DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything.

NOTE: The hunt for the horcruxes throughout seventh year never happened. Instead, Hogwarts remained open, and Harry searched for the horcruxes with the help of Dumbledore as they did throughout the sixth book. They were unsuccessful in discovering all of the horcruxes.

Resigned, Hermione turned back around to face the entrance. She leaned in the doorway, allowing the cool breeze to dry the tears that she wouldn't let fall. She hated Draco's moments of aloofness.

She closed her eyes, remembering when she and Draco had discovered that they were both to be heads together throughout their seventh year. They had avoided each other at first, prejudiced as they were. However, after attempting to outdo the other in their advanced classes, they has called it a tie and decided to aid each other in remaining at the top of their graduating class. They had stayed up late nights in their shared common room reclining in their respective armchairs in front of the fire. Their homework had lay sprawled on the table between their chairs. Most nights, they had simply let their homework go until the early morning and talked to each other, knowing that nothing said between them would leave the room that they shared. Other nights, they had found themselves cramming together for Arithmancy or the like. She recalled the cups of hot chocolate that they had sneaked up from the kitchens, and the times when they drank so many cups of the stuff that they fell asleep in front of the fire together, curled up in their separate armchairs, too full and tired to walk up the stairs to their individual bedrooms. The others knew that Hermione and Draco had developed an understanding of each other, but the word friendship was far from anything that anyone who knew the two would use to describe them; rivals was more like it.

Hermione sighed, turning back around. They had never gotten a chance to graduate; Hogwarts had been attacked.

She made her way to the nearest staircase, noticing that the vicinity was empty. Intent on not being caught past hours on her first night, she began to climb the stairs to the highest floor. Upon reaching the landing, she noticed that the hallway was deserted, as was expected when she realized she was the last to remain after the meal.

She found that she did not need the dim light provided by the torches set every so many feet on the wall. In the past year, this area of the castle had become more familiar to her then her own house. She and Draco had tiptoed along its winding corridors so many times past curfew on their way back from prefect meetings, late classes, Professor Slughorn's parties, and of course, the kitchens.

Lost in her thoughts about her and Draco's escapades, she did not notice that her feet had carried her to the aforementioned painting in the middle of the floor until she heard the sound of the surfacing mermaid in the frame.

"A new head girl, I presume," she stated knowingly.

"Yes," Hermione replied. "I believe Professor Dumbledore forgot to tell me the password," she added worriedly.

"Do not panic. As the new head girl, you are allowed to choose a password for yourself," the mermaid informed her.

"Lemon drop," she spoke without thinking twice.

"Lemon drop it is," the mermaid replied, allowing the entrance to the head common room to open up and letting Hermione in. She climbed the winding staircase to the door leading to the head common room.

As soon as she stepped inside the room, deja-vu and nostalgia overcame Hermione. The room appeared exactly as it had done in her time, except for the colors. The warm reds and golds that had symbolized her house, gryffindor, had now been changed to blues and bronzes to represent ravenclaw. Greens and silvers also adorned the room, but used to seeing them on a daily basis in her time, she failed to make note of them.

The four walls of the common room, each circular considering that the common room was located in a tower, contained bookshelves upon bookshelves, the pattern interrupted only by a fireplace with a painting of Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw in the center of one wall and small star-shaped windows bordering the entire tower along the top of the tower in between the books on the topmost shelf. The room contained two cozy armchairs, one bronze with blue cushions and the other silver with green cushions, with a small circular table in between the two in front of the fireplace. Along an adjoining wall, there was a table with two chairs, for conferences and late night or early morning snacks. The wall next to this contained two small and separate alcoves that seemed to extend into the bookshelf containing a desk and chair each, along with study materials. The fourth and final wall contained the entrance. In the middle of the room, there were couches and cozy chairs surrounding a table in the middle.

On the two corners of the room opposing the entrance, there were two doors leading up to the two dormitories. The dormitory for the head girl was located on the right and Hermione pulled the door open and headed up to the half circular room (the other half of the circle was the head boy's room). Along the straight wall of this room, there was a large canopy bed in the center and bookshelves on either side. The space in the center above the bed contained empty shelves for belongings. Along the circular wall of the room, there was a vanity with an oval shaped mirror in the middle and two bureaus for clothes on either side. The traditional bookshelves filled the empty spaces along this wall also. As with the common room, there were miniature star-shaped windows in the space between the books on the uppermost shelf.

At the foot of her bed, Hermione found a magical trunk that would provide her with appropriate clothing each day. She opened up the trunk and found a ravenclaw robe with a head girl badge. Upon putting the articles of clothing on, she made her way down to the common room, intent on finding Hogwarts, a History on the bookshelf and curling up on one of the couches until she had to go and meet the others.

