Disclaimer: Don't be silly. I don't own anything.
Author's Note: I got reviews! I'm so excited. C: Thank you for the exceedingly kind reviews. I almost accidentally typed refuse, but the reviews weren't garbage. How ridiculous of me. /ramble.
Act II
In which, Hermione Granger debates how linear time is
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"You would think that an apparition created from a figment of my own magic, the direct result of a faulty potion, would listen to me when I tell it to shut up."
The cool, wavering voice that responded was a few decibels below reality, but annoyingly persistent as it replied, "Madam, I am most certainly not a creation of your magic."
Hermione cut a sharp glare at the Ghost that Would Not Be Silent, before turning back to Headmistress McGonagall and sighing, "Has Severus discovered anything in the potion that could have caused this? My theory is that the phoenix ash, in conjunction with the banshee breath, combined to create a semi-sentient apparition, sustained by a fragment of my magi-"
"I have told you before, my presence is in no way-"
"If you interrupt me again, I shall be forced to find ways to bring great harm to an incorporeal being," Hermione hissed, "and they do not call me the brightest witch of my age for nothing."
"I've never heard of you, and you seem to be having trouble understanding what I am telling you."
The ghost's expression clouded over, and his silvery emission of not quite true light dimmed in response. Hermione's face darkened over in a similar manner. And the headmistress was far too busy staring at the tag-a-long to the weekly tea she had with the aforementioned witch with something akin to pure, unadulterated horror. She had already asked Hermione how her mind could have created something so perfectly akin to the former Tom Riddle, to which Hermione had haplessly shrugged and attributed to Harry's keen description. The ghost was not amused.
McGonagall cleared her throat, and in a slightly wavering voice, said, "Severus cannot find anything in the potion to link this startling side effect to, but told me to assure you, he is still looking. As it stands, he's called off further sessions until this matter is cleared up."
Hermione smiled, the edges of it bitter. "Ten years has yet to find one of these sessions making me fully functional again, I'm sure I can last a few weeks without tasting one of his atrocities."
Hermione could not stand to see the sad look on the headmistress' face, and began idle small talk about her Transfiguration lessons, which the elder witch gratefully took up with gusto. The ghost, in the absence of notice, dimmed until he was barely noticeable.
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As Hermione bid her former Head of House adieu, stepping onto the revolving staircase, she was almost startled as the door slid shut and a dimly flickering, silver light took up residence to her right. Her lips tightened into an unamused line as the ghost came into full view again.
"Even if you do believe I am a figment of your imagination-"
"Figment of my magic, a completely different story altogether. The first recorded inst-"
"Figment of your magic, right. It's still terribly rude of you to not at least introduce yourself to me."
"Hermione Granger, Transfiguration mistress and professor, master duelist."
"Quite a title. I don't believe I've heard of any witches or wizards named Granger… are your ancestors from the Continent?"
"No. I'm a muggle born."
At that, Riddle's ghost drew back as if burned. As she stepped on to the still hallway floor from the revolving stair, she gave the apparition her tight lipped, narrow eyed, fuming look promising pain that she oft times used to quell a particularly rambunctious class.
A bitter smile lit the edges of her lips. "Perhaps I'm in need of therapy. Creations of my own, even accidental, probably shouldn't have such an aversion to me. Freud help me."
Riddle, despite the sardonic humor, stayed at least five feet back and in the air, as if he were breathing and it might be contaminated about her.
His face going cold, and losing any trace of politeness, he hissed, "I am not a creation of your feeble magic, Mudbl-"
Her wand was out in a flash. "So help me, if you finish that word, I will display for you a delightful exorcism spell that I learned whilst abroad. We'll see if your impassioned arguments have any validity rather quickly that way, won't we?"
Hermione wished Snape were around to hear just how sneeringly, snarkily cold she sounded as she bluffed, despite her furiously pounding heart. I may very well have to start researching exorcism incantations.
Trembling with barely contained fury in mid-air, Riddle sank slowly to the ground, his translucent feet making no noise as he landed. As if it pained him, his words sounded cold as ice, and as if they had been strung up and dragged slowly out of his mouth.
"I am not a creation of your magic. I only remember feeling as though I were stabbed through a heart that did not exist anymore with something made of fire, and then your voice talking about some cup with two other voices. My… tether, I suppose I'd call it, was very weak, and only to you," he spit the word out as if it now disgusted him, "and I managed to draw some magic, and more awareness, until a wall came up. It wasn't until just recently that those walls came down and I gathered enough magic to appear as I am."
