning to her…
“But—Tom,” she said. “If I can go back—will I wake up just where I was? With Tom, in that clearing?”
Bathilda’s brows furrowed. “Now that is where you are exceptionally unique,” she said. “You have meddled with Time. With more than Time, really; with Space, too, and worst of all, with Love. I don’t know where you’ll land, should you choose to return to the living. Time, Space, Love… Death… they’ve all been warring over you a bit, I’m afraid.”
She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps they’ll compromise,” she said, as though the notion had just come to her.
Hermione’s welling bubble of hope burst. “I wouldn’t be with him, then?” she said. “If I go back… I might end up in my original timeline, where I supposedly belong?”
“Oh, no; on the contrary—if there is one thing I am certain of, it’s that you’ll be with him.” Bathilda smiled, and Hermione swore she held all the wisdom in the world in her wrinkled and dimpled skin. “Love is the most powerful force of all,” she said.
Hermione nodded firmly. “Then I have to go back.”
“Think carefully before you decide,” Bathilda warned. “You don’t owe anyone anything, Hermione… You died for love. There are precious few who can say they died so nobly. It’s not the worst way to end a chapter… and there is a reason they say that terrible things happen to those who meddle with Time…”
“What do you mean?” Hermione pulled at the fringed fabric of her dress anxiously. “Are you saying something awful will happen if I go back?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know anything with certainty,” Bathilda said—which Hermione found more than a little frustrating. “I only want you to give this great and rare decision the time it deserves before you make up your mind.”
She placed both her hands on Hermione’s shoulders, facing her. “And now, my darling girl… This is where I leave you.”
“You’re going? Where?”
“Elsewhere,” she answered, vague as ever. “And yes…The sun is setting, and this is a choice you must make alone. I know you’ll make the right one. Oh! But one last thing, before I forget. Something that’s been bothering me for a long time!”
“Oh?”
“Remember when you said it was questionable whether or not Persephone was kidnapped or not? That the oldest versions of that tale featured a Goddess of Spring who went, perhaps, willingly into the Underworld?”
“Yes,” said Hermione, hesitant.
“Well, you will have to forgive me—it’s the scholar in me, I’m afraid—but that’s most likely false. That story has been watered down and retold so many times, and sadly, its focus is almost entirely on the potentially dark, riveting romance of it all… but that’s not what the tale was ever supposed to be about. For much of human history, when girls were married off, it often meant that they never saw their mothers again. They usually left their homes, and a sad number of them died in childbirth. To see your daughter married meant, more often than not, saying goodbye to her for good. Hades and Persephone was never intended to be a story for lovers… It was a story for mothers, and their love.”
Before Hermione could even begin to think of a response, Bathilda pulled her into an embrace. Hermione hesitated, but then hugged her back—perhaps too fiercely. Bathilda smelled like ink and parchment and oh, the library.
“Thank you,” Hermione said, gripping her even tighter. "Thank you for writing."
“Oh, no, dearest,” said Bathilda. She pulled back, then once more placed both her withered, warm hands on Hermione’s cheeks. “Thank you for reading.”
She then released her, and between one step and the next, Bathilda Bagshot was gone.
Alone, Hermione turned towards the boat. The lights from the castle called to her; elsewhere, something else did, too.
She took a deep breath, then chose.
Chapter 71: Muggle Sector 17B
Chapter Text
Tick, tick, tick.
The sound of a clock was soft, but Hermione couldn’t ignore it. She groaned and rolled to her side, her muscles aching as she did. Stop it, she thought. Stop ticking. I want to go back to sleep. She’d been having such a pleasant dream. Something about a lake, she thought, and… a friend…
Tick, tick, tick.
The clock was relentless. Reluctantly, Hermione opened her eyes.
I'm on the floor…
Through a partially curtained window, she could make out a gray sky and the view of the street. The clock, she saw, was high on the wall, above a… a microwave. Which was next to a refrigerator and a stove, all of which looked familiar.
Her appliances. Hermione’s flat in London had the same muggle appliances, because she’d chosen to rent in a muggle neighborhood. In fact, this looked very much like her old flat, except—not. That clock, which read about half past two, was different, as was the furniture. And there was a bright red phone by the door. And the calendar; it was on a different wall, and—
Hermione’s mind went blank with shock.
No. No, that can’t be.
It showed the month of September. All the days had been crossed off, leading all the way up to… to the 19th, to her birthday…
For the year 2001.
No.
Hermione went to stand, then paused. She was naked. She held up her arms, slack-jawed, gaping at herself. The scar reading mudblood was there, a stark black stain on her skin.
The golden lines were gone.
“And maybe tomorrow, if it’s not raining—oh!”
Hermione’s ears were ringing as the front door swung open, and a woman and child entered. The woman had keys in one hand and a bag of groceries in another, all of which she dropped upon seeing a naked stranger in the middle of what Hermione could only assume was her flat. Fruits and canned goods went everywhere, and the child ducked and hid behind the woman’s legs. For a bewildered moment, they all stared at one another. Then they all screamed.
“What—how did you—!?”
“Oh my God, oh my God—”
“Mum!”
“Who are you!?”
Hermione scrambled away, fleeing backwards until she collided with a couch. The woman’s eyes zeroed in on Hermione’s forearm as though trained to go there.
“Good Lord, it’s one of you!” she exclaimed.
Hermione held her arm to her chest, covering her scar and herself. “Excuse me!?” she shouted.
“How did you get out!?” The woman’s expression was one of pure, manic fear. She pushed her child farther away from Hermione, out into the hall. “And why—why would you come here!? To my flat, to a muggle sector?”
“Wh… what did you just say?”
“Oh, no, oh, no, no, no.” The woman was shaking her head, looking a bit mad. “A mudblood—here, here— I can’t, we have to—”
Hermione’s pulse was speeding. This was clearly not a witch before her, and yet she had just referred to this place as a muggle sector, had referred to Hermione as a mudblood…
“I’m sorry.” The woman grabbed the red phone on the wall beside her. “I’m sorry—I have a child, you understand—I can’t—”
With a truly remorseful look on her face, she dialed three buttons. She didn’t hold it to her ear as though expecting it to ring. Instead, her body stiffened like she was bracing herself.
“What do you mean, what did you just—”
A blaring siren.
It was so loud that Hermione, the woman, and the child all reacted the same way: they covered their ears and winced. A Caterwauling Charm.
Hermione had no time to think; all she knew was that this woman—this muggle woman in this muggle neighborhood—knew what she was, and she’d said that she’d gotten out, and now, now she had sounded an alarm.
Hermione ran, breakneck, from the apartment. She leapt over cans and produce and shoved the woman out of the way; she and the child screamed when she pushed past them, but Hermione didn’t look back. She sprinted to the entrance of her —not hers, someone else’s—building, too horrified to give any thought to her nakedness, to the fact that the golden lines had vanished, to September 19th, 2001.
Outside, the Caterwauling Charm was even louder. Rain pelted Hermione’s skin as she looked wildly about; she saw people from the street hurrying to get into the nearest buildings, seemingly uncaring of what they were. A few noticed her, but despite seeing a frantic, naked woman, none dared to linger. If anything, her presence made them move faster.
A series of cracks shook the air, loud enough to be heard even over the siren. Five cloaked figures appeared, immediately surrounding her; Hermione nearly ran right into one. They had wands, all of them, and they had them aimed at her—with the exception of two, who began casting what Hermione recognized as warding spells. A shimmer of translucent blue surrounded them in a wide, arching dome. Anti-apparition.
“Oh, ho!” one of the cloaked figures shouted—the one she’d nearly collided with. “We’ve got a runner!”
“Merlin’s beard, she’s naked!”
A flare of red zoomed past Hermione’s shoulder. She ducked and ran, dodging several more curses before one inevitably struck her: a tripping curse. Her ankle was yanked back, and when Hermione slipped, it was made worse by the slick, wet pavement. She fell on the concrete, her chin slamming into the ground so hard it rattled her teeth. Blood filled her mouth and blossomed in a puddle beneath her.
The Caterwauling Charm stopped.
“Go check where the call came from,” said one of the cloaked wizards. “Question the muggles.”
Hermione’s ears were ringing louder than ever in the absence of the siren; her chin burned and she feared she may have chipped a tooth. Someone grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and flipped her over; she spit up blood on the cobblestones.
“Well, well, well.”
Hermione was nearly sick on the spot. She knew that voice. Knew it, because she had been caught by him once before.
“Look what we have here!”
Fenrir Greyback smiled, revealing all his pointed, yellow teeth. Even with his hood drawn, even with the rain obscuring her vision, Hermione could make out his amber eyes, his feral grin. He stared at her hungrily, shamelessly taking in her naked, wet body.
Hermione tried to push herself up, but Greyback laughed and grabbed hold of her leg. “Oh no, sweet thing,” he said, “I’m afraid your little escape attempt ends here.”
Hermione looked frantically for any sign of a wand on him. Unless he had it hidden away in an inner pocket, it didn’t seem that Greyback had one. Something which was not true for his companions; another wizard approached, holding his glowing wand high. It was he who had cast the tripping hex, Hermione surmised, and as he drew nearer, he cast another spell. A shield hovered over the three of them, blocking the rain.
“Is she marked?”
The question was aimed at Greyback, but he didn’t seem to be listening. The werewolf, despite being in his human form, was acting very much like an animal—he leaned in close to Hermione, paralyzing her with fear as he inhaled deeply through his nose. “Mmm… she smells delicious,” he murmured, nearly nuzzling her neck.
“Greyback. Is she marked?”
Greyback huffed in annoyance, then grabbed Hermione by the wrist and pried her arm away from her chest. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “She is. We really do have a runner.”
“Step aside.”
Greyback huffed again, then did as he was told. The other wizard, a stoic looking, middle-aged man, pointed his wand at her. “If you cooperate, mudblood, your punishment will likely be much less severe. Though that is dependent on your master… So. Tell us. Who is your master?”
Hermione was too terrified to comprehend what he was asking, let alone respond. Her gaze drifted behind him and Greyback, where the rain continued to pour. Two of the other wizards were patrolling the area, it seemed, wands pointed diligently outward. The other one must have gone inside… Question the muggles, he’d been told…
Question the muggles…
A muggle sector…
It truly hit her, then.
There was no statute.
She had, for some unfathomable reason, been tossed back to her rightful year of 2001…
And now the Statue of Secrecy didn’t exist.
“Answer the question, mudblood,” the man repeated.
Hermione refocused on him, her mind feeling somehow both sluggish and unnaturally sharp. “You’re snatchers,” she found herself murmuring.
Snatchers whose job was to catch mudbloods…
Greyback laughed. “What gave it away?” he barked. “I think she’s a bit touched, this one.”
“Or she’s stunned from her fall.” The other wizard shrugged, like he wasn’t too fussed either way. “Stay still, girl. I’m going to activate your mark.”
He knelt beside her and pulled her wrist towards him just like Greyback had. Hermione couldn’t even feel his touch, she had gone so numb. She felt as though she’d left her body altogether, like she was watching a horror movie about someone else, because surely this wasn’t real? Surely this wasn’t happening to her?
The man’s wand glowed a dull yellow as he pointed it at her scar. Nothing happened. He frowned deeply.
“So?” Greyback grunted. “Who’s she belong to, Green?”
“I don’t know,” the man—Green—answered. “There’s no Trace on her.”
He looked Hermione in the eye properly for the first time. “Who removed your Trace, mudblood?”
Something snapped back into place.
Hermione, seeing a wand that was so close to her, being held in a grasp that was nowhere near firm enough, seized it. She screamed fiercely, capitalizing on the man’s startled reaction, and ripped it from his hands. In a flash of magic, she had his own wand turned on him, and he was stunned.
“Hey—HEY!”
Hermione fired a spell at Greyback as she pushed herself up, but he was fast—he dodged it, then charged for her, fearless despite not having a wand of his own. She caught him with a second hex, yet it seemed to have nowhere near the effect that it should have. The slashing curse should have ripped him in half; as it was, he seemed to be merely blown back, a mild cut that barely slashed through his robes.
The other snatchers fired spells CC at her; already Green had been revived. Hermione hit another one with a wordless blood-boiling curse, and his comrade had to stop to cast the counter. Hermione took the opportunity to cast a wide, powerful shielding charm around herself, then ran.
“Get her! GET HER!”
Hermione swore as she sprinted; it must have been the other wizard who’d cast the anti-apparition ward, because it was still in place. But if she could just make it to the edge of that translucent light, if she could get there, she could apparate away. Her bare feet slapped the wet pavement with every step; the rain was coming down in droves and her hair was plastered to her face, making it hard to see—she had to be close, she had to be—
Something barreled into her. Hermione had the breath knocked out of her as she was slammed into the wall of a nearby building, a body pressed against her, pinning her there. Her face burned where her cheek scraped against the bricks.
“Mudblood bitch!”
Greyback had her by the hair with one hand and held her wrist with the other, where he gripped her tightly.
Then he twisted her wrist, hard.
Hermione screamed.
Her bones broke with a sickening snap; the pain was instant and debilitating. She wailed as the wand slipped from her fingers, and she would have fallen to her knees in agony if Greyback weren’t holding her in place. His massive body caged her against the wall.
“You’ll pay for that,” he seethed, his rancid breath hot on her neck. Hermione could barely focus through the pain. “Oh, you’ll pay dearly…”
He released her shattered wrist to grab her thigh, his nails sharp and piercing. His hand slid higher, he forced her legs further apart—
“Greyback! Bring her here!”
Greyback growled low in her ear. “You’d better hope your master is possessive, girl,” he murmured. “Because if he doesn’t want you back after this… you may end up being a little gift for me.”
He yanked her back by her hair, dragging her to where the other wizards had gathered on the street, huddled together beneath another charm that blocked the rain.
Green, the man she’d stolen from and stunned, looked furious. He hurriedly retrieved his fallen wand before returning to the group. “How do you know how to use this!?” he spat. Then, without waiting for an answer, he flicked his wand at her. Hermione’s legs became bound together, and with another silent spell, a second rope wrapped around her midsection, securing her arms to her sides. Greyback, chuckling, kept her upright with his hold on her hair.
Even if she’d wanted to answer his question, Hermione couldn’t have. All she could do was whimper in pain.
“She has a scar but no Trace, and she’s adept at wandwork?” one of the other wizards said. “We need to take her in. No point wasting time trying to get anything out of her ourselves. The Head will do that.”
“I know, I know,” the first man, Green, muttered. “Dismantle the wards, Berg. We’re going.” He glowered at Hermione. “Lucky you, girl. You get to meet the Head of the Muggle-Born Registration Committee.”
That statement was profound enough to cut through the sea of pain Hermione was in. “Umbridge?” she breathed in terror.
“Ha! You hear that?” Greyback’s smile was wide and sardonic. “This mudblood thinks she’s important enough to have an audience with the Minister of Magic!”
They all laughed. Hermione buckled as though she’d just been punched in the gut, but Greyback continued to hold her up with seemingly little effort.
Umbridge. Dolores Umbridge, the Minister of Magic.
This is a nightmare. It must be.
“Send him a message, first,” said one of the other men. “I don’t think he’s in at the Ministry this week.”
Green nodded curtly, then flourished his wand. “Expecto Patronum!”
A bright, silvery dog burst into the air; it looked to be a bloodhound. It turned and faced Green with its head cocked to one side.
“We caught an escaped mudblood,” Green said. “She’s got a scar but no Trace, and she knows how to use a wand. She’s dangerous and needs to be dealt with immediately. Where are you?”
He nodded, and his bloodhound patronus bounded away.
“I hope she gets discarded after this,” Greyback said. “She may be a mudblood bitch, but I bet she’s tasty…”
He inhaled deeply along her neck again. Greyback ran his open mouth over the side of her throat —where there are no more golden lines, radiating— letting his teeth graze her skin. Hermione trembled, but there was nothing she could do.
Her chin was still busted and bleeding. Blood was dripping from her thigh where Greyback had scratched her. Her wrist was bent backwards at a damning angle, searing with pain.
Nothing was healing.
“Careful, Greyback,” another wizard warned. “That’s someone else’s property you’re salivating over. We don’t know who she belongs to, yet…”
The other wizards murmured in agreement. Greyback scowled, then removed his mouth from her neck, once more holding her by her hair at arms length. Hermione’s scalp burned and her eyes watered.
There was another flash of light, but this time…
A doe.
It lowered its lovely, silver head towards them.
“I am at home… You may bring her to me here.”
The sullen voice of Severus Snape could not have sounded more wrong, paired with such a delicate, female creature. The doe turned and vanished.
“I take it you know where that cheerful man lives, then?” Greyback said, looking at Green amusedly.
“Yes, I do… Come on, then.” He grabbed hold of Hermione’s wrist—the unbroken one—as well as Greyback’s shoulder. He looked back at the other wizards. “We’re going to Godric’s Hollow,” he declared. “Meet us in the graveyard.”
Side-along apparition was especially brutal with a broken wrist. Hermione’s head swam in agony and her world tilted and blurred when they landed. She took in gravestones, wet grass, and a sky that was just as gray and stormy as before, though the rain did seem softer. Greyback pulled her along as the group marched out of the graveyard, but he let out a grunt of frustration when she kept stumbling and was unable to keep up. After the third time she tripped, he reached down and scooped her up, throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. She yelped when he did it, making him and the other men laugh. Rain drizzled down her neck and face.
She might have been mortified, outraged even, if she could focus on anything other than the pain.
“It’s this one,” Green finally announced. He pushed through an iron gate that enclosed a flower garden, then led them down a path towards a quaint home. At least, Hermione thought it was quaint—she was hardly able to get a decent look, hanging down Greyback’s backside as she was, her hair a wet mess obscuring her vision.
There was a knock. A flood of light told Hermione that the door had opened.
“Don’t get water all over my living room,” came the sneering voice of Severus Snape.
The snatchers shuffled inside, Greyback last of all. A whoosh of warm air whipped all around them the moment they crossed the threshold, and Hermione’s whole body, as well as her mess of hair, was dry in an instant.
“This had better be as dire as you made it seem,” Snape said curtly. “In case it was not perfectly clear, I am on a much deserved vacation.”
“You tell us if it’s dire or not, Mister Head of the Department. Here she is.” Greyback all but threw Hermione down on the wooden floor, where she landed in front of a large armchair. Hermione wailed pitifully; bound as she was, she couldn’t prevent herself from landing on her side, hitting her wrist.
The cry vanished in her throat. Hermione’s lips were moving and tears were streaming down her face, but she made no sound. “Sweet Salazar, you couldn’t have silenced her first? And why is she naked?”
“Just how we found her. Honest,” said Greyback.
Hermione tried to blink the tears away so she could see. When she looked up, it was to be met with the very familiar, patronizing face of Severus Snape.
He looked exactly as she remembered him. Sallow skin, lank, black hair. His dark eyes were narrowed on her, and he looked as unhappy to see her now as he had in her old life.
“We got the call from Muggle Sector 17B,” said one of the other wizards. “A muggle woman named Charlotte Lewis called it in… said she just came home to her flat, and there she was. A mudblood girl, naked, right in the middle of her floor.”
“A likely story,” Snape drawled. “She must have been harboring her and then got in over her head. Write down her name and address for me. I’ll see to it later.”
The image of that muggle woman flitted across Hermione’s addled mind.
I’m sorry—I have a child—
Hermione shook her head aggressively. “Look at that,” Greyback said. “She disagrees with you, Snape.”
“And I would love nothing more than to hear the riveting tale.” Snape pointed his wand at her, and the silencing spell was lifted.
Before Hermione could speak, a door on the other side of the room opened, and Hermione was effectively distracted.
“Oh, oh my goodness.”
A woman. She was fair-skinned and lovely, with long, dark red hair. She took in the many wizards and the bound, naked woman in her home and covered her mouth with her hand.
“Lily,” said Snape, and his voice lost all of its previous, condescending drawl. “You shouldn’t be—”
The woman ignored him. She grabbed a blanket that was draped over a nearby couch, then rushed to Hermione and knelt at her side. Her eyes darted quickly to her forearm, then to her broken wrist, before settling on her face. They were full of pity, and something deeper—something tragic and painful, something like understanding.
Her familiar, green eyes…
Lily…
“You’re Harry’s mum,” Hermione whispered, her voice feeble.
Lily tilted her head at her and frowned. “Who’s Harry?”
Who’s Harry?
Hermione felt like she’d just been tossed into the ocean. Her body went cold, ice cold, and she couldn’t breath—she couldn’t get any air into her lungs, and the pain, it was too much, it was all too much, she couldn’t handle a moment more—
“Severus, please,” Lily said, gesturing toward Hermione’s wrist.
“Severus, please!” Greyback repeated mockingly, to which the men laughed.
“You ought to train your mudblood better,” said Green. “She shouldn’t be giving you orders, Snape.”
But Snape had already joined Lily on the floor and was hovering over Hermione, his wand aloft. “Yes, well, she won’t be able to explain herself if she can’t stop whimpering now, will she?” he said. “Hold her still.”
Lily’s arms tightened around her. Hermione’s face turned to the side, and there, in a new, fresh wave of horror, she saw it.
Mudblood.
It was written in a much smaller, more elegant script than hers, admittedly, but it was there. Lily had the word mudblood etched into her forearm in exactly the same place Hermione did.
There was a soothing, cool rush of magic over Hermione’s wrist. She could have sighed in relief; the pain was gone. Her body went limp. Lily draped the blanket over her. Hermione looked up, intending to thank her, but found herself unable to speak.
God, her eyes were exactly like Harry’s.
Harry.
Who’s Harry?
“Now then,” said Snape, business-like, drawing Hermione’s focus to him. “How did you come to be in Muggle Sector 17B, girl? Were you being harbored by some extremely dim and bold muggles?”
Hermione shook her head. “No,” she said. “No, I–I don’t know h-how I got there.”
Snape made a derisive noise. “Of course you don’t,” he murmured. “You said she knew how to use a wand?” he asked, looking up.
“And cast silently,” Green said, nodding.
“Did she have a wand?”
At this, Green’s face flushed red.
“She stole his,” Greyback supplied, jerking his head towards Green and smirking. “Grabbed it right out of his hand and hit him in the face with a stunner.”
Snape cast Green a deeply condescending look. “I was activating her mark!” Green yelled. “I’ve didn’t—I’ve never had a mudblood dare to—”
“Save it, Green,” Snape interrupted. “We are obviously not dealing with your typical mudblood runaway… she must have been raised in a rebellion camp. And here I was, thinking they’d all been eliminated… The Dark Lord will be deeply displeased to hear of this.”
Hermione stared at him, at all of them, trying and failing to piece together everything she was hearing to make this horrific world make sense.
The Dark Lord will be deeply displeased…
A nightmare, a nightmare, a nightmare.
“Just go in her mind and get the truth out, Snape. The sooner we get her back to her master, the sooner we can get out of your house and the sooner you can get back to vacationing.”
This was met with a few snickers from the others. Before turning his wand on Hermione again, Snape shared a fleeting look with Lily. Hermione might have tried to decipher what that meant, but Snape’s eyes were soon back on hers, and they were cold and eerily dark. Almost as cold and dark as Tom’s, Hermione thought blankly.
He pointed his wand directly at her forehead. “Legilimens.”
He was good.
He was very good; Snape might have given Dumbledore a run for his money. He moved through Hermione’s mind like a slick oil stain, a liquid invader that, were she anyone else, would have bled through the cracks of her defenses and gotten into whatever memories he’d wanted, finding exactly what he was looking for.
But not Hermione’s defenses.
Her instincts to protect her mind kicked in immediately, and without any conscious effort, she began to block him off. Nope, Hermione thought, feeling vastly more comfortable participating in mental warfare than she did in her hell of a new reality. Nope. Not a chance, sir.
She led him this way and that, like a turbulent dance, tossing him about from one shrouded veil of white to the next. Show me who you are, his mental voice demanded, growing frustrated. Show me how you escaped. Show me how you were found in a Muggle Sector.
Show me.
He pushed harder, but Hermione was undeterred. I could do this all day, she thought, and she knew he could hear her. Go on, dig deeper. You won’t like what happens if you do.
She summoned a tendril of cold, fully prepared to call forth that dark abyss and bury herself in it. Snape was even less interested in finding out what that was then Dumbledore had been. He pulled back, leaving her mind in a dark flash.
The room was ringing in silence when Hermione opened her eyes, once more on the floor of the cozy living room. Snape was staring at her with an expression she’d never seen on his face in her past life, despite all her best efforts as his student.
He looked impressed. Then, after a beat, he looked annoyed, which was much more familiar to her.
“Well?” Greyback asked. “What’s her story?”
“...I do not know,” Snape said, keeping his eyes on hers. “She is an Occlumens.”
Another stretch of silence, though this one was infinitely more tense. Only then did it occur to Hermione that perhaps she should not have shielded her mind from him at all. But then, what could she have shown him that would allow him to let her go? A memory of a disturbing, pregnant woman slamming a Time-Turner into her neck? Her working as an Unspeakable in a Ministry that may look entirely different, now? His own death as Nagini’s fangs sunk into his throat?
Would he have simply thought she was mad, if she had let him see the truth?
“She’s a what?” one of the snatchers balked.
“An Occlumens?” Green went on, astounded. “This mudblood, an Occlumens?”
Snape nodded. Lily was gaping at Hermione in shock, as were all the snatchers.
“I cannot penetrate her mind,” Snape continued, and he sounded oddly calm about it. “However.”
He pulled the blanket down to look at her arm, scrutinizing her scar. “I daresay I recognize the penmanship… Therefore, I can take this from here. You may go.”
Hermione’s heart stilled.
The penmanship.
The snatchers looked surprised and angry to be dismissed so abruptly. “What?” Greyback snapped again. “What do you mean? Who’s she belong to?”
“That’s none of your concern. You’ve done your job, bringing her to me. Thank you for your diligence. Now, you may go.”
Green and the other men shared a disgruntled look, and a few scoffed, but they went to leave. Greyback, however, was not so acquiescent. “Oh, no you don’t,” he growled. “You just want to get all the credit, don’t you, for returning her to someone who must be important! No, I don’t think so. I’m coming with you.”
“He’s hoping the girl will be relinquished to him,” Green explained drily, and Greyback glared at him. “Seems to think whoever owns her will be happy to let him take her off their hands.”
“Is that so?” Snape gave him a slanted smile. “I imagine you will be disappointed, Greyback. This girl’s master has a history of imparting punishments on her mudblood toys herself… Though when she acquired one who seems to have come from a rebellion camp is certainly news to me. And it should not be news to me. She didn’t go through the proper channels, then; I should have been the first to know…”
Snape pinched the bridge of his nose like he was fighting off an oncoming headache. “Which is probably why there was no Trace on her,” he finished, agitated.
“Who are you talking about?” Greyback asked, but there was a hint of fear in his voice, like maybe he already knew.
Just like Hermione already knew.
Snape’s teeth were clenched and his jaw muscles tense when he responded, “Bellatrix Lestrange.”
Chapter 72: Lestrange Manor
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Bellatrix Lestrange.
“No—no!”
Hermione felt heat licking up her spine, scouring her skin. The ropes caught fire; Lily yelped and jumped back; everyone shouted and raised their wands. Hermione shouted and twisted and pushed at her now burning constraints, forcing them apart despite how they burned her; she would not, they would not— no, no, no—
Flowers.
Hermione stretched both arms above her head, yawning as she she did. She looked about the flourishing field. Wild roses. Balsams. Ten-week stocks. Citronella flowers. Forget-me-nots. Zinnas. All the butterflies were white.
Hm, Hermione thought as she laid there. The sun was warm on her skin; she closed her eyes and sighed happily. This is all I want, she thought. To lay in the sunshine.
Just as she had the thought, a shadow crossed her face. Annoyed, Hermione opened her eyes again.
A boy.
He was sitting beside her, still as carved marble. His hair was black and his skin was white. He was facing the sun, but when Hermione shifted to better see his face, she saw that his eyes were closed.
“Can you move?” Hermione grumbled.
The boy didn’t move; in fact, he was so still that Hermione was beginning to think he really was a statue.
“Please?” Hermione tried.
The boy drew in a deep breath through his nose. “Will you ever stop haunting me?” he said, speaking so quietly that Hermione could barely hear him. His eyes remained closed, and he kept his face turned away from her, toward the sun. He wasn’t moving.
“I might,” Hermione responded, “if you stop blocking the sunshine already.”
At this, the boy came to life. He turned and looked at Hermione, who was still pinned beneath his shadow. He looked absurdly surprised; his dark eyes were huge, and though his lips were parted, he appeared speechless.
“Well?” Hermione said. “Move, please. I was here first. I… think.”
The boy didn’t seem to be listening. Slowly, almost fearfully, like he thought she might run away if he moved too fast, he reached for her. His hand was shaking. “…Hermione…?” he whispered.
His fingers hovered over hers, were on the precipice of taking her hand in his—
“Wakey, wakey, ickle mudblood.”
Hermione had only been awake a mere second, and already she was screaming.
She learned at once that she was no longer tied up. Hermione scrambled away from the sound of that voice, which had spoken right in her ear, soft and sickly sweet.
And she thought nothing could be worse than coming face to face with Fenrir Greyback again. “Ha, ha! She’s a jumpy little thing!”
Heart pounding, Hermione was forced to stop in her retreat when she hit a wall. She pulled her knees to her chest and held them tight. She was no longer in Snape’s cozy home in Godric’s Hallow; one look told her she was in a manor as lavish and gaudy as Malfoy’s was.
Bellatrix Lestrange. And she wasn’t the only one laughing.
“I tried to warn you!” Greyback said. “She’s feisty.”
Snape was also present. He stood, arms crossed, next to Greyback, looking very much like he too would rather be anywhere else.
Bellatrix, however, looked delighted.
She looked… good.
While Snape appeared identical to the version Hermione had known, this version of Bellatrix Lestrange was drastically different. At a glance, Hermione could tell that this witch had never been imprisoned in Azkaban. She looked infinitely healthier than the Bellatrix Lestrange Hermione had known: her cheeks were not hollowed, her hair was shining and full, and her teeth—which Hermione could see well, with the way she was smiling—were bright white. Her lips were painted a deep red and her heavily hooded eyes were framed with dark lashes. Her eyes gleamed with mirth as she looked at Hermione. “Hello, muddy,” she purred.
Hermione couldn’t control her body. She gripped her legs harder in an attempt to stop trembling, but she couldn’t. She shook, and Bellatrix only grinned more widely.
“I suppose you’re awfully confused,” she said. “Shall I fill you in? You sit, mudblood, on the floor of the most honorable and noble Lestrange Manor, the ancient, revered home of my husband. A manor that has seen generations of pureblood witches of wizards, those born with magic of the highest caliber… unlike yours.”
Aside from noting some lavish furniture and a grand fireplace, Hermione could not focus on this new Manor long. Bellatrix advanced, taking slow, measured steps towards her. Her heels clicked on the hardwood floor. “You were brought here, to my great surprise, by my good friend Sevvy! Just showed up in my foyer, he did, not a bit of warning. It was quite rude.”
Snape made a disgruntled noise, and Hermione could tell he far from considered himself her friend. “Severus Snape, showing up unannounced with a naked mudblood and a werewolf!” Bellatrix cast Greyback a mildly disdainful look, which he returned. “You can imagine my surprise, then, when he starts immediately yelling at me, going on and on about how I simply have no respect for the rules, for him, for the entire regime, blah, blah, blah… but I simply didn’t understand what he was blabbering about. Me, obtaining a mudblood illegally? And he showed me your mark, and it’s the strangest thing, because it does look like my hand… and yet.”
Bellatrix crouched down beside Hermione, her heavy skirts fanning out around her like a black flower. Hermione flinched away from her.
“And yet,” Bellatrix went on, her gaze becoming analytical. “I don’t know you.”
They stared at each other for a long moment. Hermione felt a gentle probing; Bellatrix curiously seeing if she could glean anything from Hermione’s surface thoughts.
She couldn’t. Bellatrix tilted her head. “Fascinating,” she murmured. She stood, then clapped her hands delightedly. “Oh, this is going to be such fun! I was just saying that I’ve been awfully bored lately, wasn’t I, Sevvy? This is much more interesting than lobbying, or—Merlin forbid—trying to help Cissy with her party planning.”
She looked at Hermione as though had been given a great gift. “So, muddy, since we haven’t been acquainted, much to Sevvy’s shock—he hates being wrong, you see; look at him, he’s miserable—and since you seem to be an Occlumens … Why don’t you just tell us where you’ve come from, hm? And how on earth you wound up in some muggle sector?”
Hermione’s terrified mind reeled. She was being questioned, yet again, by Bellatrix Lestrange… and she had no idea what to say.
She could not even begin to think of how she might tell the truth, even if she did think it was the right thing to do. If she explained that she’d traveled through time and space and had, perhaps, even died…
That she had seen both her and Snape die…
They would think she’d lost her mind.
But Hermione could think of no believable, alternative story, either. She knew too little of where she was and what this horrible world was like.
“Well?” Bellatrix prodded. “Answer me, mudblood. Where did you come from? Who marked you, who is your master? If it’s your master’s wrath you fear for answering, you can set that concern aside. Whoever they are, they didn’t go through the proper channels.”
Her last words were said in a mocking baby voice, and she rolled her eyes afterwards. Snape glared but didn’t comment; Greyback failed to stifle a grunting laugh.
“You likely won’t be returning to them. Sevvy doesn’t like it when people don’t play by the rules. His rules, anyway. And he’s quite persnickety with his mudblood protocol.”
“I am the Head of the Muggle-born Registration Committee,” Snape seethed. “It is my job to ensure that all muggle-borns are promptly located, registered, and—”
Bellatrix interrupted him with a loud, theatrical yawn. “That is so boring, Sevvy, I am so bored! You’re going to put the mudblood back to sleep if you keep talking like that. Right, muddy?”
Hermione said nothing, only continued to tremble where she sat with her back against the wall.
“Come on, mudblood. This is where you agree with me. You’re supposed to be on my side,” Bellatrix whined, sticking her lower lip out at Hermione.
“The girl is terrified, Bellatrix,” Snape said. “This—tormenting her further—isn’t going to be useful.”
“She is terrified,” Greyback agreed. His amber eyes were fixed on Hermione, as hungry as ever. “I can smell her fear.”
“Of course she is!” Snape seemed to have lost all patience; he glowered at Greyback and Bellatrix, looking deeply irritated. “She’s been caught! I only brought her here because I thought you had marked her, Bellatrix. Now that I know you have not, I will take her—”
“Oh, no, no, no!” Bellatrix shouted. “You’re not taking her anywhere! Didn’t I just say I’ve been bored? This is much too intriguing. An escaped mudblood with a mark that looks eerily similar to the way I sometimes mark mine? Well-versed in the Mind Arts? Consider me invested.”
She smiled happily again; Snape looked like he wanted to start burning paintings and destroying her lovely manor.
“All right, muddy,” said Bellatrix, “first question. Who is your master? Wait, wait, don’t tell me! Let me guess.”
She tapped her chin and began to pace in front of her. Each time her heels struck the floor, Hermione winced. “You have a mark similar to mine… I’ll guess that this means you belong to someone who’s an admirer of mine. Someone who’s keen to emulate my work… and”—she snapped her fingers—“you said she was found naked like this, yes, Greyback?”