Since it had grown dark outside, she found the common room bathed in golden light emanating from the bookshelves. Finding her favorite book, she curled up in her armchair. She flipped through the pages in an attempt to find information on the death eaters so that she would be bettered prepared for her task. However, she was suddenly hit by the reality that the book was an older version than the one she was used to, and she would have to succeed without the help of the facts within. Of course, she had practically memorized the future book after so many readings and now was the time that the unconscious effort would prove useful.

She decided to read through the version she had in her hand to find any discrepancies with the one she was used to and was so engrossed in her reading that she did not hear the door squeak open.

A boy her age stepped inside the room and, sensing another's presence, located her form. He quietly made his way over to his own armchair, next to hers, and sat down. He decided to wait for her to acknowledge his presence and busied himself with his defense against the dark arts essay. However, he found himself unable to concentrate on the assignment for his favorite class, his mind instead wandering to the girl and wondering who she was.

"Seems as though Dippet found another head girl," he thought to himself, relishing the fact that he had scared the previous one away. The boy put quill to parchment, making scratching noises to alert the girl.

Startled by the noise, Hermione looked to her side and found herself face to face with Tom Riddle with only a small table separating the two. Her mind seemed to freeze, and she continued to stare at him unabashedly. Somewhere in the back of her head, a voice was telling her to get up and get out of the room as fast as possible. However, in shock, she stayed rooted in her seat, gawking at him.

Tom narrowed his eyes at her and turned back to his work, actually concentrating this time. The girl was obviously ill-bred. She hadn't even made an attempt to introduce herself but was instead eyeing him as if she was in shock.

"So much for manners," Tom thought to himself, paying no heed to the fact that he had also failed to acquaint himself with her properly.

Hermione finally averted her eyes and concentrated on taking deep breaths. He was why they were all here. She had to tread carefully, making sure not to get on his bad side. At the same time, she found herself thinking about how he had murdered so many of the people she held dear, her parents and her classmates alike. In a moment of rashness, she found herself standing up to her full height and throwing her book at Tom's head. Before it could hit him, his hand came up and snatched it from the air in a reflex-like movement. Slowly, he turned to face her and stood, walking towards her with a murderous gleam in his eyes. He stopped short of stepping on her feet, so close that Hermione found she could not look up at him in defiance without her chin hitting his shirt. She stared straight ahead, unwilling to look down in complacency.

"The next time you decide to impetuously aim an object at an innocent victim's head, make sure that you can outsmart them," Tom spoke with loathing dripping from his every word.

"Oh, and try and remember that you'll NEVER outsmart me," he stated as an afterthought before making his way up to his dormitory, potions essay in hand.

As soon as he stepped aside, Hermione bounded out the entrance straight ahead of her, not stopping to look back at his smug expression.

She hurried out the door and, realizing that it would be some time before the group met up in the room of requirement, made her way to an all too familiar area of the castle for her, none other than the library. Letting herself in, she skimmed the place for empty seats and took up her usual place at a hidden table surrounded on all sides by a circular shelf which could be opened by turning to page 9 of an ancient defense against the dark arts textbook located on one of the outer shelves near the top. She had stumbled upon the area by mistake one night when she had been studying spells before the war. In her time, she was the only student who knew of the secret area and that fact had offered her comfort when she had wanted to stay up late studying without interruption. The shelves on the inside were magical in that they provided the person who entered with just the books that he or she required. Skimming one of the shelves, Hermione found a book on 1940s etiquette. Who knew that it was rude to walk faster than someone alongside you in the halls? How was she supposed to manage that when she was always in a hurry to get to her next class? In this fashion, Hermione passed her time before she found that she had to get to the room of requirement.

She found the others waiting for her in the hall that held the room of requirements, scattered and occupied, sharing homework or staring out of one of the windows, so as to seem less suspicious. When they saw her, they immediately made their way over.

"Who wants to imagine the room this time?" Harry asked, politely allowing someone else to do the honors instead of asserting himself.

"I do," Luna spoke, but she was silenced by a shower of "no's" from every direction.

"Last we allowed you to do the imagining, you came up with the Jurassic era and their were dinosaurs that resembled spiders in the clearing you thought up," Ron said, shuddering.

"How about you Parvati," Ginny spoke, "you've never gotten a chance yet."

"Sure, why not," Parvati spoke, taking her up on the offer.

She began walking past the room, imagining it in her mind. Little did the group know that her idea of headquarters was about as bad as Luna's, though less dangerous.

A door materialized after she had paced for a few seconds, and Parvati opened it up and was the first to step inside, gasping in delight as she saw what she had wanted.

The others followed behind her, trying to figure out what she had thought of.

The room resembled Professor Trelawney's classroom from the future.

"Oh, I can't even describe how much I miss it," Parvati spoke, sighing wistfully in remembrance.

