Okay, so it says that Cygnus Black III, the father of Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa, was born in 1938. But then Bellatrix was supposedly born in 1951. So Cygnus had his first-born child at age…13? Um, I don't think so. Gross. So for the purposes of this story, I'm going to change Cygnus' birth date by about eight years, and therefore he (and his older brother Alphard and his cousin Orion) will be at Hogwarts at the same time as Riddle, albeit in a younger year. He's really not that important to the story, just a secondary character with rather static development, but I just wanted to point that out. That seems like a weird mistake for HP Wikia to make. (I mean having a child at age 13 is just…ew. Ew.)
Anyways, let's do this. I think this is one of my favorite chapters yet.
oooo
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. –Sir Walter Scott
Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness. -Yousuf Karsh
For believe me: the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is—to live dangerously. –Friedrich Nietzsche
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains within the sound of silence
- "Sound of Silence" by Disturbed
oooo
Thursday, October 26, 2000
Kazakhstan
Hermione is in pain.
One would think that she should be desensitized to it now, after all that she has been through, and she is, to an extent; but Hermione has discovered, over time, that each wound is different, that every ache and scrape and burn and cut is entirely different and born of a unique situation all its own. So, while she has learned to bear it, compartmentalizing her pain and other emotions that hinder productivity, it always still hurts just as bad as the last one.
She hisses through her teeth, face down on a hotel bed, as her companion presses a hot compress soaked in healing herbs and medicines against the extensive wounds on her mid and lower back. He pauses, his hands stilling.
"We are never, EVER doing that again, Granger. Do you understand?" Draco says through gritted teeth. "A bloody manticore, Hermione. We were nearly killed by one of the most vicious creatures of all time, all for the sake of seeing some old geezer to learn some vague something-or-other." He mutters something that's probably some derogatory comment about her, but she can't quite make it out.
She wants to say that they'd learned more than just "some vague something-or-other," but she remains silent, humoring him. He'd gotten by with just a shallow scrape on the back of his thigh; she hadn't been so lucky. Four deep slashes cross the expanse of her back from one of the aforementioned manticore's large, wickedly clawed front paws. She shifts her naked torso into a more comfortable position as her fine blond friend continues to work on cleaning her wounds, muttering healing spells all the while in an angry, bitter tone.
"At least neither of you were stung," says a voice to her right. Charlie, one of the four remaining Weasleys, sits in a rickety wooden chair with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hand. He regards her with icy blue eyes; they are not the same cornflower blue as Ron's, but combined with bright red hair, they are achingly familiar all the same. "Was it worth it?" he inquires, his gaze curious. "Did you find him?"
Hermione smiles slowly, her excitement overwhelming her pain. She reaches out her right hand, her wand hand, and shows him. There, tattooed into her skin in shimmering gold ink, sits her newest achievement. It is a complex pattern that wraps around her middle finger, running over her knuckles and the pads of her digit. The ink is only one shade lighter than her slightly browned skin, unnoticeable unless one was to get a close look at it. Draco has one, too, on his left hand.
"Incredible," Charlie breathes, eyes fixed on the shiny geometric pattern.
Draco grimaces. "Painful," he says, continuing to work on Hermione's wounds. "But yes, definitely worth it – though we have yet to test them, because Hermione always has to investigate unknown shapes lurking in the dark, because apparently she's never taken the message of horror stories to heart: don't follow the strange noise into the dark cave. When has that ever ended well, Granger?" he says with exasperation. "And, lucky for us, manticores are hardly affected by spell magic, like many other magical creatures, and so we were reduced to running like fucking maniacs through the desert – hoping that we didn't come across something even worse – until we had a moment to pause and activate the portkey, whilst covered in blood and dust and sweat."
"And that's how you ended up here, back in the hotel room," Charlie finishes, nodding his head. "Well, like I said: just be grateful the little fucker didn't get a chance to jab at you with that stinger…otherwise you would be toast."
"Well," Draco says after a moment of silence, "at least we talked her out of Rwanda."
Charlie chuckled in response. "At least there's that. Studying Nundus…I mean honestly, Hermione; that's practically searching for the worst way to die."
"Bloody ridiculous," Draco mutters under his breath, cleaning her wounds more harshly. She winces, but does not complain.
This is not the first mess she has pulled him into, nor will it be the last.
But she still plans on visiting Africa; wisely, she does not mention it.
oooo
She ignored Riddle through double Advanced Potions on Thursday morning, where she continued to solidify her acquaintanceship with Slytherin seventh year Raven Flynn, whose dark sense of humor was built on a foundation of sarcasm and sophisticated intelligence. Petite and rather beautiful, with nearly black hair similar to Hermione's in style and sharp dark eyes, she had a lightning fast, mischievous grin and a smirk worthy of any Malfoy. She was rather good in Potions, too. Slughorn, who watched them with greedy eyes all throughout the class, fawned over their perfect Oculus Potion, and, predictably, extended an invitation to Hermione to join his "Slug Club."
She ignored Riddle all throughout mealtimes that day, determined to avoid meeting the enigmatic pair of eyes that seemed to follow her every move. The feeling of his dark gaze on her made the hairs on her arms stand up, but she still ignored it, chatting amiably with her new Gryffindor friends whilst simultaneously answering their questions with as little detail as she could manage.
"How did you come to arrive in Hogwarts?"
"A portkey of some sort, I think – it's all kind of blurry, to be honest. It was an accident." Lie.
"Where did you get the scar on your neck?"
"From a knife." Technically not a lie. Just not the whole truth.
"Is it true that you came from a war in China?"
"Yes." Lie.
"Is Mallery going to be all right?"
"Of course." Lie.
Lie, lie, lie.
She had been nervous about their shared Defense Against the Darks Arts class Thursday afternoon though; it was an advanced class, and would probably focus on practical use rather than theory, which she'd had Wednesday before lunch with the Ravenclaws.
Which meant, a lot of the time, dueling.
Hermione had spent a good portion of each night in a secret little room up near the statue of the Bloody Baron in the North Wing that she had discovered once upon a time, sitting with the real-time Fawkes, who watched on impassively, as she practiced more and more spells with her new wand. She'd used the Room of Requirement for some of the nastier ones that required targets to hit. The only issue she had with the wand was that it was almost too sensitive. It seemed an odd thing to complain about, considering how many people wished that their wands were more responsive. But the smooth bit of reddish-pink wood seemed to know what she wanted before she wanted it, and, unfortunately, that meant that it sometimes acted before she technically gave it permission to. Which could be very dangerous – she often wanted to express her feelings via magic, and yet she could hardly do half of the things she wished simply because she wanted to. If allowed to continue like this, the wand might accidentally kill someone acting on what it picked up in her emotions.