Greyback grunted and nodded. Hermione curled into herself more, hiding as much of her body as she could.
“Have you cast the Exolvuntur Charm on her yet?”
At this question, Snape’s irritated expression went blankly cold. “No… I have not.”
“Cast it, cast it!” Bellatrix demanded excitedly. “I have a hunch.”
Snape did not move. His brows furrowed slightly; Hermione got the sense that he was conflicted, but didn’t want to show it.
“Do it!” Bellatrix said. “Do it or I will. I’m just trying to respect your stupid rules, but if you won’t, I’ll gladly—”
“No. Keep your wand where it is,” Snape interrupted. Hermione felt a fleeting moment of gratitude; it seemed Snape did not trust Bellatrix with a wand in her hand around her.
The feeling of relief was short-lived. Snape withdrew his own wand, and the second he pointed it at her, she failed to hold back a whimper of fear. His face remained flat, but—and maybe Hermione was imagining it—he seemed… regretful, for what he was about to do.
“Exolvunur momentum,” he murmured as he moved his wrist in a precise, counter-clockwise motion.
A flare of bright pink, sparkly magic hovered in front of her. Hermione pushed herself away from it, sliding along the wall, and it vanished.
Bellatrix let out a cackle of delight. “I knew it!” she yelled. “A branded, fertile mudblood girl. You’re a breeding whore, aren’t you, muddy? Escaping your duties just in the nick of time, is that right? Ha!”
She clapped her hands again, and she even jumped up and down like an overjoyed schoolgirl. Hermione’s stomach churned.
A breeding whore?
She was going to be sick.
“So that narrows it down! Definitely a wizard master, then… A wizard who is a fan of mine… Might it be… Barty?”
As soon as she said it, Belatrix shook her head. “No, no, Barty is too… prudish. He might take a mudblood whore, but he would never go against protocol… Which narrows it down further. A high-ranking wizard; someone prominent enough to warrant a breeding whore… but also someone who admires me, and who has a bold streak… perhaps someone who hates you, Sevvy? Can you think of anyone who fits?”
Snape’s face remained impassive. “No,” he said at length. “I cannot.”
“Hmph.”
Bellatrix folded her arms across her chest and frowned. “All right, fine. Go on then, muddy. Tell us. Who is he?”
Hermione’s heart pounded in the silence that followed. All three of them—Bellatrix Lestrange, Severus Snape, Fenrir Greyback—they all stared at her, their faces expectant. Hermione couldn’t speak. She was still trying and failing to process all of what Bellatrix had said.
“Let’s start with an easier question, perhaps?” Bellatrix finally said. “If revealing your master is too scary right now… How did you end up in a muggle sector? That couldn’t have been easy. How did you get past the warding enchantments without setting the alarms off on your way in? What did that muggle woman do to help you?”
The image of the woman whose flat she’d woken up in came to Hermione again. She had looked so terrified… and a child, she’d had a child…
If they found her guilty, if they blamed her for Hermione getting out… What would they do to her?
She couldn’t let them punish an innocent woman, but Hermione couldn’t seem to make her mouth move, either.
Breathe, she told herself, and she heard Holloway’s calm, commanding voice in her mind.
Breathe. Remember your training.
“I… I d-don’t know,” Hermione managed to whisper. Her throat ached with every word. She was reminded that her chin was still split open; it burned when she spoke. “I don’t know how I g-got there… I just woke up there. I don’t remember… I d-don’t remember anything.”
Bellatrix’s eyes narrowed in disdain. “Of course you don’t,” she drawled.
“I don’t,” Hermione said more adamantly. “I don’t know how I g-got there, and that woman—I d-didn’t recognize her.”
Bellatrix, Snape, and Greyback all shared a look. Snape did not react at all; Greyback shrugged unhelpfully.
“Well, we’ll find out the truth of that soon enough,” Bellatrix said. “They’ll see in the muggle’s mind whether or not you two were acquainted… But this is good, muddy! You’re talking. Very good!”
She swooped in, patting Hermione on the top of the head. Hermione’s whole body jerked at her touch; she fell to the side on the floor and covered her face with her hands.
“My goodness,” Bellatrix said. “Bit of an overreaction!”
“Bellatrix,” Snape said. “Get away from her—the girl is traumatized. Considering what she’s likely been through, I imagine she would rather not be touched.”
Bellatrix shrugged, uncaring, but she did retreat a few steps. “Next question,” she continued. “Sevvy said you are adept at wandwork. Impressive, impressive… also only possible if you managed to get your hands on a wand, which means you must have stolen one at some point. Tell us—whose wand did you steal, mudblood?”
Hermione slowly pushed herself up so she was sitting again. Perhaps she had simply reached her threshold for fear, because she found that she now felt numb. And as Bellatrix looked at her, waiting for an answer —whose wand did you steal— she felt a whisper of something more.
Rage. A small stirring of it, and without thinking, with a smile forming on her lips, Hermione whispered, “Yours.”
Bellatrix’s brows rose and her eyes went wide. She looked utterly confused, but she could see that she was, somehow, being slighted. She took in Hermione’s spreading smile, and rather than ask another question, her face contorted in fury.
Hermione barely had the chance to think, vine, when Bellatrix was firing a spell at her.
“Crucio!”
TheCruciatusCursedoesnotinflictrealdamagetoitsvictim;atleast,notinthephysicalsense—
“Bellatrix!”
The curse was lifted only seconds after it had been cast, but Hermione was deeply affected. She fell onto her stomach and convulsed, hacking blood, struggling to breathe.
“I said no! No casting magic on the girl!”
Snape had his own wand drawn; from where she lay on the floor, Hermione could see that Bellatrix had been disarmed.
“She insulted me!” Bellatrix shrieked. “Did you not see—did you not hear—she dared, she dared to claim—mine, she said—”
“She is clearly damaged!” Snape roared. “Traumatized! Wounded! I doubt she understands what she’s saying at all!”
His wand erupted with furious sparks of green. Greyback shied away from the display, but Bellatrix hardly seemed to notice.
“But she—”
“No! But nothing! I told you no magic, and yet again, you failed to follow directions! This insane and fruitless questioning ends now! She is not yours to deal with, she is mine.”
Bellatrix let out a wordless, frustrated cry, stamping her foot like a petulant child. “Fine!” she snapped. She stomped across the room to retrieve her wand. “Though how you shall deal with her, I don’t know. What will you do with a damaged, marked mudblood who escaped your precious protocol, Sevvy?” Her spiteful expression softened enough to smile leeringly. “It surely won’t reflect well on you, will it? Revealing that this made it past your precious committee.”
“She could be mine,” Greyback offered. “You could give her to me, and I can simply make your little mudblood problem… go away.”
He grinned darkly. Bellatrix cocked her head and shrugged, almost as though she was saying, It’s not the worst idea.
“Must I live my entire life surrounded by fools?” Snape said. “Have you not heard a single word I’ve said? No, this is not a little problem that we must simply sweep under the rug… We must tell our Lord about this.”
Bellatrix’s face paled. “What?” she gasped. “Tell our—you want to bother the Dark Lord with this? Some runaway mudblood?”
“This girl is capable and magically adept. She is an Occlumens, and she is powerful. Dangerous. She must have come from the fringes; I can think of no other explanation for it than she has been taught magic for years. Which means she was raised in a rebellion camp, which means that there are still rebellion camps. This is about something much more than a mere runaway. It means that the resistance either is reforming, or worse—that it was never completely destroyed to begin with.”
Bellatrix looked thunderstruck. “That’s impossible,” she said. “There’s no way any of the resistance was left. It’s been years since there’s been even a whisper of any rebels.”
“Which is exactly why this is so alarming,” Snape said. “I cannot see her thoughts, but the Dark Lord might. And no—no, I am not going to allow you to attempt to torture the truth out of her. She is too fragile. Your one curse impacted her much too greatly. Look at her.”
Bellatrix locked eyes with Hermione. Hermione was trembling so hard she could not push herself up again; she tasted blood in her mouth and felt it on her lips.
“Fine,” Bellatrix relented. “Fine. But—he just got back from his travels; you know how he is after he’s dealt with the Americans. He does not like to be disturbed when he is resting…”
“Yes, I am painfully aware of how much our Lord detests how frequently he needs to reign over Ilvermorny with a heavy hand… I daresay I hear about more than you do, even… But he would want to know about this. I would vastly prefer to tell him and allow him to make the decision to let me deal with it as I please, than to not tell him and suffer his wrath later.”
Bellatrix seemed unable to find fault with his logic. Hermione’s addled mind raced and raced.
America. Ilvermorny.
We must tell our Lord about this.
“I will be taking her, then,” Snape finally declared, pocketing his wand. “And I shall—”
“No, no, you will not,” Bellatrix said. “I will be informing the Dark Lord about this. You brought her to my home, I will be the one to tell him.”
“She isn’t—”
“She is! She is a mudblood whore in my manor, and I will be the one to tell our master of her!”
Bellatrix pointed her wand at Snape and glared. “I will write him. Don’t worry, Sevvy; I’ll tell him all about how you brought her to me… and you.”
She jabbed her wand at Greyback next. “Before you can whine about it—I’ll include you, too. Perhaps you’ll get lucky, werewolf. Perhaps he’ll be in the mood for violence, and you’ll get the mudblood when this is all said and done, after all.”
Bellatrix paused as though waiting for one of them to argue with her. When neither of them did, she lowered her wand. “Good,” she said curtly. “So glad we can all agree.”
Bellatrix crossed the foyer, then sat at a desk that was against the far wall. Hermione could make out her profile as she began to write. For an agonizing minute, the only sound that could be heard was that of her quill scratching on the parchment.
Then she paused and pursed her lips. Bellatrix looked at Hermione with a crooked smile. “So,” she said, somewhat sardonically, “what’s your name?”
So… what’s your name?
In a flash, Hermione was there: in the forest, her head on Tom’s chest. He was winded and exhausted and smiling as he asked her that same question.
A question he still hadn’t gotten the answer to for over fifty years, now. A question that, up until this moment, none of her captors had bothered to ask.
“Hermione,” she answered softly. “My n-name is Hermione Granger.”
Bellatrix scoffed and turned back to her letter. “A mudblood name if I’ve ever heard one,” she muttered as she continued to write.
She finished soon enough. Bellatrix set her quill aside, then rolled the parchment into a tight scroll. She whistled, a sudden, high sound that had Hermione twitching, and within seconds there was an answering screech. An impressive barn owl swooped into the foyer, then landed on Bellatrix’s shoulder gracefully.
“Take this to the Dark Lord,” Bellatrix instructed. She tied the scroll onto the owl’s outstretched leg. “Be swift, but for Salazar’s sake, do not disturb him if he’s resting. Leave it where he will find it if you must.”
The owl hooted dutifully. Bellatrix flicked her wand towards one of the tall, wide windows, and it swung open. “Go,” Bellatrix said, and the owl flew away, off into the stormy sky. Once it was gone, she addressed Snape and Greyback again.
“You may leave. If he wants you to deal with her, Sevvy, I’ll let you know.”
“I am not leaving yet,” Snape said. “I’m staying for now, in case he responds shortly.”
“Ugh, fine. You may go, Greyback.”
“I’m not leaving either!”
“Why? Because you think he’ll say, ‘Oh, you know what? Go ahead and give her to the werewolf now!’” Bellatrix laughed. “Please. If you are going to get her, it won’t be for some time. Get out of my house. There’s enough filth in here already.”
“I’m not leaving until he does,” Greyback growled, pointing at Snape. “If he’s staying to wait for a response, so am I.”
Bellatrix sighed theatrically. “Fine, fine! What should we do while we wait, then? Shall we have some tea? Play a fun game?”
“Can we get the poor girl some clothes?” Snape asked. “She’s shivering, she must be cold.”
“The poor girl?” Bellatrix repeated, sneering. “You mean the mudblood trash who’s currently staining my nice, polished floor? Ha!”
She and Greyback laughed. “Cast a warming charm on her if you're so concerned for her wellbeing, Sevvy. I’m not giving any of my clothes to this whore.”
“She is naked. Can’t you spare a single robe? Surely you have an overflowing wardrobe? I imagine you have clothes you haven't worn in years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear the same thing twice.”
“That’s not the point—and since when did you take such careful note of my wardrobe, Sevvy?” She smirked. “Do you like looking at my fancy dresses? Do you write about my outfits in your secret diary?”
“I don’t—”
“I bet he does,” Greyback interrupted, smirking as well. “I bet he has to keep it hidden so his mudblood doesn’t find it and get jealous.”
“Dear diary,” Bellatrix began, speaking in a high voice, “today, the lovely Bella was wearing an emerald green gown with tall, black boots. Her corset was tied so tightly; I imagine I could wrap my hands around it. She should wear green more often, she looked like a Slytherin Queen.”
She and Greyback laughed louder. Snape was turning an unflattering shade of red.
“Will you two—”
“Dear diary!” Greyback shouted, and Hermione was astonished how quickly these two could go from clearly disliking each other to harboring a sense of camaraderie, “today my secret crush Bellatrix Lestrange was wearing black. She’s usually wearing black, but this black dress was slightly different. I would know if it was something she’d worn even once before. I keep my memories of every time we meet in a jar in my nightstand.”
“And I revisit them all the time. Every night, in fact,” Bellatrix added.
“Because I am desperately in love with her,” Greyback went on.
“Oh, is it true, Sevvy?” Bellatrix put a hand to her chest; Snape was growing redder by the second. “Are you in love with little ol me?”
“Bella and Sevvy, kissing in a tree!” Greyback sang out. “K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”
“Come on, give us a kiss, then!” Bellatrix advanced on Snape with her arms out wide. “I promise I won’t tell Rodolphus! In fact, we couldn't have asked for a better time to have a sordid affair—he’s oh so conveniently abroad right now. It can be our little secret.”
She and Greyback laughed raucously when Snape retreated and brandished his wand at them. “Get back,” he hissed. “I am not in the mood for your stupidity.”
“Calm down, old friend,” Bellatrix drawled, lowering her arms. “We’re just having a bit of fun while we—”
The fireplace erupted in a whoosh of black flames.
They all startled as Bellatrix’s owl came flying out of the fireplace screeching wildly, like a bat out of hell. It went directly to Bellatrix and dropped what looked to be the same scroll on her as it flew overhead; Bellatrix, bewildered, caught it.
“Did your owl just return using the Floo?”
That seemed to be exactly what had happened. Hermione caught a glimpse of the owl as it kept flying, not waiting for any sort of response from its master. It soared straight back out the window that Bellatrix had left open, fleeing the manor. It screeched the entire time.
Greyback seemed confused, but Snape didn’t. “Bellatrix,” he said seriously, his flushed face going pale. “What did he say?”
Bellatrix didn’t answer. Her eyes darted across the scroll, which must have had a response written directly on it. She was still staring at it when, a moment later, she said, “Get out.”
“What?” Greyback said. “What? What did he say? I’m getting really sick of—”
“I said GET OUT!” she screamed. “GET OUT NOW!”
Bellatrix slashed her wand, sending blue-white flames flying through the air—they scarred the hardwood floor and singed the wallpaper. Her entire demeanor had gone from confused to concerned to wildly fierce in a flash; the whole manor seemed to shake with her sudden rage. Hermione covered her face with her hands and cowered where she sat.
She was not alone in her fear. It seemed that not even Snape dared to argue with Bellatrix when she was like this. Hermione perceived a flash of green through her fingers. When she peered through them next, Snape and Greyback were gone.
Bellatrix was on her a moment later. She grabbed Hermione’s face with one hand. Bellatrix’s eyes were dilated, manic looking. She pointed her wand at Hermione’s chin, and before Hermione had a chance to be even more afraid, she felt the cooling sensation of a healing spell wash over her skin.
Without a word, Bellatrix grabbed her and flipped her over. She cast another healing spell on her thigh where Greyback had scratched her, then proceeded to heal bruises that Hermione hadn’t even known were there. Bellatrix turned her this way and that, examining her body, vanishing all the blood. When she seemed satisfied, she returned her crazed eyes to Hermione’s.
“You’re fine,” she murmured, though she appeared to be talking to herself. “You’re fine. I should—I should get—but no, no time.”
Hermione was much too frightened to dare to ask a single question, and Bellatrix was not explaining. She grabbed Hermione by the shoulders and hauled her up. “Come on, girl,” she snapped. She held Hermione when she stumbled, keeping her on her feet. “We must go—now—right now—”
She dragged her towards the fireplace. When she reached for the mantel, Hermione saw that there were two bowls there: one full of what appeared to be regular floo powder, glittery and silver, and a second that was filled with powder that was pitch black, like charcoal. Bellatrix grabbed a handful of the dark powder and tossed it into the fireplace; black flame erupted without her needing to say a word. Hermione yelped when, without warning, she was shoved into the fire.
Whatever this floo connection was, it was even more private than the one leading from the old Riddle home to the dungeons of the House of Black. It was a short and jarring trip; only a second later and Hermione fell roughly onto a hard, stone floor. The black flames had barely gone out behind her before they erupted again, and Bellatrix emerged.
“Get up, girl, get up!” She pulled Hermione back up to her feet, her voice rising in pitch.
Hermione blinked in the dimness. They’d arrived in a dark, ominous hall. The walls were lined with scones emitting a dull light, as well as some less than cheerful paintings—all of the frames were empty. There were no windows. Despite the tall ceilings, Hermione felt suffocated; despite knowing it couldn’t possibly be anywhere she’d ever been before, it felt oddly familiar.
They soon arrived at a pair of massive double doors. The iron framing on them twisted when they approached, joining together and forming a wide, metal mouth.
“NAME YOURSELF,” it demanded in a booming voice.
“Bellatrix Lestrange,” Bellatrix responded, and though she still sounded fearful, her voice was loud and clear.
The mouth was still for a moment. Then the metal slid back to where it once was, and the door opened.
The space that was revealed to them was so astonishing that Hermione felt dazed. It was a huge space, reminiscent of a cathedral. The ceiling, which was so very high above them, arched up and up, and on it—was it a magical painting, or was it enchanted to look like the sky, just as Hogwarts’ Great Hall was? It must have been the latter, for it was extremely realistic. The clouds roiled and rumbled; lightning danced along the steely haze.
But not even that, mystical and engrossing as it was, could not hold Hermione’s gaze for more than a second.
In front of her, on the far end of this Hall, was a raised platform, and upon it was what she could only describe as a throne: a huge, imposing, dark chair with a high back. It was as ornate as it was terrifying; it seemed to be as covered in emeralds as it was in fierce looking fangs. Fangs that made Hermione think, basilisk.
And behind it…
Hermione was certain she was imagining it. Behind that throne, the entire wall seemed to be covered in stained glass… but it was the section directly above and behind that chair that made her jaw drop.
She knew that stained glass. She knew it well.
St. Jude.
It was the exact imagery from the church she had grown up by; the one she used to ride her bike past as a child… In fact, she was certain that this was that window. That was St. Jude, raising his cross up towards the heavens…
The patron saint of lost causes…
It cast that part of the throne room in a radiant gold light, as though warmth would always emanate from that glass, no matter the weather. And as Hermione’s eyes drifted down from it… she saw him.
His back was turned where he stood behind the throne. He was wearing long, dark robes that even from a distance Hermione could see were fit for a King. He had one hand resting on the throne's high back, fingers as white as bone against the bright green glow of an emerald.
There was a ring on his finger.
The ring. The Gaunt ring.
A hallow.
“My Lord.”
Bellatrix dragged Hermione across the length of the room, then dropped her onto the ground before the raised platform. She swept into a low, subservient bow. “I have brought you the—”
“Leave us.”
He hadn’t turned or moved at all. His voice was quiet, but it carried in that great room, echoing gently. Bellatrix looked stunned.
“I…I—”
“Now.”
Bellatrix did not attempt to question him again. She gave one last, low bow, then departed, crossing the huge room swiftly. The doors shut behind her, leaving Hermione alone with…
Him.
It was eerily quiet. He still didn’t move. He was facing the stained glass, bathed in its golden light from behind, emitting around him like a…
Like a halo.
Hermione covered herself as best she could with her arms, shaking on the floor. She could think of nothing to say, nothing to do. Her heart was fluttering like a hummingbird’s. She felt faint.
Tom?
“You come to me… now.”
He finally, slowly, turned to face her. She was shocked at the sight of him; he was both the same as she recalled yet not at all. His skin was lighter, inhumanly so; his hair was as dark as ever, if also a bit longer; his lips, his cheekbones—they were sharper versions of the ones she was accustomed to. More striking.
Perhaps most notable was that which could not be seen at all. There was an undeniable aura about him that had been absent before: a cold, dark, and seductive well of magic.
He was beautiful and terrifying. Devastating and awe-inspiring.
Glorious.
His eyes were red.
Notes:
Chapter 73: Saint Jude
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Cold.
Despite the hellfire color of his eyes, there was no other word Hermione could use to describe the look on his face. Cold. Furious and frigid. Hermione trembled so badly her teeth began to chatter, and that icy expression cracked.
He—
He? Tom? The Dark Lord?
Voldemort?
—advanced, gliding down the stairs towards her with a swiftness and elegance that surpassed even what Hermione recalled of him. He had always been swift. He had always been elegant.
Now he was… otherworldly.
What happened to him?
Hermione had so many questions—what happened, how, why; how was that stained glass window here, where was here, why were his eyes red— and no time to contemplate any of them. Too soon he stood before her. After a moment of hesitation, he unfastened the clasp on his outer cloak and pulled it from his shoulders. When he knelt down, Hermione flinched and closed her eyes.
He was looking at her. Hermione could feel him examining her as she sat there, helpless, shaking and bare. She whimpered and hid her face in the crook of her elbow.
Something soft and thick was draped over her back. Hermione dared to open her eyes. His cloak. He had wrapped his cloak around her and was holding it now, keeping it in place over her shoulders. Desperate for the warmth and the coverage, Hermione grasped the fabric from the other side, pulling it tighter around her.
He was so close.
Hermione met his eyes and all of her wild fear, her confusion and panic, went blank.
How was it possible that someone like Tom Riddle could become even more stunning? But he was; up close, it was undeniable. Yes, his features were sharper; yes, his skin was unnaturally white, practically glowing in its paleness. Yet it all suited him. And that magic, that power—it was far more intoxicating when he was so near. Everything about him said worship me, fear me, bow to me.
Hermione might have been swept away by the gesture of his cloak and his beauty alone, might have been tempted to pretend, for a moment, that nothing had changed, that he had not spent fifty years without her—to close her eyes again and lean forward and find out if his lips felt the same—
But… those eyes.
Hermione’s moment of thought-annihilation was over. There was no possible fantasy to be had beneath violent, red eyes such as those.
For as frightening as that bloody hue was, there was something familiar in the way he examined her. Analytical yet awe-struck. Perhaps he was searching for golden lines that weren’t there. Perhaps he was still uncertain that it was really her.
Finally, after an agonizing stretch of silence that Hermione was too stunned to break, he lifted one hand. He reached for her face.
“Hermione… Granger.”
His fingers grazed her jaw, feather-light. Was his touch cold, or was she, Hermione, feverishly hot? She wasn’t sure.
He’d said her name. Hermione nodded against his hand.
The action seemed to make something in him snap. He pulled away.
“You come to me now,” he said spitefully. “You come to me now.”
He stood and took several steps back, his eyes brimming with a fresh wave of rage that Hermione struggled to comprehend.
“Why?” he asked, his voice dropping even lower. “Why now?”
Hermione could tell that he was struggling, too. His hand was quivering at his side until he clenched it into a fist; his face was full of anger, and his voice—it broke with his last words, like he couldn’t contain the emotion.
Hermione tried to stand, but her legs felt much too weak. She settled for sitting up taller, pulling the cloak around her like a shield.
“Will you not answer me…? You, who abandoned me when I trusted you most? You, who managed to hide from me no matter what I did? You —you— who did nothing but lie, at every opportunity, at every chance—can you not be bothered to speak the truth, now, after all this time, for once?”
His voice grew louder with every word. Hermione’s body was reacting before her mind could register what he was saying; she was filled with a cold, consuming dread.
“Why now?” he all but shouted. “Why have you come? Why now, like this? Why?”
His fist unclenched and clenched again. His face was wild, almost mad. Hermione didn’t understand—him, his fury. Anything.
Then it clicked.
She pictured Tom, unconscious on a forest floor surrounded by blazing, black fire. Tom, who had been so confused, so afraid, before Harry had stunned him, and…
He hadn’t seen it.
He hadn’t heard the conversation she’d had with Harry, Ron, and Draco; he hadn’t watched her as she begged for Harry to spare him… He hadn’t heard that Harry’s wand was, somehow, capable of causing True Death…
He hadn’t seen her sacrifice herself for him, and…
Over fifty years.
That was how long he thought she’d… left him, Hermione realized. The pain in her chest was real and devastating.
Her heart, breaking.
She shook her head and opened her mouth to try to explain, but he cut her off.
“Do not,” he said coldly. Hermione got the sense that every muscle in his body was tense, that he was barely holding in a maelstrom of fury. “Do not lie to me again.”
He laughed, and it was absurd in how it sounded not crazed as she might have expected, but exactly as it always had. Disarmingly casual. “How long had you planned it?” he asked conversationally. “From the beginning? Had you always had a way to call for help from your original time, and you were simply waiting for the perfect moment? Had you been counting down the days until you could flee from me, yet again?”
From your original time.
The shock must have shown on her face, because he smiled sardonically. “Yes, I know,” he said. “I know everything… Would you like to know how I found out, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what you really were?”
He held up his hand. His left hand. There, on his middle finger, his ring glinted, his horcrux—
The Resurrection Stone.
The sound that escaped Hermione’s lips belied all the horror which she felt.
“It’s just a children’s story,” he said in a cruel, mocking tone. Her words, from what was so long ago, for him. “It’s not real.”
He laughed again, but this time, the sound was as sharp as steel. “One more of your countless lies. You knew—you knew it was real—I watched everything; I relived everything—just to see, to pick apart every time you— you…”
He broke off, turning away from her and breathing hard. When he faced her again a moment later, he had forced his face back into a mask of calm.
“You were lying when you said that, just as you have always lied… It was all true. The Elder Wand, the Cloak of Invisibility, the Resurrection Stone… Yes, I learned all about the Deathly Hallows, Grindelwald’s symbol, and yes, I found it.”
He started to walk, slowly, around her. Hermione felt like she was being circled by a shark. She couldn’t move. She could barely breathe.
Breathe, Hermione, remember your training—
“My ring, my family heirloom that I would only find once I righted one of my most grievous wrongs…”
He stopped. Hermione jolted when he was suddenly at her level, speaking in her ear from behind. “You’ll be happy to know that I returned the book,” he said.
Then he was laughing louder than ever, moving back into her direct line of vision. He clapped once, twice. “And bravo!” he exclaimed, smiling venomously. “Such a funny girl, aren’t you?”
“T—”
“No.”
The smile was gone from his face. He was upon her, suddenly and viciously; Hermione recoiled away. “Make no mistake,” he hissed, and though his voice was soft, he was all the more frightening for it. “Tom Riddle is dead , he has been dead for years… You should know that. Hermione... It was in the paper.”
He smiled. His eyes were disturbingly bright.
“Where was I…? Ah, yes… you. You left one of the most powerful objects of all time—one which was cursed —right outside a muggle library. You put it right behind the book return!”
He laughed and laughed, and clapped for her a few more times. Hermione had never heard a more chilling sound. “No magic necessary! Who would ever look there, in the crack between that metal bin and the brick wall of the building? You couldn’t even see it. I couldn’t even reach it. That little black box might have sat there for decades… but it didn’t. I found it.”
He examined the ring again, blankly.
“I thought you would come,” he murmured. “I had convinced myself you must have died. I couldn’t fathom that you had abandoned me. I was certain, so certain, that you must have been killed, somehow; that that was the only explanation, that you wouldn’t have… But no. I was wrong. You didn’t come. Someone else did.”
He looked at her. Hermione knew who he had summoned instead; knew it, because who else could it be?
Who else had died so that Tom Riddle might live?
“Your mother,” Hermione whispered.
The first words she had spoken, and Hermione’s throat burned with them.
His face remained bloodless and still. “My mother,” he confirmed. “And oh, the things she had to say…”
Hermione forced herself up, to stand, ignoring her protesting muscles; she shook her head and reached for him. “No—please, you don’t—”
“You tried to kill her!”
Voldemort screamed, and a frigid wind whipped about the hall. “You tried to murder her—an innocent, pregnant witch! A woman suffering, at her most vulnerable—she pleaded to you for help, and you tried to kill her!”
The ground shook. Hermione retreated, holding the cloak over herself as the wind beat against her.
Then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.
“How could you?”
Voldemort’s voice was soft again. He seemed unable to stop the tragic look from unfolding on his face. How could eyes so frightfully red look so broken?
“How could you?”
He waited for an answer she did not have.
“I… I’m sorry,” Hermione finally said. It took all of her bravery to take another step towards him. “I’m so sorry, I—”
“Another lie,” Voldemort interrupted, stepping back. “You aren’t sorry you attempted to murder her—to murder me. You’re only sorry that you underestimated the power of a mother, of the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself… You’re only sorry that you failed… time-traveler.”
Hermione’s stomach dropped when he finally said it. What she was, what she’d always been.
When she did nothing to deny it, his face once more became coldly analytical.
“How many times had I considered it?” he said, and he seemed to be speaking more to himself than to her. “How many times had the thought crossed my mind? ‘Could she be…?’ But every time I thought it, I convinced myself it could not be so… It was not possible, I would think; all my studies and all my connections told me as much… Time-travel beyond a few hours was unstable, destructive, impossible… and besides, I told myself, surely she could not actually be from the future, because if that’s what it was—if she was from another time, if she had known me, known who I was and what I would become—if that was her secret, then surely, she would have fucking told me by now!”
Another harsh bout of wind. The clouds in the enchanted sky above shifted as though they were affected by his power as much as Hermione was. Her hair whirled about her and she covered her face, cowering.
“I gave you countless opportunities to tell me!” he roared, his composure once more disintegrating. “I gave you every reassurance in the world! I forgave you before you even confessed! And still you never told me—no, I had to learn the truth from my deceased mother! And then —then, I had that truth confirmed by none other than Hepzibah Smith! Because you told her— you told a fucking house-elf— but not me!”
The winds were growing stronger; the walls seemed to tremble. Hermione feared the whole hall was going to cave in.
“I was going to tell you!” she shouted. Her throat burned and tears were blurring her vision. “I swear, I was going to tell you everything—”
“Another lie!”
Voldemort slashed his arm across his body, and Hermione watched, aghast, at what she saw.
His wand…
A flash of magic exploded from its tip. The spell flew over her, colliding with the massive, closed doors and leaving a charred scar on their surface.
He paused before speaking again. Hermione could barely tear her eyes away from his wand, petrified at the sight of it as she was.
“You would have invented some new fabrication, just as you had always done. You were never going to tell me the truth. You were always going to keep me in the dark, to carry on pretending you were a Seer.”
He sneered the word Seer so condescendingly it made Hermione’s skin crawl. The winds quieted.
“And why wouldn’t you?” he said, once more speaking calmly. He was so volatile, so mercurial.
“Why wouldn’t you continue to play the part of Seer? You could tell me anything you wanted, that way… convince me to do or not to do anything… control me… because I believed you.” He scoffed. “I was so blinded by you. Even when it was right before me, your blatant deceptions… I wanted… I wanted to believe you. And I did. You made a fool of me, time and time again…”
He was still for a moment. He opened his eyes to look at his wand, where he held it reverently with both hands.
The Elder Wand.
Hermione didn’t have to ask. “The ring was easy,” Voldemort said. “The Elder Wand… that took many years, a bloody battle that I so nearly lost—ah. How rude I’m being. I have something of yours.”
He reached into his pocket, then tossed something towards her. Hermione was too overwhelmed to react. It collided with her cloak and fell to the ground at her feet.
Her wand. The walnut wand.
“I have no use for it any longer; I haven’t for years… Though it served me well for a very long time. You should be honored. That is the wand that killed Albus Dumbledore.”
Hermione had known that must be the case, but hearing him confirm it was still a blow.
Dumbledore was dead… and he had done it. Directly.
This Voldemort was the true Master of the Elder Wand. And…
No.
“The Cloak, perhaps ironically, took the longest… but I found that, too. During the War of Magic, I rose, and rose, and rose… But you know all about that…”
The War of Magic…
She was going to be sick.
“No,” Hermione said, willing the wave of nausea away. “No, I don’t—I don’t know anything, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I just woke up here! I d-don’t have any idea what you mean…”
“What?”
She heard him take a step closer, then another. Hermione kept her eyes closed. Take me back, she prayed to no one. Take me back to when I should have died.
“What do you mean, you don’t know anything?” he asked, his tone demanding. “Where have you been hiding all this time? Where did you go, what happened to you? Why have you returned now, like this? Look at me!”
In another rapid, fluid movement that Hermione couldn’t anticipate, he was in front of her. She yelped when he grabbed her by the chin with one hand, the Elder Wand still held firmly in the other.
“Years of searching, years of planning, years of warfare! Decades of bloodshed and suffering and where were you?”
His nails dug into her jaw. His fingers were cold. “Answer me,” he commanded, lowering his voice. “Where were you hiding?”
“I… n-nowhere! I didn’t go anywhere, I—you don’t know what happened! You think I just left you there, in Albania? That I planned that?”
“You did leave me!” Voldemort yelled. “I woke up and you were gone, not a trace of you or those demons left—my wand, destroyed, the diadem, destroyed! You did what you needed to do and then you abandoned me, after all your promises to stay—it was all lies, all of it, everything you ever said!”
“No, it wasn’t!” Hermione shouted back, her voice breaking. “I didn’t plan that, I—what do you mean, demons? What are you—?”
“Do not try to deny what you did!” he screamed into her face, ever more terrifying. “I watched that night so many times that I see it when I close my eyes! You summoned them, you planned it all!”
His eyes were crazed. Hermione felt like she had been punched in the gut as another rush of devastating realization struck her.
Fifty years.
He’d had fifty years to relive that night.
Each time you remember something, it is like you are painting a picture, Holloway had told her. And everytime, you start from scratch.
He’d had fifty years to paint that picture over and over, and every time, it surely changed for the worse. His own paranoia, his own shock and grief, making him see a different version of what happened.
Fifty years.
“You’re wrong,” Hermione said. “Let me show you, you can look into my memories, you can see for yourself—”
“As if I would ever go near your death trap of a mind,” Voldemort sneered. “Yes, I know all about that trick of yours, too. I know everything. Is that why you’ve come? Another pitiful attempt to destroy me? You think I would be so foolish now?”
“No! No, that’s not—I swear, please—”
Hermione’s legs gave out. Voldemort released her jaw and let her fall to her knees where she wailed, sobbing, unable to control herself.
He was quiet. Voldemort seemed content to watch her, listening to her cries as they eventually lessened, transitioning into softer, more feeble whimpers.
“I searched for you, you know,” he eventually said. “I did everything. I wasted months of my life obsessing over every memory of you, picking apart every interaction, looking for clues—for every time you had lied to me—I watched the night that you left over and over and over again…”
He knelt beside her. Hermione had no choice but to open her eyes when he once more grabbed her chin and forced her to look up.