They piled some pillows up in the center of the room and lounged while Parvati lit some incense before joining them.

Ron began to cough, turning red at the heavy rose smell.

"Put it out," he complained, eyes bloodshot and watery.

"Fine," Parvati huffed, putting out the incense and taking a seat far from Ron.

"Alright, enough with the childish antics," Hermione complained.

"She's right," Harry supported, "we need to agree on how far we've come and how far we have yet to go."

"So far," Hermione began in an authoritative tone, "we know what Dumbledore told us, that the only weapon we possess that has the ability to ruin Voldemort is love."

At this point, she was interrupted by Draco, who scoffed in irritation. "Granger, teaching my kind how to love is fruitless," he stated knowingly, as if he half expected Hermione to have known better.

"You're kind?" Harry questioned incredulously.

"I knew it," Ron followed up. "Malfoy's always had a death eater aura about him. I always knew he was part of Voldemort's ranks"

Draco rolled his eyes, not bothering to correct Ron in his assumptions.

"Let him explain," Luna stated calmly.

"From personal experience," he started before being interrupted by Ron's voice muttering "personal experience, he confirms."

"Gained from living with my father," Malfoy continued in a sharp tone, "I know that death eaters do not know the meaning of love, and it will be a waste of time on our part to attempt to teach them a concept they obviously have an immunity to."

"Do you have an immunity to love," Harry questioned with knowing eyes, staring between him and Hermione, who quickly steered the conversation back to the original topic with, "I was simply stating what Dumbledore previously informed us of so that we have all the facts before coming up with a logical course of action. I was not implying a course of action at all," she defended.

"Well, Granger, I was merely ruling out an idea that would never work," Draco stated arrogantly.

"Don't take that tone with me," Hermione stated huffily.

Draco crossed his arms and turned away from her and found himself face to face with Neville.

"So Longbottom, any ideas?" Draco asked listlessly, giving off a semblance of kindness when in fact he was contemplating whether Hermione had noticed that he had done so only on her behalf.

Bewildered at being addressed, Neville tore his eyes away from Ginny and hastily replied in the negative.

"Does anyone have any ideas?" Ron asked in exasperation.

"What do we know about him?" Harry asked, 'Let's put everything that we know together before deciding what to do and how to do it."

"He manipulates innocent girls into doing what he asks without them knowing and then lures them to their death," Ginny offered, shivering at the remembrance of her encounter with Tom Riddle's memory during her first year.

"I'm going to kill him myself before we leave if he survives what we've got in store for him," Ron promised.

Ginny gave a small smile in her brother's direction and buried her head in the pillows, trying to escape the thought of Riddle.

"Dumbledore said he was handsome, but I haven't gotten the chance to judge for myself," Parvati said in contemplation.

"I've seen him up close, and trust me, his rude demeanor will turn you off permanently before you even get the chance to consider his looks," Hermione informed knowingly.

Silence followed her allegation for a few moments, and then, "What do you mean 'up close,'" Draco asked, narrowing his eyes in her direction, a possessive gleam in his orbs that only Hermione noticed.

Hermione recoiled from the look in his eyes, wrapping her arms around herself and turning away from his probing stare.

"He's head boy," she mumbled quietly and quickly.

"EXCUSE ME?" Draco bellowed incredulously.

"I should have known," Harry reflected, "Dumbledore mentioned that he was the smartest in his year."

"Not for long," Neville predicted, "not with Hermione around."

Hermione gave him an appreciative glance, and the group chuckled at the thought of Riddle's expression when he found himself outdone by someone.

"Back to the task at hand," Harry focused, "Dumbledore also mentioned that he had gathered evidence that Riddle's greatest fear is death. He is out to obtain immortality. Also, he has murdered Moaning Myrtle already and successfully blamed the release of the basilisk on Hagrid."

"At seventeen nonetheless," Ron murmured in a shocked voice.

"Just for the record, he has murdered his father to date as well," Harry stated grimly.

'What else do we know," Hermione questioned.

"He can see threstrals," Luna stated matter of factly.

"I saw them about a week ago when I was searching for herbs to restock the supply in the greenhouse," Neville put forth.

"Herbs are quite essential to facials," Parvati added.

"Riddle doesn't need a facial," Hermione replied, "His skin is immaculate."

"Exactly how close were you to Riddle that you were able to make this astute observation." Draco asked threateningly.

Before Hermione had a chance to defend herself, Ginny came to her aid with, "Even I noticed his perfect skin during the chaos in the chamber."

"You were paying attention to his FACE at a time like that?" Ron asked uncomprehendingly.

"Well, yes, Ronald, I believe I was paying attention to his face instead of other parts of him. Just because you can't handle yourself around the opposite sex does not mean that I cannot," Ginny stated snobbishly.