Hermione's face was painfully blank, and then a terrible suspicion began to dawn on her brow.
"… Hufflepuff's cup. And then, my occlumency shields…"
Her upper lip curled in utter disgust, before she gathered the message she wished to send in her head, turned and bellowed, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
A shimmering otter flew out of her wand and down the hallway at breakneck speed, as she tucked her wand away, gripped her cane and began limpingly stalking her way towards its final destination.
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"Fuckbiscuits? Truly, Granger, your eloquence knows no bounds. And it's so much more delightful to hear such language from an ickle otter," he drawled, the last two words oozing from his lips.
Hermione glared at Snape, tapping her cane impatiently on the ground.
"I needed you to understand the absolute, utmost importance and severity of the situation, Severus."
"No, no, I agree. Nothing in this world says danger like fuckbiscuits."
"Severus-"
"Merlin's sweet fuckbiscuits, Severus, I'm in trouble," he snarked in a falsetto, before resuming his normal tone of voice, "I had begun to think that you had attained some degree of maturity in these years, but appare-"
"SNAPE!"
The potions professor promised himself he was not cowed into silence by her bellow. He was merely being polite enough to let her get her fury out of her system.
Pointing her cane at the apparition that seemed intent on following her while balancing her weight on her good leg, she shakingly said, "I think it's real. This fucking ghost that will not stop fucking following me might very well be real."
"Fuckbiscuits," Severus said, rather eloquently.
"Language, Severus."
Riddle faded back into existence, seeming much more substantial now that the sun had gone down and he was in the dungeons. "Can not stop following you."
Bushy hair flew in many directions as her head whipped around as she snarled, "Pardon?"
"Can not. The entire time I have attempted, but failed, to leave an area of about two hundred yards of you," he said, his face looking as though even speaking to her lowered his standards and was poignantly distasteful.
"Do stop appearing as though you've a bad taste in your mouth when you talk to me. It makes you look like a dog with peanut butter on the roof of its mouth."
Severus wished he had the heart to smirk in the face of such dire consequences.
Hermione looked back at Snape, her voice much less sharp as she spoke to him. "I interrogated him on the way here. If this is a valid idea, than it means that when I destroyed Hufflepuff's cup, a portion of his soul torn from the rest before either of the wars tethered itself to me. Please tell me you know a spell to exorcise this thing."
Riddle looked taken aback.
Snape stroked the bridge of his nose thoughtfully with his index finger, before slowly shaking his head.
"If it is true that he is tethered to you personally from that moment, than I do believe further research is called for. A tether would have to tie to your magical core, or your soul, for it to be personal to you and you alone. And banishing him without knowing what we are stepping in to could be disastrous for you at best."
"This is impossible! In what way is there any indication that there is any shifting time from a linear state? Magical laws of physics regarding time are strict! How do I wind up with a young Riddle, whom I have never seen, in seemingly perfect detail according to McGonagall, from a cup that he turned into a horcrux long after he graduated from Hogwarts? And how on earth did I manage to be the only one lucky enough to get Tom 'All Mudbloods Must Die' Riddle's teenage spirit, and no signs of that occurring with either Harry or Ron that they've noticed, when they're pretty terrible at Occlumency?"
Hermione and Severus talked long past student curfew, and yet neither were any closer to answering any questions that they asked. Particularly not with a rather belligerent ghost seeing no need to help a Muggle born banish him.
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Alone in her room, or so she was going to assume for her own peace of mind, Hermione tucked herself into bed morosely. A ghost with an anti-Mudblood agenda was tethered to her personally, and she had no idea why she wound up with that symptom, and neither of the boys seemed to. She resolved to owl Harry and Ron to gather details on their own experiences, ever the researcher, and pulled her covers up to her chin.
She couldn't quite shake the feeling of being watched, in mortal danger, and the urge to laugh hysterically until she broke down crying at the unfairness of it all, all at once. A murderous, Muggle born hating, supremacist ghost. And she'd thought a Kneazle was a difficult pet. She snorted, depressed, and attempted to clear her mind to get some sleep, so that she could use the whole weekend to research this tirelessly.
"Fuckbiscuits."