“I tore the world apart,” he said. “I found my ring at a muggle library, and when I learned the truth— the terrible truth… I burned it to the fucking ground. And I never stopped burning.”
Hermione continued to quietly cry. Voldemort ignored her, ignored the tears that were dripping down her cheeks and onto his fingers.
“I chased your scent everywhere,” he went on. “I went to Hepzibah and learned how she came to know about you before me , and—”
He paused, and for the briefest moment, Hermione thought he looked… ashamed.
“No,” Hermione gasped. She tried to shake her head, but his hold tightened, not allowing her to move. “Tell me you d-didn’t.”
His furious expression was back in a flash. “They’re dead,” he said cruelly. A short, bitter laugh. “I didn’t intend for it to happen. But I was so… angry.”
Hermione was not given a second to mourn them before he was carrying on, seemingly determined to say his piece.
“I found every mokeskin bag you ever hid. I’m sure you’ve surmised that I found where you put my diary? Along with the remaining artifacts of the Hogwarts’ founders?”
He wrenched her jaw so that she was forced to face the stained glass. St. Jude towered over them, glorious and bright.
“How do you like it? I think it suits Hogwarts well.”
Hermione was so shocked and confused by this statement that her fear momentarily left her. “Hogwarts?” she repeated. “But this isn’t…”
But it was.
As Hermione looked around, truly taking in her surroundings, she saw that this was, indeed, Hogwarts. The hourglasses were gone, the tables had been cleared. It was darker and infinitely more foreboding, but now that she saw it, she could not unsee the familiar floors, the stone walls that she had once known so well, the silent, still suits of armor that lined the perimeter of the Great Hall.
“What have you done?” Hermione asked, wiping away her tears as best she could while he held her. “What have you done to Hogwarts?”
“I took it,” Voldemort said simply. “Hogwarts is no longer a school, and it hasn’t been for many years… Don’t look so shocked, Hermione. You are a part of the reason it shut down… Attendance never did recover after the second series of mysterious attacks in 1950.”
He smiled when Hermione gasped. “It worked out in my favor. Magical families sent their children to other schools or chose to homeschool… and after the war, with all the wreckage, Hogwarts was no longer fit to be a school in any case. And why should I restore it as such, I thought? Hogwarts was always meant to be mine… and now it is.”
Hermione gaped at what she now understood to be Lord Voldemort’s seat—his throne room, his castle. His home.
She wanted to ask about the war. About the wreckage, about what happened—yet the question that left her mouth, seemingly without her consent, was, “What happened to the basilisk?”
Perhaps it was because she found herself staring at the massive throne, unwilling to look at the stained glass from her home town which was surely destroyed, now, nor at Voldemort himself. It was covered in fangs which she could only assume were from Salazar Slytherin’s monster.
“Adesum,” Voldemort murmured. “She was slaughtered during the battle… It was quite horrific. But even that worked in my favor… Do you want to know? I’m afraid you won’t like how the story ends.”
Hermione shuddered at the way he smiled. But she didn’t say no.
“Did you know,” he said, “that after you made it impossible for me to use the diadem for a horcrux, having destroyed it… after you hid the locket and the cup in a way that I could not reach them… I became a bit… obsessed, admittedly, with finding the sword.”
No, Hermione thought.
“Yes,” Voldemort said. “The only Founder’s artifact that you hadn’t found, the most elusive one yet… I became very determined to have it. To turn it into a horcrux, so have one tie to immortality that was outside of your control… But I couldn’t do it. I looked for years, I followed every lead… nothing. Until the war came here. Until I claimed Hogwarts.”
“Tell me you didn’t make another horcrux,” Hermione whispered, but the truth of it was there, right there, in his blood red eyes. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Would you prefer I lie? That I tell you everything you want to hear instead, just as you always did for me?” He laughed softly. “Your wish is my command, darling. I am but a humble, obediant servant.”
He roughly released her chin, nearly sending her stumbling to the ground.
“I find the symbolism poignant, don’t you?” He walked away from her, gesturing towards the stained glass. “A stark reminder to all who come here, to all who proclaim fealty to me… That resistance is futile, that it is indeed a lost cause… Though that’s not really why I wanted it here.”
Hermione waited for him to explain further. He didn’t.
“How?” she asked quietly. “How did you know?”
“That you hid my diary—and the cup, and my locket— in the hollow interior of the organ in that muggle church?” He smirked, like it had been so easy for him. “You left enough clues for me to figure it out… all during that horrid auror test. I fixed the memory. I told you I couldn’t, but I did. It was simple. You gave too much of yourself away, then. To the MACUSA… and then, subsequently, to me… I pieced it all together. I had been for a long time, really. You weren’t raised in New York, you’d made that clear already. You were raised in London.”
After a moment where he relished her stunned expression, he once more rushed towards her, moving so quickly Hermione instinctively froze rather than retreat. “So I had every single muggle church in London searched,” he said in her ear. “My Death Eaters ransacked them all, and when they were found to be empty, they were burned and demolished… until one wasn’t.”
He said it all softly and breathily, as though he were whispering sweet nothings, not recounting violence.
“I found them… I found everything. I ripped apart the entire state of New York once the war was there; I found every bag filled with gold that you stashed away, breaking every curse around them to do so. I went to your loft and stared at that painting of that girl and the roses and tore it to shreds. I set the whole fucking building ablaze and watched it burn…”
Hermione let out another pitiful sob. Voldemort sighed at the sound as though he found it sweet.
“I made a list of the riddles you left behind and over time, over the years, I solved them all… one… by… one.”
He reached for her face again, but didn’t take it. Instead Voldemort’s cold hands trailed down her jaw until his fingers rested on her neck. “And yet,” he said, his lips still so close to her ear she felt his breath. “Despite everything… you still bested me.”
His fingers curled around her throat. Gently.
“There’s no magic in the world that will allow someone else to open a mokeskin bag aside from the owner… All my power, all my cunning, all my might… I had them in my literal grasp, and yet, I couldn’t get to them. Your gold. The cup. My locket. My diary… But you can open them now.”
“No.”
He looked as shocked as Hermione felt; her mouth had spoken before she’d even had the thought to deny him.
She braced herself, prepared for another windstorm of rage, but after a moment where he held her gaze, he only smiled. “You will,” he murmured. “Even if I must make you… but surely you knew I would force you to if you ever returned?”
Hermione grabbed hold of his hand and pulled, attempting to make him let go. He smiled when she was unable to; his smile widened when she gave up, knowing it was useless, not wanting to drop the cloak from around her shoulders in the attempt.
Then he did something that surprised her. Voldemort released her throat willingly, and…
His fingers were deft and exceedingly gentle. He fastened the silver clasp around her throat, securing the cloak in place so she no longer needed to hold it.
Hermione couldn’t help but think of when he had put her bracelet back on for her, clasping it around her wrist. The golden one, the one she had lied and said was a family heirloom of her own…
His red eyes flashed to hers again. He was no longer smiling.
“The things I have done for you,” he whispered. “I destroyed the world just to rebuild it… The battles that were fought, the war… The Statute of Secrecy, gone; Albus Dumbledore, dead… The MACUSA and all of its glory, brought to heel beneath the greatness of British, magical rule…”
Hermione wondered what happened to Madison, to Liam and Walter, but she was too afraid to ask.
Voldemort cupped her face with one hand. He was so tender; Hermione’s heart was beating too loud, too fast.
“The things I have done for you,” he said again. “The sins I have committed, all in the name of luring you out, of finding you, of tricking you; anything and everything I could think of to have you, one way or another… The Department of Mysteries shut me out, after I spoke with that horrid woman—but it didn’t matter, because I knew—I had the MACUSA, I had the entirety of their knowledge, all of their secrets—I had the power of time-sand at my disposal, I had blood magic and every possible tracking curse at my fingertips—”
His face was once more full of all the rage he must have felt. That dark well of magic about him swelled so greatly Hermione felt light-headed.
“I had a Time-Turner!” he went on, shouting, frightening. He held her face tightly again; his hand was shaking. “I could go anywhere, I had nothing to fear! To any place at any time I could go, and nothing could harm me! I followed you everywhere; I tried every year, every moment—but I could never get close, no matter what I did! I became a Lord of Time, the Master of Death —I became the most powerful sorcerer in the world, and still, YOU DEFIED ME!”
The stained glass windows, all of them, exploded. Fragments of jewel-colored shards hailed down upon them. Hermione screamed. Voldemort didn’t move, didn’t release her, wouldn’t allow her to shield herself—yet somehow, miraculously, none of the glass touched her. The same could not be said for him. A shard cut across Voldemort’s forehead, leaving a deep cut. He didn’t even flinch when it happened. Blood welled and dripped down his forehead, clinging to his lashes, and he didn’t so much as blink.
Hermione’s ears were ringing as she watched, astonished, as…
The cut healed itself.
The wound on his forehead, the deep cut he had just acquired… it healed itself. In reverse.
“What…?”
Hermione raised her hand to his face without thinking. She ran her thumb over his cool skin, smearing the blood on his forehead, which was now smooth. He now had a crimson crown on his brow to match his eyes.
Voldemort didn’t move the entire time.
“What did you do?”
Hermione’s single question held a hundred within it. All around them, colored bits of glass decorated the floor like broken gems. Golden beams of light streamed down from where the window once was.
“Time-sand,” he answered, and for as furiously as he had screamed before, his voice was once more calm. “We figured out how to harness it… How to stabilize it. To control it, make it predictable…”
His eyes went to her neck. He released her jaw. “How did you undo yours?” he asked. “Did you figure out how to anchor it, all by yourself?”
Hermione had no idea what he meant. She shuddered as his fingers went to her neck, lightly touching her. “What? A-anchor it…? I don’t… I don’t know what happened to them, I—”
But she did think she knew.
“Tell me,” Voldemort demanded. “Tell me what happened… Tell me everything, Hermione.”
His fingers wrapped around her neck again, another firm but gentle hold. Hermione stared at the blood she’d smeared on his forehead instead of into his eyes.
“I… I think I was cursed,” she said. She swallowed hard. “I know I was cursed. B-by your mother. She… she did it. The Time-Turner. She probably t-told you. She’s the one that slammed it into my neck, and she must have cursed me, and…”
She tried to touch where the scars once radiated, only to meet Voldemort’s fingers instead. “And the curse ran its course,” she said, “when I died.”
She met his eyes. Voldemort looked confused—and angry.
“What?” he snapped.
“You think you know what happened. You don’t. It was fifty years ago—for you. For me, that night, it just happened. I didn’t leave you. I was killed. They killed me. They weren’t demons, they were trying to take me back, but I wouldn’t go, and when they tried to kill you I wouldn’t let them—they had the ability to truly kill you, and I wouldn’t let them, I took the curse for you, I saved you!”
Hermione wouldn’t have thought it was possible for her to shout, and yet she was. Voldemort let go of her throat. “I saved you!” she screeched, and she must have lost her mind, because she was beating against his chest with her fists, furious and wild. “I died for you, for this! For you to create— this!”
She thrust her arm out, revealing her mudblood scar. Voldemort glared at it, at her. “I have done everything I said I would!” he roared. “Everything! This world —my world—is as it should be, a golden era of magic and might!”
“With slaves?” Hermione cried. “I was called a whore. A mudblood whore, by…”
Hermione faltered. “You said you wanted a name,” she seethed. “You can have it, now. Bellatrix. Bellatrix Lestrange.”
Hermione laughed at his confused expression; it swiftly turned into a rough and pitiful cough.
“…Bellatrix?” Voldemort repeated.
“Yes,” said Hermione. “Not your Bellatrix Lestrange… but the one from my time. My original time. She did this to me.”
There was a stretch of silence. Hermione looked from her scar to the broken glass all around them. She mapped an escape route with her eyes, the best way to avoid the fragments if she were to run.
Her wand was only a few feet away.
“…What year were you born?”
Voldemort asked the question quietly. When Hermione returned her focus to his face, she could tell he was thinking furiously hard.
“1979,” she answered. “September 19th.”
He didn’t move. She was certain he knew the date. That today, in this world, it was her twenty-second birthday.
“And… this was the day I left,” she went on, when all he did was stare, seemingly through her rather than at her. “This was the exact day and time that I left my original timeline… and ended up in yours, instead. And… I’m still here.”
Another stretch of silence. “You’re lying,” he eventually said, but there was no vitriol left in his voice.
“I’m not,” Hermione said. “I was an Unspeakable in my old world. We’ve theorized that there are other timelines. I wanted to go back to save my own, but I never even had a chance. I don’t think it’s possible. I…”
She covered her face with her hands. “I shouldn’t be here.”
Hermione might have cried again, but it seemed she had no tears left. She drew in several shaky breaths, but her eyes remained dry.
Something shifted on the ground. Hermione jumped and looked to see that the glass shards had all moved, were all hovering into the air. They glimmered in the golden light as they rose, slowly making their way back to the empty metal frames. She was momentarily and wholly distracted as she watched them reconstruct themselves. All the geometric patterns, all the colorful landscapes.
Saint Jude.
“And yet, you are.”
Voldemort finished fixing the windows. He’d done it all without even lifting the Deathstick.
“It must be fate,” he drawled, like he was spiteful about it. “Then again, why should I be surprised? The stars told me as much, though I stopped believing them…”
Hermione couldn’t help herself. “What… what did the stars tell you?” she asked.
He kept his eyes on the newly repaired window when he answered, “The same thing they always told me, where you were concerned… The same thing I read in them the very first time I ever asked… That you would be mine.”
He looked at her, bathed in the colored light of the stained glass. Hermione imagined him sitting in the snow, covered in sprites, gazing up at the sky.
How was this the same man?
“I never dreamed it would take this long,” he said, his expression darkening. “Five years, ten years, twenty years… I searched for you. I went everywhere… but I could never catch you. No matter what I did, no matter what year I chose, something always happened, and I could never get close to you.”
“You… with a Time-Turner?” Hermione asked.
“Yes. I went back over and over again. It should have been simple—it never was. Space would contort. I would land in the wrong places, in the wrong moments—I would hear your laughter. I would catch the hem of your skirts before you turned, out of sight—I could never catch you!”
There was a tense moment where he looked like he might lunge and grab her then, just to prove that he could do so now whenever he liked—but he didn’t. His animalistic posture melted away, and he looked somber once more.
“Once, I thought you saw me,” he said. “But you were so far away, you were always too far away… I saw you from across a sea of people. I swore you saw me, too…”
Hermione recalled it, vividly. “I did,” she gasped. “I did see you! In New York! I thought—but I was sure I had imagined it…”
“No… I was looking for you. I spent years looking for you… before the war. During it. After I finally accepted that I couldn’t catch you that way—that Time, or perhaps Fate, would not allow it… I went to other measures.”
He took one step closer to her, and that predatory stance returned. Hermione took a step back. “I knew you had traveled from the future,” he said. “If I could not find you in the past, if I could not have you that way… if I could not force you to come… then I would create the circumstances I had to in order to catch you. If you ever did reveal yourself, in any way… Whether you, the real you returned, or if a new version of you was born… I would know the moment it happened, either way.”
He looked pointedly at her scar. Hermione gaped at him, horrified.
“Which never happened, as I’m sure you’re wondering,” he said, but Hermione hadn’t been wondering. Her mind was too frozen with shock to yet consider it. “There was never another you born. I look. I’ve always looked. Every time one of your kind is born and registered, I check. You said you were born in 1979… Then another Hermione Granger was never born. Not here.”
His eyes remained fixed on her scar. Hermione hid it beneath the cloak again, her horrified mind jolting back to life.
“That’s why you did this?” she gasped. “That’s why you’ve created a world where muggle-borns are slaves, marked like cattle? Because you knew I had such a scar? So that… so that if I came back—or if I was born—I’d be immediately turned in? And then what? When they weren’t me, you just let them be turned into slaves, into…”
Hermione couldn’t say the word whore again.
He didn’t deny it, and Hermione knew she was right. He checked every newly captured and registered muggle-born religiously, and when they weren’t her, let his atrocious Muggle-born Registration Committee deal with them.
It explained why Snape had recognized Bellatrix’s penmanship, but he hadn’t. Voldemort didn’t bother with any of the muggle-borns after their fates had been sealed. He likely never saw the way Bellatrix specifically liked to carve up her victims with a cursed blade; he never saw the way she made the ends of her letters curl to one side, like some mocking replica of how one might write with a quill.
He must have had Hermione’s scar committed to memory, but he never knew it was Bellatrix’s hand.
“A system I put into place decades ago,” Voldemort said emotionlessly. “One which has many merits, which I used to solve many problems… And now… it’s finally worked.”
He took another step closer. Hermione, in a panic, snatched her wand from the ground. The walnut warmed in her hands. Voldemort allowed it, seeming entirely unbothered that she was now armed. “Perhaps it wouldn’t have needed to happen,” he hissed, his eyes going from her wand to her face. “You were supposed to help me, after all. To stay.”
Hermione could tell by the glint in his eye that he still believed she had left on purpose. That she had willingly abandoned him.
“How fortunate that I did not need you after all,” he continued. Another step. “Your absence distracted me for a time… but then I rose, and when I did, I did so swiftly and without remorse.”
“You created slavery,” Hermione spat.
“I created slavery?” He laughed, loudly. “Slavery has been a part of human history much longer than I have. I have all but abolished slavery.”
“You—you’ve enslaved all muggle-borns! And the muggles, they’re kept in camps! And—and—”
She stopped when he laughed again.
“Oh, go on, Hermione!” he drawled. “Tell me all about my own reign! The one you claim to have missed entirely! Please.”
Hermione opened her mouth, but was too angry, too distraught to speak.
“Not all muggle-borns… but yes. Most are enslaved. And it wasn’t just because I wanted to track you… It was for the best of everyone. The magical and the muggle community. And it was all because of you.”
He smiled crookedly. “They were and are the perfect scapegoats,” he said. “Muggle-born magic—such wild, sporadic magic—is dangerous. Whenever something goes wrong, something undeniably magical, it’s so simple to blame it on some uncontrolled, rabid muggle-born… It keeps their fear and potential rage of the muggles off of us, and ensures that they immediately turn in any muggle-born, should one escape. We keep you in line for their safety. They hand over their magically sporadic, dangerous children for their own safety. They thank us.”
His cruel smile widened at her speechlessness. “Don’t look so upset,” he said. “You should be happy… it’s all as you wanted. This protects the largest portion of the population most effectively, far better than the previous Statute of Secrecy ever did. Now, magic has been used to end world hunger, to cure countless muggle diseases, to heal the chronically ill and restore broken and missing limbs. The paralyzed walk. The blind see. For every muggle that detests magic and my rule, dozens more worship me… The magical community is thriving. The muggle community is at peace, beneath us. And the only ones who need suffer… are the muggle-borns. A very small group, comparatively. The largest portion of the population protected, most effectively. Your words.”
Another harsh, unforgiving laugh. “I took your words to heart. I made the world you wanted, crafted your very vision. You should be so fucking proud.”
Hermione stared, her lips parted, but she was still speechless.
“And besides,” he went on, “You were right on another account as well. We couldn’t simply eradicate muggle-borns… we needed them for the numbers.”
Hermione shook her head as though she could deny what she was hearing. Muggle-borns had been forced into a role worse by far than even muggles in this new world… and it was her fault. Because of things she’d said, because….
Because he’s punishing me.
“You don’t really believe that,” she said. “You don’t believe that muggle-borns are more dangerous at all, our magic is the same as yours—you’re just angry, mad at me, so you’re taking it out on every muggle-born alive!”
“Perhaps I do believe it,” he said. “I have seen countless evidence to support it… You always lacked control.”
Hermione’s whole body began to shake, though with rage or because she was so emotionally drained, she wasn’t sure. Her eyes darted to the doors. Her palms were slick with sweat, so she held her wand tighter.
“And the muggles… You’re wrong there, too. They aren’t forced to be in camps. They are in non-magical communities. Sectors where they can live knowing no witches or wizards secretly dwell among them. It was their preference.”
He took another step closer, to her side, circling her again. “It was all a part of the Treaty,” he said. “A new Statute… well. New at the time. That was also decades ago, following the war.”
“I don’t believe you,” Hermione said numbly—but she did. “The muggles—they would never just accept magic, they—”
“They don’t have a choice,” Voldemort cut in. “I worked tirelessly with my followers, expanding my reach, infiltrating every pocket of the muggle world and their defenses. It was not easy. It was complicated, exhausting; it felt impossible… But with the right people in the right places, Imperiusing whatever muggles necessary… It was swift. It had to be.”
“What did you do?”
“Revealed magic,” Voldemort answered. “We infiltrated their governments, destroyed their means of defense by vanishing or dismantling every threat, and revealed magic on a global scale. They were forced to accept us, to accept our rule and our superiority. Those who didn’t perished.”
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to ask, but she had to. “How… how many?”
“Enough.”
He laughed when she shook her head, holding in a sob.
“Do you hate me for it?” he sneered. “For the mass murder of far more murderous muggles? I did them a great service. Have you any idea how many people they used to kill in their own wars? Surely you do, mudblood.”
“Don’t call me that!”
A blaze of fire erupted, scorching, erupting from the tip of Hermione’s wand. It left a scorched mark on the stone floor, not unlike the one Voldemort had left on the doors.
He smiled, nonplussed—no, amused, at her outrage. “Why take out your anger on Hogwarts?” he asked. “When it is me that you hate?”
He reached down, lightning fast, and grabbed her by the wrist. “Why don’t you try?” He raised her arm, forcing her to point her wand directly at his chest. “Go on, Hermione. Try to hurt me. Try to kill me. I am the Master of Death; I have the power of time-sand in my veins—and it is not a curse, not for me. Part of my soul is in your keeping… and part of it is not. A killing curse wouldn’t give me so much as a nosebleed… But you should do it. Try to kill me. It’s what you’ve always wanted to do, isn’t it? Killer?”
Hermione flinched when he pushed her wand harder against his chest. With the way it shifted his robes, she thought she saw a spark of something glittering there, something golden…
“Do it!” he roared, making her flinch again. “Or am I too frightening, as I am? Too close, too intimidating?”
He laughed, letting go of her wrist. He turned and ascended the few stairs onto the dias, placing the Elder Wand in his pocket as he went.
“How’s this?”
Voldemort sat, taking his place on his massive, foreboding throne. He put his arms out wide. “Do it,” he taunted, merciless. “Try and kill me, Hermione. Do your worst.”
His smile was cruel and supercilious. Hermione’s hand shook, her wand useless at her side.
She thought to run.
Every fiber of her being screamed at her to flee, to get out, now—but where would she go? There was no escaping this hall, the Great Hall, of what used to be Hogwarts—
She couldn’t kill him.
He stared at her, savage and expectant, because he knew that, too. He looked like he wanted her to run.
He probably does, just so he can chase me down… and then what will he do?
Whatever he wants, Hermione answered herself. Her heart pounded. She lifted her wand; Voldemort’s eyes gleamed with interest.
Then Hermione started walking, slowly… towards him.
She needed to know.
He continued to watch her carefully as she approached, keeping her wand up, allowing the cloak around her shoulders to billow behind her, revealing her body. His smile began to slip when she was before him, standing over him; it was gone by the time she grabbed his chin the same way he so enjoyed holding hers. The pull of his magic was almost hypnotic—it made everything both easier and infinitely harder.
She had her wand at his chest. Then his throat. His breath hitched and his pupils went wide as she dragged it gently up the side of his face. She could almost pretend those eyes weren’t red as she leaned down, her knees bending to rest on the hard surface of his throne.
His hands betrayed him. They went to her thighs and glided up across her skin, just as Hermione thought they might.
Fifty years. Fifty years, but this part of him was exactly the same.
She lowered her face more, closing the space between her mouth and his. His eyes fluttered and closed, and he could have been his old self, then.
He smelled exactly the same.
His arms snaked around her waist. He pulled her closer, tilting his chin up, sighing—
A split-second before she acted, he must have realized what she was about to do. Hermione had continued to trail her wand up, up, up—and by the time his hands were on her back, bringing her closer, forcing her onto his lap, preoccupied—it was at his temple. With her lips hovering directly over his, so close that her next word was a curse and kiss, he went rigid.
Voldemort was not fast enough to stop her. The instant his eyes flew open, horrified, she struck.
“Legilimens,” Hermione whispered, and she tore her way in.
Chapter 74: The Storm
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Voldemort’s mind was a storm.
Raging, wild, and as bitingly cold as his magic. His fury at her daring was frightening to behold—but Hermione was undeterred. His anger was a weakness. She would use it.
Get out! his mental voice fumed. He tried to force her, and the attempt was devastatingly strong. It felt like a block of ice was slammed into her with the force of a tornado behind it. Hermione reeled, disoriented, but she managed to remain within the confines of his whirlwind mind.
Legilimency was not the same as Occlumency, there was no doubt about that. Yes, to study one was to study the other, but as an Unspeakable, her training had required a much greater focus on the latter. But as it turned out, having an exceptional defense made for an exceptional offense.
His brute force was strong, but it was not strong enough.
His occluding walls were stable, but not stable enough.
His every trick was one that Hermione was well versed in—barriers of shrouding white, clever misdirection, blatant force to banish. He was skilled, but he wasn’t nearly as skilled at them as Hermione was.
He was too emotional. He was so angry, so furiously wounded. It was ruining his focus.
She wondered what she felt like to him, as the offensive Legilimens. Was she sharp and swift like Dumbledore? Was she slick and dark as oil, like Snape?
You burn, came Voldemort’s seething voice. Get out!
Hermione ignored him, digging deeper. A flash of something. Him. Lord Voldemort, and he—
No!
The memory was ripped away by a force like a frigid wind, but not easily so. Hermione let it be swept back into the abyss of his barriers, patient. He could only do that so many times.
He was going to exhaust himself.
Hermione was almost in awe of how much of his energy he was wasting, trying and failing to use power and power alone to cast her out. Blow after furious blow; whipping, cold winds that seemed endless, but could not possibly last. Perhaps he was just that distraught, having her here, assaulting his mind like this. Perhaps he was not nearly as well versed in Occlumency as he should have been. Hermione doubted anyone was foolish enough to attempt to invade the mind of Lord Voldemort, Lord of Time and Master of Death.
Perhaps he was simply out of practice.
And already drained, Hermione realized as he tried, yet again, to force her out. He did so with the brutish grace of a ram, once more slamming into her with a harsh, cold blow. The attempt was weaker than his last one. She held on just fine.
Bellatrix did say he was resting; that he had just returned from America… Perhaps even the Master of Death becomes depleted, after ruling with a heavy hand for too long…
He must have felt that thought, because Voldemort’s poisonous rage spiked, and it was accompanied by a rush of something like… fear. And shame. And more unrelenting, horrid anger.
I’m right on all accounts, then?
Hermione slammed back at him, and it was astonishing how powerful she felt, all things considered. In the physical world, she was a terrified mess. But here? In the space that existed only in the minds, in an arena of mental warfare?
She was home, and as she pushed deeper, she realized he was right.
She was burning.
Get out, Hermione, he hissed. Get out!
Make me.
He tried again. He failed.
A wordless, agonized cry. He was so angry he was breaking.
Hermione took full advantage, and the next time she reached for something, the memory stayed.
It wasn’t what she wanted.
What she wanted to see most of all was the memory of what he thought happened the night that she left. Clearly, Voldemort’s recollection was wrong. Terribly so.
He knew that’s what she was going for, and so he’d buried it deeper, allowing her—furiously, unwillingly—to sink her claws into something else instead.
Lord Voldemort. Ruling.
He was not in his throne room, though; this Voldemort was seated in a courtroom. Hermione recognized it. It was only a floor away from the Department of Mysteries: Courtroom Ten.
There was a man on trial, sitting in a chair in the center of the hall. He was not chained, and yet the entire Wizengamot was present for his trial, it seemed, as was—Hermione’s stomach churned—Dolores Umbridge.
She’d forgotten Umbridge was the Minister of Magic, here…
But she wasn’t sitting in the center of the Wizengamot. She was close to it, and one seat in front and to the right of Voldemort, who was. His red eyes narrowed in the man in the chair.
“…already know what the punishment is for use of a contraband potion.” Umbridge’s awful, high voice rose out of the warped edges of the memory as it became clearer. “So, then—all in favor of a sentence of six months in Azkaban?”
A few of the Wizengamot began to raise their hands.
“Wait.”
The entire courtroom held its breath. Voldemort’s eyes never left the man on trial when he spoke. “Amortentia is a Class III contraband potion… which is only a six month sentence as a minimum. Is not the maximum sentence more fitting?”
The man paled and shook his head. “No,” he gasped. “No, please, that’s not—five years? Five years?”
“And remind me, Mister Redding,” Voldemort went on, “How old was the girl you used it on? For months, no less…”
The man— Mister Redding— became paler yet. “S… sixteen,” he admitted.
Hermione blanched. This man looked no younger than fifty himself.
“Atrocious,” Voldemort murmured.
“Yes—yes, I quite agree,” said Umbridge in a rush, nodding aggressively. “Of course, our Lord makes an excellent point—five years, all in—?”
“Wait.”
Voldemort’s lips were beginning to curve with the threat of a smile. Redding looked like he might faint. “What was the girl’s name?” Voldemort asked.
“Samantha,” Redding answered.
“And for how many months did you poison her with illegally acquired amortentia?”
“I… it was… five months, my Lord.”
“Hmm… Five months of mentally and physically raping an underage girl… I believe that puts us in unprecedented territory as far as crafting a unique punishment for your crimes, no?”
The witches and wizards in the Wizengamot began to murmur their agreement. Redding looked both horrified and outraged.
“But—but she was just a muggle!”
“Exactly.”
Voldemort’s previously calm disposition cracked. Those seated closest to him skirted away. “You used an illegal brew on a young, muggle girl. Why do you think I've called all of the Wizengamot to attend your trial? That I’ve decided to grace you with my presence? The crime you have committed is all the more heinous for the victim you’ve chosen. A muggle child— someone whose ability to fight back is less than that of an injured kitten’s. You are a wizard. We are their superiors… and yet you have acted with supreme depravity. You are low.”
Voldemort did smile, then. “Why, one might even call it… soulless, what you’ve done.”
There was a beat of silence. Then understanding dawned on his face, and Redding shouted, “What? What, no, no—!”
Chains sprung from the chair when he tried to jump up. Redding was forced back down, his cries turning into an awful choking sound as one wrapped around his throat.
Voldemort leaned forward, towards Umbridge, who jumped when she felt his hand on her shoulder. “Make it public,” he whispered into her ear.
Then Voldemort stood. He walked with an almost lazy elegance as he passed the members of the Wizengamot, not bothering to look at any of them. By the time he was approaching the courtroom door, Umbridge was saying, “All in favor of a sentence of the Dementor’s Kiss for Edmund Redding?”
He didn’t need to turn and look to know that every single hand rose. Voldemort was still smiling as the courtroom doors closed behind him.
Voldemort managed to tear that memory from her. Hermione let it go, where it was immediately lost in the chaotic storm of Voldemort’s mind.
Get out, Hermione… or regret it forever.
No.
An explosive, ice-cold burst of power. It was impressive enough that Hermione barely held on to the edges of his mental landscape. He roared in wordless fury when she clawed her way back in, fighting through the frigid, howling winds, and he learned that he had failed, yet again.
Hermione reached for something else before he could recover. About a dozen different memories flitted past her, too slippery to grasp out of the mental storm, until she snatched one. And while she certainly had things she preferred to see, she was happy enough to get something, anything.
She was playing the long game. Eventually, he would wear himself out enough that he wouldn’t be able to stop her from getting the memory she wanted.
In the meantime, she’d settle for scraps.
She saw… a hospital?
Yes, it was definitely St. Mungo’s that came into focus, next. Hermione felt Voldemort’s bristling reluctance as he allowed it to form, no doubt licking his wounds and preparing to strike as soon as he was able again.
St. Mungo’s… and there was Voldemort, walking with purpose through one of the corridors…
There were a lot of people there, Hermione realized. A lot of people gathered in the halls, in the waiting rooms… Healers in their uniforms, yes, but also what looked to be many civilians, and if their clothing was anything to go by, a decent number of them were muggles…
They parted for Voldemort, looking reverent and awed. They bowed at the waist and inclined their heads as he passed; Hermione got the sense that they would have fallen to their knees if there was enough space to do so and if he wasn’t moving so swiftly.
He turned into a specific room. Hermione was disturbed by what she saw.
There were three muggles and two Healers there. Two of the muggles were adults, a man and a woman, and Hermione could only assume they were the parents of…
That poor thing.
A child was on the hospital bed, and he—Hermione thought it was a he—was covered in burns.
Horrible, black and red. Disfiguring in every sense of the word. Half his face was gone. His left arm had been scorched down to the bone.
These were burns caused by magic, dark magic. Hermione could tell.
What happened to him?
Hermione didn’t know, but she was certain that, if not for the enchantments being maintained by the Healers present, this child would be dead—or, if not dead yet, suffering horrifically.
He didn’t seem to be suffering in this memory. The boy’s one good eye blinked as Voldemort entered. He didn’t make a sound.
Which was not true at all of the parents. They were crying, clearly trying valiantly not to wail with their sorrow.
When Voldemort entered their room, the Healers fell to their knees and lowered their heads. The muggles, looking stunned at his presence, rushed to do the same; the mother almost knocked over a chair in her fright and haste.
“No.”
Voldemort put his hand on the muggle woman’s arm, stopping her. She looked at him with wide, fearful eyes.
Voldemort said nothing else, but his command was clear: Stay standing. You need not prostrate yourself before me.
He released her. The woman shuffled aside, where the muggle man grabbed her around the waist and held her close.
Voldemort’s attention went to the boy. The child continued to stare with one eye, blinking slowly. The Healers stood and began to explain.
“Thus far, we’ve tried—”
“Quiet.”
The Healer who’d spoken stopped short. Then they also moved aside, allowing Voldemort to approach the doomed boy.
He pulled out his wand. He hovered the Elder Wand over the child, who Hermione thought may have been the only person alive to be unafraid at the sight of it.
Then he began to cast.
Wordlessly, Voldemort’s wand exuded a cool, light magic that was nonetheless powerful—it must have been. Hermione watched in reluctant awe as the boy’s mottled, burnt skin began to glow, then pulse, then move…
It was fascinating, really. Voldemort must have been undoing cursed magic as well as casting restorative spells simultaneously. And though she didn’t know what, exactly, had been done to this child to put him in such a state, Hermione gleaned that it must have been truly devastating, because the Healers looked shocked. Like they were thinking, How is that possible?
Because he has the Elder Wand, Hermione knew. The most powerful wand in the world, wielded by one of the most powerful wizards… Even Harry had cast impossible magic with it the one time he had used it, repairing his holly wand that should never have been fixable…
Voldemort made surprisingly quick work of it, considering that this boy’s wounds had the Healers at a loss. Within minutes, his limbs were whole and his skin had regrown. It had a pink cast to it, like a baby’s, and he was half bald—but he was healed. Irrevocably so.
The boy’s eyes, which were now both a healthy, lovely blue, focused on Voldemort’s wand as he lowered it.
