The only way for a wizard to forge a real connection with his wand could be done through duelling. It was an art that bonded wizard and conduit. Born from necessity and then cultivated into showmanship. Taught in schools by Defence Professors around the globe and then updated and honed by one's own will. One of the oldest traditions of any magical community. A good foundation was paramount for success, however.

Merrythought brandished her own wand, aspen with a unicorn hair core. She waited for Tom Riddle to do the same. He twirled his acacia wand in his hand as if tasting its feel. To cast spells for the sake of spellcasting took little thought. To duel? That took calculation.

Tom Riddle had always been a solid student. Listened to instructions. Found a twist on said instructions. Caused chaos when paired with Nobby Leach. Caused greater chaos when paired with Abraxas Malfoy. It took her a long time to realise that the only person that didn't want to antagonize him during Defence was Elektra Lovegood. Sharp mind on that one.

Lena stood off to the side and sat on the ground. They'd apparated to a field not far from a forest, very far from Munich. It was for safety reasons. To grapple with one's new wand took effort and time.

Merrythought prepared to pace herself as she had spent the previous month (fifty years?) duelling and fighting for her life against ferocious fey. She had practise. Her wedding ring whispered and, Merrythought added mentally, also immortality. That was another thing that needed getting dealt with.

''Might you ask around your parselmouth crew about the whereabouts of that immortal wizard?'' Herpo something was his name, wasn't it? Merrythought forgot. She'd read his original texts a long, long time ago.

''Sure.'' Tom Riddle obliged easily. Good student.

The start of any duel was to bow. Merrythought taught this rigidly. First years fumbled with bowing. Second years got better, third years continued excelling, fourth years did it mechanically, fifth and sixth years did it pro forma – then she told seventh years that, in REAL duels, bowing only made for stalling.

''If your lives are in danger,'' Merrythought taught seventh years, remembering the way Abraxas Malfoy leaned sleepily on Tom Riddle, who stared, wide-eyed, lapping up her every word, ''it hardly matters if you bow before dying or no. Don't bow when duelling for your life. It'll only buy your attacker more time. Then you need to play dirty and use everything in your power to win.''

She'd paired herself up with Tom Riddle because he was the most advanced and examples were best made on him. He remembered every fumble, every fib, every failure and victory.

Lena leaned forward, pressing her elbows on her thighs. She watched them keenly, there in case something got out of hand. It was always good to have an objective party present at any duel. This was common sense, but Merrythought made sure that everyone could recite this rule at the beginning of every duelling lesson.

''Do you want to deflect?'' Merrythought asked because she was here to help, not desecrate.

''I'd rather cast first,'' came the answer.

They bowed because this was a controlled environment. Lena sneered at them here: ''Get on with it!''

Merrythought prepared herself, casting up a shield nonverbally. Wandless magic was harder than it looked. Only Sacred Twenty Eight bothered with indoctorating their children with such notions of superiority and grandeur. Key was to be silent, because silence made for unpredictability. Aspen raised to block acacia.

Tom Riddle slowly sized up Merrythought and lunged into an attack, like a snake pouncing for the kill. Merrythought's shield fizzled when hit with a jagged periwinkle curse she identified as a dehydration hex. Usually done whilst tidying up something filled with water, but it could take down a person.

She curled on her heel and pivoted, taking up her wand and flicking it. A jet of white light surged for Riddle and he dodged it like a dancer. Around his form sizzled a cloak of curant. Faint, but nonetheless it was still there. She'd noticed it during his first year, as it was most prominent then.

''Pause.'' Merrythought said and Tom Riddle asked if something was wrong.

''No,'' she answered. Lena demanded the blood match continue. Briskly, Riddle explained to Lena that it wasn't a blood match, but one out of good sport. It looked like another layer of skin. Fascinating. ''Can you explain to me what was your first deliberate spell?''

There were children born in less-than-ideal homes that wanted to be invisible and would channel their magic (long before knowing what it was) into making them so. She knew that the boy had grown up in an orphanage, but it surprised her to see what his go-to magic was.

Dumbledore chalked it up as another reason for his malignant behaviour.

Tom Riddle scrunched up his face in thought, tapping his wood against this open palm. ''My first spell?''

''First deliberate magic,'' Merrythought corrected. Children usually didn't cast spells. They cast magic until being told they were spells.

''There was this incident in a cave when I was nine.'' A grim line formed on his scaly face. ''It was the cruciatus curse.''