She'd spent hours training the wand not to submit to her will, as one might think, but to submit to her restraint.
It had worked very well for her so far, performing flawlessly in her practices and again in the Forbidden Forest with Riddle's two idiots. It was subtle enough to have channeled her use of Legilimency and cast a perfect Obliviate, but quick enough to not hesitate when she'd initially gone on the offensive with them. All in all, it was the perfect wand, and she was very quickly becoming attached to it. But using the wand in a duel in an environment such as a classroom, in the presence of a lot of underage, inexperienced students, was different. The power with which the wand channeled her magic might affect the space that they were in; therefore she would continue to use her old wand, trying to ignore the feeling of disappointment that came with the decision.
Plus, Hermione, while usually in impeccable control of her body, her magic and her actions, still had a whole host of instincts that could be triggered at the most inopportune time, which could be a disaster with a wand as sensitive as the African one. Also, she was trying to keep her magical aura contained – it wouldn't do to have someone especially attuned to things like that (like Luna Lovegood had been) to pick up on Fawkes' power…or, she reluctantly admitted, the darkish cloud that her own magic had become. The wand's raw energy made it hard to control the magical atmosphere around her.
Even using Bellatrix's old wand, Hermione was going to do everything in her power to avoid getting paired with Tom in class; while she would undoubtedly lose using the walnut wand, as it no longer channeled her magic effectively (she was still irritated by this – she'd worked her arse off to get that wand to bend to her will!), she still didn't want to accidentally get carried away while dueling him. Dueling with Lord Voldemort, however young he may have been, was still not a good idea in the confines of a classroom around a bunch of innocents.
Once upon a time she would have been one such innocent. It was interesting how the ravages of time and war could change a person's life.
The only other Gryffindors that were in Advanced DADA were Lyall, Sabrina, Kat, and a young man named Magnus Macdonald: a handsome, well-built brunette that was the keeper and the captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team. Hermione had noticed him looking at her several times throughout meals and in class, and had caught his eyes a couple of times. She maintained a very purposefully neutral look, not unkind but not encouraging; she wanted to avoid any sort of romantic entanglements here. Even if she did develop feelings for someone else (if she was being honest, she would admit to having been secretly interested in Draco for a while, but had deemed that potential road a poor choice; too many complications, and too much history), she was still so devastated by Ron's memory that she didn't think she could ever truly move on. Her hand came up to absentmindedly touch the outlines of the ring and locket that hung on a chain around her neck. Sighing, she managed to escape to the bathroom before she was roped into walking to class with her fellow Gryffindors. She just needed a minute to herself to clear her head.
Ducking inside, she instead thought of what she'd learned about Raven Flynn and other classmates that she'd encountered in the last few days.
Flynn was a welcome surprise, given that she'd come from Slytherin; she reminded Hermione somewhat of the older Pansy that she'd grown to know and love. She was clever and funny, and didn't make Hermione feel like a specimen under a microscope (as some of the other students did on occasion). They'd worked together really easily that morning and the previous Thursday, Hermione not having to take on all of the responsibility as she had gotten used to doing in her school days. Flynn had kept up with her.
She had told Hermione that she was originally from Pureblood society in America (she said it with such scorn, though, that Hermione had nearly danced with glee) and had moved to London when she was twelve, transferring to Hogwarts as a second year; hence the unusual accent with which she spoke. Other than that, she learned that Raven was especially fond of Potions and had an affinity for nonverbal magic that had snared Hermione's attention in a second flat. She seemed very comfortable with how she used her ebony and dragon heartstring wand, and waved it with expertise that most students were just beginning to develop at this age. She held a general disdain for her fellow students and was not particularly close to anyone, although apparently Violet Greengrass (who Hermione had yet to meet) was "tolerable on a good day" and Tom Riddle was "amusing and easy on the eyes" when he wasn't being "absolutely frigid." Hermione liked the fact that Flynn was astute enough to recognize the coldness of her Head Boy and that she wasn't overwhelmed by his "charm and oh-so-handsome face" as Hermione had overheard one Hufflepuff girl say in the corridor yesterday morning. She generally found Gryffindors insufferable, which Hermione had laughed out loud at upon learning, but Hermione was "all right" and "surprisingly Slytherin" for being "an obnoxious, terminally condescending lion."
In short, Hermione was delighted that she had found Raven Flynn. She would be both a source of pleasurable company and a tool that Hermione could use.
She noticed that Gavin Rosier, one of Riddle's less intelligent cronies – and that was putting it nicely – leered at her (and every other female with a decent pair of legs) constantly, and that Thoros Nott gave her appraising, appreciative looks when he thought she wasn't looking. She had subtly manipulated each of them with barely perceptible physical cues designed to send signals to the most primal part of the brain.
With Rosier she had delicately sent cues of disinterest – disdain, even – turning her body away from him and rolling her eyes over his form dispassionately as if there was nothing there that interested her. He was not unattractive, with bright golden hair, a square jaw and cerulean eyes, but he was big and brutish and stupid, and reminded her far too much of his son.
With Nott, who was nearly a carbon copy of his son, her classmate Theodore, with the same tall, rangy build, forest green eyes and dark hair – and just as attractive and intelligent too, it seemed – she did the exact opposite. She did not openly flirt with him, for she didn't want to let Riddle in on the fact that she was trying to manipulate his loyal followers; but she crossed and uncrossed her legs when she knew he was watching, ran her fingers through her hair as though daydreaming, and would sometimes catch his eye only to look away again. She would also hum a little tune – her mother used to sing "Close to You" by the Carpenters while cooking when Hermione was growing up, and so it was Hermione's natural choice of a song – sometimes while walking by him in the hallway or sitting near him in class, which had happened a handful of times now. He seemed to be favored by Riddle, the same as Edmond and Mulciber. She had plans for him. But for now, pitting the two cronies against each other for a girl was a good start. She had made sure to start putting extra attention into her appearance, which was something she had rarely done before, and she had used whatever knowledge she had picked up from Pansy and Ginny over the years to channel her feminine wiles, which she had also rarely done before. She knew Tom Riddle would never be brought down by a girl; but that didn't mean his followers couldn't be. And she had already gained all of their attention in one way or another.
Mulciber started sweating whenever she got close to him or met his eyes – probably due to muscle memory and the little dark box of pain she had let him keep in his mind that he would forever unwittingly associate with her. A clever kind of torture, she thought, on her part.
