Chapter Text
The skies over London rumbled ominously, and Hermione felt the first cool raindrop splash against her forehead. Pulling the collar of her jacket closer, she picked up her pace, weaving through the pedestrian traffic, not wishing to get caught in the promised downpour. The weather forecast called for storms all night long.
She probably could have done something about the rain if she truly had the inclination, but it had only been a few weeks since they had defeated Voldemort and his followers, and the land was healing. The dark and evil seemed to be washing away. Even the muggles could feel the change in the air, and everyone walked with more pep in their step. Ron was currently at the Ministry of Magic, working with his father and others in order to straighten out internal affairs and seek out any Death eaters that had escaped justice. Hermione would have liked to be there with him, but in the wake of the second Dementor invasion in as many years, the wizarding world's political and magical leaders had questions, and she and Harry were the ones best equipped to answer them. Since Harry's recent death made him, in their vaunted opinions, a reliable source, he was now, somewhat unbelievably, tapped as the foremost expert on horacrux phenomenons.
In the muggle world; the death eaters had done a huge number of unprecedented destruction. It wasn't just Hogwarts that had been destroyed in the war. Thousands of well placed Confundious charms and chalking it all up to terrorist attacks cured most of the issues, but the London skyline was still littered with cranes and the jagged thrusts of shattered buildings. Television reports had not done justice to the scale of the destruction.
They had hosted a conference at the Ministry, which was still in the process of being rebuilt. At least most of Diagon Alley was fully functional, whereas the rest of the city seemed held together with scaffolding and duct seemed like every time Harry and the ministry crossed paths, they all ended up being manipulated, managed, and outright lied to. At least this time she was fairly sure she had escaped their notice unscathed, though she couldn't say she liked the fact that she'd just spent the past two weeks of her life explaining horacrux anomalies and science/magic theory to Kingsley Shacklebolt. But it had been worth it to meet Nicolas Flamel, who everyone was surprised to find still alive. The idea that geniuses like these were listening to her, Hermione Granger, the former a simple muggle-born of the magical community, was beyond her wildest dreams. Her title of "brightest witch of her age" was being passed around the wizarding world like wild-fire. A petty little part of her wanted badly to send a howler to Draco explaining her success and shout "so there!" in his ear and hang up on him. But the Malfoys were...on an extended vacation. Meaning they had fled the country and were in hiding.
Today had been the last day of the conference; everyone claimed they were up to speed on the pertinent information surrounding the incident, and Hermione's part in it was now done; it was time for all the powers that be to decide what to 'do' about it. Hermione found this a rather pointless overreaction, since the threat was already past; she, Harry, Ron, along with Hogwart's professors and student body had already 'done' it all for them. But people like Dumbledore, Professor Snape, Professor Moody, and countless others who had sacrificed their lives had also done it. It was a team effort.
She had been at Hogwarts the week before the conference, helping the other students and teacher magically rebuild. It was a difficult endeavor, requiring true magical prowess to weave the wards and spells that the founders had created together. Luckily she caught onto it quickly and was able to give instruction to the others.
She breathed another sigh of relief that it was all over as she walked in the chilly humid air. It seemed like every time, this time being an exception, that she had entered into the Ministry of Magic she came out of it feeling violated from the horrible violence and pain. If she had had her way; she would not set foot in that building again for all the gold in Gringotts bank. They would probably offer her a job there though...
Her mind uncontrollably went back to the first time she had gone there with Dumbledore's Army to save Sirius. She would never forget it. She and Ron had run after Harry while the rest of the group continued battling the death eaters. Both she and Ron stopped short when they saw Voldemort terrorizing Harry.
Cringing inwardly, Hermione drew her collar even closer and picked up her pace. Ever since she'd arrived in London she'd been struggling not to think of him. Surrounded on all sides by the city he had destroyed, it was next to impossible.
And yet whenever she remembered Tom Riddle, it was her very first glimpse of him that sprang to mind first: his face bright with cynical amusement as his eyes seemed to have pierced her from across the room, towering over Harry who was unconscious on the floor; his smirk irreverent and so frustratingly self-assured that she instantly hated him...but also feared him. She'd had nightmares of him ever since that she never told anyone except Harry and Ginny. Nightmares that she didn't remember but that she'd wake up trembling from, his face being the only thing she remembered. Harry seemed to understand, but not like Ginny. No, Ginny understood what Hermione wasn't saying. What she refused to say and would take to her grave. They both found comfort in each other and Ginny became a much closer friend after that.
Hermione felt an uneasy pang and looked around herself at the burnt out shells of abandoned storefronts, the boarded-up windows, barricades surrounding dangerous craters in the streets. All the rubble had at last been cleared away, but it only served to show just how much of the city had been eaten up by Tom Riddle's selfish ambition. If Hermione could truly hate Tom, as she had at that first meeting, she should feel it right now. It would be so much simpler if she could. It frustrated her that she couldn't.
It all had changed once she, Harry, and Ron were captives at Malfoy's manor.
There were only bits and pieces that she could remember. It was hazy, obviously due to the intense torture she suffered there. But Voldemort wasn't merely some faceless monster to her now, as the news channels and survivor accounts painted him. There was nothing so straightforward about him anymore. He was now a complete and utter mystery to her. While at the manor Hermione had met him, spoke to him, learned that he was a dangerously intelligent and frighteningly unpredictable individual and yet...
Her experiences served to convince her that there had to have been more to him than an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur and no regard for human life. She didn't remember everything from her experience, but she would always remember that she had been in Voldemort's... protection? If that could adequately describe it.
Scenes from the recent past, many of them tinged with high adrenaline, flashed across her mind. Sharp blue eyes as he gazed at her from across the high-vaulted room of Malfoy Manor where she had been tortured. Strong arms bearing her up and hauling her away. The bruising pressure of unyielding fingers propelling her out of the blast radius of an implosion spell. And at the battle of Hogwarts...a graying form, shivering and molting away like ash in the wind as the most powerful wand on earth turned against him.
She remembered that she had been laying on the floor, drool coming out of her mouth and tears leaking from her eyes after being intensely tortured by Belatrix Black. Slight spasms swept through her body here and there as a result. She barely had even felt Belatrix's knife carving "Mudblood" into her soft arm flesh.
She had wished she could die instead of feel any more pain.
Her eyes had been gazing blankly towards the door, longing for death and freedom, when who should come in but the Dark Wizard himself? He walked in, about to say something to Belatrix but had stopped cold when he saw her lifelessly staring at him from the floor.
It was good that her head had been facing in that direction as she lay there listlessly, otherwise she may not have seen his expressions. He looked shocked. As if he had not been expecting to see a girl broken at his feet. Then he looked afraid. Imagine, Voldemort, looking afraid of her? Or...for her? Then his eyes turned red and he looked murderous.
She remembered a brilliant flash of green as he sent an unmentionable spell toward...Belatrix?! Why hadn't he sent it towards her?
Her memories came to her in halting images and feelings after that, everything seeming to be cut up and glued together in odd jolts. In fact she had no guarantee that it was even real. Part of her hoped it wasn't as that would make things a whole lot easier. The feeling of being picked up from off the floor...her arms swaying gently as she was carried out the doors that she had been gazing at longing...words being whispered into her hair to stop her trembling and easing the pain...feeling relief for not having to be tortured anymore...a strangely unusual feeling of feeling safe...Voldemort standing near a large fireplace, looking at her, telling her that he needed to explain...Dobby popping into existence as she sat on a sofa (a red sofa she remembers vividly)...a harsh yell from across the room, no doubt from Voldemort...and then apperating with Dobby to a sandy sunny beach where Harry and Ron were already waiting with the Goblin Griphook from the bank? Odd.
It had been… well, 'awe-inspiring' seemed a bit dramatic, but Hermione couldn't think of a better way to describe the feeling it had engendered. As she had sat there on the sand with Harry and Ron hugging her, trying to snap her out of her trauma induced shock she had wondered... had Tom Marvolo Riddle, the most feared wizard of her time, actually taken care of her? But why?
In the battle of Hogwarts she did her best to stay away from him. After all, it was Harry's destiny to defeat him, not hers. But she had found herself in the courtyard at one point, Ron by her side (like always), when she saw him dueling with 6 teachers all at the same time. It had occurred to her upon reflection, after watching him analyze, coordinate and execute each motion of each spell with dizzying timing and precision that his intellect was his greatest asset, ruthless though it was. He had proven that undeniably with his own death. The brutally efficient mind of a master strategist, still thinking and executing his plans even as he died; even knowing he had used his intelligence to cause so much pain in the past did not diminish her appreciation of his brilliance. After all, intelligence was also her greatest asset as well.
Hermione sighed and shook her head. No, he wasn't someone she could simply put in her 'bad guy' file and write off as 'better off dead'. Even though he WAS a bad guy. And he WAS better off dead.
Yet somehow, so far removed by time, distance and circumstance, she had let herself forget the magnitude of his crimes.
Now, standing in the midst of the decimated city that had been part of his chosen battlefield, she knew she really should despise him. Even if she couldn't hate him – and what would be the point of hating a dead man? –there was no way to forgive him either. The sheer scale of gratuitous, wanton devastation was beyond the scope of her ability to excuse. What about all of the countless dead who were caused by him? She thought again of him at Hogwarts, trying to kill her best friend with the Elder wand...and floating away lying on the ground… even as she walked the broken streets of London, she wondered if her inability to forgive him made her heartless.
Where was the line? Hermione knew it existed, but she kept chasing it around in circles, and could make no clear sense of its boundaries. The harder she thought, the more the crisp black and white of conventional morality kept running together into watery shades of gray. She should hate him...but she didnt. it wasnt in her nature to hate.
She shivered against the cold of the coming rain, and wished Ron was with her. She didn't like thinking about Tom Riddle, and it was completely unavoidable here. Things always seemed simpler when Ron was close by. His strong, decisive presence and hard-line, almost obstinate moral compass constantly drove away all doubts about herself and others. It was easier to see the world in black and white, perfect wrong and perfect right; perhaps not always accurate, and certainly a lot more goofy, but so much easier.
Sighing at the morose direction of her own thoughts, Hermione stopped impulsively at a street vendor's cart to buy a hot dog, glancing up and down the boulevard. Though the shops on this street were themselves largely empty, there were numerous pavilions, stands, stalls and tarps spread out on the sidewalk in front of the broken storefronts, and commerce continued even in the midst of destruction. Hermione contemplated a bit of window shopping. She still needed to find a souvenir for Luna, and she could stand to burn off a little extra mental energy with a pleasant distraction for once. She should be exhausted after a long day, but she had been sleeping extremely well ever since she arrived in London, probably courtesy of the high quality mattresses in the high quality hotel that Shacklebolt was paying for in exchange for her services. That, and she was finally sleeping alone for the first time since Ron had gone off with his father for a while. She loved falling asleep in Ron's arms, but she wasn't used to sharing a bed with anyone, and Ron took up rather a lot of it.
Another drop of rain splashed against her wrist as she passed her money to the vendor and took her hot dog, and she reluctantly thought better of it. Better to get back and enjoy her last night in her fancy hotel room.
Biting into her junk food, she turned to go, when a hand closed on her wrist.
"A curse!" croaked a heavily accented voice.
Hermione jumped and turned to find a little old lady beside her, her bony hand curled around Hermione's wrist like a knobby claw. Her rheumy eyes where enormous behind the thick, wide lenses of her glasses, and her white hair was pulled back in a loose bun. She wore a purple knit shawl around her bony shoulders, covering a floral patterned dress with an old-fashioned cut, and around her neck were hung so many necklaces and pendants that Hermione was amazed she could support her own head. The old lady had no wand though, and so Hermione's finger merely twitched as she debated whether she would needs hers or not.
"E-Excuse me?" Hermione stammered. She tried to pull out of the old woman's grip, but she was surprisingly strong for someone so small and frail-looking.
"You!" the old woman exclaimed. "The Darkness, they leave mark here!" She waved her other hand in the general direction of Hermione's forehead. "Powerful magic. No good! Very bad! You come, I give charm. For to protect."
She started to pull Hermione back the way she'd come, and Hermione noticed for the first time the nearby cart. It appeared to be pedaling occult wares, like one of those new age shops, loaded down with tarot cards, crystals, incense and various other obscure objects with obscure uses. Hermione felt a surge of irritation, and fought not to role her eyes. She'd actually been worried for a second, but apparently this was just another pushy Professor Trewlany, albeit a much OLDER version, accosting pedestrians out of desperation for business. Hermione didn't need teacups to tell her her own future, no thank you.
"Thanks, but I really need to be going… no, I don't really want… look, let go!" Hermione rotated her wrist; the old woman's long fingernails scraped at her skin as she twisted out of her grasp. "Come on! I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in buying anything today!" She then held her wand up to the woman's face in warning, but she either was a muggle and didn't know what her wand was or she didn't care because she continued to frantically wave her arms.
"No, no! You! A mark! A curse! Protection for you. Come, I show you. Come!"
"No, really, thanks, but I can protect myself…"
Hermione was about ready to zap her with a particularly nasty spell when the old woman suddenly peered up into her face, her eyes wide and haunted, "Dangerous!" She whispered. Something in her expression made Hermione's breath catch in her throat. "He is dangerous!"
"Grandmother? What are you doing?"
Hermione startled again, and turned to see a younger woman approaching; she was dressed in more modern clothing, but there was an eclectic air about her that matched the cart, and said it belonged to her, or she belonged to it, whichever.
The old crone turned to the woman and started speaking rapidly in a language Hermione didn't know. The woman spoke back quietly, then placed a hand on the old woman's shoulder and gently coaxed her in the direction of the bench next to the cart. She turned to Hermione with an apologetic smile.
"Forgive her, please," she said; her accent wasn't as thick, but it was there. Hermione wished she could place it. "These times have been hard on everyone, and my Grandmother believes it is her duty to help however she can, whether it is wanted or not."
"Um, it's fine," Hermione said, shaking her head and smiling reflexively. She pocketed her wand in her jacket, "No big deal."
She was about to turn to go, when the woman stopped her. Hermione noticed her eyes kept drawing up to her forehead, the same area that the old crone had been waving at as she ranted.
"Please, let me…" the woman paused, her eyes flicking again and again up towards Hermione's forehead; her kind smile faltered with a worried look. "Let me give you something as compensation for the trouble my Grandmother put you to."
"No, really, that's okay," Hermione assured her, wanting now more than ever to get back to her hotel room and shut out the chaos of the city.
"Please, I wouldn't feel right, otherwise." Turning to her cart, she opened up a series of small drawers in the side, sorting through them for something, then turned quickly back and held out her hand. "As a favor to me?"
Hermione opened her mouth, closed it, then sighed and tried to smile as she held out her hand to take the offering. Opening her palm, she found it to be a small metal pendant, surprisingly weighty, hung on a black cord. There was a symbol cut into the metal, and otherwise it was bare of embellishment and unremarkable.
"Uh, well, thanks," Hermione said, nonplussed, trying to edge away without seeming rude. She glanced down at the symbol and then paused. She frowned as she didn't recognize this symbol from any of her Runes books. "What is this symbol?"
"The rune is emhagalaz" the woman said. "Wear it for protection." She paused, pursing her lips, then looked Hermione hard in the eye. "Wear it when you sleep." Then she smiled kindly again and turned away to tend to her grandmother. Hermione was left to blink away her perplexity in the middle of the crowded sidewalk.
"O…kay…" she muttered under her breath. She shook her head, pocketed the pendant and beat a hasty retreat before the disturbing old woman could notice her again. She munched on her hot dog as she walked trying to let her eyes wander over the outdoor stalls rather than the destruction that surrounded them, and made an effort to forget the strange encounter. She couldn't quite put it out of her mind. Something about the way they had looked at her… It didn't sit right with her. The pit of her stomach was tied in knots by the time she made it back to the hotel, and she didn't think it was from the hot dog.
Without quite meaning to, she walked past the elevators and went straight to the hotel's computer center. There were a few business men occupying some of the cubicles, so Hermione moved to the computer in the farthest corner of the room; not wanting the muggles to see her looking up magical symbols.
She brought up the internet browser, opened the search engine and typed in the "emhagalaz". It was worth a shot, she reasoned. Muggles sometimes knew more about this sort of dinky magic, if it could even be called that. If it didn't work out, she could always ask Ron or Harry for their old Divination books. Pulling the pendant out of her pocket, she compared it to the image that appeared on the screen. So far so good. Unsure where to start – she clicked on the first link she found. Here she discovered that it was one of twenty four runic symbols of the Ancient Fae alphabet. Fae? Huh. She scrolled down to its entry.
Emhagalaz: Hail. (precipitation); Meanings: Loss, trials, destruction, change; Uses: Protection from unwanted influences; breaking destructive patterns;
Analysis: Emhagalaz represents hail, the ice that falls from the sky. It is often associated with terra fae issodon, the end of the world. However, the ending is considered metaphorical rather than literal. In divination, emhagalaz represents drastic, sometimes violent change, an ending that brings a new beginning; it drives away safety and complacency, forces us to examine our decisions. It may bring disappointment as well, and realization that our current path is not the one we are meant to follow. It's magical uses include helping one to break negative personal habits, and protection from dangerous external influences. It reveals hidden truths and clears away obscurities to show the real nature of things.
Hermione gave a huff of annoyance and chewed on her lip. She hated divination. It wasn't quantifiable. Yet she was unable to put her finger on why this was bothering her so much. It was a weird gift, sure, and she supposed she could see how it could be a pathetic attempt at protection, but as she read through the entries, some of the other runes appeared to have qualities more directly related to protection. Yet the woman had searched through her drawers for this rune in particular. Why? It felt… oddly specific.
Her eye caught on a few dark pixels at the bottom of the screen, and she realized there was another line of text under the 'emhagalaz' entry. She scrolled down. Her eyebrows shot up as she read:
Associated myths and deities: Fae magic, Dark Wizards, Horacrux
Hermione didn't believe in coincidences. In her experience, the universe wasn't that sloppy. AB blessedly equaled C. So her first instinct was to let her mind race, wondering how a strange crone and the woman on the street had known to hand her a symbol associated with Dark Wizards when doubts and questions about Lord Voldemort had been weighing so heavily on her mind.
Rationality quickly reasserted itself. Even though she was a witch, she didn't dabble in the occult side of magic. And she certainly didn't believe Tom Riddle was around, or that wearing a normal piece of metal around her neck would protect her from anything. It was all superstition; thinking about it logically, this was the city that Voldemort had leveled with his invasion force. Of course strange people who had no magic would want some kind protection against "terrorists", even if it was merely a false sense of metaphysical security. That made sense. That was all there was to it.
Relief swept through her to have an explanation for the unexplained; it was very nearly enough to subsume the lingering sense of unease that plagued her.
Nevertheless, later that evening, after a more substantial meal and a bit of light reading (Her book of choice this week was the Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements), her mind winding down towards the promise of that comfortable mattress and the eight hours of uncommonly blissful undisturbed sleep, her eyes fell on the rune pendant lying where she had tossed it carelessly on the dresser. As she pulled on her night gown, an irrational urge stole over her. She picked up the pendant, running her thumb over the mark thoughtfully. She rolled her eyes, put it down and walked away. Then she sighed, turned around and picked it up again. Quickly, before she could think too hard about how idiotic she was being, she pulled it over her head and swept her hair out from beneath the cord. It fell just below the hollow of her neck.
"Can't hurt," she muttered, embarrassed in spite of the fact that she had used necklaces with charms before. Why should this one be any different?
Avoiding the mirror, she switched off the light and climbed into bed. Her skin tingled, prickling with little chills as her muscles relaxed and unwound against the inviting surface; it was both enticing and oddly unnerving, leaving her strangely energized. For a long moment, she considered rising again, though she didn't know what for. The urge was curiously powerful. But the smooth, crisp slide of fresh sheets against her skin was soothing, and she practically melted into the softness of the mattress and pillows. The metal of the pendant was cool, tingling against her collar bone. She drifted swiftly to sleep as fat raindrops of the storm began to spatter hard against the window.
A crash of thunder startled Hermione awake.
Or something like awake.
Aware would be a better word. Her mind felt wide awake. But her body felt incredibly heavy, and her breathing remained slow and even. In fact… it was so dark in the room, and she was still so muddled from sleep that she couldn't actually tell right away, but… she was pretty sure her eyes were still closed.
