Author's note: Alright, I blew my promise (but only by a few days!) So the update took a little over two weeks. But I have an excuse. I actually wrote a lot of the next chapter before I wrote this one, and I – gasp – came up with another idea for a new story. I'm not abandoning this one, of course, but the new idea kind of excited me so I just had to start writing it. It's another Tom/Hermione (I just can't get enough of that pairing!) and it's going to be... different than this one. I think it will progress more quickly, too. Anyway, I'll post the first chapter to that soon, so you'll see what I mean.

On another note, I think I forgot to respond to a couple of the reviews for the past chapter, but I can't remember which ones. I profusely apologize if you reviewed and didn't hear from me. I really do appreciate you guys!


A Bit of Light Reading

Classes began as usual that Monday, much to everyone's chagrin. On her way to Transfiguration Hermione could hear people muttering things like, "but people are still in the hospital wing!" and, "no one can concentrate with what just happened!" and, "what about Julie...?"

"Oh yes," a voice sneered loudly above everyone else's. "What about Julie, indeed!" Agatha Purkiss's face came into view. "Really, the Head Girl croaks and we don't even get a single day off from classes! I suppose no one really cared about her anyway. I know I didn't..."

Just then someone came charging through the crowd. Pushing past Hermione, Charlus Potter stopped in front of Purkiss with his wand pointing directly between her eyes.

"How dare you," he snarled.

Purkiss's eyes crossed for a moment, looking at the wand before her, and then smirked. "Aw, poor Potter's upset about his girlfriend?"

"SHUT UP! She was not my girlfriend!"

At that moment, Ben showed up at Charlus's side. He looked ready to skip the duel and go straight to a fist fight.

Purkiss laughed.

"Oh, so she had two boyfriends! Well boys, too bad she's not here to defend your ass and take points away from Slytherin. It's a damn shame, really – "

"Shut up, you slimy-arsed WHORE!" Ben looked ready to pummel her into the ground. His sleeved were drawn back and his hand was positioned into a tight and powerful-looking fist.

Though she didn't look remotely intimidated, the Slytherin took a step back. "You know, it's probably for the best," she said knowingly. "If McKinnon was stupid enough to get herself killed like that, who knows how stupid she would have been otherwise – "

But Purkiss didn't get a chance to finish. A bright white light burst from Charlus's wand with a bang, and she was suddenly covered in a thick, bright red goo from head to toe. Apparently, the slime was so thick that she couldn't grab her wand to retaliate; she made to move her arm but it was stuck in place to the side of her body.

Charlus crossed his arms, satisfied with his work. "We've told you that you had a slimy-ass, Purkiss; you've just never believed us before."

Purkiss looked enraged.

"Excuse me," a polite voice said from beyond the commotion. Hermione, along with everyone besides Purkiss, turned around to see Dumbeldore walking around the corner. He stepped up to where Ben and Charlus were standing, stroked his chin, and surveyed the situation mater-of-factly. After a moment he said, "Mr. Potter, can you please explain to me what Miss Purkiss did to deserve this?"

Charlus shot Purkiss a dirty look. "She was insulting Julie, Sir. It was so disrespectful that I had to stop her."

Dumbledore nodded as though he understood. "Be that as it may," he said, "we do not allow fighting like this in the corridors. Or anywhere," he added thoughtfully. "I'm afraid I'll have to take five points from each Slytherin and Gryffindor." Then he considered Purkiss for a moment. "Mr. Riddle, would you please take Miss Purkiss to the Hospital Wing? I believe she will, ah, need a shower."

Riddle, who had been observing this whole scene quietly from the back of the crowd, stepped forward. "Of course, Professor." He acknowledged the professor in polite interest. Then, taking his wand from his back pocket, he levitated the slime-covered Julie and directed her down the hallway. Globs of red slime dripped from her body and left a trail as they went.

