Pass the Lemons

Theme: Valentine's Day

Gift Requests: Modern Au!, Magical Realism!

Prompt: Hermione never knew Tom had feelings for her until Valentine's day. Include how he shows her

Rating: T

Warnings: language, confusing and may require several thorough readings

When Andromeda escapes the rocky cliffs with her lover, she doesn't think of the consequences. All she cares about is that man holding her hand and the child beginning to grow inside her.

Nymphadora is tucking back a rogue platinum blonde hair behind Draco's ear when her cousin asks with a yawn, "Can you tell me the story?"

She raises a sculpted eyebrow at his question. "What story? The one about why my hair is pink?"

"The one about the library man and the lighthouse lady," he corrects her as he rolls his eyes. Dora was clearly becoming a bad influence on her cousin.

She hesitates before explaining, "It's a long story and you're falling asleep."

"No I'm not!" Draco argues with all the might a seven year old can. Between the pout and the crossed arms, Dora knows a temper tantrum is on the horizon.

"It's boring," she sighs. "Plus you're scared of the library man. Wouldn't it be more fun to tell me about what Harry wants to name his new little sister?"

It's Draco's turn to huff as he whines, "Why doesn't anybody ever talk about the her?" Dora glances back at the door, and upon seeing it's locked, whips her head around like an owl.

Suddenly she's looming over him and whispering so quietly he has to strain to hear. "If I tell you the story, you can't tattle." Draco knows she's talking about last month, when Draco had ratted Dora out to his mother Narcissa for having asked the servants what they knew about her long lost mother.

He looks up at her with big eyes, "I won't tattle this time, I promise!" Draco holds up his pinky as a peace offering, and she quickly links pinkies with him.

She starts, "In a galaxy far, far away-" but Draco chimes in.

"That's Star Wars, silly. Tell it right," he commands.

"Okay, okay," she laughs. "Once upon a time, but not so long ago . . ."

Spring

Tom had driven all through the night, anxious to move into his new home. He began unpacking his few belongings as dawn approached the little fishing village of Hogsmeade. While locking his car, he noticed two key facts: one, that the sun was barely visible through all the fog this early in the morning, and two, that the brightest light he had ever seen was waltzing across the forest floor on the other side of the bay. Tom cast his eyes down to watch the light's reflection in the water, the main source nearly blinded him.

He could make out his own shadow close to the water's edge, the figure far taller than himself, with tendrils of darkness slithering around him, his red eyes contrasting with the dark green of the water. Tom jumped back and scuttled into his cabin to sleep, not noticing how the shadow slithered across the water towards the light source.

Tom Riddle, boy wonder, believed his ability to adapt was his strength. When life gave him a stack of lemons, he used the juice to attack his enemies and the leftover pulp and skin to build a ladder out of the dreary town that birthed him. So, like any other dilemma he had ever faced, Tom devised a plan. It all started with avoiding the bay and it's bizarre light.

Both were irreversibly linked and revealed his true self, and he couldn't have that happen. The people of Hogsmeade didn't need to know what he had done to get here; only that he was a talented young storyteller looking for a job named Mr. Ripley.

He learned to synchronize his schedule with the light tower - driving out to work before dawn when the light still flashed at the top and not leaving the safety of town before the light ignited at night.

It seemed the entire town followed this schedule - with school children and townspeople alike taking the "night bus" at irregular and darkened hours.

After his first two months of warming up his boss and mulling over the issue of the lighthouse, Tom asked "Professor" Horace Slughorn about how long the town had been this way. In a voice muffled by the chewing of taffy, Horace told him that this particular light, who had been in place for thirteen years, had a particular effect on the townspeople, so much so that people veered away from the water.

Tom chuckled a bit, and Horace gave him a wounded look. "I'm sorry," Tom apologized, "I thought you said 'she' for a moment Professor."

Horace coughed. "I did. Her name starts with an H, don't quite remember what it is. Hannah? Helga?"

