A/N: REVIEW RESPONSE ANNOUNCEMENT: Got tipped off for a fabulous idea, and now I'm going to put the normal review response paragraph in my author's bio. Check it out. Oh, and if you don't really read my review responses, let me know in your review so I won't write out one for you… No, I'm not trying to brush you off, just trying to save myself time!
As for the chapter, this one's a bit more AU at the end, but I've had this written since before HBP, so… you like it or you don't, I guess that's how everything is in life. This is just a little bit of Tom/Herm. Thought you'd like it. There's no dramatic action; it's pretty stationary, they're no longer waltzing across ballrooms; but I want to show how their relationship doesn't just consist of them constantly craving each other, it's more personal than that, more of a strange little friendship, even. I mean, don't get me wrong, but a lot of stuff based on only the former just doesn't last in the real world, and in Tom/ Hermione's case, they need to be just a tad bit more committed to each other for anything at all to have the chance of working out at the end. And, anyway, there will be lots of action at the end.
Now, Hermione is beginning to admit to herself that she doesn't really want him to die, beginning to admit that she was wrong about what she did… but she doesn't exactly know how to fix it.
I would also like to wish the best of luck to anybody in New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama who got hit by Katrina. Hope everybody you know is okay.
Exhausted, Hermione slumped back down, just in time to see Harry, bless the boy-who-lived, dragging Madam L though the haze of dancers. The onlookers' voices had begun to swim in her ears like some distant buzzing through a seashell, and her fuming, frenetic vision began to cloud, not with red, but with a dull yellow tinge that was swiftly followed by a fuzzy black.
And then the fingers of mist completely encircled her exhausted line of sight, and Hermione collapsed in a heap beside the already-unconscious Tom Riddle.
Chapter 25: Home Again
Thursday, December 23, 1944
12:41 A.M.
The bloody magnolias weren't blossoming.
"Hermione, it's two minutes to midnight! Do something!" Phyllis Hardiman wailed plaintively, coming up behind the Head Girl, the ash blond Gryffindor's gray dress robe flowing to a stop as she stared forlornly at the thin, three-foot long elegant —and very shut— silver buds of the particular moonlight magnolia in front of them near the Great Hall Entrance. "The only reason we moved the dance back so late was so everyone could see them open!"
"I realize that, Phyll; does it look like I'm just sitting around?" Hermione ground out through gritted teeth, her hands currently gripping the edges of the buds of the considerable-sized potted plant. Of course the big finale would have to go wrong…nothing ever did go quite without a hitch in this world…
"Have a holly, jolly Christmas…" Nearly Headless Nick crooned with a little twist back up on stage, a sadistic smile spreading across his face as the grandfather clock began to ring, signaling the end of the Holiday Soiree and the end of his charmed singing. "It's the best time of the year…"
Yeah, B, I used to think that way, too, Hermione sardonically thought to Burl Ives, song's original singer, her eyes shooting daggers down what she could pry open of the inside of the tightly closed buds.
Letting out a determined little noise under her breath, Hermione planted her stilettoed feet onto the dance floor and attempted to heave the petals apart. "Come on, blast it," she grunted, her voice strained, wrestling against the closed buds. God, for a delicate looking thing, the little bugger's strong! "Open… up…Eeep!"
Both girl and flower rolled and toppled backward onto the ground, Hermione's body letting out a little jerk, her mouth dropping in surprise to find herself free-falling, and both quickly collided with the hard, cold floor with a loud THUD!
"Ow," she muttered bleakly.
For at least a half minute, Hermione lay there in a kind of dazed stupor, her back aching from the plummet, her mouth still open in shock. Finally, she cautiously opened her eyes… and found herself staring straight up at the knots in the unmistakable, drab white ceiling of the Hospital Wing. The moonlight magnolias! Did they open?
Ah, well… who cared about some stupid plant, really?
Vigorously, she shook her head and floundered around for the sheets dangling off the edge of the bed to her left, grabbing them, unsteadily pulling herself to her feet as if she were scaling a wall. The second she straightened up, a wave of dizziness swept over her, and she hastily plopped back down on top of the rumpled covers, gripping the edge of the bed, waiting for the spell to pass.
It did, and blinking rapidly, clearing her wobbly head, yawning, she keenly studied her dark surroundings. A burst of moonlight through the uppermost edge of the windows behind revealed the stark austerity of the bottom half of the Infirmary, with which she had become far too familiar for her liking, the starch white beds lined like little soldiers.
Opening her eyes wider, urging them to more quickly adjust to the smothering patches of darkness, Hermione yawned again, and the faint, sweet aroma of homemade pumpkin bread and caramel-swirled chocolate suddenly wafted into her attention first, as her other four senses seemed to be a bit ahead of her sight tonight.
A thin sliver of moonlight had barely missed her bed, but the clear, otherworldly nighttime light swept directly across her bedside table. On it, Hermione could clearly see far too many slices of her favorite sweet bread and chocolates for a normal person to eat precariously loaded down on a plate.