Dumbledore had an amused expression on his face as he stared at the drops of slime on the ground. Then he leaned down so only Charlus and those in the immediate vicinity could hear. "Ten points to Gryffindor for creatively defending the honor of our Head Girl."

xxxxxxxxxx

Dumbledore was, not surprisingly, a wonderful teacher. Although Hermione had admired Professor McGonagall for years, Dumbledore's knowledge of, and approach to, Transfiguration was of a standard she had never even seen before. It was no wonder that he became headmaster in just a few short years after this.

Unfortunately, not everyone else seemed to appreciate him as much as Hermione did. Yes, the other students (both Gryffindor and Slytherin) seemed to respect him, (for how could one not?); but they really couldn't care less about what he was saying. It became obvious after only a few minutes that everyone' minds were elsewhere – clearly, they were all thinking about what happened on Saturday. Charlus and Ben, at least, were still fuming about the incident with Purkiss. They sat across the row from Hermione, arms crossed and staring down at their desk the whole class.

Every so often someone would raise their hand and interrupt Dumbledore's lesson to ask about the situation with Grindelwald. "Have you heard of anything from the Ministry yet?" one person asked. Another said, "do you know if Grindelwald is still in the vicinity around Hogwarts?" Someone was even brazen enough to ask, "What did you do when you were away from school?"

To all of these questions Dumbledore just smiled good-naturedly and said something along the lines of, "now Mr. Jenkins, I'm sure that's a valid question, but I'm afraid I'm not the best person to answer that for you. Now why don't we turn our books to page 697 and look for a moment at Blackstone's Theory of human to animal transfiguration..."

Hermione only admired him more that he didn't lose his temper once during the lesson – she knew that she probably would have very shortly into the class.

Despite the rude interruptions, Hermione was extremely satisfied with the lesson, and by the time Dumbledore told them to pack up, she was a bit sad that he hadn't stayed as the Transfiguration professor in her time. She was about to mention this to Harry when Dumbledore called out her name.

"Miss Wilkins," he said, "would you oblige me by staying behind for a few moments? I would like to speak with you."

Harry and Hermione both grinned at each other and made their way back towards his desk; perhaps he had made some headway on their getting back to the future.

As they approached the front of the room, though, Dumbledore frowned. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wilkins," he said to Harry, "but I only wanted to speak with your sister. Would you mind stepping out for a few moments?"

Harry looked confused, but nodded all the same. "Of course, Sir," he said, and left the room.

When the last person left Dumbledore raised his hand, causing the door to click shut. He sat down at his desk and began shuffling papers. "Are you alright, Miss Wilkins?" he asked.

Hermione looked at him curiously. "Yes, of course, Professor. Why do you ask?" This was certainly not what she had been expecting him to say.

He turned his gaze from his papers and considered her for a moment. "I just thought that you weren't feeling yourself last night. Why did you decline from teaching that lesson?"

She felt her face go hot and red. "Er, well... I said that last night, didn't I? Harry knows how to conjure a Patronus much better than I. He's had so much more experience and I know he'd be the better teacher..." She trailed off awkwardly. Dumbledore was watching her kindly and nodding. Despite this, she could tell he knew that she wasn't telling the complete truth.

Damn him and his perceptiveness.

Hermione sighed. "And, well," she continued slowly, "I guess I was nervous."

Dumbledore smiled and now she felt she was obligated to continue. "To be honest, Professor, I don't think I know nearly enough about the Patronus Charm to actually teach it to people, never mind my Professors. I'm afraid of messing up, and this is so important to everyone, and I... I-I panicked."

"I see."

He removed his half-moon spectacles and rubbed them clean on his cloak. Hermione waited, half-holding her breath, to see what he would say.

"Why do you think you would be such a poor teacher, Miss Wilkins?" he finally asked, replacing the pair of glasses carefully on his nose.

That seemed like a rather stupid question to Hermione. "Well I've never really taught anyone before, and I know the Professors would do a much better job..."

"Do you really?"

Hermione faltered. "Well, er, yes..."