Which meant it was extremely strange that she could see the undulating pattern of light on the ceiling, caused by rivulets of water swirling down the windowpane in the howling wind, reflecting and refracting the lights of the city far below. She watched it, fascinated, through her closed eyelids.
That's not right…
Maybe she wasn't quite as awake as she first thought.
All she knew for sure was that her heart was pounding. Racing. She felt like there was a weight pressing against her chest. After a moment, she realized that it must be the rune pendant. Had it always been this heavy?
She wanted to look down at it, but she found that she couldn't move. She tried to blink, to lift a hand in front of her face, to turn her head, but her muscles seemed frozen in stone. No matter what she did, her body refused to respond to her commands. A curse! A knee-jerk surge of panic jolted through her before she seized hold of it. Who had cursed her? She was alright, she was breathing, she was fine. Sleep paralysis, her intellect supplied. She had read about it once, years ago; an effect of interrupted REM sleep, causing temporary extreme muscle weakness that mimicked paralysis. The thunder had obviously woken her at an inopportune moment in her sleep cycle. It would pass eventually.
A very fearful voice inside her reminded her that wasn't quite how sleep paralysis worked. Or the fact that it did not even slightly explain how she was seeing with her eyes closed…This had to be a dream. Or a product of sleep paralysis. Or some trick of the storm. Her mind worked itself into a frenzy of possibilities designed to bring back that wash of relief she'd felt in the computer room earlier that day. They were all perfectly good, rational explanations. Except Hermione was a realist and couldn't lie to herself. The charm that she had put around her neck must have paralyzed her. But for how long? She wondered to herself. She cast a few wordless spells to try and counter the curse. Nope nothing. This was one very strong curse.
As she focused more on her surroundings, she became aware of something she had not noticed before. There was a faint purplish glow coming from somewhere just below her chin. From the icy weight of the pendant.
It's reflecting the lights from the windows…she thought to herself.
Except that neither the metal nor the lights were purple.
The light pulsed slightly, and she couldn't help but notice that it seemed to trail, like a ribbon of faint purple mist, off to her left into the shadows. She would have swallowed hard, if she could make herself do anything as complex and voluntary as swallowing. Instead, she only managed to make a little humming noise of disquiet and shift in her sleep. Her head turned slightly on her pillow, conveniently following the trail of purple light. It was so faint that she wasn't sure it was real.
She wanted badly to be able to shiver in fear. Because now she could see it.
There was someone standing in the shadows by the window.
Hermione's whole body crawled with an electrical surge of terror. Someone was in her room. She wanted to scream, to run, to grab her wand, to at least be able to squeeze her eyes closed in fear to shut out the sight. All she managed was to sigh again in her sleep and feel her fingers curl loosely against the sheets over her abdomen.
It's sleep paralysis! she shouted at herself, her mental voice sounding frantic. It's a common symptom of sleep paralysis to have frightening hallucinations. Like an intruder in the room! They used to call it sleep possession. People thought they saw demons! It's characteristic! Textbook! This is all just a kind of dream!
The trail of purplish non-light ended at the still form, barely more than a silhouette of deeper darkness against the shadows; she thought she could just see the outline of a pair of hands, stretched out in the light from the window, and the purple seemed to pool there, pulsing insubstantially.
An eternity seemed to pass, which in reality could have been anything from minutes to hours, but the intruder made no move. After a time, she began to wonder if it was less a case of sleep paralysis, and more a simple case of paranoia letting her imagination carry her away – as though, if she could get up and turn on the light, she would find that what she'd thought was a human figure was in reality just the curtains hanging strangely, or a piece of furniture that caught the light at an angle that made it look alive. But what was that ghostly purplish glow?
"It's ok, Hermione. It's all in your head," she reminded herself; but the words sounded small and frightened, seeming to echo inside her head.
A bolt of lightening shattered the night sky.
For barely an instant the room flickered bright as day. Hermione's eyes would have widened with disbelief if they weren't still closed. And then she would have screamed in terror. In the flash of light, she had seen the face and form of the man in the shadows.
It's not real…
It can't be…
But there was a dead man standing in her room.
Voldermort!
Chapter Text
'It's a dream!' Hermione thought desperately. 'I can see the room even though my eyes are still closed. That isn't physically possible. I'm dreaming.' The heavy, icy presence of the pendant seemed to sing against her skin. 'I have to be dreaming.'
Voldemort stepped silently into the comparative brightness of city lights glittering through the glass. The rain slammed against the window, uproariously loud beside the thick silence within the room. Slow, fluid movements made his steps completely quiet against the carpet as his shadow fell across her sleeping form. In spite of the darkness he cast across her, the closer he got, the more sharply she could see him, as though proximity made him more real. She wanted to squirm out of her skin and run away.
'Calm down!' she ordered herself harshly, fighting terror. 'It's just my imagination! Just a nightmare! My mind working through my doubts from earlier! Maybe if I just let it play out, I will wake up…'
Maybe if she kept repeating it, she would start to believe it. Logic told her that she must be correct, but logic wasn't watching a dead fascist maniac pacing ever closer through the shadows, and her fear did not respond well to it. The sight of him turning into ashes and floating away at the battle at Hogwarts flushed through her memory as he drew nearer and nearer. It's ok Hermione! You're dreaming!
'Could he be a ghost?' She wondered. 'He's not see-through...'
Whatever he was, Hermione could not take her eyes off of him. Literally, she had no choice but to watch, helpless, defenseless, as he closed in on her.
He seemed to be having the same problem with her, his piercing blue eyes locked on her with magnetic focus. He stopped directly beside her, so close enough to touch, and stared down at her, his face wary and unreadable. When he didn't immediately do anything further, Hermione began to wonder through the tempest of her shock and confusion what he could possibly be doing here. Even in her dreams, he could not be up to any good.
His eyes traced over her face and down to rest on her chest… no, on the hollow of her neck. Where the pendant lay.
His expression didn't change, exactly, but something in his eyes seemed to quietly break as he examined it, then to harden. She tried to hold her breath as he slowly lowered himself to crouch down beside the bed, but her air sighed in and out as deeply and evenly as ever. Her heart, however, lurched painfully in her chest, galloping as though it could carry her away from danger if it could beat fast enough. She didn't understand how she could be panicking this badly and still be so deeply asleep.
Especially when she saw his hand reaching for her.
'It's a dream! It's not real! Tom Riddle is dead! It's just a dream! It's just a dream! It's just… It's… don't… Don't touch me!'
He stopped. His hand was an inch from her skin, his fingers hovering over her throat. He slowly drew in a deep breath, his eyes narrowing defiantly. Then she felt his fingers brush along her collar bone. Charged with adrenaline as she was, she felt that delicate caress throughout her entire body, like she was water, and the tentative glide of his fingers had created ripples that spread out over every part of her.
Lightening split the night again. But this time, it was inside. There was a crackling, snapping noise, and a flash of purple lit the room. Tom Riddle drew his hand back with a hiss, curling his fingers reflexively into a fist. His eyes narrowed dangerously, a look of frustration so potent that it bordered on outrage darkening his pale features, and she heard him huff out an angry breath. Slowly, he lowered his hand to rest on the bed at her side, carefully not touching her.
"Oh, Hermione…" The sound of his voice, so close and real in the quiet, caused a visceral reaction, twisting her stomach in knots and sending little thrills of fear along her spine to skip between the beats of her heart. He knew her name? "What have you done?"
What the hell did that mean? She was wondering what kind of answer she would give, if only she could wake up, when she realized, with the weight and relief of an epiphany, that he didn't expect one. His voice held an introspective quality; his tone was thoughtful. He was talking to her, but in a way that one might speak to a person in a coma or in a grave - which is where he should be - you weren't really talking to them, you were talking to yourself.
'He doesn't know I'm awake…' she realized.
'I'm not awake,' she insisted to herself on the heels of that thought. 'Tom Riddle is dead, and this can only be a dream…'
His brow troubled and furrowed with frustration.
"Always so unpredictable, always changing the rules, always causing me trouble…" he sighed and a sad, reluctant smile curled one corner of his mouth. "Wonderful, Hermione. Perfect. I wouldn't have you any other way." Slowly, the smile faded. "But now what will I do?" he murmured, shaking his head, a dark, haunted, almost frightened light flickering in his eyes for an instant. "What will you make me do next?"
He fell quiet, and there he remained, his eyes fastened unwaveringly on her sleeping face, though they occasionally darted back and forth, as though he were thinking hard and only half seeing her. His jaw clenched intermittently, as though he were swinging between seething rage and quiet desperation. He did not try to touch her again. Hermione began losing all sense of time, wishing her head had turned far enough to put her in view of the clock on the nightstand, but this interval of stillness was comparatively short. Tom seemed to reach some kind of decision because his eyes slid closed and Hermione read something like bitter resignation in his features as his head bowed slightly as though under a great weight.
"There's so much I need to say to you… so much that has to remain unsaid… and so little chance you could ever understand. But since this is the last time I can visit you like this..." His eyes snapped open again and practically danced with a kind of dark amusement that made Hermione want to curl into a ball and hide under her covers. "Where should I begin?"
He reached for her again, this time to stroke a few strands of hair back from her face. Her skin tingled as more arcs of purple lightning lanced through her field of vision. Up from her body, she realized with a start, to strike at the oncoming digits. She watched him wince in pain as he jerked his hand back once more.
Something was keeping him from touching her.
Wear it for protection. Wear it when you sleep.
The pendant!
'That's insane…' even inside her head, it sounded like denial. 'So, is the pendant protecting me or paralyzing me?' She pondered. 'Or both?'
"The first time I saw you," Tom Riddle said quietly, interrupting her rationalization, "was the day I got on the train for Hogwarts my first year. You wouldn't know it, but I loved your unruly brown hair even though I made fun of it."
'What? On the train? Your first year? What?!'
"lt was as new for you as it was for me, but instead of becoming fast friends, we became rather competitive. That was mostly my fault, I'll admit. But thus began our long history together as adversaries, until we finally fell into our natural place as equals...as....friends." He seemed dissatisfied with the word, but continued. "We never truly hated each other and we were Hogwart's top students who were perfectionists. I gave you good reason to hate me though," Tom chuckled, his eyes crinkling in mirth as he remembered something funny from his past. Hermione stared at him. Was this the same man that she saw at the Hogwarts battle? Perhaps it's a Voldemort imposter?
"You were born to Daphnee and Samuel Fangledire. Both purebloods. I know because I had Christmas with your family in 5th year. I remember feeling so jealous. Why couldn't I have had a family like that, I wondered to myself." He sighed with an air of martyred disgust, shaking his head. "All the world to ponder from the seat of supreme power, and pathetic as it is, where did I turn my covetous gaze? And what should I discover, Hermione, but you?"
He cocked his head, his eyes softening.
"Have you any idea how fascinating you are, Hermione?" He hummed thoughtfully to himself, as though contemplating his own words. "Perhaps it is because we are two souls who are curious by nature, but most wizards, in general, are not very curious. Their magic makes them lazy, almost. And most muggles are not clever in the slightest," he snorted lightly. "Nor elves, nor giants. Yet you… you are both. You are the only person on earth…the only being I have ever met anywhere, if I am honest… with the curiosity and cleverness to rival my own. You captivated me. Even more rapidly than you ensnared your Weasely friend."
'What in the world is he talking about?' Hermione's mind reeled. He was mad. She didn't know quite what she'd been expecting, but this definitely wasn't it. He couldn't possibly be saying what she thought he was saying.
"It was almost insurmountably difficult for me," he went on conversationally, "to reconcile my growing regard for you. I am very independent and have never felt the need for anybody. Indeed, in the beginning, I believed that I was merely using you as a means to an end and simply pretended to be polite, hoping to manipulate you to my side. But the more I knew you, the more I grew to respect you. Such passion and courage, so fierce and ambitious, so unpredictable, yet so loyal. So driven, so determined to prove yourself, yet at the same time soft, sweet, vulnerable… the force of your will matched only by the scope of your imagination and the sweet spice of your nature, all hidden away in such a fragile, ephemeral form… I… I couldn't admit it then, could barely even understand or recognize it with so many other worries and sorrows clouding my mind from my life in the orphanage. Perhaps if I had been less heartsick, less vulnerable, perhaps… but such a creature as you…" He shook his head again, casting his eyes down. "No, there was no escaping your pull. To lay eyes on you was to be lost."
'Okay… maybe he is saying what I think he's saying…' Despite her continued fear and unease, Hermione wanted to blush and fidget. Fortunately or unfortunately, she was still asleep and watching him through her eyelids, so she couldn't. Never in her wildest dreams… 'No, only in my wildest dreams; this is just further proof that his is all happening in my head,' she insisted to herself. Lord Voldemort confessing his love has to be the final straw. None of this can possibly have any basis in reality.
The trouble was, it all felt very, very real.
His eyes flicked back up at her face, intent.
"It was the beginning of our 6th year in Hogwarts when you died, disappearing from my life as we had just barely begun to truly discover the nature of our bond." He whispered, voice full of pain as he blankly stared at some space above her. "It was Albus Dumbledore's fault." He seethed, "A Transfiguration project gone wrong. He created a portal of sorts in class." Tom shook his head and scoffed in wonder, "Yes, he created it out of a cauldron. Your cauldron, specifically. You were making a potion we had found in the restricted section and you tried it without consulting me." His eyes held an accusatory glare in them towards me now, "His spell, mixed with your potion, created a bridge of sorts, to another realm. It began to destroy the room and Dumbledore closed it...but not without you getting sucked in first. I called out to him that if he destroyed the bridge, we would never see you again. I truly believed that that, if nothing else, would give him pause, give me… I don't know, a moment, time enough to do something, to grab you...to stop him from destroying all of my carefully laid plans..." he shook his head, his face and voice expressive and his eyes distant as he lost himself in his tale. "But he ignored my words. I was astonished and disgusted. He willingly sacrificed you to save a classroom of idiots. You, Hermione… a woman such as you would grant him your loyalty, and he traded it away for a hand-full of muggles."
His lip curled as he spat the words, as though they offended him. Hermione felt incredulous. What a story! 'Making a restricted potion certainly sounds like something I would do... No. This is all so ludicrous. It's just a dream.' But part of her was reeling.
She felt a little twist of… something… behind her breast bone. Something like… vindication? She winced internally. She never would have wanted Dumbledore to trade innocent lives for her. And from the sound of it, it was partly her fault. But it didn't change the fact that a small, selfish part of her felt hurt by the idea, almost betrayed that the Dumbledore she knew and loved would've allowed something so horrible to happen to her. And to have those feelings defended by Riddle, twisted and unacceptable as they were… 'Am I really that pathetic?' She wondered again if she really was heartless. It was obviously her fault if Tom had paid attention to his own story. She shouldn't have been making a potion from a book from the restricted section. Consequences.
'Stop it!' Hermione growled to herself 'This isn't real! You didn't do any of those things! You didn't die, idiot.'
"He always was a fool," Tom went on, cutting short her self-recrimination, "But that day his rashness educated me. For in that moment, watching him cast you aside without a moment's hesitation, I finally admitted to myself…" he leaned closer, his voice dropping to a low pitched whisper that seemed to slither along every nerve in her body, "…That she was mine, and there is nothing I would not sacrifice for her. Nothing I would not endure. Nothing I would not destroy. For her, I would watch worlds burn."
Hermione's stomach twisted with foreboding. A peal of thunder rattled the windows.
Tom Riddle leaned back, his eyes seeming to smolder in the darkness before he blinked and appeared to mentally shake himself, the intensity of a moment before falling jarringly aside as he glanced away from her to examine the landscape painting that hung on the wall across the bed.
"But you were well hidden…gone to another realm," he sighed, nodding his head slowly as though he were reliving and reaffirming a past decision that he regretted but could not have avoided, "And so I began to study the darkest of magic, and summoned Death to me in order to bargain for your life. He said he would restore you to this realm for a price."
"And so, in order to reach through the veil between worlds… to reach you…" silence hung in the air between them like the Sword of Damocles, before he severed its thread with a note of finality, "…I sold myself. Body, mind and soul to the being known as Death who had me sever myself into seven different pieces." He smirked out at the stormy night. "He too was a severed creature. And he promised me all my heart's desire if I returned the Deathly Hallows he had given to the Peverell Brothers to make him whole again. But first I had to make seven horcruxes." His voice was somber, quiet, and a little bit...pained?
He paused, and his eyes drifted back down to hers, tracing her features intently, familiarly, as though he'd done so countless times before. Had he? Hermione's foreboding deepened. 'He said this was the last time he would visit me…' How many times before had he stood over her like this, while she was unaware of it?
He continued, his tone so matter-of-fact and casually bored that he might have been commenting on the weather rather than airing all of the deepest secrets of his soul. "And so I killed Myrtle Warren and created the diary you had given me as my first Horcrux."
Hermione's mouth would have dropped open in shock if she had control of it. 'I gave him the diary?! But...But it's just a dream…' she comforted herself unconvincingly '…isn't it?'
"I had created all seven of my Horcruxes but you still had not appeared. The prophecy about Harry Potter defeating me came, and I imagined that it had something to do with why you had not come back to life. So, I went to kill the child and then fell from power," he continued, his tone so matter-of-fact and casually bored that he might have been commenting on the weather rather than airing all of the deepest secrets of his soul. "The boy, Harry, destroyed me. Or rather, his mother's blood sacrifice had. A detail I unfortunately overlooked. And so, my spirit fell into the void."
"When I dropped into the abyss, I landed in an unfamiliar place far outside the realms of this world and was deeply grateful that the vortex had not claimed me. The horcruxes ensured that I would not die. And yet," an edge of bitterness crept into his words, "I had nothing left. No home, no name. I was utterly alone in ways I had never prepared myself to face. I wandered the dark places between the stars, bereft of all hope." He shivered in a way Hermione envied. "The universe is… unkind, Hermione. It finds creative ways to make you suffer. The lower you sink, the uglier and more brutal it becomes. I never want you to learn that for yourself, so trust me when I tell you: even when you believe you have experienced the deepest depravities imaginable, you can still discover new ways to feel pain."
He swallowed hard and looked away again, as though suddenly unable to meet her non-gaze, his eyes wide and fixed, full of some horrific memory. He was quiet for what felt like a very long time before they refocused on her with a haunted look still clouding them. But they grew less glassy and frightened the longer he looked down at her.
"In my darkest hours…" he said, his voice slightly hoarse, "I… thought of you." The beginnings of a smile that Hermione might almost call gentle softened his features. "The one person that I had ever cared about; that I had ever called 'friend'. I recalled your sharp eyes and your shining spirit, your keen intellect, the sassy snap of your voice, the bright song of your laughter... You were my last memory of light and goodness in a world made of shadows and agony." He closed his eyes, momentarily overcome by some bittersweet emotion. "It was you, Hermione. I need you to know that."
His eyes fluttered open again, and though hers were still closed, he was looking right at her, as though he could see through her eyelids to stare into her eyes, and from there, right down into her soul. Even if she had command of her body, the raw intensity of his gaze would have pinned her inescapably in place.
"While all else in the universe conspired to nurture my wrath and secure my vengeance," he pressed on, his voice dropping to an impassioned murmur, "you became the shape and figure of all my hope. You were the lamp that led me safe and straight across the treacherous darkness to my destiny. And the rain… you were the rain that washed me clean each time I dirtied my hands in order to survive." He shook his head and glanced away. "I didn't mean to love you. But how could I not?"
Hermione's world spun with the sheer ardor in his voice, and the magnitude of what he was expressing. She didn't know what to think. This was so surreal it bordered on absurd. So she tried very hard not to think anything at all. 'Let it play out… I'll wake up. God, I hope I'll wake up…'
"Even so, it wasn't until I was trapped in the blackest pits of desolation, broken, defeated, stripped bare of everything I had always known or been, robbed of any fleeting hope of going back..." He forced out a breath between clenched teeth as his fingers fisted in the sheets beside her, as though caught in some memory so terrible that it undid his control of his own limbs. He made a visible effort to relax his bunched muscles before turning his eyes back towards her, as though he didn't want to associate those dark emotions with the sight of her. He quickly changed direction and Hermione was left wondering what he would have said.
"But then Death played a nasty trick on me. You came back through the portal, there in Hogwarts...as a baby." He seethed, angry, "Somehow, Dumbledore realized what had happened and he plotted on how to use you against me. He raised you up to help the Potter boy defeat me. He gave you to a muggle couple he personally knew and placed powerful wards so I couldn't find you."