Edmond looked at her with shifty eyes, but she'd determined during her little foray into his mind that, despite his loyalty to his Lord, he would be the one of the first ones to turn – simply because he was smarter, cleverer, than the rest; and his sense of self-preservation was far stronger than any loyalty he could feel for any other, although she had felt how he respected and feared Riddle. He would realize, at some point, that perhaps he'd misplaced his loyalty. She would feed that flame of doubt that she knew would eventually, with a lot of her carefully controlled influence, spark to life in his head.
Conan Avery was one of Riddle's sixth year followers. He eluded her attention most of the time, and was so slippery that she couldn't get a good sense of him; it had only been a few days, however, and, because he was a sixth year, she had no classes in which to observe him. All she knew was that he was slender, pale, and dark haired, with blue eyes that were good at hiding his emotions. She noticed at mealtimes and during free periods that he was not always at Tom's side; but when he was, he hung back, observing. She thought, perhaps, that he might be worth cultivating.
The only things she had determined about Dolohov were a) his black eyes were just as cold as Riddle's, b) she really wanted nothing to do with him, and c) the purple scar on her abdomen from the Department of Ministries ached when he was near, just as it had in her time. He positively radiated evil. She guessed that he probably admired Riddle, and followed him faithfully, but was in it for the ride to the top, and for the potential future that Tom was offering: a world in which Purebloods ruled. He followed Tom because Tom was stronger than he was; although Hermione had heard rumors that Dolohov was the only student that had lasted more than a few minutes dueling Riddle. The cold shrewdness in his eyes when he looked at Tom hinted not at blind adoration, but at a sort of calculating obedience; How much can I get away with? What moves do I make to elevate myself to the top of Riddle's circle and eventually the Ministry? Would I be able to dispose of him and replace him?
Hermione wondered if Tom had picked up on Dolohov's possible intentions. Voldemort was perceptive and excellent at Legilimency, but as she remembered Dolohov had been one of the best at Occlumency in her time, rivaling Snape with his proficiency. She wondered if he was as good at it, yet, that he could keep the current Tom Riddle from reaching his innermost thoughts. It was a possibility. Or perhaps Tom knew of Dolohov's thoughts but didn't really care; besides Harry he had never taken any sort of threat seriously, after all, and Dolohov had a lot of skills to offer as a Knight of Walpurgis. If Hermione could find out more, she could use it. Information was important in this game she was playing, and she would have to be careful. Antonin Dolohov was a worthy adversary and someone to be watched. It wouldn't do to underestimate any of these young men – she knew what they would eventually become.
She'd also had the extreme displeasure of meeting the Head Girl on Tuesday. Autumn Rookwood, a Ravenclaw, was not nearly as self-important as she liked to think she was. Hermione had been outside of Dumbledore's office late at night, just finishing up with one of their meetings, and the tall, uptight girl with the pinched face had primly informed her that "students weren't supposed to be out of bed after curfew," and that she'd have to write Hermione up for it. Hermione had coolly responded with a terse explanation, and Dumbledore had come out into the hall to verify her story. Robbed of her chance to take Gryffindor points and give a detention to the girl that had been the sharp focus of every professor since her arrival, Rookwood had left in a huff and glared at Hermione jealously every time she saw her. Hermione would be avoiding interactions with the snot-nosed little bitch throughout her time at Hogwarts – as much as she could, at least. She didn't fancy being singled out for punishments simply because she outperformed the girl on her entry tests and in classes. She wasn't in the business of kick-starting petty rivalries.
One thing that had brought a smile to her face had been picking out which of the Slytherin students were Blacks. Alphard Black, a sixth year and Sirius' favorite uncle, was handsome and charismatic just like his nephew had been, with smiling blue-grey eyes and a mouth that was quick to grin.
His younger brother Cygnus was in his third year, already betrothed to seventh-year Druella Rosier (Gavin's cousin), who, according to Raven, had a nasty attitude and was one to watch out for (when Hermione had first laid eyes on Druella during their Transfiguration class last Wednesday morning, she had nearly jumped out of her seat at the strong resemblance between her and her future eldest daughter).
Orion, Sirius' father, was a fourth year, as she had come to understand, and was similarly betrothed to his second cousin and Alphard's older sister, Walburga, whose portrait Hermione had become well-acquainted with during her stay at Grimmauld Place.
She could tell that the three boys were Blacks simply by the fact that they all had similar bone structure, shiny black hair, and eyes of varying shades of grey. It was interesting to compare them all to their future children. Narcissa would inherit her mother's blonde hair, but the rest of her would be all Black: pale eyes, fair skin, and fine, elegant features; whereas Bellatrix and Andromeda, with the exception of their dark curly hair, would both take after their mother, with heavily lidded dark eyes and sharp, square faces of unique beauty. Sirius would take after his mother Walburga (who was apparently already graduated, thank the stars) and his uncle Alphard, while Regulus would inherit the more severe, angular visage of his father, not nearly as handsome.
It was all rather surreal.
"Granger?"
Hermione jumped, her wand out even before she turned. She came face to face with the very girl she had been thinking about just moments ago. As quickly as she had drawn it, she slipped her wand back into the holster that she had rigged up her wrist, perfect for a quick draw-and-stow.
She held a hand to her chest. "Merlin, Flynn," she said, meeting the shorter girl's dark, laughing eyes, "don't sneak up on me like that. I could've cursed you to the moon and back, just now."
Raven raised her eyebrow, smirking. "I figured a battle-honed girl like you would've been able to hear me coming a mile away," she responded smartly.
Hermione smirked back. "You do have a point. Next time, I'll be more observant; that way you'll find yourself at the end of my wand before you even finish opening the door."
The other girl chuckled, approaching the mirror and fluffing up her dark, glossy curls. If Hermione's curls had still been as unmanageable as they had been in Hogwarts, she would have been green with envy. As it was, she was grateful that they had smoothed out like Flynn's, especially after Fawkes had taken up residence in her body. Her weirdly smooth skin and shiny hair and bright eyes still unsettled and surprised Hermione every time she looked in the mirror, expecting to see frizzy hair, sallow, malnourished skin, and steady eyes the color of rich soil. It was taking some getting used to. While she had never been some raving beauty, and still wasn't, her features were somehow more eye-catching than they had been before her encounter with Fawkes, and sometimes she felt like a stranger in her own skin.
"What class do you have next?" Raven asked her, washing an ink stain from the back of one hand.