"Even though they have no clue how to make their Patronuses talk as you do with yours?"

"Well..."

He smiled. "You see? No one can do this better than you, Hermione. I'm certain of it. The point of these lessons is to get everyone involved, even the students. You are all so talented, but lack the confidence to actually use this talent when under pressure. That's why we need to build your confidence. And that's why we want everyone to get involved in teaching. I'm sure some of the younger students won't be quite as good at this in the beginning, but they do say the best way to learn something is to teach it yourself."

Hermione nodded.

"I hope you will make a good impression on the younger ones during the next lesson."

"Oh, of course, Professor. I won't mess this up again, I promise..."

He smiled. "Good. And while we're on this topic, Professor Dippet wanted me to remind you that you need to be coming up with ideas for lessons from students."

Hermione had completely forgotten about this. She blushed. "Don't worry, Sir," she said, "I'll get on it right away."

Dumbledore finished sorting his papers, and after placing them in a large file, stood up. "Perhaps you could talk to the prefects and see what they have in mind? Find out what they can do in terms of Defense spells and write that down so Professor Dippet can organize them into lessons."

"I'll get right on that, Sir."

He smiled again and made to leave the empty classroom. As he reached the door, a thought occurred to Hermione. "Professor," she blurted out.

Dumbledore turned around and raised an eyebrow. "Yes, Miss Wilkins?"

"Professor," she repeated, taking a deep breath, "I was thinking... is there any way to switch my Sunday night shift with anyone else? I would really like to have another day with my brother..." She smiled at him hopefully.

Dumbledore frowned. "Why is that? Is Mr. Riddle giving you a problem?"

"No – well, sort of, Sir; It's just that he's –" But she stopped when she saw that his eyes were closed and his head was shaking slowly.

"I'm afraid that I cannot do anything to change the schedules, Miss Wilkins, no matter what your problem is with Mr. Riddle. You'll have to take that up with Professor Dippet."

Hermione nodded, somewhat disappointed. She didn't think she could bring herself to ask the Headmaster a favor like this.

Dumbledore looked at Hermione curiously and lowered his voice. "But let me assure you, Miss Wilkins, that your feelings about Mr. Riddle are not unfounded. No," he said solemnly, "they are not unfounded at all." Then he raised his voice again and said cheerfully, "Have a good day, Miss Wilkins," and left.

Though he did nothing to help her problem, Hermione left the classroom feeling much better than before. She knew, of course, that Dumbledore never trusted Riddle, but somehow hearing his past self say so made Hermione feel like there was hope left in the world.

She entered the corridor and found that it was empty. This didn't surprise her; Harry had probably decided against waiting for her and went to the Room of Requirement instead. Aching to tell him about her conversation with Dumbledore, she wasted no time heading that way herself.

After only a few moments, though, someone called out to her.

"Hey Wilkins."

The voice came out of nowhere and made Hermione almost drop her books. Instinctively, she pulled out her wand and surveyed the corridor. Two Slytherins, Lestrange and Avery, were slouching in a small alcove just behind where she was standing. They were looking at her strangely, and Hermione wondered how she didn't see them before.

"Yes?" she said, not lowering her wand. Though they were not too far from the Transfiguration classroom and in broad daylight, Hermione didn't want to be too careful; these were Death Eaters in the making and were probably already very dangerous.

Lestrange stepped out of the alcove. "Whoa," he said, holding up his hands defensively. "We don't want any trouble."

"Yeah," Avery agreed. "We just wanna talk to you."

They came slowly across the corridor to where she was standing. Up close, Hermione had never seen slimier people. They were both tall and pale, and had a greasy look about their face. Trying to smile, they instead only managed a sort of twisted sneer. Hermione kept her wand focused between their two bodies.

"About what?"

Lestrange tried to smile wider, but it only came out as a nastier smirk. "About you," he said shortly.

Hermione cocked an eyebrow.