''You did it wandlessly,'' Merrythought simply stated. Lena's brows quirked up at this conversation. She joined them, complaining about her aching knees whilst doing so.

''I was tired,'' came the confession. ''I wanted them to stop messing with me. It's survival of the fittest.'' Currant sparked again over his body and Lena grabbed his shoulder then, abruptly. A spark shot through her and she shouted in pain. Merrythought quickly cast a healing spell on her hand and the currant fizzled out. ''It also felt good.''

Merrythought asked him how that worked, gesturing to his cloak. Sometimes it was there, but sometimes it wasn't.

''I don't particularly enjoy being shoved around.''

Merrythought remembered a scrawny eleven-year old with bitterness in his eyes whenever he had to speak to people bigger than him. She didn't bring up the obvious; he'd not had enough resource to grow up well and, if he didn't have Hogwarts and Nutrition Potions, he wouldn't have achieved what little he had managed. Magic helped, but only so much.

''Can you control it?''

''I'm not in some isolated bubble, professor,'' he rolled his eyes, ''honestly.'' To prove his point, Tom Riddle retracted the currant layer from his body and it moved moved into his knuckles. ''I've always wanted to try simply punching someone with the cruciatus curse. It's so...blunt!'' joyfully the wizard exclaimed.

''Is it always on?'' Merrythought pushed. She needed to know. Children that turned invisible and children that protected themselves could be excused, but if it transferred into adulthood, it needed to be dealt with.

''No.''

Merrythought, being a Hufflepuff, could always tell when Slytherins lied. It wasn't always on in the sense that it was always visible, but it was always there. It simply needed to be triggered.

''You have an abundance of magic to be able to keep this shield in tact.''

''It doesn't ricochet spells, professor. It simply stops people from grabbing at me without first giving me time to adjust.'' It was the exhaustion, the defensiveness that made Merrythought drop the subject.

They returned to their duel. She sent a hex; he blocked it with a simple protego. They cast nonverbally. It was she that mostly cast in offense, gauging her pupil's reaction time. A sharp, jaggedness shone in crimson eyes. What effort he took to holding up his glamour fell away and returned him stronger, faster, more vigilant.

Acacia suited him. It was a wand made for individuals. Merrythought remembered fairies talking about trees like they were alive – and they were. Wand trees hosted fairies and fairies left lingering magic to be harvested into conduit craft.

A slicing spell split off a lock of Merrythought's long red hair. She didn't mourn it, having too many things to take care of. Her ring hissed. Her soul hissed. Remembering how she got this piece of dark magic done sent a shiver down her spine and tangled bile in her throat.

Lena watched them both and prepared to step in if the need arose. They'd left Hermione with Draco and told her they'd be going for some coffee to catch up.

As Tom Riddle skidded through the grass and the mud in an attempt to charge Merrythought, Lena couldn't help but think: some coffee, all right.

She hexed his shoulder because of his inexperience. A hiss fled from his lips, morphed into a painful snarl. The currant sizzled again. Lena was reminded of a banged up christmas tree whose lights only worked sometimes and, even then, never all of them.

Merrythought gave him time to gather his wits. She didn't ask him if he needed help. Lena thought that cold of her. Riddle stood and got back in duelling position.

''How's the wand?'' Lena asked Tom. She noticed that in the heat of battle he would freeze. Floaty, dancer Tom Riddle never froze. He charged, he conquered, he triumphed. Watching him duel was one of the most beautiful sights Lena had witnessed in her age.

''It's fine.'' He lied. Or maybe it wasn't the wand that was the problem. He sent a curse, dark and colored in strong greys at Merrythought. She recognized it – so did Lena – and before the nasty boil starter landed, Merrythought disapparated and apparated right behind Riddle. With a single swish, his hands bound with conjured up chains, but then wandless magic promineated and he broke from them.

Her eyes sparked. ''I see the Malfoy was good for something after all.''

No one could ever question the wandless prowess of Abraxas Malfoy. It was good to know that her pupil took advantage of the aristocrat. Gods know Malfoys took advantage of everyone else.

Tom Riddle foregoed his new wand and summoned fire to his hands. He sent it cascading through the air straight for Merrythought, who shouted, ''This entire exercise is about getting your wand to work for you. It isn't about winning.''

These words of wisdom sparked frustration in his movements as he took back the acacia into his hand and put out the fire. ''It's strange.''