It seemed everyone in the room was too stunned to speak. Voldemort put the Elder Wand away and turned towards the mother.
“His hair will grow back,” he said casually.
The mother let out a horrible cry, then threw herself at his feet. She kissed his boots, she cried onto his legs. She was utterly beside herself, and Hermione could not blame her.
These Healers must have said they did not foresee her child surviving… and Lord Voldemort himself had appeared to cure him.
Hermione was awed and stricken and full of conflicting emotions.
More than anything, she was furious.
I know what you’re doing, she said, obliterating that memory herself. You think I’m that stupid? That I’ll believe you and your rule are so pure, so noble? That this is what your magical reign really looks like?
Voldemort was as conniving as ever, and it might have fooled someone else. He made it seem like she was catching a memory at random, but Hermione could guess—based solely on how well she knew him—that it was not random at all.
His memories were like a deck of cards, and he was shuffling the ones he would prefer she find to the very top.
The more damning ones were deeper.
I want to see the real rule of Lord Voldemort, and you’re going to show me.
I warned you.
The next explosive wave of power was, somehow, his greatest yet.
Voldemort attacked her more viciously than he had thus far—he not only slammed her back with his cold brutality, but he ripped into her, mental talons exposed and uncaring of any damage he might cause. It had her reeling in pain.
Hermione had only experienced this unique brand of torture once before. A horrid sensation like someone was clawing at her brain, merciless and excruciating razor blades on her mind, loosening her grip with their sharpness.
He’s going to win, Hermione realized through the sheer agony of it. She held on, but it was too much; the pain was too great.
She had to disrupt his focus. It was her only hope.
This is what Dumbledore did to me, she thought, barely able to form the words as he shredded her mind. This is how he tortured me when I refused to give you up… You’re just like him.
It worked.
For the briefest, most fleeting moment, Voldemort was taken aback enough by her accusation that he paused. Not for long, but Hermione didn’t need long: a heartbeat of hesitation and she was back in, zeroing in on what she wanted to see with the pinpoint precision of a bullet.
Voldemort couldn’t stop her in time, and, better yet, he seemed to have spent a substantial amount of his energy on that blow.
He’d expected it to work. It should have worked. Hermione herself was a little shocked that her jab had affected him enough to make him deliberate.
She almost dwelled on that—but no. Focus. She needed to focus.
Ignoring Voldemort's renewed and exponential fury but diminished power, Hermione saw.
Show me…
“A mudblood.”
This time, they were exactly where they were in reality: in the Dark Lord’s throne room. What was once Hogwarts, now Voldemort’s seat.
A few people, watching.
Snape, centered on the dais beneath the throne. There was another man beside him, a wealthy, proper looking wizard, and in front of him…
Hermione felt sick at the sight. A muggle-born, clearly. A young woman wearing little more than what most house-elves wore. She was shaking, her arms wrapped around herself, looking terrified.
“…request for reassignment, my Lord,” came Snape’s drawling voice. “Based on all of the evidence, I see no reason why Rowle should have even been granted the generosity of your time on the matter.”
And there was Voldemort, sitting upon the very same throne he sat on now, and…
It made Hermione’s heart ache, looking at him. Because everything about him—the look on his face, his indolent posture—it made her think of her Tom.
He’d looked almost exactly like that at Malfoy Manor. The night he’d sat across from her in the foyer; the night she’d caught her dress on fire and he’d been forced to put it out. The night of the rose garden.
“But Severus,” Voldemort said, sounding both a little bored and amused, “however could I deny a hearing from one of my most faithful followers?” His eyes—red, red, bloody red—settled on the indignant wizard beside Snape, whom Hermione immediately hated. “Go on then, Rowle… I’ve heard Severus’s argument. Why should you be allowed the privilege of keeping a mudblood if you cannot handle her?”
The few spectators present laughed. Hermione looked at them properly, and with a gut-wrenching pang, saw that one of them was Bellatrix.
“I have been handling her just fine!” shouted Rowle, whose face was turning red. “It wasn’t—what happened wasn’t my fault!”
“And how do you reason that?” Snape sneered. “She not only escaped your manor, somehow passing through all your wards, but made it as far as the city limits. If it weren’t for our diligent Snatchers, she would be in the wind.”
“And how did that happen?” Voldemort asked.
“I… well, I—”
“I wasn’t asking you, Rowle.”
Voldemort was looking at the muggle-born girl. She shriveled under his stare.
“How did you escape your master, mudblood?” he asked. “I’m quite curious. I could find out myself, of course… but I’ll give you the opportunity to speak, first.”
The poor girl was shaking so bad it looked like she might collapse. She didn’t answer. Hermione doubted she could.
The silence was awful as it stretched on.
“My Lord, I have already delved into the mudblood’s mind,” Snape eventually answered for her, looking as though the act of using Legilimency on a mudblood disgusted him. “She managed to do so by using some admittedly impressive, emotionally-charged magic… Which she could only do because Rowle failed to cast the exhaurire curse correctly. It wasn’t anchored. Neither was the Trace. They both wore off, and the mudblood ran once they had.”
Voldemort looked surprised. “You didn’t anchor them to her mark, Rowle?” he asked. He clicked his tongue disappointingly. The spectators chuckled again. “Such a novice mistake. If you cannot be trusted to perform the spellwork required to keep your property in line, then I am inclined to agree with Severus. Someone more deserving should have her.”
Snape bowed at the waist as though that as good as solidified a verdict. “I shall see to it, my Lord, that—”
“Wait, wait!” Rowle interrupted. “You can’t reassign her, she’s mine, she’s—she’s pregnant!”
The entire atmosphere changed. The smiles vanished from the faces of those who watched, Bellatrix included. Snape went rigid. Even Voldemort’s aloof demeanor was gone. He looked at the muggle-born girl with piercing eyes. She began to cry.
“Prove it,” Voldemort said.
He needed only to give Snape a pointed look before he nodded. Snape turned to the girl, and though he raised his wand obediently, Hermione got the sense that he would have preferred to have avoided this. He looked exactly as he had before he’d cast the very same spell on her.
“Exolvuntur momentum.”
A brilliant, golden light burst to life in front of her. Hermione felt her heart break on the girl’s behalf. She knew what that meant, and Hermione could only imagine one thing being worse than being a slave to some terrible, pureblood supremacist: being forced to carry his child.
“I told you,” Rowle said as Snape vanished the golden orb. The girl only cried harder; everyone seemed keen to ignore her.
Snape had become statuesque. Voldemort closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, looking deeply annoyed, because this clearly complicated things.
“That’s my heir she’s carrying—”
“And yet you have been careless.”
Voldemort rose to his feet. Everyone, even the spectators, took a step back in retreat.
“You are fortunate enough to have—hopefully—successfully passed on your magical legacy, something which many of the Sacred Twenty-Eight still struggle to accomplish. You have been blessed, and yet you failed to correctly anchor the exhaurire curse? The basic Trace?” Voldemort scoffed. “I should reassign her,” he spat.
Rowle looked horrified at the implication—as did several of the people observing. “N… no, please,” Rowle gasped. He fell to his knees. “Please, my Lord, you can’t—”
“Stop your whining. I said that I should, not that I would. Fortunately for you, I care more about securing magical bloodlines than I do punishing you… You can keep her, Rowle. But Severus will be checking in on you frequently to assure that you are properly appreciating and caring for your gift. And I will watch you cast the exhaurire curse before you go… Severus, you shall cast the Trace.”
Snape, still appearing to be made of stone, nodded again. He grabbed the girl’s forearm, who didn’t dare fight him, and cast a wordless spell. A dim blue light hovered before her, then drifted down, soft as a glowing feather. It landed on her forearm, where Hermione could see the word MUDBLOOD written in all capital letters. It sunk into the black script before it disappeared.
“Go on, Rowle,” Voldemort commanded when he was done.
Looking nervous, Rowle pulled out his wand as well. He took the girl’s wrist from Snape’s hand, and while she still didn’t fight, she cried harder. “Tua magica mea est,” he murmured as he moved his wrist carefully over her scar. It flashed a bright green, then something darker. Hermione felt a dizzying, sickening rush.
Tua magica mea est.
Your magic is mine.
This… was the same spell Voldemort imbued all of his Death Eaters with, when he branded them with the Dark Mark. The ability to drain them of their magic on demand…
That was how they were keeping the mudbloods under control.
Enslaving them. Branding them. Cursing them. Stealing the very magic they claimed was wild, unpredictable, unsafe—
Hermione’s sudden anger shook her focus—Voldemort, who had been trying to tear the memory away the whole time she was watching, finally succeeded.
You’re a monster, Hermione thought, burning vindictively. You’re horrible, you’re horrible—how could you?
You have no idea what these years have been like! Voldemort snarled back. You have no idea—
Then show me. Hermione refocused, searching for something else in his maelstrom. Show me what you’ve done.
There were so many things she could look for, but if it was any memory that was too easily attained, Hermione didn’t want it. She had no doubt that, if she could grasp it without too much effort, that it was something he didn’t mind her seeing. Something that painted him in a flattering, god-like light. Something that made him seem good.
But the memory she really wanted—that one he must have buried very, very deep. She couldn’t sense it, or anything close to it, at all. She’d have to wear him down much more before she could unearth it, unleashing it into the chaos of his mental storm where she could rip it open.
He pushed again—no vicious slashing, this time. Maybe he didn’t have the energy for it, anymore… or maybe…
No. Focus.
Hermione avoided all the easy-to-open memories, and seized something harsher, something half-hidden. Voldemort let out a furious sound when she pulled it open.
Hogwarts again… but the atmosphere could not have been more different.
Hermione had been dropped directly onto a battleground. The Great Hall of Hogwarts was in ruins, much like it had been during her own war from her time. The hourglasses were broken, spilling giant, gem-colored spheres onto the floor. The emptied, armored knights were annihilated, the paintings shredded or burned, the stone walls blown apart. Witches and wizards were scattered on the ground, many of whom were unconscious—probably dead. Hermione would not allow herself to look at them, and she was distracted, besides.
There was a hissing, spitting cry. The basilisk.
Adesum, Salazar Slytherin’s ancient monster, was there, curled up against one of the broken walls. It was emitting a furious bellow; Hermione gaped up at it, for its eyes had been torn straight out of its head. Hermione guessed that Fawkes must have done that, but she did not see the phoenix anywhere. Perhaps it had already been destroyed, burst into flames to be reborn again later.
Despite having no eyes, the basilisk looked like it wanted nothing more than to rip apart everyone present. Yet it stayed where it was, as though it had been commanded not to move. Even more bizarre was that no one seemed to be focused on it.
Then Hermione saw why.
The witches and wizards who were still on their feet were all looking at the same spectacle, one which put even a blinded basilisk to shame.
Voldemort… and Dumbledore.
Oh, no. Hermione steeled herself.
At the precise moment where this memory picked up, Voldemort looked to be defeated. He was on his back on the ground, heaving, covered in injuries, and his wand— my wand —was in Dumbledore’s left hand. The Elder Wand was in his right, and he had it pointed directly at Voldemort’s chest.
But Hermione already knew how this ended.
“You should never have attacked Hogwarts, Tom,” Dumbledore said, and though he did not shout, his voice carried clearly. Everyone was silent as they watched what Hermione was certain they believed would be Voldemort’s downfall.
In fact, it looked like Voldemort himself believed this was his end. There was a wild, uncontainable fear on his face as Dumbledore loomed over him, holding two wands, looking disturbingly calm.
His eyes, Voldemort’s eyes… were dark. Deep brown.
He looked…
No. Focus.
Swallowing her sorrow, Hermione’s mind raced as she tried to place this memory, piecing together the timeline of Voldemort’s rise to power. This was before he’d gone to America, before he’d found the sword, before he’d made another horcrux. But of course it was. She could imagine his exact thoughts as he’d planned, long ago:
First, Britain. Then, the world.
The Voldemort in the memory let out a breathy, mad sort of laugh. Hermione focused on his broken voice, on his wild hair and shredded, battle-worn clothes—not those eyes. “Go on then,” he rasped. “Go on, Dumbledore. Kill me.”
“I already know that I cannot... And even if I could, I’m afraid I would not find that a satisfying end for you… There are fates much worse than death… Much worse…”
Voldemort’s face contorted with shock, then anger. Then he laughed again.
He threw his head back and laughed in a terrible, manic way. Dumbledore didn't move.
“Going to lock me up in Nurmengard?” Voldemort spat between laughs. “To keep me chained up in that impenetrable prison alongside Grindelwald?”
Dumbledore’s stoic face remained still. Voldemort only laughed harder when he did not deny it.
“You’re going to be upset, then,” Voldemort went on, leering. “It will be all mine if you put me there… It’s vacant, now. I made sure of it.”
Dumbledore’s eyes betrayed a hint of emotion, widening behind his half-moon spectacles.
“You wouldn’t have heard of it yet,” Voldemort said. “I only just went yesterday… Shockingly easy to break into, if not out of. You should have set the outer runes to be more specific.”
Dumbledore advanced on him, sudden and swift, and had his wand pointed directly at Voldemort’s throat. He had gone from cold and calm to enraged in a second.
Voldemort barely flinched, and his cruel smile never faltered. “Not that you would have noticed if I’d gone earlier, would you? You didn’t exactly check in on him… No one did… He was so lonely, you know…”
“You didn’t,” Dumbledore finally hissed, the softest whisper.
“I did,” Voldemort responded bluntly.
“For what reason? You know I had nothing to do with—”
“Do not,” Voldemort snapped, his face twisting as though Dumbledore had already cursed him. “It was not a visit spurred by vengeance… not in the way you’re implying, at least. In fact, you could call it generous, what I did. He was suffering. I was merciful. I even told him I would carry his last words wherever he wanted… And those last words were for you.”
Dumbledore's hand was shaking. Hermione could sense his internal conflict—he knew it was unwise to let Voldemort keep talking, and yet, he could not stop himself.
Voldemort’s sardonic smile widened. He said nothing else, but his grin was evil, taunting.
There was a flash of magic. Dumbledore had struck, but the spell—he’d used Legilimency; he was tearing into Voldemort’s mind, needing, no doubt, to see if it was true, if he had really killed Gellert Grindelwald…
The memory didn’t take her into whatever mental battle happened there. From this perspective, it was brief.
One moment, they were staring, focused, eyes full of hate.
The next, Dumbledore let out a strange, gurgling cry; his eyes went unnaturally wide, his face paled—
Then Hermione’s walnut wand was twisted around in his hand, pointed back at Dumbledore’s chest. Voldemort grasped it, and in a toxically bright flash of magic, a blade shot out, burning straight through Dumbledore’s chest.
Voldemort stood and caught him before he fell. He leaned close to Dumbledore’s ear and said, “Love… is such a burden.”
Then he ripped the glowing blade from his body, taking both Hermione’s wand and the Elder Wand with him. Dumbledore crumpled to the ground with an agonizing whimper. He rolled to one side, and after twitching a few times, he went still. Blood pooled from the fatal wound in his gut.
The ruined Hall was quiet, still—and then people were either cheering or screaming, raising their wands or trying to flee. A few darted through the holes in the walls, determined to escape now that Dumbledore had fallen; what she could see were clearly Death Eaters—was that Macnair?—quickly followed; the basilisk let out a triumphant snarl and it finally moved from its place near the wall, going to its master—
“NO!”
The booming cry was so loud that Hermione nearly lost her grip on the memory, it startled her so badly. She turned to see him at the same time that Voldemort in the memory did, as well as everyone else.
Good God.
Hagrid—how had she missed him before? Where had he been hiding?—who also looked bloody and worn, was screaming, bellowing in a mixture of grief and fury. He raised his massive arms, and—
The sword of Gryffindor
Hagrid had gotten it, somehow. He wielded it easily, as though it belonged to him, as though it were his destiny. With no hesitation, he lunged at the basilisk, grabbing it under the jaw and holding onto it with one giant hand. Then, with a single stroke, he cut the beast’s head clean off.
It took seconds. Voldemort’s face hadn’t yet cleared from his own shock of having killed Albus Dumbledore before Hagrid had slayed the basilisk and turned his fury towards him.
He was a sight to behold.
It was shocking how quickly this younger version of Hagrid could move. Still roaring with a blood-curdling scream, he charged towards Voldemort, slashing down several Death Eaters with Gryffindor’s sword as he went. He cut three in half, and while others fired spells at him, most of them missed and the rest simply bounced off of him.
Still looking dazed, surely still processing that both Dumbledore and his basilisk were now dead—that he had mastered the Elder Wand, that he’d won—Voldemort raised his arm.
“Avada Kedavra!”
The killing curse was exceptionally bright, and his aim was true—but Hagrid was prepared. He snatched a nearby Death Eater and, never breaking stride, held him front of him as a human shield. Hermione didn’t recognize the man—he screamed, raising his own wand, but it didn’t matter. The killing curse hit him instead, and he was dead in an instant. Hagrid tossed his body aside and kept running, kept screaming.
“RIDDLE!”
He was on him.
Hagrid grabbed Voldemort by the neck and slammed him, ungodly hard, against a wall.
The memory went white. For a moment Hermione feared she’d lost it—but no. This was just how Voldemort remembered it. Everything swam in and out of focus; she could hear screaming and chaos, she could perceive flashes of magic…
He’d nearly passed out, Hermione realized. And no wonder. The way Hagrid had just attacked him would have killed most men.
“Avada Kedavra!”
All at once, after another flash of blinding green, the whiteness cleared. Voldemort crumpled to the ground, and it was immediately clear that his windpipe was broken. His throat was caved in, smashed, and based on the way his body landed, Hermione suspected he was paralyzed.
Hagrid was dead.
His huge eyes were void of life, staring blankly at the star-strewn ceiling. The sword rested in his limp hand.
Hermione barely had time to lament his loss when she was distracted by someone rushing past him.
“Move! MOVE!”
Irving Lestrange was at Voldemort’s side, instantly casting magic—healing him, Hermione was sure. Because this happened before he had conquered America; he did not have time-sand in his blood, he would not heal…
He couldn’t die, but he was surely suffering as he lay there, crushed and immobile. Hermione found she held no pity for him.
Voldemort’s bodily horror was short-lived. Lestrange was an exceptional healer. He repaired whatever damage Hagrid had done with an enviable swiftness, and soon Voldemort was inhaling a deep, ragged breath, then coughing as he rolled to his side, able to move once more.
Lestrange backed away, giving him space. All the survivors of the battle stood, watching him, waiting. No one spoke. Hermione saw more familiar faces as she looked—there was Abraxas, and Adam Avery, and…
Voldemort remained on the ground for a long moment—and Hermione saw why. From where she was positioned, she could see that he was staring, mystified, not at any of his Death Eaters or at Dumbledore or even at the Elder Wand, which he had dropped along with Hermione’s and which was at his side…
He could see the sword of Gryffindor. It sparkled, beautiful, resting in Hagrid’s lifeless fingers.
Moving very, very slowly, Voldemort pushed himself up. He first grabbed his wands, taking a brief moment to admire Hermione’s walnut one before pocketing it. He kept the Elder Wand out as he walked, carefully, towards the sword.
It was like watching him claim the diadem all over again.
He needed to step over several bodies to get to it, but Voldemort’s eyes never left the sword as he did. Everyone watched as he knelt down, then grasped the gem-encrusted handle.
His eyes gleamed with hunger. Hermione could see the rubies reflected in their depths, red shining in the black like an omen.
Voldemort smiled, then he stood, thrusting the sword up into the air, and he let out a triumphant cry.
The hall exploded in response. The surviving Death Eaters roared back, pumping their arms and fists into the air, surrounding Voldemort and making Hermione think insanely of a quidditch team that had just won the cup. They were all smiling madly as they cheered. Oliver Macnair stood on top of Hagrid’s massive dead body as though he were a prized kill. Linus Yaxley grabbed Dumbeldore’s body from the ground, and he must have enchanted it somehow, because he began to waltz with his corpse, to the delight and raucous laughter of his peers…
But none looked wilder or happier than Voldemort, who held the sword in one hand and the Elder Wand in the other. Looking high on power, he pointed the wand towards the enchanted ceiling, where magic exploded from its tip.
The Dark Mark bloomed above his Death Eaters, below the stars. They cheered louder than ever, then began to chant.
“Voldemort! Voldemort! Voldemort!”
His name was still ringing in her mind when the memory was wrenched away.
You’re sick, Hermione thought with blank horror as she let the image of Hogwarts in ruins go. You’re… awful.
Dumbledore deserved to die, Voldemort responded scathingly. Or have you already forgotten what he did to you? What he would have done to us?
She did remember. She had just accused him of being equally monstrous…
No. Focus.
Hermione ripped her way deeper into his mind. Give me the memory of the time-sand, she demanded. I want to know when and how you figured it out, what you meant by Lord of Time.
Hermione—
She found it—and while he clearly didn’t want her going through anything at all, he must have cared less about this, because it wasn’t very hard to get. That, or he really was getting weaker.
Good. She would keep going.
“…were right, my Lord… anchoring it to more fixed, dark magic has been the key all along.”
Hermione didn’t know where they were—Voldemort, and with him, a man whom Hermione also didn’t recognize but whom she assumed to be American, based on his accent. They were in some kind of arena, it looked like. It was huge and dark, with curved walls and strange statues stationed around the perimeter at intervals…
“Of course I was,” Voldemort said. “It’s a wonder you all didn’t figure it out yourselves sooner.”
At this, the man frowned. “Well, it wasn’t ever something we considered possible until the girl showed us, here, that it could be imbued in a body… In fact, there was one part of her test in particular that was illuminating. I can show you, here—”
“Don’t.”
The wizard had pointed his wand at one of the statues, which Hermione now saw were odd, catlike creatures with two heads. At the Dark Lord’s command, he stopped.
“Don’t,” Voldemort repeated. “I don’t… I don’t want to see her again. Just—”
He closed his eyes, looking nearly emotional. When he opened them again, his expression had hardened. “I’ve heard enough. I’ve learned enough… I am done hearing of theories and wild ideas. You say you have this mystery solved, once and for all?”
The wizard, whom Hermione now assumed to be the American equivalent of an Unspeakable, nodded. “Yes, my Lord, I am quite certain that I have.”
“Then let us not waste any more of my time or yours… despite how unlimited that resource may be in this cursed room.”
Hermione’s mind reeled as she tried to fully grasp what she was seeing. Voldemort, in America—after he had conquered it, after whatever the War of Magic looked like once it came to the United States…
What happened to Madison? To Liam, to Walter? Hermione did not yet know, but she planned to find out.
“Are you… certain you’re prepared to try this?” the American asked. “If we are correct—and we are—then… your body will no longer age, not ever again. Once anchored properly, this will likely be irreversible. All of your features, exactly as they are…”
He looked for a bit too long at Voldemort’s eyes. Red. Disarming. Certainly not a feature most would want to be stuck with forever.
He cleared his throat loudly. “How old are you, my Lord?” the American went on, and it felt to Hermione like he was casting for a different reason to give him for reconsidering time-sand aside from those eyes. “Are you not still in your thirties? You might want to wait before making such a permanent decision… At the decreased rate that you're aging—and I suspect the creation of a horcrux has something to do with this—you may want to wait several decades, even.”
Hermione was shocked to hear this man mention a horcrux. Who was he, that Voldemort would entrust him with such critical information? He must have been extremely important.
Voldemort only smiled. “I am thirty-three… despite looking younger, perhaps. You believe that to be an issue? Are you concerned that the world won’t easily bow to someone who doesn’t look like an ancient politician…? That they will not respect me if I appear younger than them?”
“I’m only pointing out that people judge based on looks,” the man responded. “And, more importantly, that you might prefer an appearance that more closely resembles your age later in your long, long life.”
“No.” Voldemort’s tone was clipped and unwavering. “I am done waiting… I am perfectly content to remain at this age, physically. If the spell is ready…. Then do it. Now.”
“I—we need something to anchor it to, first—are you—will you be creating a Dark Mark of sorts for yourself, or—”
Voldemort interrupted him with a scoff. “Hardly. I happen to already have a scar from dark, immovable magic… terribly stable.”
Voldemort began to unbutton his shirt. Hermione only just saw the top edge of his scar—the scar I gave him—before she lost her hold on the memory, and Voldemort managed to pull it away.
She’d let her determination slip, because it had dawned in her, then…
He was thirty-three in that memory.
At thirty-three years old, Voldemort had not only conquered magical Britain, but the MACUSA…
It took him… He did that in ten years…
Hermione briefly tried to construct a timeline in her mind. Voldemort amassed power, somehow, and eventually overthrew the Ministry of Magic and stormed Hogwarts. He killed Dumbledore. He found the sword. That all had to have happened first.
Sometime between the last memory she saw and this one, he’d made the sword a horcrux. It was the only explanation for his eyes being permanently red.
He’d also waged war in America, and he’d won…
All in ten years.
She didn’t have time to dwell on that further. Before he could push her back and make her lose her footing, Hermione snatched at more memories, yanking some at random from the violence of Voldemort’s storm.
Like an angry stream, they came.
Voldemort was in the Department of Mysteries, in the Ministry of Magic. It looked as though Voldemort had just entered the round, dark hall with the many unmarked doors. There were dozens of Unspeakables there, and Hermione was shaken to the core at the sight of them, because it looked like they were dead. Their bodies were scattered all over the floor, but their eyes were closed, and when Hermione looked closer…
They were breathing. Alive, but…
Asleep.
Or deeply unconscious. It was a state Hermione, and all Unspeakables, knew well.
The exception was one woman. She was ancient and tiny, with wiry gray hair and a bit of a hunchback. She was standing in the middle of all the fallen bodies, making it seem as though she had summoned them all there just to fall at her feet.
She wasn’t holding a wand. She had her hands folded in front of her, looking very much like she had been waiting.
When Voldemort stepped into the room, illuminated by the dim blue lights, the Elder Wand held at the ready, she smiled.
“Hello, Tom Riddle,” she said. “Have you enjoyed dismantling the Ministry of Magic?”
Voldemort scowled at the use of his old name. “What happened here?” he asked, glancing at the bodies. “Who are you?”
“Who am I… such a simple question, but I’m afraid it’s not a simple answer. Also, it doesn’t matter.”
But Hermione knew who this was. Who it had to be.
Euphenia Selwyn.
“As for what happened here… the Unspeakables are doing their duty. That’s all.”
Voldemort’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How did you know that name?” he asked next.
“I know just about everything,” she responded, laughing. “Names are simple. People are simple… I know anyone, anywhere… and I can find anyone, anywhere…”
Voldemort’s whole face lit up with hope. “So you can find her,” he breathed. He even smiled; Voldemort seemed entirely unbothered that the floor was covered in comatose witches and wizards.“You can find her, you can—”
“Can and will are very different things, Mr. Riddle,” Selwyn said. “No, I’m afraid that my secrets, my abilities… All of our great mysteries… Space, Time, Death… Love… None of them are for you.”
She pulled something out of her pocket. Hermione was astounded to see two things when she did: the first was that, when she had moved her robes, she’d revealed the glinting gold of a Time-Turner around her neck. It was concealed again when her cloak fell back into place.
The second, which was the item she’d retrieved, was a glowing spindle with golden thread.
“I’m sorry to say that you will not succeed,” she murmured, and she did sound apologetic. “I’ll stop you every time… That is my duty…”
“A Time-Turner,” Voldemort said, for he must have seen it, too. But his wide-eyed gaze was locked on the spindle and thread, which she held with both hands. “And is that—?”
“Oh yes, It is. And your friend is quite right… might as well toss the scissors. They’re useless without these. Can’t so much as cut paper with them.”
Selwyn flashed him a toothy grin. “Goodbye, Tom Riddle.”
She then waved her hand, and a colossal wave of magic burst across the room. Voldemort cast a spell as well, but it was snuffed out as though someone had blown out a candle by Selwyn’s power. He was hurtled back, down the dark hall, straight out of the Department of Mysteries. Voldemort rolled when he finally fell, colliding harshly with the wall. He looked furious as he pushed himself up. Before he could storm his way back in, the door slammed shut in his face.
The handle was gone. It now looked exactly the same as all the unmarked doors in the round hall inside.
Voldemort cast spell after spell on it, growing increasingly enraged as nothing had any effect whatsoever.
He was banished.
Hermione could still hear his scream as another memory filled her mind. It jarred her with how different it was; the setting was bright and decadent. Malfoy Manor. They were in the foyer.
Hermione saw Voldemort and a slightly older looking Abraxas, who was handing Voldemort his Time-Turner…
The same Time-Turner that Hermione had used, in her original timeline.
“…been warned to never use it, in fact,” Abraxas was saying, his face apprehensive as he watched his family’s illegal heirloom fall into the pale hands of Lord Voldemort. “Nothing good can come of it, and it’s a near certain death sentence. In fact, it hasn’t been activated in over sixty years; the last Malfoy to…”
But it was obvious that Voldemort was not listening. His hungry eyes were focused solely on the Time-Turner, drinking in the engraved words there.
Sanctimonia Vincet Semper.
She knew what he was thinking, too. A death sentence for mere mortals, perhaps. But for Lord Voldemort, who had at least two horcruxes, and now, time-sand in his blood, properly anchored…? If anything did happen to his body, it would recover, it would heal…
He was untouchable. By Time, by Death.
Abraxas was still talking when Voldemort turned, leaving him looking stunned, and—
Hermione felt dizzy as the next flash of a memory she saw was him, hurling through Time and Space himself. It was wildly disorienting to follow.
Voldemort was in Knockturn Alley, a Time-Turner around his neck. Down the street, Borgin and Burkes was in sight; and there…
Hermione… It was Hermione, and this was the first day she had officially met Tom Riddle, she could tell by what she was wearing… She had her hood drawn and was walking with purpose, not making eye contact with anyone…
She was heading towards the shop. Voldemort took a step towards her, clearly about to run, and—
He was sprawled out on the floor of the Great Hall of Hogwarts. His throne towered over him, empty and dark.
He tried again, and again, and again.
He was outside of Malfoy Manor, staring longingly as a rose garden untouched by snow. He was at the Joy of Life Fountain, too far to make out the sculptures that would never kiss. He was near the Devil’s Cup, he was outside Hepzibah’s house, he was in New York. He was in the alley by the Cave, watching as Hermione, Liam, and Walter were about to descend a staircase within the gaping mouth of a wampus. He was in a crowd in Times Square, staring, pleadingly, at her from across the sea of people.
Every time, he was pulled back.
With no logic or reason to it, Voldemort could never get to her; he could never get to anyone or anything. Every time he got close to doing something that could conceivably alter time, the Time-Turner would activate all on its own, and he would be wrenched back to Hogwarts, tossed onto the ground at the foot of his own throne. He screamed at the stars.
It went on and on. The flashes were so confusing, so jumbled—it reminded Hermione viscerally of her own tragic time-traveling experience, of what it had felt like when she had been sent, unintentionally and unwillingly, to 1950, and—
Yes.
He struck hard and fast.
The very moment Hermione had the thought, Voldemort assaulted her with a brand of Legilimency she’d never felt before. Sensing the mere ghost of a thought, Voldemort somehow turned the tables—he followed that flicker of horrible nostalgia and before Hermione could make heads or tails of what was happening, it was Voldemort who was diving deep, tearing his way through her memories, going straight for those which she kept most hidden.
He was so quick. It was flashing before both their eyes before she could do a thing to stop it.
It was Hermione, and…
No, no, stop—
Make me.
Voldemort’s gloating was ruthless. Hermione watched, horror-stricken, as her memory-self walked down a dark sidewalk…
"Help me…”
It was his mother. Merope Gaunt gasped, her hands on her swollen stomach, shaking. When her knees buckled, the past-Hermione went to catch her.
"My baby, my baby…”
Stop, you don’t want to see this—
"Help me, I c-can't make it to… t-to the hospital… Please…”
She was grotesque. She was in so much pain.
"I'm so sorry."
Hermione felt Voldemort’s wave of emotion as he watched the memory of Hermione prepare to kill his mother.
"I'm sorry, I… It won't hurt."
She raised her wand, drawing in a breath before saying, “Avada—”
“Witch!”
The memory shattered at the exact moment Merope struck Hermione in the neck with the Time-Turner. It dissipated in a flash of blood and gold.
It shattered, because Voldemort had been unexpectedly, if understandably, shaken at the sight of Merope… and of the damning truth that Hermione would have killed her.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Hermione thought, over and over as she nonetheless put Voldemort back on the defensive. Despite the horror of it, she was almost grateful he’d gone for her worst memory. She doubted anything else would have caused him enough distress for her to regain control.
You’re not, Voldemort responded, and yes—too emotional, too distraught. His shields were scattered and weak; his storm was fierce, but ineffective. You’re not sorry, you’ve never been—
It pained her to do it, but Hermione had no choice. She struck back while he was still reeling, determined to learn the rest of this story.
Show me Madison. Show me what you did to him. To Walter. To Liam.
She found Madison first.
Ignoring Voldemort’s ice storm of rage, Hermione wrenched what she could sense at once was a memory of Lester Madison—a monumental one.
They appeared to be in a vast desert at night; the landscape was flat and empty, and the Milky Way was beautifully clear. A crescent moon smiled high above them.
There was Voldemort, of course, and the first thing Hermione noticed about him was that his eyes were red. It wasn’t surprising, but it did confirm the timeline she suspected.
Voldemort made the sword his horcrux before attempting to conquer the MACUSA… before attempting to take down Lester Madison.
Beside Voldemort were a few of his Death Eaters, though in this memory they were all hooded and masked, anonymous. Only Voldemort’s face was revealed as he stared, hungrily, at…
Madison.
It looked like he was in a sort of magical fish bowl. A visible dome of magic, translucent and shimmering, with a series of small, glowing runes on the ground along the perimeter. Madison was inside, pacing slowly with his hands behind his back.
“Lester Madison,” Voldemort said, and the tone of his voice suggested he was both announcing his presence and greeting his prisoner. He and his Death Eaters must have just arrived.
Not that he needed to announce them. Madison clearly noticed his audience the second they’d aparated there. He continued pacing when he responded, “Thank God. I was getting bored.”
He smiled widely at Voldemort. “If it isn’t the notorious Lord Voldemort. What an honor.” His eyes darted down to the wand in Voldemort’s right hand, then went to his crimson eyes. “I see you’ve been very naughty these past few years.”
Voldemort’s grip on the Deathstick tightened. He returned Madison’s smile and said, “And I’m not done yet.”
A few of his Death Eaters laughed. Madison shrugged. “Yes, I gathered as much,” he said, gesturing towards his magical imprisonment. “This is quite clever. Impenetrable. I would have never tripped up into it, if it hadn’t been for… well. It’s supposed to be a bit of a secret, but it’s not a very well kept one then, is it? If you know?”
Voldemort’s smile broadened significantly. “Your contract with the MACUSA,” he drawled. “No, it’s not a very well kept secret. I found out about it before I even came here.”
Madison nodded as though this did not disturb him. “Hm, yes… That’s not what’s surprising to me. What I find shocking is that you managed to get it. I’ve been trying to get my hands—or someone else’s hands that I can control—on that cursed document for as long as it’s existed… and I can be very crafty and creative. So, if you’re going to kill me, do you mind illuminating me as to how you succeeded?”