"You see," Avery continued, "we've heard so much about you and your brother in the past few days. Isn't that right, Lestrange?"

Lestrange nodded his head slowly, his eyes never leaving Hermione's.

"You fought off Grindelwald's men."

"And you conjured that Patronus."

Hermione didn't say anything. Yes, this was all true, but what did they want from her? She glanced up the staircase, thinking of a way she could escape from them.

"It's very interesting," Lestrange said.

Avery nodded in agreement. "Very interesting."

There was a pause. "And...?" Hermione said, inviting them to continue.

"And," Avery said, "We thought it was very interesting how you just showed up here a few weeks back."

"Very strange, more like it," said Lestrange.

"We've heard some interesting things about how you came here."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Things? Like what kind of things?"

"Oh you know," Avery said vaguely, gesturing slowly and distractedly, "things."

Lestrange looked at her seriously. "They're probably just rumors, of course, but we wanted to know if you would clear them up for us."

"Clear them up?" Hermione would have crossed her arms impatiently if she wasn't still directing her wand at them. Her hand was starting to ache.

Avery smiled nastily. "Oh yes. We want you to tell us why you came here."

"And where you came from."

Hermione's eyebrows rose into her hairline. "Why do you want to know?" she asked cautiously.

Lestrange considered her carefully. "Because," he said in a low voice, "we don't buy the story you fed Dippet. We think you're up to something here."

Hermione took a step back. "Why would you think that?" she asked coolly. Every moment of this conversation she was becoming more and more sure that Riddle put them up to this. She didn't see why they should suddenly care otherwise.

"Well," Avery said, "after seeing what happened the other day, we started to doubt that you and your brother are the innocent students you claim to be."

"You could be a spy for Grindelwald. It was only after you came here that he was able to get to Hogsmeade," Lestrange added.

"Ah." Hermione thought to herself for a moment, thinking of how she could approach this. The two Slytherins were leering at her quite disturbingly and she wanted to get away before some kind of argument broke out.

In the end, she decided to stick to the truth. "My brother and mine's coming to Hogwarts has nothing to do with Grindelwald's attack," she said simply. "And what led us to come here is our business, not yours."

Their faces darkened.

"Make sure you tell Riddle that when you report back to him," she finished. And before they could respond she turned quickly away and fled.

xxxxxxxxxx

Five minutes later she arrived out of breath in front of the Room of Requirement. Pacing back and forth three times she thought furiously, I need to see the Gryffindor common room. I need to see the Gryffindor common room. I need to see the Gryffindor common room. Then she grasped the handle to the door as soon as it appeared, and ran into hers and Harry's secrete hideout.

Harry, who was lounging on a squashy armchair in the middle of room, looked up as Hermione stormed through and slammed the door shut. He lowered the Daily Prophet that he had been reading and said, "What happened? Why did you take so long with Dumbledore?"

Hermione crossed the room and sat in the chair facing his.

"Riddle," she said irritably.

"Riddle?" Harry looked at her sharply. "What did he do?"

"Well, it was Riddle, exactly," Hermione explained. "It was really Lestrange and Avery, but I just know Riddle was behind it." Then she went on to explain what happened between the time that Harry left the classroom and when she arrived in the Room of Requirement.

"That's too bad," Harry said after she had finished. "I was hoping that Dumbledore had something to say about our, ah, problem."

Hermione waved her hand impatiently. "Never mind about that," she said. "You know he's not going to get anywhere on this for a while. But what about Avery and Lestrange? Don't you think that was a little weird?"

"Well, yes." He paused and folded his copy of the Prophet. "It wouldn't surprise me at all if Riddle put them up to that. They haven't spoken a word to us all year; I don't know why they would find us so interesting now."

"Exactly."

"I wonder what he wants."

There was a short pause in which both of them pondered the situation.

Harry broke the silence. "Maybe he saw what we could do last Saturday and wants us to join the Death Eaters."

Hermione frowned. "Or maybe he's afraid that we'll get in the way of the Death Eaters."

