Nightmare

by provocative_envy

Summary:

A broken time turner shouldn't have sent me back so far. It was unprecedented. Stepping on it--smashing it--nothing should have happened. At most, I should have lost a week. At worst, I should have disappeared altogether. I shouldn't have traveled back fifty-two years; half a bloody century.

This should not have happened.

Chapter 1

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September 1, 1944

 

I was fucked.

Brutally fucked.

Stupidly fucked.

The kind of fucked that has no discernible beginning or end, because everything that could possibly go wrong does—all at once, without any warning at all; a burgeoning, catastrophic cluster of chaos and misery and absolute disaster.

"You will, of course, need to be Sorted, but we can do that in the Headmaster’s office before dinner, no need to put you up front with the firsties—”

Someone was talking to me. Someone was saying something. I should listen. I should be listening—paying attention—trying to make sense of what was happening.

As if that were even remotely fucking possible.

“—just can’t believe Albus didn’t say something sooner about his niece—his own flesh and blood—coming to Hogwarts for her final year of school, all the way from France. Most irresponsible of him—”

The man in front of me—what was his name? Surely he’d told me his name. He must have. He had. I knew him. We’d met—before. And his name—it was generic. Friendly. Unassuming. It had made me think, briefly, of home, and my gut had twisted spasmodically in response. It had been painful.

“—you worry about a thing, Miss Granger, we’ll get everything handled. You’ll be settled in and feeling right as rain before you can say Slytherin—”

Slytherin. Why would I want to say that? Unless—yes, of course, he was the Slytherin Head of House, that was who he was, and he was taking me somewhere, rather optimistically, his gait long and steady and confident—he seemed almost blissfully unaware of my silence, as if he was used to chattering happily about nothing important while other people were forced to listen.

“Speaking of, I do dearly hope, Miss Granger, that our tatty old hat gives Slytherin a fair shot at you during your Sorting. Albus Dumbledore’s niece would be quite the coup for us, quite the coup, indeed. And we’ve had such good luck the last couple of years, what with Tom—oh, you don’t know him, but you will, Miss Granger, you most certainly will—making Head Boy and dear, dear Abraxas—Malfoy, you understand—winning the Quidditch Cup for us, really, it’s a wonderful time to be a snake, that’s what everyone’s saying—”

I was then being propelled down an achingly familiar hallway with a stone gargoyle standing at attention near the center. I felt my throat constrict tightly.

“Professor Slughorn,” I suddenly burst out, skidding to a desperate, cloying halt. “Where are you taking me?”

I knew, though, of course I fucking knew—I just needed a moment, I needed to breathe, I needed to collect myself and my stupid, stupid fucking emotions and remember that I could not afford to act as if something was dreadfully, horribly wrong. I needed to breathe. I needed to remember who I was and where I was and, most importantly, when I was. I needed—I needed space. I needed a moment.

Just one fucking moment.

“Oh, silly me—my sincerest apologies, Miss Granger, I forgot entirely that you’re most unfamiliar with the—shall we say—quirks of our castle. This is how we get to the Headmaster’s office. It’s a handy thing—”

He began to explain, in surprising detail, everything I already knew, and I took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to ignore the telltale throb of anxiety pulsing through my body. How was I going to do this? How was I going to keep this up? Every corner—every corridor—every square inch of this gigantic fucking castle—was full of memories. I had loved it here. I had made friends here, and I had thrived here, and I’d bloody well grown up here. How was I going to pretend that I didn’t know where I was? How was I going to act like nothing was wrong?

“—just go right on in, then, Headmaster Dippet should be along shortly, and then we’ll get you Sorted, Miss Granger, although I imagine you’d like to wait for your uncle, eh? Nothing like family to make things seem a bit easier, isn’t that the truth—”

Family. The word sounded dirty, even in my head. I didn’t have any family, not anymore. Dumbledore, as kind as was being, was not my family. He was not the same. He was younger, less trusting, the omnipresent twinkle in his eye the only remnant of the Dumbledore that I knew. But he was not the same. Nothing was the same.

“How does the—the Sorting, you called it? Yes? How does it work?” I heard myself ask, gratefully taking the seat that Slughorn had gestured for me to sit in.

“Oh, I’m so glad you asked, Miss Granger, it’s quite a fun bit of magic, actually—”

My mind glazed over as he talked, and I looked around the Headmaster’s office, my eyes flitting from one small detail to the next, the overwhelming feeling of wrongness becoming almost too much to bear—because this was not Dumbledore’s sanctuary. This was not what I was used to. There were no delicate brass instruments whirring and clacking on the shelves. There was no magically replenishing bowl of lemon drops. There was no sense of warmth, or peace, or understanding.

And I didn’t belong there.

A broken time turner shouldn’t have sent me back so far. It was unprecedented. Stepping on it—smashing it—nothing should have happened. At most, I should have lost a week. At worst, I should have disappeared altogether. I shouldn’t have traveled back fifty-two years; half a bloody century. I shouldn’t be there, sitting in a comfortably appointed armchair, waiting to be sorted by the hat that had already sorted me once before. 

This should not have happened.

But I’d done the right thing, hadn’t I? Bellatrix Lestrange would have used it to save Voldemort. She would have used it to stop Harry. She would have succeeded. And so when she’d reached for me, for the spindly gold hourglass hanging around my neck, I’d done the only thing I could think of—I’d yanked it off and thrown it to the ground and stepped down, hard. Maybe too hard. Maybe that was what had gone wrong. Maybe something about the angle of my foot—

No.

This should not have happened.

There weren’t any rational explanations. Dumbledore had already told me that.

“Ah, here they are, Miss Granger—”

I watched, in a daze, as a seemingly ancient Armando Dippet trudged wearily towards me, his hand outstretched, a cordial greeting leaving his lips. I recognized him, of course. His portrait had hung in Dumbledore’s office—this office. I grimaced.

“Welcome to Hogwarts, Miss Granger,” Dippet was saying to me. “I still can’t believe that Albus was hiding a niece from us for all this time, but he’s always been mysterious, hasn’t he, Horace? We are, of course, delighted to have you.”

“Thank you,” I managed to mumble, studying my shoes—black leather loafers, part of the required school uniform of 1944. They were uncomfortably tight.

“Hermione has always wanted to attend Hogwarts, Armando,” Dumbledore said archly, throwing me a sharp glance. “She’s quite brilliant. I’m sure she’ll do wonderfully.”

“Yes, well, if she’s anything like her uncle…” Slughorn put in, grinning.

“Shall we get on with it, then?” Dippet asked, turning towards a small mahogany cabinet next to his desk. “We don’t want to be late for the feast.”

Slowly, almost reverently, he tugged open the cabinet door and removed a stubby, dusty stool with a hat perched on top. The Sorting Hat. Ratty and dirty and humble—it was ugly, almost unsanitary, and I remembered, vividly, how horrified I’d been as a first-year when I’d realized that I was meant to put it on my head. Now, though, it didn’t disgust me. It made my heart hurt.

“Come, Miss Granger, this will only take a moment,” Dippet said kindly, motioning me forward.

I got to my feet, marveling at the fact that my muscles were working at all, and walked towards him. He picked up the hat, and I flinched, thinking of Professor McGonagall doing the exact same thing, all those years ago—and then I turned around quickly, plopping down on the stool before anyone could notice my expression. Almost immediately, I felt the soft, worn weight of the hat being placed on my head.

Ah, a Gryffindor, the Sorting Hat said, its androgynous, squeaky clean voice bouncing around my skull.

Can we just get this over with? I pleaded internally. We both know where I belong.

Hmmm. You’re brave, that’s more than clear. Bright, too. But you don’t belong in Gryffindor, do you? No, I don’t think that you do.

What? I demanded, stunned. Of course I do.

You’re a Gryffindor, Miss Granger, there’s no doubt about that. But that isn’t where you belong. Not now, at least. I think you’d do better elsewhere.

Ravenclaw? I suggested, dread settling like a tight, toxic vice around my stomach.

No, the hat mused thoughtfully. Not there, either. There’s somewhere else you should go, dearie.

You’re insane, I sputtered. Absolutely bloody insane. I’m a Gryffindor. That’s where I should go.

You have so much potential, Miss Granger. So much to accomplish. You can’t do any of it in Gryffindor.

I don’t bloody well care! I argued furiously. I belong in Gryffindor!

I think not, was all it said before going suspiciously quiet.

And then—

“SLYTHERIN!” the hat shouted abruptly.

I shut my eyes. I didn’t want to open them. This could not be happening. This was not happening. I was having a nightmare, I had them all the time, this wasn’t unusual—a nightmare, yes, just a fucking nightmare, and I was going to wake up, and everything was going to be normal, and it was going to be 1996, and I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be pretending to be Albus Dumbledore’s ridiculous recluse of a niece, I wouldn’t have just been sorted into fucking Slytherin, I wouldn’t—

I wouldn’t be here.

I wasn’t supposed to be here. This should not have happened. This should not be happening.

And I was fucked.

So fucked.

“Oh, marvelous!” Slughorn exclaimed. I heard him clap his hands together.

“Well, how about that, Albus,” Dippet said, sounding heartily amused. “A Slytherin. From your family. How utterly remarkable.”

“Indeed,” Dumbledore replied wryly. “Although Hermione is, of course, quite the remarkable young woman.”

I swallowed, opening my eyes. No one had spoken to me yet.

“She’s shocked, Albus,” Dippet observed genially. “Were you not expecting Slytherin, Miss Granger?”

I had to answer. They would find it strange if I didn’t answer. My mouth was dry. “I—ah—I am a little surprised,” I replied, clutching at the sleeves of my regulation navy cardigan. “We’ve never had a Slytherin in the family before, have we, Uncle Albus?”

He regarded me shrewdly for a long, prickly second. “No, Hermione, we haven’t,” he finally said with a forced chuckle. “But you’ll be a lovely addition, I’m sure. They’re lucky to have you.”

Dippet gave Dumbledore a congratulatory pat on the back.

“We should get going,” Slughorn said cheerfully. “The feast is going to start soon! I’d be more than happy to escort you to dinner, Miss Granger, help you get your bearings. I’ll introduce you to Tom, our Head Boy. He’ll make sure you know where everything is, and—”

He went on and on and on as we exited the Headmaster’s office. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t stand to focus. My only comfort when Dumbledore had told me I’d be going back to Hogwarts was that I would at least be home, in Gryffindor Tower, with its cozy burgundy common room and reassuringly normal atmosphere. But now I was being tossed into a literal snake pit. It wasn’t fair. I wasn’t like them. I wasn’t sneaky, and I wasn’t dishonest, and I wasn’t selfish. How was I going to survive?

“This is the Great Hall, Miss Granger,” Slughorn was saying loudly, steering me in the direction of the Slytherin table. I almost jerked backwards as I caught sight of the sea of green and silver—this wasn’t home. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t where I belonged.

We stopped next to someone. A boy. Slughorn tapped him on the shoulder, urging him to stand up and introduce himself. He did. But I still couldn’t concentrate. I was too distracted by the shiny gold badge pinned to his sweater vest—cable-knit navy, just like mine. This was the Head Boy. Why did I suddenly feel nervous? Who was he? Tom. That’s what he’d been called. Tom, the Slytherin Head Boy.

He was tall. Tall and broad-shouldered and slender, with absolutely beautiful skin—so pale it was practically incandescent, his cheeks tinged with just the faintest hint of pink. He had thick black hair, parted at the side, and large, eerily inexpressive dark eyes. A strong jaw, square chin, and thin red lips. He was handsome. He was smiling at me. It didn’t fit his face.

“I’m sorry,” I stammered quietly, clearing my throat. “I didn’t catch your name. There’s been quite a lot to take in.”

“Tom Riddle,” the boy repeated politely, holding out his hand. “I’m Head Boy this year. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Granger.”

I stared at him, transfixed, my brain melting into something uncharacteristically incapable.

Tom Riddle.

Tom Riddle.

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

I was fucked.                                                                                                            

Oh, my God, was I fucked.

 

---

 

Notes:

On Tumblr.

Chapter 2

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September 1, 1944

 

Tom Riddle was unnervingly pleasant.

He chatted courteously to me throughout dinner, his voice low and deep and soothing, and introduced me in a rather perfunctory fashion to the rest of the seventh-year Slytherins. He was well-spoken and articulate, with confident mannerisms and an easy, boyish grin. He was very popular—it wasn’t difficult to guess why.

“Abraxas, say hello to Professor Dumbledore’s niece,” Riddle was saying to someone. “She’s been sorted into Slytherin.”

A tall boy with shaggy blond hair glanced up at us, obviously impatient, before blinking. “Ah—didn’t realize Dumbledore had a niece,” he said, swallowing thickly. “Nice to meet you. I’m Abraxas. Abraxas Malfoy. I play quidditch.”

I had barely managed not to gasp, however, as I saw what appeared to be a bigger, burlier, less refined version of Draco Malfoy sitting in front of me. He had the same pale skin, and the same pointed, aristocratic features, with perfectly straight white teeth and full pink lips—but this particular Malfoy’s nose was slightly crooked, as if it had been broken one too many times, and he was scruffy, his jaw unshaven, a faded purple bruise lingering carelessly over one cheekbone. And his eyes—the very same piercing grey as his grandson’s—were disarmingly gentle.

“Hermione Granger,” I replied, feeling faint. “I…don’t play quidditch.”

Silence. Awkward, disbelieving silence. And then—

Malfoy threw his head back and roared with laughter, slamming his fist down on the table with a jarring, startling thud.

“I should hope not,” he said, throwing a devastating wink in my direction. “Your face is much too pretty to risk a stray bludger.”

I was speechless. A Malfoy was flirting with me. A Malfoy was being nice to me. This was not real. This could not fucking be real.

“Oh, don’t make the poor girl blush, Abraxas,” a new voice interjected. I swung my gaze to the left, only to see a sleek, slender boy with closely cropped black hair elbowing Malfoy playfully in the ribs.

“I’m hardly blushing,” I felt compelled to point out.

The dark-haired boy turned his attention to me. “Edmond Lestrange,” he said, holding out his hand over a platter of roast potatoes. “I didn’t catch your name, but did I hear that you’re Dumbledore’s niece?”

Lestrange. I tasted bile, it was unstoppable, unthinkable—Lestrange, Lestrange, there had been screaming, so much screaming, my screaming, shrill and hoarse and so much fucking screaming, and the floor had been cold and hard, sticky with blood, my blood, filthy blood, dirty blood, mudblood, that’s what they had said, over and over and over, mudblood mudblood mudblood, does it hurt yet, tell us it fucking hurts, it has to fucking hurt—

I resolutely lifted my chin. “Hermione Granger,” I said, taking his hand and hoping my disgust wasn’t evident as I watched him place a wet, open-mouthed kiss across my knuckles. His breath was nauseatingly warm. “And yes, Albus Dumbledore is my uncle.”

“Can’t believe you were sorted into Slytherin,” Lestrange remarked casually, releasing my hand. I forced myself not to wipe it on the tablecloth. “Bloody brilliant, isn’t it, Tom? Bet Dumbledore’s furious.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Why would he be furious?” I asked, puzzled.

Malfoy chuckled and took a sloppy swig of pumpkin juice. “’cause he fucking hates us,” he said, shrugging.

“Language, Malfoy,” Riddle snapped, clearly annoyed.

“Why would my uncle hate you?” I pressed. They had to think I was one of them. They couldn’t get suspicious. I had to pretend. I had to be convincing.

Malfoy and Lestrange both glanced towards Riddle, as if waiting for something; when he nodded, just once, they turned back to me.

"Oh, he just has it out for Slytherins, love,” Malfoy replied, waving a huge hand dismissively through the air. His fingernails, I noticed, were blunt-cut and dirty. “He’s always trying to blame us for things. No offense, I know he’s family, but he’s a bit of a prick about it.”

Lestrange sniggered.

“You shouldn’t call teachers names like that, Malfoy,” Riddle instructed, cutting his chicken into precise, bite-sized pieces. “Especially not in front of a new student. She might get the wrong impression.”

There was a moment of bizarrely charged silence as the two boys watched Riddle eat, their expressions guarded.

“Of course Tom’s right,” Lestrange said abruptly. “We wouldn’t want Miss Granger to think that we don’t like her uncle.”

“Besides,” Malfoy added around a mouthful of pudding, “maybe he’ll be nice to us now that she’s here.”

Next to me, Riddle sneered. “I wouldn’t count on it,” he murmured, tapping his fingers against the table.

I furrowed my brow. “I don’t understand. He doesn’t like you because you’re Slytherins?”

“There were some accidents a couple of years ago,” Lestrange explained, staring down at his peas, refusing to look up. “Bad ones. He suspected us, for whatever reason, and if it hadn’t been for Tom, we probably would have been blamed.”

I absorbed this for a minute. “Accidents?” I asked carefully.

I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Riddle glower at Lestrange.

“Yeah. Some stupid half-breed had a pet Acromantula, if you can even imagine, and set it loose in the castle. It killed a muggle-born. The Ministry made quite the big deal about it at the time.”

I visibly recoiled. I knew the stupid half-breed. I knew the muggle-born. I even knew the Acromantula. How was I going to keep this up? How long could I sit here, with them, and act as if nothing was wrong? “That’s awful,” I grimaced. “And Uncle Albus thought the three of you had something to do with it? How preposterous.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, love,” Malfoy said easily, leaning back and stretching his arms over his head, flexing his biceps in the process. “He’ll never be able to prove anything, even if it was—”

“Abraxas,” Riddle hissed, spearing him with a glare.

And there it was again—silence, tense and thick and cold, as the two boys stared at Riddle, their eyes wary. How did no one else see this?

“What Abraxas means, Miss Granger,” Riddle clarified, “is that your uncle favors his own house, Gryffindor, over the rest of us. He was just overeager to blame the accident on some Slytherins. It’s perfectly normal here at Hogwarts. Nothing to worry about.”

I took a sip of water, meeting Riddle’s searching, curious gaze. But—no. No. He could not be interested in me. I could not let him be interested in me. What had Dumbledore said? Blend in. Blend in seamlessly, effortlessly, until he figured out how to get me home. Riddle could not be interested in me. He could not.

“I—I see,” I said, quickly making up my mind and turning back towards Malfoy with a shy, calculated quirk of my lips. “Abraxas, was it? Yes? It seems there’s so much I need to learn about how things work around here. I feel terribly lost.”

Malfoy’s pretty grey eyes widened for a fraction of a second. “Well, we can’t have that, now can we?” he drawled, placing his large, muscular forearms on the table and leaning forward. “Don’t worry, love, I’ll make sure you don’t stay lost.”

“That’s awfully generous of you,” I replied, biting my lip.

“Something tells me it’ll be my pleasure, sweetheart,” Malfoy said, smirking.

Lestrange grunted loudly. “Yeah it will, ‘cause from what I hear, it certainly won’t be hers,” he laughed, ducking when Malfoy turned to him with a snarl.

“Fucking hell, Lestrange, why do you always have to ruin everything?”

“I don’t ruin everything, you great lumbering prat—”

Riddle watched the two boys bicker with what could only be described as disdain. Weren’t they supposed to be his friends? “Stop it, Lestrange,” he ordered quietly. “You’re embarrassing Miss Granger.”

This was patently false, but no one bothered to argue.

“Sorry,” Lestrange mumbled, fiddling with his tie. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you, Miss Granger. I was just having a bit of fun.”

I clenched my hands into frantic, uncomfortable fists. “It’s fine,” I said brightly. “Really. And, please, call me Hermione.”

Lestrange flashed me a grateful grin; my stomach twisted. “Hermione, then.”

“Oi!” Malfoy put in, pouting. “What about me, love? What do I get to call you?”

I giggled. “You can continue to call me Miss Granger,” I replied pertly. “I’ve decided I rather like the sound of it, coming from you.”

Before Malfoy could respond, Riddle let out an exasperated sigh. “Miss Granger,” he said wryly.  “Your uncle appears to be trying very hard to get your attention.”

I whirled around to scan the Head Table, only to find Dumbledore maneuvering out of his seat and signaling for me to follow him. “Looks like I’m cutting dinner short,” I said to Malfoy, getting to my feet. I was surprised when all three boys immediately stood up.

“Please, let one of us escort you out,” Riddle offered, holding out his arm. “You can’t possibly know where you’re going yet.”

I snorted. “Oh, don’t be silly,” I said, smoothing down the front of my skirt. “Uncle Albus is just out there. I’m quite sure I can make it to the door without directions.”

Malfoy’s lips twitched; Riddle, though, looked at me appraisingly.

“Of course you can,” he replied, his tone polite.

But I felt his eyes following me, dark and flashing and ominous, as I slowly made my way to the entrance hall.

It made me exceedingly nervous.

 

---

           

“Tea, Miss Granger?”

Dumbledore was hovering over an orange ceramic teapot as he waited for my response.

“No, thank you,” I replied, settling into a comfortable, chintz-covered armchair. His office was not particularly large, but it was cozy and warm, with an enormous brick fireplace and an entire wall of shelves stuffed with books. Several spindly brass instruments sat on his desk, humming intermittently. They were familiar. They made me want to cry.

“How was dinner?” he asked, sitting across from me.

I paused. “Illuminating,” I said shortly.

“In what way?”

“I met Abraxas Malfoy, Edmond Lestrange, and Tom Riddle.”

He took a long, measured sip of tea, his eyes narrowed. “I see.”

“Malfoy seems harmless enough, but Lestrange is…slimy. I don’t like him,” I elaborated, picking at my cuticles.

“And your opinion of young Mr. Riddle?”

“Honestly? He’s creepy,” I replied. “He has this strange…control over everyone—it’s unsettling.”

Dumbledore had no idea that I already knew who Tom Riddle was. He had no idea that I knew his future, knew what he’d do later on, knew what he was capable of. He couldn’t know. I couldn’t risk it.

“Mr. Riddle is very popular with the other students,” he said carefully, his expression thoughtful. “He’s a particular favorite of Headmaster Dippet’s, as well. I would urge you to—for lack of a better word—hide your distaste, at least for the time being. The Slytherins worship him, and you are now a Slytherin, Miss Granger.”

I nodded sharply. “Don’t remind me,” I muttered, frowning. “I should not be a Slytherin.”

He studied me intently over the rim of his spectacles. “What did the hat say during your sorting?” he asked.

I sighed. “It was frustrating,” I answered, fidgeting. “It said that I was a Gryffindor, but that I—I didn’t belong there, this time around. That I had so much to accomplish, and I couldn’t do it there. It was rather vague about the whole thing, actually.”

“The Sorting Hat is a peculiar relic, Miss Granger,” he said slowly, leaning back in his chair. “Its magical properties aren’t fully understood—like everything here at Hogwarts, it guards its secrets very well—but it does possess an uncanny…knack for understanding circumstances beyond our control. If it believes you have a purpose here, and that that purpose is best served in Slytherin, perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it.”

I gritted my teeth. Purpose? Surely he wasn’t serious. “I thought we agreed that my presence here was nothing more than a disastrous accident,” I replied crossly. “That I should fit in as best as I can, not draw attention to myself, and preserve the timeline. Implying that there’s a purpose to my visit implies that I’m here to change something. That is not just impossible, Professor. It’s dangerous.”

“Well, yes. But that was before.”

What the bloody fuck? “Before,” I echoed, nonplussed.

“Yes. Before the Sorting Hat made it known that there is, in fact, a reason you were sent back to us,” he clarified, his sky blue eyes almost, but not quite, twinkling. I felt a pang in my chest at the sight.

“It’s a hat,” I said bluntly. “It may, technically speaking, be sentient, but it’s still a hat, Professor.”

Disappointment flashed across his face. “You said, Miss Granger, that it acknowledged that you were a Gryffindor?”

“Well—yes,” I admitted.

“So, it recognized you,” he continued sagely. “Our technically sentient hat recognized you, even though, technically speaking, it is 1944 and you have yet to even be born.”

My lips parted, but no sound emerged.

“Is that correct, Miss Granger?” he asked, not unkindly.

I blinked rapidly. “Yes, but—”

“Now, I know that meddling with time is a generally frowned-upon practice,” he said, twirling the end of his beard. “And I’m not encouraging you to do any such thing, you understand. But…perhaps if we didn’t refer to it as meddling—adjusting, maybe—yes, adjusting. That sounds much better, doesn’t it?”

He’d gone mad. I was stuck fifty years in the past with a mad Albus Dumbledore and a sociopathic, entirely too handsome Tom Marvolo Riddle. Why was this happening? “Sir, just to be clear—are you suggesting that I change things, things that might adversely affect the timeline—the one you were so terribly eager for me to protect—while I’m stuck here?”

“Oh, I would never suggest that,” he said congenially.

Of course not. “Well, then. If that’s all,” I said, getting to my feet.

“Actually, Miss Granger,” he said gravely, motioning for me to sit down again. “There is something else I need to discuss with you.” I slowly lowered myself back into the armchair. “Do you know who Gellert Grindelwald is?” he asked.

I pursed my lips. “Yes.”

“Then you know that he has quite a following around Europe.”

“Yes.”

“Gellert and I have a—a history, Miss Granger,” he said, reaching for his teacup. He didn’t pick it up. “Our association did not end well, and he has, for many years now, held quite a…grudge.”

“A grudge,” I repeated.

“Quite.”

“I’m sorry, Professor, but what—”

“Gellert is familiar with my family, Miss Granger,” he interrupted gently. “Word will undoubtedly reach him soon that my so-called niece is now attending Hogwarts. He will know that I do not have a niece.”

My throat went dry. “Why—why then, did you—” I stammered.

“Because you have an extraordinary secret, Miss Granger,” he answered simply, earnestly. “Most extraordinary. And because of that, you are in a precarious position. Should the truth about you ever come out, there will be people—many, many people—who will want to study you. They will try very hard to understand how you came to be here, and they will want to harness that power for themselves. I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you the allure of time travel.”

My head began to ache. “What—” I bleated, my voice cracking. “What are you trying to say, Professor?”

“I have some measure of credibility in our world, Miss Granger,” he replied smoothly. “Because I have claimed you as my niece, people will be more inclined to accept oddities in your behavior. You will be reasonably safe from suspicion of any kind.”

“So you’re protecting me.”

He wavered. I noticed. “Trying to, at any rate.”

“But what does Grindelwald have to do with any of this?”

He sighed. “As I mentioned, Gellert will hear of your existence and be aware that we are both lying,” he said tiredly. “He might try to discover why. He might try to…find you.”

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell him that he couldn’t be serious, he couldn’t be fucking serious, because there was no possible way things were getting worse. There wasn’t. There was not. “Are you trying to tell me, sir, that Gellert Grindelwald is going to be after me?”

He shifted in his seat. “I’m trying to tell you that he might be curious,” he replied softly. “And that you should be careful, Miss Granger. There’s a reason I wanted you at Hogwarts. He cannot get to you here.”

I suddenly couldn’t think. I needed to leave. I needed to get out. I could not be there, not anymore, and I could not handle one more fucking second of Albus Dumbledore’s tactless imposition on my fragile sense of security. Did he really need to remind me to be careful? Did he really need to tell me that after seven years of fighting the darkest wizard in history, I had been tossed back in time, only to be mindlessly, stupidly targeted by his predecessor?  I could not be there. I could not stay there. I could not think.

“Of course not,” I ground out, jerkily standing up. “But—if you’ll excuse me, Professor—I really should get to my common room. I’m quite tired. Today has been…taxing, to say the least, and I really—I should get some sleep. I should—I need to—I should go.”

I was rambling, desperate, and he was studying me with a look of almost paralyzing sadness on his face.

“Of course, Miss Granger,” he said graciously. “If I make any progress regarding your—unique condition, I will let you know.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, blindly turning towards the door and reaching for the handle. “I’ll just—be off, then. Thank you.”

And then I was in the hallway again, trembling, anxious, suffocating, I still couldn’t fucking think—and Tom Riddle was there.

I gasped, astonished. Tom Riddle was leaning up against the wall opposite me, his hands thrust in his pockets, the sleeves of his crisp white shirt folded back over his forearms. His green Slytherin tie was knotted loosely at his throat, disappearing into the top of his navy blue sweater vest. He looked relaxed, unbothered, the long, lean lines of his body so gracefully arranged that I was struck, again, by how physically perfect he was. I felt an unwelcome thrum of awareness in my lower abdomen.

“Miss Granger,” he said, quickly straightening and walking towards me.

“Hello,” I replied dumbly, hyper-conscious of the rapidly dwindling space between us.

“I thought you might need an escort to the dungeons,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if Professor Slughorn had time to show you where the common room is, or how to get in.”

I swallowed noisily. “He didn’t.”

“Fantastic,” he responded, starting down the hallway. I recognized, dimly, that I had no choice but to follow him. “I’ll take you down through the entry hall, just so you have a point of reference. It’s really not so hard to get around here, once you figure out the staircases.”

“That’s—that’s good to know,” I stuttered.

He kept up a constant stream of near-useless historical facts about the school as we made our way through the castle. His knowledge would have impressed me, had it come from anyone else, if only because it meant that he’d read Hogwarts, A History—not only read it, but basically memorized it, the endless litany of names and dates falling out of his mouth with practiced, deliberate ease. It was disconcerting.

“So,” he said conversationally, breaking into my thoughts. “Why did you decide to come here for your last year of school? It’s a bit unusual to transfer as a seventh-year.”

I licked my lips. “Grindelwald has a strong presence in southern France,” I replied, reciting the lie that Dumbledore had told me to tell. “I…wasn’t safe anymore.”

“You don’t have a French accent, though,” he observed, watching my face carefully.

I felt my stomach clench. Why was he so interested? "I only went to school there,” I offered lightly. “My parents had a house in Devon. That’s where I grew up.”

Was I imagining the suspicious slant to his eyes? Was I just being paranoid?

“Of course,” he demurred as we rounded a corner. “What was it like, growing up with Professor Dumbledore for an uncle? Fascinating, I bet.”

He was asking too many questions. His tone might have been respectful, even curious, but he was asking too many questions. I cleared my throat. “I didn’t see very much of Uncle Albus, actually,” I answered, squinting down the hallway to try and see how much farther we had to go to get to the dungeons. “He was quite busy with other things.”

"So—the two of you aren’t…close?” he prodded, his footsteps slowing.

Unease trickled down my spine. "He’s my uncle,” I said cautiously. “We’re close enough, I suppose.”

He came to a stop, a strange expression on his face. My hands felt damp. “Can I ask you something, Miss Granger?” he inquired, cocking his head to the side. I fought the urge to shudder.

"Of course.”

He didn’t hesitate. “Why do you look so afraid of me?”

I froze. What? How did he know? How had he guessed? I’d been careful, so careful, I had a splintering, blistering headache from how fucking careful I’d been—so how could he have sensed, even a little bit, that I was petrified, terrified, not just of him, but of everything, everyone, of never getting back, never finding a way home, never feeling like I belonged, never again, because I wasn’t supposed to be here, I wasn’t supposed to fucking be here, I wasn’t—

“Excuse me?” I blurted out, trying to ignore the way my pulse had sped up dangerously, irresponsibly, the way some small, never-used corner of my brain was screaming at me to run, run fast, run far, just—fucking run. Because he knew. He knew something was off, wrong, different about me—except he couldn’t. He couldn’t know. I couldn’t let him know.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said quickly, curving his lips into what might have passed for a reassuring smile. But I knew better. “It’s just that you seem a bit jumpy, you understand. And you were so comfortable with Abraxas…”

“Why would I be afraid of you?” I demanded, feigning indignation, pushing past my fluttering, stuttering heartbeat. “I don’t even know you, Riddle.”

"Please,” he said immediately, “call me Tom.”

My tongue was rough and thick in my mouth. "Tom, then.”

“I just don’t want us to get off to a bad start,” he went on, almost apologetically. “We’re quite a tight-knit group in Slytherin, and I’d hate to think that a member of my own house was uncomfortable around me.”

I resisted the impulse to take a large step backwards. "Oh, I’m not uncomfortable, Tom,” I said awkwardly. “I’m just…adjusting.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Good. I’m glad we sorted this out, then.”

"Me, too.”

But he didn’t look like he believed me.

And when he said goodnight after showing me to my room, his hand lingered for an inappropriately long moment on my shoulder as he patted my back.

Such a friendly gesture, I thought bitterly.

Except it wasn’t friendly, I would have been a fool to think it was, and I couldn’t suppress my revulsion, not anymore. I was too tired. It was too much. Everything—all of it—it was just too fucking much.

So I shivered.

And he noticed.

 

---

 

Chapter 3

---

 

September 16, 1944

 

The girl is not what she claims to be.

She’s utterly unremarkable, for the most part—she simpers at Malfoy, rolls her eyes at Dippet’s senility, and seems to be only slightly above average academically. But despite her rather uninspiring normalcy, I can’t fully escape the feeling that she has a secret. There are too many inconsistencies in her mannerisms, her recollection of the past—I doubt anyone else has noticed, considering the nauseating self-absorption that runs rampant in this school. But I most certainly have. And I cannot help but wonder—what is she hiding?

She says that she spent six years living in France, yet her French is barely even passable. Nott, whose uselessness has, up until now, been unmatched, could hardly contain his laughter after he attempted to have a conversation with her. Malfoy, of course, could not abide the insult and used his fists to avenge the girl’s honor. Honestly, it’s as if he forgets he owns a wand—it’s positively barbaric. I don’t know why I bother trying to teach him anything; he’s rarely worth the effort.

But—the girl.

She flinches whenever Lestrange touches her. I wasn’t sure at first—I thought I might have been imagining her response—but, no. It’s there. Today at breakfast, as he was passing her the salt, he brushed his fingers against her wrist and she looked…horrified. Which is odd—Lestrange has no discernible skills besides breathing. ‘Harmless’ is, perhaps, even too tame of an adjective for him—so why does she react like that?

And then there is her relationship with Albus Dumbledore. Her uncle. He doesn’t really give her any preferential treatment, not like he does the Gryffindors, which in of itself is surprising. Nepotism is, after all, a specialty of his. However—they do not speak to one another that often. And when they do, it’s stilted and somewhat awkward, as if they might be strangers. I don’t think she was lying when she told me they were not particularly close—which is curious, because I’ve always pegged Dumbledore as pathetically sentimental, the type who cherishes ridiculous things like family and bravery and honor and—well. His attitude towards the girl is unexpected, but could also be attributed to her turning out to be a Slytherin. He does actively despise all of us.

Another disparity.

She is a terrible Slytherin. The only person she speaks to with any degree of civility is Malfoy—and I pity her for that, frankly, since he’s an absolute imbecile—but it is yet another aspect of her personality that makes little sense to me. She is not unintelligent. She holds herself very still in class, especially when questions are asked, as if she does not want to be noticed, as if she could not possibly know the correct answer—but when she’s called on, she always does.

I do not know what to make of her.

I dislike mysteries.

 

--TMR

 

---

 

 

I was dreaming.

It was a bright, beautiful autumn day, the trees on the grounds an aching, riotous mosaic of yellow and orange and red—the air was crisp, the sky was clear, and the breeze was laced with the mesmerizing, earthy scent of falling leaves and freshly chopped firewood. Ron and Harry were walking next to me, their voices melding together, practically indistinguishable. I was happy. I was comfortable. I was home.

“Slughorn’s having another Halloween party this year,” Harry was saying glumly. “He wants me to bring a date.”

Ron blanched and nervously loosened his tie.  "Why don’t you just bring Hermione?”

They both turned to me.

"Because I’m already invited,” I said, rolling my eyes. “And I have to find my own date.”

Harry groaned.  "Who can I ask, ‘Mione? Parvati won’t go near me again, not after that disaster at the Yule Ball, and I don’t think I can handle listening to Lavender talk for that many hours, not when I can barely keep from strangling her at breakfast.”

"You could always ask Ginny,” I suggested, giggling as Ron’s expression turned thunderous.

“Can’t,” Harry replied, shaking his head. “Going with Dean, isn’t she? Though why he’s invited in the first place, I’ve no bloody idea.”

I grinned at his reticence, reaching up to adjust my scarf, only to shriek in surprise as Harry tugged at the end of it, twirling it over my head so it was easier to unwind.

"What’s so funny, ‘Mione?” he teased, chuckling as Ron began to turn my shoulders, managing to catch my hair on the fluttering length of cashmere. “You still have to find a date, too, you know. Who’re you going to ask? McLaggen? Zacharias Smith? Zabini, maybe? No! I’ve got it—Malfoy!”

But Ron was still spinning me, round and round and round, and my mouth was half-covered by the scarf, masking my laughter, and I was getting dizzy, almost faint, as something warm and wonderful and perfectly familiar erupted in my veins—

I started awake, gasping, and looked around frantically before realizing that yes, yes, I was still alone, and yes, yes, the hangings around my bed were still a deep, angry green, they weren’t red, they weren’t gold, this wasn’t home—and I exhaled loudly, the sound tight, choked, wrenched forcefully from my lungs—and then I started to cry.

Because it wasn’t fair. Because I wasn’t supposed to be here, not in this oversized bed with the wrong-colored sheets—because I didn’t belong here, surrounded by strangers and questions and a threatening, overly curious Tom Riddle. I didn’t deserve this. It wasn’t fair. I’d done everything right, my whole entire life. This was not fair.

I rubbed viciously at my eyes as they began to sting again. What was I going to do? Despite what Dumbledore had said, I knew that I couldn’t stay here, in this time, indefinitely. I could change things, seemingly insignificant things. I could destroy the future. I could, with one wrong step, decimate my life and my friends’ lives and everything we’d worked so hard to protect. And Dumbledore’s obvious insinuation that a misunderstood mutation of fate had brought me here, for a very specific reason, wasn’t just ludicrous.

It was reckless. It was irresponsible. It was fucking stupid.

And what if someone found out? What if Tom Riddle kept watching me with that all too thoughtful glint in his eye? What if he guessed? It would be a disaster if anyone discovered where—when—I was really from. It would only be worse if was him.

I settled back into bed, swiping at my cheeks with the back of my hand. It had been a month. An entire month since I’d woken up, confused and disoriented, with three broken ribs and a harrowing, unwavering sort of certainty that something wasn’t right. I’d been so optimistic at first. I’d thought that Dumbledore would know how to get me back. I’d thought that he could fix it, fix everything, and I would be able to return, quickly, to my own time.

I’d thought wrong.

Rolling over, I buried my face in my pillow. This was impossible. I knew how time travel worked. I knew that a fifty-year jump backwards was serious in a way that I probably couldn’t even wrap my head around. But I couldn’t be bothered with that just then. I wanted to leave. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see Harry and Ron again. I wanted to be in a world where Voldemort was still dead—not sitting across from me at breakfast, looking altogether too handsome, asking probing, unnecessary questions—

Because I was sure that he suspected something. I’d gone out of my way to fit in, not draw attention to myself; I kept quiet in class, wrote purposefully mediocre essays, and let Abraxas Malfoy carry my books to the library. I was polite to everyone. I had even managed to get used to Edmond Lestrange. I was doing so well. I had been doing so well. Why, then, did Tom Riddle stare at me like I was a particularly irritating puzzle he was determined to solve?

Abruptly, the curtains around my four-poster were flung open. I blinked at the sudden onslaught of light.

“Hermione, you need to get up!”

I winced. Melania Macmillan was loathsome. Truly, horrifically loathsome. The only other female Slytherin seventh-year, she was sallow-skinned and chubby, with a shrill, slightly acerbic voice and a penchant for cruelty. She delighted in cataloguing my faults, sniffing in contempt whenever she saw me—I was far too skinny and much too outspoken, my hair was horrid, my skin was ashy—I avoided her whenever I could.

“Did you already shower?” I asked, heaving a sigh as I swung my legs over the side of the bed.

“Of course,” she sneered haughtily, picking up a comb and running it through her lank black hair. “I’ve been up for an hour. Not everyone wants to spend all day in bed.”

“I was tired,” I retorted defensively, heading for the bathroom.

“Why? Out late again?” she mocked sweetly.

I picked up my towel. “I was studying,” I ground out.

Her lip curled. “Abraxas doesn’t study, Hermione,” she shot back. “Maybe if you kept your knickers on long enough around him to actually have a conversation, you would know that and be able to come up with a better excuse.”

I clenched my jaw. “Why, Melania, I had no idea you were so interested in my knickers,” I bit out, yanking open the bathroom door and turning to scowl at her.

“I don’t know why he’s wasting his time with you,” she snorted, picking up her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. “He could do so much better.”

But before I could respond, for the hundredth time, that he was hardly with me, she had stalked out of the room.

“Vile, vile girl,” I huffed angrily, stripping out of my pajamas and stepping into the shower. I made sure the water was almost painfully hot.

But by the time I made my way to the common room, it was half past eight and most people had already left for breakfast. Abraxas Malfoy, however, was standing next to the fireplace, waiting patiently for me to emerge from the girls’ dormitories.

“There you are,” he said, beaming. “Macmillan looked furious when she came out earlier. I got worried. Thought she might have finally hexed you, or locked you in a closet, or something equally nefarious.”

I grimaced. “She’s awful,” I complained, picking at a loose thread on my shirt. “I don’t know why she hates me so much.”

“She’s just jealous, love,” he said, waving me out of the common room. “She’s jealous that you’re beautiful and brilliant and funny, and she’s a greasy little troll who no one likes.”

I laughed, trying to ignore how hollow it sounded, and took his arm as we walked through the dungeons. “Abraxas?”

“Yes?”

“Have I mentioned yet today how very much I adore you?”

His cheeks turned pink. I squeezed his wrist. “First quidditch match is tomorrow,” he said abruptly, holding open the door to the Great Hall. “Against Ravenclaw. Should be a slaughter. I’m not worried.”

“That’s good,” I offered, following him towards the Slytherin table.

“Are you going to come and watch me?” he continued, glancing down at me.

I smiled at him. I almost meant it. “Of course I am,” I said reassuringly. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

He shot me a lopsided grin, and my heart almost broke. Because he was so very much like Ron—he chewed with his mouth open and laughed too loudly at his own jokes and talked, endlessly, about nothing but quidditch. He jumped to conclusions, was quick to overreact, and had a wicked temper. He was just like Ron. But I didn’t let myself think about him. I didn’t let myself think about any of them. It wasn’t safe. I couldn’t make comparisons. I couldn’t be distracted. If I was—if I did—I would lose control. I had to forget them. I had to forget all of them. I had to remember that I wasn’t the same person, not in 1944. I was fragile here.

Vulnerable.

And I could not think about them. I would not think about them. I had let myself have the dream that morning. I had let myself miss them, even if it was just for a moment. Just a moment. But it wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t.

“Good,” he said cheerfully. “You can sit with Riddle and Lestrange, they’ll make sure Nott keeps his distance. Because if the bastard so much as looks at you the wrong way, I’ll beat him into a bloody fucking—”

I bit back a sigh. “Abraxas,” I interrupted gently. “You won’t be beating anyone into anything.”

He frowned. “I don’t know why you defend him, Hermione,” he sulked, taking his seat and immediately reaching for a plate of bacon. “You heard the things he said about you.”

“All he did was make a perfectly valid observation about how terrible my French is,” I pointed out. “He was hardly wrong.”

“Still,” he said stubbornly. “He shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Who shouldn’t have said anything?” Edmond Lestrange interjected, plopping down next to me and pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Abraxas glared at him. “Nott,” he growled menacingly, shoveling a forkful of eggs into his mouth.

Lestrange arched a quizzical brow in my direction. “Is he really still on about that?” he asked.

“Unfortunately,” I affirmed, trying hard not to squirm when he shifted in his seat and his thigh brushed my own.

“Can’t imagine why,” Lestrange mumbled, tearing into a muffin. “Your French is awful. We were all thinking it. He was just the only one dumb enough to laugh in front of Malfoy.”

“I know,” I said indifferently. “And it’s fine, really. I know that I’m not very good with languages. It isn’t like I was insulted.”

“That’s odd,” Tom Riddle suddenly said from across the table. “Isn’t Professor Dumbledore supposed to be a master linguist? I heard he speaks something like sixty different languages.”

I met his gaze. I tried to catch my breath. I failed. "Uncle Albus is a very accomplished wizard,” I said carefully. “What does that have to do with me?”

“I just thought his affinity for languages might be a family trait, that’s all. Clearly I’m mistaken. Your French really is abysmal.”

Lestrange sniggered into his tea, and Abraxas immediately threw down his knife with a loud clang and a fiercely muttered expletive. “That’s fucking it!” he snarled, scowling at Lestrange. “You will stop talking about her and her fucking French as if she isn’t sitting right there, or I will make sure that the entire rest of your life is bloody fucking pointless, yeah?”

I stared at him, mildly surprised. Only a few minutes earlier, I’d been brooding about how very much he reminded me of Ron. But his petulant outburst just then had had all the markings of a truly stupendous Draco Malfoy tantrum. And since Abraxas rarely behaved like the spoiled aristocrat he undoubtedly was, I found myself reacting inappropriately—I wasn’t repulsed or upset or disappointed. I wasn’t even annoyed.

No, I was confused.

Because this handsome blond giant with the soft eyes and the callused hands and the limited vocabulary—he wanted to protect me. He didn’t know what I was hiding. He never would. But still, still he wanted to protect me. The realization was staggering. I’d spent the two weeks since term had started wanting nothing more than to disappear. I’d been so afraid, all of the time, that Tom Riddle might guess, might wonder; I’d been so afraid of slipping up, saying the wrong thing, and my secret, and what it meant, what it represented, had defined me so absolutely that I hadn’t stopped—not even once—to consider that there might be something else about me worth liking. Worth protecting.

“Calm down, Malfoy,” Riddle commanded. He looked like he was trying exceptionally hard not to laugh. “And please, watch your language. I’d hate to have to take points.”

I wondered if I was imagining the aggressive undercurrent to his words.

“Besides,” Lestrange chortled, “shouldn’t you, of all people, be a bit more concerned that your girlfriend can’t speak French? I mean, you know where you’re going after graduation, it isn’t a—”

“Shut up, Lestrange,” Malfoy hissed, a muscle throbbing in his jaw.

Riddle smirked.

I furrowed my brow. What? “Abraxas? What’s wrong?” I asked, concerned.

He didn’t look at me. “Nothing. Edmond’s confused. I don’t care about your French, sweetheart,” he mumbled, gulping down his pumpkin juice.

“Edmond’s frequently confused,” Riddle put in, sounding amused. It was chilling.

“Ah—yeah, I—I must’ve confused you with—ah—Avery,” Lestrange stammered, scratching at his neck.

"I see,” I said, nibbling at my toast. It was dry.

Abraxas lurched to his feet, grabbing my bag in the process. “We should get to Herbology, love,” he suggested nervously, tapping my shoulder. “I know how much you hate to be late.”

Unsure of what to make of what had just transpired, I allowed him to lead me out of the Great Hall, leaving my breakfast untouched.

Riddle followed us.

 

---

  

Thump.

I let my forehead drop onto the smoothly worn wood of the library table. It was almost curfew. I needed to go back to the common room. I looked down at my watch. No. I still had a few minutes—surely there were some other books on time travel. Dumbledore couldn’t be right. He just couldn’t be. Someone had to know something. Someone had to have written something. They had to have.

My chair scraped back noisily.

I was aware of a distinct thrum of panic as I continued to peruse the shelves in the Restricted Section. The Hogwarts library had never failed me. Not even once. It wouldn’t now. It couldn’t. I needed it too much, too badly. Dumbledore’s daily updates—such as they were—had not been reassuring. He had a contact in the Department of Mysteries, he said. He was looking into time turners. He knew a man in Germany, an old friend from school, who might have a theory—all hypothetical, of course. Nothing promising, unfortunately. Nothing concrete. I shouldn’t worry myself over it. I shouldn’t be bothered.

But how could he ask me to sit back and do nothing? Try nothing? I was ambitious by nature. I’d spent most of my life thinking about my future, planning for it. I was always prepared. I was always ready. I always knew the answers. But now…now, I was impotent. I was stuck. I had nowhere to go, nothing to look forward to, and I was expected to remain passive, feign disinterest, move on. It was fucking absurd. It was fucking ridiculous. It was—

Happening. It was happening. It was real. This was all real.

Not a dream.

Not a nightmare.

“Granger? Is that you?”

Tom Riddle. Of course. Of course it was Tom Riddle. I plastered a tired smile on my face and walked warily out of the stacks. "Riddle,” I said, nodding at him and heading towards my abandoned table.

"It’s almost curfew,” he observed, trailing after me.

"I know,” I replied, picking up my bag. “I was just about to leave.”

“Excellent,” he said. “I can walk you down. I don’t have rounds tonight.”

I ducked my head, fighting a grimace. Fantastic. “I know my way around now, Riddle,” I said, exasperated. “You don’t need to keep walking me everywhere.”

“We’re both going to the same place, Hermione,” he pointed out, holding open the library door. “It would be rude of me not to offer you an escort.”

I gritted my teeth. “Right.”

He led the way, walking slowly, his pace grating. "You spend a lot of time in the library,” he remarked nonchalantly, looking down at me. His eyelashes were long enough to cast shadows on his cheekbones when he blinked. “Did you like the library at your old school?”

“I’ve always liked libraries,” I replied honestly. “I love books. They don’t talk back.”

He chuckled. It sounded like butter, rich and sensuous and—bad for me. I forced myself not to shudder.

“Hogwarts has a wonderful library,” he mused, a smile playing around his lips. “Did—oh, I’m sorry, where was it you said you went before?”

I didn’t, I wanted to scream. I most definitely didn’t fucking say where I went before. “Beauxbatons,” I lied hastily. “And yes, it had a nice library. It was never very busy.”

“Not a studious lot over there, then? I’m not surprised.”

I hummed noncommittally. I wanted this conversation to be over.

“Were the books in English or French?”

“What?”

“At…Beauxbatons,” he persisted. “Were the books in English or French?”

“Um—both,” I answered desperately. “The library there was—ah—particularly well-stocked.”

He spun towards me quickly, without any warning at all, and I stumbled. He caught me by the wrists, his expression unreadable. "You didn’t go to school in France, Hermione,” he said softly, his fingernails digging into my hands. “You didn’t go to Beauxbatons.”

I stared up at him, slightly sick. “What are you talking about?” I managed to ask, my voice cracking. He didn’t release me. His skin felt like silk. “Of—of course I did.”

He sneered. I felt my throat close. “No, Hermione,” he murmured, stepping closer. “You didn’t.”

He was trying to intimidate me. He was trying to scare me. He was guessing. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. I’d been so careful. But his thumb was resting directly on the powder blue pulse point on the inside of my wrist. He could feel me. He could feel the way blood was pounding through my veins, unnaturally fast, unnaturally hard, and he could feel me tremble, feel me shake, feel me fall apart as his accusations reverberated in my head, in the hallway, so close to the truth, too close—and he was standing too close, and I was so afraid, so fucking afraid, and he was still too close, he was always too fucking close—

“Don’t be stupid, Riddle,” I snarled, shoving him away. A warm, unwelcome bead of sweat slid down the back of my neck.

“I thought I told you to call me Tom, Hermione,” he taunted.

“And I don’t recall asking you to call me Hermione, so I suppose that makes us even,” I shot back, crossing my arms over my chest.

He smirked. I stiffened. And then he moved back. “Of course,” he replied slowly, reaching up to adjust his tie. “My sincerest apologies, Miss Granger. It’s just, well, Abraxas is very taken with you, you know, and we’re all a bit protective of him. He can be…impulsive. Gets into things without thinking them through. But I’m sorry if I upset you. It wasn’t my intention.”

My spine tingled. He was a brilliant liar. “It’s fine,” I said stonily. “I understand completely.”

He inclined his head. “Back to the common room, then? We only have a few minutes until curfew.”

I nodded tersely. We started walking.

"So, are you going to the quidditch game tomorrow?” he asked politely. “Abraxas is playing.”

“I told him I was, yes,” I snapped, increasing my pace. I just wanted to go to bed. I just wanted to be safe. I just wanted to be away from Tom Riddle and his cold eyes and his warm hands and—I just wanted him gone.

“He’ll be happy about that.”

“Indeed.”

For several minutes, our footsteps, light and quick, were the only sounds in the hallway.

“Why weren’t you bothered by Nott’s reaction to your French?” he asked suddenly. “You didn’t seem to care at all that he was laughing at you.”

“It’s like I told Abraxas,” I replied testily. So many fucking questions. “My French is dreadful. I’m used to being laughed at for it.”

He looked over at me, bemused. “How…curious.”

I glanced at him sharply. "What does that mean?” I demanded.

He shrugged. It was an uncharacteristically casual gesture. My eyes narrowed.

“Most people aren’t so accepting of their shortcomings,” he responded. “It’s unusual.” His words were thoughtful, but there was a bite to them that I was quite certain was intentional.

“I’m practical,” I retorted. “It would be the worst sort of arrogance to pretend to be good at something when I know that I’m not.”

He raised a finely arched brow, thrusting his hands in his pockets. "That may be true, but I feel compelled to point out that advertising your faults is hardly required. Or intelligent, for that matter.”

I scoffed. “Are you calling me stupid, Riddle?”

His lips twitched. "I wouldn’t presume to know either way, Miss Granger.”

I clenched my jaw. “I didn’t realize that being unable to properly speak French was considered a fault,” I ground out.

“It is when you’re trying to convince people you lived in France for the past six years.”

I wouldn’t reply to that. I could not reply to that. I had to change the subject. I had to ignore him. I had to act like nothing was wrong, and none of this was happening, and he wasn’t so close, too close—I had to—I couldn’t—

“Looks like we’re back!” I exclaimed, halting in front of a bare dungeon wall and praying my voice came out even and calm and devoid of the faint, impenetrable quiver that I was terrified he might hear.

His mouth tightened. He looked irritated. “So we are.”

He tapped a stone with his wand and muttered the password. The wall shifted open and he gestured for me to go in first. I forced myself not to hesitate.

“Good night, Riddle,” I said as we entered the mostly empty common room.

“Oh, no, please,” he replied, ushering me towards the hallway that led to the girls’ dormitories. “Let me walk you to your door.”

"That’s really not necessary—” I started to argue.

"I insist, Miss Granger.”

He stared down at me, his face blank. I couldn’t say no. I knew that. I couldn’t.

“Of course.”

He led me through the narrow, dimly-lit corridor, the air growing chilly as the floor began its gentle slope downwards. We passed several doors before stopping in front of mine. I opened it and waited for him to move out of the way. He didn’t.

“Do you mind?” I asked.

Our eyes met. My blood turned to ice. "Excuse me?” he drawled.

"Do you mind moving?”

He shook his head. And then he stepped aside. "Good night, then,” he said quietly, his gaze sharp. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I whispered, dazed. My muscles felt spongy, useless, weak.

“At the quidditch game,” he clarified. “I’m to protect you from Nott. Surely you haven’t forgotten?”

I swallowed noisily. “No—no I haven’t.”

He picked up my hand, holding it loosely, before brushing a soft, barely-there kiss across my knuckles. My face was suffused with an unwelcome, prepossessing heat.

“Until then,” he said. He paused pointedly. I gripped my lower lip between my teeth. “Hermione.”

And then he turned on his heel, striding gracefully away from my dormitory door, while I stood perfectly still and struggled to remember how to breathe.

He was so close.

Too close.

 

---

 

Chapter 4

---

 

September 17, 1944

 

I am supposed to sit with the Granger girl at the quidditch game later today. Malfoy demanded it—and normally that would infuriate me, but I caught the flustered, frustrated look on her face when he mentioned it, and I find myself curiously eager to examine what it is about my presence that makes her so nervous. It’s almost as if she knows—

No.

She knows nothing. It would be impossible. There weren’t any witnesses. I made sure of that. If she were to somehow have…no. Because while I’ve often wondered how much her foolish, errant uncle knows about my extracurricular activities, I doubt he would share his suspicions with his innocent Slytherin niece. Unless he planted her here. But why would he do that? She would be a terrible spy—she’s ludicrously transparent when it comes to her emotions.

No. She doesn’t know.

However—

If Malfoy mentioned something, even in passing—

Surely he wouldn’t have.

He is, of course, the only one of my Knights that seems wholly indifferent to the manic Pureblood idiocy that the others are so enthusiastic about. And, considering that, he has no real reason to remain loyal to me. He cares little for power and even less for my offers to teach him Dark magic. He is, in fact, remarkably uninterested in anything that can’t be done on a broomstick. The only things I’ve ever seen him get excited about are quidditch and the Granger girl—and despite his family’s rather obvious political leanings, he looks positively nauseous whenever Lestrange brings up graduation. I don’t think he has the stomach for any of my plans, honestly. But what to do with him? He’s wealthy and well-connected, though that’s about all he has to offer. And the more I think about it, the more certain I am that he would never divulge the true nature of our friendship to the girl—he knows what I’m capable of. He knows what would happen to him if he did. Bumbling moron he may be, but he’s also a Malfoy—he’s genetically predisposed to have a strong sense of self-preservation. He would never have said anything.

No. She doesn’t know.

Which makes her obvious dislike of me even stranger. Not to mention—she was terrified of me from the very beginning. I still remember the expression on her face when we were introduced; equal parts panic and fear, though she tried her hardest to hide it. What could have possibly inspired that? I’m careful—exceedingly careful—about my behavior. I’m trusted. I’m respected. I’ll have more job offers from the Ministry than anyone else here after we graduate, not that I’ll bother accepting any. If she’d heard anything of me before coming to Hogwarts, none of it would have been incriminating—so what was it about my name that made her catch her breath and look as if she’d seen a ghost? I’d find it amusing if I wasn’t so…disconcerted.

Yes. Disconcerted.

Although—she’s lying about where she went to school. I thought she was going to faint when I accused her of it last night. But why lie? What could she possibly have spent the last six years doing that requires that kind of secrecy? And I have no doubt that there is a secret—her desperation is pathetically tangible whenever I try to steer a conversation towards her past. She deflects and ignores and attempts—valiantly—to change the subject.  

She’s maddening.

And not particularly beautiful. Although her features have a pleasing sort of symmetry, her mouth is much too wide and her chin is slightly too round. Her hair is brown. Her skin is extraordinarily lovely, however—warm and creamy—and she is small and delicate in that peculiar way that makes one want to slay dragons and pull the proverbial sword from the stone. I suppose it’s not difficult to see why Malfoy is so entranced.

No. Not difficult at all.

I do wonder, though, if she returns his feelings. She acts as if she does, but there’s an emptiness to it—to her—that suggests otherwise.

She is profoundly irritating.

Yes. Irritating.

Her eyes remind me of caramel.

 

--TMR

 

---

 

It was the morning of the Slytherin-Ravenclaw quidditch match, and the anticipation in the Great Hall was palpable. Younger students were brimming with feverish excitement, their laughter overloud and overwhelming, while older boys made bets and shouted out their predictions for the game’s outcome. Most of the school was wearing blue—apparently, even in 1944, Slytherins were still the only people who could be bothered to like other Slytherins.

"Walk with me to the pitch, love?”

I jumped, startled, and turned towards Abraxas. I forced a smile. “Of course,” I agreed, taking his outstretched hand and noticing, again, how very much larger it was than my own. Surely that wasn’t normal?

“Tom, we’re going now,” he said over his shoulder, lacing our fingers together. His skin felt unpleasantly damp. I fought the urge to pull away. “Can you and Lestrange fetch her from the changing room when you’re done?”

Riddle glanced up from his coffee. His eyes flashed for a moment as he studied us. “We’ll be there,” he replied shortly, nudging Lestrange.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lestrange put in, scraping out a spoonful of oatmeal. “Just give us a few minutes, Malfoy. I don’t even think Nott’s awake yet. Can’t really protect her from him if he’s not around, can we?”

Abraxas’s mouth tightened. "If he’s smart, he’ll fucking stay asleep,” he growled.

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be so grumpy,” I admonished, tugging on his sleeve. “And we should go. You’ll be late for warm-ups.”

He smiled down at me, his expression softening. "Right. Yeah. Let’s go.”

He led me into the entrance hall, his broom tucked under his other arm, and out the giant double doors. It was a beautiful morning, all clear skies and sunshine, perfect for quidditch, and I watched, out of the corner of my eye, as Abraxas looked around the grounds, a pleased expression on his face.

“Fantastic visibility,” he remarked happily. “Bloody Ravenclaws won’t know what hit them.”

“I’m sure,” I said wryly, chuckling. “Except for the rather obvious fact that you’d be holding a beater’s bat when they get hit.”

He grinned, but didn’t immediately reply. Instead, he kicked at the grass. “I have something for you,” he said, clumsily changing the subject. His grip on my hand tightened.

“What is it?” I asked, my heart sinking.

He fumbled in his pockets before producing a small black box. A jewelry box. I stared.

“It isn’t what you think,” he said quickly, fiddling with the edge of his jersey. “It’s just—something—I thought you might wear. If you’d like. You don’t have to. It would just—with the game and all—it would mean a lot to me. I don’t know. You can say no. Really. I wouldn’t—well, I would—but—just open it? Yeah?”

I took the box. My hand was trembling. I didn’t open it. “Abraxas,” I started to say slowly, shaking my head. “I really don’t—”

“Please, Hermione?”

I sighed, an awful sort of certainty that this was going to end nothing but badly hovering in the back of my mind like a dark, threatening storm cloud. Why had I let him think that he was anything more than a friend? What kind of person was I, that I was so desperate for companionship that I led him on, let him follow me around, all the while knowing that he wanted so much more than I was capable of giving? So much more than I wanted to give—because he was wonderful, really, but he wasn’t right. He wasn’t meant for me. I knew that. But if I told him that, especially now, he would walk away. He would leave me alone—and I couldn’t be alone, I absolutely couldn’t, not here, not now, not when there was no one else, nothing else, not when everything was so precarious, so wrong, so close to falling completely apart. I needed him. I couldn’t be alone.

I shuddered.

I opened the box.

And then I gasped.

Inside was a small silver ring resting on a bed of cream colored velvet. A round-cut emerald was poised at the center of the ring, winking merrily at me as its surface was fractured by sunlight. A meticulously detailed serpent had been carved into the exterior of the band, its scales so finely wrought that they seemed multidimensional. It was pretty. It was feminine. It was a promise. It was—too much.

"Abraxas…” I trailed off nervously.

His cheeks were crimson. “It’s only a ring, Hermione.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Just wear it? Please? I’d like it if you did, especially while I was playing,” he replied earnestly.

“Why?”

I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t. I knew that. I should have just put the ring on my fucking finger and not asked questions and pretended that nothing unusual had happened when he walked me to my room later that night. I shouldn’t have asked. But—

He turned towards me, his brow furrowed. “Why what?”

“Why do you want me to wear this?”

He hesitated. “Well, because—you’re mine, aren’t you? I want everyone to know. I had the Malfoy crest engraved on the inside, if you want to take a look. I also—Hermione, I’d like to have my father talk to your uncle about doing all of this properly over the next few months. I—you mean a lot to me, and I know it hasn’t been long, but I’ve never felt like this, and I’d really—I don’t know. That doesn’t matter right now. But—will you wear it? Please?”

Buggering fucking hell. "Oh, Abraxas,” I whispered, faltering. How could I do this to him? He looked so hopeful. So trusting. So expectant. I swallowed. “Of course I’ll wear it.”

As soon as the words left my mouth—hesitant and unsure and off—I knew that I’d made a mistake. This reality was confirmed, rather painfully, when he took two steps forward, grabbed me by the shoulders, and kissed me.

Hard.

I froze, momentarily distracted by the feel of rough, warm skin pressed up against me. His tongue darted out, slithering, thick and flat, and pushed against my tightly-closed lips. It was repulsive. It was disgusting. It was slimy. And so I jerked backwards, shoving his broad, heavily muscled chest away from me.

“I—I—” I stammered, horrified. “I’m so sorry, Abraxas. I’m so—I’m so sorry.”

And then I dropped the box I’d been holding and turned swiftly away from him, intending to run. Something caught my eye, though, a movement over by the doors leading to the locker rooms, and I glanced over, expecting to see a squirrel or a first-year or anything, anyone, other than what—who—I did.

Because Tom Riddle was standing next to the pitch, his arms crossed over his stomach as he watched us. I could just make out his face, his features—had he seen us, then? Had he seen Abraxas try to give me the ring? Had he seen the kiss? Had he seen me push him away?

He realized I’d noticed him. It had barely been a moment, a fraction of a moment, and my brain was whirring into overdrive. Abraxas was reaching for my elbow. He was saying something. He didn’t understand. He was confused. I should explain, shouldn’t I? I should—no. I had to leave. I had to run. I had to make this go away. I didn’t have time to justify. Not right now.

Tom Riddle raised his hand, as if to wave.

And then he smirked.

As if he knew something. As if he’d seen something. As if it was funny.

I was still wearing the ring.

 

---

 

Twenty minutes later, I was pacing in front of the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy on the seventh floor of the castle, my skirt swishing against my thighs with every step I took, and thinking, rather frantically:

I need to hide.

I want to go home.

I need to hide.

I want to go home.

I need to hide.

I want to go home.

A nondescript brown door appeared in the wall, and I almost crumpled in relief. Finally. A place to go. A place to escape. A place where no one could follow, and no one could spy, and no one could catch me crying. I opened the door with a shaky hand, uncertain as to what would be waiting for me on the other side—and when I saw what was, I couldn’t hold back a smile.

Because it was the Gryffindor common room, a perfect replica, right down to the overstuffed burgundy pillows littering the couches. I swallowed, over and over and over, choking on something that might have been happiness; it was just so familiar, every square inch of it, and it smelled like home, like parchment and broom polish and chocolate, and the air was warm, comforting, and the fire was roaring, and when I looked at the corner table, the one with the chess set, I could almost see Harry and Ron, arguing, laughing, waiting for me to put down my book and join them.

I walked forward, hesitating, trailing my fingertips over the soft, worn leather of a nearby armchair. This wasn’t healthy. This wasn’t right. I was wearing a green tie, a Slytherin tie, and I didn’t belong here. I wanted so badly—too badly—to hold onto something that wasn’t mine any longer. It was 1944. I had to face the very real possibility that I would not be able to go home. I couldn’t keep reminiscing and missing and mourning a version of myself that wasn’t allowed to exist.

Not here. Never here.

I sighed.

He’d fucking kissed me.

Kissed me.

And I’d—

I’d wanted to crawl out of my fucking skin. I’d wanted to shove him off of me, furiously wipe my mouth, and leave.

Even though I’d let him follow me around for weeks. Even though I’d known what he wanted. I’d known that he was misreading my affection for him. But I hadn’t wanted to say anything. I hadn’t wanted to ruin our brief, tenuous friendship by bringing up the fact that he wanted to shag me rotten. Because then I would have had to admit that I didn’t. I would have had to tell him that he was a lovely person—really, he was—but that I just didn’t have those feelings for him. And how was I to do that? How could I possibly explain that every time I looked at him I was transported fifty years into the future? That his resemblance to my childhood nemesis was so absolute, so incredible, that it sometimes took my breath away?

The answer was simple.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t offer an adequate explanation for how I’d reacted. I knew that.

And Tom Riddle had watched me reject Abraxas—and he’d smirked, clearly amused by the way I’d panicked, frantically rushing off with a hastily mumbled, barely discernible apology. He was just always there, every time I looked up. He knew that I didn’t like him. He knew that he made me uncomfortable. He didn’t know why. He couldn’t. But he wanted to. He was determined to. That much was obvious.

I sat down, heavily, on a red tartan sofa. I shouldn’t have pushed Abraxas away. I should have kissed him back. I needed him. I should have kept pretending. Surely kissing him wouldn’t have been so terribly unethical? I needed him, after all. I had a good reason. I did. I did. It was just so much harder being brave when there was no one there to catch me should everything go wrong. I hadn’t expected that when I’d first arrived. The picture Dumbledore had painted—me, emotionally inaccessible, acting, smiling, pretending, all of the time, always pretending, lying, hiding—hadn’t seemed that lonely at first. It had seemed rational. It had made sense. It was logical. But now—I wasn’t sure. I had latched onto Abraxas so quickly, so instinctively. I needed him. I really did.

Because—

Because—

Because I was fucking alone.

“Alone,” I whispered, blinking back tears.

The word tasted filmy and bitter when I said it out loud—wrong, almost, as if it didn’t fit, didn’t work, wasn’t meant for me, wasn’t meant to be about me. But it was. It was about me. I was alone, alone in a way I hadn’t ever been before, and there was nothing I could do about it. Fucking nothing.

I’d grown up an only child, virtually friendless, but even then—even then, I’d had my parents, hadn’t I? Parents who loved me and supported me and knew everything about me, even the silly things, like how I liked my eggs and the name I’d given to my stuffed rabbit when I was eight. And then I’d gone to Hogwarts, finally found my place in the world, where I belonged, and I’d had Harry and Ron and the Weasleys and so many others, so many people who cared, who would miss me if I left, who would notice if I was gone. So many people, all of the time, and I’d never been alone, not properly, and now I was, I really was, and I couldn’t even tell anyone, I couldn’t even make it better—because I had a secret, a polarizing one, and no one could know. I was isolated. I was different. I was alone.

And Abraxas—sweet, gentle, ferociously protective Abraxas—had tried to kiss me. Abraxas had tried to kiss me, and I was a fucking idiot if I was actually surprised by what had transpired.

I winced, tucking my legs underneath me and gazing the fireplace. I could hear the cheers from the quidditch game as the house teams took the field. How was that possible?

But—no.

I wasn’t surprised. I hadn’t been surprised. I’d pretended, just like I’d been pretending since I arrived here, and I’d hurt his feelings. I hadn’t meant to. I hadn’t meant to step back so quickly. I really hadn’t. It was just that he hadn’t felt right, not at all, and his lips had been dry and chapped, almost leathery, and—it had felt like I was being electrocuted, I’d just wanted to get away, push him off—and maybe that wasn’t fair, maybe I should have given him a chance, but—

He’d tasted like Ron. Like lip balm and bacon and something slightly sour. It had been startling. It had been nauseating. It had been like a kick to the stomach, hard and rough and unexpected, and it had made me…sad.

Sad.

Abraxas had kissed me, and it had made me sad.

I yanked at a loose thread on my sweater, running my fingernail along the torn, jagged filament. What was wrong with me? He was handsome. He was kind. He listened to me and he walked me to class and he didn’t ask too many questions. He was simple. He was straightforward. He liked me.

I tossed the thread off of the couch, narrowing my eyes when it landed barely six inches from my knees. He’d tasted like Ron. Ron. My best friend—the boy I’d been infatuated with for years, right up until he’d finally kissed me last summer. It had been so disappointing—I’d romanticized him, dreamed about what he might feel like, taste like—and it had been awful. He had been awful. The kiss itself had been wet and messy and unpleasant, and we’d both jumped back, somewhat horrified, and agreed to never mention it again.

That’s what Abraxas had reminded me of. I groaned. I couldn’t say that to him. I couldn’t. I would have to—

Oh, fuck.

I leapt to my feet, wand in hand, my heart beating so furiously that I was half-convinced it would burst through my chest.

Someone was here.

Someone was opening the fucking door.

Someone had found me—followed me?

Tom Riddle.

Tom Riddle had found me, followed me.

Tom Riddle was opening the fucking door.

Tom Riddle was here.

And then—

His voice.

Deep and rich and silky.

Mesmerizing, even.

Fucking hell.

"Well—this is certainly not what I expected.”

I closed my eyes before turning to the side to face him—slowly, so slowly, because I wasn’t ready for this, because I couldn’t explain myself, because he was never going to let me leave, not without an answer, and I didn’t have one, I couldn’t give him one, and—it was ironic, really, that he was doing this in the Gryffindor common room—the one place I had assumed, naively, that I would feel safe, be safe—because it was home, even if it wasn’t real, and that was all I’d wanted. But I couldn’t even have that, it seemed.

Not here. Never here.

“Riddle,” I managed to croak. “What a—surprise.”

“Is it, Granger?”

“Quite,” I said, thrusting my hands behind my back and fisting the back of my skirt. I had to hold on. I had to feel something between my fingers that was tangible, something that was proof positive that I was still real, still breathing, still there—because I was light-headed, dizzy, certain that if I wasn’t anchored to the floor, to myself, I would float away, disappear, and I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready to be gone. Not forever. Not for that long. Never that long.

“Must be,” he mused, leaning against the wall next to the door and glancing around the room. He grimaced. “Can’t imagine any self-respecting Slytherin wanting to get caught in—this. But then again…you’re not really a self-respecting Slytherin, are you?”

I narrowed my eyes. My skirt rustled as I unclenched my hands. “What does that mean?” I demanded.

He paused, clearly relishing the tension between us. “I saw you with Abraxas, you know,” he said nonchalantly, raising a brow. “You accepted a token of affection from him and then pushed him away. Bad form, Granger.”

Abruptly, my tie felt tight, too tight, like it might strangle me if I left it on long enough. I resisted the urge to loosen it. “I apologized,” I retorted defensively. “And I’m giving him the ring back. As soon as I see him. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Do you know who he is, Granger?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Do you know who he is,” he repeated. It was barely a question.

“Of course I know who he is,” I sneered.

“So you know that he’s the sole heir of one of the wealthiest, oldest, most prestigious Pureblood families in the world?”

Draco would love hearing that, I thought bitterly. Prat. “I know who the Malfoys are, yes,” I ground out.

“Then you know how many girls would quite literally kill to be in your position,” he went on. “That ring you’re wearing—it means he wants to marry you someday. Although I’m sure you already know that, considering you’re quite the illustrious Pureblood yourself. Your kind likes to keep it in the family, don’t you?”

I almost laughed. “Where are you going with this?”

He studied me intently. “Slytherins are known for their cunning, Granger,” he murmured, his voice somehow carrying across the room. “We’re ambitious. We’re manipulative. We know how to get what we want, and we know how to get other people to do what we want. We know the value of political connections and personal favors. We understand that there is nothing more powerful than power, and there is no shame whatsoever in exploiting it when you happen to possess it. The Malfoys are, for lack of a better word, synonymous with Slytherin principles. Marrying into their family should be the goal of any…self-respecting Slytherin female.”

Silence descended upon us for several minutes after he’d finished speaking, the only sound in the room the overloud ticking of the Gryffindor grandfather clock.

“So, because I don’t know if I want to marry him after two weeks, I’m a bad Slytherin?” I asked, incredulous.

His lip curled. “No.”

“Then what was the point—”

“You’re a bad Slytherin,” he interrupted, “because you’re a terrible liar. You have more secrets than I can possibly bother to count, and you’re so bloody obvious about it that I’m amazed no one else has figured you out. I know, Granger. I know you’re hiding something.”

Deliberately, I straightened my shoulders—he was guessing. He had to be. He was Tom Riddle, not the omnipotent, seemingly infallible Lord Voldemort; he was an eighteen year old boy, not a snake-faced menace with an army of bloodthirsty Death Eaters at his disposal. He was cruel, certainly, and disturbingly detached from anything even remotely resembling a genuine emotion.

But he was not evil incarnate.

Not yet.

He was guessing. He didn’t know.

“You don’t know anything,” I scoffed, crossing my arms over my chest. “All you have is conjecture and—and some kind of silly infatuation with my uncle. You want me to be hiding something, but that doesn’t make it true, Riddle.”

His expression faltered. I ran my tongue along the edge of my teeth.

“You expect me to believe that you’ve barely been here for two weeks and already know about the Room of Requirement?” he demanded. But his voice—it was less certain, less sure, less hostile. I bit back a triumphant smirk.

“My uncle knows almost everything there is to know about this castle,” I pointed out smugly. “He passed on some of the more interesting secrets before I arrived.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat—a growling sort of laugh, unexpected, unsettling, unpolished—and I wondered, very abruptly, if he had lost control. A faint flush was creeping up the side of his neck—but I couldn’t tell if he was angry or frustrated or something else altogether. He was always so hard to read, his features frozen, his skin smooth, rather like an impossibly beautiful statue—his eyes were dark, practically black, devoid of anything besides the occasional flash of impatience. He smiled frequently, not that it meant anything, but beyond that paralyzing blend of perfect teeth and blood-red lips, there was never any physical indication of what he was thinking.

Which made this—unprecedented—reaction that much more astonishing.

“Professor Dumbledore told you how to get in here?” he clarified, his shoulders stiff.

I shrugged. “Of course.”

He sneered. “So you required the Gryffindor common room? Whatever for?”

“Honestly?”

He nodded sharply.

“I was curious. I wasn’t supposed to be in Slytherin, you know. Uncle Albus was very…surprised during my Sorting. He loved being a Gryffindor. Talked about it incessantly when I was growing up. I really just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

His nostrils flared. Was my explanation too reasonable? Had I said too much? Lied too easily? I was grasping at my newfound confidence, trying exceptionally hard to make it stick, make it last, make it through the next ten, twenty, thirty minutes with my secret, not to mention my pride, still intact. He didn’t know, I reminded myself. He was guessing. He didn’t know.

“I thought you said you hardly ever saw him when you were growing up,” he replied, moving slowly towards me, hands clenched into fists. His knuckles were milk-white and prominent.

I realized my mistake as he crept closer, his posture combative. He was tall, but he was not an athlete. Not like Abraxas. He did not walk with the heady sort of arrogance that the quidditch players did—he didn’t swagger, he didn’t lope, and he didn’t appear to have that barely-there hold on his own strength when he yanked open a door. No. He was not an athlete.

But he was graceful. And when his shirt tightened almost imperceptibly around his body, the lithe, lean muscles in his back would ripple as he moved, and I couldn’t help but be aware of the impressive breadth of his shoulders, the long line of his torso as it tapered down to narrow hips, his trousers slung low and loose as he shoved his hands into his pockets. He never wore a belt—his shirt, crisp and clean, would be stuffed into the top of his pants, shiny black buttons catching the edge of the cotton, and sometimes, as he stood up after class, I would notice the material bunch up underneath his zipper. I shouldn’t have noticed. I shouldn’t have looked.  I often wondered why I did.

Except that didn’t matter. The way he way he was walking towards me—gracefully, sensuously, predatorily—that was what mattered. And I’d backed myself into a corner, quite literally, the backs of thighs pressed up against the large tartan couch, my skirt hitched up, slightly, the fabric scratchy against my bare skin. But—what had he asked me? He’d asked me something. He’d caught me lying, hadn’t he? No. He hadn’t. He was guessing, of course he was guessing, he was always guessing. It was a guess. Just a guess. Always a guess.

“Excuse me?”

He stopped in front of me, his head tilted to the side. I flicked my eyes down. His hands were in his pockets. I felt my throat go dry.

“Your first night here,” he said softly, his gaze boring into my own. “You said that you hardly saw Professor Dumbledore when you were a child. But just now…you said that he talked about Gryffindor all the time. Which is it?”

I licked my lips. His jaw tensed. A dull pain was emanating from inside of my skull. “It was a—a figure of speech,” I stuttered, utterly unable to look away from him. Was this magic? Had he cast a spell? “Whenever—well, he wasn’t around often, but when he was—he talked about Gryffindor. He was—proud of it.”

A brief, chilling smile flitted across his face. I couldn’t blink. I wouldn’t blink.

“How silly,” he whispered, almost to himself.

“What’s silly?”

He lifted a hand up as if to brush my hair back from my forehead. But he didn’t touch me. Of course he didn’t touch me. “You are, darling,” he answered quietly, leaning forward, his breath hot and tantalizing and moist against my cheek. “After all…you don’t really think I believe anything you’re saying, do you?”

And then I froze, stopped breathing, felt my lungs constrict, contract, collapse—and he chuckled, his lips brushing against my ear—and I was reminded, suddenly, painfully, of a very important fact, one that I couldn’t believe I’d had the temerity, the audacity, to overlook—

Tom Riddle was brilliant.

Tom Riddle was powerful.

Tom Riddle didn’t need to guess, not when all he had to do was stand close and look into my eyes.

Because Tom Riddle was a Legilimens.

I twisted the ring Abraxas had given me, around and around and around—I was still wearing it. Why was I still wearing it? What was wrong with me?

Tom Riddle could read minds.

Tom Riddle had read my mind and seen my memories and that meant he knew, that meant he knew, no more guessing, he wasn’t fucking guessing—

Bloody fucking hell.

 

---

 

Chapter 5

---

 

Time might have stopped. I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell. I was horrified. I was embarrassed. I was lost.

What had I done?

How could I have forgotten? How could I have been such a fucking idiot? How? I was smart. Everyone said so. I had a photographic memory; I could recite the entirety of Hogwarts, A History—all twelve hundred pages—verbatim. I had a head for numbers and details and always remembered people’s birthdays. I did not forget important information.

I didn’t.

Then how had this happened?

I’d let it, of course. I’d been so caught up in being scared—I’d had a fucking month to get over that, though, and I hadn’t. Had I even wanted to? Wasn’t it easier to let Dumbledore deal with it all? I was just so fucking tired of fighting. Six years of constant fear, constant worry—living a normal life hadn’t been possible, not when all I could think to do was bite my nails and wonder when it would all culminate into something vicious and aggressive and unfixable.

But was that even an excuse? Wanting a fucking break from—everything? Harry had finally killed him. We’d won. It was all about to be over, over in that unbearably final way that I hadn’t let myself hope for, not for the longest time, and then, before I could even collapse from exhaustion, from relief, it had all been taken from me.

Stolen.

And I’d woken up in this ridiculous fucking nightmare, where nothing was how it was supposed to be, and—

Fucking stop it, Hermione.

I felt self-loathing, frigid and thick, settle over my shoulders like a wet blanket. This was what had happened. This was why I’d forgotten something so fundamental.

Tom Riddle—Voldemort—was a Legilimens. He probably knew everything, including the outcome of the war, and that meant that my silly fucking mistake hadn’t just ruined my life, but the entire future of the wizarding world. It meant that—

“You’re here to spy on me, aren’t you? For your uncle? There’s no other way you would have been sorted into Slytherin. You positively reek of Hufflepuff—or maybe even Gryffindor. Something pathetic, either way.  But what does he want to know? What does he have you doing?”

What?

I cocked my head to the side, momentarily stunned. He’d moved back, his wand pointed directly at my throat.

He didn’t know.

He didn’t know.

My secret was still safe.

He didn’t know.

My mouth fell open. My pulse slowed down. And then I bit back a laugh, lingering traces of anxiety dissipating—because I’d forgotten, in the past month, what I was capable of. I’d been frozen, unable to think properly, my brain muddled with fear and panic and shock. I’d wallowed in something that looked a lot like self-pity, letting Tom Riddle intimidate me, follow me, always standing just a little too close, his body warm, his eyes cold—except he was too close, just the tiniest bit too close, almost as if he knew—

But he didn’t know.

He didn’t know anything about me.

He didn’t know that I had once been called the brightest witch Hogwarts had seen in a century; he didn’t know that I’d helped defeat him, fifty years in the future, and that I could write four feet of parchment on the various uses of dragon’s blood without even opening a textbook. He didn’t know that I was a muggle-born, a mudblood—he didn’t know that I was a rather formidable enemy, prone to temper tantrums and sneaky, albeit rash, acts of retribution. He didn’t know that I knew everything about him—from his rather tragic beginnings to his sociopathic adolescence.

He didn’t know.

Anger began to slowly simmer under the surface of my skin, volatile and violent—it exploded in my veins, like someone had taken a match to a stick of dynamite and siphoned off the residual heat before injecting it into my bloodstream.

He’d tried to trick me. He’d tried to pass off his creepy, uninvited hovering as Legilimency. He thought I was a simpering, over-privileged Pureblood. He thought I was unremarkable. He thought I was beneath him, hardly worth the effort. He thought he could trap me in shadowy corridors and pin me against the wall and force me to tell him what I knew.

I snorted indelicately.

Well—

Fuck that.

I’d wandered around the castle for almost three weeks with my head down and my hand tucked into Abraxas Malfoy’s arm. I’d played dumb in class, feigned indifference when Edmond Lestrange went off on a tirade about mudbloods—and oh, how that word rankled, still, still, after all this time, it made me want to throw up, give up, reminded me of all the ways I’d never be good enough, never belong, not really, until all I felt, all I could feel, was sharp brutal agonizing pain as a knifepoint grazed my skin like a butterfly’s wings before slicing, cutting, carving—but no, I’d avoided Tom Riddle, been obvious about my distaste, hopeful that he would concede defeat and leave me alone.

No more.

No more of this forced, preposterous half-life that I’d let Dumbledore talk me into. I was better than that, better than this. I didn’t need to hide. I didn’t need to prevaricate.

“You should probably stop asking so many questions,” I said decisively, leaning back to spear him with a glare. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’m capable of. You should leave me alone while you still can.”

His eyes widened. “What?”

“You heard me,” I said, leveling my wand at his chest. Where had that come from? “You’re wrong. You have no bloody idea what you’re talking about or who you’re dealing with. I suggest you drop it, Riddle.”

“Are you—are you threatening me?” he asked, incredulous.

I offered him a cold smile. "Threatening is such a nasty, misunderstood word,” I said kindly, tapping my finger against my jaw. “It makes me sound…mean. I’d prefer to say that I’m warning you, I think. Yes. I like that much better.”

His mouth curled into a lopsided grimace, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. And maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he was having trouble reconciling the passive, soft-spoken girl he’d assumed me to be with the one standing in front of him. Ron had called me scary once, hadn’t he?

“You’re warning me? Surely you’re not serious.”

I bristled. “Underestimating me might prove dangerous, Riddle,” I retorted.

“I highly doubt that,” he scoffed. “I’ve seen you in class, remember? You’re practically a squib.”

I smiled. His expression turned calculating.

"Practically isn’t much of a guarantee, is it?” I shot back haughtily.

He furrowed his brow. “Are you a spy?”

I quirked my lips. “What do you think?”

He paused. “I think you’re fascinating.”

I gripped my wand tightly. “No,” I countered quickly. “You’re just obsessive. You know nothing about me, and because I’m related to Uncle Albus, you feel like you need to.”

He sighed. “Why do you keep saying that? I have little to no interest whatsoever in Professor Dumbledore.”

I sniffed disbelievingly. “He’s mentioned you,” I replied vaguely. “I know that he’s the one who brought you here from that muggle orphanage and introduced you to magic. It stands to reason you’d find him interesting.”

His jaw stiffened. “You know about that,” he stated, his tone deceptively calm. “The orphanage.”

I frowned. Was that not common knowledge yet? “Doesn’t everyone?”

He moved so quickly, so suddenly, that I didn’t have time to fall backwards; but he’d stepped forward, his hands grasping my shoulders, and hauled me up, his fingers bunching up around the cotton of my shirt, his face stupidly close, dizzyingly close—

“No,” he snarled, his mouth open and hot and barely an inch away from my own—his breath, I noticed dimly, smelled like peppermint and citrus and something else, something musky. It was enthralling. It shouldn’t have been. “They know that I’m an orphan. They know that my mother died when I was a baby and that I never had any knowledge of my—of my father.” He spat the word out as if he couldn’t be rid of it fast enough. “But no one knows that I go back to a muggle orphanage over the summers. Except your uncle. And now, apparently, you. But why would he tell you that? Hmm? Why would he tell his hopeless, magically inept niece something so personal about another student?”

I tried to jerk away from him. He didn’t let go. “You’re telling me that in the past six years—six years, for God’s sake—no one’s thought to question where you go over the holidays?” I choked out, clawing at the collar of my shirt.

He stared at me for a long, tense moment, and it was then that I realized his eyes weren’t black, not at all—no, up close, in the firelight, they weren’t black, no, no, they were brown, a dark, deep, chocolate color that made me think, almost wistfully, of languorous bubble baths and expensive champagne and my parents’ annual New Year’s party, the one that they had never let me stay up late for until the year I turned fourteen. I caught my breath.

“Suffice it to say that if anyone decided to wonder about that, they’d find themselves…distracted,” he retorted, his perfect, bright-white teeth clenched tightly together.

“So you are a Legilimens,” I whispered, swallowing.

His expression flickered with surprise. “Something else your meddlesome old uncle deduced and decided to share with you, I take it?”

I nodded slowly. He shoved me back onto the couch.

“What else does he know?” he demanded.

“Wh—what?” I stammered.

He swooped down ferociously. “What—else—does—he—know?”

“What are you talking about?”

He sneered. “The only reason I haven’t gone into your head yet—you stupid, stupid girl—is because I know that you would have felt it,” he said, still looming menacingly over me. “And if Albus Dumbledore’s precious niece had her useless brain defiled in such a way, there would probably be a nationwide manhunt. Your pitiful little secrets are hardly worth that kind of trouble.”

I blanched before gathering the jagged, ragged remnants of my courage. “Oh, well done, Riddle,” I snapped sarcastically. “You’re not honestly trying to manipulate me into thinking you don’t care, are you? Because even though I’ve gone out of my way to make sure you believed me to be nothing more than an insipid waste of space, I promise you—I’m anything but.”

Abruptly, he stood up straight, his features relaxing into a familiar mask of indifference. "This conversation has gotten out of hand,” he announced snidely. “Several other professors happen to know that I’m close to mastering Legilimency, you know. It isn’t a secret.”

Was I imagining the bizarre emphasis he placed on that last word? “Like who? It’s not only an incredibly difficult skill to acquire, but it’s basically unheard of for someone so young to—”

He cut me off with a scathing glare. “Are you underestimating me, Granger? Because I assure you, I’m more than capable of—”

“Of what?” I taunted, speaking over him. “Being an arrogant, overconfident—”

“—shredding your pretty little face into ribbons without even lifting my wand, you—you annoying, silly, pretentious—”

“—megalomaniac!” I finished triumphantly.

“—cunt!” he said at the same time.

Silence followed our pronouncements. He was watching me, his nose scrunched up in distaste; I, however, was still attempting to wrap my mind around the fact that Tom Riddle had just called me a—

“That’s awfully inappropriate language for our illustrious Head Boy,” I drawled.

He flinched. “I apologize. I was…angry. I crossed a line. Forgive me.”

“You’re joking, aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?” he asked.

“We’ve both spent the past ten minutes threatening one another—rather obviously, in fact—and you think suddenly being polite will somehow make this situation seem normal?”

He didn’t say anything at first—just continued to study me, his gaze inscrutable, unnerving, my awareness of his physical proximity so potent, so fierce, that it made my hands tremble with something warm and sticky and inescapable and—unfamiliar.

Yes.

Unfamiliar. That’s all. Just that.

“You know more about me than you’re letting on,” he said unexpectedly. “More than you should.”

I reminded myself to tread carefully. He was brilliant—he was powerful—he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt me, even now, especially now, and I had to get this right. I had to. I clenched my hands into fists, feeling the hardened edges of Abraxas’ ring dig into my skin. I winced.

“I asked Uncle Albus about you,” I replied evasively. “I was curious.”

“Why?”

“Why was I curious?”

“Yes.”

"Because you make me uncomfortable,” I answered honestly.

“I make you uncomfortable,” he echoed. He looked appalled.

“Don’t act so surprised. I think you do it on purpose.”

He grunted. “I just want answers, Granger.”

I rolled my eyes. "Answers to what?”

“You haven’t stopped lying since you got here. I want to know why,” he said.

My head began to ache. “What makes you think I’ve been lying?”

Almost casually, he pulled his wand out of his trouser pocket. He twirled it around with long, elegant fingers. “You can’t stand it when Lestrange touches you,” he commented matter-of-factly. “Why is that, I wonder?”

“I don’t like him,” I retorted.

“So—you don’t like him, you don’t like me…you clearly no longer like Malfoy,” he mused softly. “And you’re incapable of keeping any of that to yourself. No. You must not be a spy, after all.”

How had I lost my hold over this conversation? I could feel the way his words, simple, swift, deadly, began to slide and slither around my brain and make things complicated—I needed to get him to stop. I needed to remember who I was, who he was, and I needed to regain some small semblance of control, I did, because I could do this, I could play his game, I could—

I couldn’t.

I knew that.

He probably knew that, too.

Fucking hell.

“What other teachers know that you can do Legilimency?” I blurted out, clumsily changing the subject.

His nostrils flared. “Why would I tell you?”

I shrugged. “You don’t have to, I suppose.”

“I didn’t ask if I had to. I asked why I would,” he snapped.

"You wouldn’t, obviously. I don’t think you like me very much.”

He turned away from me very suddenly, his posture stiff. “Slughorn knows.”

“Slughorn doesn’t count,” I said derisively. “You’re the star of his little club, aren’t you? He’d sooner kiss a hippogriff then turn you in. Besides, he’s the one who told you about hor—”

My eyelids fluttered shut.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck—

“What did you just say?” he asked quietly. I couldn’t see, but I got the impression he was facing me again. His voice wasn’t muffled and distant like it should have been.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“What did you almost say, then.”

I gulped. “Nothing. It was nothing.”

“No. It was not nothing. What did you say, Granger? What do you know?”

He had stepped forward. I could feel it—feel him. “I don’t—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I mumbled, still unable to open my eyes. Because if I didn’t, if I just kept them closed, I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t see his reaction, his face, I could pretend—always pretending, I couldn’t ever stop—that I hadn’t opened my stupid fucking mouth and spoken without thinking—

What had happened to me?

I used to shout at Harry and Ron for this kind of thing. I was sensible. I was practical. I did not make thoughtless, impulsive decisions, and I certainly didn’t act without thoroughly contemplating the consequences. I was clever. Everyone said so. When had everything gone so wrong?

“Don’t you?” Riddle was asking silkily. “Or maybe you don’t. Maybe you don’t know what a…horcrux is. Is that it? You don’t know?”

It was strange, I reflected, that I was having this particular conversation—this ominous, inappropriate conversation, so much like an unwanted shadow prowling around the edges of my vision, a sinister, lurking presence that promised nothing but certain misery—in the Gryffindor common room. I’d wanted to go home. I’d wanted a place to hide. I’d wanted to feel, just for a few moments, like things were normal and innocent and right again.

But I hadn’t stopped making mistakes since I opened the fucking door. Why had I tried to bait Tom fucking Riddle? What had I hoped to accomplish? It was all very well to know, privately, that I was his intellectual equal. I’d tried to taunt him, though—I’d thrown around thinly veiled threats and snide suppositions, hoping for a rise, a reaction, something that might make him seem human.

I’d forgotten, of course, just how dangerous he was. I should have let him think I was a bloody spy, never mind how ludicrous the idea. I should have let him continue to talk to me as if I were an imbecile. I should have remembered who I was dealing with—the future Dark Lord, a murderer, a heartless, soulless sycophant whose endgame I’d never quite been able to figure out. I should have remembered that he was all of those things, even if he didn’t look like it yet, even if he didn’t really act like it yet—but that was the fucking problem, wasn’t it?

He didn’t act like it. He didn’t look like it. Oh, there was very clearly something off about him; he treated his closest friends like servants, for the most part, and whenever he smiled, it didn’t quite fit, as if he had practiced the action one too many times in front of a mirror and lost track of what it was supposed to mean. And he had the most remarkable ability to fill a room as soon as he set foot in it—not physically, since he wasn’t really all that big, but in a way that was magnetic, electric, as if you couldn’t possibly look away, not even for a second, because there was something about the space he occupied that felt larger than it should. He was the type of person you wanted to follow, to lead you into battle—assertive, charismatic, with arresting eyes and perfect skin and a deep, penetrating, almost seductive quality to his voice—he was enigmatic, mysterious—hypnotizing, that was what he was, you couldn’t help yourself, you absolutely couldn’t, you just wanted to—wanted to—

“No.”

Had I said that? Out loud?

“No?” he countered.

“No,” I said again, more confidently.

Silence. Heavy, prepossessing silence. And then—

“You don’t know what a horcrux is, Hermione? Is that what you’re saying?”

I exhaled loudly. Bugger the timeline. Dumbledore had more or less given me permission to ignore it, hadn’t he? I opened my eyes. “No, Tom, I know exactly what a horcrux is,” I replied archly.

His eyebrows snapped together. “Well, well, well. Dumbledore’s innocent little niece isn’t so innocent, after all. Mucking about with Dark magic, are you?”

What?

I felt off-balance, unstable, as if I was standing on the brink of a cracked and crumbling cliff—this, then, this feeling, was what it meant to be precarious, suspended, helpless and confused over a precipice that I didn’t rightly understand the depths of. Why wasn’t he furious? Why weren’t his hands wrapped around my throat, squeezing, threatening—why wasn’t he demanding answers? Why was he just looking at me, lips twitching, posture unaffected, as if I hadn’t said anything at all? Wasn’t this his biggest secret? Wasn’t this what he’d spent fifty fucking years trying to hide?

