Spectrum

By: Consume

One-Shot: Who cares if she killed Tom Riddle as a child! She shouldn't be prosecuted, she should be praised! She was a hero. I thought of turning it to a full story and was like "Nah!" This gets really dark towards the end so beware.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the fantastic world created by Jo Rowling.

August 2nd 2003

It was rather simple to do, when she thought back to that night…

Hermione was jaded, bitter and out for revenge.

Harry and Ron had been dead for five years, along with most of her close friends. The Weasleys were broken and split up around the world and just yesterday Molly had finally died from the unknown spell that had been causing her slow torture. Her pain was partly Hermione's fault due to the fact she refused to take her off of her life support spells.

Voldemort won that May of 1998 and with his victory came a large splash of reality that soaked Hermione to the core. She had no one. All the people that completed her were gone, her boys were gone, her parents were gone –she couldn't possibly seek them out when they were to go into war again. So she ran, she hugged the corpses of both of her boys and ran. Her enchanted bag was in one hand and her wand in the other. She was officially on the run again

She was on the run for three long, lonely years. Her mind was in complete solitude and she was sure she had lost her mind after the 1st year. There was a bounty on her head and after the 2nd year she had given up trying to obliviate each and every person that sighted her –it raised too many risks that she wasn't willing to take. So she killed them, she killed each and every one of the Death Eaters that tried to catch her, the Death Eaters that now ruled above muggles and low-bloods (as they were called frequently). And she felt no regret over her actions because they all deserved it.

A year ago she had found her time turner laying in a case beneath her old textbook and that was when she had started her experiments. She had to stop all of this before it happened. She invested so many months with the time-turner, creating lethal spells and runes that were shamelessly dark magic.

Today she had finally succeeded.

A regular time-turner could only go back a couple of hours but with runes, that were surprisingly simple for her, she had rearranged it to go back years, the full extent she didn't know.

Hermione pulled time-turner over her limp hair and it was now dangling around her neck, swinging back and forth ominously. Her hands were shaking and her heart was racing.

This was it. She would see Harry and Ron albeit she would be old. But it didn't matter, she could give Harry the childhood he deserved and the deaths from all the wars could be avoided. There was no turning back now.

Hermione pointed to the time turner with her wand and it began spinning furiously. The world around her was a blur.

She closed her eyes.

"Oi! Watch it woman!"

Hermione clenched her jaw, "I'm sorry, sir," she spat out. The crowd was slowly wearing away at her psyche, it had been long since she had even had human contact and to have so much all at was petrifying.

'Don't touch me! Don't touch me!' She begged the inclosing crowd in her mind.

"Of course you are," the man said before turning to walk away.

"Wait!"

The man turned around, straightening his suit in the process and a leering smile on his face, "Yes?"

"Would you happen to know where," Hermione pulled out a bit of parchment and read it, "Wool's Orphanage is?"

The man's smile dropped, "Take a left from here and go straight."

Hermione smiled politely but scowled when the man turned around. Hermione had arrived to the time 1935 yesterday and she could say already she hated this society more than the one she came from. Not only were women looked down upon not to mention the Nazi regime but the clothes were horrible to move around in, so she stuck with her cloak.

By this time she knew that Tom Riddle was about nine years old and had a great hold over his magic already.

When Hermione reached the Wool's Orphanage gates she avoided going through the front entrance of the actual building, instead she opted to walk around the back, and there a surprising sight greeted her.

A child was holding a dead rabbit with a pleased grin and there was string in his other hand. Hermione wanted to curse all the gods for blessing this child with the human personification of beauty for a face! Tom Riddle had to be the most beautiful child she had ever laid her eyes on, aside from the malicious grin; Hermione understood just how easy it was for him to gather followers. Not only did he have looks, but later on he would have the smarts and the power.

Immediately Hermione began feeling regret –she couldn't kill a child. It just wasn't in her nature…but she had changed, she had changed a long time ago and she just couldn't afford another war.

Hermione raised her wand discreetly, "Hello, Tom Riddle," she said clearly, only a few feet away from the child.

Immediately the boy dropped the bunny and put on a mourning face that would have fooled the coldest of hearts, "Mam, H-hello," he stuttered. Tears –actual tears! –coming to his eyes. But in his eyes Hermione also saw suspicion as clear as day and he was eyeing Hermione's worn robes in confusion.

"My friends rabbit p-passed…If you don't mind me asking mam –Who are you?" there was a hidden order to the question.

Hermione tilted her head to the side, "My name doesn't matter."

Like a switch the innocent expression turned deadly, "Who –are –you?! Are you here to take me away –I'll scream lady! I swear to it!"

She almost gasped aloud when she felt the probing of Legilimency in her mind.

"My name doesn't matter," Hermione repeated as she raised her wand.

"You're mad! A stick? You think you can hurt me with a stick! I'll hurt you! –"

"I can do this," Hermione murmured to herself.

"–It's not working…Your blocking me, you're like me…"

"I AM NOTHING LIKE YOU!"

And now there was real fear in Tom Riddle's eyes, "Please, mam…"

"Avada Kedavra."

Years later and Hermione still felt no regret.

It was just so simple to point her wand and end the existence of the man –boy who had caused her so much pain. It actually felt good. Yet that feeling still didn't explain why she yearned to feel good again. To control someone else's life and end it just like that. So she did, she sought out those that wronged her in the future and dealt with them but the problem was that they weren't born. So she wiped out their ancestors instead.

She sometimes called herself a psychopath but she would then realize she did nothing wrong. She actually did good for the world, she was saving the wizarding world from war, she was saving them from the torture, the deaths they would have to endure.

Maybe she enjoyed it a little too much –like when she set fire to Durella Rosier who was then pregnant with Bellatrix and watched as she danced around. A joyous dance that Hermione had tried, once or twice, to replicate.

She sometimes thought she had lost her mind but then realized she was perfectly sane. It was the years of pain and solitude that had turned her like this. Instead of being insane she was a comprehender, she understood –she understood the way the world worked and how to save it from itself.

Come 1954 she had captured Lucius Malfoy as a babe. He was such a pretty child. She then cut up his tiny wittle wimbs using a restaurant knife and spread his body parts all over the Ministry of Magic. But she saved his hair for herself, even as a babe his hair was a fine-looking white.

The funny part to all of this was that they never caught her, even when she used tweezers to skin a teenage Rabastan Lestrange alive or when she spooned out the eyeballs of a young Alecto Carrow and made her small brother eat them, they never caught her. Because there were so many spells that she used that hadn't been discovered yet, her wand wasn't even registered and she stuck with mostly household objects. The wards were so simple, nothing that the Brightest Witch of her Age couldn't crack.

"You can't rid the world of all evil, "Irma Crabbe had said while Hermione held an axe to her neck, "There will always be evil to balance out the good."

Hermione had shaken her head in pity. She had shaken it when Irma was alive and when she was dead. Irma didn't understand the world like Hermione did. The papers called her a monster or other fancy names but they didn't realize what she really was.

She was a hero.

Hermione picked up her silver knife and wand, it was 1955 and about time to pay visit to her good friend, Fenrir Greyback.