Hermione pulled her hair back into one of those ribbons that she had cleverly charmed to work like the elastics she had been able to wear in 2002; the ones that not-so-conveniently enough hadn't been invented yet. It was a relief to get her heavy hair up off of her neck, preparing for a physical DADA class.
"Advanced Defense," she replied, meeting Raven's eyes in the mirror. "You?"
"The same," she replied, reaching in her bag and pulling out a tube of crimson lipstick. As she put it on, Hermione was suddenly reminded of an old picture she'd seen of Bellatrix once. Raven looked nothing like Bellatrix except for her hair and the deep color of her eyes, but she had the same sense of style and glamour that Hermione's nemesis and former captor had possessed as a young woman: sensual, wicked and darkly alluring. The girl was similarly eye-catching. Hermione felt rather plain in comparison, but she knew that she and Raven looked nothing alike except for the texture of their hair, and that it was unfair to make comparisons. Besides, as much as she'd wanted to have pale, milky skin as a teenager, she had grown fond of her fair golden tone and the smattering of light freckles across her nose and the tops of her shoulders.
"Shall we walk together, then?" Hermione said, smiling.
"And be seen in the presence of an annoying, self-absorbed Gryffindor?" Flynn scoffed. "Of course. It's a dream come true."
Hermione snorted, and together they exited the bathroom, meandering through the halls and up the stairs in no apparent hurry. They talked some, but neither of them felt compelled to fill the silence when the conversation lulled. It was surprisingly refreshing.
"Where did you get that scar?"
Hermione turned to her and grinned, liking the fact that the girl had bluntly asked and seemed entirely unapologetic for it. "Which one?" she asked, gesturing to her whole body. "It's like looking at a map."
"Well, I'm curious about all of them, but the one that caught my eye especially is the nasty looking one that you keep cleverly hidden under your sock," Raven commented, looking down at Hermione's right calf. "The girls in your dorm room, one Iris Fawley in particular, loves to wag her tongue," she finished, looking amused and scornful at the same time.
Hermione hummed in understanding. "She should be careful; I hear those with gossiping tongues often choke on them." She shared a smile with her unlikely companion, and then looked down at her own leg. She stopped in the hallway to pull down her white knee sock.
"I was being chased by a particularly nasty werewolf in a peat bog in Indonesia," she said truthfully, remembering it well. "He managed to chomp down on my ankle and got a pawful of my leg as well. You would be surprised how sharp the teeth and claws of a werewolf in human form can be," she said conversationally, blocking out the memory of Pansy's ensuing death.
Raven's eyes were wide with both shock and greedy interest. Hermione honestly preferred the latter; it was more genuine. "It's amazing you got out of there alive," she said, staring at the puckered set of scars still healing on Hermione's leg as she pulled her sock back up. There was no sympathy in her gaze, which was just another reason to like her.
"I was one of the lucky ones," Hermione replied softly, staring at the shiny marble floor as she continued to walk. She cleared her throat. "It got infected afterwards; we didn't have the access to the potion we needed to keep it sterilized. It's been quite the ordeal to get it to heal. Of course the werewolf that bit me wasn't turned, so I wasn't infected with the curse…I just like my meat a little rarer these days," she finished, flashing a toothy smile.
She and Raven continued to walk and talk of less heavy things, like the ridiculousness of Slughorn's little club and Druella's utter hatred of anyone remotely prettier than herself. Raven was laughing at Hermione, noting that she was "sure to have a new enemy." Once again, though Hermione knew she was pretty enough, she didn't see her rivaling people like Iris Fawley or Druella Rosier or Raven herself. Perhaps she had a skewed way of seeing herself. She would have to ask Draco about it sometime. He was always honest with her.
When they reached the DADA room on the third floor, there were only a handful of students ahead of them. Of course, that handful just had to be Tom Riddle and his little minions. All of the seventh years in his little circle were here: Rosier, Mulciber, Lestrange, Nott, and Riddle himself. Lyall sat over in a corner and waved at her as she came in; she casually waved back.
"Well, Flynn, it looks like you've caught yourself a little lion cub," Rosier sneered, looking at Hermione with blatant lust-tinged disdain in his clear blue eyes. Now here was a man who thought of women as meaningless and disposable pursuits. "Doesn't she know that lions and snakes don't really…get along?"
Hermione smiled at him mildly, making sure not to look at Riddle even as he shifted, leaning up against a table, undoubtedly expecting her to look at him; he was sure to be disappointed, then. "Oh yes, I've heard about this little…house rivalry nonsense," she said, her tone scathing. She saw the moment that the tiniest hint of uncertainty flickered in Rosier's eyes before it flicked out again. "How…quaint." She cocked her head to the side, regarding him coolly. "I generally find my attention drawn to less childish pursuits."
She smiled blandly and then turned her eyes purposefully towards Mulciber, who instantly flushed and broke out into a sweat, looking like he was about to faint. Then, without a glance in Riddle's direction, she turned towards the front of the class. When she passed by Nott, she looked briefly up at him from beneath her lashes, and saw him tug at his tie as his eyes tracked her movement up the aisle. She sat down in the seat behind Lyall, who turned around and winked at her.
Though Raven said not a word, Hermione could feel the girl's well-contained mirth as she took a seat beside Hermione, slinging her bag onto the table as silent laughter shook her petite body. In true Slytherin manner, she did not comment, not wanting to ruin the moment. Hermione sent her a secret smile, and then began to prepare for class.
She could feel the whole host of glowers that showered the back of her neck, and her lips curved in satisfaction.
oooo
Professor Galatea Merrythought was quite the teacher. Probably the best instructor Hermione had ever had, though she was hard-pressed to admit it in the light of her love and respect for McGonagall, Remus and Snape. (Yes, Snape…he had always challenged her, never looked upon her favorably, and therefore she'd strived extra hard to excel in his class…he had been a good instructor, though Harry and Ron would have scoffed at her assessment.)
The Head of Ravenclaw House was older, perhaps in her sixties, but was still very pretty, with a tall, slender form and light brown hair threaded through with grey that hung in a tight braid nearly to her knees. She had shrewd grey eyes, darker and steadier than Draco's ever-changing quicksilver orbs. They watched Hermione closely as she went through the motions of dueling Lyall Lupin, struggling not to yawn behind her hand. Lyall was good, really – he had the makings of a fine Auror one day, if he wished it. But he was barely seventeen, and he had never dueled outside of school. Hermione tried to make it look like she was evenly matched, but the professor caught her eyes and saw the boredom there before Hermione could manage to look away.