This was getting more and more incredulous as she listened to this crazy story. It didn't make any sense. She had so many questions! And she felt unspeakably nervous that he knew her parents were muggles.
He reached for her again, and Hermione tried ineffectually to recoil. He paused before he could touch her skin, his hand drawing back at the last instant as though he had forgotten himself, and the pendant's bite. He wavered there for an instant, indecisive, before his fingers tightened into a fist again, this time from frustration. His voice gained a hard, angry edge.
"I had no idea you were even alive," he growled through clenched teeth. "Death had gotten the upper hand of me. Your life was restored without me even knowing. It was only when I saw you at the Ministry of Magic the day that boy came to get the prophecy..." He shook his head, resigned and bitter, and changed the direction of his words yet again, "Dumbledore had given you up. And he gave me up as well, even before he learned that I was…" cut that thought off with a decisive shake of his head. Hermione was feeling mental whiplash from the rate that he was changing the subject and didnt stay on topic. It was obviously a very difficult subject for him, "He had turned his back on both of us, Hermione. He had given up every right to expect your loyalty."
He reached out for her again, then recoiled again. With a low, angry noise from the back of his throat, he sprang to his feet and paced away from her, his frame wound tight with aggravated energy, as though he could not bear to be so near her without touching her any longer. He stepped towards the window, and Hermione could just barely see his reflection in the glass as he stared out at the rain.
"I learned you had been raised by some muggle family, as abandoned as I by Dumbledore's foolish choices. And I knew that if only I could find a way to reach you, that I could…" the words seemed to stick in his throat and he had to try again to get them out. When they finally came, they were almost sheepish and self-deprecating, tinged with a kind of raw, hopeless longing. "I was certain… that I could find a way to make you love me, if not remember me."
Hermione didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry. His expression in the reflection of the window was so raggedly vulnerable that she was suddenly intensely grateful that she was unable to react. She had absolutely no idea what she would have done in the face of this kind of confession. She could still barely believe what she was listening to. And the sense of foreboding that lingered in her gut, coupled with the way his broken expression began to darken and harden, warned her that there was worse to come.
His expression turned bitterly mocking.
"To this day, the wizarding world believe I came to conquer the earth, in order to gain immortality, or to kill the Potter boy, or even to make myself king of the ants. And oh, I admit I did enjoy the show." He huffed out a derisive little laugh, his voice dripping with disdain. "But what use had I for the unicorn's blood? The sorcerer's stone? The cloak, or the Eldar wand? Death had already given me immortality...in addition to EIGHT horcruxes to carry out his purposes? It was almost too easy, watching all of them dance on my strings. But all of that was merely means to an end, Hermione... This night, you and I alone will know the truth."
Hermione didn't want to hear his truth.
"All of it…"
'No…'
"… all of it, Hermione…"
'Please…'
"…all the suffering and destruction, all the fire and screaming and the blood… all of the killing… "
'Don't say it…'
"…all of it was for you."
In her mind's eye, Hermione saw the burnt out shells of the buildings, the stone fragments of Hogwarts, the jagged London skyline, the craters in the streets...the little make-shift memorials of pictures and flowers that littered the streets, marking the spots where loved ones had died…
Harry's parents... Dumbledore... Dobby... Cedric... Hedwig...Fred...Professor Snape...So many faces, wizards AND muggles. So many gone.
'No!' The fear soaking her body ignited into a sudden updraft of fiery anger, and in an instant, she wanted to leap up out of the bed, rage at him, to claw at him, to kick and scream, to make him bleed if she could. 'To hell with that! You made your own goddamn choices! It had nothing to do with me! Nothing! I won't share your guilt! I won't…'
She heard him draw in a slow breath, watched the set of his shoulders and the bend of his neck relax, as though speaking the words had dropped an enormous weight from his shoulders. Her heart leaped as he spun around and descended to kneel beside her again. This time, though, he moved even closer, and the mattress shifted as he rested his arms beside her and brought his chin down to rest on the backs of his hand. She couldn't see his face anymore, just the outline of his dark hair in her periphery, but she could feel him beside her, his nearness, his face was right next to hers, the slow warm fan of his breath on her cheek, stirring her hair. Wait! Wasn't he bald before?
She longed for a moment of control, to at least be able to track him with her eyes, to watch the change in his expressions, to do anything but be completely at his capricious mercy. He never touched her, but she could feel his heat and nearness, and the sweep of his eyes raked her more penetratingly than any physical touch. She wondered if he could hear the blood thundering through her veins in mimic of the storm outside.
"I wonder," Tom said thoughtfully, "if Harry Potter ever told you what the Horcrux does to those it touches." He spoke softly, gently, barely above a whisper, but his lips were right next to her ear, and she could feel the vibration of his voice dancing along the fine hairs on her skin and invading her mind. "Especially since he unwittingly became my 8th. It doesn't change you, you know. The Horacrux reveals you. It tears down every wall, every inhibition, every doubt until the ugly, unbalanced core of you stands naked at the mercy of whoever has the knowledge to lay hands on it."
His voice grew harsher by the moment as he spoke of it, the crest of his emotions beginning to build as he cast demons from his memory into her imagination. So, while they had been in the woods with Salazar Slytherin's locket; it hadn't changed Ron while he was wearing it? It had only revealed his insecurities? What about Professor Umbridge? It had only brought out the horrible person she already was underneath it all? Maybe if she could have trembled or recoiled, done something, anything, in response to the sensation his words and proximity elicited, she could have dispelled the terrible energy coursing through her body, searing her emotions and scattering her thoughts. But she remained helpless, a captive audience in every sense.
"Once I had surrendered myself, it seeped into the very fabric of my being," he murmured; it sounded to Hermione like his teeth were clenched behind his lips. "Rotting away every lie I had built to shield myself from my true nature. No one should ever have to face themselves the way the Horacrux forced me to do. I didn't understand that until it was far too late. I had already let it pry open my mind and rip away every wall, every shelter, every pretty lie I had ever built to deny my deepest, most primal desires. Death found me, deep inside myself, and he showed me what I really am."
Hermione felt sick. 'Don't tell me,' she begged silently. 'I don't want to hear this.'
I don't want to be the cause of this.
"Do you know what I am, Hermione?" His voice was ragged, begging, angry now, and hurt in ways she couldn't comprehend. "I am chaos. I am destruction. I am fear. I am killing frost and all-consuming fire. That is me, and that is the weapon that I placed in the bony claws of Death, as payment for passage across the universe to gain immortality. That is what I unleashed on your little world, what I breathed into your finest minds, what I sowed amongst your greatest heroes." At last, perhaps because he was close enough that she could feel his breath wash over her skin, she was able to tremble slightly at the terrible truths he unfolded. "Nothing more or less than the sum of all that I am, gilt in tongues of flame and offered up as a gift to consecrate my devotion. To you."
Once again he sounded bitter, but this time towards her. Almost… betrayed. 'That's not fair,' Hermione thought furiously. 'How was I supposed to know? What was I supposed to do about it even if I did?' She mentally shook herself, trying to pull away from the hypnotic undertow of his voice. 'I will not submit to these mind games! I am not the cause of this! I refuse to be your scapegoat!'
What was he really saying though? That he had let the Horacrux make him some kind of mentally unstable marionette for Death's will? Even if it was true, it didn't absolve him. She tried to hold on to that. What he'd done was cruel, selfish, callous, murderous, and unequivocally wrong! But her complicated, gray-blurred musings on morality from earlier were still fresh in her mind and their insidious whisper mixed with his, the water colors of right and wrong running together in a confused wash of hues. He had saved her from Bellatrix's torture...who suspiciously hadn't been at the battle of Hogwarts.
'If even half of what he's saying is true, was it really a choice?' That swirling sliver of her brain wondered rebelliously. 'To continue to suffer through what sounds like a living hell, or sell your soul to Death for a chance to escape and achieve all your heart's desires?' Could she honestly say she'd choose differently? Hermione didn't know. But he couldn't lay the blame for it at her feet! He let himself be controlled, and that's all there is to it. If only that were all there was to it… Maybe he wants to vent his feelings and feel like he's been absolved. That's what confessions like this are for. But does he regret what he did? Would he change it if he could? Would he do it again if he thought he could get what he wanted?
How much did any of that matter?
'It matters to me…' She didn't understand why, but she realized it was true.
Tom rambled on, ignorant of her internal struggle. The anger in his voice had cooled again. Hermione realized that his moods seemed to come in waves, building, cresting and spilling over onto her, and that they were growing ever more volatile with each surge. Her throat wanted to close with fear as she wondered if she would survive the deluge unscathed, or drown in it.
"Once inside, Death became my master and owned me almost completely. All but my knowledge of you. That alone I was able to keep from him." She thought she could hear a small smile in his voice. "Of that, at least, I can be truly proud. I buried you deep as I could behind the layers of my rage and revenge. And he never found you inside me."
He sighed gustily, rubbing a hand over his forehead as though suddenly weary; Hermione hummed involuntarily in her sleep, and her face turned towards his, nuzzling into the pillow to banish the tickle of his breath against her skin. His face came into view again as he cocked his head, seemingly fascinated by her unconscious movements. He swallowed hard, and Hermione thought he might try to touch her again. Instead, he spun around and lowered himself to sit on the floor beside the bed, so that all that was visible was the dark fall of his hair and the wide frame of his shoulders.
"Much as it shames me, however, I must confess, my want of you was touched by the whispers of the Horcrux itself. I didn't want what I felt for you to be corrupted by the ugliness of what I had to do to reach you, but there was no part of me that hideous corrupting influence did not singe. It… lured my love for you into my other ambitions. Of all I did, my greatest disgrace is that I allowed it to use you against me, to make you the prize for every villainy, and the balm for every injury. Even in the shadow of the horrors I committed, the Horcruxes made it all seem perfectly clear: I could become as blood soaked and monstrous as need be, because when I at last held you in my arms, it would balance every sacrifice. Every evil." He shook his head, cringing slightly, as though embarrassed. "Can you imagine my secret heart, Hermione? That dreamed of you even as I lay waste to your muggle land? In the grip of the dark magic, I made such audacious plans…" His shoulders sagged slightly, and his head bowed.
Outside, the rain battered the window with such ferocity, Hermione wondered distantly if it had turned to hail. Emhagalaz, she thought, how appropriate. She had an irrational urge to laugh, mostly because it was better than the urge to cry when there was nothing she could do to satisfy it.
"My dreams grew darker as the stain of blood on my hands deepened. While I waited, waiting impatiently for my traps to spring, all I thought of was you. Of the day I would be enthroned as the god of the wizarding and muggle world, and have you brought before me; of gazing down into your wide, frightened, fascinated eyes and knowing that you saw me as I truly was; of displaying my trophies to you... the Sorcerer's Stone, the Invisible Cloak, the Elder Wand... I dreamed of raising you up by my side, of laying your entire world at your feet, of giving you everything you could ever have wanted, and everything you never knew you wanted."
His tone changed, and she could practically feel the wicked smile that curved his mouth.
"And I dreamed about the endless, arduous challenge of winning your favor and adoration… about watching you struggle wildly against me, in mind and in body, and against your own desires… about making you beg, making you cry, making you scream for me… about making you smile and laugh, only for me… about your bright nature slowly succumbing to my darker one, consumed in it as I tempted you ever further into my web, until your lost, entangled light shone only for me… until your magnificent mind aligned with mine, and your heart opened up to absolve me of all my ugliness… until your body opened willingly to embrace me… Oh, Hermione, I could blush to describe what I wanted to do to you to addict you to my touch… what I still would do to you, if only…"
He was breathing too fast, as though his heart raced to describe his fantasies out loud. Hermione was equal amounts horrified and equal amounts curious. She couldn't help it. She listened carefully, not wanting to know... but also wanting to know. His shoulders flexed, and he leaned his head back carelessly. A few strands of hair brushed her elbow and little purple sparks skittered along them like static electricity. His frame stiffened, and his breathing hitched, then slowed. The pain seemed to remind him that all these grand plans of his had been in vain. His head dipped again, pulling away.
"I vowed to burn worlds for you Hermione." Hermione felt twin tears leak from the corners of her sleeping eyes. "And in the Horacruxes insidious grips, that is exactly what I did."
The wind howled outside. Thunder crashed and the windows rattled with the force of it. Hermone had a wild, desperate thought that if she could just send a patronous...then Ron would know she needed him, and rescue her from these unwanted revelations, hold her close, quiet her mind, make her stop thinking, make everything simple again… but neither the wind nor the rain penetrated the seals of glass and concrete. And in spite of everything (or maybe because of it) she had long since given up counting on Ron or even Harry to come for her. There was nothing to stand between Hermione and Voldemort.
Nothing but the pendant lying on her chest.
Suddenly... so suddenly that it made her wish she could scream...he moved to turn, to look at her again, darting around like a striking snake to face her… 'No! I can't look at his face! I don't want to see what he's feeling! Please-'
There was a thunderous crash, directly over the building. Lightening screamed down from the clouds. An instant before she could glimpse the expression he wore, the lights outside the window went dark. The shadows of the hotel room rose over her sight like a flood of black ink, swallowing everything into the shade of night.
A power outage, her higher thoughts supplied after a moment, swimming up through the fog of panic and sorrow he'd stirred inside her head.
The darkness was absolute. So was the silence.
For a long time, everything was still. Beyond the beat of the storm, silence reigned, and all she could hear was the pounding in her ears.
Maybe he was gone.
'Please let it be over….'
Maybe he had never really been there.
'If it's a nightmare, just let me wake up.'
Maybe she was finally awake. She didn't dare test it by trying to move. To try risked the possibility of failure.
She had a wild thought of Ebenezer Scrooge begging the Ghost of Christmas-Yet-to-Come for a second chance. Not caring how ridiculous it was, she bargained silently with the universe that she would do her best from now on, no matter how asinine the idea was. She'd even agree to work at the Ministry of Magic. Heck! She'd become the freaking Minister of Magic! Only please...
'Let him go rest in peace now, or whatever… let me rest in peace…'
Her whole body buzzed with terror of the unknown.
The room was cold and quiet. Her heart began to calm.
'Yes, of course. Whatever it had been, surely it was over,' she told herself…
Lightening had hit the generators, causing the crash that had wakened her, she reasoned… it had just been an incredibly vivid dream.
Silly to lie here in the dark when she was so keyed up. She should get up and go grab her wand out of her bag. Maybe get dressed, go downstairs, make sure everything was alright.
'It's over now… of course it is over now… it has to be over now...'
More tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. It didn't matter how hard she wished or rationalized. She could feel it:
He was still there, beside her.
"Now look at me…"
Hermione wanted to sob at the sound of his deadpan, hopeless voice blooming out of the blackness.
"…I, who should have been your lord and your god, reduced to stealing into your bedchamber in the night like some sneak thief…"
'It can't be real, it just can't…'
"…unable to look into your eyes, or hear your voice, never to talk with you, laugh with you, hold you… never to share in anything you give that red-headed Weasly child so undeservedly…"
'The real Voldemort would never say-'
"… casting sleeping spells on you so that I can kneel before you like a slave on this field of my defeat and count your precious, numbered breaths like the pathetic, lovesick fool I've become…"
'Sleeping spells? No wonder I've been sleeping so soundly this week. Please don't be real….'
"…and like a fool, I thought it would be enough. At least until I could… but no, I have been truly blind. This little act of defiance, this Fae magic you have procured, has changed everything. It isn't often I am bested at my own game. But you have changed all the rules, Hermione. Enough is not the same it was before. For good or ill, you've made me see what should have been obvious by now: with you, enough could never be enough."
'Fae magic from the pendant? Please be a dream… I don't know what I'm going to do if this is-'
"And yet now I am denied even the ability to touch you without…"
Suddenly purple light flashed through the black abyss of the night as she felt his fingers slide into her hair, cradling her face. Amethyst lightning arced through the inky darkness, and in the acid purple haze of the magic, she could see the outline of his face, wild with anger and contorted with pain. His fingers spasmed, and there was a low noise in the back of his throat, but he held on.
He held on… with a real touch. A real hand, cradling her face, tightening with pain…
'Not a dream! Real!'
"I can't help it," he gasped. "I can't help what I have to do now, Hermione. I believed I had lost everything for a third time when Potter defeated me by turning the Elder wand against me. And cloistered in the dungeon of my own making, as the Horacrux's grip on me abated I was forced to relive every ugly, demeaning, blood-soaked act I had committed through unclouded eyes, believing it had all been for nothing. But now… now that I am free, in every sense… now that I have another chance… I have to at least try, Hermione. I have to believe there's a chance, because we both know there's no going back…"
He shook his head, closing his eyes as though mired in humiliation and frustration.
Then he smirked dangerously and opened them, leaning close over her, the arcing currents of magic striking out at him like writhing serpents.
"Just as we both know that my sleeping spell failed long ago, and you can hear every word I've said..."
Panic spiked through her so fiercely that it caused something clear and fragile that Hermione hadn't previously realized was there to shatter inside her mind.
With a shuddering gasp, at long last, her dark brown eyes flew open. She was wide awake, blinking frantically.
And face to face with Tom Riddle in the purple glow of the rune's protective magic.
"Tom…" she breathed, both relieved and terrified. She shivered as she had been waiting so long to do, frightened by how easily his name came to her lips, confused and strangely, intensely aware of him. Her skin felt alive with electricity. Yet somehow her overriding emotion was still surprise. "You're here… you're alive… how…" She trailed off as his expression shifted.
In spite of the pain that was obviously coursing through him, she watched his eyes drop closed and his lips part in a jagged sigh, as though the sound of his name on her tongue brought him physical pleasure. His fingers suddenly tightened her hair, and she whimpered, afraid, as it wrenched her head back at a sharp angle, holding her immobile. He lowered his face against the exposed arch of her throat. Her mouth flew open in a gasp of shock as he ran his lips along the line of her neck, nipping at her pulse.
"Do you realize it's been half a century since you've last spoken my name to me?" he breathed against her skin, his voice tight with a mix of emotion and the intensity of the pain the pendant was pouring into him. Even so, he refused to release her. "You're playing with fire, temptress. Of all the nights I have come to visit you… of all the lies I dared to dream… all the madness of my vivid imagination… there was one desire above all that I never gave in to. Because there is no point in taking what you aren't aware I have stolen." He raised his head to face her, and his hand unclenched from her hair and slid down to replace his lips, wrapping loosely around her throat, holding her head gently but inescapably in place as his intense blue eyes stared down into her wide, frightened brown ones with a look of agonized adoration that she did not know how to answer. "But you can see me now. You can feel me. I won't be sorry. Your lips have betrayed your virtue. And so must I."
He kissed her.
Her eyes widened even as his slid closed. His mouth was surprisingly warm, his lips soft and firm. He smelled like spice and leather and a man, and as he tilted his head to deepen the kiss, his hair fell across her cheek, and she thought she caught a hint of magic… Her body sparked, and her blood, seeded with adrenaline and anxious energy, caught tingled and blazed in reaction to his ardor. It was a purely physical response, a product of tightly wound tension, merely a chemical reaction to a stimulus… but it was powerful. Powerful enough to drive a small, wanting noise from the back of her throat. The sound of it seemed to drive the breath out of him in a pained sigh and he pressed closer, his lips claiming hers with a kind of determined and fatalistic desperation....a first kiss that was also the last. Magic leapt between them, sizzling, burning, coiling around them like purple serpents, like thorny vines, like squeezing tentacles, dazzling her while it burned and stung him, and still his lips moved over hers, firm and defiant, teasing and insistent, refusing with a will of iron to give ground until he had taken what he would have, and had told her without words all he could about the yearning that burned in him more unbearably than any magic ever could…
With a groan of agonizing pain, he finally pulled away, releasing her, and the world plunged into blackness again as the purple firestorm abated. For a long moment the only sound was the thunder of the rain on the window and his tortured, ragged breaths as he recovered from the agony-inducing magic that stood sentinel between them. Hermione discovered that she was both breathless and boneless, and this time it wasn't any kind of magic or trick of the nervous system holding her down. She should be scrambling out of the bed, grabbing her wand, covering herself with a robe, trying to run for the door, maybe searching for a blunt object for good measure… something, anything. Instead, overwhelmed, she lay there, breathing nearly as hard as he, trying to process what was happening and failing utterly.