“What I want to know, though, is how you know that it was Slughorn who told me about the more—unique—aspects of what a horcrux can do,” he went on when I didn’t immediately respond.

“Little goes on at Hogwarts that Uncle Albus remains ignorant of,” I said quietly.

“Yes, you keep mentioning him,” he observed. “Which is all well and good, Granger, but why would he have shared any of this with you? Hmm?”

My lips parted. My brain scrambled to find a suitable reply. It failed. “Like I said before, Riddle—I would stop asking questions. You have no idea who—what—you’re dealing with.”

He snorted. “This is ridiculous,” he stated, crossing his arms over his chest. “Unequivocally. You don’t know anything about me. No one does. I’ve made more than sure of that, I promise you.”

“I’m sure you have,” I said firmly. “Just as you know nothing about me. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?”

“You seem awfully sure that I’ll be amenable to that arrangement,” he said.

I glanced at the fireplace. It crackled merrily. “What would Dippet say, I wonder, if he found out that his golden boy was dabbling in the Dark Arts?” I asked amiably.

He appraised me oddly. I felt my stomach muscles bunch together. “Have you ever killed anyone, Granger?” he asked abruptly.

My mouth went stale. “Ex—excuse me?”

His eyes were shuttered. “It’s a simple ‘yes or no’ question. Have you ever killed anyone?”

Would there be a point to lying? No, probably not. I’d never been very good at it. “No. No, I’ve never—I’ve never killed anyone.”

Something like satisfaction rippled across his face. “I thought not,” he murmured.

A discomfiting sort of quiet rolled across the room. I realized, belatedly, that I was behaving rather recklessly. I wanted to scream. “What does that have to do with anything? Trying to determine if I’ve made any horcruxes, are you?” I tried to sneer. I doubted that I was successful.

He chuckled, and the sound crept down my spine in prickly, tremulous waves. “I’ve killed someone, Granger,” he said softly, ignoring my questions. “Did you know that?”

Yes. “No,” I whispered.

“Mmm,” he purred. “Ask Malfoy if you don’t believe me.”

What? “Abraxas?” I choked out.

“Indeed,” he replied. “He’s just full of surprises, isn’t he?”

My mind latched onto the implications of what he was saying. Something else was going on. Had he already inducted his first Death Eaters? Wasn’t that not supposed to happen until much later?

But he had stepped backwards again, turning towards the door, before pausing. “Just thought I’d give you something to think about, Miss Granger,” he said casually. “Don’t fret.”

And then he was gone, just like that, and I was collapsing onto the ugly tartan couch, fiddling with Abraxas’ ring, sliding it up and down my finger, fighting the curious urge to retch—

Don’t fret.

What had I gotten myself into?

 

---

 

Chapter 6

---

 

September 18, 1944

 

I called her a cunt.

God.

A cunt!

I haven’t lost control like that since last summer. I suppose, at the end of the day, I should just be happy that I don’t have a body to dispose of—but that word—cunt—provokes the oddest sensations…I know what it means, of course. I have a detailed, albeit secondhand, understanding of the female anatomy, thanks to Malfoy and his disgusting inability to keep his mouth shut. Regardless, though. Granger wasn’t even offended. I thought she was going to laugh. And it was disturbingly easy to say. Almost as if I wanted to—

Is this the kind of thing Malfoy whispers to the Hufflepuffs he’s always getting caught in broom closets with? I was angry—furious, really—when I said it, but I can imagine—in other circumstances—that it might be…pleasant. Visceral. Yes. In a different setting, I bet Granger wouldn’t even laugh. She might even like it. Might like hearing it, I mean. From me. Depending on what was going on.

Cunt. I’ve never touched one. Or seen one. Malfoy’s tasted one, as unsanitary as that sounds, but I really can’t imagine the appeal. Although I sometimes wonder—

I do not know why I said it. Even now, I recognize how inappropriate it was. Not that she didn’t deserve it. The little idiot had the audacity to threaten me. It seems that she feels that her presence here has nothing whatsoever to do with me, and I should leave well enough alone. I thought, at first, that she was bluffing—until she made it clear that she knew things about me that she absolutely should not. Which is how I discovered something about her that’s rather vexing in its ambiguity.

She is not Albus Dumbledore’s niece.

I have no idea how I did not see it sooner. The evidence was all there, the clues more than obvious…but it took hearing the word ‘horcrux’ fall from between her pretty pink lips to cement the realization.

What kind of innocent young girl knows what a horcrux is? Not the kind that have Albus Dumbledore—protector of honesty and truth and all that rubbish—for an uncle. Because he is many things—senile, idealistic, foolish—but he is not tolerant. If a spell has even the faintest hint of a shadow attached to it, he thinks it should be banned and erased and locked away for the entire rest of forever. He’s pathological about it. He would never abide her interest in something legitimately Dark. And since I doubt he’s unaware of her knowledge—after all, the man is practically omniscient when it comes to the students here—that must mean that he does not care.

So—

No. They are not blood relatives. Their relationship is something else. But why lie? To everyone? What kind of secrets does she have that she’s managed to get Albus Dumbledore to lie to protect her? 

And how did she know that Slughorn was the one to originally inform me about the true purpose of a horcrux? I have no doubt that Dumbledore knows about that conversation. But why would he tell her? It happened last year, long before her arrival.

So very many things about her do not add up.

She accepted Malfoy’s betrothal gift—a ring; how utterly quaint—seemingly without any comprehension of the ramifications. Never mind Malfoy’s pitiful attempts at physical intimacy afterwards—in broad daylight, no less. And here I thought that Purebloods were all so well-schooled in chivalry—but she was genuinely taken aback when I informed her of what she’d accepted by putting that ring on her finger. What girl born into the magical world gets to the age of seventeen without being taught about these antiquated little rituals?

Especially one who looks like her.

Unless she was not born into the magical world. A muggle-born? Sorted into Slytherin? Unlikely, but…something to consider, at the very least.

However.

I should not have ended our conversation the way I did. I see that now. God. I basically confessed to being a murderer. Not that I think she’s going to tell anyone—no, I feel that we reached some kind of understanding, a tacit agreement to ignore the more awkward aspects of our…interactions. She’s very obviously hiding a great many things about her past, and she’s more than aware of my skepticism. No. She won’t be telling anyone my secrets. Who would even believe her if she tried?

I do need to figure out what Malfoy’s up to, though. I assumed—as did Lestrange—that his fixation with the girl was primarily physical. After all, the first words out of his mouth the night he met her were…lewd, at best. (I wonder what she would say if she knew that he wanted to—what was it?—fuck her into the mattress? He’s such a bloody degenerate—) But an ancestral ring…I’m curious. Because I’m certain there’s more to it than that. Malfoy isn’t exactly a brilliant tactician.

Which would mean he’s acting under someone else’s orders.

Which means that those orders aren’t mine.

Which is unacceptable.

 

--TMR

 

---

 

It was the next morning, and I was pounding my fist against Dumbledore’s office door. He needed to know how badly I’d screwed up. He needed to know that I’d made a mistake. He needed to know, and he needed to tell me what to do, what to say, how to act, because if he didn’t—I was going to fucking scream. Out of frustration, or fear, or something else altogether—I didn’t know, couldn’t begin to guess, but—he had to tell me. He had to tell me what to do.

“Professor—Uncle Albus?” I called out desperately. “Are you there?”

The door suddenly swung open, revealing a slightly disheveled Albus Dumbledore. His glasses were crooked and there was a smudge of what looked like dust smeared across his chest. His beard was a tangled mess.

“Oh—Miss Granger,” he said sheepishly, stepping aside and gesturing for me to follow him inside. “Terribly sorry. I was—well, I was busy with a project of mine, nothing too important. What can I do for you?”

I glanced at him curiously as I moved into his office. He settled into the comfortable leather chair behind his desk. “Any news?” I asked, unwilling to immediately delve into the true purpose of my visit.

He pursed his lips. “Unfortunately, no,” he replied, motioning for me to take a seat. “There might be something promising with my contact in France—splendid fellow, top of his class at Durmstrang, although, of course, that was an appalling number of years ago—but as I’ve told you before, you’ll be the first to be apprised of any important developments.”

I fidgeted nervously. I didn’t sit down. “Of course,” I mumbled, looking anywhere but at him. “Right. Of course.”

He studied me for a long moment. “Miss Granger?” he asked gently. “Is everything alright?”

I opened and closed my mouth several times before responding. “I did something incredibly stupid, Professor,” I whispered, finally falling into an armchair. My posture remained uncomfortably rigid.

“What do you mean?” he asked sharply.

I heaved a sigh and cringed. “I told you, I think, that Tom Riddle was…unusually interested in me, didn’t I?”

“You mentioned that he seemed curious, yes.”

I swallowed. “I was just so sick of it,” I blurted out, smoothing my fingertips over the edge of my skirt. The wool felt rough against my skin. “He wouldn’t leave me alone. I couldn’t take it. We—exchanged words.”

“I’m not sure that I understand.”

“I may have intimated that I—well, that I knew things about him that I shouldn’t,” I confessed, chewing my bottom lip. “You’re aware that I know quite a bit about a lot of the students here, just by virtue of where—when—I’m from—and I didn’t tell you this before, Professor, but I do know who Tom Riddle is—or should I say did—I don’t know. It’s a technicality. But I might have mentioned hor—something that only he should know about. Something about himself. Something rather important. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t. I wasn’t thinking. It was just that he was standing quite close to me, and he called me a horrid name—it was almost funny, actually, because I never thought I’d hear him say that word out loud—but—I couldn’t—I was just so—”

“You were overwhelmed, Miss Granger,” he interrupted softly. “It’s perfectly understandable. May I ask, however, how he reacted? Was he angry?”

“Not exactly,” I replied cautiously. “Maybe at first. I’m not sure. But he did say something—right before he left…”

He offered me a kind smile. "What did he say, Miss Granger?”

“He asked me if I’d ever killed anyone, Professor.”

His smile faded. “Ah,” he said tiredly. “I see.”

“And when I said no—because I haven’t, and even if I had, I couldn’t very well tell him that, could I?—but—he then said that he had. He told me that he’d killed someone. I mean, I’m not surprised, Professor, since I already know who he killed and how he did it and—well, I’m aware of the circumstances, I suppose. And I know that you know who I’m talking about. But why would he tell me that? It seemed like a threat, but…I’m your niece, as far as he knows. He wouldn’t threaten your niece. Would he? He knows that I would just go and tell you.”

He leaned back in his chair and adjusted his spectacles. “I suspect that—what’s the muggle saying, my dear?—the jig is up, so to speak,” he said sadly.

I froze. “What?”

“It would seem that young Mr. Riddle has guessed that you are not my niece,” he said, shrugging.

I blinked stupidly. “No, he hasn’t. He couldn’t have. I was—careful. He hasn’t,” I insisted.

He reached for a small dish of candy, taking his time to select a peppermint before popping it into his mouth. “You could be right,” he said slowly. “And I could very well be wrong. But Tom is a stupendously clever, remarkably troubled young man, Miss Granger. It would be unwise to underestimate him, don’t you think?”

Abruptly, I stood up and began to pace anxiously in front of his desk. “Can’t you—do something? Alter his memory? Make this go away?” I pleaded, wringing my hands. “This can’t happen, Professor. You don’t understand. He can’t know. He can’t know things like this. He’s—dangerous. I can’t tell you why, you know that, but—please. This can’t happen.”

He didn’t say anything for awhile. His expression remained staunchly contemplative. I sank back into the armchair. “What do you know about time paradoxes, Miss Granger?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Excuse me? Time paradoxes—what?”

“Indeed,” he replied thoughtfully. “Time paradoxes. The theoretical shifting of a specific timeline—simply put, what happens when a time traveler changes something in the past that will come to adversely affect the future. A second timeline is created, is it not?”

My lips were dry. “No one knows,” I said quietly. “No one—well, no one documented, at least—has ever traveled far enough back in the past to do any real damage. The concept of temporal paradoxes is entirely theoretical.”

He nodded encouragingly. “Yes, it is. And, really, there are an almost infinite number of proposed theories regarding the consequences of long-term exposure to the past. Have you heard of the grandfather paradox, Miss Granger?”

“It’s a hypothetical scenario in which the time traveler in question goes back in time and kills their own grandfather,” I recited glumly. “Before said grandfather has the chance to procreate, thereby negating the time traveler’s own existence. The paradox lies in the fact that if the time traveler never had a chance to exist in the future, they would be unable to return. They would be—stuck, indefinitely, in the past. There would be a new timeline. The time traveler—they would be anomalous. They wouldn’t belong.”

"Very good, Miss Granger.”

I exhaled impatiently. “What does this have to do with Tom Riddle?” I asked. “Last I checked, Professor, he isn’t my grandfather.”

His eyes twinkled merrily behind his spectacles. “No, he most certainly isn’t,” he agreed, but didn’t elaborate.

Something occurred to me. I tried to swallow. My throat was numb. “Are you trying to tell me that you think I’ve created a new timeline and there’s no possible way for me to go home?” I demanded, panicking.

“That isn’t the part of the theory that I want you to focus on,” he replied congenially. “I want you to focus on the fact that there are things you can do—without necessarily meaning to or thinking about it—that will change the future. Invariably. Your future will not be the same should you return, Miss Granger. It might even be unrecognizable.”

I toyed with the ring Abraxas had given me, relishing the feel of the smooth, cool silver against my skin. I reminded myself to return it to him as soon as I got a chance. “I see,” I said stiffly. “And this relates to my predicament with Tom Riddle…how?”

He sighed. “I’m beginning to suspect that he’s the reason you were sent here,” he explained calmly. “I’ve already told you that I believe you’re meant to alter the past in some capacity—and I’m becoming increasingly certain that whatever you’re meant to be changing has something to do with Tom.”

For several minutes, the only sound in his office was the methodical ticking of an ancient looking brass clock on his desk.

“If you knew what I knew, Professor, you wouldn’t be saying that,” I finally whispered. “You don’t—you can’t—he’s evil. There isn’t—there’s not—the things he does—you don’t know what you’re talking about!”

He regarded me steadily. I flinched. “No one is purely evil or purely good, Miss Granger,” he said solemnly. “I’m aware—more than aware—of Mr. Riddle’s shortcomings. They are a…particular concern of mine. The things you’re saying do not surprise me in the least. However—do not delude yourself into believing that right now he is the same person you’ve—ah, heard of—in your own time. He is still a boy, after all.”

I gaped at him, unable to fully process what he was saying. “You want me to save Tom Riddle?” I bleated. “Are you mad, Professor?”

He chuckled wryly. “It has been suggested, yes.”

That was fucking it. I stood up again. My legs were shaky. “Look, I’m not doing this,” I said quickly. “I can’t do this. You don’t understand, Professor. He’s—he’s not capable of being—being saved, alright? He’s past that. He’s beyond that. I won’t do it. I won’t consciously mess with the timeline, either, because—I don’t care what you say, Professor, and I mean that respectfully, really—it goes against everything I’ve ever been told about time travel. And you seem to think that the Sorting Hat implying that I might have a greater purpose here is—is incontrovertible proof that that’s true! Which is—ridiculous, Professor. It’s ridiculous.”

He watched me carefully. I edged towards the office door. My skin felt itchy. I wanted to leave. I needed to leave.

“Well, I can hardly force you to see things my way, can I?” he asked kindly.

“I’m sorry, Professor,” I replied. “I—I should go. I’ll just—avoid him. Yes. I’ll avoid him. I can handle it. I’m sorry to have taken up so much of your time. I should go.”

He got to his feet, dusting off the front of his robes. “Of course,” he said as I reached behind me for the doorknob. “Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Miss Granger. I’ll be sure to let you know should there be any new developments in your…situation.”

My goodbye was stilted and short, and I hid in my dormitory the entire rest of the afternoon.

I didn’t know what else to do.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

 

---

 

Two days later, neither Abraxas nor Tom Riddle had made any effort to speak to me—Abraxas’ ego was bruised, his gaze systematically averted whenever I tried to approach him. Riddle, however, merely seemed uninterested. It was as if Saturday had never even happened.

“Now, who can tell me how long it takes to brew a proper Polyjuice potion?” Slughorn asked cheerfully.

I scoffed, shaking my head. Snape wouldn’t have wasted time like this. Polyjuice? Seriously? We weren’t fifth-years. I glanced around the class impatiently. Why wasn’t anyone responding?

Riddle was sitting to my left, looking bored and tapping his fingers quietly against the scarred wooden tabletop, the sound quick and rhythmic. Lestrange was on my other side, leaning backwards, a petulant scowl firmly in place as he waited for someone to answer Slughorn’s question. Abraxas was behind us, long legs stretched out underneath his table, feet resting comfortably on the bottom of my chair. There was the faint scratching of quill on parchment as someone across the room decided to start writing down the instructions Slughorn had put on the blackboard.

I was suddenly irritated.

And then, before I could stop myself, I raised my hand. Next to me, Riddle had stopped fidgeting, his gaze piercing, unwavering, into the side of my face as he watched me.

“Oh, wonderful! Miss Granger!”

I gritted my teeth. "The potion itself only takes a little over twenty-four hours to brew, but if you take into account the specific preparations for some of the ingredients, you’ll need about a month from start to finish,” I recited dutifully.

“Correct! Ten points to Slytherin! Very good, Miss Granger!”

Slughorn’s enthusiasm was grating. Riddle, though, continued to stare at me. Abruptly, he yanked out a piece of parchment from his bag and picked up a quill, scribbling out a note before sliding it over to me.

Are you going to start answering questions in class now to prove to me that you’re not stupid?

I frowned and hastily drafted a response. Hardly. I just want him to get on with the lesson.

He cocked his head to the side as he wrote his reply. Why? Are you interested in impersonating someone? Macmillan, possibly?

I frowned. Was he…trying to be funny? What? I chewed on the end of my quill as I thought about what to write back. Why would I want to do that?

He smiled deviously. Well, Malfoy probably wouldn’t be so keen on getting you in a broom closet if you looked like her, would he?

I stifled my laughter. That’s a good point. I’ll have to nick a sample before class is over.

He glanced over at me slyly. You’re assuming anyone besides me is going to brew this correctly. That’s a gross overestimation of our classmates’ abilities, I promise you.

I sniffed at his arrogance. Oh, please. I successfully brewed Polyjuice as a second-year. It isn’t even hard.

He arched a supercilious brow. Is this your way of telling me that you’re only half as incompetent as I think you are?

I rolled my eyes. I’m certain I don’t care either way.

He snorted quietly. You should.

I scrunched my nose up. Really? And why is that?

He scrawled his response slowly. Pointedly. Because I’m not going to take your silly little threats very seriously if I think that you’re stupid. I think we both know what that means.

I gazed down at the note, not really seeing it. I gingerly picked up my quill. I put it back down. I flexed my fingers. And then I crumpled the parchment into a ball, stuffing it unceremoniously into the bottom of my bag.

He didn’t look at me again.

 

---

 

Later that day, I was hurrying down the corridor that led from my dormitory to the common room, twenty minutes late for dinner, when I heard them.

“—the fuck are you playing at, Malfoy?”

“What do you mean, what am I playing at? I could ask you the same thing, you know. It’s fucking creepy the way you follow her around. The way you stare at her. Did you think no one would notice?”

I jerked backwards at the sound of loud, furious voices, pressing myself into the icy cold wall and peeking around the corner. The common room was almost entirely empty. Tom Riddle was standing in front of the fireplace, his expression ferocious, his gaze trained on Abraxas, who was glaring back at him with his arms crossed over his chest. What the fuck?

“Who told you to give her the ring?”

Abraxas smirked. “Jealous, Tom?”

Riddle had his hands around Abraxas’ throat so fast I barely had time to blink. “Have you forgotten who I am, Malfoy?” he demanded softly. I felt my skin prickle with unease. His tone was deadly.

“N—no, of course—of course not,” Abraxas managed to choke out, his face turning pink. He didn’t try to fight, I noticed dimly.

“Who told you to do it?” Riddle asked again, his eyes flashing, his thumbs pressing down into Abraxas’ windpipe. “We both know what those rings do. Why would you give her one?”

Abraxas shook his head frantically. “No—no one told me to,” he stammered. “I just—like her. That’s it. I swear.”

Riddle snorted before releasing him. “You’re an abysmal liar, Malfoy.”

Abraxas massaged his neck and winced. “I’m not fucking lying,” he argued quietly. “But—if you really want to know—she won’t fucking touch me. Lestrange thought she might be—oh, I don’t know—waiting, or something. For marriage. It was his idea. Thought if I, you know, made my intentions clear…”

My lips parted in surprise.

Riddle arched a brow. “You’d be willing to marry the girl just to get into her knickers? Are you stupid? No, don’t answer that. We both know that you are.”

My cheeks grew warm.

Abraxas flushed indignantly. “She’s better than Macmillan, isn’t she?” he retorted.

Riddle laughed. There was little humor in it. "God, you’re a fucking idiot. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.”

Abraxas glanced down at the floor before replying. “She took the ring, though. Put it on and everything,” he said smugly.

“She didn’t know what it meant,” Riddle responded sharply. “I had to explain it to her after you tried to maul her outside the quidditch pitch. She’s planning on returning it.”

I narrowed my eyes thoughtfully. Was Riddle warning him off?

“Bullshit. You’re just jealous. You want her for yourself.”

Riddle offered a cold smile. “You’re awfully rude today, aren’t you, Malfoy?”

Abraxas paled. “I didn’t mean—”

“No,” Riddle interrupted. “You’ve forgotten your place. Do you honestly think I care where you stick your cock? She won’t touch you, with or without that ring on her finger. But keep in mind who she is—who she’s related to. You have a fucking job to do at the end of the year, and she’s not the type you get to take with you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Abraxas’ jaw tightened. “She’ll never fuck you, you know,” he spat.

Riddle shrugged indifferently. “I’m heartbroken, I’m sure,” he sneered. “But that isn’t what I asked you.”

The tension between them seemed to multiply exponentially as they stared at each other. The fire hissed angrily.

“I understand.”

“Wonderful.”

Without another word, Abraxas stalked out of the common room. Riddle sighed in exasperation and turned towards the hallway I was hiding in. I held my breath. Surely he didn’t know—

“You can come out now, Granger. I know you’re there.”

I groaned and crept out of the shadows. “How did you know I was there?”

He looked vaguely insulted. “Unlike Malfoy, I’m not oblivious to my surroundings,” he said, slowly approaching me. He stopped about a foot from where I stood. It felt too close.

“What were you talking about when you said that the ring meant something?” I asked, pursing my lips.

He glanced down at my finger. “You’re still wearing it, I see,” he remarked, not answering my question.

I made a protective fist with my hand, hiding the ring. “That isn’t what I asked,” I bit out, consciously mimicking what he’d said to Abraxas mere minutes earlier.

He studied me, his expression unreadable. “Are you bothered by what he said?”

I furrowed my brow. “I already knew he wanted to shag me,” I replied reasonably. “He didn’t really try very hard to hide that fact.”

“Which is unfortunate for Malfoy, since I’m fairly sure you don’t want to shag him,” he said, snorting.

I swallowed. “That’s not really any of your business, is it?” I shot back shakily.

He smirked. “Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled, moving closer. “Isn’t it?”

I gasped.

Because something was swirling in my stomach, something noxious, toxic, an acidic sort of dread—it went beyond a physical ache, it went deeper, thicker, a pulsating, nauseating knot settling like an anchor in the darkest, bleakest corners of my body—because Tom fucking Riddle was looking at me that way, like he wanted to spin me around, flip the back of my skirt up, and rip my knickers off. And I wouldn’t—couldn’t—label the peculiar spasms in my abdomen as anything but apprehension. I was not excited. I was not pressing my thighs together, craving the friction, and I was not staring back at him, waiting, hoping, needing—I was not. I could not.

Except I was breathing too fast. His eyes went to my lips. My tongue darted out. His nostrils flared.

And then he moved.

Slightly.

It was just a step.

Half a step, even.

But he was suddenly close enough to touch, close enough to smell, and—he smelled musky and masculine, and he didn’t wear cologne, and there was a faint hint of something else, something fresh and clean, like aftershave and soap, and I realized that there must be something horribly, horrendously wrong with me, because he smelled so fucking good, so good that my brain went blank and all I could think to do was take a deep, shuddering breath, desperate to savor the scent, desperate to savor him.

“Was Malfoy right?” His voice was a hoarse, husky rumble, invading—no, assaulting—the silence.

“What?” I asked, finally meeting his eyes. God, but I couldn’t fucking look away, could I? “Right about what?”

“He said you would never fuck me, Granger,” he murmured, an insolent smirk flitting across his face. “Was he right?”

Some small, logical part of my brain screamed at me to leave. To sprint for the door and make my way to dinner and forget all about the rather embarrassingly sticky state of my knickers. But my feet were glued to the floor. All I could focus on was the way my skirt whispered across the front of my legs, my fingers limp and helpless as they brushed against the soft skin of my thighs, almost of their own accord—and he was standing so close, always so fucking close, I could reach out and run my hand down his chest if I fucking wanted to, it would be so easy, and I wondered, immediately, if it would be as hard and as warm and as perfectly chiseled as it looked, and I wondered what he would do if I did, if I unbuttoned his shirt and tore it off his shoulders and traced every single long, sensuous line of muscle with my tongue—

“I—I don’t—”

“I don’t think he was right,” he continued, ignoring my feeble attempt to reply. “I think you’d fuck me right here if I wanted you to. Isn’t that right?”

My mouth went dry. Some never-used muscle in my lower abdomen clenched, tightly. I couldn’t think. I wouldn’t think. I couldn’t fucking think.

“I want to know, Hermione,” he went on silkily, his voice low. “Are you wet for me?”

Oh, it would be so easy to say yes. To nod my head and reach for the zipper on his trousers—he never wore a belt, he wasn’t wearing a belt, this was important, of course it was fucking important—and let him make this unfamiliar tension snap, disappear, go away—

I blinked.

The door to the common room was opening. I could see the handle turning. Dinner was over.

And the moment was lost.

Our connection severed.

I stumbled backwards. He looked dazed.

Bloody fucking hell.

 

---

 

Chapter 7

---

 

September 21, 1944

 

I want her.

I want her.

Like that.

And last night, in the common room—

If those third-years hadn’t come back from dinner when they did—

Fuck.

I wanted her. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to slip my hand underneath her skirt and push her knickers aside and—God, what if she wasn’t even wearing knickers? What if she was sitting next to me in Potions, passing notes and answering questions, and all the while, the entire time, there was nothing there, nothing to stop me from reaching over and finding out if she was as hot and tight and perfect as I’ve been imagining?

Her skirt rides up her thighs when she crosses her legs.

It would be so easy—

Fuck.

I can’t—

She licked her lips. It was innocent. She didn’t mean anything by it. But when I saw her tongue, so pink, so small, so wet, all I could think about was what it would feel like swirling around my cock, my hands buried in her hair, yanking her closer, up and down, faster, harder, fucking her mouth—

Would she let me do that? Would she like it? She would, I think. I can tell.

Buggering fucking fuck—

God.

This is bad.

Sex is an unnecessary distraction—a weakness. I can control this. I can control myself. She’s just a girl. That’s all. Just a girl. There’s a hundred of them in this school, all with the requisite…parts—she’s nothing special.

Just another girl.

I can control this. I can control her.

But she smells like raspberries and vanilla and the air outside, right after it rains—clean and fresh, like something you want to savor. Something you want to drown in. And her skin—it’s almost magnetically soft. I want to taste it. I want to taste her.

I want—

I’ve always been very good at getting what I want.

No.

No.

That—this—she—is not an option.

No.

Malfoy was lying about the ring. Lestrange might have put the idea in his head—lifelong commitment in exchange for her virginity; it’s not exactly original, is it?—but that ring came from the Malfoy family vaults. The enchantments on it are ancient, powerful, and beyond the scope of Malfoy’s comprehension. In fact, I don’t think he’s even aware of the existence of half of them.

God.

Inbreeding did absolutely no intellectual favors for him.

Granger doesn’t suspect anything, of course. She seems content to believe that he was merely playing the part of an overzealous, oversexed schoolboy. Her naivety really is appalling.

But—

If Lestrange actually is behind Malfoy’s rather clumsily executed defection—he needs to be reminded of where his loyalties lie. I’ve been distracted the past couple of weeks. I can admit that. I have been neglecting my Knights. But as far as they know, she’s Dumbledore’s niece; risking exposure of any kind by plotting something that directly involves her is beyond idiotic. I’ll have to call a meeting. I’ve worked too hard to get them all on my side—six years of listening to Nott and Avery and Lestrange rant about the influx of mudbloods in their world has been both annoying and mind-numbingly grating. But they must continue to trust me. I cannot afford to have my plans jeopardized.

I’m just so close.

I do have a theory about Granger, however. About her secret. It seems preposterous, even in my head, but—it would explain so much. Her skittishness; her unprecedented knowledge of both myself and my…extracurricular activities; her dependence on Dumbledore. God, but he’s a sneaky, manipulative bastard when he wants to be. And if my suspicions are correct, he’s found an insurmountably useful weapon in the girl.

Although—

He doesn’t know that I’m aware of his connection to Grindelwald.

And if I’m right about her—and him—then she’s in danger. I’d warn her—she’d be incredibly valuable, after all, especially to me—but I doubt she’d trust anything I said. She dislikes me. Rather intensely. And she seems to be stubborn about it. It’s infuriating.

Slughorn’s having a party this Friday.

I wonder if he invited her.

 

--TMR

 

---

 

“What is that?” Melania Macmillan’s sharp, shrill voice echoed loudly in the small, white-tiled bathroom.

I sighed heavily before putting down my hairbrush and turning to look at her. “What is what, Melania?” I asked tiredly. It was the morning after my—encounter—with Riddle in the common room, and I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept well. It was all his fault, of course.

“That ring,” she said bluntly. “It looks like—but it can’t be. He wouldn’t have.”

I glanced down at my finger. I shouldn’t have still been wearing the ring. I didn’t know why I was. But giving it back to Abraxas had stopped being simple and straightforward—taking it off felt permanent and meaningful in a way that it absolutely shouldn’t have, and I was rather stubbornly hanging onto it to prove a point to Riddle. He was the one who’d had to tell me what it meant in the first place, after all.

“Abraxas gave it to me on Saturday,” I replied casually, fully aware of how much my response would infuriate her. I turned back to the mirror.

“But—but—that means—”

“That he’s declared his intentions, yes,” I finished somewhat smugly. Oh, but I shouldn’t have been enjoying her distress quite so much.

Her face turned an alarming shade of red as she floundered for a reply. “But you’re not even pretty!” she exclaimed, aghast.

I shrugged and tied my hair back with an emerald green ribbon. “It would seem that Abraxas doesn’t agree with you on that point,” I said easily.

She sputtered. I smirked. “Has he spoken to your uncle?” she demanded.

I flattened my hands over the front of my skirt and moved towards the bathroom door. “Not sure,” I replied noncommittally.

She scowled darkly. “I don’t believe you,” she snapped, reaching for my hand as I tried to brush past her. She roughly twisted my wrist to get a better look at the ring. I gasped at the harsh, unexpected pain. “He barely knows you. He wouldn’t—he would never—let me see!”

I jerked away from her. “Do not touch me!” I hissed, stalking towards my bed and picking up my bag. “You might be delusional, but that doesn’t mean that I have to put up with it.”

She glared at my retreating form. “Did you slip him a love potion, then? Cast a spell? I bet you know all sorts of illegal magic, being related to Dumbledore,” she taunted menacingly, following me out the door and down the hallway that led to the common room.

“Not all of us need love potions to get a boy to look twice at us,” I spat, barreling past a throng of giggling fifth-years. I almost didn’t notice Abraxas’ extra-large presence next to the common room door. “Oh!” I cried, coming to a halt. “Abraxas. I didn’t—I didn’t see you.”

He grimaced, his eyes flicking nervously between me and Melania. “I was just waiting for you, love,” he replied, automatically reaching to take my bag off my shoulder. “I thought we might be able to skip breakfast and—um—have a bit of a talk?”

I wet my lips before responding. “Of course,” I said softly, offering him a small smile. “We can take a walk outside. It’s still nice, I think.”

He shot me a grateful, lopsided grin before holding open the door. Melania huffed noisily behind us. He ignored her and propelled me through the dungeons, his hand sticky and warm against my elbow. We stayed silent until we reached the entrance hall and Melania veered away from us. He then glanced down at me, his expression hesitant. I unconsciously rolled his ring around my finger.

“Look, Hermione…” he trailed off anxiously.

“Should we go to the lake?” I asked carefully.

He nodded. I led him outside, our footsteps crunching awkwardly over the thin layer of leaves that had only recently begun to fall. We were halfway to the lake when he finally spoke.

“I thought you knew what it meant,” he blurted out, kicking at the ground.

I frowned. “It’s a ring, Abraxas,” I replied. “I knew, vaguely, what it might mean, but I didn’t—I mean, I’ve only known you for a few weeks. I didn’t think…”

He sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “It’s okay if you aren’t sure yet,” he said seriously. “I can—well, I can understand that. But I thought—was it because I didn’t ask?”

I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean?”

He looked pained. “When I kissed you,” he mumbled, coming to a stop several feet away from the edge of the lake. “Were you just surprised?”

I winced. God, but I didn’t want to have this conversation. “Oh,” I murmured. “That.”

“Yeah,” he said wryly, staring out at the water. It was unnervingly calm. “That.”

I twisted the ring off my finger and held it tightly in my hand. “I—care for you very much, Abraxas,” I said gently. “You’ve been nothing but wonderful to me ever since I got here. I couldn’t have asked for a better friend.”

His jaw clenched. “But you don’t want me as anything more than that,” he said, his voice eerily flat.

I lowered my eyes. “Did I ever tell you that you remind me quite a lot of someone I used to go to school with?” I asked quietly.

He pursed his lips. “No. Who?”

“He—well, he was my best friend,” I said wistfully. “One of them, I mean. I had two. He—meant a lot to me. Means a lot to me. And you’re so much like him, Abraxas. Really. Loyal and funny and protective and—and sweet, in your own way. Sometimes, when you’re talking, I can close my eyes and imagine that he’s still sitting next to me, begging me not to make him study.”

“Did you ever...” he asked uncertainly.

I snorted. “When we were younger, we thought we might end up like that,” I replied sardonically. “But we kissed, just the one time, and it was an unmitigated disaster. No. Our relationship was strictly platonic.”

He had turned to face me, his expression oddly tender. “What happened to him? I know you never talk about—before you came here—and I never ask, because I know it bothers you, but—you’re making it sound like he—”

I forced a smile and thought about how to answer. “He died,” I interrupted bluntly. “They both did. It’s one of the reasons I came here.”

He studied me intently. "I’m so sorry, Hermione,” he said gruffly. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. If I could make it better…if I could fix it…I would, love. You know that, don’t you?”

My throat felt thick and tight as I tried to swallow. “Yeah,” I said. “I know that.”

He looked at me for a long moment, his hand outstretched, as if he wanted to touch me, comfort me, but was unsure if he should try. "So that’s why you can’t see me like—like I want you to?”

No. That wasn’t why. The real reason had much more to do with Tom Riddle’s errant, naughty whispering in the common room—but I could hardly tell Abraxas that. “More or less,” I hedged uncomfortably.

He straightened his shoulders. “Then we’ll just be friends for now,” he said firmly. “I can do that.”

I squeezed my hands into fists and felt the ring dig into my palm. “I should give you this back, though,” I replied, holding out the ring. “It isn’t right for me to keep it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “No,” he said quickly. “No. Keep it. It doesn’t have to mean anything. I’d like you to keep it. Maybe eventually—it’s a gift, love. That’s all. I don’t want it back.”

"Abraxas—”

“Please keep it? For me?” he pleaded.

I cocked my head to the side. “Alright,” I said slowly. “But it doesn’t mean anything, right? I’m not—well, I’m not agreeing to anything, am I?”

He visibly relaxed. “No, of course not, love,” he replied. “I never got around to talking to your uncle, so it really is just a ring for now.”

I glanced down. The tiny emerald in the center of the ring twinkled in the early-morning sunlight. I put it back on my finger. “I—I see.”

He cleared his throat. “So—ah—Slughorn’s having a party on Friday,” he said with an awkward chuckle. “Slug Club. Did anyone explain that to you? He has favorites—Tom’s one, obviously, Slughorn thinks he’s going to be Minister one day—and he has these dinners every so often, nothing really all that fun, but, well, it’s something different, you know, and I’m always invited—so—ah—did you want to come? With me, I mean? As friends, of course. I wouldn’t—well, I know how you feel now, so—yeah, as friends, then?”

I inwardly cringed. I knew that I shouldn’t say yes. I shouldn’t encourage him. But he was my only friend. He was the only person in 1944 whose ulterior motives were understandable. He made sense. He reminded me of Ron. I couldn’t push him away. I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t do it to myself. I needed him. I needed the easy, uncomplicated comfort that his presence provided. I stared at the ring for several minutes before looking back up at him.

"Sure,” I finally answered. “We can go as friends.”

He held my hand as we walked back to the castle.

I didn’t stop him.

 

---

 

It was ten minutes to curfew and I was stumbling tiredly out of the library after yet another night of wasted research. The hallway I was in was dark and empty, the torches on the walls sputtering ominously and casting misshapen shadows on the flagstone floor. My muscles tensed when I heard footsteps approaching me from behind.

“Granger?”

I stopped walking. “Riddle,” I said resignedly, turning to face him. “What are you doing here?”

“Rounds,” he replied evasively.

“Ah.”

“What are you doing out so late?”

“I still have ten minutes till curfew,” I said defensively. “I was in the library.”

“What for?”

I fiddled with the ring on my finger. “Nothing important.”

His gaze sharpened. “You’re still wearing that?”

“It would appear so, yes.”

“Why didn’t you give it back?” he demanded curtly. “Did you change your mind?”

“What does it matter to you?” I retorted.

He clenched his jaw. “It doesn’t,” he ground out.

“Clearly.”

He glared. I arched a brow. The silence stretched on.

“He didn’t want it back,” I finally admitted. “He said that it didn’t have to mean anything, but he wanted me to keep it.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re still wearing it, though.”

I shrugged. “It’s pretty.”

“It’s Malfoy’s,” he spat derisively.

“Again—what does it matter to you?” I hissed, suddenly furious. “You won’t even tell me what the stupid thing does! A betrothal gift, you said. Like that means anything at all to me!”

He spun away from me, his posture stiff. I watched him curiously. “Were you invited to Slughorn’s party?” he barked.

“Why are you changing the subject?” I asked.

He turned around. His expression was dark. “Were you or not?”

I sneered. “Abraxas invited me,” I replied, my tone cool. “We’re going as friends.”

He scoffed—but then his face went absolutely, unbelievably blank. It was unnerving. “Friends,” he mused coldly. “How...heartwarming.”

“Heartwarming?” I repeated uneasily.

He smirked. My stomach dropped. “He isn’t your friend, Granger,” he drawled.

"Of course he is,” I said quickly.

“Really? Do you know what he says about you when we’re all in our dormitory?”

I sniffed. “If you’re asking if I know how depraved and disgusting eighteen year-old boys can be when you leave them alone together, the answer is an unequivocal, resounding yes,” I replied testily.

Amusement flashed across his features. “Not all of us are depraved and disgusting, Granger.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” I said matter-of-factly. “Creating horcruxes is a fairly disgusting practice, after all.”

He snorted. “Yes, and you know all about that from the numerous horcruxes you’ve made, I take it?”

“It doesn’t matter how I know about it.”

“Of course it doesn’t. I’m just supposed to take your word for it that dear Uncle Albus confides his deepest, darkest suspicions about me to his underage niece. Tell me, Hermione, do you think that I’m stupid?”

I glared spitefully at him. “Not that I don’t wish you were, but no. I know that you aren’t stupid.”

“Then why do you continue to say things that you must know will do nothing but make me more curious about you?”

I chewed the inside of my mouth. Why, indeed? “Honestly, I just want you to leave me alone. Is that really so much to ask?”

He quirked his lips. "Why is it that you’re so desperate for me to leave you alone, but Malfoy tries to trick you into marrying him and you’re still willing to be his date to a party?”

“We’re going as friends.”

"Right. Friends,” he echoed disbelievingly.

“This conversation is ridiculous.”

“Do you even want to go with him?” he asked.

“I said yes, didn’t I?”

He scowled. “That doesn’t really answer my question.”

I fidgeted nervously. “And this really isn’t any of your business!”

And that was when I made the mistake of looking up.

There was a peculiar heat in his eyes—incendiary, rather like a slowly burning fire, crackling sleepily, uncertainly, its warmth more of a gradual sort of possession, the sort that takes you entirely by surprise, nipping at your nerve-endings before enveloping you forcefully, dramatically—it wasn’t all at once, and it wasn’t overwhelming, but it was there, hot and heavy and languorous, and it made me feel scared, it made me feel—

Hunted.

As if he was a wily, overlarge predator, and I was his prey.

“You don’t want to go to that party with Malfoy, Hermione,” he murmured. “Do you?”

No. No, I don’t want to go with Malfoy. “Of course I do,” I whispered tremulously. “We’re friends. We’ll—have fun.”

He shook his head. The corridor suddenly felt much too small. I took a step backwards. My body hit the wall. It was jarring.

“Fun,” he repeated, smirking. “How do you define fun, sweetheart?”

I flinched. There was something so desperately wrong about hearing Tom Riddle use sugary sweet endearments, especially in relation to me. I swallowed noisily at the thought. His eyes traced the motion in my throat. He looked hungry.

“The same way everyone else does, I expect,” I mumbled, pressing myself—hard—into the frigid stone wall. I was too hot, even underneath the thin cotton of my Oxford, and the contrast was abrasive—no, it wasn’t that. Anything but that.

It was staggering.

It was erotic.

It was—

It wasn’t. It wasn’t. It absolutely wasn’t.

I shivered.

He licked his lips. “I don’t know about that,” he said, moving closer. I released a helpless, hapless breath. “For example—my definition of fun has taken a rather surprising turn lately.”

I wanted to stop him. I wanted to run away. I wanted to pretend that this wasn’t happening, not with him, especially not with him, anyone but him, fucking anyone—but then I shifted uncomfortably, and my skirt got caught on the wall, and my bare skin was exposed, the back of my thigh rubbing intimately against the rough grey stone—and I understood, in that brief, endless moment, that all-important half-second where everything that I thought I knew about myself lurched and swayed and made a mess of rearranging itself—that I didn’t want to stop him. I didn’t want to run away. I didn’t want to pretend that this wasn’t happening.

No.

Not even a little bit.

I wanted to touch him. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted his hands and his mouth and his tongue on—in—unspeakable parts of my body. It would be good. It would be better than good. It would be worth it, worth all of it—the shame, the recrimination, the self-loathing. Wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t he?

“Really?” I rasped. My mouth was dry. I shouldn’t ask. I shouldn’t fucking ask. “How so?”

He leaned forward, placing a large, elegant hand on the wall above my shoulder. “Well,” he purred, his gaze sweeping purposefully across my face. “I rather think it might be fun to fuck you against this wall. With your legs wrapped around my waist and my cock buried in your cunt, so deep and so hard that you can’t help but scream. Anyone could walk by and catch us. Would you like that, Hermione? Getting caught? Getting fucked?”

I finally shut my eyes. It was too much. He was too much. He was a morally repugnant sociopath whispering dirty words in my ear in the middle of a dark, empty hallway. I shouldn’t want him to continue. I shouldn’t want him. And I didn’t. I didn’t want him. I didn’t want any of it. I was sensible. I was logical. I didn’t give into reckless, incomprehensible impulses. I was a fucking virgin, for God’s sake. I was saving this. I was saving myself. I was saving the entire experience for something—someone—better. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve me. I didn’t even want him. I didn’t even want this.

Except there was an aching, pulsing sort of emptiness between my thighs that suggested otherwise, and even if I was a virgin, even if I’d never actually felt it—I knew what it meant.

“If I said yes,” I replied slowly, dragging my eyes up to meet his. He didn’t blink. I didn’t breathe. “If I said yes—would you do it? Would you fuck me, Tom?”

Something that looked a lot like surprise flickered across his face. I felt an unfamiliar surge of triumph. He hadn’t expected me to say that. He probably hadn’t expected me to respond at all. I almost smiled.

“I don’t—I mean—I didn’t—” he stammered. His shoulders—so much broader than my own—stiffened above me. He didn’t move back, though. He never fucking moved back.

“No? Were you just trying to make me uncomfortable again?” I asked, reaching a hand up between us to toy with the end of my tie. His jaw tightened. He still didn’t step away.

“Are you asking me, Hermione? To fuck you?” he demanded, his voice deep. He’d recovered from the initial shock. He’d processed my response and was now moving on, moving past it. He was back in control. “Is that it? You want me to make you come?”

His head had dipped lower. He didn’t seem to notice. I did, though, of course I did, and I was struck by a sudden grasping need to find out what his lips would feel like, taste like—I wanted him to kiss me, touch me, fuck me, and I wanted it now, right then and right there, but no, no, not him, never him, anyone but him—

“Why would I want that, Riddle? Why would I want a murderer to—do any of those things?” I asked mockingly. My palms were damp. My heart felt like a lukewarm fist was squeezing it, gripping it, hard, harder, so hard I couldn’t think of anything else—not his breath on my face; not the luxurious chunk of wavy black hair falling across his forehead, uncharacteristically out of place; and not his eyes, so dark, stupidly dark, deeply dark and fathomless and fucking dangerous, eyes I wanted to stare at and into, eyes I couldn’t look away from, eyes framed with long, thick lashes that would have been feminine on anyone else—God, anyone else, why couldn’t it be anyone else—but not on him, not with the strong sure masculine shape of his face, not with his square jaw and sturdy chin and the rugged, sensuous timbre of his voice.

“Because you find me just as fascinating as I find you,” he replied, a strange smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Because you know things about me that you shouldn’t, and you want to know the rest, don’t you? Isn’t that it, Hermione? You want to know the murderer. You want the murderer to touch you. To take you right here, right against the wall. Not Malfoy. Definitely not Malfoy.”

I dropped my eyes. The way he was staring at me—I couldn’t. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand the intensity of it—of him, of his expression, of the way words seemed to slide, rhythmic and smooth and uninhibited, across his tongue, like melted butter.

I just couldn’t.

And so I studied his shirt. There was a faint, barely-there ink stain on the collar. It was grey, as if he’d tried to wash it out and hadn’t quite been successful. If he hadn’t been standing so close, I would probably have never noticed it.

“I never said that,” I argued quietly.

“No,” he mused. “You didn’t.”

And then—

His hand.

His fucking hand brushed against my chin, gently tilting it up, forcing me to look at him, forcing me to face him, forcing me to acknowledge everything he was saying and implying and expecting—even though I didn’t want to, didn’t need to—even though I no longer had the energy to pretend that this was okay, alright, normal.

Because it wasn’t.

It wasn’t okay.

It wasn’t alright.

It wasn’t normal.

And I didn’t know what sort of backwards biological response was making me want him this badly, so badly, but I wanted it to fucking go away, quickly, immediately, like it hadn’t ever existed, and I wanted his hand to keep going, to slide down my jaw, down my throat, over my breasts, I wanted to know, just for a moment, what it would feel like if he did touch me—no, I didn’t, I couldn’t, I just needed—I just needed—I needed to wake up, remember that this was real, he was real, remember that this wasn’t just another nightmare, not even close, and my actions had consequences, I couldn’t have him, I couldn’t touch him, I couldn’t fucking do this, not now, not with him standing there, so close, his fingertips warm against my skin—

I shoved him away.

His eyebrows flew up.

“I don’t want you, Riddle,” I managed to hiss. “And you really shouldn’t keep accosting me in abandoned hallways like this. It isn’t proper.”

“Proper?” he repeated incredulously.

“Yes,” I said angrily. “Proper. You can’t just—say things like that and practically hold me hostage and—and what, expect me to just let you?”

His lip curled. “You weren’t really putting up much of a fight, were you?”

I flushed a dark, furious red. “Just leave me alone, Riddle. We really don’t have much to say to each other.”

He laughed. “Don’t we, though?” he asked nastily. “You know things you shouldn’t, Granger. Dangerous things. Things that could get you hurt. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

I reached for my wand and gripped it tightly. “I’m not sure,” I replied quietly. “Do you want something to happen to your diary? Or perhaps the ring you keep in your bedside table?”

He stumbled backwards. “How—how do you know?”

I smirked. He looked stricken. “Just leave me alone, Riddle.”

And then I pushed past him and walked steadily down the hallway.

I could almost pretend I couldn’t feel him watching every single step I took.

 

---

 

Chapter 8: Chapter 8

---

 

September 23, 1944

 

I called a meeting last night.

I called a fucking meeting, and fucking Malfoy didn’t fucking bother to fucking show up.

No. Of course he didn’t.

He was with her.

His date to Slughorn’s party. Oh, sorry—his friend. Honestly. Is she stupid?

She isn’t, I don’t think.

No. Not at all.

Although I’m sorely tempted to track him down and use him for target practice—there’s an excruciating Unforgivable I have a particular affinity for, after all—I’m too angry. I wouldn’t stop. I know I wouldn’t be able to stop. And permanently damaging him isn’t an option just yet.

No.

I’ll have to wait for that.

Besides, she’d probably never speak to me again if I hurt him. She appears to be inexplicably soft-hearted when it comes to the great blond prat.

Not to mention—she knows too much. I’m not entirely surprised about the diary; the accident with the Chamber and the muggle-born wasn’t a secret, and even though Dippet was senile enough to blame it on the half-breed, Dumbledore seemed to know better. That she’s aware I used a diary is alarming, but—

Well. It’s decidedly impractical to ponder how she knows the things she does, isn’t it? Especially since I’m fairly sure I’m right about her—about her secret. But I can’t tell her that. Not yet.

My ring, though—

That’s quite the mystery. I’ve gone to unimaginable lengths to make sure that no one knows about my errant embarrassment of a father—because that spineless fucking stain on my pedigree is shameful in a way that defies description. And despite the fact that the disgusting orphanage I grew up in gave me plenty of reasons to hate muggles, my father’s narrow-minded disdain for me—for magic—was even more staggering. How can we possibly hope to coexist with people like him? People who see something extraordinary, something so much better than them, and want to call it evil? Unnatural? Want to blame their own fucking deficiencies on it?

I digress.

He deserved to die.

And while I hadn’t planned on our rather extensive resemblance to one another—even now, looking the mirror is unpleasant, even disconcerting—I can confess that my first thought was that it might be beneficial.

It wasn’t, obviously.

He looked right at me, right through me, and—

No.

Yes.

He deserved to die. All three of them did.

Granger, though. If she knows about the ring from that day—she might very well know about him. About them. About what I did. And if she does—

Does it bother her? Does she understand? Assuming I’m correct about her, she has no living relatives to speak of. She’s alone—an orphan. If anyone could understand, it would be someone like her. But does she? Could she?

I’m baffled by my response to her. Everything about her—from her velvety, doe-brown eyes to the modest length of her skirts—screams innocence. Naivety. She’s fragile, and I find it…engaging. I want to protect her. And the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that she needs protecting—Dumbledore is using her, that much is obvious, but for what I can’t be sure.

However—

Malfoy needs to be taught a lesson.

I should find him before Slughorn’s party this evening.

Yes.

That’s what I’ll do.

 

--TMR

 

---

 

The dress was pretty—superfine emerald green silk with long sleeves and a dramatic empire waist. An elegant silver ribbon was tied directly underneath my breasts, its ends swishing delicately together, and a small black dragon was embroidered on the wrist of the left sleeve. Abraxas had had it delivered to me just that morning, a nondescript grey owl hastily dropping the large brown box directly on top of my breakfast. Riddle had scowled, aggressively digging his knife into the strawberry jam as I opened it, while Lestrange had looked between us with a curious expression, choosing to remain quiet. I had smiled, uncertain and uncomfortable, and thanked Abraxas.

Now, though, I was merely nervous. I had an awful feeling about the upcoming evening, a ludicrous sort of premonition that left me breathless and weak. It was nonsense, of course, and not entirely different from the constant anxiety that had plagued me for the past three weeks—but as I stood in front of the mirror, smoothing down the front of the dress—really, it was quite pretty—I couldn’t help but wish that I hadn’t agreed to go to Slughorn’s party.

A knock sounded on the bathroom door, bringing me out of my reflective trance.

“Yes?” I called out.

Melania Macmillan peeked in. “You have a letter,” she informed me snidely. “I left it on your bed.”

I offered her a tense smile. “Thank you,” I replied, moving away from the mirror. “What time is it, do you know?”

She grimaced. “Half-six,” she said, spinning on her heel and stomping through our dormitory. “You still have thirty minutes before Abraxas will be here.”

“Right. Thanks, then.” I hesitated. “Are you going to the party?”

Her cheeks turned red. “No,” she sneered. “I wasn’t invited. Slughorn only ever invites Riddle and his crowd, and unless one of them decides they need a date, no one else goes. But it’s rare for that to happen. You should count yourself lucky.”

“Oh,” I said, bemused. “I see. Doesn’t—doesn’t Riddle ever invite anyone, then?”

She sniffed. “Riddle? He’s never so much as looked twice at a girl,” she replied, angrily plopping down onto her bed. “Which is a pity, isn’t it?”

“What is?” I asked, picking up a creamy vellum envelope off of my pillow. It was unmarked.

“That Riddle’s so uninterested in girls,” she said matter-of-factly. Her face was pinched. “I mean, he’s gorgeous, isn’t he?”

I arched a brow, startled. “You don’t mean he’s interested in boys,” I said with no small measure of disbelief.

She scoffed. “Of course he isn’t. Look at him. He’s pretty, but he’s…well, masculine, isn’t he? I just meant that it’s annoying how bloody responsible he is. Constantly studying and spending time with his friends and helping the firsties find the bloody Transfiguration corridor. He’s never dated anyone, you know. And he’s had plenty of offers.”

I ignored the small twinge of irritation that sprung up in my throat. Instead, I slid my finger under the flap of the envelope and removed a thick scrap of parchment. “Right,” I said, distracted. “Well, I’m sure he has his reasons.”

She snorted in response. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to the note in my hand:

 

Hermione,

Meet me at the lake at 6:45. I have something I’d like to give you before we leave.

-- Abraxas

 

I frowned. “Melania,” I said. “Who did you get this from?”

She stood up and stretched, eyeing me speculatively. “Someone slid it under our door,” she replied, heading towards the bathroom. “It was just on the floor. Why? What does it say?”

“Nothing really,” I said, tossing it back on my bed. “Just Abraxas asking me to meet him. I should go, I suppose.”

“He’s doing something terribly romantic, isn’t he?” she asked, holding open the bathroom door and glowering. “Of course he is. He’s Abraxas. And you’re you. How maddening.”

I shrugged. “We’re just friends, you know.”

She glared at me. “I’m sure.”

And then she swept into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her, and I was alone. Sighing, I made my way to the common room, walking carefully in the patent-leather high heels I’d rather idiotically elected to wear. The dress, though—it was so pretty. It had seemed a shame to waste it. I hadn’t thought of Riddle at all when I’d slid on my stockings and picked out my shoes. Not even once.

I meandered through the castle slowly, the methodical clacking of my heels against the flagstone floors easing me into a thoughtful daze. I wondered what Abraxas wanted to give me. Surely not another ill-conceived betrothal gift? I knew I hadn’t done a particularly thorough job of impressing upon him the futility of a romantic relationship between the two of us. I’d gotten distracted, talking about Ron and Harry. My stomach clenched.

Ron and Harry.

I’d very pointedly not allowed myself to think about them since.

My pace slowed as I heaved open the castle doors and crept outside; the sun had only recently gone down, the inky purple remnants of twilight providing an ominous backdrop for the sloping, empty grounds. I scanned the area in front of the lake, searching for Abraxas’ familiar, hulking shape—was he not there yet?

But then I froze.

A sound—

The whisper of a cloak—

I was being followed. By someone I couldn’t see. An Invisibility Cloak? Did it matter? I took a deep, penetrating breath and turned towards the greenhouses. There was a courtyard there. Another entrance the castle. If I could just—

The first blow was unexpected.

I fell forward, tripping over my heels and landing in an agonizing heap on the grass. Hands—unfamiliar hands, callused and rough, oh, God, I needed to get away, far away, away away away—tore at my dress, ripping it down the middle, and the raspy scratching sound of the hem separating proved overloud and obnoxious in the sudden, arresting quiet. I tried to make myself scream—anything, anything to get away, I needed to fucking get away—but an arm was pressed into my throat, cutting off my oxygen, and I kicked out, the feel of my stockings catching, tearing, slipping against my legs almost too much to bear—get away, get away, fucking get away—and there was a frantic growl, a pained grunt, as my knee collided with something warm and hard, and I clawed at the ground—escape escape escape, now, do it, get away—fucking now—and adrenaline coursed smooth and quick through my veins, propelling me up, up, urging me to run, run now, get away, fucking get away, Hermione—

The second blow wasn’t unexpected at all.

 

---

 

I woke up dizzy.

I immediately felt for my wand. It wasn’t there. I recognized that I was lying on soft, spring surface—grass? I was still outside. I blinked. I glanced around warily. I was somewhere on the castle grounds. There was a man standing to my left.

Panic seized me.

“Who are you?” I demanded, sitting up. “What do you want?”

The stranger chuckled, twirling my wand casually between long, pale fingers. He was tall, middle-aged, and incredibly well-built; he might have been relatively unremarkable, even handsome, if it wasn’t for a vicious, jagged-looking scar that ran diagonally across his face. It started at his forehead, directly above his left eye, and swept downwards, over his slightly crooked nose, before ending neatly at the base of his jaw. His eyes were a mysterious light brown, practically amber, and his hair was close-cropped and bright blond. He was wearing a thick navy sweater and dark grey trousers, and had a black cloak draped across his shoulders. A chunky silver ring adorned his right hand, with a large, oblong emerald nestled firmly in its center.

But he wasn’t familiar. I didn’t know him. I was certain of that.

I continued to study him, willing my brain to fucking work—I needed to escape. I needed to find a way out of this. He had my wand, and I had no way of physically overpowering him. He was too big, and I was too small.

But perhaps—

A distraction—

The castle wasn’t so terribly far away, after all. Surely someone would hear me if I screamed. Surely someone would be close enough. Surely this wasn’t how it was all going to end. Not like this. Not with me lying in the grass, my dress torn and muddy, wandless, helpless, fucking alone; not with a stranger standing over me, his teeth gleaming in the moonlight as he grinned—his cheerfulness was disturbing, much like the state of my stockings, and I wondered, in a vague way, why I wasn’t terrified.

“My name’s not important, kitten,” the stranger drawled, his condescension almost palpable in the crisp night air. “Yours, however, is.”

My eyes widened. "You don’t—you don’t even know who I am?”

He smiled. “I know who you’re supposed to be, but I can’t imagine—I mean, look at you. Christ. You’re, what, fourteen?”

I dug my fingers into the grass. “Just turned seventeen, actually,” I replied haughtily.

He sighed. “Hermione Granger, then?” he asked, quirking his lips. They were dry and chapped.

I went still. “How do you know that name?”

He snorted. “You’re pretending to be Albus Dumbledore’s niece,” he said flatly. “There isn’t a wizard alive in Europe who doesn’t know that name. Fuck-all you can do about it, too. Sorry, kitten—you’re famous.”

“What makes you think that I’m her?”

He laughed. The sound wasn’t friendly. “Who else would you be?”

I didn’t answer. “Why didn’t you just stun me? Why go through—all of this?” I asked, motioning at my soiled clothing.

He shrugged. “I don’t do magic, kitten. Besides, I’m not about to give away all my secrets,” he replied easily, winking.

“Will you stop calling me that?” I snapped.

He arched a disdainful brow. “You’re not exactly in a position to be making demands, are you?”

I flushed. “What do you want with me?” I finally asked, picking nervously at the torn hem of my dress. It had been so pretty earlier. It was ruined now. “You haven’t said.”

He shifted on his feet uncomfortably. “See, that’s where we run into problems,” he mused grimly. “Because I know what I’m supposed to be doing with you, kitten. But—and don’t take this the wrong way—you just look so bloody young. I don’t know if I can. If I have it in me. Does that make sense to you? No? It shouldn’t. You’re an innocent, aren’t you? Untouched, I’d bet. You’re so fucking young. Christ. They didn’t mention that. Don’t rightly know if I’d have taken this one if I’d known how fucking young you look. What do we do now, kitten? Can you tell me that?”

I stared at him, abruptly succumbing to the first dismal, dingy stirrings of fear. I should scream. He was very clearly insane, and I should fucking scream. Except my throat was tight—too tight—and my lungs weren’t functioning properly. If I opened my mouth, I wasn’t certain it would work. But I needed to scream. Someone would hear. The castle was so close. Someone would come. They had to. They would. This wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t going to touch me. Someone would be here. Someone would fucking come.

“I don’t—I don’t understand,” I stammered, hoping that I could keep him talking. He couldn’t hurt me if he was talking.

"No, you wouldn’t, would you?” he asked sadly. “It’s tough, kitten. I won’t lie to you. I’m good at my job, you know. Of course you know—I got you out here, didn’t I? I did. I’m good at what I do. But kidnapping schoolgirls shouldn’t be all that difficult. They shouldn’t have needed me for this. You’re so young. So bloody young. How can they expect me to do this? I’m good at my job, but I’m not a fucking monster.”

“Are you supposed to—to take me somewhere?” I asked quickly.

He glanced at me impatiently. "Obviously,” he sneered. “You aren’t stupid, are you? Don’t imagine they’d be half so interested in you if you were.”

“Who is ‘they’?”

He pursed his lips and continued to twirl my wand. I just needed to him to keep talking. Someone would notice that I was gone. Someone would come for me. The castle wasn’t so far away. Someone would come. He just had to keep talking.

"Do you really not know?”

I shook my head, the motion oddly jerky.

“Well,” he said. “You’ve made some awful powerful enemies, kitten. But you had to have known you might—lying about being related to Dumbledore, and all that. Surprised the old man even let you. He—of all people—should have known what a death wish it would be.”

I scowled defensively. “He was trying to protect me,” I argued. “He said—”

He cut me off with a sharp bark of laughter. “Oh, I’m sure he said a lot of things, kitten,” he said, smirking. “And while I’d never call Albus Dumbledore a liar, I’d caution you to think long and hard about anything he deigns to tell you. Right wily bastard, he is. But you don’t have much experience with those, do you? No, of course you don’t. You’re so fucking young, kitten. So fucking young.”

I drew my knees up to my chest, shuddering, and frowned. He’d torn the sleeve on my dress, leaving a gaping hole in the soft green fabric—my forearm was chilled, exposed, the faint, waxy outline of a scar clearly visible. I covered it with my hand. Mudblood. Bellatrix Lestrange had made sure that I was marked, labeled, her shiny silver knife piercing my skin over and over, carving that word, that hateful fucking word—it had been painful, humiliating, the physical agony surpassed only by the haunting reality of what that word—that hateful fucking word—really meant.

I wasn’t wanted.

I didn’t belong.

I was branded, forever, and that word—that hateful fucking word—was never going to go away.

“You think I’m stupid for trusting Professor Dumbledore?” I managed to ask, my fingernails pressed into my arm. He couldn’t see it. I couldn’t let him. He had to keep talking. Someone would come. Someone had to come.

“Naïve might be more accurate, kitten,” he responded slowly. He stared down at me, unblinking. “Seventeen, you said?”

My teeth clacked together as I fought the urge to whimper. He looked thoughtful. Pensive. Like he was making a decision. “Ye—yeah,” I stuttered, stealing a frantic glimpse of the castle—except it was farther away than I thought it was, much farther, and I wasn’t sure anymore if someone was coming. If someone would get to me in time. If someone would even hear me scream.

“So bloody young,” he mumbled, almost to himself. “Seventeen, though. Not so young. Not really.”

I wrapped my arms around my knees, clutching the ragged remnants of my stockings. “What are you—are you going to do with me?”

He didn’t answer. Breathing became difficult. “Too young,” he muttered, kicking at the ground. A small pebble ricocheted off his boot. “No. Not too young. Seventeen. Not too young. Not at all.”

He turned towards me, his expression hard, his gaze lingering on my breasts, my throat, my bare legs—I crawled backwards, suddenly—stupidly—aware of the way my dress had been ripped, practically down the middle, shoved up, out of the way, my knickers peeking out from beneath the silky green hem—it had been so pretty just an hour ago, hadn’t it—but this stranger, this mysterious man who couldn’t seem to decide if he had a conscience or not, had destroyed it.

Wrecked it.

And now he was approaching me, his gait heavy, and I wasn’t going to get away.

“Please,” I whispered hysterically. “I’m—I’m a virgin, please, I’ve never—”

He knelt on the grass, his face impassive. “It’s alright, kitten,” he crooned. “I’m not here to do that. I’d never do that. I’m all for scratch marks, but only the good kind, yeah?”

Before I could reply, he had reached forward, wrapping his arms around my legs, hoisting me up—and then there was a shout, distant, no, not distant, close, nearby, closer than the castle—and a brief, tumultuous scuffle, a muffled curse, a blinding burst of red light, footsteps, a voice, a familiar voice, my name, yelling my name—and I was hurtling back towards the ground, landing uncomfortably on my shoulder, and the stranger had toppled over, unconscious.

I shut my eyes.

Someone had come.

Someone had rescued me.

Someone had fucking come.

“Hermione? Granger? Hermione! Can you hear me? Are you okay? Fuck—Riddle’s going to fucking kill me if you aren’t, come on, wake up—Hermione?”

I opened my eyes, startled by the figure hovering above me. “Edmond?” I bleated, coughing as I sat up.

Edmond Lestrange was staring down at me, his pale, pointed face scrunched up in trepidation. “Fucking hell,” he gasped, helping me to my feet. His touch was surprisingly gentle. “When I saw him trying to pick you up I thought I might have been too late.”

I stumbled into his arms, hugging him tightly, refusing to think about who he was and what I was doing. “Thank you,” I whispered into his neck. “Thank you so much.”

He froze, patting my back clumsily. “It’s—it’s alright, Hermione,” he replied nervously. “You’re fine. You’re going to be fine. We need to get back to school, though. I have to find a teacher. And Riddle—Tom, I mean—he’s probably waiting for me. And you.”

I held his hand as he led me towards the castle. I didn’t think about why. I was numb from something, and I couldn’t quite grasp what it was—relief seemed too obvious, but what else could it have been? “How—how did you know where I was?” I asked quietly.

He gulped, the veins in his neck pushing up against thin, sensitive skin. “Tom was—uh—talking to Malfoy before Slughorn’s party,” he replied. “Don’t know about what. But then he—Tom, I mean—went to go get you from your room, because I guess Malfoy wasn’t feeling well—and he found that note, the one telling you to meet Malfoy down here, and since he knew that Malfoy hadn’t sent it—he was, um, incapacitated—stomach thing, really sudden, you know how it is—he told me to go check out here while he made sure that Malfoy was still—ah—resting. I imagine that if he’d known what was happening to you he would have come himself, because—uh—well, you know—and as it is he’s going to be pretty fucking furious that he wasn’t the one to take that fucker down—er—sorry—”

I stopped. My jaw hung open. “Tom Riddle sent you to rescue me?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets, his features contorted with confusion. “Well—yeah, you’re his girlfriend, aren’t you? That’s why he was so angry with Malfoy for using that bullshit ‘friends’ line on you to get you to come to Slughorn’s party with him. Right?”

I cocked my head to the side, momentarily stunned into inaction. “What—no—oh, my God, no—I am most assuredly not Tom Riddle’s girlfriend!”

He furrowed his brow and urged me to continue walking. “I don’t mean to be indelicate, Granger, but—um—does Tom know that?"

I floundered for an acceptable response as he held open the castle doors. “Well—no—I mean, we certainly aren’t—”

A new voice echoed in the entrance hall, effectively putting an end to my awkward stammering.

“There you are! God, Lestrange, how long does it take to—”

Tom Riddle was striding purposefully towards us, dressed in a rather fetching black suit, his eyes raking over my body, top to bottom. But his expression shifted treacherously when he registered my shredded dress and torn stockings—and I watched, entranced, as he balled his hands into angry fists, his rage somehow tangible in the large, airy hall; it was as if it was taking up space, filling a void, a living, breathing, sentient thing that was reactive and capable and liable to launch itself out onto the grounds and find whoever it was who had dared to harm me. Lestrange immediately dropped my hand.

“Who did this to her?” Riddle demanded, his tone dangerous.

Lestrange flinched.

“I—I don’t know who he is,” I replied shakily. “He didn’t say.”

“Lestrange,” Riddle snarled, glancing at the other boy.

“Yeah?”

“Is whoever did this to her still breathing?”

A tense beat of silence followed his question.

“Yeah, Tom, he is—I just stunned him, thought I’d grab a teacher when we got back here—”

“Fix it,” Riddle snapped.

I shivered. His gaze flew towards my face. Without another word, he took off his jacket and slipped it over my shoulders. It was several sizes too large for me, but he smoothed the sleeves down over my arms to keep it close to my body. It was a bizarrely kind gesture. I hastily banished the thought.

“Take care of it, Lestrange,” he ordered.

Lestrange didn’t say anything else as he turned back towards the doors.

“Wait!” I cried, clutching the ends of Riddle’s jacket and spinning around. “You can’t just—just do that!”

Lestrange looked up at Riddle, his face carefully blank.

“Do what, sweetheart?” Riddle asked.

"You can’t hurt him,” I clarified, brushing a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Whoever he is. He attacked me and I don’t even know why. Surely we should just get Uncle Albus and—”

“No.”

I reared back, nonplussed. “What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, no. We will not be going to your uncle about this. I know exactly why you were attacked. Your would-be rapist out there—the one you seem curiously eager to protect—doesn’t know anything beyond his own name. And even that might be a stretch for him. He’s hired help. Do you understand what that means, sweetheart?”

“No,” I hissed. “No, I don’t know what that means. Because I have no idea what’s going on and you don’t seem to want to explain anything to me!”

Lestrange shuffled uneasily behind us.

“Tomorrow,” Riddle replied seriously. “Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what you want to know. Tonight—I still have to talk to someone. I’ll know everything by tomorrow.”

I looked away. “Fine. Tomorrow, then.”

"I have some questions of my own for you, anyway.”

I bit my lip. “Right.”

He turned back towards Lestrange. “Go,” he instructed. “Now.”

I didn’t bother trying to stop him.

But as soon as the doors closed again, Riddle was next to me, touching me, his hands gripping my jaw as he tilted my face back into the candlelight. “Did he hurt you?” he demanded.

I swallowed. “What do you mean?”

Riddle looked at me searchingly. “Did he hurt you, Hermione?”

I slowly shook my head. “No,” I whispered. “He didn’t.”

Something that might have been relief flickered across his features. “But your dress—” he started to say.

“Is ruined, yes,” I interrupted smoothly.

He half-smiled and glanced down at me, taking in the monstrous tear down the center of the garment. “We should get you cleaned up, I think,” he suggested, clearing his throat.

“We should,” I agreed.

Neither of us moved.

“I didn’t—I should thank you,” I said softly. “For realizing what was happening and sending someone to look for me.”

His hands tightened around my jaw. “It was nothing,” he said dismissively.

“No,” I insisted. “No, it wasn’t nothing. You—you saved me. That isn’t nothing. That can never be nothing.”

And then there was a moment, just a second, of profoundly unsettling quiet, a stillness that felt concrete, solid, the air between us materializing into an impenetrable, unbreakable sort of wall—and the sound of our breathing scraped against my ears, oddly harsh, almost intrusive, until we were between heartbeats, the absence of that dull thumping pounding rhythm nothing more than a reprieve, an escape, because as soon as it was back, as soon as I was reminded of the fact that we were both still real—I would remember to step back.

I would remember to move away.

I would remember that I was wearing his jacket, and that it smelled like home—and I would remember all the reasons that it shouldn’t.

It absolutely fucking shouldn’t.

“What are you doing to me?” he whispered, the sound guttural, desperate, and so very, very different from his usual silky, prepossessing drawl.

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly, staring up at him, into him, utterly unable to look away.

And then he was lowering his head, just the slightest bit, his eyes locked on mine—dark eyes, practically unnatural, but that didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, it would never fucking matter—and I realized I could run away, stop him, say something, anything, and make this moment and whatever it meant, whatever it was going to mean, go away and never exist and disappear altogether.

“I can’t,” he said hoarsely, and I wasn’t sure, at first, what he meant—except his lips, his lips were getting closer, and their descent felt inexplicable, inescapable, inevitable, and I knew, suddenly, what he’d left unspoken, the word he hadn’t let himself say out loud—

I can’t stop.

I can’t stop.

I can’t fucking stop.

“Don’t, then,” I managed, thinking, feverishly, that I should be fighting harder, wrenching myself out of his grasp and tripping over my feet and hiding—from him, from this, from the slow-burning coil of fire that had settled voraciously in the pit of my stomach.

But then—

His lips ghosted over mine, just the faintest, briefest, most maddening brush of skin on skin—and his breath was sharp and hot, and his hands were trembling as they fluttered across my back, as if he was afraid, as if he wasn’t sure, as if he didn’t know what to do—and then I made a sound, a helpless, desperate, choking sort of plea, because I needed him closer, because I couldn’t seem to stop myself—and he was suddenly there, right fucking there, his hips pressed possessively, protectively, against mine—right there, finally there, right fucking there—and his body felt long and lean and hard, his arms warm and inviting even through the thin cotton of his shirt—but that wasn’t it, it was more than that, it was the way the planes of his chest molded against me, into me, the way we fit together, like I’d only been half of a whole, incomplete, inconsequential, until I’d met him, touched him—right there, right fucking there—

With a low, frantic growl, his hands moved up from my shoulders to grip the back of my head, his fingers digging with delicious ferocity into my hair, pinning me down, keeping me in place, and he slanted his mouth, prying my lips open with his tongue, and he tasted like cinnamon, he tasted like—he tasted like he wasn’t supposed to. He tasted like something good, something better than good, something that I’d never want to let go of, not even once, not now that I’d found it, found him. And as my fingers curled into the front of his shirt, grasping, needing, craving, my brain came to a grinding, gratuitous halt and all I could think was—

This is sublime.

 

---

 

Chapter 9: Chapter 9

---

 

It took less than a minute for the tenor of our kiss—oh, that fucking kiss—to completely change. He pushed his tongue between my lips, scraped it against my teeth, sent it roving over the roof of my mouth—and then he moaned, almost disbelievingly, as if he couldn’t quite understand how it was that this was happening, as if it wasn’t real, couldn’t be real—

He slammed me back against the wall.

And then his hands traveled down until he was kneading my backside, yanking me up closer, closer, yes, rolling his hips, thrusting his erection between my thighs—hot and hard and thick, impossibly so, yes, even through his trousers, even through my dress—God, yes, again, again, yes—

And still—

Still he kept kissing me.

Scalding molten heat pooled in my knickers, soaking them, inspiring an unfamiliar desperate clenching ache—I needed something, needed him, needed him to press up, yes, yes, right there, that spot, yes—he just felt so fucking good—but I wanted more, yes, I wanted him inside of me, fast and rough, yes, more, yes, please please please don’t stop, don’t ever fucking stop—

His mouth trailed down my jaw, over my neck, his teeth latching onto my throat, biting, nipping, tugging—it stung, but as his tongue darted out to lap at the marks he was making, soothing the tortured skin, I couldn’t help but gasp. Because every inch of my body felt inflamed, unstable, like I had wandered head-first into a trembling, rumbling volcano on the cusp of a deadly, earth-shattering eruption, and I was suddenly certain—beyond certain, far past the tedium of merely knowing something to be true—that I would explode if he didn’t alleviate the telltale pressure building up rather tremendously in my abdomen—yes, yes, keeping going, like that, yes, God, so fucking good, yes, please, please—

And then it felt as if my blood had been replaced with liquid fire, and my veins were engulfed, inadequate, paper-thin and disintegrating quickly—it should have been unpleasant, and maybe it was, maybe—yes, too good, so good, yes, please—

He shifted his body, drawing his knee up gradually, tentatively, and rested it for a second between my thighs. He hesitated, his lips hovering above my collarbone. And then—gently—slowly—he moved his knee again.

He moved it up.

He pressed it forward, the fabric of his trousers and the hard muscle of his leg brushing lightly against my cotton-covered clit, and my knickers were damp enough to cling stubbornly, erotically, to my skin—

But then he rubbed.

Once—yes, yes, just there, God, please, yes, there there there—

Twice—close, so close, there, yes, there, please, close, so fucking close, please, there, don’t stop, never stop, yes yes yes—

I came.

I came, and I might have screamed. I might have said things I didn’t mean, things that didn’t make any sense—I might have done a hundred things, a thousand things, but none of them mattered, no, not in the slightest, not when my entire world was centered rather fantastically—fanatically—on him and me and the helpless hapless spurts of adrenaline that were flaring out and up and through my spine, not when my muscles were drowning, abruptly, in a tidal wave of bright tingling crumbling fucking something—yes yes yes—it wasn’t right, it wasn’t right that this felt so good, it wasn’t right that it was with him, but my heart was beating fast, too fast, and my brain was spinning, floundering, and even if I’d forgotten how to, even if I couldn’t manage it, he was still breathing against my neck, murmuring soft, barely there platitudes, words, endearments—yes, sweetheart, yes, come for me, just like that, taste so fucking good, I knew you would, yes, yes, come for me, yes, sweetheart, yes, so good, like that, just like that—and then his hands were creeping around, gripping my hips, sliding under the torn hem of my dress, headed straight for my knickers—

“Stop,” I said hoarsely. “Please, stop.”

He did.

And I swallowed.

And he pulled back, his hands falling away.

And I held my breath—

And then we stared at each other, wide-eyed, for several long, tense minutes. I felt my gaze drift down to the obvious bulge in his trousers.

Oh, God.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my fucking God.

“That was—” he started to say, running a hand through his hair. It was uncharacteristically disheveled. Had I done that?

“Yeah,” I whispered. I realized, vaguely, that acknowledging what had just occurred between us was unwise. I couldn’t hear it. I didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t. That would make it real. That would make it an event. Something that had actually happened. Something that I couldn’t pretend was some kind of eerily realistic daydream. No—not a daydream. A nightmare. It was a nightmare. I was going to wake up. This wasn’t real. This hadn’t happened. It fucking hadn’t.

He scratched the back of his neck, frowning. “Is kissing always so…volatile?”

I jerked my head up. “What? You mean you’ve never—” I asked, stunned.

He immediately flushed. “Why would I have ever wanted to exchange saliva with someone I more than likely can’t stand?” he demanded defensively. “The whole concept is…disgusting.”

I gaped at him, nonplussed. “You’re not a romantic, are you?”

He sneered. “Romance is for imbeciles.”

I bit back a semi-hysterical giggle. This conversation wasn’t happening. It simply wasn’t. It was all in my head. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. “And kissing?” I asked. Just because I could.

His eyes darkened. “Is unhygienic.”

I scoffed. “Right."

“I got—carried away,” he retorted. “Overwhelmed. Your knickers are on display, in case you didn’t know. Bit distracting, that.”

A blush slithered its way across my cheekbones. “Well, then. We can just agree that this is never going to happen again and go our separate ways, can’t we?”

“I didn’t say that’s what I wanted,” he drawled. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Granger.”

I bristled. “No, you’d much rather my tongue was there, wouldn’t you?”

His face went blank. “Was that meant to be clever?”

I didn’t reply.

He cleared this throat.

I fought the impulse to flee—I was brave, wasn’t I? Everyone said so. I could do this. I could face him. I didn’t have to run. I didn’t need to run. I could do this.

“I’ll find you tomorrow,” he blurted out, his voice echoing in the dauntingly high ceilings of the entrance hall.

I choked. “What?”

He smirked. I paled. “Tomorrow,” he repeated. “We’re supposed to talk. About the mysterious hardened criminal who attacked you tonight. Remember? He ruined your dress. Surely you haven’t forgotten about him.”

I nearly had. God. “Oh,” I said dimly. “Of course. Tomorrow.”

He continued to watch me impassively while I struggled to organize my thoughts. I wondered why I was still standing there. I wondered why he hadn’t left. I wondered why Edmond Lestrange had been the one to rescue me, and I wondered about the faint, delicious tremors that were still restlessly attacking my nervous system. I wondered what I was doing and what he was thinking and why, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to escape him, ever. Mostly, though, I wondered why I couldn’t stop fucking wondering.

“I should walk you to the common room,” he suggested curtly, straightening his tie. It was loose and crooked. Had I done that, too? “You need to get cleaned up.”

“I think—I think I can get there on my own,” I said, stumbling over my response. I wasn’t speaking clearly. I wasn’t thinking clearly. My skull felt compounded, fractured, the pieces flimsy, insubstantial, rather like cardboard, and there was a faint buzzing sound lurking around my ears. I didn’t know why. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Except—

I did know why.

Of course I fucking knew why.           

It was sinking in, the enormity of what had just happened, the intensity of what it meant—and I needed to be alone. I needed space. I needed to process the fact that Tom fucking Riddle had just given me an orgasm in the middle of the Hogwarts entrance hall. I needed to get away from him. I needed his frustrating, enigmatic smirk to disappear. I needed to be alone. I needed to try and figure out what had happened that night. I needed to understand. I needed to know. I didn’t want to wait for tomorrow. I didn’t want to have to trust what he said.

But that didn’t matter. Not right now. Not when my knickers were still sticky and he was still standing so close.

Bloody fucking hell.

What had I done?

“You can’t possibly think I’m letting you walk all the way to the dungeons on your own,” he argued, clenching his jaw. “Not after what happened to you tonight.”

“Then I’ll just wait for Edmond!” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest and trying to ignore the way my hands were shaking. Why were they shaking? “He can walk me back. You don’t need to.”

Riddle narrowed his eyes and took a step backwards. “You hate Lestrange,” he pointed out, his voice low. “You can barely stand to look at him during meals.”

The tenuous hold I had on my temper was severed. “Then that should tell you something, shouldn’t it?” I hissed. “That I’d rather have him walk me back than you?”

His expression flickered—microscopically—before shutting down altogether. “Tell me, then, Granger, are you going to thank him for saving you the same way you thanked me?”

His implication was clear. My stomach lurched. It was almost—but not quite, not quite, that was all I could think to make it better, not fucking quite—painful. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” I replied coolly, lifting my chin.

He snorted. “I was calling you a slut,” he clarified, shrugging.

I gritted my teeth. “How funny. The boy who’s killed people but never been kissed is casting aspersions on my character.”

He eyed me with obvious disdain. “How funny. The girl too stupid to recognize a trap when she sees one thinks it’s appropriate to insult the boy who orchestrated the entirety of her rescue."

I stiffened. “Last I checked it was Edmond who found me.”

He straightened his shoulders. “And last I checked Edmond doesn’t breathe, piss, or wank without my express permission.”

My lips parted of their own accord. “Is that something you’re particularly proud of? Being a—a—tyrant?”

He exhaled loudly. “Tyrant is a rather tame word for what you really think I am, isn’t it?”

I clamped my mouth shut.

But he didn’t say anything else, and as the silence stretched on—grew thicker and bleaker and more obvious—I realized that he didn’t have to.

He’d won.

He’d won, even if he didn’t understand what game we were playing. Even if he didn’t know the rules. Even if I succeeded in getting him away from me—he’d already fucking won. His unnervingly exhaustive fixation with me had saved my life. He’d saved my life, even if he’d used Edmond Lestrange to do it, and—

He’d won.

What was the point in antagonizing him? Lashing out? He could protect me. He would protect me. He’d made that clear. And it was apparent—in a way that it hadn’t been before tonight—that I needed protecting. Because someone knew. Someone knew that I wasn’t who I said I was. Someone knew that I had a valuable, extraordinary secret—and that meant that I was in danger.

The irony was astonishing.

Tom Riddle—fucking Voldemort—wanted to keep me safe.

“Look. I just—this shouldn’t have happened,” I finally said, looking away, around—anywhere but at him. I couldn’t look at him. Not now. Especially not now. “I don’t do things like this. I can’t—I don’t—it was a mistake. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“But it did.”

I wrapped my arms around my waist and gazed resolutely at the floor. “It shouldn’t have,” I repeated.

“But it did,” he said again, more insistently.

“And I’d like to forget that fact, thanks ever so,” I spat sharply, looking up. I was startled by the tense, almost angry set of his jaw.

“Don’t be—” he started to snarl before being interrupted.

The double doors leading outside had slammed open, admitting a tired, mud-spattered Edmond Lestrange. His wand was hanging forlornly from his right hand, and he looked defeated and maybe a tiny bit sad. He came to a halt as he registered our presence.

“You’re still here?” Lestrange asked, his surprise evident.

“Just talking,” I replied quickly.

A vein throbbed mercilessly at the base of Riddle’s neck. “Alright, Edmond?” he said, his tone suspiciously bland.

Lestrange hunched his shoulders and nodded slowly. “Alright, Tom.”

Riddle stepped away. The air surrounding me suddenly felt cold. “Good. Walk her back, will you? I have something I need to do.”

And then, with one last lingering glance at my bare legs, he had swept outside, his stride long and languorous and graceful and—buggering fucking hell. Not again. Never again.

“So—ah—should we go, then?” Lestrange asked awkwardly, shuffling his feet.

I grimaced. “Sure,” I responded, turning on my heel and heading for the stairs.

His footsteps sounded loud and heavy as he walked next to me. “Are you—um—okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He stared at me disbelievingly. “You and Tom, then?” he tried.

I scoffed. “No,” I said vehemently.

He flinched. “Alright, then.”

I swallowed. “So—what happened? Outside, I mean. Who was that man? Did you find out?”

He leveled a shrewd glance in my direction. “Thought Tom was going to explain things to you tomorrow.”

I sniffed impatiently. “Did you…hurt him?” I pressed.

He snorted softly. "What do you think?”

I chewed the inside of my mouth. “I think you did what Riddle told you to do.”

“And what is it you think he told me to do?” He sounded amused.

“He said—well, he wanted you to—to—” I stammered.

He cut me off. “That man—the one who attacked you—he didn’t know anything, Hermione,” he said quietly. “He was a squib. Couldn’t even do magic.”

“Who was he, though?” I persisted.

“Didn’t catch his name,” Lestrange replied uncomfortably. “But I left him for Tom, so—I imagine he’ll be able to…find it out.”

“You mean you didn’t—”

He pursed his lips. “I did what Tom told me to, Hermione.”

“And do you always do whatever he tells you to?”

He scrunched his nose up. “Usually. Tom can be…persuasive. I’m sure you’ll understand eventually.”

I clenched my hands into fists. My palms were sweaty. "I’m quite sure that I won’t,” I said defiantly.

He smirked. “What do you know about Gellert Grindelwald, Hermione? Quite a bit, I’d wager, considering you lived on the Continent for so long, but—humor me.”

Baffled by the abrupt change of subject, I considered my response carefully. "His agenda is rather…anti-muggle,” I answered haltingly. “He thinks that it’s our responsibility as magical beings to—well, to control muggles—sort of lord over them, if you will. For the greater good. That’s his motto, isn’t it?”

He cocked his head to the side. “And do you agree with him?”

I ran my tongue over the edge of my teeth. "What does he have to do with Riddle?” I asked, deftly ignoring his question.

He arched a brow. “Have you ever heard of the Elder Wand?”

My heart jerked unpleasantly. “Of course.”

“There’s a rumor that Grindelwald has it,” he said softly. “That that’s how he’s accomplishing so much in Europe. So long as he has that wand, he’s unbeatable, you understand.”

I licked my lips. This was a bit too close to home—my Voldemort had been obsessed with that wand. He’d gone to unspeakable lengths to acquire it. Is this when all of that had started? Had he really spent fifty fucking years chasing absolute power?

“What’s your point?” I asked, tugging the ends of Riddle’s jacket closer. The air had turned frigid as we approached the dungeons.

“You’ve noticed, I’m sure, that Tom is…ambitious?”

“He’s a Slytherin,” I pointed out. “Of course he’s ambitious.”

He smiled grimly. “That isn’t what I meant, but I think you know that.”

My nostrils flared. “Yeah. I do.”

He quirked his lips. “We—the boys and I—have been with him for a long time, Hermione,” he said. I noted that he didn’t call Riddle a friend. “He’s…brilliant, as I’m sure you’ve figured out, but more than that—he’s—different. He gets what he wants. Always. He’s a good person to have on your side, if you get what I’m saying.”

I felt like he was handing me small, seemingly unrelated pieces of very different puzzles—was there a pattern that I wasn’t seeing? A connection I was supposed to being making? “What, exactly, are you trying to say?”

He sighed impatiently. “Be careful around him. That’s all. Just—watch yourself.”

We’d arrived at the common room. I looked up at him, confused by this unexpected kindness. “I will,” I replied. “Thank you for walking me back.”

He forced another smile. “It wasn’t a problem.”

He watched me walk towards the girls’ dormitories, his expression troubled.

“Have a good night, Edmond,” I called out.

But before I could disappear down the hallway, he had rushed towards me and grabbed my elbow. “Hermione—wait.”

I turned to face him. “What is it?”

He cast a covert glance around the common room. It was empty. My pulse sped up. “If you’re going to reject Tom, you need to be smart about it,” he mumbled, his eyes solemn. “I don’t know what’s happened—and, please, don’t fucking tell me, either—but—you need to be careful around him.”

“Why are you telling me any of this?”

His mouth twisted. “Because we’ve all got plans—plans that involve Tom, I mean—and I’ve a bad feeling that whatever he’s getting himself involved in with you…that bloke that attacked you tonight, he was bloody dangerous, wasn’t he? Or at least whoever hired him is.”

My forehead creased in a frown. "You’re saying—what—that you’ve got too much invested in him to let him get distracted?”

Lestrange chuckled darkly. “Hardly.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

He shook his head and moved away. “Just be careful, Hermione. That’s all I’m saying.”

I furrowed my brow. “Alright, then.”

He winced suddenly. “Oh—and Malfoy’s in the hospital wing, if you wanted to visit him tomorrow,” he said. “I wouldn’t go tonight, though, because Tom might—well. I’d just wait until morning. I’m sure he—Malfoy, I mean—would really like to see you.”

And then he disappeared down the boys’ hallway. Dazed, I wandered towards my room. Lestrange had left me with more questions than answers—it had been difficult to tell if he was warning me away from Riddle or trying to convince me to join him. Join them.

I shivered.

I stepped into my dormitory, letting the door click shut behind me. I stood still for a moment, attempting to process everything that happened in the past few hours. I’d been tricked, attacked, rescued, and nearly ravished—I tried desperately to identify what I was feeling, but it was fucking hard, wasn’t it?

It occurred to me that I was still wearing Riddle’s jacket.

Bile rose in my throat.

I rushed into the bathroom, hurtling towards the sink, belatedly remembering that there was a mirror right above it and that the last thing I wanted to catch a glimpse of just then was myself.

Too late.

Always too fucking late.

I stared, almost unseeing, at my reflection—but wouldn’t it be better if I couldn’t fucking see myself? Couldn’t see my red, swollen lips, the faint purple beginnings of a bruise at the base of my neck; my eyes were dark and luminous, flashing defiantly, hungrily; and my hair was falling out of the sleek chignon I’d had it in earlier, a messy mass of tangled curls tumbling down my back. My breathing was still ragged and harsh, my chest heaving, my breasts pushing up against the flimsy constraints of my dress.

God.

It would be better if I couldn’t see any of it.

But—

When Riddle had held me, I’d forgotten all about the nightmare of an evening I’d had—I’d forgotten about where I was and who he was and why it was wrong, so fucking wrong, for him to make me feel the way I did, desperate and warm and like an army of fireworks had burrowed into my bloodstream and begged to be set off. Because how could I be attracted to him? He was evil, and cruel, and more than likely insane, and—and—

He’d made me come without even touching me.

Tears burned in the back of my eyes.

Ten minutes alone with Tom fucking Riddle and I’d been weak enough to betray Harry. Betray Ron. Betray everyone. He’d moved his knee between my legs and rubbed, just for a second, and I’d been done for. He hadn’t even taken off my knickers. What did that mean?

I knew what it meant.

It meant that I was a traitor.

A fucking traitor.

I snatched a washcloth off of the nearest shelf and returned to the sink, furiously twisting the tap and waiting for the hot water to emerge. I was angry. Furious, really. And my anger was violent, directed solely at the girl I had transformed into practically overnight—because I was supposed to be loyal. I was supposed have standards. Principles. I was brilliant and logical and good. I protected my friends. I crusaded for house-elf rights. I swore in my head, but never out loud. I had—what was it?—strong moral fiber. Yes. That. I had that.

A strangled sob clawed its way out of my throat. I clapped a hand over my mouth, dropping the washcloth in the slowly filling sink. It floated to the surface of the water.

What was I doing? Who had I become? Every time I tried to hold onto any part of myself that connected me to the future—I failed. Miserably. It was as if I wasn’t capable of even pretending to be that version of Hermione any longer. She was gone. Trapped. Was it time to accept that? If Dumbledore somehow managed to find a way to send me home—would I actually be able to go back to normal? Would anything be the same?

I picked up the sodden washcloth and wrung it out. Its surface was rough against my skin.

I was just so fucking tired of feeling vulnerable. And kissing Riddle—that wasn’t really what was wrong, was it?

I ran my fingertips over the bright white enamel of the sink.

He could have done anything to me. He had me pressed up against the wall, quite literally rutting against him, and he could have done anything. I wouldn’t have said no. I wouldn’t have been able to. He’d made sure of it.

I leaned forward.

He could have done anything. He could have hurt me. He could have done anything.

I exhaled sharply, watching with waning disinterest as my breath swathed through the thin film of condensation that had settled over the mirror.

But when I’d asked him to stop, he had. He’d stopped.

And that was what was wrong. Really wrong. I was rational. I was intelligent. I knew what being a traitor meant, and I knew that I wasn’t one. Not really.

I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling claustrophobic.

That wasn’t what was wrong. Not at all.

A steady stream of water began to drip onto my feet. The sink was overflowing.

Tom Riddle—Voldemort—was what was wrong.

I curled my toes into the cold linoleum floor.

After a night of paralyzing fear and confusion, I’d let him kiss me. And I’d kissed him back, choosing not to dwell on the reason why—

I almost laughed. The washcloth fell to the ground.

I knew why.

I blindly turned off the water.

I’d kissed him back, and I knew why. And that was what was wrong. It was all wrong. It was all backwards. I had it all fucking wrong.

I listened to the sink drain, the sticky gurgling squelching sounds pounding unrelentingly into my eardrums.

I’d kissed him back—

I sank to the floor, ignoring the lukewarm puddle seeping into the fabric of my dress. My ruined dress.

I’d kissed him back, because for the first time in ages—since I’d arrived in 1944—I’d felt safe.

I drew my knees to my chest.

Tom Riddle had made me feel safe.

I opened my eyes. The fluorescent bathroom light was harsh.

What did that even fucking mean? Nothing good, certainly.

I wiped my nose with my sleeve. I froze. And then my lips curved upwards, just the tiniest bit—

I was still wearing his jacket.

 

---

 

Chapter 10: Chapter 10

 

---

 

September 24, 1944

 

"Don’t be—”

What was I even going to say? Before Lestrange interrupted? I find that I can’t remember. I was upset—uncommonly upset—because she was making nothing but sodding excuses—not even logical ones, not even close, and it was just so frustrating—

I was going to argue, of course. I was going to tell her that there was nothing wrong with a mutually beneficial arrangement between two consenting adults—pretty words, really, for what I can only describe as an irrationally intense desire to fuck her raw in the middle of the entrance hall.

"Don’t be—”

She has the most appalling ability to turn me stupidly reckless—for God’s sake, I was ten minutes away from ravishing her in a public place, where anyone could have walked by. She’s hardly unpredictable. It isn’t that. But—I just wasn’t expecting her to ask me to stop, not after she—well, not after she came.

I mean—

Fuck.