She mentally groaned as Merrythought began to walk over to them, commenting on students' performances as she went. When she reached the spot where Hermione and Lyall were dueling, she held her hand up for them to stop.
"I'd very much like to speak with you after class, Miss Granger," she said with a smile. "It's nothing bad, I assure you; I merely wish to discuss some things with you in more detail." Her eyes were not cold, per say, but they were very intense. Hermione nodded. "You may continue."
The professor walked away and Hermione turned back to Lyall, gritting her teeth. He smiled at her. "Again?" he asked, raising his wand.
"Again," she said, snapping out a quick Expelliarmus that Lyall deflected with a spoken "Protego!"
She spent the rest of the class brimming with apprehension, wondering what Merrythought would have to say.
oooo
Tom considered it a stroke of luck when Merrythought let the class go ten minutes early and asked both he and the Granger girl to stay behind. Hermione – for that was her name, was it not? – shifted uncomfortably under Merrythought's stony gaze.
"I'll speak with you in a moment, Tom," Merrythought said, and he sat down obediently, staring at the girl who had stubbornly refused to look at him since the previous evening at dinner. He watched with interest as she picked at her cuticles, a sure sign of stress. He found himself staring at her profile and at the long line of her neck, relieved of the mass of curly hair that usually covered it. There was a thin silver scar across the front of her throat; he wondered where it had come from. Her tumultuous locks had been pulled back from her face for this class, and he noticed the colors that gleamed in the waterfall of hair that fell from the black ribbon that tied it up: ochre, chestnut, gold and auburn all swirled together to make a tempting cocktail of warmth that one might be tempted to run one's hands through, if given the chance. Not he, of course. But perhaps someone else.
Merrythought looked at the pretty girl from behind her desk. "I've heard quite a lot about you, Miss Granger," she said, her voice both curious and suspicious. "And everything I've heard indicates that you are an extraordinary student. Your placement tests far outstrip almost everyone who has ever come through this school – you might give Albus Dumbledore a run for his money."
To say that Tom was floored would have been an understatement. This…girl…had almost out-performed Dumbledore on her placement tests? But…she'd been such a painfully average duelist. He did not even have a chance to recover before Hermione spoke through gritted teeth. She seemed irritated.
"Your point, Professor?" she ground out, her eyes flashing in annoyance. She looked anything but proud.
"Why are you holding back in my class?" Merrythought asked bluntly.
Granger crossed her arms over her chest. "What makes you think that I am?" she said enigmatically. "I'm good with books, Professor Merrythought; none of the placement tests include the practical use of magic."
Merrythought smiled at her. "Except Professor Burke says that you are able to perform wandless and nonverbal charms without batting an eyelash," she said, her eyes narrowed but her tone one of amusement.
The girl shrugged narrow shoulders. She really was very thin, Riddle thought; yet he could see the muscles of her legs as she stood there before him, and distinctly recalled the feel of her toned arms and stomach as he had nearly carried her to the hospital wing last week. Thin, but not weak.
"Charms isn't the same as DADA, Professor," she said, evading again.
"Miss Granger," Merrythought said with a long-suffering sigh, "I know when a student is holding back in my class. Mister Riddle here does it all the time. I know the signs well." She inclined her head at Tom, and he gave her a practiced smile.
To his fury, the Gryffindor still did not look at him. "Be that as it may, Professor, I am unwilling to engage myself fully simply because I don't think that it would be wise."
Merrythought frowned. "And why is that, precisely?"
Hermione put a hand on the professor's desk and leaned upon it. Tom was shocked at the utter rebelliousness he saw etched onto her face. "I haven't adjusted to peacetime just yet, Professor," she said, her tone brooking absolutely no argument. "I would rather not slip up and accidentally curse an innocent student because I was foolish enough to engage in a duel with them." She leaned down to grab her bag from where she'd set it on the floor. "It wouldn't be pretty, Professor. Trust me. So please respect my wishes when I say that it would be best to leave me be and let me move at my own pace." She cracked her neck from side to side – for some reason the eerie sound made him cringe internally – and hitched her bag up on her shoulder. "Enjoy the rest of your afternoon, Professor Merrythought."
"But I also wished to speak with you about –"
Hermione was gone before Merrythought could even finish her sentence. Tom, forgetting that his professor wanted to talk to him about something as well, grabbed his bag and was after her like a shot. As she slipped around a corner, he followed.
He had attempted to do some research on phoenixes last night, but when he'd gotten to the library he'd found that all of the books on the Merlin damned birds had already been checked out for "special research" that Dumbledore was doing. How convenient.
Too convenient.
"Granger!" he shouted, trying desperately to get her attention. To his satisfaction she whirled around, looking flushed. There were no other students around.
She stepped forward, peering into his face. "Tom, right?" she asked, and rage swelled within him as she pretended to not quite remember his name; he knew he was not so easily forgotten. Her eyes were full of scorn. "Tom Riddle? That's right; we met in the lavatory last Tuesday afternoon."
He looked down at her coldly, baring his teeth in a shark-like grin. "Indeed, Miss Granger." He realized, with equal amounts of trepidation and excitement, that Hermione Granger would not be blinded by his charm. She was different from most, he could tell. Therefore, he did not try to hide his true nature from her – although it would not do to let on just how much his real personality was covered by his charming persona. So he toed the line. But somehow he knew it would be fruitless to try to win her over as he did everyone else; she wouldn't fall for that. Why she wouldn't fall for that was less certain.
"Oh, call me Hermione, please," she cooed, giving him a beautifully charming smile that was so fake he wanted to hex it right off of her face. "Since you've given me permission to use your first name, I insist that you do the same."
"I won't beat around the bush," he said, his voice assiduously restrained. He hated that he had told her to call him by his first name. What an utterly thoughtless decision. Tom was not usually impulsive like that. "I dislike what you've done with my friends' brains, Hermione."
"I'm not sure what you speak of, Tom," she said sweetly. She looked up at him in false confusion – it was so convincing that he might have fallen for it; anyone else would have. However, he was the king of distrust and mistruths, and he saw through it immediately.
He snarled as she batted her eyelashes at him, and resisted the urge to slam her up against the nearest surface…barely. "You know exactly what I speak of!" he hissed vehemently, keeping his voice low.
"Oh – do you mean that little bit of fun in the forest?" she replied, looking up at him through abnormally long eyelashes. She held his hazy glare with a hooded look of her own that spoke of her amusement and no shortage of mockery.