"Or that," he agreed. "He could be finding a way to get rid of us."

Hermione shuddered. "I'd rather not think about that." She paused. "You, er, don't think he would actually do something to us, do you?"

"You never know," he said. "But I don't think he'd be stupid enough to try anything right away anyway. He's probably just trying to get information out of us. And if he really wants information, he's not going to be obvious about it. He's going to do this carefully..."

Hermione felt butterflies rise in her stomach again. "You don't think he'd try Veriteserum, do you?"

"Well," he said seriously, "we'll just have to keep an extra careful watch on our pumpkin juice at dinner from now on."

xxxxxxxxxx

The following week flew by. What with classes and watch duty, Hermione had very little time to do much of anything else. That Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday she had to give up half of her night to guarding one of the school's corridors. Thankfully, none of those nights were quite as bad as the one she spent with Riddle; Thursday she was paired with Harry, and the other two nights she was with a sixth year Ravenclaw and a fifth year Hufflepuff. Yes, the shifts were still unbearably long, but at least she could talk to Harry, and the other two were nice enough.

On top of that, she had to prepare for Dippet's next lesson. He hadn't yet sent word about its date or time, and by Friday this was making Hermione a little nervous. However, she felt the need to be as prepared as possible anyway.

Everyday after classes ended, she had a little bit of free time and accompanied Harry to the Room of Requirement. There they would practice talking to one another with their Patronuses. She had to teach Harry how to do this, of course, because he had never tried before. Hermione found that this was good practice for herself – teaching Harry was almost like a training step towards teaching the prefects and professors.

She hadn't forgotten what Dumbledore told her either. Between classes, duty, teaching Harry, (and studying just the smallest amount), Hermione forced herself to approach every prefect in the school and chat with him or her about the defense lessons.

Though this was probably the last thing she felt like doing at the moment, Hermione realized rather quickly that there was a lot to learn from these people; every one of them was proficient at something in their own way. For instance, there was a group of Ravenclaws who were actually pretty accomplished at Stunning and Disarming. And there were two Gryffindor sixth years that had a whole list of useful hexes. Then there was the little Hufflepuff fifth year who had some great ideas on using transfiguration, and another Slytherin who was rather good with charms.

By the weekend, Hermione had compiled a whole list to give to Dippet. She would have given it to him already, but he hadn't shown up for dinner for a few days.

"Perhaps that's why we haven't been told about the next meeting yet," Harry observed on Saturday evening, during dinner.

"Probably," Hermione agreed. She didn't know where Dippet was – the castle was still on a lock-down, so he must be somewhere in the grounds, right? She supposed that he was so busy cleaning up the mess from last week that he had no time to schedule defense lessons or to show up for dinner.

Sunday morning came and went, and there was still no word from Dippet. Hermione was starting to wish that she had just taught the lesson last week and gotten it over with.

"He'll have to let us know sometime this week," Harry said as they sat practicing their Patronus Charms in the Room of Requirement. "He can't just drop it."

Hermione nodded. "Yeah." She closed her eyes and concentrated hard.

"Expecto patronum!"

Her familiar otter emerged from the tip of her wand and ambled over to where Harry was standing on the other side of the room. It looked at Harry very innocently and said in Hermione's voice, "he seemed to think it was very important last week."

Harry smirked, and then conjured his own Patronus. The stag came cantering over and said to Hermione, "Show off."

Hermione laughed and both the otter and the stag faded into thin air.

"What time is it?" Harry asked grabbing his favorite seat by the fireplace.

Hermione frowned and checked her wristwatch. "Time for me to go," she said morosely. "Don't want to be late. This week Riddle and I are on the fourth floor."

Harry made a face as she made to collect her stuff. "Have fun, tonight," he said sarcastically.

She snorted. "Riiight. Well," she added, "I'm bringing a book this time. I figured a bit of light reading on the job will make the time pass by so much more quickly."

