Chapter 25 - Seeing Death's Face
Disclaimer: I would I owned said piece of work, but lawyers then would round me lurk.
Hermione woke at five o'clock the next morning. She hadn't slept more than an hour at once the whole night. This time, she didn't even bother trying to go back to sleep. She had been awakened by a terrible dream. She had been kissing Tom and then heard Harry yelling at her. She turned to look for Harry. He was standing across a cemetery, pointing at something. Hermione looked where he was pointing. Tom morphed into Lord Voldemort as she watched helplessly. She screamed silently when he sent a jet of green light toward Harry, sitting up in her bed, soaked from perspiration.
"Tom won't become Voldemort," she insisted to herself. "I've changed too many things for the future to remain the same."
Not feeling up to facing the subject of her thoughts, she pulled a random book off of her shelf to pass the time before she needed to leave for training.
At eight o'clock sharp, Hermione arrived at the Auror Headquarters. She had come to a decision. She would do only what was absolutely necessary to pass her training. Once she finished, she would leave the Auror Department and try to get into the Department of Mysteries.
"Good morning, Granger," Thomson said gruffly as she entered his office. "Today is your first day of real training. As I said yesterday, you will be training individually with me. You may be required to work with the other trainees, but only occasionally. Today, I am going to work with you on resisting basic hexes and curses. The goal is to be able to shrug off the effects even when you fail to shield successfully. Are you ready to begin?"
"Yes, sir," Hermione replied, already determining to do badly enough that he would put her back in with the other trainees.
"Through here," Thomson said, gesturing to a door that had opened with a wave of his wand. It led to a large empty room. "This is where you will do most of your training."
Hermione nodded.
"You are not to use your wand during training today. Just try to resist the spells I cast, none of them will do lasting damage."
He began by casting Tarantellegra. Hermione made no attempt to block it, but was surprised when she felt no effects. He cast another petrifying spell, she didn't catch which one. Once again, nothing happened.
"Have you done this before, Granger?" he asked, pausing for a moment.
"No, I'm not even doing anything," she protested.
"Then why aren't these spells affecting you?" he asked irritably.
"I don't know," she answered, then remembered something. "My ring, it shields me from basic hexes." She mentally kicked herself after she finished. There was no reason for her to tell him that.
"Where did you get it?" Thomson asked curiously.
"It was a Christmas gift."
"From whom?"
"My boyfriend."
"And his name is…"
"Tom Riddle."
"Ah, he's working in the Department of Mysteries, correct?"
"Yes."
"Where did he get it?"
"He made it for me."
"Really? It appears to be a very complicated bit of magic. Take it off, you need to know how to do this without any help. Nicodemus," he called. A small black owl flew into the room. Thomson quickly scrawled a note on a bit of parchment and handed it to the bird.
"Take this to Trelawney in the Department of Mysteries."
"What are you doing?" Hermione asked.
"Asking her to send Tom Riddle up to see me at lunch. , take that ring off and try to resist my spells."
Hermione removed the ring and was immediately hit with a Bat-Bogey Hex. Her determination to appear utterly incompetent was severely tried. She hated the Bat-Bogey Hex more than any other except the one that had caused her front teeth to grow like a beaver's. She forced herself not to resist it. Thomson then cast another spell that engulfed her in a giant bubble that floated around the room. She still didn't respond. Then, to her abject horror, he cast the spell that had been the cause of many tears in her Hogwarts years. Her teeth began growing at an astronomical rate. Unable to stop herself, she focused and threw off the hex, quickly shrinking her teeth back to their original size.
"Good job, Granger, it usually takes several days to learn this technique. Apparently, your vanity is more powerful than most Auror's willpower," he commented.
Hermione bit back a sharp retort.
"We'll continue practicing this technique until lunch," he said. "I want to find the most advanced spells you are capable of resisting."
"Get on with it, then," Hermione muttered. Thomson glared at her.
With her plan of appearing talentless in tatters, Hermione took some joy in resisting the spells and occasionally reflecting them back at him using wandless magic. She barely managed to hide her laugh when she caught him with a nasty charm that caused him to grow thick white hair all over his body. It vaguely reminded her of when Draco was turned into a ferret by Crouch in fourth year.
Before she knew it, it was time for lunch.
Breakbreak
Tom was awake most of the night reading through the massive stack of parchment that Brian had given him.