"I take it people often speak to the lighthouse?" Tom posed in an inquisitive manner, not quite sure whether his boss was kidding or not.

"People don't go up there, not when she can see into their souls. Minerva is the only one who's talked her - practically raised, even. Minny's luckier than most of us - her shadow is just a cat."

Tom found himself questioning if he's referring to the gray tabby cat who lurks outside the town gazebo. He ran a hand over his unshaven chin, thinking for a moment. "Does the light ever leave its house?"

"Once a month she comes into town for groceries and books. People leave them outside their stores as an offering. Apparently you can be blinded if you look directly at her, which no one wants." Horace refused to say anymore on the matter.

Tom Riddle found himself in a pickle; while his soul's dark depths being revealed was a deterrent, the curiosity of meeting such a powerful person was far more appealing. Tom decided right then and there - he would meet this "H".

Summer

It took another month of waiting before their meeting took place. He had to bribe one of the Weasley boys, Percy, with the ability to take home as many books as he pleased for summer reading, but he finally figured out when and where she went on her monthly visits.

On a muggy Thursday morning, she made her way into town. Everyone had prepared for the event - the hardware store in town had been selling specialized shutters just for the occasion. The sunglasses he stole from the town two stories ago sit on his head as he waits for her on the library steps - Tom refused to show any signs of skittishness before H.

He's a little more than disappointed to find out she's an average looking girl, wearing in a blue checkered dress and carrying a wicker basket. She was the little girl stuck in Kansas, not the heroine who had returned from Oz with dream of ruby shoes.

At the edge of the library fence, she finally took notice of him. "What do you need to do to win your bet? Wait, no, let me guess - take my photo?" She approached him on the steps, hands on hips after setting her basket down. "Despite what you inbreds think, I am not an art exhibit or a zoo animal or a monster, I-"she stopped to gawk at him. "I. . . Thomas Riddle?"

Now it was his turn to gawk at her. No one in town knew his real name. Had she really seen into his soul?

"Sorry, ma'am, you've got the wrong guy. My name is Tom Ripley," he lied with the ease of years at this game under his belt.

She propped up her sunglasses on her forehead to get a better look at him, tilting her head slightly in thought. "Why are you lying? You're obviously Thomas Marvolo Riddle! Same trio of freckles above your eyebrow and everything." Before he could blanche his way out of her scrutiny, she laughed. "It's so good to see someone from Little Hangleton! Has the town changed? Did the mayor ever marry the dance teacher?"

It took him a moment to respond. She knew Little Hangleton - apparently she was from there. But it wasn't the kind of town where people moved away - everyone knew everyone and there were no secrets. Unless . . .

Unless it was the little girl in the year below him whose family had died in a car accident.

"Hermione?"

"You never knew me, I was in the grade below you," she rushed. "But I remember reading your essay in the school paper about the disappearance of Amy and Dennis and I was really impressed at the time. Did you ever end up being a writer?"

Tom began to form the distinct impression that Hermione had been cooped up inside that lighthouse for the past thirteen years with no one to talk to but the gray tabby cat now sitting in her basket. The cat, Minny, hissed at Tom as a warning.

"Um, let me tackle all those at once. The town hasn't changed at all. The mayor married the flowershop woman, so the dance teacher started an affair with the town constable. I am a writer."

"That's wonderful! How did you get stuck in Hogsmeade?"

Tom shrugged, more focused on the small halo of light that twinkled around her form. He hadn't noticed it before when she was in the sunlight, but in the shade of the doorway it caught his eye.

"Needed a change of scene. I have your books," he said as he grabbed the designated rucksack filled to the brim.

"Oh, I won't be needing that," she dismissed as she pulled a key from the pocket of her dress. "Let's go in, shall we?" Without saying much more, Hermione slipped inside the cool halls of the library. Minny the cat gazed at him in a knowing way before hopping down and following her ward. Falling in line, Tom entered his workplace too.

Even from the front entryway, he could see Hermione in the stacks at the back of the library - her sheer glow illuminating the entire space.