She came. I gave her an orgasm—a rather good one, if the sounds she made were any indication—and I didn’t even have to touch her. Not properly. And—God, but she tasted just as good as I’d thought she would, didn’t she? Like a maddeningly decadent dessert; like chocolate and peppermint and something else, something salty and slightly tart—something that made my cock hard and my breath come faster, something that put the most asinine fucking thought in my head—I found myself wanting to lick every fucking inch of her, wanting to run my tongue all the way down her neck, between her breasts, wanting to delve into her cunt, just to try it, just to see what all the fuss was, just to be sure—

“Don’t be—”

I do wish I’d actually managed to get my hand inside her knickers, though. I wish she hadn’t asked me to stop. I wish—

No.

It was unexpected, the way my body fit around hers. It was…exact. Precise. As if we were both made for—

No.

I am not going to write about her.

I will not write about her.

She’s made her feelings perfectly clear—

No.

Except—God, but her skin was fucking smooth. Like satin. It almost didn’t feel real. And I wanted—

No.

This is fucking—

My behavior around the insipid little twit is beyond inexplicable. It’s mortifying. It’s ridiculous. How many pretty girls—much prettier than Granger—have thrown themselves at me over the years? I’m slated—however erroneously—to be the next Minister of Magic. I’m handsome. I’m charming. I could have anyone I want. I do not need her.

She has a tiny, nearly invisible cluster of freckles beneath her left eye. I want to count them. I want to be close enough to her to count them. I want—

No.

Enough.

No.

She’s nothing special. Not really. And I shouldn’t have kissed her. I should never have given in to that impulse. Because while her initial enthusiasm was encouraging, it was evident in the aftermath that she had not been…in control of herself when it happened. Understandably, as she’d suffered quite a shock at the hands of that scar-faced fucking miscreant, but—

God.

I should have killed him. Lestrange left him there for me to do just that. But when I got outside and looked at him, sniveling and twitching and bloody, all I could see was Hermione’s dress—shredded, torn, indicative of a truly repugnant sort of violence—and I was…rather overwhelmed. Not in the way I had been when confronted with my gutless reprobate of a father.

No.

This was decidedly different. I’m hesitant to label what I was feeling as something as mundane as anger—I suspect it went beyond that—far beyond that—but I’m unsure…

I’m unsure as to why.

When I first saw her clinging to Lestrange, it took me several moments to notice the state she was in. And then I’d thought—

Well.

I’d thought that squirrely, middle-aged bastard the Malfoys hired had hurt her—in that way, that way that is so reminiscent of my own mother’s pitiful attempts at seduction that it makes me physically ill to even contemplate. (Or maybe I should call it what it ultimately was? Call the act by its rightful name? Very well. Rape. My mother was a repulsive fucking rapist who used love potions as liquid justification to give in to her own sordid lack of self-control. Left me with quite the nasty legacy, didn’t she?)

I don’t even—

Sex inspires such stupidity; rampant, unconscionable stupidity. It turns normally reasonable people into blithering bloody idiots. Granger, actually, is a fine example of its rather ubiquitous power. The girl loathes me on a personal level, but because of her unsolicited physical attraction—to me, not Malfoy, certainly not Malfoy—she can barely string a sentence together if I sit just the tiniest bit too close to her in the common room. To be fair, I seem to be affected in a similar—if not identical—fashion, but—

Semantics, really.

The kidnapper said he was a Macmillan. A long-lost squib cousin—related, very distantly, to the excessively dour, incredibly unfortunate-looking Melania Macmillan. Granger’s roommate. He was not particularly forthcoming about who he was and who he was working for—initially—but I’m nothing if not resourceful. Besides—his face was already a mess. What I did to him was practically an act of mercy. (It turns out Lestrange is more than handy with a slicing hex. To say that I’m shocked by this development would be an insult to the emotion altogether. I used to occasionally wonder if his wand even worked. This is a happy surprise, indeed.)

But Granger—

Dumbledore has made a target out of her, just as surely as if he’d painted a bloody bulls-eye on her back. I can’t decide if he’s consciously using her as bait (for whom?)—or if he’s willfully oblivious to the fact that claiming her as his niece has turned her into Undesirable Number One for anyone even remotely associated with Gellert Grindewald. The cover story he presumably supplied her with is shoddy—at best—and disastrously unbelievable at worst. I was poking holes in it before I was even properly suspicious of her.

The most disconcerting part of the entire affair, however, is that Granger remains…ignorant of her own vulnerability. She trusts Dumbledore—I’m assuming that she’s yet to fully figure out that he’s little more than a duplicitous old man who likes to play God. She also seems to be genuinely fond of Malfoy—and harboring affection for lumbering blond oafs incapable of complex thought can only be considered a weakness. Additionally, her willingness to let Lestrange walk her to her room last night was…alarming.

Although—

I suspect she was merely trying to prove a point to me.

Another problem.

She’s ruled by her emotions. Her stubborn refusal to admit she’s wrong, to concede defeat, to acknowledge, even temporarily, that antagonizing the Head Boy is hardly an intelligent move—God, she’s like a bloody Gryffindor, isn’t she? Rash and brash and utterly immune to level-headed deductive reasoning. Because if she was thinking—truly thinking—she would be aware of how precarious her position here is. Dumbledore obviously knows her secret. I’m hopeful that he’s the only one she’s confided in—it will make protecting her much easier.

God.

It’s extraordinary to even write it—let alone think it—

The things she must know—

I’ve already deduced that she’s heard of me, although the context is still somewhat murky—but still—

I wonder how she’ll react when I tell her that I know she’s from the future.

I imagine she’ll be furious.

 

--TMR

 

---

 

His face was untouched.

Pristine.

Smooth-skinned and pale and perfect—the usual array of dark purple qudditch bruises that marred his cheekbones had even disappeared.

And I was dumbfounded.

I’d been expecting, at the very least, for him to be permanently disfigured. Bruised and bloody and broken—I’d understood what Lestrange had been trying to tell me the night before, about how Riddle’s displeasure with Abraxas could potentially manifest itself. Surely that meant bodily harm? Torture? A slew of Unforgivables followed by a magically induced beating?

But that wasn’t what I found.

Not even close.

No, Abraxas was lying on an uncomfortably narrow bed in the hospital wing, his hands folded over his stomach, his eyes closed, his breathing deep and even. He looked…normal. Peaceful. Like nothing was wrong.

“Abraxas?” I said uncertainly.

His eyes flew open. They were clear and grey. “Hermione?”

“You’re awake,” I noted dumbly. I sat down.

"’Course I’m awake,” he replied, tossing a devilish wink in my direction. “S’not every day a pretty girl comes to visit me in bed, now is it?”

I smiled weakly. “What are you doing in here?” I asked, picking at the corner of his white cotton blanket. “You look…well, you don’t look sick.”

He shrugged. “Don’t really know, love,” he responded. “About an hour before I was going to meet you last night, I was talking to Tom and started feeling really sick, kind of like how I get before we have to play Gryffindor—it’s a lot of pressure, you know, those bloody fucking self-righteous bastards have a dynamite seeker—but—what was I saying? Oh—yeah, anyway, so I started feeling nauseous, and…I’m not sure I remember much after that, actually. Might’ve passed out.”

My jaw went slack. “You mean—you really just had a stomach thing?”

“Must have,” he said carelessly. “Seems to be all better now, though. Can’t wait to get discharged. But how was the party? Were you alright going with Tom?”

I cringed. Did I want to tell him? He’d find out regardless—Lestrange had been there, after all—but explaining what had happened—reliving it—

I inwardly sighed.

It wasn’t that. I wasn’t a simpering little victim who was going to waste time hiding behind a fucking memory.

No. I was not.

Which meant that it was something else that was making me hesitant—reticent —reluctant—

It was the fact that I didn’t know what to say about it. I didn’t know anything. Not even the name of my attacker. And could I actually trust Abraxas? What did I really know about him? He’d given me a ring—a betrothal ring—roughly three weeks after meeting me. A ring that, according to Riddle, had a plethora of nefarious properties so complicated I couldn’t even begin to guess at them. He was a consummate flirt. He was overwhelmingly affectionate. He was mad for quidditch. He acted exactly like what he was purported to be—a rich, handsome, not-too-terribly-bright aristocrat.

Which should have been my first clue that something was off about him, shouldn’t it? He was a walking fucking stereotype.

He was also a Slytherin.

And what had Tom—Riddle, I reminded myself sternly—told me about Slytherins? They were cunning. They were manipulative. They knew how to get what they wanted.

But what did Abraxas want?

“I…I didn’t really make it to the party, actually,” I replied slowly. “I was—well, I decided to go for a walk when I was done getting dressed, and there was an—an incident.”

His brow furrowed. “What kind of incident, love?”

I measured my words cautiously. “I was attacked.”

He bolted upright. “Who the fuck attackedyou? Were you wearing the ring I gave you? What the bloody fucking—does Tom know? Did you tell him? Who did it? Are you hurt? What the fuck happened?”

I blinked at the rapid succession of questions. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I don’t know who it was. Tom knows about what happened, though. He sent Edmond to look for me before the party. Why would it matter if I was wearing the ring you gave me?”

His ears turned red. “Just that it could have told—” he broke off. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter, love. Just—you’re alright, then? Nothing…happened? Nothing bad, I mean?”

I smoothed my hand over a pleat in my skirt. “He ruined the dress you bought me, but other than that, no. Nothing bad happened. Edmond got to me in time.”

He visibly relaxed. “Good,” he grunted. “That’s good, kitten.”

My stomach lurched. Kitten. That’s what he had called me. The stranger. My attacker. It was a coincidence, obviously, of course it was a fucking coincidence—but—hearing it again, from Abraxas of all people, was…unsettling.

Yes.

Unsettling.

That’s all.

“Can you not call me that?” I asked, my discomfort evident.

He looked puzzled. “Uh—sure,” he replied. “I didn’t mean to make you...”

“It’s fine,” I interjected quickly. “Sorry. It’s not you. I just…don’t like that word.”

His confusion didn’t dissipate. “Alright, then.”

I cleared my throat. “Are you feeling better today?”

He scratched the back of his neck and shot me a sloppy, lopsided grin. “Loads. But that could just be because you’re here.”

I winced. Not this again. “Well,” I said, getting to my feet and fiddling with the bottom of my jumper. “I should probably get going—”

“Abraxas!” A shrill, unpleasantly familiar voice ricocheted off the sterile white walls. The sound of frantically tapping heels immediately followed.

Abraxas’s head fell back. “Shit,” he muttered. “Shit shit shit shit. She fucking found me.”

Before I could respond, Melania Macmillan had wrenched open the privacy curtain around the bed and skidded to a panting, breathless halt. Her squinty brown eyes narrowed ferociously when they landed on me.

“Melania,” I greeted her politely. “You seem…agitated. Whatever is the matter?”

She drew herself up indignantly. “Tom Riddle was kind enough to inform me of Abraxas’s condition when he didn’t show up for breakfast this morning,” she replied, sniffing. “I was concerned. I brought muffins.”

It was then that I noticed the small wicker basket hanging from her arm. A checkered red and white napkin covered the interior. “How lovely!” I exclaimed, holding back a laugh as Abraxas grimaced. “But, Melania, Abraxas’s…condition…is actually a stomach complaint. I’m not sure that muffins are all that appropriate.”

She compressed her lips into a thin, flat line. “What did you bring him, then?”

“Nothing, unfortunately,” I replied cheerfully. “I’m not nearly as thoughtful of a friend as you are.”

Abraxas began to cough loudly.

“I should really get going, though,” I continued, ignoring Abraxas’s groan of dismay and making my way to the infirmary door. “I have quite a bit of homework to do.”

“Of course,” Melania said sweetly. “Oh—Hermione, I meant to ask you. How was Slughorn’s party last night? You were in bed by the time I got back from the library.”

Startled, I turned back towards her. She looked mildly curious, but she seemed…skittish. I absentmindedly began to fiddle with the Malfoy ring on my finger. Her body jerked slightly, almost of its own volition, and the napkin covering her basket slipped to the side.

“I didn’t make it, actually. Had a bit of an accident.”

She reached up to run a hand through her lank black hair. The basket swayed. I watched as the napkin fell to the ground. “That’s too bad,” she cooed. “Is everything alright?”

I licked my lips. “Everything’s fine, Melania,” I replied, pushing open the door. “Riddle was there. If you’re at all interested, I’m sure he’d be glad to tell you what happened.”

And then I nodded my farewell to Abraxas, walked sedately to the nearest girls’ washroom, and threw up my breakfast.

Her basket had been empty.

 

---

 

Much later that day, I was wandering through the empty Charms corridor, heading for the Great Hall, when a large, strong hand wrapped itself around my wrist and pulled me into an empty alcove. I gasped, reaching for my wand, before a deep, explicitly sensual voice stopped me.

“Calm down, Granger. It’s just me.”

I glanced up as my assailant stepped out of the shadows. “Riddle? What—why—what do you think you’re doing?”

He was staring down at me, his lips—blood-red, thin, and unimaginably soft—curled up very slightly at the corners. Something strange and hot flashed across his eyes. “I told you I’d find you today, didn’t I?”

I exhaled impatiently. “You might have mentioned it,” I ground out.

He slowly let go of my wrist, dragging his thumb along my wildly beating pulse point. My mouth went dry. “Then what’s wrong?” He casually leaned to the side, resting his shoulder against the wall, and crossed his arms over his chest.

“What’s wrong?” I echoed disbelievingly. “What’s wrong is that you—you basically attacked me! Unnecessarily! After what happened last night—I thought you might be…well. I’m sure you can imagine who I thought you might be.”

He regarded me steadily. “I apologize,” he replied. “I didn’t realize you were still so shaken by your ordeal. I should have done. Forgive me.”

I twisted Malfoy’s ring around my finger and trained my gaze on his face. He looked serious. “What did you want to talk to me about, Riddle?”

His expression flickered. “Can I ask you something, Granger?”

My posture went rigid. “That depends, I suppose, on what it is that you want to ask me.”

He half-smiled. My stomach fluttered. I told myself that it didn’t. “That’s quite the diplomatic response.”

“Surprised?” I asked sarcastically.

“Very.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“Because you’re not a Slytherin,” he replied nonchalantly.

My eardrums crumbled, collapsed, fell to pieces—because there was suddenly nothing, my head was empty, there was nothing but white noise and ragged breathing and a dreadful, debilitating certainty that he fucking knew. But he couldn’t. He didn’t. There was no way. He couldn’t know.

“Tell me something, Hermione,” he went on. “Which house were you sorted into the first time around?”

I couldn’t seem to speak. He’d rendered me speechless, hopeless, and even as every last functional part of my brain was screaming at me to deny deny deny—my voice wouldn’t work. Nothing was fucking working. He knew. He’d found me out. He knew. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say?

“You know,” I finally whispered. It wasn’t a question, and I felt my pulse grind to a screeching, desperate halt.

"Of course I know,” he scoffed. “You didn’t really believe you could keep a secret like that for very long, did you?”

A blanketing sense of self-preservation finally kicked in. “What are you going to do about it?”

He gave me a crooked smile. “I haven’t decided yet,” he drawled.

"I somehow doubt that.”

His gaze sharpened. “Does Malfoy know?”

I cocked my head to the side, incredulous. “Why in the world would I have told Abraxas about this? Do you think I’m stupid?”

He pointedly shrugged. I felt a brief, belated surge of anger. “Isn’t he your boyfriend?” he sneered.

“Of course he isn’t,” I hissed defensively. “Which you know. And—even if he was, that wouldn’t change anything. No one was supposed to find out about this. No one was supposed to know.”

“And now that I do…” he trailed off, tapping his long, pale fingers against his forearms.

“What are you going to do? What do you want from me?” I demanded.

“I actually haven’t decided yet,” he responded. “Although—really, Hermione, you’re taking all of this the wrong way. I’m not threatening you.”

“No? Are you sure about that? Because that sounds exactly like what you’re doing.”

His expression shifted into one of obvious boredom. “As entertaining as it is to listen to you accuse me of…whatever it is you're accusing me of, I believe we have more important things to discuss. Like the attempt that was made on your life last night. Can I assume that it’s occurred to you that someone other than me has discovered your embarrassingly ill-kept secret?”

I gaped at him. “Are you—well, are you trying to help me?” My voice sounded small, even to my own ears.

He appeared taken aback by my inquiry. “Is there a reason that I wouldn’t?”

I couldn’t fucking help it; I laughed. “More than one, actually. But I suppose that doesn’t matter now.”

He shot me an odd look. “How is it that you know so much about me, Granger?”

I hesitated. “You’re rather well-known where I come from,” I said delicately.

He straightened. “Really.”

“Really,” I confirmed.

He studied me for a long, awkward moment while I fidgeted nervously. “What am I known for, Hermione?”

"You don’t really expect me to tell you, do you?”

He stepped closer, bracing his hands on either side of my head as he leaned forward. The effect was instantaneous. I couldn’t fucking breathe. He was too close. He smelled too good. I wanted to kiss him. Panic seized me.

“You’ll tell me one day, sweetheart,” he said smugly, running the back of his hand down my cheek. “And you’ll do it soon.”

I stiffened. “I most certainly will not.”

“You will,” he said sharply. “Or I’ll find a way to make you.”

I straightened my shoulders and glowered. “I highly doubt—”

“Take the ring off,” he interrupted suddenly.

“How dare—wait, what?”

“The ring,” he repeated, motioning towards my hand. “Take it off.”

I didn’t move. “Why?”

His sighed angrily. “Because I said so, Granger.”

Our eyes locked—and that was when I realized that I’d made a grave error in pushing him so far. Tom Riddle was not a bratty schoolyard bully who wouldn’t bother to hex me unless my back was turned. No. He was fucking dangerous. He killed people. He had minions, for God’s sake. And what had Lestrange said about him last night?

Riddle always got what he wanted.

I slowly slid the ring off. “What does it do?”

His expression was unreadable. “What makes you think it does anything?” he countered.

“You’ve seemed awfully obsessed with it ever since you saw Abraxas give it to me,” I replied testily. “Stands to reason that it does something. Unless—you’re not jealous, are you, Riddle? Is that it?”

He grinned. “No, sweetheart, I’m not jealous. Would you like it if I was?” he mused. “I think you might.”

My mouth tightened. “Why would I like it if you were jealous?”

“Call it…intuition,” he replied. “The very same intuition that tells me that you’d never let Malfoy touch you the way that I did last night.”

My nostrils flared. “You didn’t really touch me, though,” I pointed out. “You kissed me. Which Abraxas has already done.”

He jerked his head slightly to the side, as if staving off a wince. “Ah, so that’s what I was tasting,” he shot back nastily. “Malfoy’s sloppy seconds.”

I clutched the ring securely between my fingers. “Shove off, Riddle. Just tell me what this—this thing does. You promised. Last night. You promised you’d explain,” I reminded him, my voice unsteady.

He pursed his lips. “Are you a muggle-born?” he asked abruptly.

A jagged thread of fear wove its way through my spine. “Excuse me?”

“It’s a simple question, Granger. Are you or are you not a muggle-born?” he repeated irritably.

I paused. “I—I’m—I don’t see why that matters,” I responded hotly.

“So you are,” he deduced, nodding thoughtfully. “Well. That makes much more sense, doesn’t it?”

My heart stalled. My hand drifted to my forearm, trembling fingers tracing the outline of my scar through the thin cotton of my shirt.

Mudblood.

Mudblood.

Mudblood.

And then I heard voices—memories—distant and fading, overlapping, ruffling through my head like so many pages in a book—Draco Malfoy was scowling at me from across the Hogwarts courtyard, his pale, pointed face scrunched up derisively, his lips moving in slow-motion as he mouthed that word, that hateful fucking word, and I heard it for the very first time—mudblood—and then there was Bellatrix Lestrange and her mad, high-pitched cackle, her wand raised, her eyes trained on the blood seeping slowly, so fucking slowly, onto the floor beneath me—mudblood—and the Snatchers, dirty and grimy and disgusting, refusing to call me by name, only using that word, over and over, as if I was nothing else, no one else, had no real identity—

Mudblood.

Mudblood.

Mudblood.

And the perpetrator of a thousand different atrocities—all directed at people like me, people he thought didn’t belong—had apparently fucking guessed that I was a muggle-born.

Bloody fantastic.

"Are you going to hurt me?” I demanded, shoving a shaking hand into my bag and fumbling for my wand.

His face twisted. “Why would I hurt you?”

I stopped moving. What the bloody fuck? “Because I’m a mudblood,” I spat.

His eyebrows rose. “I’m not making the connection, sweetheart,” he replied, his voice even. “You’re going to have to spell it out for me.”

“You—you hate muggle-borns,” I mumbled, confused. “You—Lestrange—all of you. That’s all you talk about at meals.”

He toyed with his cufflinks and chuckled. The sound was unsettling. “I’m not going to bother explaining myself to you,” he said with no small measure of amusement. “But suffice it to say—whatever conclusions you’ve drawn about my…political beliefs—they’re the means to an end, sweetheart. That’s all.”

I made a truly valiant effort to hide my astonishment. I was quite sure that I failed. “Oh. Oh. I don’t—oh.”

“Indeed.”

“So…why did you want to know if I was a muggle-born, then? What does it matter?”

He eyed me speculatively. “You don’t know anything about the ring,” he replied, loosening his tie. “I surmised that either ancestral rings are no longer used in your time—which is hugely unlikely, as people like the Malfoys tend to summarily reject anything that could even be loosely defined as ‘change’—or that you’ve never been exposed to any Pureblood customs before now. Which would make you a mud—muggle-born. Sorry. Force of habit. I’m sure you understand.”

“I see. So the Malfoy ring—it’s part of a…ritual?”

“Not exactly.”

I huffed. “Then what is it for?”

“I told you,” he said evasively. “It’s a betrothal gift.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re such a Slytherin.”

His lips twitched. “It’s hardly my fault you’re asking the wrong questions, sweetheart.”

“Fine. I’ll play along. What does the ring do?”

He brushed his hair back from his face. “It turns into a portkey.”

My muscles felt like they disintegrated. The ring fell to the floor. "What?”

“Shocking, isn’t it?”

My vocal chords went limp. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s an antiquated sort of…fidelity failsafe,” he explained, inspecting his fingernails. “Years and years ago, men expected their brides to be virgins, you understand. The engagement rings, which are passed down generationally, were imbued with various tracking spells, so that you always knew exactly where it was that your darling fiancée was spending the majority of her time. Eventually, though, someone thought of attaching a clever little transportation charm as well—that way, should your bride-to-be happen to fancy a tumble with the gardener’s son before the wedding, you could just activate the portkey and send her elsewhere, virgo intacta. It’s actually quite a bit of impressive magic, isn’t it?”

My thoughts raced through my head, trampling over one another, fighting for dominance—surely this wasn’t real? What he was saying? Surely people—the fucking Malfoys—didn’t actually do things like this? “But that’s barbaric!” I cried.

“It’s certainly a bit much,” he agreed. “It’s also a rather crafty way to kidnap someone.”

“Abraxas can’t—he doesn’t—he doesn’t know about what it does,” I insisted. But then I faltered. “Does he?”

He shrugged. "What do you think?”

I glared at him helplessly. “I don’t think he would do that to me,” I said, lifting my chin.

“You don’t know him very well, then, do you?”

I didn’t immediately reply. “Who’s trying to kidnap me?” I asked quietly. “I know that you know. You must.”

He scowled. “Why must I know, Granger? Are you insinuating that I’m involved? Because I’m definitely not—”

I cut him off. “You must know, because you said last night that you’d tell me everything,” I snapped. “You know about where I’m from. You know about the stupid ring. What else do you know? What did you find out about the man who attacked me?”

He was silent for a tense, telling second. “He’s a Macmillan,” he answered eventually. “A squib cousin. Disowned, presumably. He claimed not to know who hired him.”

My mind reeled. “So, Melania—” I began.

“More than likely had nothing to do with it,” he finished for me, shaking his head. “If I had to guess, I’d say that this was primarily about sending a…message, of sorts, to your make-believe uncle.”

“Is that why you didn’t want me to tell him what happened?”

He nodded.

“You think that I’m stupid for trusting Dumbledore,” I said bitterly.

He snorted. “I think that if he was genuinely concerned for your wellbeing he would have come up with a much more convincing cover story for you.”

I flushed. “Look, Riddle,” I seethed. “Professor Dumbledore is brilliant and funny and kind and—and he’s been quite helpful in trying to find a way for me to get home. So, if you think, for even one minute, that you’re going to succeed in turning me against him, you can just—”

"God, you sound like a bloody Gryffindor,” he interjected, wrinkling his nose.

“I am a bloody Gryffindor.”

A fleeting glimmer of surprise passed across his features. “How…disappointing.”

“This is ridiculous. I’m going to dinner. You’ve been useless.”

I made a move to brush past him. He grabbed my elbow. His grip was tight. It felt unrelenting.

“What did you mean when you said that Dumbledore is trying to find a way for you to get home? He’s working on time travel? How far has he gotten?”

I yanked my arm out of his grasp. “I don’t believe that that’s any of your business.”

His lip curled. “Why would you even want to go back?” he asked. “Are they really that much nicer to mudbloods in the future?”

I froze. "Don’t call me that,” I whispered.

“I’ll call you whatever I want, mudblood,” he retorted, bending down to pick up the forgotten ring. “You seem to have absolutely no reservations about throwing my efforts at civility right back in my face, so please, excuse me if being polite to you is no longer a fucking priority.”

I exhaled harshly. “I said—don’t call me that.”

He didn’t look away. “Mudblood,” he murmured slowly, deliberately.

I shuddered.

Mudblood. Mudblood—that fucking word—again and again, it followed me, haunted me, always there to remind me that I didn’t belong, not really, not ever, and it was him, this boy, who was using it now, carelessly, like it didn’t matter—and I’d had enough. 

Enough.

I was fucking done.

“Is that how you want to play it, Riddle?” I asked, my voice low—deadly. “You want to call me names? Like that makes you any better? You, with your inbred mother and your weak, pathetic, muggle father? Remind me what that makes you?”

I was taunting him. I wanted his mask to drop. I wanted to know what his face looked like when he was angry, truly angry, when he wasn’t hiding behind pleasantries and charmingly polite smiles—I wanted him to fall apart, like I had, finally finally finally, and I wanted him to understand what it felt like, just once, to feel something, to feel this, this all-consuming rage that had blinded me and stifled me and made my veins feel too thin, too small, too pitifully inadequate to contain the rushing, crushing flood of blood being pumped through my heart—

I wanted—

I wanted him to break. I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to be out of control and out of his mind and full—absolutely full—of confusion and conjecture and uncertainty—and I wanted him to not know what to do, to not have a single fucking clue, and I wanted him to understand—how badly I wanted him to fucking understand—what it felt like to lose, to be lost, to not be able to guess—not at all, not even a little bit—what might come next.

And when he did—when it happened—I wanted to fucking watch.

It didn’t matter to me that I was being vindictive. It didn’t matter to me that I was being cruel. Because he was holding that ridiculous fucking ring, the one that was now a beautifully gilded symbol of everything I didn’t know about the people I was forced to live with; and when he’d touched me the previous evening, he’d known exactly what he was doing, exactly how he was affecting me, and—and—he hadn’t fucking cared, he’d just run his hands underneath my dress and expected me to take it, and he was always so in control, he always knew what he was doing and what he was saying and how it would make me feel—and it wasn’t fucking fair, it just wasn’t, because even though I’d been the one to ask him to stop kissing me—

I’d still had to ask, hadn’t I?

“What do you know about my father, Granger?” he demanded, a muscle ticking deliciously in his jaw.

Close. I was close. He was close.

“I know that he didn’t want you,” I sneered. “I know that your mother had to drug him to get him anywhere near her, and I know that he abandoned her when she told him what she was. I know that he was ashamed of you, of your magic, of your existence. You were an embarrassment to him, weren’t you, Riddle? Isn’t that what he told you when you went to go find him? When you went to go see if Daddy might still want you?”

He was blinking rapidly, his eyes downcast, his throat unnaturally stiff as he tried, repeatedly, to swallow—so close, so close, I was so fucking close. “He was nothing to me, Granger,” he managed to hiss. “Nothing.”

I snorted. “Is that why you killed him, then?” I asked mockingly.

And that was when he snapped. “That is it!” he shouted. “You think you know things about me—you think you know who I am and what I’ve done and that that makes you special? Is that it? You think you’re fucking special, because you know some of my secrets?”

He was clutching my shoulders, jerking my body upwards so that his mouth was mere inches away from my own, and his fury was palpable in the narrow, confined space of the hallway, and—his breath smelled like coffee. I didn’t want to notice that. I didn’t want to care. I didn’t want to want to eliminate the distance between us and capture his lips and find out if he actually tasted as good—as fucking spectacular—as I remembered.

“You have no idea what I’m capable of, you stupid, stupid girl,” he snarled, yanking my face up, up, even closer to him. So much closer. “No idea.”

I bit down on the inside of my mouth. My teeth gnashed together. I drew blood. “Actually, Riddle,” I retorted tremulously, “I know exactly what you’re capable of. I’m from the future, remember?”

He abruptly released me. I fell against the wall. Tangy copper liquid splashed across the back of my tongue.

“I’m only going to say this once, Granger,” he hissed. “One time. That’s it. You get one fucking warning.”

I fought the urge to spit up blood. “Go on, then,” I challenged.

He raised his wand. I instinctively recoiled. “If you ever—and I do mean ever—bring up my father again in my presence, I will kill you. I will kill you slowly. I will make it hurt. I will make it so bloody agonizing that you will wish that I was torturing you into insanity instead. Do you understand?”

My tonsils contracted. “I—”

He slashed his wand through the air and pointed the tip at my neck. “Do—you—fucking—understand?” 

I nodded jerkily. “Yes. Yes. I—I understand.”

He appraised me silently, up and down, his eyes roving haphazardly—insultingly—over my quivering limbs.

And then he pocketed his wand and smiled brightly.

Insincerely.

“Well. Glad we cleared that up, sweetheart. Oh—and thank you for this,” he said, his tone pleasant as he held up the Malfoy ring. “It will be quite useful. Can I escort you to dinner?”

I stared at him, something that felt rather a lot like horror welling up in my chest—why did I keep allowing myself to treat him like a normal eighteen year-old boy? He wasn’t normal. He wasn’t anything like anyone I’d ever known. How many different ways did he need to prove that to me before I took the fucking hint and stopped trying to fight him?

“I—I suppose,” I stammered, reaching for his outstretched arm. Residual drops of blood—warm and sticky—lingered on my lips as I licked them. I quickly tamped down my revulsion.

“I should also mention, Hermione, that I don’t like to share what’s mine,” he said conversationally as he led me down the hallway.

I clenched my jaw, relishing the slight twinge of pain that shot through the bone as I ground down hard, harder, too hard, much too hard—what was it that Dumbledore had said to Harry, when he had first told him about the horcruxes?

Voldemort liked trophies.

Voldemort liked trophies, and that’s exactly what he was implying that I was. I was a possession—something flashy and interesting and maybe even pretty—that he’d stolen from Abraxas Malfoy and now wanted to keep for himself.

"I see,” I finally mumbled.

He glanced down at me, his dark eyes slightly narrowed. “Do you?”

I met his gaze without flinching. “Yes. I do.”

He smirked. "Smart girl.”

It wasn’t a compliment.

But he didn’t say another word to me as we walked to dinner.

Not even one.

 

---

 

Chapter 11: Chapter 11

---

 

September 25, 1944

 

Malfoy was released from the hospital wing this morning. His face—his pointed, stupid, aristocratic face—when he came down to breakfast and saw me holding her hand…

God, it was priceless.

Partially shocked, partially confused, but mostly furious. And while watching him throw up his dinner on Friday night was entertaining—in its own way—slow-acting poison is inherently too subtle of a punishment for my tastes. Stealing Granger from him was much more satisfying. Even if the tactics I had to use to do so were…slightly unorthodox.

However—

I shouldn’t have—

Fuck.

Fuck.

I shouldn’t have threatened to kill her. In retrospect, that was quite a bad move on my part. But, really, it couldn’t have been helped. She was just being such a—

Such a cunt.

Yes. A cunt. I know I’ve called her that before, but honestly—the things she was saying—I just wanted to fucking hurt her. Desperately. I just wanted to make her stop talking. By any means necessary. I wanted her to stop. I wanted to make her stop. Because what she was saying—God, she was acting as if she knew about what happened last summer. As if she knew me. Knew what had motivated me. As if she has any fucking clue about what my life has been like. And she was so arrogant and presumptuous and completely fucking infuriating and I wanted—

Fuck it all, I wanted to fuck her senseless.

Which wasn’t a viable option for a multitude of very good, very logical reasons. She has been nothing but a distraction—a debilitating distraction, at that. My Knights all believe me to be obsessed—which is insulting, but not entirely inaccurate. I would like to think myself above petty adolescent urges—God, didn’t I spend most of fourth year trying to convince myself I didn’t even need to wank? That was a bloody disaster—and up until now, I have been. There have never been any girls that made me consider ridiculous things like companionship and empty broom cupboards and where one might procure out-of-season flowers. (She’d probably like roses. White roses. I’ll have to send Lestrange to the greenhouses.)

It’s just—

It’s her face. She has such delicate features. She almost looks…breakable. Her outward appearance is so at odds with her personality; she fights with me like she thinks she has a chance of winning. I confess that I don’t know what to make of that. And she is stuck here, in a time and place she doesn’t belong to, surrounded by people who she would be an absolute imbecile to trust—she is alone, in the truest sense of the word, and I get the impression that that is not something she is used to.

Which makes me wonder.

How difficult would it really be to gain her trust?

Because as curious as I am about my own future, I always find myself distracted by the force of her animosity whenever she brings it up. The way she glares at me—God, it’s like I strangled a puppy right in front of her. It’s ludicrous.

And somewhat exciting.

Because it implies that at least some of my plans come to fruition.  

Why else would she loathe me to such a degree? She’s an irritating Gryffindor muggle-born. I can’t imagine that my future-self was overly kind to her. Indeed, her disdain for everything she seems to be under the impression I represent—it would be amusing, I think, if it wasn’t so damnably inconvenient. I could always use Legilimency, of course. I confess that I have no real idea of her intellectual capabilities—I’m merely guessing at the fact that she is  marginally less moronic than the majority of her behavior has indicated—but I do not think she is an Occlumens. Her fear the other day, when she thought that I’d already entered her mind, was genuine.

No.

Not an Occlumens.

Getting into her head would be laughably easy. Except—

She would hate me.

She already hates me .

She would have a reason to if I did this, though. It would be an invasion of her privacy. An—assault, really. And she’s defenseless. It would be unethical. Not that ethics are a particular concern of mine, but—

She would never forgive me.

She already hates me .

Fuck.

Perhaps if I was gentle—

No. She would know. She would know, and she would run right back to Malfoy and probably beg him to marry her.

No.

Fuck .

No.

Legilimency is a last resort. I can be patient. Not that I need to be—

She already hates me.

Would alienating her really make that much of a difference? She’ll eventually be expendable. God knows Dumbledore’s already given her a shelf life. But after all the trouble I’ve gone through to keep her safe…it seems almost sacrilegious to discard her like that. Surely I deserve some kind of reward?

No.

Yes.

Fuck.

She really is a cunt.

 

--TMR

 

---

 

October 15, 1944

 

Pretending to be Tom Riddle’s girlfriend was…uncomfortable.

He rarely left my side. His arm was constantly draped over my shoulders, wrapped around my waist; an obvious reminder to anyone who cared to look that I was his. He was polite. He was charming. He was a perfect gentleman. He held open doors, pulled out my chair during lessons, and presented me with a single white rose every Monday morning before breakfast.

But he never touched me. Not really. Not like he had the night I’d been attacked. He gave me cold, perfunctory kisses on the cheek when we were in public, and in private—well, in private he barely even looked at me. We never talked about where I’d come from. We never talked about what had happened between us.

And it had been almost three weeks.

I often wondered what he got out of our unspoken arrangement. He’d essentially blackmailed me—in an indirect, completely Slytherin fashion—into being in a relationship with him. Except—and this was the part that confused me—it wasn’t actually a relationship. He didn’t expect sex. He didn’t appear to garner any real enjoyment from my company. Our conversations were stilted and sparse; he spent most of our time together reading or doing homework.

It was, for lack of a better description, utterly fucking bizarre.

And from the very first morning, when he’d laced his fingers through mine and smugly led me into the Great Hall—things had changed. Dumbledore had stopped requesting meetings with me. Abraxas spent inordinate amounts of time scowling. Lestrange avoided eye contact altogether.

Three weeks. Three weeks I’d been playing the part of besotted girlfriend. And now—well, now we were in the Slytherin common room. It was past curfew. We were alone. He was seated at a table next to the fireplace, a Potions essay lying half-completed in front of him. I was comfortably ensconced in a heavily brocaded emerald green sofa, lazily flipping through the pages of my Transfiguration text. And I was bored. Bored, and tired, and just the tiniest bit reckless—because before I could stop myself, before I could think too hard about what I was doing—

I exhaled loudly. “Riddle.”

He didn’t bother looking up. “I thought I told you to call me Tom.”

I clenched my jaw. “Fine. Tom. Can we talk?”

He put down his quill with a dramatic sigh. “What is it?” he asked coolly.

I didn’t hesitate. "Why are you doing this?”

His expression remained impassive. “Doing what?”

“This…arrangement,” I said delicately, shifting in my seat. “What do you get out of it? There are about a hundred other girls here who you wouldn’t need to blackmail into dating you, so I don’t understand why you’re doing it to me.”

His lips twitched. “Think rather highly of yourself, don’t you, Granger?”

I felt a faint flush creep up the back of my neck. “Doesn’t really matter what I think, does it?”

He leveled a shrewd glance in my direction. “No, it doesn’t,” he agreed. And then he turned his attention back to his essay.

My mouth fell open. “Why is it so difficult for you to answer a simple question?” I demanded.

He shrugged. “It isn’t.”

My head began to pound. “I don’t know why I even bothered,” I muttered.

“You’re a Gryffindor,” he said easily. “You have no self-control. Or discipline. I doubt you think very hard before you open that pretty little mouth of yours.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “No discipline?” I repeated indignantly. “No discipline—for your information, Riddle, I not only had the highest marks out of anyone else in my year—I had the highest marks in half a century! I got eleven bloody O.W.L.’s! Eleven! I was supposed to be a Ravenclaw!”

His eyes gleamed with something like satisfaction. “Then why all the mediocrity? Here, I mean. For God’s sake, Lestrange scored higher than you on our last Charms quiz.”

I shot him a withering glare. “Why do you think? I’m supposed to…blend in,” I said disdainfully.

He suddenly grinned. "Well, that’s a bit of a relief.”

I looked at him quizzically. “Why?”

"Because I’d rather not be dating an imbecile.”

I snorted. “We’re fake dating, Riddle. Do try and keep up.”

He chuckled. “To answer your previous question—I have a vested interest in keeping you safe. And since you can’t be trusted to stay out of trouble…” he trailed off.

I stiffened. “Excuse me?”

He leaned back in his chair. “You heard what I said, Granger. You and your eleven O.W.L.’s can’t play dumb now.”

I slowly stood up. “So, what, because someone tried to attack me three weeks ago—that’s my fault? And means I can’t take care of myself? You—you—you’re such a—misogynist!”

He rolled his eyes. “Really?” he asked. “That’s the best you could do?”

“I’m perfectly capable of—”

“I’m sure you are,” he interrupted, his tone nothing short of patronizing. “But the facts are…irrefutable. You trusted Albus Dumbledore. He provided you with a horrendously inadequate cover story—did he even ask you if you could speak French? No? I thought not—and then you rather stupidly ran to the Room of bloody Requirement and asked for the bloody Gryffindor common room—a room, I might add, which you shouldn’t have had any prior knowledge of whatsoever. You accepted a betrothal ring from a Malfoy—a Malfoy!—and refused to take it off—just to spite me.

“You took a note from Melania Macmillan—a girl who loathes the entirety of your being with a fairly disturbing amount of enthusiasm—and actually believed the bloody signature at the bottom of it! I don’t know how many different ways to explain this to you. You are in danger. Whatever objections you might have to me personally—I couldn’t give any less of a fuck. I can keep you safe. I will keep you safe. And if I have to…feign some measure of affection for you in public to do so—fine by me.”

My fingernails dug into my palms. Rage was rather too small of a word for what I felt just then—no, I needed something with more syllables, something longer and much harder to say out loud. “You aren’t my protector, Riddle,” I spat. “I never asked—”

“And you’re still not listening!” he shouted, abruptly kicking his chair back and getting to his feet.

“And you still aren’t answering my questions!” I shot back. “Why are you bothering to protect me? What do you get out of this?”

He sneered. “What do I get out of it?” He let out a harsh bark of mirthless laughter. “I get a Seer without the all of the annoying, insipid ambiguity. I get someone who probably knows all of the silly, careless mistakes I’ll ever make, and can tell me how to avoid them before they ever have a chance of happening. Do you really not understand how valuable you are? Has it not even occurred to you why people are out to get you?”

I felt a sharp pang of disappointment—which I quickly brushed aside. "Why would you think I would ever tell you anything?” I asked, incredulous. “The timeline—I have to preserve it. My existence here…it’s fragile. Every day that goes by, I wonder if I’ve done or said something unforgivable—God, I’m terrified of just—just fading away. Disappearing altogether. Telling you about the future would be beyond irresponsible. I’ll never do it.”

His expression didn’t change. “You’re always so angry, Granger,” he remarked casually. “Angry and scared and defensive. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you laugh. Not properly. Why is that?”

I gaped at him. “You’re not serious.”

He quirked a brow. “Quite serious.”

I felt a prickly sense of foreboding. “Oh, I don’t know,” I drawled sarcastically. “Maybe it’s because I’m trapped fifty years in the past with a bunch of strangers who can’t decide if they want to kill, maim, or marry me. That might have something to do with my surly disposition. So sorry if it offends you.”

He paused. “Fifty years? That far?” he whispered, almost to himself.

I winced. Fuck. “I didn’t—” I started to say.

“No, no, I know,” he interjected impatiently. “You didn’t mean to tell me that. But…God. Fifty years. That’s—well.”

I straightened my shoulders. "I’m not telling you anything else,” I said defiantly. “Nothing.”

He approached me slowly, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “That’s disappointing. But while it would be nice of you to willingly tell me what I want to know…it isn’t necessary.”

I stared at him for a long, confusing moment. God, but he really was physically perfect, wasn’t he? His entire face was a study in contrast—pale skin, dark eyes, red lips—and I marveled at the fact that he was even real. And that was when I found myself thinking—

What a fucking waste.

Because he was brilliant and handsome and in possession of a truly magnetic kind of charisma—I could almost understand how he’d accumulated so many mindless, sycophantic followers. I could watch the way he manipulated Lestrange and Malfoy—the way he intimidated them without even having to speak—and appreciate the sheer force of his personality. He was special. He was exceptional. And all I wanted to do was ask him why he was going to turn out the way that I knew he would.

As if it mattered.

As if he might even know.

“Aren’t you getting sick of threatening me, Riddle? I’m beginning to think it’s all you know how to do.”

He smirked. “Not all I know how to do, sweetheart,” he replied pointedly.

I flinched. And then I turned away from him and took a deep breath. "Why do you call me that?” I asked shakily.

"Call you what?” 

“Sweetheart. You don’t seem the type for…endearments.”

He stepped closer, molding his chest to my back. My breath hitched. “Well, you tend to throw a fit when I call you by your first name,” he murmured, his lips just barely brushing my ear. “Sweetheart.”

I shivered. “I’m—I’m not sure what you mean,” I stammered.

His drummed his fingers against the curve of my waist. “Indeed,” he replied. “You scrunch your nose up and bite your lip and—God, it drives me absolutely mad.”

I swallowed. “Mad?” I asked weakly.

His grip tightened. “Do you even know what you do to me?” His voice was husky and deep. I felt it rumble through his chest.

“No,” I choked out.

He pushed his hips forward. I could feel him—all of him—against my backside. I shut my eyes. “That is what you do to me,” he hissed, slowly moving one of his hands across my abdomen. “Feel that, sweetheart? Feel how fucking hard I am?”

Lower, I inwardly pleaded, just a bit lower. “Y-yes,” I managed to say.

His fingers—his long, elegant, dexterous fingers—toyed with the buttons on my blouse. Come on. More. Lower. Keep going. “It’s all for you,” he said. His breathing was coming thick and harsh and hot. “Every—fucking—inch.”

He pulled up the bottom of my shirt. The cotton felt abrasive as it slid over my skin. More. More. Lower. Please. “You don’t—you don’t say,” I replied, biting back a whimper.

He slid his thumb under the waistband of my skirt. My thighs quivered. Keep going. Come on. Lower. More. Lower. “I watch you, you know,” he said, his teeth grazing the side of my neck. “When you think no one’s looking. I watch the way you’re so fucking careful about crossing your legs when you sit down—making sure no one can see anything they’re not supposed to, isn’t that right? I’ve spent hours imagining what your knickers look like. Imagining what you look like in your knickers. They were green the night you were attacked. What color are they today, I wonder?”

He rubbed his thumb back and forth over my pelvic bone before dipping it lower. I stifled a gasp.

“I—I’m not sure,” I answered unsteadily.

Come on. Just a bit more. Lower. More. Please.

“Well, we can’t have that,” he said silkily. “You’re going to let me see, aren’t you, sweetheart? You’re going to let me unzip your skirt and see what color they are. Aren’t you?”

He skimmed his fingertips down the front of my knickers. I bit my lip. I couldn’t speak. Not now. Not like this. If I opened my mouth, I would say yes. I would beg. I would tell him to tear my underwear off with his fucking teeth if he felt so inclined—because I needed something, something I barely understood, and I was absolutely fucking positive that he was the only one who could give it to me and fucking hell but my entire body was buzzing, craving, a ticking tremulous waiting fucking time bomb and my skin felt like it was crawling, moving, and I felt so empty, like I’d been engulfed by a dark seeping aching emptiness and I needed—I needed—

Lower. Please. Lower. Just like that.

“I hope they’re white,” he continued. “Thin white cotton, so I can see just how fucking wet you are. Do you want to show me, sweetheart? Right now? Do you want to show me how wet you are?”

I considered nodding—but the heel of his palm was pressed against my clit and his fingers were pushing into the lace of my knickers and I couldn’t fucking move, my muscles were locked, frozen, and this was it, this was the moment I was going to give up give in give it all away—

I spun around.

Our eyes met—brown on brown on brown, pupils dilated, flashing, heated, can’t look away, can never look away, never never never—

And then I was kissing him, my tongue in his mouth, my hands on his chest, and he was grappling with the zipper on my skirt, his fingers clumsy, unpracticed, and then it was on the ground and I was standing in front of him and he pulled back, with a slow seductive impossibly fucking perfect smirk flitting across his face—

My knickers were white.

“I knew it,” he mumbled. “I knew that they’d be white.”

Before I could reply, he’d torn them off and dropped to his knees, his hands on my hips, his gaze trained on the space between my thighs—

“Bloody fucking hell,” he whispered reverently. 

And then I almost collapsed.

Because he was staring at me—at that part of me—and he looked curious and fascinated and hungry, almost feral, like he couldn’t get enough, like he wanted seconds and thirds and maybe even fourths—and then he licked his lips and I realized what he intended to do and the anticipation was too much, just way too fucking much, and the sight of him leaning forward, with saliva slick and shiny on his tongue—it was the most erotic thing I’d ever fucking seen and God, I could have come right then, right there, just from the knowledge of what he was about to do to me, for me—

The first lick was tentative.

The second was firmer, less hesitant, and elicited a barely audible moan from the back of my throat. The sensation of his mouth on my cunt—God, but I couldn’t even fucking think that word without blushing—was strange. The tip of his tongue was velvety and moist as it circled my clit with varying degrees of pressure—hard, soft, hard, soft—but then he shoved a finger inside of me and wrapped his lips around my clit and he might have even bit down, I couldn’t tell, I couldn’t think, no, no thinking, I couldn’t do that—and there, there it was, that remarkable static charge barreling through my body, sharp and startling and fucking electric—

He twisted his finger, curling it up.

I gasped.

Oh, my fucking God.

“Taste good,” he murmured, pulling back slightly. His lips were swollen and glistening and wet. I thought, vaguely, that I should be embarrassed. I wasn’t. “So fucking good.”

He dove back in.

I closed my eyes.

And my mind went blank.

He’d replaced his finger with his tongue, thrusting in and out, and his hands moved down to grip my thighs as I began to roll my hips against his face. This wasn’t like that night in the entrance hall. No. My body was preparing itself for something, something bigger and much more powerful—I could feel it, coiling like a snake in the pit of my stomach, wound tighter and tighter, waiting to pounce, waiting to be released—it was like magic, unexpected and ethereal, and in that maddening, unbelievably long half-second before my world completely fucking shattered—

I felt connected to him—to myself—in a way that didn’t make sense.

There was a drop of lukewarm sweat sliding down the side of my neck. His fingernails were digging into my flesh, leaving behind tiny, crescent-shaped marks. The collar of my shirt was starched and crisp and stiff as it rubbed against my jaw. His hair was thick and surprisingly coarse against the pads of my fingers. My heartbeat was strong and loud and erratic, a lingering, pulsing echo between my ears. I was sure he could hear it. I was sure he could feel it.

It wasn’t enough, though. I wanted to see him. I wanted him to watch my face and see exactly what it was that he’d done to me—I wanted him to fucking know, undeniably, irrevocably, that this wasn’t an accident, that this wasn’t a byproduct of fear and uncertainty and adrenaline—this was on purpose, this was intentional, this was different.

I opened my eyes.

I glanced down.

His gaze snapped up to mine, like he’d been waiting for it, waiting for me—

He deliberately flicked his tongue over my clit.

And then my thoughts started to come in broken, blissful fragments—there, yes, that spot—spine tingling—rush rush rush—fuck—teeth and tongue and harder—there, there, so close—warm, I’m warm, too warm—close—I can’t—bright white swirls of lightning—yes—keep going—yes—harder—so fucking warm—faster—harder—yes, so close—my muscles were  disintegrating—faster—close—can’t stand up—fuck—falling falling falling—fuck—I can’t—I couldn’t—yes—faster faster faster faster—

Yes.

I crashed.

It was over.

I was done.

 

---

 

 

Chapter 12: Chapter 12

---

 

I tried to tell myself that it didn’t mean anything.

That it didn’t mean anything when he slowly stood up and ran his thumb down the side of my jaw, his touch surprisingly gentle. That it didn’t mean anything when he helped me zip up my skirt and his hands lingered on my hips, as if he didn’t want to let go. That it didn’t mean anything when he wrapped his arms around my waist and fucking held me—for one, two, three seconds too long.

It meant nothing.

And it meant nothing when he sat on the couch and pulled me onto his lap, nuzzling my neck, his breath warm and comforting and silky against my skin. It meant nothing when I leaned back, my body melding with his, and placed my head on his shoulder. It meant nothing—absolutely fucking nothing—when I shifted in my seat and turned around to capture his lips in a kiss. It meant nothing that I could taste myself on his tongue. It meant nothing that when he finally pulled back, he was smiling.

And, God, that fucking smile—it didn’t mean anything. I was sure of it.

Because I still recalled with startling clarity the night I had first met him. How he’d smiled politely, almost disinterestedly, and I’d thought the expression was all wrong for his face. I’d thought that it didn’t fit.

This smile, though—it was different. So fucking different. It was crooked, just the tiniest bit uneven—his lips were mostly closed, with only the barest sliver of perfectly straight white teeth visible—but there was a softness to it, to the slight upward tilt at the corner of his mouth, that separated the imperfections, made them less obvious—and all I could focus on was the end result, the realization that this was anything but wrong, that this was what I always wanted him to look like—

It didn’t mean anything. None of it meant anything.

“Have you done that before?” I asked shyly. The fire crackled lazily behind us.

“You gave me my first kiss three weeks ago,” he pointed out, combing an idle hand through my hair. “Of course I’ve never done that before. Why?”

I blushed. “Well—I mean—you were quite good at it, weren’t you?”

He shrugged. “Boys talk,” he explained succinctly. “Malfoy especially.”

I nestled myself deeper into his arms, draping my legs over his knees. It didn’t mean anything. “So…Malfoy taught you everything you know?” I teased.

He snorted. “There’s something to be said for practical experience, I suppose.”

I grinned. “And now that you have practical experience…” I trailed off. “Was it everything you thought it would be?”

He laced his fingers through mine, rubbing his thumb across the back of my hand. It meant nothing. “It wasn’t anything like what I thought it would be, actually.”

“Oh?”

“I used to think—” he broke off, chuckling. “I used to always get disgusted when Malfoy talked about it. About what—what I just did, I mean. It just sounded so…messy. I couldn’t imagine ever willingly engaging in such an act.”

I felt a pang of—something in the pit of my stomach. It didn’t mean anything. “And now that you have?” I asked bravely.

He pulled me closer. Nothing. It meant nothing. “Well it certainly was messy,” he replied wryly. “But you tasted…”

I gulped. He rested his chin on the top of my head. I listened to him inhale, exhale, clean and slow and effortless. “Yes?”

He cleared his throat. “Exquisite,” he said simply. “You tasted exquisite. Better than I could have ever even…well.”

I relaxed into his embrace. He was warm. He was safe. He liked the way I tasted. It didn’t mean anything.

“I’m not sure if that’s the kind of compliment that requires a response,” I giggled.

He paused. “Can I ask you something?”

I licked my lips. His voice had changed—it was rough, hesitant—perhaps even a bit uncertain. It made me nervous. “Is it about the future?” I tried to joke.

“Partly, yes.”

I stiffened. His arms tightened around me. It meant nothing. “You know that I can’t—” I said heatedly.

“Did you know Lestrange in the—where you came from?” he interrupted.

I froze. “What?” I whispered.

“Lestrange. I noticed the first night you met him that you seem unusually uncomfortable in his presence. Did you know him?” he clarified.

My mouth felt dry. “Not exactly.”

He stroked the inside of my wrist with his fingertips. It didn’t mean anything. “What does that mean…exactly?”

A slow-burning ache began to form in my chest. I realized that I wasn’t breathing. I coughed. “I knew some members of his family,” I said carefully.

He tucked a strand of hair back behind my ear. Nothing. None of it meant anything. “And? Did they do something to you?”

I started to shake my head.

But then I stopped.

Would telling him really do any damage? I obviously couldn’t go into detail—provide any real specifics—but surely showing him what I’d been through…surely that wouldn’t be too terribly irresponsible? He already knew that I was a muggle-born. He knew that I was a Gryffindor. He knew that I was from the bloody future, for God’s sake. And this—what he was asking—what he wanted to know—it wouldn’t affect the timeline. It was personal. It was about me. It was, out of all of my secrets, perhaps the only one that was really mine to tell.

But did he deserve to know? After all, he had been, at least inadvertently, the cause of it. Of what happened. Of what went wrong. He might not have been the one to hold the knife, but—

No.

Not him.

It hadn’t been him. Tom Riddle was dead and gone when Bellatrix Lestrange had carved that word—that hateful fucking word—into my skin. Tom Riddle had had nothing to do with it. He hadn’t been there. Tom Riddle no longer existed in my world. At some point in the fifty-year interim, he had made the permanent transition into Lord Voldemort. He wasn’t Tom Riddle. My scar—that hateful fucking word—had nothing to do with him.

It didn’t mean anything.

I reached for the buttons on the cuff of my Oxford. My hands were shaking.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m just going to show you something,” I replied, wincing at the barely discernible tremor in my voice.

I folded back my sleeve, rolling it up, exposing the waxy pink outline of the scar—

Mudblood.

It had been carved crudely, without the aid of magic. It was large, spanning the space between the interior of my wrist and the base of my elbow. It was ugly. The configuration of the letters was irregular, almost childlike, and some lines were thicker than others. I lifted my arm, turning it so that the scar caught the flickering light from the fire. It looked shiny. It had healed angrily, unpleasantly, the skin stretched taut over the incisions.

It didn’t mean anything.

It took several minutes for him to react. The only outward, obvious sign of his distress was the way his arms locked around my waist like a vice, almost of their own volition. But when he did finally speak, it was harsh, guttural, violent—

“Fuck.”

I almost smiled. “It was quite painful,” I said, my tone uncharacteristically distant. “She—I mean, the person who did it—used a special knife that made healing it particularly difficult. They wanted to make sure I had a reminder, I think. As if—as if I could possibly ever forget.”

He swallowed. I felt the motion against the back of my head. “A—a Lestrange did this to you?” he asked, his fingers hovering over my arm. He seemed unwilling to touch the scar.

“To be fair,” I answered, “it was a Lestrange by marriage. But the name—I don’t know. It resonates.”

He nodded jerkily, his jaw scraping against my hair. I was suddenly anxious to see his face—his expression. It was important. I didn’t dwell on why. I just turned around.

It didn’t mean anything.

His eyes were closed—screwed shut, his lids creased, his lashes fluttering from the pressure. A faint red flush stained his cheeks. His lips were compressed in a thin, flat line. His nostrils were flared. He looked vicious. I couldn’t help but shiver.

“And Edmond let this happen?” he ground out, still not opening his eyes. I wondered what I would see if he did.

“Edmond wasn’t there. I’m not even sure if he’s even still—” I broke off awkwardly.

A muscle in his neck twitched. “A Lestrange did this to you,” he repeated dully.

I faltered. “Look at me,” I pleaded.

His eyes remained resolutely closed. It meant nothing. “Were you—are you—how did it happen?”

I ran my tongue along the slightly uneven ridge of my teeth. “Tom,” I murmured. “Look at me.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath—and still, still he didn’t open his eyes. “Just tell me. Tell me how it happened. I want to know.”

I looped my arms around his neck and leaned into him, pressing my chest against his and savoring the solid, steady warmth of his body. It didn’t mean anything. “I was—ah—captured.”

“Captured?”

I chewed my bottom lip. “Yes.”

He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t understand. Do they hunt muggle-borns in the future?” he asked seriously.

I glanced at my scarred forearm. “Not normally, no,” I hedged.

“Then why would you have been captured by anyone? Are you some kind of fugitive?”

“You know I can’t tell you,” I reminded him softly.

His eyes snapped open—

And I couldn’t help but gasp.

Because while his gaze was always almost preternaturally intense—this was different. This was more. This was rage, raw and blinding. This was dark. This was desperate. This was proof that he could kill—proof that he would kill. And I knew, intellectually, that I should have been repulsed. I should have been horrified. I should have wanted to back off, run away; I should have wanted to escape.

Instead, though, all I could do was remember the day I was tortured. I remembered screams—my screams, surely, but there had been other screams, deeper screams—Ron and Harry.

I waited for the sharp pinch in my gut that usually accompanied thoughts of them. It didn’t come. I wondered if I was finally numb.

It didn’t mean anything.

I remembered the way Ron had begged her to let me go—to take him, let me go, to make it stop, just fucking make it stop—and the way Harry had charged into the drawing room, guilt and shame warring with the relief he clearly felt at finding me alive—I remembered the aftermath, my recovery, and how much time I’d spent—how much time I’d fucking wasted—reassuring them that I was okay, that everything would be okay—

Yet their eyes had never looked like Tom Riddle’s when they thought about what Bellatrix Lestrange had done to me. They had never looked murderous. They had never looked dangerous. They had never looked like there was nothing in the entire world more important to them than fucking decimating whoever it was who had dared to hurt me.

It meant nothing.

“Hermione,” he said hoarsely. I decided that I liked the way he said my name. He made it sound lyrical—he made it sound pretty. As if he was caressing the syllables with his tongue. “You have to tell me. Tell me how it happened. I have to know.”

My throat felt sore. It didn’t mean anything. “Why do you care so much?” I demanded.

And then, an instant later—

Regret.

It was immediate and sharp and piercing. I regretted asking the question. I regretted wanting an answer. Because he’d already made it clear what I was to him. I was a trophy. I was a possession. He obviously found me physically appealing, but that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. That wasn’t what I wanted from him.

And—fucking hell, but that realization was enough to expel the air from my lungs so fast I could barely keep up with it—

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” he said again. “I don’t know why I care so much. Does it matter?”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t respond. Silence fell—it wasn’t comfortable. His knee was digging rather painfully into my backside. A clock in the far corner of the room was ticking loudly. How late was it? Well past curfew. Melania was almost certainly already asleep.

Nothing. It meant nothing.

“The man who attacked you,” he said abruptly. “The squib. He was hired by a Malfoy.”

My jaw went slack. My brain tried to process the new information. His hands slid to my waist. He left them there.

“I thought that you said you didn’t know who hired him,” I said dumbly. “You said…you said he didn’t know.”

He sneered. “I lied.”

“Obviously.”

“It was a Malfoy.”

“Abraxas?”

He hesitated. “Unlikely.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

He quirked his lips. “Does he strike you as the type to mastermind a plot on someone’s life, sweetheart?”

I smirked bitterly. “You’re too arrogant, Tom. You should really stop underestimating people.”

His jaw tightened. It didn’t mean anything. “You think I’m underestimating Malfoy?” he asked incredulously.

“Well, he certainly can’t be too terribly stupid—don’t you have him doing something important for you after graduation? In France?”

I was guessing; there had been enough thinly veiled references to whatever it was Abraxas had been ordered to do that I would have had to have been deaf to not hear them. I hadn’t been able to glean much more than the basics from their conversations, but from the microscopic twitch in Tom’s temple, it seemed quite likely that even knowing the basics was enough to make him nervous.

“How do you know about that?” he demanded, his voice low. “Did Malfoy tell you?”

“No,” I replied slowly, “but I’m not an idiot, as much as you’d like to think I am. You’ve all let enough things slip that I’m more than capable of connecting the dots.”

He studied me intently. And then he moved his hand over my cheek. Nothing. It meant nothing. “Clever girl,” he murmured. His thumb curled around my chin. He rubbed the skin there lightly. “So soft. So pretty. So mine.”

He was kissing me before I could think to react—brushing our lips together tenderly, as if I might break—and I felt the muscles in my face start to quiver, the way they did when I was trying my hardest not to cry—he was just being so gentle, unexpectedly gentle, and I thought, wildly, that this kiss was less about marking his territory and more about—

No.

No.

He was not gentle. This didn’t mean anything. None of it meant anything. I was his—that’s all he was trying to tell me. That’s all that mattered to him. His possessiveness was not sweet. It was disturbing. He was not capable of any of the things I had suddenly, without any warning at all, decided to crave. God, he’d threatened to fucking kill me three weeks ago. Rather believably. He was not gentle. None of it meant anything. Unless—

I pulled back. “Tom,” I said breathlessly.

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember the…conversation we had a few weeks ago? About—about your family?”

He scowled. “Yes.”

Now or never, I thought timidly. “Would you do it? Would you actually…hurt me?” I blurted out. I couldn’t bring myself to say kill.

He was silent for several seconds. It meant nothing. “How important is honesty to you, sweetheart?”

I toyed with the short black hair at the base of his skull. “It’s a simple question,” I said. “Yes or no. Although—I suppose your reluctance to provide me with an answer is somewhat telling.”

He didn’t argue. My stomach lurched. It didn’t mean anything. “At the time I said that, my answer would have been…yes. Yes, I would have…hurt you.” He dragged a finger down the length of my spine. It felt intimate. It didn’t mean anything. 

“And now?”

He looked at me searchingly. “Things are different.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

Abruptly, he pushed me to the side and got to his feet. He appeared very tall from my position on the couch. “I’m used to having you around,” he said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.

“That still isn’t an answer.”

He stared down at me, clearly agitated. It meant nothing. “You’re going to be extraordinarily useful to me at some point,” he continued, as if I hadn’t even spoken.

I bit my lip. “That’s still not an answer,” I said again, slowly standing up. My eyes were barely level with the top of his chest. I glanced up at him through my lashes.

It didn’t mean anything.

“If I lied to you and said no—no, I wouldn’t hurt you—would that make you feel better, sweetheart?” he asked mockingly.

I went still. “Is that your answer?”

He flinched. It meant nothing. “Macmillan—the squib who attacked you—didn’t know who hired him,” he said, purposefully avoiding my gaze. “He was wearing a ring. A Malfoy ring. I doubt he knew what it did or who it belonged to, but it was distinctive enough for me to recognize.”

Dazed, I furrowed my brow. I remembered the ring. “A ring…like the one Abraxas gave me?”

“Similar. Its purpose is different but its function is the same. I’m assuming it was supposed to activate at a certain time to take you…elsewhere.”

“And you’re—you’re sure it was from the Malfoys?”

He sniffed irritably. “Quite sure, sweetheart.”

I grimaced. “I don’t suppose you happen to know what the Malfoys might want with me?”

His eyes flashed. It didn’t mean anything. “No. I don’t. But I’ll find out. And if Abraxas had anything at all to do with that fucking squib trying to hurt you, the Malfoys will very quickly find themselves without an heir.”

I swallowed. “I…see.”

He appraised me thoughtfully, his expression guarded. “You’re never surprised when I say things like that,” he observed.

I blinked rapidly. “Why would I be?”

His mouth twisted. “Seriously?”

I looked away. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop trying to get me to tell you things about the bloody future,” I snapped. “I get that you’re rather accomplished at being a manipulative bastard, but kindly keep in mind that I’m not an utter imbecile the next time you want to have me on, thanks ever so.”

His face twitched—and then he was laughing, really laughing, and the sound was rich and infectious and fucking mesmerizing—

It didn’t mean anything.

“You should get to bed,” he suggested after a moment, reaching for my hand. “Come on. I’ll take you.”

He led me down the girls’ hallway, our fingers entwined. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He looked strangely content—relaxed, even. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Hadn’t we just argued? We came to a stop in front of my door.

“Well,” I said quietly, leaning into the doorframe. “Good night, then.”

He smiled and planted a soft, lingering kiss on my forehead. Nothing. It meant nothing. “The answer to your question, by the way, is no,” he whispered into my skin. “No, I wouldn’t hurt you. Not now. Good night, sweetheart.”

And then he was walking away and I was standing still and I could have sworn my heart had forgotten how to beat properly because there was no way—no fucking way—that what it was doing so furiously, so quickly, could possibly be considered normal—

I couldn’t help it.

I was fucking melting.

It didn’t mean anything.

 

---

 

“Miss Granger! What a lovely surprise.”

It was the next morning. A Monday. I’d woken up tired, my eyes practically glued shut—I’d wanted nothing more than to bury my face in my emerald green pillow and go back to sleep, but there was something else I needed to do. Something that I’d been putting off. Something important.

I had to go see Dumbledore.

I wasn’t stupid, no matter how idiotically I’d been behaving since I’d arrived in 1944. I had heard all the warnings; the not-so-subtle implications that there was much more to Dumbledore than wisdom and kindness and selflessly brilliant political machinations. Part of me was unwilling—unable—to accept that his motivation to help me stemmed from something other than simple generosity. He was Harry’s mentor. He was our beloved Headmaster. He believed in second chances and redemption and the healing power of love. He had saved us all, so many times, too many times—he was the embodiment of trustworthy, wasn’t he?

Except—

Hadn’t I thought, on more than one occasion, that the way he used people, moving them around like they were nothing more than helpless, hapless chess pieces—hadn’t I thought it horrible? Hadn’t I questioned his judgment? Hadn’t I questioned why he was so insistent on pinning the hopes of thousands—the entire fucking future of the wizarding world—on the too-skinny shoulders of a seventeen year-old boy?

He was not infallible. He was not perfect. And I knew that those types of absolutes didn’t exist, anyway. Right and wrong, black and white—hardly anything ever coincided with one or the other. Tom Riddle was proof enough of that. But did that mean that I had been wrong in trusting Dumbledore?

When I had initially arrived in the past, my thoughts had been a confusing mash of fear and denial and uncertainty. I hadn’t known what to do. I still didn’t know what to do. And he had been familiar; comforting. He’d given me answers. He’d given me explanations. He’d given me a new identity and a past that sounded convincing and he’d done it all with a confident, compassionate smile—those two weeks before school had started were a blur, to be sure, but I remembered vividly how embarrassingly eager I had been to believe every single thing he’d told me.

But now—

Now, I was standing outside of his classroom, looking into his twinkling blue eyes, and wondering why the fuck it had taken me two whole months to fully understand the fact that I was not safe here.

“Good morning, Professor,” I said briskly. “Are you busy?”

He stepped aside and motioned for me to follow him inside. “I believe I have some time before breakfast,” he replied, shutting the door behind us. “Is there something in particular you wished to discuss?”

I moved into the room, glancing around at the rows and rows of empty desks. “Have you made any progress, sir? With…my problem?”

He settled himself in a chair behind his desk. “A colleague in France is actually doing some experimenting with time turners,” he informed me cheerfully. “He’s made quite a bit of progress. Of course, he’s still curiously unwilling to test his work on humans—there’s some danger of third-degree burns, from what I understand—but it’s only a matter of time, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

I nodded slowly. “That sounds promising, sir. He’s been successful in moving forward in time, then?”

“An hour at a time, yes.”

I forced a smile and shuffled my feet. “That’s…wonderful.”

He pursed his lips. “Indeed. Tell me—how are you feeling, Miss Granger?”

My forehead creased in a frown. “I’m…quite well, sir. Why do you ask?”

His eyes sparkled languidly. “You’ll have to forgive an old man for being remiss in his duties as your guardian,” he replied calmly. “But I wanted to give you some time to recover from your ordeal before bringing it up with you.”

I felt the familiar stirrings of acute irritation. “Ordeal?”

He tapped his long, gnarled fingers together. “Your attack, Miss Granger. Three weeks ago. Surely you haven’t forgotten about it?”

I furrowed my brow. “You know about that?”

He offered me a small, rather secretive smile. “Few things happen at Hogwarts that I remain unaware of, Miss Granger,” he explained with a casual wave of his hand.

My spine tingled. Why did that sound so much—so very fucking much—like a threat? “I see.”

He leaned forward in his chair. “I do wonder, however, why you didn’t immediately come to me,” he went on.

I opened my mouth. No sound emerged. “Well—” I stalled, thinking frantically.

“I must say,” he interrupted, “I was rather disappointed to see that you seem to find young Mr. Riddle a more trustworthy source of comfort than myself. Especially after I did do my best to warn you that Gellert would more than likely make an attempt to…acquire you.”

“You think that Grindelwald was trying to kidnap me?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Of course, Miss Granger. Who else would it be?” he asked innocently.

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m sure I don’t know,” I drawled, picking at my fingernails. “Sir.”

He sighed. “How are you liking Slytherin, Miss Granger?” he asked, deftly changing the subject. “Horace has mentioned, more than once, how very well you’ve managed to fit in with the rest of the house. He is particularly pleased with your friendship with Mr. Riddle.”

I leaned against a nearby desk and leisurely crossed my ankles. “It’s fine,” I replied with a shrug. “Most people are surprisingly polite, actually.”

“And Mr. Riddle?” he pressed.

“What about him?” I countered, an edge to my voice.

He clucked his tongue. “Oh, I don’t mean to offend,” he said hastily, resting his hands on the edge of his desk. “I’m simply…concerned. Your initial impression of him was substantially less than favorable, after all. What changed, if I might be so bold?”

The rough wood surface of the desk was digging into the backs of my thighs. The lone window on the opposite side of the classroom was letting in sharp, bright white prisms of early-morning sunlight. Powdery clouds of chalk dust were floating inconspicuously in the still, stale air. I noticed all of these things—fucking all of them—while I considered his seemingly innocuous question.

What had changed?

Well—

Everything had changed. So much had changed. Too much had changed. And I wanted to say something to him, something cutting and wry and pointed about how I could write him a list if he was really so fucking curious—a list of all the ways I’d had to change, all the ways I’d had to adapt—I’d fought in a bloody fucking war in my own time, for God’s sake, but two months in 1944 had made me feel like nothing more than a naïve little girl in the midst of a very bad dream.

A fucking nightmare.

“It’s like you said, Professor,” I finally said, straightening my shoulders and meeting his probing, suspicious gaze. “Tom is very popular with the other students. Antagonizing him seemed like a rather silly thing to do.”

His posture stayed relaxed, but his grip on the desk turned his knuckles white. “Well, then,” he said genially. “I’m glad you’ve taken my advice to heart, Miss Granger.”

“Of course, sir,” I replied. “But—if you’ll excuse me—I think I should be getting to breakfast.”

“Yes, yes,” he said, immediately standing up and maneuvering out from behind his desk. “I also have a class to prepare for.”

I opened the door and stepped out into the hall. “Thank you for your time, Professor,” I said politely. “You’ll keep me updated on whatever progress your friend in France makes?”

He looked at me shrewdly. “I will,” he agreed with a tense nod in my direction. “Have a good morning, Miss Granger.”

And then he closed the door with a loud, resounding click and left me alone in the coldly empty corridor. Puzzled by his abrupt dismissal, I made my way to the Great Hall with a pensive expression on my face.

“Hermione!”

Tom Riddle.

I felt myself react—smile—before I could remind myself not to. I watched him approach me with a vague feeling of unease. He was holding a single white rose. It didn’t have thorns.

It didn’t mean anything.

“Good morning,” I greeted him, nervously adjusting the strap of my bag.

“Where have you been? I waited for you.” He reached out to take my satchel from me. I let him.

“I had to go see Professor Dumbledore. I haven’t really spoken with him since…” I didn’t finish.

He smirked and slung an arm around my waist. My head fell to the side, landing on his shoulder, as he walked me into the Great Hall. He was still holding the rose. Its petals tickled the underside of my jaw.

“Did he say anything interesting?”

I rubbed my cheek against his sweater. It felt soft. Nothing. It meant nothing. Less than nothing, even. “He thinks Grindelwald was behind the attack,” I said quietly.

He guided me into my seat and placed the rose on the table in between us. It didn’t mean anything. “You told him about it?” he asked, his tone scrupulously even. He began to pour me a glass of orange juice.

“He already knew.”

He snorted. “Of course he did,” he muttered.

I methodically buttered a thick piece of toast. “He said he knows everything that happens at Hogwarts,” I remarked casually.

He rested a heavy hand on the top of my leg. It meant nothing. “And do you believe him, sweetheart?”

I stared down at my lap, transfixed by the sight of his large, graceful hand on my thigh—his fingernails were clean and neatly trimmed, nearly translucent, with a faint pink stain in the center of each. His thumb was methodically stroking the wool of my skirt. It didn’t mean anything.

“No,” I replied firmly. “No, I don’t believe him. No one knows everything.”

He squeezed my thigh. I took a bite of my toast. The white rose was half-covered by each of our breakfast plates.

It meant nothing.

 

---

 

Chapter 13: Chapter 13

---

 

October 17, 1944

 

I do not—

I cannot—

I don’t—

I do not know what I am doing.

I feel as if I am perilously close to losing any semblance of control—as if everything I have worked and plotted and planned for has become…unimportant. It is disconcerting.

And it is her fault.

In the beginning, I had reasons—lots of reasons, sensible reasons—for being interested in her. I’m sure of it. She is from the fucking future; that alone is reason enough to keep her safe. To keep her close.

But she—

I am not stupid. I know that I am hopelessly besotted. I am not going to allow myself to pretend all is well and nothing has changed when—

Well.

Fucking everything has changed, hasn’t it?

All of it. All of it has changed. I can no longer spend fifteen fucking minutes in her company without wanting—needing?—to touch her. It is a compulsion that is as puzzling as it is troublesome. I overheard Malfoy telling Nott that it was right pathetic how I was allowing her to lead me around by my cock. Which is—

Laughable, really. Not to mention inaccurate.

Whatever intimacies I’ve shared with her have not resulted in anything even remotely resembling physical gratification—not for me, at least. Not that I cared at the time. Not that I was even bothered at the time.

Which is—

Fucking hell, I stuck my fucking tongue in her fucking cunt and fucking—and I fucking liked it. I bloody well liked it. She tasted salty and sweet and so incredibly good that I couldn’t bring myself to brush my teeth before I went to bed—I so very badly wanted to remember the flavor—her flavor—exactly, just in case she never let me do it again.

And, God, do I want to do it again.

And again.

And again.

I’ve found that there’s a peculiar sort of…thrill involved in making her come. She’s normally so tense. Reserved. Careful. Watching her body unravel is intoxicating—her eyes go dark, like burnt caramel, and her muscles fucking melt, there’s not another word for it—she is beautiful when she comes and before she comes and after she comes—I could spend hours—days—months—fucking years making sure she—

No.

Fuck.

No.

I sound like—

I sound bloody fucking ridiculous. I sound like Malfoy sounded after he got that Ravenclaw to suck his cock on the train home after fifth year—when he claimed she did it so well he was going to marry her, half-blood or not.

But Hermione would be better than that.

Fuck, would she be better than that. She’d be perfect. Innocent. She’d start with a lick—a tiny one, hesitant and curious, but then she’d realize she quite likes the taste of me and she’d start to use her mouth—she’d take just the tip at first, because she’s so small and I’m so large and she wouldn’t be sure how much of my cock could even fit—and then she’d look up at me, wondering if she was doing it right, and I’d say something—fuck, I’d say something encouraging, something to put her more at ease—and then she’d suck, lightly, and I’d probably make some kind of helpless, desperate moaning sound because it felt so fucking good—and then she’d get more confident, because she can tell that I like what she’s doing, and she’d open her mouth wider and my hips would jerk forward and my cock would hit the back of her throat and she’d choke a little bit but it would be so fucking tight that I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from coming—and she’d swallow it, every last drop, and then I’d apologize, because she’s not that kind of girl, she’s better than that, and then I’d pull her into bed with me and put my arms around her and—

No.

Fuck.

This is—

I can’t even wank properly anymore. This girl is fucking emasculating me and I’m just—I’m letting her.

Not that she’s aware of it. She still doesn’t trust me. She still measures everything I say, weighs every word that comes out of my mouth. She’s still impressively guarded when she looks at me—like she’s waiting for me to harm her in some unforgivably violent way. She has no idea that I’m about half-convinced I’m completely incapable of hurting her. She has no idea that she’s inspired the most absurdly uncomfortable sense of…ownership—I’ve always been fiercely protective of my possessions, but my possessions have never before been human.

Perhaps if I fuck her, this will all go away. Perhaps Malfoy has the right of it. Perhaps—

She isn’t safe here. I knew that a month ago, of course, but now that Dumbledore seems to be catching on to the fact that she’s rather less than pleased with him, I confess that I’m concerned. He’s aware of her circumstances—obviously—and I’ve long since deduced that claiming her as his niece was nothing more than a ploy to draw attention to her existence. I just can’t fathom why. What does he get out of this? Why go through the trouble of hiding her in plain sight—only to leave her vulnerable and ignorant and susceptible to the poorly-planned whims of potential kidnappers? He’s the scion of the Light, for God’s sake—the idea of sacrificing an innocent young girl should nauseate him. It doesn’t make any sense.

But she isn’t any safer in her own time. She hasn’t told me why, but—

It has something to do with her being a muggle-born. A mudblood.

Mudblood.

Bloody fucking hell.

It isn’t a word that I’ve ever given much consideration. I thought it preposterous, actually, the first time I heard Lestrange use it. And, oh, how he uses it—casually, without thinking, again and again and again, as if by simple repetition he can make it more than just a pitifully pointless blood slur. It’s an ugly word, certainly—crass and somehow implicitly offensive—but it isn’t one that has ever bothered me. Not until Sunday. Not until I saw—

Fucking hell.

Her arm—

It hurt to look at. It hurt to see her skin—lovely skin, pale and warm and soft—fucking ruined like that. I mean—someone fucking carved that word into her body. Someone took a fucking knife and butchered her fucking arm—the physical agony was likely inconceivable, but surprisingly, that’s the least disturbing aspect of the entire fucking thing.

No.

It’s what it means that left such a sour taste in the back of my throat I was terrified I would retch. Someone—a fucking Lestrange—meant to scar her. Literally. Figuratively. Emotionally. Someone—a fucking Lestrange—used a cursed blade to make sure she would always know—always remember—precisely what she was to them.

I am not a stranger to cruelty. My Knights can attest to my utter lack of a conscience. (Malfoy especially. Fucking idiot.) Inflicting pain—it serves a purpose. I understand that better than most. But when that purpose is so—

I do not—

Degrading.

She should never be made to feel like that. She is as much a victim of the circumstances of her birth as I am—and God knows I couldn’t help what a travesty that was. And she is…brave. I’ve never had any inclination to feel appreciative for virtues that are so summarily moralistic as to be annoying—but when confronted with that awful scar—that awful word—I was suddenly grateful that she was a Gryffindor in her old life. Because—surely it takes courage—that grotesquely overrated trait I’ve never felt more than a passing sort of disdain for—to face what she did and come out of it whole?

And the thought of her being anything less than whole leaves me…

Fucking furious.

Blood purity is another one of those bizarre, outdated Pureblood beliefs that quite baffled me when I initially entered the wizarding world. Much like tracking device engagement rings and a propensity to inbreed—it makes little outward sense. Luckily, I was able to recognize what a sore spot the issue is for most of my peers; they are all so blinded by their own prejudice that it was relatively easy to get them to think of me as one of them. To get them to follow me. To take advantage of their single-minded stupidity and pledge their friendship, fortunes, and futures—all to a cause that I understand, intellectually, but have no more interest in than I do becoming Minister of Magic. Their priority—blood purity—is so misguided as to be considered a joke. It won’t matter, of course, when I’ve accomplished what I’ve set out to. But part of me, the part that inwardly flinches whenever I remember that I am, in fact, only a half-blood orphan—part of me relishes the idea that one day soon they’ll have to accept that I manipulated them all so masterfully—a pack of allegedly superior Slytherins, no less—that by the time it occurred to them how dreadfully they were being used…

It will be too late.

Much too fucking late.

And then—

God.

It was a fucking Lestrange. A fucking Lestrange hurt her. She was quick to assure me that Edmond had had nothing to do with it. She even implied that she didn’t know if he was even alive in her time. But all that means to me is that it was more than likely Edmond’s fucking spawn who did it—who hurt her.

No—a Lestrange by marriage, she said. A Pureblood. And a woman, evidently. I wonder if Hermione would tell me—

She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t risk the bloody timeline. (I desperately need a counter-argument for that.)

No.

She wouldn’t tell me.

Which means that Edmond is the closest thing I have to a guilty party.

I’ll have to find a knife.

 

--TMR

 

---

 

October 18, 1944

 

The next day, I was partnered with Abraxas in Potions, much to Tom’s very vocal dismay. Abraxas had merely smirked and joined me at my table, draping a nonchalant arm across the back of my chair as Tom looked on, his expression irate.

“So. You and Tom,” Abraxas remarked casually. “How the fuck did that happen, darling?”

I looked up from the list of ingredients I was checking. “We have a lot in common,” I replied uneasily.

His jaw tightened. “Like what?” he ground out.

I swallowed nervously and picked up a vial of glittering black beetle eyes. I had never seen Abraxas behave so…aggressively. Everything from his posture—tense, imposing, and unimaginably solid—to his eyes—cold, hard, grey, and beautiful—seemed to me a warning to tread carefully. He was bitter. He was angry. I knew why.

“Well,” I said slowly, stalling. “We’re both orphans.”

He reached for a stirring rod. “How fucking adorable.”

I felt an unexpected pang of sadness. Abraxas had been distant, of course, for almost a month—ever since he’d seen me walk into the Great Hall hand-in-hand with Tom and figured out what that meant. He had gaped at us—like a fucking fish, Tom had later observed unkindly—before gulping down his orange juice and shooting a glare of such obvious, vehement violence in Tom’s direction that I hadn’t been able to look away. And now, three weeks later, Abraxas was practically a stranger again. There were no more sweetly exaggerated terms of endearment; there was no more innocent flirting. He no longer waited for me in the common room. He no longer offered me a playful, lopsided grin whenever Edmond made a particularly derogatory remark about the Gryffindor quidditch team.

I often wondered if what I was feeling when I thought about him was what it felt like to miss someone who was, for all intents and purposes, still physically there—a vague sort of regret that was tinged liberally with guilt. It wasn’t overwhelming—no, not that—but it was still somehow devastating. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I didn’t know how to make it better.

Because the thing was—

Harry and Ron were fucking gone. I was not going to get them back. Missing them was bittersweet; a plethora of fond, blurry memories filled with laughter and adventure and a deliciously warm sense of right. I rarely thought about how everything had ended—how they had ended. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. They were gone. They were not coming back. And missing them—as terrible as it was—was almost easier because of that. I could miss them and remember them and know that there was nothing I could do to get them back.

Abraxas, though—

Abraxas had been my friend—the first one I’d ever had outside of Harry and Ron. I had trusted him, in my own way. He had told me jokes and listened to me talk and given me the tiniest sliver of hope that maybe—fucking eventually—I wouldn’t feel so alone in the past. But not anymore. Not now. No—now, he only bothered to speak to me when he knew that Tom was watching. He’d pass me a plate of toast at breakfast and make sure that our fingers brushed. He’d hold open a door for me, only to slam it in Tom’s face when he tried to follow. He was derisive. He was irritating. He was petulant.

But he was not confrontational. Not really. Which made his current behavior all the more alarming.

“Abraxas,” I said softly, picking up a short, stubby ginger root. My hands were steady. I was oddly pleased by that. “I wish you wouldn’t act like this. I…I miss you.”

His nostrils flared. “It’s just—I thought we had an understanding,” he responded, his voice low. He used his wand to light a small fire under our cauldron. “I thought we—damn it, Hermione, you fucking know what I thought.”

My eyes widened. “That’s hardly my fault,” I retorted, sliding a thick wooden cutting board in front of me. “I was honest with you. I told you—I told you that I didn’t see you like that. You just didn’t want to listen.”

He scoffed. “You kept the fucking ring,” he snarled, rummaging in his bag for a small silver knife. My breath caught. “What else was I supposed to think?”

My chair scraped against the floor as I pushed it back. “You begged me to keep the ring, in case you’ve forgotten,” I snapped, snatching the knife from his grasp.

“Oh, no—I remember, kitten,” he shot back. I winced. Kitten. “I remember you trying to sell me some pathetic fucking story about your dead best friend—as if fucking telling me that would make me fucking feel better.”

I began to slice the ginger root into thin slivers. I didn’t respond. I couldn’t respond. He was getting dangerously close to saying something he couldn’t take back. Something I wouldn’t let him take back. We worked in silence for several more minutes. Until—

“Have you fucked him yet?” he asked abruptly.

My knife slipped on the cutting board, nicking my finger. It stung. “Excuse me?” I demanded in a heated whisper. I glanced around the classroom. Tom was the only one watching us.

Abraxas shrugged. “It’s a valid question. It’s been—what—almost a month?”

I threw down my knife. It clattered loudly. “Shut up, Abraxas.”

He yanked the cutting board closer. The tiny droplets of blood that had leaked from my fingertip smeared across the surface of the table. We both ignored the stains. “That’s a no,” he sneered, sloppily tossing the decimated ginger root into our cauldron. “Have you at least bothered to suck his cock? Riddle’s a good-looking bloke, you know, even if it has taken him six fucking years to take advantage of it. He’s not going to stick around and watch you play the virgin forever.”

I gritted my teeth. “You’re disgusting,” I spat, blindly grabbing my wand and summoning two empty glass vials.

He crossed his arms over his chest, the muscles in his shoulders bunched up and straining against the snow-white cotton of his shirt. I was struck, dimly, by how very different his body was from Tom’s. “Haven’t done that either?” he snorted. “God, Granger, what are all the fucking flowers for, then?”

I began to ladle our finished potion into a vial. “You’re an ass,” I said flatly.

He viciously scribbled our names on a small brown label. “I think I lucked out when you chose him over me,” he went on, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “I doubt you would have ever been worth the fucking wait.”

I felt tears—traitorous, salty, stupid fucking tears—prick the back of my eyelids. “Why are you being like this, Abraxas?” I whispered.

He paused. “Being like what?”

“So mean,” I managed to answer. “You’re being mean and spiteful and I don’t—just—why? I understand if you don’t want to be my—my friend any longer. I do. I understand. You can’t help—I understand. But that’s no excuse for—”

“No excuse for what, sweetheart?” a new voice interrupted.

Tom.

I twisted in my seat to glance at him, biting my lower lip. His eyes were on my face, searching and restless and glimmering with the faintest trace of concern. He was standing behind my chair, his hands resting on my shoulders, his grip tight even as his thumbs rubbed soothing circles against the back of my neck. I shivered at the contact.

“Nothing, Tom,” I replied with a grimace. “We were just…having a bit of a petty argument. About our potion. Nothing important.”

Tom’s gaze flicked towards Abraxas. “Alright, Malfoy?”

Abraxas scowled. “Alright, Riddle.”

Tom studied him for a long, drawn-out moment. He didn’t appear to be particularly upset, but it was always difficult to accurately gauge his emotions—I’d compared him to a statue before; beautiful, carved from cold, unfeeling marble—and I hadn’t really been wrong.

“Looks like you’re done, then,” Tom said, reaching around me to pick up my notes and pack them neatly in my bag. “Come on, sweetheart. It stopped raining last night. We can take a walk around the lake before lunch.”

I didn’t look at Abraxas as I stood up and took Tom’s hand.

“We’ll talk later, Malfoy,” Tom murmured, his dark eyes glinting in the dim dungeon candlelight. Even I could hear the lurking promise of a threat in his voice.

Abraxas stared at our hands—fingers entwined easily, so easily, like there was nowhere else they would ever fit any better—and pressed his lips together. “Hey, Tom?” he asked suddenly, loudly, forcefully. “While I’ve got you, mate—could you clear something up for me?”

Tom adopted an expression of mild disinterest. “I suppose that would depend on what it is, exactly, that needs clearing up.”

Abraxas threw me one of his trademark grins—sloppy and lopsided and almost achingly engaging—but there was something wrong with it, wrong with him, and instead of making me feel nostalgic and warm and possibly even happy, all it did was make me wish that Tom had whisked me out of this dingy little classroom before Abraxas had decided to say anything else.

“Oh, well, the lads and I—Lestrange and Nott and Avery and—well, you know—we have a bit of a bet going on,” he explained, chuckling.

Tom didn’t smile. “Gambling is against school rules, Malfoy."

“Yeah, yeah,” Abraxas replied with a nonchalant wave of his arm. “But this bet’s actually about you, and it’s all just for fun, anyway—loser’s got to wear a fucking Gryffindor tie for a week—and I tried to get Granger to play along and tell me what I wanted to know, but she got a but prickly about the whole thing, so…”

My stomach lurched.

No.

He wasn’t—he couldn’t be—

“What does Hermione have to do with it?” Tom asked icily.

Bile hit the back of my tongue.

“We bet on how long it would take you to fuck her, of course,” Abraxas drawled, arching a single pale-blonde brow. “I said it would be at least two months—our girl’s a bit of a prude, isn’t she?—but Lestrange seemed bizarrely fucking adamant that you’d bag her in a couple of weeks, and God knows we’d all like to see that fucker in some red and gold—”

Tom’s fingers squeezed mine—just once—before he gently let me go. “And what were Nott and Avery’s bets?” he asked.

Abraxas looked confused for a discomfiting half-second. “Ah—Nott said a month and Avery said…” he trailed off with a smirk. “Avery said she’d never take her knickers off, not even for you.”

Tom nodded slowly and seemed to consider what he’d just been told. But then his eyes went shuttered and his jaw went tense and he was taking a menacing, measured step towards Abraxas—

“You made a series of very grave errors today, Malfoy,” Tom said conversationally. “The least of which was speculating on the state of my girlfriend’s knickers. Tell me—were her multiple rejections of you not enough of a deterrent? Do you need me to be more demonstrative in my affections? Perhaps a meaningful grope at breakfast every morning to really cement the understanding into your pitifully thick Pureblood skull that she doesn’t want you?”

Abraxas’ face pinched angrily. “That has nothing—”

“Or maybe you need a lesson that will leave more of a…lasting impression,” Tom went on silkily. “Is that it?”

Abraxas flinched. “Look, it’s just a bloody bet, there’s no need to—”

“On the contrary,” Tom interrupted. “There’s every need.”

Abraxas didn’t respond. The classroom was quiet.

“We’ll talk later, Malfoy,” Tom said again, turning back to me and clasping my hand in his. “Oh—and you have a week’s worth of detention to serve with Professor Slughorn starting Saturday. For gambling on school grounds.”

I let myself smile as we left.

 

---

 

The seventh year boys’ dormitory smelled like sweat and bleach and—strangely enough—cinnamon.

I wrinkled my nose when Tom opened the door, his hands immediately coming back to grip my waist as he continued raining kisses down the length of my throat. He was breathing hard, his mouth hot against my skin, and I felt a now-familiar tingle pervade the lower half of my abdomen. It felt good. It felt right. It felt like it was supposed to.

“Tom,” I panted, watching blearily as he kicked the door shut and yanked at the knot in his tie. “Your roommates—”

“No one will be stupid enough to bother us,” he mumbled, latching his mouth onto my collar bone and reaching under my skirt to roughly pull me closer. His erection was hard and heavy against my thighs.

“But—”

“It’s fine, sweetheart,” he murmured, grinding his pelvis into mine with a languid roll of his hips. “Everyone’s at dinner.”

And then he did something particularly wonderful with his teeth and his tongue and oh God yes his fingers found their way to the zipper on the side of my skirt and it was in a heap on the floor before I could even stop to blink and he was wrestling with the buttons on his shirt and then it was finally fucking off, thrown to the side, and—

It was unfair, really.

He was tall and slim, the muscles in his torso long, lithe, and supple, not necessarily all that well-defined but still somehow there. His skin was pale—pristine—and there was a faint smattering of silky black hair dusting his chest. His shoulders were broad. His arms looked strong. He was not all that large—but he was graceful, slender, impossibly perfect, and fucking hell but I wanted him.

“Well,” I remarked, my mouth curiously dry. “I’m not at all sure why you even bother with clothes.”

He grinned and hooked an arm around my waist, lowering his head to kiss me. I ran my hands up his back, entranced by the feel of his skin rippling beneath my fingertips—his own hands were cupped around my backside, kneading, grabbing, pulling—and then he was picking me up, wordlessly urging me to wrap my legs around his waist, moaning when the front of my knickers—wet, sticky, already—came in contact with his erection.

“Fuck, you feel good,” he whispered, stumbling towards his four-poster.

He gently dropped me onto the bed, leaving me eye-level with the bulge in his trousers. I nervously licked my lips. He glanced down. His expression turned feral.

“I’ve never—” I started to say.

“Do you want to?” he asked instantly.

I didn’t feign ignorance. “I don’t want to do it wrong,” I confessed.

His eyes darted to my mouth. He looked hungry. “I could—I could, uh, give you…instructions. Or, you know, let you know how you’re doing. If you’d like.”

He wasn’t wearing a belt. He never wore a fucking belt.

“Has anyone ever—”

“No,” he said quickly. “No. But I—I know what feels good.”

I nodded dumbly. “Of course. Yeah.”

His hands went to the fastenings of his trousers. He moved slowly. I felt an insistent pulse between my thighs. “If you—you know—don’t like it…you can just stop,” he said, watching me carefully. “You don’t have to—”

“I’ll be fine,” I replied. “I—I want to do this. I do.”

And I did. I did want to do it—I wanted to see him touch him taste him—and I wanted to do for him what he’d done for me. I wanted him to feel like I had—invincible, incredible—and I wanted it to be because of me. Only me. Only ever me.

“Right. So—I’ll just—” he floundered.

Something inside of me—deep, deep inside of me, so deep it barely even felt real—seemed to crumble in the face of his awkwardness and I couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop it—I knelt up on the bed and pulled his head down towards me and kissed him—hard, fast, eager—and slapped his hands out of the way as I slid the zipper on his trousers down, down, down—

He wasn’t wearing any underwear.

He wasn’t wearing any underwear and because of that his cock immediately sprung out from the placket in his pants and—

It was fascinating. Long and straight and slightly pink with a ruddy red tip—clear fluid was leaking from the head, and I had the sudden urge to lick it off—I wondered what it would taste like, what he would taste like—but he was staring down at me again, a dull flush creeping across his neck, up his jaw, over his cheeks, and it occurred to me that he was embarrassed.

“You don’t wear underwear,” I said stupidly.

His forehead creased in an anxious frown. “I don’t like the…restriction.”

I rested on my heels and went back to studying his—well, his cock. I reached out and drew my index finger down its length. His whole body twitched. I then wrapped my hand around its base and lightly squeezed.