"I don't know how he managed to translate this much when I can barely read it all," Tom thought sleepily at four in the morning. He had decided to make a cursory glance through the documents but quickly became engrossed in the translations.
A phrase suddenly caught his eye.
Only one who hides from death's all-seeing eye may part the veil and enter death's realm as an honored guest. Only one who looks into death's face may part the veil and find the one lost.
The next day at work, Tom went directly to Mr. Hollis' office.
"Mr. Riddle, have you found something?" his supervisor asked anxiously.
"Maybe," Tom replied, handing Hollis the sheaf of paper containing some more important phrases from the translations.
Hollis perused the documents for several minutes. Finally, he looked up.
"What the hell can hide someone from 'death's all-seeing eye?'" he asked exasperatedly. "If it was regular eyes they wanted to hide from, we wouldn't have a problem. But death, you would have to be able to hide all aspects of life. Odor, heat, magical signature, all nearly impossible individually, let alone at the same time. And the last part is the worst of all. Look into death's face, ridiculous. When death has a face, tell me," he snorted.
"At least you can tell Nichols' mother that he is dead," Tom said.
"We don't know for sure," Hollis sighed. "Just because he wasn't 'an honored guest' doesn't mean he isn't still a guest. If there is a small chance that he is still alive, I don't want to deal with the Minister. Also, if he is pronounced dead without a full understanding of that arch, the arch will be sealed in that room for a few more centuries. I'm fairly sure I won't still be around then and I've spent too much time on it to give up now. Why don't you go talk to O'Moriarty and see if he has any texts that use similar language? There isn't much more to do with the actual arch until we understand this gibberish."
Tom nodded and left. It was about what he had expected.
"Back so soon, Tom? I thought I had given you enough to last at least a week," Brian said, emerging from behind his parchment-stacked desk.
"Most of it wasn't very important, but this section seems to have potential," Tom said, handing the paper to O'Moriarty.
"Yes, I remember that part. It sounded vaguely familiar, but I wasn't able to place it."
"Then I need all works dealing with death from the first millennia A.D., preference given to works originating in Great Britain."
"I both envy and pity you, Tom. Nothing to do but read ancient texts, but nothing to read except the most ridiculous works on metaphysics ever written. You can get started with that shelf," he gestured. "The books you're looking for take up six bookcases, so it looks like I'll have some company for a few years," he smiled, his pale blue eyes giving him a slightly unearthly look.
"Wonderful," Tom ground out. "If I had known that I would be spending all my time in here, I would be in the Black Forest by now," he thought irritably. "Hopefully, these books aren't as terrible as he made them sound."
They were. Tom was extremely relieved when O'Moriarty called out to him that Trelawney wanted to see him before lunch. He hurried out of the library and down the hallway to her office.
"I have a request from Head Auror Thomson that you join him for lunch in his office. He didn't say why. Since he is likely to become Minister of Magic eventually, you ought to go, but don't worry about being overly polite. You're in my department, so he can't do much of anything to you," she said with a smirk.
"When should I take lunch, then?" he asked.
"Now would be fine. Don't forget to tell me what Thomson wants. If you have a problem with it, I could probably get you out of it."
"Thanks. I'll go now."
Tom made his way up to the Auror Department. To his surprise, Hermione was also in the office when he entered, eating a turkey sandwich with a very irritated look upon her face.
"Good morning, Hermione," he said smiling.
"Hello," she replied sourly.
Thomson cleared his throat.
"Hello, sir," Tom said politely.
"I'm sure you're wondering why I wanted to see you."
"A bit," Tom agreed.
"This morning, Trainee Granger brought a ring that you had made for her to my attention. I want to know how you made it so that we can reproduce it for Aurors' use."
Tom thought for a moment. "How much is it worth to you?" he asked shrewdly.
"Are you trying to bargain with me, young man? It won't work. I had hoped that you would be reasonable about this, but now I'm going to have to send the ring over to the Experimental Magic Department," Thomson bit out.
"Wish them luck. They will need it if they want to find out how I made that ring. But first, don't you need a warrant to take that ring from Hermione?" he asked with an overly polite smile.
"The Minister hasn't revoked the Wartime Search Act, so no, I don't," Thomson retorted. "Give me your ring, trainee. You're done for the day. Now get out of here, both of you."
Hermione tossed the ring on the desk. Her finger felt odd without it. She hadn't taken it off since Christmas.