Ah-ha! Food! She felt like she had turned into some uncivilized cavewoman as her ravenous stomach hi-jacked control of her mind and caused it to steadily chant, Hungry, food, hungry, food, hungry, food, hungry, food...
And a note.
Mentally beating back her stomach, Hermione reached over and picked up the thin slip of parchment, jaggedly ripped on one edge as it it had been tore haphazardly out of a notebook, and she leaned out of the darkness around her bed to hold it under the moonlight, her eyes skimming over Harry's messy scrawl.
'Mione-
Kept watch here since last night and now Lamberdeau is kicking us out at five to ten, says you need your sleep. But you've been sleeping all bloody day! Makes no sense at all to me. Can you believe it, you'd think that with just us and ten other students staying for the holidays they'd lift curfew, but of course they haven't. Suppose it's back to under the Invisibility Cloak to get around properly after hours. Times like these remind us of how we technically should be out of school for good right now, Ron wants me to tell you. Anyway, if you wake up before we come to see you straightaway tomorrow morning, we thought the food would help a touch. Gin put a Freshener Charm on it so it won't spoil. 'Til then, all our luv-
-Harry… and everyone else who made me do the writing'
I love my friends, Hermione thought happily.A contented grin slipping onto her face, she replaced the note and hawkishly eyed the dessert platter, her stomach progressing to the obnoxiously growling stage, sounding like a small freight train when compared to the silent Infirmary.
Did not just do that…. Mildly mortified, she glanced around the Wing sheepishly, hoping that the noise hadn't woken up any other sickbed occupants, her eyes scanning the shadowy room. As far as she could detect, a faint light glowed at the thin slit between the bottom of Madam L's closed office door and the floor, but other than that, the Hospital Wing was completely deserted.
Until her eyes landed on the very farthest bed.
Tom Riddle.
Hermione's breath froze; she actually felt her heart stop beating in her chest before it resumed its dance and began to thud heavily, faster and faster.
Dear God.
All desire to eat anything at all completely flew from her mind as if it had never even been there at all, and, just as swiftly, the horror of the last five minutes of Tuesday night rushed back to her, every single awful second of it, from the moment the Heir of Slytherin passed out to the moment that she must have…and, above all, Draco's insensitive, cutting words ran through her mind like a nails across a chalkboard in her ears,
Congratulations, Nef, you just personally stamped the death sentence on Lord Voldemort's exit papers….
When Tom had collapsed, even when she had been so close to him, even when his condition had seemed stable enough… Hermione had instantly jumped to a faint conclusion of why, but her mind had been too panicked to dwell on it for more than a split second.
Pulling her legs up onto her bed and brought her knees up to her chest, hugging them, greatly relieved that someone—preferably Madam L—had changed her out of Lavender's scandalous dress robes and into a pair of her comfortable pajama pants and top, and bit her bottom lip lightly, contemplatively. If what she thought had happened was true, if Tom Riddle had indeed fallen in love with her last night…
Then the curse had passed the point of no return. It was irreversible. He loved her. Her! A boy—no, a man, really, a man who had the potential to be one of the most powerful Dark Lords the past five hundred years had ever known… had thrown away that power for the brief chance to love instead.
And what was she giving him in return? Death!
A wave of guilt— heavy, heart wrenching guilt— swept through all of Hermione's nerves like a painful, unforgiving firestorm, sending a notion of impending dread… and loss… spiraling into her reality, soon accompanied by an equally strong, disillusioned, but blissful numbness.
Draco had been right, before the Soiree, when he had told her that people had been counting on her to succeed last night, Hermione admitted reluctantly. It was true: all of their planning, all of their sacrifices, all of their time traveling risks… it really had all come down to the Holiday Soiree.
Dumbledore's crazy, last ditch plan had actually succeeded.
And she… she had avenged her parents, her classmates, everyone she had loved. Hell, she had even avenged the French chateau that she had so despised, yet, at the same time, so treasured…burned down three years earlier by Voldemort's Continental forces as they swept down on Paris from the Transylvanian mountains, destroying everything in their path.
She had done it.
Congratulations to me, she thought dully, sending another glance over at the farthest bed… knowing, without a doubt, that she had set into motion a series of inalterable events that she could never, ever take back…
Even if she was beginning to wish she could be able to.
Her previous inspiration — whether becoming Tom's friend would be a way to prevent his drastic plunge to the dark side— really would have no impact whatsoever on his likelihood to become Lord Voldemort, Hermione suddenly realized. And even if she had…
Tom Riddle was still going to die.
She couldn't deal with this anymore, or she'd go crazy beating herself up. Savagely ripping back her covers, furious at the fates that had most likely found all of this a sick, amusing joke from their detached viewing screen in the heavens, Hermione tested her balance and teetered out of bed. Reaching up with one hand, cradling her faintly throbbing head as she balanced on the bedposts with her other, she absently noticed her hair still up in the up-do… minus a great deal of messy wisps.
Not one who had ever taken much concern toward her appearance for the sake of others, Hermione now found her mind mother-henishly nagging in an irritably singsong tone, I must look like cra-ap… And I don't know where my wand is to fix it… Not that I would know many spells about that in the first place—
CrEEEEk.
