A/N: I feel that holidays are all about… giving. Please enjoy. This was for a Christmas fic exchange. Also, it may seem open ended, but I want it that way. And yes my secret is out. I love this pairing.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

And a huge thanks to the beta, anticollision

Sacrifice

There, in that place of solitude between life and death, Hermione sat in silent repose. Eyes closed, chin tucked against her neck, she listened to the rhythmic click-clack of the locomotive wheels against the endless metal track. It was here, in the prefects' compartment she waited.

Eternity passed, and then - footsteps. Light footfalls, against the plush carpet approached.

"So I was correct." His voice.

"You found this place," opening her eyes, she regarded him curiously. Hermione did her best to ignore the leap her heart made at the sight of him. How had he found her here? Her mind whirled with confusion. It was… supposed to be impossible. She couldn't quite grasp the fact that he had in fact, found her.

He looked exactly the way she remembered. Intense grey eyes peered down a patrician nose that always seemed to be tilted up slightly, at an almost jaunty angle just so. His silky dark hair, usually combed to the side was wavy and more unkempt that usual - as if he had continuously ran his long, beautifully tapered fingers through it with unfettered impatience.

She silently eyed the scarf hanging around his neck, complete with the telltale silver and green that denoted his house pride. That alone clued her in on the fact that she'd been here in this place, at least for some time. It was summer, last that she remembered. Was it autumn already? Or perhaps winter had already fallen.

Counter to her warmth, his expression was icy and foreboding. It seemed that perhaps her decisive actions had made him angry at her. She couldn't understand why. After all, she had assumed that he would perceive her actions as her being another useful, yet disposable tool, and then he would dismiss her from his mind completely, if he had remembered her at all.

That was the kind of dark wizard he was, after all.

She waited silently under his smouldering regard. What could she say to him? She refused to apologize for the choice she had made that day.

Tired of being glared at, she patted the padded chequered blue upholstery firmly while offering in a soft voice that felt rusty with disuse, "Please sit, Tom."

At that, she watched as his jaw clenched and Hermione swore she saw his eyes flash red, but in the end he just sat next to her without a word. In the past, that anger used to frighten her, but as she was now - fear of him was pointless.

Moments stretched and yawned between them. She had learned from experience that it was just best to wait it out.

"Why?" His tenor pulled her gaze up into his face, "Why did you do it, Hermione?"

His query was met by silence.

Hermione asked him, "Why are you even here, Tom?" And then, she sighed adding, "I've made my choice with no regrets."

Frustrated, Tom snapped at her, "It is as if you never existed. I'm the only person who remembers who you were… are."

The serenity that Hermione had felt, in this existence, dissipated at his words. Lacing her fingers together, she placed her slender hands primly in her lap, "Of course. I'm a time traveller after all."

Averting her gaze, she turned her head slightly to stare out the window absently watching the vividly green countryside whirring by. Even though to her mind it was essentially fake, the vista was still very beautiful to look at. It was to say the least, nostalgic.

"I still don't understand why you stood…" he faltered, as if grasping for the right words to say, and then he slowly shook his head, "Why you took the curse that was meant for me, I don't understand why you would do it. You were the last person I would have thought to do such a thing."

"Why would you even care?" Hermione countered calmly, while doing her best to keep the confusion off of her face.

"You've never supported my cause."

An unladylike snort left her at that. It was all she could do not to laugh in his face at that particular announcement. She rolled her eyes heavenward, "Of course not."

He rocketed to his feet, and before she could react, his fingers was digging into her shoulders as he brought his nose level with hers. Dark grey eyes bore into her honey browns.

"You of all people, have the most reason to not do what you did."

Finally, she chuckled, but it was a sound coloured with melancholy, "No, Tom. You're wrong."

"Explain to me why I'm wrong then, little Miss Know It All."

"I'm not going to tell you something silly, and say it's because I fell in love with you. I do… love you - but I'm going to tell you this, even though you won't understand it," Hermione reached up, and brushed her fingers against his chin. His grip on her loosened when she continued to explain, "In that moment, when I had to make a split second decision, I knew that doing something like that, could - no would, change the events as I remember them. It probably sounds stupid, but Tom - I didn't want you to live with a cursed fate anymore. It's not just for you, but also for my friends from a future you've yet to see as well. I did it for them too."

Not to mention the many others who had died that day at the battle inside the ancient walls of Hogwarts because of the man staring down at her. Tom hungered for something he himself, couldn't quite understand nor obtain.

Hermione had done all she could to accept fate's instruction, even though she had been dealt a rough hand herself. For the future she could never experience, it was a small price to pay if there was even the slightest chance that there was hope for a better tomorrow for… everyone. She had taken it without a second thought.