"I'll make you another one, Hermione," Tom consoled her. "There were a few things I wanted to change anyway." Hermione smiled gratefully at him as they walked out the door, leaving Thomson seething behind them.
"Merlin, am I glad to be out of there," Hermione breathed once they were farther from the door.
"Sounds like your job is about as much fun as mine," Tom commented. "I've been stuck in a library all morning, and not even a clean one. There are spiders and dust everywhere. Good thing I'm not allergic."
"What are you researching?" Hermione asked curiously.
"I can't tell you. Too bad, you would probably be able to help."
"Let's just say, once I'm done with training, I wouldn't be opposed to switching to the Department of Mysteries," Hermione replied. "Maybe I would be able to help then."
"By then, the research I'm doing will be worthless anyway. I don't have a lot of time to figure it out. I could try asking Trelawney to give you clearance so I could tell you about it, but the chances of her agreeing are minuscule. I don't think she's busy right now, if you want to talk to her."
"Why not? Anything would be better than training with Thomson. He's going out of his way to make things as difficult for me as possible, not to mention constantly trying to get me to talk about myself," she snorted. "It would be at least bearable if I were training with the others, but he's afraid that I would be a bad influence."
"Oh, he's definitely right about that. You've been a terrible influence on me," Tom smirked.
"Of course, now you know how to smile, you can cook at least one meal, and have developed your inner romanticism. I have turned you into a great catch for any witch."
"Exactly, you've been a bad influence. And I was already a great catch."
"Of course you were. That's why you never had a girlfriend before seventh year. They would rather stare at you than actually date you. Most of them would have been equally happy with a picture of you."
"I have no idea what you're talking about. Here we are," Tom said, opening the door to the Department of Mysteries. Trelawney was sitting at the front desk waiting for them. She stood and walked over to them.
"Hermione Granger, I believe. Pleasure to meet you," she said. "I'm Verana Trelawney. Has Tom convinced you to leave those bumbling fools upstairs yet?"
"No, but give him time," Hermione smiled, already liking the Department Head.
"I actually brought her to speak with you about my work. I think that she would be able to help a great deal if I were allowed to talk about it with her and show her some of my notes," Tom said.
"Why is she more able to help you than anyone in the Department?" Trelawney asked.
"She has seen … similar artifacts and runes before."
"Really? I would like to speak with Miss Granger alone for a moment, Tom. Why don't you go to your office? A few memos came for you while you were gone," she said pointedly. Tom nodded and walked down the hallway to his office.
"Now, Miss Granger, why don't you tell me where you have seen a stone arch with Celtic runes on it?"
Hermione was shocked. "Tom is working on a Portal like the one I found? And he found out how I got here," she realized.
"I don't trust you enough to tell you that, no offense."
"None taken," Trelawney assured her. "Working with the Aurors is enough to make one distrustful of everyone. I think that I will allow Tom to include you in his research," she decided. "However, you are going to have to sign a contract to ensure that you don't tell anyone anything about the department. If Thomson wants to know what you are doing, he will need to come to me."
Hermione smirked. "That will be fine."
"I thought you might appreciate that. And furthermore, I have heard that you are significantly more advanced than most trainees. I should be able to get you out of training once per week to come down here and help Tom. The rest of the week, you will need to work with him outside of the Ministry. Is this agreeable to you? If you would prefer not to miss training-"
"No, that's fine with me," Hermione interrupted.
"I think Fridays would be ideal. I'll send a note up to Thomson and another to the Minister. Don't worry about it, they both owe me a few favors," she said with a wicked gleam in her eyes.
"Thank you, I'll look forward to working in your department," Hermione said, pleased with the outcome. She would ask Tom about the Portal later.
"Percival," Trelawney said to a black cat that had emerged from under the desk, "go fetch Tom, please."
Tom arrived two minutes later.
"Tom, Hermione will be working with you every Friday down here and has full clearance for your work. However, she may not go into any of the other rooms. Also, she may not remove books from the library, but that shouldn't be a problem."
"Thank you," Tom said.
"If she can help you with that arch, I'll be thanking you. Now go get some lunch, since Thomson didn't give you any."
"How did you know that?" Hermione asked curiously.
"He never eats lunch, so he doesn't think anyone else ought to either. Now go, or do I have to fire you for the day?"
"I'm going," Tom said innocently. "I just need to talk to O'Moriarty for a minute."
"Fine," Trelawney sighed. "Talk to him, then take the rest of the day off to brief Hermione on your project."