''Get used to it.'' Merrythought never mollycoddled a single one of her students when they were impressionable children and she wasn't about to start now when one was in his seventies.

''It's completely different than my old wand.''

''How so?'' Lena pipped up. Merrythought and Tom turned to look at her, finally seeing her properly. Their spectator in grass.

''My yew wand was like my hand.''

''Don't think of it as such,'' Lena lectured. ''A wand is like a pistol.'' At Tom's blank, look she asked, ''Have you shot?''

''No.''

''Eh!'' Lena raised her arms in the air and called it quits. She was one of those teachers that, if the metaphor didn't work, stopped teaching altogether. Incredibly frustrating for one dark lord in training who could never relate to her metaphors.

''What's troubling you?'' Merrythought cast a small, innocuous spell at him which he deflected with ease. ''Just immerse yourself. You were never this wary in a duel before.''

''The last time I used my wand against another person...'' He stopped, cut himself off on purpose. His cheeks boiled with humiliation.

''Was when you cast that spell on Lockhart. Proficiently,'' Merrythought said.

The look Tom Riddle speared his professor with told her that he did not consider Lockhart a person worthy of worrying over.

"The Potter family.'' Lena remembered. Merrythought was in Faerie and did not know.

Her instincts seemed to pick up on his deflation, his humiliation, his fear of being found out. Yet he nodded distastefully, angrily at himself. ''Yes.''

''I haven't had a wand since then.'' His words came out calm and crisp, but the noise in the back of his throat that threatened to growl each time memories resurfaced would not be taken lightly. Merrythought sheathed her wand back into her sleeve. His fingers caressed the acacia wood carefully.

They sat together in the field. Night dawned on them soon. The cool air swept them up. Lena heard critters and saw farther than either of her human companions. Her eyes glowed like a cat's did upon reflection.

''Did you kill since then?'' Lena understood that the fear of Death crippled her pupil. ''Anything.''

''I severed a snake's head with a wandless slicing spell.''

''What's killing got to do with his lack of freedom with wand magic?'' Merrythought wondered genuinely. Lena explained that sometimes, when terrified of death, one found control in bringing it to others.

''You make me sound infantile with such a description,'' Tom Riddle seethed. He picked up some grass and threw it at Lena, who put up her hands to block it.

''How'd you even kill the baby?''

''I didn't.'' Tom Riddle closed his eyes and said. Ire and rage and wrath and discombobulation. Merrythought placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

''What did you use – killing curse, yes?'' Lena pushed.

Tom Riddle opened his eyes. ''Yes.''

''You need to cast it.''

''Last time I cast it-''

''You had a different wand and some miracle baby. I hear he's survived it again.''

Uncomfortable was a good word to describe how Tom Riddle looked at Lena bringing that spectacle up. Her lips pulled back in a laugh. ''Was that you, too?''

''I didn't cast it.''

''What do you think will happen if you cast it? Even while you have a blockade for a singular spell, your wand will sense it and stop you from truly bonding with it. This is why children get their wands so early. They haven't got any notions of wand work and spells and priori incantatem or what have you.'' Lena waved off her pupil's fears and continued, ''You need to cast it. It shows in all of your other spells. They're weak. You're pulling punches like a child that's afraid of getting punched back.''

Merrythought decided to stand up. ''If you're scared of casting on a baby, I've got just the thing.'' She said this the way a salesman would pick another item to try and pitch when a customer was not amused by the first.

She conjured up clay birds.

''Can you make one a peacock?''

''One day, you're going to have to explain to me how such a lovely couple like you and Abraxas dwindled into this.'' Merrythought made Tom vow he would. Satisfied, she demanded he use his wand to destroy the birds.

''Reducto?''

''Ha.'' Lena shimmied up to them. She was the shortest of the three. ''No. Use green killing curse.''

''What if it flings itself back on me again?''

''It happened to you once and now you're never going to properly cast because - OH – it MIGHT fling back at you?'' Lena mocked. Merrythought joined her. They jeered him and it was unfair for his mentors to gang up on him like this. It should be illegal.

''I fought fairies!'' Merrythought used this as her go-to excuse for one-up-manship. No problem could ever rival. ''In Faerie! For fifty years!''

''It felt like a month to you, shut up!''

''For fifty years!''

Lena joined up. ''One hundred and seventy years of total confusion and putting myself in a role I don't fit all for the sake of my family's notions of what a family means – and you can't cast a silly killing curse? Try surviving that, Tom!''