"Horace always gives me the same set of books - it's all elementary school grammar that I learned before ever coming here. Idiot," she huffed under her breath. And as Tom approaches her to inspect what's she reading, he's surprised to find herself in the "how-to" section. Under her arms is today's newspaper, an anthology by Grindelwald, another book in what looked to be Russian, and how-to on tying knots. Perhaps she wasn't as average as he had first thought.

"Do you not get the newspaper?"

"Unless I'm in town, no. They refuse to set up any wifi at the house, and everyone's too scared to come out and deliver the paper. Well, Victor used to, but he, um, moved," she swallowed nervously, casting her gaze away. "No one wants their son dating a light bulb," she mused.

"We'll have to fix that then," he smiled.

Autumn

"I haven't done this since I was 11," she confessed with a light-hearted laugh as the sun began to set behind them . There are flecks on pumpkin in her hair and orange pulp under her fingers, and Tom thinks to himself that he's never seen anything more beautiful.

"What do you think?" she asked him as she held up her design for him to inspect. Compared to his simple snake etched in pumpkin, hers was a masterpiece.

"You captured them perfectly - down to the gnarled hands and steaming cauldron," he praised.

Hermione explained as she set the pumpkin down and began to clean the residue off of herself, "Macbeth was always one of my favorite's growing up."

"Something wicked this way comes and all that?" He teased her, from his spot on her porch, unable to move under the kneading paws of Minerva. "I'm surprised you didn't do A Winter's Tale since it's your namesake." And suddenly he could kick himself for bringing up her parents - it was an unspoken arrangement between them never to mention Little Hangleton or their childhoods.

"Lady Macbeth was a more appealing character with all her scheming," she shrugged as she moved to collect the carving tools.

Tom intervened swiftly, even if it caused Minny to hiss at him. "Here, I'll get that. You go in and wash up." She smiled at him in the way she always did - too big and too bright and too perfect.

Even by the time he's brought everything inside the lighthouse, Hermione is still standing by the sink, meticulously scrubbing her hands.

"You alright there?" He asked gently, standing by the kitchen table to give her some space.

"Yeah," she sighed. "It's just . . ."

"You're thinking about Victor."

Hermione nodded yes and slumped against the sink. "I could have gone with him. He offered to take me away from here and I told him I couldn't."

"Why?" Tom blurted out. They had discussed Victor in passing, but never too seriously. Tom frankly didn't want to hear about her old flame, yet the man had been significant in her life. He had to respect and understand that.

"You know that old saying, when life hands you lemons?" He nodded, a little confused. "Well, for me, leaving would be like passing off the lemons to someone else. Someone else who would be just as hurt and lonely. And that's not fair to anyone."

"But why should you have to accept the lemons Hermione?" Her head snapped up to look at him as he crossed the room to stand by her side. "Why do you have to be the lonely one? That's not fair to you," he argued.

"This," she said gesturing up to the light glowing around her and the house, "is the lemon I've been dealt. I've learnt to accept the tartness so others won't have to. Life is about taking the lemons you have with grace and thanking them for it," she sighed.

Tom's hands found themselves in the form of fists as he slammed them down on the counter. "Bullshit! That's bullshit Hermione! No, life is about taking what you want, about climbing your way out of the pit and rising up!"

"Don't act all superior with me Thomas! You've spent your whole life smiling through gritted teeth as you bit into the lemons you were given!"

"And you know what I did right after they turned their backs? I spat out the juice and turns the seeds into whittled spears! You don't have to accept this Hermione!"

They were standing opposite each other now, and he became very aware that their knees were touching, both heated and shaking.

"This was never my decision to accept, Thomas. I just got dealt a bad hand of cards," she murmured before slipping out from underneath his gaze and darting upstairs.

The whole thing sat funny with Tom for the rest of the month of October. For most of the year he had blindly accepted the situation, never questioning the reason as to why she was there. She wasn't native to town, and she had never been a literal beam of light as a kid.