'I'm missing something.' That thought was clear amidst the confusion. After… after that… she was admittedly having an extremely difficult time doubting his sincerity. But something… something in all this doesn't add up. If only she could think between the threads of electricity that kept zinging relentlessly along her nerves, scattering little supernovas under her skin and detonating them behind her eyes. It was incredibly distracting. She turned her eyes in his general direction, and despite the lack of light between them, she was sure she could feel him looking back. His breath hitched softly, the sound amplified by the deprivation of sight.
"You destroy me, Hermione," he breathed, his voice breaking almost imperceptibly. It occurred to her to wonder if there were tears in his eyes. She felt him shift beside her, "When I freeze inside, you melt me. When I burn, you wash over me and quench the flames. You bring peace to my chaos, and when I would seek peace, you make me restless… You are the rain to my rage. Do you understand yet? Have I explained myself plainly enough? You are my rain… and I can't…"
"Tom I…" This had to stop. Whatever it was that was bugging her, her first priority had to be to put a stop to these declarations so that she could reassemble the scattered fragments of her whirling mind and piece this puzzle together. "I don't… I can't… you must know that I can't-"
"No!"
Suddenly, his hand was at her throat again, but this time it wasn't gentle. The purple lightning erupted and she managed to suck in a panicked breath before the strength of his hand forced her airway closed. Unbidden, the old woman's wide, haunted eyes flashed through her mind, and her words echoed in her ears: "He is dangerous!"
"Do not say it! You don't understand!" In the crackling purple light of the magic, he looked almost as desperate as she suddenly felt as she reached up to scrabble ineffectually at his iron grip. The wave of his volatile emotions had crested again… and this time, she was going to drown in it. "You don't understand," he repeated. "But you have to try! And so do I." He stared down at her, his expression stricken as he watched her face begin to turn purple. "Gods, Hermione, you make me want… impossible things. You make me hope for things I shouldn't even dare to dream. You make me want to rip reality apart to make them real." His eyes narrowed, and his tone lowered warningly. "And you should not doubt that I will. If I have to."
More tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she dug her fingernails into his skin to absolutely no effect. Her lungs felt like they were on fire.
"It truly is a kind of madness," Voldemort snarled, somehow managing to accuse her with his tone, even as he choked the life out of her. Her fingers, useless as fronds of kelp waving listlessly against his rock hard grip under an ocean of pain and panic, were beginning to go numb. "Harry Potter and the Weasley boy divide their devotion and throw you scraps. And that idiotic boy would have all of you; while I have given all of myself, for nothing but a stolen kiss, and a fool's hope that you will be the one to…." He shook his head, biting off the end of the sentence; his expression was something wild and alien with a poisonous brew of desire and shame. "No… no, not yet. Some few secrets I will keep for myself, despite all you have driven me to reveal tonight… just in case you really are naïve enough to surrender your whole heart to him." He leaned in closer. "But no, not your whole heart either. Never that… the boy might have every other part of you…" the twist of his lips became mocking and conspiratory, "but for a short while, Hermione, you and I burned this world together. We two alone in all the realms share this guilt. And the part of you that is broken by that truth will always belong to me."
"T…To…mm… n-no…st… sto… " The black and purple began to swirl together, her vision beginning to darken as her brain begged for oxygen that her body couldn't give it.
"Shhh…" he hushed, bringing his other hand up, to stroke her cheek, no longer even visibly reacting to the pain of the magic as it zapped and singed his flesh.
Spots were beginning to obscure her vision. She felt him brush his forehead against hers, felt him running his nose along the length of hers in a gesture she might have found uncomfortably intimate if she had enough oxygen left to consider it. "
"Don't be afraid," he whispered against her cheek. "I could never hurt you. At least…" his lips smirked against her skin, "…not more than I have to. Maybe if we ever meet again, I'll let you hex me for it. Hermione, I am a monster…" in the gathering dimness of her mind, she heard his voice thicken with feeling. "…but you are my rain." The heat of his skin against hers was the only real sensation left as a haze closed over her senses. "Remember that. Everything depends on you. And I lo…"
The last words didn't reach her as she sank into oblivion.
Notes:
Dumbledore originally defeated Grindlewald in 1945, but I changed it to be 1942, which is Tom Riddle's 6th year. Also, Hermione's birthday is October 31st, lol. Just a head's up for all those needs out there who are deep deep into Potter-Lore so you weren't confused about the timeline.
Chapter Text
Darkness. Floating in darkness. Purple sparks in the darkness. A cold weight on her chest. Blue flames glittering on faceted gold, and the splash of hot rain on her forehead… rain? No… tears…
A soft touch against her forehead… the press of lips…
And then… light…
Hermione's eyes flew open. She bolted upright in bed, gasping for air, her hand flying to her throat, grappling for the hand that wasn't there. It encountered only the cool, solid weight of the rune pendant hanging on its cord. She sat there panting for a long moment, trying to collect her panic-scattered thoughts.
'A dream… it really was a dream…'
"A dre… ngh!" she tried to say out loud, but winced, gritting her teeth. Her throat felt sore.
She sucked in a deep breathe, looking around herself. The room was just how she'd left it the night before. The sky, deeply grey in the early morning light, was still spitting fitfully against the window, but the storm was clearly long over. From the corner of her eye, she could see the digital clock on the night stand, flashing 12:00am, in need of being reset after the power outage during the night.
A power outage… there was a power outage… and then… she swallowed hard, grimacing in pain. She tentatively reached up to touch her neck, and hissed in pain as she felt a hot swell of damaged tissue.
Throwing back the covers, she scrambled to her feet and practically ran to her jacket hanging on the coat rack. She let out a breath of relief as her fingers closed around the familiar vine wood of her wand. With hesitant steps she turned and walked to the mirror across the room. She stopped short, peering at her reflection; her eyes closed and her stomach clenched up at what she saw.
A swollen, dark blue-black imprint of a long-fingered hand wrapped mercilessly around her throat.
"Not a dream…" she whispered hoarsely against the ache.
Real.
It was tempting to ask the clichéd 'have I gone crazy' questions. Voldemort should be dead. She had watched him die at Hogwarts. But Hermione didn't like to think she was the sort of person so set in their preconceptions that she had to doubt her sanity the moment something challenged her beliefs about reality. Last night had been one thing. But now, she had to face facts. What kind of intellectual would she be to do otherwise?
So she would operate under the assumption that she wasn't crazy. Ghosts obviously did exist but they didn't leave bruises on people...
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable…
The most likely truth, she was forced to conclude, was that Tom Riddle had not, in fact, died at Hogwarts after all.
How he had survived that duel with Harry, Hermione could not explain. But that hardly mattered at this point. Not twenty-four hours ago, she might have considered that as, well, not TERRIBLE news per say. But after last night…? Her mind skittered nervously away from those memories, and landed instead, on the ones she'd been rehashing the day before about him saving her in Malfoy Manor, only to find that they all took on uncomfortable new dimensions. Each one filtered into the forefront of her mind through her new knowledge of Tom Riddle.
When he had sheltered her from Bellatrix's torture, was it her imagination, or had his gentle touch lingered a few minutes longer than was strictly necessary as he held her limp body close to him?
When Nagini had been chasing her and Ron, persuing them through Hogwarts with murderous intent, hadn't it seemed like the serpent had been a little too focused on Ron? With her sleek body movements locked-on to his retreat rather than hers?
And her first memory of him, the most vivid, the one she always thought of first: the smile he'd given her on their first meeting in the Ministry of Magic, so self-assured… too self-assured… it suddenly seemed false, forced, designed to conceal rather than express, to distract with vanity whatever might be concealed underneath… And then the way his eyes had seemed to track her even as he dueled complex curses with Dumbledore, fixed on her like he was mesmerized, that devious, unrepentant smile crooking his lips as he gazed at her, like he was trying to memorize her…
She hugged herself, rubbing her bare arms, suddenly incredibly self conscious, and made herself refocus on the present.
It all made a rather perfect kind of sense in hindsight. Tom had been clearly outnumbered at the Battle of Hogwarts and had failed to kill Harry as planned while Neville had killed his last Horacrux, Nagini. Faking his own death meant escape from incarceration, and now Tom was in the wind, unknown and unsought. It was not only logical, it was really kind of brilliant. Noone would imagine that Lord Voldemort would allow himself to be defeated by Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, a second time. His pride would not allow it. Or so everyone thought. The master strategist, still alive and hard at work. Hermione grudgingly had to admire a mind like his.
'Stop it', she ordered herself, realizing that her breaths had become quicker and more shallow the more she thought about him, 'you are not allowed to be impressed by him, Hermione Granger! Look what he did!'
She gasped and felt tears prick at the back of her eyes as a delayed but potent fear started to claw its way past the initial shock of revelation and up out of the pit of her stomach to nip at the base of her intellect. Tom Riddle was alive. Voldemort was alive, and he… she tried again to escape the memories of the night before, but they were insidious, slipping in through the cracks while she struggled to breathe normally.
Helpless, defenseless, exposed, the flash of purple light slicing the air with ozone.
The hot press of lips on her skin. On her mouth.
A crushing hand clamped around her airway, and the powerless and inevitability of suffocation.
"All of it… all of it, Hermione… all of the suffering and destruction, all the fire and screaming and the blood… all of the killing…all of it was for you."
The gray square of the window seemed to gape like a hungry mouth that would suck her in and swallow her into the ruin of London if she dared turn her eyes towards it.
'I am not the cause of it. I can't be.'
Two tears rolled down her cheeks anyway.
'I don't want to be.'
She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the bruises at her throat, framed by the black cord.
'I won't be. I refuse to be.'
She followed the line of the cord down, and her eyes came to rest on the rune pendant. Her face hardened.
Hermione wasn't anyone's victim to stand around crying and afraid. Hermione was the brightest witch of her age. She knew that the only way to combat fear was with knowledge. So what did she know?
Tom was alive. Tom claimed to be in love with her. Tom had made some kind of Faustian pact to gain unnaturally long life, supposedly to bring her back and win her over, but had lost control of the situation, and possibly control of himself, to this "Death" guy. So, was Death an actual entity then? Like in the Pervell Brothers' story? Tom had failed and had been locked up in in unseen realm, where he claimed his mind had been restored (Hermione remained skeptical). He had faked his own death, or rather...perhaps he in fact had died by the Elder Wand but Death released him? Somehow? Now he had turned up in London, in her hotel room, caught secretly casting spells on her. He had confessed everything. He had kissed her passionately. Then he had choked her out cold. Then he had left her here.
Why?
As she chased up and down the timeline, she kept coming back to the fact that Tom Riddle knew that she now knew he was alive, but aside from rendering her temporarily unconscious, he had done nothing about it. No confundus charm...no obliviate...Nothing.
Which meant that either he could not do anything about it - or he did not want to do anything about it.
'He clearly didn't want me to know he was alive... he said I'd changed the rules. What does that mean?'
Maybe he really was in love with her, and just wanted to be close to her…?
Bollocks. Even if it were true, this was Voldemort. He MUST have an angle. What is he really up to?
She needed more information. More answers.
Hermione knew what she should do; she should already be sending a patronus to Harry, to Ron, to the aurors in the Ministry of Magic, telling them what little she knew. She should apparate to the nearest muggle-free area and get help. She could see the general direction of the street where the Leaky Cauldron surely sat from her hotel window. Brilliant minds like Professors McGonagall and Slughorn could help her figure this out, and dangerously skilled aurors like Kingsley Shacklebolt would keep her safe. Help, resources and protection were practically within shouting distance. It would be crazy to delay.
But…
Her fingers curled around the rune pendant. There were more facts to consider.
Ever since her encounter with the crone on the street, she had felt wrong footed. Something about those women had struck a strange note in her that was still resonating even after all the distractions of last night. They knew something. She could feel it in her bones. Hermione needed the help and protection of her friends… but she needed answers more. And she had a good idea where she could find a few.
Swinging away from the mirror with renewed purpose, her eye caught on a small, glimmering something sitting inconspicuously on the dresser beside her wallet. Her eyes narrowed as her heart skipped with a moment's panic and she pointed her wand, but when the object didn't do anything but sit there, innocuous and inert, she sighed and put a hand over her heart, willing herself to quit jumping at shadows.
The object was a small gold disc about three inches across, and half of one high. It was intricately adorned with fine inlaid knotwork patterns, and a number of Fae runes Hermione recognized from the website she'd visited yesterday, though she didn't recall their names or uses. A seam ran all around the circumference, indicating that it likely opened somehow, though there was no visible latch. Hermione had no idea what it might be. But it definitely hadn't been there the night before. She performed a couple of detection spells on the gold disc but nothing showed up.
Wary, she slowly reached out and carefully picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy for something so tiny, and it glittered in the morning light. Upon closer examination, Hermione discovered even finer etchings had been filed into the planes of the object, clearly the work of a master craftsman. Whatever it was, it was truly beautiful.
It had to have been left there by Tom.
Hermione was tempted to throw it out the freaking window.
The only thing that kept her from actually doing it was an insidiously burning curiosity smoldering relentlessly in the recesses of her mind. It was obviously Faerie, an object from another world. What was it? What did it do? Was it functional, or was it decorative? Was it something dangerous, or something useful? Was it valuable? Was it a gift? A threat? A bribe? She couldn't just throw it away, it could be dangerous to muggles...or dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. She tried to imagine the Ministry of Magic finding out she was in possession of a fae artifact, and her fingers tightened around the disc's outer edge until it bit into her skin.
She would go for help. She would.
But first, she was going to get some answers.
Thirty minutes later, with a concealing spell wrapped around her bruised throat and a scarf added for good measure against the chilly rain, Hermione was on the streets of London with the gold disc tucked securely in the pocket of her jeans, retracing her steps from the day before. It did not take her long at all to find what she was after. She recognized the cart amongst the vendors that were setting up their stalls along the sidewalk. She spotted the woman from the day before soon enough; Hermione was relieved to see that her grandmother wasn't with her today.
Steeling her spine, she marched forward and tapped the woman on the shoulder. The woman turned, a welcoming smile already on her face. As recognition set in, the smile faltered.
"Oh…" she said, uncertain, "Good day."
Hermione had to work hard not to scowl when the woman glanced up at her forehead and blanched slightly. Fear had given way to anger about the time Hermione had stepped off the hotel elevator, and she preferred it that way.
"Not really," she replied acidly, her voice still creaky and painful. She tugged the rune pendant out from under her shirt, dislodging the scarf in the process. She couldn't bring herself to take the pendant off; worried about what Tom Riddle might attempt if she was without it, "What the hell is this thing?"
The woman's eyebrows shot up as she looked down at the pendant, then widened as she caught sight of the bruising at Hermione's neck beyond. She looked up at Hermione, back at her neck, up at her forehead and back to the pendant. Hermione was momentarily shocked.
"You can see the bruises? But...how? I have a concealing spell on them and I-"
The woman quickly indicated toward the building besides them, "You had better come inside."
Hermione was all ready to argue, but then she glanced around to notice people starting to stare, including a police officer buying coffee from a nearby Starbucks cart. She nodded grudgingly and allowed the woman to lead her into the shadow of one of the boarded-up storefronts, and through a weather-beaten wooden door that didn't quite hang square in its frame. The woman shouted something up the staircase just inside in that same foreign language Hermione had heard the day before. She thought it might be a Scandinavian dialect, but she couldn't be sure. A moment later, a burly man with close cropped dark hair and a single, bushy unibrow crawling across his square face lumbered down the stairs and, glancing briefly at Hermione, moved past them to take up a station next to the cart. The woman nodded to him, then turned and ascended the stairs.
After a hesitant moment, Hermione followed, her need for answers outweighing her wariness of entering a strange building alone with a stranger. Memories of doing the same thing with Harry only to be attacked by Nagini disguised as Bathilda Bagshot entered her head briefly.
She shuddered but continued on, wand at the ready in her pocket.
The staircase opened into a rectangular living space that appeared to function as living room, dining room and kitchen all in one. Doors were set along the back wall, presumably leading to bedrooms or bathrooms. High windows interrupted at intervals by floor-length drapes lined the wall facing the street, leading Hermione to believe the apartment had once been a shop.
The air was heavy with the aroma of some unfamiliar spice. All of the furniture, from the scuffed dining table to the sagging sofas, was mismatched and rather obviously second-hand. They appeared to be alone for the moment; Hermione was again grateful that the grandmother wasn't around. Hermione hadn't realized just how much the old woman had spooked her until she felt a wave of relief that she wasn't up there waiting for them.
"Look, I need to know what's going on," she demanded as she halted inside the door. "I woke up in the middle of the night… sort of… to flashing purple lights everywhere and the rather spectacular mood swings of… of an acquaintance, who is supposed to be dead. And it all started when you handed me this necklace. You know something. I can tell by the way you keep looking at me." She huffed out a sigh, throwing up her hands, and then motioning at her throat. "You said to wear the rune for protection." She was slightly horrified to realize that she was near tears, her anger crumbling as she vented her frustrations. "It didn't exactly do its job. So, what gives?"
"Yes," the woman said vaguely. She motioned to one of two dilapidated sofas facing each other across a stained coffee table. "Please sit."
She moved to a stove on the far side of the room, pulling down a teapot from above it and spooning some dried herb from a glass jar into it. Hermione vacillated for a moment, hoping pitifully that this wasn't a tea-reading, then gave in and sank onto the faded floral pattern of one of the dilapidated sofas. She watched the woman add water from a lazily steaming kettle on the stove, then pulled down two mugs and a small jar of sugar cubes. Good. Just tea then.
"Perhaps, in retrospect, I should have given you a talisman for Emalgiz. It may have provided a truer barrier, instead of merely a deterrent." She opened the refrigerator, pulling out a carton of milk and pouring a measure into a small pitcher. "But it sounds as though it served it's intended purpose.
"Care to enlighten me as to its true purpose?" Hermione demanded, recovering quickly. "What good is a magical protection necklace that doesn't protect you from anything?"
"I gave you the Emhagalaz to protect you from secrecy," she replied. "To inactivate the spell that was shrouding your senses while you slept. To repel uninvited contact as well, but more to remove unwelcome influence like a sleeping spell." She shot Hermione a meaningful look. "I did not wish to block the god's ability to interact with you. I wished to force him to face you."
Hermione narrowed her eyes at her, and her mouth fell open, confused and a little incensed
"He is NOT a god," Hermione retorted, "He's a dark DARK Wizard."
The woman hmmm'ed and asked nonchalantly, "Do dark wizard's normally come back from the dead?"
Hermione was taken aback, "You seem to know a lot more about what's going on in my life than I do." she seethed accusingly.
"I know only what I see."
"What does that mean?"
The woman ignored her. "I wanted you to be able to decide for yourself," she said decisively. "The women of my family have seldom been allowed a chance to choose. Their fates were thrust upon them. I would not take the choice from you if I could help it." She shrugged almost self-consciously. "Perhaps it was a mistake."
Memories of seeing the hotel room with her eyes still closed made Hermione's head spin. "What… what was I supposed to decide?" she asked faintly. How was she supposed to decide on anything when she didn't even know the rules of the game she was playing, much less the stakes?
"Your own fate," the woman said. "Grandmother was right to warn you. The touch of a god is always a dangerous thing. But a danger is not always an evil. You had the right to judge that for yourself."
'Of course it's evil!' she thought automatically… then had to pause as she reflected on that thought. And on her memories of him from Malfoy Manor and from the night before, of all he had told her, all he had endured, and why he had done what he had done, and all that Harry had told her. Whatever Harry had experienced while being briefly dead in the Forbidden Forest, he seemed to almost...pity Tom Riddle...Was it so simply black and white? Or had it been so dark last night that she couldn't see the shades of gray…? 'Is it evil? Or is it just dangerous? How do I tell…?'
'He strangled me. Evil.'
And yet... Is that more bias? After everything he had done that had failed to drive her to hate him, was it okay to decide he was really pure evil based on that one act? An act which happened to be perpetrated against her? 'Am I heartless, being so eager to condemn him just for what he did to me? Or have I been a complete idiot to even consider excusing what he has been doing all along to everyone else?'
Hermione shook her head, dispelling the shades of gray that threatened to overrun the banks of her memories. Now was not the moment. He was evil. And that was that. She wasn't playing that game.
"What else was your grandmother right about? Am I…" Hermione grimaced, "Am I cursed?"