Ron began to mimic her in a high pitched voice, but this theatrics went unnoticed as Harry ignored him and notified the others that Riddle had also began to gather his death eaters.

"We don't have enough information to decide on a course of action just yet. We know that he is already on the road to becoming his future self. Our task would have been easier if we had gone back to an earlier time before he had decided to turn to the dark side," Harry decided.

"He didn't turn to the dark side, Potter," Draco corrected, "He invented it."

"Is that pride I hear," Ron questioned, putting his hand to his ear and squinting at Malfoy in his usual suspecting manner.

"Fact, Weasley," Draco amended, "though how someone as poor as you could know of pride I can't comprehend."

"There's a lot of things in the world that even the best of us can't comprehend," Luna sympathized.

Neville made a rare comment with, "Riddle's logic being one of them."

"Twisted though his logic is, maybe we can get to the core of his reasoning if we study him and methodically sort through what we discover," Hermione reasoned.

"A plan in true Hermione fashion if there ever was one," Parvati concluded.

"If everything's settled, we better head back to our respective dormitories before we're missed," Hermione warned.

The group began to get up and depart in their separate directions, but not before Draco found the opportunity to whisper, "Eager to be back in close range with Riddle?" in a harsh voice.

Hermione walked in the general direction of the head dorms at first, but after failing to climb any of the passing staircases, she found herself walking out the entrance of the school into the cool autumn night. Lost in her thoughts, she walked to the gnarled willow under which they had apparated from during their own time. She found comfort as she stared out at the familiar navy blue water of the Great Lake. She was so preoccupied in analyzing her previous interaction with Riddle that she failed to hear Draco approach.

He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around from behind, burying his face in her hair and inhaling her familiar smell of eucalyptus leaves. When he had asked about the scent, she had informed him that the scent of the leaves was known to lessen stress. He had smiled at that, knowing of her tendency to overachieve in all aspects of her life and understanding the stress she experienced, feeling it himself at the time. As he held her, the only things he felt were anger, jealousy, and possessiveness. He pulled her closer violently, and she gasped at the pains as he pressed he hands into her waist.

She knew it was Draco. She could always sense his presence at her back from the nights when he had allowed her to sleep in his bed during their seventh year. This allowed her to wake up to someone nearby when she had nightmares about the upcoming war. Deep down, Draco had known that he allowed her into his room for his own benefit as much as her own. The way he was holding her now was the same way he would hold her when he awoke from nightmares of his own, though he never shared them with Hermione.

She twisted in his grasp, turning to face his chest and burying her face in the folds of his oxford shirt. His height hindered her from wrapping her arms around his shoulders so she rested her arms on his own instead. As she turned her head to the side to face the school, wary of the others finding them, he could sense her blinking away tears. He tensed at the thought of her crying for reasons that she had failed to confide in him.

At the realization that he had stiffened at his thoughts, Draco relaxed and loosened his grip on her waist, bringing his arms to his sides, no longer pulling her ever closer. If she didn't want him around, that was fine with him.

Hermione was used to his aloof behavior during her moments of weakness, but when he moved away and turned back to the school, she was so taken by surprise that her tears began falling. Without thinking twice of the consequences, she ran after him and grabbed his arm and turned him around to face her.

His facial features gave nothing away of his inner turmoil, but she gasped as she saw clearly the anger in his eyes. Before she could attempt to placate him or move away, he grabbed her harshly and crushed her against him, ignoring the pain etched in her face and the fresh tears his actions evoked.

"You will not gallivant with the likes of Tom Riddle if I have anything to do with it," he stated cruelly.

She nodded, more out of fear then promise.

He let go and began to walk away once more, but turned back on second thought and put an arm around her to keep her from falling and backhanded her, thinking clearly enough to stop himself from hitting her as hard as he was capable.

"I will take whatever tone I want with you, Granger," he stated insensitively, placing his forehead against her own and staring into her eyes piercingly.

She closed her eyes and her breath came in quick gasps. She struggled to stay standing, reaching out blindly to grab fistfuls of his shirt.

He moved the arm around her waist to her shoulders and picked her up, supporting her with another arm under her knees. She rested her head against him, feeling his heart beat quicker than usual. He kissed her lightly on the forehead, and began walking towards the head dormitory. He looked straight ahead, careful not to look down at her tear-streaked face. A Malfoy never apologized, and he wasn't about to break the age-old tradition, no matter the girl or the circumstances.

A/N- longer wait than usual, longer update than usual. Let me know your thoughts on this chapter, and especially your ideas for the upcoming chapter. Tom/Draco conflict in the head dormitories next chapter. Update would be quicker if ideas as to how Tom will react to Draco invading the head dormitory to put Hermione to bed and how Draco will react to the sight of Tom were put forth. Let me know what you want to read, and as always, thanks for reading!