Author's note:
Hi everyone.
I was in the shower when this idea came to me. The style was inspired from Better Days, a His Dark Materials fic by welcome to maddieland.
I'm not very good when it comes to emotions, so I've kept it simple. Please read it.
It's not perfect. It's far from perfect. There are many, many issues that I do not address in this one-shot. But I'm slightly haunted by this idea, and I wanted to give it a go. I've probably done it no justice at all, but I just... had to get it out of my head.
I know, considering all the Tomione stuff out there, that this can be seen as a fairly weird and even controversial idea, but like I said - it's been haunting me.
Reviews are welcome. Even negative ones. They help me improve.
N/B: This is absolutely not my usual style of writing. It's quite new for me, to write like this, so please feel free to criticise.
The Golden Trio wins the war, except not really. Harry dies, and in doing so liberates the wizarding world from Voldemort. Ron and Hermione survive, but after their best friend's death and George's passing they know they can never find peace or be truly happy.
A year passes. Ron proposes. Hermione accepts. They are married at the age of eighteen and nineteen, in a small ceremony. Hermione's parents are there. She and Ron went to find them in Australia. The first thing Mr. Granger heard when he recovered his memories was Ron asking for Hermione's hand in marriage.
Ron and Hermione get a small house by the coast, and they go to see Molly and Arthur once a week, sometimes more.
Another two years go by, and both have jobs at the Ministry. Hermione campaigns for the political and social rights of non-human magical species. Ron is an Auror, one of the best. When Hermione hears him talk about his work, she knows he does it for Harry, like a penance after having abandoned them both during the war. She no longer holds any grudge against him for it.
Ron wants a family, and tells Hermione. She nods fervently. They try a few times, but after some tests - too many tests - the healers tell Hermione that as a long-term side effect of a curse, she is unable to bear children for life. Hermione recalls a purple flash and excruciating pain from the Department of Mysteries, and she still has night terrors and flashbacks of her torture in Malfoy Manor. She wonders vaguely which event made her womb barren, but feels too numb to register much else, and passes out in Ron's arms.
A few months later, Ron dies on a mission rounding up remaining Death Eaters. A stray killing curse hit him. When she hears, Hermione's grief rips up half their garden. She doesn't notice. When she tells Molly, the two women hold each other for hours. It is night-time when Arthur prises them apart.
Hermione lives on. Ron and Harry's memories are like bruises on her heart, but she cherishes them, because it is all she has left of them.
At twenty-five, she still wants a family. Occasionally, she thinks back on the war, how none of all of it would have happened if a little love had been present from the very start.
The Ministry contacts her. It's the Department of Mysteries. They've heard of her brilliance. They've discovered a way to extend time-travelling distance - a way to go back several years - and want her on the project development. Hermione accepts the post. She has an idea.
One day, she cracks it. She sends a rat, a cat, a doxy and a blackbird back to the past at various moments in time. She runs a few tests. They come out successful, but she tells no-one of her discovery. After careful planning and three days' research, she writes a note to her family and to the Weasleys. She doesn't say goodbye.
Hermione activates her altered time-turner, and is transported to London, 1st January 1927, Wool's Orphanage. When she enters, a newborn's wail is heard. She files for adoption - a baby boy, if possible.
When Hermione sees Tom for the first time, his eyes are open, and he is so little his eyes are still slightly blue. He grabs her thumb and stares at her. She stares back.
Hermione sets up her new life. She keeps the name 'Riddle' for Tom, and cares for him alone, working as a home-schooling teacher for wizarding children. When people ask if she is married, she shows them the wedding band on her finger. She keeps her arms covered at all times. The scar on her forearm is ugly, pink and puckered. It is waxy to the touch.
She is seventy years in the past, but thanks to magic the difference is hardly noticeable. Tom is a very easy baby, and as he learns to walk and talk Hermione's heart begins to mend, but she never sees any men, nor does she consider re-marriage.
Tom calls Hermione 'Mama' when he starts to talk, then 'Mum' when he grows a little older. On the day of his first birthday she hears him truly laugh for the first time: a cat had fallen off a branch.
Tom talks to animals in the garden. Sometimes, he convinces them to hop into his hand. Hermione is there the first time he does it, and guides him into petting the animal. He seems fascinated. She sees him doing that with several animals over the next few months. One day, when Tom is eight, she finds a dead mouse in his room. She doesn't mention it, but never forgets it.