The woman leaned her hip on the counter and cocked her head, for the first time staring openly at whatever she kept looking at on Hermione's face.
"The Quill's mark upon you may yet prove to be a blessing. Or a curse. Maybe both." She shook her head. "Grandmother assumes the god cursed you because she believes she is cursed. She cannot see beyond the wounds of her own heart. I am not so eager to assume I know the mind of the god."
"Voldemort is not a god!" Hermione snapped. The woman's eyes flashed wide at the mention of Voldemort's name, and she turned back to the counter, fidgeting with the tea things. "And what quill mark? You mean on my forehead, don't you? You keep staring at it, but I've tried a bunch of revealing spells and there's nothing there!"
"There is nothing that you wizards can see."
Hermione blanched, "You're not a wizard?" She had expected as much, but it was still a surprise to hear it confirmed. They carried no wands, so she had imagined that perhaps they were squibs trying to pass off magical objects.
The woman hefted the tea tray and carried it to the coffee table. Turning back, she opened a drawer in a bureau next to the staircase and pulled out an old brass hand mirror. She wordlessly handed it to Hermione and moved around behind the couch.
"Look," she instructed, standing behind Hermione and stooping so that both their faces were visible in the mirror.
Hermione didn't see anything.
She reached past Hermione and touched the rim of the mirror. "Alaguz," she whispered. The tip of her finger glowed with purple for an instant, and the mirror face flashed with purple in response.
And suddenly Hermione could see it.
A symbol, gleaming with an icy blue glow, had been written into the skin of her forehead. She gasped, reaching up to touch it. The skin was slightly raised around the cut, though there was no pain, and the edges felt warm and clean. It wasn't an illusion. It was there.
"Uruz," the woman told her, her eyes thougthful. "See how it is not laid on top of your skin, but is literally cut into it with the Quill's tip, the magic threaded into the wound. Hmmm… no wonder he wanted you to sleep. Not merely secrecy."
"But… it wasn't there before…"
"It was," the woman replied quietly. "You just weren't meant to see it." The woman's eyes narrowed as she examined the mark in the mirror. "It was incomplete yesterday. Now it is not…" Her eyes flicked down to the bruising at Hermione's neck, and when they came back up to meet Hermione's, they had hardened with regret. "I am sorry."
Hermione barely heard her. She stared, fixated, trying to absorb the presence of this mark on her body, the fact that it had been there, and the fact she had not been aware of it. There was something viscerally disturbing about the idea. So this was why Tom had been in her room, rendering her unconscious with sleep spells, and when that failed, with brute force. The edges were precise. The magic inside glowed like crystalline blue fire. Her jaw clenched as she fed her growing fear to her curiosity. What was it? What did it mean? What did it do? Was it dangerous? Harmful? Permanent?
Images of Harry's lightening mark on his forehead flashed in her mind and she gasped, suddenly worried. Had Voldemort intentionally marked her like he had unintentionally marked Harry?
And how could these women see it, when no one else could? If they weren't wizards and didnt use wands; what were they?
Hermione pried her eyes away from the glowing mark to stare into the reflection of the woman's eyes.
"Who are you?"
The woman walked around the couch and sat down beside Hermione. She silently poured the tea, adding milk and sugar to Hermione's cup as well as her own. Pressing one warm cup into Hermione's free hand, she took a sip of her own before settling back and pinning Hermione with a serious look.
"My name is Alexa Solberg," she said at length, seeming to weigh each word carefully before it left her mouth. "I have, perhaps, caused you trouble. Because of this, I will tell you our story."
Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it, resisting the natural urge to pepper the woman with more questions. This wasn't a social call, it was an expedition to gather information. Not to share it. She sipped her tea, the warmth and flavor of which she found instantly soothing, and made herself listen instead.
"Over two thousand years ago," Alexa began, "Before the time of Merlin and King Arthur, my ancestors walked amongst mortals here on Earth. There were contentions between the fae and mankind. Well, mostly between Wizards and the Fae, as muggles have long since believed Fae to be mere legends. However, despite these battles, one of the Fae, a man named Taldur, met a human woman whom he took for a lover."
Hermione sat up straighter, looking at Alexa with new eyes as a piece of the puzzle clicked into place.
"You're Fae!" she exclaimed.
"Mostly human," Alexa replied with a self-conscious shrug. "Many generations have passed since then. But yes, my family line is descended from the Faerie. And sometimes," she gestured towards the mirror, "we show signs of their magic. Magic which, we believe, was given to us for a purpose."
She fixed Hermioned with a thoughtful stare, "What do you know of the Quill of Acceptance?"
Hermione's brain immediately began to recall facts she'd memorized from the different books she had studied, "The Quill of Acceptance is a magical quill at Hogwarts that detects the births of all magical children and writes their names down in a large book known as the Book of Admittance."
Alexa nodded, "Yes. But I meant, what do you know of it's history? Where does it come from?"
Hermione blinked, "It was created by the founders."
"Wrong." Alexa sipped her tea, her eyes distant, "It was given to the Fae and stolen by the founders." She smiled at Hermione's expression and explained, "None of the founder's objects were created by the founders. The Quill of Acceptance was created before Hogwarts was even built. It is a gift, one of three Quill Feathers of Power given willingly from the Augureys."
Hermione had to acknowledge that this just might be true. After all, Griphook had confirmed that the sword of Gryffindor had actually been stolen from the goblin Ranuk and belonged to Goblin-kind. Was it so far fetched to imagine that the other items originally had different owners?
"But," Hermione countered, remembering something, "Augurey feathers repel ink, so how could the Quill of Acceptance really be from an Augurey? I thought that was mere speculation?" Hermione frowned thinking hard. It was rumored to be from an Augrey, but not confirmed. The exact nature of the spells placed upon the Quill was unknown. And while it was believed that some wizards might have known the secret to the Quill, none have divulged it. Why?
"That's because it doesn't write in ink. It writes in magic. There is no ink in the inkwell at Hogwarts. The three quills were given as a gift to create peace between the fae and wizards, although it didnt work in the end."
Alexa continued, "But while the gods had some knowledge of its uses, not many truly understood its power, or how it worked."
Hermione had to cut in, "You keep saying gods..." she shifted a little uncomfortablely in her seat, "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean those that are friends with Life and Death." Alexa stated simply.
Hermione's brow furrowed, "So...Death is an actual being? And Life?"
This was all getting quite overwhelming.
Alexa nodded. She sipped her tea and her eyes took on a far-away look.
"The Augurey Quills of Power are volatile and ill-understood. Those who, in their arrogance, have used it to achieve their goals have almost always brought about cataclysmic side events. Imagine a group of uneducated muggles who discovered a working nuclear power plant nearby their homes. They knew enough to understand that if they pulled certain levers and pressed certain buttons, it provided their city with light, heat, water, all sorts of fantastic benefits. But they had not enough understanding to fathom the source of the energy, how it worked, how it could be maintained...or how to contain it if something should go wrong."
Hermione nodded, catching on. "It would be tempting to use it, but the results of messing with it could be devastating."
"Exactly," Alexa concurred. "And so it was with the Fae and the Quills. Their power is almost without equal, but without a clear understanding of the Augurey quills' nature, even the gods could easily shred the very fabric of the universe."
"Taldur, my Fae ancestor, was far-seeing, and he feared the Quills' power, the destruction they could cause, even in the hands of one as wise as his father, Oberon. So when he was sent by his people to bring them into battle, he instead hid the quills. He secretly placed them in the hands of his mortal lover, before he went back to the front line. That very day, he was slain in battle. The day ended in failure and the massive death toll was blamed on Taldur's betrayal. Worst of all, he had told none where he had secreted the quills, and he had instructed his lover never to reveal the quills to anyone. For these crimes, his name was made forbidden, and his memory banished from verse. The Fae eventually left this world for another realm. And for a thousand years, the stolen relics were never seen or heard of again with the exception of the Quill of Acceptance which the founders were somehow able to seize."
Alexa paused for a breath, pressing her lips together as though wary of speaking the words she held behind them.
"This is my family's story, and secret," she said at last. "The faithful woman that resided in the village and took care of the feathers was called Stella Solberg. She was my ancestor. You see, since that day so long ago, my family's sacred duty, handed down from the mouth of Taldur himself, was to hide the quills for all time, passing it down the maternal line from mother to daughter."
Hermione thought she understood now what Alexa had meant, when she said the women of her family had rarely been given a choice in their own fates. The weight of that kind of legacy had to be overwhelming.
"My great-grandfather was the last keeper of the Quill of Memory. When Grindlewald discovered its hiding place in 1922, he murdered my grandfather and great-grandfather in cold blood, and ordered the destruction of the village and all its inhabitants." She held the teacup close to her face, almost hiding behind it, her brow tightening. "My grandmother was a young woman then. Though she was raised from infancy with this duty before her, to defend the magic quill unto the very last drop of Taldur's blood, she felt herself to be a wife and mother first. She had two young children, and could do nothing against Grindlewald's army and the Elder Wand. So when she saw that her father and husband were dead, and that the Quill was already in the hands of evil men, she did not lay down her life in a futile effort to retake it. Instead, she took my mother and uncle and she ran."
"She escaped into the wilderness as the village burned, and made her way south, then west, and eventually joined a train of refugees from the war; very soon they boarded a boat to London, where they settled. Here." She gestured to the old brick and plaster walls around them. "So our family escaped Grindlewald, but lost the Quill of Memory." Alexa shook her head sadly. "To this day, Grandmother cannot forgive herself for choosing her life and her family over her duty."
"That's crazy!" Hermione interjected vehemently, absorbed in the story. "I mean, of course she chose to save her children! She shouldn't be ashamed!"
"Your sentiment is appreciated," Alexa said with a small, sad smile, "and we have consoled her with such talk again and again. But it is her faith. Grandmother cannot bear that she failed the god, our Fae sire. It is her great shame, which she carries to this day."
"When…" her voice thickened suddenly, and she had to clear her throat before she continued. "When the Dark Lord descended with his army of Deatheaters, Grandmother tried to throw herself to the Dementors. She believed that this was her punishment for her weakness. That we would all suffer and die for her failure." She offered Hermione a watery smile. "We managed to stop her just in time."
"Wow…" Hermione looked down into her teacup, horrified. And ashamed.
Riddle's voice echoed in her head. "All of it was for you"
She swallowed hard. 'It's not my fault. He chose to do this, not me.' But perhaps she knew more about what Alexa's grandmother was feeling than she liked to admit. Because even though it wasn't really her fault, she couldn't help the cloying guilt that threatened to close her throat.
"It has been two weeks since then," Alexa said. "When Grandmother saw the mark of the quill upon your brow as you walked the street…" she shrugged. "Another woman beloved of the gods, set to drown in the beginnings of a heavy destiny not of her own making… For her, it was as though she was seeing our ancestor, Stella, walking out of time. She held a hope that perhaps she could still absolve some measure of her shame by helping you avoid the trials our family has endured. That is why she accosted you. And the reason why I gave you Emhagalaz in her place."
Hermione sat back, clutching her mug, and glanced down into the mirror. The blue mark glared back at her. All this talk of gods and fae and destiny… She had come for answers, and she was getting them, but they weren't what she expected. She wanted hard proof, measurable data, a solution she could test and control. A spell or a potion she could master. This was all beyond her experience and understanding. It left her feeling lost, adrift.
Memories from the night before, lightening and thunder, pounding rain, purple light and the low, accented tones telling her sad, strange, terrible things. His hand at her throat. His lips against hers. She swallowed hard, suddenly acutely aware of her own body. Of her mouth, and her throat. Now that she knew the mark was on her forehead, she thought maybe she could feel that too. Tingling. Warm. Energetic. Inside. She shivered.
"What is this thing?" she asked, gesturing towards her head, almost reluctant to know. Her voice broke over the last word, and she took a scalding gulp of her tea to brace herself. "What did he do to me?"
"I do not think he has done anything to you. The Quill's power seems dormant right now, very quiet… but uruz, like emhagalaz, is a mark of the Fae. A realm that your...dark wizard...traveled to while his soul was lost in the void. Perhaps nothing more than a sign of possession. A warning to those who would harm you."
Hermione stared blankly at Alexa for a long moment. Her face darkened.
"Are you saying he branded me?" For the first time, Hermione decided definitively that it was a good thing Tom Riddle was alive; she needed him alive, so that she could kill him.
"No! No, not as such…" Alexa said hurriedly, eying Hermione's furious expression warily. "Uruz is powerful magic. I strongly suspect that any one who tried to lay hands on you in harm would be repelled. Possibly in much the same way he was repelled by the pendant. Possibly in a much different way. Whatever the case… I strongly suspect they would regret it."
"'Uruz' is another Fae rune, right?"
Alexa pursed her lips, casting a sidelong look at Hermione. Her expression said she was once again weighing her words.
"Uruz is the symbol of the aurochs," she said.
"Auroch… that's an extinct species of wild oxen…", Hermione remembered reading about them in her worn out copy of 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Extinct Version' from her 5th year. Aurochs, massive, volatile and incredibly dangerous wild oxen similar to modern longhorn bulls, had once roamed all over the European continent. It was said that the average auroch was only slightly smaller than average African elephant, with horns that grew up to six feet in length. Hermione could barely imagine such a creature; they must have been truly fearsome to behold. One of the few beasts hunted to extinction by wizards, rather than muggles.
Alexa nodded. "The auroch is a symbol of great strength in Fae folklore."
"So what does the rune mean?"
Alexa sipped her tea, thinking again. Hermione waited with poor patience, tapping her foot slightly against the threadbare rug.
"Uruz," she finally said, "is complex. It is a mark of wildness, but may also mean the taming of that wildness. It's meanings depends on It's context, but among them are…" she glanced at Hermione, then away, "primitive irrationality, bestial strength, primal instinct, intuition. It may also be invoked as part of the ritual of the hunt, or as a rite of passage or initiation … And then…" she grimaced, clearly uncomfortable, "it may also represent raw passion. Unabashed sexual hunger. Desire that drives one beyond rationality." She hid her face behind her mug, taking a much longer and slower drink than was necessary. She was probably embarrassed and trying not to show it.
Hermione was plenty embarrassed herself. In her memory, Tom's voice echoed in the dark, his eyes so fervent she could barely remember them without squirming, his words impossible in their revelations…
Alexa cleared her throat.
"It, uh, has another meaning...more esoteric, less well understood."
"Oh?" Hermione replied faintly, her face flaming.
"Yes. Uruz may also mean 'Rain'. This mark of yours was very poetically crafted, as the Augurey's cry actually foretells the rain fall, and not death as people imagine."
Hermione started upright, nearly dropped her mug. A few drops of hot tea splashed over the lip to sting her fingers.
"You are my rain."
Alexa caught the movement, eyeing Hermione curiously, and continued, "As I said, uruz may mean wildness, or it may mean the taming of wildness. My understanding after much study is that, if uruz is to represent the wild strength of the auroch, fires of passion, and the dangerous chaos of irrationality, it is also to represent the will that tames it, the rain that quenches and stabilizes it. It is both the sickness, and the cure."
His sickness..his cure...
"You are my rain, Everything depends on you..."
Hermione swallowed hard, trying desperately to banish his words from echoing inside her head. The harder she tried, of course, the more her mind circled that memory, bringing it into sharper focus, cementing it, forming neuronal bridges, building and extrapolating all sorts of implications, meanings, and worse, emotions…
Voldemort had written a mark upon her forehead with one of three magical quills of power. The Quill of Memory? What did he want her to remember?
She stared at the mark, an array of questions welling up in the back of her throat, ready to spill from her lips. Could this mark be a horcrux? The queries vied viciously for a place on the tip of her tongue, each more crucially important than the last.
"Am I being influenced?" She was proud of how calm and even her voice sounded when she at last rediscovered her ability to speak.
Alexa shook her head. "I do not know."
Hermione's jaw clenched against the urge to panic, recalling Ron's ineffable brokenness after the Horcrux had influenced him in the wilderness. And Harry had always seemed a very sober and downtrodden boy...
"Damn it…" Hermione whispered, afraid.
"No one truly understands the magic of the Quill. It is unlike Fae magic, Elven magic, Goblin magic, Giantkind's magic, or human magic. It, I guess you could say it is Death's magic, as Augurey's have long been associated with him. But it seems clear that the Dark Lord knows more than most about its secrets."
Hermione stared hard at her reflection, willing the answers to come together in the eerie blue glow. "What does he want from me…"
"That is why I gave you emhagalaz. So that you could discover the answer."
"Can you get rid of it?"
The words were out of Hermione's mouth before she knew she'd spoken. She hadn't meant to say them. Reflecting over them, she felt a sickening mix of relief and reluctance. It felt like asking a barber to do brain surgery. But if a horacrux had anything to do with this mark, if there was even an outside chance that it might be poisoning her mind…
Alexa looked away, troubled.
"I do not believe I should…" She looked up at the mark, clearly as wary of interfering with the magic as Hermione, but at the tight, troubled expression pinching Hermione's face, she sighed. "Come closer. I cannot promise this is a good idea. But I will try."
Hermione let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Sitting forward, she set aside the mirror and her mug. Alexa did the same, pulling in a slow deep breath and releasing it as she reached for the mark on Hermione's forehead. Hermione's eyes widened as she noticed the tips of Alexa's fingers glimmered with green fire.
Before she could do more than brush the skin of Hermione's temple, there was a crackling noise, and then a deafening, ringing whine filled the air, like feedback from a microphone. Both women screwed their faces up in pain, scrambling to their feet as the light from the windows darkened. Hermione thought a massive cloud front must have passed across the sun, until she looked around and realized that the lamp in the far corner of the room had dimmed as well, as though some invisible fog had fallen over all the surrounding light sources, blocking them out.
"Hermione."
The bottom dropped out of Hermione's stomach as her head jerked towards his voice. Her eyes stretched wide and her face went slack as her hand crept unconsciously up to grip the rune pendant hanging from her neck like a lifeline.
He materialized from empty air like a specter emerging from a shadowy corner of the room. His gaze burned through her like a wave of fire, so that she staggered back a step from the force of it before she caught herself. Her heart raced between terror and adrenaline, and her mind spun with all the battering gale of a hurricane. But her voice, when she spoke, emerged from the still, calm eye of that raging storm, which twisted around the one fact she fully understood: the name of the man in front of her.
"Tom."
Notes:
In case you guys were wondering, the Augurey's cry according to Potter-lore isn't a cry of death but actually a cry of rain. I did my research ;)
HUGE chapter, a lot of information, if something doesnt add up send me a message and give me ideas on how to fix it. This chapter was really hard to write (and took a long time because I had to think up a magical relic and give it a history. The Quill of Acceptance seemed like a good relic so I made two more of them; The Quill of Memory and the Quill of Unity.)
Chapter Text
Hermione's memories were transported momentarily back to the dark hotel room, the raging of the storm outside, and the helplessness of being trapped in a small room with a dangerous predator. It was just like the night before, but now she was seeing him with her waking eyes. Her throat tightened and burned, and she tried to back away, whimpering.
Alexa's hand shot out and clasped her wrist tightly, and Hermione tore her eyes away from the intruder long enough to shoot an incredulous look at the woman beside her.
"It is a sending," Alexa said, her voice small and tense as she fought to control her own knee-jerk panic. "Just a sending."
"A what?" Hermione asked, her voice high and tight.
"An image. Like… like… a type of patronus or… like a hologram, from that Star Trek show. You can speak to him, and he will speak back, but he's not really here."
Hermione swallowed and looked back at Voldemort, and couldn't quite believe it. He looked entirely real, entirely here. It was clear that Alexa, like her, was well-versed in muggle life or she couldn't have known what Star Trek even was.
Alexa reached blindly behind herself and grasped one of the pillows on the couch. With a level of courage worthy of her Faerie ancestors, she threw it at Tom. Hermione let out a shuddering breath as it passed directly through his chest and tumbled to the ground behind him. Like a ghost, Hermione thought, then squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment.
He was still there when she opened them again.
"Not real," she murmured, dizzied by the adrenaline racing through her veins.
"Real enough," Tom replied smoothly, a mocking smirk lighting his face. He didn't look anything like how he had at the battle of Hogwarts. He looked younger. Rejuvinated. In his older 20's.
Hermione was proud that she didn't shriek at the sound of his voice.