He gasped.

“Should I…” I trailed off tremulously, leaning forward.

“Just—ah—maybe just try licking the tip—” he stuttered.

I stuck my tongue out and swirled it around the head of his cock.

“Fuck, sweetheart, yes, like that, just like that,” he breathed. “Now—just open your mouth—yeah, like that, fuck, just like that—and just—yes—yes, sweetheart—”

I had slowly—ever so slowly—relaxed my jaw and let several inches of his cock slide into my mouth. I closed my lips around him and flicked my tongue against the vein that ran along the underside of his length.

“Just—just—fuck, yeah—suck, sweetheart, please—”

I sucked, my cheeks hollowed out, and marveled at his response—his hips seemed to rock forward without any direction at all—back and forth, over and over—the blunt head of his cock catching the back of my throat—back and forth, over and over—and then it was as if he was fucking my mouth, his fingers in my hair, holding my head in place, and that awful aching emptiness between my thighs seemed to multiply exponentially, turn fucking infinite, and all I wanted—all I fucking wanted—

“That’s it, that’s it, fucking—take it, sweetheart, all of it, yes, yes, just like that—so fucking good—your mouth—I’ve fucking dreamed about this—fuck—fuck—” he babbled.

I could feel saliva pool underneath my tongue, dribble down my chin, and then he changed the angle of his thrusts and I was fucking choking and the spongy pink muscle around my tonsils contracted around his cock and he groaned long and loud and his fingernails dug into my scalp and the pain was extraordinary—

“Fuck fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck I’m going to—I’m fucking—Hermione—” he said helplessly.

He shuddered, and then he growled, and then he came, filling my mouth with something hot and salty and masculine—he tasted precisely like he smelled, I thought hazily.

I glanced up.

He was still staring at me, his eyes glazed over.

I swallowed.

He exhaled sharply.

“I think I did alright,” I coughed. “Don’t you?”

He laughed disbelievingly. “Brilliant, sweetheart,” he replied, collapsing next to me. “You did fucking brilliant.”

And then his arms were around me, and he was pulling me down, arranging my head on his chest, his lips pressed against the top of my head—

My heart pounded into my ribcage. "What did you mean when you said you’d dreamed about me doing that?”

“I meant that I’ve wanked while thinking about this exact scenario more times than I’d care to admit,” he replied with a snort.

I blushed. “Oh.”

“Indeed.”

He rolled me over, tucking a sheet around my shoulders before sitting up. “Think I’ll put a shirt on before anyone comes back from dinner,” he muttered, climbing off the bed.

He headed for a large mahogany chest of drawers and took out a white cotton undershirt, tugging it over his head as he meandered towards the pile of discarded clothing on the floor. He tripped over my skirt, though, and used one of the other boy’s laundry hampers to break his fall. The previous day’s clothes fell out—a pair of pressed black slacks and a nondescript white button-down, one of its sleeves stained bright red with—

Blood.

“Tom?” I whispered.

“What is it, sweetheart?” he replied distractedly.

“Whose shirt is that?” I asked, even though I already knew, I already knew, of course I already fucking knew—

“What shirt?”

I pointed at the laundry hamper. My finger was shaking. “That shirt,” I said. “Surely you see it. It’s covered in blood.”

His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “It’s Lestrange’s.”

“And why is it covered in blood?”

He shrugged. “Because I cut his arm.”

“With what?”

“With a knife.”

My chin quivered. I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t have asked questions I already knew the answers to but I couldn’t seem to fucking stop, couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around the fact that what he’d done was becoming clearer and clearer and clearer—but I needed him to say it, I needed it confirmed, I needed to know, because if there was any leftover doubt—

There just couldn’t be, could there?

"Why did you cut him?”

He pursed his lips. “Because he’s a Lestrange,” he said simply.

Lestrange.

Lestrange.

Lestrange.

“You’re—you’re insane,” I stammered, sitting up and clutching his sheets to my chest. I was still mostly clothed—but I felt exposed in a way that made little sense—naked, my body seemed to whisper—and maybe it was just the way he looked at me, looked through me, his gaze steady and penetrating and so fucking intense it was hard to remember my own name let alone the reason I was so horrified—but then I saw the blood-soaked sleeve of that shirt peeking out from the top of Edmond’s laundry hamper and remembered what he’d done and it didn’t fucking matter that he’d done it for me, done it to avenge me, done it with some sickly twisted idea of justice in mind—blood was blood was blood, red, thick, warm, it was all the same, all of it, and it didn’t fucking matter who it came from, not when nothing he said or did was going to make the scar on my arm—that hateful fucking word—ever go away—not ever not ever not ever it was never going to go away—

But it was more than that, less than that, because a part of me—a small part, please, please, be a small part, please—wasn’t horrified at all. A part of me had seen the stains and heard his explanation and been fucking glad for the retribution, imagined and otherwise. A part of me had recalled the pain and the humiliation and been happy that it had been inflicted on someone else, someone who wasn’t me. And maybe I was a coward for not wanting to face that, for not wanting to admit to it. Maybe I wasn’t any better than him. Maybe I wasn’t better than any of them.

I turned my head to the side.

I took a deep breath.

“Insane,” I repeated, my voice growing stronger. “Absolutely insane.”

He stared at me seriously. His eyes were a brilliant obsidian, shining weakly in the semi-darkness, and his hands were large and pale and tense against the edge of the bed. “If I’m insane, sweetheart—” He paused, and then continued. “If I’m insane—it would only ever be for you.”

It occurred to me that that was possibly the closest Tom Riddle would ever come to admitting I meant something to him. I pushed the thought—stupid stupid stupid fucking thought—to the blackest, bleakest corner of my mind. I couldn’t think that. I wouldn’t think that. “That doesn’t excuse—you shouldn’t have—you know that Edmond had nothing to do with what happened to me.”

“You said it was a Lestrange.”

I slid out of his bed and stood up on shaky legs. “By marriage.”

“And would you have told me what family she actually came from? If I’d asked?”

I bent down to pick up my skirt. “No,” I admitted.

“Exactly. And since traveling fifty years into the bloody future and finding out for myself wasn’t an option, I—well, I did the best I could, didn’t I?”

I pulled on my skirt and zipped up the side with a decisive flick of my wrist. “Mutilating Edmond’s arm is hardly your best.”

“I don’t understand what I did wrong, Hermione,” he said with obvious consternation. “Your arm—what was done to you—how do you not want revenge for that? How can you—if Edmond had actually been the one to do it to you, I swear I would have killed him, you know I would have killed him, and—fucking hell, Hermione, I did what I did to him for you!”

And then my brain clicked off and I couldn’t hold back anymore and I knew, before I even opened my fucking mouth that whatever was about to come out was going to ruin everything—

“You’re such a hypocrite, Tom.”

He jerked backwards. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You’re a hypocrite,” I snarled.

“Oh?”

“Oh,” I mimicked cruelly. “Yes. Because what was done to me—not by Edmond, not even by a real Lestrange—was done for you, for your precious Pureblood cause, for you to prove that you’re so much better than the rest of us—she did it because she knew that you would like that she had! Because she knew that you would enjoy the idea of having me humiliated, at her mercy, bleeding and in pain and—and—God, she probably would have bottled the memory and given it to you as a bloody Christmas gift if you hadn’t—” I broke off abruptly.

He swallowed. “Who?” he whispered.

I scoffed. “One of your many minions,” I answered bitterly. “Who else?”

His face—already so pale—went chalk-white. And then—

“I—I have minions? In the future?”

The sudden silence was oppressive—too dense, too thick, too full of all the things he should have said instead—because, God, but how could I have been so fucking idiotic? He was—he wasn’t—he wasn’t meant for me, he wasn’t, he wasn’t meant for me and I didn’t belong with him and I didn’t even fucking belong there and I wanted to go home, I needed to fucking go home, he wasn’t meant for me, not for me, not for me, never for me—

I could still taste his cum on my tongue. Tangy, musky, slightly sour—delicious, really. The realization hit me like a rough punch to the gut. “I tell you that someone did this to me—” I yanked up my sleeve and pointed at my scar. He didn’t flinch. “—because of you, and your first question—your first question is that?”

“Sweetheart—”

“No,” I hissed, backing into the door. I hit it with a jarring thud. “Do not call me that. You don’t—no. You don’t get to call me that.”

He approached me slowly, cautiously. “Hermione—”

I cut him off again. “Don’t you want to know about your minions, Riddle? Your faithful followers? Don’t you want to know how many there are? Maybe their names? How exceptionally loyal they are to you? Don’t you want to know all about them?”

He watched me talk, his expression blank, placid, unchanging—the only outward sign that he was even listening, even hearing me, was the barely-there twitch in his jaw, the rest of the muscle cording down his neck, pulled taut like a bowstring. “You’re overreacting,” he said calmly.

I let out a mirthless bark of laughter. “Am I?” I challenged.

He arched a brow. “Yes. You are.”

My lip curled. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about,” I retorted. “How can you be sure I’m not reacting exactly as I should be?”

“This is ridiculous. All I did was—”

“All you did was prove that your precious fucking plans are more important to you than I am!” I shouted.

He smirked. “Did you just say fuck, sweetheart?”

My mouth fell open. “You—you—stop trying to change the subject!”

He shook his head. “I have no idea what you want me to say,” he said. “I can’t help what my initial reaction to your…revelation was.”

“Oh, for the love of—do I have to spell it out?” I demanded.

"Maybe you do.”

“I know that I’m nothing to you, really, just a—what did you call it?—a means to an end? I know that. You want to keep me for yourself because you think that I can be useful. But you didn’t have to—” I couldn’t finish. I couldn’t say it. I’d sound silly, stupid, foolish—I’d sound like a naïve little girl, unwilling to acknowledge the reality of her situation.

“I didn’t have to what?” he pressed.

I curled my hands into fists. “You didn’t have to pretend,” I snapped. “You didn’t have to—to bring me flowers and call me sweetheart and defend me when Malfoy said those horrible things earlier. You didn’t have to let me think it meant anything.”

He didn’t blink. He didn’t move. “What—” He hesitated. He cleared his throat. “What makes you think that it didn’t?”

I bit down on the inside of my mouth. It hurt. The pain was welcome. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?” I asked. I noticed that the button at the top of his trousers was still undone. I badly wanted to cry.

“Obviously not,” he sneered.

My spine stiffened. “I know you in the future,” I said coldly. “I know you in the future—and I hate you. I loathe you. Everything about you. You’re—you’re vile. You’re violent. You prey on anyone you deem weaker than you. You’re a murderer, you’re a monster, and I will never help you. I will never help you become that. I will never—” I stopped. I inhaled shakily. “So to answer your question from earlier…yes. Yes, you have minions. I hope they make you very happy.”

He stayed still—too still, eerily still—his shoulders broad and strong and perfectly straight. And when he spoke, his voice was rough, strangely coarse, his words slurred together as if he couldn’t get them out fast enough—

“I don’t believe you.”

I scoffed. “Too bad.”

His nostrils flared. “You’re lying. I don’t know what you’re fucking playing at, but you’re lying.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not.”

He glanced surreptitiously at his bed. His wand was lying across the rumpled, silky green sheets. “Yes, you are,” he insisted.

“What makes you think that?”

He took a step towards me. “Because ten minutes ago, you were on your knees with my cock in your mouth,” he growled. “Because ten minutes ago, you let me come down your fucking throat and you liked it. If I was really such a fucking monster, I doubt either of those things would have ever come to pass. Sweetheart.”

I fumbled for the doorknob. I had to leave. I had to get away. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t see him. Not now. Not like this. I needed—I needed to run. I needed to hide. I needed to wash my fucking mouth out and forget he fucking existed—because he was right, he was right, he was right—he was a monster, that’s what I knew him as, that’s what he was, and I couldn’t have forgotten that, I couldn’t have, I absolutely fucking couldn’t have—

But I had.

I’d forgotten. I’d pretended. I’d thought—

I’d thought nothing. Fucking nothing.

“You’re wrong,” I informed him quietly. “Really, really wrong.”

His gaze flickered with something I didn’t understand—something that might have been remorse, but it was too dark, too hard to tell, and it was gone so quickly, too quickly, and I started to wonder if it had even been real. “Hermione—” he tried.

“I have to go,” I choked out, nearly paralyzed with relief when I heard the door click open, when I saw light stream into the room. “I have to go. Now. I have to go now.”

“Hermione—please—”

But I wasn’t listening anymore.

I was already running away.

 

---

 

Chapter 14: Chapter 14

---

 

October 19, 1944

 

I spent most of last night thinking about what she said to me—turning over her words like nondescript rocks in a riverbed, searching fruitlessly for some other, different, better meaning—because surely, surely, she was lying. Exaggerating. Surely I didn’t have anything to do with—

No.

I would never—

Not her. Not her. Anyone else—but not her. I know that I wouldn’t—

I couldn’t.

Not her.

She was lying.

She was lying.

She had to have been lying.

However—

Fifty years is a long time. I was initially excited—eager, even—about the possibility of being able to know my own future. To have some idea of how to fix mistakes before I even made them.

But now—

Now it’s all tainted, ruined, stained with a paralyzing sort of uncertainty—because what if that terrible feeling I’ve had lately—the one that comes from nowhere, the one that makes me think of choking and gasping and losing anything that might even distantly resemble control—what if I was wrong about it? What if it has nothing to do with her and everything to do with—

She is an abysmal liar.

She was not lying.

Which means—

No.

I will not—

I could not—

No.

Not her. Not her. Not her.

But she was not lying.

The worst part, I think, is that it’s all so very fucking believable. I mean—my God, I killed a fucking muggle-born two years ago—just to prove a fucking point. I’ve never felt badly about that before now. It was necessary. It served a purpose. I’m a descendent of Salazar Slytherin. I had to make sure that my Knights knew that. I had to make sure that they knew what I was capable of. I had to assert myself as—

As what?

She called me a monster.

My father—

No.

Not my father.

He called my mother—

He said that I was unnatural. That she had been unnatural. That he would never accept me, because there wasn’t a single part of me worth accepting. I wasn’t his son. I was an abomination. An aberration. He said that I was vile. He said that I was stupid if I’d ever thought otherwise. He said I should never have even been born, that I wouldn’t have ever been born if it hadn’t been for my mother’s magic, my mother’s desperation, that he would have been better off—so much better off—if she’d just killed him before he could ever get her pregnant.

He laughed at me.

He laughed at me when I made some hopeful, asinine remark about how very much I resembled him.

He called my mother a monster.

He called me a monster.

He called me a lot of things.

And then I killed him.

He deserved it. He did. If my mother hadn’t been so fucking blinded by his face—my face—she would have seen him for what he was. Weak. Inadequate. Ignorant. A waste of fucking—

He deserved it.

God.

I wish, even now, that there had been blood. That something tangible and viscous and fucking resolute had clung like sickly sticky wax paper to my hands—proof that he had lived and died and that I’d been the last to see him do either. I wish that I’d taken the time to make it hurt. To make him scream. I wish that I hadn’t been in a rush, that I could have used his ugly monogrammed letter opener to slit his fucking throat—I wish I could have felt the blade, dull and short, slice through layers of gristly red muscle, catching, ripping, tearing a jagged, ragged path across his vocal chords—he wouldn’t have been able to talk anymore, wouldn’t have been able to make another fucking sound, and I would have—oh, I fucking would have—if that idiot fucking gardener hadn’t come walking up the drive and interrupted me. I would have made him regret what he’d said. I would have made him regret everything. I would have killed him the muggle way—slowly—just to hear him beg for death by magic.

The irony would have been beautiful. So fucking beautiful. Because—

Fuck.

He knew about me. He knew that she was pregnant. He knew that I was rotting away in that disgusting fucking orphanage while he—while he—feigned amnesia and played the fucking country squire. And he had the nerve to call her—to call me—a monster?

But—

I wonder now if he wasn’t wrong. Hermione seemed rather certain of it. Hermione—

Hermione.

Hermione.

Hermione.

I could never have—

Not her. Not her.

She ran away from me. And she looked—lost. Like she didn’t know where she was running to. I never meant for her to find out about Edmond. I knew she wouldn’t like it. She’s a bloody Gryffindor, after all, and God knows that they tend to think of ‘revenge’ as the filthiest fucking word in the dictionary. The idea of solving a problem without the aid of an authority figure would probably send the lot of them into hysterics.

But—

What I did to Edmond—it wasn’t a mistake. I won’t let it be a mistake. It was not a mistake. And she knew it. I could see that she knew it, even as she backed into the door and tried to look horrified—there was a spark of satisfaction in her eyes that she couldn’t quite hide, a grim sort of appreciation, and one day—eventually—she’ll accept that feeling for what it is. She’ll have to. Because it was not a mistake.

And I thought of her—of what was done to her—the entire time I held the knife to his arm. I thought about her face and the way her lips had trembled, just the slightest bit, when she talked about how it had felt to be cut open and carved into and humiliated. I thought about how fucking badly I’d wanted to take a fucking hammer to the skull of whoever had—  

I thought about so many things, and none of them—

None of them were apparently the right things.

Because I didn’t think about how Edmond was technically not to blame for what had happened to her. I didn’t think about how loudly he cried out when the blade first pierced his skin. I didn’t think about how much Hermione would hate what I was doing. I didn’t think about the fact that Edmond didn’t know what was going on, what he’d done wrong, what it meant that I was scratching Mudblood into his forearm as crudely and viciously as I knew how.

I just don’t—

I don’t understand.

I don’t understand what was wrong about what I did. It was not a mistake. It wasn’t. Morality is not such a clear-cut concept that she can use it as an excuse to condemn me for wanting to avenge her. There is nothing senseless or pointless or useless about my motives. She could not—cannot—argue otherwise. My intent was to hurt him, yes, but—

I shouldn’t care what she thinks.

I shouldn’t care that she looked as if I’d slapped her when I brought up the—

The blowjob.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The fucking blowjob.

It was phenomenal. She was phenomenal. The image of her lips wrapped around my cock—pouty pink and slick with saliva—God, I’ll never get it out of my head.

It—

She—

It all felt so much better than I thought it would. I mean—she swallowed my cum. I wonder if she liked it. She didn’t say—but I think she looked pleased. Like she would enjoy doing it again. Like she would—

She won’t, of course.

Which is regrettable. I might have had to blackmail her into dating me, but for the past several days, things between us have been…different. Amicable. Good. Almost what I imagine it would be like to be simple—to want nothing more from life than a smile and a peck on the cheek from a pretty girl. No one’s smile is worth the price of my ambition, of course, but if such a smile did happen to exist…

It would be hers.

She is as innocent as I suspected. She stared at my cock for a full half-minute before speaking—stared and stared and stared, her expression vacillating between shock and arousal and indecision, her emotions obvious and fleeting. I would have thought it adorable, actually, had I not been so preoccupied with the realization that my cock was less than an inch away from the warm, wet heat of her mouth.

She said she wanted to.

She licked her lips—unconsciously, I’m sure of it—and when I made a vain, halfhearted attempted at being chivalrous and told her she didn’t have to—she told me that she wanted to suck my cock. (Well. She didn’t use those precise words—if she had, I would have certainly come in my fucking trousers—but it amounted to the same thing, I suppose.) I just don’t—

Why did she want to?

She’d never done it before. She had only the vaguest notion of what she was even doing—not that that mattered—I was more or less just fucking her mouth by the end of it—but something small and unfamiliar pinched inside my chest when I saw her kneeling on the bed, her nerves endearingly evident—she looked perfectly submissive waiting for my direction, waiting for me to tell her what to do, how to do it—

I wonder if that heady, intoxicating sense of power is what other people find so attractive about sex. I wonder if she felt it when I—licked her—on Sunday night. I wonder if I’m imagining the heightened level of trust—in me?—that her willingness to do such a thing implies. After all—it is, inherently, a degrading act. When I think about how many girls Malfoy’s been through, how many of them he never even bothered to feign an interest in—I cannot help but compare them all to Hermione and marvel at how different she is.

She wanted to do it. She wanted to do it for me. No coercion; no manipulation. And perhaps I’m just articulating this poorly—but—

It’s a shame that she found out about Edmond the way she did. He wasn’t a mistake. I did not make a mistake. I do not ever make mistakes.

But—

I cannot—

Breakfast is in an hour. I confess to some measure of anxiety. She isn’t stupid. She knows that she is significantly safer with me around. She knows that I can protect her. Because of that, I don’t think she will publicly end our relationship. (No—our arrangement. It is not a relationship. It is imperative that I remember that.) But how will she treat me? What will she say? Will she make a scene? Start an argument?

Last night—

She’s going to find out about my fight with Malfoy. She’s going to find out that I hit him. She’s going to find out what he said. I can’t hide that from her. Nott and Avery and Lestrange all heard. They all saw how I reacted. I just—I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop it. He looked so smug and aristocratic and fucking wrong—I was holding my wand, but I needed to do something physical, something he wouldn’t expect, and even though I’d never hit someone before—

I knocked him unconscious.

God.

She is—

In Potions yesterday—after Malfoy made a royal ass of himself, again—she smiled at me. Softly. Reverently. Like I’d fucking saved her. (Which is preposterous. All I did was remind Malfoy of his inferiority. And lately…he has needed more than one reminder. I’ll have to speak to him about that.) But she—her mouth curved up at the corners and her teeth peeked out from behind her lips and it wasn’t a sneer or a grimace or one of her unfailingly polite simpering little smirks—no, it was a smile that reached her eyes. And it made me—

It made me uncomfortable.

It made me nervous.

It made me think that my mother might have had the right of it when she starting feeding my father that fucking love potion.

 

--TMR

 

---

 

I looked tired.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. I brushed my hair out. I stared at my reflection. My eyes were red-rimmed and glassy. I was pale. My lips were dry. The dingy fluorescent light stained my cheeks a decidedly unflattering shade of yellow.

And I looked so fucking tired.

Which didn’t make any sense. I had gone straight to bed the night before. I had slept for eleven fucking hours. I had very meticulously and purposefully not thought about Tom Riddle for eleven fucking hours. I had not thought about what he’d done to Edmond Lestrange. I had not thought about what he’d said to me before I’d left his room. I had not thought about what had compelled me to get on my knees and unzip his trousers and—

I hadn’t thought about any of it.

I had no reason to be tired.

“Hermione? Are you going to be much longer?”

Melania Macmillan was leaning against the open bathroom door with her arms crossed over her chest. Her nose was scrunched up impatiently.

"I’ll just be a minute,” I replied, fumbling for an emerald green ribbon. “Sorry. I overslept. Did you need something?”

She squinted at me. “No,” she said. “But Riddle’s waiting for you in the hallway. He seemed to think you might have left for breakfast without him—sent me to check if you were still in here. Thought you might like to know.”

I heaved a sigh and gathered my hair into a ponytail. “Look, Melania, I’m absolutely knackered,” I said. “And I don’t really feel up to speaking Slytherin. So…did you have a question?”

She huffed and glanced away. “Did the two of you break up?” she asked brusquely.

I straightened my tie and smoothed a hand down the front of my sweater. I almost laughed. Had we broken up? Our relationship hadn’t even been real. He’d just used it as an excuse to stalk me. No—to protect me. My lip curled. “No,” I answered, my voice clear. “We didn’t break up. Is that all?”

She quirked a brow. “I heard Riddle and Abraxas got into a fight last night,” she remarked casually. 

I shrugged. “Tom gave Abraxas a week’s worth of detention as we were leaving Potions yesterday,” I said, toying with one of the pleats in my skirt. “Abraxas seemed upset about it. I’m not surprised that they had an argument.”

She pursed her lips. “Riddle broke Abraxas’ nose.”

I felt dizzy. The hem of my skirt stayed bunched between my fingers. “What?” I whispered. Because I couldn’t have heard right. I couldn’t have heard what I thought I had. Tom Riddle didn’t fight that way. Tom Riddle didn’t use anything but magic to inflict pain. Tom Riddle didn’t—he just didn’t.

"I also heard that their fight was about you, not detention,” she continued with a sneer. “What—shagging the Head Boy isn’t enough for you? You need to string poor Abraxas along, too?”

I lifted my chin as I turned towards her. “Abraxas and I aren’t friends anymore, Melania,” I said icily. “If he and Tom had a fight about me, it wasn’t for the reason you’re suggesting.”

Her expression shifted into something cold and calculating. “Is that so?” she hummed. “Well. That certainly lends some credibility to the other part of the story.”

I headed over to the door and tossed her a disdainful glare. “There’s more?”

“According to Nott, yes,” she replied sweetly. “Apparently, Abraxas called you a series of filthy names—something about Knockturn Alley and a crowded street corner—I imagine that you’re more than capable of filling in the blanks—but then Riddle went mental and took a swing. You didn’t hear?”

“I was sleeping,” I ground out. “You saw me. When would I have heard about this?”

She twirled a strand of greasy black hair around her finger. “I’m sure I don’t know,” she cooed. The sound was grating. “But you should probably go check on your boyfriend, Hermione. Abraxas is quite a lot bigger than him, isn’t he?”

I stopped directly in front of her. “But Melania—I thought you said he was waiting for me in the hall,” I reminded her, feigning confusion. “And I know you would have immediately told me if Tom appeared to be injured. Right? You’re always so helpful. Like when Abraxas was sick last month—you brought him muffins, didn’t you?”

She narrowed her watery brown eyes. “I did,” she said. “Which is more than I can say for you. Or did you just think you could make him feel better with one of your insipid little smiles?”

I smirked. “Abraxas did always like my smile,” I mused thoughtfully. “I mean, when he gave me his family’s betrothal ring he even said—”

“Right,” she interjected, her voice overloud in the tiny, white-tiled bathroom. “Except now you’re with Riddle. So whatever Abraxas said…it doesn’t matter. You’re with Riddle. Abraxas knows that.”

I rested my hand on the door frame, digging my fingernails into the slightly soft wood. “Of course you’re right,” I demurred. “But—oh! I completely forgot to tell you—I met one of your cousins a few weeks ago. The night I was attacked.”

Her normally sallow skin turned white. “You—you did?” she stammered, straining for nonchalance.

I twisted my lips. “I did,” I confirmed with a polite nod. “He was…roaming the grounds. Was he here to see you?”

She watched me from beneath stubby black lashes. “I have a lot of cousins,” she replied evasively. “I’m not sure who you mean.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Well,” I began, “he was older. Middle-aged, I think. And he had a scar that went diagonally across most of his face. He was also quite talkative.”

Her jaw twitched. "A scar?” she repeated. “I don’t have any cousins with scars like that. You’re positive he said he was a Macmillan?”

I tapped my chin with my index finger. “Positive. Although—he might have mentioned being a squib, too, now that I think about it. Do you have a lot of squib cousins, Melania?”

She worked her mouth helplessly for several long seconds. “What, exactly, are you implying?” she finally asked.

I let out an unassuming giggle. “Oh, I didn’t mean to offend you,” I said hastily. “It’s just—well, it’s rather odd that he was here at all, isn’t it? Your cousin?”

She stared at me impassively. "I don’t know who you’re talking about, so I’m afraid that I can’t comment on whether or not his behavior was—ah—odd.”

I appraised her silently—her facial muscles were tight, taut, folded in on themselves as if waiting for permission to collapse, and her eyes were stubbornly pinned to a point somewhere just above my right shoulder. Her pupils were dilated, big and round and black and almost fluttering, contracting and expanding their shape in time with her breathing. She didn’t move.

"I didn’t say his behavior was odd,” I responded cheerfully. “Just his presence. And I was going to ask you—after I saw him, I mean—because Tom mentioned that you might know what he was doing here—”

"You told Tom?” she interrupted.

“That I ran into your cousin?”

“Yes.”

I frowned. “Tom knows about everything that happened that night,” I said blithely.

She barely reacted—but I had been a Slytherin for over six weeks, had spent half of that time fucking dating the fucking antichrist—and I knew what to look for. The changes would be subtle. They wouldn’t be obvious. The skin between her eyes might momentarily crinkle. The pulse at the base of her throat might thrum quickly enough to cause the veins in her neck to jerk and throb and jump as she swallowed. She might relax her shoulders—a brief hitch in her posture, nothing dramatic, just enough for whoever was watching to infer that she wasn’t bothered wasn’t worried no not worried nothing was wrong everything was fine I promise fine fine fine—

She reached up to scratch the side of her cheek. Her hand stayed steady. “Speaking of Tom,” she said brightly. “He’s—he’s waiting for you. You should go. I’m sure he’s—impatient. Especially after last night—the fight with Abraxas. I’m sure he’s anxious to see you.”

I gave her a vague approximation of a smile. “I’m sure,” I replied drolly. “But—before I go—what kind of muffins did you bring Abraxas when he was sick? They smelled amazing, you see, and I’d really like to get Tom something to take his mind off of things. I know how much he hates it when there’s discord in the house.”

She froze. “I—I don’t remember,” she said. “It was almost a month ago.”

I trapped her gaze with my own. I deliberately didn’t blink. “That’s a pity,” I murmured. “Oh, well. It was worth a try. Have a good morning, Melania.”

I brushed past her on my way through the door and into our dormitory. Her body was tense. I felt a belated surge of triumph as I slung my book bag over my shoulder and confidently stepped into the hallway.

And then I faltered.

Tom Riddle was waiting for me. Tom Riddle was always waiting for me. And he was staring down at the floor—scowling, really—and I was suddenly painfully, woefully aware of how completely fucking unprepared I was for this encounter.

Because I wasn’t ready to see him. I wasn’t ready to face what had happened the previous evening. I didn’t think I could hold his hand and look into his eyes and not want to cry. I didn’t think I could carry on a conversation with Edmond Lestrange at breakfast while Riddle sat next to me and matter-of-factly cut into his waffles—the sight of him with a knife in his hand would be too much, too soon, too fucking haunting, and I didn’t think I could do it.

I wondered, fleetingly, it that made me weak.

I shook the thought out of my head.

It didn’t matter if it made me weak. It didn’t matter if I could handle it. It didn’t matter if I could handle him. Because I had to. I had to see him. I had to face him. I had to pretend that nothing was wrong, and I had to be convincing about it. I had to accept that Abraxas Malfoy was no longer my friend. I had to accept that there were things going on—things that seemed to directly involve me—that I didn’t understand. I had to accept that there was no one left to trust. I had to accept that I was safer with Tom Riddle around, if only because he had a bizarrely obsessive interest in keeping me alive.

I took a deep breath.

He glanced up.

“I heard you punched Abraxas,” I blurted out.

He straightened his shoulders. “And?”

I fidgeted nervously. “And…why did you punch Abraxas?” I asked.

He wet his lips before responding. “Because he deserved it.”

My teeth clacked together. “That isn’t an answer.”

He leaned into the mahogany paneled wall and tugged at his tie. “Didn’t Macmillan tell you?” he asked, a distinct edge to the question. His eyes darted to my closed dormitory door.

I froze.

And then I realized that Melania was more than likely eavesdropping. I started to walk to the common room. I didn’t look back.

“Don’t say anything else,” he mumbled, guiding me to a sofa by the fireplace. He sat down next to me. Our thighs touched. I tried not to notice.

Melania emerged from the darkened hallway after several minutes of intense, preternatural quiet. Her gaze swept over the otherwise empty common room before settling on me and Riddle. She approached us warily.

“Everything alright, Hermione? Why aren’t the two of you at breakfast?”

Riddle’s hand moved from his lap to my knee. He clutched me tightly. “We were actually just hoping for some time alone, Melania,” he answered, shooting a winning smile in her direction. He shifted his body towards mine. “Right, sweetheart?”

“Right,” I agreed slowly.

But Melania looked skeptical, and I was swamped by an incongruous moment of panic—she had to think we were happy. She had to think we were together. She had to think that Riddle would protect me. She had to—she absolutely fucking had to—because every last fiber of functional brain matter that I possessed was screaming at me that she was dangerous, that she knew more about me than she let on, that it was vital that she believe Tom Riddle and I were romantically linked—

I grabbed Riddle’s hand and pointedly let it drift up the inside of my leg. His fingertips were warm as they grazed my skin. I felt a rabid red blush creep across my chest. He moved even closer, the long, lean line of his torso pressed indecently against my hips, my waist, my breasts. He dug the heel of his palm into my inner thigh. The stiff cuff of his shirt caressed the worn cotton edge of my knickers. Heat pooled in my lower abdomen.

Melania’s jaw dropped. “Oh—oh,” she stuttered. “I didn’t think—before breakfast—I mean, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

A small, self-satisfied smirk played at the corner of Riddle’s mouth. I wanted to devour him. “Yeah,” he said. His voice was deeper than usual. It rumbled through his chest, sending a wholly unwelcome tremor down and through and around my spine. His hand felt like a solid, implacable brick of lava against my thigh. “Well, you know how it is. Between lessons and roommates and my Head Boy duties…it’s tough to squeeze in any real, meaningful time together.”

I instantly thought of the previous day’s frantic groping—sloppy swipes of our tongues, licking at each other’s mouths, necks, half-naked grasping and touching and writhing that ended with his cock sliding between my lips and his cum splashing the back of my throat—I gulped and turned my face towards Riddle’s chest. My breasts were crushed against his shoulder. Abruptly, his grip on my leg grew fierce.

"I—I see,” Melania managed to reply with a forced smile. “I’ll leave you—er—to it, then. I just wanted to make sure you were feeling alright, Tom. After last night. I heard Abraxas got quite a nasty punch in before Edmond thought to hold him back.”

He stiffened—almost imperceptibly. “I’m fine, Melania. Thank you for asking. I have a bit of a bruise on my stomach, but it hardly hurts. Abraxas is the one in the hospital wing, after all,” he drawled.

Melania winced.

“What?” I gasped, running my hand down Riddle’s arm. The muscles there trembled. “He hit you? Why didn’t you say anything, baby?”

His eyebrows arched up slightly before he was able to school his features into something eerily inexpressive. “I didn’t want to worry you, sweetheart,” he said silkily, dragging a blunt-cut fingernail over the front of my knickers, treacherously close to my clit. I was wet. I knew he could feel it. But I couldn’t pull away. Not while Melania was there.

“Are you hurt, though?” I asked, playing with the buttons on his shirt.

He turned to face me, then, and his gaze snapped into mine with all the force of a runaway train—his eyes were glinting with something hot and ferocious that simultaneously made me want to both run away and stay with him forever—and the air between us was thick and heavy and full of nothing but want, the kind of want that feels like invisible hooks clawing into our skin, urging us closer, closer, because his fingers were twitching underneath my skirt and my hand was creeping towards the top of his trousers and fuck fuck fuck but I shouldn’t have still wanted him, not when I knew better, not like this—

“No,” he murmured. “I’m not hurt, sweetheart. In fact, it turns out that I’m rather handy in a brawl.”

And the statement was so patently ridiculous—so fucking stupid—that I couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop it—I laughed, deeply, loudly, like I fucking meant it, and the resulting look of absolute wonder that bled into his normally blank expression almost made it worth it, almost made it worth the quick pang of guilt that sprang up when I remembered who he was and what he’d done and why being happy around him wasn’t allowed.

“I—that’s good, Tom,” Melania said, sounding awkward. She was glancing between me and Riddle, her forehead creased in a frown. “I should get to breakfast, though. I—have a good morning. Both of you.”

And then she was gone, the common room door swinging shut behind her, and we were finally alone.

Seconds went by—

But neither of us moved.

“I want to kiss you,” he whispered. His fingers curled into the flesh of my inner thigh.

“I know,” I replied.

Because I did know. I knew that he wanted to kiss me and that I wanted to kiss him and that as deceptively simple as it sometimes seemed—it fucking wasn’t. It wasn’t fucking simple. It was never going to be fucking simple.

“He called you a—” he broke off. “He deserved much more than a broken nose.”

I still didn’t move. “I believe you.”

“He really seems to hate you now, though,” he went on. “You shouldn’t—you should be careful around him.”

I bit my lip. “What did you do with the ring?” I asked, deftly changing the subject. “The one he gave me, I mean. Did you give it back to him?”

He cleared his throat. “I kept it,” he replied cautiously.

I furrowed my brow. “Why?”

He didn’t immediately answer. “I want him—them, I mean—to think that you still have it.”

“I don’t understand.”

He exhaled noisily. “I think that the ring is…a backup plan of some kind,” he said. “I don’t think they intend to use it unless they absolutely have to. Too many people know about it. And if—when—the time comes, I’d like to be the one that they get when they activate the portkey.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer to just get rid of it?”

He clenched his jaw. “I can take care of myself, sweetheart. Besides, I’d really like to know—for certain—who was behind all of this.”

“But—but why? If kidnapping me using the ring is their last resort…at that point, why would it even matter?”

He grimaced. “Because whoever was responsible for attacking you is going to die, Hermione. That’s why.”

I caught my breath. “Oh.”

He shifted closer. His body was warm. “What did Macmillan say to you earlier? While I was waiting?”

“Melania—she had something to do with the night I was attacked,” I said slowly. “She acts…strange whenever I bring up anything to do with it. And she lied to me about the man who attacked me—said she doesn’t have any cousins who look like him.”

His thumb rubbed a soothing circle against the inside of my leg. “That complicates things,” he responded, his voice low.

“Why?”

“Because her family isn’t important,” he said bluntly. “They aren’t Malfoys or Lestranges or—anyone, really. She has no political connections—nothing to offer someone powerful, someone who might know about where you come from. Her motivation to hurt you would be entirely personal. That makes her…unpredictable.”

“I suppose you’re right,” I acknowledged quietly.

He stared down at me, his expression unreadable. “I’ll protect you,” he vowed. “From all of them.”

I felt a brittle smile steal across my face. “Of course you will. I’m no use to you dead, am I?”

He went still. “Hermione.”

That was it. That was all he said. Just my name, just the once, except I could have fucking sworn that I could hear an apology, a regret, and maybe even something else, something I didn’t think he was even capable of saying out loud, even meaning—but then I finally—finally—gathered the tattered remains of my self-control and slid away from him—and whatever it was that I’d thought I’d heard, whatever it was that I’d thought he’d been trying to say—it was lost.

“I don’t trust you,” I said, neatly crossing my legs. I didn’t look at him. “I can’t trust you. I assume that I don’t have to explain why—not after what I told you last night.”

"You hardly told me anything last night,” he pointed out angrily. “You made me sound like a bloody terrorist and then ran away before I could find out what you meant. You—you said that I’d had something to do with—with what happened to you, to your arm, and you didn’t even stick around long enough to fucking explain what you meant.”

I sniffed. “Terrorist might be an understatement, actually,” I replied spitefully.

He snorted softly. “Let me see, then. Let me see what I am to you. I can go through your memories.”

I turned towards him. “You actually think that I’m stupid, don’t you?”

His nostrils flared. “Why won’t you show me?” he challenged. “If I’m really that awful—shouldn’t you be trying to fix me? Show me the error of my hypothetically evil ways? Isn’t that how this works?”

I balled my hands into tiny, ineffectual fists. “God, you sound like Dumbledore,” I retorted. “Can neither of you even begin to comprehend how important the preservation of the timeline is? Besides, you’re—you’re you. It’s not like I’d ever have a prayer of saving you, even if you’re deluded enough to think it’s a possibility.”

He blinked. And then—

“You think I’ll be happy about it,” he said incredulously. “You think that I’ll like what I see. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re scared that I’ll see myself as—as your version of a monster—that’s what you called me, right? A monster?—you’re scared that I’ll see that and be pleased.”

I could feel the blood drain from my face. “You would be pleased,” I managed to reply. “I mean—look at what you did to Edmond. He was innocent. He didn’t do anything to deserve that kind of—”

“Oh, just fucking spare me, Hermione,” he interjected, seething. “Spare me all the self-righteous indignation that I’m sure your precious little Gryffindor heart is full to bursting with. God. Do you even know what kind of person Edmond is? Hmm? Do you? Do you want to hear what he did to that squib who attacked you last month? Yes? Should I tell you, then, that Edmond’s magical talent happens to be concentrated almost exclusively in slicing hexes? Did you know that? No? Did you know that Edmond was the very first of our year—besides me, of course—to master all three Unforgivables? Did you know that Edmond would gut you, rape you, and leave you for dead without a second fucking thought if he ever found out that you were a mudblood?”

Mudblood.

Mudblood.

Mudblood.

My throat felt dry as I attempted to swallow. It was too raw. It hurt. The pain made me nauseous.

“So—so what you’re saying,” I croaked. “What you’re saying—is that because he’s good at following orders—your orders—and has done ethically questionable things in the past—you’re saying that even if he didn’t have anything to do with what happened to me…he still deserved what you did to him. On some level. Do I have that right?”

 His eyes remained cold. “Yeah. You do.”

“And what about all of the things you’ve done?” I demanded. “You know—little things, really—murdering your own father, setting a basilisk on a muggle-born—those things. Do you deserve to be punished for them?”

He leapt to his feet. “What did I tell you, Granger, about mentioning my fucking father?” he growled.

“Oh, please,” I shot back. “You don’t actually expect me to still be frightened of you? Not when you spend the majority of your spare time ever so valiantly vowing to protect me? Because, God—what did you say the other night, Riddle? Something about how you would never hurt me—not now, at least?”

He scowled down at me. “I misspoke,” he said concisely.

I scoffed. “Look—I’m not one of your minions,” I snarled. “I’m not going to sell you my soul to reserve a spot in your version of the new world order. When you get around to that, I mean. If you ever do. Who knows, right? Certainly not me.”

His cheeks were suffused with furious, patchy spots of red. “You don’t—”

I released a harsh bark of laughter. “I don’t know what I’m talking about?” I taunted sarcastically.

His chin jutted forward. “The muggle-born—the basilisk—she wasn’t supposed to die,” he said abruptly.

I jerked backwards. “What?”

He looked pained by the admission. “I meant to release the basilisk—I’m the bloody Heir of Slytherin, for God’s sake, I had to—I had to prove that, no one would have taken me seriously otherwise—but the bathroom…it was supposed to be empty. Malfoy was supposed to have been watching the door. But he—” He stopped and shook his head in disgust. “Malfoy was in a fucking broom closet with his hand up a fourth-year’s skirt. And the muggle-born—Myrtle, I think her name was—just kind of wandered in, and I couldn’t stop—I didn’t see her quickly enough.”

I absorbed this new information with a peculiar sort of detachment. “You made a horcrux, though. That means you murdered her.”

He eyed me speculatively. “How much do you know about making horcruxes, Hermione?”

I bristled. “Not as much as you, obviously.”

“I technically ordered the basilisk to...hunt muggle-borns,” he confessed. “It was the only way to get it to leave the Chamber, and I needed to prove—well. Her death—it was a murder—and…I’m...I saw an opportunity to make a horcrux—I was mostly curious, I wasn’t sure I could even do it yet—and I took it. I’m not sorry for that.”

My heart hammered brutally against the inside of my chest. “Why are you telling me this?”

He hesitated. "I—I don’t know.”

I studied his face—the crisp, even planes of his cheekbones, the gentle slope of his jaw, the maddening emptiness of his dark, nearly-black eyes—and smiled sadly. “You really don’t know, do you?”

His expression turned sour. “We have Herbology in twenty minutes,” he informed me curtly. “We should go. Am I still carrying your bag?”

I inhaled sharply. “You know that we can’t break up.”

He sneered. “Oh, believe me—I know,” he hissed. “After all, you’re proving to be so useful, aren’t you, sweetheart? I can barely keep up with all the top-secret information from the future you’ve been supplying me with—God, I’m practically drowning in it, right? And that’s all I want you around for, isn’t it? The only reason I care to keep you alive?”

I felt inexplicably stung by his tone. “I’m sure I don’t know,” I replied, my voice icy with indifference. “I’ve found that it’s difficult to really trust anything you say either way.”

His mouth tightened. “Right. Well. We should go,” he said flatly.

I stood up on unsteady legs. “Our…relationship—” I spat the word out, my distaste evident. “—has seemed fairly believable to the rest of the school so far. Even Professor Dumbledore—he tried to warn me away from you, so obviously he thinks it’s real, too, so—I think we should just…carry on like we have been. You can even tell your minions that you finally fucked me, if you think that will help. I know how interested they all were in that particular aspect of...this. Us.” I picked up my book bag and held it out for him to take.

He flinched. “Hermione—”

I cut him off. "We’re going to be late.”

He grabbed my bag and watched me walk towards the common room door. He didn’t follow. "I didn’t mean for you to find out, you know. What I did to Lestrange. You weren’t meant to.”

I stopped. "You were never going to tell me?”

He approached me silently. "No. I wasn’t. I knew that you wouldn’t like it.”

My hand hovered over the doorknob, and I let my gaze settle on the worn brass coating, the minute dent in the center, the inky black scratches marring the hollowed, rounded edges. "But you did it—you did it for me,” I reminded him. “Isn’t that what you said?”

He stood behind me, his breath hot on the back of my neck as it ghosted through baby-fine tendrils of hair. “I did it for me,” he amended quietly. “But—I thought—at the time—I thought it was for you. I thought I did it for you.”

I pushed open the door. “God,” I choked out. “That’s even worse.”

We both stared out into the empty dungeon hallway.

“I still want to kiss you,” he admitted.

I paused. “I know,” I said again.

He didn’t say anything else.

 

---

 

Chapter 15: Chapter 15

12:30 pm

The first half of the day passed in a blur of awkward hand-holding and tension-filled silence. Abraxas was still in the hospital wing; the rumor about Tom being the one to put him there had already spread like a rampant, extraordinarily deadly virus by the time we reached our first class. Tom ignored the stares and the whispers and the incomprehensible bouts of male camaraderie that were apparently the consequences of breaking another boy’s nose—but he was used to the attention, used to being fawned over and talked about, and he was disarmingly graceful in his deflection of the myriad questions and compliments that were hurled in his direction.

Until Slughorn approached us halfway through lunch and informed Tom that the Headmaster needed to see him. Tom immediately plastered on a lopsided, self-deprecating sort of half-grin that even I could tell was forced—and turned towards Edmond.

            “Get Hermione to her next lesson,” he commanded quietly. “Safely, Lestrange.”

            Edmond’s expression morphed into something pinched and hostile.

            “Yeah,” he replied, taking a swig of pumpkin juice. “I can do that. Yeah.”

            Tom’s eyes flashed a warning as he stood up to leave.

            “Make sure that you do,” he said, his tone clipped. “Alright?”

            Edmond slowly bobbed his head in agreement.

            “Alright, Tom.”

            Tom nodded, just once, before glancing at me. His smile faltered.

            “I don’t know how long this will take,” he said, leaning down to kiss my cheek. His lips were warm and soft and dry. “And I don’t like leaving you alone—but Malfoy’s still in the hospital wing, and Lestrange knows that if anything happens to you he’ll be short most of his vital organs before he can even fucking think the word ‘run’—so—if I’m not back by the time lunch is over, just—it should be fine, I don’t—I don’t really think anyone is going to try anything in the middle of the day, but—you’ll be fine. You’ll—you’ll be fine. I promise.”

            I reached up and ran my hand down the front of his sweater. His heartbeat was strong and steady and maybe—probably—much too fucking fast. I didn’t think about what that meant. I wouldn’t think about what that meant.

            I abruptly pulled away from him.

            “Okay,” I said stiffly. “Thanks. I’ll just…see you later, then.”

            His jaw tightened. I told myself that he didn’t look hurt.

            “Of course. Later.”

            And then he was leading Slughorn out of the Great Hall, and I was left alone with Edmond.

Edmond—who was glumly staring down at his plate, picking at the crusty remains of his peanut butter sandwich. Edmond—who had had his forearm brutalized by Tom Riddle only two days earlier. Edmond—who I still wasn’t certain I could look at without stammering an apology that wouldn’t make sense to anyone but me.

            “So—er—how have you been?” I asked.

            He snorted.

            “He told you, I take it?”

            I furrowed my brow.

            “Told me what?”

            He pursed his lips. They were chapped and scabbed over and severely bitten. I suddenly felt sick.

            “What he did. To me. On Monday,” he clarified. “He bragged about it to Malfoy—although maybe brag is the wrong word—it might have just been an unusually visceral warning to stay the hell away from you—and I’m just assuming, based on your guilt-stricken expression, that he mentioned it to you as well.”

            I swallowed uncomfortably.

            “I saw your shirt,” I said. “The one with—with blood on it. On the sleeve. It fell out of your laundry basket last night. Tom wasn’t—he wouldn’t have told me if I hadn’t seen that.”

            His gaze sharpened.

            “Really,” he mused. It wasn’t a question.

            I twisted my napkin in my lap.

            “Really,” I confirmed.

            He scratched at his arm.

            “Well. That’s interesting.”

            “Why?”

            “Because it means that he hasn’t gotten to you yet,” he said nonchalantly. “It means that he’s not—that he hasn’t decided what to use you for. Besides the obvious, I mean.”

            I stiffened.

            “Excuse me?”

            “Come off it, Granger. I’m the only one here. We both know what he is.”

            I cocked my head to the side.

            “And what is he, Edmond?” I asked icily.

            He let out an unpleasant laugh.

            “Besides a sadist?”

            I broke off a piece of chocolate-chip cookie and methodically stuffed it into my mouth.

            “You’re being awfully candid today,” I observed.

            His demeanor turned sour.

            “I tried to warn you,” he said, his voice low. “I tried to tell you—”

            “No,” I interrupted. “No, you didn’t. You made a series of cryptic comments with absolutely no discernible commonalities and then sent me off to bed. I wouldn’t exactly call that making an effort.”

            He checked his watch and got to his feet.

            “Come on. You have Arithmancy next, yeah?”

            I paused.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go, then.”

He didn’t wait for me, so I heaved a sigh, hitched my book bag over my shoulder, and scurried after him, pretending not to notice Melania Macmillan frown as she watched us walk away.

“Hey! Wait—will you just—Edmond!” I called out when we reached the empty entrance hall.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and glanced down at me, clearly exasperated.

“Keep up, will you? Macmillan’s almost as obsessed with you as Riddle is, and she’s about half as subtle when she gets it in her head to eavesdrop. We need to go somewhere private.”

“Can I see your arm first?” I blurted out.

He lurched backwards.

“What?”

“Your arm,” I repeated. “I’d like to see it.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“Why?”

I fought the urge to cross my own arms over my chest.

“Because I want to see what he did. It couldn’t be fixed, right? By magic? The—the cuts are still there?”

He chewed the inside of his mouth.

“How did you know that?”

“How did I know what?”

“That the knife he used was…special. I doubt that he told you.”

I reached up to tighten the ribbon in my hair.

“Well, he did tell me,” I retorted. “And I’d like to see what he—I’d just like to see. There was quite a lot of blood.”

He exhaled loudly. I picked at my cuticles.

“Fine,” he muttered, hurrying up the stairs and disappearing down the first available corridor. I huffed indignantly and followed him. He came to a halt outside of an empty classroom.

“In here,” he said, marching into the classroom. He shut the door behind us.

“What are you—” I bleated.

He wrenched up his sleeve—

And my stomach twisted—mudblood—dropped—mudblood—heaved—mudblood mudblood mudblood—

It was just so fucking familiar.

The skin had yet to heal. The incisions were still bright red and crusted over with blood. But they were neater, straighter, more uniform in size and shape—I could already tell that his scar would look nothing like mine. It would eventually fade into even, waxy white lines; noticeable when the light hit it at a certain angle, but otherwise invisible. It wasn’t the same as mine. It wasn’t even close. I wasted a long second marveling at that—at how that word—that hateful fucking word—looked so incredibly different etched into his skin than it did into mine.

            “Do you know why he—” I started to ask.

            “No.”

            “He didn’t tell you?”

            He rolled his sleeve back down over his wrist.

            “All he said was that I’d figure it out eventually,” Edmond told me bitterly.

            “Did Tom seem…” I trailed off, uncertain. “Angry? While he—did it?”

            He scowled.

            “Yes and no,” he replied, running anxious fingers through his hair. “At first he was—well—fucking furious, actually. I had no idea—I didn’t know what had happened. What I’d done. I thought he might have found out—it doesn’t matter what I thought. But he asked me all these questions—really fucking weird questions—about my family and how loyal I was to them and…I felt like he was testing me, to be honest, which—yeah, I’m aware—doesn’t make any fucking sense. But then he took out a knife—his fucking Potions knife, which was just—fucking hell, his Potions knife, Granger—and—well. I’m sure you can figure out the rest.”

            I took a deep, calming breath.

            “Why—why mudblood, though? He didn’t say?”

            His lip curled.

“I can guess.”

I appraised him thoughtfully. Average height, slender build, sallow skin. Thin, pale pink lips and a small, upturned nose. Close-cropped black hair that looked shiny in the midday light streaming through the windows. Thick eyebrows. Square chin. Delicate jawline. Beady brown eyes that were never still, always moving—he was intelligent, and he was cunning, and I wondered briefly why Tom was so intent on underestimating him.

“You can guess?” I echoed.

The glare he shot me was shrewd and slightly acerbic.

“It has something to do with Malfoy,” he said shortly. “He’s been…acting out lately. I don’t think Tom trusts him anymore, and because I’m the closest thing to a friend that Malfoy’s got—without tits, at least—Tom’s using me to send a message.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, though,” I pointed out. He was wrong, of course. I knew that he was wrong. But he was close—so fucking close—to telling me something that I instinctively knew was important. Something that Tom would never be careless enough to let slip. “If he’s trying to send Abraxas a message—or a warning—or anything—why would he do it through you? Especially the way—the way that he did.”

He glanced at his watch.

“Because I’m not the one who has to go find fucking Grindewald as soon as school is over,” he replied with a grimace. “Fucking branding me like this—it won’t affect Tom’s plans. Malfoy’s the one who matters. Malfoy’s the one who can’t have any outward connection to anything muggle or muggle-born—God, can you even fucking imagine? Showing up to see Grindewald with ‘mudblood’ basically tattooed on his fucking forearm? It would be suicide. Actual fucking suicide.”

I was delirious with astonishment. I hoped—no, I fucking prayed—that he didn’t notice. Because what he’d said—it shouldn’t have been surprising. It shouldn’t have been confusing.

But it was.

It was surprising. It was confusing. It was—

Doubt washed over me like a bucket of ice-cold water. Why would Edmond mention any of this to me? Why was he talking to me about things that he had to have known were supposed to be kept a secret? Was he, even now, gauging my reaction—reading, searching, judging my expression and the length of time it took me to respond and whether or not I was able to muster up a smile, fake or forced or otherwise?

“It still sounds more like a punishment than a warning,” I informed him. “And ‘mudblood’ is an oddly specific epitaph, isn’t it?”

He tucked his hands into his trouser pockets.

“It’s a reminder—to all of us, not just me and Malfoy—that we’re beneath him. That he’s better than us. That he’s the one with the fucking power.”

I regarded him steadily.

“Why are you trying so hard to rationalize his brutality? Why bother putting up with it at all?”

“You’re his girlfriend,” he answered with a casual shrug of his shoulders. “Why do you put up with it?”

I held his gaze.

“I don’t.”

He quirked his lips.

“Liar,” he said mockingly.

I lifted my chin.

“We should get going,” I said. My voice was firm. “We only have a couple of minutes before class starts.”

He didn’t move.

“Look, Granger. I don’t know what you’re playing at by dating him—although I do have a few theories—but—Tom is…not someone you want to fuck around with,” he said, his tone serious. “He doesn’t—he isn’t normal. He isn’t like Malfoy. He isn’t going to fucking follow you around like a puppy and not expect something in return. And—don’t fucking look at me like that—I’m not talking about sex. Christ. I already said he wasn’t like Malfoy. I’m just—for your own good, you shouldn’t…he has plans, alright? Elaborate, scary, ridiculously ambitious plans. And ever since you showed up, he’s been distracted. He doesn’t do things by halves. For fuck’s sake, he makes me get you those stupid fucking roses from the greenhouses every Monday before the sun’s even up. But—my point is—if you keep up whatever it is you’re doing with him—his elaborate, scary, ridiculously ambitious plans are going to fucking fail. And he will blame you. And I don’t fucking care who your uncle is—Tom’s wickedly good at getting even when he feels like it. He’ll make it hurt.”

I bit the inside of my mouth hard enough to draw blood.

“I’m not exactly naïve enough to think you’re telling me this because you’re concerned for my wellbeing,” I ground out.

He smirked.

“We all have a lot invested in Tom,” he said simply. “If he fails, so do we.”

I wiped my hands on the front of my skirt. My palms were sweaty.

“So you want me to…what, break up with him?” I asked, incredulous.

He snorted.

“He’d never let you.”

I gritted my teeth.

“Then what are you talking about?”

He didn’t immediately reply.

“I’m telling you to pick a fucking side, Granger,” he finally said. “You know what I’m talking about.”

I nodded slowly—yes, because I did know what he was talking about, of course I knew what he was talking about—and yes, my brain was whirring and working at a fast, furious pace—and it was ironic, I decided, that Edmond Lestrange apparently considered me untrustworthy. Conversations with him routinely left me feeling puzzled and weak; he was a master of dropping hints and littering innocuous adolescent rants with seemingly solid facts—piecing together what he said out loud with what he implied using carefully measured silences was a serpentine, inappropriately dizzying exercise in futility. He always provided just enough information to pique my interest, but not so much that I could fully understand what he was really trying to say. And, just like Abraxas, he seemed to think that behaving like a typical teenaged boy—overtly crass and more than a little bit dense—was enough of a distraction to ensure that no one would ever realize exactly how dangerous he was.

Not even Tom.

Especially not Tom.

“I heard Tom and Abraxas got in a fight last night,” I remarked, ostensibly to change the subject.

His forehead creased in a slight, barely-there frown.

“Yeah,” he replied uneasily. “Malfoy brought up the bet we made—sorry about that, by the way, but seriously, Tom’s never so much as hinted at being interested in a girl before, and the novelty of watching him eye-fuck you during Potions has yet to really wear off—but anyway—yeah, Malfoy brought up the bet, Tom did his brooding, terrifying silence thing, Malfoy wouldn’t let it go, called you a—well, it wasn’t nice—and Tom completely fucking lost it. Malfoy had barely shut his mouth before Tom had his fist in his face. It was fucking insane, Granger, you could literally hear Malfoy’s nose break, it fucking crunched—but—ah—not that you—you probably didn’t want to know that part, yeah?”

I winced.

“No, I didn’t.”

He cleared his throat.

“Right. Sorry. But—what does this have to do with—”

I cut him off.

“Why do you think Tom is so protective of me?”

His back went rigid.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he replied warily.

I scoffed.

“You seem to be operating under the misapprehension that you know anything at all about my relationship with Tom,” I drawled. “Which is unfortunate, because—and pay extra close attention to this part, Edmond—you don’t.”

His eyes widened.

“I didn’t—” he argued.

“Tom is as much mine as I am his,” I continued, ignoring his vaguely panicked expression. “I know what he’s capable of. I saw the blood on your shirt. I heard about what he did to you. So—do you really think that I’d be sticking around—that I wouldn’t have run straight to my uncle after what he told me last night—if I hadn’t already picked a fucking side?”

His posture was tense, the tendons in his neck pushing up against the paper-thin skin that blanketed his pulse.

But then he grinned.

“Malfoy’s going to be pissed,” he chuckled, moving past me to hold open the classroom door. “So, so, so pissed. Come on, though. We really do need to get to class.”

Taken aback, I followed him into the hallway.

My hands were trembling.

My lungs felt empty.

Tom is as much mine as I am his.

Had I even been lying? I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t tell. Not for sure. And I couldn’t fucking remember—

Mine. Tom was mine.

No.

I hadn’t been lying.

We were ten minutes late for class.

 

---

 

6:15 pm

“I need to talk to you.”

I looked up from my dinner to find Tom’s blank black gaze boring into the top of my head.

“Right now?” I asked, bemused.

He jerked his chin towards the doors that led to the entrance hall.

“Right now, sweetheart,” he said with a menacing edge to his voice.

I dropped my fork. It clattered noisily onto my mostly empty plate.

“Fine,” I replied, getting to my feet.

He yanked at the strap on my book bag and held it in a tight, white-knuckled fist as we made our way around the Hufflepuff table. My heart rate skipped double-time when I realized that he was angry. He didn’t say anything else to me until we were halfway to the Slytherin common room.

“Malfoy’s trying to get me expelled.”

I blinked in confusion.

“For breaking his nose?”

His nostrils flared.

“For a lot of things,” he spat dismissively. “He’s fucking joined forces with fucking Dumbledore.”

I reached for his hand. He let me take it.

“But you’re Head Boy,” I reminded him. “They’re not just going to expel you. Especially when the only thing anyone knows you’ve done wrong is hit Abraxas. Which—and there were plenty of witnesses—was hardly your fault. You were defending me.”

He stared down at our entwined fingers for what felt like forever. Our footsteps echoed dumbly in the dimly lit dungeon corridor.

“I’m afraid—I’m worried that he’s going to talk,” he mumbled, almost to himself. “To Dumbledore.”

“I don’t understand,” I replied carefully. “What does Dumbledore have to do with any of this?”

He bared his teeth in a grimace.

“He’s been trying to convince Dippet I’m fucking unstable—or something equally fucking inane—for years now,” he snarled. “When I opened the Chamber—he knew, Hermione, fuck if I know how—and he tried—he just didn’t have any proof, but if Malfoy—Malfoy was there, Malfoy could tell him everything, could give him the memories he has of that whole fucking day and—and—and I wouldn’t just get expelled, I’d get sent to fucking Azkaban, and I can’t—that’s not—that isn’t what’s supposed to happen. I can’t let it. I can’t. I won’t.”

We stopped walking when we got to the soft stone wall that hid the entrance to the common room.

“Abraxas would get in trouble, though, wouldn’t he? For not coming forward sooner?”

Tom muttered the password and held open the door for me.

“His father would get him out of it.”

I deflated.

“Oh. And you really think that Abraxas would do that to you?”

He stalked towards the boys’ dormitories.

“We’ve never really got on,” he replied distantly, dragging me into his room. “He’s stupid. And arrogant. And entitled. But he’s a Malfoy. That matters. I figured that out a long time ago.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

He slammed the door so hard that it rattled.

“We’ve never got on,” he said again. His voice was shaking. “But he knew his place. He knew what I could do. He knew what would happen to him if he didn’t fucking listen. And since Lestrange and Nott and Avery all knew it, too, he made sure—Malfoy, I mean, Malfoy made sure—that he followed my orders and—and—invited me to fucking Christmas dinner every year. But then you showed up.”

My heart started to race.

“I don’t—”

“They all think you’re ruining me,” he interrupted hoarsely. “They all—they think that I’ve lost focus. That I’ve forgotten what I promised them.”

I twisted the end of my tie.

“I know.”

He eyed me cautiously.

“How do you know that?”

“Edmond told me.” I hesitated. “Although—I don’t think that he’ll be a problem for you any time soon.”

“Oh?”

I straightened my shoulders.

“I might have…said something. To him. About us. Well—about me, technically, but—that doesn’t matter. Anyway. I said something. After he implied that I wasn’t serious about you. About being with you.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“You said something.”

“Yes.”

His jaw went slack.

“Something…defensive?” he pressed.

I fidgeted nervously.

“Possibly,” I hedged.

His mouth clamped shut.

“Explain,” he demanded briskly. “Now, sweetheart.”

I did—with alacrity.

I explained how we had left the Great Hall with Melania Macmillan’s watery brown eyes glued to our departing backs. I explained how I’d asked to see Edmond’s arm and how he’d shown me the scar and theorized that Tom had only been using him to get back at Abraxas. I explained how Edmond had told me about Abraxas’ assignment with Grindewald. I explained how he had intimated that I couldn’t be trusted. I explained how he’d point-blank ordered me to pick a side. I explained how I had responded, and I recited what I had said—

And then Tom took the five steps separating us and cut me off with a bruising, blinding sort of kiss that was absolutely anything but gentle.

“Say it again,” he whispered urgently.

“What?” I sputtered.

“What you just said. Say it again. Please, Hermione. Just—just say it again.”

His hands were curled around the curve of my waist, his fingers digging into my skin—and I was startled to realize that I didn’t want him to let go.

“I said—I said that you are just as much mine as I am yours,” I said tremulously.

His closed his eyes.

“Again.”

I bit my lip.

“You’re just as much mine as—as I am yours.”

He clutched me tighter, his thumbs rubbing up against the underside of my breasts.

“I’m going to kiss you now, Hermione,” he informed me. “I’m going to kiss you, and I’m not going to stop.”

I whimpered.

“I don’t know—”

“Just tell me that’s what you want. Tell me you don’t want me to stop,” he pleaded.

I wanted to say yes.

My skull was crammed with a thousand different thoughts and reasons and arguments and all I could focus on was the insistent chant of yes yes yes that had breached my bloodstream and made it impossibly hard to think.

Because I wanted to say yes.

Because I didn’t want him to stop.

Because I wanted to lose my fucking virginity to Tom Riddle.

It wasn’t going to be how I’d always pictured it. It wasn’t going to be perfect and it wasn’t going to be with someone I loved and it wasn’t going to mean what I wanted it to—but that was fine, it was going to be fine, it was all going to be fine, because that didn’t matter anymore, none of it fucking mattered anymore, not when I was with the wrong boy in the wrong time and there was no turning back, there was no going back, and it was going to be fine, it was all going to be fine, it had to be fine—

I trusted him.

            I had lied earlier that morning when I had said that I didn’t.

            I trusted him not to hurt me. I trusted him to keep me safe. I trusted him—

            I fucking trusted him.

            How had I missed that? When had it even happened? Had the change been too gradual, too subtle—practically undetectable in the chaos of everything else that I felt about him? Because there was anger and confusion and disgust and fear and the kind of intensity that transformed every conversation, every look, every touch into the most infuriatingly erotic experience of my life—and how, exactly, had that turned into trust?

Had it started the night he’d sent Edmond Lestrange to rescue me? I remembered, vividly, the way he’d placed his jacket around my shoulders, the way he’d run his hands down my arms, soothing me, comforting me, offering himself up as my anchor to a reality that was warm and safe and far, far away from anyone who wanted to hurt me. I remembered the way he’d held me, the way he’d kissed me, as if I might break, as if he wouldn’t ever let me break, the way his lips and his tongue and his breath had mingled with mine and made everything seem so much fucking better than it had been in the moments leading up to him, to us, to the gentle slide of his trousers against the torn silk of my dress.

Or—

Or maybe it had started three weeks later, in the Slytherin common room—maybe it had been the soft swishing sound of my skirt falling to the floor, sweat beading across my skin as a sharp sliver of heat burrowed into my abdomen, my knickers lying in a crumpled heap around my ankles. Maybe it had been his arms around my waist, his mouth on my neck, his laughter rumbling through his chest, aching to escape. Maybe it had been his voice melding deep and languorous into the space beneath my ear, the teasing push of air rustling through my hair and eliciting a quick tremor of satisfaction—maybe it had been the silent walk to my dormitory door, his hand on the small of my back, his gaze locked on my face as he bent down to place a chaste, peculiarly sweet kiss on my forehead.

Except—

No, no, it had started before that, it had to have, it had started the first night we’d met, when he was waiting for me outside of Dumbledore’s office, when he’d recited facts and names and dates straight from Hogwarts, A History and I’d realized, even if I couldn’t admit it then, even if I couldn’t verbalize it just yet—I’d realized that there was someone else who had felt alone enough in a new place, a new world, to memorize all twelve hundred pages of that stupid stupid stupid fucking book—

“Hermione,” he said, breaking into my reverie.

I blinked at him. His expression was troubled. He reached forward slowly, as if he was afraid to startle me, and dragged his thumb across my cheek. It came back wet. I was strangely unsurprised to discover that I’d been crying.

“I want—” I started to say. But then I stopped. I couldn’t finish that sentence. I didn’t know how to.

I wanted to say yes.

I wanted to go home.

I wanted to see Ron and Harry. I wanted to be eleven again, before I’d gotten my Hogwarts letter, before I’d been introduced to magic—before I learned what it meant to be a mudblood, before I learned what it meant to watch my best friend be used and manipulated by the man we were all supposed to trust unconditionally, the man who assured us that a sixteen year-old boy could be our savior and then neglected to mention the part about him having to die in order to do so—before I figured out that right and wrong weren’t the only options, before I’d had to grow up too soon, too early, too much—before I’d dueled with Bellatrix Lestrange and let her chase me through a battle-torn hallway and decided, wildly, impetuously, that the only option I had was to destroy the last remaining time turner—

I cringed at the memory.

I had been afraid. I had been so fucking afraid. I had been afraid, and I had made the wrong choice. Why was that so difficult to admit?

I wanted to say yes.

I studied Tom’s face. I didn’t know how he felt. Not really. He wanted me, of course—sexually, physically…emotionally, too, if his recent foray into secret-sharing was any indication. But he was damaged. I wasn’t sure if it was relevant that he had a troubled childhood and an absentee—now dead—father and a plethora of complex, wholly disturbing abandonment issues—was there anything even close to an acceptable excuse for the things he would end up doing? The things he’d already done? Murder and violence and a distressing disregard for human life—were those things justifiable?

But I trusted him.

What did that say about me? Was it a coping mechanism? Survival instinct? Was it something leftover from evolution—some inexplicable primal impulse to latch onto the strongest, the smartest, the most cunning?

He treated me differently than he treated anyone else. I wasn’t so blinded by my own version of prejudice to not see that. He was tender—almost reverent—when we touched. He was indulgent when I tried to argue with him. But it was the way that he didn’t expect anything from me—the way that he looked genuinely surprised when I smiled or laughed or kissed his cheek without provocation—that made my heart ache with the understanding that there had never been a time before me when he hadn’t been alone.

But I trusted him.

And that was important, even if I couldn’t articulate why.

“What?” he asked. “What do you want, Hermione?”

I licked my lips.

“I want you,” I said clearly, glancing up at him through my lashes. “I want—I want you.”

He froze. His eyes were struck wide open, his pupils dilated, every muscle in his body poised and tensed and locked in place—it was odd, I thought, how completely still he was, how very much control he was exerting, how bizarrely fucking brittle he looked—and I badly, badly wanted to reach out and touch him, just to see if he would shatter, just to see if he would move, just to see if the feel of my skin on his was enough to break him out of the preternatural trance he’d gone into.

“You mean—” he broke off. He loosened his tie. “Do you mean what I think you mean?”

I let out a breathy little laugh and smiled at him.

“I want you,” I said again, deliberately repeating myself, and the words were like a catalyst to some long-suppressed sense of belonging and contentment and the realization that I was finally doing something right—I felt lighter, the ever-present weight of dread that I’d grown accustomed to having drifted up and off, leaving me with nothing but a slick, heady clench of anticipation deep in my gut—because I wanted him, I did, and that was okay.

He was going to make it okay.

I trusted him.

“Are you sure?” he asked thickly.

I picked up one of his hands and laced my fingers through his. I wondered if this is what falling in love felt like. I wondered if we had been different, if he had been different, if this moment would have been the same. If he would still be staring at me as if I wasn’t real, as if he couldn’t quite let himself believe that I was real—and it occurred to me, then, that I might have been looking at him the exact same way, memorizing the symmetry of his features and the feral glint in his eyes and hoping that I would never, ever forget how desperately I wanted him to kiss me—

“I’m sure.”

He squeezed my hand.

And then he leaned forward, his gaze intent, and brushed his lips against each of my cheeks, one after the other, and then my nose, my chin, my forehead—it was unbearably intimate, and I felt my throat contract around a sound that might have been a sob when he pulled back.

“I’m not going to ask you why,” he said, his voice strangely loud in the ensuing silence. “But—I need to—I need you to promise me that you won’t regret this. That you won’t regret me.”

My eyes fluttered shut.

“I promise.”

I heard him move—and our thighs were suddenly pressed together and his body was warm and solid as he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and eased me down onto the bed—and then his lips were on mine and his tongue was coaxing my mouth open, open, and he tasted like toothpaste and tea and home and mine and I spared a quick half-second to mentally catalogue the fact that kissing him was an activity that only seemed to ever get better and fuck but I never wanted to stop, not even when we ran out of oxygen and air and time and needed to fucking stop—

He splayed his hands out on either side of the pillow my head was resting on and nestled his hips between my thighs. His erection rubbed insistently at the damp spot on my knickers. When he groaned, I felt the vibration pulse through my nervous system. It tingled. I wanted more. I wanted so much more.

“Your shirt—” he said while clawing at the neat row of buttons dotting the front of my oxford. “Off. Now.”

I sat up, shrugging off the offending garment. He threw it across the room.

“Just my shirt?” I teased, nimbly working at the buttons on his own shirt.

“No, but—” he began. I gasped as his fingertips skimmed the lace at the edge of my bra. My nipples tightened. “I’m told that enthusiastic foreplay is advisable—Christ, sweetheart, you’re fucking gorgeous like this—for engendering an enjoyable first encounter—your tits are fucking perfect, fuck, Hermione, fuck—for all involved parties—”

            His shirt and tie disappeared. My bra was unclasped and lying at the foot of the bed. And then my skirt and my knickers and his trousers were gone and we were both naked and his cock was hard and thick and heavy against my inner thigh and I was wet, so fucking wet, and he was pushing two fingers inside of me, his breathing labored and disbelieving and there was something so fucking endearing about the way he gulped down his nervousness, his insecurities, because I remembered, then, that he had never done this before, had no idea what he was even doing—and so I wrapped my hand around his unoccupied wrist and brought it up to my mouth and pressed a fleeting, feather-light kiss against his palm and then I fucking keened when he twisted his fingers and swirled his tongue around my nipple—

            “You’re so fucking wet,” he muttered desperately. “I don’t—I can’t wait, sweetheart—are you ready? Please, please be ready.”

            I couldn’t respond, not when he removed his fingers and I felt their loss so fucking intensely that I could have cried—but then he was positioning himself between my legs, spreading them wide, rubbing the head of his cock against my clit, up and down, up and down, and then he was pushing in, slowly, carefully, the muscles in his arms bunched up and solid as he held himself over me.

            “Just do it,” I managed to whisper.

            His eyes found mine.

            My lips parted.

            He surged forward.

            There was pain.

            I’d expected it—known it was coming—but I hadn’t anticipated that there would be sensations other than pain, not at first.

            Because I felt stretched. I felt full. I felt hot and cold and good and when he started to move—shallow, irregular thrusts that sent tiny sparks of pleasure up and down my spine—I thought that I might understand why boys like Abraxas chased this, chased this feeling of yes and more and please and right now—it was addicting, practically poisonous, and as the tip of his cock bumped up against my cervix I had to gasp because that was it, that was as far and as deep as anyone would ever get to go and he fit fucking perfectly,like he was meant to be there, meant to be inside of me, and even though the pressure and the friction and the near-constant thrum of blood pumping too fast and rough and relentless into my heart was enough to make me squirm—it wasn’t enough to stop the litany of oh God please more Tom please Tom Tom yes fuck yes you feel so good so good so good Tom yes God more yes please Tom—and if he bit down on my neck every time I said his name, leaving a bruise, a mark, evidence of what we were doing and what I was saying and what it all fucking meant to him—I would never bring it up. I would never remind him.

            I lifted my hips, wrapped my legs around his waist, and suddenly the angle was different and the ridge of skin underneath the head of his cock was catching on something soft and spongy and fucking wonderful inside of me and I was close, so close to being done and gone and if I could just—if he would just—

            He snaked a hand over my breasts, pinching my nipples and releasing a broken moan when I hissed and dug my heels into his lower back, urging him forward. He rocked his hips, his pelvis rolling against mine, and reached between us, right above where we were joined, his thumb grazing my clit.

            My body tensed.

            My muscles fluttered.

            And then—

            He circled my clit again and again and again, and I fancied that I could feel every groove and whorl and crest in the skin of his hands, could map out his fucking fingerprints if I had to, I could, because what was happening—all at once, this hadn’t built up slowly or purposefully or in any way other than rapidly—what was happening was so physical and so raw and so fucking animalistic that I just knew—I just fucking knew—that every last cell in my body was involved and connected and this wasn’t just a fucking orgasm it couldn’t just be a fucking orgasm because I couldn’t help it and I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t stop the flood of certainty that it would never have been like this—was never going to be like this again—not with anyone else, never with anyone else—

            I cried out when I came, an unintelligible blur of syllables that might have turned into words if I’d had the presence of mind to think about them.

            But I didn’t, I didn’t have the presence of mind, because he was still moving, coasting me through the involuntary shuddering and twitching and breathless mewling, and when I had finally relaxed enough to go boneless and limp he had hitched my knees up with his forearms and snapped his hips and then he was pounding into me, a dull dark flush creeping across his chest as he spoke to me, about me—so tight so wet I can’t believe fuck fuck Hermione you’re perfect we’re perfect this is perfect I can’t stop I’m never fucking stopping your cunt fuck ‘Mione your cunt is like fucking heaven—and his tongue was lapping at the spot between my collarbones—fuck so good so mine you’re mine Hermione please you’re so beautiful don’t go Hermione stay stay forever please fuck Hermione—and his already frenetic pace turned something that felt a lot like violent as he screwed his eyes shut—I can’t I’m sorry I can’t you’re perfect so fucking perfect don’t go don’t go don’t go fuck sweetheart so tight so good I can’t I’m sorry I’m so close so fucking close sweetheart—and then he was licking a filthy wet stripe up the side of my throat and his teeth were latching onto my earlobe and—yes yes fuck I’m going to I’m going to sweetheart I’m going to fucking come please I’m fucking yes ‘Mione yes I’m coming I’m coming I’m coming—

            He collapsed afterwards.

            I made sure that I caught him.

 

---

 

            I woke up several hours later with my head tucked into the curve of his shoulder and his arms around my waist. I was sore. My thighs were sticky. I felt happy.

            “Tom?” I asked sleepily. “What time is it?”

            He jerked awake at the sound of my voice.

            “I—what?” he             mumbled, yawning. “Where’s m’watch?”

            I planted a somewhat sloppy kiss on the base of his jaw and reached around him for better access to his nightstand.

            “It’s a bit after nine,” I reported. “I need to get out of here. God only knows what your roommates think.”

            “Luckily none of them are really all that capable of thinking, then,” he replied drolly. “We’re probably safe.”

            I giggled before I could remind myself not to.

            “Anyway,” I sighed. “I should go.”

            He rubbed his eyes.

            “Yeah. Hold on. I’ll walk you.”

“No, baby,” I murmured into his neck, rolling over him. “Sleep. I can get to my dormitory by myself. You realize that it’s just on the other side of the common room, don’t you?”

            He snorted a laugh and ran his hand down the exposed skin of my back.

            “That isn’t the point.”

            I began to search the foot of the bed for my discarded undergarments.

            “I know that,” I replied. “And normally I find your determination to be a gentleman completely adorable—but you’re exhausted. You need to rest. And I can’t stay here all night.”

            He huffed indignantly.

            “Why not?”

            I slid on my knickers and stood up.

            “Because,” I explained patiently, “Melania would use my overnight absence as indisputable proof of my moral depravity and go straight to Slughorn. God. He’d have us married by Christmas.”

            He didn’t respond. I stepped into my skirt. And then—

            “Would that be so bad?”

            I froze. My skirt stayed bunched around my knees, unzipped and scratchy.

            “Would—what?”

            I heard him swallow.

            “Well—you’re stuck here. In this time. And you’ve thought about it, haven’t you? What that means? Surely you want to eventually make a life for yourself. Get married. Have ch—children. Don’t you?”

            I turned to face him, nonplussed.

            “Are you proposing?”

            He didn’t look away.

            “Not exactly.”

            “Really? Because that’s sort of what it sounds like.”

            He sat up. The sheet that had been covering his naked torso slid to his hips, exposing the enticingly straight line of wiry dark hair that started at his navel and continued down, further down, leading to—

I very resolutely did not blush.

            “I’m just saying—wrong time or not, you still have a future to think about,” he said reasonably.

            I gaped.

            “Is this a thing in 1944? Asking girls to marry you after a few weeks of—oh, my God, not even a few weeks, I’ve barely even been civil to you for three whole days—but—I’m seventeen, Tom, and where I come from, marriage isn’t something that you think about with any degree of seriousness at seventeen—”

            “Calm down, sweetheart,” he interrupted, settling back against his headboard. “I know how old you are. But you’re supposed to be a Pureblood. They do things differently. Even Macmillan will probably be married off within the year. And—if you’re still—still here, marriage is something that will be expected of you.”

            I tugged my shirt over my head.

            “And you’re—what—volunteering?”

            He smirked.

            “I know who you are. I know where you’re from. You wouldn’t have to hide anything from me. I’m told that that’s a good foundation for a relationship. It helps, of course, that I find you…tolerable, and I like to think that the feeling is mutual, despite the—ah—complications of our association in the future. So—I’ll ask you again. Would being married to me really be that bad?”

            I fell back onto his bed in a daze.

            “I can’t believe—” I paused and shook my head. “No, actually—I can believe that this is happening. This is my life now. This is what happens in my life.”

            He coughed. I didn’t move.

            “Come on,” he said tentatively. “Let’s get you back to your room. I’ll walk you.”

            He swung his legs over the side of the mattress. I stopped him.

            “If I find out—definitively, I mean—that I can’t ever go home,” I said, practically fucking choking on the acrid sour bitter flavor of the words, “I’ll show you. I’ll show you what you turn into in—where I come from. If I’m stuck here—well, if I’m stuck here, preserving the timeline would kind of be a pointless endeavor anyway, so—I’ll show you, I’ll show you who you are, and after you see—you can ask me about being married to you. You can ask me if it would really be so bad.”

            His mouth snapped shut. The sound of his teeth clacking together was sharp and harsh and made me think that I should have been scared.

I wasn’t.

            “Fine.”

            I finished getting dressed. We both ignored the faint smear of blood on the inside of my thighs.

            “I should go,” I said awkwardly, hovering by the door.

            He was still sitting on the edge of his bed, shirtless, head bowed, elbows resting on his knees—I felt my chest tighten at the sight.

            “I should walk you,” he replied half-heartedly.

            He didn’t get up. I couldn’t—

            “Tom,” I said helplessly. “I’m—I sometimes wish—I sometimes wish that things were different. That I hadn’t ever…known who you were before I came here. That we could have had a proper beginning. I want—I just want you to know that.”

            His expression didn’t change.

            “Is that what this was?” he asked with an unsettling amount of indifference.

            “What?”

            “Sleeping with me,” he clarified tonelessly. “Is that what this was for you? A way to pretend that things were different?”

            His accusation—because as politely as he phrased it, that’s exactly what it was, it was a fucking accusation—tumbled through the air and hit me like a sucker-punch to the kidney. It hurt. It burned. But that wasn’t the bad part, the worst part—no, no, the worst part was that he was right.

            “You should go,” he said after several seconds of silence. “I’ll see you in the morning, Hermione.”

            I flinched at the obvious dismissal.

            “Right. I’ll just—” I turned the doorknob. “—go, I suppose. And—see you tomorrow. Right.”

            He didn’t look at me again. I slipped out the door. I ran down the hallway. I needed—I needed to not think about how ashamed I felt. I needed to not question what that meant. I needed to get to my room and put on my pajamas and maybe have a glass of water—but I didn’t need to think about Tom Riddle. Not tonight. Not anymore.

            The lights were off in the seventh-year girls’ dormitory. Melania wasn’t there. However—her bed was rumpled, her sheets peeled back as if someone had recently been sleeping there. The bathroom door was cracked open. I felt a vague prickle of unease until I heard running water.

            She was taking a shower.

            Relieved, I turned towards my own bed, wincing when I felt a dull ache between my legs. I kicked off my shoes. I fluffed my pillows. I bent down to retrieve a pair of pajamas from the bottom of my trunk. I stood back up.

            And then I noticed the shadow.

            It was big.

            It was behind me.

            It didn’t belong.

            It didn’t belong.

            It didn’t belong.

            A hand clapped over my mouth. I tasted dirt and grease and something earthy—something that might have been grass. The scent of cheap soap and antiseptic cream lingered in my nostrils.

            “Hello, kitten,” a familiar voice purred darkly.

            I didn’t scream.

            I thought of Tom.

            I didn’t feel anything when the world finally went black.

Chapter 16: Chapter 16

October 19, 1944

            She just left.

            Again.

            Fuck.

            I don’t know what—

            She’s so fucking volatile. I have found that keeping up with her emotions is next to impossible—she cannot seem to decide if she trusts me or not, likes me or not, wants me around or not. And at the risk of sounding childish, I confess that her constant vacillation is…upsetting. She blames me for things that I have yet to even do—things that I have no knowledge of; things that I’m half-afraid might actually be real, because why would she bother to lie about them? And I can’t—is that fixable? It certainly isn’t rational. But the truly confusing part is that despite her reticence, I suspect that she’s aware of how unfair her behavior is. She just doesn’t care.

            And she—

            She let me fuck her.

            No. No.

            That doesn’t sound quite right.

            We made love?

            God.

That’s even worse.

            We had sex. We fucked. And her cunt—

Her cunt—

She felt so good, warm and welcoming and wet, and I was so terrified of hurting her—Malfoy always said that it’s miserable for virgins, that they usually cry—but she didn’t ask me to stop, she didn’t look particularly uncomfortable, and she was so fucking tight, she fit my cock like a glove, like I was meant to be there, and when she came it was even better, unbearably better—the way she whispered my name, over and over, again and again, spliced with gasps and moans and a tacit sort of acknowledgement that everything she was feeling was because of me, wouldn’t have been possible without me, without my body connected to hers, without my breath in her mouth—

            It was bliss. Almost as good as finding out what she said to Lestrange after I left them alone.

I never imagined that I would have any interest in being claimed by someone. Not romantically. I am effusively protective of my own possessions, of course, and I have come to terms with the fact that I’ve considered Hermione to be mine since the very first night she arrived. But—hearing her reciprocate, hearing her express an identical sentiment out loud—I am hers, she wants to have me, she wants to own me, she wants to take from me what I’ve taken from her—

God.

Phrased like that, it shouldn’t be such an attractive proposition, should it? Especially now that I know the extent of how willfully she’s choosing to not understand what it all means.

But—

No one has ever wanted me like that—not all of me. No one has ever tried—ever dared—to even make an attempt. It is refreshing and unsettling and I wish—

I wish—

It was good of Lestrange to tell her about Malfoy’s assignment with Grindewald. I thought he might wait a bit longer, but with Malfoy doing a rather excellent impression of a self-sacrificial lamb as of late—well. I have yet to determine if he’s acting under his father’s direction or not. The ring that he so clumsily foisted on Hermione last month still troubles me—because it means that he knew (someone knew) that she would have no idea what it was. However—I absolutely refuse to accept that there is a functioning brain underneath the ever-present stench of sweat and quidditch leather and good-natured indecision. The only subject in which he has ever shown any interest is sex—and God knows that a troubling lack of intelligence is not a disqualifier for that particular act. The sheer number of Hufflepuffs I routinely find in the Astronomy Tower after curfew is evidence of that. (Hermione accused me of underestimating him. Her credibility is somewhat shoddy—he is a petty, spoiled, vindictive idiot, and if anything, I am overestimating his talents.)

Regardless—

            Lestrange thinks that I should tell her everything. That she could help us—that she could help me. He seems to trust her, which I don’t have a problem with—in theory. It’s just that—I am fascinated by her. I know that. I am fascinated by where she comes from and what she knows and the way that her expression drifts into the realm of fond nostalgia whenever she walks past the library. I am fascinated by her eyes—caramel, her eyes have always reminded me of caramel—and her smile and the contradictory nature of her personality—she argues incessantly and she’s so obviously afraid of so very many things and she’s simultaneously the cleverest and most naïve girl I have ever met—I am fascinated by her, by all of her, and that makes her dangerous. Because she has power over me, she could ask me for anything, for everything—I wouldn’t even hesitate before I said yes. I would never even think to fucking hesitate.

            I wonder if she knows that. I wonder if—

            When Lestrange initially proposed that he be the one to drop casual, gradual hints about what we—I—have planned, I was skeptical. There is no discernible benefit to including her. At best, her relationship with Dumbledore is strained and awkward—she would be useless as a spy, even if she weren’t such an abysmal liar. Lestrange then suggested using Malfoy’s fixation with her against him—as if watching me kiss her over a plate of blood pudding would be the thing to set him off enough to make a stupid mistake of the caliber necessary to dispose of him. But as amusing as it might to be bait him—she did, after all, pick me, fuck me, kiss me back—I cannot forget that he is significantly more valuable than Lestrange will ever be. Which means that as much as Lestrange wants to be the one to go to Grindewald, to set everything in motion—as much as he thinks he can manipulate me and Malfoy and even Hermione into giving him that—his ambition is just further proof that he is moronically, erratically, disappointingly stubborn. (How many times have I told him that he has approximately fifty too many close relatives in the south of France to ever even consider the possibility of adequately blending in? The Malfoys are older, more inbred, and far less fertile. There are simply not enough of them left to give any credence to the inevitable rumors of familial mutiny that will arise after Grindewald takes him on. It’s basic fucking mathematics.)

            Of course, that will all be irrelevant if it turns out that Malfoy’s loyalty is as…faulty as I’m beginning to suspect. If he’s already gone to Dumbledore—

            No.

            I would know.

            It might not hurt, however, to speak with Slughorn. Just to—just for insurance. Just in case. Yes. Just in case. Tomorrow—

            There is blood on my bed.

            Not very much—a small spot, really—but it is hers and it’s mixed with my cum and it’s still damp and I can’t quite bring myself to call for an elf to change the sheets—

            Fuck.

            My cum—

            Oh, God.

            Bloody fucking—

            I didn’t pull out.

            Malfoy always said—

            I didn’t pull out.

            She could have gotten pregnant. I could have gotten her pregnant. I can’t—

            I didn’t pull out. How did I—

            Would she stay? If she was? Would she still try to go home? Would she still want to go home?

            I couldn’t have—

            Fuck.

            She could have gotten pregnant. I could have gotten her pregnant. This is not—

            How did I forget? How could I have forgotten? Malfoy always said—

            I didn’t pull out. I didn’t remember to pull out.

            If she is pregnant, she would have to marry me. Dumbledore would have to make her. Dippet would have to make her. The scandal would be atrocious, otherwise. And if we were married—if we had a child—she wouldn’t leave. She isn’t like them. She isn’t them. She would stay. She would stay, and she would show me the future, show me what I become, and—she would have a reason to stay.

            I would be a father.

            I wouldn’t be him. I wouldn’t be like him. Would I? It isn’t as if I know any better. And if Hermione wasn’t there—

            I never wanted her. I didn’t prepare for her. She—it—this—didn’t factor into anything that I planned. She was not supposed to happen. She should not even be here. She belongs to a place that is fifty years outside of the scope of my reality—she doesn’t fit, she doesn’t belong, she doesn’t make sense, and—

            She would stay. I know she would stay. She would stay with me. She isn’t them. She’s nothing like them. She—

            I am being irrational. She more than likely isn’t going to be pregnant. It’s statistically improbable—we’ve only fucked once, and if I just remember to pull out next time—if there is a next time—it will be fine. It will be fine. It will not happen again. Because there is literally no excuse for impregnating a fucking time traveler that doesn’t reek of irresponsibility, is there?

            Except—

            She would stay. She would stay here, with me, and I—

            Fuck.

            I need to see her. I need to talk to her. There must be something—a spell—

            She would stay.

            She would stay.

            She didn’t notice that I didn’t pull out. Or—it didn’t register. She didn’t say anything. Was it subconscious? Will she blame me, when she realizes? Will she assume that I’m trying to trap her?

            She would stay.

            I should find her. I should tell her—there’s a potion, I think—we could stop it—

            She would stay.

            I can’t—

            I want her to stay.

--TMR

 

---

 

I woke up in a bed.

            I laid still for several minutes, trying to let the rhythmic sound of my heartbeat drown out the overwhelming pain in my head. I felt dizzy and disoriented and dehydrated. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know how much time had passed.

            I opened my eyes slowly.

            I was in what appeared to be an opulent, well-appointed residential guest room. The top halves of the walls were painted a delicate sky blue while the bottoms were covered in plain white wainscoting. The bed I was lying in was an enormous mahogany four-poster—the mattress was thick and comfortable, the navy sheets silky smooth, and the pillows soft and inviting. There was a large, gilt-framed painting of a serpent eating a red apple hanging on the wall opposite the bed. There were no clues as to where I was or who the room belonged to. I was still wearing my school uniform.

            I licked my lips and forced myself to assess the situation.

            I was alone. I had been taken—by whom, though? There had been a voice—hello, kitten—and the sterile smell of a hospital. It had been a man. I had known him, I was sure of it, but I couldn’t fucking remember. It was as if my memory had been altered, but so very neatly and efficiently that the only blank spot I could really focus on was the identity of my kidnapper. Everything else was still there. I could recall with crystal-clear precision the faint tug of aching muscles between my thighs, the feel of rough flannel pajamas balled in my hands, the sound of running water in the background; paper-thin wisps of steam had floated out from the bathroom, leaving the air heavy and humid, and the shadow that had popped up behind me had been large, broad-shouldered and bulky, with a voice that I’d heard before, had fucking recognized. I remembered recognizing it. I remembered being surprised. I remembered wishing that Tom was there to save me. But the space between those very disparate thoughts was empty.

            Someone had skillfully tampered with my memories, that much was obvious, and they had done it while I was unconscious. I wondered, with a clinical sort of detachment, if that was why my head hurt so much. I decided that it didn’t matter. Because I needed to get out of wherever I was. They had taken my wand, and there weren’t any windows, but there was a door—a door that’s probably fucking locked, Hermione, I inwardly scoffed—and doors meant exits and exits meant escape routes—

I crawled out of the bed and stepped gingerly onto an expensive-looking Persian rug. My shoes were missing. I tried to recall if I’d even been wearing them when I had been attacked. I thought that I might have been. Shaking my head, I walked towards the door and tried doorknob.

It opened.

And someone was standing on the other side—a tall someone with shoulder-length ash blond hair and laugh lines around his generously proportioned mouth—

I screamed, leapt backwards, and flailed my arms.

“Hermione Granger, yes?” the stranger inquired, moving into the room and shutting the door behind him. He was wearing a crimson velvet smoking jacket, belted at the waist, and loose-fitting black trousers. He seemed pleasant. I was reminded of the night I’d been introduced to Tom, pictured polite smiles and perfunctory handshakes and I suddenly wanted to retch.

“How do you know my name?” I blurted out.

He winced apologetically.

“Oh, my darling girl—forgive me, you must be terribly confused, waking up in a strange place like this—here, take a seat, let me explain,” he said, herding me back towards the bed before pulling up an emerald-green upholstered wingback chair.

“Where am I?” I asked warily.

“I cannot tell you that, unfortunately,” he replied. “But it is immaterial. You’ll be back at Hogwarts shortly.”

I swallowed.

“Why am I here, then?”

“Before I answer that—please, allow me to introduce myself,” he said warmly. “My name is Gellert Grindewald, and I am so very pleased to finally be meeting you, kitten. This is all very exciting, isn’t it?”

I was stunned into silence.

“Oh, my God.”

He regarded me with amusement.

“Indeed,” he said. “And I really am sorry about the way you arrived, dearest—I can have someone fetch you a potion for your headache if you find the pain unbearable—but it was imperative that I have a chat with you as soon as possible, you understand. It isn’t every day you come across a time traveler.”

            I froze.

“Seriously?” I bleated. “How is everyone just guessing that?”

He settled back in his chair.

“Oh, princess—that story about your past that you allowed Albus to bandy about? It was criminally ridiculous,” he said. “A long-lost niece? Educated in France? It’s a testament to poor Armando’s incompetence that you were even allowed inside Hogwarts—really, darling, security there is horrifyingly lax. By comparison, Durmstrang is a veritable fortress. Impregnable. Impenetrable. Et cetera.”

I stared at him, bemused.

“Nowhere in that response did you address the part about time travel being a viable contender for the role of reasonable explanation,” I snapped.

He chuckled indulgently.

“Albus sent me letters,” he replied with a flippant wave of his hand. “Endless inquiries about how I’ve been faring in my time turner research. The man is anything but subtle; I don’t care what his reputation is. I mean, honestly—it’s almost as if he wanted me to figure the two of you out.”

I furrowed my brow, understanding his implication.

“He’s using me to get you out of hiding, isn’t he?”

“Attempting to, my darling girl,” he said, tapping the side of his nose. “Attempting to.”