"So it was you," he breathed, his heart swelling with triumph at the confirmation. He gritted his teeth. How? How had this girl beat both Ambrose and Edmond? She was perhaps powerful and skilled for a witch, and in possession of good instincts, but not good enough to have disarmed both of them so easily. Did she have an accomplice? Did that infernal phoenix have something to do with it? It simply wasn't possible for her to have done it on her own. "I'm not fond of people who mess with my things," he said tightly, his heart thumping with carefully controlled anger and a gnawing, hungry sort of curiosity. He wanted answers.
"And I'm not fond of people who meddle in my affairs," she snarled suddenly, moving closer so that she was only inches in front of his face. "Perhaps you should do a better job of training your stooges." She hooted in laughter, moving away from him and twirling around fancifully. "They fell so quickly under my wand, Tom," she said, her eyes flashing with mirth and with fire that was gone as quickly as it had come.
Holding her stare was like falling into an ocean, limitless as far as the eye could see. Though at first there was nothing apparently remarkable about those intelligent, multifaceted brown eyes – other than being very pretty and wonderfully bright – it simply felt as if there was a current beneath the surface, moving, shifting, churning. And then they would flash with color and untold depths, and he found it nearly impossible to look away.
"You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into, girl," he said, sneering.
She hummed, looking up at the ceiling. "I used to be a girl," she said mildly, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. "I was rather dangerous then." She looked back at him, and her eyes swirled with something fatal that shone crimson in the dim light of the hallway. "I'm a very dangerous woman now, Tom."
He was stunned when she stepped towards him and went up onto her tiptoes, brushing her lips against his ear. His body betrayed him, and he flushed from head to toe. She smelled like sugar, lavender, parchment and the barest hint of wood smoke. Her lips burned hot where they touched the shell of his ear. He froze.
"Careful, Riddle," she said quietly. "One of these days you might end up biting off more than you can chew. Be sure you don't choke on it." She pulled back then, and reached up to straighten his tie with nimble fingers, her amber eyes gleaming dangerously. "And poking a sleeping lion is never wise."
"Neither is provoking a snake," he hissed, batting her hands away from his neck impatiently. How dare she touch him without his permission!
She smiled up at him slyly. "And yet which of the two of us has done the provoking so far? I was content to leave you in peace, Mr. Riddle," she continued. She licked her bottom lip and eyed him from top to bottom. "Now you've really gone and attracted my attention." She stared up at him unnervingly. There was not a hint of coyness or kindness in her eyes anymore; they were cold and dark and dangerous, the eyes of a predator assessing her prey.
He glared down at her, undaunted. "You don't scare me, Granger," he said, looming over her threateningly. "Pull a stunt like you did in the forest again, and you will regret it. I would hate for anything unfortunate to befall your little friend in the hospital." His smile was sinister.
Tom was generally very sensitive to other people's auras, and he hadn't picked up on anything from Hermione Granger in the past week other than the brief flash of magic he'd felt in the bathroom; he had not truly taken her seriously as a result. So when he felt it – her magic – rolling across his skin, he couldn't keep the surprise from his face. It was like a lightning storm over a volcano: roiling darkness crackling with shards of pure energy, underscored with a blisteringly hot base that felt like a bubbling lake of lava – dormant, but a hair's breadth away from erupting. It licked over his own magical aura in a wicked caress.
She stepped forward, and the desire to step away from her warred with the desire to touch her, to bathe in the exquisite richness of her power. Her eyes held him captive, irises sparkling with shifting flecks of burgundy, amethyst, gold, obsidian, an entire spectrum of colors that exploded in and out of being like the very stars themselves. They held promises that were dark and bittersweet like the richest chocolate and called to him just as the unsettling vibrations of her distinctive magical tones did.
When she spoke, her voice was low and dangerous. "Let me make something clear, Tom Riddle," she said, lifting her face to his. "If you so much as touch Draco, I will gut you."
Tom allowed a slow smile to stretch across his face. So, the bitch had a weakness. "Touchy, touchy," he said mockingly, his mind whirring with the possibilities. "Perhaps you should keep his safety in mind, then, little lion," he teased.
The look on her face would have been utterly terrifying to anyone but him. As it was, it was still disturbing in its intensity. "Perhaps you should keep your safety in mind, Riddle," she said, with an eyebrow raised. "And perhaps you should be careful with whom you threaten – you wouldn't want to go ruining that illustrious reputation you've managed to build, would you?" she said cooly.
He raised an eyebrow in return, but did not reply. There was nothing she could do to damage his reputation – she was a stranger here, and he was the favored Head Boy who had spent his entire school career charming the people around him. Still, it gave him pause. Perhaps he had been too quick to underestimate her.
In a split second, her expression lightened, and her magical aura faded as quickly as it had appeared. "Will you be attending our History of Magic class with Professor Binns?" she asked, looking down at the schedule in her hands.
He looked at her, puzzled at the sudden shift in demeanor. "It was my intention, yes."
She smiled up at him placidly. "Would you care to walk with me? I find myself sometimes getting turned around in these halls. It's only been just over a week since I've been here, after all."
Tom did not quite know how to respond to that. He cleared his throat. He was…unused…to being thrown off balance by a girl. But this one definitely threw him off balance.
He hated her for it.
Unable to come up with a suitably scathing response, he merely held his arm out for her to take, his eyebrow raised skeptically. When she wrapped her hand around his elbow he once again felt hints of her strange magic sear through his shirt and seep into his skin. He was sure she felt his shudder, but she neglected to comment on it, and he quickly fell into step beside her.
"Partner with me in DADA tomorrow," he said impulsively, wanting, needing to pit his magic against hers. "I believe you might offer me a challenge." At least more of a challenge than anyone else could manage to give him, with the exception of Dolohov, who was a superb duelist.
She looked at him sideways through those annoyingly long lashes, and smiled. "Oh I doubt that," she said kindly. She patted his arm. "I hear you are quite the duelist. I'm certain I could never beat Hogwarts' most esteemed Head Boy."
Her words were charming and genuinely humble, and upon initial inspection they would appear to be entirely sincere, but there was something in her voice that grated against his nerves.
"You mock me," he said in return, the smooth timbre of his voice betraying nothing of his irritations.
He felt, rather than heard, her snigger. "I would very much like to partner with you in DADA, Tom," she said as they rounded the corner. "You're very observant."
"Indeed, Miss Granger." She nearly made him laugh. If he were in the business of being made fun of, he would have found her wit delightful. However, she was instead a giant thorn in his side. As gentlemanly as he could manage in the face of such a splinter (albeit a very good-looking splinter), he removed her hand from his arm and held it in his own to help her step down onto one of the moving stairwells in the Grand Staircase.