"If you can see me, it means you're trying to unwork my magic," he continued, raising his chin and cocking his eyebrow at her in a chiding manner, as though daring her to deny it. "A word to the wise, love," he caught her eye and held it hard for a heartbeat. "Don't."
"Are you kidding?" she snapped, the words out of her mouth before she could think about them, her voice shaking, but full of more bravado than she could make herself believe she felt. "There's a glowing blue mark carved onto my head by a ruddy ancient quill! Nothing's going to stop me from getting rid of it!"
"I can, if I must," he told her coolly. "I think you know that."
Hermione blanched at the frighteningly vague threat. She didn't quite know what he meant, but she had no doubt whatsoever that the Lord of Darkness had a number of tricks he had yet to reveal, and a great deal of doubt that she would like any of them.
"You wouldn't dare." She said anyway.
Tom smirked at her.
"You have no idea what I would dare," he warned her. "Not yet."
Hermione felt her throat try to close with fear. She cleared it quietly, trying to gather herself. She had come here for her answers; she couldn't let fear keep her from asking questions.
"Then what is it, at least?" she demanded in the steadiest, most commanding voice she could manage. "What did you do to me? Did you…" she shook her head, and made herself say the words. "Is it like what you did to Harry's forehead? Are you trying to control me?"
"Of course not," Tom replied, shaking his head, his eyes growing serious, his tone indisputable. "You are not made to be ruled, Hermione. You deserve to rule others. You are meant to be a queen."
Hermione clenched her jaw, trying to focus on the question at hand and ignore his unsolicited and unnerving opinions.
"So then what is it?"
"Something you were never meant to know about. Something complicated. Something I am… ashamed of." He shook his head, glancing away from her, as though he truly were embarrassed. "It is my failure," he looked back at her, "and my vow." His blue eyes were piercing and as sincere as she'd ever seen them.
"Stop talking in riddles," Hermione cried, working hard to keep from stamping her foot in frustration. She inwardly cringed as she remembered, with irony, that his last name WAS 'Riddle'. She hated that look in his eyes; it made it impossible to write him off as a villain. "This isn't a game! Stop being mysterious and just answer the question!"
"Stop being mysterious? But you love mysteries," Tom replied, a teasing smile curving one side of his mouth. "You love the search for knowledge, don't you? The puzzles and the riddles and the secret realities that elude you and lead you ever on?" His voice dropped to almost a seductive purr as he described her never-ending, clinical, burning curiosity in a manner that made it seem almost decadent in its pleasures. He described it in a way that said he understood the temptation personally. "Come, tell me the truth, Hermione. You would grow bored if the answers lay placidly at your feet to be plucked like berries from the vine. It is the hunt for knowledge that drives you, not the answers themselves. You enjoy the middle of the book, not the end. Don't forget Hermione; I know you."
He grinned wolfishly at her. Hermione felt suddenly breathless under his scrutiny. Under the weight of how right he was. She loved the pursuit of knowledge, not merely the possession of it. The thrill of discovery after a long search in the library. The triumph of wresting a new secret from the jaws of the unknown.
To be seen with such naked clarity jarred her all the way down to her bones. No one, except maybe Harry and Ron... (or her father, Mr. Granger) had ever understood her. Not like this.
"As long as I am a mystery," Tom finished, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction, "you will be certain think of me. So why would I want to be anything else?"
The barb shook hermione from the fugue his exposition had left her in. His amusement slackened as he glanced down to where her hands balled up into fists, then back up to the quiet fear and resentment burning in her eyes. He pursed his lips and sighed, a measure of his teasing demeanor melting away to reveal a shade of practical honesty underneath. He gave her a level look.
"Suffice it to say, I cannot have you walking around unprotected while I cannot be by your side," he said plainly. "I need to know you are safe. This magic will ensure it."
"I don't need your protection, or anyone else's."
"Yes, you do." Tom shook his head ruefully. "You don't understand the appeal of your own nature. You shine so brightly, Hermione. Too brightly. Dark things cannot help but be drawn to your light. I will not see you dimmed by their touch, so long as I can prevent it."
Hermione wanted to argue, but couldn't. She'd attracted his attention, after all.
"Okay, well, I appreciate the sentiment, but whatever happens, Ron will protect me," she replied. "And Harry. My friends. And the only thing I need protection from is from you! So this mark is redundant, and you can get rid of it. Now."
Tom laughed at that and the sound was startling. Filled with real amusement, genuine mirth. And unexpectedly warm, coming from him. Hermione had expected anger at the mention of her boyfriend and best friend.
"That boy is off hauling rubble with day laborers, while a villainous war criminal infiltrates his lady's chambers by night." He shook his head, still chuckling. "No, him I will trust least of all to keep you safe."
Hermione opened her mouth, a retort about Ron's capability ready on the tip of her tongue, but she snapped it shut and fought not to jump when he suddenly moved, stepping forward and walking right through the far sofa, coming to a stop directly in front of her, his lower legs still half inside the coffee table.
"I told you, Hermione," he said, his voice and presence all the realer for his closeness. His eyes studied her face, familiar yet fascinated, as though she too had become more real to him with her nearness and the perhaps the fact that she was now awake, "My devotion, is whole and focused. Now that I have the means, I will trust your safety to no one else. Besides," he smirked dangerously, "there isn't much you can do to stop me. My skill is not so slight that my magic can be brushed away by such a meager might as your Fae sorcerer can produce. I should think after last night that would be apparent. The only reason he is still breathing after touching my mark is that his power was too weak to pose a true threat."
His eyes brushed away from hers scanning the room without focusing on anything. They passed right over Alexa, who was standing, pale and wide-eyed, not three feet in front of him. He scowled into the middle distance.
"I know you are there, magician," he said. His voice was completely different than when he spoke to Hermione; all the softness and warmth leached out of it, infusing his insidiously alluring tones with hard, icy ruthlessness. The alteration was jarring. THIS was Lord Voldemort. "Try again to step between me and what is mine and I don't care how weak you are, I will shred you atom by atom."
"He can't see you?" Hermione muttered out of the side of her mouth to Alexa, unable to tear her gaze away from the image of the wizard before her. Hermione thought she saw a nervous shake of the head from the corner of her eye, but Alexa didn't seem to be capable of speaking, after being threatened by someone she considered a deity.
"Alas," he said ruefully, turning his attention back to Hermione, his manner softening again almost instantly and she was struck again by the transformation, "I stand here exposed for all to see, but, as has long been the case, my eyes are for you alone, Hermione. In this form, nothing else in all the worlds is real. Only you"
Hermione pursed her lips, shaking off the flowery words. They were getting harder and harder to ignore.
"I'm not 'yours'. You don't get to claim ownership of me."
His brow furrowed, and he glanced down, his expression almost shy. "A man can dream," he murmured quietly.
He looked back up at her with a smile so charming she almost caught herself blushing. She narrowed her eyes instead. This would not happen. He was evil. Not to mention he was a seventy year old man!
"You know what?" she said as coldly as possible. "I don't buy this whole lover act for an instant." It was only partly a lie. "You think you can distract me with it, but that's all it is. Misdirection so I won't dig deeper and figure out what you're really up to."
Tom Riddle's eyes burned into her as he let the words hang in the air between them. Hermione worked hard not to fidget. How could anyone stare at someone else so hard? After a moment, he apparently couldn't bear it any longer either, because his eyes lowered, his expression growing thoughtful. He smirked ruefully.
"Such is the danger of using lies to tell the truth," he murmured, half to himself. "When you do at last tell the plain, honest truth, everyone calls you a liar." He turned his eyes on her again, all trace of his ever-mocking smile long gone, and his eyes were dead serious. "If you would allow it, I would spend the rest of your life proving you wrong."
Hermione tried to find some biting retort, but the intensity of his expression and the tone of his voice were too much for her to answer. For a famed manipulative dark wizard, the man was being waaay too honest. She swallowed hard, meeting his eyes as best she could, and tried to accept what he was saying. It was the only way she was going to be able to counter him.
With that acceptance came a kind of release. The weight of everything she had learned and experienced in the past two days (or maybe in the past seven years) seemed to fall on her all at once, leaving her feeling too exhausted for anxiety. A measure of tension leeched out of her, for no other reason than she couldn't hold on to it any longer. She sighed, and looked up at him almost pleadingly.
"Just tell me what you want." And then leave me alone.
Tom lifted his eyebrows almost playfully.
"You."
Hermione fought not to roll her eyes.
"Yeah? What else?"
Tom smiled. Slow, sly and secretive. Obviously. And therefore challengingly. Against her will, it sparked her curiosity. Like a predator scenting its prey, charged by the instinct to chase it down. Even knowing he was doing it on purpose couldn't kill that innate desire to know.
"I want what you want," he replied, intentionally unhelpful, his whole air projecting a mocking feigned innocence. "And I want you to want what I want. Have I not said so again and again?"
Her eyes narrowed at him again, and he cocked an eyebrow in return.
"Do not look at me so, dearest Hermione. You wound me." He pressed his hand to his chest with an air of hurt that she thought was only partly facetious. An echo of that accusation he'd directed at her the night before had returned. "I would have spared you the burden of this knowledge, these confusing questions and the hard decisions to come. But you, not I, chose to change the rules. I have merely acted within the bounds of your decisions." A kind of frustrated longing, edged with pain and something like wonder, softened in the lines of his face. "I can never predict you as I can others. You are as much a mystery to me as I am to you. And I too love a good mystery."
His expression grew introspective. "How to make you understand... The truth is, I am glad you forced my hand. It was... such a relief to finally speak openly to someone." He refocused on her. "And to reveal my true feelings and motives to you. Worth the risk in every way. To think now that you might never have known how I love you…" He closed his eyes briefly, as though the idea were too terrible to consider. When he opened them again, his eyes were so clear and calm and sure that Hermione felt herself arrested by them. "You saved me from that fate. You have saved me over and over again. And perhaps, Hermione… perhaps you can save me once more. And save many more with me. That is what I want. If you will do it. The future is in your hands now. My gift to you. Everything turns upon your desire."
A sweeping statement, Hermione acknowledged, turning it over in her mind. An all encompassing answer. Moving, frightening, alluring. But ultimately meaningless. He wasn't going to tell her anything of value about the Quill of Power he had used to write on her forehead. Not like this. He was going to make her hunt him, and he would do everything in his power to elude her, even as he drew her on. It frustrated her. And, in the secret recesses of her mind, she allowed herself to acknowledge that it kind of thrilled her.
But as thrilling as that chase sounded, she knew that it was what he wanted as well. And she didnt want what a killer wanted.
"Is that so?" she said, trying to lace her words with as much spite as she could muster. "Well if its up to me, I guess you won't mind when I tell Harry and the world all about your miraculous return from the grave."
Tom's smile became cautious, but remained intent. He cocked his head, weighing and measuring her mettle.
"That is one choice," he said slowly. "And there is another: don't look for me." He smirked more broadly at the return of Hermione's incredulous expression. "Don't have Harry look for me either. Or any of your friends from Hogwarts or the Ministry of Magic."
"What could possibly delude you into thinking I would actually keep your secrets for you?" Hermione asked incredulously, reaching up without really meaning to, to run a careful hand over the black and blue swelling on her throat. It still hurt a little as she touched the dark bruises.
Tom's expression stiffened at the sight and his eyes flicked away. A subtle display of discomfort, and Hermione felt a little stab of satisfaction. 'Yeah! You should feel guilty, you jerk!'
His pained expression was gone quickly though, almost immediately replaced by another challenging smirk.
"You want to make right what was wrong. Heal what's been broken. I know you do. If keeping my secrets would accomplish that, wouldn't it be worth it?"
He eyed her thoughtfully, penetratingly, and again she felt like she was standing naked in front of him, and he could see all of her, while himself remained fully clothed in secrets and half-truths. Her mouth ran dry as it occurred to her that she wanted to strip them away, make his mind as naked as hers was, see all of him, learn him, know him inside and out…
Stop it. STOP it!
"Besides," he went on blithely, "I have no desire to be found. So you will not find me. All a search would produce is frustration and uncertainty and trouble. There is no need for that. For anyone. For now, I want you to have peace, Hermione. I want ALL the world to have peace." His smile turned teasing, a wicked light entering his eyes. "After all, who knows how much longer I will allow it to last."
Anger bubbled up inside her, frothing higher with embarrassment and anxiety, consuming fear and giving back fury. This wasn't a game! The faces of loved ones who had died filled her mind again, fueling her rage. It burst through the veneer of weariness as she felt the weight of the destroyed city of London settle on her shoulders once more, compounded by the pain in her throat, and her broken peace of mind. She found herself taking a step forward, advancing on him, and reveling in a little thrill as he took a reflexive half step backwards in response. She wasn't a helpless little witch.
"We stopped you once," she snapped. "We can do it again. Whatever you have planned, you won't succeed."
Her confidence flagged an instant later as he chuckled quietly, delighted amusement sparking in his expression. His eyes danced over her face, avid, as though devouring her defiant expression, where before they had only rested intently on her expressions of anxiety and weariness. Enjoying the fight in her far more than he had enjoyed her fear, she realized.
She felt her cheeks heat.
His expression remained engaged, his lips quirked in a kind of lopsided smile that might have almost been enchanting if she didn't know what a complete bastard he was, and his eyes narrowed with knowing as he registered her embarrassment. But when he spoke his voice was calm, steady and entirely matter-of-fact.
Which made his words all the more frightening.
"My only plans for the foreseeable future involve remaining undetected and staying out of trouble. No...killing. At present, my situation is a stable one. I have no immediate desire to alter it. If I am forced into the open, however…" he hummed in mock thoughtfulness under his breath, "…who knows what could happen?" He took a step closer and leaned in so that they were nearly nose to nose. "Are you so eager to burn the world again with me, Hermione?"
The city seemed to loom around her like a corporeal threat, glaring accusations straight through the brick walls.
"I thought you wanted to make things right," she countered weakly.
"We don't always get what we want," he replied matter-of-factly. Like the unspoken possibility of death, destruction and fear were merely a reality that had to be accepted. "Sometimes it must be enough to settle for the privilege of choosing what we will keep and what we will lose. And there are very few things in this universe I am unwilling to cast into the flames in order to keep safe the few things I value above all else. If I must."
He shook his head, and she was surprised (and suspicious) to see a shade of pleading in his own expression. His voice was threaded with an earnest gravity, something she would almost be tempted to call a desperation. Begging her to understand, even though he refused to tell her what she wanted to know.
"But there is an excellent chance that no one has to lose anything else," he told her. "A chance that something can be salvaged. A chance that good can grow out of these evil days." He took a deep breath, leaning back slightly, as though casting off his impassioned heat, his face smoothing and cooling. "Yet, I say again, that is all up to you, my Hermione. You are the key. I know it."
'How am I the key?' her mind raged. 'Tell me what you mean by that! Tell me what you are trying to make me to do!'
"I'm not afraid of you," she hissed between clenched teeth. It wasn't exactly a lie. It wasn't exactly the truth either. But it felt important that she make him believe it.
Tom smiled broadly at her, eyes dancing with delight, as though she'd said something incredibly witty.
"Good," he said lightly, laughter invading his voice.
There was a pressure at the back of her eyes, a restless, frustrated energy that made her want to pace and bite her nails and do something. For some reason, she was acutely aware of the cold weight of the pendant around her neck. The rune that abhorred secrets and forced you onto new paths.
She glared up at the smug expression that was growing on his face at her conflict. He was enjoying this way too much.
"Tom…" she growled warningly.
Something flashed in his eyes. In an instant the amusement on his face gave way to something dangerous, hungry and straining at the bars of its cage.
"What?" he replied softly, his voice suddenly darkening with desire. He took a half step closer, all but eradicating the space between them. "What would you say to me, Hermione, with my name on your lips?"
Hermione's eyes widened, and she felt the weight of his gaze burning along every nerve ending in her body. She wanted to look away, but she refused to give him the satisfaction.
"I…"
She never found out what she would have said, because he reached up and traced the back of one finger along the line of her cheek bone, stealing her voice. Hermione shivered, unconsciously turning her head into the touch, her protest dying on her lips. There was no spark of purple lightning, no magical bite as punishment for the caress. She shouldn't have been able to feel it, because he wasn't really there. But warmth radiated from the point of contact, and she felt it again, that she was water, and his slightest touch had created ripples that spread over her entire body. Her lips tingled traitorously and she pressed them together into a hard line. He was too close. She knew she should step back, even if it meant retreat, but she felt like her feet had grown roots, like maybe she was just as caught and helpless as she had been the night before.
His eyes flicked down to the tight line of her mouth. Her heart hammered in her chest, but it didn't feel like fear. His gaze was like a physical touch, and a tremor ran through her when he swallowed hard and unconsciously darted the tip of his tongue to wet his lips. He leaned in closer, tilting his head slightly, almost thoughtfully. Hermione, her senses buzzing and her mind inauspiciously blank, couldn't seem to find enough air in the space between their mouths. His eyes traveled down the line of her face and he brought his inexorably towards hers. Then his eyes looked down the line of her neck. To where her bruises were.
He froze, bare millimeters away from her. Hermione, her mind lost in a haze, had to arrest herself with a will of iron to stop herself from swaying forward to close the distance. Blinking, he raised his face away from her, looking suddenly uncertain. It sat strangely on his features.
With an abruptness that left her feeling hollow and cold, he turned and walked a few steps away.
"Endearing as your obstinacy can be," he said quietly after a moment, "just this once, don't be stubborn. Use my gift. I'm not fool enough to believe your taking it will mean anything. I just can't bear to see you hurt."
His gift? Shaking her head, Hermione reached up and ran a hand over her neck and the bruises that had stopped him from advancing further. The bruises he had put there. The pain of her light touch on them brought her back to reality. 'What am I doing?' She clenched her jaw against her guilt. But she didn't know how or if she should acknowledge the strange feelings he brought up inside of her. It was too messy. Too complicated. 'What is he doing to me?'
"Oh really?" she asked snidely, or tried to, but there wasn't nearly as much venom in her voice as she had intended. Her voice sounded breathy and faint to her own ears. She barely knew what he was talking about, since she had no idea what the 'gift' was for, but letting him know it felt like it would tip the balance of power in his favor, and that was unacceptable when it was already so far out of balance. It was achingly apparent that he already had too much influence over her. "Even if you're the one that did it?"
He smiled sadly at her over his shoulder, his eyes full of craving and something like utter hopelessness. "Especially then."
He stepped back further still, and the invisible, shadowy fog, which had seemed to form a bubble around them as they spoke face to face, flowed into the gulf between them, obscuring him. The smile that animated his face as the darkness swallowed him was clear to her eyes nevertheless, because it was always clear in her memory. That same frustrating, irreverent, self-assured smile. The same smile as the first smile he'd given her in the Ministry of Magic. But his eyes, bright with cynical amusement, were tinged with a knowing sadness that made Hermione's throat tighten with something that wasn't fear or anger or guilt.
"Remember, Hermione. You are my rain. And I am counting on you."
Without further fanfare, the image of him disintegrated in a sizzle of green serpent-like energy. The fog of shadows evaporated like morning mist, letting the weak sunlight pour back in through the windows. The ringing, which had reached so high a pitch that Hermione had ceased to notice it, went suddenly still.
A moment of thick silence reigned before both women sank onto the couch, gasping and trying to collect themselves. Alexa caught Hermione's eye; hers were wide with fear and wonder.
"I am sorry, Hermione," Alexa breathed. "But I will not try that again."
"No problem," Hermione replied, rubbing a hand over her face; she noticed she could no longer feel the presence of the mark. Snatching up the mirror from the coffee table, she examined herself to see that it was no longer visible. But there was no doubt in her mind that it was still there. "I don't think I'd like to try that again either." At least not until I can better study out how to get rid of it without him knowing.
After a long moment, apparently at a loss for what more to do, Alexa poured them each another cup of tea.
"It seems Grandmother may have been right… "
"I'll say."
They sat quietly, sipping their tea.
"But he loves you, I think."
Hermione looked at Alexa incredulously. Of all she could have said, that was possibly the last thing she'd expected to hear. It certainly wasn't the most important thing. It was immaterial, in fact.
Apparently Alexa didn't think so. She was watching Hermione thoughtfully, expectantly.
"That's...not love," Hermione muttered into her teacup after a moment, her cheeks going annoyingly pink. "That's obsession. It's not healthy. He must have accidentally taken Amortentia or something. A man like him couldn't possibly know what love is."