“He was expecting you to take me,” I continued, my stomach rolling. This was not happening. “He was expecting you to take me, and he’s expecting you to keep me—he wants an excuse to track you down, to—to fight you. Oh, my God. That’s why—people would understand, wouldn’t they? If I was his niece. If I was family. They would look the other way if he—instead of just capturing you—if he—”

“Killed me?” he supplied helpfully. “Indeed, precious. Indeed.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“But you aren’t worried about him,” I surmised, twisting the hem of my skirt as I clenched my hands into fists. “Why? He’s quite powerful. And rumor has it that despite your…history—or maybe because of it?—you’re rather frightened of him.”

He released an unnerving bark of laughter.

“Frightened?” he echoed. “Of Albus? Oh, kitten, no. Albus is so many different kinds of harmless I wouldn’t even know where to begin cataloguing them all. No. No, no, no.”

He didn’t elaborate—and I didn’t say anything, not for several seconds, not as I listened to my thoughts spin themselves around, weaving and crossing and tangling, frayed edges suddenly mended, split ends suddenly whole—because the first kidnapping attempt had not been ordered by Grindewald. He had not cared about me, not then, not even with Dumbledore’s very public acknowledgement of my existence. Which could only mean—

“Tom,” I whispered, my gaze sharpening. “You—you want Tom. You aren’t frightened of Dumbledore because you are frightened of Tom.”

He appraised me thoughtfully.

“You are more intelligent than I was led to believe,” he remarked. “Clever of you, actually, to hide that. I’m assuming that the boy—the boy that you’ve been dating since late September—is aware of your deception?”

I dug my fingernails into the fleshy part of my palm. It hurt.

“You know his name,” I said crisply. “And you know about my relationship with him. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. What do you want?”

“Oh, my darling girl—while it is unerringly sweet of you to think that you are in a position to give me any of the things that I want, you must realize by now that you are operating under a truly remarkable delusion,” he purred.

I straightened my spine.

“And yet…here I am,” I ground out.

He grinned.

“Here you are,” he replied, nodding sagely.

I clenched my jaw hard enough for the bones to creak.

“Are you planning on returning me to the castle before breakfast? I have a very protective boyfriend, in case you didn’t know,” I said. “He goes to rather a lot of trouble to make sure that I’m safe. He’s also a Parselmouth, with unlimited access to a basilisk. Truly remarkable, wouldn’t you say?”

He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. His teeth gleamed white and luminescent and fucking predatory in the shadows.

“I would, princess,” he replied easily. “I would, indeed. Which is fascinating, isn’t it? Considering his background?”

The first stirrings of panic began to swell in my chest.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I lied.

“Come now, darling, don’t pretend you don’t know.”

My tonsils felt huge and raw and cumbersome in the back of my throat. I could not breathe.

“Know what?”

He picked a nonexistent piece of lint off of the front of his jacket.

“Why, know that your boyfriend—the Parselmouth, precious, you know the one I mean—is a tragic little orphan. Who, by some twisted genetic miracle, is also the only living descendent of Salazar Slytherin. Oh,” he added offhandedly, “as well as a half-blood. That’s actually the important part of all of this, darling. I don’t imagine that those boys he coerced into following him around would take too well to that particular revelation, however. What do you think?”

I stared at him, at his smug, seemingly benign smile—and I wondered what I was supposed to do. Oxygen was no longer a primary concern. The burning expansion of my lungs didn’t matter and the rapid seizing of my blood vessels was a nonentity—I was angry, I was furious, I was helpless and desperate and fucking wrecked with rage because he was threatening Tom, my Tom, the Tom who couldn’t help where he’d come from and who had abandoned him, the Tom who didn’t believe that he could ever grow up to hurt me—and oh, oh God, I couldn’t let him do it, I had to think, I had to think, I had to fix this and I had to fix Tom and—

“I think that you’re severely underestimating their loyalty to him,” I said thickly.

He cocked his head to the side.

“He uses them as punching bags and butchers’ blocks, princess,” he cooed. “As a fellow leader of men, I can assure you that that is not the sort of behavior that tends to garner respect and long-term commitment.”

I went still.

“Butchers’ blocks?” I asked carefully.

His smile widened.

“You didn’t hear? About the French boy—oh, you must know him, kitten, he’s a bit weedy, with short dark hair—one of the Lestranges, isn’t he?”

My brain stuttered. How did he know—

“Edmond, yes,” I confirmed, my mouth dry. “What about him?”

He let out an exaggerated sigh.

“Well,” he said, his voice low, as if he was telling me a secret, “it turns out that your handsome snake of a boyfriend is actually a sadist. Likes to carve nasty words into his disciples’ forearms using nothing more than cursed knives and a tiny bit of elbow grease. It’s an inventive punishment, actually—makes one wonder how he came up with it.”

Fucking hell.

“Who told you about that?” I asked, keeping my tone neutral.

He arched a scraggly blond brow.

“You knew? My, my, aren’t you just full of surprises,” he murmured. “It would seem that I have been grossly misinformed about quite a lot of things. Which actually brings me to the reason behind your impromptu…visit.”

My fingers twitched.

“Reason?” I repeated.

He eyed me speculatively.

“Indeed,” he replied. “You see, I have a proposition for you, kitten.”

I snorted.

“Of course you do.”

His lip curled.

“Your name is Hermione Jean Granger,” he said in an alarming sort of sing-song voice. “You were born in London, in 1979. Your parents were both muggle dentists. You spent most of your childhood alone, preferring the company of books to that of other children. You fainted when you got your Hogwarts letter. Your two best friends were named Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. They died approximately twenty minutes before you stepped on that pesky old time turner you always carried around. You received eleven O.W.L.’s at the end of your fifth year. You were tortured rather brutally by someone named Bellatrix Lestrange; she carved ‘Mudblood’ into your right forearm, which is…coincidental, wouldn’t you say?”

I felt the bristly burn of my stomach acids lurching upwards, outwards, a corrosive tidal wave of bile and nausea and how does he know all of this—I wanted to ask, I did, but I physically fucking couldn’t, my throat was locked, the muscles I would normally use to swallow wrapped relentlessly around the words, the questions, like a python suffocating its prey—

I exhaled shakily.

“What a curiously dramatic way to change the subject,” I observed.

He drummed his fingertips against his thigh.

“Oh, my dear girl—you are a delight, aren’t you?” he asked fondly. “I really was grievously misled. No wonder the Riddle boy was so eager to get his talons into you.”

I grimaced. Really?

“Disgustingly poor sexual innuendo aside,” I bit out, “That was a—quite a detailed biography. Of me. Of my life. And you now have my attention. I presume that’s what you were after?”

His expression shifted from jovial to calculating so swiftly that I couldn’t really grasp the change—but then I blinked, and he was harmless again, a blandly handsome man of indeterminate middle-age in a red velvet smoking jacket, legs crossed, eyes twinkling—my blood ran cold as he continued to study me.

“Indeed,” he said again, more slowly. “Have you figured it out yet, kitten? Why I’m so interested in the boy? How it is that I know so much about you?”

I immediately wanted to groan in frustration—because no one in 1944 seemed to be able to speak plainly, clearly, concisely—everything was a puzzle, a game of guessing and leading and circumventing the truth, and it was maddening. It was ridiculous. It was a bloody fucking nightmare, all of the time, and I was never quite sure if I was being purposefully misdirected or simply lied to. I was always left to figure it out for myself, and since there wasn’t an answer key, a teacher to double-check my work—I was alone, and for every conclusion I reached using logic and common sense there were a hundred doubts that crept in, fueled by insecurity and a begrudging acknowledgment of my own subjectivity.

“I can only deduce that while you were violating my subconscious earlier you also availed yourself of my other memories. From my previous life, I mean,” I all but snarled, unable to keep the venom out of my voice.

He pursed his lips.

“You don’t know very much about Legilimency, do you?”

My nostrils flared.

“It isn’t like it’s a common skill.”

            “And yet you’re rather well acquainted with two individuals who happen to be masters of it,” he pointed out.

            I gritted my teeth.

            “If you didn’t use Legilimency—” I began hotly.

            “I didn’t,” he interrupted.

            I floundered for an explanation—and there was one, there had to be one, and it was creeping up on me like a skin rash, prickly and itchy and no, it couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible—but if it was—if it was possible, then I might not be stuck, I might not be trapped, I might be able to—

            “You…” I trailed off, carefully modulating my voice. “You discovered how to travel forward in time, without boundaries. That’s how you know those things. You know them because you were there.”

            Part of me expected him to roar with laughter.

            Another part of me hoped that he would.

            Because I had a very bad feeling about what was going to happen next—because I knew what he was going to offer me, I knew what he was going to say; just like I knew that Dumbledore had been wrong. Grindewald didn’t want me for any of the reasons that we had assumed—he didn’t need me to tell him what the future would hold. He could find out for himself. And that’s how he knew who Tom Riddle was, how he knew who Tom Riddle would become. That was how he knew to be scared.

            “It’s quite a complicated bit of magic, as I’m sure you can imagine,” he said blithely, adjusting his collar. “I had only just perfected it when you arrived in August. The first thing I did, of course, was go forward about a decade—I am not a selfless man, you see, and divining my own future was of paramount importance.”

            I chewed the inside of my mouth.

            “Then you know—”

            “That Albus defeats me in a duel some time in June of next year? Yes,” he answered with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.

            I paused.

            “You’ve figured out how to stop him, then,” I determined dully, the ramifications of what that meant stalling my instinctive need to hyperventilate.

            “Indeed, my darling girl, I have,” he replied, his posture still relaxed. “Which means that the only remaining fly in the ointment, so to speak, is the Riddle boy. And of all people, precious, you have to know why that is.”

            I glanced at the floor.

            “What do you want with me?” I asked, not looking up.

            His chair creaked and fabric rustled as he leaned forward again.

            “I want you to tell me what he’s planning, kitten,” he said bluntly. “The timeline is too distressingly fragile for me to continue gallivanting back and forth—not that there is anything to really see yet, not in regards to him, but he is an exceptionally talented, uncommonly resourceful young man. I will have tostop him. And while I certainly don’t need you—your assistance would be...appreciated.”

            I repressed a shudder.

            “You want me to spy on him.”

            A grandfather clock in the hallway chimed the hour. It was three o’clock.

            “It is my understanding that you have very little reason to be loyal to him,” he drawled. “Considering the nature of your…relationship in the future.”

            I squeezed my eyes shut.

            “What do you want?” I demanded.

            Silence. And then—

            “I already have a spy inside of Hogwarts, my darling,” he said coolly. “They have done an admirable job of keeping track of you, naturally, but your paramour is decidedly more paranoid, and therefore incredibly difficult to get close to. The general consensus is that he trusts absolutely no one.”

            I took a breath.

            “So?”

            He cleared his throat.

            “Except you, princess,” he said pointedly.

            “He doesn’t trust me,” I argued. “He tolerates me.”

            Except—

            That wasn’t precisely true.

            The forced, flimsy affection that had marked the beginning of our relationship—arrangement, I reminded myself, it’s a fucking arrangement, Hermione—had gradually turned into something else, something liquid and languid and easy that I tried very hard not to analyze. But no one needed to know that. No one needed to know that Tom Riddle’s skin wasn’t nearly as soft as it looked, or that he somehow always managed to keep his eyes open and trained on me as he came. No one needed to know that he didn’t have a favorite color or that he fell asleep with my name falling from his lips, almost like a prayer. No one needed to know that I knew those things about him and no one needed to know how I knew those things about him and maybe most importantly—I didn’t want to ever admit that I did, not out loud, not even in my own head.

            “He might not trust you now,” he replied with confidence, “but he will. My informant has assured me that he is disgustingly besotted with you.”

            My eyes snapped open.

            “Look,” I hissed. “He might be a sociopath, or a sadist, or whatever else you want to call him—but I’m not exactly convinced that you’re any better. And I’m not going to use his—his—crush on me to get him to tell me his secrets. I don’t care how you spin it.”

            “That’s disappointing,” he murmured. “But what if I told you that I would send you home—back to your own time—if you agreed to help me? Hmm?”

            My heart rattled like a drum along the inside of my ribcage. Every instinct I possessed was screeching at me to say no, to deny and reject and beg him to wipe this entire conversation from my memory—

            “It wouldn’t be home, though,” I pointed out. My tongue felt peculiarly heavy. “So much has already changed—even if you did send me back, I wouldn’t be going back to anything familiar.”

            He hummed noncommittally.

            “That’s true. But would that really be such a bad thing?” he asked. “Think about it, precious. You would be going back to a world that never had a Dark Lord—or—what is it he calls himself? Voldemort? You would be going back to a time when you never had to fight in a war against him. The very worst of your worries would be how soon your N.E.W.T’s are coming up. There wouldn’t be blood on your conscience. You would never again have to contemplate the line between self-defense and murder; never have to wonder if you’re even capable of crossing it. You could go back to being normal and carefree, my darling girl. Don’t you want that?”

            “That sounds lovely,” I responded bitterly. “Really. It does. But I’m a muggle-born. As in—my parents are both muggles. Non-magical beings. You know—the type of people that you want to either enslave or eradicate, depending on your mood. You can’t promise me a happy future. Not if you’re in it.”

            His expression briefly tightened.

            “Think of me as the lesser of two evils, then,” he said, looking disconcerted.

            I was incredulous.

            “The lesser of—are you mad? I doubt that I’ll even be born if you spend the next fifty years in power. My parents—God, they probably won’t even be born!”

            He didn’t move.

            “Harry and Ronald would be, though,” he pressed. “They would be born, and when you go back, princess, they would still be alive. Don’t you want to see them again? Don’t you want them to not be dead?”

            I flinched.

            “You can’t promise that,” I whispered tremulously.

            His face hardened.

            “Is that a no, then? You won’t help me in exchange for a trip home?”

             I jerked my head backwards.

            “Of course it’s a no,” I retorted. “And I haven’t even begun to explain to you the myriad ways you are obliterating the stability of the timeline. You can’t just—”

            “I can, and I will,” he interjected coldly, his whole demeanor changing, clicking off, morphing into something that wasn’t approachable or comforting or even the slightest bit safe—and that was when I remembered to be afraid. Because I was wandless. Because he was stronger than me. Because I was alone, and no one was coming to rescue me, and I knew exactly what was coming next.

            “Is this the part where you threaten to kill me for refusing to help you?”

            He watched me fidget, the blond tint in his eyelashes catching the light and casting shadows on his cheekbones.

            “No, it isn’t,” he replied with a deliberate twist to his words. “You see, precious, I noticed something about you when I was…doing my research.”

            My stomach turned.

            “And what was that?”

            He offered me a nasty smile.

            “Well—it was entertaining, of course, to discover what a sanctimonious little swot you were,” he said conversationally. “But what really captured my attention was the way that you seemed fundamentally incapable of being selfish. You were always so eager to help, eager to please, eager to save the day—first in line to rescue the house elves from their truly tragic lives of indentured servitude, weren’t you, my dear?”

            I held his gaze.

            “What’s your point?”

            He sniffed.

            “My point? My point, precious, is that I don’t think the best way to obtain your cooperation is by threatening you,” he answered. “I think you would respond much more…enthusiastically if I were to invite a few other people to the party, don’t you?

            My pulse hammered against the base of my neck.

            “Who?” I managed to ask, my lips bloodless and thin and so fucking numb that I wasn’t even sure I had spoken.

            “I’m told that you were quite—ahem—close with the Malfoy heir,” he said silkily. “I can’t recall his name. I’m also told that you’ve lately had a bit of a soft spot for the Lestrange boy—the very same boy who Riddle tortured with his potions knife. You know who I mean, kitten.”

            My thighs felt hot against the cool silk of the bed sheets.

            “I’m not friends with either of them,” I tried.

            He chortled unpleasantly.

            “You’re a martyr,” he shot back. “And they are, technically, innocents. Every last fiber of moral integrity you possess would positively scream in horror if I were to force you to watch me gut them. Which I would, my darling. In case that wasn’t clear.”

            Adrenaline coursed through my veins like watered-down bolts of electricity. I could not concentrate. I could not think. Something was buzzing under the surface of my skin, something solid and warm, and it took me several moments of blank uncertainty to realize that it was resentment. I ran a thumb along the edge of my skirt, listening intently to the sound of my fingernail catching on a loose wool thread. It was scratchy and loud and abrasive and—

            I made up my mind.

            “What do you want to know about Tom? What do you want me to—what should I be trying to find out?”

            His answering grin was equal parts shrewd and triumphant.

            “He wants something of mine,” he replied. “Something valuable. And I have reason to believe, kitten, that he already has a plan in motion for how to acquire it. I want you to find out what that plan entails and who it involves and I want you to do it quickly. You have until the New Year.”

            I frowned.

            “So you do have the Elder Wand.”

            He smirked.

            “You will not send me owls,” he went on, “or make any other outward, obvious attempt at communication. Every two weeks, I will send someone to retrieve you from your room. You will never see them coming. You will wake up here. You will tell me what you learned. You will not prevaricate. You will not lie. I will know if you do—just like I will know if you even try to warn Riddle or Lestrange or Malfoy about what you are doing.”

I didn’t blink.

            “And if Tom breaks up with me? Before I learn anything?” I asked. My voice was flat.

            He scoffed.

            “He won’t, precious.”

            I sneered disbelievingly.

            “How do you know?”

            “Because he is a teenaged boy, despite his potential for excellence, and teenaged boys are stupendously easy to manipulate,” he replied. “Case in point—his preoccupation with you begins and ends with a portion of his anatomy that I would never even dream of mentioning in polite company. Always remember that, kitten.”

            I flushed.

            “Thank you for the…advice,” I said tightly. “When are you letting me go?”

            He crossed his legs at the knee in one graceful, leisurely movement.

            “All in due time, my darling, all in due time,” he announced. “Before you leave, however, there is something I would quite like to show you.”

“Oh?” I croaked uneasily.

            He reached into the pocket of his smoking jacket and pulled out a small black pouch. He tossed it onto my lap. It was light enough to almost feel empty.

            “Open it,” he urged.

            I tugged at the drawstring cord that was looped around the top of the bag. My hands felt clumsy.

            “What is—” I broke off.

And then I stared, unseeing, at the brilliant gold chain suspended between my fingers. There was a tiny hourglass hanging from the middle, and I could just make out the initials “MM” engraved into its underside. It was unbroken. It was pristine. It was mine.

“How did you get this?” I gasped. “I—it was—it didn’t even go back with me, it was in a thousand pieces on the floor—”

“Tell me something, my darling,” he interrupted smoothly. “How, exactly, did you think you ended up in 1944?”

My lips parted.

“I assumed—I thought it was an accident.”

He snorted derisively.

“No, you didn’t,” he said. “You didn’t think that, because you aren’t an imbecile. You knew that something had happened—something you couldn’t explain. Didn’t you, precious?”

It occurred to me, dimly, that I didn’t want him to keep talking. I didn’t want to hear what he was going to say. I didn’t want to know what he had done, because I was sure—so fucking sure—that he had orchestrated all of it, all of this, and even if the logistics were blurry, even if I didn’t understand how—it was just so much easier to believe that it was inevitable or inexplicable or something, something that I couldn’t have fixed or stopped or prevented.

            “You replaced my time turner,” I said dumbly. “You went forward and you found me and you replaced it with one of yours and you—oh, God, how much have you tampered with already? How much was supposed to be different? There are rules—”

            “There are precautions,” he corrected sharply. “No one has ever been able to travel through time as freely as I have, and therefore no one knows for certain what might happen when alterations to the original timeline are made. There are a hundred separate theories about it, princess, and not one of them is absolute.”

            “You already admitted that the timeline is fragile—”

            “It’s flexible enough.”

            “It isn’t a bloody rubber band,” I countered. “You could be endangering the lives of millions of people, we could all just—just—cease to exist tomorrow, or the next day, you can’t know that everything will work itself out—”

            He got to his feet with a sigh.

            “Believe it or not, but I’d prefer the rest of the world to go down with me rather than lose it to someone else,” he said quietly, intensely, like he was making me a promise.

            And then he was holding a wand—where had it come from?—and there was a burst of bright red light—at least I won’t wake up with a headache again—and I felt my muscles seize and compress and bunch together before relaxing into a full-body faint—I have to remember to tell Tom, I thought, I have to remember—

            I was already unconscious when I fell back onto the mattress.

Chapter 17: Chapter 17

October 20, 1944

The sun was just beginning to rise when I slipped inside the school gates. Dark purple skies had bled into fading pinks and pastel oranges, and an airbrushed tangle of clouds was wrapped around the sun, filtering out the first stirrings of daylight. It was probably beautiful. I didn’t notice. I couldn’t tell.

            I walked slowly. I was wearing shoes again.

            Grindewald’s warnings—no, his threats—had been seared into my memory, branded like iron, and I knew that I was finally going to have to make a choice.

I didn’t trust Dumbledore. I didn’t want to run to him. I didn’t want to confess what had happened and what had been said. But—he was supposed to be the one to defeat Grindewald. He was the one who mattered. Not Tom. Tom should be an afterthought, a nonentity; Tom would be fine, he was the sort who always took care of himself, who would find a way to win, to survive, until he simply…couldn’t. He wasn’t my responsibility. He wasn’t mine to protect.

Except—

I ached to do just that.

I wanted to watch him smile, crookedly, like he meant it, like he couldn’t help it, and I wanted to make him laugh, really laugh—not that throaty, perfunctory chuckle he employed whenever Edmond said something ostensibly hilarious, but a real laugh, his real laugh, the one that I’d only heard a handful of times—it was quiet and unobtrusive and warm, richly husky and somehow full of surprise, as if he wasn’t quite used to having to use it yet.

            I shivered as a brisk, early-morning breeze barreled across the grounds.

            It was more than that, of course. I knew that. It was more than vague, half-formed notions of safe and happy and whole. It was aggressive. It was overwhelming. It was gripping and visceral and tangible enough that I sometimes felt like I could choke on it if I didn’t keep my guard up. But—

            I didn’t belong there. I didn’t belong with him. I didn’t belong in 1944, and forgetting that was not an option.

            The castle was eerily quiet as I heaved open the front door.

            Meeting Grindewald had changed everything. Before, it had only been about me. It had been about who wanted to hurt me, and who wanted me gone, and who I could trust to keep me safe. It had been about preventing apocalyptic levels of catastrophe and eventually figuring out how to get home. The lines between right and wrong—between Tom and Dumbledore—had been blurry and hard to define—they hadn’t mattered, not really, and I had allowed myself to be selfish because there was room to be. I had stopped being afraid of Tom. I had taken his advice. I had trusted him with my secrets and tried to comfort him when he’d been upset and fallen asleep in his fucking bed after allowing him to—

            My footsteps didn’t echo in the empty hallways. They were muted; soft; hushed—like I wasn’t even there at all.

            I thought back to the night he’d first kissed me, right in the middle of the entrance hall, when my dress had been in tatters and his jacket had felt like a lead weight around my shoulders. I could have run, then. I could have pulled away. I could have stepped back, ignored the newly awakened buzz of electricity under the surface of my skin, the slightly dry catch of his lower lip against mine before he’d pressed forward and taken control and fucking devoured me—it just hadn’t felt singular, not at the time, it had felt like a thousand separate moments finally converging into something real, a hundred unrelated decisions finally taking shape; and if I’d known what I was doing, known what I was starting—

            I still would have kissed him back.

            I hesitated at the entrance to the Transfiguration corridor. Dumbledore’s office door was shut tight.

             Dumbledore was supposed to be the one to win. Dumbledore was supposed to be the one to take mastery of the Elder Wand. Dumbledore had everyone’s best interests in mind—

            I clenched my jaw.

            For the Greater Good.

            There were always going to be casualties. I wasn’t so naïve as to think otherwise. But wasn’t Dumbledore’s cavalier dismissal of my life, of my wellbeing—wasn’t that just as bad as anything Tom had done so far? I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to be the one who had to be sacrificed in order to satisfy the arrogant machinations of a manipulative old man. I had already given up so much in my other life; I’d lost my childhood and I’d lost my family and I’d lost my best friends, both of them, and it was all because we had blindly, faithfully, followed his instructions, believed every duplicitous word he’d uttered—we had been children, we had trusted him, and he’d used us, played with us like we were nothing more than expendable toy soldiers.

            I turned on my heel.

            Grindewald had to lose. The timeline was precarious now, riddled with hairline fractures and microscopic fissures—it was unstable, collapsible, and Grindewald had to lose.

            I headed for the dungeons.

            Tom could win. He could absolutely win, and I had read enough about time travel, about temporal logic and time paradoxes and whether or not alternate universes could even exist—I had read enough to know that it was possible for the actual outcome of the duel to be the only part that mattered. Grindewald had to lose. That was important. But all the rest—who defeated him, who took possession of his wand—maybe that was less relevant. And Tom could win. Tom could do it. He was ruthless. He was brutal. Dumbledore would spare Grindewald’s life, imprison him in a drafty German cell for half a bloody century; Tom would not. Tom would kill him. Tom would make sure that he couldn’t come back. And considering what Grindewald could do—considering that he’d managed to turn time into something fluid and flexible and painfully unnatural—he was better off dead, wasn’t he?

            For the Greater Good.

            I swallowed hard.

            I could keep the Elder Wand for myself. Tom could win it and I could disarm him, a simple first-year spell he would never see coming, not from me—it would be a betrayal, he would hate me afterwards—he would hate me so much afterwards, fuck, there would be no going back from that—but I could destroy the wand, not just hide it, and that would be—

            For the Greater Good.

The grandfather clock in the common room chimed seven times as I moved through the smooth stone wall.

Melania was still asleep when I crept into our dormitory; she didn’t wake up when I turned on the shower, when steam began to seep through the crack under the bathroom door, or when I rummaged through my dresser drawers for a clean skirt. She didn’t wake up when I tripped over my discarded shirt and fell into the side of my bed with a muffled, “Fucking hell,” and she didn’t wake up when I opened our door and dim white light spilled into the room.

It was almost as if someone had drugged her.

I dispelled the thought with a pointed shake of my head.

Tom would be awake now.

            I rapped my knuckles on the seventh year boys’ dormitory door. Edmond Lestrange answered with a bleary yawn.

            “Granger?” he asked. He was half-dressed, his shirt unbuttoned and his belt buckle hanging loose around his hips. His chest was pale, surprisingly well-built, and littered with small clusters of freckles. His hair was mussed. His mouth was soft and relaxed.

I flushed.

“Is Tom up yet? I need to speak with him,” I said politely.

He squinted at me in confusion.

“He’s in the shower, I think?” he replied. “But you’re welcome to come in and…wait, if you’d like. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

I wrung my hands nervously.

“Who else is—” I started to ask.

“Oi! Lestrange! Who the fuck are you talking to? It’s seven in the fucking morning and not all of us are fucking vampires, you know,” a deep, sleep-slurred voice called out.

I winced. Abraxas.

Edmond half-turned around, swinging the door open all the way with a squeal of its hinges.

“Granger’s here,” Edmond answered gruffly, shooting me an apologetic glance.

There was a pause.

“Well, fuck me,” Abraxas murmured. He sounded closer. “Has Tommy-boy finally figured out what his cock’s for?”

And then he appeared from behind Edmond, leaned against the doorway, and smirked. He was shirtless. His abdomen was nothing but silky alabaster skin and firmly defined ridges of muscle. His trousers were unzipped and clinging to the trim line of his hips, exposing a thick line of wiry blond hair that started at his navel and went down, down—

“Still worried about losing that bet, Malfoy?” I sneered, ignoring the way his nipples were pale pink and pebbled in the cold dungeon air.

Abraxas deliberately looked me up and down.

“Of course not,” he drawled, crossing his arms and flexing his perfectly sculpted biceps in the process. “Gambling’s against school rules, Granger. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“You should probably put on a shirt,” I suggested coolly. “I’d hate for Tom to think you were making me uncomfortable on purpose.”

Edmond bit back a smile and glanced away. Abraxas looked livid.

“A cunt’s a cunt, Granger,” Abraxas snarled viciously. “He’ll get sick of fucking you eventually, and then you’ll learn exactly what it means to fuck over a Malfoy.”

“Abraxas—” Edmond hissed.

“It’s fine, Edmond,” I interrupted. “Abraxas is just bitter that he lost at something. He’s awfully competitive, isn’t he? All that quidditch and misdirected testosterone—it’s understandable. Really.”

Edmond blinked.

“Understandable,” he repeated dubiously. “Right.”

Abraxas’ nostrils flared.

“Anyway,” I went on blithely, “do the two of you mind moving out of the way? As cozy as the hallway is, I think I’d rather wait for Tom inside.”

Edmond stepped backwards.

“Yeah, ‘course. You know which bed’s his, I take it?” he asked in a carefully neutral tone.

Abraxas stomped over to his dresser, yanking out the drawers with enough force to knock them to the ground.

“I do, thank you,” I confirmed, shooting Edmond an amused grin.

His lips twitched.

“He should be out soon,” he said, doing up the buttons on his shirt. “I’ll wait with you once I find a fucking tie. I swear, it’s like the elves hide them just to get back at me for that thing in second year, with the dungbombs—memories like fucking elephants, the lot of them. It’s bloody ridiculous.”

I sat down on Tom’s unmade bed, feeling for the residual body heat in his sheets. His pillow was still warm.

“Do I even want to know?” I inquired mildly, wrinkling my nose.

Edmond grimaced. Across the room, Abraxas had pulled on the rest of his uniform and was slinging his book bag over his shoulder.

“Probably not,” Edmond admitted. “But to be fair, I was twelve, and Nott had insisted he’d found the charm in a reputable spell-book from the library—Nott’s a bloody liar, by the way, I should mention that first—and if Tom hadn’t known the counter-curse like he did I probably would’ve been expelled, so—”

The bathroom door opened and Tom emerged with nothing but a thin white towel wrapped around his waist. He didn’t immediately notice me.

My mouth went dry.

“Are you really reminiscing over the pixie-summoning spell you accidentally cast when we were second years?” Tom asked, arching an impatient brow. But then his gaze settled on me, and his expression minutely shifted. I fought the urge to fidget.

“Hermione was curious,” Edmond said defensively, knotting his tie with a series of jerky, uncoordinated motions that made Abraxas roll his eyes.

“I somehow doubt that,” Tom responded, pulling a shirt over his head and reaching for a pair of neatly folded trousers. “But if you’re done getting dressed, you both can go to breakfast. We might skip.”

Abraxas scoffed loudly and wrenched open the dormitory door. Edmond jumped at the noise and warily watched him leave.

“Should I be the one to tell him he’s acting like a jilted fucking fourth year girl, then?” Edmond muttered.

Tom shrugged.

“He knows what will happen to him if he continues,” he said. “Although—you might want to remind him of precisely how irritating I find bloodstains. And how happy I would be if he helped me avoid having to deal with them.”

Edmond went still. My gaze flicked to his forearm.

“’Course,” he replied, lurking in the doorway. “I’ll just—do that. Go to breakfast, I mean. I’ll—see you both later? Yeah, later.”

He nodded in my direction before scurrying down the hallway, the door swinging shut behind him. Tom tugged on his trousers with one hand holding onto his towel. He didn’t speak to me.

“I was kidnapped last night,” I blurted out.

His towel fell to the floor. He didn’t pick it up.

“What?”

I picked at my cuticles.

“Someone knocked me out when I got back to my room,” I said, feeling strangely jittery. His eyes were trained on my face. They looked almost black in the dim candlelight. “I woke up in a house—Grindewald was there.”

He approached me slowly.

“And?”

I told him everything—the threats and the explanations and Grindewald’s manic fixation with using time travel as a means to acquire information—and Tom listened. He didn’t interrupt.

“And he wants me to spy on you,” I finished. “To tell him what you’re planning.”

            He cocked his head to the side, his expression incredulous.

            “That’s…an incredibly stupid plan,” he replied. “Are you sure that’s what he said?”

            My gaze snapped up to his.

            “What do you mean?”

            “I mean that I doubt he actually thinks he’s going to learn anything from you,” he said. “About me, I mean. He’s using you for something else. He just doesn’t want you to know what it is. I wonder…”

            I stared at him for one, two, three seconds too long.

            And then I was flopping backwards onto his bed, my body wracked with helpless bursts of laughter, my hair fanned out across his sheets and my shoulders shaking with poorly suppressed sobs and it was all just so fucking ridiculous, wasn’t it? I was stuck in the wrong time with the wrong people and I didn’t know what I was doing or what was going on and it was ridiculous, all of it, all of it was fucking ridiculous, and—

            Tears were crisscrossing in salty-sweet rivulets down the side of my face, bleeding into the paper-thin skin behind my ears, before I even registered that I had stopped laughing.

            “You know, I used to be really good at reading people,” I confessed with a wry twist of my lips. “Not because I’m particularly good with people—I’m not, not really, they tend to find me abrasive—but because I notice things. I’m observant. Or—I used to be. I was analytical. Practical. I could decipher speech patterns and body language and—and it was easy for me to figure out what people weren’t saying, to understand what they were trying to hide. I was…smart. It was hard to trick me.”

I felt the mattress dip as he sat down.

“I can see that,” he replied cautiously. “You…pay attention to details. That hasn’t changed.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“I’m not—” I started to say before cutting myself off. “It was different. Before. Where I’m from. I was a target, yes, but—I understood the rules. I understood why. I understood what they wanted from me, and I understood why they wanted it, and here—I don’t. I don’t understand what’s happening—and I keep feeling like I should, like I should have an advantage because I—I know what’s supposed to happen, but it isn’t working out like that and this isn’t like—this isn’t like before, when I knew that I wasn’t safe but I had a good reason not to be. Here…”

He shifted restlessly.

“Here?” he prodded.

I wiped a hand over my mouth.

“Here…” I trailed off. “Here, I don’t understand anyone’s motives. I don’t know what they want. I don’t know how or why I’m even involved. I’m—I’m lost. And because I don’t know anything, all I have left are my instincts, which—God, those haven’t been very helpful, have they? I’m just—I don’t know who I’m fighting. I don’t know why I’m fighting. I don’t know what I’m fighting for and it’s hard to—it’s confusing, yes, but it’s mostly…frustrating. I feel like I can’t keep up. I feel fucking stupid.”

He made a disbelieving sound in the back of his throat.

“You have a habit of making things significantly more complicated than they’re meant to be,” he said with a sigh. “You’re not stupid, Hermione. You’re a Gryffindor who likes to do the right thing, indiscriminately, and you’re surrounded by people who…don’t. Who aren’t like you at all.”

I turned my head to the side and blinked up at him.

“I don’t think that was a compliment.”

He offered me a tentative half-smile. It softened his features, made him look younger, more vulnerable. I wondered at its timing.

“Normally, it wouldn’t be. But you’re…have you ever thought that the way you do things—the way you talk, the way you act, so straight-forward, so honest—have you ever thought that people here find that equally as discomfiting?”

I swallowed.

“I’ve made an effort, I’ll have you know, to not…be like that.”

His lips thinned.

“You’re defensive,” he said bluntly. “And you’re argumentative. You treat most of your conversations as competitions to be won—which, to be fair, isn’t necessarily an inaccurate perception, but…what’s the saying? If you act like prey, you should expect to be treated like prey?”

I sputtered.

“I don’t act like prey,” I retorted hotly.

He arched a single dark brow.

“Not on purpose, no,” he replied. “But it isn’t very difficult to discern how frightened you are sometimes. That’s—that’s what I mean about you being straight-forward. You’re easy to read. And Slytherins—people like me—know how to take advantage of that.”

I considered what he had said.

“So…what, I need to become a better liar?” I drawled sarcastically.

He huffed out a laugh.

“No,” he answered evenly, shaking his head. “You need to stop thinking that people here are anything at all like you. They aren’t. We aren’t. You’re looking and listening for the wrong things when you talk to them. It would also help if you weren’t so bloody obvious about how much you don’t trust anyone, but—I suppose that would fall under the ‘becoming a better liar’ category, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t not trust anyone,” I shot back bitterly. “I mean—I trust you. What does that mean?”

His gaze faltered.

“You—”

“Yes,” I interrupted. “I do. Which is just so—so—”

He rolled onto his side and propped his head up with his hand.

“What are you saying, Hermione?”

I studied his face, all strong lines and smooth symmetry. A swift pang of longing reverberated through my body. Because it was hard, still, after all these weeks, to associate this version of Tom Riddle with the one I had known fifty years in the future. There was nothing to connect them; no obvious similarities. It was as if they were two completely different people.

“Youwere supposed to be the bad guy,” I said finally. “You—it was supposed to be you. Dumbledore was supposed to be trustworthy and you were supposed to be…you were supposed to be Voldemort. But instead—it isn’t like that. Dumbledore tried to use me and you’ve done nothing but try and protect me and—I don’t know—it’s backwards. It’s backwards that out of everyone I’ve met here, you’re the one I’m trusting and talking to and—”

He opened his mouth.

He narrowed his eyes.

But then he hesitated.

And it was that, of all things—of all fucking things—that made it all comprehensible, suddenly and ferociously, that turned ten seconds of thoughtful, telling silence into poetry—because he was trying, he was trying to listen and he was trying to help and I knew what that meant, I knew what it meant that he asked me not to leave him, not ever, in the middle of sex, and I knew what it meant that he understood that it wasn’t the physical pain that still haunted me when I showed him the scar on my arm—I knew what it meant that I wanted to run away, that I wanted to kiss him, always, that the idea of hurting him, even indirectly, made me feel violently, viciously sick.

He was dangerous. He was sleek and beautiful and deadly; the perfect predator. He had wanted me, and now he had me, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he knew that, if he realized it, if he had any concept of how deeply, disturbingly honest I had been when I’d told him that I wished things were different—that we could have had a proper beginning, a real one, that I could have met him without the burden of knowing his future, without knowing what he was capable of. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t rational. But he was brilliant and he was complicated and he looked at me like I was something precious.

And I was in love with him.

I wasn’t startled by that thought. It had been swimming vaguely in the back of my head for days, a lurking, brooding, shadowy presence that I never quite let myself acknowledge. Because acknowledging it—saying it out loud—would mean that I was, perhaps, a little more broken than I wanted to admit. It would mean that there was something inside of me that could justify the things he had done, the people he had hurt. It would mean that I recognized the feeling of being separate from everyone else in a way that I couldn’t fix, couldn’t take back—except I did, I knew now what it meant to be alone, really fucking alone, and if two months of it could drive me mad, eighteen years seemed unfathomable. And was that sympathy? Or empathy? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to love him.

“Why do you—” he broke off, clearly frustrated.

“Why do I what?”

He exhaled impatiently.

“What are you trying to prove, Hermione? By saying things like that? In fifty years, I turn into someone you obviously find reprehensible. Someone you want dead. I get that. I got that the first five times you brought it up and refused to explain yourself.”

I flinched at his tone.

“I’ve told you—”

“You’ve told me nothing,” he spat. “You’ve dropped hints and implied that I’m quite the evil bastard, but you haven’t—how am I supposed to make it better? If I don’t know what I did wrong?”

I gaped at him.

“I never asked you to make it better,” I insisted. “You can’t make it better. The things you do—I thought I made that clear.”

He sneered.

“So you just fucked me for fun, I take it?”

I cringed.

“I didn’t mean to—” But then I stopped. I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t know how to explain that no, no, it hadn’t been like that, I had wanted him, I still fucking wanted him, all of the time, I wanted him all of the fucking time—I didn’t know how to tell him, didn’t know how to make him see that it was complicated—more than complicated, even, like a puzzle with a permanently missing final piece—because what was I supposed to do?

“Do you even realize?” he asked, his voice low. “What I would do for you? What I would—Christ, Hermione, I’ve never wanted something so much, never wanted to—and you don’t even realize it, do you?”

I didn’t reply.

There were words I could have used, I thought—but they were too small, too inadequate, and they were stuck on my tongue, mired in self-doubt and uncertainty and a crippling fear of what it might mean if I let him hear them.

“I would—I would kill for you,” he went on, nostrils flared. “I would fucking eviscerate anyone who tried to hurt you. I would—fuck, I wouldn’t even use magic, I don’t think, I would just—I would rip their throats out, one by one by one, watch them fucking bleed to death and fucking—fucking enjoy it—and I would maim and torture and disembowel whoever tried to take you away from me—I wouldn’t even think twice about it. Do you understand that? Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

I shut my eyes.

I was going to cry.

This was not supposed to have happened.

“No, I don’t understand,” I whispered, knowing what was coming. “But I want to. I want to understand.”

I took a harsh breath.

The thing was, I wasn’t Harry. I hardly had any memories of Voldemort that weren’t secondhand retellings of impossible magic and sinister intimidation tactics and blood, so much fucking blood—what could I show him, really, that could encapsulate everything he had indirectly done to me? I had only ever seen his face once, right before he died, and the months leading up to that had been nothing but running and hiding and being so, so afraid that nothing would ever be okay again—

I opened my eyes.

“Do it, then,” I said defiantly.

He clenched his jaw. He took hold of my shoulders. His gaze bore into mine—

“Legilimens.”

It was—

Gentle.

I felt him, felt his magic seeping into the whorls and cracks and ridges that paved the surface of my brain—but it was a warm gust of wind, soft and comforting, nothing at all like the violent, painful intrusion Harry had described. He was carding through my memories, brief glimpses of long-forgotten images flashing across my subconscious—there was Professor McGonagall explaining what Hogwarts was to my baffled, frightened parents, her lips pinched into a tight, uncomfortable smile until I’d stepped forward and introduced myself and said, “I have quite a lot of questions. I expect you’ll want to stay for tea,” my expression almost laughably serious; and then Harry and Ron and Neville and even Lavender Brown being Sorted into Gryffindor, Draco Malfoy’s platinum-blond hair glinting in the candlelight as he snickered derisively over at the Slytherin table; and then there were shorter, less detailed fragments—Hagrid’s laugh and Dumbledore’s half-moon spectacles and the terrifying shadow of a slobbering three-headed dog sleeping underneath the floorboards, childish shrieks followed by waking Harry up in the hospital wing and then it was the next year and I was brewing Polyjuice potion in the second-floor lavatory, dull yellow eyes reflecting back at me from a small hand mirror and then nothing, nothing, nothing—

Forward.

I was a fifth year, I thought I was in love with Ron, Harry was saying something about a prophecy—forward forward forward—I was on the back of a thestral, we were in the Department of Mysteries, there was shouting and so much bright green light and broken glass littering the floor and the agonizing burn of an unknown curse cutting into my abdomen, painful enough that I was out, out, again, again—forward—Bill Weasley’s wedding, Kingsley Shacklebolt’s patronus, the Ministry has fallen, and then Death Eaters Death Eaters Death Eaters, the potent stench of fear—grab the Mudblood—running away, always running away, horcrux hunting—seven fucking horcruxes, seven is the most magical number, there are seven horcruxes, Harry—having to switch off wearing the fucking locket, arguing with Ron, missing my parents, missing everything, crying myself to sleep, alone in the tent—and then we were captured, snatched, and Bellatrix Lestrange was giggling, twirling her wand, taunting me in the Malfoy’s front drawing room, asking me questions and calling me Mudblood and demanding answers that she knew I wouldn’t give—then pain, there was pain, and blood and blood and blood and pain and Lucius Malfoy was saying something, saying, “Stop it, Bella, please, stop it, please, think of Draco,” or maybe I’d imagined that but Harry and Ron were yelling in the background and there was still so much blood and Draco Malfoy looked sick, something that might have been an apology clouding his pristine Pureblood eyes, eyes that were fixed on my forearm, except I hadn’t seen it yet, and it was all blurry by that point, the memory fading in and out, so much fucking blood and pain and noise and then a bony, long-fingered hand was wrapped around my wrist and I was gone, gone—forward again—Hogwarts was a battleground, charred portraits and scorched walls and I was sprinting outside, hurling curses over my shoulder, praying they connected, but then I skidded to a halt because there was Voldemort—

Chalk-white, flat-nosed face, serpentine features, unnatural red eyes, hardly even human and he was dueling with Harry, something was happening, no, no, he was dead, Harry was dead, both of them were dead, no, Harry was dead, no, Harry was dead, Ron was screaming screaming screaming and I couldn’t understand, no, Harry was dead, but Bellatrix Lestrange let out a roar that was so saturated with grief it hardly made sense and was running towards us and Harry was dead, and then we were leaping over bodies, mostly dead, fleeing into the wreckage of the castle, and there was a triumphant screech as Ron went down, right next to me, cold stiff fingers grazing my elbow as he fell to the ground, dead dead dead, no, Harry was dead, no, Ron was dead, and then there was the ever-present weight of the time turner between my breasts and I was so fucking tired and Harry was dead and I spun around and wrenched it off my neck and—

Tom left my head.

It was over.

I couldn’t look away from him.

He didn’t say anything for a long, tense moment.

“I…after all of that—everything I did—I lost,” he said incredulously, his expression flickering between confusion and sadness and anger and disbelief and—my stomach twisted when I realized what he had said. “I did it—I fucking did it, Hermione, I was the most powerful man alive—I had the fucking Ministry—and I still lost. How—I don’t understand. Hermione. I don’t—I lost.”

I blinked. I tried to clear my head. I failed.

“You did,” I confirmed quietly. “You did lose. Eventually.”

He stared at his hands. He flexed his fingers.

“I made seven horcruxes,” he stated, oddly flat. “Seven. I died—I died seven times. My face…”

I chewed the inside of my mouth.

“You were resurrected,” I replied. “I don’t have the memory, I wasn’t there—but Harry—my best friend—he was there. He saw it. You used magic to give yourself a new body. Dark magic. Obviously. And that’s—that’s what it looked like.”

He glanced over at me. His eyes were hard.

“I lost,” he said again. “I was barely even human and I made seven bloody horcruxes and I—I fucking lost. I lost, Hermione.”

My lips parted.

“I know you did,” I responded. “I was there.”

He didn’t move.

“I killed your friend,” he said dully. “Right in front of you. You watched me…Hermione. Hermione. I lost.”

I held his gaze.

“You killed a lot of people right in front of me.”

He shuddered.

“Everything—after everything—seven horcruxes, Hermione—do you know how much it hurts to make even one? Do you know—seven, I made seven of them, and I still—I lost.”

I lifted my chin.

“If it makes you feel any better, you did manage to completely and irreparably destroy several thousand innocent lives before you lost,” I snapped.

He smoothed a hand across his forehead.

“Including yours.”

I froze.

“Yeah,” I said thickly, thinking of Harry, of Ron, of my parents and Professor Snape and even Draco Malfoy’s pale, drawn, horrified face when he’d finally seen what Bellatrix Lestrange had done to my arm. “Including mine.”

He shifted, then, moved closer to me, the unexpected heat from his body catching me off guard. I couldn’t help but shiver.

“I’m not sorry,” he said. “I’m not sorry for what I did—for what I do. I’m not.”

I looked at him quizzically.

“I never thought you would be.”

He threw an arm over my lower abdomen and buried his face into the curve of my waist. I let him.

“You can’t go back there,” he said, curling his hand around the un-tucked hem of my shirt. “Now that you’ve shown me. Especially if I—”

He didn’t finish.

He didn’t need to.

Especially if I figure out how to win next time.

I carded my fingers through his hair. I thought about how horrible this conversation should have been. I thought about why it wasn’t. I thought about why I didn’t care that it wasn’t.

“I can’t go back regardless,” I replied. “Not if Grindewald wins. At least I know that I’m born in a timeline where you’re the villain.”

His grip tightened.

“He won’t win.”

“He might,” I countered weakly. “He could.”

“He won’t,” he repeated. “Not now that I have you on my side.”

I pursed my lips.

“That sounds ominous.”

He snorted.

“I saw what you’re capable of in your memories, Hermione. You’re remarkably clever.”

“And?”

“And,” he continued, sliding his thumb underneath the waistband of my skirt, rubbing back and forth, back and forth, “you’re an asset. You’re magically gifted. You think quickly and efficiently and rather brilliantly. You’ve already lived through one war. You know how to fight, and you know how to survive, and you know how to win. How to plan. Dumbledore already underestimated you. From what you’ve told me, Grindewald seems to be slightly more aware of your value, but can’t see past the more obvious threats to his power. You’re my secret weapon, aren’t you?”

I absently scratched my fingernails over the back of his neck.

And then it hit me—like a fucking hurricane, all gale-force winds and tempestuous sheets of rain and the acrid risk of danger and chaos and unwelcome, unstoppable destruction—that he had already processed what his future held and catalogued the mistakes he assumed he would make and was now firmly back in the present, the anguish he’d felt mere minutes earlier neatly packed away and compartmentalized and left to rot in whatever cerebral graveyard he reserved for disappointment and failure.

That was not normal.

That was not rational.

And I did not know what to say.

“That doesn’t mean we can beat him, though,” I pointed out shakily.

His thumbnail caught on the lace edge at the top of my knickers.

“Hermione,” he implored, plucking at the buttons on my shirt with his other hand, exposing my stomach. “He won’t win. I won’t let him win. Do you understand?”

No.

No.

I did not understand.

“You—we—need a plan,” I responded, my lips numb. “And I’m sure you have one, but—you have to tell me, Tom, you have to tell me what it is, and we need to—it needs to be perfect. It needs to work.”

He pressed a sloppy kiss into the skin below my bellybutton. 

“You need to talk to Dumbledore first,” he said, dragging his tongue along the hollow of my pelvic bone.

My breath hitched.

“W—why?”

He heaved himself up, swinging his legs over my body so that his knees were bracketing my hips. He toyed with the zipper on the side of my skirt. I shifted unsteadily.

“Because I’m almost positive that he’s the one who encouraged Malfoy to give you that ring,” he purred, deftly tugging his own shirt over his head and tossing it onto the floor. “He probably thought he could use it to track you once you were kidnapped by Grindewald.”

            I could see the outline of his half-hard cock in the placket of his trousers. The cotton of my underwear felt thin and cold against my clit.

            “That’s—that’s—what does that have to do with your plan?” I managed to rasp as he tugged my skirt down my legs.

            His fingers fluttered around my knickers, knuckles grazing the sticky wet patch along the front.

            “Nothing, really,” he replied, bending down to nose at the soft, soft skin of my inner thighs. “But he has to have figured out by now that that particular plan didn’t work, and I’d like to know if he has any others involving Malfoy before I…proceed.”

            And then his mouth latched onto my clit, right through my knickers, and he sucked, making an obscene slurping noise with his lips, and my vision went spotty, just for a second, and I might have forgotten how to breathe. I couldn’t tell.

            “Oh,” I gasped. “Makes—makes sense. But why—oh, my God, do that again, please, please, do that again—”

            He shot me a wicked grin before removing my underwear altogether and diving back in, mouth hot and open as he fucked me with his tongue, pinpricks of pain shooting up my sides as his fingernails dug in.

            “Fuck,” he swore, alternating between speaking and lapping at my clit. “You taste—so fucking good, sweetheart—want to fuck you, want to watch you come, want you to beg for it, for my cock, come on, yeah, like that—”

            My toes curled into his sheets.

            “Please,” I said, “just—I need—please, Tom—”

            He lurched backwards, scrabbling for the fastenings of his trousers. His lips were swollen. His chin was shiny. He looked fucking desperate.

            “Say it,” he commanded, shucking his pants and climbing onto the bed. He sat with his back to the headboard, his cock flushed and hard and leaking as it rested against his stomach. “Tell me what you need, sweetheart, come on, I want to hear it—”

            My cheeks turned pink.

            “Tom,” I pleaded.

            He grabbed my wrists, yanked me closer, into his lap, positioned my legs so that I was straddling him, so that all I would have to do was go up on my knees, just for a second, and then—

            “Say it,” he repeated, drawing maddening half-circles along my inner thighs with his fingers. “Say it, sweetheart, just say it and I’ll take care of you, give you everything you need, come on, just say it and tell me exactly what you want—”

            I opened my mouth.

            The head of his cock brushed my clit.

            “Fuck me, Tom,” I finally said. “I need you to—just fuck me, please.”

            His hands squeezed my backside, hard enough to bruise, and then—

            “Bloody fucking hell,” he whispered, sounding frantic.

            But he slid inside of me quickly, in one fluid motion, and there was an immediate moment of silence, stillness, a muffled groan and a quiet curse and the helpless, inescapable fluttering of eyelashes—and then his grip tightened, his fingernails scrunched into my flesh, and his mouth was hot and moist and perfect against my neck, I wanted to keep it there, never wanted it to leave, wanted his teeth around my madly beating pulse and his tongue flicking out and up and across my collarbones and his breath swirling through the lukewarm sheen of sweat that had settled over my skin.

I wanted that and I wanted him and I wanted it forever and when he finally moved, when he finally tilted his hips and pushed up, pushed closer—

“Oh,” I gasped.

His pelvis was crushed against my clit, creating a slippery sort of friction that was making it difficult to think or speak or even remember what the fuck my name was. I instinctively ground down, needing more and harder and yes, just like that and he thrust upwards again, the resulting slap of skin on skin echoing loud and filthy and wet in the partial darkness of his dormitory. The jarring bump of his cock hitting my cervix was just shy of painful, felt bad, good, right, an uncomfortable reminder that I was full, that this was what I’d asked for, that the booming thud of blood rushing to my head and the slow-fast spiral of pleasure curling around my spine were things that were happening, it wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a nightmare, it was real real real—

“Yeah,” he breathed heavily, “come on, sweetheart, like that, yeah, just like that—”

I rolled my hips, felt the muscles in my thighs tense and burn as I moved—up and down, fuck, down and up, yes—and I clutched his shoulders, marveled at the heat of his bare skin, the silky slick perfection of it, even as I continued to use him as leverage to keep going, keep chasing, and then he clapped one of his hands against my backside, painfully fucking hard, and it stung, it prickled, and he shifted his body, changed the angle of his thrusts into something shallow and deliberate, and the underside of his cock dragged against my inner walls, made every last inch feel rough and thick and so fucking exquisite that I barely even noticed the newly insistent pressure on my clit—

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he asked, rocking up, forward, yes. “Tell me, I want to hear you, I want to fucking hear how fucking good it is for you—”

My lips were already bitten through, chewed up and raw and swollen—but I forced my mouth open, released a broken moan, couldn’t stop it—yes—didn’t even want to fucking stop it—yes—and we were moving so slow, the heat between us sloppy and sluggish, and I tipped my head back, unable to keep my neck straight, unable to process that there was nothing frantic or desperate about the way his cock was buried inside of me—no, this wasn’t like the first time, not even close to the first time—that had been all laser-sharp nerve endings and messy, chaotic fumbling and this was different.

This wasn’t about possession.

This wasn’t about being taken.

This was—

“I—you feel—Tom,” I said, stumbling over the words. “I don’t know how to—”

“Yeah,” he panted. “Yeah, I know, I know, just—yeah, like that—fuck me just like that—keep going, sweetheart, could do this forever, want to do this forever—”

I swept my hands up his throat, cupped his face, felt the strangely delicate bones in his jaw—I was kissing him before I understood that I wanted to, running my tongue along the slightly uneven ridge of his teeth, tasting him and devouring him and trying so incredibly fucking hard to convey all the things I wasn’t brave enough to say out loud—I wondered if I should be more gentle, less aggressive, but it was too late.

He was already kissing me back.

He moved one of his hands, trailed a feather-light fingertip down the center of my spine, elicited a shiver and a whimper and an inward chorus of breathe Hermione just fucking breathe keep it together fuck fuck yes breathe—except I was getting wetter and wetter and wetter and the sweat-drenched slide of our bodies felt obscene, felt like the languid popping crackle of a roaring fire, felt like too much and not enough and I wanted to go faster, I wanted to fucking come, but I knew better, I knew that what was happening just then, what was being stirred so fucking fiercely between us—it was intimate and it was unhurried and it was ours, it was us, it was him and me and a thousand different versions of perfect—

“Thought about fucking you like this for ages,” he slurred into my open, waiting mouth, his lips catching on mine, his voice scratchy and heavy and deep. “Wanted—wanted to watch you sit on my cock, just like this, wanted to hold onto you while you came—so fucking beautiful when you come, I can’t—I don’t know how—fuck, do that again—”

I ducked my head, pressed my face into his shoulder, felt my nipples tighten and brush against the faint dusting of wiry black hair on his chest.

“I’m going to—Tom—please please please—Tom,” I stammered, biting down on the stretched-out tendon at the base of his neck.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he managed to reply, and he sounded gutted, wrecked, as if he couldn’t bring himself to focus on breathing, as if his lungs were protesting the lack of oxygen and his vocal chords shouldn’t have still been working but he was forcing the words out anyway, just because he could, just because he had to. “Say my name, say it again, I want to fucking hear you, come on, sweetheart, say it again—”

And then our hips were grinding together and his cock was pushed up against some spongy, spectacular spot inside of me and I could feel it coming, could feel the oncoming pulse of electricity, building and building and building, just like a tidal wave, just waiting to crest and crash and oh, fuck.

“Tom!” I cried out.

I could feel my body moving jerkily, without any direction from my brain, could feel his hands roving over my skin, petting, stroking, guiding me through the tremors and the aftershocks, even as he whispered in my ear—

“So good for me, so fucking good for me, come on, just like that, you’re fucking gorgeous when you come—”

I went boneless in his arms.

“Tom,” I said again, utterly spent.

He wasn’t done, though, hadn’t stopped moving, thrusting, harder and deeper and faster, and the muscles in his back were tenser and tighter and his breathing had gone erratic and his hips were stuttering, falling out of rhythm, but he was still talking, an endless stream of barely coherent words that I wanted so very fucking badly to understand—

“Yeah, fuck, fuck, Hermione, I’m going to—I can’t stop I can’t stop I can’t stop it,” he babbled, pushing and pulling my hips, forcing me to grind down. “You feel—you feel too good, I fucking—I can’t stop—Hermione, please—I want you to—I want you—I need you to—I can’t stop—I’m fucking coming—”

And then our eyes were locked and his gaze was dark, prepossessing, pinned into mine with a forceful kind of intensity that I didn’t want to fixate on, didn’t want to acknowledge; because there was something else there, something sharp and toxic, almost triumphant, like he had gotten exactly what he’d wanted, slithered around and beneath and straight through the rules, and no one had bothered to catch him.

I ignored it.

But I felt him come, a sudden spurt of scalding liquid heat deep, deep inside of me, and I was taken aback by how good it all was, how I instinctively leaned forward, leaned into him, unwilling to separate even as his cock pulsed one last time and he let out a satisfied groan, long and loud and right.

“Hermione,” he murmured, his lips tilting up at the corners. “Hermione.”

I wanted to savor that moment. I wanted to capture it, lock it up, keep it close—and I would, I knew that, the same way I knew that I wasn’t allowed to have him, not for forever, and that he wouldn’t move on from me, not after I was gone.

“I don’t want to move,” I complained, resting my forehead against his. “I just want to stay like this. Can we do that?”

He snorted softly.

“I imagine you’ll change your mind in a few minutes. You can’t be comfortable like that.”

I released a petulant sigh.

“Is that a no?”

 

“Of course it isn’t,” he replied, dragging a thumbnail over the sensitive skin at the base of my neck. “I can’t—you have to know that I can’t say no to you.”

My heartbeat stuttered.

It was bittersweet.

“I was so angry when he threatened you,” I admitted. “When he implied that he would—that he’s planning to hurt you. I couldn’t—even if it would be better if he did win, even if it would be safer for me—I don’t think that I could…I don’t think that I could stand it.”

It was cathartic, saying it all out loud—almost like a declaration. I didn’t let that thought linger. He smoothed his palms down the evenly spaced bumps of my vertebrae.

“He isn’t going to win,” he promised again. “But come on, we should clean up. Then you should get some sleep. You should—you can stay here. If you’d like.”

I scooted backwards, wincing as he slipped out of me and a steady stream of cum trickled down the inside of my thigh.

“Will you—” I broke off. I cleared my throat. I tried again. “Will you stay with me?”

He stood up, naked, and picked up his discarded shirt. He used one of the sleeves to wipe down his lower abdomen before holding it out to me.

“What did I say about being able to tell you no?” he asked with a smirk.

I took the shirt. He sat down next to me.

“That isn’t really an answer,” I reminded him, rolling my eyes.

He watched me use the hem of the shirt to clean gingerly between my legs. His expression was strangely blank.

“I’ll always stay with you,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have to give you an answer.”

I threw his shirt in the vague direction of his laundry hamper.

“Yeah,” I replied with an uneasy shrug, “but you’ve never said it before.”

He didn’t respond. When I turned to face him, he was staring at my stomach.

“Tom?”

He started.

“What?”

I furrowed my brow.

“Are you okay? You were sort of…staring,” I said carefully.

Something complicated flashed across his face. I couldn’t even begin to decipher what it meant.

“I’m fine,” he replied. He reached out and brushed his thumb under the curve of my chin. “I was just thinking.”

I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

“About what?”

He glanced down at my lap.

“I can’t…I can’t let you go back, Hermione,” he answered, his voice hoarse. “I can’t let you go. I’m—I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry that I can’t…I’m sorry, Hermione.”

I cocked my head to the side.

“Tom,” I said slowly, “you’re not making any sense.”

He hunched his shoulders.

“Not right now, maybe,” he said with an odd sort of half-smile, settling back into his pillows and pulling his duvet up and over his hips. “But you’ll understand soon, I think. I hope.”

I thought about pressing the issue. I thought about the tightness of his facial muscles and the remorseful glint in his eyes as he’d studied me. I thought about how adamant he was that I stay with him—forever, he seemed to want me to stay with him forever—and how impossible that was going to turn out to be.

I closed my eyes.

I crawled into his bed.

“I’m staying here right now,” I said, nuzzling into the side of his neck. “And so are you. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep if you leave. But if Slughorn says anything later, you’re going to have to buy me a ring.”

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me.

“What makes you think I haven’t already?” he asked teasingly.

I folded my hands against his bare chest, snuggling closer.

“Because,” I yawned sleepily, “you don’t do anything without a reason. And you don’t have a reason to buy me a ring. Not yet.”

I was almost exhausted enough to not notice the way his entire body seemed to freeze when he registered exactly what it was that I had said.

Almost—

But I fell asleep—safe, warm, anchored—before I could ask him what was wrong.

Chapter 18

October 21, 1944

            She is mine.

            Mine.

            And I am still not entirely sure how it happened.

            She was laughing, and then she was crying, and then she was complaining—whining, really—and then—

            It’s strange, I think, that I can pinpoint the precise moment where it all changed. I had opened my mouth to say something dismissive about her compulsive desire to trust Dumbledore, of all people—but I had stopped, paused, become distracted—because her eyes had been wide open, shiny with recently shed tears, lacquered amber porcelain pretty enough to be startling—and she had looked confused, yes, maybe even a tiny bit desperate; but she had also looked resigned.

            I possess enough social awareness to understand that her emotional capitulation should not have been as arousing as it ultimately was. However—it was intoxicating, that feeling of finally, finally winning her over, of finally getting what I wanted all along. It was perfect. It was overwhelming. It was—too much.

I got reckless.

            I pushed her, my tone vacillating between accusatory and indignant—it was not difficult to keep going, to keep needling, the words practically dripping off of my tongue—until I lost control. God. The things I said—I never intended for her to know the levels of depravity to which I would sink should she ever be harmed. I am not unused to violence. I am familiar with the impulse to cause pain, to rend flesh from bone and make the agony fucking last. And blood is…easy. People have the tendency to view physical pain as some kind of psychologically damaging trauma; it is an interesting reaction, one that I have always equated with weakness, but Hermione is separate from that. Better than that. And I was afraid, for an improbably never-ending second, that I had made a dreadful error in providing an unfiltered explanation of how very much she means to me.

She surprised me, though.

She was not frightened.

She was not repulsed.

No—

She gave up on all of that. She gave up on fighting me, fighting this—it was beautiful to watch her eyelids flutter shut, one last floundering shot at staying loyal to some distant, fading memory of whoever she was before this, before me. And it was beautiful to watch her forehead crinkle, stave off a frown, imply that tears, distress, and sorrow were imminent—except her gaze was hard when her eyes finally opened, determined and defiant in a way that I had never seen before—not from her, at least.

It was like being introduced to an entirely new person.

It was like meeting her for real, without pretense or judgment.

            She gave me what I wanted.

            And her memories—

            She was magnificent. She is magnificent. There have been glimmers, of course. I have known for some time that she is not unintelligent. I have commented before on her tenacity and her bravery and a host of other traits that matter much less to me than the astonishingly neat efficiency of how her brain is organized—she is brilliant, truly, and I am unashamed to admit that my first thought upon discovering the extent of her brilliance was how valuable she will be now that she is on my side. (In the future, she manages to create extended, personalized variations of a shield charm to hide from me—from my magic—for eight fucking months. Eight months. How—did she even realize what she was showing me? Did she even realize what it meant?)

            And Dumbledore treated her as nothing so much as a sentient encyclopedia. Her friends—boys, two of them—had little to no appreciation for her intellect. They did not comprehend it. But they loved her, I think. There was camaraderie, quite a lot of laughter, and genuine affection in most of their interactions. Her memories of them were also saturated with a crippling sort of fondness—it was difficult to stomach, especially after seeing how they died. I killed one of them, actually. And I was smug about it.  Except—

            It wasn’t really me.

            I have not allowed myself to think about how my own future appeared. (Or, at least, the future that she originally lived. It will not be the same the next time around. Not for her, and certainly not for me. I will make sure of that.)

            What I saw of myself—

            It was disturbing.

            Hermione has said, more than once, that I am not the type of person to do anything without a reason. And she is not wrong.

            But the man I turn into—

            It was all just so senseless. There was no finesse, no cleverness—it was just violence on top of violence on top of violence, usually without provocation, without reason—I did not understand what I was seeing. I was catering to the beliefs—the whims—of people so terrified of me they could not even speak my name. It was the very opposite of what I have planned for myself. It was the very opposite of absolute power, no matter what I called myself, no matter what I claimed.

            ‘Murderer’ is not a label that bothers me overmuch. I am already a murderer. Once on purpose, once on accident—and I have no doubt that I will kill again. I am made for it. I have no qualms about taking a life. But it is not fun. It is not a hobby. Killing is about sending a message. Killing is about taking out an enemy. When, I wonder, do I begin to think otherwise? When does it become something I do simply because I can?

            It is not easy to hypothesize how, exactly, everything goes wrong for me. I was out of control. I was powerful. I considered myself invincible—seven horcruxes; bloody fucking hell—and I surrounded myself with half-crazed myopic leeches who cared very little for my existence beyond the fact that I let them take and torment unsuspecting muggles.

            I just—

            It must be complicated. Because fifty years is a long time; it is not that farfetched, I suppose, to consider that I eventually turn into someone…unrecognizable. Magic is seductive. Toying with Purebloods and their precious, primitive principles—it is a slippery slope, I know that better than anyone. But I never imagined myself capable of falling prey to it. I have mocked and degraded Grindewald for ages, all on the basis of his own obviously flawed ideology—it is not sensible, after all, to alienate ninety percent of the population when your endgame is world domination. Even if you want to promise the remaining ten percent something that sounds rather a lot like fucking Utopia.

            And Muggle-born prejudice—that was never supposed to be long-term. I’m a fucking half-blood, for fuck’s sake. As much of a secret as that is now, I have never deluded myself into believing that I could keep it one indefinitely. And I want the Ministry. I want Britain and I want Europe and short of turning the entire Western hemisphere into a war zone—a state that my future self has no apparent problems with—I know that I would never be able to sustain that sort of power if I abused it. If I was anything but politically moderate. People are supposed to be intimidated by me. People are supposed to respect that I am smarter, stronger, more powerful—but not like that. I treat my Knights poorly, yes, but they do not matter. They are a dying breed, a minority so blinded by their own ancestral shadows they cannot see that they are nothing to me, tools to be used and discarded and forgotten in the aftermath.

            I do not want to know when that changed.

I do not want to know how that changed.

            Because I dislike chaos. I plan and I organize and there are steps to follow, always steps to follow, and my only concession to what I saw in the future is that I absolutely would stop at nothing, would inevitably do anything to achieve my goals—I do not possess a traditional conscience. There are few lines I would not dare to cross—I end up making seven fucking horcruxes, Christ—but I am still—there is not—what I turn into—

            There was…an absence of humanity.

            A significant, very obvious void.

            And while I rarely trouble myself with notions of morality—my skin right now is smooth and warm and unblemished. There is a proud, persistent pulse at the base of my left wrist. I breathe oxygen and I bleed thick, syrupy crimson when I get a paper-cut and I am alive, physically aware of being alive, and I am, perhaps, only just now realizing how unwilling I am to sacrifice that. I do not want what I saw in her memories. I do not want an unnatural body, made up almost entirely of magic, and an unfeeling apathy for anything that even approximates civilization. I want to keep breathing. I want to keep bleeding. I want to keep fucking Hermione, and I want to feel it, every single time, feel how wet she is, how much she wants me, how tight she gets when she comes and how good it is when I finally let go—

God, I want to keep that.

            It is useless to continue speculating, however. I will fix it. I will not—it will be different this time. But first—there are other problems that require my attention.

            Grindewald.

            Dumbledore.

            Malfoy.

            Fucking Malfoy.

            I am concerned about him.

            Not for his wellbeing—no, at this point, I’d open up the bloody Chamber again just to have a place to stash his corpse. Honestly. However, his behavior has become increasingly more erratic in the past few days. He no longer stares at Hermione with that pitiful, lovelorn expression I’ve come to so enjoy mocking; rather, he stares at her like he’s hungry. Like he’s biding his time. It is…unpalatable. And fuels my certainty that he has planned something involving her and his own poorly sketched ideas of revenge. Which I would normally find exasperating, not worrisome, but—

            There is a chance that he has outside help.

            I have no proof that he was behind the kidnapping attempt in September; the Macmillan squib was not particularly forthcoming when I interrogated him. But from what Lestrange implied about how he’d found Hermione—it is clear that someone paid Macmillan quite a bit of money to do nothing more than scare her. Her dress was torn, yes, but she was rather suspiciously unharmed beyond that. He also had no way of transporting her anywhere—he could not Apparate, nor could he feasibly carry her unconscious body nearly half a mile to the gates of the school—which I can only surmise meant that he was waiting for someone to find them.

            And it would be just like Malfoy to stage a kidnapping so he could play the knight in shining armor and fucking pretend to rescue her. If I hadn’t needed him out of the way that night—he would have been the one to find her, not Lestrange, and she actually might have—

            No.

            She would not have.

            She was mine, even then.

            She said there was a note. On her bed. Malfoy would not have had time to put it there—he had only just got in from quidditch practice when I found him. And then…he was incapacitated. He would have had to have an accomplice. Lestrange? Nott? Avery? It would be easy enough to get one of them to admit to it, but I doubt they were actually involved.

            Although—

            If Malfoy is really that stupid, I cannot use him. I trust Lestrange—Hermione is strangely fond of him despite her experience with his progeny—but he has too many connections in southern France to make him a viable candidate for espionage. It might be worth scrapping that part of the plan altogether. Especially if Hermione is going to be picked up and brought to Grindewald’s headquarters once a fortnight.

            It is all so exhausting to think about.

            And there is so very much to think about.

--TMR

 

---

 

            Early Friday morning, Slughorn was waiting for me in the Slytherin common room. His normally jolly demeanor was subdued and sour, his round, rosy cheeks tinged with grey, and his eyes were a dull, almost unfocused, shade of brown. His waistcoat was his customary bright purple satin, shiny brass buttons straining over his stomach, but his hair was greasy and unkempt, giving the appearance of having had an impatient, thick-fingered hand run repeatedly through it, over and over and over again. He looked tired. He looked distraught.

            “Good morning, Professor,” I greeted him warily. I chanced a glance at Tom, who was standing to my left. Our fingers were entwined. His face stayed impassive.

            “Oh, Miss Granger, there you are!” Slughorn exclaimed, his voice tense. “I’ve been looking for you all morning.”

            There was an awkward silence. Tom’s hand briefly tightened around mine.

            “I’m sorry, Professor, I had no idea,” I replied, clearing my throat. My cheeks burned. “Tom was—ah—helping me study last night, and we lost track of the time and ended up falling asleep. We only just woke up. Is anything the matter?”

            Slughorn’s eyebrows twitched.

            “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Tom, my dear boy, I didn’t even see you there. I’d almost forgotten you and Miss Granger were—well, it’s marvelous either way, marvelous indeed. In fact, I was just telling Albus the other day that I’d bet him ten galleons our young Mr. Riddle would be coming to speak with him by the time the Christmas holidays roll around—rumor has it the two of you are nearly inseparable—and, oh, don’t look bashful, dearest, our Head Boy is quite the catch I’ll have you know, absolutely brilliant young man, and if he isn’t the next Minister of Magic I’ll give myself right up to retirement, indeed I will!”

            Tom’s eyes widened. My mouth fell open.

            “That’s very kind of you to say, sir,” Tom said, quickly collecting himself and flashing a modest smile. “And you’ll be the very first to know should there be any…news. Well—besides Hermione, of course. She might have to know before you do.”

            Slughorn chuckled merrily. His gaze, though, stayed flat.

            “Of course, my boy, of course,” he chortled, wiping a fluttering hand across the bottom half of his face. “But, Tom, if you’d be a good lad and head off to breakfast? I need to speak with Hermione for just a moment, shouldn’t take too terribly long, just a few questions and she’ll be right on her way.”

            Tom’s posture stiffened.

            “Is something wrong, sir?” he asked, his tone neutral. I could feel his fingers twitch, as if they were missing the weight of his wand. “Because—and please, forgive me for being forward, but you don’t look well.”

            Slughorn sighed.

            “Well, as long as it stays between the three of us, I don’t suppose there’s any real harm in telling you, too, Tom,” he said. “It’s the Macmillan girl. Melania. She was brought in to the hospital wing yesterday afternoon by dear, dear Abraxas. She’d been…poisoned. Nasty business, really—another few hours and even my most potent antidote would have been useless.”

            My whole body jerked, like I’d been shocked by a thousand volts of electricity.

            “How—how long had she been…” I trailed off.

            Tom rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb.

            “Overnight, at least,” Slughorn answered mournfully. “It most likely happened late Wednesday night. Poor girl—if someone had just noticed sooner…she could have been spared so very much agony.”

            I flinched.

            “Do you know what type of poison was used, sir?” Tom pressed. I looked at him sharply. He sounded intent.

            “No, no, my boy, by the time she was brought in her symptoms had grown too…ah, aggressive…to get an accurate assessment,” Slughorn replied. “It’s a remarkable shame, though, and we’re all so baffled, of course—she’s such a sweet girl, who would want to…who would even think to…?”

            Tom’s expression flickered.

            “If you don’t mind me asking, sir, what exactly were her symptoms?”

            Slughorn fidgeted anxiously.

            “Ah, they were of the stomach variety, Tom, vastly unpleasant, I’m certain the dear girl wouldn’t want me to elaborate beyond that,” he said. “But, I really did need to ask Miss Granger if she had seen anything, ah, untoward? Anything suspicious? The school itself is on lockdown, of course, although if you ask my opinion it’s much too late to do any good—but this is a serious enough matter that the headmaster—and the girl’s family, they were notified just last night—doesn’t believe this was merely a, ah, prank gone wrong, so to speak…regardless, Hermione, dearest, did Melania mention anything recently? Perhaps…an argument with another student? A lovers’ quarrel? Anything at all?”

            I shook my head. Tom squeezed my hand. It felt like a warning. I wondered why.

            “N-no,” I managed to get out. “I was—preoccupied, and Melania and I never really spent very much time together. I didn’t—no, I didn’t notice anything odd. She didn’t say anything.”

            Slughorn visibly deflated.

            “I see,” he murmured. “That’s most disappointing. I was hoping—the headmaster and Professor Dumbledore are insisting that our culprit is a Slytherin, and I—well, I was so hopeful that you might be able to provide some information that would…disprove such a theory. I simply cannot imagine one of our own doing something so ghastly. It’s incomprehensible.”

            I toyed with the knot of my tie.

            “Of course, sir,” I agreed. “It’s absolutely—incomprehensible.”

            Tom cleared his throat.

            “Well, sir, I would be more than happy to do my duty as Head Boy and assist you all in the investigation, should you need any help,” he offered. “I understand that this is a trying time, but a lot of the younger students might be more comfortable speaking with me rather than going directly to the headmaster.”

“What a splendid idea, my boy,” Slughorn replied, reaching forward to pat Tom on the shoulder. “I’m sure that the headmaster would appreciate the help, yes indeed. I’ll excuse you from your morning classes and you can go up to see him. Which reminds me—Hermione, dearest, your uncle asked me to retrieve you for him. He made it sound rather urgent—but that’s just Albus, I suppose, he can be so very mysterious when he wants to be, it’s positively maddening—however, I do not have the time to escort you, I have a class full of second-years just raring to blow up another set of cauldrons—Tom, my boy, do you think you could spare a moment and take her to Professor Dumbledore’s office on your way to see the headmaster?”

            I badly wanted to roll my eyes.

            “Of course, sir,” Tom drawled. “I wouldn’t dream of allowing Hermione to wander about the castle alone. Not after what happened to poor Melania.”

            Slughorn beamed at him.

            “Marvelous,” he said, clicking open his pocket watch. “I’ll just—oh, dear, is that the time? I must be off, my boy! Both of you, though, have a superb day and do try to visit poor Melania in the hospital wing when you get the chance—you know, set an example—the Lestrange boy was there early this morning, what’s his—Edmond, yes, that’s the one, but I really must dash, I’m awfully late as it is—”

            The common room door swung shut behind him with a muted thud. It echoed in the ensuing silence. Tom and I were alone.

            “Who did it?” I asked.

            He didn’t look at me.

            “I don’t know.”

            I wrenched my hand out of his grasp.

            “Who do you think did it, then?”

            He licked his lips.

            “I’d like to say it was Malfoy, but—” he broke off, holding open the door.

            I gritted my teeth and followed him into the hallway.

            “Edmond,” I guessed bitterly. “You think it was Edmond.”

            He reached for my hand. A group of sixth-year Ravenclaws walked past us. I didn’t pull away.

            “I don’t know, Hermione,” he ground out. “It could have been anyone, and I—Macmillan isn’t important. None of this makes any sense. It could be a distraction, I suppose, but for what?”

            The hallways were crowded. I moved closer.

            “What if she was important?” I mused. “What if someone was using her for something—like, I don’t know, spying on you and I—and they knew we would never expect it to be her? Who would you guess did this if that was the case?”

             He scowled.

            “She isn’t working for Grindewald, sweetheart,” he said, tugging at my hand and leading me around a corner. “I don’t think you understand how very little anyone even cares about her. She is a nonentity. She is utterly, commonly average. And her petty fixation with you, while disturbing, is based on nothing more than typical adolescent jealousy. She isn’t—no one would use her for anything. There would be no point. She doesn’t even have any friends. Who talks to her? Who would give her information? It wouldn’t make sense.”

            I snorted.

            “You haven’t thought about it, then?” I asked sarcastically.

            He glanced down at me.

            “Of course I’ve thought about it,” he returned. “She slept five feet away from you. You lived with her. And if there was even the most remote possibility of her being dangerous, do you actually believe that she would still be breathing?”

            My lips parted.

            “Oh.”

            “Yeah,” he said. “Oh. I just—talk to Dumbledore. Try to find out how much Malfoy knows, and how involved they are with each other. Go straight to class when you’re done with him. It won’t look right if I don’t go along with whatever Dippet wants—I’d be surprised if the bloody Ministry wasn’t already here—so I can’t stay with you today. Just—don’t be alone with anyone. Especially not Lestrange. Or Malfoy. I know that you can take care of yourself, but—do not play nice. Do not hesitate.”

            I didn’t bother asking what he meant. I knew.

            “You’ll find me, though? When you’re done?”

            We were outside of Dumbledore’s office. He turned to face me, dropping my hand and using his own to gently cup the curve of my jaw. His thumb brushed the underside of my chin.

            “I’ll always find you,” he smirked, leaning down to rest his forehead against mine. His breath was warm and familiar and slightly sweet. I did not want him to leave.

            I bit back a giggle.

            “You do realize how creepy that sounds, don’t you?” I teased, curling my fingers into the belt loops on his trousers.

            His nose twitched.

            “If I was a Pureblood, you’d already have my ring on your finger,” he murmured, stealing a kiss. “And then I’d be able to summon you directly to my side any time I wished. Is that more, or less, creepy?”

            I pressed my lips against his, let my tongue dart out, needing to taste—he groaned when I pulled back, his teeth latched onto my lower lip, and I couldn’t help but shiver.

            “More, definitely,” I whispered into his mouth. “I—I’ll miss you.”

            He smiled. It reached his eyes.

            “I’ll see you soon, sweetheart. Be careful.”

            He leaned in for one last kiss, running the back of his hand down my cheek, and then left. I watched him go, feeling oddly bereft. I tucked my hair behind my ears and reminded myself that it hadn’t been a goodbye.

            I knocked on Dumbledore’s office door.

            “Come in!” he called out.

            I paused.

Do not play nice.

Do not hesitate.

            I twisted the doorknob.

            “Good morning, Professor,” I greeted him coolly as I walked forward.

            Dumbledore stood up from behind his desk.

            “Miss Granger,” he replied, bemused. “Rather early for a visit, isn’t it?”

            I settled into a chintz-covered armchair.

            “Professor Slughorn said that you wanted to see me,” I said, neatly crossing my ankles. “Was there a specific time he forgot to mention?”

            He sat down again. He appeared puzzled.

            “I asked Horace to find you yesterday afternoon,” he explained. “I would have looked for you myself, you understand, but discretion was of the utmost importance. And I am afraid that if I were to ever set foot inside the Slytherin common room, there might, in fact, be a mutiny.”

            I folded my hands together.

            “You asked for me after Melania was found? Or before?”

            He tilted his head to the side.

            “After, of course,” he answered.

            I hummed.

            “It’s remarkable, isn’t it, that Abraxas was the one to find her?” I asked, my tone casual. “A bit out of character, I think—he’s not exactly the sort to even notice if a fellow student is missing, let alone go off to search for them—but still…very admirable.”

            He tensed.

            “He could have been looking for you,” he pointed out. “Horace has mentioned more than once how smitten he is.”

            “Oh, I saw Abraxas before breakfast, Professor,” I replied blithely. “He knew precisely where I was yesterday. All day. And night, if you want to get technical.”

            His gaze was razor sharp behind his spectacles.

            “Well, then.”

            I clenched my jaw.

            “Indeed.”

            He motioned to a porcelain tray at the end of his desk.

            “Tea, Miss Granger?”

            “No, thank you,” I responded lightly. “What is it that you wanted to talk to me about, Professor?”

            His hands were steady as he poured himself a steaming cup of tea.

            “Oh, I was simply…concerned,” he said. “I’ve heard that you’ve made quite a few friends in Slytherin. I’m glad you’re fitting in so well.”

            I forced a laugh.

            “You’re concerned that I’ve made friends and am fitting in as well as I am?”

            He chuckled. It sounded wrong.

            “I’m glad,” he repeated. “Your social success reflects well on your upbringing. Your family would be proud.”

            I stared at him.

            “Tom knows that I’m muggle-born,” I said, angrily twisting the hem of my skirt.

            He smiled. It was condescending.

            “I’m glad, Miss Granger,” he said again.

            He took a dainty sip of tea. His office was quiet. He’d drawn the curtains on the room’s only window and dappled flecks of sunlight were streaming in through the trees outside. A fine layer of dust coated the bookshelf that stood to my left. His fireplace was full of charred black wood. His clock, I noticed, was no longer ticking.

            Do not play nice.

            Do not hesitate.

“You were using me to try and trap Grindewald, weren’t you?” I blurted out.

            He heaved a tired sigh.

            “Yes,” he agreed simply.

            I expected him to elaborate. He didn’t.

            “You put me in danger,” I continued, my voice shaking. “On purpose. You were willing to sacrifice me—and for what? A chance at killing him?”

            He tapped his fingers together.

            “You would have been safe, Miss Granger,” he informed me somberly. “At least, you would have been safe before you integrated yourself with young Mr. Riddle. I cannot help you now, unfortunately. His trouble is his own.”

            A disbelieving sound was wrenched from the back of my throat.

            “You encouraged me to befriend him! You practically threw me in his lap!”

            He shook his head.

            “Gellert was uninterested in you at first,” he replied, shifting uncomfortably in his armchair. “I thought—correctly, as it happens—that you might be able to capture his attention should you be…involved with our illustrious Head Boy. Tom has a reputation in certain circles, you understand. But I also assumed—however erroneously—that you would be unable, or, at the very least, unwilling to fall prey to Mr. Riddle’s particular brand of charisma, considering your history. I was…quite wrong. I am not such a proud old man that I cannot admit that to you.”

            My lips twisted in a grimace.

            “And let me guess—you were also the one to tell Abraxas Malfoy that putting a Pureblood promise ring on my finger was a good idea?” I demanded, my heartbeat a strong and steady and furious thud against my eardrums.

            “It is unlikely you will ever return to the future, Miss Granger,” he answered calmly. “And Mr. Malfoy, despite his occasionally abrasive exterior, has always meant well where you are concerned. You could do much worse.”

            I furrowed my brow.

He doesn’t know, I realized suddenly, my stomach seizing with something that might have been panic. He doesn’t know that Grindewald was the one who brought me here to begin with.

            “That’s—” I broke off. Presumptuous, I wanted to say. Devious. Idiotic. Instead, I didn’t finish. I looked down, away, my gaze locked on a threadbare patch of royal blue carpet.

            “I understand, Miss Granger, why you might be angry with me right now,” he added. “But—”

            “It was for the Greater Good,” I finished, something rabid and fierce twisting to life inside my gut.

            He reached up to adjust his spectacles, pushing them back on his nose.

            “Mr. Riddle is not the answer to your problems, Miss Granger,” he said somberly. “If he were to become master of the Elder Wand—he cannot be trusted. Surely you see that.”

            I was incredulous.

            “And what if I was the one to take mastery of it?” I demanded. “Can I not be trusted, either?”

            He didn’t respond.

            I slowly got to my feet.

            Do not play nice.

            Do not hesitate.

            “Do you know why Grindewald didn’t care about me until I started seeing Tom?” I asked, my voice devoid of feeling. “Because he’s scared of Tom. He’s scared of what Tom can do to him. Not you. You have ceased to be intimidating to him. You’ve used me and you’ve kept secrets and you think that I should respect that because you know better! Because your morals are somehow worth more than everyone else’s. Because you’re the only person in the entire world capable of being selfless.”

            “Miss Granger,” he began.

            “No,” I snapped, “I’m not done yet, Professor. These—these things you do—for the Greater Good, whatever that means—they got my best friend killed. You lied to him, to us, and you never explained how anything worked, and you kept him uninformed and undereducated and you justified it to yourself by saying that you had a plan. And then he died, he was murdered, and all because he had no idea what he was doing! You never trusted that anyone else would be able to understand the magnitude of your brilliant, brilliant scheming, and my best friend was the casualty of your ridiculously inflated ego. And—I can’t do it again. I won’t do it again. I refuse to let that happen to me.”

            He regarded me for long, uneven moment. His eyes were troubled.

            “I was not responsible for the death of your friend, Miss Granger,” he finally replied. “I believe that responsibility lies solely with young Mr. Riddle.”

            His words hit me like a physical blow; hard and fast, a wide-open slap to the face, and they fucking stung, tiny, burning pinpricks of unexpected, overwhelming pain. I felt off-balance. I felt as if I was standing in an inch-deep puddle of acid, the carpet disintegrating, the hardwood floor peeling apart, and I was sinking, losing ground, I didn’t know how to fix it, stop it—I was running out of time, and it hurt.

            “I should get going,” I said. The contours of my mouth were smooth and warm as I ran my tongue along the ridge of my teeth. “I have classes.”

            He stood up. His teacup clattered in its porcelain dish as he carelessly pushed it away.

            “I was informed that Miss Macmillan woke up this morning,” he remarked, his lips turned down at the corners. “You might consider visiting with her on your way to class. She mentioned to me how very much she would like to see you.”

            My facial muscles tightened. Abruptly, I thought I might be close to tears.

            “I’ll do that,” I said numbly. “Thank you for the…advice, Professor. Have a good morning.”

            I chanced a glance back as I moved to open the door.

            He looked conflicted.

            He looked regretful.

            He looked sad.

            I left anyway.

 

---

 

            Her skin was pasty and her eyes were tired. Her hair was hanging in dull, lank waves down and around her shoulders. She was clearly sick. I cautiously approached her bed in the hospital wing, the curtains surrounding it hanging open in the dim, late-morning light—she was frail, infirm, and I still did not trust her.

            “Hello, Melania,” I said, moving to stand next to the mountain of pillows she was propped up with.

            She offered me a weak, watery sort of smile.

            “Hermione,” she returned. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

            I pursed my lips.

            “Uncle Albus said that you’d mentioned wanting to see me?”

            She blinked.

            “I—yes, I did say that, didn’t I?” she tittered.

            Do not play nice.

            Do not hesitate.

            “Why?” I asked bluntly. “Why would you want to see me?”

            She winced.

            “I…haven’t been very nice to you,” she said. “When we were all first-years, I was the only girl sorted into Slytherin, and I never—I didn’t make friends. Not really. I grew up with Edmond and Abraxas, though, and I know it doesn’t seem like it, but we were close. Until they met Tom Riddle, at least.”

            “What does this have to do with me?”

            “Abraxas was always kind to me,” she went on. “Always. And I’m not stupid, I know—I know that he thinks I’m irritating, but—he was still kind. And I thought—he goes through girlfriends like they’re tissue paper, Hermione, always has done, and I just—I thought, eventually, he would remember that we used to be friends. That he might notice me. Our fathers know each other, they’ve been talking about a betrothal for years…and it seemed—but then you showed up.”

            I arched a brow.

            “Of course I did,” I said flatly. “Look, Melania, if you’re trying to get me to feel sorry for you—doing this while you’re in a hospital bed, honestly—you can stop now.”

            “That isn’t—I’m trying to explain,” she argued.

            I scoffed.

            “Explain what?”

            Her nostrils flared.

“Explain why I hate you!” she exclaimed, her cheeks blossoming with color. “Explain why I—why I—you tossed aside Abraxas Malfoy for Tom Riddle, Hermione, you’ve barely been here for two whole months and that—that was an option for you! Do you know how hard I’ve worked to just stay relevant to Abraxas’ life? I’m always the first to visit him when he gets injured playing quidditch and I’m always the first to notice when he starts holing up in the library, usually towards the end of term, because he’s failing all of his classes—I’m the only one who knows that he broke his nose tripping down the stairs at the Lestrange house when we were nine, that that’s why it’s crooked, and I’m the only one who knows that he actually quite passionately loathes English tea, that he only drinks it because Tom Riddle told him during second-year that it’d look off if he didn’t—and you—he just—it would be different if you were like all the other ones, if you were vapid and beautiful and—but Tom Riddle noticed you and then Edmond came to me right before you—”

            I stayed perfectly still.

            “Right before what, Melania?” I asked slowly.

            Her expression shattered, then, turned into something complicated and tragic and hard to decipher.

            “I didn’t think any of it mattered,” she mumbled, refusing to meet my gaze. “I just—I hated you so much, I didn’t think—who would have thought, it was Edmond Lestrange, he’s—he’s weedy and unassuming and no one pays any attention to him at all! I thought—a prank, maybe, an easy way to get back at you for breaking Abraxas’s heart and stealing him from me and—I didn’t…”

            “What are you talking about?”

            “You don’t—you don’t understand,” she said thickly. “I—Hermione, I’m sorry, please, I didn’t mean to—I didn’t think you were important, you don’t understand, I just thought—I didn’t mean for—you have to listen, please.”

            My hands were shaking. I balled them into tiny, ineffectual fists.

            “What did you do?” I whispered.

            Her eyes darted to the side.

            “I just—you have to believe me, I didn’t think that what I was doing…he said it was to help Abraxas see how horrible you were, and it was just information, silly things, really—what time you came back from seeing Tom, whether you still wore the Malfoy ring, who you talked to between classes—I didn’t think it was serious.”

            I bit back a gasp.

            “You—you’re the spy?” I bleated.

            She jerked back into her pillows.

            “What? No! I’m not—no, I don’t work for anyone, it was just Edmond Lestrange asking me questions about you, about your habits, and it didn’t really make sense to me sometimes but he’s Abraxas’ best friend and—and—it was nice to have someone to complain to when you snuck in after curfew and no one said anything, and all because you’re dating the Head Boy practically ten minutes after transferring here.”

            My head spun.

            “Edmond,” I repeated dully. “Edmond Lestrange asked you questions about me. How—when did he start?”

            She bit her lip.

            “About a month ago,” she said, looking guilty. “Around the time you were attacked. It was—I think it was right before Abraxas got sick and had to stay in the hospital wing. I remember—Edmond wanted me to take him a basket, except it was empty, and when I asked what the point of it was, all he said was that Abraxas would know what it meant. I didn’t—I didn’t know, Hermione.”

            I felt, suddenly, like I was swimming. No. Drowning. I was drowning, trying to breathe underwater, sinking lower and lower and lower as my lungs filled up, up, up—

            “And—now you think Edmond poisoned you? Tried to kill you? What?” I choked out.

            Her shoulders slumped.

            “No,” she answered, wringing her hands. “Maybe. I don’t—no. I don’t think it was Edmond.”

            “Then—who, Melania? Who do you think it was?”

            She stared at me.

            “Tom Riddle came to see me that night, you know,” she said quietly. “You weren’t there, it was right after I got out of the shower—he said you were in the common room, but he needed my opinion on what type of chocolate I thought might be your favorite. I was just—do you even know how infuriating it is? Seeing Tom Riddle go absolutely stupid over you? I was so angry, but I couldn’t very well say that, so I tasted them both and told him I thought you’d like the dark one best and he smiled and said thank you and that you probably wouldn’t be back before I went to bed—and that’s all I remember.”

            He said you were in the common room.

            It was right after I got out of the shower.

            He said you were in the common room.

            He said you were in the common room.

            He said you were—

            “It wasn’t Edmond, then,” I stated.

            She gulped.

            “No,” she replied unsteadily. “It wasn’t Edmond.”

            He said you were in the common room.

            “Did you tell anyone else? That Tom came to—that he gave you chocolate?” I asked.

            She shook her head.

            “No,” she said. “Actually—Edmond came to see me here, before Slughorn or anyone even knew I was awake, and he said—he told me that I should keep Tom’s visit to myself. That I would be—be in danger if I mentioned it.”

            He said you were in the common room.

            “Edmond…he knew? About Tom going to see you?”

            Her gaze shifted.

            “Yes,” she replied. “He seemed anxious about it.”

            He said you were in the common room.

            She was brought into the hospital wing yesterday afternoon by dear, dear Abraxas.

            Edmond came to see me here.

            He said you were in the common room.

            “And—Abraxas was the one who found you? Who brought you here?” I pressed.

            Her lower lip quivered.

            “Ye—yes,” she stuttered. “Abraxas noticed that I wasn’t in class and came to check on me. He thought I might be sick.”

            He said you were in the common room.

            Edmond came to see me here.

            He said you were in the common room.

            “You’re lying,” I whispered. “You—who are you lying for? Who told you to say this to me?”

            She tensed. The scratchy thin hospital sheets crinkled between her fingertips.

            “I—I’m not, Hermione.”

            He said you were in the common room.

            He said you were in the common room.

            He said—

            “Look,” I hissed, lifting my chin to glare down at her. “We both know that Abraxas Malfoy possesses about as much concern for your wellbeing as you do for mine. None at all. Not only would he never—never—notice whether or not you were in class, but he certainly wouldn’t go out of his way to find out if you were sick. He’s too selfish for that. Which means that someone told him to find you—and you know who it was.”

            She finally met my eyes.

            I was taken aback by her confidence.

            And then she smirked.

            “You really are a stupid Gryffindor, aren’t you?”

            My tongue felt heavy, thick, ten times too big for my mouth—

            Edmond came to see me here.

            Edmond came to see me here.

            He said you were in the common room.

            “He said he’d give me Abraxas,” she continued pleasantly. “He said he’d give me Abraxas, and all I would have to do in return is give him you. I was supposed to turn you against Riddle, actually, which is what this was all about, but he said that it was okay if I didn’t entirely succeed in that—that you’re loyal to a bloody fault and have no sense of self-preservation. He wasn’t wrong, was he?”