Feeling incredibly pressured by his two mentors, Tom Riddle took up the acacia wand and then promptly disapparated away.

''COWARD!''

''Come back here, lad!''

When Montgomery came back to the conference area, he was taken by parselmouths who wanted him to go drinking with them. The parselmouths were introducing themselves. Most of them were speakers at the conference, as this was a rare one that allowed parselmouths to participate.

"The discrimination hits you hard, but you become numb to it over time." Kajo then began to ask Montgomery where he was hiding and how none of them had heard about him.

"Yes, Goldsmith," Askook asked, "where have you been?"

"Montenegro, mostly. Albania for a few years. The States other times." Tom Riddle lied, like a liar. The best kind of lies were those with truth mixed into them. He'd never stepped a foot in the USA nor did he plan to.

The Sato sisters were parselmouths, too. They, however, were taught that parseltongue should be kept private. So, they mostly spoke in English. ''It's not something you broadcast,'' Kimiko whispered. Makoto added, ''It's better to be silent than to be sneered at.''

"That's another thing they teach you," Askook debated. "Parseltongue is a curse. It's Satanic."

"Yes, I heard that one constantly. My caretaker (care? what bloody care) was very religious." Montgomery needn't lie. Mrs. Cole was a catholic with a penchant for telling him he was in leagues with Satan. He was definitely not. Tom Riddle believed Walburga Black to be Satan in human form and she hated him.

Their families talked some more. Sato's mother asked him if he was married.

Makoto Sato narrowed her eyes and hissed in parseltongue: "Mother, stop trying to marry me off to any parselmouth you come across."

"I am married to science and the pursuit of knowledge," Montgomery said. It was his usual way of revealing his lack of attraction towards mortals.

Without knowing how exactly, during the party Tom Riddle was toasted. Then toasted back.

After a few drinks, Tom Riddle and the parselmouths were all buzzed. Or at least he was. Kajo looked perfectly fine until he had to take a step forward. Then it was Askook that was playing the age old 'catch the drunk' game.

Tom used his wand often, casting innocuous spells. It was a way to get himself used to the movement again.

Merrythought and Lena came to the party with Hermione. She was with good, albeit difficult, people. They would protect her whilst he was living it up. There was a contract he'd signed with blood (not Lord Voldemort's, but rather this new body's, so it couldn't reveal him). It was standard that no harm would befall Hermione form his own person. What a strange thing to need, but then again, with his track record of dealing with slow people (''Avery, you fucking cunt I gave you one job.'' ''My lord?'' ''Crucio!''), it was good to be assured.

The Walburga-Abraxas monstrosity was talking with Hermione. Draco Malfoy had a very punchable face, Tom Riddle thought. He got that form his Great Aunt.

For the life of him, Tom Riddle couldn't remember exactly whose idea it was to try out his wand on target practise. He suspected it was Kajo's, but he had no proof.

It started by trying to hit a few conjured birds from a fair distance. Around twenty metres. When that proved too easy, they made clay crickets. Merrythought glared at him. ''You want to destroy your friend's crickets with reducto's, but you don't want to destroy my clay birds with the killing curse.''

Lena said some comforting things to Merrythought then. It scared him to know that they got along.

Voldemort moved the wand and cast verbally because alcohol made silent casting harder. It came as a hiss, ''Sstupefy!'', but for a parselmouth, that was expected when drunk. The language barrier fell apart. It was another reason why he never drank. No one understood him when he talked, as he forgot English.

Two girls, Fatima and Latifa, slithered up to the parselmouths. They embraced with the sisters. All hissed openly and merrily. They'd just arrived. Apparition was madness. Lakeisha Durant broke a portkey in a drunken haze and they had to wait until she made a new one.

''We won't be drinking, thank you.'' Fatima said and gestured her sister. ''We're presenting tomorrow and need our minds in perfect condition.''

Latifa was talking to Montgomery Goldsmith and asking him questions about America.

''What's the Grand Canyon like? Have you seen it?''

''It's grand, prolly, yeah.'' Tom Riddle hissed in parseltongue and wondered if he sounded British when he spoke it. If he sounded cockney when he spoke it. If he'd not rooted that out of himself, even with Abraxas Malfoy's constant lessons in etiquette and speech.

The music blared. His ears were sensitive to that sort of thing. Not that he'd ever liked parties. Even as a youth, he'd always preferred spending quality time with a book. Abraxas Malfoy was the life of any party always. He dragged Tom to Ministry functions back when they were both allowed (he was disallowed for being a radical, racist minister murderer whilst Tom Riddle was disallowed because he was Abraxas Malfoy's plus one).