Voldemort's face became not smug, as Hermione anticipated, but sour with annoyance. “I didn’t,” he admitted. “But I didn’t need to. I was able to learn enough about what was on it to know that you would be forced to react in highly specific ways in highly specific circumstances… that was all I needed, to set the right kind of trap for you.”
Madison’s eyes went wide, and for a split second he looked like he might laugh. “Ah,” he said, only smiling again. “Well, that makes me feel a little bit better, then. That you also failed. Misery loves company and all that… So, tell me. Is the President still alive?”
Voldemort’s gloating smile returned. He snapped his fingers towards one of his Death Eaters, who promptly grabbed something from the ground. He yanked at nothing, and—
An invisibility cloak.
No… the invisibility cloak.
Hermione would recognize it anywhere. Perfectly invisible until it moved; then a pure, gleaming silver. That was Harry’s cloak that a Death Eater just pulled off an unconscious, bound man.
So Voldemort had obtained the cloak before coming to America, too. How had he found it? Had he made the connection between the Deathly Hallows and the Peverell brothers…? Had he followed that family lineage, crossing off every possible potential ancestor until he finally discovered who had it?
He must have. It was probably easy for Voldemort, once he became determined to find all three hallows. One of Harry’s ancestors…
And now Harry doesn’t exist.
The Resurrection Ring. The Elder Wand. The Cloak of Invisibility.
Lord Voldemort became the Master of Death in just a few years, in this world…
The Death Eater handed Voldemort the cloak, which he placed carefully into an inner pocket of his robe. The bound man was thrust before Madison, his head lolling to one side.
“Shall we wake him?” Voldemort asked. “He’s not dead yet… but he’s about to be. What say you, Madison? Would it be kinder to—”
Madison, who had been standing quite leisurely a moment before, snapped.
He whipped out his wand and sent a huge, blindingly bright spell at Voldemort; it made contact with the dome instead, causing it and the runes to flare white. He pushed harder, and the spell grew wider and stronger, a continual stream of stunning magic. Madison’s face was contorted with the effort it must have been taking him to produce such a curse. He was, undoubtedly, putting everything he had into this attack. The spell grew stronger yet; he started yelling in frustration when the dome did not yield.
Even though she couldn’t feel the sensation of magic in the memory, Hermione was in awe of how devastating it looked. She had a feeling it would have put her best efforts to shame.
The Death Eaters all retreated at the sudden violence, but Voldemort didn’t move. He had full confidence in his impenetrable barrier. He laughed.
“Contract bound to save the President of the MACUSA by any means necessary, to the best of your ability!” Voldemort shouted over Madison’s cries, who was still putting forth all of his energy into breaking the barrier. “Better try harder, Madison! President Campbell isn’t going to save himself!”
He laughed harder, and once the Death Eaters recovered from their shock, they joined him. They laughed and laughed, and the one who was holding the President upright started to jiggle his unconscious body closer to the dome in a sick, tainting way.
Then the runes began to flicker. The laughing abruptly stopped.
Voldemort’s amusement was gone from his face. Without a word, he grabbed hold of the unconscious man, yanking him away from his Death Eater by the collar. He then slashed the Elder Wand across his throat.
Blood. It gushed like a fountain from his neck. Voldemort dropped the President of the MACUSA’s convulsing body, where his blood seeped unnaturally towards the runes, sinking into them and disappearing.
Madison fell to the ground shortly after. His spell extinguished, Hermione could see the fight drain out of him as quickly as the President’s blood had seeped into the earth. The horror on his face was raw and real.
“FUCK!”
Madison slammed his fists on the ground and hung his head. Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters watched emotionlessly.
“Don’t worry,” said Voldemort. “The Vice President will be sworn in first thing tomorrow… and you won’t even have to deal with the Imperius curse you would no doubt pick up on, because you’ll be… incapacitated.”
Madison didn’t move. He kept his head bowed, breathing hard. “…Incapacitated?” he repeated. When he looked up at Voldemort, he was smiling again. “Because you’ll slit my throat too, hm? Because I’ll be dead?”
“No.”
Voldemort advanced until he was right outside the dome. He knelt down, his eyes now level with Madison’s. “I’m not going to slit your throat,” he said, speaking so softly that Hermione doubted his Death Eaters could hear him. “I’m not going to kill you at all… I’m going to lock you up, and once we’ve figured out the secret to the time-sand, I’m going to test it on you first… Then, I’m going to do everything to you that you did to her. Over, and over, and over…”
He stood.
“And before I do that,” Voldemort said more loudly, “I’m going to find out your every secret, Madison. I’m going to learn every useful scrap of knowledge you have on the MACUSA before we really take over… I’m sure you’re just a trove of information.”
Madison looked oddly surprised by this threat. “What did you just say?”
“Don’t tell me you weren’t listening,” Voldemort drawled, and his Death Eaters chuckled.
“You don’t mean that,” Madison said. “To try to get any government secrets from me…”
“Oh, I mean it.”
Voldemort tapped the Elder Wand against his empty palm. He couldn’t have looked happier. “Someone in your unique position surely knows more than they ought to… I’d be unsurprised if you’ve already figured out how to—”
Madison let out an awful choking sound.
Voldemort froze as he watched, confused. Madison was lost to a coughing fit. Within seconds he was hacking up blood onto the ground, which was drained by the runes.
“What is happening?” Voldemort asked sharply.
The Death Eaters seemed as unsure as he was.
Madison laughed between coughs. “Oh, thank you, kid!” he shouted between bloody laughs. “Thank you—I was beginning to lose hope that—”
His words were lost to another spell of coughing. The blood was splattering all over. Hermione thought, This looks familiar.
“It appears to be a blood curse, my Lord—”
“Yes!” Madison pointed at the Death Eater who spoke. “Give this guy a promotion!”
“What blood curse?” Voldemort seethed.
“If you’d gotten your hands on the actual contract, you’d have known. I’m sure it was in the fine print,” Madison wheezed. He grinned at Voldemort—blood coated his teeth and dripped from the corners of his mouth. “Those secrets… they, just like the rest of me, are the property of the MACUSA… and they’re a protective bunch of assholes. Plenty of people have threatened, but you! You must actually mean it!”
Madison held his arms out wide. “Thank God for you!” he yelled.
He laughed again; it turned into more horrid, raw hacking. Madison fell to his side and started to convulse.
“No!”
Voldemort slashed the Elder Wand twice. The runes shattered apart, and the dome flickered and disappeared shortly thereafter. He rushed towards Madison, propping him up and casting a series of wordless spells over him, and Hermione watched the bizarre scene of Voldemort trying desperately to save Lester Madison’s life.
Madison laughed the whole time.
He coughed up more and more blood, and soon his nose and eyes were bleeding, too. His skin turned a deadly pale blue.
“Thank you,” he said again in a broken, soft voice. Hermione doubted he could see any longer with the way his eyes were weeping blood, but he was smiling right at Voldemort.
Then he shuddered and went still.
“No,” Voldemort breathed in disbelief. He tried several more spells. Nothing worked.
Madison was dead in his arms.
“No,” Voldemort repeated. Hermione noticed that the Death Eaters were backing away, sharing what Hermione could guess were concerned looks behind their masks.
“NO!”
They all ran as Voldemort screamed, a howl of rage that shook the air. Winds whipped like a cyclone, sending Madison’s smiling body rolling away from him. Voldemort bellowed in rage, his magic wild about him in his temper, furious that Madison had died…
Why?
Hermione let go of the memory, where it was instantly whipped away into the storm of Voldemort’s mind—an eerily similar atmosphere. Why would you want to torture him? What did you mean, ‘What you did to her’? Was it during my test?
Get out of my mind, and I’ll tell you.
No.
Hermione considered looking for the truth of what Madison had done to her in Voldemort’s mind, but decided that she didn’t care.
There were much more important things to see.
Hermione searched, and it was easy—too easy—to find what she wanted next. I want to know what happened to—
She didn’t have to rip it open. The next memory was forced upon her, so suddenly it was like being slapped in the face. Voldemort’s violent mental landscape was replaced in a flash by…
A battle ground.
It seemed to be a recurrent theme in her siege on his mind: Hermione once more found herself in a memory that was clearly happening in the aftermath of a great battle. She could tell by the destruction that this was in New York.
Times Square. She’d never seen it so still.
There were people, hundreds of them, thousands… and nearly all of them were dead.
And if they weren’t, it looked like they soon would be. Death Eaters were meandering through the debris, checking bodies. Every now and then, one of them fired a spell, ending the life of someone who might have barely been holding on.
Hermione felt sick.
“Wait.”
Voldemort stopped a Death Eater from examining one body in particular. Despite knowing who this memory was about, Hermione went cold at the sight of him.
Walter.
Oh, no, oh—
“Alive, My Lord,” said the Death Eater, and Hermione recognized his voice as Abraxas’s. “Shall I…”
“No.”
Voldemort knelt down, looking at Walter curiously. He had a massive wound on his forehead. Voldemort healed it, then pointed the Deathstick at his chest.
“Innervate.”
Walter slowly opened his eyes, then blinked in the dull evening light. When he was able to focus, he gasped and jolted back at the sight of Lord Voldemort looming over him.
“Hello, Walter Moore,” Voldemort said.
Walter went for his wand. It wasn’t in any of his pockets. He searched frantically around him, then froze in horror as he saw all the bodies.
“You lost,” Voldemort explained, though it was hardly necessary. Abraxas let out a short laugh behind him. “If it makes you feel better, your side fought well… only not well enough.”
There was a strangled cry in the distance. A Death Eater had just killed another survivor.
“Why… am I still alive?” Walter asked in a hollow voice.
Voldemort smiled, so charmingly. “Because Lord Voldemort remembers… everything. You were exceptional in battle. I had to take you down myself. It was no accident that you were stunned.”
Walter started to breathe hard. He did not look relieved.
“Your talents could be put to much better use, you know. The MACUSA made a grave mistake, letting you go.”
Walter looked baffled that he was getting complimented, and Hermione could see the moment that he realized he might also be getting recruited.
“Where is Liam?” he asked, ignoring all of this. “He went missing months ago, I know it had to do with—”
“Dead.”
Voldemort did not elaborate beyond that. Walter’s face fell; he closed his eyes and looked like he was trying hard not to cry. Hermione could tell he suspected as much, but that did not make hearing the truth any easier.
“No,” Walter said despite this. “You’re lying. Tell me you’re lying.”
“I’m not. I killed him.” Voldemort smirked when Walter looked furious. “Does that make you hate me? He deserved it. Don’t worry… he didn’t die for nothing. His death was very useful. Cathartic, really.”
Walter’s hands balled into fists. Hermione almost wished he would punch Voldemort in the face, but he remained where he was, looking on the verge of a breakdown.
Voldemort stared at him for a long moment. “Well… I can recognize a lost cause when I see one.” He stood, and then, to Hermione’s surprise, he said, “You can go, Walter Moore.”
Walter was so shocked by this that his fury and grief seemed to vanish. “Wh… what?”
“I said you can go. But my mercy is not unlimited. You see that veil over there? That’s where the anti-apparition ward ends. If you can make it there and disappear before I change my mind, then your life is once more yours.”
Walter pushed himself up, looking even more baffled. “Why? What kind of trick is—”
“Question me, and I will change my mind. And make no mistake… if you oppose me again, you won’t survive a second time. Go. Now.”
Walter spun around, and in an impressive feat of magic, summoned his wand from several feet away, straight into his waiting hand. He glared at Voldemort once he had it, his arm shaking.
Don’t do it, Hermione couldn’t help but think. Don’t be an idiot, Walt, just run!
“You can try.” Voldemort’s voice was soft, and there was an almost playful gleam in his red eyes. Then, when Walter continued to be conflicted with rage, he said, “You now have one minute… run.”
Walter hesitated for only a second more before he was sprinting, running for all he was worth, leaping over bodies as he rushed towards the ward. A few Death Eaters turned, but Voldemort held up his hand, and it was all the instruction they needed to let him go.
“Why did you do that?”
Abraxas asked the question as they watched Walter pass through the ward, then dissapparate with a crack. “Why let him go?”
“Because he was a good friend,” Voldemort answered vaguely, leaving Abraxas more confused than ever, Hermione was sure. He turned away. “Now get back to work,” he commanded as he walked. “No more survivors.”
The scene vanished. Hermione felt guilty that she felt relieved.
Walter had lived… but how many others had died?
Hermione didn’t allow herself to think about it—she went straight for what she knew she had to see next… what she knew was going to a bad, bad memory.
What happened to Liam?
Hermione, stop. Voldemort’s voice was less savage, now. It was calm and commanding. Stop this. You’ve seen enough.
No, I haven’t. I need to see what you did to him. And I need to see what you think happened in Albania, because you’re wrong. I need to know exactly how you became… this.
Hermione—!
Voldemort did not want her to have the memory of what became of Liam. He tried everything. He slammed into her again, another cold and hard attack. He tried shrouding and putting a thousand other thoughts in her way, a chaotic storm of memories she did not want.
The only thing he didn’t do was tear at her again.
He tried to stop her, but Hermione was a determined, fiery force. She burned straight through until finally, she had it.
STOP—NO—
Hermione’s heart dropped the moment it came into focus.
A small, circular field surrounded by woods, where a fire burned in the center. It was night, and the moon was swollen and full. And there was Voldemort, standing quietly besides the pyre, and in his hands…
The sword of Gryffidnor.
His fingers were wrapped around the handle, the blade pointed down where its tip dug into the ground. He looked every bit like a knight, or maybe a King, his head bowed and eyes closed as though praying.
Oh, no…
Hermione could feel Voldemort bashing at the edges of this memory, trying relentlessly to banish it. She forced herself to focus, to not let her dread distract and weaken her.
There was some shuffling in the woods, and then four people appeared. Three of them were in Death Eater masks and one had a bag on his head. One of the Death Eaters was shouting.
“—fucking fuck!”
Orion Black was revealed to be the Death Eater who swore. He ripped his mask off and Hermione was startled to see that he only had one arm. His shoulder was exposed beneath shredded robes that hung loosely on him, and while it was a massive, crusty wound, it didn’t bear any signs of dark magic. It looked like a giant burn.
The other Death Eaters took their masks off, too—one was Linus Yaxley, and the other Oliver Macnair, which Hermione could have guessed by his build alone. Macnair was holding onto the person with a bag on their head.
Hermione knew who that was, too.
Macnair yanked the bag off and threw Liam harshly onto the ground. He was conscious, but he must have been silenced, and his wrists and legs were bound. He rolled to his side and took in his surroundings with visible horror.
“My fucking arm!”
Black screamed the words at Liam, leaning down to do so right in his face. “I should fucking rip you in half, you—!”
“But of course you wouldn’t, because we had orders,” Macnair interrupted. He then bowed subserviently towards Voldemort, who had not yet moved in any way. “My Lord,” he said.
Remaining otherwise very still, Voldemort opened his eyes.
Brown. So dark they were nearly black, pulling.
It took everything Hermione had to not lose herself to emotion… because she knew this was when he lost them forever.
She’d thought it was Dumbledore. She’d been certain by the end of watching that battle at Hogwarts that Voldemort would use Dumbledore’s death to make the sword horcrux. He had everything he needed, then, and who more fitting to aid him in immortality than the one he feared most?
And yet, she was wrong.
Voldemort’s eyes went from Macnair, then briefly to Black, before settling on Liam. “You may go,” he said quietly.
Macnair bowed again, as did Yaxley. Black looked like he was still considering cursing Liam once before leaving. “You fucking scum,” he hissed, and he fumbled for his wand with his one hand. “I will—”
“Come along with us, where we will make you right as rain. Nothing a bit of Skele-gro, a few healing charms, and a substantial amount of liqueur can’t fix!”
Black let out another angry cry at the word Skele-gro. Yaxley pulled him away from Liam, where he’d been about to aim a kick. “Sorry about that, ‘ol chap,” Yaxley said, leering at Liam. “Orion here just has this crazy thing about him where he really likes his arms.”
Macnair thunked Yaxley on the back of the head. “You heard our Lord. Let’s go.”
Laughing like a hyena, Yaxley dragged Black with him as they left—giving Voldemort a low bow before they did. Macnair followed them into the woods, and a moment later the air shook with the sound of two sharp cracks.
Voldemort was alone with Liam.
For his part, Liam looked like he was going into shock. Hermione couldn’t feel it in the memory, but she was certain that he was drenched in the weight of dark magic in the air. That feeling, along with the sight of Lord Voldemort standing before him, holding a massive sword of all things, stranded in some forest before a blazing fire…
Hermione would be just as terrified.
Voldemort’s lips curved on one side. “Hello, Liam Wright,” he said. Then, looking as though he couldn’t help himself, he added, “How the fuck are ya?”
Liam said nothing. Hermione wondered if he was still silenced.
“Great.”
Voldemort twitched his wrist, and Liam’s body was wrenched up into a kneeling position before him. He was shaking, and yes—he was silenced. Liam moved his mouth, but no words came out.
Voldemort didn’t seem to mind. “You’re slippery,” he said. “I was beginning to worry I’d have to go hunt you down myself… You must have put up quite the fight. Orion’s arm? That wasn’t very nice.”
He lifted the sword with his left hand and swung it so that it was resting on Liam’s shoulder. Liam’s whole body twitched. “Should I cut yours off, too, and send it to him? That would bring him some comfort, I think. Skele-gro is a real bitch to take, or so I’ve heard.”
He laughed when Liam, naturally, could say nothing. “Don’t worry, I won’t mutilate your wretched body until after I’ve killed you… The screaming, the wailing, all the pain and crying—it’s all so distracting; I’m sure you understand. It will be much easier for me to navigate your mind when you’re not suffering… much.”
He pulled out his wand, and Hermione was surprised to see that it was not the Deathstick.
“Did you know,” Voldemort began, holding Hermione’s walnut wand aloft, “that she tried to discount what you did to her?”
Voldemort pointed it at Liam’s forehead. Liam, trembling, closed his eyes.
“She said you must have been put up to it… almost made it sound like it wasn’t even your fault… Let’s find out, shall we? Legilimens.”
Liam’s eyes flew open as though forced. Hermione wondered in a strangely numb way what it must have been like, experiencing that memory from Liam’s point of view… because it was obvious what Voldemort was looking for.
Whether or not he also looked for any conversations that happened before they sent Liam in to interrogate her, Hermione couldn’t know. But she did know that he sought out and witnessed what he did to her in the holding cell.
Knew it, because the second Voldemort lifted his wand, retracting from his mind, Voldemort’s face was bloodless, cold, and terrible.
When he smiled a moment later, it made him look infinitely worse.
Liam tried again to speak, manically; he could say nothing. Voldemort’s awful smile stretched wide and he leaned closer, speaking softly in Liam’s ear when he said, “She was right.”
He dragged the tip of the sword down Liam’s chest, aiming it directly at his heart.
“That did make Hades mad.”
He thrust the sword hard, driving it straight through his body until the tip of the steel struck the ground. Blood flowed down the blade, turning the silver red.
Voldemort released the handle and stepped back. Liam was pinned in place by the sword, bound and kneeling, his spine curved back. He gagged on blood and he stared, pleadingly, at Voldemort, like he might pull the sword out and save him yet.
Voldemort said nothing, did nothing. He held Hermione’s wand high, watching Liam’s face hungrily, relishing his suffering, waiting for his death.
Liam’s body shook in a way that made Hermione ache for him: stuck on the sword the way he was, it must have been so painful. Then his head fell back, unnaturally far, his face aimed at the sky. He shuddered once more, then was gone.
Hermione knew the memory was about to get infinitely worse.
Voldemort wasted no time: he brandished the walnut wand and began chanting in a familiar, hypnotic way. The winds were just as chaotic, the runes glowed the same, horrid red. The fire turned black. The blood that dripped down the sword from Liam’s body was drained at once by the runic magic, which was hungry for it.
Hermione realized that this was probably the only way she could ever learn how a horcrux was made. Surely, if she were really present, the feeling of dark magic would have her retching and passing out. She had barely stayed conscious when he’d done part of the ritual with the diadem, and he’d only sacrificed a deer, then.
This ritual must have been exponentially worse. He’s committed the murder of a human. And this time, he had no intentions of stopping.
The whipping winds looked strong, but Liam’s body remained stuck where it was, the sword holding him down. His head rolled back and forth from time to time, a sickening movement that only highlighted that he was no longer Liam at all, but a corpse. His eyes were open the whole time.
Then, as suddenly as it had happened the first time, the winds stopped.
How could you?
Voldemort’s soul was as breathtakingly beautiful in the memory as it has been in reality. Scattered, fractured light. Angelic and so, so gorgeous.
How could you break yourself… again?
Voldemort lifted his wand one more time, murmuring another long, Latin enchantment. The sword began to softly glow. He put his wand away.
When he moved, it was fast and animalistic.
Hermione nearly lost the memory when he lunged, it startled her even more than Hagrid’s charge. In a flash, Voldemort had gone from a cold and calculating wizard to a rabid demon. The winds started up again, blowing his hair back, and his face was mad, evil—
His eyes were blood red.
Voldemort was on him, looming over Liam’s curved, dead body, their chests nearly touching. He grabbed Liam’s jaw, and with that crazy, hungry look in his scarlet eyes, he wrenched his mouth open. His broken soul swathed them both in its ethereal glow.
Hermione was horrified.
Could it even be called a kiss, what he was doing? Voldemort ravaged Liam’s dead mouth as though possessed, as though he was seeking something at the bottom of his throat that he could only get with his violent, ravenous tongue.
There was clearly something else happening, too—Voldemort’s body trembled as he attacked him, and though Hermione could not experience whatever was happening to his mind, it must have been truly nightmarish.
Despite the obvious suffering this dark ritual was forcing upon his psyche, Voldemort never stopped his onslaught. His jaw widened over Liam’s limp lips, and it looked almost like he was eating him, like he wanted to—
To suck the soul out of him.
The moment Hermione had the thought, Voldemort finally yanked his head back, and in his mouth…
No. It can’t be.
But it couldn’t be anything else. A light that was brighter even than Voldemort’s fractured soul was issuing from his mouth. He held Liam’s soul in his teeth, and he’d gotten it by kissing him, like a…
A dementor.
When Voldemort exhaled, he breathed out the glorious light, too. It had none of the fractured quality that Voldemort’s had; Liam’s soul was pure, untainted. It hovered, and just as it seemed that it was going to continue to float away, Voldemort raised both arms and began chanting again.
It was difficult to watch; the light was so bright and the winds so chaotic. It looked like it was taking all of Voldemort’s strength to keep Liam’s souls there, to contain it, to… push it…
There was, somehow, an even brighter flash of light, as well as a horrible sound that Hermione could only describe as a scream. It was a long, terrible, high-pitched note. It was the scream of the damned.
Then everything went still and dark.
Or, much darker in comparison. In another angry flare, Liam’s soul had darted away with the speed of a shooting star, and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief that it had escaped. It seemed nothing could contain another human’s pure soul for long, not even such dark magic, not even Lord Voldemort.
But he’d gotten what he wanted.
Of course, Hermione realized in terror and awe. The only thing strong enough to break a soul… the most precious, powerful thing in the world… is another soul. Like how a diamond can only be scratched by another diamond…
It appeared to be exactly what Voldemort had done. He’d forced his own soul outside of his body, then he’d done an unspeakable act to withdraw someone else’s, too. He’d used Liam’s soul like a weapon, further shattering his own, and now…
Now he was left with a tendril of light.
It was only a fraction of what had been clinging to him before. The most beautiful coil of fluid light hovered over Voldemort’s hands, who was staring at it triumphantly.
Hermione was devastated as she watched him lift the fragment towards the sword, and for as chaotic and violent as the rest of the ritual had been, this part was peaceful. His broken soul melded with the sword seamlessly, turning the whole thing beautifully bright. It pulsed a few times, flashes of light—with the same pulse of a heartbeat, Hermione noticed—then, finally, went dark.
The black flames turned back to a normal fire… and Voldemort’s eyes remained red.
By the time Hermione let the memory go, Voldemort was no longer trying to tear it away. It was too late. Hermione had already seen everything, and she could tell by the way the storm of his mind had quieted that he had nothing left, besides.
Which was good for Hermione, because she couldn’t stop the emotions from coming now.
How could you?
Voldemort did not respond. His mind was calm and open; he wasn’t actively trying to cast her out or hide from her at all. She could reach out and grab anything, anything she wanted.
Hermione waited.
How could you? she asked again.
More silence. If she was walking into a trap, there was no help for it—Hermione wanted him to speak.
How could you, after everything I told you, everything we went through?
Everything we went through, he repeated lifelessly. Everything we went through… pales in comparison to what I went through without you, when I thought you had died.
That’s not an excuse, Hermione thought. You can’t justify this. Some things are unforgivable.
This thought was met with a lick of fear. Hermione, he thought, don’t. I know what you think you need to do. Don’t be a fool. Don’t—
Hermione didn’t want to hear it. She interrupted his commands with another diving attack.
Even depleted as he was, Voldemort still did not hand over the memories she wanted easily. But she had done it—she had worn him out, had broken him down, and his storm of cold rage was gone. All that was left was chaotic, jumbled, and messy emotions as she finally, finally got to what she wanted.
Voldemort was… Tom.
He was Tom and he was in the cabin and he was a wreck.
If Hermione weren’t witnessing it herself, she would never have thought it possible.
Tom was crying.
Sobbing, and this scene, just like so many of the others she’d witnessed, felt like she was dropping in right after a battle. The cabin, while still standing, was in ruins. The furniture was all broken as though it had exploded—even the stove was in pieces, shredded metal from it was everywhere. The couch was in shambles; the bed was so destroyed there was no longer a piece big enough to be recognizable. The pantry he had enchanted to keep her out was blown open, and broken glass and the remains of canned food littered the floor. The Pensieve had been knocked over. Books were scattered all around him, many of them with pages ripped out, peppering the wreckage. Hermione saw some she recognized: the obnoxiously bright book on fertility. One of the books on warding.
The library book?
Hermione was surprised to see that he’d had it this whole time. The Secret Language of Flowers by Beverly Thompson. It sat on top of a precarious pile of books that had been tossed into a corner… including The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
And Tom wept.
Hermione felt like crying herself at the sight, at the sound. It was the irrevocable crying of someone who was not only sad or heartbroken, but grieving.
Because this is when he thought I was dead. Before he returned the book, before he found the ring…
Tom was on the floor, just one more of many shattered things there. He was curled on his side on the broken glass and splintered wood. Hermione couldn’t see his face very well, because he had his arm over it, sobbing into his sleeve.
It was horrible to watch and even worse to listen to. Hermione set all of her own overwhelming feelings aside and went deeper.
Finally.
She found what she wanted, and the second it began, all Hermione could think was, wrong.
The forest was infinitely darker in this version of events, both literally and metaphorically. There was a sheen to this memory, like a film blurring the edges and making everything a bit out of focused. Damaged, Hermione thought. A classic sign of a recollection that was damaged.
Tom and Hermione sat under a bleak sky. The moon was smaller, a mere pinprick of light, and the stars were absent. The fire was black.
And that was what tipped Hermione off immediately that nothing in this memory was going to be accurate. Because the fire had turned red after his ritual was over, but here it was still black. Wrong.
“So… What’s your name?”
The Hermione of the memory turned to him… but her smile looked viscous.
Then the black fire was everywhere.
There was a blast of magic coming from the woods, and violent winds whipped around them.
Wrong, Hermione thought. That’s wrong.
Another spell, and this one was aimed at Tom. He struck back, and when the two spells collided, it did not create the golden dome as Hermione knew it had, but more fire, more cursed winds.
When Harry appeared, it wasn’t Harry. It was barely even human.
Tom’s mind had contorted him into some tall, dark, nightmarish entity; his green eyes glowed brighter than the diminished moon. His face was paler than Lord Voldemort was now, and as he held his wand, which was connected by magic with Tom’s, he laughed a wicked laugh.
Two other, equally disturbing cloaked figures emerged, and either Tom had never gotten a good look at them or he had twisted them beyond recognition, because they had no discernible human features at all. They more closely resembled dementors than wizards.
One of them joined Harry and laughed as Tom struggled. The other went to Hermione, and…
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
This memory showed Hermione embracing the demonic creature that should have been Draco Malfoy as though rejoicing. Then—in a motion that stunned her—Hermione watched as her memory-self plucked the diadem off the ground and tossed it intentionally into the cursed flames.
Then she started laughing, too.
Tom was on his knees, succumbing to exhaustion, while Hermione and her summoned monsters smiled and cheered.
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Hermione had seen enough. With a fresh wave of determination, she summoned her recollection of this event, and shoved it towards him. This is what happened, she spat as his doomsday version disappeared.
Every time she was certain Voldemort had nothing left, he proved her wrong. He refused her memory, forcing it back with his cold, blunt, and aggressive power.
Just look, you idiot! Hermione thought.
I WON’T BE LIED TO AGAIN!
Hermione wanted to scream, because she already knew that he knew memories couldn’t be fabricated from nothing. It’s not a lie! It’s the truth! For me, this happened just hours ago! Your version isn’t even close anymore.
He didn’t answer, just tried to shove the memory—and Hermione—away again.
JUST LOOK!
It wasn’t easy. Forcing his furious mind to watch was like wrangling a fucking crazed python into submission. And while he never stopped fighting her, Hermione managed to subdue him enough to allow her story to take root and come to life, very much against Voldemort’s will.
He stopped fighting once it came into focus.
Because right from the beginning, it was obvious that Hermione’s memory was much clearer. There was no sheen or distortion, here. The moon was huge, the stars were bright and sharp. The fire was red.
“So… What’s your name?”
In Hermione’s version of events, her smile was happy. Real.
Then it all unfolded the way Hermione recalled it.
When Harry emerged, he was formidable, but clearly Harry. Ron and Draco were not his demonic allies, but two more young, idiot men on a rescue mission she had no longer wanted.
And Voldemort watched.
He saw not only the attack from her perspective, but because it was her memory, he got to see what happened afterwards, too.
Harry. Ron. The shocking addition of Draco Malfoy as he declared he would leave the others if he had to, in order to save her.
The Time-Turner.
Voldemort saw everything. Hermione’s blubbering confession of love as she begged Harry to spare him; Harry, willing to let him live.
Ron…
It was strange indeed, watching herself run, without hesitation, to stop a mysteriously bright killing curse from hitting Tom. This part of the memory was a bit blurred; Hermione could only assume it was because she hadn’t been able to fully process what was happening then, either.
Tom was unconscious and she threw herself at him, kissing him, one last time.
It wasn’t any clearer in the memory if he had really woken up or not. She wondered if he had, or if he’d gotten burned by the cursed fire, first.
The memory faded.
It was the loudest silence Hermione had ever experienced. There was no more struggling, no more chaos. It was just their minds in a vacant, neutral space—both their thoughts within the confines of their own mental barriers. It was alarmingly serene it was in the aftermath of such a mental war.
…I did, Voldemort eventually said, his voice a whisper. I did wake up… before the fire got to me.
Hermione let out a strange laugh. Good, she thought. That was the goal.
Another tender moment of silence. Hermione knew that now was her moment.
It was the real reason she’d attacked his mind in the first place. Yes, she’d wanted to know, first… but knowing was not the ultimate goal.
Lord Voldemort, here and now, was indestructible. He was the Master of Death, he had several horcruxes, he had time-sand in his blood. Nothing could kill him. Nothing could even hurt him.
Except her.
Hermione could do it. She had already exhausted him; she could drag Voldemort into the same black, icy abyss she had been trained to bury herself in, if she wanted. It was the closest thing to dying Voldemort could ever be.
And this was her only chance to do it.
Go on, then.
Hermione was surprised at how unbothered he sounded. For as much fighting spirit as he’d had in the beginning of their war, for as scared as he had felt earlier, he now sounded resigned. Tired.
Do it. I won’t try to stop you… I’ll go willingly.
Hermione was sure her physical body was crying. Why?
Because I’ll be with you.
Her heart had never felt so heavy. Hermione was shocked when he laughed. What? she asked.
You make me wait fifty years… I spent decades chasing your ghost, trying to lure you out of the shadows, mad with grief and misplaced anger… and when you finally come back to me, you don’t even kiss me before you try and kill me… again.
He let out another soft laugh. Figures, he added, then fell silent.
Hermione was torn between laughing herself and weeping. She knew it was the right thing to do. Lord Voldemort was too powerful, too evil, too awful. She should make things right—or better, at least—in this timeline that she’d destroyed by taking him out. She should. She should.
Except that didn’t sound like Lord Voldemort, Master of Death and Lord of Time; that sounded like Tom.
It was Tom’s laugh in her mind now and Tom’s sobs in that little cabin that were fresh in her mind. Tom’s grief that she had caused. Because she had caused everything.
She knew she should take him down… but she didn’t.
Hermione pulled back. A heartbeat later and she was back in her body, back in his throne room, staring into the shining red eyes of Lord Voldemort.
Chapter 75: Throne
Chapter Text
He was crying.
Not sobbing the way he had been in the cabin, so many years ago, but crying nonetheless. Lord Voldemort’s tears were quiet as they welled in the corners of his eyes, barely gathering large enough to tip over and trickle down his face in a thin, glistening stream.
Which was not at all how Hermione was crying. Her tears were great enough that the impossible image of the Dark Lord displaying an emotion other than rage was soon blurred. She blinked them away, though of course they still came.
Voldemort didn’t move. Hermione tried to, but her muscles weren’t cooperating. Her whole body felt like it too had endured the storm of his mind. She was trembling, cold, and exhausted—both physically and magically. She lowered her wand the slightest bit, lifting the walnut from his temple and letting her fingers brush his cheek. When she made contact with the saltline of his tears, she shuddered.
He did, too—but other than that involuntary reaction, Voldemort still did not move. He only stared at Hermione, a mystified look on his face, like he had just awoken from a dream.
As if it had a life of its own, Hermione’s right hand drifted down to Voldemort’s chest. She dragged the tip of her wand over his shirt, and cast a spell without thinking it through. It was simple magic, a spell meant to split fabric, and it was weak—but even that had her body buzzing twice as badly from exhaustion.
Voldemort didn’t stop her. He still hadn’t lifted his eyes from hers, that awed, soft expression on his face, but Hermione looked away.
His scar.
It was a mesmerizing sight. The handprint scar that Hermione had left on his chest, over his heart, was no longer the black, unsightly thing it was when she had first given it to him. It was now entirely gold, a pale, almost translucent shade. It shone when his chest moved, glinting with each inhale. Hermione might have pressed her hand to it, just to see how perfectly it fit, if she weren't still holding her wand.
Finally, moving slowly and cautiously, Voldemort shifted. He wrapped his arms around her waist, and in a motion that made her think of a child, pulled her to him, closing his eyes and resting his head against her chest. When it became clear that she was not going to push him off or tell him to let her go, he held on viciously tight.
Hermione tried not to cry harder. With her free hand, she carded her trembling fingers in his hair, feeling every bit like she was soothing a deadly, wounded beast.
“I didn’t leave you,” she whispered, and her voice broke twice with the one sentence alone. She swallowed hard and tried again. “I didn’t abandon you. I… I died for you. I loved you.”
Tom’s arms went rigid around her. He was silent for a long time. Just as she was certain he was not going to respond, he said:
“Past tense?”