"Yes, ma'am."
Trelawney glared at him for a second before waving her hand and going back to her office.
"This is the library," Tom said, opening the door for Hermione. "I want to show you the books I'm going through and introduce you to the wizard who helped translate the runes on the arch." He guided her through the stacks, having to prod her several times when a particularly rare book caught her interest.
"Hello, Tom," O'Moriarty said from behind his desk. "Who have you brought with you?"
"This is Hermione Granger. She will be helping me with the arch. Hermione, this is Brian O'Moriarty, Celtic rune expert."
"I don't remember hearing about you," the redhead said, creases forming on his forehead. "Were you just hired?"
"No, I'm training to be an Auror, but I have experience in this area and Tom thought I would be able to help."
"Oh, this is your girlfriend? I have heard about her."
"How have you heard about her?" Tom asked, surprise evident in his voice.
"You'd be surprised what the ghosts and portraits know," Brian replied with a slight smile.
"They talk about me?"
"Well, you are the youngest Auror in two centuries," he added.
"I'm not sure if I should be flattered or worried," Hermione said.
"Oh, probably both," Brian joked. "Were you going to show her your shelves or should I?" he asked Tom.
"I should probably brief her on the arch before we start going through more books," Tom said. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Bye, then."
"Nice meeting you," Hermione called over her shoulder, earning a glare from the little librarian that materialized from behind a shelf.
"Come over to my apartment and you can read through my notes," Tom suggested.
Hermione acquiesced and they floo-ed to the apartment building.
"I changed my wards so that you can Apparate in," Tom said after they had stepped from the fireplace. "Why don't you try them so I know if it worked."
Hermione focused and found herself in the middle of Tom's apartment. Tom popped in beside her seconds later.
"I should do that with my wards," Hermione mused.
"I would greatly appreciate it," Tom said mock-seriously. "Do you want me to order us some lunch? That sandwich you were eating earlier didn't look very appetizing."
"It wasn't," Hermione admitted. "I think Italian would be nice. I don't care what you order."
Tom jotted down an order and tied it to his owl's leg.
"It should get here in twenty minutes or so," he said. He walked over to the table and started digging through his copious notes, pulling out a few papers and forming a new pile. A minute later, he had a stack of twenty or thirty pieces of parchment for Hermione.
"This should be enough to start with," he said.
"I think I'll wait until after we eat," Hermione decided. "It's possible that I won't stop to eat dinner once I get started," she admitted.
"Good, I didn't eat anything for breakfast," Tom said. "After all, the only things I am capable of cooking are potatoes and a few kinds of beef, and that only thanks to my girlfriend."
"I should have told you that I wouldn't be over this morning," Hermione said guiltily. "Once I change the wards, you can Apparate over if you want. Then I won't have to carry the food with me."
"Or I could just learn how to cook my own breakfast," Tom said. Hermione laughed.
"Oh, I started reading that book that you bought me, Tales of Beadle the Bard. Some of the stories are quite intriguing, especially if you take into account what the shopkeeper said."
"Maybe I'll borrow it from you sometime."
They chatted about books and work for until their food came. They ate quickly, wanting to get started on Tom's notes.
"So, about nine months ago an Unspeakable disappeared through a stone archway in the Department of Mysteries. The runes on it call it the Portal of Inevitable Fate," Tom began. He explained the code and translation, showing Hermione what they had so far. Finally, Tom gave her the sheet with the part that had caught his attention early that morning.
"Death's all-seeing eye…death's face…it sounds familiar. Hidden from death and seeing death, or maybe the dead?" Hermione murmured as she read. She paused for a moment. "This sounds like it is describing the Deathly Hallows! It was in that book you gave me! I read it just this morning." Hermione quickly Apparated to her apartment, grabbed the book from her couch, and reappeared before Tom could say a word.
"Look," Hermione said, pointing to a few paragraphs. "The cloak hides you from death and the Resurrection Stone lets you see people who have died. It's too close to be a coincidence!"
"So you need two of these Hallows to be able to go through the arch. But Nichols didn't have any of them," Tom said.
"That just means that he isn't a guest and can't bring back people from the other side of the veil. In order to bring him back, you are going to need both the cloak and the Resurrection Stone."
"I've never even heard of them before. It will be nearly impossible to find them."
"Nearly, but not completely. We can at least try," Hermione said. "Now let's keep going through these notes. We can tell your supervisor tomorrow."