Tom is ten. One day he comes running in, frightened. Hermione has never seen him like that. He says that snakes can speak, and the one in the garden said it would bite Tom if he moved any closer. Hermione hugs him and explains that he is special, that his grandfather could do it too. Tom looks at her in the eye and asks if his father could do it. No, he couldn't. It wasn't in his blood.
Can you do it, Mum?
No.
Why?
Because I don't have it in my blood either. You do.
Then why did it skip you?
Hermione cannot bring herself to answer. She knows what will happen to him if she tells him the truth. So she says nothing.
Tom doesn't insist. He usually gets what he wants, and Hermione is never sure if she loves or fears that in him.
One day, in the summer when Tom is eleven, he gets his Hogwarts letter. His hands shake when they open the envelope, and excitement shines in his eyes. Hermione smiles and hugs him, but later cries in her bedroom. This is where it all really starts. This is where life would start to test her and her Tom.
Tom already knows Diagon Alley. He loves it. They go there one last time to pick up his new robes and his wand. Tom is usually quiet and calm, but he is so excited to get his own wand that his hands cannot keep still. His hands are large already, with long white fingers. Hermione tries not to shudder when she sees them in a certain light.
The wand chooses the wizard. Tom's wand is made of yew, with a phoenix feather. He is delighted with it. Hermione is disappointed, even sad. She doesn't know if she was expecting a different wand to choose him, but it doesn't.
Tom leaves for Hogwarts. He refuses help from an older student to load his trunk onto the train. Hermione hugs him goodbye, and says she knows he'll make her proud. Tom hugs her back, and she is so pleased she almost does not want to let him go. He waves at her as the train leaves. She waves back. Her eyes are slightly wet.
A week later, Hermione receives a letter from Tom. The letter is short. He is in Slytherin. The food is good. He enjoys Defence and Potions most. He can already turn a matchstick into a needle.
Hermione smiles.
Tom is back home for the summer before his second year at Hogwarts. He's grown taller. He had come back for Christmas, but spent Easter at school. To study for his first ever exams, his letter had said.
One afternoon, Hermione is out reading in the sunshine. She is writing a book for wizards on how to approach and treat Muggles. The Daily Prophet sometimes asks her to write articles on Muggle-related topics. She always accepts.
Two days ago, Neville Chamberlain announced on the wireless that England was at war with Germany. Tom knows about the war, but he doesn't care. Wizards have ways of surviving anyway, he says. He doesn't think of all the Muggles who are involved in the war.
Tom comes to find her.
You're a muggle-born, aren't you? He asks.
Hermione puts her book down and looks at him. The scar on her arm, hidden by the fabric of her dress, tingles in ghostlike memory of pain. In the end, she cannot lie.
Yes.
And am I?
No. You're a half-blood.
Then my father is a pure-blood?
She hesitates.
He seems to understand and is silent for a minute.
You're not my real mother, are you? He asks, suddenly. She thinks carefully before answering.
What makes you say that? She asks quietly. She knows he has finally understood.
Your hair, your eyes, your skin, he says. They're not like mine. And...
And? She prompts.
I'm half-blood, but my father wasn't a wizard. If he's a Muggle, my mother was a pure-blood, and you're not. Your name is different, too.
Your father and I never married, she reminds him gently.
Because you're not my real mother, he says stubbornly.
Hermione sits down on the floor and strokes his hair, pushing it away from his face.
No, she says. I'm not. But I love you, just the same. More than my own life.
He does not answer. He does not push her away. He's plucking at the grass.
Then who is my real mother?
And Hermione Granger tells him. About Merope Gaunt. About how she fell in love, and about how she died giving him life. After a slight hesitation, she also tells him of his ancestry tracing back to Salazar Slytherin.
That's why you can talk to snakes, she said.
Tom does not look at her.
So where is my father?
He's dead, Hermione lies. Has been for many years.
How do you know?
Someone killed him. No-one around him knew who it was.
Tom shrugs. It's clear he doesn't care either way.
My mother, he says. Did you know her?
No. But as soon as I saw you, I knew that I wanted you. I knew I wanted to be your mother.
Tom shrugs again and finally looks up at her.
You are my mother, he says. You always have been.
Hermione smiles so widely she almost doesn't notice the tears falling down her face.
Tom does. He wipes them away. She makes sure he cannot see the scar.