The night progressed.

Voldemort jokes were being tossed around. Halfway through a marathon of them, Tom Riddle had a brilliant, inebriated idea.

"I do an AMAZING impression of Lord Voldemort." Lord Voldemort said and took another drink from his friends. Usually, his greatest sign that he ought to stop drinking was Abraxas Malfoy's confusion at the parseltongue.

The parseltongue was not a sign of drunkenness this fine night, but rather of solidarity.

The parselmouths told him to go on. "Let's hear it! Let's go! Come on, Lord Voldemort! Woohoo!"

Lord Voldemort took another sip. It helped give him courage to do the next part brilliantly.

In parseltongue: ''This is what I like to call 'What Would Lord Voldemort Say To Harry Potter If They Met Today'.''

Loud cheers resounded even before Tom Riddle got into his Lord Voldemort character. He schooled his features into ice cold, emotionless lines. But he also nearly died laughing when he saw Kajo giving him thumbs up and it was terribly hard to keep serious. The alcohol was getting to him. The atmosphere lifted him. The joy carried him.

''Harry Potter,'' Lord Voldemort said, ''the Boy Who Lived,'' then gestured dramatically with his wand for space in front of him as if, in fact, he gestured to Harry Potter, ''come to die.''

Makoto Sato howled with laughter.

Lord Voldemort tried to remember other rehearsed lines he'd perfected for the hypothetical occasion and fished them out of his memory. ''But wait,'' he said, ''there's MORE!''

Draco Malfoy was approached by a vampire named Gunther Schmidt. Hermione watched this train wreck of a conversation a little off to the side, sipping her apple cider glass because she was a Good Girl Archetype when it came to alcohol. Other times, she could keep a woman in a jar out of vengeance without batting an eyelid.

''I think we started off on the wrong foot.'' Gunther smiled without showing his teeth. Draco was thankful for that. He carefully outstretched his hand and shook hands. ''What's your name?''

''Malfoy,'' Draco said because all Malfoys flaunted their family name first, and then their individual title, ''Draco Malfoy.''

''Nice,'' the vampire snickered. ''Is that like a James Bond reference? Bond,'' he struck a pose, ''James Bond?''

Hermione snort-laughed into her drink. Bubbles formed on it and she inhaled some into her nose, causing her to break into a cough. Draco glared at her and, out of defiance, didn't move to help her.

''No,'' he said, ''it's a Malfoy reference.''

Gunther nodded, now awkwardly, because his joke had been brutally shot down. He sipped some red wine and said that it was really good. ''Anyone want any drinks?''

Hermione raised her drink and said that she was good, ''Thank you.''

Draco Malfoy was drinkless and in heinous social pain at the moment. He wanted to be as far away from this individual as possible. Muggleborns he could tolerate because of politics, but dark creatures he need not even glance at. Not to mention they could turn on him at any moment! He'd be defenceless drunk. This was the vampire's plan all along. Yes! To get him drunk and primed for his violent attack.

I see right through you, Draco Malfoy seethed in his thoughts, I see right through you, you vampiric parasite!

''Draco would like a drink.'' Hermione smiled and Draco had a mighty urge to disapparate from the premises, else he break off into a duel with the capable Miss Granger.

''All right!'' Gunther said and snapped his fingers at them. What did that mean? Was that some sort of vampire code? Oh God, he was going to die. He needed to write his mother and tell her he loved her. She would probably write him back this sentence: Love you too, my dear dragon. Now stop being dramatic you aren't thirteen anymore. (The Buckbeak incident was never really forgotten in his household).

''What's with you?'' Hermione deadpanned.

''What?'' Draco Malfoy asked, sweaty beyond comprehension.

Hermione gestured Gunther amiably chatting with Lena and Merrythought. ''Are you scared of vampires?''

(Gunther to Lena: ''Hey, just a heads up, if I leave with your bushy haired charge, it's just cause I'm trying to flirt with the blond, and she's attached to his hip.'' Lena to Gunther: ''Sure, sure. No biting, though, kid.'' Gunther, appalled: ''I'd never do that! Never!'' Merrythought interjecting, because non-vampires always had things to say to vampire matters: ''For all I care, you can love bite that Malfoy all you like, but the bushy haired girl is my student's student, and he's a nightmare to deal with.'' Lena, then, because how dare Merrythought simply exclude Tom Riddle being her student also: ''I see what you are aiming and I will not be set aside. Arm wrestling match to prove who is better teacher.'' Merrythought, who's always ready to throw down after two shots of any alcoholic beverage: ''Bring it!'' Gunther backed away slowly.)