"Love may drive a man to extreme lengths," Alexa commented philosophically, holding her own teacup close to her face and closing her eyes as she let the steam waft under her nose. "Who knows how far it might drive a god?"
"Tom Riddle is not a god," Hermione retorted for the umpteenth time, even though it seemed that Tom really had indeed gone beyond the influence of life and death. "And whatever you think, both you and your grandma said it: he's dangerous."
"Sometimes the reward is worth the danger; sometimes it is not. As I said, all my intention was to give you that choice."
Hermione just shook her head and sipped her tea. What reward? Tom Riddle had nothing she wanted. Nothing, she repeated sternly, stalwartly refusing to acknowledge the pull of her curiosity, or the tiny seed of disappointment she'd felt when his image had failed to kiss her. He was a complete wild card, and he wasn't just alive, or free, or nearby. He was literally under her skin, and she didn't know anything that could be done about it except to stay as far from him as possible.
What's more, is that she was no closer to finding the answers to her questions, especially where it concerned this puzzling story about her "death", "rebirth", and where Dumbledore was concerned. Was it really true?
Hermione reached up to finger the pendant hanging around her neck, the only thing standing between the two of them. Sighing in resignation, moved to pull it off.
"Keep it," Alexa said with a shake of her head.
"I… are you sure?" Hermione asked, almost pathetically grateful. "He said…"
"The god said not to stand between you again. I cannot defy him. But just as the rune cannot undo the mark that was already upon you, that protection has already been given. I break no command by allowing you to keep what is already yours." She looked seriously at Hermione. "Besides, I suspect you will need it."
Hermione grimaced. "I don't understand any of this. Voldemort is supposed to be dead. I can't even imagine how he survived, much less…" She shook her head, at a loss to put into words the surreality of her situation.
"When the Dark Lord is nearby, nothing can ever be quite what it seems," Alexa said with quiet surety. Her face was still so pale it bordered on ashen, but her eyes were thoughtful. "You would do well to remember that, I think."
Hermione swallowed hard, rubbing her free hand over her thigh to wipe the sweat from her palms. Her fingers moved over a bulge in one pocket, and she suddenly remembered the golden disc. Eager for some distraction to occupy her mind, she pulled it from her pocket.
"I don't suppose you could tell me what this is?"
Alexa's eyes narrowed critically as they lit on the disc.
"This… is the gift he spoke of?"
Hermione nodded. "It was on my dresser this morning. These symbols are Fae runes, right? I wonder why we don't study Fae runes in school..." She thought out loud, brows furrowing.
"Same reason the Americans study feet and inches instead of the metric system like they should," Alexa rolled her eyes. Then she hmmmed and bent her head close, studying the box thoughtfully.
"The runes that you wizards study are derivatives of Fae runes. It's like...simplified Chinese verses ancient traditional Chinese."
Hermione wondered briefly where Tom could have possibly studied ancient Fae runes. "Do they say what this thing is for?"
Frowning, Alexa set aside her teacup.
"May I?"
Hermione nodded again and put the disc in her outstretched hand. Alexa examined it closely.
"Here in the middle is Asowulo," she said, pointing to the largest symbol in the center of the disc. "For the sun. It means energy, movement, rejuvenation. But in this case, I think it means healing."
"Makes sense," Hermione murmured, recalling Tom's entreaty for her to use his gift on her wound.
"I suspect…"
Alexa turned the disc sideways, examining it critically, then gripped it in both hands and twisted. There was a small sucking sound, and the disc split in half lengthwise. Inside, a thick, whitish ointment was caked in larger half. Not a disc then; a jar. Alexa sniffed it and blinked, looking down at the ointment wonderingly.
"I suspect this will heal you quite quickly if you apply it to your throat," she said, her voice hushed with awe. "I believe it is the potion of Iduniala." Hermione shot her a questioning look. "Legend tells us that the apples that grow in the garden of Idunn in the Fae realm are what give the gods their strength and long life."
Hermione cocked a skeptical eyebrow, but took the jar from Alexa's hand. The aroma of apples did indeed waft up from the ointment. It reminded her, suddenly and jarringly, of the scent of Riddle's hair. A frisson of electricity shot through her and she quickly set it on the coffee table. Smell is the sense most powerfully associated with memory, she reminded herself logically. That didn't explain why she was remembering the sense of touch so vividly as well, but it didn't bear thinking about right now. Thoughts of the symbolism of snakes and apples filled her mind briefly.
Taking up the hand mirror, she carefully dabbed a small amount of the potion onto her little finger and dabbed the mystery substance onto a section of the bruise. She sucked in a sharp breath as a tingling burn started in the skin there, and drew the mirror up quickly to see what kind of reaction it had caused. She watched the skin under the potion seem to bubble and suck in the salve. Before her eyes, the area lightened, flushed red, and then paled back to her normal skin tone, leaving a patch of healthy, unmarked skin in the center of the dark bruise.
"That's… that's…" She couldn't find a word to sufficiently describe what it was. She refused to even think the word 'miraculous', but it was hard not to. She'd never learned of any potion in Professor Snape's class that healed so quickly! Her mind started going into overdrive wondering about the ingredients, spells, and technique that went into making this and began making notes in her head. She mentally went through a list of different books that might contain SOMETHING about fae potions.
Barely able to make herself care that she was giving in to Tom's request and possibly giving him some completely undeserved peace of mind, she sparingly covered the rest of the bruise, gritting her teeth against the prickling burn. It wasn't for his sake, she told herself, staring in unblinking wonder as her skin roiled and cleared, like storm clouds rolling back to give way to clear skies; it was for her own comfort. Besides, she wanted any evidence of his violence and domination gone from her skin. It was already imprinted uncomfortably deep on her memory.
She made sure to use the least amount of the potion possible. The rest, she had already decided, was destined for a series of cauldron tests. As well as a muggle microscope currently gathering dust in her house. She began mentally listing the various tests she wanted to perform on her sample, mostly so she didn't have to think any more about the wound it had healed, or the man that had given it to her, when she over heard Alexa hum thoughtfully to herself.
"Strange…" Alexa muttered. She was still examining the lid of the jar.
"What?"
"Look here," she pointed to a repeating pattern that moved in a ring around the central symbol. "Taudiz and Dragebo. The two runes interlock and alternate."
"Okay…" Hermione nodded. Then she shook her head. "Sorry, that means nothing to me. Explain. Please," she added belatedly.
Alexa glanced up at her and smiled wryly before looking back at the golden disc of the lid. She pointed to a symbol that looked like a crooked cross.
"Taudiz is 'necessity'. A lack or dissatisfaction, an emptiness that needs to be filled. An imbalance between means and desire."
Her finger shifted to the next symbol, which resembled an 'x', linked on each end to the first symbol.
"Dragebo is 'gift'. Its purpose is creating connections." She held up her index fingers side by side. "Two who were separate," she crossed her index fingers to form an 'x', "are joined where they meet in common purpose. They are bound together by the exchange of gifts, creating a debt that solidifies loyalty. Dragebo balances opposing forces with bonds of fidelity, converting enmity to allegiance. It is the seal placed upon oaths, treaties…" Alexa glanced up at Hermione. "… marriages..." she looked away again. "Anything that formalizes a union of opposites."
Hermione stared at where the two fingers crossed for a long moment before Alexa dropped her hands. It irritated her to realize she was blushing again, flustered without knowing why.
Use my gift. I'm not fool enough to believe your taking it will mean anything. I just can't bear to see you hurt.
So he said. But Alexa was right. Nothing was ever quite what it seemed where the Dark Lord was concerned.
"The two runes are nearly opposites," Alexa continued, turning her attention back to the lid, "yet they compliment each other in unexpected ways. So unlike one another, yet juxtaposed like this, they fulfill each other. Dragebo fills the emptiness of Taudiz; while Taudiz opens wide to receive and embrace the fullness of Dragebo. Balance and imbalance, balancing one another. The way they circle Asowulo gives the central rune for healing a much broader double meaning." She shrugged. "It is rather poetically crafted. It is simply a strange statement to be engraved upon a jar of medicine."
Hermione stared at the knotted symbols as they took on weighty new significance. Trying to work through their possible implications. Analyzing what she knew with what she was learning. Letting new pieces of the puzzle slide into place.
He had tried to tie her to his crimes with declarations of love. Now he wanted to bind her with a gift of medicine to heal a wound he had made. Creating a 'debt', the runes said. Trying to create loyalty out of necessity.
'Is that it, Tom?' she mused critically, her internal voice quiet and analytical. 'You want to force me into an alliance?'
She pursed her lips, tracing the thin thread of his logic, and losing the frayed end of it again and again.
'Why?' she wondered. 'To what purpose? What necessity? Do you think dragging me down with you will somehow heal the damage you've done?
'Or... do you expect me to somehow lift you up?'
Impossible.
Memories from Malfoy Manor slid in sideways again, complicating the comfortably black and white picture forming in her mind glittering facets of gray. Of a man who was more than just a faceless monster… of someone she couldn't just write off as 'better off dead'… someone who had saved her, protected her, impressed her… someone whose path Dumbledore had mourned, in spite of all the evil he'd done…Someone who Harry pitied even though he had tried to kill him multiple times.
You are my rain…
Impossible! But even so, there was no question in her mind that that was the answer to the riddle written in the runes. She was left only to wonder whether it was a request, or a warning.
Half an hour later, the golden disc of medicinal potion was back in Hermione's pocket as Alexa walked her down to the street. The two had exchanged phone numbers ("just in case," they had agreed) but the tension between them had grown too intense to brook further delay of Hermione's departure. There were just too many unknowns, and they remained virtual strangers. Time and distance were necessary now. Alexa looked tired and sad as she opened the door for Hermione to step out.
"Uruz," she said suddenly, glancing up at Hermione's forehead as they faced each other across the threshold of the doorway. "Its meaning has become quite clear, yes?"
Hermione gave her a weary, sidelong look.
"No," she contradicted morosely. She had a few new answers, yes, but about a million more questions. Add the curiosity, the confusion, fascination and revulsion distracting her from what little logic she could find to analyzed, the vague threats and even vaguer hopes... There was absolutely nothing clear about this at all. "I still don't know what any of this means." She shrugged dejectedly. "Care to enlighten me?"
Alexa's eyebrows lifted quizzically, surprised. "You don't see it?" When Hermione shook her head, Alexa cocked hers to the side, as though puzzled. Her eyes were worried. "How little we see ourselves," she murmured.
She reached out towards Hermione, paused, then laid her hand gently on Hermione's arm. Her touch was delicate, but Hermione could feel her hand through her sleeve as though the fabric was not there, and her skin tingled with a weight in the touch that wasn't physically there. Hermione looked up at her questioningly; the contact was simple, but somehow it was fraught with more meaning than Hermione could grasp. When Alexa spoke, her accent was thicker, and her eyes were distant and filled with some heavy emotion that said perhaps she felt it too.
"The god… Riddle… is driven by uruz." She shook her head, and squeezed Hermione's arm, little prickles of sensation radiating from her fingers up towards her shoulder. "He has marked you as Uruz, Hermione. Because… it is you. You are his inspiration. His sickness. And his cure. You will be the rain that cools his fury. Or…" a shadow of fear flitted through her eyes. "Or you will be the fire that inflames him to incinerate everything."
The sky overhead rumbled ominously; the clouds were beginning to thicken again for another storm.
"What am I supposed to do?" Hermione hated how small her voice sounded in the space between them.
"Seek the wise one; the wizard who knows your past. He has the answers you search for."
Alexa lifted her hand off of Hermione's shoulder. Hermione blinked rapidly, and took a deep breath, as though she had forgotten the need before. She felt momentarily light-headed. What 'wise one' was she talking about?
"I wish I could guide you." Alexa shook her head apologetically. "But I suspect you must choose your own way from here. Good luck, Hermione Granger," she moved to close the door, then paused, casting her eyes up at the shells of the buildings and back down to ne. "Yes, Grandmother was right. He is dangerous. But…" she bit her lip, eyes narrowing in thought. "…he may also be more than that." She looked back at Hermione, hard in the eye. "And… so might you. Consider carefully. There are many ways up the mountain."
Then she smiled goodbye, and closed the door. Hermione stood there staring at it for a long time, tracing the painted wood grain with her eyes as though she could read some kind of sense or answer in the pattern.
Was Alexa right? To Voldemort, she was Uruz? The beast. The rain. The sickness and the cure.
The beast… or the rain… One or the other. Hermione's brow furrowed.
"Everything depends on you," he had said.
"Why did you tell me all of that last night?" she asked the empty air.
Not just because she had changed the rules. Not just because he wanted confession or absolution.
'Why say so much, why ask if I understood, then choke me unconscious before I could respond?'
Why leave medicine rather than applying it himself, if the sight of the wound was so unbearable to him?
'Why taunt me by refusing to answer my questions, but leave me clues, tempt me with a mystery, and tell me to search for the answers myself?'
'Why leave me here, free to tell his secrets, but deliver an ultimatum and ask me not to?'
Understanding struck like lightening out of a clear sky.
"So that I have to choose."
Not to give her a choice, as Alexa had done. But to force her to choose.
The beast. Or the rain.
To oppose him. Or to cooperate with him.
He didn't want to force her into an alliance. He wanted her to choose an alliance with him of her own free will.
Runic symbols seemed to flash and dance around her head in a whirlwind as her analytical mind snapped them up and dissected the past hours along their esoteric edges.
To create a shared guilt. A debt of loyalty. To fill his 'need' with a 'gift'. Or to fill mine… Not just to make an alliance in word, but to have me to share his guilt, of my own free will, so that we are equally complicit, share an equal stake in success or failure… A true union of opposites, just as Alexa had said.
The mark of Uruz tingled on her forehead again.
"His calming rain, or his all-consuming fire? That's the choice?"
There was no response, of course.
There was no possible way! A madman was asking her to make herself his willing hostage! To hand herself over into blackmail. To betray Harry and Ron and all the people she cared about! To risk more than she could even begin to imagine, and for something he had barely even begun to qualify to her. Asking her to trust him without giving her any reason to do so. And for what?
Healing.
The mystery of Asuwolo, the healing sun, tempted and troubled her, left like some juicy bait under a sign that read "this is a trap" in flashing neon letters. Only a fool would take it.
But Hermione wanted to know, needed to understand, could not help but wonder: how did Tom imagine that her choices or her help could heal what he had broken? The war was over. Wouldn't things begin to heal on their own with time?
It didn't seem possible, or fathomable, or sane. Hermione glanced around herself. The broken city of London towered above her. What could she do to balance this kind of pain?
But if she really could…
"Sometimes the reward is worth the danger..." Alexa's words rang in her ears.
Hermione was suddenly brought up short. Something Alexa had said…
"Good luck, Hermione Granger"
"I never told you my name…"
Even Voldemort had only said 'Hermione'. How did Alexa know her surname?
"Taldur was far-seeing."
The length of the encounter raced through her mind, and it suddenly occurred to Hermione to wonder what other attributes Alexa had inherited from her fae ancestors.
Far-seeing?
"Or…" Hermione drew in a breath, no longer bothering to feel embarrassed over her divining thoughts. "...precognizant?" What Professor Trelawney would give to see her know, she mused.
"She is wise."
Hermione gasped and turned to the deep, thickly accented voice behind her. The burly man with the unibrow had locked up the cart, closing its shutters and securing it to a nearby lamp post with a heavy chain. Hermione saw a number of runic symbols etched into the metal frame, and had no doubt whatsoever that the locks were mere formality next to the other forms of theft protection the Solbergs had put in place around their property. The man moved past her to the door.
"If she tell you something, you are fool if not to listen." He looked up at her forehead, and Hermione knew he was another who could see her mark. "She knows much." He looked back into her eyes. "She knows."
Then he moved past her and pushed through the door, closing it behind him. She heard a lock slide into place somewhere beyond.
Hermione craned her neck to stare up at the grimy row of second story windows, her eyes wide, unable to quite believe the ideas she was entertaining and willing the truth to present itself.
When nothing more was forthcoming, Hermione bit her lip, at war with herself.
Alexa seemed to believe she should give Tom a chance. How much faith should she put in this stranger's advice? Even if she was… Hermione shook her head.
Every instinct and rational thought urged her against it. But something more, something deeper than thought or fear, whispered to her that maybe, just maybe…
She pulled the gold disc from her pocket, tracing the runes with her eyes. Need, gift and healing stared back at her, taunting her with their blatant double meanings, and stalwartly guarding their maker's secrets.
"Healing… Are you asking, Tom?" she murmured. "Or offering? Which is it?"
Again, no answer. She sighed, nodding slowly. That was alright. Tom was right about one thing. Frustrating as it could sometimes be, Hermione was a brilliant seeker; she knew that answers didn't always offer themselves up. Sometimes they had to be hunted down. And despite the ramifications of the chase, in her heart of hearts, she wouldn't have it any other way.
Even so, she shivered to think how deep in the dark she remained. Her path forward to find new answers was lost to her, and she was standing at the edge of deep, lightless waters, about to leap into them without knowing how far she would have to swim to reach the other side. Or what monsters lurked beneath.
She turned her face up the street, in the direction of the Ministry of Magic. Towards help and protection. That was the right way. The safe way. The sane way. She stared down that path for a long time. Harry, at least, deserved to know...
"…are you so eager to burn the world again with me, Hermione?"
She turned around and set off in the opposite direction, preparing herself to try to argue away the fee she'd no doubt accrued for missing checkout time at the hotel. She would tell Harry eventually, she reasoned.
The burned out windows seemed to watch her from above like the hollow sockets of fleshless skulls, the broken buildings thrusting up into the sky like jagged teeth of a cadaver's leer. The wind swept down around her, like icy breath from death's head, howling and mocking her ignorance. Accusing her of treachery. Crowing at her daring. Cackling at her squeamishness as she kept her eyes firmly on the pavement in front of her.
'I didn't do this. He chose to do this. It doesn't matter why. It doesn't.'
But she still couldn't look up at the city. She squeezed the gold disc, the rune for the healing sun pressing into her palm, and prayed to whoever was listening that she wasn't making a terrible mistake.
"…you and I burned this world together. We two alone in all the realms share this guilt. And the part of you that is broken by that truth will always belong to me…"
The sky rumbled again. The first cool drop of the next storm splashed against her forehead, and Hermione sped up her steps, hoping to avoid the rain. If she could.
Notes:
Hey guys! Thanks for being patient. My plot bunnies have been running all over the place. I want to continue this story, but if you check out my other fanfic stories you'll see that I'm either bad at finishing, or I'm a oneshot kinda girl. I plan on ending here unless more ideas come to me! I really want to write a scene where she and Dumbledore talk, but I have no idea how she would get there! lol! So, we'll put a pause on the story after this chapter until I can come up with more ideas. I hope you liked it! Lots of feedback is welcome!
Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me. I'm just imagining on the backs of other imagineers!
Chapter 5: Chapter 5
Notes:
"I'm searching for answers, 'cause something's not right.
I follow the signs; I'm close to the fire.
I fear that soon you'll reveal your dangerous mind…"
- Within Temptation
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The sun's last cheerful rays illuminated the architectural wonder that was "the Burrow".
The surrounding fields and fluttering leaves on the trees glowed a golden hue, with the sweet smell of freshly mowed grass. Slowly making it's glowing red path down towards a dark horizon, the sun glared through the windowpane; lighting upon the merry Weasley household inside who were currently gathered around a warm wooden table piled high with delectable food.
Sitting at that table, Hermione picked at the food on her plate, seeing everything and registering nothing. She barely noticed what her gleaming silver fork was poking at, as she pushed around the contents on her white ceramic plate in small swirling patterns.
The sun struck the silverware at a sharp angle, scattering the light into individual prisms of color and if she relaxed her eyes and let them go slightly out of focus, she could imagine she was seeing a spray of rainbow down a tunnel of light. The illusion distracted her.
The happy cacophony of the Weasley family surrounded her as they all partook of the assorted dishes, delicious and steaming. The eating utensils made tinkling sounds as they connected with the different types of metal and glass plates. But everything was more of a background noise in her head, the sounds of the family's chatter merged together rather than individual voices standing out.
She sat there, with a smile plastered onto her face, trying to seem normal to anyone who happened to glance at her. It helped that she was using a gentle occluding spell.
It had been three days since "the incident" as Hermione referred to it in her mind.