            I reached into the pocket of my skirt. She didn’t notice.

            Edmond came to see me here.

            “I didn’t ask what he wanted with you—I don’t particularly care, not really—and it took him ages to convince me to agree to be poisoned, of all things, but he needed a distraction, a way to separate you and Riddle, and I suppose there’s nothing suspicious about a girl going to visit her recovering roommate in the hospital wing, is there?”

            My fingers closed around the smooth, worn wood of my wand.

            They clenched.

            “Oh, and you should know something. Before he comes to get you. My cousin—the squib, the one with the horrible scar across his face—he was hired by Abraxas. He wasn’t there to kidnap you, though. He was there to pretend to kidnap you. Abraxas wanted to rush in and save you—wanted to slay the dragon and all that rot. My cousin was supposed to rough you up a bit, scare you senseless, make it look like you needed protecting. Idiotic plan, naturally—the only remarkable part about it is that Abraxas managed to get it all together without Riddle finding out.”

            I could have laughed, then.

            Because things were finally starting to make sense, loose ends finally looping into complicated, unbreakable knots—and I had been right. I had been right all along. Abraxas was spoiled, entitled, and dumb. Edmond was sneaky, crafty, clever—and dangerous. Tom had been wrong to underestimate him. Tom had been wrong to trust him.

            “I’m not an idiot, of course. I know that whatever he has planned for you is nefarious and underhanded and probably has no chance of a happy ending—but after today you will officially no longer be my problem, so…I don’t really care about that, either. You’ll be gone. Abraxas will stop pining. Riddle will be gone, too, I think. I don’t know how it’s all going to work out. I’m not involved.”

            My cousin—the squib, the one with the horrible scar across his face—he was hired by Abraxas.

            He said you were in the common room.

            …supposed to rough you up, scare you senseless—

            He said you were in the common room.

            My fingertips grazed the tip of my wand. It was warm.

            “Abraxas wasn’t alone in hiring your cousin, though, was he?”

            Her eyebrows flew up.

            “How—what are you talking about?”

            My tongue darted out to wet my lips.

            “He knew things about me,” I responded, taking a step back from her bed. “Things that Abraxas would never have known. Was he—your cousin, I mean—was he the one who told you that Abraxas was behind it? The attack?”

            She crinkled her nose.

            “He’s a squib,” she said with obvious disdain. “We don’t exactly chat over tea, Granger. I haven’t spoken to him since I was a child.”

            I slid my wand out of my pocket.

“Then who told you? Edmond?”

            She frowned at me.

            “What does it—” she started to ask.

Except—

There was a second of noise and panic and pitiful screeching, fucking Melania, God, she sounded like a fucking banshee—and there were two sets of footsteps, one hurried and sure and one that sounded an awful lot like a stumble—and I spun around, wand still hidden between the pleats of my skirt, startled by who I saw—

“Stop talking now, Melania,” Edmond Lestrange snapped.

Abraxas Malfoy stood in front of him, slightly to the left, his handsome face frozen in terror. Both of their Slytherin-green ties were undone, hanging loose around their necks. Their shirts weren’t tucked in. Their trousers were wrinkled around the knees, as if they’d each been crouched down low for a long period of time. There was an ink stain on the side of Abraxas’ neck. Edmond had a cherry red bruise on the underside of his jaw.

But then Edmond moved his left hand to swipe at the sweat pooling between his collarbones and it was the glint of a shiny silver blade that made my heartbeat trip over itself, begin an awkward stuttering rhythm, and I wondered, desperately, frantically, where Tom was.

“What’s he doing here?” Melania demanded. “You said—”

Edmond kicked the back of Abraxas’ thigh. Abraxas fell forward, bracing himself on his forearms.

“Collateral,” Edmond answered dismissively. “I’m told that Granger has quite the bleeding heart.”

I choked. Abraxas glanced over at me, pretty grey eyes lost amidst blown-wide pupils and an acrid, practically tangible sense of fear.

“Who—” I bleated.

“Don’t act like you don’t know, Granger,” Edmond interrupted, hauling Abraxas up again by his elbow. “You know exactly who I’m doing all of this for. And you know exactly why I’m doing it, too. You weren’t supposed to tell Riddle anything, were you?”

My stomach dropped.

“It was a test?”

Edmond pulled Abraxas back against his chest, running the flat side of the knife up and over and down the heavily muscled planes of Abraxas’ abdomen. The effect was almost playful. I felt nothing but nauseated.

“Obviously,” he drawled. “And you can quit playing the insipid Pureblood princess any time you want, darling. I figured you were at least sixty percent less stupid than you let on when Riddle took a genuine liking to you. Would’ve realized it sooner, but Malfoy here is—historically speaking—much less discerning about that type of thing.”

I scrunched my nose up.

“What, precisely, are you going to do with me now? I was kidnapped much more gracefully and with far fewer theatrics on Wednesday night,” I taunted.

Edmond jerked Abraxas even closer, pressing the tip of his knife into the ghostly white, paper-thin skin that covered Abraxas’ pulse. I swallowed.

“You think everything’s about you, don’t you?” he sneered. “And here I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be built for selfless acts of valor. Fucking typical. Can’t see past your own so-called bravery to recognize what a bunch of fucking selfish—sanctimonious—arrogant fucking fuckwits you all are.”

            I flushed.

            “Fuck you,” I spat.

            Edmond bared his teeth in grim facsimile of a smile.

            “No, Granger, fuck you,” he snarled. His hand started to shake. A dark red stream of blood trickled down Abraxas’ throat. “You fucking waltzed in here, wide-eyed and innocent and so bloody naïve—I spent ages, at first, trying to figure out what your game was. Trying to figure out whose side you were on. But I was looking in all the wrong places, wasn’t I? I thought you were spying on Tom for Dumbledore. I thought you were there to fucking ruin us.”

            He paused. He cocked his head to the side.

            “But you didn’t have a game, did you? You were just a silly little girl caught up in something she couldn’t even begin to understand. I felt sorry for you, honestly. You. I fucking wanted to help! I wanted to—I wanted to help you, Granger. Do you understand that? I didn’t think you deserved to end up with a fucking monster—but do you know what happened next? Do you? Have you guessed? I bet you have. You’re such a smart girl, aren’t you? So much smarter than you wanted any of us to believe.”

            My mouth went dry. Abraxas whimpered. Edmond kept talking.

            “I got a note, Granger. Right after the Malfoy-instigated kidnapping that wasn’t. It was waiting for me on my pillow when I came back from fucking rescuing you. Do you know what it said? Hmm? It said that you were a fucking liar. That you weren’t related to Dumbledore at all. That you—”

            He stopped talking, whipped his head around to stare at the door, expression flustered and afraid and stunned—footsteps, there were footsteps, echoing in the wide, white-tiled corridor that led to the hospital wing—

            “Malfoy, get down!” I shouted, yanking out my wand.

            Abraxas ducked. Melania screamed. The door flew open.

            Tom.

            It was always Tom. It was always going to be Tom.

            “Are you fucking serious?” Tom roared into the sudden, pervasive silence.

            Edmond swayed on his feet.

            “Tom, I didn’t mean to—”

            Tom ignored him.

“Really, Lestrange? Really? You actually thought that you—you—could outsmart, outmaneuver, me? Me! You used the exact same poison on that fucking Macmillan twat that I used on Malfoy four weeks ago! And you were too fucking stupid to even do it correctly. You nearly killed her. Did you think that was subtle? Did you think that I wouldn’t notice? There’s a fucking Ministry inquiry! Are you fucking brain damaged?”

            Edmond dropped his knife. It clanged loudly as it hit the floor.

            “I didn’t—I was just supposed to take Granger somewhere you couldn’t follow—it wasn’t about you, Tom, not really, you have to—you have to believe me,” Edmond sputtered, his face ashen.

            Seconds passed. Tom methodically straightened his tie. I began to feel the first stirrings of hysteria bubble up in my abdomen.

            “You’re an idiot,” Tom remarked bluntly. “And you’re going to tell me everything that I haven’t already guessed, and then you’re going to die. But—before we get to that—start fucking talking.”

            Edmond froze. Melania released a broken-sounding sob.

            “I don’t—there isn’t really anything to tell,” Edmond hedged.

            Tom glanced towards the ceiling, as if praying for patience.

            “Since I’m—well, I’m useless, and I don’t know anything, not anything, perhaps it would be best if you just let me go?” Melania interjected, voice uncertain and sickly sweet.

            “Shut up, Melania,” Edmond hissed at her. “Christ, can you just—”

            Tom snapped his fingers.

            “Right,” he said conversationally. “That’s it.”

            And then he was raising his wand and there was a moment—half a moment, even—of horrified expectation, and his gaze was sharp and hard and deadly, unwavering and unrelenting, like some kind of avenging wrathful predator—

            “Avada Kedavra.”

            He didn’t shout.

            It wasn’t loud.

            He spoke with casual conviction; and the words felt strangely elegant, fucking pretty, reducing all of our bodies to deaf blind shadows, quivering in the preternatural, too-long flash of bright green light—because we were statues, his statues, and the jumbled, nonsensical chaos of the previous half-hour was gone, forgotten, vanquished, and for the first time since I had arrived in 1944, I was able to recognize Voldemort. I was able to see what must have been there all along, lying dormant, pretending to be dead, waiting to be released—

No one moved.

            No one breathed.

            No one looked away from him.

            And then I was falling to my knees, brain buzzing and blood singing and muscles fucking collapsing from too much adrenaline—

            I was laughing.

            No—

            I was crying.

            No—

            I was laughing, I couldn’t fucking stop laughing, and there was a dead body somewhere in the room, a dead fucking body, and it wasn’t funny and someone was dead and Tom had done it and I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t fucking stop—

            I could not stop laughing.

            I could not stop crying.

            I could not stop.

Chapter 19

“Hermione? Hermione! What’s wrong? Hermione?”

            Tom’s voice sounded loud—too heavy—too close—and his hands were on my shoulders, running gently down my arms—gentle, he was being gentle—cupping my elbows as he pulled me to my feet.

            “Hermione,” he said, again and again and again—my name—he kept repeating it, over and over, and it felt like an echo—there’s a dead body in here—faraway and shaky and disorienting and the pitch was off, my brain was processing it incorrectly, had turned it into something clumsy—wrong, wrong, dead—and the longer I listened to him, the more certain I became that the world was spinning much too fast and I was standing much too still and I was—fuck—going to be dreadfully, horrifically sick.

            “I can’t—” I choked out, lungs tight, throat closed, bile rushing through my stomach in sour, bittersweet waves—

            “What? Hermione—what did you say?”

            I glanced around the room, wildly, taking in Edmond’s brittle black gaze, Abraxas’ chalk-white face—they looked frightened, yes, but not broken. This had not—Tom had not—they were not surprised, they were not startled, they were not stunned into silence—they had known from the beginning what Tom was capable of. They had known what he could do. They had known what he would do.

Edmond was right.

            I was naïve.

            “You killed her,” I whispered. “Why did you—why? She barely did anything. She was—innocent. Mostly. You know that.”

            Tom quirked a finely arched brow.

            “She was annoying,” he replied, rubbing his thumb against the inside of my wrist. The feel of his skin—warm and slightly rough—made me want to retch. “Besides that, though—it will be easy to make this look natural. She was recently poisoned. No one knows by what. She was the most logical choice.”

            I didn’t blink.

            “That isn’t what I asked,” I said quietly.

            He pursed his lips.

            “I know, sweetheart. But that’s the only answer you’re going to get.”

            My breath caught. Abraxas spoke up.

            “Should I—” He made a vague motion towards the hospital bed.

            Tom nodded decisively.

            “We’ll say she…convulsed,” he said. “Hermione was on her way out, you two were on your way in—and why do you look like you spent the morning crawling through the bloody greenhouses? Fix it. Immediately. We’ll say that I came in after my meeting with Dippet to retrieve Hermione, walk her to class, et cetera—I do it every day, my devotion to her is legendary, no one will question it—we all saw Macmillan sit up and start twitching, watched her knock her water glass over—do that, Malfoy, preferably onto her pillows—we rushed over, tried to help, but it was too late. We’re all suitably traumatized. She wasn’t a friend, no, but a close acquaintance. Is there anything in her room that might incriminate you, Lestrange? Or me? Or Hermione? Letters, maybe? Anything she might have stupidly kept?”

            Edmond’s expression was pinched as he looked over at Tom.

            “A basket,” he ground out. “With a checkered linen napkin. No one will know what it means except Dumbledore, but—I’d rather it wasn’t found.”

            Tom smirked.

            “Dumbledore? Really? How pathetic.”

            Edmond flushed.

            “Yeah, Dumbledore,” he retorted. “Turns out that you’re the only one he actually hates, Tom. I could’ve been getting passing marks in Transfiguration for years if I’d just stopped cleaning up your messes a bit sooner.”

            Tom offered him a careless shrug.

            “Dumbledore,” he mused. “I see. Were you playing one master against the other, Edmond? Is that what you were up to? Hedging your bets? Waiting to see who might win?”

            Abraxas dropped a glass on the hard linoleum floor. It shattered on impact.

            “Done,” he announced loudly. “Anything else, Tom?”

            Tom appraised him thoughtfully.

            “Tell me, Malfoy, how did it feel? To have your very best friend in the world—since childhood, even—hold a knife to your throat? To know that he might actually use it if Hermione didn’t cooperate?”

            Abraxas flinched. Edmond’s nostrils flared.

            “I wouldn’t have—” Edmond started to argue.

            “Betrayal,” Abraxas interrupted tonelessly. “It felt a lot like betrayal, Tom.”

            Tom chuckled.

            “Slimy bugger, isn’t he?” he teased, jerking his chin in Edmond’s direction. “But so terribly eager to prove himself. To please. I used to think of him a bit like a puppy—snapping at everyone’s heels, never quite able to keep up, with a mouth full of milk teeth instead of fangs. An adorable little indulgence.”

            I winced.

            “Tom,” I began.

            “Not now, sweetheart,” he hushed me. “I’m not nearly done.”

            I clenched my jaw. Abraxas glared at the ground.

            “I wouldn’t have hurt you,” Edmond blurted out, arms crossed defensively over his chest. “I just—I needed a way to get her away from him. You don’t—you don’t know, Abraxas, how valuable she is. You don’t know who’s after her.”

            “Oh, just—fuck off already,” Abraxas spat, scrunching his nose up. “You’re pathetic. You think, what, that Dumbledore is going to help you? Keep you out of Azkaban when all of this is over? Slughorn, maybe? Or—no, you’re in deeper than that, aren’t you? Like a fucking idiot—and people think I’m the thick one. Fucking hell, Edmond. What were you promised, then? That using fucking Melania sounded like a good idea? That you were willing to kill me for?”

            Edmond paled.

            “I wouldn’t have killed you,” he insisted. “I was—look at her, she’s terrified, that was the whole bloody point. Melania was supposed to spout a ridiculous bunch of nonsense to distract Granger, and I was supposed to use you to get her to follow me—I just—I got…overzealous, I can admit that, but I would never have actually gone through with any of it.”

            Abraxas snorted in disbelief.

            “That’s utter shit and everyone in this room knows it,” he replied. “As for Granger—I know I got a bit obsessed, my father already fucking discussed it with me—but whatever you were told about her—about her being important—it was a bloody lie, Edmond, just ask Tom. He never wanted her dragged into this. I never wanted it, either, and now you’ve—you’ve turned everything into a gigantic fucking mess, haven’t you?”

            Edmond raked both of his hands through his hair.

            “Granger’s a fucking mudblood, Abraxas,” he hissed furiously, scrabbling to fold over the cuff of his dirt-streaked shirt. “She’s about as related to Dumbledore as I am. And—Tom knows that, he’s known about her all along, and she—she’s hiding, don’t you get it? From Grindewald. He wants her, and it’s next to fucking impossible to get near her with Riddle playing bodyguard, so I did—I did what I was supposed to. What I had to. Do you even—aren’t you even curious—”

            “I think we’ve heard enough,” Tom interjected, shifting his body so that he was half-standing in front of me.

            “Just—look at her arm, Abraxas, her right one, I’d bet my entire family’s ancestral home in Brittany that you’ll find a matching one of these,” Edmond said triumphantly, holding out his forearm so the rest of us could see the waxy puckered outline of a scar.

            Mudblood.

            Mudblood.

            Mudblood.

            Tom tensed beside me.

            “Brittany?” he whispered to himself.

            “—don’t care, Edmond, you’re acting like a bloody fucking psychopath—” Abraxas was shouting.

            “Because you’re not taking this seriously—”

            “—a girl, a perfectly fucking normal girl whose only mistake was taking up with fucking Riddle—”

            “—course you’re not, though, I keep forgetting how easy it is for Daddy to buy you out of trouble—or onto quidditch teams—depends on the season, really—”

            “Whatever you do, Hermione, do not let Abraxas Malfoy see your forearm,” Tom muttered, his voice low, barely audible, nothing so much as a faint, melodious hum in the exasperating din of noise—

            “—kill me for a fucking conspiracy theory—”

            “I already fucking told you, I would not have fucking gone through with it!” Edmond roared.

            Abraxas’s mouth snapped shut.

            Tom suddenly looked amused.

            “Well, if you girls are all done discussing your feelings, I’d like to get around to calling Slughorn in,” he drawled. “I’ve a dead body that needs to be disposed of and a fucking imbecile to interrogate. I’m talking about you, Lestrange, in case that wasn’t clear.”

            Edmond scuffed the toe of his loafer along the floor.

            “I’ll go get him, then,” he said, his tone sullen.

            “He should be in his classroom,” Tom instructed. “He had the second-years this morning. And take Abraxas with you. It would be such a travesty if you were to get lost on your way to the dungeons, wouldn’t it?”

            Edmond turned towards the doors.

            “A travesty,” he repeated, pausing. “Right.”

            Abraxas glanced over at me as he followed Edmond out of the room. His expression was difficult to interpret—a bizarre cross between concerned and suspicious, his indecision almost palpable in the looming, shadowy space between us.

            “We’ll be back soon,” he told Tom. “What do we say if we run into anyone besides Slughorn?”

            Tom shrugged.

            “What I told you to,” he replied. “I’d prefer Slughorn to be the first authority figure we lie to, however—he doesn’t question us, does he?”

            Abraxas nodded tightly.

            “Twenty minutes, then.”

            The doors closed behind them. Tom held up his hand, listening intently to their footsteps. He didn’t speak until it was quiet.

            “Stay away from Malfoy,” he finally murmured, his eyes glued to the doors. “Do not allow yourself to be alone with him. Ever.”

            I licked my lips. I tried very hard to ignore Melania’s body—unnaturally stiff and still on the bed behind us—as I focused on what Tom was saying.

            “Malfoy? Not Edmond?”

            He made a dismissive sound with his tongue.

            “Malfoy mentioned his father, did you notice?”

            I blinked.

            “What does—”

            “He implied that his father was displeased with how he had handled you,” Tom continued. “That’s…interesting, isn’t it?”

            “I don’t—”

            “I just wonder what he meant,” he went on. “Abraxas has always been a rather monumental fuck-up, after all—it’s truly remarkable what money can do if you have enough of it—but his father has never been what anyone might call a disciplinarian. What was different, then, about the situation with you?”

            I did not respond.

            He did not notice.

            “Regardless…stay away from him,” he finished, shaking his head. “I suspect he believes more of Lestrange’s accusations than he let on.”

            I fidgeted with the hem of my skirt.

            “Why did you let them leave together?” I asked. “Knowing that you can’t trust either one?”

            He folded his arms over his lower abdomen.

            “Because they no longer trust each other,” he answered simply. “Lestrange got Macmillan killed today. And Malfoy’s stupid—although perhaps ignorant is the more accurate term—but he saw this morning for what it was. Lestrange is playing for the wrong team.”

            I flinched at the reminder of Melania’s death.

            “Why did you do it?”

            He snorted.

            “I can’t believe you’re actually upset about this. You do realize she won’t be missed, don’t you?”

            I twisted my hands together, allowed my fingernails to dig harshly into my palms—but I felt nothing, fucking nothing, just a hazy pinch of pain that I couldn’t help but think I was imagining. 

            “How can you—” I began shakily.

            “They’re back,” he interrupted, turning to the side in order to wrap an arm around my shoulders. My eyes felt swollen and dry as I pressed them shut. “Do not say anything, Hermione. Let me handle this. If you’re asked a direct question, I’ll do my best to answer for you. Do you understand?”

            I hesitated.

            The doors swung open.

            Slughorn rushed forward, panting and agitated, while Malfoy strolled in behind him, sleeves rolled up and tie askew. However—

            Lestrange had not returned with them.

            I wondered why.

 

---

 

            Tom was a brilliant liar.

            I watched him spin the story he had concocted, watched his face turn somber, apologetic, watched his hands stay steady, his eyes turn wide and sad and wet—he stumbled over his words just enough to sound sincere, allowed his lips to quiver and his voice to tremble and I marveled at how very good he was at it, at manipulating the truth, even as I fought the constant, rolling nausea that erupted every time I looked at Melania’s body.

            But then we were leaving, Tom’s fingers laced through mine as he guided me through the castle, away from the Tragedy—that’s what Slughorn had called it, and that’s what I knew it would be referred to as, the fucking Tragedy, as if had been an accident, unpredictable and hard to understand, as if no one had been at fault, as if no one had been able to fucking stop it—

            I had watched people die before. I had seen it firsthand, witnessed the instantaneous seizing of their muscles and the gradual way their pupils had faded into blank, black dots in their eyes.

            This had not been different.

            Melania had not been different.

            I reminded myself of that as Tom led me through the empty Slytherin common room, his telling, uncharacteristic silence prickling at the back of my neck; and I reminded myself of it when he kicked open the door to the boys’ dormitory, the well-worn brass doorknob clanking against the oak-paneled walls; I reminded myself of it as he stared down Malfoy and Lestrange, catalogued their expressionless faces, jutted his chin in the direction of the hallway; and I reminded myself of it as he pushed me gently towards his bed, told me to stay there, said that he would come back, he would come back and then we could talk—

            I did not want to talk.

            I wanted to sleep.

            I wanted to go home.

            I wanted to curl up in his bed and inhale the musky scent of his pillow—sweat and soap and something else, something earthy and sharp that was so uniquely Tom it made my heart ache—and I wanted to breathe it in and smile and relax under the agonizing weight of my own doubt, wanted to feel safe and warm and comfortable as I burrowed beneath his sheets, wanted to turn back time and have him there, his bare chest against my back, his long arms curled around my waist, his hands resting heavy and hot along the curve of my hip—

             I wanted him.

            Except I knew that I didn’t. I knew that my feelings for him were flawed, fundamentally, crooked and backwards and wrong, no matter how much I wanted them not to be. I had been afraid of him at first, intimidated and frightened and so fucking awed by his confidence, his ability to command a room and control a conversation—that recognition, that appreciation, had been the beginning, it was so fucking easy to see, and he had known, he had watched it happen—

            I sat up slowly.

            I bit my lip.

            I let my gaze settle on his nightstand, eerily devoid of anything personal, and found myself reaching forward. I tugged at the top drawer. It opened. There were only three things inside: a small glass bottle of pale amber liquid; a slim leather bound notebook; and a square gold ring set with a cracked black stone.

            I was overwhelmed.

            Two horcruxes and what I guessed was a vial of poison.

I knew better than to try and touch the ring, but I couldn’t stop myself from picking up the diary and running my hands down it supple leather spine. I then flipped the cover back, unsurprised to find nothing but blank pages. There was, however, a strange sort of electricity buzzing around my skin, delving into the complicated whorls that marked the surface of my fingertips. It felt familiar, almost friendly, and I realized with a pang that I was holding Tom’s horcrux, a sliver of his soul, a part of himself that he had given up and could never get back—a part of him that I could never know.

            I tossed it back in the drawer and turned my attention to the flask.

            The liquid inside was thick and smooth, viscous enough to cling to the glass like moss to a tree. It was cool to the touch, and when I uncorked the bottle I was immediately overcome with the aroma of raspberries and vanilla and the air outside right after it rains—it was clean, fresh, practically magnetic, and I found myself savoring the breath I’d taken, hoping it would last.

            I cleared my head.

            I put the bottle away.

            I went back to waiting for Tom.

 

---

 

            An hour later, he returned alone. The door clicked shut behind him. The silence was abrupt and oppressive, filled to the brim with everything I hadn’t been allowed to say yet—

            “You’re angry with me,” Tom stated conversationally. “Why, though? You hated the Macmillan girl. I would’ve thought you’d be pleased she’s gone.”

            My mouth fell open. It took several moments for any sound to emerge.

            “I would’ve been pleased, Tom, if she’d been sent home,” I hissed. “I would’ve been pleased if she’d—if she’d moved rooms, or changed schools, or gotten married off over Christmas. I’m not—she’s dead. Dead, Tom. She’s never coming back. And she didn’t—you can’t just arbitrarily decide that someone doesn’t deserve to live anymore. That isn’t your call.”

            A muscle worked in his jaw as he processed what I said.

            “Arbitrarily,” he repeated. “You think that I didn’t have a good reason to get rid of her? You think that she wasn’t a threat?”

            I narrowed my eyes.

            “Weren’t you the one always harping on about how unimportant she was?” I shot back.

            He reached up to loosen his tie.

            “She was willing to let Lestrange take you,” he said. “She was willing to work with him to trap you—and she was under the impression that it was all going to end in your gruesome, untimely death. That’s whose life your mourning? That’s who you’re trying to claim was fucking innocent?”

            I ground my teeth together.

            “She didn’t know anything.”

            He scoffed.

            “She agreed to be poisoned, sweetheart,” he countered. “She agreed to something potentially dangerous—deadly, even—and people don’t do things like that without having a very good idea of what the outcome will be.”

            I compressed my lips into a thin, unshakable line.

            “She was obsessed with Abraxas—” I began heatedly.

            “She knew the castle was on lockdown, Hermione,” he interjected, his voice low. “She was fucking poisoned, for Christ’s sake, she had every teacher in the school asking her questions about it the minute she woke up—she knew how seriously she was being taken, and she knew that there was no way Edmond Lestrange was ever going to get you out of the castle, not with that kind of security. So—she knew where he was going to take you. And she thought she knew exactly what was going to happen to you once you got there. She was not innocent. I understand that your Gryffindorsensibilities are grossly offended by my earlier actions, but, sweetheart, you have to understand—she deserved to die.”

            I blinked rapidly.

            You really are a stupid Gryffindor, aren’t you?

            No.

            I was not.

            I was not. Tom had made sure of it—and wasn’t that ironic?

            Do not hesitate.

            Do not play nice.

            “She said that Abraxas was the one to hire her cousin,” I replied numbly. “The night I was attacked. She was talking about it when Edmond rushed in—I’m not certain how much he heard, but he seemed…adamant that she stop.”

            His gaze stayed steady. He did not outwardly react to my clumsy change of subject.

            “You think she lied?”

            I tugged the sleeves of my sweater down over my hands.

            “Her cousin—that night—he knew things about me,” I said, using my fingernails to pick at the loose threads on the cuffs. “He knew I wasn’t related to Dumbledore and he very specifically mentioned a collective ‘they’ when referring to whoever had hired him. It wasn’t just Abraxas. I just—Edmond was the one to find me, wasn’t he?”

            He meticulously tore open the top three buttons of his shirt, as if it was too tight and he needed the breathing room. His skin was smooth, unmarred ivory next to stark white cotton. He was beautiful. It seemed unfair.

            “Lestrange had no reason to target you at that point. He didn’t receive the note outing you as a muggle-born until he got back that night.”

            I went still.

            “How do you know that?” I asked carefully.

            He yanked the hem of his oxford out from the waistband of his trousers.

            “What do you think we discussed out in the hall, sweetheart?”

            I cleared my throat.

            “Right. Of course. You had a…discussion.”

            He sighed.

            “He’s still alive.”

            I crossed my arms over my lower abdomen. My elbows were sharp against my palms.

            “Why?”

            He dragged a hand through his hair.

            “Because he isn’t Grindewald’s spy,” he replied, collapsing onto his bed.

            “What?” I asked. “How—he knew I was a Gryffindor. He went into rather impressive detail about it. That means that he knows—”

            “Yes,” he interrupted. “He knows that you aren’t…from here. He knows that you lied about being a Pureblood. And yes, he’s working for Grindewald—he has been since last year, long before you arrived, which means that it wasn’t Grindewald who sent him that note and coerced him into spying on you. It was someone else. Someone who knew how to make it personal—not that that narrows it down, considering that anyone with functioning eardrums can figure out precisely how much Lestrange hates muggle-borns.”

            I exhaled slowly.

            “Who? Dumbledore?”

            He paused.

            “I don’t know. Lestrange doesn’t know, either.”

            He was lying. He was obviously lying—because he wanted me to guess? Because he wanted me to know that he wasn’t being honest?

            I spun around. I could not face him. I could not respond.

            I could not—

            And I felt—

            Disconnected.

Untethered.

As if I was watching this scene between us—this heartbreaking, unsettling scene that raised more questions than it answered—from a distance, from behind a screen that dulled the details enough to make it palatable.

I no longer trusted him.

It was all so clear. Everything that he said—it was weighed, measured, duplicitous in that singular way that only words with multiple meanings could ever be. He had told me what I wanted to hear. He had been careful not to lie—but he had let me draw conclusions, let me believe that he was right—he had molded my thoughts, led me away from Dumbledore—he had supplied explanations for all of the things that I knew about him, all of the things that he knew he’d done wrong—

He was a brilliant liar.

I had noticed that in the beginning. This should not have been shocking. He had warned me about Edmond, about Abraxas, about Melania—about everyone, he had warned me about everyone, and I had conveniently forgotten that everyone should have included him.

You really are a stupid Gryffindor, aren’t you?

“Where was he supposed to take me, then?” I asked. I did not turn around. “He had to have known at least that much.”

The springs in his mattress creaked as he shifted his weight around.

“The girls’ bathroom on the second floor.”

“But—that’s where the Chamber is. That’s where you—” I stopped.

That’s where you killed that other girl.

“I’m assuming it was meant to be symbolic,” he explained, sounding uninterested. “A message to me. There are only a few people who know about what really happened there that day. It was a threat. A reminder of what they could do to you, I imagine.”

I swept my gaze over the part of the room that I could see. The other boys’ beds were unmade, rumpled white sheets tossed haphazardly over the top of their emerald green coverlets. All of the curtains were drawn. Their laundry baskets were tidy. Abraxas’ nightstand was cluttered with a stack of brightly colored magazines and several mismatched decks of cards. Edmond’s was empty.

“I thought you said that no one was actually going to hurt me.”

He hesitated.

There are only a few people who know about what really happened there that day.

“They wouldn’t have hurt you,” he said cautiously. “Not—badly, at least.”

“Who wouldn’t have hurt me?” I asked. “You’re not—you were talking to Edmond and Abraxas for almost an hour, Tom, what did they say?”

I heard him swiftly stand up and stride towards me, his fingers closing around my forearm in a too-tight, almost-painful grip.

“Edmond doesn’t know for certain who’s been sending him those notes,” he said, bending down so that his lips were directly next to my ear. I shivered. “He assumed it was Grindewald, based on the information they contained—as well as the nature of the requests—but he never had it confirmed. He didn’t know.”

I leaned into his chest, my shoulders slumping forward.

“You don’t think it was Grindewald,” I guessed.

“No,” he agreed. “I don’t. But it is someone close to him. Someone who knows about you and knows how to use you against me. I was meant to find you today. I was meant to find out that Lestrange is a traitor. That’s another reason I had to—I needed to kill the Macmillan girl. Whoever planned all of this today—they wouldn’t have expected that. I needed to send them a message of my own.”

My skin crawled. He was too close. He was breathing hotly on my neck and he was too fucking close, his thighs against the curve of my backside, his hands on my hips, his voice deep and melodious as it floated over my skin—seductive, I thought hysterically, that’s what he was, dangerous, and he was too fucking close, I had to get away, had to run, had to—

I imagined dying for no reason. I imagined someone pointing to my body—stiff and frigid and lifeless—and saying that Tom Riddle would know, now, to take them seriously. I imagined being the message, not the messenger, and being aware, even as the air shimmered with magic and the whites of my eyes reflected nothing but bright green light, that my death would be meaningless to everyone but Tom.

You really are a stupid Gryffindor, aren’t you?

“So, what you’re saying is that Edmond is someone’s pawn,” I remarked casually. “He’s disposable. He has an inflated sense of his own importance. He loathes me for being a mudblood—and you, too, for knowing about it and choosing not to care. He’s on friendly terms with Dumbledore, though, because Dumbledore is the one who planted the idea in his head about Abraxas giving me that ridiculous engagement ring. Which is why you’ve kept him alive. Because Dumbledore would know why you killed him and you can’t afford the exposure, especially not when you have no idea how involved Dumbledore even is. Am I close?”

He huffed a laugh into my hair as he turned his head to the side.

“Oh, sweetheart, you think you’re so clever, don’t you?” he murmured. “Tying it all back to Dumbledore like that.”

I clamped my eyes shut.

“Not close, then?” I stammered.

He tapped his fingertips against my pelvic bone. I felt fragile.

“Slughorn,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of my spine.

I froze.

There are only a few people who know about really happened there that day.

“What?”

He trailed his hand under the hem of my shirt, brushing his knuckles over the soft skin below my navel.

“There’s a word for people like him, sweetheart,” he drawled. “A word for people who are weak and slimy and self-serving; people who spend an awful lot of their time showering those who are more influential—more powerful—with compliments and attention. That word is sycophant. You have to understand—morals are secondary for him. He’s so convinced that I’ll one day be Minister of Magic that he turned a blind eye when I asked him how to make a bloody horcrux. Do you really think he would say no to a man like Grindewald? A man who is reported to not only have the entirety of magical Europe in his grasp, but the Elder Wand as well?”

I bit into my lip.

“You are right about one thing, though—I have no idea how involved Dumbledore is with any of this,” he continued. “Lestrange has had numerous conversations with him—allegedly—but his recollections are…bland, at best. All they seemed to talk about was Malfoy. Curious, isn’t it?”

He was trying to get me to see something that was not there. He was redirecting the conversation, subtly enough that whatever assumptions I was able to make based on his observations—they could never be traced back to him, not really, and should I ever attempt to blame him for them—

You really are a stupid Gryffindor, aren’t you?

“Dumbledore doesn’t know that Grindewald switched out my time turner,” I interjected. “He doesn’t know that Grindewald figured out how to go forward, that an entirely different version of the future is now possible. He said—he said that I’m stuck here. Indefinitely. And then he intimated that Malfoy would somehow be able to protect me.”

His hands stopped moving.

“Malfoy,” he echoed, sounding disgusted. “He said that Malfoy could protect you better than I could. What a fucking—God. Remind me to kill myself before I get old enough to become that senile, would you?”

I shifted my hips, arched my spine, felt the blunt outline of his half-hard cock press into the small of my back.

“Noted,” I replied. “But—it just made me think—who else knows? That Grindewald sent me here on purpose? I’m here for a reason, Tom. And I don’t know, exactly, how a different timeline might manifest, and it’s unlikely that Grindewald was able to see any specifics of what would change if he brought me back—but I can’t stop wondering why he did it at all. I must do something for him, something important, but it isn’t as if I’d ever do him any favors, so I must do it without realizing what it is that I’m doing. And how—how am I supposed to stop that? If I don’t even know what it is?”

His lips ghosted down the side of my neck.

“Don’t worry about that right now,” he said dismissively, fiddling with the zipper of my skirt.

Incredulous, I turned to gape at him.

“How can I just not worry about that?” I demanded. “I could have already done it, as far as you or I know—maybe I’ve already served my purpose, we don’t know—and, God, he could send me back at any time, he’s already proven that he can find me whenever he wants, it wouldn’t exactly be difficult. He could take me in the middle of the night, you could wake up tomorrow and I could be gone and I could be stuck in a future that isn’t—that doesn’t—and I would never—”

I would never see you again, I didn’t say. It didn’t matter. He didn’t matter.

His eyes were coal-black, bright and fathomless, and narrowed into ferocious slits as he stared at me.

“I don’t think you understand something, Hermione,” he said, his voice soft. “You will never be gone. No one will ever be able to take you away from me. Not even Grindewald. Do you know why, sweetheart?”

My tongue felt rough, like sandpaper, as I moved it across my teeth.

            “N-no,” I managed. “I don’t know why, Tom.”

            He reached forward, gently grasped my chin, tilted my head back—his thumb drifted up, caressed the plump cushion of my bottom lip—he ran his thumbnail along the saliva-slick seam of my mouth, dragging it open, and I instinctively held my breath.

            “Because I would find you,” he whispered fiercely. “I will always find you, Hermione, you are mine, mine to protect and mine to follow and mine to fucking keep forever, and if you think, even for a fucking second, that something as trivial as time would stop me—well. It wouldn’t, would it?”

            I forced myself to stay perfectly still, to not give in to the urge to jerk myself out of his arms and scream for help—

            I swallowed, instead.

            And I marveled at how small I felt, how pitifully inadequate; I was in too deep, was bound to run out of oxygen, out of space to move and breathe and think, and it was no one’s fault but my own.

            I loved you, yesterday, I wanted to tell him.

            But I couldn’t—

            “I see,” I said dumbly.

            He looked satisfied.

            “Yes, I think that you do,” he answered, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear with a patronizing flick of his wrist. “Are we alright, then? With what happened this morning? You understand, now, what the stakes of this mean to me and why the Macmillan girl had to go?”

            And just like that, I was angry.

            Irate.

            Furious.

            You really are a stupid Gryffindor, aren’t you?

            I thought, blindly, of how often I had claimed to hate something, hate someone—before. Before this. Before him. I had not grasped the totality of the word, had not been able to even comprehend how much deeper it could really go—because this was different, what I was feeling. It wasn’t harsh. It wasn’t scorching. I was not dizzy with it.

            Rather— 

            It was a dim, dilapidated simmer in the pit of my stomach.

            It was calm.

            It was clear.

            And it felt fucking endless.

            Do not hesitate.

            Do not play nice.

            I gulped down words—so many fucking words—hateful, spiteful, reckless words that felt real and solid and right as they hovered around the confines of my throat.

I was not going to be brave.

I was not going to retaliate.

No—

            I was going to lie.

            I was going to cheat.

            Nothing had changed. I was still going to cling to Tom, hide behind his shadow, deceive and deflect and distract—I was still going to betray him, right at the very end, except now—

            I would relish it.

            I would use him. I would watch him fall. I would take from him the one thing he wanted most and I would destroy it, burn his ambition and his ego and his pride to the fucking ground, let him feel what it was to lose, to lose badly, to be manipulated and tossed aside, to drown in someone else’s quicksand—

            He had let me love him. I had not fallen. I had not even tripped. I had been caught.

            What’s the saying? If you act like prey, you should expect to be treated like prey?

            He had taken advantage of me. He had capitalized on my fear, my indecision, my ignorance of exactly what it meant to be hunted by people who understood that rules did not exist. He had protected me because I was his, he had always known that I would be his, and he did not share. I could not be tarnished. I could not be harmed.

            You really are a stupid Gryffindor, aren’t you?

            He had made sure that I did not know him. He had constructed an entirely new personality to fit my needs; to gain my trust. He had kept my secrets. He had brought me flowers. He had taken my virginity—made love to me—and he had fucking stolen every last second of that intimacy. He had held me as I slept. He had kissed me awake. He had allowed me to feel safe.

Yet I did not presume to think that any facet of our relationship had been real.

Not to him.

            “Hermione?” he said again.

            I studied him, studied his face, let my gaze rove over his lips—thin, red, perfectly shaped—and his skin—pale, pristine, fuck—and I was abruptly unsure if I could do it. I did not want to. I did not want to need to.

I fucking—

I fucking wanted to trust him, wanted to be certain that his side was the right side, at least for now. I wanted to make him promises. I wanted to believe everything that he told me. I wanted to see him with a wand in his hand and feel nothing, not fear, not awe, fucking nothing. I wanted to touch him and kiss him and fuck him and I wanted to not hate myself afterwards. I wanted all of that, all of him, and I could not have it.

I could not.

I straightened my spine.

Our eyes locked.

“I understand,” I said, my voice even. “It isn’t what I would have done, but—it was necessary. I understand that now.”

He trailed his fingertips down my cheek, my jaw, my neck. It felt suffocating.

“We’re alright, then?” he repeated.

My heart stalled.

I could not—

I could not—

I could not have him.

He was not mine to have.

“Yeah,” I whispered, folding myself into his arms. His body was cold. “We’re alright.”

I lied to him.

But I told myself—again and again and again, the same way he often repeated my name, as if he needed the reminder that I was real—that I had to.

I had to.

Chapter 20

November 21, 1944

            It’s all turned into such a fucking mess.

            Like magic; one flick of my wand and everything changed. I’d be smug about that, but it seems that I’ve done a Very Bad Thing, Indeed, and will more than likely never be forgiven. Scorn, derision, disgust, fear—these are emotions that are tangible, that leave behind a mark and a scent and a palpable, wholly physical presence. They are acrid. They are bitter. And they fill the air whenever we are together.

It is suffocating.

            But it’s fucking laughable, too, because I still—

I want to touch her. All of the time, I want to touch her, and it’s fucking frustrating, not understanding why—I want to trace the shape of her mouth, the parabolic curve of the upper bow, feel the difference between the velvet of her skin and the satin of her lips—I want to mold my hands over her shoulders, her arms, the delicate bones in her wrists, want to know every inch of her body as intimately as I know my own; no, no, more than that, I want to memorize the arch of her brows, the length of her fingers, measure the space between her ribs and know, even if it was dark, even if I went blind, where her waist is, where the gentle swell of her hips begins—I want to catalogue her smiles, the soft, secret ones that she saves, doles out so sparingly, has to mean to produce, and the cold, callous, practiced ones that make me shiver, that make me think she must have been made for me, specifically, preternaturally—

            I want to touch her, and she will not let me.

            Not really.

            Oh, she allows me to hold her hand and carry her books and wrap an arm around her shoulders when we’re sitting in the common room after dinner. But she disconnects. From me, from her surroundings; she plasters on the most infuriating mask of indifference, and it is—

            And I am—

            I am angry.

            She should have known better. I should have known better. Because this is what happens, isn’t it? This is what happened to my mother, what drove her to—

            It is madness. It has always been madness. And this…obsession—it appeared abruptly, dug its grimy, useless little claws in and stuck around like the most enterprising of all parasites. It is a leech, a fucking cancer, and it has complicated everything, turned what could have—should have—been a foolproof plan into an open-ended problem with too many sharp points, harsh angles, and broken lines.

            It—she—needs to be discarded. Tossed out. Fucking dismissed.

            I owe her no apologies for that.

After all—she never asked for my protection, and I have run out of patience, run out of ways to justify the senseless stupidity that has clouded my judgment for as long as I have known her.

Because she is beautiful. She is intelligent. She is unique. She is a bewitching blend of fragility and strength in a neatly beribboned package, and she is still not worth it. She is not worth the effort, the work; she is not worth the agony of knowing that she will always and forever find me lacking.

And I owe her nothing .

She thinks to use me. She thinks to lead me on. She thinks to sit back and pretend to simper and all the while silently judge me—using that ever so superfluous moral code she only occasionally seems to possess—and for what? For eliminating a threat. For dispatching an enemy. For making a decision that will buy us time and keep her safe.

She thinks that I will allow her these liberties.

She thinks that I am so far gone on her—so far fucking lost—that I will stand idly by and let her play these insipid fucking games.

I will not.

I will not fall into the same trap my mother did. I will not be so desperate for the scarcest scraps of attention, of affection, that I am willing to cheat myself to obtain them.  

She may be the unwitting center of Grindewald’s plans for New Year’s Eve, but I am acclimating myself to the notion that she may need to be sacrificed. (And isn’t that a fascinating bit of information; Lestrange insisted that Grindewald was going to wait until June—because Dumbledore said so—but he’s apparently been planning for the end of December all along. I imagine he thinks that there is something poetic about that—a new regime and a new year in one fell swoop. How unfortunate for him that he will not live to see it.)

However—

She is no longer my concern. I will not kill for her, not again, and I will no longer waste my time attempting to unearth the blackest, basest dregs of the Malfoy plot, no matter the consequences. If she wants to retain her precious, pristine innocence—wants to live in fucking denial—it is no business of mine.

            Not anymore.

            I am done.

--TMR

 

---

 

            A month passed; weeks and days and hours that I didn’t bother counting, didn’t bother paying attention to—because nothing had changed. Melania was dead, and Edmond was distant, but Abraxas was still abrasively loud at breakfast, trading barbs and jokes and quidditch stories with Avery, jabbing an elbow into Nott’s ribs whenever he caught sight of a girl wearing a too-short skirt, her slender, milky white thighs on display. Tom watched him pensively, eyebrows drawn into a severe line, lips bright red and pursed—but always with at least one hand on me, on my waist or my back or my neck, a heavy reminder that I belonged, exclusively, to him—and I didn’t wonder why he did it, no, not when Abraxas’s gaze would linger and his smile would falter and there would be a split-second of awkward, telling, jealous silence—

            But an entire month passed, full of nothing but normal, and I could not help but feel as if I was running out of time.

            Dumbledore had not spoken to me since the morning of Melania’s death. Slughorn had stopped maintaining office hours and was perpetually difficult to locate after class. I had not heard from Grindewald even once despite his threats at our last, first, and only meeting.

            And I did not know what I was waiting for. I did not know what anyone was waiting for. I did not know what was going to happen next, or whether or not Grindewald would ever send me home. I did not know what Tom had planned. I did not know why he thought Abraxas to be so untrustworthy, or why Edmond’s actions that day in the hospital wing had had so few repercussions.

            Nothing had changed.

            “Hermione?”

            Surprised, I sloshed my tea onto the scarred wooden tabletop, only narrowly missing my breakfast plate.

            “Yes?” I chirped, reaching out to settle my teacup.

            Tom’s expression was unreadable.

            “Malfoy asked you a question,” he informed me politely.

            I glanced at Abraxas.

            “Sorry,” I apologized. “I was…up late last night. I’m a bit tired.”

            “I bet you are,” Abraxas replied with feeling. “Can’t believe they’ve made you stay in that room you shared with Melania. Pretty fucking morbid, if you ask me.”

            Tom scowled.

            “Then it’s a good thing no one’s asked you,” he ground out.

            Abraxas paled.

            “It’s fine,” I interjected, offering them both a brittle smile. “I mean, it isn’t as if she died there, is it, Tom?”

            Tom scraped his knife against the bottom of the butter dish.

            “Anyway,” Abraxas said quickly, “I just wanted to know, Hermione, if you’d help me with my Astronomy homework tonight? I’m two bad marks away from completely fucking failing, and Slughorn’s talking shit about benching me for the Gryffindor game next month—we’d lose, love, and that would just be—well, it’d be fucking embarrassing. Can’t have it. So. Will you?”

            Tom’s shoulders stiffened.

            “Why would you want Hermione’s help?” he asked rudely. “She can barely even put together a telescope. Doubt she’s much of an authority on star maps.”

            Abraxas appeared confused.

            “But—she got top marks on our last four assignments,” he said. “Sinistra went on and on and on about how fucking precise Hermione’s measurements were. It was bloody annoying, just ask Nott.”

            Tom dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin.

            “Is that true, sweetheart?” he asked, tone deceptively bland. “Top marks in Astronomy?”

            I lifted my chin.

            “Yes,” I confirmed. “It is.”

            Tom gracefully got to his feet.

            “How wonderful for you,” he remarked while picking up his sleek leather satchel. “I know how much you must have had to sacrifice to achieve marks like that. Congratulations are in order, I think.”

            I looked up at him through my lashes.

            “Sacrifice?” I returned blithely. “Hardly. Just a lot of hard work and discipline. And, really, it was just so satisfying to finally understand the subject matter, you know? Especially when I realized that I was approaching all of my problems the exact wrong way.”

            He tucked his hands into his pockets.

            “Well,” he said, glancing at the doors. “I expect we’ll see the real results of all your hard work very, very soon.”

            I took a deliberate sip of tea. It was tepid at best.

            “Oh, no,” I argued sweetly. “We won’t see anything, Tom. I can’t imagine wasting your time with something as silly as Astronomy marks, not when it—your time, of course—is so incredibly valuable.”

            He pushed the cuffs of his blazer farther up his forearms.

            “Don’t sell yourself short, sweetheart,” he said, voice smooth. “I am excellent at prioritizing.”

            I laced my fingers together. They were trembling.

            “How fortuitous,” I managed to coo.

            “What are you—” Abraxas started.

            “I apologize for having to cut breakfast short,” Tom interrupted, “but the headmaster and Professor Dumbledore requested a meeting with me this morning. I had almost forgotten. You’ll get Hermione to Potions, Malfoy?”

            Abraxas cocked his head to the side.

            “Yeah,” he answered slowly. “I can do that.”

            And then Tom stomped off, weaving through the house tables, a treacherous frown marring his perfect, perfect fucking features—

            “What the actual fuck was that?” Abraxas bleated.

            Tom was absent from lessons the entire rest of the day.

 

---

 

            It was an hour past curfew, and I was leaning against a wall in the Astronomy Tower watching Abraxas Malfoy pour half a bottle of firewhiskey into an ornate silver flask.  My tie was undone, shiny green silk hanging down either side of my neck, and my shirt was untucked from my skirt. A crisp pack of muggle cigarettes sat on the windowsill next to a dingy, well-used matchbox.

            “Didn’t think you’d come,” he said, passing me the flask. His name was etched along the side in elegant, pencil-thin script. “Didn’t think Riddle would let you come.”

            I felt a flicker of irritation.

            “He’s my boyfriend, not my keeper,” I retorted, fiddling with the cap on his flask. “Besides—I thought we were here to study?”

            He scoffed, looking grimly amused, before knocking back a shot of whiskey with smoothly practiced ease.

            “Whatever you say, princess. And you didn’t think I was serious about the studying, did you? My father wouldn’t let me fail at anything.” He exhaled dryly, motioning around the tower. “’Specially not this.”

            I took a dainty sip from the flask—and it burned on its way down my throat, dropping uneasily through my esophagus like lukewarm acid rain.

            “Good?” he asked.

            I coughed.

            “Fine,” I sputtered. “Just—strong.”

            He smirked.

            “It can be a bit much if you aren’t used to it,” he replied, taking another swig straight from the bottle. His lips were shiny with spit and liquor when he lowered it again.

            I crossed my ankles and leaned more heavily against the wall.

            “So,” I began tentatively, “Slughorn’s still talking to you?”

            He reached around me for the pack of cigarettes and shook one out.

            “What makes you say that?”

            I toyed with flask’s hefty metal twist-top before taking a second sip.

            “You—you mentioned it at breakfast,” I reminded him. “That he wasn’t going to let you play against Gryffindor if you weren’t passing Astronomy.”

            He snapped his fingers, lighting the cigarette, and my eyes widened.

            “Neat trick, isn’t it?” he hummed, noticing my reaction. “One of my father’s friends taught it to me over the summer, when we visited him in France.”

            I chewed my bottom lip.

            “That’s wandless magic, though,” I observed, nonplussed. “I’m not entirely sure that qualifies as a trick.”

            The end of his cigarette was a dusky, ethereal pinprick of orange in the twilight.

            “Slughorn left me a note last night,” he shrugged, using his index finger to tap out a waterfall of grainy grey ash. “In case you were wondering. He’s been bloody hard to find lately, hasn’t he? Doesn’t even stop by the common room anymore to commend Riddle on—oh, shit, I don’t know—on breathing, or something.”

            I swished a mouthful of whiskey around my teeth.

            “Why don’t you and Tom like each other?” I blurted out. I noticed hazily that there was an irregular tingling in my fingertips. I drank again.

            “Um,” he said, reaching up to loosen his tie. “Because he’s a fucking sociopath? Oh—and there was all of that…shit in fifth year, when that girl died—he blamed me for that, can you even fucking imagine? It was his bloody snake that he couldn’t seem to fucking keep track of, not mine. But besides that—we’ve just never gotten on. Nothing in common, really.”

            I snorted.

            “Nothing in common,” I echoed disbelievingly, scrunching my nose up. The whiskey was hot and fluid and silky against my taste buds—like melted, liquid gold.

            He ran a callused hand through his hair. His cheeks were slightly pink.

            “Sorry,” he laughed, “that’s—that’s just what we’ve always said.” He paused. “But there isn’t really a better answer. He just—he was bloody fucking weird, Hermione—when we were first-years, you know? He was so good at everything. But he couldn’t take a fucking joke, I don’t even think I saw him smile until this year—he just—he was off, right? He didn’t—he made me uncomfortable. But Lestrange and Avery and all of them…like I said. He was good at everything. And all the teachers—and fucking Dippet, Christ—they all looked at him and thought he was just some underprivileged little orphan from who-the-fuck-cares, back-alley London…he got a lot of sympathy, and it was like, like he couldn’t do anything wrong, and—I knew, though. I’ve known all along. That something isn’t right with him. It’s why he didn’t like me. He can call me stupid as often as he bloody well wants to, but—I had him figured out years ago. He knows that. He knows.”

            I reached up, my wrist feeling oddly loose, and twirled a lock of hair around my index finger.

            “He’s brilliant, though,” I pointed out thickly. “Or—maybe he isn’t. Maybe he’s just…reckless. Maybe he just—doesn’t have anything to lose, so he doesn’t have anything stopping him from doing—whatever it is that he wants. Maybe it’s all just an illusion.”

            He tilted his head back, one eye clamped shut, and studied the ceiling.

            “Nothing to lose?” he mused bitterly. “Seems pretty fucking attached to you, doesn’t he?”

            I took another drink.

            “No,” I insisted. “No. I’m—I’m like his basilisk, I think. Something to keep track of. It isn’t anything more than that.”

            He tapped his fingers against the side of his bottle.

            “You’re delusional,” he said. “Which, actually—that might explain how you’ve ended up neck-deep in Tom Riddle’s cesspool of a fucking future, and all without seeming to notice.”

            “Future,” I repeated. I swallowed a gulp of whisky—held it for one, two, three whole seconds because, God, it had started to taste good, bright, warm and rich and reassuring—before I released a mirthless peal of laughter. “Future. That’s—that’s funny.”

            He looked at me strangely.

            “Is it, now?”

            I narrowed my eyes and stared at the neck of the flask.

            “Oh,” I giggled, “don’t act like you don’t know. Edma—Edmond, Edmond, God, what a ridiculous name, he should really consider changing it— he had to have told you. Isn’t—isn’t that how Slytherin works? He thread—threat—threatens to kill you and then makes it all better by…” I stopped, thinking of Tom.

            He tossed his cigarette on the floor and stepped down, extinguishing the flame.

            “You’re drunk, love,” he said, bemused. “And I’ve no fucking idea what you’re going on about.”

            I flapped my hand, inadvertently smacking the back of it against the wall.

            “Shit,” I swore, hiccupping, “that hurt. Who still builds things out of stone, anyway? So bloody impruh—imprah—impractical.”

            His eyebrows flew up.

            “Jesus,” he chuckled darkly. “You’re sloshed, aren’t you, baby?”

            I looked around the tower, noting the emptiness—this, at least, was the same, bare walls and floors and low-perched, wide-open windows. It could have been 1995, I could have been sneaking up here for an illicit meeting with—with Draco Malfoy, could have been allowing him to ply me with expensive alcohol and talk about quidditch and then, eventually, get a hand up my skirt.

            It wasn’t, though.

            It wasn’t 1995 and he wasn’t Draco Malfoy and I could not think, not clearly, and my thoughts, they felt smudged, triple-sided and blurry-edged and incomplete and—

“I’m just—I don’t normally drink,” I replied, shaking my head. The motion made me dizzy.

            He approached me slowly.

            “Need to sit down, love?”

            I blinked at him, eyelids heavy.

            “I—maybe? I don’t—”

            He took out his wand and wordlessly conjured a comfortable grey armchair. I felt a sickening wave of anxiety.

            “How did you…”

            He plopped down on the chair and patted his lap, looping his arms around my waist and yanking me down. His body was firm against mine, firm and overly hot and wrong, somehow, too muscular, too thick, and he smelled like sweat and cologne, like sandalwood and tobacco and smoke, and it was not—he was not—

            “I’m much better at magic than anyone knows, kitten,” he murmured into my ear, running his hand down the center of my stomach.

            I grappled for his forearm, tried to push it down, away, off off off—but my movements were sluggish, my grip too flimsy, and all he did was laugh, the sound and the ensuing rumble buzzing through my back, straight into my chest, causing my skin to prickle and my brain to stumble and I needed to leave I needed to find Tom I needed to find out why he’d fucking drugged me but he was still fucking talking—

            “Listen to me, love,” he was saying, his voice syrupy sweet. “Are you listening? Yeah? Good. Now, how much did Riddle tell you about the poison that Edmond gave to Melania?”

            My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.

            “Just…just that it was the same one he gave you,” I slurred. “Back in September. Put you in the hospital wing.”

            He petted the zipper on the side of my skirt. I felt a violent stab of nausea.

            “That’s the one,” he confirmed, moving his right hand to the inside of my knee. “What the bastard probably didn’t tell you, though, is that that particular poison is a special blend, so to speak—from fucking Slughorn, can you even believe it? Riddle told him he wanted to learn to brew an antidote for something stronger than the shit we get to practice on during lessons.”

            Dull silver spots were dancing across my eyes, the effect like a kaleidoscope—it was fractured fucking tunnel vision, all black and white and grey, and I registered a distant clang as his flask slipped out of my fingers and hit the flagstone floor.

            “It’s what I just gave you, actually,” he went on conversationally, pulling me closer and nipping at my earlobe. “Mixed it with whiskey, of course, otherwise you’d have tasted it, which is probably…exacerbating the first few symptoms—and yes, darling, there are more. In about twenty minutes you’ll be asleep; twenty after that, your stomach lining will start to erode—the pain is fucking horrific—and if nothing’s done about it, you’ll be dead by morning. Which would be such a fucking pity, wouldn’t it, kitten?”

            I shifted my body away from his, tried to redistribute my weight enough to fall, to find my wand, anything—but I was paralyzed, drowsy and listless and overwhelmed and all I wanted, suddenly, was to fucking sleep—

            “Speaking of Slughorn, though,” he said. “Why don’t you take a look at this note he left me?”

            An ivory sheet of parchment was brandished in front of my face. The handwriting—oh, God, the handwriting—it was familiar, yes, except it wasn’t the crooked, spidery lines from the Potions blackboard, no, it was—back in September—someone slid it under our door, she’d said—

            I fought to stay alert. I focused on the itch and the scratch and the asymmetrical hem of my skirt as it slid over my thighs; I curled my toes, stretched out my ankles, ignored how close his thumb was to the edge of my knickers. Because it would not feel good. I would not ever let it feel good, not like this, and for the very first time that night—I felt a frisson of fear, electric and staggering.

            “Who?” I heard myself say.

            He deftly flipped my skirt up.

I shuddered.

“Would you believe me, kitten, if I told you it was Dumbledore?” he whispered. “You wouldn’t, I don’t think. But you should.”

            His fingertips dipped into the top of my underwear.

I was not crying, could not cry, but then there was a sound coming from the doorway, wounded, no, indignant, no, outraged—and I was toppling forward, landing hard on my knees, and Abraxas had leapt to his feet, wand drawn, eyes flashing—I used the last bit of energy I had to glance at the door—

Tom.

            Of course it was Tom. It was always Tom. It was always going to be Tom.

            “You thought Lestrange wouldn’t tell me?” he was shouting. His voice was blistering, blustering, bliss bliss bliss, and I realized that I was relieved. “That the fucking poison he’d taken from me had been stolen? You thought he’d know it was you and turn a blind fucking eye while you used it on her?”

            Abraxas lowered his arm.

            “Traitorous fucking weasel, isn’t he, Riddle?” he spat.

            Tom’s gaze remained unwavering—ferocious—deadly.

            “Get the fuck out,” he hissed.

            “Yeah?” Abraxas laughed. “Or you’ll do what? Kill me? Tsk, tsk, Riddle. You know better than that, don’t you?”

            Tom did not look away.

            “I can make it look like an accident, Malfoy,” he said, voice low and commanding and everything, everything, that I needed to hear. “I can put the bloody Imperius on you and force you to walk out that window—the one right behind you, d’you see it? You’d fall, of course. A few hundred feet, I think. Probably not a particularly pleasant way to die.”

            Abraxas did not flinch.

            “You’re not that impulsive,” he countered.

            Tom arched an eyebrow.

            “They’d ask me to speak at your funeral, of course,” Tom continued. “Me and Lestrange, maybe even Nott. I’d say something about what a lumbering, lovable oaf you were, inject a bit of levity into what would undoubtedly be nothing more than a room full of sobbing fucking socialites watching their marriage prospects be buried.”

            Abraxas scratched at the back of his neck, biceps bulging through the thin white linen of his shirt.

            “Fuck off.”

            Tom crossed his arms over his chest.

            “You are going to give me the antidote now,” he said, posture rigid. “And then you are going to leave. You will not speak to her. You will not so much as look in her general direction. I will kill you if you do. I would kill you now, actually, but I suspect that you’d be missed by people who I’m not quite prepared to confront.”

            Abraxas glowered at him.

            “And if I said I didn’t have it? The antidote?”

            Tom unveiled a chilling smile.

            “I think we both know the answer to that, Malfoy.”

            And then Tom was holding his wand—grip steady, unyielding, and so, so sure—and Abraxas was balling his hands into fists, expression calculating, and I had an awful premonition, remembered how comfortable Abraxas had been without a wand—

            A stream of laser red light erupted from Abraxas’s palm.

            Tom looked stunned for a fraction of a second.

            But then he jerked his wand to the left, just in time to dodge the curse, and the air went still.

            “Wandless and nonverbal?” he guessed. “Admittedly impressive. But…not quite enough, Malfoy. Give me the antidote. Now.”

            Abraxas’s nose twitched.

            “Fine,” he snapped, reaching into his trouser pocket and pulling out a tiny glass vial filled with a lemon yellow liquid. He threw it at Tom. “She has to drink all of it.”

            Tom uncorked the vial and peered inside. Seemingly satisfied, he strode towards me and crouched down. He grasped my chin and I let my mouth fall open.

            “Here, sweetheart,” he said gently. “Just—go slow, alright? One sip at a time. That’s it, just like that. Almost done.”

            The antidote tasted like watery, unsweetened lemonade; it warred with the smooth, smoky flavor of the whiskey residue that was lingering around my tongue.

            And the effects were instantaneous.

            My mind cleared, thoughts reorganized and shuffled into place, and my muscles tensed, belatedly preparing to run. I flexed my fingers, stretched my back, rolled my neck. The point of my wand was digging into my hip and I removed it from the waistband of my skirt. But then I noticed that Abraxas was leaving, footsteps awkwardly light as he made his escape.

            I knew, intellectually, that I should follow Tom’s example and let Abraxas go. I knew that revenge should be cold and well-crafted, faultlessly executed after hours of careful planning. I knew that there was nothing I could do just then that could make the previous half-hour disappear—there was nothing I could do that would make me feel any better.

            But I was vindictive.

            I was impetuous.

            And I needed to react.

            I muttered under my breath and swiped my wand in a complicated figure-eight.

            And then Abraxas was tripping over the second step on the staircase, feet flying out from under him, and—

            “That was petty,” Tom said, watching impassively as Abraxas swore, loudly, and righted himself, shooting me a venomous glare before he moved out of sight.

            There was a clatter as I dropped my wand.

            “Maybe,” I conceded, heart pounding.

            He clenched his jaw.

            “That was dangerous.”

            “Oh, please,” I retorted. “It’s clear that he already wants me dead. I doubt that hexing him when his back’s turned is going to, what, make him want me...more dead?”

            He whirled around.

            “Are you joking?” he demanded. “You—you were less than an hour away from dying. From being murdered. As soon as you were unconscious, he was going to rape you fucking bloody. And you’re still not taking him seriously. Tell me, Hermione, what would you have done if I hadn’t arrived when I did? What will you do the next time he manages to outsmart you?”

            I rubbed my fingers across my mouth, feeling for the sticky sour residue of the antidote.

“You honestly think there will be a next time, Tom?”

            His nostrils flared.

            “I know that there will be a next time, sweetheart,” he said, irate. “There will be a next time, and I might not be around to save you from it.”

            I sneered—but I was so, so angry, rage like a lightning-scorched tree branch clawing at my chest, roaring for its escape, eager to be set loose. And my hands were shaking and my mind was still cloudy from the whiskey, from the poison, from the fear that had so fiercely transformed into something bigger and stronger and meaner—fucking malevolent, really, a storm that felt as though it had been brewing for ages, for months, until now, now, because it was so viciously fucking sick of being underestimated.

            “I don’t want you to save me,” I seethed. “And I am done allowing you to let me think that I need you to! God, ever since I got here, all you’ve said is that I don’t know how to survive—that I’d be captured or kidnapped or dead if I didn’t listen to you. If I didn’t have you to protect me. And you—you preyed on the fact that I didn’t know any better!”

            He stalked towards me.

            “I told you the truth, Hermione,” he growled. “I told you what you were too blind and weak and foolish to see for yourself.”

            My lip curled.

            “No,” I hissed, poking him in the chest. “No. I have never been weak. You have wanted me to be, and have manipulated me into believing that I am—but I am not. I—do—not—need you. I do not need your idea of help. I do not need you to intimidate anyone into leaving me alone. I can take care of myself.”

            He caught my wrist. His grip was unforgiving.

            “That so, Granger?” he goaded. “Go on, then. Tell me. Tell me what you’ll do the next time Malfoy decides to take advantage of you.”

            I jerked my arm back and out of his grasp.

            “Next time,” I snarled, “I will remember every foul word he’s ever uttered in my presence, every—every misogynistic, backhanded compliment he’s ever paid me—and I will remember how terrified I was tonight, how defenseless, how furious—and—and I will take him apart as painfully as I know how—I will not be kind enough to put him back together—and he will be lucky if I decide to kill him. He will wish for it.”

            He leaned down.

            “Says the Gryffindor who’s never killed anyone,” he taunted, words hot against my cheek. “What will you really do, sweetheart?”

            I smirked, met his eyes, matched his gaze—I could sense the way my pupils dilated, retracted, in perfect harmony with the frantic beat of my pulse, the way amber brown was eclipsed by pitch blown black.

            “I will ruin him,” I vowed. “He will be in pieces."

            He inhaled sharply—

            And then he was surging forward, fusing our mouths together, and I froze—but only for a moment, just one fucking moment—until I kissed him back, breath melding and tongues clashing, an unexpected flood of want piercing my gut with all the sudden, arresting flair of a bullet—he buried his hands in my hair, groaned as he pulled at it, the ache in my scalp a welcome distraction from the feel of his cock, hard and insistent, grinding against my pelvis—until, with a curse, he flipped me around, shoved me towards the nearest wall, and I instinctively bent over, bracing myself with my forearms.

            He yanked at my underwear, pushed them to the side, tore them off, while his left hand clutched my hip—there would be bruises the next morning—fingerprints—reminders—and still, still I arched my back, dropped my chin onto my wrist, waited impatiently for him to just fucking do something—

            He thrust into me.

            He thrust into me, and I bit down; hard, harder, bottom lip caught between my teeth, jaw locked, a desperate, whimpering sort of moan resting at the top of my throat, just behind my tonsils—I kept biting, digging deeper, chewed-up, paper-thin skin giving way to a messy smear of blood, copper flavored and strawberry colored, but then he started talking, a breathless, filthy whisper in my ear, and my head spun, my knees buckled, I could not stop myself, not from savoring every rasp and rumble, the way his voice hitched on the consonants in my name—

            “Hermione,” he panted, “Hermione, fucking missed this, missed how wet you get—for me, all of you, all of you for me—fucking missed you, thought I’d never—never—fuck—never get this again, never feel you—your cunt’s a fucking dream, sweetheart, never want to leave it, never want to leave you—Hermione—”

            I came on a high-pitched sob, sweat condensing along the side of my neck, flashing specks of bright-white light curling along the edges of my eyelids. He followed with a shout, hips twitching as his cock pulsed.

            Silence settled, then, and I felt a rush of cool air against my backside when he pulled out, felt the fabric of my skirt fall back down; I heard him zip up his trousers, heard him step away—and then nothing, there was nothing but nothing, oppressive and rough, and the queasy lurch of my stomach.

            “I’m not doing this anymore.”

            I straightened my spine and turned to face him. His cheeks were flushed. His lips were bitten red, raw, and his tie was missing.

            “What?”

            He shrugged.

            “I’m not doing this,” he repeated slowly. “We either have a real relationship or nothing at all. I—I am invested in you. I’m not a fucking chew toy you can’t decide if you want to keep or not. I’m not staying if you aren’t going to try.”

            I went still.

            “When you say done, you mean—”

            “I’m done with you,” he interrupted. “I’m done trying to make you like me, and I’m done trying to atone for—well. I’m done apologizing for who I am. I’m just…done.”

            My gaze wavered. But there was a peculiar ache in my chest, right in the center, a vague sort of pain that seemed to swell, emphatically, with every breath I took—I noticed my knickers, a small scrap of white lace, in a heap on the floor. I rubbed my thighs together.

            “I…see.”

            He sighed, long and loud and exasperated.

            “You don’t, probably, but I can’t quite summon the energy to care.”

            I swallowed.

            “Gutted, I’m sure.”    

            He rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

            “It’s been a month!” he exclaimed out of nowhere, teeth gritted. “Christ, how is it that you’re still upset about the same goddamn thing? You didn’t even like her!”

            I flinched, startled by the change of subject.

            “You killed someone, Tom. And it hasn’t been a month,” I shot back automatically. “It’s been—”

            He sniffed.

            And I had an unwanted thought—no—and I started counting days—no, no, no—and I felt the slimy slither of cum on the inside of my thighs and I realized that it was not the first time I had felt that, no, certainly not the first, and I recalled the half-empty packet of pills that had been left behind, Before, in 1996, and I tried—I fucking tried—to remember when I had last—and I could not—it had been in early October—hadn’t it?—but I still could not remember—

            “Oh, shit,” I gasped, pressing a hand to my abdomen. “Shit, shit, shit.”

            His amusement faded.

            “Hermione?”

            I glanced up at him, my chin quivering.

            “I’m…” I trailed off.

            He took an aborted step towards me.

            “What—are you going to be sick? Hermione?”

            I was burning up, my skin was much too fucking hot, and my entire body felt like a switch had been flipped, a slow steady rhythm vibrating through my muscles, and what had I fucking done? How could I have been so stupid?

            “Tom,” I said plaintively.

            He furrowed his brow.

            “What’s wrong?”

            The ramifications were unfathomable. This should not have happened, should not have been able to happen, and—I was fucking seventeen, I was trapped in the past, I was not ready, I was not prepared—this was not a fixable mistake, not in 1944—but, God, what had I done?

            “Tom,” I said again, helplessly, just his name.

            I couldn’t say the words, not to myself, not to him—and I could not blink, could not make my eyes do anything but stare, straight ahead, holding onto nothing—

            “I’m pregnant,” I whispered, voice wobbly.

            He faltered.

            “What? What did you say?”

            I licked my lips.

            “I’m pregnant,” I repeated.

            He regarded me skeptically.

            And then a smile blossomed across his face, a real one, lopsided and pleased, almost smug, and his teeth glinted from behind his lips, straight and even and white, and my heartbeat was deafening, thunderous, and I scrambled, desperately, internally, to recognize the source of my adrenaline—it was like a needle in my veins, an alkaline battery plugged right into my bloodstream—but then I did, it clicked into place, I knew what it was, what was going on, knew that I was afraid—

            But not of him.

            After everything he had done, everything he had said, everything he had promised—I distantly wondered if there was something terribly wrong with me, because even after all of that, I was not afraid of him.

            “I suppose I’ll have to stay with you after all,” he drawled, grabbing my hand, entwining our fingers. “Although—I suppose you’ll have to stay, too, won’t you?”

            His grin was like a razor wire in the moonlight.

Chapter 21

            “This is bad,” I said, anxiously chewing my fingernails. “This is catastrophic.”

            He glanced back at me, amused, as he led me further down the hallway, closer and closer to the dungeons.

            “How do you figure?”

            My mouth flapped open.

            “Tom!” I exclaimed. “I am—you got me pregnant. Are you aware, even vaguely, what that means?”

            “Oh, I don’t know,” he said dryly. “It’s some kind of medical condition, isn’t it? Lasts awhile, results in offspring—bit of a mystery what causes it, unfortunately.”

            I scowled.

            “It isn’t funny! It’s—” I wrapped my arms around my waist and then continued, more quietly, “Can’t you feel it? How wrong it is? How much it wasn’t supposed to happen?”

            He clenched his jaw.

            “Not at all,” he replied, tone icy. “I’m going to be a father. It’s a perfectly marvelous development.”

            I pursed my lips.

            “Look,” I fumed. “I’m already a target. Both Malfoy and Lestrange have tried to kill me, in case you’ve forgotten, and I can only imagine that once everyone finds out I’m incubating Tom Riddle’s spawn, the price on my head will multiply. Exponentially. In what bloody universe is this a marvelous development?”

            He gave a noncommittal grunt.

            “Neither of them would have killed you,” he pointed out blithely. “Lestrange wanted to kidnap you for an hour, and Malfoy…well, he apparently has a flair for the fucking dramatic, doesn’t he?”

            I gaped at him.

            “A flair for the—are you mad?” I demanded in a heated whisper. “You’re being deliberately obtuse. I can’t—I’m not from here. I don’t belong. This—situation—it’s a problem. It’s a mistake.”

            He flinched.

            “Well, then. What would you like to do, Hermione?” he drawled. “Get rid of it?”

            I huffed.

            “I didn’t say that.”

            He sighed.

            “Then what did you say, sweetheart? Because you can’t keep blaming—”

            “I just want you to take this seriously!” I burst out, cutting him off.  “I’m pregnant, Tom, there is something that’s half yours growing inside of me right now, and you’re acting like—like—”

            I stopped walking. He pressed his lips together.

            “Like what?”

            I furrowed my brow.

            “Like you wanted this,” I said slowly. “But that’s—ludicrous. Isn’t it? Tom?”

            A muscled ticked in his cheek.

            “We need to discuss Malfoy,” he replied, voice tight. “I still can’t pinpoint what it is that he wants with you, but I’m positive that his father—”

            “You don’t want to talk about it,” I realized with a start. “You—why don’t you want to talk about it?”

            He clicked his tongue.

            “You’re pregnant,” he intoned impatiently. “It’s mine. I will take responsibility for our premarital transgressions and marry you tomorrow, if you bloody well want me to. There. We’ve talked about it. Now, can we please just—”

            I cut him off.

            “You planned this. Oh, my God. You planned this.”

            He froze.

            “What are you talking about?”

            I shook my head.

            “No,” I insisted. “Don’t play dumb. Not now. This isn’t—you planned this. You did it on purpose. You wanted—is this leverage? Something to hold over me?”

            His eyes darted left, then right, then down.

            “Not here,” he decided, grabbing my elbow and propelling me towards the nearest staircase.

            “What are you—” I shrieked, dragging my heels.

            “Not here,” he snapped.

            “What do you mean, not here?” I demanded, tripping over the corner of a plush crimson runner. “It’s past curfew, there isn’t anyone—”

            He halted abruptly.

            “I am not going to have this argument with you in public,” he growled. “You are not going to like anything that I have to say. So—just shut up for five minutes, will you? We’re almost there.”

            I glanced around, confused, before noticing that we were somewhere on the second floor. My blood went cold.

            “The Chamber,” I guessed.

            He smirked as we rounded a corner, reaching a dead-end hallway with an out-of-order girls’ lavatory.

            “We’re guaranteed privacy,” he explained.

            I took a deep breath—fear locked in an airtight spiral around my spine, freezing my limbs—I reminded myself that I was useful to him, that he had no reason to want me dead, that I trusted him, at least a little—

            “The—it—your basilisk,” I choked out, “it hunts—muggle-borns. It paralyzed me when I was twelve. I—I used a mirror, though, so I didn’t die, but—”

            He pushed the restroom door open.

            “Calm down,” he ordered. “He isn’t going to hurt you. Christ. I’m his master, or did you forget?”

            He didn’t wait for me to respond; instead, he approached the third sink from the left, caressing the snake engraved on the tap, and met my bewildered gaze in the dingy, fogged-over mirror as he started to—

            He hissed, there wasn’t another word for it, and it was different from what Harry had done, the few times I had heard him—because Tom’s voice was commanding, confident, the rustling cadence of the syllables coming across as mesmerizing, almost erotic. It was magic, I understood that, but it was more, too, it was pretty and thrilling and terrifying, and as his silken, stupefying whispers began to taper off, I heard the telltale groan of pipes rearranging themselves and the crunch of the porcelain basin separating from the bathroom wall.

            “Come on,” he grumbled, stepping back so he could guide me into the narrow stone slide. He kept hold of my waist as he pushed us both down, legs on either side of my body, and helped me to my feet when we landed in a startlingly well-lit underground cavern.

            “This isn’t—”

            “I don’t know why the Chamber you saw in your own time was so disgusting,” he interrupted. “Or so wet. The basilisk—he prefers a clean environment. It’s not difficult to keep him happy.”

            I licked my lips.

            I did not allow myself to look around.

            “Can you tell him to stay away? Will he listen to you?”

            He gestured towards the gigantic statue of Salazar Slytherin.

            “He’s sleeping,” he said. “If he wakes up, I’ll tell him to leave us alone. Although, I should warn you—he likes to be…social. He was alone for a long time. I try to visit him when I do my rounds at night.”

            I stared at him, nonplussed.

Don’t ask, Hermione, don’t—

            “Does he have a name?”

            Tom’s forehead creased in a frown.

            “What?”

            “Never mind,” I muttered, scuffing the front of my shoe on the ground. “Just—why did you bring me here? We’ve had plenty of fights in the halls already. What makes this one any different?”

            He looked uncomfortable.

            I was fascinated.

            “I was going to lie to you,” he admitted, taking a step towards me. “Well, not lie, technically, just—omit. I wasn’t going to tell you. I didn’t think you needed to know. It would have just been a…secret.”

            I ducked my head.

            Reality washed over me.

            He’s a brilliant liar, I thought to myself, feeling hollow.

            “What would have been a secret? The fact that you got me pregnant on purpose?”

            He leaned forward to untuck my blouse.

            I held my breath.

            “Yes,” he confirmed, unapologetically.

            My fist was flying towards his face before my brain had a chance to catch up and tell it to stop. The resulting smack of skin on bone on skin was loud and unimaginably awkward in the dim, looming silence, and his astonishment would have been satisfying if I hadn’t been so fucking furious.

            “How dare you,” I seethed, my voice low. “How—do you actually think you’re playing God? Is that it? How are you even—you’re pathological, aren’t you, a legitimate fucking sociopath. Why would you want this? What could you possibly have left to prove?”

            He twitched.

            “You’ve called me that before,” he mused, a cherry red mark blossoming across his cheek. “A sociopath. And, really, you might be onto something, but let’s quit the bloody blame game, Hermione—I didn’t rape you, I didn’t trick you, I’m not Malfoy, for fuck’s sake—and you said yes to everything. Your consent was verbal and deliberate and very, very enthusiastic. Need a reminder?”

            I cringed.

            “Because—that was because I thought I was in love with you!” I cried.

            He paused.

            “Past tense,” he noted quietly.

            I scoffed.

“Yeah, well, you murdered an innocent girl right in front of me,” I said. “My perspective’s changed a bit.”

            He gritted his teeth.

            “I would murder a thousand innocent girls if it meant keeping you safe,” he swore. “What don’t you get about that?”

            I rubbed the heels of my palms into my eyes.

            “Is that supposed to be sweet?” I asked, frustrated. “Am I supposed to be touched that you’d kill for me? How can I be, when I know that murder doesn’t faze you? It doesn’t mean anything!You can cast the killing curse without even sounding angry, Tom, you barely have to think about it, and that’s—it’s inside of you already, right on the surface. It’s easy.”

            His mouth twisted.

            “You—” he stopped, turned around, stalked away from me. Seconds passed. He released a harsh bark of laughter. “Nothing has been fucking easy, Hermione, not since before you got here. How do you not see that? I—I had it all figured out. I knew what I was doing. I had plans. And you wrecked them. Everything that’s gone wrong for me has been your fault. You’re like a—like a sickness, an infection, and I do not know how to get rid of you.”

            Stung, I took a step back.

            “Should have just asked. I’d have been gone in a fucking heartbeat.”

            He tensed.

            “Yeah? Just like that?”

            I narrowed my eyes.

            “Until you decided to inseminate me, yes. But now—” I broke off.

            He sneered.

            “But now you need me,” he finished mockingly.

            I glared.

            “No,” I muttered, “what I need is a way to get my time turner back.”

            He blinked.

            “What did you say?”

            “I said,” I replied, louder, “that I need to go home. I need to get out of—all of this. God. I need to leave.”

            His chin jutted forward.

            “You’d leave,” he intoned dully. “Even though you’re pregnant. You’d just—go.”

            I tugged at the slightly frayed hem of my shirt. I felt out of place, distinctly uncomfortable and unable to fathom why.

            “What does being pregnant have to do with anything? I was never meant to stay here. I can’t stay here. It’s not a choice, Tom, it’s reality.”

            His lip curled.

            “You’d go home, keep my child, and leave him without a father,” he continued, ignoring me.

            I winced.

            “I don’t—” I started to say.

            “Fuck!” he suddenly shouted, spinning around again and raking a shaking hand through his hair. “You—fuck, Hermione, just—fuck.”

            I balled my hands into fists.

            “I don’t know what you expect me to do,” I lied.

Except—

            I did know, it was heartbreakingly obvious what he had expected, and I wished, not for the first time, that none of this had ever happened. My anger had evaporated, like mist in the late morning sun, only to be replaced by a resounding pang of regret; because what if he had been born fifty years later? What if I hadn’t known who he was or where I came from or why we could never have a happy ending?

            “I expected you to stay!” he roared. “I expected—you were supposed to be different, you were supposed to be special, you were supposed to be mine! I don’t—I don’t lose things, Hermione, not important things, I don’t misplace them and I don’t let them tarnish and I don’t—I’m never wrong about people, I know precisely how depraved and rotten and selfish they’re capable of being, and you—you’re nothing like them, nothing like that, nothing like him—and I know—I expected—you were supposed to want to stay!”

            I was struck, then, by several different things—like lightning, like fire, like a thousand fucking asteroids, crumbling and corrosive and brash—

            “God,” I whispered, “you really don’t do anything by halves, do you?”

            His shoulders fell.

            “I don’t understand why you feel like you have to protect everyone,” he replied plaintively. “The fucking timeline shouldn’t be your responsibility.”

            I approached him cautiously, with my hand held out.

            “That’s because you want to own the world,” I swallowed, “and I want to save it.”

            My fingers brushed his elbow.

            The nape of his neck was flushed red.

            “No,” he argued savagely. “No. I want to own you.”

            I yanked at his arm, forcing him to face me.

            “Are you even listening to yourself?” I demanded.

            His gaze was glacial.

            “You’re the one who seems to have a problem with listening,” he retorted. “You think I’m not aware of how insane this is? You think I don’t know how utterly mad you’ve made me? I didn’t—I didn’t want to do this, and it wasn’t on purpose, not at first, and I—I knew, alright, I fucking knew that what I was hoping for was the worst sort of crazy, but I could not stop myself.”

            I felt his words pierce my gut, one by one by one, felt my head swim and my brain falter, until I began to wonder, spitefully, hysterically, how much of what he said was even true. Because the subtext was clear—crystalline and saccharine and so fucking real—and I could not allow myself the luxury of understanding him.

            I loved you before all of this, I held myself back from saying, and I am terribly sure that I love you still.

            “That’s not an excuse,” I said, voice wavering.

            His eyes flashed.

            “Would you stay if you could?” he asked sharply. “Here. With me. In the past. If you didn’t believe that it was somehow imperative to the construction of the universe that you go home—would you stay?”

            My stomach rolled.

            “I’ve already told you that I wish things were different.”

            The skin around his mouth was ferociously tight.

            “That’s not an answer, Hermione,” he bit out. “Would—you—stay?”

            My pulse hammered a swift staccato rhythm against the base of my throat.

            “Well, considering I’m pregnant—”

            “If you weren’t pregnant.”

            My breath hitched, and my tongue felt stuck.

            “If the only thing keeping you here was me,” he barreled on, ruthless and harsh and paralyzing, “if the only choice you had to make was whether or not you wanted to leave me behind—would you stay?”

            I stared at him, helplessly, and wondered when the answer to that question had gotten so complicated. I had always been highly rational; I never thought in suppositions, didn’t like to guess or theorize or wallow in uncertainty. I made assumptions based on sound logic and facts, irrefutable and undeniable, not flighty, fleeting emotions.

            But this—

            Tom—

            He was categorically different, had been from the beginning. He was frightening and fascinating and separate, somehow, exempt from all the rules.

 

 

And I had slept with him, willingly, more than willingly, had fallen in love with him and confided in him and I had done all of that so effortlessly, had kept my conscience clean and my doubts dismissive because I had known that none of it would last. I had been selfish. I had been reckless. I had not thought it would ever matter, not really, had acknowledged, casually, caustically, that it might hurt to go home at first but that I would recover.

            It should have been so easy to say no.

            I shouldn’t have had to even think about it.

            He’s a liar.

            He can’t be trusted.

            He threatened you, he mutilated Edmond’s arm, he lied, he lies, he killed Melania Macmillan and he—

            “That’s what I thought,” he spat as I remained unresponsive.

            I glanced around the Chamber, taking in the shadowed alcoves, the polished cedar pillars, the rainbow glint of emerald green scales coming from the mouth of Salazar Slytherin.

            “You’re actually trying to justify it, aren’t you?”

            He laughed bitterly.

            “What am I even guilty of, Hermione?” he challenged. “Not mentioning to you that sex is generally how people procreate? Seriously? Fucking forgive me for assuming that you knew how all of that worked. Should I have drawn you a bloody diagram? Shall I draw you one now?”

            I stiffened.

            “I didn’t think—”

            “Exactly,” he interrupted coldly. “You didn’t think. That isn’t my fault. You may find this hard to believe—since I’m evil incarnate, and all that—but not everything is my fucking fault.”

            My chest burned as I inhaled a lungful of damp, musty air.

            “I never said that,” I said quickly. “You know I never said that.”

            His nostrils flared.

            “Haven’t you ever wanted something so fucking badly that you’d do absolutely anything to get it?” he asked, visibly frustrated. “So badly that you’d—you’d tear the fucking world down, turn gravity inside out, set fire to your own fucking sanity? So badly that you’d lie to yourself and ignore everything wrong with it and just—just—”

            He knelt down, then, long fingers spanning the curve of my waist, and pushed my shirt up, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss into the space below my navel.

            “I wanted this,” he said fiercely.

            My muscles quivered as his lips grazed my skin.

            “You wanted to get me pregnant? Yes, I know, we’ve established that,” I managed to get out.

            He slid his hands down to my hips, tucking his thumbs into my underwear.

            “More than that,” he answered, resting his forehead against my pelvis. “I wanted—evidence. Of you. Of us. I wanted something to exist that was proof that you were here. Real. That I hadn’t just…made you up.”

            I could feel my lashes spike and thicken and clump together as tears gathered in the corners of my eyes.

            Liar.

Liar.

He’s a liar, Hermione.

            “You wanted to trap me,” I said hoarsely. “Don’t—that’s all it was. That’s what you wanted. Don’t act like it was anything else.”

            He smiled softly.

He did not mean it.

            “I did,” he acknowledged. “I wanted to trap you into staying with me. I wanted—even if you figured out a way to get home, to the future, I wanted you to have a reason to stay here. I didn’t...I knew that I wouldn’t be enough.”

            He said it so simply; as if it was a fact, a foregone conclusion.

And abruptly, my heart fucking ached.

            But—

            No—

            “I would give anything to get my friends—my family back,” I replied cuttingly, wrenching myself out of his grasp. “Don’t act as if I don’t know what it feels like to want something. To want someone. I just wouldn’t care to ruin their life in order to get them.”

            There was a very telling half-second of silence before he looked up at me, fine black brows arched—I was taken aback, though, by his eyes. They were carefully blank, devoid of anything, everything, except a light sheen of derision, frosty and crisp, and a violent gleam of defeat.

            I had hurt him, I realized with a tremor of shock.

            “You just don’t want me,” he concluded flatly, getting to his feet. “I see. Well, then. I’m sure there’s something you can take for—the situation. To get rid of it. And you can show yourself out. Mind you don’t trip on the slide, however. It gets a bit tricky if you don’t know where to step.”

            An eternity seemed to go by.

            His footsteps echoed unforgivingly around the mile-high ceilings.

            He was letting me go. I knew that. He was giving up. I could leave. He would not stop me. I would not even have to look back, would not have to remember him, remember any of this, not if I didn’t want to. I could run away, just like I had wanted to do for months, could turn myself over to the Malfoys, or Dumbledore, or even Edmond—I could be in Grindewald’s drawing room within the hour, could be holding Minerva McGonnagal’s time turner and spinning its dial and on my way home—

            There was no finality to the moment.

            Whatever I was to him—whatever he was to me—I knew that we were not done, not yet. The thought of losing him—to Grindewald, to Dumbledore, to time—it was painful. I was not ready. But I had pushed and pushed and pushed, relentlessly, mercilessly, and he had finally crumpled.

            And it should have felt ridiculous, what I was about to do, what I was about to ask, what I was about to start. It should have felt stupid, irresponsible, self-indulgent and futile and wholly without reason. And it was. It was all of those things. And I was scared.

            But I had never been a coward.

            “Why?” I called out to him. “Why me?”

            The lean, tapered line of his back went rigid.

            “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

            “Yes,” I insisted, “you do.”

            His hand hovered next to the pocket of his trousers, where I knew he kept his wand.

            “Fishing for compliments?”

            I crossed my arms over my chest.

            “If I wanted you to tell me I’m pretty, I would say so,” I shot back. “But you know that’s not what I’m asking.”

            He drummed his fingers against his leg.

            “There’s my clever girl,” he said sarcastically.

            “You’re deflecting.”

            “And you are being annoying. Where is this going?”

            I snorted.

            “Nowhere, obviously. Good luck with your next horcrux,” I snapped, stomping towards the slide. “I’m sure its creation will make an excellent bedtime story for our child.”

            I heard him curse.

            “Don’t forget to take a souvenir, Granger!” he yelled.

            There was a faint ping as something small and metallic landed on the ground next to me. I glanced down. The Malfoy ancestral ring lay at my feet. My mind raced.

            “You kept it,” I observed, puzzled. “Why? It’s been months.”

            He exhaled unsteadily, breath whistling through his teeth.

            “Everyone, including Abraxas, still thinks you have it,” he replied. “They also all have no idea that you know what it does. I suspect that soon, someone will remember to activate it. Like I said before—I wanted them to get me, not you.”

            I turned around, slowly.

            “But you’re giving it back to me.”

            He shrugged.

            “You’re going to let yourself get caught now, aren’t you?”

            I bent down to pick up the ring, inspecting the center-set emerald with a vague sense of detachment.

            “What do you think will happen to me, if I do?”

            He cleared his throat.

            “You’ll be killed,” he answered bluntly. “Maybe not on sight, but shortly thereafter, most definitely.”

            I nodded, eyes still trained on the ring.

            “I’m never going home, am I?”

            He sighed impatiently.

            “No, Hermione, you aren’t.”

            I finally looked up. My vision swam.

            “I don’t want to get rid of it.”

            He pinched the bridge of his nose.

            “The ring?”

            I rolled the thin silver band between my knuckles.

            “The baby,” I clarified. “I don’t want to get rid of it.”

            He sniffed.

            “Ah.”

            His indifference hung heavily between us, like a crushed velvet curtain on a sturdy iron rod. I wanted it swept out of the way, wanted sunlight and dust motes and grimy cracked windows; I wanted to rewind the past thirty minutes, wanted to undo the damage, because the stony disdain he was currently regarding me with was too much like the Tom I had met three months prior, too much like the Tom who could deliver a death threat with a pointed smile and a whiskey warm laugh.    

“You were right, earlier,” I blurted, wringing my hands. “When you said that I blame you for everything. I just—it’s strange, okay? I trust you to keep me safe, mostly, but I don’t trust your motives. I’ve never been able to figure out what you want. And I take that out on you. I’m not sorry—at least not properly—so I can’t apologize, but—you have to know—you’ve seen my memories—it’s hard to be around you when you remind me of him. Of who you become.”

His expression didn’t change.

“Mostly,” he repeated. “You mostly trust me to keep you safe.”

I nervously wet my lips.

“Yes,” I confirmed, “mostly. I don’t—”

He held his hand up.

“I have protected you, and I have saved you, and I have—” He chuckled grimly. “Fucking hell. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to explain myself. You aren’t going to listen.”

I bristled.

“What does that mean?”

He looked exhausted.

“It means, Hermione, that I would follow you anywhere—straight to hell, if you asked me to—and you don’t even care.”

I shook my head.

Liar, liar, liar, I thought desperately.

“You don’t—”

“Just give me the ring back,” he interjected. “I don’t—it doesn’t matter. It’s fine. I’m sure we’ll have an identical argument in another few days, anyway.”

As if in a trance, I tossed him the ring. He caught it deftly and slid it back into his pocket. My stomach was churning with guilt and confusion and rage and indignation—and I was livid, suddenly, because I was certain that he was trying to manipulate me. Why else would he allow himself to seem so incredibly vulnerable? Why else would his shoulders be slumped and his mouth be turned down and his eyes be lifeless, vacant, dejected?

“I don’t understand what you think you’re doing,” I told him scathingly. “What do you want? What are you getting out of this?”

His jaw dropped.

“You’re joking. You have to be joking.”

My heart rate sped up, up, faster and harder and faster. I could not control it. I could not control anything—

“I have an underdeveloped sense of humor, actually,” I countered, ignoring how sweaty my palms were becoming. “So, no. I’m not joking. What do you want? What benefit is there to doing all of this for me? I’ve already given you all my memories. How am I not useless to you yet?”

He looked irritated.

“What are you—”

A nauseating wave of heat pulsed down my spine.

“Stop trying to look so innocent, God, it’s revolting,” I spat.

He looked stunned.

“You can’t be—”

I was irate.

“You already know I’m not stupid,” I went on.

He looked concerned.

“Hermione—”

I was dizzy.

“No, no, stop it, stop it, this is what you do!” I shrieked. The split ends of my hair were tickling the soft skin behind my ears. “You lie, and you pretend,and you can get anyone to believe you—and you just—all you want—”

He looked sad.

“Look, sweetheart, you need to—”

I had unraveled, though, was undone, and he was not—I was not—

“Hermione!” he bellowed. “I am not going to hurt you.”

            My eyes snapped shut. I could not look at him. I could not look at his face, so perfectly handsome, his expression guarded, angry, imploring—but soft, too, so soft, uncharacteristically soft—because he did not mean it. He could not mean it. He was fucking evil. He hurt people. He would hurt me. It did not matter what he said. And I could not look at him, I could not look at him, because if I did, if I let myself—

            “You will, though,” I managed to reply hoarsely. “You will, and you’ll probably enjoy it. That’s who you are. That’s who you’ve always been.”

            My eyes were still closed. But I heard—footsteps? He was coming closer, walking quickly. And then his hands were on my shoulders, drifting up my neck, so gentle, too gentle, and this was not right, this was not him, it fucking could not be him—

            “No,” he said firmly, his fingertips trailing across my jaw. I wanted to melt, like a candle, fall fall fall into a fever-hot puddle of wax. “Anyone else—yes, maybe. But not you. Never you. You’re—you’re different. You belong to me. You belong with me. I couldn’t hurt you even if I wanted to.”

            Panic was dread was fear was—

            “You’re lying,” I asserted. “You’re an excellent liar—brilliant, really—and—you’re lying right now, you are, because—because—”

            “Hermione,” he interrupted, his tone pleading. “Stop. Stop it.”

            I choked on a laugh.

            But it was as if my vocal chords were being crushed under a metric ton of mistakes, of misunderstandings, and I felt, all at once, so overwhelmingly fucking lost that I could barely even bear to breathe.