An awful sob choked its way out of her throat, but other than that, Hermione didn’t have an answer.
Past tense?
Her tears came faster. She was overwhelmed with everything she had just seen, with everything that had happened in what felt like less than a day to her. She couldn’t think straight. She wanted to curse him and coddle him and the longer she stayed there, her hand frozen in his hair, straddling him on his throne, the more confused she became.
“I understand.”
Voldemort’s voice was soft, low, and infinitely calmer than Hermione’s had been. He lifted his head from her chest, loosening his hold on her, but he kept his face lowered.
He grabbed hold of her left wrist—gently—and held it with both his hands. Her scar was an ugly, jagged thing. “I understand everything you’re feeling,” he continued in that same calm tone. He started to trace the outline of her scar with his thumb. “It’s possible to mourn someone, to hate someone, and to love someone, fiercely… so fiercely it makes you want to die... You can feel all those things, to the point that you are drowning in them, at the same time.”
Still holding her wrist, he looked at her. Tears were no longer welling in his eyes, but the stains on his cheeks were there: proof that he had shed them. Proof that, despite everything he had become, he could still be hurt.
Lord Voldemort was still just a man.
“Fifty years has taught me that,” he said. “I’ve had a very long time to learn and accept that the human heart is both intricate and yet so, so simple… So here is my advice to you, after decades of suffering. Don’t waste your energy trying to control it. Let yourself feel… everything.”
He pulled her wrist to his lips, keeping his eyes on hers. “Mourn me,” he said. Then, after placing a chaste kiss to her scar, “Hate me.”
He kissed her forearm, the crook of her elbow, her shoulder. With his other hand he curled his fingers behind her neck. Hermione shook so hard at his touch—his cold fingers, the amplified feel of his skin against hers—that she feared she might faint. That well of magic that had emanated from him before was back, dark and more seductive than ever.
“Love me,” he breathed, tilting his chin up, leaning in.
Close. His lips were so close.
Hermione had no idea what to say or how to feel. There were fifty years and a single breath of air between them. Who was he, now?
He was Lord Voldemort. He was Tom.
She did mourn him. She did hate him.
She did love him.
His lips brushed hers, soft as a whispered sin. Hermione closed her eyes, and she was taken back to their first kiss—near-kiss, it was a near kiss—in the rose garden. She had pushed him away, then. She had cursed his heart and fled from Malfoy Manor at the stroke of midnight, the sound of the clock’s chimes chasing her into the snow.
She didn’t push him away, now.
He didn’t force her. Voldemort stayed exactly as he was, his lips barely grazing hers, his breath soft. When she inhaled that familiar scent of sandalwood, she thought, Tom.
She kissed him.
Hermione closed the space between her mouth and his. When their lips touched, so lightly, it felt like a hundred butterflies were fighting for freedom within the confines of her ribcage. A wave of heat rolled through her, and when Tom—
Voldemort.
—parted his lips, his tongue seeking hers out, that heat burned hotter.
Both her hands went to his face, kissing him deeper. He moaned in a low, satisfied way when she did, and though she knew her tears must have been dripping onto his face, he didn’t seem to notice nor care. His hand slid down her neck, onto her chest, just as she had done to him, earlier…
Except Hermione didn’t have a shirt on underneath the cloak. His fingers danced over her collarbone before trailing to one side.
It was the barest touch. Tom’s fingertips grazed the underside of her breast like he was scared to do it, and he retracted just as quickly. The sensation, though fleeting, was enough to make Hermione break their kiss in a gasp.
Tom let his hands fall to her thighs, though that was hardly any better. Being magically exhausted made every touch exponentially more charged, and already her heart was pounding, her mind spiraling.
“There was never anyone else,” Tom confessed, sounding as though it both pained and liberated him. He kissed her jaw, her neck.
“I hated anyone who tried to be close to me.”
He ran his tongue along her throat before kissing her there again, sucking at her skin, growing ever more aggressive.
“I hated them for not being you…”
He looked at her. His eyes were a dark, smoldering red.
“All I ever wanted… All I want… is you.”
There was a beat of silence. The light from the stained glass cast him in a cascade of gold and blue, colors brighter than the sky.
“Only you,” he repeated.
Their next kiss was everything.
Tom’s tongue was no longer gentle and cautious as it had been before; he ravaged her, kissing her hungrily, desperately. His hands were on her face and then her stomach and then settling on her waist; hers were in his hair, her wand still clutched in her palm, where she gripped him so tightly it was like she was trying to hurt him, and maybe she was. She bit his lower lip roughly, but he only moaned and pulled her hips closer to him, demanding more.
She barely understood how her body was reacting. Hermione felt like she was watching someone else move with her limbs, kiss with her lips, bite with her teeth.
She hated him. She loved him.
She was so angry and she was so sorry.
“Hermione…”
Tom’s head tilted back and he moaned, and it took Hermione a moment to realize what she’d been doing. While she’d been kissing his neck, wildly, she’d been grinding against him, and now she realized that her knees burned and that she could feel him there, between her legs, and—
“I—”
She didn’t know what he was going to say. Hermione’s hand went to his upper thigh before he could finish, and Tom’s words were cut off as he inhaled sharply. He grabbed her wrist, stopping her from reaching higher.
They locked eyes. Tom was breathing hard, visibly in anguish. He looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn’t.
Hermione’s heartbeat was loud in her ears. It drowned almost everything out; the world existed of only her thundering pulse and Tom’s labored breathing.
Just a few days ago, they had been just like this, in this same position. In the cabin, on that little couch.
It was just a few days ago.
She kissed him again. His lips, his mouth—aside from that chill that seemed to cling to his skin, it was all the same.
He didn’t let go of her wrist, but when she reached for him again, he allowed it. He was half-hard beneath his robes, which Hermione found were damp, which she then realized was from her. When she stroked him through the fabric he made a pitiful sound, but Hermione never stopped kissing him, and she didn’t stop touching him, either. He grew harder, his cock stiffening beneath her fingers as she ran them along his length.
Her grinding, her teasing strokes, her lips on his—he couldn’t stand any of it for long. Tom groaned as though he’d been defeated when he released her wrist and tore his mouth from hers. He undid his belt buckle with some combination of his fumbling fingers and magic, Hermione could only assume, until his cock was free, swollen and hard, a pearlescent droplet already gathered at its tip.
She ground against him again. Tom’s head fell onto her chest, and he was no doubt watching, staring between her legs as she slid her wet seam against his cock. His breathing grew faster.
Then he grabbed her hips again, holding her still. One of his thumbs went to her outer lips, a questioning caress, like he was making sure this was real.
“Tell me you want this.”
He didn’t seem to be able to meet her eyes again. Tom kept his head down, and now his thumb was moving, drifting closer to her clit, but not yet daring.
“I need… I need to hear it. Hermione.”
His hand froze. His head remained bowed, though his breathing was still ragged and quick.
Hermione grabbed his chin, her wand in her hand, pressing the walnut into his cheek when she forced him to look up. She closed her eyes and kissed him, viciously, all passion and rage and yes, she mourned him, she mourned him so deeply, she wanted Tom.
Tom, Tom, Tom.
He made another anguished, defeated sound in her mouth. Then he was lifting her hips, and she felt him, positioned right where she wanted him, needed him, ached for him.
He pulled her down. Tom’s moan was too much to be contained by her kiss any longer—he ripped his lips away again, his voice breaking as he settled her fully on his cock. Her muscles tensed; he let out a far more guttural cry.
Hermione’s knees were stinging in pain and her body shivered and all she could think was, he sounds the same.
She tried to lift her hips, but found that she could barely do it. Her legs were too weak and she was shaking too badly. Tom seemed to understand—he did it for her, picking her up slowly before bringing her back down again, driving himself as deep as he could. His broken moan turned into a sigh when he was once more fully inside her.
He seemed determined to keep her there. Tom’s fingers dug into her arse as he pinned her in place on his cock. When she failed to push herself up again, needing to move, she settled for shifting her hips instead, seeking pressure. Tom only held her harder.
“Wait,” he managed to say, pleading. His pale face was flushing; Hermione could see it even through the glow from the stained glass. He kissed her jawline, then the corner of her mouth.
“Wait.”
He released his death grip on her hips to take both her wrists, prying them from his face and hair. He held them delicately as he moved them, putting them behind her back, beneath the softness of his heavy cloak.
Hermione’s first reaction was to yank them back, especially when she felt his fingers graze her wand as though he might try and take it—but he didn’t. Tom let her keep ahold of it, and his intention as to why he’d done that became clear. Moving her arms behind her back caused her to arch her spine and the cloak to shift back, revealing more of her chest. Tom kissed the hollow of her throat, then the space between her breasts. He moved slowly. Reverently.
Worshipping her.
He kissed the underside of her breast, right where he had touched before. His lips parted over her nipple, his tongue gently lapping, and Hermione made a high, keening sound. The magical exhaustion, the physical exhaustion—she was a live, frayed wire, sparking, burning.
Tom’s right hand slid around her waist, but he kept ahold of her wrists with his left. He splayed his fingers on her stomach, taking his time as he slowly dragged them down, down…
When he finally touched her clit, featherlight and fleeting, Hermione felt a rush, a lightning bolt of pleasure. It was so much; it wasn’t nearly enough.
She tried to push herself up, and again she was unable to, and so she rocked into him harder. Her knees hurt, and when she bothered to look she saw that she had been scraping them raw on his seat. She was getting blood all over his pretty throne.
Tom’s thumb ghosted over her clit, another quick and soft touch. “Yes,” he sighed between torturous kisses on her breasts. He touched her again; Hermione whimpered and squirmed on top of him. “Beautiful… So beautiful…”
He started to rub her in consistent, light circles. Hermione moaned and canted and God, with the way he was kissing her chest, murmuring praises…
Praises that turned into a seamless, spitting hiss.
Tom’s lips moved against her skin as he slipped into that strange and ancient language. The sultry words made her skin prickle; his voice was as hypnotic as his magic, and though she had no idea what he was saying, she—
“…sesh-uss-ah.”
—except that word, she did know.
Just as Hermione recognized it, she felt the sensation of her wand warming in her hand, accompanied by what she thought was a flash of green. It was immediately followed by a much colder, heavier sensation.
On her forearm. Her left forearm.
Her mind lurched chaotically as she tried to process what had just happened—her wand, but he had his hand on it, too; behind her back, holding it along with her and aiming it at her forearm, hissing—a spell, the last word—
Mine—
But then he was pressing against her clit again, moving faster, and her focus evaporated.
“You were right,” Tom said, and he lifted his lips from her chest, bringing them to her ear. He worked her harder; she was going to come, she was going to scream.
His grip on her hand, where they both had their fingers around her wand, tightened like a vice.
“That was your only chance.”
Hermione's arm was wrenched forward and there was a sickening snap.
The sound was still loud in her ears when Voldemort’s hands were back on her waist, lifting her and slamming her down on his cock; Hermione’s body betrayed her as she canted against him, onto him, with him. She scrambled for something to anchor herself as he raised her up again, only to bring her back down, faster, harder, fucking her deeper. She grabbed hold of the back of his throne, one hand finding purchase on a massive emerald embedded into the dark metal.
In her other hand, her walnut wand was in two pieces, held together by only a thin red cord, vibrant and glistening like flesh. Her mudblood scar was still glowing with the aftereffects of magic.
No—no—
“Yes… Come for me, darling…”
The horror was dawning, but there was no help for it: she was already too close. When Voldemort next brought her down onto his cock, he once more brushed her clit with his thumb, pushing her over the edge.
She would have cried out, if she could have. Hermione’s voice broke and died as she rutted against him, her aching body singing in the storm of pleasure that burst through her, as violent as it was blissful. Her orgasm was devastating in every way; her body convulsed, out of her control. She dropped her broken wand.
Voldemort let out a triumphant sound when it hit the ground. She was still falling apart, clenching madly around his cock, when he drove into her again.
He kissed her when he came.
His tongue was in her mouth and his cock was pulsating inside her, an echo of her orgasm that had yet to fade as pleasure continued to ripple through her. He moaned onto her lips; she could taste his supreme satisfaction, his joy, his victory. He throbbed with his release, a heat that bloomed inside of her—the only part of him that wasn’t tragically cold. He held her hips tight against him, trapping her there as he buried himself, his depraved moan reverberating in his throat.
And he kissed her.
Hermione’s ears were ringing with an odd, high-pitched sound. She was shaking uncontrollably on top of him—around him. He grunted in pure rapture with every twitch.
When his groans finally abated, she tried to pull her lips from his. Voldemort not only allowed her to break away, but helped her. He took her face in both his hands and held it. He looked serene as he stared into her eyes, that same wonder-filled expression as though he’d just woken from a long dream.
She thought to say something, anything, yet couldn’t. She was crying again, but her voice had long since abandoned her.
Voldemort brushed the tears from her cheeks in a loving gesture, then grabbed her wrist and once more brought it to his lips.
He kissed her scar, far more provocatively than before. He ran his tongue along the script like he could taste the curse he’d placed there.
“My Queen,” he murmured, his red eyes fixed on hers.
And maybe he sensed that she was about to finally react—maybe he’d felt the flare of defiance, about to bloom into rage and fire—because all at once, her magical exhaustion became exponentially worse. The ringing in her ears grew much louder, and her vision blurred at the edges.
Everywhere Voldemort’s body touched hers, from his fingers on her wrist to his cock inside of her, where he was still pulsing, that heat blooming—it all felt so much more; too much, too much—
Voldemort was saying something, but Hermione couldn’t make out his words. The ringing had grown too loud and her vision continued to warp and darken.
He lifted his other hand, and there, dancing along his pale fingers, was a flame.
Fire. Her fire.
He smiled and laughed and when he breathed a puff of air over his palm, the flames went out, and Hermione’s world went dark with it.
Chapter 76: Snow Falling
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
It was snowing.
Hermione gazed in wonder out the window, where snow fell in droves from a dark sky. The view was breathtaking, mesmerizing. Is there anything more magical than snowfall at night?
Her fingers ghosted over the glass. A soft ring of magic rippled from her touch, momentarily making the wintry landscape even softer around the edges. She lifted her hand, and the scenery cleared.
She liked to think he could sense it, when she did that. Hermione tapped the glass again. Can you feel me? she wondered. I miss you. She smiled and turned away from the window.
The tower was a mess.
Well, about as messy as the house-elves would ever allow it to get. There was an empty cup on a side table, two throw pillows were on the floor, and no less than four books were strewn about, freed from their shelves. She had left one of them wide open, its spine up, on the armrest of her favorite chair. The horror.
Hermione scooped that poor book up. She didn’t feel too guilty about its treatment, truth be told. It had already been thoroughly abused, after all, long before it had been given to her. Twice.
Hogwarts, a History.
And this version was the very best version in the world, because it had belonged to Tom.
Tom, Tom, Tom.
She admired the page she’d left it open on: the chapter that explained certain Hogwarts traditions and when they had started. This section was about the boat ride across the Great Lake for first-year students. Tom had drawn a little rendition of the looming castle in the top right margin and a dozen little boats at the bottom, rocking gently on inky waves, heading towards it. Stars twinkled all around the text.
She wasn’t sure why she always came back to this page, but she did. It wasn’t the most interesting section by a long shot, and while lovely, Tom had much more impressive drawings in other chapters. Yet Hermione returned—almost every day, it felt like—to the boats.
Shrugging, she closed the book and placed it back on the shelf. She had other things she should be reading. More useful things. Tom had been kind enough to bring her more books on the topic than were probably necessary, and she’d yet to finish a single one. I had better read them, she thought. I’d hate to seem ungrateful!
She grabbed one of those far more appropriate titles, and she tried to read it, she did—but she couldn’t focus. The boats were still in her mind, damned things, and she couldn’t seem to ignore the ever-present sound of the ticking clock, a constant reminder that she was waiting. Always waiting.
Where is he?
Hermione looked up, and instantly she felt foolish. It was only eight o’clock. It was early. He said he’d come as soon as he could, which would probably not be until much later, considering the day. He couldn’t simply not be present on this most celebrated of occasions; he was the Dark Lord. He had an empire to run. He couldn’t just be here, spending all his time with her.
But she missed him.
Hermione put her much-more-important book aside, splayed open and in exactly the place that Hogwarts, a History had been in before. The house-elves would chastise her about that later, probably.
Probably not. They are always so kind to me. So—
Afraid—
Hermione shook her head. Afraid, what a strange thought. They weren’t afraid of her! They had no reason to be, not anymore. She’d learned her lesson.
Well, if I can’t read, I should do something useful while I wait.
Abandoning the books altogether, Hermione made her way to the vanity instead. What was once the Gryffindor common room was now all hers, her personal living quarters. The whole tower had all been designed to suit her every need. Her bathroom was nicer than the prefect’s. Her bedroom, which now spanned the entire girls’ dorm, was massive, ornate, and fit for a Queen.
She had everything she could ever want.
Everything.
Hermione sat at the vanity and smiled as her eyes settled on a familiar crystal bottle. A recent acquisition: a Christmas gift from Tom.
He is so good to me.
It was the exact same perfume that she had bought so many years ago, the one that was laced with amortentia and smelled, to her, like parchment and mint and ink and…
She frowned. Every time she picked it up, recalling when he’d given it to her, it was like her mind itched. There was something odd about how he had set her down in front of the vanity that day, watching her in the mirror as she put it on like he was looking for the truth of it on her face, to know that it smelled like him, that she loved him, wanted him, despite everything—
Despite?
Hermione laughed. There was no despite. Of course she loved him. And it hadn’t been odd, the way he’d watched her fill the air with the smell of amortentia before making sure she drank and ate—as he always did. There was nothing odd about it at all. He was being good to her. Too good.
Tom, Tom, Tom.
Picking up the delicate glass bottle, Hermione spritzed some on her wrists and neck. The smell really was intoxicating; it made her miss him more. She hoped he would be back soon. But perhaps it was better that he wouldn’t be. It gave her some time to address her hair.
Not horrible, Hermione thought as she shook out her curls, but not great, either. She picked up a wide-toothed comb and started the painstaking process of making it more presentable. It made him happy, when she did that. He liked her hair. He’d admitted that he liked her curls much more than when her hair had been straight, and he would happily detangle it everyday himself, if he could.
But of course he couldn’t. Because he was busy.
“None of that,” Hermione said, pointing at her reflection accusingly. “No doom and gloom. Be happy.”
“You have every reason in the world to be happy,” her reflection responded.
“Yes. I am lucky,” Hermione said, tugging her comb through some tangled ends.
“The luckiest,” agreed the reflection.
She laughed, and her reflection laughed with her. It was a bit of a routine she’d developed. Daily affirmations with myself. How silly.
A small pop almost made Hermione drop her comb. “Oh,” she said, looking down. “Hello there.”
The old house-elf bowed, shaking slightly, not looking her in the eye. He carried a tray with some food and water. The cup rattled against the silver.
Well, this one does have good reason to be frightened, Hermione allowed. She hadn’t seen this particular elf in over a month. And that’s my fault.
Tom had told her not to try anything with them. He had warned her; he’d told her exactly what would happen.
And yet she, hard-headed and so, so stupid, had pushed her luck, anyway. She’d decided to test the waters —It would be wonderful to leave the tower just to go to the library, I’m certain he wouldn’t mind— when she knew very well that he would mind, oh, would he.
She couldn’t leave the tower, not as she was. It was too dangerous. She was too fragile.
She shouldn’t have even tried.
The poor elf that bowed before her, the one she’d tried to manipulate, must have really considered taking her, too. When she’d made that sly suggestion, he’d started slamming his head so hard into the wall that he’d cracked his skull on the second strike. He would have killed himself if Tom hadn’t come and stopped it. Which he hadn’t needed to do at all, because he’d told her! He’d told her that’s what would happen!
Hermione shivered at the recollection. The elf looked like he was reliving that day, too, poor creature.
“Mistress is needing to drink,” he said, still not looking up. “And to be eating s-something.”
“Yes, of course.” Hermione accepted the cup of tea first, which smelled overpoweringly of mint. The elf did look at her, then—they always watched carefully when she was drinking or eating anything. Commanded to, naturally. They wouldn’t have to be so obnoxious about it, if…
Well, that’s my fault, too.
Hermione sipped her tea and dutifully ate some of the fruit that had been laid out for her. Every color of the rainbow was there, from blueberries to golden peaches to ruby red pomegranate seeds. The house-elf-who-shall-not-be-named watched her until she had finished at least half the spread and was done with her tea.
“Is mistress wanting more?” he asked when she set her cup down and wiped her hands.
“No. I’m perfectly fine. Thank you very much.”
What’s your name?
She didn’t ask. She wasn’t allowed to know.
The elf bowed, then disappeared. Hermione sighed and turned back to her reflection.
“It’s a shame they never stick around,” she said. “It’d be nice to have someone besides myself to talk to every now and again.”
Not that she could blame them. These elves, the old ones that cared for her, had chosen to serve Lord Voldemort after he took the school, to live… Which was more than could be said for the ones who hadn’t pledged their loyalty to him.
He’d made those executions public, just to make a point. He’d hoped that she, Hermione, would hear about it—one of the many terrible things he’d done in an attempt to draw her out…
But she never came, because she wasn’t there.
His poor heart, Hermione thought, wondering not for the first time how devastated Tom must have been every time he tried to lure her out, just to fail, again and again and again. My poor, tragic love.
Tom, Tom, Tom.
“You often do have someone else to talk to,” her reflection pointed out, startling Hermione out of her reverie.
Hermione waved her hand about flippantly. “Oh, you know what I mean. Someone else to talk to when he’s… not here.”
She picked up her comb again, back to work. She had to admit, she was thankful the elves were so diligent about making sure she drank and ate. She always felt loads better once she had something in her stomach. Happier.
Even the task of her bothersome hair didn’t seem so annoying anymore. Hermione smiled and she started to comb a new section.
“Fair,” said her reflection, who, while speaking to her, otherwise copied her movements precisely. “Would you like to tell me a story about him? To pass the time.”
Hermione laughed—this was something of a routine now, too. Story time. “Of course,” she said. “Let’s see… What story shall I tell…”
“How about the day you first arrived here?” the mirror offered. “The first day of the rest of your life.”
Hermione paused. That was a new request. Usually, she reminisced on older memories, from before. Their first encounter at Borgin and Burke’s. The snow covered field by the seaside, filled with sprites. Their time in Albania… after he’d learned she didn’t destroy his ring, of course.
“When I first arrived here,” Hermione repeated. She frowned. Her head throbbed.
“Okay… Well, I was—”
Confused, afraid, broken—
“—asleep, at first,” she said. She worked her fingers through a particularly tough tangle; it hurt her scalp. “And I woke up to… Ha, well.”
She paused as heat rushed to her face. The blush did not manifest on her reflection, who instead looked impatient as it continued to comb. “Hm?” it prodded.
“Well. He was kissing my legs, if you must know. And—er, he said… he said…”
Hermione closed her eyes. In her mind, she could see him: Tom, on his knees, between hers, his lips on her inner thigh as he spoke his first words of welcome…
“I have won,” Hermione recited quietly. “…I am claiming my reward.”
She swallowed hard, too flustered to continue. It was so overwhelming and frustrating to think about, because she had been so—so dramatic!
In hindsight, her behavior those first few weeks really was appalling. So much yelling. So much arguing. So many screams and tears and—
Love me.
—and why, why had she been like that? So mercurial, so barbaric? So ungrateful?
Of course he had done what he’d done. He would have been a fool not to. And once he explained everything, it really did all make perfect sense.
You’re not allowed to die.
And how else could he ensure that? She had already killed herself once, and she had just proven that she might do something similar again, that she could, and Tom, well, he just didn’t want to lose her. That was all.
“He is so good to me,” Hermione sighed, back to combing her hair.
“So good,” said the mirror, nodding.
He was! Everything Tom did was with her best interest at heart. He was protecting her from everyone and everything, saving her from herself… and from others.
Because there were others.
Lord Voldemort though he was—Master of Death, Lord of Time, most powerful sorcerer in the world—he still had enemies. People who could not hurt him in any way, being immortal and invincible, but who would do anything to get their hands on her.
Too many people already knew she existed. There was no doubt in Tom’s mind that rumors of a mysterious, powerful mudblood that he had immediately spirited away had already spread like a virus, carried on whispered lips. And while he had done everything within his power to mitigate the damage after her arrival, nothing was foolproof.
Snape knew she existed. Bellatrix knew, the Snatchers who’d caught her knew, the muggles who’d been in that sector knew. And Fenrir Greyback had known, but, well. That was a moot point now, she supposed.
“Why are you grinning like that?” her reflection asked.
“Oh, just remembering something funny,” Hermione said, but she didn’t elaborate. She didn’t feel like describing how Tom had shown up that day, frightening in his fury, a mutilated Fenrir Greyback being thrown at her feet. Alive.
I brought you a gift.
And at the time, Hermione had thought it was terrifying, the torture he’d subjected him to. Tom broke his wrist repeatedly, healing it and snapping it until Greyback couldn’t even cry anymore.
When he’d finally killed him—at Hermione’s command, because she couldn’t stand to watch a moment longer—Tom had been roiling with toxic, dark magic.
You’re mine, he’d said between violent, claiming kisses. No one touches what’s mine.
And at the time, for some dumb reason, that had all frightened her. But now—gosh, it was kind of funny wasn’t it? He’d just done exactly what he’d always said he’d do.
He was somewhat of a gentleman.
Tom, Tom, Tom.
“So, what happened next?” the mirror asked. “After you woke up, I mean. That first day. And the day after that.”
Hermione pursed her lips. She wondered why it was asking for specifics; usually the mirror was keen to let her babble about whatever she felt like. “Well, er.”
Hermione closed her eyes again. My first day here… and the day after that…
Her brows furrowed as she thought. Her headache was getting worse.
“I don’t… I don’t remember,” she murmured. “I think… I might have been sick.”
“Sick?”
Hermione tried to recall, but it was like trying to make a blurry, old photo come into focus. The details were just… gone.
“I think I was sick,” she repeated, “and then… I slept a lot. Tom took care of me. He always takes care of me. He is so good to me.”
The reflection smiled thinly. “So good,” it said again.
“He is,” Hermione gushed. “I hope he comes back soon.”
“What about after you got better?” the mirror prodded. “What happened then?”
Strange, Hermione thought. Her reflection was being awfully curious for details.
“After I got better, I… Hm.”
Memories flickered in and out of Hermione’s mind like the flashes of an old camera: there one moment, gone just as quickly.
Tom, holding her as she cried, screamed —
Hermione slamming her fists on the wall; Tom roaring as he pinned her to it; her nails digging into his back—
Tom’s wand at her scar, a strange, dazzling magic in the air, but he looked devastated; something wasn’t right—It’s not working—
Tom on his knees, begging, breaking —
Please, Hermione, please—
Hermione blinked, feeling dazed. The memories slipped through her fingers like sand.
“I don’t remember,” she said tonelessly. A tear was sliding down her face. Hers, not her reflection’s. How peculiar! Hermione laughed and wiped it away.
“Goodness, these hormones,” she said, laughing. “They are truly the worst.”
Her reflection looked sympathetic. “It’s okay, dear,” it said. “For the record, I think you’re handling yourself very well, all things considered.”
“All things considered?” Hermione scoffed. “All things considered, I should be better. I have everything I could ever need, I have house-elves constantly tending to me, I have a lavish home, the best protection in the world… Tom… and I am still a blubbering mess!”
She laughed as a few more tears fell down her cheeks. “A mess,” she said again.
“I think you’re glowing,” said her reflection. “Just because you are lucky doesn’t mean these things aren’t hard. Physically, mentally. Emotionally. Especially since… well. You know.”
Her reflection smiled knowingly. “If his enemies would have wanted you before to use you as leverage, thinking you were simply some escaped muggle-born girl he shamelessly wanted, I imagine they’d be foaming at the mouth to capture you, now.”
Hermione laughed—a much more nervous, uncomfortable sound than before. “Yes, I… I suppose they might be.”
A lie. She knew they would be. Tom would burn his entire empire to the ground if someone dared to take her from him. If he knew she was in danger, he’d probably do…
Anything.
Anything to get her back.
Of course, it was one thing to hear rumors that some potential, scandalous paramore of the Dark Lord might exist based on what had already happened; it was quite another to confirm it, and much more still to find and capture her. They would have to go to impossible lengths to kidnap Hermione… lengths someone might be willing to attempt if they knew…
Hermione took a deep, steadying breath. I’m fine. I’m safe. We’re safe.
Tom had gone to the greatest of extremes to guard her here, Hermione knew. She turned, unwittingly, to look toward the entrance.
The sword.
There, hanging high above the only entryway that could ever be used by anyone—except the house-elves, of course, who would immediately commit suicide if they even thought about betraying their master—was the sword of Gryffindor. Magic exuded from it, a dark, powerful aura that made Hermione’s skin crawl whenever she focused on it. The way it was situated above the door, it looked like it might fall and impale anyone who dared to enter that wasn’t Tom. And maybe it would. It was brimming with curses, all aimed at protecting her.
Which was extraordinary, because Tom had already put so many runic enchantments on the whole tower that Hermione was fairly certain that no one could even see it from the outside anymore. And that was not even taking into consideration what other wards, hexes, and spells he’d put in place around her new home.
She was untouchable.
Still, he’d put his sword here, too. His horcrux, his soul. Hermione wouldn’t have been surprised if it was the most powerful object in the world, aside from the Elder Wand. Beautiful, too. It looked exactly as Hermione remembered it: Goblin-wrought and gorgeous, with a long, wide, steel blade and golden handle. There was just one glaring difference.
Where there had once been a giant ruby embedded in the gold, there was now… an eye.
Closed, currently.
Usually.
“How did he react?” the mirror asked, causing Hermione to return her attention to it. “When he found out.”
Hermione blinked slowly, confused. “Found out what?”
“That you were pregnant, of course.”
…Pregnant?
Hermione’s ears buzzed and her head pounded and she felt so off. Why did it always shock her to hear that word out loud? She knew she was pregnant; of course she knew.
It was like she kept forgetting.
The muscles in her neck twitched. Hermione’s hand flew there as she hissed in pain. “Ow,” she hissed, rubbing where it hurt. “Damn spasms.”
A pop sounded behind her at once. A different elf, this time. “Is mistress needing anything?” she asked.
“No… no. Thank you.”
The elf looked like she might argue with her when Hermione continued to rub her neck. “You can go,” she said reassuringly. “I’m just fine.”
The elf, looking reluctant, bowed and vanished.
“You didn’t answer my question,” said the mirror. “How did he react?”
Hermione lowered the comb. Her temples ached and her ears rang and rang. “I… don’t remember.”
She stared at the mirror, where her own face looked back at her with none of the trepidation she felt. Hermione was on the precipice of something terrible and great. “…What don’t I remember?” she asked in a whisper.
There was a familiar, subtle shift in the air. All of Hermione’s strange, bubbling concerns instantly vanished. Breathless, she got to her feet, and by the time she had turned around, he was there.
“Tom.”
She ran to him.
His appearance was like the sun bursting through the clouds on a dark, stormy day—especially now. He was dressed like a King, no doubt for the celebrations of the day, in robes of emerald green detailed with silver stitching. His eyes were more brilliant than rubies as they found hers.
Every thought, worry, and fear ceased to exist. There was only Tom, his beauty, his power, his familiar scent, him.
Tom, Tom, Tom.
He welcomed her embrace and held her to his chest. He felt colder than usual, like he’d been outside in that falling snow, but Hermione didn’t mind. She buried her face into his chest. She was so happy she could cry.
“You’re here,” she said, clutching him tighter. “I didn’t think you’d be here for hours.”
He stroked her hair as he held her. “I told you I would come before midnight,” he said.
“You said you would if you could. I didn’t think I would get so lucky; I thought you’d be busy…”
Her eyes filled with tears. He was here, now, before the day was over. She pulled away so she could look into his eyes.
“Happy birthday,” she said, then pushed herself up on her tip-toes. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled, tilting her chin back…
She felt him go rigid, not reciprocating. Her body started to shake. “Please,” she whispered, fighting back those threatening tears. “P-please, Tom.”
He hesitated for a moment longer, but then Hermione saw his resolve crumble. He pulled her face to his. When their lips touched, it was like choirs of angels were singing in her heart. I love him, she thought as she kissed him harder. I love him, I love him, I love him.
Her tongue pressed at the seam of his lips. He denied her again, for the most maddening second, before he gave in to that, too. Hermione didn’t have a thought in her head at all besides Tom, Tom, Tom.
She could kiss him forever.
It really was maddening, how hesitant he was lately. He’s just being cautious, she told herself as she nonetheless continued to kiss him as deeply as he would allow. He’s just being careful.
He is so good to me.
But he was being less cautious, now. Tom’s fingers curled in her hair and his thumb traced her jawline. Feeling emboldened, Hermione let her arms fall to his waist, her hands resting on his hips, sliding lower…
He stopped her. He grabbed her wrists and pulled away, but before she could complain, he kissed her forehead. He then nuzzled her neck, making her giggle. “You’re wearing your perfume,” he said, smiling.
“Yes.” Of course she was. Tom liked it, so she wore it everyday.
“Have you eaten recently?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And you’ve been drinking plenty?”
“Of course.”
He looked skeptical. “I have been,” she swore. “I promise. I would never lie to you.”
His expression turned so blank and serious that Hermione couldn’t help but laugh. “All right, I deserve that look. But I did! Just before you came, I—oh, fine. Go ahead, then.”
Tom grinned. He snapped, and a house-elf appeared. “Mint tea?” he asked, looking at her.
“That would be lovely.”
The elf bowed and vanished without further instruction. Tom looked from her to the vanity to the cushy armchair, where they settled on the book she’d left there. “You’ve been reading,” he said, a hopeful glint in his eyes.
Hermione flushed. “Not much,” she admitted. “I tried, really, but I just… when you’re not here, I…”
Oh, goodness. She was starting to cry again. Tom gathered her into another hug before she was fully bawling and making a fool of herself. “I just miss you so much,” she mumbled. “And I c-can’t focus. I’m sorry, I—”
“Shhh,” Tom interrupted. He rubbed soothing circles on her back. “You have nothing to apologize for. It’s fine. Everything is fine.”
“I’m sorry,” Hermione said again anyway. “I’m such a mess.”
“You’re not a mess.”
Hermione disagreed with him, but she didn’t want to contradict him. She was always on the verge of crying these days. It must have been terrible for him to deal with.
Another soft pop. The house-elf was back with Hermione’s tea, but it was Tom who accepted it. He took the cup with both hands and, checking first that it was not too hot, lifted it directly to Hermione’s lips. “Drink,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”
Hermione didn’t hesitate. She let him tilt the cup up, and she drank until he seemed satisfied. When he took it away, he was, as always, right. She did feel better.
“Thank you,” Tom said. He visibly relaxed, seeing her drink something. Because he worries about me, because he is taking care of me.
He is so good to me.
“I got you something.”
Hermione watched, surprised, as he reached into his inner pocket. “You got me something?” she asked. “But it’s your birthday!”
“I know. And all I want is to give you… this.”
Hermione gasped at what he revealed. Held between two fingers, so casually, was…
“My ring?”