Harry eyed the oversized textbook she was stuffing into her bad and gave her a look that plainly said, light reading? Hermione, however, glared at him in a way that just dared him to make a comment, and he said nothing.

"I'll see you tomorrow morning," she said, closing the door on her way out.

Twenty minutes later she found herself standing on one end of the fourth floor corridor, opposite Riddle. They had both arrived at the same time, and, wordlessly, agreed to stand as far apart from one another as humanly possible. Taking it as a positive sign that he had not so much as glanced at her since then, Hermione thought that the evening was going swimmingly thus far. She had even taken out her book to read (A History Through Time of the Defensive Arts), and settled herself on the floor in a position that was quite comfortable.

She knew, however, that things were, so far, too good to be true. After a few minutes of reading, Hermione heard footsteps approach her from the other side of the hall. A part of her had been expecting them, and she knew that they belonged to Riddle. She didn't bother to look up when they stopped.

Riddle cleared his throat. "Excuse me," he said. "What are you doing?"

Hermione calmly finished reading the page she was on and slowly closed the book, saving her place with her hand. Looking at him placidly she said, "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm reading."

She could see that he was trying his very hardest to be calm and polite.

"If you don't mind me asking, why are you reading when you should be watching?"

"Can't I read and watch at the same time?"

Riddle's cheeks tinged with pink in frustration. "I would think not," he said stiffly. "Being as this is a matter of school security, you should be as alert and ready to defend yourself as possible."

Hermione secretly half-agreed with him, but at the same time thought that this whole 'watch' was more for show than anything else. Obviously Dippet knew that saying the school was being protected by a constant watch would impress both parents and the school's governors. Besides, she doubted that Grindelwald would come sneaking through the fourth floor corridor on a random Sunday evening. He would set off a ton of alarms before he could even get near the school. So she honestly did not find much wrong with bringing a book to occupy her time, instead of standing there being bored to tears. She looked at Riddle defiantly and said, "I can still hear, you know. I'd know the moment anyone was walking down this corridor and be ready to attack if necessary."

"Yes, but you wouldn't be paying close enough attention." He narrowed his eyes. "And stand up when I'm talking to you, for Merlin's sake."

Hermione's mouth opened slightly. She was still sitting with her legs crossed and leaning against the wall. Oh! She thought to herself furiously. The audacity of him!

"I will not stand up stand up if I don't want to," she said bitterly. She glared at him and then turned back to her book, feeling his gaze on her the entire time.

After a few moments he spoke again.

"I will not tolerate such impudence," he said quietly. "You are a guest at this school, and as thus you shall follow its rules. I am Head Boy here, and I say that distractions on duty will not be allowed."

To Hermione's fury, her book disappeared from beneath her hands. She sat there in shock for a moment, and then finally stood up, rounding in on him. "And I will not tolerate such egotism," she spat, pointing her finger at his chest. "You've no right to take my book like that!"

His eyes followed her finger at each jab she made at him. "And you've no right to act like an immature first year," he said darkly. He glowered at her and suddenly, Hermione found that her finger jammed itself in the air a few inches from his front. Riddle had placed some kind of invisible shield around himself. "I think that'll be all," he finished.

Hermione, with her finger aching, watched in disbelief as he turned on his heel and walked briskly back to the other end of the hall. There he stood stock-still against the wall and stared in front of him as though he was convinced that Grindelwald would be charging out through the portrait of Emeric the Evil at any moment.

The nerve of him! Hermione thought angrily, turning her back on him and glaring down the opposite end of the corridor. Really, how do people find him so charming? He was so cold and heartless... even when he was trying to appear polite. And when he was angry – oh, she could just kill him!

He should count himself lucky that that book didn't belong to her.

Hermione fumed about this the entire night and even a good part of the following morning. I'll have to think of a way to get past him next week, she thought to herself senselessly. She didn't have much time to dwell on this, though, because that morning she and Harry finally received a note from Dippet. They were going to be teaching the Patronus Charm again tonight.