''So what if I am scared, Granger?'' Draco was not scared of admitting that as it was a common and rational fear. ''Aren't you?''

''Lena is the first vampire I've met and she scares me to death,'' Hermione divulged. ''Gunther seems like a kid compared to her.''

''Yeah, but he probably isn't.'' Draco said. ''He's probably some ten thousand year old hitting on a kid, like ME!''

Gunther came back with the drinks and asked them if they'd like to go to his room get to know each other better, because the music was too loud to communicate properly.

''HEY!'' Hermione grabbed Draco before he could flee. She asked questions other people were afraid to. ''How old are you?''

Vampire hearing enabled Gunther to hear Hermione. The parselmouths hissed a shanty of some kind and roped a denim robe wearing man into singing with them. Gilderoy Lockhart was schmoozing with the key organiser. Some people were hidden in the shadows and Gunther was just trying to get a cute boy's number, so that wasn't anything he should be paying attention to, thank you.

''I'm turning twenty in five days.'' He grinned and asked Hermione after her age. She said she'd be turning nineteen this month, too.

''DRACO!''

Draco turned to Hermione. ''What?''

''He's not ten thousand! He's twenty.'' Hermione didn't know when she signed up to be Draco's wingwoman, but it sure was entertaining!

''He's twenty thousand years old?!'

Gunther, having caught on, grabbed both of their hands in his and dragged them outside of the party. Without the noise, conversation came easier.

''I'm not even twenty yet. I turn twenty tenth of September. I'm nineteen.''

Draco Malfoy looked at Gunther and narrowed his eyes, ''How long have you been nineteen?''

''A year?'' Gunther laughed at the two British magicals. ''How long have you guys been eighteen?''

''A year.'' Hermione cheerfully exclaimed. She nudged Draco, who muttered, ''A few months.''

However, that amiableness didn't last long. Draco pointed his wand at Gunther and demanded for proof. ''I'm not satisfied.''

''Fine, okay. I know a spell my grandmother taught me. She helped run a brothel,'' Draco and Hermione balked. Gunther laughed at them. ''So, because of polyjuice and stuff, it was easy for kids to sneak in and have their way with the workers there. However, meine Oma decided to make a spell to check the customer's magic age. Blood replenishes. Magic doesn't. Magic is proof of your age. It's like when you cut down a tree and look at its rings.''

Both nodded. Gunther continued teaching. He swirled his wand at Draco and said, without missing a beat: ''You're eighteen and five days till three exact months.''

''That's right on the dot!'' Hermione said. She inquired about the spell some more, always striving to learn. Draco refused to be convinced until it was done on Hermione also.

Gunther cast then for Hermione and narrowed his eyes. ''It says that you're nineteen already.''

''I KNEW IT WAS FAKE!'' The Walburga genes showed through Draco when he was anxious.

Hermione laughed and said that she was wondering how old she really was. Draco asked what she meant. Gunther had a very bemused expression on his face.

"I had a time turner in my third year," Hermione explained. "So, by time travelling all year, I knew there would be some accumulation added on to me. Thank you, Gunther, for helping me figure out how much that was."

Gunther grinned like a wholesome creature that was happy to help out. "No problem!"

Draco, resigned, asked to do the spell on him. Gunther obliged. The fact was that Gunther had not lied about his age. Which garnered a question: "How'd you get bit so young!?"

Gunther then proceeded to tell them that he did it all on a dare.

Draco was appalled. Hermione had Gryffindor flashbacks of Harry and Ron telling each other to goad the three headed dog in their first year.

''Do it, Harry!''

''Harry, don't you dare, you'll get expelled!''

''You're the Boy Who Lived, mate, who the bloody hell is dumb enough to expel you!''

''RONALD WEASLEY, YOU DUMB-!"

Harry Potter was already battling the dog before Hermione could finish her very-impolite sentence. That would not be the first time her heart suffered palpitations due to Weasley-Potter induced stress.

Jumping ship to Slytherin was a very smart decision in the long term as far as Hermione's health was concerned. Daphne Greengrass, Pansy Parkinson, and Millicent Bulstrode were vicious, but with a good head on their shoulders and a sense of self-preservation Hermione valued.