            “I just want to know what I’m supposed to do,” I confessed. “I want to know what made me so extraordinary that Grindewald stole me from the future, on purpose. I want to know why he was so pleased that I had started seeing you, and why Abraxas is so eager to get me out of this castle and away from you and why Melania is dead and Dumbledore won’t talk to me and—and—I’m in the middle of everything, Tom, and I just—I want to know why. I want to know what you want.”

            He grimaced.

            “Why are you so convinced that I’m going to hurt you? Have I not been clear enough about my…about how I think of you?”

            “You only want me safe because you think I’m special,” I told him, my voice breaking. “At first you just wanted to steal me from Abraxas, I think, but then—you saw that other people wanted me, too, powerful people, and it didn’t matter that you didn’t understand why, you just—you needed to make sure that they couldn’t have me. You needed to make sure that you were the one who did. And once they’re gone, once it’s just you and me and—God, our unborn child—you’re not going to have a reason to pretend to care anymore. I won’t be useful. I’ll become just as disposable as Melania Macmillan.”

            He assessed me with quiet intensity.

            “You actually believe that, don’t you? That I could kill you.”

            He sounded amazed.

            I did not respond.

            “Ask me again,” he said suddenly. “Ask me what I want.”

            I took a stabilizing breath.

“What do you want from me?”

            He did not hesitate.

            “You.”

            I shook my head.

            “That’s not…what do you want?”

            He did not blink.

            “You,” he repeated.

            My throat closed.

            “And? What else?”

            He did not move away.

            “You,” he repeated, more forcefully.

            I did not move away.

            I did not look away.

            “Me,” I echoed, partly in disbelief and partly in surprise and mostly, mostly, in dawning, distant understanding.

            He did not look away.

            “You.”

            Lie, he lies, he’s a liar, I thought to myself with a blinding burst of alarm.

            “I don’t believe you,” I declared. “I don’t—I need you to just…tell me. What do you want, Tom?”

            He leaned forward.

            His gaze changed, then, almost imperceptibly, and I could not help but notice how well his current expression fit his face. It was hard, yes, a little bit intimidating and rather a lot dark; but it was also serious, sincere, and it looked—

            It looked right.

            “You,” he said again.

            It occurred to me that he might be telling the truth.

            I was not sure if I knew what that meant.

            I kissed him anyway.

OOO

When I woke up the next morning in the Slytherin boys’ dormitory, he was gone.

I yawned, consciously tamping down the instinctive lump of dismay that had begun to gnaw at my insides.

            The sheets were cold. The room was vacant. The bathroom was dark. The only indication that he had been there at all was the shallow indentation from his head on the pillow next to me.  

            The common room, I told myself, crawling out of bed. Breakfast. He could be at the library. Or the quidditch pitch.

            The stillness, though, the quiet, was so utterly absolute that the excuses I was making sounded frail, fragile, impossible—and it felt as though I had been alone for a very long time. I knew that he would have woken me up if he had left to do something innocent.

            The clock in the corner chimed the hour. It was only seven in the morning.

            I glanced at his nightstand.

            His wand was still there.

            I stared, unable to comprehend what I was seeing. His wand was still there. He had not taken his wand. He had forgotten his wand.

            My gut clenched.

            Bile simmered against the back of my tongue.

            I licked my lips and counted to ten and dove for his bedside table, wrenching open the drawer.

            It was empty.

            I lurched to my feet. I was lightheaded. I remembered the ring that Malfoy had given me, the one that Tom had confiscated and kept in his trouser pocket. I remembered what he had said, just last night, about how they would try to take me soon, about how he wanted to make sure that they got him, instead.

            He had never told me who they were.

            I threw my cardigan on and ignored my tights, shoving my feet into my shoes as I stumbled into the hallway. I ran. I skirted around furniture in the common room. I flew through the dungeons. I tore open the doors that led to the Great Hall. I raced towards the Slytherin table. It was mostly unoccupied. Except—

            I stopped in front of him.

            He glared up at me.

            He waited, and I caught my breath, and he waited—

            “Edmond,” I said urgently, meeting his hostile brown eyes. “I need your help.”

 

Chapter 22

December 30, 1944

I’ve been stuck here, locked in this tiny fucking closet of a room, for over a month.

And as the days get longer and more dismal and feel, somehow, even farther apart—my rage grows, builds itself up, towers over the shadows beneath my eyes, and I miss her.

I miss the way she drinks her tea, lips pursed and posture stiff—a bullshit affectation, no doubt taught to her by some pretentions, eternally middle-aged great-aunt—and I miss the way I have to hold her hand down during lessons, the infinitesimal twitch of her muscles against mine when she hears a question she knows the answer to. (It is all of them. It has always been all of them.) I miss the heat of her lips and the scent of her skin and it has been a month, more than a month, and I am no closer to finding a way out of this unscathed than I was when I arrived.

Lestrange, of course, knows what to do now that I’ve disappeared, but—

Hermione does not.

And I should have explained. There is still so much she does not know—

She is pregnant, for fuck’s sake—

I should have told her about Lestrange when I had the chance.

But I was so angry, so agitated—no.

No, that is not accurate.

I was surprised. I spent the entire walk to the Chamber being accosted by visions of a very small boy with ink-black hair and blazing caramel eyes and I was just—

I was taken aback.

By the endless ache in my chest, deep and painful and arresting.

By the enormity of what I had accomplished, what I had created.

By how fiercely I wanted to know that boy, how much I wanted him to grow up and be a Parselmouth, just like me, how much I wanted him to have her skin and my shoulders and—

And I wished—

Abraxas’s father was furious when I was the one to show up on their back lawn. It was nearly worth the agony of the Cruciatus, actually, watching him eviscerate a fucking peacock in the heat of his frustration—such tempers, the Malfoys have—or—at least it was, until he took me to see Grindewald and my magic was bound. I feel like an amputee, a defenseless fucking muggle, and I have never been able to identify with my father before, have never been able to understand the confusion and the loathing and the fear—but—fuck it all—I do, now. I understand why he left my mother, why he wanted to forget, why he was able to look right through me and fucking hate with such an overwhelming degree of precision.

I have never been without power. I have never been vulnerable, never been weak, never been forced to confront my own, very human, limitations. Magic is electric, a constant liquid buzz beneath the skin that flares and sparks and ignites the senses; without it, I am listless, lifeless, cold and tired, a blown-out fuse that could crumble under the weight of a single gust of wind.

My only consolation—the only light at the end of this dark, distressing tunnel—is that he has left me my journal. Should he become weary of my refusal to cooperate, I will, at least, not have to die. Well, not permanently. Hermione, though—

I do not know how I did not see it earlier.

She was a pawn. A distraction. She was never meant to be anything more than that, never meant to do anything at all. He picked her because she knew who I was, knew who I would become, and assumed, erroneously, that she would consider him the less offensive option when the time came to pick a side. Malfoy and Slughorn and Macmillan—Dumbledore, even—they all played so perfectly into his plan, all clicked their heels together and salivated at the chance to procure for him someone so seemingly valuable. They had no idea. I had no idea.

It would not have worked, however, if she had not been so fascinating, if she had not possessed so many qualities that I could appreciate and marvel at and want to consume. He used her as bait—and succeeded, technically, because she had me hooked, ready to be flayed open and gutted and fed to the fucking fire, all by her hand—and everyone but her seemed to know it.

I should be angry, I suppose, that I was tricked.

I am not.

I am relieved. Without Hermione, I would never have known that the very foundation of my plan to storm Grindewald’s castle—so to speak—was as grievously injured as it was, riddled with cracks, broken bits of cement tumbling from the corners. I have relied too heavily on scare tactics, entrusted too much of myself to those who would revel in my failure. Malfoy has never been mine to control, I have known that for years, but the extent of his duplicity is still astonishing. That he is somehow both more arrogant and less idiotic than I have always believed—well. I did not think it possible. Color me fucking shocked.

Lestrange, too—

He is clever. So, so clever.

He will follow the instructions that I left. I am sure of it. He owes me a tremendous debt, after all—the death of the Macmillan girl was hardly a result of poor impulse control, no matter what I’ve said. It helps, of course, that he possesses some measure of affection for Hermione as well, despite his best efforts not to. He will keep her out of trouble and away from Dumbledore. He will come here tomorrow. I will allow him the honor of killing Grindewald, like he asked, allow him to return to Hogwarts as some disastrously warped version of a hero.

I will take the Elder Wand.

I will destroy Hermione’s time turner.

I will not lose her, not after everything I’ve done to secure our future.

I will not—

I cannot—

Because I have bruises on my face and scratches on my back and a batch of slowly healing wounds all along my torso. And—

And it took defying Grindewald—knowing how swiftly she would be disposed of, pregnant or not, once he finally had me— to realize the extent of what I would do for her. I would kill, torture, maim, yes—I would do all of those things, I have done them all before, they are meaningless acts of violence as far as I am concerned—but I would suffer through them, too, allow my body to be broken, my flesh to be torn, if it kept her safe. If it kept her alive. If it kept her as far away as possible from the girl in her memories, the girl who screamed and cried and wished that the pain would stop and did not deserve a moment of it.

God.

I would fucking—

I would bleed for her.

I already have.

I do not want to know what that means.

I am afraid of it.

--TMR

OOO

Tom had been missing for almost six weeks. Abraxas had taken a mysterious leave of absence and gone home. Avery and Nott had been uncharacteristically subdued during meals, trading troubled glances and chewing with their mouths closed while they quietly probed me for information about where Tom was. Dumbledore had continued to ignore me, and Slughorn had managed, somehow, to improve his evasion tactics, and—

Edmond had not left my side since the morning I had asked him for help.

His resentment was palpable, pent-up and gale-force strong. The first few weeks had been particularly rough, all aggressive bickering and awkward silences; more than once, I had wanted to quit, leave him behind, go straight to the Malfoys and figure the rest out on my own. But I would think of Tom, think of how carefully he had planned for this exact eventuality—Edmond was not forthcoming with the information, but I had learned that Tom had, bizarrely enough, entrusted him with my safety, that there was a timeline to adhere to and steps to follow and that we were to wait, wait and wait and wait—until our invitations to the Malfoys’ New Year’s Eve party arrived.

It was maddening.

It was frustrating.

And it got worse after Edmond discovered that I was pregnant.

“You can’t have that,” he sniped during dinner, swatting at my hand as I reached for a platter of shrimp.

“Excuse me?”

He scowled.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “You know what my aunt said. Minimal caffeine and absolutely no seafood. That includes shrimp.”

I ground my teeth together.

“Your aunt isn’t even a doctor,” I grumbled, but I was already spooning out a portion of plain, buttered pasta, ignoring the questioning tilt of Nott’s head and the smug satisfaction practically oozing from Edmond’s pores.

“She’s a midwife,” he retorted loftily, “and we’re lucky she believed that it wasn’t mine when we went to see her. Otherwise we would’ve left Marseille fucking married, and Tom would have castrated me. Without magic. He’s a sadistic bastard, he wouldn’t have—here, take some peas. She said anything green was good.”

Nott and Avery were now both openly staring.

“Speaking of Tom,” I said sweetly, “when are we leaving this blasted castle and going to find him?”

Edmond pursed his lips in irritation.

“I told you, there’s a plan,” he said, refilling my water glass and beadily eyeing my forkful of asparagus. “Is that hollandaise? Raw eggs, Granger, really?”

Nott spoke up.

“You already left the castle,” he supplied helpfully. “For Christmas. You went to see Edmond’s family. But what are you talking about? Where’s Tom? I thought you said he had an internship at the Ministry. Wait—is he with Malfoy? Is he going to be at the party tomorrow?”

Edmond shot him a condescending glare.

“Malfoy’s father is sick,” he said. “Slughorn and Dumbledore sent him home to keep his mother company. You know that. Why the ever-loving fuck would Tom be with him? They don’t even like each other.”

Avery shrugged.

“Don’t know,” he replied, peeling a leftover Christmas orange. “But the two of you have been awfully cagey the last few weeks. Also, Granger, when are you going to tell Dippet that you’re pregnant? Aren’t you going to get fat soon?”

I groaned.

It had been impossible to hide my pregnancy from the other boys. Edmond had refused to allow me to sleep in my empty dormitory, convinced that it wasn’t safe, and had unofficially moved me into Tom’s unoccupied bed. After several days of debilitating morning sickness, however, the nature of my condition had been obvious.

I had chosen not to ask what, exactly, Edmond had threatened Nott and Avery with should they tell anyone my secret. I guessed that it was violent. I did not really want to know.

“I’m not going to get fat,” I said with no small measure of petulance. “I’m just going to—expand. Abdominally.”

Nott snickered into his hand.

“Alright,” Avery said dubiously. “But my older sister was pregnant last year. And she definitely got fat.”

Edmond threw a dinner roll at Avery’s head.

“Shut up,” he growled. “D’you think Tom would let you talk to her like that if he was here?”

“Except Riddle’s not here,” Nott pointed out. “That’s sort of the problem. Where the fuck is he?”

I raised my eyebrows and nibbled on a glazed carrot.

“We don’t know,” I answered bluntly, before Edmond could come up with another lie. “Although, ironically, I suspect that Abraxas probably does.”

Edmond’s chin fell to his chest as he sighed in exasperation.

“There’s a plan,” he said, glowering at me. “A good plan. Tom’s plan. Also, put that fucking carrot down, it’s literally been dipped in sugar, d’you want the baby to be born a bloody diabetic?”

“Wait,” Avery interjected warily, “what plan? What are you talking about?’

Edmond hesitated.

Nott frowned.

I choked on a laugh.

Because this—this—this was the part of being a Slytherin that I was still not entirely used to. The blatant suspicion, the hiding and the sneaking and the prevaricating; Nott and Avery and Edmond had been roommates for years, acquaintances for even longer, and there was still a shroud of unmistakable mistrust that blanketed their conversations, marked them all as natural enemies, born predators, something rather less than friends. It was disconcerting. Especially since the three of them played stupid so distractingly well.

“It’s a long story,” I said, taking a dismissive sip of water.

Avery appraised me thoughtfully.

“Tom didn’t leave willingly, did he?” he asked.

Edmond pushed away the bowl of treacle I was gazing at.

“No,” he responded curtly. “He didn’t. God, Granger, will you quit going straight for the pudding? You need protein, we’ve been over this. Have some fucking chicken.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I know you didn’t exactly volunteer to be my caretaker,” I said scathingly, “but you could be a bit more gracious about it. At this rate I might start to think I’m a burden.”

Edmond sneered.

“You are a burden.”

I bristled.

“And you are an absolute ass.”

“I cannot come up with a single bloody reason as to why Riddle finds you so enchanting.”

I grinned.

“Your mother loved me,” I taunted. “What did she say, again? Oh, Edmond, why can’t you find a nice girl like Hermione?”

“She’d have locked you in the cheese cave if I’d told her that you aren’t a purebood,” he snarled, swiping at a plate of pastries and holding it just out of reach.

“I guess we’ll never know,” I cooed, darting up to snatch a cookie.

“You insufferable fucking harpy—”

I took a gigantic bite out of the cookie.

“It has white chocolate chips,” I informed him merrily. “How delightful.”

Avery gaped at us.

“Hold on,” Nott said slowly. “Did you say she isn’t a pureblood?”

Edmond smirked, but it didn’t look quite right.

“I did,” he confirmed, crossing his arms over his chest.

Nott’s expression was difficult to decipher.

“Does Riddle know?” Avery asked.

I licked my lips.

“Of course he knows,” I replied quietly. “He’s known all along.”

A tense silence descended. Edmond was slouching in his seat, seemingly unperturbed, but he had moved his right hand under the table and was holding his wand in a white-knuckled fist. He had deliberately slipped up, I realized. He was testing them. He knew that supporting Tom meant supporting me, had figured out that I was not expendable—Nott and Avery would be dead by the end of the night if they said anything inflammatory.

I held my breath.

“That…makes a lot of sense,” Nott mused, twirling his soup spoon between his fingers. “You can’t speak French for shit.”

Avery chewed on the tip of his tongue.

“Dumbledore also hates you even more than he hates Riddle,” he put in, wrinkling his nose. “I’m going to assume that he isn’t actually your uncle?”

Edmond loosened the grip he had on his wand.

“Right in one,” I responded with a grimace.

Nott suddenly started to chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” Edmond asked.

Avery’s lips twitched.

“Nothing,” he replied, “just—can you imagine Malfoy’s face? If he knew? He wanted to fucking marry a mudblood. I’d give half my inheritance to be the one to tell him that. It’d be glorious.”

“He already knows,” I said.

Nott’s eyes widened.

“Seriously?”

Edmond nodded grimly.

“Seriously.”

Avery studied me with a calculating smile.

“Riddle’s been protecting you,” he observed.

“I’ve been protecting her,” Edmond corrected mulishly. “Riddle’s done fuck-all since he got taken.”

Nott scratched his chin.

“Taken?” he repeated. “By who? What the fuck’s going on?”

I exhaled noisily.

“Just tell them, Edmond,” I said, scraping the end of my butter knife through the sticky pool of pesto at the bottom of my pasta bowl. “Maybe they can help with apprehending Malfoy tomorrow.”

Edmond’s nostrils flared.

“I swear to God, Granger, if you say one more word—”

“Malfoy?” Avery exclaimed. “Malfoy’s the one who took Tom?”

I hummed.

“Well, it was probably Malfoy’s father, but I don’t think the distinction is particularly important. They were after me, not Tom.”

Nott looked surprised.

Avery did not.

“Hey, Edmond,” he said casually. “This have anything to do with Grindewald? Last I heard, you two were pretty cozy.”

Edmond paled.

“All the two of you need to know is that he wants Granger,” he bit out. “Riddle’s expectations are predictable at best, but none of us have a fucking clue about how the fuck the Malfoys are involved. Good enough?”

Avery crumpled up his napkin and tossed it onto the table.

“Tom’s a sure thing?” he asked cryptically.

I noticed Nott watching me, his gaze sharp.

“He’ll win,” Edmond asserted. His confidence was staggering.

Avery clapped Nott on the back.

“Then we’re in,” he declared. “C’mon, mate, look alive—we’re joining the cavalry!”

Edmond’s posture stayed stiff. He had yet to return his wand to his trouser pocket.

“All we need you to do is find Abraxas tomorrow night,” he told them, fidgeting with the stem of his water glass. “Keep him occupied and out of sight and then call for me, not Hermione. Do not let him anywhere near her, do you understand?”

Avery curled his arm over the back of the empty chair next to him.

“Got it,” he answered, tone clipped. But then he brightened. “D’you think Malfoy would want to know that Riddle knocked up Granger?”

Edmond had his wand pointed at Avery’s neck before I could even blink.

“Give me a reason,” he hissed. “Give me one fucking reason to believe you won’t put her in danger, and I’ll let you live.”

Avery clenched his jaw.

“Tom wouldn’t—”

“Tom would make me best man at their goddamn wedding if I killed you for what you just said,” Edmond interrupted.

“You’d kill me over a fucking mudblood?” Avery jeered.

Nott shook his head.

“He’d kill you over Tom’s mudblood,” he guessed matter-of-factly, taking a decisive bite of shepherd’s pie. “There’s a difference.”

Edmond wordlessly lowered his wand.

“We leave at seven tomorrow. As soon as we arrive, you’ll go to Abraxas’s bedroom. He’ll be in the middle of getting dressed, which, as we all know, means that he’ll be three sheets to the bloody fucking wind. Detain him. Use force, if necessary. He’s shit at defensive spells, so—”

“He’s not,” I said abruptly. “He can do wandless magic. You should really let me come with—”

“How do you know that?” Avery demanded. “That he can do wandless magic?”

I caught Edmond’s eye.

“The night Tom was abducted,” I replied uneasily. “Abraxas…in the astronomy tower—he conjured a chair. And lit a cigarette. And tried to stun Tom.”

Edmond paused.

“Right,” he said finally, turning to address Nott and Avery again. “Avery and I will go, then. Nott, you’ll keep Granger company in the drawing room, ostensibly to wait for the party to start. We’ll just have to be a bit faster than I anticipated.”

Avery cracked his knuckles.

“Whose plan is this, anyway?” he yawned. “Sounds kind of boring.”

“That’s because you only know half of it,” Edmond said impatiently. “Not even half. You’re so fucking disposable I’m not even sure why I’m bothering to include you at all.”

I winced.

“I’m still stuck on this mudblood thing,” Nott announced. “If Malfoy and Riddle both knew—”

“Yes, I knew, too,” Edmond snapped. “Since September. Any other questions?”

Nott gnawed on his thumb nail.

“Yeah, actually,” he replied, glancing over my shoulder. “Why the fuck is Dumbledore coming over here?”

OOO

An hour later, we were sitting in Dumbledore’s office. Edmond was clutching my hand. His palm was callused. My skin was clammy. Our fingers were laced together, and it was much more comforting than it should have been.

“Mr. Lestrange,” Dumbledore greeted us. “Miss Granger. Thank you for coming to see me on such short notice.”

Edmond tapped his foot against the bottom of his chair.

“May I speak plainly, sir?”

Dumbledore did not relax.

“Of course.”

Edmond leaned forward.

“Go fuck yourself,” he said venomously. “I know what you’ve done.”

My mouth fell open.

Dumbledore did not flinch.

“I am afraid that I do not know what you are referring to, Edmond,” he replied calmly. “Would you care to elaborate?”

Edmond jerked his chin in my direction.

“He tried to fucking kill her,” he spat. “Worse than that—do you even care? You set it all up, told him what to say, sent him a million fucking hints—oh, did you think I wouldn’t recognize your handwriting? Did you think I wouldn’t figure out that you’d stopped using me as your fucking go-between?”

Dumbledore took a delicate sip of tea.

“I had no idea you were so invested in Miss Granger’s wellbeing,” he observed, voice neutral. “Is this a recent development?”

Edmond flushed.

“You tricked me!” he shouted accusingly. “You made me think that I’d be protected when all of this was over!”

Dumbledore pressed his lips together.

“And you would have been,” he answered, “had you not involved Miss Macmillan. That was a very poor decision, Edmond, very poor, indeed. I told you that when you came to me after she died.”

I scrunched up my nose.

Edmond’s entire demeanor turned thunderous.

“Did you know what he was going to do?” he demanded. “Did you know about the poison? I know you told him where to take her—so fucking clever, threatening his Astronomy marks like that—but did you know about the rest of it?”

Dumbledore tugged at the cuffs of his cardigan.

“Mr. Malfoy was exceedingly…distressed over the reality of Miss Granger’s relationship with Mr. Riddle,” he explained. “I did not—that is to say—I did not foresee, unfortunately, that his reaction would be quite so…violent.”

I squeezed Edmond’s hand, hard, harder, hard enough for bone to break—

“You hired Melania Macmillan’s cousin, didn’t you? To frighten me?” I asked, speaking up for the first time. “You must have. And you did it through her, I’m assuming, which is why you didn’t want Edmond involving her in anything else, in case she told him. You were playing all of them against each other. You also didn’t want him to know about me, about who I was and where I’m from. You just wanted him to get close to Grindewald.”

Dumbledore opened his mouth to reply, but—

“The ring—the Malfoy ring, that the squib was wearing—that was your idea, too, wasn’t it?” I continued, voice high-pitched and shaky. “A back-up plan. In case Abraxas was a no-show. How did I not see that? God—you were behind the other ring, too. And you—you sent Edmond that note after the Macmillan debacle, the one outing me as a muggle-born. You couldn’t afford for him to like me, not when I was starting to shy away from Abraxas.”

Dumbledore sighed heavily.

“Yes, Miss Granger,” he confirmed, sounding tired. “To all of the above. I was trying to keep you out of unnecessary danger. I thought…Mr. Malfoy appeared so genuinely smitten, you understand, and with his father’s attachment to Grindewald…it made sense. I was not aware, however, that Mr. Malfoy was so—”

“Unhinged?” Edmond finished meanly. “Murderous? Really fucking bad—I mean, truly fucking terrible—at handling rejection?”

Dumbledore adjusted his spectacles.

“That, too,” he agreed.

A grandfather clock chimed the hour.

“Why did you want to see us?” I asked, skin prickling in discomfort.

Because—

Because I wanted to leave. Because I wanted to go to sleep. Because I wanted to be far, far away from Albus Dumbledore and his sticky-sweet brand of manipulation. Because it was just like the future. It was just like Before. He had a hand in everything. He had planned for everything. He had known how we would all react, had orchestrated conversations and set events in motion and the only thing he had been wrong about, the only thing he had not successfully anticipated, was Tom Riddle. More specifically, Tom Riddle’s feelings.

And how could he have ? I thought hysterically.

Tom Riddle had taken the Malfoy ring from me as soon as he had seen it.

Tom Riddle had poisoned Abraxas Malfoy when he found out he was my date to Slughorn’s party.

Tom Riddle had sent Edmond to rescue me from Melania Macmillan’s cousin.

Tom Riddle had antagonized Abraxas, had given him detention and broken his nose and flaunted our relationship every chance he got.

Tom Riddle had sacrificed his reputation.

Tom Riddle had allowed himself to be kidnapped.

Warmth spread through my chest.

My lungs expanded, froze, fluttered—

“I know that the two of you are attending the Malfoys’ party tomorrow evening,” Dumbledore said, shattering my reverie. “Professor Slughorn is as well, you understand, and I merely hoped to ask you to pass on to him my sincerest wishes for a happy new year.”

Edmond jerked backwards.

“He’s the one?” he bleated. “He’s the one who sold me out? Who’s been giving Abraxas—”

“Mr. Lestrange,” Dumbledore warned, sky-blue eyes twinkling dangerously. “The two of you have a curfew to observe. Perhaps it’s time to retire.”

Edmond stood up slowly, dragging me with him.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner? Why did you wait?”

Dumbledore’s chair creaked.

“For the Greater Good,” I answered for him. “Isn’t that right, sir?”

Edmond narrowed his eyes.

“Grindewald says that.”

Dumbledore sniffed.

“Please remember to give my regards to Horace,” was all he said, pulling a stack of unmarked essays towards the center of his desk.

Edmond clenched his jaw.

We had been dismissed.

OOO

I waited until we had returned to the Slytherin common room before I pounced.

“What the fuck,” I snapped, pointing my wand at Edmond’s chest. My hand was steady, and my aim was deadly, and he had no idea what I was capable of.

“Oh, piss off, Granger, none of that could have possibly been surprising to you,” he ground out, looking bored—but he did not move, he continued to stand still, and the brown in his eyes was almost entirely eclipsed by a black-edged flicker of fear.

“You called yourself a go-between,” I said, tone jagged, “for Abraxas and Dumbledore. What did you mean?”

He nervously wet his lips.

“Abraxas didn’t want to spy for Tom,” he answered. “At the end of the year. Tom didn’t—I only found out a few months ago that Grindewald was coming to England on the New Year, not in June. And Abraxas was supposed to…offer his services. He didn’t want to, though, and I did. I was already integrated. I was going to get close on my own, prove to Tom that he was bloody wrong, that I could do it—”

“And you went to Dumbledore,” I guessed, “because you were angry that Tom thought you were stupid.”

His cheeks were a dull, furious red.

“Dumbledore wanted information on Grindewald,” he said, chin quivering. “He helped me get out of the castle when I needed to, and in return I carried messages to Abraxas. Melania—”

“Yes?”

He blinked at the floor, toeing a threadbare patch of carpet.

“Melania had an invisibility cloak,” he whispered. “Her cousin—it’s how he snuck up on you, and it’s how Abraxas got you out of the castle the night you were taken to Grindewald. The cloak—she overheard…I never knew when she was lying, of course, but she was the one who confirmed that you and Tom were more—involved—than any of us had guessed.”

A log tumbled into the grate of the fireplace. Flames spiked and roared a brilliant sour orange, a plume of ash exploded, a curl of smoke spiraled up the chimney—but the air between us grew blurry, thick with heat and secrets, and I knew that he was hiding something.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

He scratched at the inside of his wrist.

“Melania was…dangerous,” he said carefully. “She didn’t care very much about the power struggle. She just wanted you gone.”

“So I’ve gathered.”

“No, you don’t—” he stopped, glaring at a tapestry that depicted Odysseus fighting off a sea serpent. “You’re normal, okay, you’re a rational fucking person—you don’t get it. When I say that she wanted you gone, I don’t mean that she had a passing bloody interest in sending you back to France. She wanted you gone, Granger, she wanted your whole bloody existence to be forgotten, any and all memories of you erased . She was crazy.”

“Yes, well, she’s also dead, so I don’t understand why that—”

“She was crazy,” he repeated, talking over me, “but she was smart. No one took her seriously, and she knew that, and she used that, Granger, she—if Tom hadn’t killed her that morning, she would have hurt you. Do you really think I needed her as a distraction to get you to the fucking second floor lavatory? I poisoned her to get her out of the way! But Dumbledore didn’t know that—no matter what he thinks, there’s an absolute fuck-ton that goes on in this castle that he has absolutely no bloody idea about—and he thought that Melania was innocent, and thought that if he sent you to her she would tell you about who I was working for, thought that she’d get you away from me and Tom and back to Abraxas. Didn’t really work out that way, did it?”

I scoffed.

“I’m supposed to believe that you were, what, trying to protect me? That morning in the hospital wing? You had Abraxas at knifepoint. You were acting as if you hated me!”

His gaze settled on a spot on the wall behind me.

“I did hate you,” he admitted. “Sort of. For a bit. It was complicated. Besides, there’s so much about that morning that you don’t know, I don’t even—I—you—I just—I never wanted you dead, alright?”

A faint tremor rocked my wand hand.

“Quite the ringing endorsement.”

He loosened his tie, stretched out his neck.

“You’re a Gryffindor muggle-born,” he said, sounding tired. “You are fundamentally incapable of understanding what the fuck went through my head when I found out who you were. And Riddle—he’s Salazar Slytherin’s heir. He has a mudblood-hunting basilisk at his disposal, he—he could cast the fucking Cruciatus on a puppy without feeling a fucking ounce of remorse—and he knew. He knew what you were. And he still—it was like finding out your father had a second family living in the hunting lodge, Granger, it was one part disappointing and two parts confusing and ninety-seven parts infuriating.”

“I thought you didn’t like Tom,” I replied, voice tight. “All of you—I thought you were all resentful and frightened and could barely stand to be around him.”

He released a bark of sharp, genuine laughter.

“Tom was always endgame for me,” he said. “I don’t like him, that’s true, but he’s the sort of bloke you can…trust to get you out of trouble. You want to be on his side.”

I furrowed my brow.

“I don’t understand. You were working with Grindewald. With Dumbledore. With Abraxas. Tom carved the word mudblood into your arm. How could you—”

His face darkened.

“Best not to bring that up, Granger.”

“Why?” I challenged him. “Your scar’s much prettier than mine.”

He flinched.

I snorted.

“Anyway,” I drawled, “you’ve answered approximately none of my questions. I can’t tell if you’re being deliberately obtuse or just—sneaky.”

His expression turned flat and unreadable.

“Riddle thinks he’s invincible,” he announced. “He’s going up against the Unbeatable Wand, and he thinks that he’s going to win.”

“I—so are we,” I reminded him. “Aren’t we? Isn’t that what tomorrow’s about?”

He fiddled with the bottom button of his navy silk vest.

“I’m going to show you something, Granger, and I need you to tell me—just nod or shake your head, yes or fucking no—if you know what it is. Alright?”

Startled, I lowered my wand.

“Yeah,” I replied slowly, “alright.”

He reached into his back pocket—warily, as if he was second-guessing himself—and produced a square gold ring set with a cracked black stone.

My lips parted.

My stomach twisted.

“Where did you—” I started to whisper.

“Nod or shake your head, Granger, don’t fucking talk,” he interrupted.

I stared at him.

The atmosphere, suddenly, was fucking stifling.

I nodded my head.

A muscle ticked in his cheek.

The magnitude of what that ring meant—what it meant that he even had it—filled the room, all the empty, available spaces between chairs and underneath bookshelves and the nooks and crannies of the aerated mortar used to seal the bricks that made up the far wall.

“Riddle thinks he’s invincible,” he said again, brandishing the ring. “Because he is.”

OOO

Twenty minutes later, we were alone in the seventh-year boys’ dormitory. My pajamas—well, Tom’s pajamas—were plaid green flannel. They were cozy. Edmond had emerged from the bathroom wearing a short-sleeved white undershirt and a pair of anemic-blue linen pants. I was already cocooned in Tom’s bed, sheets rolled back, duvet pulled up, when he paused, the curtains of his four-poster rustling as he stopped halfway through drawing them closed.

“Can Abraxas really do wandless magic?”

I exhaled harshly, nose and mouth and face buried into the slick green satin of Tom’s pillowcase.

“Nonverbal, too,” I said, already drowsy.

I heard bed springs creak as Edmond laid down.

“Interesting,” he murmured, almost to himself.

I fell asleep surrounded by a tense cloud of silence, the faint scent of soap and cinnamon and Tom lingering in my nostrils—

And I missed him.

OOO

Chapter 23

December 31, 1944

Malfoy Manor was just as I remembered it.

I wasn’t sure why that was so surprising—why I was so taken aback by the familiar Grecian columns and the enormous front door and the checkered marble foyer—but I was, was completely unprepared for the rush of recognition, of adrenaline, was completely unable to stop myself from flinching instinctively when we were led into the front drawing room—and I scratched at the scar on my arm and stared up at the ostentatious crystal chandelier and heard haunting echoes of screams and screaming and mudblood, Hermione, mudblood, let her go let me go stop stop stop—

“Granger,” Edmond said furiously, pinching the inside of my wrist.

“What?” I said, gaze locked on a rather uninspiring section of the Persian rug that covered the far corner of the room. It had happened there, I had fallen there, bled out onto the pristinely-stitched navy filigree just there—

“Jesus,” Edmond hissed, “what’s wrong with you? You need to get it together right the fuck now, Malfoy’s father’s going to be down any minute—”

Avery and Nott were seated on the loveseat across from us, slouching with their legs splayed wide and their bowties undone, tumblers of whiskey hanging loosely from their fingertips. They looked bored. They looked stupid. They were neither.

“Is she going to be sick?” Nott asked with a yawn.

“No, she usually does that in the morning,” Avery answered, tapping his foot against the hardwood floor and checking his watch. “Seven-fifteen, right on the dot. Wakes me up every fucking time, I swear, she’s better than an alarm clock.”

The wainscoting on the bottom half of the walls was the same—off-white, intricate plaster—and the curtains were seemingly identical—long, crushed-velvet, crimson—and there was a large porcelain vase on the coffee table, glazed blue and filled with flowers—it had produced a strong floral scent that had mingled harshly with the copper tang of blood and the sour stream of sweat and—

“She’s fine,” Edmond insisted. “Aren’t you, Granger?”

I blinked.

“Yes, of course,” I replied, slightly dazed. I shook my head. I forced a smile. “I’m just…nervous.”

Nott and Avery both snorted.

Edmond, though, watched me thoughtfully, lips pursed in a flat line, before glancing at my forearm.

“You’ve been here before,” he stated, tone neutral.

I nodded.

“Just the once.”

He sighed.

“Well. Shit.”

I laughed and felt the sound pierce my vocal chords like shards of brittle, broken glass.

He furrowed his brow, opened his mouth to ask—

“Someone’s coming,” Avery announced, knocking back the remainder of his whiskey as he stood up, stretching out his arms.

My eyes fluttered shut.

There was a brief knock on the door.

“You still have Tom’s wand, right?” Edmond whispered quickly, breath hot against my ear. “Under your dress?”

I squeezed his arm.

“Don’t worry about me,” I told him, turning towards the fireplace as the door swung open. “I can take care of myself.”

“Granger—” he tried again.

“Gentlemen,” a new voice interrupted wryly. “Abraxas is still upstairs, I believe. Do you mind if I join you all for a drink? Unless—oh, how rude of me, darling, I don’t believe we’ve met.”

I looked up. A tall blond man stood in front of me. He was wearing an expertly tailored black tuxedo and a predatory grin; his eyes were narrowed— familiar grey eyes, God, clear and cold and sharp—and he was appraising me slowly, plump upper lip curled.

“Hermione Granger, I presume?” he drawled.

I lifted my chin.

“Yes,” I confirmed, voice frosty. “But I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Mister…?”

Surprise flickered across his features—aquiline, symmetrical, so fucking familiar—

“Malfoy,” he said, irritated. “Draco Malfoy.”

My vision swam.

“Pleasure,” I managed to reply.

“I hadn’t realized that Abraxas had invited you, Miss Granger,” he said, meandering towards the fireplace, left hand tucked into his trouser pocket. “Or that you would be so willing to attend unescorted. Is Mr. Riddle still interning for the Ministry?”

I gritted my teeth and watched Avery pick up a glass of champagne and reminded myself that I could not lose control—but I was livid, blinded by it, because this man, this handsome, aristocratic, unassuming fucking criminal—he had taken Tom. He had heard my name, had thought I was valuable, and had used Abraxas, used everyone, because he was greedy and power-hungry and incapable of taking ‘no’ for answer. So very much of what had gone wrong in the past four months had been his fault—and I wondered, then, how much blood was really on his graceful, well-manicured hands, how many of Abraxas’s bad decisions had been his fault, his plans, his doing.

“Oh, she’s not unescorted, sir,” Nott said easily. He patted his lap, winking at me, and adopted a crooked smile. “She’s here with me. Come on, kitten, don’t be shy.”

Avery choked, spewing droplets of champagne all across the mother-of-pearl inlay of the side table.

Mr. Malfoy raised a single, imperious blond brow and leaned sideways against the thick cedar mantle, ankles crossed.

Edmond gripped my knee, fingernails digging into my skin, and scowled.

And I—

I felt sick, faintly hysterical, and thought about how everything was already going wrong, dangerously, catastrophically fucking wrong, and how we had only been inside Malfoy Manor for twenty fucking minutes.

“I’m hardly shy,” I tittered, getting up and moving towards Nott. Every step felt like a mistake.

“No?” Nott teased, slinging an arm around my waist as I settled onto his thighs. He was bigger than Tom, than Edmond, even Abraxas, and his hand looked obscenely large where it was splayed across my abdomen. “Then why were you all the way over there?”

I giggled, caught Mr. Malfoy’s calculating gaze, held onto it tightly, ferociously—

“I just didn’t want to make a scene, especially if Tom was here,” I replied, refusing to look away.

Edmond coughed.

“You said Abraxas was in his room, sir?”

Mr. Malfoy leveled an unimpressed glare in his direction.

“Yes,” he answered, trailing his fingers around the handle of a fire poker. “He should really be done, however—why don’t the three of you go and see if you can’t get him to hurry up?”

Nott’s entire body froze.

“Um,” he stammered, “I should probably stick around, Mr. Malfoy. I think I’d be a pretty shabby date if I left Hermione here by herself.”

Across from us, Edmond cringed.

“Oh, I would be more than happy to keep Miss Granger company, Theodore,” Mr. Malfoy said, flashing a charming smile. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

Avery’s expression was bland, almost loosely unguarded—but his forest green eyes were troubled as they danced over me, the skin between them puckered and pinched, and his concern felt like an ice-cold winter breeze creeping around the edge of a scarf, potent and fierce and arresting —because he did not like me. He should not have cared about leaving me behind, not unless—

“Yeah,” he was saying brightly, clapping Edmond on the back and guiding him towards the door. “Let’s go find Abraxas before he finishes off all the good whiskey—fucker will be impossibly smug if there isn’t any left for us later. Theo? You coming, mate?”

Nott hesitated.

Edmond forced out a laugh and strode forward, playfully yanking me up by the elbow.

“I’m sure Granger can survive for fifteen minutes without you,” he said to Nott with a deliberate arch of his brow—but he was dragging his hand down the inside of my forearm, pressing something warm and metallic and heavy into my palm—Tom’s ring?—and then he was tugging at the lapel of Nott’s jacket, shoving him out of the room, and he didn’t look at me again, wouldn’t meet my eyes—and then he was gone, all three of them were gone, and I was alone with Mr. Malfoy.

No.

Draco Malfoy.

I was alone with Draco Malfoy.

The space between us was fraught with an awkward sort of tension, eerie and thick, and as I waited for something to happen—anything to happen—I stuck my thumb through the ring Edmond had given me and wondered why I had ever thought that coming here was a good idea.

“Are you familiar, Miss Granger, with the tale of the wolf and the lamb?” Malfoy asked suddenly, his voice light and airy.

“That’s a muggle story,” I said carefully.

He picked up the fire poker he’d been toying with; I couldn’t help but notice the end of it curved into a wickedly sharp point, coal black iron a startling contrast to the speckled orange flames.

“Indeed, it is,” he replied, amused. “But of course you know that, darling—I imagine that there is very little about the muggle world that you don’t know, in fact.”

I leaned forward to smooth out the hem of my knee-length black dress. My hands were steady.

“I have had an exceptionally thorough education.”

His answering smile was desert-dry.

“I’m sure you have,” he said graciously. “And was that something that your uncle insisted on? Or—perhaps your parents? Forgive me, kitten, but I’ve quite forgotten who your parents even are.”

“They’re very private people.”

“Oh? Is that why there’s never been a record of you…well, anywhere?”

I quirked my lips. He spun the poker around.

“I wasn’t born in a hospital. And I never had a reason to bother with a birth certificate.”

He prodded at a precariously balanced log behind the grate in the fireplace.

“I see,” he hummed. “Well. That’s certainly reasonable. Tell me, darling, do you happen to recall what it was that the lamb first said to the wolf?”

I tightened my grip on Tom’s ring.

“I’m not certain that it’s relevant, Mr. Malfoy,” I replied. “The story begins, after all, with the wolf desiring an excuse to attack the lamb.”

He jostled another log.

“Ah, yes, but the wolf was merely looking for his supper, wasn’t he? There’s hardly any shame in that. Why should he need an excuse?”

I slowly moved away from the loveseat.

“The lamb was innocent,” I said, circling around the nearest armchair. “And the wolf was the one with the power. He needed to justify the act of attacking something so much weaker.”

He produced a slim gold cigarette case from his trouser pocket and flipped it open.

“And was he able to, sweetheart? In the end?”

I stopped next to the tall, ebony bookshelf—it was filled with first editions, Machiavelli and Dickens and Bronte, worn leather spines on display—and made sure that I could see his face.

“Any excuse will serve a tyrant,” I said, unblinking.

The snick of his lighter was overloud in the ensuing silence.

“How dare you muddy the water from which I am drinking, the wolf called out to the lamb,” he recited.

I swallowed, nonplussed. He was still holding the poker.

“No, master, no, the lamb replied, if the water is muddy I cannot be the cause of it, for it is running down from you to me,” I murmured shakily.

A tendril of tobacco smoke curled around the collar of his jacket.

“Well, then, said the wolf, why did you call me bad names last year?”

I straightened my shoulders.

“That cannot be, the lamb said, for I am only six months old.”

He studied the blunt end of his cigarette, seemingly entranced by the way it flared red and hot and gold.

“Do you know how the last bit goes, sugarplum?”

I watched as he gently replaced the poker.

“I don’t care, the wolf said, for if it was not you—”

I broke off.

“—then it was certainly your father,” he finished, head tilted thoughtfully.

I took an instinctive step backwards—

He flicked his cigarette into a pile of burning ash—

And the fire fucking roared.

The next few seconds were electric, living and breathing and sentient, a tangible presence that I ached to stretch out, to use as a shield against the future—but he was crossing the room, wand drawn, and I was ducking around an impressive slew of stunning spells, fumbling for my own wand, wincing as the spot behind me splintered in a violent crash of singed crepe wallpaper and crumbling chunks of bone-white plaster.

“Avis!” I cried, swishing my wrist in a complicated figure-eight as a flock of sparrows appeared. “Oppugno!”

The birds immediately went for his eyes, shiny black beaks glinting in the candlelight.

“What the hell—” he snarled, holding up his arm.

I dashed for the door, dodging another set of stunners, and flinched when I stumbled over the rolled-up edge of the Persian rug.

“Expelliarmus!” he yelled over the persistent squawking of the birds. “Colloportus!”

My wand flew out of my hand and landed on the floor several yards away; and then my stomach fucking lurched as I heard the ominous click of the door being magically locked.

“You know, sweetheart, you’re awfully scrappy for a mudblood, aren’t you?” he asked, rubbing at a scratch one of the birds had inflicted along his jawline. His palm came back bloody.

I was crouched next to an end table. I felt around for its front legs—slender, sturdy cherry wood. I held on tight.

“Puppies are scrappy, Mr. Malfoy,” I scoffed. “Mudbloods, though—we’re resourceful.”

My muscles burned as I used all my weight to swing the table up—it was light, and it was small, but he swore as it made contact with his kneecaps, leaping back and tripping over the side of an armchair. I took the opportunity to lunge for my wand, fingertips slipping over the handle, but by then he had recovered enough to grab onto my ankle and was dragging me into a sitting position before I could properly pick it up.

“And to think, kitten,” he panted. “We could have been family.”

I kicked out and felt my foot connect with wrist. He grunted. He didn’t let go.

“Oh, you mean if I hadn’t rejected your psychotic son?” I demanded, squirming against the press of his forearm on my thighs. “Tell me, would Grindewald have been invited to the wedding? Or would I have gone straight to the dungeons?”

His expression was mutinous.

“This would have all been so much more pleasant if you hadn’t latched onto the Riddle whelp,” he spat, yanking me up and shoving me towards the nearest wall. A light switch dug into the notches of my spine. “Abraxas is a catch, Miss Granger—far more than you would ever hope to deserve—and if you had just—”

“If I had just what?” I snapped. “Gone along with the pseudo-rape you planned out for him? Kept your creepy family heirloom that allowed you both to stalk me? Which aspect of either of those things sounds even remotely appealing to you?”

He wrapped his fingers around my throat, just hard enough to put pressure on my windpipe. His other hand was locked around my wrists, holding them above my head, the painful friction causing my bones to crunch together.

“Do you understand, sweetheart, how very much time I have wasted on you? Do you? You were supposed to be valuable. You were going to be a way to get Abraxas back in the inner circle he so idiotically got himself kicked out of—he tried to give his spot to the Macmillan girl, can you even imagine? Thought that he was being clever.”

My eyes widened.

“You didn’t know that, did you, pumpkin? Mm. Yes. They were betrothed for awhile—Abraxas threw quite the tantrum about it, destroyed the dining room table—his mother was very upset about that—and so he made a deal with the girl, one that anyone could have foreseen would end poorly; she was rather…fixated on him, after all. But she was equally as eager to prove herself to her family. She was always incredibly touchy about that ugly squib cousin she had—did you know that she was the one who gave him that scar on his face? Ruthless girl, honestly. If she’d just been a bit prettier she would have made an excellent Malfoy.”

He glanced down at me.

“But none of that matters now. Because you’re never going to cooperate, are you, sweetest? You’re a Gryffindor through and through—stubborn and spiteful and stupid, just like that old fool you called your uncle. Ah, well. Water under the bridge, at this point. At least Abraxas was able to hand over the Riddle boy—all thanks to you, actually, and isn’t that a delightful final twist of the sword?”

My nostrils flared as I thrashed against his hold. I was running out of oxygen.

“Fuck you,” I rasped.

He sneered.

“I was going to be merciful and kill you with magic, dearest, but I think I’ll rather enjoy getting this out of my system the muggle way.”

And then he was pressing down hard, harder, and I tried to swallow, tried to breathe, but his hand was too big and my lungs were too empty and there was nothing but a wave of murky black spots flashing across my eyes like a constellation of dying stars—and his fingertips were digging into my skin with intent, rough and firm and there would be a hundred broken blood vessels, an endless map of bruises to follow and find—but bruises weren’t permanent, not like scars, they faded and they disappeared and they did not last—

My heel found his toes.

My pupils were wavering, trembling, losing focus—

I thought about Tom and I thought about a mangled time turner and I thought about how it couldn’t end here, not like this, not in this horrible fucking room full of ghosts and memories and pain—it couldn’t, it wouldn’t, I would not allow it to.

I slammed my foot down.

He jerked away, just slightly, just a few inches, but it was enough, it was enough, it was enough—

My fist hit his stomach and then I was dropping, falling, flattening my torso to the ground and scrambling for my wand, pointing it up, up, right at his chest—but the next moment was stagnant, felt like time had fucking shattered and given me the choice of which pieces to pick back up—and I was desperate. I was frightened. I was angry, and I was tired, and I wanted to hurt someone. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to feel powerful again. I wanted to take back what this man and his family and this fucking house had stolen from me. And the words were right there, within reach, six syllables and a burst of bright green light and he would get what he deserved. Because he would have killed me. He would have gone through with it, was in the process of going through with it, and I—

I wanted to—

I wanted to—

“Petrificus totalus!” I shouted hoarsely, gasping, massaging my throat, sore and raw, and shutting my eyes against the sight of his frozen body falling to the floor. It looked too much like I had actually—

I collapsed with my back against the wall and drew my knees to my chest.

I breathed.

I counted to ten; to one hundred.

I did not open my eyes.

Eventually, I conjured a rope and snapped his wand and tied his hands behind his back.

“Finite incantatem,” I whispered half-heartedly.

There was a rustle of fabric as he tried to sit up.

“Bested by first-year magic,” he chuckled. It sounded cold. “Although Abraxas did warn me to take you seriously—I suppose I should have listened.”

I stared at my wand. Ten and one-quarter inches, vine wood, dragon-heartstring core; it was the same, there was nothing different about it, it had been mine for years—and it would have done whatever I asked it to, would have listened to me, to my voice, to my magic—and if I had said the words, if I had meant them—

I would have meant them.

I could have meant them.

I was capable of meaning them.

“Not that you’re going to get away with this,” he continued blithely. “We’re in the middle of my drawing room, for God’s sake. The number of wards—”

I clenched my jaw.

And then I interrupted.

“You want to know the funny thing about warding magic, Mr. Malfoy?”

He paused.

“By all means,” he said disdainfully, “enlighten me.”

I inspected my fingernails; one was chipped.

“Wards are all about layers,” I said, tone purposefully mild. “They are most effective when woven together—not unlike a tapestry. There are wards to escape detection and wards to block Apparition and wards to prevent the use of magic. It’s fairly easy to break through one, possibly even two—but when you start to combine them, it gets tricky. Do you know why, Mr. Malfoy?”

He did not reply.

“No? How embarrassing. Bested by first-year magic and then outsmarted by a mudblood. Not a very good day for you, is it?”

His face was white with fury.

“I believe you were talking about warding magic, Miss Granger?”

“Of course I was. Silly me. It’s just so easy to get distracted when I’m about to make a grown man feel stupid.”

The muscles in his forearms bunched up as he struggled against his bindings.

“Anyway,” I went on. “The tricky part about getting through multiple wards is actually finding the ends. They have a tendency to fuse together, you see, especially if enough time has passed. And magic is attracted to itself, rather like a magnet—it doesn’t much care where it comes from. I suspect, however, that that’s a concept you will forever fail to grasp. Pity, that.”

“What does this have to do with you?” he ground out.

I shrugged. The skin around my throat felt fragile, thin and delicate—I could feel the ring of bruises as they bloomed and blossomed, mottled purple, shaded black, with every rush and flood and pulse of blood through my veins.

“Nothing,” I admitted. “But if you’d bothered to find out more about me, you would have known that I mastered warding magic when I was sixteen years old. I could keep us hidden here for months, if I wanted to. I don’t want to, by the way, which is lucky for you—but my point remains the same.”

He glowered.

“And what is your point, exactly?”

I smirked.

“Don’t underestimate me, Mr. Malfoy. You aren’t the wolf in this story.”

Chapter 24

At half past eight, Edmond broke down the door to the Malfoys’ front drawing room.

“What the fuck happened here?” he bleated, tie askew, hair mussed, a telling smear of blood painted across the back of his hand.

“We had an…altercation,” I said with a vague wave of my hand.

“Is that his wand? Why’s it in pieces? Oh, my God, we need to leave. We need to leave now. What the hell did you do?”

I rolled my eyes.

“I won, clearly. Stop being so dramatic.”

He sputtered.

“You—Draco bloody Malfoy is bound and gagged on the fucking loveseat, Granger, I think the situation might call for some fucking histrionics, don’t you?”

I wrinkled my nose.

“Don’t call him that.”

“His name?”

I turned towards the door. It was hanging off its shiny brass hinges, jagged scraps of splintered red mahogany littering the floor around it.

“I already have a Draco Malfoy,” I sniffed. “In my own time, I mean. And he’s exponentially less awful than this one, which—well, that’s certainly not something I ever imagined I would be able to say, now is it?”

His expression turned incredulous.

“Anyway, do you happen to know where we’re going?” I continued. “Mr. Malfoy wasn’t particularly forthcoming, and he doesn’t respond well to threats. All I was able to find out was that Melania Macmillan should have been in an asylum—honestly, she was a lunatic, Edmond, why would you have ever been friends with her—and, oh, yes, Abraxas and his father apparently think that the best way to further the Malfoy fortunes is to follow around a sociopath. I wonder if they’re genetically predisposed to that—you know, with the hair and the eyes and the inflated sense of their own importance—or if I’ve just been phenomenally unlucky and have only met the crazy ones?”

Edmond gaped at me.

“What is wrong with you?”

I speared him with a glare.

“What is wrong with me, Edmond, is that I am tired of pretending to be helpless,” I snapped. “The only person in 1944 who has bothered to take me even the tiniest bit seriously is Tom—and he isn’t here right now, more’s the pity, so I’d really like to get him back as soon as I possibly can. Do you understand yet? Do I need to speak more slowly?”

He studied me intently.

“You’ve been doing a shit job of pretending to be helpless, you know.”

I didn’t laugh.

“What happened to Avery and Nott?” I asked, changing the subject.

He coughed.

“Should be on their way down.”

I pressed my lips together.

“And Abraxas?”

His gaze narrowed.

“He won’t be a problem,” he replied shortly.

I paused.

“Right,” I said, ignoring the prickle of unease that crept across my scalp. “Did he tell you where they took Tom?”

“Yes,” he answered, reaching for my hand. “Which means we need to go. Now.”

I allowed him to drag me out of the drawing room, ignoring Mr. Malfoy's seething indignation, and into the foyer. Avery and Nott were already there, suspiciously unrumpled, and Avery raised an eyebrow when he caught sight of the bruises on my neck.

"Interesting," he commented. "Didn't think you'd be the one to come out of that fight, Granger. Touché.”

I scowled.

"If you have so little confidence in my ability to defend myself, then why the hell are you here?"

Nott looked uncomfortable.

"For Tom," he replied quickly.

Avery wrinkled his nose.

"Sure,” he drawled. “For Tom. So, are we going, or...?"

Edmond stalked towards the front door, hauling it open with what seemed like an excessive amount of force.

"Yeah," he said, palm sweaty against mine. "We can—apparate once we get past the peacocks. I can take Granger, and you two can...just don't splinch yourselves, please? I'm shit at healing spells, and Tom isn't here to...fix us."

Avery clucked his tongue.

"Think we'll manage, mate."

I wondered if I was imagining the high-strung tension lingering between the three of them.

"Where are we going, anyway?" I asked.

"Wales," they all answered in unison.

"Wales?" I echoed, surprised. "That's...strange, isn't it?"

"Big, scarcely populated, full of trees—why’s that a strange place to hide, exactly?"

I conceded the point with a tiny shrug and followed Edmond outside.

The sun had set hours before, leaving the expansive Malfoy grounds dark and intimidating and drenched in a silver haze of moonlight—the air was chilly, crisp and strangely flat, and Edmond led us down an unpaved dirt path that veered off from the main driveway.

"So—on three, then," he said, stopping next to a birch tree. He wrapped his arms around my waist; he smelled sour, like sweat, and sweet, like cologne, and I struggled not to fidget.

"See you on the other side, Granger," Avery said mockingly.

Startled, I opened my mouth to reply—

But the world had already begun to spin.

###

The A-line skirt of my dress swirled around my legs as we landed in a precarious heap in the middle of a Welsh cornfield.

"God," I gasped, bending over my knees. "That was horrendous."

Edmond patted his trouser pockets, as if making sure that something was still there.

"Fuck," he muttered, taking in our surroundings. "I missed."

"Seriously?"

"Yes," he griped. "Seriously. We should have ended up across the way. Bet that's where Avery and Nott are."

I glanced at my shoes, impractical and high-heeled, and at the swaths of shoulder-high, golden grass that he was proposing we navigate through.

"Can't you just apparate us again?"

His jaw tightened.

"No, Granger, I can’t just apparate us again—there are fucking wards against disapparation here, and they extend for about twenty miles in either direction. We have to walk.”

My gut clenched.

"That’s why it’s so easy to get here, then,” I deduced. “Because there isn’t any way out.”

He picked up his beige canvas rucksack.

"No one ever leaves, anyway—not if they aren’t invited—so I'm not sure that it matters."

I looked at him sharply.

"That's a rather odd thing to say," I said. "Considering what we're about to do. Know something I don't, Edmond?"

The back of his neck flushed red.

"No," he replied snidely. "Just—making an observation. But come on. Start walking. "

The sky was hypnotic, explosive white stars glowing brightly behind murky grey clouds—they were shapeless, like clumsy brush strokes on a blank black canvas, and they floated aimlessly, as if their only purpose was to give the moon a place to hide.

"How long do you think we have? Before Abraxas follow us?" I asked abruptly.

He halted, holding out his arm to prevent me from continuing.

"What?”

I sneered.

"Unless you killed him, he's going to know exactly where we've gone," I pointed out. "He's going to know that I'm trying to rescue Tom, and he's going to want to stop me. If he just...told you where Tom was being kept, he had a reason to. It's either a trap or he thinks he can get there first."

Edmond stared at me, jaw slack.

“Holy fuck," he whispered, almost to himself. "You're—it’s like you’re an actual fucking Slytherin. When did that happen?”

I kicked at the long-stemmed blades of grass poking out of the ground.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “I’m a terrible Slytherin.”

He rolled his eyes and starting walking again.

“While you’re certainly…unusual, you’re absolutely fucking mad if you think you don’t fit in with us.”

“I don’t fit in with you,” I argued. “I don’t lie, and I don’t run around threatening innocent bystanders, and I don’t—I’m honest. I don’t speak in obnoxious little riddles. I have…I have principles.”

He heaved a sigh and clicked open his pocket watch. Its copper cover gleamed.

“Three words to describe a Slytherin,” he said flatly, chewing the inside of his mouth as he looked around the field. “Go.”

I crossed my arms.

“Shrewd,” I replied immediately. “Self-serving. Manipulative.”

He scratched at the newly forming scab on his hand and began to march away from me.

“Come on,” he instructed curtly. “It’s this way. But—okay. Shrewd. Self-serving. Manipulative. Those are all traits that you possess in fucking spades.”

I tripped over a blunt-edged rock.

“I do not—” I began hotly.

“You do,” he interrupted, peering into the darkness. “Shrewd is just another word for clever, isn’t it? And you’re very clever, Granger—you’ve managed to keep yourself alive and relatively unscathed for, what, four months now?”

I gingerly put pressure on my ankle.

“Longer,” I said shortly. “I was on the run for a year before I came here.”

He huffed out an unamused laugh.

“Of course you were,” he muttered, stopping in front of an enormous juniper bush. “But that just proves my point. You’re shrewd. You caught Tom Riddle’s attention and managed to use it to your advantage, knowing full-well that he was three minutes away from tattooing your goddamn name on his forehead—which makes you self-serving. You pouted at me and cooed at Abraxas and let Riddle be your hero, all to appear twice as vulnerable as I suspect you’ve ever been—which makes you manipulative. Welcome to the fucking club, Granger.”

“It wasn’t like that. Tom threatened me.”

“You don’t exactly strike me as the sort who responds submissively to threats.”

I tilted my head back, stared unseeingly at a spangled silver cluster of stars.

“You don’t like me, do you?”

He rummaged through the shrubbery, grunting triumphantly as he emerged with a chipped blue tackle box.

“I don’t trust you,” he corrected.

I reached up and pressed the pads of my fingers into the ring of bruises around my neck.

“Why?”

He hesitated, lock pick lodged between his teeth.

“You care about Tom.”

“What does that have to do with you?”

“Not much,” he admitted, shoulders bunched up as he yanked at the handle of the tackle box. “But—Tom—he isn’t nice, is he?”

“No,” I said, voice growing louder. “But what does that have to do with you?”

He went still.

“Are you really going to make me say it?”

“Say what?”

“See, the fact that you don’t actually know what I’m talking about—are you really that oblivious? Really?”

I bristled.

“I’m not oblivious—”

“If I’d tried first,” he interjected, breath emerging from his mouth in warm, white clouds. “If—that first night, if I’d grabbed your hand instead of Malfoy—would you have still chosen Tom?”

I reared back.

“You—”

He shook his head, once, sharply, his gaze piercing.

“You, Hermione.”

I studied him, confused—studied the round slope of his cheeks, his pointed chin and his delicate, upturned nose, his wide brown eyes, iridescent in the dark—he was slight in a way that Tom wasn’t, lean and lithe and pretty, almost, with milky skin and petal pink lips. There was nothing wrong with him. I could have—not loved him, of course, but—

“That’s why you were so upset,” I concluded. “When you found out who I was.”

“I saw right through you,” he said, sounding annoyed. “From the very first night. Tom did too, I think, I’ve never asked, but—you were nervous, and you were gorgeous, but I was just so fucking interested because you were smart, too, and you understood that you couldn’t be, not around Malfoy or Riddle or—me, I suppose—and I thought—I was going to wait it out, wait for Abraxas to get tired of you, wait for Riddle to realize that you were too fucking normal for him—but then you weren’t normal, you were a fucking mudblood from the fucking future. Which— why not, right?”

My heart lurched—but there were doubts, numerous and myriad and niggling, like paper-cuts, like sewing needles, and I could not help but wonder at his timing, wonder at the way his words felt more like a threat and less like a confession.

"You'll have to forgive me for finding this all a bit...difficult to believe," I said carefully.

His nostrils flared.

"Oh?" he ground out.

"Yeah," I replied. "Oh. Do you know how many boyfriends I've had, Edmond? Fancy a guess?”

He sneezed, and made a motion for me to keep walking.

"Fuck if I know,” he drawled, scathing. “A baker’s dozen, maybe?”

I snorted.

"Before Tom, there had never been anyone, actually,” I said. "In fact—before Tom, I was a virgin who had kissed three boys in the entirety of my life—one of whom was my dead best friend."

He slowed down as we approached the edge of the field. I could see Avery and Nott's slouching silhouettes against the front of a tall, cast-iron fence.

"So?"

"So," I went on, voice lazy, "I just find it curious that I'm so incredibly popular with the seventh year Slytherin boys in 1944. I have no legitimate family connections, no discernable magical talent as far as any of you know, and am only passably pretty if you put me in a dress—and yet almost every single one of you has at one point professed to love me. Why do you think that is, Edmond?"

He dropped his rucksack and began to rummage through it.

"You sound paranoid."

I glowered.

"And you sound cagey."

He held out a white linen tuxedo shirt and a pair of slim black trousers.

"Put those on," he ordered. "Tom's plan...I don't know what it entails, honestly, but Polyjuice is involved, so we all need to be wearing the same thing. Here. Go change behind that tree over there. I’ll wait.”

I hesitated.

"Polyjuice," I said, skeptical. "Why—"

He pulled a familiar corked bottle out of his pocket. It was the same one that had been in Tom's bedside drawer two months ago, the one that had smelled like raspberries and vanilla and fresh summer rain.

"I don't know," he said again, more firmly. "It's meant to be a distraction, though, if we get in a bind. So—go. Get changed. There’s something else you need to know before we go in."

I glanced over at Avery and Nott; they had finally noticed our arrival and were watching us with poorly disguised impatience.

"Right. You’re coming with me," I said, gripping Edmond's elbow and propelling him behind the giant oak tree.

"You can't be seri—" he yelped, stumbling after me.

I shoved him against the tree and stepped back, hands on my hips.

"Talk," I commanded. "Now."

He massaged his wrist.

"Look, Granger, you can't just—" he blustered.

I tugged my dress over my head.

"Oh, my God," he said faintly. "You—legs—fucking fuck, Tom is going to gut me."

I shivered, goose bumps creeping across my flesh, and reached for the shirt he had given me.

"I'm going to gut you if you don't start talking.”

He gulped, eyes trained on my bare thighs.

"Um," he said, cheeks red.

I kicked off my shoes.

"Well?" I demanded.

He cleared his throat.

"Right. Uh—Polyjuice. Polyjuice. Yes. I needed to—Malfoy. With the—will you please put some fucking pants on, Granger?" he finished, sounding strangled.

"You could just look away," I suggested rudely.

He licked his lips.

"Do I look like a Hufflepuff?" he retorted.

I pulled on the trousers; they were baggy around my hips and my ankles and they dragged along the ground as I leaned towards him.

"Polyjuice," I prompted sweetly. "Malfoy. What do those two things have in common, Edmond?"

He stared at my mouth.

“I tried to tell you last night,” he said, visibly shaking himself, “but that morning, in the hospital wing—it wasn’t what it looked like.”

I hummed.

“What was it, then?”

He blinked rapidly, jaw working.

“Polyjuice.”

I froze.

“Polyjuice,” I repeated, stomach beginning to roll. “What, exactly, do you mean by that?”

He anxiously ruffled the front of his hair.

“Abraxas has been impersonating me since late September. I—it wasn’t until I overheard what Melania was saying to you that morning that I realized how often. And Dumbledore…I have a feeling that some of the conversations he remembers having with me…I suspect that I wasn’t there for them.”

A memory, quick as lightning, flashed across my mind—

Lestrange has had numerous conversations with him—allegedly—but his recollections are…bland, at best. All they seemed to talk about was Malfoy. Curious, isn’t it?

“That morning—after Melania—that’s why Abraxas—you, I mean, it was you—oh, God,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “He grabbed me out at the greenhouses. First he tried to talk me into helping him, but—all the shit I’d done for Dumbledore, most of that was to impress Tom, and I certainly wasn’t feeling suicidal enough to agree to let Abraxas…take you.”

“But you would have taken me yourself, is that what you’re saying?”

“It would have been harmless if I’d done it,” he said dismissively. “I would have made sure of that.”

“Does Tom know all of this?” I asked, dizzy.

“He guessed, yeah,” he replied. “That morning, actually. Abraxas slipped up and said my family was from Brittany. Which—we’re not, as you know, because you were just in Marseille with all of us. So. Tom caught that. It’s the only reason he didn’t kill me. He knew that when I was pretending to be Abraxas…I was trying to talk Abraxas out of looking at your arm, even though I knew what was there, and he suspected what was there—the scar, I mean. Tom was…grateful.”

I scrubbed my hands over my face and sunk down onto my heels, frustration and disbelief and rage all warring with one another behind my eyelids—I wanted to scream, ached to cry, but instead I rifled through the puddle of starched black velvet that was my discarded dress, searching for Tom's ring.

“He gave this to you,” I stated, clutching it between my fingers. Its surface was hot and smooth, a suffocating contrast to the cool night air. “Why? Why did he give this to you? When did he give this to you?”

“Does that really matter?” he hedged.

“Yes,” I said, desperate.

“Hermione—” he started to say.

“Oi!” Avery called out irritably. “It’s bloody fucking cold out, you know, and while I’ve no desire to ever find out what the fuck the two of you are doing back there—or to ever be around when Riddle finds out, Christ—we’d like to get this all over with so we can go back to Malfoy’s and get properly fucking sloshed, yeah?”

Edmond tensed.

“Look, Granger—we can talk about all of…this…later—but for now—we can’t trust them,” he said, tone urgent. “Avery does not like you. He does not like the effect you had on Tom, and he does not like how you treated Malfoy, and he does not like that you are a mudblood. We can’t trust him in there. We can’t trust him not to do something stupid to get rid of you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I pursed my lips.

“What about Nott?”

“He’ll follow Avery,” he replied, decisive. “Nott—he’s fond of you, I think, but you’re—he’s a pureblood, and you aren’t, and he doesn’t…take you seriously. He won’t think it’s a big deal to follow Avery because you aren’t his equal, not really, and I’m nearly positive that he believes Tom can be persuaded to consider you…disposable.”

I toyed with the ivory buttons on the front of the shirt he had given me.

“And you?”

He flinched.

“What?”

I paused.

“Abraxas was your best friend,” I said, voice deliberately even. “You grew up together. You were genuinely distressed when you thought he might actually hurt you, that morning in the hospital wing—I don’t care whose face you were wearing, you weren’t faking that. You claim you know that I’m not stupid—but you pick now, of all the times we’ve been alone together, to confess that—what, you’re half in love with me? Seems a bit suspicious, doesn’t it? Not to mention, you have blood on your hands, quite literally, and you’re terribly eager to turn me against the only two people who know what happened between you and Abraxas at the Malfoys’ tonight. So, I’ll ask you again. And you?”

He swallowed.

“After everything I’ve done to keep you safe—”

“No,” I interrupted coldly. “You are not going to guilt me into trusting you. I fell for that once already, with Abraxas, and I’m not letting it happen again.”

He stared at me, expression indecipherable—

“Why didn’t you kill him?” he asked abruptly. “Malfoy. Abraxas’ father. Why’d you keep him alive?”

I lifted my chin.

“Because I couldn’t just destroy the timeline because I was feeling vindictive for a few moments,” I snapped. “But don’t try to change the subject.”

He squinted at me.

"I understand why you don't trust me," he finally said. "Really. I wouldn't trust me, either, but, Granger--I'm all you have, you realize that? You can't do this alone. You know that Tom's in there, and that they probably bound his magic, and Grindelwald...he has an unbeatable wand and a hundred fucking guards and it would be suicide to go in there alone. You need me. You need to trust me. You're not stupid. You know that."

I laughed, slightly hysterical.

"You're making this so much worse right now," I said, exasperated. "What did you do with Abraxas? You're hiding something, and Avery and Nott know what it is. You may be clever, but I am, too, and if you actually think that I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to stay alive in there—you don't know me very well, do you? Tom isn't the only one with a back-up plan."

He squeezed his hands into reflexive fists.

"I told you—Abraxas was taken care of."

I scoffed.

"That doesn't mean anything to me. What did you say? What did he say? What did you do?"

He yanked at the hem of his shirt, pulling it out of the waistband of his trousers.

"Nothing," he bit out viciously. "Nothing happened. Avery didn't think you'd be alive when we got back down, Nott wanted to fucking—to fucking rush back in to save you—think he fancies you're going to make him a godfather or something, he's a bit weird—and Abraxas...he thought it was... funny, that you were there at all. Nothing—he cooperated, alright? He was drunk."

I smirked, looking at the ground—Avery and Nott, I noticed, were whispering to each other at the gate, faces worried and posture stiff, and the icy winter breeze felt angry, unsettled, a precursor to catastrophe—

"You're a good liar," I complimented him. "But Tom is better."

He scrunched his eyebrows together.

"What? Granger, what the fuck are you—"

I weighed my options—measured them—realized that I could not think like a Gryffindor—I had be clever, I had to be shrewd, I had to want to win, not just survive—I had to think about Tom being alive and the timeline staying intact and all of the things that Edmond had just told me, all of the secrets he had just spilled, like a potion bubbling over, frothing at the rim of a standard pewter cauldron—because he had been deflecting, attempting to distract me from something else, something big, and that was—unacceptable. That was dangerous.

“Granger?” he repeated, panicked.

I touched the bruises on my neck one last time, pressing down, and then I raised my wand, chest tight.

Our eyes locked.

"Obliviate," I said quietly, expression hard.

Surprise flickered across his features before he blinked, gaze suddenly blank.

"Granger?" he asked, befuddled. "Where are we? What—why are you wearing my clothes?"

I winced.

"It's New Year's, Edmond," I said slowly. "We're outside of Grindewald's hideout. We're here to rescue Tom. I had to—you were going to do something, I think, something for Malfoy, and I had to make sure that you couldn't. Do you understand? We're going to go in there, and your only responsibility is to help me find Tom."

He shook his head, dazed.

"What? What are you—Avery? Nott?"

I sighed and turned towards the gates.

"Don't worry," I said grimly, wand still warm in my hand. "They're next."

###

Chapter 25

Edmond had a key to the gate. Why, exactly, it had been rattling around the inside of a dilapidated old tackle box and buried in the middle of a Welsh cornfield—there was a joke there, I was sure, but I couldn't quite bring myself to wonder what it was.

"Took you long enough," Avery groused, lip curled. "We've been standing here for half a fucking hour, Granger—think we may have lost the element of surprise, don’t you?”

I folded back the cuffs of my shirt.

"Shut up, please," I said conversationally.

Nott cocked his head to the side.

"Why’re you wearing trousers?" he asked.

"Who cares," Avery groaned loudly. "God, can't we just get this over with? I've got shit to do.”

"You were significantly more eager to come with us yesterday, weren't you?" I said, tapping the end of my wand against my chin.

"We just—the thing with Abraxas' father—I don't think we realized how serious this all was," Nott replied uneasily.

"Fuck that,” Avery scoffed. “I could give a fuck who comes out of Grindewald’s lair alive—but I'm not fucking around when I say that I'm going to leave if we don't hurry all this up. Who’s got the key?”

Edmond made a questioning sound in the back of his throat; I appraised Nott, took in his arched neck and pursed lips and nervous fidgeting—Avery was the opposite, all easy grace and bored skepticism, and I stared directly at him as I asked—

"How long until Abraxas gets here?”

Nott scrunched up his nose.

“What? What’s going on?”

Avery glanced at Edmond.

“I didn’t see Malfoy tonight, Granger,” he said. “Lestrange kept us in the hallway. Asked us to keep watch.”

My lips twisted.

“Mm,” I replied, amused. “And of course you wouldn’t eavesdrop, would you? You’re far too trustworthy for that sort of thing.”

Avery stuffed a hand into his trouser pocket; next to him, Nott stiffened.

“You’re so mouthy for a mudblood,” Avery complained, chin jutting out. “It’s almost as if you’ve forgotten your place.”

Edmond shuffled his feet, fingers twitching.

“I just want to know what you overheard that’s made you so, so sure that Tom is going to lose tonight,” I said.

Avery smirked.

“Lestrange was the one who kept us in the hallway,” he said again, regarding me with a smug sort of disdain.

“Edmond’s memory seems to have failed him, unfortunately,” I replied.

Avery frowned in confusion while Nott’s gaze flitted from Edmond’s face to mine, back and forth, expression calculating.

“Shit,” he mumbled. “What did you do, Granger?”

Avery whipped his head around, arm jerking as he fumbled around his pockets for his wand—

“What d’you mean shit—”

Edmond stepped forward.

“Stupefy!” he shouted, pointing his wand at Avery.

Nott watched, aghast, as Avery’s body crumpled to the dirt.

"Oh, fuck," he said, flattening his palm against his forehead. "You—why did you—"

"Theodore," I interrupted. "You need to decide right now if you're coming in with us or not. Okay? You need to pick a side.”

“Just—give me a minute, fuck, this is worse than when Riddle tried to teach me the Cruciatus—”

Edmond snorted and began to conjure ropes to bind Avery’s hands and feet together.

“Never liked him much,” he explained with a spiteful tug on one of the knots. “Think I should gag him, too?”

Nott spoke up.

“Look, I literally can’t—” He broke off, eyes darting to Edmond. “I’d prefer to stay out here, if it’s all the same. You can even…gag me.”

I hummed.

“Good,” I said, tone crisp, “because I wasn’t going to trust you anyway. Is there anything you’d like to add before you’re rendered unconscious?”

He exhaled noisily.

“Make sure that your back is never to the door,” he said, cryptic. “And don’t—it doesn’t matter if Lestrange doesn’t…remember. Don’t trust him. You fucking can’t. He isn’t on your side.”

My mouth flapped open.

“What do you mean can’t—”

“Stupefy!” Edmond said, glowering as he watched Nott collapse. “Fucking idiot.”

I froze.

“Why did you do that?”

He arched an eyebrow, incredulous.

“He was wasting our time,” he replied, kicking at Nott’s ankle. “Probably on purpose. Didn’t you just say you weren’t going to trust him?”

Nott’s voice echoed in my head, a mantra, an order, a reminder that I was alone, still, in all the ways that mattered—

Make sure your back is never to the door. He isn’t on your side. Don’t trust him. You fucking can’t.

“Fine,” I said, biting my tongue. “Let’s just go. Can I have the key, please?”

He held up an ornate silver key, its handle chunky and smooth, the pattern of its teeth thick and complicated and wickedly sharp.

“D’you know why I’m bleeding, by the way?” he asked, picking at the scab on the back of his hand.

I stalked up to the gate and studied the large iron padlock that was hanging from its crossbar.

“No,” I replied curtly. “Is there a cut?”

“Yeah. It’s small, but it looks deep, too.”

I jammed the key into the center of the lock.

“Is it from a knife?” I asked automatically.

“Looks like it,” he responded, approaching me from behind. “Must’ve nicked myself on a letter opener or something.”

Liar , I thought immediately, furiously—but that wasn’t fair, was it, because he did not remember, could not remember, and that was my fault—

“Or something,” I said tightly.

“I should really be angrier with you,” he went on, “for erasing my fucking memory the way you did. But Avery—I don’t know, maybe I was going to something stupid—and Tom can get so bloody creative when he’s properly upset—”

I pulled at the hinge of the lock—pushed the gate open—and then I began to scream.

"What the fuck—what are you doing?" Edmond bleated wildly, covering his ears.

I gingerly walked down the driveway, which was winding and steep and made up of loose, chalky gravel—we were entering a valley, the path almost a sheer drop down to the twinkling lights of a far-off, sprawling house, and the farther we went, the thicker the air became, moist and cold, fog floating around our ankles like a spectral, insidious veil of mist.

"I’m causing a commotion," I said, massaging my throat. "Time is not on our side tonight, and I would like to get to Grindelwald as soon as we possibly can. Getting caught by his guards seems like the most expedient way to do that, doesn't it?"

"I—suppose," he replied, watching me send a bright red stunner into the barren branches of an apple tree. "Think the two tied up bodies by the gate might have already clued them in, though."

I sighed.

"Look, if you’re not going to help—"

He cut me off.

"Don’t think I need to," he said coolly. "We've got company."

I squinted through the fog and saw two hulking figures striding towards us.

"Lovely," I said, satisfied. "Now I don't have to set anything on fire."

He choked.

###

Grindewald’s hideout was a century-old Victorian mansion, painted mint green and butter yellow, with wide, evenly-spaced dormers and a sagging, wraparound porch. There were turrets, pointed and picturesque, and a tall tower protruding from the east wing, conical slate roof slanted and large Gothic windows left bare.

But despite the obvious signs of former grandeur—I could see a boarded-up servants’ entrance next to the cellar doors, as well as the beginning of a scraggly, untamed hedge maze behind the remnants of what might have once been a rose garden—the overall impression that the house gave off was that of disuse and desertion, long-forgotten and neglected, left to rot in the wilderness.

“This way,” one of the guards said, jostling us up a short flight of creaking wooden steps.

“Oi!” Edmond said, dragging his heels. “This isn’t the right way. What are you, new?”

The shorter guard produced his wand and aimed it at the opulent mahogany front door. There was a stained glass centerpiece, oval-shaped and multicolored, depicting a single black raven holding a small bunch of vivid red poppies in its beak.

“Shut him up,” the other guard ordered, muttering under his breath and shoving the door open.

“How did you—” Edmond started to demand.

“If you don’t want to shut up on your own, we’ve got permission to make you,” the first guard snarled. “Filthy fucking blood-traitor.”

“I’m not even a bloody trespasser, you incompetent twat,” Edmond snapped, cheeks pink. “I have a standing fucking invitation—or weren’t you told?”

“All we was told was to apprehend the lot of you and put you in the dining room with the other prisoner,” the first guard said.

Edmond clamped his jaw shut.

We were then propelled through the empty halls, walls stained and wallpaper peeling—there was ancient electric lighting strung up along the ceiling, sputtering and buzzing and an unflattering shade of dim fluorescent yellow, with spindly metal cages housing round glass bulbs.

"Grindewald is living here?" I asked Edmond.

He looked at me askance.

"I thought you’d been here before. With Abraxas.”

Our guard yanked my arm behind my back as we stopped in front of a nondescript white door, dull with age and splintered around the edges.

"Once," I said. "But I didn't leave the room I was in—which was much less decrepit than what I’m currently seeing.”

Edmond grunted.

"You must've been in Grindewald’s bedroom. He keeps it...well-appointed."

I blanched.

"I woke up in his bed?”

The guard rapped twice on the door, scowling down at me.

"Best to be respectful, mudblood.”

I offered him a saccharine smile.

"Oh, of course," I demurred. “I have nothing but respect for mass-murdering psychopaths—it’s a flaw, really. Can’t keep me away from them.”

Edmond sniggered.

And then the door flew open, an empty, parquet-floored room and Grindelwald’s beaming, handsome face coming into focus—and Tom, Tom was behind him, Tom was slouched against a far wall, his wrists in shiny silver handcuffs and his dark eyes locked on me, his expression uncharacteristically unguarded—

“Hermione,” he whispered, shocked and irritated and relieved and dismayed, all at once—

I pressed my legs together, felt for the rigid line of Tom’s wand hidden beneath my clothes, strapped to the outside of my thigh—

And his ring, burning a hole in my pocket, heavy and solid—

“Riddle,” I greeted him coldly, smirk held so very, very carefully in place—because it could not waver, I could not waver, I could not crack or crumble or make even the smallest of fucking mistakes—

“This is going to be so much fun,” Grindelwald exclaimed, waving off the guards.

Edmond reached around me, shutting the door—and the snick of the lock sounded loud, like a fucking force to be reckoned with, as it reverberated through the sudden, malevolent silence—

Make sure your back is never to the door , I thought to myself, taking a deep, shuddering breath—

“Just so you know,” I announced archly, stepping forward, “I’m currently about ten weeks pregnant. What do you all think that means for the timeline?”

I felt triumphant, horribly so, as Grindelwald’s face went white.

###

Twenty minutes later, he had called for tea and conjured a comfortable velvet sofa for me to recline on.

"This should not have happened," he said, something that could have been regret filtering through the cultured planes of his voice. "This should not have been able to happen. Oh, kitten—you really should have been more careful. Nothing good can possibly come of this.”

Edmond perched on the cushion of my footrest and scoffed.

"Bit late for that particular talk, isn't it?"

From the corner, Tom stayed vexingly, inscrutably quiet.

"You think we've done irreparable damage to the timeline, then?" I asked Grindelwald, crossing my ankles.

He shifted in his chartreuse leather armchair.

"Yes," he replied bluntly. "I do. I always planned on sending you back, darling—well, if I didn’t end up needing to kill you—and now...who knows what sort of world you'll be going back to? I can't live forever, much as I'd like to—and I don't have the stomach for the...more aggressive methods of immortality—which is why I've been trying to convince your stubborn masochist of a boyfriend to join me as my protégé. I need a legacy, you understand.”

I studied the puckered yellow rind of the lemon slice that was floating in my tea.

"Oh?"

"Mm," Grindelwald purred. "But he keeps refusing me, and demanding things—he's being very unreasonable, I'll have you know, actually asked me to destroy my time turner, said he would make sure you couldn't be disposed of—which is why, sweetest, it was imperative that you come visit, don't you see? With your fate at stake—as well as that of his...unborn child—I'm quite sure you could get him to agree to anything."

I sat up slowly.

Edmond dropped his hand onto my knee.

Outside, rain began to fall.

“I rather doubt that there’s anything you could threaten Tom with that would make him willing to be your second,” I drawled. “He doesn’t exactly take orders well, does he?”

Grindelwald straightened the collar of his cyan blue sateen jacket.

“Oh, kitten, I’m rather certain he would be a very fast learner,” he replied, pinky ring glinting in the ominous glow of fire-gold lightning that ruptured from the sky. “He would just need…the proper motivation.”

My gut clenched.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” I said with a pointed shrug, “but I didn’t have Edmond bring me here so that we could discuss Tom Riddle.”

Grindelwald frowned.

Edmond did not react at all.

Elsewhere in the house, a door slammed.

And I did not—would not, could not—look at Tom.

“Is that so?” Grindelwald asked. “Then whatever are you here for, sweetest?”

I scooted forward.

“I’m pregnant,” I said again, inwardly flinching as a vicious boom of thunder echoed through the valley. “And I don’t know what that means for the future. I’d like you tell me—or, better yet—let me see for myself. After everything you’ve put me through, don’t you think that’s fair?”

Edmond slouched back against the sofa.

Grindelwald laced his fingers together and rested his hands on the flat of his abdomen.

“Fair,” he repeated, rolling the word around the inside of his mouth, over and around his tongue, as if tasting it, gauging its flavor and its texture and its meaning. “It’s…charming, darling, that you think that I’m at all bothered by what you consider to be fair.”

“Not bothered, no,” I conceded. “But if you’re willing to forego pleasantries…so be it. You have the Elder Wand. Can I presume that you have a vested interest in the remainder of the Deathly Hallows?”

Edmond stiffened.

Grindelwald narrowed his eyes.

A particularly strong gust of wind howled through the trees.

“Go on,” he said suspiciously.

“Abraxas Malfoy has the Invisibility Cloak,” I informed him. “Melania Macmillan—bless her, really—gave it to him before she died. They were sharing it, I think, over the course of September and October.”

Grindelwald’s gaze swiveled to Edmond.

“Is that true?”

Edmond nervously wet his lips.

“I don’t—”

“They had some kind of code involving a basket and a handkerchief,” I interrupted, toneless. “It was stupid, and therefore most likely Albus Dumbledore’s idea, but I witnessed one of their…exchanges after I visited Abraxas in the hospital wing. I doubt Edmond had any real idea of what it meant—Malfoy’s been impersonating him all term.”

Edmond gaped at me.

Grindelwald looked begrudgingly impressed.

“Figure that out all on your own, sugarplum?” he asked, voice rich with condescension.

I smiled thinly.

“It’s amazing what people will say in front of you when they assume you’re too stupid, or traumatized, or both, to actually listen.”

He roared out a laugh.

“You’re a fascinating creature, Miss Granger—it’s a pity that I can’t keep you for myself.”

Revulsion crowded the leftover space in my lungs, the hollows of my rib cage, the porous curvature of my bones—

“Well?” I prompted defiantly. “Do I get to go home now?”

He considered me for a long, tense moment.

“Not quite, kitten,” he answered, reaching into the interior pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a slim, leather bound diary—and I felt my heart skip in recognition. “I confiscated this from young Mr. Riddle just this morning, you know. Clever little bugger thought I wouldn’t know what it was. It’s curious, however—all of the pages are blank, sweetest, and seemingly impervious to the demands of my magic. I would like you to give it a try—see if I missed anything…pertinent.”

I heard a rustle and a clank as Tom made a sudden, grasping movement from the far corner of the room.

“She won’t be able to see anything,” he said helpfully. “It won’t know her. I made sure of it.”

I ignored him—did not could not would not pay him any attention at all—

“I’ve tried reading it before,” I told Grindelwald impassively. “It was blank.”

He chuckled and held out the journal.

“Just try again for me, darling, just this once.”

Hailstones pounded against the lead-glass window panes, a ceaseless ricochet that reminded me rather poignantly of gunfire.

“Must be getting colder,” Edmond put in.

I took the journal—

And instantly knew that Tom had been lying, that this book was his and it was him and it had changed since the last time we had touched—

Because there were endless, countless pages filled with Tom’s spidery handwriting, and I flipped through them quickly, vellum slick beneath my fingertips, stopping at the end of the last entry, chest tight and breathing harsh and ears ringing—

—the extent of what I would do for her—

—I would suffer—

—allow my body to be broken, my flesh to be torn—

—the girl who screamed and cried and wished that the pain would stop and did not deserve a moment of it—

I chewed the inside of my mouth until I tasted metal, copper, iron, bit down and hard and gnashed my teeth together, felt the click of my incisors and the grind of my molars as I read the final lines—

I would bleed for her.

I already have.

I closed the book.

“Nothing,” I reported, glancing up. “There’s nothing. It’s still blank.”

Edmond watched me curiously.

Grindelwald appeared to be disappointed.

“Ah, well,” he said, taking back the journal. “It was worth a try, sweetest. Unfortunately, though, that does mean that Mr. Riddle has but one more chance to become amenable to the terms of my uncommonly generous offer.”

“Or?”

He smirked.

“Or he dies, kitten.”

A crooked wooden shutter smacked against the window ledge.

“Am I supposed to care about that?” I asked, bemused.

Edmond slid his hand into mine.

“Granger,” he said urgently. “What are you—”

“Let me be clear, Miss Granger,” Grindelwald crooned. “If you do not help me to retain Mr. Riddle’s rather elusive and unwavering devotion, I will kill him tonight.”

I schooled my expression into something that vaguely resembled indifference.

“Fine,” I said. “Kill him, then.”

Grindewald’s eyes widened.

“What?”

I sniffed.

“Kill him,” I repeated. “You saw enough of my future to know what he does to me. Not a whole lot of reasons to keep him alive, are there?”

I did not would not could not look at Tom.

Edmond shifted uneasily next to me.

“You want me to kill the father of your unborn child,” Grindewald said thoughtfully. “In front of you. Right now. Do I have that right, dearest?”

“Granger,” Edmond mumbled frantically, “what the fuck are you—”

“I don’t want you to kill him,” I replied, holding onto Edmond’s hand so tightly that my knuckles turned white. “I just would not necessarily be opposed to it.”

Grindewald studied me intently.

A ghostly groaning wail came from the pipes embedded into the walls of the house.

“I see,” he said. “Then—you wouldn’t mind doing it yourself, would you, kitten?”

I reached into my pocket with my free hand.

My fingers brushed against Tom’s ring.

“I suppose that I could,” I said breezily. “Just give me a moment to say goodbye? You don’t need to leave.”

Grindewald arched a fine blond brow.

“Of course,” he said graciously. “Go right ahead.”

I stood up and stepped away from Edmond.

“Granger,” he said again, agitated, “we need to—”

I cut him off with a glare.

“Shut up,” I hissed.

And then I finally looked at Tom, and my world tilted on its axis, my senses flared and my blood ignited and I nearly stumbled, nearly forgot what I was there to do—

His clothing was rumpled, white shirt loose on his shoulders and stained haphazardly with drops of brown-red blood; there was a bruise along his jaw, green around the edges and dark violet in the center, and his hair was longer, brushed back from his forehead and out of the way of his eyes, which were open and fathomless and—

I approached him slowly, but I was unprepared for the way he was staring at me.

Awe. Pride. Disbelief. Excitement.

I relaxed my posture. He understood.

“Hello,” I said tersely, crouching next to him.

His hand hovered over mine, and the muscles in this throat quivered as he swallowed.

“I can’t believe you,” he accused abruptly. “You’re a fucking traitor, Granger—and here I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be loyal?”

I offered him a shaky grimace.

“You deserve it,” I shot back, removing my other hand from my pocket and balling it into a fist. “I’m doing the world a favor by killing you before you have the chance to ruin anyone else’s life.”

He sneered, not bothering to respond.

I pressed the ring into his palm. It flared hotly as it touched his skin, as if pleased to be home. And I did not want to let go, did not want to leave his side, did not want to—

“Tom,” I whispered, lips trembling. “I love you, too.”

I pulled away.

His gaze was unreadable.

I turned around.

“Still want me to do it?” I asked Grindelwald.

Edmond gulped.

Grindelwald appraised me uncertainly.

“By all means, Miss Granger,” he said, sweeping out his arm with a dramatic flourish. “Get your revenge. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

There was one final flash of lightning before the bulbs in the chandelier above us sizzled and popped, ragged grey filaments splitting like atoms and hurtling us all into darkness.

“Hermione,” Tom called out, just as I raised my wand. I paused. My hand was shaking. “I’d have waited an eternity to find you. Fifty years is fucking nothing.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

I opened my mouth.

I thought, swiftly, of Harry, of Ron, of a family full of red hair and freckles and a pair of middle-aged dentists in Australia who would never get to know that they had a daughter—I thought of Draco Malfoy, both of them, of how terribly young and sad and lost one of them had been, thought of the scar on my arm, the scar on Edmond’s arm, thought of Bellatrix Lestrange and her manic, maddening laughter and the permanent echo in my brain of her voice, high-pitched and patronizing and cruel as she chanted mudblood mudblood mudblood—

I spoke.

There was a violent burst of bright green light.

And then I smiled.

###

Notes:

I love this chapter a lot, okay? This chapter is the entire reason I kind of couldn’t bring myself to respond to people who told me ages ago that they just “couldn’t” with this version of Hermione—I had such a clear idea of where her character was going, and yeah, it took awhile to get there, but SERIOUSLY this chapter was so insanely easy to write—she has developed exactly how I intended her to, my vision is COMPLETE (well, not really, because there are five more chapters, but whatever) and she is PERFECT. (Not literally. She is actually deeply, deeply fractured as a character, but that’s okay, because she has to be, because of Tomione reasons.)

xoxo

Chapter 26

The room felt different in the aftermath of Tom’s death.

The atmosphere was dreary, vacant, and there was a steady thrum of white noise flitting around the empty spaces in my skull, oppressive and deafening, stagnant static—it did not feel real, what I had done, not yet, and I would not let it, not yet, not now, because I was not finished.

“Lumos,” Edmond said hoarsely, eventually; and his voice wobbled, but I could not tell if his shock was genuine, could not tell if he had known that this was coming, known what I had planned and what Tom had anticipated and how he was going to fit into all of it.

“Got him on the first try,” Grindelwald remarked, sounding pleased. “It’s usually much harder for beginners to muster up that kind of conviction. Well done, sweetest.”

The smooth ivory handle of my wand dug into my palm.

Make sure your back is never to the door.

I spun around.

“He was going to be a horrible person,” I said, squinting into the shadows.

The lights switched back on with a shrill, electric crackle.

“Then justice has indeed been served, Miss Granger,” Grindelwald replied, looking at Tom’s body—he was so still, though, still and rigid and motionless in a way that he never was when he was alive, and it made me ache, made me sick, made me want to bring him back to life just so I could catalogue all of his twitches and his tics, microscopic mannerisms that would tell me so much more than his words ever could—

“What now?” I asked.

Next to me, Edmond inhaled sharply.

“You were a good choice,” Grindelwald murmured, apropos of nothing. He circled me slowly, like a vulture, as I stared at the dented brass doorknob on the opposite wall. My back was to the window. My back was to Tom. “So many people—imbeciles, all of them—seemed to think that traveling forward in time was a trick, an easy way to assemble a future of my own design. What theydidn't understand, precious, is that the future is... myriad—it's changeable, rather like the weather, dependent on a variety of factors that are nearly impossible to predict. Do you want to know why I picked you to come here, my darling?"

"Why you picked me," I repeated warily. "We discussed this already. You said—”

He interrupted me with a rich, buttery peal of laughter.

"I hardly remember what I said to you the last time we met," he drawled, tone condescending and crisp. "I'm almost certain, however, that I lied."

Tom's voice—and I felt a pang, violent and quick, at just the thought of his name—came back to me, a memory, fleeting and tenuous—

He’s using you for something else . He just doesn’t want you to know what it is.

“That’s…not exactly surprising,” I said.

Edmond’s arm jerked.

“Quite a bit can happen in fifty years, sweetest,” Grindelwald said, sighing wistfully. “In fact, so much can happen, so much can be altered, that every time I went forward, it was different. Sometimes just small details—a clock set three minutes early, a street named after a prince instead of a princess—irrelevant things. But occasionally…the differences would be drastic, my darling, on a scale of such alarming magnitude that it rendered the landscape of the timeline almost completely unrecognizable. Those particular versions of the future were…interesting, to me. Do you know why? Do you know what I was looking for, when I first realized who Tom Riddle would become?”

I narrowed my eyes.

“No, I don’t.”

“The same three scenarios often played themselves out during a uniquely specific stretch of time,” Grindelwald went on, rubbing his knuckles against the point of his chin. “The first of the three scenarios involved just you and Mr. Riddle—or is it Voldemort? It’s awfully troublesome to keep track of his names—while the second involved you, Mr. Riddle, and a very small child—but it was the last chain of events that I found particularly attractive.”

“Oh?”