He released her and stepped back. He crossed his arms over his chest and resumed glaring down at her, "I'm not going to let you end it like this. You're not dead. That curse… I will break it."

"Instead of worrying about that, shouldn't you be concerned with something else?"

"Are you suggesting that I am unable to handle both tasks?" He arched an elegant eyebrow.

Releasing a soft sigh, Hermione shook her head, "You always did believe that your soul was bigger than your body, Tom." When his eyes widened at her impertinence, she continued adroitly, "I don't know how you managed to find this place, but I've long accepted my choices, you know."

"But I have not accepted it."

Well, he was as arrogant as ever, she mused privately. Hermione laughed openly. When she caught sight of his angry, flushed features, she waved her head, "I'm not laughing at you, but… I have to admit that I'm surprised."

That assertion was met with dead silence.

"I was never meant to exist in your time, Tom. You of all people should know that. Wherever my body is, if it is still present…. if you ever find it, destroy it. You can't let that dark wizard have it," Hermione ignored the sensation of his magic flaring, lashing out at her senses, "If he finds it… he may figure out that I'm a time traveller and…"

He cut her off curtly, his visage grim, "I'm no hero."

"Yes, yes, ever the consummate villain, Lord Voldemort. If you want to walk down that empty road to nowhere, then by all means - travel it. Crash and burn while you're at it," Hermione snapped at him, her temper rising at his obstinacy.

For the first time since his arrival, he smiled.

Well, as close to a true smile as Tom Riddle could ever hope to achieve anyway. It was that brand that came with a dash of dark intention and smarmy arrogance that he typically hid from most people, with a heavy dose of his forever self-satisfied superiority complex that irked her out of her mind, beaming right back at her in all its smug glory.

Before she was able to properly retort, his lips slanted over hers, and caught her in a heady kiss that she felt to her soul. Strange, her mind mused, that a man who was so cold, had such a warm touch. Memories of his future self, hopefully one that was not to be, lingered in the back of her mind. She would have believed the caress to be just as icy as his regard. But logically, he was not yet the man who had made those choices.

Her sporadic thoughts scattered when his fingers caressed her cheeks lightly before rising to bury the digits up to his knuckles into her bushy curls. His forefinger looped into one of the brown ringlets and gave it a light tug.

When he released her, he straightened to peer down her, expressionless. He was just as breathless as she. He told her, with no inflection in his characteristically melodic tenor he used to hypnotise his followers, "I will find your body, but on my terms. I assure you, I will destroy this curse and I will discover whatever it is that you're hiding Hermione."

"Even if by some miracle you are able to remove my curse, my secrets will always be mine. You've already discovered on your own, that no matter how powerful of a Legilimens you are, you cannot see what has not yet been."

He responded by pivoting sharply on his heel, and without another word between them, he strode away from her. The outline of his body shimmered, and in no less than five steps he disappeared from her sight.

"Goodbye," Hermione murmured, the sound of her soft voice muted by the clack of the moving train.

Hermione shut her eyes once more, her slender frame relaxing against the upholstery. A part of her was a little afraid. Since he had managed to locate her here, then perhaps he might manage to break the curse on her. It was a marvel that he remembered her at all, amazing rather that he had managed to find her here.

However, she knew better than to put it past him. Even at his age, he was quite a powerful wizard.

If he went against the odds and undid it all, how would that affect things? In this state, she could do nothing to stop him, if he so chose to accomplish what he sworn to do. Perhaps, that's where she had went wrong. She had assumed that if he did remember, that it wouldn't matter.

Her existence was supposed to have been wiped from the memories of everyone that had ever come across her completely. If Tom Riddle had the sheer willpower to remember her who she was, then who was she to say that he couldn't manage to do exactly what he set out to do?

Fate did not know Tom Riddle.

In her mind, she should have been a marionette whose strings had snapped, rendering her useless. He wasn't supposed to want to repair what had been lost to him. Her role should have already been played.

But then again, Fate was a fickle mistress.

Round and round her once tranquil thoughts swirled into barely controlled chaos, her recollection of Fate's words coming back to haunt her.

"It is the way of your kind to dabble in what they should not. Time is not to be controlled by any mortal or immortal. You know you do not belong and yet I feel your constant insistence at changing what you know is to come."

Hermione could still remember the gut wrenching desolation she felt when she responded, "I somehow absorbed the sands of the magical core from the time-turner. I know I can't ever go back but - if I can change the outcome of the future I came from, I will do anything to achieve it."

"The life of a human is fleeting."

That didn't mean that such life was worthless.

"Please…"

What followed had seemed straightforward at the time, if a bit scary - but simple.

A sacrifice. Hers.