In sixth year, when Harry was reading from a used potions book and beating Hermione at class and Draco Malfoy was writing furious letters to his grandfather how he didn't at all understand arithmancy and how dare Hermione bloody Granger beat him there, Pansy Parkinson had brought along chocolates to bribe Hermione with as she sat down next to her in advanced charms and asked if they could be study buddies. Millicent and Daphne were a ways away, looking expectantly.

''You've been calling me names for years.'' Hermione said. It was true that after third year, the name calling did peter out. But still! Remember and resent! At least until given an apology.

''I was a snotty, envious bitch.'' Pansy said bluntly like a blunt knife lodged inside someone's abdomen. She slid the chocolates closer to Hermione. They were her favourite. Damn, Hermione thought, Parkinson did her research. ''I'm sorry.''

''Library. Tonight after dinner.'' Hermione scooped the chocolates up into her satchel bag. Pansy turned around with a pleased expression and gave her Slytherins a victorious thumb up. Millicent and Daphne high fived.

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were bemused by her odd friendship - business partnership, really - but it did prepare them for when she befriended Draco of all people.

With the help of alcohol (Hermione drank her blue little glass from her blue bottle and it burned and made her ill, but she wondered what it was and Gunther was looking at her in awe for drinking it without aid of water, calling her a goddess of alcohol tolerance) Gunther and Draco slowly unwound. Hermione, sensing her third-wheelness, asked Draco if he was okay to be left alone. Not to mention that her stomach churned in an uncomfortable manner and Hermione was definitely going to leave before she threw up and killed the mood. Whether Draco told her he was fine with her leaving or no, Hermione was definitely going to go back to her hotel room. Draco was down for a drunken snog. With a crack, she apparated.

And then, much before Hermione even noticed that someone was in the hotel room also nursing a drunken haze, she sprinted for the bathroom, slammed up the toilet seat, and plunged her head into the toilet. Some of her hair fell into the water and mixed with her vomit and Hermione didn't even usually drink alcohol, but Draco had said if he had to drink then so was she and nothing had seemed so bad at first.

She hadn't even mixed! She'd only stuck with the blue stuff!

Feeling overwhelmed and vulnerable, Hermione cried into the toilet. Drowning in her own woe, Hermione missed when someone entered the bathroom and gently asked if she needed any help. It was her mentor. Oh GOD.

If Hermione wasn't too busy throwing up, she'd be embarrassed beyond comprehension. He leaned forward from the sink next to the toilet and pulled up her hair, tying it with magic in a ponytail. His speech sounded slurred and hissy when he berated her. ''The youth, as always, knows no measure.''

By this point, Hermione was too exhausted to throw up, but could still feel tears sliding down her cheeks. Neither could she lift her head because, if she so much as moved an inch, her stomach would spin again. ''I'm sorry.''

''You have nothing to apologise for.'' Her mentor stopped leaning because he remembered something and laughed, settling down next to the toilet. He sat and waited for Hermione to compose herself. It helped that someone was with her. God, whenever she'd be sick, it would usually be her mother who was up with her when her stomach was upset and Hermione began crying again. Fully crying. An onslaught of tears enveloped her face and fell into the flushed toilet. Sometime through the vomiting, she or her mentor had flushed it to clear the smells.

''Hermione,'' he began gently – and he had such a calming, soothing tone! - ''what did you drink?''

Hermione blubbered on, now in her world with her problems. She pushed her head out of the toilet, met his crimson eyes, and keened a cry: ''My parents don't love meee.''

Drunk girl logic was nonexistent. Women in this kind of state ought to only be listened to and taken care of. That was why Tom Riddle listened to his apprentice and rubbed her back. He took out his wand to scourgify her face and comforted her because, well, the kid was under his supervision and he liked her. It kind of put him down to see her so down. Remembering his escapades as pretend Lord Voldemort elicited a giggle from him, however.

Hermione saw this as her mentor laughing at her. ''Stop iit.'' She slurred and tried to punch him. Her coordination was shot greatly and her strength was null and whatever she may have attempted turned into a small kitten trying to hurt a much larger, very drunk, cat.

''I'm not laughing at you.'' Then he laughed some more. Because he was that kind of drunk. It was good, though, that Hermione could understand him because it meant that he was sobering up.