She pulled a hand away from her forehead only to bring it down to massage her neck, where very recently a livid black bruise had stained her skin. The jar of ointment that had healed it without a trace was currently pressing sharply into her thigh, reminding her that it was still there. Hermione carried it with her everywhere, afraid of someone else accidentally finding it among her belongings.
A hand slapping the table as someone made an emphatic gesture to prove a point, startled Hermione briefly from her knarled thoughts and she was able to focus once more on her surroundings, but only just.
The Weasley family was loud. A loud and loving sea of red hair and smiling faces. Hermione (who had always been an only child) had gotten used to the noise over the years that she and Harry had spent time at Ron's house. They were now as much her family as her own father and mother; the loud, obnoxious, most wonderful brothers and sister that she had ever had. More so now that she and Ron were officially together as a couple with wedding bells perhaps not too far distant.
Right now though, all Hermione longed for was solitude. Such as a quiet corner in a library, somewhere she didn't have to pretend that nothing was wrong and that the war was over. A place she could do what she excelled at: research.
Hermione had been forcing herself to focus mostly towards the two ends of the table, as she tried with all her might to ignore the glaringly empty space next to George. Her shoulders were hunched slightly, as if cringing away from the very ordinary chair that may or may not harbor the ghost of Fred or, at the very least, the reminder of him. She pretended to listen to Mr. Weasley joke with Bill but her thoughts began to drift, as always, back to "the incident".
Need. Gift. Healing.
They were more than mere ideas. They were the weights on a balance scale: one that continued to swing to and fro as she teetered between the two choices in front of her, embodied by a single Fae symbol; Uruz.
The beast, or the rain.
War, or peace. Truth, or lies. Conflict, or allegiance. Destruction, or healing. The sickness, or the cure.
The beast, or the rain.
Hermione closed her eyes against the sounds of everyone enjoying their time as a family, trying to block it all out. To choose what was right, she had done and must continue to do something very wrong. To do what she thought was right, was to choose the wrong thing.
She had not told Ron about "the incident", and thankfully Harry was still in London with Ginny, so she hadn't had to avoid him and his too trusting spirit.
But that would soon change.
He would be coming later on tonight to join the family festivities and part of her desperately didn't want to see him.
She had been chasing herself around in circles for the past few days and although she thought she had already made her choice, it didn't make it any easier.
There seemed to be no answer.
Her mind flashed back to the dark of the hotel room, the rainstorm and the purple lightning, the shocking revelations, the curiosity and the pain. The memory of the hand around her throat made her fingers flex tight against the fork she held.
How could she ever trust him?
"I would never hurt you…"
Those had been Tom Riddle's words, spoken like a solemn vow. Objectively speaking, she supposed he hadn't. Except…
"At least not more than I have to."
Hermione wasn’t anyone’s victim. She didn't like the idea of such an evil wizard deciding how much hurt she could or could not endure, even if it was just a bruise. And it didn't feel like just a bruise… The memory of the burning in her lungs and the blackening of her vision sent a tremor through her. It wasn't the injury itself. It was the act. The fear, the helplessness, the violation of choice…
She reached up to touch the rune pendant, still dangling inconspicuously on her neck and swore he would never lay hands on her again.
On the heels of that, a sensory memory of the gentle friction of his soft lips rose up to swallow the crushing grip of his hand. Remembering the slide and press of his mouth on hers shot a confounding spark of electricity zinging along her limbs before she tamped down on it, vowing he would never do that again either, and refusing to acknowledge the curious shadow of ambivalence her resolution conjured.
She could reluctantly admit, in the sanctuary of her own mind, that it had been… rather stimulating. For a moment. A very brief moment. But it hadn't felt that good (not good enough to overcome everything that stacked against it) and whatever good it had felt had been the product of adrenaline and fear… and maybe a little bit of curiosity… the conceit of being wanted so desperately… nothing else.
Hermione could admit to being a little vain, sure.
It should never have happened in the first place. And it would never happen again.
No matter what choices she made surrounding the golden sun in her pocket, this was a distraction she couldn't afford now.
Besides! Hermione reasoned with herself He's over 70 years old! Gross much? DEFINITELY not my type.
She frowned, trying to control her thoughts and emotions. Why am I even bringing that up? It's not like it's an option even if he WAS younger! Just stop thinking about it!
If the others noticed her unusual reticence, they didn't say anything. Ron had asked her twice in the past two days if she was feeling well...which had prompted her to use an occluding spell around her. But Harry was more observant than Ronald Weasley.
How was Harry NOT going to notice that she was a little off?
Her mind went back to the strange situation of Riddle's age despite her resolve not to think about it. He certainly hadn't LOOKED that old in the hotel room….He actually looked rather young. In his 30's? Hermione frowned and mentally countered her observation, It doesn't MATTER... I'm only 18! Technically 19! Way too young!
She again wrenched her thoughts away from the absurd notions and felt angry. What was she doing? Why was she debating with herself over Voldemort's age as if that had any factor in the matter! Even if he HAD been the same age as her, it wouldn't...it could never...
She began to focus on the happy reunion around her with renewed intensity. She needed to do her best to forget about the whole thing. She consciously tuned her ears and eyes to the loudest thing going on at the moment, desperate to distract herself from her overactive brain.
Mr. Weasley and Bill were joking about...well, something. Big smiles, lots of teeth, wrinkles around their eyes in mirth. Their shoulders shook as they chuckled to each other.
Mrs. Weasley came up behind Mr. Weasley while Hermione studied them. Her focus then remained with Mrs. Weasley as the older woman flitted around her family at the large table like a protective fluffy red haired bumble-bee. She took her role as hostess seriously as she seemed to put all of herself into everything she was doing.
Perhaps Mrs Weasley was also trying to chase some shadowed memories away? Hermione gaze on her intensified and sharpened for a moment, looking for any oddity. Raised up eyebrows here, a playful smack on her husband's shoulder there, a smile struggling to remain hidden underneath a stern look...There! Hermione could see a flash of sadness that entered her eyes as she had looked at George. And the mother began heaping more food onto George’s plate and saying something about him being too thin.
Hermione's attention shifted to focus on George now. Her throat felt tight, and she swallowed as she took in his appearance. George had a smile on his face as he relished this time the family had together but he looked tired and was quieter. Gone was the joking George, the mischievous George. Before Hermione sat a changed man; more sober and serious.
What must it be like? Hermione mused even as her eyes started to tremble with guilty tears. To lose half of yourself? Someone you shared everything with, even the womb?
She quickly occluded herself even further, hoping no one saw her start to sniffle. Watching Fred made her inadvertently think of the revelations from the hotel room again...
Riddle wanted an alliance between them. One that he apparently believed could make things right after all that had gone so wrong. One that would begin, she could only assume, with her silence, making her complicit in his deceit and creating a 'debt of loyalty', as the mysterious Alexa Solberg had put it.
Hermione had already chosen once not to expose him, when she had failed to contact The Ministry of Magic while she was still in London. But the real test had come later when she had materialized out of the flu and into Ron's loving embrace.
His face had lit up as she had crossed the stone hearth and reached for him. She was swept into the arms of her red-headed love. All of her anxiety, fear, and despair were swallowed up for a moment in the euphoria of finally being with the boy she had loved since he had saved her from the troll in the girl's bathroom. The delight of having her close again was plain on Ron's face. When he reached down and tilted her mouth up to meet his, her heart sang.
"I've missed you, Hermione," Ron had sighed, cradling her face in his hands. Hermione craned her neck to stare up into the sincere expression of his face, and reached up to cover his hands with her own, pressing her cheek into the strength of his fingers. He was dressed casually in a grey t-shirt and jeans.
Their fingers laced together and they kissed. Wonderful Ron...GOOD Ron...
She made her decision; she was going to tell him everything. Everything!
But just as she had been about to open her mouth, the memory of Tom's thinly veiled ultimatum made her pause...
"Are you so eager to burn the world again with me, Hermione?"
She shivered. That message had been clear enough. If she kept quiet and didn't stir up any trouble, there was a chance he'd do the same; if she told anyone that he was alive, and they came looking for him, he would defend himself. She had no idea what he might do, but there was zero doubt in her mind that he would do it and it wouldn't be good. He would not be taken easily. Innocent people would get caught in the crossfire again. Lives would be lost.
And this time, it really would be my fault...
And so she just told Ron that she had missed him, that the meetings she and Harry had in London had been interesting, and that she was happy that they were together again.
Hermione's eyes came back into focus, coming out of her own memory and she realized she was staring at Fred’s empty wooden chair without even meaning to.
Hermione rubbed her arms in an attempt to drive away the cold that seemed to have invaded her bones. She quickly moved her eyes down the line, past Fred’s empty chair and saw that Percy and Ron were talking about different plans they had for the weekend. For the first time she could ever remember since meeting this family, Ron and Percy seemed to have become friends. The death of a sibling could do that, she supposed. She watched them for a moment or two longer; a shove here, a joking insult there. It filled her with hope to see the two enemies become friends.
Ron turned, catching her gaze, and smiled. She automatically smiled back, feeling the warmth of her love for him spread through her as she gazed into his warm, brown puppy-dog eyes. But as soon as he looked away, the smile slid off her face as she worried anew about what he saw when he looked at her.
Did he see through her act? Did he somehow know she was a fraud? A fake?
At times she imagined she could feel the magic cut that marked her choice tingling on her forehead, so cold that it burned.
She squeezed her eyes shut as her forehead prickled and itched. She reached up to quickly scratch it with no one knowing but froze before she actually touched it. She still had no idea what the mark really was, what it was for, or what it did. Alexa had told her that it was dangerous, but not necessarily evil; that it represented two possibilities, raging fire or cooling rain, the embodiment of the choice Tom was offering her. Tom himself had told her that it would protect her.
But it wasn't much to go on. What did 'dangerous' really mean? And as for protection… Hermione dropped her hand once more to the rune pendant still hanging around her neck. Emhagalaz had taught her very effectively that protection could mean a lot of things, and those things weren't always what you might expect. As for the Quills of legend, THAT was a complete wild card; their only known properties being somehow knowing every baby born with magic in the world and possibly having unpredictable mind-altering effects if you wrote on someone's forehead with it...
"It doesn't change you. It reveals you…"
Her fingers tightened on the rune pendant.
What if she scratched the mark and Tom popped out, like a genie from a bottle? What if by scratching it, the mark thought that meant she was being harmed, and… and… did something? Something bad? Worst of all, what if it was influencing her thoughts and perceptions, and she didn't realize it? Tom had denied it, but what was a Dark Lord's word really worth anyways? Harry's mark had burned and hurt him every time Voldemort was around him...
Hermione's breath caught. What if her mark itched to signal when he was around like Harry’s had?
Her eyes darted furtively around the cluttered and yet organized home around her, paranoid. She knew she was being paranoid but there were moments she could swear she felt his eyes on her, watching her from some dark corner, but no matter how often she looked around herself, he was nowhere in sight.
He's not near me. He's inside me. In my head...
The uncertainty was tying her in knots.
She had to tell to Ron and Harry.
Setting aside all of the conventional reasons of why it was the right thing to do, there was a chance that Harry would know what the mark was, and what to do about it.
Despite Tom's warning, despite the devastation she could be responsible for if she revealed that he was alive, despite the way her insides squirmed with unease at the thought, and despite the pain it would cause Harry to learn that his mortal enemy was not as gone as he currently believed him to be, the only rational conclusion was to tell them what she knew.
What part has rationality played in any of this?
She shoved that thought forcefully aside.
If she were honest with herself, she also had another, more selfish motivation: trust. She and Harry trusted each other...with their very lives. They HAD to be able to continue to trust each other. Especially since she didn't know if she completely trusted Ron yet. He had broken her heart when he left Harry and her in the middle of the woods. She had eventually forgiven him, of course, after a long while and had assumed that he had been influenced by the horcrux...but what if Tom was right? What if it had merely revealed his insecurities and not actually given them to him?
Hermione shook her head, as though she could shake off her doubts or somehow detach Tom Riddle's poisonous influence. Nothing he said regarding Ron could be trusted. Tom didn't want her to build a bond with Ron, he wanted her to build a bond with him. She couldn't allow that.
But the fact remained…
"Ron divides his affections."
Harry was her best friend and she trusted him as much as any human being could trust another. But in the meantime, she had to be trustworthy as well. She couldn't ever choose Tom over Harry. And if she ever wanted to build something truly meaningful with Ron like she hoped, such as marriage and a family, then she needed to trust him as well.
But then it always came back to Tom's threat. If the charred, broken husk of Hogwarts and the ruin of London had been too heavy a burden, how could she bear the guilt of another city, another world, another crowd of innocent lives, whose blood this time really would be on her hands?
Maybe she could convince Harry not to go after Voldemort?
She very nearly laughed at herself on the heels of that thought. Harry couldn't know of a wrong without trying to right it. It wasn't in him to ignore a crime, no matter the cost.
Is it in me to do that? she wondered. She didn't like to think so, but the real trouble wasn't so much that she ignored right and wrong, so much as she sometimes didn't quite know the difference. Like right now.
Harry would know the right thing to do instantly. He always knew just where he stood, just what he believed was right. An ache of longing blossomed in her chest and she sighed, longing to be in the sheltering strength of both Ron and Harry again, and simultaneously wishing that the fireplace would never change color from its red glow to an emerald green so she never had to make this decision.
"I can't, Tom," she murmured softly, letting her eyes go out of focus to stare out the window, the sun already disappearing over the horizon, allowing the rays of light to disappear and the darkness to take over once again. She hardly knew which choice she was referring to. "I just……can't…"
"Ginny my dear!" Mrs. Weasley, exuberant voice suddenly came through the walls with happy cries from the others, pulling Hermione from her fruitless thoughts.
She was currently in the bathroom, splashing water on her face to clear her head, and had been staring into the mirror above the sink for several minutes, lost in thought, as though maybe her dripping reflection might come to life and tell her what she should do. "And Harry darling! Goodness what took you two so long?! Dinner is over, but we saved you some plates and I've got a pie baking in the oven..."
Hermione's heart fluttered in her chest like a trapped bird.
She couldn't be the cause of more death and destruction.
She couldn't keep Tom's secret, building a tacit alliance with him while sacrificing Harry's trust.
She couldn't tell.
She had to tell.
Her voice, when it issued from her lips, was a high thready whisper, and the words left her feeling like a frightened child.
"Don't make me do this." She pleaded for Tom to hear.
Hermione paused for a long while, just listening to the group's excited tones through the wall. And then Harry's voice muffled through the wall as he finally asked, "Where's ‘Mione?"
Sighing heavily, she scrubbed at her face with a paper towel and then quickly exited the bathroom with a smile she hoped looked excited and normal.
She turned the corner and was immediately greeted by the Weasley's and Harry's smiles and shout's of "there she is!"
She grinned, momentarily amused by the unnecessary enthusiasm at her sudden appearance.
Ginny was all smiles as she came over and gave her unofficial sister-in-law a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
Once he had established that no one was missing; Harry went back to talking animatedly with everyone else in the room.
Hermione watched him for a moment over Ginny's shoulder, taking in his appearance.
Normally she would go over and give him a hug, but something held her back. It was almost like... Judas giving Jesus a kiss even as he sold him out to be killed or something. Not that Hermione would ever do that, of course, but it would just feel wrong if she showed him her usual affection all the while keeping this important information from him.
Instead, she went over to stand by Ron and wrapped an arm around his waist while he talked with Harry so she could be close to the two of them.
This was what she had been waiting for, longing for, desperate for: Harry's steady nearness, Ron's warming presence, the wonderful simplicity of their friendship with each other, her mind quieting as they awakened her senses, the guiding hands that would lead her unwaveringly down the proper path, even if she couldn't see where she was stepping. They were the Golden Trio. It never failed…
So why wasn't it working?
The peace and stability her friends always brought her was now no more than a brittle veneer over the swelling mass of confusion and painful uncertainty, like a boil that needed to be lanced.
Her heart felt lighter, but her stomach was twisted in knots. She looked up into Harry's smiling face, and all the happiness was shot through with fractures.
She felt sick with guilt.
"How was your stay at the hotel? I was going to come by, but then I met up with Ginny and we had a bunch of other things to do." Harry nodded over to her, apologetically.
They were seated outside on the lawn in blue camping chairs, looking up at the night sky while drinking ginger beer and eating some of Mrs. Weasley's Strawberry-rhubarb pie. Hermione had conjured a fire while they also munched on toffee apples. Ginny and Harry were snuggled together with a patchquilt blanket wrapped around them, while she and Ron were doing the same.
Ginny looked over at Hermione and winked.
Hermione smirked back at her. ‘Other things to do’, huh? More like they got their own hotel room.
But his words finally registered though and her stomach clenched in sudden panic, heart galloping. It was just the four of them. Now was her chance!
She opened her mouth…
"It… it was…"
Tell him! Looking into his eyes, it was the only right answer. Tell him!
…then she closed it.
"Don't look for me."
Telling Ron, Harry, and Ginny was the right thing to do. They loved her and trusted her. They would have the answers she couldn't find. The benefits outweighed the risks by miles.
"My only plans are to lay low. But if I am forced to change those plans…"
There was no reason for her to believe Tom would keep his word. None. And she needed to build trust with Ron, not Tom; keeping Tom's secrets from her friends would be an absolute violation of that trust.
"You will be the rain that cools his fury. Or you will be the fire that drives him to incinerate everything."
From nowhere, that heart-rending smile, sad and knowing, flitted through her mind, and the taste of his lips accosted her memory without her permission. The feel of them, still so real all these days later, made her skin tinge so brazenly that she could swear they were there even now, invisible but real.
"You are my rain."
Her chest constricted painfully. She cleared her throat.
"Um… it was…"
Tell him!
"…fine…"
No, it was not fine! I was attacked by our mutual mortal enemy who has been tormenting us since we were 11 years old who, as it turns out, is not so dead or mortal after all!
Ron seemed to sense her distress (perhaps because she was locking her muscles too stiffly under the blanket) and turned a little to look at her as he asked, "Just fine? How were the Horcrux meetings? You said they were interesting?"
"Kind of boring actually. Lots of explaining, like, really basic information to a bunch of Wizard politicians and authorities."
It was the opposite of boring! I got a magic symbol slashed into my forehead by an extremely powerful Augury quill and who knows what it does!
"But I got to meet Nicolas Flamel...He's, like, a huge celebrity, it was a pretty big deal…"
I met the part-Fae descendents of another realm that we never knew existed!
"But other than that… you know… it was just… um… fine…." Gosh, she was a bad liar.
Why am I lying to them? What is wrong with me?
Guilt, hot and acidic, burned behind her eyes, and a heavy, uneasy knot in her gut twisted tighter. She dreaded finding a way to explain herself, since there was no way Harry would believe such an obvious…
"Yeah, it's all done and over with! We're free!" Harry said, smiling warmly. Openly. Trustingly.
Hermione discovered that the only thing worse than Harry discovering she'd lied to him, was Harry not discovering that she'd lied to him. He had no reason to NOT trust her. She'd never let him down. The only other time she had kept something from her friends was when Dumbledore had given her the time turner in their 3rd year. The smoldering guilt in her gut blazed white hot. Unbearable.
"No…" she said, closing her eyes, swallowing against a bitter taste on her tongue. "Actually…"
Careful…
"…actually, it wasn't all fine…"
…be very careful now…
"Really? What else happened?" Harry's voice was laced with concern, and when she opened her eyes, his brow was deeply furrowed, his shoulders tense, as though braced to catch some heavy pronouncement about to fall from her lips. Ginny and Ron were all looking at her curiously now.
"What is it?" Ron asked, giving her shoulders an encouraging squeeze.
"It's… about Voldemort."
Notes:
I'm not sure how long I will be continuing this, but I'll be following my muse until she tuckers out. Also, just so everyone knows, Nicholas Flamel isn't dead. I know he died in the early 90s but this is AO3 and I'm bending time to my will, muahaha. Is he going to be a prominent character? No. But I couldn't think of many people who were famous that Hermione would be interested in meeting, so I picked him. Anyways! doesnt really matter.
Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine. Im just playing with the idea.
LittleShroom_IsPoisie on Chapter 1 Tue 25 Nov 2025 06:59PM UTC
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FelineNinjaGrace on Chapter 1 Wed 26 Nov 2025 06:20AM UTC
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