It was. Hermione’s golden ring, inlaid with a dozen diamonds. It glittered, as lustrous as she recalled. “How…?”
“I’ve had it,” Tom admitted. “It was at the Ministry, confiscated, a long time ago… I’ve just been waiting to give it back to you.”
He grabbed her left wrist. Hermione’s heart pounded, loud and fast in her ears, as he slid it onto her finger.
Left hand. Ring finger. The ring adjusted on its own to make a perfect fit.
“I would move mine,” he said, his eyes fixed on his own hand—his middle finger, where he wore the Gaunt Ring, the Resurrection Stone, a hallow. “But people would notice… I can’t do anything that would add to any potential speculation about you, that could put you at any more risk. Not as you are now… I can’t. I can’t move it.”
His eyes flashed to hers. The word yet hung between them, an unspoken promise that Hermione could nonetheless feel in her bones.
“Oh,” she said, at a loss for anything else.
Still reeling, Hermione’s focus went to her forearm, where her mudblood scar—that black, hideous thing—had vanished from sight.
He released her. Hermione stood there, unmoving, unable to react. She stared at her ring and the place where she could no longer see her scar and back again, in a state of disbelief.
“You hate it,” Tom eventually said, misinterpreting her silence.
Hermione looked at his face, filled with a familiar, wounded look that would drive her mad if she had to look at it a moment longer. She threw herself at him and kissed him.
Tom didn’t stop her, this time. Aside from another nostalgic moment of seeming surprised, he kissed her back, smiling against her mouth. Hermione felt like her heart was going to burst.
Tom, Tom, Tom. Whatever had she done to deserve him?
“Thank you,” she breathed against his neck, then kissed him there, too. “Thank you.”
“I only returned what belonged to you,” he said, as though he had not committed some grand gesture.
“Yes, but you… here…”
She couldn’t even say it. Hermione looked at the ring on her left hand, that finger, his silent promise loud in her mind, and was suddenly on the brink of devastation. “Unless that doesn’t actually mean anything,” she whispered, afraid of what he might say.
Tom grabbed her hand and brought the ring close to his mouth. “Everything I do means something,” he murmured. He brushed his lips against the diamonds, then kissed her palm. “And you… mean everything.”
Hermione let out a horrible, ugly, deeply unflattering sob. Damn it all, these sodding tears!
But Tom only smiled as she hurriedly swiped them away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Here I am, crying again—after you’ve just given me the kindest gift, when it’s your birthday, and I should be doing s-something for you…”
She took a deep breath, then attempted—ineffectively—to gather herself. “And I… I can think of something I’d… like to do for you,” she said quietly.
“Oh, can you?” Tom said, looking amused.
“Yes. If…”
If you’ll let me.
It was so hard to get the words out. She was scared, terribly scared that he would say no. She had a feeling he would, birthday or not. He was so very cagey lately; he had been, ever since…
Christmas, she realized. For whatever reason, that was when he’d started to keep her at a distance…
“There’s something very simple you could do for me, if you feel so inclined,” Tom said when she failed to finish her sentence. “In fact, I brought it with me, just in case…”
Hermione’s whole world tilted as he pulled something else out from within his robe pocket.
The bag. The mokeskin bag, where she had placed—
Open the bag, Hermione—
No, no, I’ll never, I can’t—
Magic was burning across her skin in a sudden, fierce wave. “No!” she screamed, her body outside of her control, the horror both paralyzing in its vastness yet spurring her to retreat. Hermione took a step back, tripping as she went. Tom dropped the bag and chased after her. He caught her before she fell.
“No, no! No!”
“Hermione, stop!”
All at once, her muscles went limp. The heat that had scoured her body was snuffed out, and she fell against him, exhausted. Her ears rang with a terrible, high-pitched note.
What had she just done?
“I-I’m s-sorry,” she stuttered. “I d-don’t know why…”
Tom only shushed her again. And even though she had just yelled at him, had just exploded at him for no good reason, he cradled her in his arms on the floor. It was a good thing he could control her magic, otherwise she might have… she could have…
Her hand went to her stomach. She couldn’t bear to think of it.
“Don’t apologize,” Tom said. He began to rock her gently, soothing her, like she was a child. “That was my fault… I shouldn’t have asked.”
Hermione cried onto his shoulder. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, her voice breaking. “I c-can’t…”
“You’re fine.” Tom sighed heavily, then brushed a curl out of her eyes. “It’s not forever,” he murmured, seeming as though he were talking to himself.
“Wh… what’s not forever?” Hermione asked. Fear licked up her spine. “What’s not forever, Tom?”
“Hermione. Please.”
Please, Hermione, please—
He pulled her closer to him, forcing her to lean against his chest, and rested his chin on the top of her head. “It’s not forever,” he repeated, and slowly—like he didn’t want to do it, even as he did—he rested his hand on top of hers, over the small swelling of her stomach. Perhaps she was just imagining it, but Hermione swore she felt something flutter within her at the touch.
“Everything will be okay,” he said, and still he sounded like he was not convincing her, but himself. “This is all temporary… You’ll understand. You’ll see. After all…”
He kissed the top of her head. “What’s more powerful than a mother’s love?”
“I can think of something,” Hermione said, shifting so that she could look into his eyes. “My love for—”
He pressed his finger to her lips, silencing her. She frowned but didn’t fight him.
He didn’t want her saying it, or anything close to it, not anymore. Not after he…
That wasn’t a transactional statement… It’s important you know that.
He was just so good at using her own words against her, wasn’t he?
Hermione curled back into his chest. “I’m glad you’re here,” she mumbled.
“Hermione… I can’t stay.”
Panic rushed through her in a violent flash. She sat up, nearly toppling out of his arms. “What do you mean, you can’t stay?” she asked shrilly. “You can’t leave me, not now, not—”
Before she could get too riled up, Hermione’s energy drained much more dramatically than before. Within the span of a heartbeat she had collapsed onto him, where he caught effortlessly and once more pulled her to his chest.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” he said. But Hermione couldn’t respond. Already her vision swam and her ears buzzed with that loud, high-pitched note.
“I have to go… and you’re staying here…”
He kissed her temple. She was too tired to even feel the butterflies at his affection; Tom’s beautiful face blurred until it was nothing but an indiscernible smear of pale skin and red, red eyes.
“Safe and sound…”
Hermione’s eyes fluttered close. She felt him press another kiss to her cheek as he breathed, “Mine.”
It was snowing.
The world around her was dark, the very heart of winter at night. Hermione was laying in a bed of snow, her skin bare, yet she was not cold. Or maybe she was very cold, and that was the problem.
Perhaps I have become numb.
When the snowflakes fell on her, kissing her stomach and thighs, clinging to her lashes, Hermione hardly felt them at all.
Frigid and lifeless, yes, but this world was not without beauty. Peering out from behind a veil of clouds, the moon was huge, shedding its silvery light and making the snow glow with a pearlescent sheen. Is there anything more magical than snowfall at night?
Hermione fanned her arms and legs out on either side of her body, smiling. A snow angel.
Despite how lovely it all was, Hermione felt… sad. She missed something. The sun, she realized, and her smile fell. She missed the sun; its far-reaching fire, its warmth.
She sighed and rolled onto her side. She pushed a bit of snow into a pile, looking for signs of life beneath it, but found none. There was nothing here with her except the valley of snow and the looming moon.
I am all alone.
Then, to both her surprise yet not surprise, she felt something. An arm wrapping around her waist, holding her from behind. It wasn’t warm.
“You’re not alone,” whispered a low voice. “I am always with you.”
His fingers found hers and intertwined with them. Hermione turned, slightly, to look, but all she could see over her shoulder was shadows. As vague and mysterious as any darkness.
Do I know you?
But she did know him. She couldn’t see him, blending seamlessly into the night as he did, but she knew him. He was everything: he was the snow falling, the vibrant moon. He was winter and death, and she was his.
Silence fell. He seemed content to hold her, unconcerned by the snow as it landed on them. Soon, they would both be buried.
“It’s not forever,” he eventually said. He ran his other hand along her side, carving lines in the thin layer of white that had gathered there. His fingers lingered over her ribcage as though he delighted in feeling her breathe. “Spring always comes around.”
Hermione swore she could feel him smile when he went on, saying, “Arise, fair sun…”
Instinctively, as though she didn’t have a choice in the matter, she responded.
“…and kill the envious moon.”
He kissed her neck, gently. His hold on her hand was tight. “I love you,” he breathed, the words as soft as the snow.
Notes:
Tom begging, fanart by thedeathofdreams1
This is an Ending. The next chapter is another Ending. I highly recommend rereading chapter 70, Bathilda, before going on to the last one.
Chapter 77: Flowers
Notes:
A/N from 6/1/25:
…Hello.
I could write a novel for this particular author’s note, but I will do my best to keep it succinct (coming back to this after I’ve finished writing it… oh no, I’ve failed).
This note is meant specifically for you, the readers who have been following this story as a WIP. Thank you. If it weren’t for you and your thoughtful comments and support, shared with me while I was writing, this story probably never would have been completed.
Someday, I will likely write either a chapter from Tom’s POV and/or an epilogue… but I don’t know when that will be. Stay subscribed or subscribe now if you want to know when it happens.
This. Fic.
There were times when I stopped working and even thinking about it for months or years at a time. But I always came back, and every time I did, I was a different person. I’ve grown so much since I started B&G, as a writer and as a human, and I know most of you have, too. You’ve stuck with me, for whatever reason, and that makes you and I closer than you can imagine (I’m sorry, I am as corny as they come).
Thank you for being along for the ride with me… and, as always, thank you for reading.
(If you missed the note at the end of the last chapter, I recommend rereading chapter 70 before reading this one)
Chapter Text
In one timeline, Hermione stepped away from the water and went back.
In another, she took a boat ride.
Grief.
It was the last enemy to be defeated, and it refused to die.
In one of his more detached phases of existence, Voldemort had tried to dismantle it by first understanding it, which had led him to a most familiar—and previously happy—place.
The library.
He found nearly every explanation unsatisfactory. Grief was formulaic, they said, grief had phases. Grief was a process that one simply had to go through, and, eventually, one would be on the other side of it.
That was all wrong.
A better description, Voldemort thought, was in a quote he’d come across: Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.
That was much more accurate. Grief was as endless and relentless as the ocean. And while the waves came less frequently and with less intensity over the years, they never went away, not entirely. Grief had flooded his heart the day he knew she was gone… and he’d been swimming ever since.
He’d thought to try and escape the waves altogether. Violence seemed the only possible solution: to burn alive instead of constantly trying not to drown. How many times had he considered it? To lash out with all his might, to suffocate his sorrow with rage, violent and colossal; to burn the world down with him, to make them all suffer the same—
I’d be so upset.
Hers was the voice that haunted and hounded him, staying his hand when he was at his weakest. What power she had over him, even in death. She was madness. She was everything, everything… even when she was nothing at all.
She hadn’t always been nothing.
Finding the Resurrection Stone had become his instant obsession after he’d woken in that hellish clearing, alone. What else could she be, if not dead? She wouldn’t abandon him. She would never abandon him.
The thought had crossed his mind that she had been taken; captured by those mysterious entities, and he had been prepared to—
…But that didn’t matter anymore.
She was dead. She hadn’t been taken, she had been killed… and vengeance, no matter how sweet it might be, would not bring her back.
The ring, should have.
It hadn’t been hard, piecing together that the stone was, in fact, his own cursed horcrux. He should have figured it out long ago. A bit of research had revealed the symbol—Grindelwald’s symbol—and why had he not immediately recognized it in the ring of his uncle’s? Why had he not divined that it was the symbol of the Deathly Hallows, an heirloom of the Peverell line? It was all right there, in the right books. He just hadn’t bothered to look.
Because I was blinded, focused singularly and solely on creating horcruxes. Because I had already begun down the path of breaking my soul into seven, and nothing could deter me from my goal.
Because I was a fool.
It may have been unfortunately late, but he’d figured it out. And once he’d set his mind on interpreting her clue, Voldemort had figured out where she’d hidden it, too.
At least he returned the book first.
For there it had been, neatly tucked away in its box, beneath the book return. Not a single additional enchantment to further protect it.
He wondered if she’d laughed when she’d put it there. He missed her laugh. It was one of his favorite things about her.
He thought he might hear it again…
He was wrong.
After the obnoxious task of removing his own necrotizing curse from it, Voldemort had held that ring in his hands for a long time. He thought he’d had a handle on his expectations, on his feelings. He’d thought he was ready for her to appear—excited, even. It was the solution. It was getting her back.
He was woefully unprepared for the devastation that struck him upon seeing her.
Grief.
Hardly its first crushing wave, but certainly one of its most memorable. She had come, and Voldemort had fallen to his knees as though she’d put him there herself.
Hermione.
She was dead.
He hadn’t realized that he’d been holding onto a shred of hope that he was wrong. That she had been taken, or left him, or even plotted against him yet. He could rectify any of those. Find her, lure her out, force her into his arms. He could fix that. He could make her be his again, going to any manner of terrible lengths. He was Lord Voldemort; he could—and would—do anything to claim what was rightfully his.
But one look at her faintly glowing, supernatural form told him that he could not fix this.
She was dead.
And the stone, though flowing with an undeniable, powerful magic, was not the answer he’d wanted it to be.
Her eyes had been hollow. Her face had been pale as it never had been in life, and when he’d touched her…
Cold.
Hermione had been many conflicting things, but cold was never one of them. She had always been brimming with fire; the heat of her was sometimes so much that he was almost glad he was as frigid and broken as he was, because surely he would never have been able to withstand her flames otherwise.
Even now he could feel the echo of her warmth. Those nights he’d held her to his chest while she slept in his arms, safe at last in that cottage, with him…
He couldn’t bear to dwell on any of it for more than a moment; it was as though merely thinking about her burned him. Tempting though it had been to tip into the Pensieve and relive everything, to hear her laugh again, he could never do it, because he knew that if he allowed himself to fall into that black hole of the past, he would never come out.
Hermione.
In death, she was no longer her. More substantial than a ghost but nowhere near as lifelike. She barely moved. She never spoke. No matter what he did—no matter how he begged, pleaded, or subjugated himself—she hardly reacted at all. She only stared, eyes blank with just a hint of sadness in them, passively allowing him to hold her but never holding him back.
It was all his fault.
That thought had echoed over and over in his mind, a maddening, horrible truth that he could not escape. He had done this, and in so many ways.
He never should have let her be with him that night. He should have forced her to stay behind.
He never should have started the process of turning the diadem into a horcrux. He never should have scored his soul while keeping her unconscious.
He never should have split his soul at all.
That had been the most crushing of realizations. He’d convinced himself that creating horcruxes was the solution to what he had also convinced himself was the problem: death. He had believed so entirely that there was nothing worse than death; that to be eternal was his most important goal, and that everything else—power, control, a glorious empire where he was both revered and feared, where magic ruled—would come after.
Immortality, at any cost. That was all he’d wanted, because he had thought there was nothing more terrible than the finality of death.
Now he knew otherwise.
He regretted everything.
Killing—what had it mattered, before? Others could die; that was not the tragedy. Only he had mattered. The immortality was for him. Everyone else was expendable, a pawn on one side of a board in a game he’d been playing all his life.
Until one wasn’t.
Come.
It was the only request she ever made, silent and cold though it was. Her hand outreaching, her palm up. An invitation.
Be with me.
But even if he’s wanted to—even if he’d wanted to be the Romeo to her Juliet; even if he’d wanted to join her in death—he couldn’t, because she had hidden his diary somewhere, and even if he could somehow find it, he wouldn’t be able to get to it, to even attempt to heal his soul first, which he would need to do if he ever wanted to share her fate and not something far more tragic, because she had put it in a fucking mokeskin bag, and he had little faith that this ghostly, mocking version of her could open it—
And she wouldn’t talk, anyway.
Where did you put it? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me anything? Why did you have to be with me that night? Why couldn’t you have stayed behind? Why did you make me trust you, want you, love you?
What i s y o u r n a m e ?
She never answered.
It was all his fault.
The remorse had been so overwhelming that he’d thought it might somehow have mercy upon him and kill him. It was worse than any pain he’d ever experienced in his entire, wretched life. He, Lord Voldemort, who had spent so many years chasing immortality, had begged for relief.
It had been in that moment—I regret it, I’m sorry, I would take it all back, take me instead, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—when something truly obscure happened. With Hermione in his arms, as cold and lifeless as a barely animated corpse, there had been the most bizarre sensation of magic he’d ever felt. Not pleasant nor painful, not compared to his own turmoil, but highly—uncomfortable. Like when a festering wound went from an awful, burning pain to something itchy and irritated instead.
Inside of him.
It had taken him an embarrassingly long time to figure out what the fuck had happened.
Remorse.
Somehow, he’d done it. Unintentionally. He hadn’t a clue what the process for reversing a horcrux looked like, as he’d never bothered to read that section in Bullock’s book, but he did after the fact. There was no dark, runic, ritualistic magic necessary, no murder, no otherwise great sacrifice to heal a soul—that which wanted to be whole by its very nature. All that had been required was remorse. A crushing, genuine amount of it, certainly, but that was all.
She had figured it out before him.
He knew, not because she’d said as much, for she never once said a word, but because she had been smiling. A small but beautiful grin, like she was in on some joke that he so clearly was not. Then, before he could do anything—before he could return her smile, laugh, cry, scream, beg; before he could force his lips onto hers and hope he might force some life into her yet; before he could grab her face and demand that she speak—
She vanished.
And she never came back.
Oh, the stone wasn’t broken, he knew that. It had radiated all the same power that it had before he’d ever turned it into a horcrux. Yet no matter how he tried to activate it again, Hermione never returned to him.
She was gone. Every part of her… gone.
Once the devastation of losing her a second time had gripped him—a riptide of horrific strength—Voldemort had taken his uncle’s ring and buried it so deeply into the earth that no one would ever find it, because he never wanted to touch it again.
It was the closest he could come to burying her.
Master of Death—who cared? Loss had taught him that no one was Death’s master. The ring could stay in the ground forever. Voldemort had done the world a favor with that act.
He pitied whoever had the cloak. He would run into Death’s open arms willingly, if Death would have him, not hide from it.
And the Elder Wand…
Now that one was a problem… because Dumbledore was a problem.
Dumbledore was one of many problems.
Voldemort often dreamed of leaving Britain, even though it was finally, beautifully his, and taking the Americans by surprise… of taking Dumbledore by surprise, for that was where he’d gone…
It hadn’t been easy, orchestrating Dumbledore’s fall from grace. It had been a decade’s long process that had put his Slytherin cunning to the ultimate test. A rumor here, a whispered, false allegation here. Hogwarts had reopened, but with the right people making the right accusations, the blame was largely cast on the Headmaster who had now seen the school suffer two mysterious series of attacks. Getting Dumbledore sacked had been the beginning of the slow and steady decline of his prestige in Wizarding Britain, and though it had still not been easy—though it still took years for him to finally leave so that Voldemort could set other plans into motion, he’d done it.
Voldemort had managed the monumental task of removing Dumbledore from all of Europe... a victory that had swiftly turned bitter when he learned that he’d gone to the States instead.
The fucking Americans.
Voldemort should have seen that coming. Of course Dumbledore would go to the MACUSA after his fall from grace here—they were the only ones who also knew about Tom Riddle, and therefore the reality of Lord Voldemort. They would not believe a single allegation that Voldemort had underhandedly planted here, because they alone would hear Dumbledore’s side and believe him. They knew what Voldemort was capable of and what he had already done.
They knew… everything.
Albus Dumbledore. The MACUSA.
Liam fucking Wright, who was allegedly rising as a prodigy among the aurors there.
Lester Madison.
If Voldemort’s sources were accurate with their reports—and they were—then it was as dire as it sounded. The MACUSA had already been a force to fear, and now, more than ever, with Dumbledore joining their ranks…
They were a problem.
The only thing keeping them docile and preventing all out war was that they did not have a just reason to attack. They could not prove that Tom Riddle was guilty of murder and of causing the attacks on Hogwarts… because they had killed him, many years ago.
It was in the paper.
And Lord Voldemort, who could not possibly be the same, murderous young man despite the strikingly similar features… was a just ruler.
They had no justification for attacking Britain… but they were planning. Preparing, waiting for the right moment to strike and destroy Voldemort’s still fragile, somewhat young regime.
They were biding their time.
Time…
Voldemort wondered if they’d solved the mystery of harnessing time-sand in a human body. He liked to imagine that they had. He liked to imagine the moment it backfired on them spectacularly even more.
If his short foray into the Department of Mysteries had taught Voldemort anything, it was that it was where wizards went to go mad while accomplishing nothing at all. There were no answers there, only more questions, and meddling with any of the Great Mysteries—Time, Space, Love… Death…
It only resulted in catastrophe. That was a truth he knew far too intimately.
Death.
He had defied nature herself by seeking to evade it, and was now paying the price. He would never find peace.
…However.
However.
Dumbledore. Wright. The MACUSA.
Madison.
The MACUSA wouldn’t give the exceptional gift of time-sand, of some new and blasphemous version of immortality, to just anyone. In fact, Voldemort was certain they would only give that gift to their personal, enslaved pet monster. Lester Madison was on a leash held tighter than any Voldemort could conceive of; they would happily experiment on him, making him eternally ageless and that much harder to kill.
Madison would be serving the MACUSA for a long, long time. And while the thought of living forever no longer brought Voldemort a shred of joy… it did warm his heart to know that there would be someone else out there, as twisted and forever as miserable as he was. When the rest of his enemies were dead and gone, hundreds of years from now…
Well. At least he would have someone familiar to play with.
The more immediate, pressing issue, of course… was Dumbledore.
He was the one who needed to be taken care of. Voldemort never should have allowed him to slink away to another country. He should have killed him when he had the chance, using whatever underhanded methods necessary. He should have harnessed all of his hatred, all of his repressed bloodthirst; his ever-present if contained violence—
I’d be so upset.
…But he hadn’t.
He hadn’t killed Dumbledore. He had paid his ex-lover a visit, however, and that, if nothing else, had been cathartic. And so illuminating.
If he ever did leave to hunt Dumbledore down, he would go see Grindelwald again, too.
It was shockingly easy to break into Nurmengard. It was as though Dumbledore had purposefully left himself a way to get back in, yet was still too cowardly to go see him himself.
And how dare he?
How dare Dumbledore lock away the one he’d once sworn his heart to and leave him there to rot; how dare he waste such a rare and precious gift? He, Voldemort, would do anything, anything to have his love back; he would never be so cruel, so thankless, so terrible as to keep his heart in a cage, miserable and alone; how dare he—?
“My Lord?”
The outside world came into focus all at a once, jarring him.
Bartemius Crouch Jr. smiled in a measured, nearly nervous, way. “You seemed to be elsewhere,” he said.
“Did I,” Voldemort responded tonelessly. He smoothed the fabric of his robes over his chest, repressing the urge to heave a great sigh. He forced a smile of his own. “Shall we, then?”
Barty’s face brightened, far more enthusiastic. For as much as Voldemort had mixed feelings about his most anticipated appearance at Hogwarts, his youngest Death Eater and newly appointed Professor was solely excited. Too excited, if his grin was anything to go by. Voldemort hoped he hadn’t made a mistake by convincing the Headmaster to allow him to teach Arithmancy… But Voldemort did, admittedly, have biases. Just because Barty was young didn’t mean he wasn’t fully qualified and capable. Regulus and Severus had started their teaching careers fairly young, after all…
“We shall,” Barty said.
Voldemort gestured lazily towards the Headmaster, who nodded and turned, prepared to lead them out.
Herald Nott, an old man who had taught Astronomy for years before being appointed to the highest position within Hogwarts. He was… acceptable. Voldemort was not particularly impressed by him, but he was easily controlled, and that made him desirable for the position. Nott had the title and the burden of all the tedious tasks—the paperwork, the dealing with unhappy parents, and so on—but it was Lord Voldemort who truly ran the school.
The Headmaster bowed his head and led the procession out into the Great Hall, where they took their predetermined seats at the Head Table. At any moment, the students would arrive—save for the first-years, of course, who would make their entrance shortly thereafter.
The Sorting. He sometimes came for other Hogwarts events as well, but this was one he never missed. Voldemort had been gracing the newest members of Britain’s magical community every year since his reign had begun… and every year, it both pained and exhilarated him.
Hogwarts was his true home, the cornerstone, the foundation. This was where the future of his empire began… and this was the first year he felt completely confident both in the curriculum and in each Professor present. Every single instructor was a master in their craft .
Bartemius Crouch Jr., their newest addition, leading the front with Arithmancy. Regulus Black, teaching Ancient Runes. Antonin Dolohov on Transfiguration, Auriga Shacklbolt on Charms… Horace Slughorn on Potions, and wasn’t that one interesting.
Voldemort caught his own former Professor’s eye and smiled. Slughorn looked away as though he’d been slapped directly on the face.
It was almost comical, how much he pretended not to know who Voldemort was. He did. He absolutely knew that Lord Voldemort was Tom Riddle, his once prized student. It was one of many reasons why Voldemort had forced him—so kindly—to teach. He could not have Horace Slughorn anywhere else. The man was too knowledgeable, too clever, too well-connected—and far too talented, besides.
Sometimes, Voldemort fantasized about letting him slip through his fingers… of purposefully leaving the slightest open window for him to crawl out of so that Slughorn would think he’d escaped all on his own, just so that he could hunt him down. There was little more that Voldemort loved than the thrill of the chase, and he would be lying if he said he didn’t harbor more than a bit of resentment towards his old professor who had once unwisely discussed horcruxes with him. It was tempting, so tempting, to watch him run just to crush him under his heel, to have an excuse to—
I’d be so upset.
…But he didn’t.
No, Slughorn would teach at Hogwarts until his dying day… a day that would come much later, so long as he stayed in the Dark Lord’s good graces. That message had been made abundantly clear.
Horace Slughorn, the eternal Potions Master… Smirking, Voldemort’s eyes drifted further down the line of his hand-selected staff. There was Mark Haranka, a muggle-born wizard on Muggle Studies, for political reasons that had caused him far too many headaches… Thorfinn Rowle, teaching the true History of Magic, replacing that incompetent ghost…
The ghosts. Voldemort suppressed a grimace as he sat, glaring down at his own reflection on the currently empty, gold plate before him—a reflection that had changed a tragically small amount over the years. He’d exorcised every ghost that Hogwarts had ever harbored, both the ancient and the new. That hadn’t been a pleasant experience, especially once they got wind of what was happening, but Voldemort could hardly have the ghost of Myrtle floating around the pipes, reminding him of his mistakes… especially not when Adesum still lived, dormant…
Every single ghost was banished. Gone.
Except… Peeves.
Voldemort had tried. He did not like the idea of some manic and dangerous entity remaining in the castle, particularly one that had undoubtedly acquired countless secrets about Hogwarts and all its past occupants. Peeves could probably write a much more accurate version of Hogwarts, a History if he ever felt so inclined.
Voldemort had tried, valiantly, to exorcise him. Peeves had thrown a desk at him.
He tried not to think about it.
“Here, my Lord.”
Barty once more snapped Voldemort out of his reverie. He offered him a goblet. “You seem unwell; some water may help.”
To his other side, Severus scoffed, loudly and derisively. “I doubt the Dark Lord is unwell, Crouch,” he drawled.
Barty frowned and lowered the goblet. “I wasn’t talking to you, Snape. Don’t eavesdrop, it’s rude.”
“I love eavesdropping… What’s happened? Who’s unwell?”
It was a difficult task, not to smile when Walter Moore was aiming a grin of his own at you.
Unlike the Dark Lord, Walter looked every bit his age at sixty-four. Voldemort never thought he would be so jealous of the visible signs of aging, of wrinkles and graying hair… of the tangible proof that one day, this life would come blissfully to an end…
Not for him. An unfortunate and unforeseen side effect of tethering part of his soul to a diary at the tender age of sixteen. Of course, very few people indeed knew that was the reason for his mysterious youth. The rumors the students came up with were quite amusing; Voldemort encouraged them in his own, underhanded way.
Anything they could imagine was better than the truth.
What was well-known was that, somehow, Voldemort was aging at a snail’s pace, and no one dared to question exactly why that was. He might look forty by the time he reached one hundred, if he was lucky. Seeing his far-too-young face was a constant reminder that this, he, was forever.
He envied Walter’s smile lines as he beamed at him.
“Is it you, my Lord?” he asked. “Yes, I think I agree with young Barty. You look a bit peaky.”
“You—do not call the Dark Lord peaky—!”
“Relax, Severus. He doesn’t mind, do you, my Lord? He appreciates honesty, obviously.”
“And I was just trying to be helpful; staying hydrated really does wonders, such an overlooked thing,” Barty said, nodding towards Walter. “Some of the most brilliant wizards jump to complicated elixirs before drinking some water, first…”
Voldemort held back a smirk as the three bickered around him. Barty, his rising star. Severus, his extraordinary pupil and current Professor of the Dark Arts.
And Walter Moore…
The Americans may have gained Albus Dumbledore, but he’d already spirited away a much greater prospect many years beforehand. It had been easy, for him. Voldemort was nothing if not persuasive, and by the time he’d tracked Walter down, he was a bitter and resentful man, full of all the same vitriol as Voldemort himself. He was easily swayed.
Come. Join me. Let us make them rue their wretched mistakes… together.
The Dark Lord did not love anyone, not anymore, not really… but Walter was about as close as he could get to doing so. In a strange, brotherly sort of way, he supposed. He was one of the only people in Britain who knew Voldemort’s true past and name, aside from Slughorn and a few of his old, loyal followers.
And he was a damn talented wizard. Walter taught the Light Arts, the counterpart to Snape’s class, which meant they co-taught courses for third-years and above. Voldemort had observed several of their lessons; their combined teaching was, by far, the most unorthodox format he’d ever experienced. Walter was a brilliant ray of sunshine who doted on everyone, full of patience and understanding, as relaxed with his curriculum structure as could be.
Severus—the exact opposite in all regards—hated him. And it seemed he was well on his way to hating Barty, too.
“—such audacity; it is truly a miracle that—”
“Thank you, Barty,” Voldemort cut in. He took the goblet from where he’d placed it on the table and drank deeply. “I do hope you didn’t poison me,” he added as an afterthought. “Though if you did, it was a well constructed ploy. I fell for it immediately. I daresay I deserve to suffer the consequences, if so.”
He flashed Barty a smile to assure him that it was, in fact, a joke.
“Ohhh, I hope you did slip him something,” Walter said, to Severus’s visible distress. “I’d pay to have the Dark Lord on veritaserum. We could finally ask him how he feels about the whole dragon fiasco at the end of last semester and get an honest answer.”
“And yet my lips remain sealed,” Voldemort replied, lowering the glass.
The truth on that matter was that it simply wasn’t Walter’s business. If it was anyone’s fault, it was his. He, Lord Voldemort, had gone out of his way to force Charlie Weasley to return to Britain and teach Care of Magical Creatures. He was too talented to have abroad, and there were few others with his credentials when it came to handling large, powerful, and dangerous beasts.
He just hadn’t expected him to be quite so enthusiastic.
“Well, no one died or was irreparably maimed, right?” Barty asked.
“Right, no tragic demises,” answered Walter—loudly. Severus looked like he wanted to cover his ears as he spoke over him. “And a whole lot of fun, I imagine, for the dragons!”
“Weren’t they baby dragons?” asked Barty.
“Adolescent, but really, he never should have—”
Walter’s explanation was cut off as the doors to the Hall opened. The students flowed in, hundreds of them, speaking excitedly as they took their places at the four tables.
Gryffidnor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff… Slytherin.
Voldemort had considered ending the Sorting altogether. But no—he was not a rageful dictator, he was a ruler. The vast majority of the population loved the tradition of Sorting. It was his job to protect the magical community and to foster a sense of unity that kept as many people as possible…
Well, happy was never going to happen, not for everyone. But… content.
Being a benevolent Lord was exhausting.
It was a daily challenge to not throw it all away, to break the world to fit into the neat little boxes he wanted it to be in, to raze whoever dared to protest against his will—
I’d be so upset.
Voldemort tapped his ring against the wooden arm of his chair—a habit he’d acquired long ago. He stared down at it, his dark eyes reflected in the equally dark stone. It really was a remarkable duplicate. It looked exactly like the one he’d buried.
Hermione…
It harbored no magic, yet it held all the power in the world. How many times had he so nearly given into his darker impulses, only to look at it and remember? To remember her, her smile, her voice…
He’d worn it everyday for decades. Countless lives, the structure of his empire—even the Statute of Secrecy owed its continued existence to his otherwise useless ring.
Voldemort twirled it on his finger and looked up, silently greeting the student body. He locked gazes with more than a few memorable faces: particularly the seventh-years. This spring, they would be competing for prestigious internships and other various positions within the Ministry, vying for the most powerful roles…
His empire, growing. They all bowed their heads deferentially when they looked at him, their emotions clear in their eyes. Pity, that. He kept telling Nott that they should offer a course in the Mind Arts for older students… Someday, someday…
“Ah, it’s going to be an excellent year,” said Walter. He waved at the students who sat at the Gryffindor table, and was especially enthusiastic when he spotted a set of red-headed twins: Weasleys, naturally. Fred and George. Voldemort had heard more about them than he cared to.
“You say that every year,” Severus sneered. Unlike Walter, he was decidedly not looking at a single student as they settled.
“And every year, I’m correct,” Walter responded cheerfully.
Minutes later, the doors once more burst open. The Gamekeeper, Lionel Gray—because of course Hagrid had left Hogwarts when Dumbledore was sacked and then ran off to America with him, too… not that he would have retained his job, regardless—led the line of anxious first-years into the Great Hall. Without needing to be told, the rest of the students fell silent, turning to watch their newest, and currently unsorted, classmates.
Voldemort tried to look interested, but it was difficult. He kept staring at his ring, full of that irrepressible and all too familiar doom and gloom that so often fell upon him without his consent. He thought of Walter and his ever-growing smile lines. Maybe he would hunt down Nicholas Flamel and force him to hand over his stone… Maybe he could convince Walter to be miserable with him forever… Doubtful…
Vaguely, Voldemort registered that Nott was speaking, greeting everyone. Dolohov made his way around the table, bringing out the ancient Sorting Hat, placing it upon the stool…
It used to sing, but that was a tradition that Voldemort had put an immediate end to. The hat tended to get a bit… political with its lyrics. The last thing he needed was an old hat spewing its vague yet somehow radical perspective to the impressionable youth.
No singing. Just the ceremony… and muggle-borns were, in a new tradition, sorted first.
Ah, the muggle-borns. Always a source of division and drama.
The Magical Fostering Act of 1981 had been a monumental overhaul, and they were only now beginning to see the real benefits. Muggle-borns, brought into the magical community as soon as they passed a certain threshold in their magical capabilities, placed into a closely monitored care facility until adopted by witches and wizards who were, of course, screened first…
It was complicated. It was messy. It meant that parents and their children were either accepting and in on the secret of magic or that countless people had to have their memories modified. Usually, the former. Once it was explained how important it was that their children have time to be integrated into the world to which they truly belonged, as well as how dangerous it was for them to not be integrated, to not learn how to control their emotionally influenced power…
Most agreed. It was still not easy. Cover stories had to be created, and the relationships between real and foster parents closely monitored…
Unless, of course, the family was not tolerant of their magically sporadic children…
Then, other measures were taken. No magical child was left in an abusive or otherwise harmful environment. Not in Voldemort’s regime.