''Liaar.'' Hermione said. Then, as most drunk people, she decided to tell her tale of misfortune that, whilst being sober was stuffed deep down inside her. ''Like, my parents love me, yeah.'' Her voice was wound up and she was on the verge of tears. ''But they're distant, you know? Like, when I was gonna leave for Montenegro,'' hiccup, some more tears, blubbering, ''my parents were busy with work and they think that I'm this cold and independent daughter, but you know –'' she began to cry again, ''they're wrong.'' On the last word, her voice rose to hysterics.

''I'm sorry you feel like this. There's no kind way to figure out your parents are idiots.'' Her mentor comforted and Hermione snivelled, rubbing her hand to wipe her nose, eliciting disgust from her mentor, who aimed his wand at her again and cast scourgify.

''I'm sorry for burdening you with this.'' Hermione whispered, leaning on the cool circle of the toilet. It felt good against her clammy skin. She whimpered a bit involuntarily. Montgomery Goldsmith asked her again why she would do this to herself and what she'd drunk so he could help in procuring her a sober up potion.

''It's blue and foul.'' Hermione described. ''I've never drunk it.''

''Blue…'' Her mentor was piecing this together and he was laughing, but it was not a good natured laugh. It sounded amused and horrified. ''Small glass, I take it?'' He roughly showed her the size of glass Hermione drank from. She nodded. He laughed some more at her, hissing and coughing when his age caught up with his state.

''You know it?''

He aimed his wand at her stomach and murmured some spells. ''You're lucky I don't have to take you to a healer.'' Loud-hiss laughing now. ''Good Girl Granger drank absinthe.''

''How much alcohol is in that?''

''If I remember correctly,'' Tom Riddle used to brew absinthe in the Hogwarts Forest to make sure people didn't catch whiff of his illicit potion brewing (he made quite a fortune selling the stuff to Slughorn and a bunch of Ravenclaws), ''arouund seventy percent?''

Hermione threw up again.

''I'm horrible! My life is horrible!'' the toilet said because Hermione's head was nowhere to be seen. Tom Riddle patted Hermione's back and told her that she was going to be fine. It wasn't anything a healthy teenager couldn't shake.

''Am I being too whiny?'' she wondered, switching between sad to serious to exasperated. ''Am I too much right now? Because my parents are going to move to Australia and they're selling the family home and I don't know – I just – don't – know!''

''I'm an orphan, I've never had this sort of situation happen to me.''

''Oh, that's HORRID!'' Hermione grabbed hold of Montgomery's hand and held it close in hers. Her face was paler than the moon in this moment of vomited fright. ''Oh, god,'' she said, dropping his hand and returning to the toilet.

''I'm going to get you an antiemetic.''

''Doon't leave meee,'' Hermione gurgled. ''Pleaseee.''

Tom Riddle remained with Hermione against her or his better judgement. She shook and shivered, but the company was appreciated nonetheless.

''I feel robbed.''

''Yeah?''

''Robbed. Absolutely robbed. Thieved out of my own parents. I spent most of the holidays with either the Weasleys or the Malfoys. I don't think I recall the last time my parents and I went somewhere – it's always dentist conferences and seminars and FUCK business trips!''

''You're really hung up over this.''

''Yeah.''

In his semi-sober glory, Tom Riddle decided to offer, ''I'm your parent now. Stop crying over this. Nobody needs blood relatives anymore. It's dépassée''

Hermione, in her semi-lucid glory, decided to accept. ''That's the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me, sir.'' She mustered enough strength to hug him tightly before deciding that was a horrible idea and throwing up over him. He stood up and finally got her that antiemetic before ordering her to bed.

Meanwhile

''We're going to strike tomorrow,'' came the resolute attack plan from the spanish woman.

''Eeeh.'' The other woman, her voice polish in inflection, ''I've got a date tomorrow.''

''Fine. Day after tomorrow, we strike the cur where it hurts.''

''It's a date.''

''You have another date, then?''

''No, it's something you say when the deal is done.''

''Listen, I'm from Spain and I hardly care for english expressions.''

''I mean, Polish hello, same here.''

''All right, it's settled then. Day after tomorrow. We ought to let the others kow.''

''Should we put it in our calendars?''

''I think we can remember this without putting it in our calendars.''

''I'm going to put mine, just in case.''

''All right. Day after tomorrow.''

''Wait, my date's the day after tomorrow.''

''So, tomorrow, then?''

''Tomorrow works for me completely.''

''Okay, so tomorrow.''