"Come now, Tom, don't let's slip back into using each other's surnames – we've already made leaps and bounds in this relationship," she said, stepping neatly onto the top step of the staircase with him and barely shifting as it lurched in movement, swinging downwards. Once again, her tone jested with him.
"You do know how to try my patience, don't you?" he asked with a sigh, turning to face her. She had somehow ended up on the step above him, and as such her eyes were level with his.
"I'm glad to fill such an important space in your life, Tom Riddle," she said, her pretty lips quirking up into a smile that reached her eyes this time. "It's everything that I'd hoped for and more."
His eyes narrowed on hers, but he could not, for the life of him, keep the humor from showing on his face. Bantering with her was…entertaining. "You're quite the comedian, aren't you, Hermione?"
"Only for you."
"I have questions."
"Of course you do."
"Don't toy with me, Hermione."
"I wouldn't dream of it, Tom. Honestly. You give me far too much credit." When she smiled this time, her cheek dimpled and her teeth flashed bright white. "I am merely a lowly witch, and, as your two friends demonstrated in the forest, men are far superior than women. I'm certain that you've put me up on a pedestal where I just don't belong."
His fury was back tenfold as she reminded him of his followers' failures, but, just as he was considering tossing her spitefully from the moving staircase, it jolted into place on the second floor and a multitude of students got on as Hermione and he got off to continue down. He got a couple of strange looks from a few of the older students they passed. He hadn't realized that he was still, effectively, holding her hand. It was very small, and very soft.
They got onto another staircase, and this time she was a step below him, the top of her head level with his chest. Her eyes were laughing at him, peering up at him through those Merlin-damned eyelashes. He wanted to yank them all out, one by one.
As if she could feel his murderous intent, she squeezed his hand. "Now, Tom," she said, and her voice was low and soft and without humor. "You wouldn't want to do anything that you might regret later, right?" she said, her eyes a steady ochre with flecks of chestnut, free of any mind-boggling colors. "After all, I hear the school nearly closed down a couple of years ago. We wouldn't want a repeat of anything like that to happen, would we? After all, I don't know about you, but I for one don't have anyplace else to go."
The familiarity with which she spoke about the incident in which the school closed down gave him pause, but when he looked down, there was nothing in her expression that indicated that she knew anything out of the ordinary. Then again, he didn't know what this girl knew. She was so much more than what he'd originally thought. And the quip about not having anywhere else to go…what exactly did she know, and how much of it was about him? He didn't like it. He didn't like her.
"I hear that you and your little friend are very good at taking care of yourselves – I'm sure you'll figure something out," he said snidely. When her eyes flashed with sorrow, gone as quickly as it had come, he knew he had hit a sore spot. It should not have bothered him, but it did.
"Well, as you so eloquently put it, me and my little friend aren't having such a great stroke of luck lately, what with him slowly dying and all," she snapped.
He narrowed his eyes. "You said nothing about his condition being fatal," he hedged, feeling both uneasy and suspicious.
"I said nothing about it not being fatal," she bit back, removing her hand from his and crossing her arms.
"I threatened him, and you jumped to his defense as if he were the most precious thing on earth," he retorted, angry that he'd been conned. "You played me."
"He is the most precious thing on earth to me, Mr. Riddle," Granger said scathingly, her eyes filled with incredible pain. "He is, in fact, the only thing I have left. And yes, he is dying, and yes, I did play you." She suddenly yawned, all traces of emotion gone from her face in the time that it took him to blink. "But you make it so easy. And you're so easily worked up, as well. See? Even now you're getting all red in the face."
His eyebrow quirked as he looked down at her. "I don't get red in the face. You don't get me worked up. And you are, perhaps, the only person who has ever managed to manipulate me in such a manner. Congratulations. Your memory modification with my friends in the forest was a nice touch. Perilialis. You really do have quite the sense of humor, Miss Granger. Hermione."
There was that ever so subtle dimple that flashed in her cheek when she smiled – really smiled. There was a single freckle – one that had escaped from the group on her nose – that disappeared inside that dimple every time it popped up, and he couldn't help but stare at it.
"I thought you might appreciate that."
"You shouldn't have tortured my friends, Hermione. And what were you doing with that phoenix, anyway?"
"You shouldn't have sent them into the forest to spy on me, Tom. It's not polite to stalk a lady. I could have been bathing in a streamor something. Nude." As she said the word, an image of her figure, unclothed and covered in battle scars, rose to his mind. He shook it off angrily. "And Fawkes and I are friends."
When the staircase ground to a halt on the first floor, she waited for him to get off. He did, sporting a scowl all the while, and offered her his hand. She took it graciously. "You know what we call men who watch people without them knowing? Peeping Toms. I suppose you were aptly named, then. It was almost fate."
"Enough!" he snapped quietly, his amusement replaced, once again, with anger; partially with himself, for allowing him the weakness of thinking of a woman in such a way, bathing in a stream. Merlin. As if he had time for that sort of nonsense. "As I've said before, it isn't your place to touch my things."
To his annoyance, she didn't move away from him – she stepped closer to him and took up her position at his elbow as she had done before they'd gotten to the stairs, tucking her fingers into the crook of his elbow. Gritting his teeth but obliged to play the gentleman in public, conscientious of the looks he kept receiving in the halls, he allowed it to happen. Just to bother her, he set his other hand on top of where hers lay curled around his arm. Using wandless magic, he sent a flare of heat into her skin.
She hissed, but did not budge. She looked up at him through hot, narrowed eyes as they continued to walk, slowly making their way towards their History of Magic class. "You know, Tom, I don't think your 'friends' would take nicely to you calling them your 'things.'" She hummed. "'Things' seems so plebeian, don't you think? So common. Don't they at least deserve a term like 'object' or 'item'? Oh, or how about 'possession'?"
Tom hissed in turn when his own arm went as hot as an iron. "I think possession might be a little too lofty."
The sound of her tinkling laughter was so melodious and so unexpected that he nearly stumbled. When he looked to his right, her head was bowed in laughter and her dark eyes were crinkled with mirth.
"I think you might be right," she said, straightening with a smile on her face. "Although they do both have potential. Don't worry," she said, waving her free hand. "I didn't give them any new scars."
"Not wanting to be outdone?" he said, commenting on the number of scars she was reported to have littering her body. He had to admit, he was curious.
She raised an eyebrow, looking at him askance. "Listening to locker room talk now, Riddle? Surely you've got better things to do."