There had to be a way out of this. He had to show her.

Winter

By the time they've finishing digging a hole in the frozen mud, their hands are cracked and bleeding. They don't speak until Cedric's body is buried seven feet under and they're walking back to her house.

"You'll have to move. Everyone will know you're the one who killed him. They won't go after as long as you're outside their precious town."

"Come with me," he suggests in the rhetorical way a teacher does to make you think you have a choice. Hermione stopped in her tracks, the shovel hitting the forest floor with a resounding "thud".

Tom repeated himself softer this time, "Come with me."

"I can't," she sighed, though Tom could practically see the gears in her head whirring at the thought of leaving foggy Hogsmeade.

He decided to try a different tactic. "You can't? Or you're too scared to?"

"I'm not scared," she retorted, arms crossed defensively.

He mimicked her stance. "So you really want to stick around town? After you just became an accessory to murder? Doesn't seem smart, Hermione. You'd be safer if you just left with me"

"Why do you even care what happens to me? I'm just some girl-"

"You've never been just some girl, Hermione. You have to realize that." The pleading look her gave her finally struck home, and her mouth made a delicate little 'o'.

He crossed the short distance between them in two bounds and she met him halfway there, and suddenly they were fused together as one entity. Luckily for them there were no onlookers there to spot the murderers both radiating light in the middle of the grey, sleeted woods.

When they finally break apart, he rests his forehead upon hers. Hermione confessed into his collarbone, "I've felt like this for a long time, but I never thought that you-" Tom cut her off.

"You stupid, stupid girl. How could you not have realized?"

Less than an hour later it's dusk and she's still holding the door handle to his car.

"You ok?" He asked from behind her, Minerva and her basket tucked under his arm.

"Yeah," Hermione answers with the beginnings of a smile. "I'm ok. We're ok." And with that, they climb into his truck, Minerva purring gently in her lap. "To live would be an awfully big adventure," she whispered as they drove past the welcome sign.

Andromeda doesn't care that not one, but two children would be chosen to take her place. The second was a little boy with messy black hair, a missing first tooth, a baby sister on the way, and an obsession with growing a pair of wings.

"Did they live happily ever after?" Draco asks now that the story has ended.

Dora pauses to think about it, "Well, they just left last week, so I don't know."

"I think they lived happily ever after," Draco smiles sleepily. "I bet they traveled to all those places she wanted to go to and that he published his books."

"I'm sure they did." She stands up and tucks Draco into his sheets.

"I'm going to travel too," Draco assures her. "I'm gonna fly around in an airplane with Harry until we get dizzy and his mom makes his cookies." Tonks tries to smile but the outcome is more of a trembling, lopsided line.

"Of course you will," she lies as she kisses him on the head. At the door, she turns around to say,"Goodnight little dragon," but Draco doesn't respond. His mouth is ajar and his eyes are closed.

Dora closes the door and drops to the floor, her head in her hands as she begins to sob. Tomorrow he's moving away and she may never see him again. She wonder if she'll get to say goodbye before he's whisked out the door. Asleep in his room, Draco is blissfully unaware of what he will become.

When Uncle Lu and Aunt Cissy pull up in the driveway half an hour later, it looks like someone has seat the house on fire - light blazing from the windows. They know what they are supposed to do with Draco. They know what the town needs them to do. They greet their niece Dora at their door. With one heartbroken glance from the blue haired teen, Narcissa and Lucius make up their minds. Let someone else be the chosen one - no son of theirs will deal with that fate. He wouldn't ever be left the way Narcissa's parents had done with Andromeda all those years ago. The Black family was strongest when they were altogether, damn the consequences.

By dawn their car is packed up and both the kids are in the back. They drive out of town without looking back.

Andromeda doesn't care that, in a nearby town, a little girl will be plucked away from all she's ever known to replace her in the lighthouse. Her name is Hermione Jean Granger, she's 11 years old, she has a cat named Crookshanks, and she's in love with a boy in the year above her named Tom Riddle.