No matter how it was addressed, however, it was a daunting task—all done in the name of keeping the wizarding population thriving as a whole, as well as keeping the Statute of Secrecy stable.
Many of his followers hated it. They, like him, would prefer to see the Statute abolished; to see wizarding kind take its rightful place as the masters and leaders of this world; to put muggles below them and to deal with the muggle-borns however necessary—
I’d be so upset.
…But he wouldn’t.
This was the solution that kept everyone… not happy, but content. Muggle-borns were welcomed with open arms into a controlled environment. Having them sorted first was equally strategic. To one side of the issue, Voldemort had proclaimed that it was an act of goodwill; a gesture to show just how pleased the magical world was to have new blood.
To his supporters on the other side, in secret, whispered tones, he said that this was implemented so that they—and therefore their children at school—would know exactly who to avoid.
Exhausting. Keeping everyone content was… exhausting.
Dolohov pulled a scroll out of his pocket, unfurled it, and read, “Bulstrode, Sally-Anne—nèe Perks!”
Voldemort fiddled with his ring again as the first girl shuffled forward nervously. Adopted by the Bulstrodes… That was mildly interesting; Voldemort was certain they already had a child…
The girl was sorted into Ravenclaw.
“Fawley, Justin—nè Flinch-Fletchley!”
A Fawley… That made much more sense, Voldemort mused. He glanced once at the boy before looking back to his ring. He should polish the metal. It was becoming tarnished.
He wasn’t paying attention to what the Sorting Hat shouted, but noticed the Hufflepuff table erupting with cheers. Good for him.
“Smith, Hermione—nèe Granger!”
His first, immediate reaction was that he had imagined it.
The Sorting Hat had not yelled that name. He had fabricated it in his mind; while staring at his tarnished, magicless ring, he had somehow conjured it into existence in the most absurd manner.
Then he looked up.
What?
W h a t ?
A girl stepped forward. Her brown hair was tied back in a long braid which was draped over her shoulder; there was a black and yellow bow secured at the end of it. Her face still had the softness of a child, but beneath that roundness, there was an irrefutable, familiar bone structure. Her eyes were wide, large, and amber-brown.
He knew that braid. He had once held the spiral at its tip with his hand. It had fit perfectly around his pinky finger.
He knew that face. He had mapped out every detail, from the tiny freckle beneath her left eye to the way her nose crinkled when she smiled.
He knew those eyes. They haunted him daily.
They haunted him now.
She froze, several feet from the dais before the Head Table, staring at him. Voldemort stared back. Mind numb with colossal shock, he reached out, prepared to encounter some confusing, masterful barrier that would prevent him from penetrating her thoughts, and met—nothing. No resistance, no mental wards. Trespassing into her mind was as easy as passing through an open door.
How? he thought, unable to fathom anything more eloquent. How? How…?
“How… h-how what?”
She had answered—out loud. Out fucking loud, her voice as high and shrill as an infant’s. Her face held nothing but terror as her eyes remained trapped beneath his, beneath Lord Voldemort as he loomed over her from his place at the Head Table, and when had he gotten to his feet?
“H-how what!?” she asked again, much louder. She took a shaky step backwards, her fear escalating. Voldemort could feel it as though it were his own, the way it saturated her wide-open mind.
She didn’t know him.
There was not a shred of recognition there, beyond knowing that he was the Dark Lord. Only panic, only horror that she had… that she had already done something wrong, and she’d just gotten to the school; what had she done to upset the Dark Lord himself, and why was he looking at her like that, and had he said that in her mind—?
He pulled back. He sat.
The entire Hall was buzzing. Students were murmuring to each other, far from discreet. Voldemort cast Dolohov a furious look, as though he had been the one to disrupt the Sorting. Dolohov, too afraid to question anything, immediately cleared his throat and gestured for the girl —Smith, Hermione, nèe Granger— to come forward. He knocked over the stool in his haste. The sound of it hitting the stone floor was like a faulty wand backfiring, startling everyone.
This… was bad.
Voldemort had to remind himself to breathe. He did not understand what was happening, but he could not crack while he was being scrutinized by the entire student body. A ship that had already fucking sailed, he realized—he had just stood, staring at—at what would appear to be a very normal looking, muggle-born girl, gawking at her like a fool, and she had asked—out loud, she’d said it out loud—
Some of the older students had probably figured it out immediately, what had transpired. If Lord Voldemort being a Legilimens had been an obscure rumor before, it was a solidified fact, now. And if his experience with the speed at which Hogwarts gossip traveled remained accurate, then the entire castle would be aware before breakfast.
And they would know he’d tried to communicate directly with Smith, Hermione, nèe Granger… in front of everyone.
And what the fuck would they make of that?
The girl… Hermione… finally tore her gaze away from him. She looked away from him.
She looked away.
She then drew in a deep breath, clenched her little fists at her sides, and marched towards the stool with an expression that was probably meant to be confident but which looked painfully forced. She sat on the stool. Her entire body was shaking like a leaf as Dolohov composed himself and lifted the hat for her. It barely touched her head before it shouted, “GRYFFINDOR!”
There was no applause. No one knew what to make of this. Voldemort himself did not know what to make of this. And—fuck, he’d entirely forgotten about the staff.
The Headmaster’s brows were so high on his forehead that they couldn’t be seen beneath his hat. Barty looked merely curious; Severus was wisely keeping his eyes down, trained on the table, and—
Walter was staring daggers at him.
Of course he was. Because Walter recognized her, too.
He looked as shocked and confused as Voldemort felt. Voldemort cast him a swift look that said—not literally, not by using Legilimency in the middle of the crowded Great Hall like an fucking idiot— later. Then he looked away, back at…
Hermione. Hermione Smith…
Hermione Granger.
She was still on the stool. Looked like she might never move properly again, she was trembling so badly. Dolohov removed the hat and helped her down.
Then two loud, raucous voices broke the silence.
“HERE, HERE!”
“WELCOME, SMITH!”
Fred and George Weasley had gotten to their feet. They cheered overzealously, whistling and clapping loudly enough to nearly make up for the otherwise absolute lack of enthusiasm for her sorting. Some of the rest of her table joined in, albeit half-heartedly, looking uncertain.
Hermione—Hermione?— finally moved. She walked quickly, her head bowed, and sat at the end of the Gryffindor table that was left empty for the new arrivals. The twins each flashed her a giant smile before they took their seats as well.
She didn’t look at Voldemort again. She kept her eyes downcast, as determined to look at nothing but the table before her as Severus seemed to be.
She was still shaking terribly.
She was… so small.
Hermione? Hermione… A child…
How?
A dawning, crushing realization was starting to crest in the back of his mind.
“And that… that concludes the sorting of the muggle-borns,” Dolohov announced, his voice full of anxiety. He cleared his throat again and once more raised the scroll. The rest of the first-years, Voldemort now noticed, had backed up quite a bit—some were nearly all the way to the entryway, looking like they might flee.
Gods, he’d terrified them. Voldemort could see that. They huddled together, and not a single one dared look his way, frightened that they too might incite some strange and wildly unfair wrath from the Dark Lord.
Yet the Sorting continued. Hannah Abbot became a Hufflepuff, as did Susan Bones. The tension that had settled over the Hall slowly lessened; the students clapped more and more appropriately…
Hermione, here, now…
A child…
“Potter, Harry!”
Those eyes.
He noticed them completely by chance. Voldemort had only looked at him at all because he had finally realized that he’d been staring at Hermione since the moment she sat down, and it had dawned on his stupid fucking useless mind that people were probably noticing that. So he shifted his attention back to where it was supposed to be—on the Sorting.
That black hair. Those green eyes.
Instantly, the memory—that horrid night that he spent so long trying to forget—flashed before him.
He knew those eyes, too.
Fortunately for Potter, Harry, he did not notice Voldemort’s attention. He was focused very much on the hat, and was grinning when Dolohov placed it on his head. A pause.
“GRYFFINDOR!”
And just as Voldemort was beginning to mull over the truth that was coming, as surely and swiftly as the rising sun each morning, another child shocked him.
“Weasley, Ronald!”
Ronald…?
Ron?
Harry?
Harry and Ron…
Harry and Ron…
No.
That couldn’t be.
“GRYFFINDOR!”
The newest Gryffindor joined his classmates. He sat next to Harry; they, along with the rest of their peers, gave Hermione a wide berth and cast her curious glances. She ignored them and kept her eyes on the table.
Harry and Ron…
Henry and Rob.
The Sorting was not done, but Voldemort was. He stood as Zabini, Blaise was called, but he surely breathed a sigh of relief when Voldemort did not stare at him and ruin his entire Hogwarts career before it had even started. The Dark Lord did not look at anyone as he left, knowing full well that to get up and interrupt the ceremony a second time was only going to make whatever the fallout from all this might be worse, but there was no help for it.
He left, quickly, his cloak billowing dramatically behind him as he made his escape from the Great Hall.
Harry and Ron.
Henry… and Rob…
He went straight to the Headmaster’s office, casting the animated gargoyle aside without a word—perhaps too violently. The many portraits of past Headmasters were sleeping in their frames, and they did not rouse when Voldemort fell into the seat behind the desk, his face in his hands.
Hermione… a child, she was a child…
Smith, nèe Granger…
Hermione Granger.
He stood, then tore open the cabinet where each and every student had a file, started either the moment they were born, if in a magical family, or when their magic manifested in them if muggle-born. He snatched hers out from the pile and slammed it on the desk, flinging it open.
Her picture. Younger than she was even now; she smiled shyly at the camera. Her front two teeth were… very large. Voldemort ripped his focus away from her face and read:
Granger, Hermione.
DOB: September 19th, 1979. Born in London to muggle parents Eugene and Nora Granger (occupations, both dentists; accepting of all terms, monitored)
His eyes went back to the word dentists and froze, stuck there. The rest of the page blurred, and…
And he was tossing her a toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss. She dropped the floss but hurriedly grabbed it from the floor, full of excitement.
“There are some places where magic doesn’t really do the job properly; flossing is one of them!”
Her smile, wide and radiant, shone in his mind.
Grief.
Voldemort’s knees buckled as he fell back into the Headmaster’s chair again. His heart—his chest, where she’d scarred him forever—it hurt, everything hurt, as badly as it had when he’d first learned that she was, without a doubt, gone—
No. This hurt worse.
A tidal wave, the ocean. Ice-cold water paralyzing him. He couldn’t breathe. His vision blurred as tears filled his eyes and streamed down his face.
He could see her smile and hear her laugh and it drowned him.
She was gone. Gone.
Or… was she? Is she?
Voldemort forced himself to inhale a torturous, deep breath, then exhale, slowly. Breathe. Breathe.
Swim.
Finally, once he no longer felt on the verge of becoming lost in the waves, Voldemort looked back down at the file.
Granger, Hermione.
DOB: September 19th, 1979
Born in London to muggle parents Eugene and Nora Granger (occupations, both dentists; accepting of all terms, monitored)
Wand (purchased August 16th, 1991): Vine, 10 ¾”, dragon heartstring core
Age of initial, tangible magic manifestation: 7 years, 9 months
Act: levitation (she intentionally floated a book down from a high shelf)
Transferred to Care Facility on June 23rd, 1987
Adopted by Hepzibah Smith (see page 4 for details) on June 27th, 1987
Notes from the Facility:
Hermione Granger lived at the London Magical Care Facility for the Youth for the shortest time frame on record: three nights and four days. She was adopted nearly at once by Hepzibah Smith, a long-time donor but first-time adopter.
Despite her short stay, Hermione Granger showed signs of aggressive magic. She set the Head Matron’s robes on fire twice (she claims both times were accidents, but we suspect otherwise).
Voldemort read it once, twice. Three times.
Hepzibah Smith… He hadn’t thought to go near her, after everything; the mere idea of being close to someone who knew her had felt too painful…
Hepzibah… She had to be over a hundred years old, by now…
The shortest adoption time on record…
She’d set the Matron’s robes on fire.
It was her. There was not a chance that this, all of this, was some cosmically insane coincidence.
None of it was a coincidence.
Voldemort tore through the cabinet again, this time scattering over a dozen files across the desk as he hunted for the ones he wanted next. Then, feeling ever-more idiotic that he hadn’t done it in the first place, he finally used magic because he was a wizard and summoned the precise ones he sought.
Harry Potter.
Ronald Weasley.
Henry and Rob…
Something much greater was gnawing at him at the sight of their childish faces, but before he could put his finger on it, a different moving image caught his eye. Another file had flown open in his recklessness, and there, on the floor…
Malfoy, Draco.
Voldemort twitched his wrist at it, and his file joined the other two, floating in midair between them.
Seeing the three boys side by side nearly had Voldemort’s knees buckling in shock again.
No. It could not be…
In his memory, he’d convinced himself that the three mysterious beings who had appeared that night were inhuman; that they were entities contrived by dark magic, perhaps, set upon them by the MACUSA or Dumbledore or any number of potential enemies that she might have acquired and had yet to tell him about…
He hadn’t thought they were people. He hadn’t thought people were capable of whatever brand of hellish magic had been unleashed upon him, painting the sky in fire before his whole world had gone black and she was just—gone—
Now, he saw it.
Those beings he recalled as monsters with flares of black, red, and white, were not monsters at all…
They had been black, red… and blonde.
Hermione, here, now, but a child. A child with no memory of him whatsoever, because she wasn’t his Hermione…
“She was a time-traveler,” Voldemort whispered softly to no one.
She was a time-traveler.
She was a time-traveler.
How many times had he considered that, only to laugh at himself for doing so? It was impossible, to travel back in time more than a few mere hours; even the Unspeakables themselves said it always resulted in death and catastrophe and—
And she had died. She had ended in catastrophe.
She… had traveled through time… and perhaps more.
It was the only explanation for all of… this. Hermione—his Hermione—had come from a future, some future that likely didn’t exist anymore, in an attempt to…
Kill me. She came to kill me. She just…
Failed.
Because she fell in love with me.
Voldemort sat for the third time. He stared blankly at the three floating files before him, thunderstruck.
She had been a time-traveler… and they had been, too. Those weren’t monsters summoned by someone to kill her. They were her fucking friends from the future, probably coming to take her back to the time where she belonged… And if this really was Rob, then this was her pining ex-boyfriend…
But then why had she died?
Perhaps no longer friends at all, Voldemort thought, and a putrid rage began to simmer in his heart. Perhaps there was much more to her story… Perhaps Rob had become angry and violent; perhaps all three of them became her enemies, and they came to track her down, to punish her for meddling with Time…
Oh, the impulse to kill.
It reared its ugly head, obliterating every ounce of shock and confusion in him. However it had happened, these three were responsible for her death, he knew it; he should go back into the Hall right now, grab them, drag them to the dungeons, take them straight to Adesum, but make them suffer, first—
I’d be so upset.
Voldemort took another deep breath. Then another.
These… were children.
Whatever sins their older, time-traveling, idiotic and reprehensible counter-parts had committed… these three had done nothing.
Yet.
And Hermione…
Voldemort’s focus fell to her photo again. Young. Buck-toothed. Frizzy-haired and more awkward than he’d ever known her.
His finger traced her jawline on the image as she moved. It was her. It… wasn’t her. It wasn’t? It wasn’t. No, it was…
She had been… almost eight, when she’d been moved to the facility…
Hadn’t she said… His diary… Hadn’t she said she’d hidden it somewhere he’d never find it, because it was somewhere connected to her, to her childhood…?
She could lead him to it.
A burst of hope flickered to life within him. And then, instantly, another rush of dark and terrible urges.
He could take her. Steal her away, make up any number of excuses and stories for her sudden disappearance—he could tear through her young, weak mind, a mind that had exactly no training in the Mind Arts, and see every location that had ever held any importance to her… He could find the bag and make her open it, because she was not a dead shade of the one he’d once loved but her, real and breathing, and—and he could take her; keep her, even—
I’d be so upset.
Voldemort hid his face in his hands again, his stomach rolling with deepest self-loathing. She was a child. They were all children. He could not murder or kidnap any of them. He…
He had to leave Hogwarts. For good.
That realization came swiftly and harshly. He could not return for another Sorting, not for anything, not while she was here. For how could he possibly reconcile the difference between her and… her?
He knew all the dark corners of his heart far too well. He did not trust himself to not give in to his most natural, unforgivable nature, that which he had learned to suppress for so long. He had to leave Hogwarts, and he could not return.
His hands slid down his face and he groaned. She was… a child…
No matter how long he stared at her picture, he struggled to comprehend it. She was eleven, nearly twelve. She had just been sorted into Gryffindor.
He hated that he had been right about that.
No, I don’t, Voldemort told himself. It was fine that she was a Gryffindor.
This was all… fine.
It was better than fine. This was good. Great, even. Had he not built his empire in her honor? Had he not created a magical community that welcomed her kind, bringing them safely into the magical world, all because of her? And now, not only did all current and future generations of muggle-borns get to benefit from his rule, but she—she!—did! Hermione Smith, nèe Granger!
It was more than fine, it was wonderful!
He was so fucking happy!
A candy dish full of lemon drops on the corner of the desk exploded. The files that had been hovering in mid-air—Harry, Ron, a fucking Malfoy—went whipping away, scattering papers across the room and joining the mess of the others he had already tossed there.
“Fuck,” Voldemort swore. He pulled out his wand.
Walnut. Dragon heartstring. Extremely unyielding.
Her new wand… was also made with a dragon’s heartstring…
Forcing that thought aside, he flicked the walnut first at the broken dish, fixing it before hovering all the lemon drops back onto it. Then he summoned all the fallen documents. Every paper went neatly back into its folder, then returned to the cabinet, out of sight.
All except one, which remained open on the desk.
Hermione…
He wanted. He didn’t know what he wanted exactly; all he knew was that his entire being, his whole soul was consumed with a wild and confusing want.
It terrified him.
Someday… he would figure out… something. Some way to glean the information he needed from her to find his diary. He would have someone else do it, perhaps. Later. When she was not so defenseless, so tiny, so young.
But not him, and not anytime soon. He would have to stay away from her forever, he realized—an agonizing truth.
No, not forever… Someday…
Someday? Someday? He had to stop. He could not wrap his head around someday; he could barely handle right now.
He had to leave.
Walter.
Voldemort sent the summons, and less than two seconds later, Walter was bursting through the door of the Headmaster’s office—which told Voldemort that he’d followed him out of the Great Hall at once, and had just been waiting to be called in.
That wouldn’t help whatever rumors were already doubtless circulating.
“What the fuck, my Lord?” he shouted. Several of the sleeping Headmaster portraits startled awake. “What the fuck?”
Before Voldemort could respond, he began to pace furiously in front of the desk. “All right, I’ve come up with a few theories,” he began. “They’re exceedingly rare and highly experimental at this stage, but I have heard of the existence of certain de-aging elixirs. That, combined with some memory modifications, and that could—”
“Walter. It’s not her.”
Walter froze. He crossed his arms over his chest. “That was definitely her,” he said. “Hermione Smith, even? Previously Granger, though, who are the Grangers, do we—?”
“Walter.”
He fell silent again. Voldemort’s head was beginning to pound. “I’m going to speak, and I need you to listen. Don’t interrupt.”
Walter nodded seriously and remained silent.
“That is not her,” Voldemort repeated. “Yet… it is. Her.”
He paused for too long. “Well—what the fuck, my Lord!?” Walter shouted again. All the portraits were alert and watching, now. “What does that mean, what—?”
“I mean exactly what I said. This is a different version of her. A… new version. She’s been… reborn.”
Walter gaped, momentarily stupefied. He sat in the chair across from him. “Reborn?” he echoed. “Reborn? What is she, a fucking phoenix?”
At that, Voldemort felt the twisted urge to both laugh and cry. He did neither. “Something like that,” he murmured.
“What? Are you telling me she’s part-creature? That she’s—like Liam, or—”
“No.”
Voldemort closed his eyes and breathed. He couldn’t very well tell Walter the truth, but then again… he had to give him something. Otherwise he would keep digging and digging until he too came to something that might resemble the truth.
He had… to lie.
“I did it.”
Walter said nothing, waiting, this time, for more. “With this,” Voldemort went on, flashing his ring. His entirely unmagical, fake, duplicated ring. “This is a very powerful artifact… the Resurrection Stone. More powerful even than the Philosopher's Stone. It can raise the dead.”
“Shut up,” Walter said, though he looked at the ring in awe. “I’ve heard of that—the ring from the Three Brother’s tale, yeah? I thought it was just a legend.”
“No,” said Voldemort. “I’m afraid not.”
“You’ve been wearing the Resurrection Stone on your finger for years?”
“Yes.”
“And—and you used it to… bring Hermione back? Now, as a child?”
His face was full of obvious and unconcealed disbelief.
“It is mysterious magic that worked in ways I could not predict,” Voldemort said, trying to speak as though he found this topic mundane, not earth-shattering. “I used it over a decade ago. I didn’t think anything happened. It seems that it did. It appears she was, unbeknownst to me… reborn.”
Walter’s eyes narrowed and he scoffed. “And I think you are full of—”
“Careful,” Voldemort said, the warning clear in his tone. “That is what happened. That’s all the information you will be getting on this henceforth taboo subject. That is Hermione Smith… Granger… reborn. She is her, but she has no recollection of her past life. I saw that. She remembers… nothing.”
“N…nothing?” Walter repeated.
“Nothing.”
A stretch of silence.
“Is… there anyone else that has been raised from the dead that I should know about, my Lord?” Walter asked lightly.
“No,” answered Voldemort. “In fact, now that I know the extent of the stone’s real power, I plan to destroy this ring very, very soon.”
“Ah,” said Walter, and Voldemort could see the understanding unfold on his face. “How rude of you, to destroy such a rare, magical artifact. Also, how convenient.”
The rest of his thoughts were unspoken, but present nonetheless.
How convenient, that the artifact in question won’t exist anymore if this somehow gets out, and they will have only your word to go on.
“Things like this… should not exist,” Voldemort said carefully. “I am doing the world a great service.”
“Of course.”
They stared at each other, and Voldemort felt it, as he knew he soon would. Walter’s mind, prodding at his own. He allowed it.
So that’s the story I’m supposed to believe and recite if things become dire, then?
Yes, Voldemort responded in kind. And only if things become dire. That is the story. Do not question it
Walter nodded almost imperceptibly. Then he fell back in his seat, his rigid body relaxing as though he had deflated. “Oh, so that’s all, then?” he said. He grabbed a fistful of lemon drops from the recently repaired dish on the desk. Voldemort didn’t bother telling him they were all on the floor moments ago. “Just a reincarnated version of a girl who once bamboozled both of us before being mysteriously murdered by someone’s magically summoned demons, we think.”
Voldemort swallowed hard. He… probably shouldn’t have shared his—in hindsight, a bit crazed—theories with him.
Not that the truth was any less crazy,
“Yes,” he said slowly. “That’s… that’s all.”
Walter popped two lemon drops into his mouth. He clicked them against his teeth, frowning, his brows deeply furrowed. “I suppose I can… go with that,” he said, his tone still belying that he absolutely did not believe a word of it. “Fascinating stuff… but, good God. That had to hurt, seeing her like that. You clearly didn’t expect her to be here today. The whole castle’s in a tizzy over that, you know.”
Voldemort grimaced. He was certain the whole castle was in a tizzy over it.
He didn’t want to think about that.
“No, obviously, I did not,” he muttered. “As I said, I didn’t think it worked. I thought she was dead. I thought… I thought she would always be dead.”
Walter hummed vaguely, his face clearing into something more passive. “Too bad,” he said. “That she was reborn, I mean… I know you look young, my Lord, but—”
“Quiet,” Voldemort hissed. “That is not— I am not… I am leaving the school, Walter, and I won’t be coming back. Not for anything. Not for any of Slughorn’s events, not for future Sortings. I cannot be anywhere near her, I just… can’t.”
Walter nodded, looking solemn. “I understand,” he said. “And I think it’s the right decision, my Lord.”
He popped another lemon drop into his mouth. “Wow,” he said thoughtfully as he chewed. “Hermione Smith, back in the land of the living… cute as a fucking button, too, did you see the little bow on her braid? Wrong colors, though.”
“Yes, I saw,” Voldemort seethed. He clenched his jaw so tightly it hurt. He took another deep breath. “But I have no intention of seeing her again for a long, long time. You will be keeping a close eye on her. You will be sending me frequent reports, and… and you will be keeping tabs on a few others, too.”
Voldemort flicked his wand at the cabinet again. Three files flew into Walter’s hands.
“Harry Potter,” he read aloud. “Ronald Weasley—oh good, another one—and… Draco Malfoy? Lucius’s boy…?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask why?”
“No. Just do as I say and monitor them closely. And keep me apprised of any interesting developments with them, magically or otherwise. It should be easy for you. Three of them are in your house.”
“Damn right they are,” Walter said, grinning. He tossed Draco’s file onto the desk, where it landed next to Hermione’s. “Gryffindor is a sure thing for the House Cup this year, I’d say. I get all but Mr. Malfoy… Can’t say I’m sad to not have him. But Ronald! I love a good Weasley. And Harry—wow, he looks exactly like his father—it says here his first bout of intentional magic was briefly flying? That’s promising. Can’t wait to see him on a broom. And—oh. Of course Hermione lit her Matron on fire. Twice, it says.”
Voldemort tried not to let the sight of her picture so close to a Malfoy’s turn his heart black. He snatched her folder back from Walter, who had turned it to face him, then glanced at each of the four portraits, despairing.
For the next seven years, they would all be in school together. Here, at Hogwarts. Taking classes, sleeping under the same roof. Learning to duel and fly, attending dances, discovering themselves and… each other.
Growing up. Together.
He couldn’t be anywhere near it.
“This all stays between us,” Voldemort eventually said, quietly.
“Obviously,” Walter replied.
“And you are all bound to secrecy on this matter—even from the current Headmaster… it is for the safety of these students.”
The portraits of past Headmasters suddenly came fully to life, nodding seriously. The magic in them was complex, Voldemort had come to learn in utmost detail. Their allegiance was to the school, first and foremost, and that manifested as to the students first… not the Headmaster.
They could not say or do anything that could potentially harm a student. It was the only surefire way to control what they could or could not blabber on about… unfortunately.
Voldemort gave Hermione’s picture one last, agonizing look. So long as Walter kept his nose out of things and listened to him, her secret—was it really even her secret?—would be safe. He did not need word of this traveling outside of Hogwarts; he especially did not need it to travel as far as America. The world had long since forgotten about the Golden Lady, after all; he would see that it stayed that way.
No. Not everyone has forgotten.
Hermione… Smith.
Adopted in record time…
She must have been waiting, watching… A long time donor, indeed…
No, there was someone out there who had not forgotten about the Golden Lady at all. Someone else who knew… everything. Had she always known?
Voldemort intended to find out.
He stood. He walked with purpose around the desk, making his exit.
“Whoa—you’re leaving? Right now?” Walter called.
“Yes. Don’t worry, I’ll be in touch… soon.”
Voldemort was in the entryway when a terrible sound made him pause. Laughter. Familiar laughter. Not Walter’s.
He should have kept walking.
“…What?” he hissed, turning to glare at the offending portrait.
Albus Dumbledore himself may have been sacked and was no longer in Britain, but his portrait would haunt the Headmaster’s office forever. There wasn’t a single spell in the world that could remove them—and Voldemort had tried everything.
Dumbledore’s blue eyes twinkled behind his glasses, and his smile was both knowing and supremely condescending.
“Ah, love,” he said wistfully, “is such a burden.”
Voldemort considered casting the killing curse, even though he’d already tried that several times, just to make him flinch. Dumbledore chuckled like he could hear his thoughts.
Voldemort turned and left, saying nothing, brimming with too many convoluted emotions.
He stormed down the stairs towards one of the lesser known, secret passages out of the castle. He could hear the ruckus from the Great Hall; soon the feast would be over, and the students would be making their way to their new beds…
Hermione Smith would be sleeping in Gryffindor Tower, tonight…
Voldemort glowered at the thought. He was certain her adoptive mother would be ever so disappointed with her sorting; he couldn’t wait to tell her himself that she had not landed in Hufflepuff. The wrong colors, indeed.
It was late, he realized, and he wasn’t giving her any notice.
If I’m going to impose upon Hepzibah Smith so rudely, Voldemort thought, bitter, I’d better bring flowers.
Flowers.
Daffodils, pansies, lilies, petunias; violets, clovers, and dandelions. Roses. Both the wild and cultivated kind.
Bees and butterflies floated freely from bloom to bloom, pollinating the world to life. In the distance, birds sang.
And there, among the flowers… her.
I shouldn’t be here.
He hadn’t meant to come. He had not performed any of the complex, runic enchantments that he’d needed to cast so many years ago, when he’d first sought her out this way. Of course, it had gotten easier, with time… At one point, he’d hardly needed to use magic at all, to be able to find her like this…
Was that why he was here? Had he unwittingly, subconsciously, yearned for her so deeply that he had forced himself upon her in her eternal Spring?
In her dream?
I should leave. I should go, I should return to my own cold nightmare…
He didn’t.
Voldemort walked, his feet moving through the countless flowers as though he’d been entranced, as though he had no say in the matter. He didn’t stop until he was directly before her.
She looked… the same, to him.
Curly, frizzy hair. Sun-kissed skin. Wearing a loosely fitted gown covered in grass and pollen stains. She was sprawled out in the flowers, looking the very picture of contentment. A caterpillar inched along her forearm. Bookworm, he thought, smirking.
She was beautiful.
Slowly, she opened her eyes. She frowned at him. “Excuse me,” she said. “Can you move? You’re—”
“Blocking the sun. I know.”
He sat beside her, leaving a small space between them, before she could reprimand him further. “Sorry,” he added.
“That’s quite all right,” she said. Seeming satisfied, she closed her eyes again.
Voldemort’s mind reeled as he stared at her. She looked like she’d be happy to simply lay there, ignoring him, basking in the sun forever.
And I should let her. I should go.
“Can I… ask you a question?”
She cracked one eye open. “Why, I believe you just did.”
She laughed. Voldemort could have melted at the sound. Gods, he’d missed her laugh.
“But you may ask another one,” she continued. She rolled onto her stomach and flashed him a radiant smile. “What is it?”
Voldemort swallowed hard. “What do I… I mean to ask… How do I look, to you?”
“That’s an odd question,” she said, frowning. “Do you not know what you look like?”
“Just answer. Please.”
“You look like a boy, of course. A sweet and harmless boy.”
When he breathed a sigh of—was it relief, what he felt?—she laughed again. “Are you about to tell me you’re something else…? A monster in disguise, maybe?”
“No,” he said, perhaps too quickly. “No, I…”
His words trailed off. He had no idea what he should say to that, so he said nothing.
She sat up. She reached down and pulled something from the tall grass, then held it out to him. “Here, for you.”
A dandelion. Round and puffy and white. Voldemort stared at it.
“Well, go on, then,” she said, smiling. “Make a wish and blow it!”
“Make… a wish,” he repeated.
“Yes, that’s how it’s done. You seem sad. You look like you could use a good wish.”
Cautiously, unable to stop his own smile from spreading on his face, he took it. His fingers grazed hers for the briefest of moments—warm, she was so warm.
His heart was pounding as he pulled away. She nodded encouragingly.
A wish.
The amount of pressure he felt at such an ultimately meaningless action was obscene. Still, he thought long and hard before he finally drew in a deep breath, then blew, hard. The seeds flew away, every last one of them, scattering into the air and catching in the breeze.
“Well done!” she exclaimed, clapping. “I knew you could do it. I hope you made a good wish!”
Voldemort tossed the now bare stem behind him. “I did," he replied happily.
“Good.”
She fell back in the grass, stretching her arms out wide amongst the flowers. “So," she said, "what’s your name?”
His heart swelled and stuttered. Sunshine, birdsong, and the scent of a thousand flowers filled the air.
“Tom,” he answered, for the first time in far too long.
“My name is Tom.”
Chapter 78: Index
Chapter Text
Here is a list of some useful links, as well as all the fan made videos and art inspired by Blood and Gold thus far. If you’ve made fanart and don’t see it on this list, please tell me! I likely missed it by accident and will add it. If you make fanart of any kind in the future, please tag me when you share it so I can add, both here and in the fic itself in an end not on a relevant chapter. I listed links below where you can find me.
A massive, giant, resounding THANK YOU to all the artists who added to this story while I was writing it with their beautiful work, as well as a huge thank you to Mahdis for helping me find everything. Now go check out this art and show these artists some love!!!
Links:
OP Instagram where I post fanart
Collaborative Spotify Playlist
Video Edits (also listed on chapter 1)
Movie Trailer Edit by Hansån Luy
Movie trailer edit by Nyx Astra
Movie trailer edit by stillhotterthanyours
Movie trailer edit by heartphantom
Movie trailer edit by eucalyptus
Movie trailer edit/fanart by malefica-yana
And on chapter 76:
Fanart:
Chapter 1:
Cover art by enchanted.raccoon
‘She exhaled blood and gold’ fanart by garfunkelworld
Book cover art by riddlermione
Book cover art by wildwitchfanfic
Book cover art by raewritesanddraws
Chapter 2:
Hermione’s scars, fanart by alecianart
Chapter 4:
Hermione fanart by silver.hebridean
Chapter 7:
Hermione fanart by garfunkelworld
Chapter 8:
Tom and Hermione in Borgin and Burke's by jd-sparks
Chapter 11:
Abraxas Malfoy fanart by garfunkelworld
Chapter 13:
Tom and Hermione fanart by malefica-yana
Tom and Hermione in the rose garden by Red
Chapter 14:
Hermione catching fire, fanart by shadowedcries
Hermione and the snake fanart by shadowedcries
Chapter 15:
Tom and Hermione in the snow by flyingred
Chapter 21:
Tom and Hermione fanart by ginger_and_vodka
Chapter 32:
Tom and Hermione fanart by thedeathofdreams1
Chapter 35:
Fanart/comic ink by Garfunkelworld
Chapter 36:
Tom and Hermione fanart by franki3_draws
Chapter 40:
Hermione fanart by franki3_draws
Chapter 45:
Tom and Hermione fanart by lepra.art
Chapter 50:
Hermione in the flowers fanart by tomioneforever
Chapter 53:
Hermione under Tom’s shadow by munerm404
Chapter 54:
‘The escape’ fanart by tomioneforever
Chapter 55:
Chapter 57:
Hermione on her knees by flyingred
Chapter 62:
Lester Madison fanart by garfunkelworld
Chapter 65:
Tom and Hermione fanart by Enchantedcoon
Chapter 64:
Hermione and Tom fanart by a.e.binding
Chapter 66:
'Ritual' fanart by thedeathofdreams1
Chapter 68:
Euphenia Selwyn fanart by raewritesanddraws
Chapter 69:
Chapter 72:
Chapter 73:
Chapter 74:
‘Her Loft, Burning’ fanart by thedeathofdreams1
‘The Lost Years’ fanart by thedeathofdreams1
Chapter 75:
Chapter 76:
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