He grunted in agreement. "Unfortunately, there are only so many places you can get away with casting silencing charms upon your own ears – it's generally frowned upon in public."
Once again, her laugh was like music. "Iris Fawley does have that kind of voice that seems to effectively permeate whatever haven you might have made for yourself. And I am aware that it might seem to her as if I have been drawn and quartered and sewn back together. What was she saying this time?"
"Something about a manticore?" he said, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, its ridiculous the things she comes up with."
She hummed. "Well, that one might be at least partially true. What, exactly, did she say that I was doing with said manticore? I assure you, it was nothing inappropriate," she joked.
Tom gave her a skeptical look. "What would you be doing with a manticore, Granger?"
"In this instance, running from it." She moved her fingers like little legs, and he made an effort to close his mouth. "There are two states of being around any manticore: running, and dying. Luckily, it was the former for Draco and me."
"And just to be clear," he said, trying to contain his skepticism and excitement – for what manner of a woman was this?! – "this was a different incident to the one where you got that scar on your leg?"
She clucked her tongue. "I told you before, Tom, that one came from a werewolf. I would have danced with that manticore a million times over if it had meant I never had to deal with that werewolf." The haunted look in her eyes told Tom that it was about more than just the scar. In fashion true to her nature, though – at least what he had seen of it so far – she turned it into a joke. "At least the scar from the cantankerous manticore is hidden on my back, unlikely to be seen by most – the nasty monstrosity on my leg is seen on a daily basis, and it still refuses to heal completely." Her tone was one of annoyance as she stared down at said leg. "I'm not usually one for vanity, Tom Riddle, but…well. Living in a dorm with the pretty Iris Fawley with her smooth, girlish skin does wonders for my ego, you know."
"Is she pretty?" Tom murmured absently, looking nowhere but at the girl strolling casually next to him. "I hadn't noticed." He had. But he hadn't cared. He still didn't care about Iris Fawley, no matter if her father had once been the Minister for Magic. He did, however, care about Hermione Granger. He couldn't decide whether or not he wanted to kill her or own her. He was still on the fence. Of course, she could turn out to be nothing more than a pretty face – but somehow he didn't think so. "And what about the lovely colors that decorated your abdomen when we met so spontaneously in the loo last week?"
She hummed. "Precisely why there aren't more co-ed loos, Riddle," she muttered jokingly, and he couldn't help but relish in the faint tinge of color high on her cheeks. "The bruises and broken ribs were the courtesy of a lovely piece of rubble thrown my way by a nasty piece of wizard, compounded by a very painful fall to the floor later on – the one responsible for breaking my wrist, I suspect," she said. "The nice new slash that still hasn't completely gone crusty was from a basic slicing spell that I was too slow to block. Clumsy, on my part. The purple scar…" She paused, and her eyes flashed with clear murderous intent. "I've had that for a very long time."
"A very long time, you say?" he said, frowning. "How old are you, exactly?"
"Just turned eighteen," she said, and even as it came out of her mouth he knew she was lying. But was she older or younger? Must have been older. He might as well ask, while she was being forthcoming.
"And how old are you really?"
The smirk that curved her lips was sinful. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
He laughed. It was probably the first genuine laugh he'd had…since the last time she'd made him laugh. Which was all of minutes ago. And before that…had he laughed once at something Edmond had said? He distinctly recalled laughing as he stood over his father's dead body…but that was different. "All right. I'll give on that. And when was your birthday? Did you miss it?"
She went so still next to him that he felt himself jerk to a halt. "Er, yes. I mean, no. I mean…" Her eyes blinked rapidly, like she was struggling to get her sight back after going blind for a moment. "It was the nineteenth."
Tom frowned, and they continued walking, still drawing stares from the students that milled around them, all on their way to class. It wasn't often that Tom Riddle walked with anyone in the halls; especially not a girl. When asked later, he would simply say that he was helping the poor lost transfer student feel welcome and find her way to class.
"You didn't celebrate it?" he asked.
She shrugged, but there was a tension to her shoulders that spoke of severe stress. A dark stain, perhaps, on an already dark past. "Haven't in a while."
"And why is that?"
She suddenly looked up at him, and her smile was strained. "Perhaps a story for another time, Tom Riddle," she said, and she withdrew her hand from his arm in a lingering caress. "I believe we've arrived." She grinned. "It has been an absolute treat walking with you this afternoon, Tom," she said, inclining her head respectfully. "I look forward to doing more of it in the future."
The sudden formality with which she addressed him boggled his mind, but it was just another piece of the puzzle.
She was a study in contradictions. Despite her acerbic wit, she had a pleasing voice. Despite her multitude of scars, she was one of the most physically appealing people he'd had yet to meet. Though her eyes and face were impressively impassive most of the time, sometimes they would flash with such scalding heat that he felt the burn of it on his very skin. And though most of the time he had been in her company – even in the same room as her – he had felt no inkling of any sort of unique power, when she had let it loose in the 3rd floor corridor a few minutes ago it had been as profound and unusual as any magical aura he'd ever felt except his own. And despite the history of kindness he saw etched onto her features, he also was aware of the darkness that lurked behind her eyes; years of laughter, and years of pain. And though he would admit that he greatly enjoyed her company, he couldn't help but want to throw her off of a high cliff. She was a potential ally and tool – but also a potential threat. And, as much as he had not wanted to see it, perhaps she was more of a threat than he'd initially given her credit for. And yet just how much credit should he give her?
"Likewise, Hermione," he said, bowing over her hand and pressing a gentle kiss to the golden skin that stretched over her knuckles. These too, were scarred, as if she had punched through a pane of glass, and they smelled of the same scents he'd picked up on earlier: brown sugar, lavender, parchment, and fire. "I'm sure if I don't catch you after class then I will sometime tomorrow before our duel in DADA."
"Catch me, Mr. Riddle?" she said with a smirk, sliding her hand from his. Her eyes were mischievous and warm now, a far cry from the cold murder he'd seen in them earlier. "Oh, I doubt that."
The wink she sent him before she stepped into the classroom had him shivering in dark anticipation.
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Once again, thanks so much to those of you who review. I wish I had the time to respond to all of them personally, but I've been working like crazy lately and barely have time to update my stories. I have up to chapter 12 pre-written, fortunately, but I'm having a hard time finding the time to write more. It's slow going. From now on, it'll just be one chapter a week until I can use some of my break time over the holidays to catch up and get several more chapters knocked out so that I can get back to updating twice a week.
Love you guys!
Giraffe :)