“Mm,” he said, licking his lips. “You see, princess, I deduced that these same three scenarios kept popping up because of the enormous likelihood of one of them truly coming to pass. They were all contenders, so to speak, and only one of them could win. But the only reason I even noticed you, sweetest, was because you were quite noticeably absent from the only future that I found acceptable. The one that depicted Mr. Riddle alone. I checked, my darling, and you had never even been born.”

Adrenaline flooded my veins.

I jumped to an obvious conclusion—I was going to die—but stopped, thought quickly, realized that I was focusing on the wrong part of what he had said—the one that depicted Mr. Riddle alone—

“Tom is dead, though,” I reminded him, mind racing. “And if I had never been born…that’s a paradox, that doesn’t make any sense. I’m right here.”

Edmond began to tap his foot against the floor, lightly, nervously, without any sort of discernable rhythm.

“A paradox,” Grindelwald mused. “That’s such a fascinating word, isn’t it, kitten? It’s Greek, of course—cradle of western civilization, and all that—but do you know what it means?”

I crossed my arms over my abdomen, shifting my stance so that I could see the outline of Tom’s body out of the corner of my eye.

“Technically, it means—a contrary opinion,” I answered quietly. “A contradiction, essentially.”

“Yes!” Grindelwald exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “A contradiction. You, my darling, are a contradiction. In fact—in this precise moment, your very existence is contradicting what I know to be irrefutably true about the future.”

I tucked my thumb into the loose waistband of the trousers I was wearing.

“I don’t understand,” I said—even though I did, I did understand, and I glanced at Edmond, noticed the corded muscles of his neck slither like serpents beneath his skin as he gulped—

“Tell me, precious,” Grindelwald crooned, “why ever are you wearing men’s clothing right now?”

His back was to Tom.

He was not looking at Tom.

Tom, though—

“This house is in the middle of bloody nowhere,” I replied, plucking at the fabric of the trousers, dislodging Tom’s wand from the holster on my thigh. I felt it slide to the floor and land upright against my ankle. “I wasn’t about to go traipsing through the wilderness in stockings and a dress. Edmond lent me clothing.”

Edmond jerked at the sound of his name.

Grindelwald’s lips curved upwards.

“I admit that I was curious about how this all might play itself out,” he said, holding up Tom’s diary. “Especially when you volunteered to kill Mr. Riddle and I was still very much in possession of his horcrux—which, a journal, really, how exceedingly clever of him—but then it occurred to me…if he had made one horcrux, presumably after the murder of that poor muggle-born two years ago—what would have stopped him from making another? What would have stopped him from giving it to you, the only person he trusts, for safekeeping?”

I met his eyes—blue and big and calculating and hidden under a glistening layer of scorn and frost—

“That’s ridiculous!” I scoffed. “Do you know how much trouble he went through to make even one?”

His smile widened.

“I thought about just bringing you back and killing you,” he said, ignoring my outburst. “Because even if I didn’t understand why you were my key to the future—you were, precious, you are, and if I was a less intelligent man, I might’ve just slit your throat while you slept. However.”

I made a show of fumbling for my wand and letting it drop onto the parquet floor with a clatter.

Edmond was frozen, dark eyes stuck on Tom, waiting, waiting—

“I wondered, kitten, about that second future—the one with the child. I wondered what it said about young Mr. Riddle that that future was even a possibility considering the nature of his…alternate identity. And so I made a rash and rather peculiar decision. Can you guess what it was?”

I bent down slowly, allowing Tom’s wand to slip under the too-long hem of my trousers.

“No? Oh, fine, I’ll just tell you, then—”

I gently picked up both wands.

“—see, dearest, your Mr. Riddle becomes a rather formidable disciple of mine in that last version of the future. He even ends up adopting my name—to instill fear, I imagine—and carrying on all of the tenets I’ve worked so tirelessly to uphold. It’s as if I had a son of my very own—”

I straightened my spine.

“—you’re not there, of course—how could you be, you’re a mudblood—”

Grindelwald still had his back to Tom.

He could not see Tom.

He could not see—

“—realized that I could use you, princess, you would be the perfect tool to ferret out who I could trust and who I needed to kill—”

Peripherally, I observed Tom as he blinked, sat up, rotated his wrists and his ankles and stretche out his neck.

“—means, of course, that you’ve served your surprisingly valuable purpose admirably, my darling, done me such a favor—but, unfortunately, it’s time for you to disappear and for Mr. Riddle to…reanimate himself—”

And then, even as my heart sped up and my stomach tightened because he was alive, it had worked, he was safe—I threw Tom’s wand across the room, watched it hurtle through the air in a graceless arc, watched him leap to his feet and catch it one-handed and—

“Avada Kedavra!” Tom roared.

My vision was engulfed by an abrupt eruption of bright green light.

Grindelwald's body hit the floor with a dull thud.

Edmond took an aborted step forward, towards me, but—

"Hermione," Tom choked out. "I—fuck—Hermione."

I stared at Grindelwald, taking in his still-flushed cheeks and blank, glassy eyes and the laugh lines around his mouth—

And then I glanced at Tom, all the way across the room, and he was whole and he was alive and he was tall and strong and he was alive, he was fucking alive and breathing and I had missed him, I had needed him, I had been frightened for him, frightened of him, still, in the moment before I had tossed him his wand—

"Hermione," he said again, voice cracking, and that was it, that was all it took—

I rushed towards him, tripping over my thoughts and my relief and my initial hesitation, falling into his chest and inhaling desperately, memorizing the intoxicating scent of sandalwood and salt and sweat, because it was still not over, I was still not done, not entirely—

"I missed you so much," he murmured into my hair, broad hands and slender fingers splayed across the small of my back, "fucking thought about you every day, every second, couldn't believe it when I saw you in the doorway—"

I tilted my head, savored the warmth of his arms and the breadth of his shoulders—

"You didn't think I would come for you?" I asked, steadying myself by placing my hands on his waist.

"You weren't supposed to," he whispered, letting his forehead fall against mine, taking deep breaths as his gaze roved frantically over my face; but I was doing the same thing, making sure that he was there, making sure that all the pieces of him that I loved best were still intact, symmetrical and perfect. "Lestrange wasn't supposed to bring you, but—fuck, you were brilliant, you are brilliant—"

I furrowed my brow as he kissed my nose, my chin, my throat, lips lingering like a promise over my pulse point.

"What do you mean—I wasn't supposed to be here? I thought—wasn't this your plan? Not what I did, specifically, but—weren't Edmond and I supposed to be here?"

He pulled back—barely a millimeter, unwilling to put any unnecessary space between us.

"No," he replied, frowning, "the plan was for Lestrange to take the Polyjuice that I left for him and pretend to be you so that he could get in to see me."

I stiffened.

Don’t trust him, Nott had said. You fucking can’t. He isn’t on your side.

“That isn’t what he—”

“Look, can the two of you please not shag while I’m still in the bloody room?” Edmond whined from several yards away. “I get that it’s been awhile, but maybe we should take the opportunity to escape before Grindelwald’s incompetent fuckwit guards realize we’ve killed him, yeah?”

Tom pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss against my lips, flicked his tongue out and along the ridge of my teeth—he tasted faintly of chicory, spicy and tangy and sweet, all at once—before he stepped back and strode over to Grindelwald’s body.

“I really don’t think you’re in any sort of position to be making a mockery of their intellectual prowess, Lestrange,” Tom said, crouching down to rummage roughly through Grindelwald’s pockets.

I flinched at the sight.

“I’m sorry, Riddle, but who rescued who, again?” Edmond demanded.

Tom snorted, holding up the Elder Wand and his diary and a long, familiar gold chain, hourglass glinting as it spun in a dizzying, repetitive circle.

“Hermione rescued me,” he retorted, pocketing the time turner. “All you did was stand there and look shifty. Although—I suppose you did manage not to piss yourself, that was pretty bloody impressive—”

Edmond scowled while Tom smirked and triumphantly twirled the Elder Wand around, inspecting it from every angle, and I bit my bottom lip, pictured Melania Macmillan’s corpse and Tom’s face, easy and handsome and manipulative as he lied—to me, to Slughorn, to everyone, he could lie to anyone—

I would bleed for her.

—except there were secrets, so many secrets, and he would always have them, would always keep them, it did not matter who I was or what I meant to him or what he would do for me because I did not belong there—

Who knows what sort of world you’ll be going back to?

—and it was selfish, yes, foolish and selfish and stupid to want to stay, to want to keep him, because he was not mine and I was not his and he would still be Voldemort, I could not change that, I could not fix that—

By all means, Miss Granger. Get your revenge. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?

— but I gripped my wand, searching fruitlessly, urgently, for the ferocious wave of anger that had tainted every last fiber and cell and platelet in my blood, months ago, weeks ago, needed to feel it and taste it and use it, now, now, because I was not done—

I would bleed for her.

I would bleed for her.

I would bleed for her.

“Expelliarmus!” I cried, watching, with baited breath, as the Wand flew out of Tom’s hand and directly into mine—

I caught it.

I flexed my fingers.

My magic fucking sang—

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, tears pooling in my eyes as I pointed the Wand at his chest, taking in his open mouth and cherry-red tongue and slack, startled, stunned expression. “I’m sorry, Tom, I am, but if you don’t give me the time turner, I’m going to have to hurt you.”

His jaw snapped shut—

And I did not notice that my back was to the door.

###

Chapter 27

10:25 pm

Tom’s voice was devoid of anything that could even remotely qualify as an emotion as he asked—

“Why?”

Edmond took a small, hesitant step backwards.

“I really think we should be going—” he tried to say.

Tom did not acknowledge him. Icy pellets of rain pounded the roof and the windows and the decrepit wooden siding of the house.

“Why, Hermione?” he repeated, slightly louder, slightly colder, dark eyes frothing with venomous rage and helpless frustration and betrayal, too, and it was like a dull knife to the heart and a stabbing punch to the stomach and I hated myself, just a little, for what I was about to do. I was not done, after all—not nearly.

“I told you before,” I replied evenly, “I can’t stay here. I have to go home.”

“The Wand, sweetheart,” he clarified between tightly gritted teeth. “You’ve stolen it from me, and I can only assume that you aren’t about to give it back. Why?”

“You thought that I was going to let you keep the Elder Wand? You thought that after everything I know that you’re capable of, that I’ve seen you do, that I would allow you be the guardian of that much power? Don’t be stupid, Tom, not when I know you’re not.”

He scoffed.

“Ah, yes, there’s the sanctimonious little Gryffindor swot I knew was still in there. Tell me, Hermione, am I allowed to destroy your time turner? Are you going to let me break it?” he taunted.

Behind me, Edmond huffed out a shaky, impatient sigh.

“Seriously, can we do this later? Because I think someone’s coming—”

I glanced over my shoulder, straining my neck, and watched Edmond lean against the door and tuck his hands into his trouser pockets and scuff the toe of his shoe along the dusty hardwood floor.

“What is that?” Tom suddenly asked. “On your throat. What is—are those bruises?”

I turned back, Wand still aimed at his chest. A tumultuous gust of damp, bitter-cold wind whistled through the cracks in the wall.

“Abraxas Malfoy’s father thought there would be some poetic significance in killing me the muggle way,” I replied, shrugging.

He frowned.

“What happened?”

I smiled sharply.

“He got his wand snapped and a lesson in humility,” I said. “He’ll also have rope burn on his wrists for most of the foreseeable future.”

He snorted.

“Humble, are we?”

“No,” I corrected, lifting my chin, “just thorough.”

His nostrils flared.

“I suppose you can take care of yourself, then,” he said, inspecting his fingernails. “Well done, Hermione. Really. I’m suitably impressed.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Give me the time turner.”

He chuckled, then—but the sound wasn’t like it was before, it wasn’t rich and sweet and deeply nuanced, a dessert and an indulgence and a crime, all at once—no, it was sour, twisted, a mess of crackling, paper-thin twigs enmeshed in a bramble, in a tangle, and it would scratch, and it would hurt, and there would, I was sure of it, be blood—in streaks and streams and stripes—before we were done with one another.

“What’s stopping me? What’s stopping me from just…” he trailed off, holding up the time turner, peering at the hourglass as it winked in the light. “From just crushing this? I mean, God, it looks so fragile, doesn’t it? Imagine what it would look like in pieces on the floor. Or— never mind, sweetheart, you’ve already seen that once before, haven’t you?”

I flicked my wrist and a jet of neon yellow light flew over Tom’s shoulder; it hit the peeling white window frame with a splintering sizzle of wood chips and dust.

“Give me the time turner.”

His mouth opened a fraction of an inch, as if he wanted to speak, wanted to respond, but did not know what to say, what to do, how to bridge the rapidly growing gap between what we had been and what we were becoming.

“Nonverbal,” he remarked, licking his lips. “That’s—new.”

There was a loud clap of thunder, and a microsecond later, the electric lights flickered.

“Guys,” Edmond pleaded, “have your fucking showdown somewhere else, there’s a perfectly serviceable bloody cornfield half a mile away—but the storm’s getting worse and we are not in this fucking house alone—”

“You have less leverage than you think you do, Tom,” I said quietly. “So just—just give me the time turner.”

He paused.

“Tell me one thing, Hermione,” he said slowly, rubbing his chin. “Why is that you want this so badly? Why won’t you just stay here?”

Stay with me was what he didn't say, what I heard anyway—and it was tempting, was the thing, it was so fucking tempting, because he was wrong. He was wrong to think that I didn’t want to stay; that I didn’t want him, didn’t want a life outside of the unknowable, far-off future. He was wrong.

But I did not belong there.

I had felt it, right from the start, felt it like the itch of an ill-fitting sweater, scratchy and coarse and too big, too small, an awkward inseam and an asymmetrical hemline—I was terrified, had always been terrified, of doing something wrong. I had already changed so much, too much, changed the date of Grindelwald’s death and the fate of the Elder Wand, changed the course of Dumbledore’s reputation and the possibility of the Malfoys' future with the Dark Lord and—Tom’s future, Voldemort’s future, because Tom's future would be so, so different now—and Melania Macmillan was dead, that was my fault, and Tom Riddle was going to have a child, that was my fault, and it was all so delicate, all so precarious, and I could not pretend that it was not, I could not act and lie and force myself to ignore the date on the calendar, the flashes of long-past memories that were so far away now, so far gone, so far from where I currently was that they might as well have been nightmares—

“I don’t belong here, Tom,” I ground out, almost robotically. “You know that. You heard what Grindelwald said—I’ve already destroyed the old timeline. My life will probably be unrecognizable when I finally—”

“Not bloody good enough,” he interrupted, seething. “I’m to believe you actually want to go back? That you actually want to return to a war-torn fucking hellhole where your friends are all dead and your parents have entirely forgotten who you are?”

I did not flinch, but it was a near miss.

“I’m pregnant,” I reminded him, voice hard. “With your child. I’m not just thinking about me. And besides, I have no idea what happens now, not in the future. I mean, God, Voldemort would never even exist if you were to die tonight. Isn’t that right?”

He met my gaze squarely, and I could not decipher what his expression meant—he was staring at me as if I was a stranger, a risk to be dissected and studied and only then—only after that—could I be taken.

“Are you trying to threaten me, sweetheart?”

“I’m holding the Unbeatable Wand,” I told Tom. “I’m not trying to do anything.”

He laughed harshly, disbelievingly, and I felt the air between us grow tense and thick and taut, like a fraying, melodious harp string just waiting to snap—

“But, Hermione—I thought you loved me,” he drawled, crossing his arms over his chest, time turner swinging prettily. “You wouldn’t hurt me, would you? Not for this.”

I clenched my jaw.

"Stop changing the subject," I said, gripping the Wand tightly enough for a brief surge of angry crimson sparks to singe the water-stained plaster ceiling.

"It's simple, Hermione," he replied. "If you want to stay, stay. You have no way of knowing what might happen in the future if you don't go back. You've been here for four months already—"

"And look how much damage I've done!"

He shot me a withering glare.

"What does it matter? Is it really even damage if you aren't going to be directly effected? If you’re never going to see it? You're here, in the past, with me. What significance do people who aren’t even alive yet—people fifty years away from mattering—what significance do they have on either of us?"

My upper lip curled.

“And you’re so sure, aren’t you, that you factor in at all to my decision.”

It was not a question.

His mask—derision and disdain and deceit, always, always deceit—faltered.

“What?”

I inhaled—once, twice, three times—and I held it, did not breathe out, held it until my vision grew hazy and my lungs began to burn—

“I’m going to break this wand,” I said plainly. I was not lying. “I’m going to break it—until it’s in pieces okay, it will be wrecked beyond repair—and you are going to hate me. You may think you won’t, but you will, because you had a plan—you had multiple plans, God—and none of them involved me. I was not supposed to be here. You wanted this wand, and you got it, for a moment—but I took it from you, because you trusted me when you shouldn’t have, and I am going to be the person who guarantees that you can never get it back. Staying with you after that? It isn’t an option. I don’t trust you enough.”

Color bloomed across his face, his cheeks, his neck—a lurid, furious red—and he took a step forward, towards me, the chain connected to the time turner bunched up in his fist—and I was not certain, not at all, what happened first, what happened next—

There was a clatter from outside—a broken shutter, I thought dimly—and I was watching Tom, watching him trip over his old wand, waiting and assessing and wondering if the distance between us would ever really shrink—but then there was an unearthly howl as the wind swept through the valley, shrill and high-pitched and eerie, a ghost story and a premonition come to life—

Tom’s old wand scuttled across the dilapidated floor, flying past me, and landed at Edmond’s feet.

He cocked his head to the side, as if listening to something far away, something that was edging closer, closer—

Don’t trust him, Nott had said. You fucking can’t. He isn’t on your side.

Edmond looked at the wand, looked at Tom, looked at me—

“Expelliarmus!” he shouted, just as the door slammed open and Tom lunged forward, throwing his body in front of mine, wrapping his arms around my waist—

My back was to the door.

My face was pressed into Tom’s chest.

My back was to the door.

I could not see, I could not breathe, I could not see—

Tom had been too late.

The Elder Wand was gone.

###

11:11 pm

Tom's body was warm against mine, and my brain would not shut off.

The two thoughts were disparate in almost every conceivable way, unrelated and unimportant—but I was missing something, I knew that—Nott's warning and Edmond's shifty gaze and Avery's infuriatingly smug behavior—they were all swirling together, a crushing cacophony of hints and clues, details and caution and endless, tiresome speculation, and I held onto Tom, breathed in the musky scent of his wrinkled linen shirt and thought about Polyjuice and memory charms and Edmond's fierce determination to keep me safe when Tom had been taken—

"Malfoy," Tom said, tone frosty—but he sounded amused, too, as if he should have seen this coming, had, in fact, seen this coming—and he was neither surprised nor intimidated, of course he wasn’t, because he was Tom. "How ever did you manage to get Lestrange to do your bidding?”

At that, I turned around, creeping out of Tom's grasp and moving to stand beside him—and then I took in the scene before me, quickly, with as much practiced, perfunctory detachment as I could muster—

Abraxas was standing in front of the open door wearing a freshly pressed white shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, and a pair of slim-fitting navy trousers. His hair was pushed back, neat and clean, and his shoes were black, lace-up loafers, highly polished with a waxy, lustrous sheen. His posture was perfect. He had the Elder Wand pointed directly at Tom’s throat.

Edmond, though, was gazing at me intently from where he was hovering behind Abraxas’ shoulder, just as I had expected, dark eyes wide and round, pupils pin-thin with anxiety; he held up his hand, the one with the scabbed-over cut, and jerked his wobbling chin in Abraxas’ direction.

“Lestrange and I have a history,” Abraxas replied. “Childhood best friends and all that—you wouldn’t understand, Riddle, not with you coming from that awful fucking…muggle orphanage.”

Tom snorted.

“I see you’ve resorted to using Dumbledore as a bloody informant,” he said, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Bit beneath you, isn’t it? Or do Malfoys not care what sort of excrement they’re scurrying around in so long as they don’t get caught?”

Abraxas sneered.

“Like you’ve got any room to talk,” he spat. “You’re a half-blood, aren’t you? Your father was an idiot fucking muggle and your mother was an ugly, inbred liar. How far d’you think the apple really fell from the tree?”

Tom narrowed his eyes.

I cleared my throat.

“You have the Wand,” I said, voice carefully modulated. “What else do you want? Grindelwald’s already dead.”

Abraxas appraised me silently, full pink lips turned down at the corners.

“Hermione Granger,” he mused. “You are a quite a fucking conundrum, aren’t you, darling? My father’s quite unhappy with you.”

I quirked an eyebrow.

“Is he? How tragic.”

He shot me a nasty grin.

“You asked me what I want, kitten—and that’s a dangerous fucking question, especially for you. Would you like to know why?”

“I imagine it’s because you want to kill me,” I replied easily.

Tom’s hands twitched.

“Incorrect,” Abraxas said, grey gaze boring into my own. “Although, to be fair, I do rather want you dead, princess. But I made a promise to my fuckwit best friend that I wouldn’t harm you—so that isn’t an option anymore, is it?”

I processed this new information, mind racing, whirring—I pictured Edmond’s hand and the cut across the back of it, deep and precise— must’ve nicked myself on a letter opener, he’d said—

“Blood magic,” I murmured, feeling sick. “Edmond took an oath for you. But—for what? The Wand? You couldn’t have known he’d even have access to it.”

Abraxas smirked.

“Couldn’t I?” he asked pointedly. “Grindelwald was a raving fucking lunatic, yeah, but he was also bloody rabid for a protégé. Who do you think taught me this?”

He waved his hand in a complicated figure-eight pattern and, almost immediately, a light bulb in the overhead chandelier completely shattered, broken glass cascading down in diamond-bright slivers and rainbow-hued shards.

“But then he wanted to replace you,” I guessed, stomach plummeting. “With Tom.”

“Fucking Riddle,” he growled. “Like he deserved to be fucking handed what me and my father have been working towards for fucking years—and why? Because Grindelwald spun the fucking dial on his time turner and liked what he saw? That’s shit. I’m glad the bastard’s dead.”

I winced.

“Christ,” Tom put in. “Is crazy a Pureblood thing? Or is it just your family, Malfoy?”

Abraxas glowered.

“I can’t wait to make you pay for that, Riddle,” he hissed. “Fucking hell but you’ve got it coming.”

“Abraxas,” Edmond suddenly said. “You have the Wand. Let’s—let’s just go, okay? You took an oath that you wouldn’t—”

“I promised I wouldn’t hurt your precious pregnant mudblood, Edmond,” Abraxas retorted. “I made no such promises about Tom fucking Riddle, however.”

Tom rolled his eyes.

“You really need to practice the menacing bit,” he said. “Especially since you’re not the only one in the room who can do magic without a bloody wand.”

He then snapped his fingers and the window crashed open, letting in a torrent of freezing cold rainwater and dead, folded-over maple leaves; when he held his palm flat, the window slid shut again.

“How…quaint,” Abraxas said with a strange half-smile. “Fancy a guess at what I’m going to do next, Riddle? Here’s a hint—it’s something else that Grindelwald taught me.”

Tom stiffened.

Seconds passed—I fumbled for my wand—

“Binding my magic, are you?” Tom demanded, face white with fury. “And here I thought we were finally going to settle this like men—not arrogant fucking schoolboys with too much power and not enough discipline.”

“Oh, piss off, Riddle,” Abraxas groaned. “God, I’m finally about to kill you and you think I give a shit about dignity?”

Edmond shifted his weight around while looking panicked.

“Abraxas—” he tried.

“Shut the fuck up, Lestrange,” Abraxas said, gaze pinned on Tom—it was deadly, unwavering, and I marveled at how I could have ever thought that he was harmless.

I gripped my wand.

I closed my eyes.

I felt around for jagged ends of my magic, sharp and strong and alive—but I did not speak, did not have to speak, and when I opened my eyes again I was standing behind a shimmering grey blanket of magic that was constantly moving, evolving, changing, fluid and flexible, a transparent sort of curtain that I knew could not protect me forever—

“A shield charm,” Abraxas observed, sounding pleased. “Excellent idea, princess—might as well put one up for myself, yeah? Who knows what you’d try and get up to now that I can’t take away your wand.”

I stepped forward.

“You can’t hurt me,” I said with a bravado I certainly did not feel. “And you can’t kill me, either. There is only one spell you can cast right now, and the oath you took with Edmond would prevent you from even finishing the incantation. And I’m not going to let you—”

Abraxas cut me off.

“I don’t want to kill you, Granger. I want to kill him. And I’m going to, right now, unless you decide that you have the stomach to fucking kill me first. Which—let’s all be honest—you don’t. You left my father alive, trussed up like a fucking Christmas ham, when you could have easily left him to rot.”

“I didn’t have a reason—”

“Really? No reason? God, you’ve been shacked up with Riddle for how many months, and you still haven’t learned how to survive?”

Dread flowed like water beneath my skin, between my bones, like an avalanche, like a hurricane—

“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, and you can thank Edmond for that,” he replied drolly. “But, hey, you know what? I’m feeling playful. So let’s make this fun. I’ll give you one free shot at me before I kill Riddle. Just one. You know what you’d have to do to make it count, don’t you?”

I hesitated—

I tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear, felt my thumb graze the fever-hot skin along the back of my neck—

“What’s wrong, kitten?” Abraxas crooned. “You can’t do it, can you?”

The words were there, on the tip of my tongue, a tremor and a trembling second away from slipping—and I had said them, I had meant them, I had used them on Tom, but they had not been permanent, they had not been serious, had not felt even a fraction as real as they did now—

“Why are you so sure that I’m not a threat, Abraxas?” I asked, stalling.

“Because every trap I set you fucking fell for,” he said, broad shoulders slouched as he crossed his arms over his abdomen. “The ring, the note, our entire bloody friendship—you let Riddle get you pregnant, trusted Lestrange, of all people, to Apparate you into Grindelwald’s enormously well-protected hideout—the only reason you even got away from my father tonight, Granger, was because he was too bloody full of himself to just kill you properly, with magic. You’re a bit of a joke as far as adversaries go, you have to see that.”

“Maybe,” I conceded with a nod. “But you’ve still had an awful lot of problems trying to catch me, haven’t you?”

Abraxas scowled.

“Just pick your poison, Granger,” he said. “Am I killing him? Or are you killing me? Bet you a kiss that I know the answer already.”

I bit back grimace—

But then I turned slightly and I stared at Tom, stared at his face—resigned and violent and sorry, so fucking sorry—because this was a choice, he knew that, this was a choice between the future and the past and killing Abraxas Malfoy was not about the simple vanquishing of a villain, no, it was not even about winning—it was about knowing that he would have a child and a grandchild and if I did it, if I saved Tom, there would never be a Lucius Malfoy, there would never be a Draco, there would never be a chance for Ginny Weasley to acquire Tom Riddle’s diary in the middle of a crowded bookshop and there would never be an audience for Bellatrix Lestrange as she tortured me—mudblood mudblood mudblood—

“Tick, tock, princess,” Abraxas said, tapping his wrist watch. “What are you going to do?”

Have you heard of the grandfather paradox, Miss Granger? Dumbledore had asked me in September.

“I know who Riddle is, by the way,” Abraxas continued, voice a dreadful, droning drawl. “Or, should I say—who he becomes? Would have become? Does it matter if he’s going to die tonight?”

And I had replied—

There would be a new timeline. The time traveler—they would be anomalous. They wouldn’t belong.

“Think of all the people you’ll be protecting, kitten,” Abraxas murmured. “All those lives you’ll be saving. I won’t be like him, you know—I’m better than him, haven’t I proven that?”

Your future will not be the same should you return, Miss Granger. It might even be unrecognizable.

“I’ll let you go home,” Abraxas went on. “Let you keep the time turner. Wouldn’t you like that, darling? You could destroy it, make sure that no one ever got caught up in things they didn’t understand, not like you did.”

I stared at Tom, again, again—

I would fucking bleed for her.

And it was like a dam breaking, a roaring, white-capped wave of adrenaline flooding through—because I could do this.

I could.

I could save Tom. I could get back the Elder Wand and hold on to the time turner and go home, get away, never have to run for my life, not ever again.

But Abraxas—

Abraxas —

He had reminded me of Ron. Loud, brash, outspoken—a little bit funny and a little bit lazy, mad for Quidditch and ceaselessly, stupidly loyal—except Ron was dead, Ron was dead and that might not be as absolute as it once was, not if time was infinite and parallels could exist and I had already changed so much, I had, and it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair that I had to choose, had to do this, because no one deserved to be erased.

And then I recalled my words about Abraxas, all those weeks ago in the astronomy tower—

I will remember every foul word he’s ever uttered in my presence, every—every misogynistic, backhanded compliment he’s ever paid me—and I will remember how terrified I was tonight, how defenseless, how furious—

Abraxas was not Ron. Abraxas was not anything like Ron, not really. Abraxas was cunning and clever and devious, a liar and a cheater and—I could still feel his hands sometimes, spectral and slimy, on the inside of my thighs, on my hips, big and callused and hot, unwelcome and unwanted and his breath against my ear, wet with whiskey, and my speech was sluggish and my limbs would not work and—

I will take him apart as painfully as I know how—I will not be kind enough to put him back together—and he will be lucky if I decide to kill him. He will wish for it.

Tom had murdered Melania Macmillan. He had not hesitated. He had waved his wand and said two short words and ended her life, just like that, had not felt even an ounce of remorse—he had believed he was protecting me, had believed that he had done it for me, and I had not understood, when it happened, I had not understood what it meant to be ready and able and willing to do that for someone—

I would have died for Harry.

I would have died for Ron.

I would have died for my parents, for my family, would have bled out until my veins were dry and there was nothing left to scream about.

But I would not have killed for them.

I would not have crossed that line, not when they were alive—

They were not alive.

They were dead, and I was not. Tom was not.

Days and weeks and months had gone by and I had changed. And I had loved them, all of them, had loved them so much that watching them die had felt agonizing in a way that the Cruciatus could never hope to replicate—but I loved Tom, too, loved Tom differently, savagely, and it was warped, I knew that, it was a gift and a curse wrapped up in stained brown butcher paper, haphazardly ripped open and taped back together—

And what I had done tonight, already, what I had done for him and what I had done because of him—

I could not keep Tom.

There are an almost infinite number of proposed theories regarding the consequences of long-term exposure to the past, Dumbledore had said.

I could not fix Tom.

No one is purely evil or purely good, Miss Granger.

But I could save him.

I would murder a thousand innocent girls if it meant keeping you safe, Tom had sworn.

I could kill for him.

I could.

“Shall I take your silence as permission, Granger?” Abraxas asked haughtily.

And then—

I will ruin him , I heard myself saying to Tom, as if from very far away. He will be in pieces.

“You presume too much,” I whispered thickly, raising my wand.

Edmond’s head snapped up.

Tom swallowed roughly.

Abraxas furrowed his brow.

“Avada Kedavra,” I said, voice ringing out, clear and crisp, and I could feel that the syllables were clumsy and awkward and quiet, almost, could feel that my hand was shaking, muscles wracked with nerves and uncertainty—

But it did not matter.

There was an instant flash of bright green light, reflecting back at my eyes and turning my pupils into fractured, toxic starbursts.

Abraxas’ body toppled forward.

I watched, unable to look away, and I felt—

“Hermione,” Tom said, breaking through my reverie, and I got the impression that it was not the first time he had said my name.

I felt nothing.

I felt fucking nothing.

White noise filtered through my ear drums.

“Can you hand me the Wand, please, Edmond?” I asked as politely as I could.

Edmond stooped down to pick up the Elder Wand. He held it away from his body, with just his fingertips, as if he was afraid to touch it for too long.

“Here,” he mumbled, pushing it into my palm.

The buzzing in my ears intensified, exponential and exaggerated.

Footsteps echoed from the hallway.

“Who—” Edmond started to say.

I turned to Tom.

“Hermione,” he said again, plaintive.

I licked my lips.

I felt nothing.

“I just killed someone,” I stated matter-of-factly, flexing my fingers around the Wand. The wood was smooth and silky, unmarred and warm. “But I don’t feel anything. Is that normal? Tom? Is this—is this what it’s supposed to be like?”

Tom approached me slowly, his expression vacillating between rampant relief and calculating concern.

“Hermione,” he said softly. “I’m going to just—can I touch you? Is that alright?”

He reached for my hand, laced our fingers together, squeezed once, twice, gently, so gently—

I blinked.

My heart hammered steadily against my rib cage.

“Tom? I just—”

“Can you feel that? Can you feel me? I’m right here, sweetheart, I’m right here—”

The door flew open.

Edmond let out a strangled yelp and skidded backwards, all windmill arms and flailing legs—

“Professor Slughorn,” I said, startled, bemused, lost. “What are you doing here?”

###

Chapter 28

---

 

I chose not to dwell on what the scene might have looked like to an outsider—to Slughorn.

There were two dead bodies. Edmond was wide-eyed and shell-shocked, skin a fluorescent milky white tinged grey with unease; his forehead was crumpled like a flimsy paper napkin, all sweat-soaked pleats and premature lines, and his lips red and dry and swollen from being gnashed together. Tom was hovering in front of me, facing away, towards the door, arms nearly vibrating with tension and hands stretched out behind his back—as if his touch alone could keep me anchored, in place, out of danger.

Meanwhile, I felt like a blank canvas, unfinished and flat, every last straining, sinuous fiber of my body close to aching with the need for color and direction and light.

“Oh, dear,” Slughorn was saying, wringing his hands as he stared, aghast, at the three of us. “Oh, dear. I didn’t—how did this—it was just a few potions!”

Tom squared his shoulders and made a curling motion with his left hand that only I could see; I stepped forward, slapped my old wand— vine wood, dragon heartstring core, it was the same, it was the same and it had killed someone no no I had killed someone I had killed someone and fuck fuck fuck what had I done what had I done —into his palm. I clenched my other fist around the Elder Wand.

“It was never just a few potions,” Tom bit out. “You were spying.”

Slughorn’s frown drooped.

“Spying?” he repeated, voice small, cheeks ruddy, nose twitching with anxiety. He glanced at the door. “I would never, it was just—”

“Let me guess,” Tom said, “it was just a few questions? Just a few potions and just a few questions, nothing serious, nothing that might result in the death of a student—a student like Melania Macmillan, for example.”

Slughorn blinked.

“Oh, dear,” he said again, more faintly. But then he continued, indignant, “I told Dippet, you know—I told him that seizures weren’t a normal side-effect of the poison that was used and that I knew that she hadn’t died of that—I did my part for the inquest, even performed the autopsy, said that there wasn’t a single physical indication that she had suffered any sort of fit, medical or magical—”

Tom chuckled, and Edmond shrunk in on himself

“God, how do they pay you to teach children?” Tom asked. “You’re an imbecile. You were supposed to figure out that her death wasn’t an accident. You were supposed to know that she was murdered, on purpose—it was meant to be a warning, you insufferably ignorant old twat, and it was meant for you and the Malfoys. You were supposed to quit spying on Hermione so that Lestrange could take your place. But of course you were too dense to even know that you were spying. Just a few potions, just a few questions—I should have known that you were more interested in planning my wedding than you were in playing politics. Remind me to never again listen to Lestrange, will you?”

Nausea rolled through my stomach like the heaving, dramatic swoop of a tidal wave—because what else had I misinterpreted? What else had I been wrong about?

“You knew all along?” I asked. “That Edmond—that Abraxas—with the Polyjuice—was anything about that morning even real?”

Tom spun around.

“Hermione,” he said, patronizing, “of course I knew. Just like you knew that I killed her on purpose. To protect you. What did you think I meant by that?”

I placed my hand over my abdomen.

Pregnant, I was pregnant, and it was his.

My mind felt glazed-over, picked apart—

There was a click in my spine as I inhaled, exhaled, sharp and serious and swift, sudden, sure.

“This is what you were trying to hide from me,” I said to Edmond. “You knew it was only a matter of time before I figured out you’d taken a blood oath with Abraxas, so that wasn’t it—and besides that, Nott and Avery were half a bloody minute away from Apparating me back to Wiltshire—but you were hiding this, and you lied to me when I asked if Tom had known—”

Edmond hurried to interrupt me.

“Tom knew that Abraxas was using Polyjuice to impersonate me, but not—he really didn’t know what was going on that morning, not until Abraxas fucked up—I didn’t lie about that, Hermione, I didn’t. And I knew that you were touchy about Melania, about her death, so I was trying to protect you—”

“You were trying to protect yourself,” I said, incensed. “You were covering your tracks, trying to get closer to Grindelwald, but you didn’t want Dumbledore to trace it back to you, did you, so you used Tom because you knew that Dumbledore would blame him—”

"Tom...Tom killed Melania Macmillan?" Slughorn gasped. “That’s—well, certainly not preposterous, but it’s—shocking, yes, very shocking, indeed.”

Tom rolled his eyes.

"Melania Macmillan was a malignant little troll who deserved far worse than what she got," he said. "Isn't that right, Edmond?"

Edmond’s face flushed a lurid, lilting pink.

"You know, Tom—my family was very fond of Hermione," he remarked, apropos of nothing. Tom's smile faltered. "Don't think I managed to properly convince any of them that I wasn't the father, either—her pregnancy, as you can imagine, was a really fucking popular topic when we visited them over Christmas."

Tom went perfectly still, reminiscent of the way a viper does, right before it strikes—

"Too bad her French is so terrible, then," he replied, smirk somehow venomous and charming and magnetic, all at once. “Besides—I have it on very good authority that she far prefers snakes to frogs.”

Slughorn tittered nervously.

"Now, boys, I don't mean to—that is to say—the bodies, yes, we should perhaps...move them, I think—distasteful as it may be, it's unseemly for them to just...lie there, especially if anyone else were to come through the door and see them. Don’t you agree, Miss Granger?"

I gaped at him, astonished, and I did not understand, not fully—until I did.

Someone else was coming.

Someone who would care that Abraxas Malfoy and Gellert Grindelwald were now dead.

"Yeah," I answered awkwardly, raising the Wand and pointing it at Abraxas’ body. "I mean—yes. Let's—move them, Professor. Wingardium Leviosa.”

I didn’t watch as Abraxas’ body floated towards the center of the room.

“Oh, dear. Is that—the Elder Wand?” Slughorn asked.

Tom’s stance turned defensive.

“What do you know about that?” he demanded.

Slughorn’s mouth hung open, jowls quivering as he floundered for a response.

“Well—Albus said—I only just discovered tonight that it wasn’t a myth! And I must say, dear boy, that of the four of you—ah, three of you, so sorry, rest in peace, et cetera—but Miss Granger is not at all who I would have expected to be its master. Albus was quite convinced that Gellert Grindelwald had it, in fact. Oh! But—is that why he was spying on you all? Because of Miss Granger’s relationship to the Deathly Hallows? Just the other morning I heard a fascinating joke about the Macmillan family and a squib in an Invisibility cloak—”

Tom’s jaw went slack with disbelief.

“Christ,” Edmond muttered, flattening the heel of his palm against his forehead.

“Why are you here, Professor?” I put in quickly. “You don’t seem particularly…well-versed in what’s been going on.”

Slughorn fiddled with the chain of his pocket watch.

“I was at the Malfoys’ for their annual New Year’s party, as I am every year at this time—I’m always invited, I’ll have you know,” he replied, puffing out his chest. “And then Albus arrived, and he appeared to be in great distress. He had a rather cryptic conversation with Draco Malfoy—who was found in quite the intriguing position in his study, quite intriguing, indeed, but, really, who am I to judge a man for his…proclivities —and, where was I? Oh, yes, the two of them conversed, and then I was…retrieved, and the business with the Elder Wand was explained—”

He broke off—and then there were more footsteps coming from the hallway, their pace sedate and dignified, not hurried, not rushed—and there was more than one person, I realized, no voices, just the placid, even drag of expensive leather on warped, creaking hardwood—and I knew that Dumbledore was coming, he had all but warned Edmond and I that he would be, but who else would be with him, who else who else who else—

Slughorn fumbled through the pockets of his bottle-green waistcoat.

“Damn,” he said, holding up several empty glass vials. “I don’t have—must’ve given it all to the Malfoys—”

“What are you searching for? Polyjuice? Why?” I asked, avoiding Edmond’s searching, pleading gaze.

Slughorn looked up at me, surprised and slightly panicked.

“Oh, my darling girl,” he replied, as if it should have been obvious. “To hide you, of course.”

“Right,” Tom said abruptly, striding forward and jamming the tip of his wand—my wand, my wand, not his—into Slughorn’s collarbone. “That’s it. I think we all get that you’ve made a career out of lying to people who are more powerful than you are, so why don’t you tell us what the fuck is really—”

“Tom, stop it,” I chided him. I glanced at the door. Edmond had his head cocked to the side, listening closely. “He just told us. Malfoy and Dumbledore—they’re coming. Now. Just—”

I was cut off by the squeak and rattle of the doorknob being jostled.

Tom crept back to my side, the tail of his untucked linen shirt swaying as he moved.

Slughorn shuffled away from Grindelwald’s body.

The door opened gradually, unobtrusively—shyly, I thought with a grimace; it seemed inappropriate.

“Oh, hello,” Dumbledore greeted us, edging into the room. He was wearing a midnight-blue velvet blazer with a sunflower-yellow carnation tucked around a maroon paisley pocket square; his trousers were faded grey pinstripe, loose-fitting and mud-spattered. “Miss Granger. Mr. Lestrange. Ah—even Mr. Riddle, how fortuitous. Thank you for locating everyone, Horace. This house is enormous—Gellert has always enjoyed an exaggerated state of being, hasn’t he, Draco?”

Abraxas’ father was following several steps behind Dumbledore, clothing rumpled and countenance haughty. I felt my pulse race, speed up, hammer against the paper-thin skin of my wrist in a muted cacophony of orange-red arteries and powder-blue veins.

“It would appear that Gellert is now dead, Albus,” Malfoy said with a disdainful sniff. “What a tremendously unfortunate turn of events. Now, where is my son?”

Dumbledore smoothed a long-fingered hand down the lapel of his jacket, unperturbed. His eyes, however, were not twinkling.

“Yes, yes, tremendously unfortunate, indeed, Draco,” he replied, turning towards Tom. “We shall, I think, need to determine the cause of Gellert’s demise posthaste. Mr. Riddle? Were you a witness?”

Tom chewed the inside of his mouth, as if staving off a laugh.

“I don’t know, Professor,” he yawned. “Was I?”

Dumbledore paused.

“Expelliarmus,” he said sharply, gaze narrowing as he watched Tom’s wand—my wand my wand it was my wand—float towards him. He caught it gingerly, posture tense, and examined it with careful, sweeping caution.

“That isn’t the wand you’re looking for,” Tom supplied helpfully. “Although, I was the one to kill Grindelwald. Excellent guess, Professor—very… intuitive.”

Dumbledore pursed his lips.

“This is not a game, Tom,” he replied, sliding Tom’s wand—my wand my wand—into his trouser pocket. “What have you done with it? Where is it hidden?”

Tom shrugged lazily, and I cast a surreptitious shield charm around us both.

“Where is anything hidden, Professor?” he mused, tapping the toe of his shoe onto the parquet floors with no discernable rhythm. “Furthermore, if you can’t see it, does that mean it was never even real?”

“The boy thinks he’s clever, Albus,” Malfoy scoffed, disgusted. “This is a waste of time. Gellert is dead—let’s just collect Abraxas and transport Mr. Riddle and the mudblood to the dungeons at the manor. I still have the Macmillan squib on retainer, and he does meticulous work with a scalpel—”

I cleared my throat. Abraxas’ body felt huge and cumbersome behind me, a brightly burning asteroid in the middle of starless sky.

“I have the Wand, actually,” I announced with a half-hearted wave. “No scalpels required.”

Dumbledore’s expression remained unreadable.

“Miss Granger,” he said slowly. “May I inquire as to how…” There was a harsh clatter, like the sound of a gunshot, and he trailed off, craning his neck to peek into the hallway. “Ah. It would appear that we have more visitors.”

A frantic, wild-haired Theodore Nott flew through the open door, wand emitting a cloud of vivid violet smoke; startled, Edmond leapt backwards, falling bodily into Slughorn, and Avery sprinted in next, sweat beading in glistening droplets across his forehead.

“Don’t draw any more attention to yourself or the Wand,” Tom whispered in my ear, breath hot. He wrapped a lock of my hair around his hand, as if memorizing the texture. “I’m going to distract them all, and I need you to make sure the shield that you cast stays in place. Okay, sweetheart?”

“What are you—”

“Hermione! Are you alright?” Nott panted, leaning against the doorjamb and holding himself upright with a tarnished brass wall sconce. “Is everything—”

“And they say that chivalry is dead,” Malfoy drawled, lip curled.

Tom brushed a casual, proprietary finger over the ring of bruises on my neck and stepped aside, showing off Abraxas’ body.

“No, that’s just your son,” he retorted coolly.

I flinched, tears springing to my eyes, unbidden and uninvited and unwanted, truly—because I could see it, could see the precise moment that Malfoy understood what Tom had meant, could pinpoint the shift in his expression from smug to confused to horrified to devastated—and I would not look away, would not allow myself the luxury of pretending that I had not been the cause of this telling, tumultuous silence and the heavy sort of spark in the air that felt like a precursor to something as violent and vicious and unpredictable as a thunderstorm—

“Why—you foul little miscreant,” Malfoy hissed, raising his wand. “How dare you—”

“Mr. Malfoy,” Dumbledore said, face pale. “Perhaps we should not be so hasty as to jump to potentially erroneous conclusions—I would hate for one of us to make the wrong assumption and incur the penalty of yet another...untimely death. Miss Granger? If you would enlighten us as to the circumstances surrounding this, ah, incident?”

He stared at me expectantly, knowingly, and Malfoy snarled.

"My son is dead!" he roared, grey eyes trained on Abraxas' body. “My son is dead because of your ineptitude, Albus—if you had just given us the girl, if you had just kept her away from the Riddle whelp, like I told you to—but no, no, you had to go and appease Gellert and his crackpot theories about time travel so that you could get closer to that—that ridiculous bloody wand—”

“Draco,” Dumbledore interjected sternly. “You and I both know that Abraxas made a variety of very questionable choices in the past six months—choices that neither myself nor Gellert Grindelwald had any involvement with. You are appropriating blame where it does not lie, and I would urge you to keep your accusations to yourself until we have a better understanding of what, exactly, has occurred here tonight.”

Malfoy's jaw worked.

“He—I didn't—" I stumbled over the words, unable to articulate an explanation, or even a proper response—unable to do anything, really, in the face of Malfoy's wrath.

I reached out, blindly, for Tom's hand.

I squeezed.

I squeezed.

I squeezed until I no longer wanted to cry, until it pinched my skin and it hurt like a third-degree burn and it reminded me of why I had killed Abraxas in the first place.

Tom was real.

Tom was there.

And I didn’t feel any less sick with myself, with the situation, with the grief-saturated fury that was wrecking Malfoy’s composure—but it was a start. It was enough.

I opened my mouth—

Except Edmond stepped forward, then, eyelashes touching the rounded curve of his cheek as he studied the floor, collecting himself.

"I did it," he declared. I choked. Tom did not react. "He was going to—he was raving about Melania, and all of these plans that he had, and he was going to try and kill Hermione so that he could get the Elder Wand—"

"Bullshit," Avery suddenly said, his eyes compressed into red-rimmed, resentful slits.

Edmond was visibly baffled, and I remembered, with a jolt, that I had stolen his memories from earlier in the evening—he would not have known that he couldn't lie about this, that Avery and Nott would be able to tell that he was lying—

"Abraxas took a blood oath that he wouldn't harm Granger," Avery continued. Nott gripped Avery's wrist, tethering him to the doorway. "He was going to kill Riddle, and Grindelwald, and Granger was going to emerge unscathed, as fucking usual, because every last one of my fucking friends apparently has a fucking permanent hard-on for her, which—don't really see the appeal, myself, but I've always liked them a bit less skinny, haven't I, Lestrange?"

I furrowed my brow—Tom, though, Tom laughed.

"You're joking," he said. "Macmillan, Avery? Really?"

Avery sneered.

“It’s irrelevant now either way, yeah, Riddle? You made sure of that.”

Tom lifted my hand, brushing a wet, deliberate kiss across the back of my knuckles. I shivered.

“Extra sure,” he confirmed sweetly.

“Anyway,” Avery sniped, addressing Malfoy. “Lestrange didn’t kill Abraxas. Couldn’t’ve. I’m betting you had the right of it, Mr. Malfoy, and he’s covering for Riddle.”

“Oh, dear,” Slughorn mumbled from the corner.

“Tom? Is this correct?” Dumbledore asked gravely.

Malfoy lunged forward, brandishing his wand.

“Hasn’t denied it, has he, Albus? He murdered my son, my heir, like the sniveling coward he was a month ago—were you jealous of him, boy? Jealous of having a father who wasn’t a repulsive fucking muggle, a father who didn’t pack up and leave before you were even bloody born—he must’ve known what you’d turn into, you, you despicable—overreaching—ingrate—”

Tom snapped his fingers and Malfoy flew backwards, slamming into the wall with a ferocious explosion of crumbling white plaster and ashy grey dust.

“You should perhaps reconsider your position atop the moral high ground, Mr. Malfoy,” Tom seethed. “Or should we ask Hermione to perform a reenactment of whatever it was that transpired between the two of you in your drawing room?”

Malfoy hunched his shoulders, grimacing as he pressed his fingers to the back of his skull.

“Abraxas told me all about you, half-blood,” he shot back, attempting to stand up; there was a bloodstain where his head had hit the wall. “Told me how arrogant you were, how you thought yourself invincible because you could torture a few sewer rats without even lifting your wand—”

Tom’s nostrils flared, and his expression turned deadly.

“Oh, Mr. Malfoy—that sounds suspiciously like a request for a demonstration.”

Dumbledore was alarmed.

“Tom,” he said urgently, “I’ve already confiscated your wand. You cannot—”

“Oh, no,” Tom replied with a dangerous grin. “I can. I’ve no idea why the lot of you seem to be under the impression that I’m as easily neutered as a puppy—but my magic has missed me, Professor, and it will always do what I ask it to.”

And then he nodded towards Malfoy, not even bothering to cast a spell, to speak, to say the words to an incantation—

I recoiled as Malfoy began to scream.

“The thing is, Professor,” Tom went on nonchalantly, talking over the noise, “Mr. Malfoy had the audacity to try and harm someone very, very precious to me. Why should I allow that to go unpunished? Why shouldn’t I exact revenge?”

Malfoy writhed on the floor, agony apparent—his nose was bleeding, and I scratched ruthlessly at my left forearm as my scar began to itch.

Mudblood mudblood mudblood—

“Tom,” Dumbledore warned, moving tentatively towards Malfoy. “You need to stop this—”

Tom shook his head and flashed his teeth in a smile—with a flick of his index finger, Malfoy’s screams intensified.

“Do you know how they train hounds, Professor?” he asked loudly, tone benign. “Well, there are several different methods, to be fair, but I’ve done some reading on the subject—research, of course, for my various leadership positions at Hogwarts—and by far the most effective method in terms of efficiency and return on temporal investment is the judicious application of pain as a deterrent for undesirable behaviors. Shock collars, choke chains—it’s peculiarly easy to intimidate a hound. Isn’t that interesting?”

Across the room, Edmond was biting his lower lip, impassive, as he watched Malfoy struggle. Nott was fidgeting uncomfortably, arms crossed over his broad, muscular chest. Avery’s mouth was pinched, and he was leveling a murderous scowl in Tom’s direction while Slughorn stood stationary in front of the reflective glass panes of the window.

“You have made your point, Tom,” Dumbledore replied, quiet and unhappy and weary, it seemed, even as Malfoy screeched and shrieked and clawed at the ground with quaking, fractured fingers.

“I don’t think I have, actually,” Tom said, eyes darkening. “You see, Professor, Mr. Malfoy was also rather unabashedly cruel to me about a month ago, towards the beginning of my incarceration. And while I would relish the opportunity to take credit for Abraxas’ death, I was not the responsible party—and so a debt remains unpaid. It’s an eye for an eye, Professor, and Mr. Malfoy has made me blind with rage.”

Malfoy’s screams reached a fever-pitch, thin and reedy and excruciating, and as his limbs shuddered, bending against the hardwood floor at an unnatural angle, I felt my nails dig into the scar tissue on my arm—mudblood mudblood mudblood—and I could not breathe—I could not—I would not—and I recalled, forcefully, with clean crisp clarity and a sudden loss of oxygen—mudblood mudblood mudblood—

“Stop, stop, stop, please, stop,” I gasped.

Tom immediately lowered his hand.

Malfoy went still.

The quiet was deafening.

“His son is dead,” I said, voice soft.

Tom wrinkled his nose.

“He tried to kill you, sweetheart. Him and his son.”

Malfoy was unconscious; Slughorn dashed forward to prop him up against the wall.

“His son is dead,” I said again, emphatic, hand straying down the still-flat plane of my abdomen—

Tom’s confusion was palpable.

“Yes,” he replied slowly. “He is. You murdered him less than an hour ago, Hermione. I was there.”

I swallowed.

“I know,” I said, deflating. “I know that.”

And I did know, of course I knew—and I was guilty, was consumed and confined and spent, exhausted by the mess that I had made—because it was a mess, unfixable and unassailable, a stain and a tear and the final rusty nail in a dented, decaying coffin—

My timeline was gone.

I could feel it, feel the unwilling pull of my memories trudging along, trying to realign themselves, reorder and reorganize and reanimate—and I was angry at that, so incredibly angry, angry at Tom for needing me to save him and angry at Abraxas for forcing me to choose and angry at myself, at Dumbledore, at Grindelwald and at Edmond and at the Elder Wand, at the way it fit into the curve of my fingers like a tailor-made glove, like it was meant to be there, meant for me.

It was not.

It was not meant for me, not meant for anyone—it was a magical parasite, a fairytale gone wrong, a beacon of invincibility, of impossibility, and I could not keep it.

“Oh, Hermione,” Dumbledore was murmuring to himself. “What have you done?”

I giggled somewhat hysterically.

“Would you have preferred that Abraxas Malfoy carry on with Gellert Grindelwald’s illustrious reign of muggle enslavement and terror? If I’d left him alive he probably could have expanded into Australia by this time next month.”

“That does not justify—”

“No. No, that’s where you’re wrong. I did what I had to, Professor. And I’m not quite done yet, either,” I added.

Dumbledore removed his half-moon spectacles, rubbing the lenses on the hem of his jacket to clean them.

“What is it that are you not done with, Miss Granger?” he asked tiredly.

“I’m destroying the Elder Wand,” I stated, matter-of-fact. “You, of all people, should understand why.”

He froze.

“I cannot allow you to do that,” he replied, nostrils flaring. “There must always be balance—”

“No,” I snapped. “No. There is no greater good, there is no balance between good and evil—too many people have already died because of this, and do you know how many more will if it’s still around? Do you? Hundreds. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. No one can be trusted with it, least of all you—least of all me, God—and it has to fucking go.”

Tom made an aborted movement towards me—Edmond and Nott each had a hold on Avery’s elbows, Nott’s other hand pressed into the center of Avery’s chest, keeping him back, keeping him away, from me, from Tom, from Dumbledore, Abraxas’ body lying between the four of us like a daunting, damning obstacle course—Malfoy was still unconscious, sitting up against the wall, Slughorn hovering in front of him and mopping up the blood that had trickled from his nose with a heavily embroidered silk handkerchief—

“Hermione,” Dumbledore said, gaze piercing. “You don’t know what you’re saying. I don’t want to hurt you, not over something like this, but I will .”

I smirked.

“You don’t—you don’t want to hurt me. That’s—well, Professor, that’s a noble sentiment, really, but it’s a bit late for it, don’t you think?”

He raised his wand, grip steady.

“There isn’t a way out of this, Hermione,” he said calmly. “You cannot shield yourself from a killing curse. You cannot run away. Your only option is to give me the—”

“That isn’t her only option, actually,” Tom interrupted, glaring at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore hesitated, considering.

“Ah,” he replied with an indecipherable nod. “Gellert’s time turner. Of course. Would you really be willing to jeopardize Miss Granger’s life like that, Tom? The life of your unborn child? Time traveling is viewed as a vastly unsafe endeavor for pregnant women, as I’m sure you are aware.”

Tom clucked his tongue, dismissive.

“Hearsay. No one’s done it before.”

Dumbledore’s jaw tightened.

“You realize, though, that if she leaves, you will be blamed for Abraxas Malfoy’s death. Draco will retaliate, and you will be sent to Azkaban,” he tried again.

Tom twisted the chain of the time turner around his fingertip, looking thoughtful.

“How long, do you think, would it take me to get the Dementors on my side, Professor? One week? Two? Three, at most, probably—as content as they are in Azkaban, I don’t imagine that there’s a whole lot of happiness to feed off of in a place like that—and I’m told that I can be very…persuasive. Plus, if they joined me, I could give them Hogwarts. I could give them you.”

Dumbledore licked his lips.

“Tom,” he said, plaintive. “Tom. I have known you since you were a boy, Tom, a child with untold potential and near-limitless talent—and you have always understood that magic is special, haven’t you? That you are special. And this, this is the Elder Wand, the very pinnacle of magical ingenuity, and it, too, is special. It needs to be protected. It needs to be cherished. And you would risk that? You would risk throwing it away, destroying it—and for what, Tom? The whims of a girl you never should have even met? A girl you cannot feasibly come close to having a meaningful future with?”

Tom gritted his teeth with an audible screech of enamel on bone.

“Tom,” I said, helpless, imploring.

But Tom was clutching the time turner, frustrated and furious, and I could hear, dimly, in the background, Edmond and Nott and Avery all arguing, and Slughorn babbling—and Dumbledore was turning towards me again, appraising me with regret and with sadness and with a fearsome air of finality, iron-strong and implacably, impressively unbreakable—

Tom spoke.

“You underestimate, Professor, exactly how much I am willing to risk for her,” he ground out.

And the next moment stretched and stretched and stretched, endless and ending, and I knew, I fucking knew, that there would never be another like it, that I could live a thousand lifetimes, could travel all the way through and across and around a timeline made up of nothing but magic and infinity and I would still never find it, never find him—not like this, not with his choices laid out before him like a map, dog-eared and ancient, and only a spinning, superfluous compass to point the way—

His dark eyes flickered and sparked like lightning through the sheen of my shield charm.

“This isn’t over,” he vowed, throwing me the time turner.

I caught it, stunned into inaction.

“You—” I began shakily.

“Granger! Get out!” Nott shouted from the doorway.

I continued to stare at Tom. Why had he given up? Why was he letting me go? I did not understand, and nothing felt real, least of all time, least of all Dumbledore aiming his wand at my heart—

“I am sorry, Miss Granger,” Dumbledore was saying.

“Oh, fuck this,” Edmond swore, and there was a scuffle, a maelstrom of flashing red and blue light as he wrestled with Avery for his wand—

“Do you—this isn’t over, Hermione,” Tom repeated, and it sounded like a threat and it sounded like a promise and I didn’t care to differentiate between the two, not with him, not when I had never had to—

“Everything I’ve done for you—tonight—I would do it again,” I said to Tom, vision hazy.

“Albus, you can’t—” Slughorn bleated.

“Go! Hermione, go now! Fucking—you cunt, stop—stop biting me, Christ—” Edmond yelped, jabbing his knee into Avery’s groin as Nott pushed a meaty forearm up against Avery’s throat.

“You are mine,” Tom whispered fiercely, as if sharing a secret. He jerked his chin at the time turner. “It doesn’t matter what year it is, it doesn’t matter where you are, when you are—I will find you, I will follow you, I will find you, Hermione, it does not matter—”

I spun the dial on the time turner with a single vicious flick of my wrist—it would not be accurate, I had not done the calculations, I did not know where I would end up—but it would be enough. I would get away.

“Avada—” Dumbledore started to say.

The Elder Wand snapped into two neat pieces with a perfunctory, anticlimactic crack of fine-grained wood and jagged, ragged splinters.

“You are just as much mine as I am yours,” I reminded Tom with a small, private smile.

And then the world shifted on its axis, tumbling like a pebble in the midst of an avalanche, and I was caught up in a forbidding whirl of stuttering lights and desperate voices and I lost my balance, felt myself tip over, fall to the side, hurtling towards the ground—

Gravity broke.

“Hermione!” I heard Tom yell in a dizzying, pounding, reverberating echo. “This isn’t over. It will never be over.”

I shut my eyes.

###

Chapter 29

 

---

 

April 13, 1945

It has been a little over three months since I last saw her.

France is still dreadful.

Grindelwald’s chateau is a labyrinthine monstrosity full of hidden doors and secret passageways, trick walls and dusty dead ends—the staircases move, much like at Hogwarts, and there is a menagerie of rare magical creatures stabled in what must have once been the orangery. The house elves are polite, well-fed and well-preserved, and have latched on to me with alarming alacrity; they make me think of Hermione. Everything makes me think of Hermione.

I cannot—

I have taken an east-facing bedroom; the light is extraordinary in the morning, filtered as it is through sheer, sky-blue curtains, and it gets cool in the afternoon, cool enough to warrant lighting a fire, certainly—the fireplace is enormous, stacked slabs of snow-white Grecian marble veined with black and gray and silver—and I have thought, more than once, of the common room fire in Slytherin, the way it crackled and spit and hissed in the background the first time Hermione ever let me touch her, let me taste her—

I cannot—

The gardens here are mysteriously overrun. The elves refuse to touch them, which is uncharacteristically strange—it implies that Grindelwald was likely growing something dangerous. I have not gone exploring, however, have been utterly unable to take a step past the wild, unkempt field of roses—there are a variety of bushes, big and small and a multitude of different colors, deep reds and butter yellows, a blue-violet that’s dark enough to seem black—white, too, gorgeous velvet petals making a mockery of how very much they remind me of her, of what she wanted, but I—

I cannot.

Lestrange finally got around to sending me a copy of our marriage license—forged, of course, because she is not here, she is not here, it is immaterial how many doses of Polyjuice contain strands of her hair because she is not here—and it’s served as a proper enough excuse for our disappearance, I suppose. It is…harrowing, though.

Hermione Riddle.

I have been staring at that signature for far longer than I care to admit. I never planned to use my birth name after I left school, never wanted ‘Riddle’ to amount to anything more than a cursory fucking footnote for the first eighteen years of my life; it is a muggle name, plain and common and ordinary, not magical, not right, and it is an uncomfortable reminder of my father, of what he was and what he did and how he eventually died—remorseless, terrified, eternally unconvinced of his own wrongdoing.

And it is—

It is a bit difficult to acknowledge that I have always wanted to say that I felt nothing for him. To say that I felt nothing when I killed him. I am indifferent to so much else—what is one more object, one more person, one more Unforgivable sin, really?

But that night, on New Year’s Eve, in Wales—

The way Hermione’s hand kept drifting towards her abdomen—below her navel but above her pelvis—

It gave me pause.

It fucking unsettled me.

After all, my own father would have been unquestionably apathetic had he ; other than an uncanny physical resemblance, we shared nothing. Fucking nothing. Nothing beyond blood and broad shoulders and still I wonder, cannot help but recall—there was a flicker, in the very back of my brain, young and naïve and desperate, that hoped he would say that he was sorry, that he had not known, that he had been taken advantage of by my mother but I was not her, I was not her, I was his and he was mine and he would never have fucking left if he had just—fucking—known—

He had known.

He had known, and he fucking died for it.

He deserved worse, actually, and I wish that I—

Draco Malfoy’s reaction to Abraxas’ death was jarring.

The expression on his face after he realized what had happened—he fucking erupted with rage, with pain, as if there was not enough empty space within his body to contain it all—and prior to Hermione, I would have found the entire display distasteful, incomprehensible, a gross misappropriation of emotions too forced, too foreign, to bother with.

But instead—it made me angry.

That sort of attachment is a weakness, a fucking liability, and much like I never imagined myself assigning any nostalgic sort of permanence to the name Tom Riddle—I was Voldemort, was always supposed to be Voldemort—neither did I ever imagine that I would succumb to this peculiarity, this atrocity, this—this vulnerability.

Because she is my blind spot, my open wound, the most fatal of all my flaws and faults and failures—and I would follow her anywhere, would rearrange my insides and reorder my life and reexamine, reprioritize, revise and review and resist—she killed for me, ripped what she thought she knew of herself to shreds, bite-sized and bitter, and it was beautiful and it was mad and it was fucking frightening, too, chaotic and illuminating, both, because it told me all I needed to know about who she was willing to become should I simply ask it of her.

No—no—no, I did not even have to ask, did I, not when Malfoy was offering himself up as a sacrifice, a moral ransom and an ultimatum and excuse to diverge so exquisitely from the path she had set for herself—

I digress.

Grindelwald’s office is astonishingly disorganized. His notes, when legible, are scattered, at best, and I am reserving judgment on whether this is the mark of a man with a brilliant mind, or just a psychopath with poor discipline. Regardless, I have been massively unsuccessful in my attempts to recreate the capabilities of his time turner. Bending time—manipulating magic to the degree that he did—it should not have been possible, should not have worked, and yet—it did. I have seen it.

So far, I have managed to go four hours forward, which is twice the established Ministry record, but any more than that...it is precarious. The edges of my vision go soft and begin to quiver, as if preparing to collapse, and I am always quick to turn the dial back, to return as close to my starting point as I can feasibly calculate.

I thought, for most of February, that because Grindelwald had used the Elder Wand to inscribe the runes, to seal the incantation, I would be unable to duplicate his results. I have the pieces of the Wand, obviously, snatched them away from Dumbledore right before I left Wales—but the Wand is…not what it once was. It is blank and cold and stiff and there is no spark, no frisson of recognition, of surrender. It is disappointing. One day, perhaps, it can be mended, somehow—

Yes.

One day.

I will make sure of it.

The time turner, though—

This whole situation has felt so hopeless.

It has felt so endless.

It has felt like a fucking struggle, one that I haven't had the strength to master, subdue, defeat—

Until today.

When I first arrived here, I presumed that Grindelwald had not significantly altered any of the original time turner parts. I was also stupidly, unnecessarily cognizant of the sanctity of the Ministry’s power, and was therefore operating under the erroneous assumption that the Department of Mysteries had made their time turners with the most magically potent resources at their disposal.

They had not, as I have discovered.

The sand in the hourglass is rare and valuable, mined in an Unplottable Czechoslovakian quarry and so remarkably expensive that I doubt even the Malfoys could get their hands on a pocketful. Acquiring more is not an option.

Increasing its efficacy, however, is.

The mechanics are irrelevant—all I need to do is replace the outer shell, exchange gold for iron and Anglo-Saxon runes for their exponentially more powerful Phoenician counterparts—and the limitations on how far forward or backward I can go—they won’t be gone, of course, as infinity is a worrisome, entirely theoretical concept that has no basis in demonstrable fact—but they will be expanded, lengthened enough that a jump of fifty years either direction should not be…dangerous.

Except—

No.

No, it is dangerous. It was always going to be dangerous—she was always going to be dangerous, I sensed that from the very beginning, and I have to ask myself—if she will be the same. If we will be the same in another place and another time, with another version of the future, a future that she never knew and couldn’t have expected—will she know me? Will she remember? Will she still be pregnant, still be mine?

It does not matter.

I have never much cared for Divination, never had any inclination to seek out prophets and prophecies—but magic is real, and she is my destiny, and I was made for her and she was made for me and I fancy that out of all the tea leaves and all the stars there isn’t a single one that would tell me otherwise—

There is nothing left for me here.

That sounds fucking maudlin, but it’s depressingly true. I allowed Lestrange to take the credit for Grindelwald’s death in exchange for his refusal to cooperate with Dumbledore—that daft old man wanted me thrown in Azkaban for Malfoy’s death, hilariously enough, which—he can call himself ‘neutral’ all he likes, but he should be aware that I was not the only fucking villain in that room. Far from it, in fact.

And my Knights—Avery, Nott, all the rest—they are replaceable. Forgettable. They have not done me any favors, not really, and their loyalty has been irreversibly compromised by everything that went on with Abraxas; I would be a fool to trust them again, and with the destruction of the Elder Wand…I have no legitimate interest in enslaving muggle-borns—it makes sense to cut my losses, to start fresh in the future.

As for Hermione—

I cannot—

I have a time turner that works, I have my notes and my research and a destination in mind—I can survive anywhere, carve out a life and a following and a purpose, and she will be there.

She has to be there.

She will be there because she would kill for me and I would die for her and I have felt nothing but incomplete since she left—off-balance, almost, like a broken set of scales.

It needs to end.

This interlude—this separation—it is over, it must be over, I will decree it and demand it and I will fucking make it so—

I shall leave tonight.

--TMR

###

Chapter 30

July 21, 1997

(2:55 pm)

“You’re not lying? It isn’t Castor’s? The two of you are so bloody cozy together, and you know he was rabid for you most of fifth year—”

I threw my head back and laughed as I took a carafe of raspberry lemonade out of my parents’ refrigerator.

“It isn’t Castor’s,” I said, rolling my eyes. “As if you wouldn’t know if he and I were—God, that’s practically incestuous, I can’t even say it out loud.”

Pollux snorted.

“You know you aren’t actually related to us, though,” he said. “Despite what my grandfather likes to think.”

I blushed; the Lestrange twins’ grandfather had always been unaccountably fond of me.

“It isn’t Castor’s,” I said again, emphatic. “It’s—you don’t know him.”

I don’t either , I didn’t say.

He sipped his lemonade, expression thoughtful.

“Is he a muggle?”

My lips twisted into a sour smile.

“No,” I answered, immediately picturing gleaming white teeth and long, nimble fingers wrapped around a sleek black wand. I shivered. The context for such an image wasn’t there, not really, but—“He’s not a muggle. He’s—older. I doubt I’ll see him again.”

He scowled.

“Hermione,” he said, voice suddenly dangerous, “if someone hurt you—”

“No!” I was swift to interrupt, holding my hands up. “No, it wasn’t like that, please don’t think—no one needs a repeat of the Ronald Weasley incident, alright? Everything with…the father—it was consensual. It was…”

He quirked a fine black brow.

“It was?” he prompted.

I placed my elbows on the kitchen island, bracing my weight against my forearms as I leaned forward, sighing pensively. I could almost, barely, not quite remember—

“It was…”

“Bloody fucking hell—Pol, ‘Mione, you’ll never fucking guess what just happened at the Ministry!” Castor shouted, bursting into the kitchen. His seersucker shorts were hanging low on his hips, and his pale pink polo was tight around his abdomen, dark with sweat at the small of his back. His chest was heaving; his brown eyes were bright.

“What were you doing at the Ministry?” I asked, unimpressed. “You’re thirty minutes late, you know, my appointment is in less than an hour—”

“A bloke fell out of the fucking sky!” he cried, triumphant. “Literally, though, just—you can’t Apparate in and out of the Ministry, everyone knows that, but he just—appeared, and he was holding this kind of—weird-looking time turner, I guess? I don’t know, it had an hourglass—and he’s, just, you know, all dapper and handsome and unruffled and I’m not even exaggerating, Pol, if I swung for your team I would have been all over him—”

I stopped listening.

I stopped breathing.

—he was holding this kind of—weird-looking time turner—

—it had an hourglass—

—fell out of the fucking sky—

I collapsed onto the nearest barstool.

Excitement and dread were pooling in my stomach, syrup-thick and oddly sweet—because this was it, this was what I had been waiting for—this was why I had woken up the week before at seven-fifteen on the dot and sprinted into the bathroom with an uncontrollable surge of nausea and a silver time turner tied around my wrist and a scar on my arm, what, when, how, it wasn’t even fresh—

“Where is he?” I demanded.

Pollux cocked his head to the side—and then grinned in understanding.

“Christ. He’s older, eh?” he chuckled. “I swear, ‘Mione, the way you attract trouble—if I hadn’t been physically present for your Sorting, I would’ve guessed you were a bloody Gryffindor.”

Castor winced.

“That isn’t even remotely funny, Pol, I am embarrassed to be related to you right now,” he announced. “But what are you talking about? What did I miss? Besides the lemonade, obviously, because, ‘Mione, you know you’ll always be our best girl, but your mother’s lemonade could literally end wars—”

“Let’s go back to the bloke who—fell out of the sky? Is that what you said, Cas?” Pollux interjected, glancing at me with bemusement.

“Yeah, yeah,” Castor replied, nodding vigorously. “It was weird, which—that’s a relative term, yeah, especially when you consider the comparative levels of attractiveness between Snape and his blonde fucking minx of a wife—quick tangent, though, do you think she has some kind of headmaster fetish? Is that a thing? I’d quite like to know now that I’m a teacher, all official-like—”

“Narcissa Black does not have a headmaster fetish, oh, my God,” Pollux said, slapping his palms against the counter. “And Snape’s not all that bad-looking—he’s got a dynamite voice, all deep and growly, and that’s not even mentioning his hands—”

“Anyway!” I exclaimed, pointedly clearing my throat. My lips were dry. My hands were shaking. I felt impatient, disconcerted, and I knew where this was going, knew that I might have answers, soon, soon—

“What? Oh, right. Time travel bloke. I don’t really know much else. He asked to speak with the Minister—said he had pertinent information regarding the Department of Mysteries, it all seemed very grim—and then he was gone. What a conundrum, yeah? I mean—Hermione? Are you alright? Wait—who’s at the door? I thought we were going to the muggle doctor to get your unmentionables inspected—”

Pollux pounded his fist against his sternum and hacked out a cough.

“Christ on a fucking stick, Cas, what are you—”

“I—I’ll get the door. My parents are at work,” I said, standing up on visibly quivering limbs.

“Hermione,” Pollux started to say, concern evident.

“I’m fine,” I told him, exhaling. “I’m—it’s going to be fine.”

I toyed with the wrinkled crease in my sherbet-colored linen skirt and walked out of the kitchen.

“—wouldn’t she be fine, though?” I heard Castor mutter to Pollux.

My jaw clenched, ostensibly of its own accord, as I stood in my parents’ entrance hall, gaze trained on the small square of lacquered stained glass that sat in the center of the front door—I could just make out the shape of another person on the other side, a shadow, a shade, blurry and indistinct, and my scalp prickled with awareness as the doorbell chimed once more.

I straightened my spine.

I thought of the dim snatches of memories that I had left—lustrous black hair and flashing brown eyes and a crippling sense of unease that accompanied the realization that I was in the presence of a predator—

I grabbed the doorknob. It was warm beneath my hand.

I pushed down.

The lock clicked.

The latch opened.

A damp, mid-afternoon breeze filtered in and I catalogued broad shoulders and a lean, tall frame with pale skin and blood-red lips and a strong, square jaw—

“Hermione,” he said, and his voice cracked, and it sounded as if my name had been wrenched from some bleak, external part of him that had forgotten how to speak, truly, because it was scratchy and it was hoarse and it was desperate, too, like untreated wool and harsh, haunting radio static.

And so I stared, and I stared, and I stared—

Because I knew him.

I knew him, somehow, and there was a name, balanced right on the tip of my tongue, waiting for my brain to catch up and pull the trigger, for my synapses to fire and my nerves to respond—

“Tom Riddle,” I whispered. “You’re Tom.”

I had tried, more than once, to use the time turner I had found—to return to the past, presumably, to find this person who my gut was insisting was terribly important, to find him and then take him with me—but it had not worked. I had concluded that there was a formula to it, a specific number of turns, down to the most minute, most precise of fractions, and perhaps something about the sand, something about it being released from the hourglass—I briefly considered smashing it, felt a glimmer of recognition at the thought—and I might have figured it out, maybe, eventually, but even I if had gotten to him, the time turner would have been destroyed, and we would have had to stay where he was, when he was, and that was not—that was not acceptable.

Bad things happened to wizards who meddled with time, after all.

I had memories, though, memories that were faded and threadbare, hazy like the air before a summer storm—shrouded, smoky dreams intermixed with moments of disbelief and horror and inescapable pain, a villain with a bizarre name and a wild-haired woman with a knife—the details were inexact, but I had two best friends, two boys, and I could not remember their names, their birthdays, could only remember that I had, at one point, known both as well as I knew my own—and we were on the run from someone, from something, and I was sad, I was miserable, I was lost without them—

The dreams would then shift, turn darker, if that was even possible, but also take on a warmer, more comforting cadence—as if there was a happy ending in sight, if only I could get there intact, if only I could play the game with cunning and with fortitude and so that I could finally fucking win—if only I could save him, this treacherous boy that I had been searching for fruitlessly, with everything I had, because he would explain and he would fill in the gaps, provide the missing pieces, and he would keep me upright, stable, sane—

I had done research, of course.

I had gone straight to Diagon Alley and purchased every book that had ever been published on the subject of time travel.

I had learned about time turners, learned about how they were made, learned about the experiments that had been conducted, the generally accepted limit of two hours in either direction—I had learned about paradoxes, alternate realities, parallel universes and the butterfly effect—it had taken me less than twelve hours to determine that my dreams were not dreams, no, nothing so simple, so ordinary—they were flashbacks, reminders, and I was not who I thought I was, my life was not what I thought it was—I was a time traveler, and I had done something disastrous. I had meddled.

That had been six days ago.

Since then, I had felt itchy, unsafe and uncomfortable inside my own skin; I took a muggle pregnancy test, panicked, panicked, panicked, and cried to Castor and to Pollux and felt my heart freeze in my chest at the thought of having to lose them.

Because I was Hermione Granger, I was the brightest witch to set foot in Hogwarts in at least a century—I had been a prefect, I had been head girl, I had been the first fucking muggle-born to ever be Sorted into Slytherin—I was brilliant, I was brilliant and I was loyal and there was nothing I would not do to protect the people I loved most.

But even as I had the thought, I was bombarded with an onslaught of emotions that were not my own, could not be my own, but were, too, somehow, some way—I remembered virulent rage and stubborn defiance and helplessness, hatred and bitterness and fear, so much fear, and I had been afraid of this boy, this Tom, I had loathed and resented and—I had trusted him?

It took me several seconds to untangle the gossamer-thin web of memories—

A threat and a ring and a wand and a sweltering common room fire and his mouth against mine and his hands beneath my thighs and white roses on Mondays, Parseltongue and a messy pink scar—mudblood, mudblood, screaming, no, mudblood—and Polyjuice, a diary, a blond boy with a bruised nose and a dead girl with sallow skin—another ring—you are just as much mine as I am yours—a creaking bed and tightly knotted curtains and fuck, fuck, yes, fuck, gasping breaths and pristine skin and damp knickers scattered buttons swollen lips and I’m pregnant, Tom, I’m pregnant— this is bad, this is catastrophic—a wolf and a lamb and a serpent and more bruises, more of the blond boy, lies, lies, countless, endless, two more boys I did not know did not want to know and—mudblood, mudblood, who was Edmond, who was Edmond—I would fucking bleed for her—another man, well-dressed well-spoken and a time turner, another lie— fine, kill him, then—three bursts of vivid green light, a ring, a diary, a wand and a decrepit old house and a cornfield and three more men and two more corpses and what had I done what had I done what had I done—I will ruin him, he will be in pieces—all for a wand, all for a time turner, all for him, all for me, Tom, Tom, Tom—you are just as much mine as I am yours—

“Hermione?” he was saying, anxious and angry.

I blinked.

I refocused.

“Forgive me,” I replied, meeting his eyes with—with awe, and with trepidation, with confusion and fascination and—“This is all very startling.”

His nostrils flared.

“You don’t remember,” he observed, toneless and flat.

I hesitated, lips pursed—I studied him warily, took in the immaculately tailored suit, the skinny black tie, the highly-polished leather loafers—his expression was difficult to decipher, nearly impossible to read, and I deduced that he guarded his secrets with unparalleled skill, with rugged determination and a sly sort of cleverness, like a lockbox with a missing key—a problem that necessitated a complicated, creative solution; my very favorite kind.

I then considered what I knew about him, what I had been able to recall, feebly and fleetingly.

He had loved me.

He had protected me.

He was as ruthless as he was intelligent, and, for whatever reason, I had been unwilling to care for him, had fought against myself for weeks, for months, before I had deigned to admit that I would always put him first, always—

Our relationship, I decided, had been one of absolutes.

Imperatives.

There had not been room for anything else.

“I remember the important bits, I think,” I replied honestly.

The skin between his eyebrows puckered in a frown.

“Oh?” he asked, skeptical.

I smirked, stepping forward. I was curiously calm.

“Your name is Tom. I met you at Hogwarts, in the past. You kept me safe. You manipulated me. You got me pregnant. You made a horcrux, I think—a ring, possibly—and you can speak Parseltongue. You have bled for me, and I have killed for you, and—” I broke off.

He reached for me, hand suspended above my shoulder.

“And?”

He had loved me.

I had loved him.

It had been obsessive, possessive, unhealthy and unrestrained, raw in the best way—I was sure of that. I was sure that he had been worth the sacrifice, sure that we were going to be worth the chase—he had followed me through time, and I had followed him into hell, and my instincts were overriding the reedy ghost of a whisper that was ricocheting around the back of my skull and hissing that I had been frightened of him, I had not trusted him, I must have had a reason—

“You are just as much mine as I am yours,” I said quietly.

His eyes blistered, and then he was touching me, a fingertip skimming feather-soft down the slope of my neck, stopping to rest right at my pulse point, soaking in the roar of my blood and the heat of my skin.

I kissed him first.

His lips parted in surprise, and I wondered at that, just for a moment—but I couldn’t think—because he tasted familiar, he tasted like home, and I had done this before, I had felt the gentle press of his tongue and the awkward rub of his smile and there was so much that he could teach me, so much that I needed to re-learn, about him and about myself and the past, this other life that I had lived and left behind and—

“Hermione?” a new voice choked out.

Tom went perfectly still.

I pulled away.

He didn’t let go of my waist.

“—taking so long?” a second voice complained. “Thought we needed to—fucking hell, is that—time traveling bloke? Hermione? Why are you and time traveling bloke—oh, my God, your spawn is from a different dimension, how could you not have told us—”

I turned around, still nestled in Tom’s arms, and bit back a nervous giggle.

“Castor—Pollux—this is Tom Riddle,” I said, lips tingling. “He’s—”

“—here to stay,” Tom finished smoothly. He didn’t offer his hand.

Pollux narrowed his eyes.

“Right,” he replied, unflinching. “And where did you come from, exactly?”

“Pollux—”

“It’s fine, sweetheart,” Tom murmured. His body was firm and solid against my back. “I’m from 1945—Pollux? And Castor? Your last name doesn’t happen to be Lestrange, does it?”

Castor gaped.

Pollux’s fingers twitched towards the pocket where I knew he kept his wand.

“How’d you meet Hermione?” he asked. “She’s never mentioned you before—at all, actually. Not even once.”

Tom stiffened.

“I hardly have the energy to explain to you the intricacies of time travel and the effects that it may or may not have on the rendering of certain memories,” he said between gritted teeth. “Suffice it to say, however, that your entire existence is not a foregone conclusion. Funny, that.”

Pollux’s face flushed red with indignation.

Castor, meanwhile, was sneering.

“Look, you pompous fucking fuckwit bastard,” he seethed. “I don’t give a fuck if you fell out of the sky, okay—

Exasperated, I wrenched myself out of Tom’s grasp.

“I’ll be in my bedroom,” I announced scathingly, beginning to climb the stairs. “You’re welcome to retrieve me, Tom, as soon as the ritualistic, obligatory male posturing is all over and done with. We have things to discuss, don’t we?”

I heard Tom swear, and then there were footsteps, frantic and heavy, and the telltale scraping, slapping sounds of a tussle—

“Hermione! Wait—”

I continued up the stairs, humming loudly.

“—not fair, can’t just use your wand—”

“—fight like gentlemen—”

I reached the second-floor hallway.

“—seem awfully comfortable with stunners—”

“—buggering fucking hell that hurt—”

My bedroom door was the third from the left; green wooden letters had been tacked onto the front panel, my name spelled out in a neat, symmetrical arc.

“—wandless magic, Pol, maybe we shouldn’t—”

“—not the vase! Fuck!”

There was a violent crash.

I huffed.

“—both idiots, just like your bloody grandfather, swear to God, just—let me fix it, fuck, and don’t fucking pout, that isn’t going to even bruise, is it—”

I moved into my room and sat down on my bed.

I waited.

I glanced out my window.

I noted the rapidly darkening sky—storm clouds were rolling in.

I waited.

I reached into my bedside drawer for the mysterious silver time turner. It was unadorned, relatively plain, and inscribed with an unusual runic pattern; a mix of Norse and Italic, the runes themselves ancient, but the engraving seemingly brand-new.

“—fucking hurt her, we will gut you—”

“—legally exempt, yeah, she is fucking special and you are fucking nobody—”

I tuned out the conversation coming from downstairs. I fiddled with the cuffs of my gauzy, long-sleeved indigo blouse—I had taken to covering my arms for the past week, despite the muggy July weather. Pollux had probably noticed. He had not pried.

“—not so bad, I suppose, you know some bloody wicked Dark magic—”

“—teach us, yeah, ‘Mione’s always been weird about that stuff—”

“—got nice teeth, her parents will appreciate that—”

The voices faded.

The staircase creaked.

Tom appeared in my doorway.

“Is anyone injured?” I inquired, nonchalant.

He shifted his weight onto his heels.

“Not irrevocably.”

I sniffed.

“Want to tell me what that was about, then? Because Castor and Pollux are my best friends—they have been since we were eleven. That isn’t negotiable. They’re overprotective imbeciles a vast majority of the time, yes, but you can’t just attack them for caring about me.”

He crossed his arms over his chest reflexively.

“I don’t—share well. You used to know that. Before. It didn’t bother you.”

I flopped backwards onto my mattress.

“Our dynamic—our relationship—I remember some parts of it, I already told you,” I reminded him, irritated. “I remember loving you, obviously, and I remember loving you so much that I was consumed by it—but I don’t remember why. I don’t remember what you did or what you said that made me love you. And stop staring at my Pensieve—it was a graduation gift, and we’re not using it. I somehow doubt that your version of the events that transpired in 1945 would at all match up to the things that I do happen to remember. It’s called perspective. It’s subjective.”

He relaxed, slightly.

“If you feel that way, then why did you kiss me earlier?” he asked.

I rolled onto my side, propping my head up on my elbow.

“Because I’m pragmatic,” I said bluntly. “And I’m pregnant. And it’s yours. And—”

“And?”

I picked at the stitching on my pillowcase.

“There may be other…intangibles, as well,” I said. “Emotions—feelings—what have you.”

He shut the door behind him, lips curled up at the corners.

“You’re different, here,” he confessed. “But you’re the same, too. It’s strange.”

“This whole situation is strange,” I retorted.

He nodded, kicking at the plush ivory carpet.

“I’m assuming you were a Slytherin?” he asked, impassive. “Had to have been, if you’re—friends—with members of the Lestrange family.”

I tensed.

“The Lestrange family has never been anything but kind to me,” I snapped. “Their grandfather—he was Minister of Magic, for years and years—he even wrote me a recommendation so that I could become an Unspeakable. I’m supposed to start in the fall. Was I not a Slytherin—before?”

He appraised my open wardrobe, Slytherin green and silver ties looped tidily around their chestnut hangers.

“You were in my time,” he said, evasive. “But not in yours.”

“What was I, then? A Ravenclaw? The hat did have some reservations about not putting me there, but ultimately decided that I was wily enough to go to Slytherin.”

He snorted out a laugh.

“Wily? Your word choice, or—”

“The hat’s, actually,” I interrupted.

He regarded me with a vague sort of amusement.

“You were a Gryffindor,” he finally said. “Brave, and proud, and…indomitable. Stubborn. Clever. Very clever.”

“And I was scared of you.”

He bent over my window seat, hands spread out on the ledge.

“You weren’t—scared of me, per se,” he replied slowly. “You had been through a lot, in your old life. When you arrived in 1944, you weren’t particularly eager to trust anyone.”

“How did I come to trust you, then?”

His shoulder slumped down, curving his spine into something like a liquid, slanting question mark.

“I was persistent,” he shrugged, looking back at me.

I tapped my thumb against my lower lip; he traced the motion with his eyes, scorching and searing and sharp. I pressed my thighs together.

“And the time turners? I woke up with one around my wrist. It’s…not like the ones that the Ministry has—I was given one at school so that I could take more classes. I would know.”

He grinned at me, indulgent.

I chewed on the tip of my tongue.

“I had to alter mine so that I could travel here, but you got yours from Gellert Grindelwald,” he informed me casually. “He was the one who initially brought you to the past.”

I was less startled by that revelation than I thought that I should have been.

“Grindelwald,” I mused. “That’s—do we know why he did that? Was I important, in my other life?”

He straightened and walked around the end of my bed.

“Sort of,” he answered, sitting down. “You gave me your memories of—before. I could show you, if you’d like. It might help you understand.”

I watched, entranced, as he brushed his fingertips over my white lace eyelet duvet cover, the edge of the underside of his palm just barely grazing my ankle; the movement was graceful, fluid, calculated, and I felt it like the aftermath of a splintered limb, like an ache, bone-deep and permanent.

“Where are you staying?” I asked abruptly.

“The Minister’s residence,” he replied, unfazed. “He’s looking into my records—which are immaculate, of course—before deciding whether or not I’ll be best utilized as a publicity stunt or an employee. Which reminds me…”

“Yes?”

“There’s a marriage license,” he said innocently. “Filed at the Ministry. Hermione Granger married Tom Riddle in April of 1945—”

“You had a contingency plan,” I blurted out, astonished. “Oh, my—I can’t quite decide if I’m impressed by your forethought or just infuriated by your arrogance.”

I was mostly impressed. He didn’t need to know that.

He twisted around to crawl towards me, smirk steady and gaze intent—and the atmosphere suddenly felt stifling, air thick and humid and heavy, hard to breathe, hard to fathom—and I was conscious of the slowly rocking mattress, of how much larger his shoulders and his chest and his hands were, of how my body had responded instinctively, intuitively to the change in his position, knees falling open and heart rate skipping faster and stomach clenching and hollow and knickers wet and sticky and so fucking hot that they felt cold against the empty space between us—

“I don’t think you understand, sweetheart,” he drawled, voice low. “I don’t think you understand what I am to you—what you are to me.”

I tried to swallow.

“Then explain it to me,” I challenged in a near-whisper.

His features rippled with satisfaction, and I collected a short swell of old, fractured memories—shiny lips and white cotton knickers and his tongue and his mouth and a wave and a crash and a whirling crest of yes yes fuck more taste so fucking good yes yes yes more—

“You are more than just mine,” he said matter-of-factly, breath ghosting across my throat. “I would—I would let the rest of humanity fucking burn, sweetheart, watch all of them die gruesome, bloody, awful fucking deaths so long as I got to keep you. I need you to know that. I need you to understand that. I’m not capable of changing.”

I didn’t speak—couldn’t speak, not at first, not when he was hovering above me with such paralyzing confidence, like he had pounced and won and caught his prey with claws out and fangs extended—

“That isn’t romantic,” I told him. He plucked at the collar of my blouse, dragged it down, jostled the fabric—I shut my eyes, ignored the rampant hypersensitivity of my breasts, the pinpricks of pleasure so piercing and so insistent that the tightening of my nipples was almost painful, almost, almost—“That isn’t sane.”

His hand slid up the inside of my leg.

It was like silk.

“I have never claimed to be either,” he said, digging his fingernail into the sewn-in seam of my underwear.

And then he was finally nosing a path up my jawline, melding saliva-slick kisses with the salty sheen of sultry summer sweat that was pasted across my skin—and kissing him felt like sunlight streaming in from behind a cloud after a day full of rain and fog and misery—

I jerked my knee to the left, hard, directly into the soft part of his abdomen. He reared up, cursing, and I grabbed onto his shoulders, pushing him to the side and rolling us both over; he laid on his back, stunned, and I straddled his hips, pressing my forearm—my right, unmarred forearm—into his windpipe.

“I imagine that old me was quite susceptible to your seduction techniques,” I said, tone mild. “I survived an incredibly confusing adolescence with Castor Lestrange as a best friend, however—I’m rather immune.”

He gurgled.

“Now,” I continued briskly. “Why don’t we have a rational discussion about our respective expectations regarding this relationship? I’m on board with the star-crossed lovers story you’ve put in place at the Ministry—it’s clever, and it’s sweet, and it’s honestly quite believable considering our physical chemistry. But I get the feeling, Tom, that you’re a bit slippery—and while I would normally find that a commendable trait, it’s bothersome, at present.”

I was utterly unprepared for how beautiful he was when he smiled.

###

(4:30 pm)

He used seven of my mother’s mason jars to store the memories he had of my previous life.

I then sent him into the kitchen to wait.

The contents of the jars swirled in a writhing grey mist in the shallow stone basin of the Pensieve—like dry ice on Halloween.

I only hesitated for a moment before accepting the accompanying free-fall.

After that, it was an assault on my senses, a rapid sequence of flash-bang riotous explosions—there was a snake-faced monster with red eyes and razor teeth, a tent and a forest and a group of grimy men in shredded tartan trousers pointing their wands at me, at my friends—Harry Potter was there, with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead and gaunt cheeks, tired eyes, and Ron Weasley, too, his expression serious and frightened and desperate like nothing I had ever seen before—mudblood mudblood mudblood—and there was a mansion, stately and gorgeous, and a drawing room that triggered me for fight and for flight and fucking run, Hermione, run now—a pale blond boy stared at me from a corner, frozen like petrified wood, and there was a woman in a black damask corset dress, shrieking and shrill and I was on the floor, I was bleeding, I was crying out, no, no—mudblood mudblood—and my forearm throbbed and I steeled myself against the glint of a blade—

It was chaos.

It was vertigo.

It was a nightmare.

###

(5:10 pm)

Despite the clear promise of an incoming storm, we went to a nearby park. We were surrounded by a veil of birch trees that swayed hypnotically in the wind, and a rusty, decade-old swing set that groaned in protest when he dropped down into its vacant plastic seat and pulled me onto his lap.

The gravity of what he must have meant to me—once I had gotten to the past—after escaping that fucking travesty of a future—

I laced our fingers together.

“Do you know—did I tell you anything? About what I…that was a war, wasn’t it? I lived through a war?”

He hooked his chin over my shoulder.

“Yes,” he replied, scuffing his foot against the ground and propelling the swing gently forward. “But you only showed me what you did because I wouldn’t stop asking about the scar. On your arm. You still have it, don’t you? Hence—the long sleeves?”

I carded my free hand through the split-ends of my hair.

“I’ve never been called a—that word—in my life,” I admitted. “It’s foul and it’s degrading and no one—the blood purity thing died down in the sixties, when Castor and Pollux’s grandfather was elected Minister. And then I woke up last week and had this—this slur carved into my bloody forearm—I can remember pieces of what happened on my own, but nothing…concrete. Nothing that feels real.”

He drew me further into his arms, closer to his chest.

“Maybe that’s a blessing,” he suggested quietly.

A distant boom of thunder echoed through the park.

“Maybe,” I said, tilting my head back, resting it in the crook of his neck. “But, earlier you told me—you told me that I needed to understand what you would do for me. And I do. I understand that sort of devotion—that loyalty. I get it. I would—I am not unfamiliar with the concept of loving other people to the exclusion of everything—and everyone else. I understand that part.”

He squinted at me.

“And?”

“And—there’s something you need to understand,” I went on. “About me.”

“I’m listening.”

I yanked at a loose thread that was hanging from the hem of my skirt.

“I am not the same. The old me, the one that you knew before—I’m not her. I haven’t…I haven’t fought in a war, and I haven’t ever had to run for my life, and I haven’t been discriminated against. I wasn’t a Gryffindor. I’m not—”

“You’re better,” he interrupted, earnest and fierce. “You’re—God, before, in the past—you were fragile, sweetheart, fragile and—futile, I think.”

“Futile,” I repeated.

“Yes. There were—problems, and you didn’t understand the difference between what should have been done to fix them, and what needed to be done to eliminate them,” he clarified. “You were naïve, in that respect. You thought, right up until the very end, that you could reconcile one with the other. And when you couldn’t…”

He didn’t finish.

A vein of lightning punched through the sky.

The wind picked up.

The clouds shattered.

And the rain smelled like cherries and summer and freedom, as if I had been at a crossroads, as if I had made a choice, and I knew that I had been lost and that I had been found and that I had been almost willfully unafraid, all along, I had to have been—

He kissed the nape of my neck.

The nightmare was over.

###

Notes:

come join me in hell

Notes:

come join me in hell