It's Christmas in Tom's third year, and he's home. He's already as tall as she is, and more handsome than she could have imagined at his age. He gives her a magnificent quill for Christmas. For your book, he says. She gives him a diary, bound in Slytherin-green leather. She wonders if she's playing with the devil.
Her head tells her she is.
Her heart decides she doesn't care.
Easter, Tom's fourth year. Tom is at school, but Hermione gets a letter from Headmaster Dippet. Tom was in a fight, it says.
When she sees him, Tom explains that a classmate insulted her for writing about Muggles in the Prophet. The classmate got a broken nose and four teeth knocked out, but Hermione has to fight down a smile. In private, she hugs Tom. He is fourteen, and like the boys in his year he is prone to mood swings, but he hugs her back. Tightly.
The summer before Tom's fifth year, he is made a prefect. Hermione couldn't be prouder, but a piece of her heart tears away as she realises he would soon discover his heritage as Heir of Salazar Slytherin.
Tom acts preoccupied for most of the summer after fifth year. Hermione tries to tell herself it's a part of growing up, but she knows he is discovering more and more about himself, his family, his legacy.
She does not let this stop her, and often tells him she loves him.
Tom is always polite to her, even when he is angry. He doesn't get angry often, but when he does she gets glimpses of the past - her past. His eyes seem to go red, even though she knows she is imagining it. Sometimes he notices she reacts strangely, but does not ask.
She knows now that if Tom wants to know something, he finds out for himself.
They celebrate the publication of her second book, on the rights of magical creatures. Tom insists on inviting her out. She agrees. The last time someone invited her to dinner, Ron had proposed to her.
It's her forty-first birthday. She feels fifty. This year, Tom would turn seventeen.
Hermione is constantly on edge. The Chamber of Secrets would open this year or never, she knew. Every day, she expects to find a letter, warning her of Hogwarts' potential closure.
She does not know how to approach Tom if this does happen. She does not want to think about it. If she does, her heart seizes up until she feels she cannot breathe.
It is like being petrified again.
But seasons roll by, and even when spring turns into summer no official letter has arrived.
Tom writes. He says he is doing well in schoolwork, and would be coming home for Easter.
Hermione is surprised. Usually, he studies during Easter.
When the holidays come and Tom is home, she asks him gently if he has a girlfriend yet. He shrugs.
They don't interest me, he says.
Hermione pauses, and wonders how to ask the next question.
And boys? Do they interest you? She asks carefully.
He looks at her. She cannot read his gaze.
No, he says. Definitely not.
His eyes are as dark as night. She believes him. She does not ask him about the third floor bathroom, nor if a ghost has taken up residence there.
Just before seventh year starts, Tom is made Head Boy. His face shows the barest glimmer of a smile as he reads the letter. Hermione hugs him, and gives him the Gaunt ring as a coming-of-age gift. She had taken it, following Riddle Sr.'s (real) death from a heart attack. She feels no guilt for it.
Tom wears the ring all the time. He comes home for Christmas, and again stays at school for Easter. After his NEWTs, Hermione takes him to France.
It's summer 1945. The war is over, or nearly. Evidence of conflict meets their eyes everywhere they go. Some are subtle, like the slimness of people who had suffered for years from restrictions. Others are flagrant, like the concrete blockhaus on the coast and the hills.
Hermione tells Tom about what happened in the war. During the past six years, she hadn't needed to listen to the news to know what was happening. Without knowing it, some of the details she relates are elements of conflict from her own past. If Tom notices, he shows no sign of it.
When she falls silent, Tom is still. She looks at him, and sees that he is immobile. His jaw is set, his face pale, his eyes dark as ever.
Who did that to you? He asks.
She looks down. Her sleeve is up. Her scar is showing. The breeze feels cool on her bare skin.
This isn't the first war I've known, she replies.
He knows she does not mean the Great War. He is far too brilliant for that.
Was it a war like this one? He asks, shaking. She realises it is with rage.
All wars are like this one, she replies. But this one was the worst.
And the last, he swears. This war is the last.
Hermione looks at him. She sees a tall, pale, handsome young man. She sees what Tom Riddle became with love in his life. She knows, now, that this was meant to happen all along. She was allowed to survive the war in her past to make his past her future. It doesn't make sense, not even to her. Not really. But she understands it.
Tom Riddle gazes out at the sea, the breeze is ruffling his dark hair, and his cheeks are starting to colour in the sun.
She looks at him, and Hermione Granger sees her son.