A tiny, almost inaudible shuffle against the floor to her right, and Hermione froze, sharply sucking in an intake of air, feeling every hair along the back of her neck stand on edge.
Adrenaline surging through her veins, her eyes narrowed, and she squinted suspiciously into the shadows among the row of beds next to her, her eyes acutely scanning the patches of thick darkness, holding her breath for a good minute, listening for something, anything that would be a dead giveaway to… whatever it had been.
She detected nothing.
Whew. False alarm.
Letting out the deep breath, Hermione urged her pounding heart to slow, fanning her burning, flushed cheeks. Too many years of rule-breaking, late-night sneaking with Harry and Ron —and sometimes without them, she hated to admit— and common sense wartime awareness every time she had stepped out of her room for the past three years had left her a little too jumpy for random noises, for those 'it's just the building settling,' etc., etc.
Caaallllm yourself down. Come on now.
Taking the last few steps to Tom's hospital bed, repeating determinedly, It was nothing, it was nothing, she easily found her usual chair in the bright moonlight that was shining through the window above the Hospital beds directly to her right. As quietly as she could, she pulled the rest of that damn, godforsaken stiff-backed wooden chair toward the side of the Heir of Slytherin's semi-permanent residence and stiffly sat down, still partly afraid that someone, somewhere, was watching her —
Good Merlin, Hermione, get a grip! It's not like we're at war now, like there're spies running around!
Sighing, her face still slightly hot from the fight-or-flight instinct that had gripped her seconds before, she settled in the chair as much as was humanly possible, rested her chin on her hand, and gazed down at Tom Riddle's mature, sleeping face, dimly illuminated by the glow of the moon.
Hermione wasn't going to deny it: There was a part of her mind—a sensible part, her rational side informed her— telling her that she should have been smiling, dancing, celebrating the fact that she had saved the future; something she was certain that Harry, Ginny, Draco, Ron, and Lavender were doing, even at this very moment.
But Hermione could only close her eyes and shake her head, unable —or afraid— to place the strongest emotion within her burdened thoughts.
All she knew was that, in destroying the monster… she had also destroyed the man. And there really had been a man in Lord Voldemort, she had come to discover; he wasn't just an evil shell that been conniving since birth on how to kill every muggle and muggleborn that he laid eyes on and on the ultimate plan to take over the world.
He was human.
Yes, he could become furious to the point of dangerousness; yes, he could feel the coldest of bitterness; yes, he occasionally had a tendency to mood swing when something unanticipated came up; yes, he had a raw power in him that he could and had used to harm; yes, he could hate with a passion…
But he could suffer as well, could tolerate pain with the best of them; could feel abandoned, alone, let down, and shut out by humanity to such an extent that Lord Voldemort would go on to completely lose what humanity Tom still had; could use magic in a good way, to heal, if the need arose; could feel an almost innocent happiness at receiving something as simple as a hastily scrawled out get-well card and falling-apart book…
And, now, he could also love.
Oh, yes, Tom Riddle was very, very much human. And had the world given him half a chance the first time around, he might have stayed that way.
One look at you, Nef, one tiny little glimpse, and he's done for—
"Shut up, Draco!" Hermione growled fiercely, forcing the blond's voice, his smirking face from her mind, squeezing her eyes shut and willing it all to go away, willing her reality to vanish into the darkness of the Hospital Wing. This was all some kind of horrible nightmare, that's all it was.
Soon, she would wake up and discover that it all been a dream: She hadn't really gone back to 1944, the boy who had grown up to kill her parents hadn't really fallen in love with her, nor was he heading toward the brink of death, and she…she hadn't really fallen in love with him, either.
Had she?
"Nefertari?"
Hermione bit back a shriek and nearly fell off the chair, her senses still on edge, even the tired voice taking her by surprise when it interrupted her jumble of conflicted thoughts. "God, don't do that!" she exclaimed softly, her eyes clearing, and she blinked and refocused on the Heir of Slytherin, thankful that the moon had bathed that entire end of the Hospital Wing in bright moonlight. "Hey, Tom."
The confusion on Tom's face was evident, a furrowed brow and a pair of exhausted but intelligent, not-quite-awake gray eyes studying her from under a mess of tousled dark hair that had once been neat and on top of a fluffy white pillow, and the fatigue in his speech was real, slowing the pace of his speaking to a mere crawl. "What… what are you doing here?"
"Ummm…" Hermione smiled wryly, inadvertently rubbing her bruised elbow on which she had probably fallen the night of the Soiree… or seconds ago after the stupid magnolia dream, one of the two. "I suppose you could say I had a bit of a spill last night as well."
The right side of his face disappeared into the pillow as he turned his head so that he could see her fully, clearly, now staring at her intently. "You… didn't have a… another vision… did you?" he asked, his voice so faint it was hardly more than a whisper.
Hermione mentally groaned. Oh, but of course he'd be concerned about that. Well, she supposed she couldn't blame him, really. "No, I think it was more along the lines of a cumulative lack of sleep and a rather traumatic evening to begin with," she said, yawning at the end of her statement as if to attest to these faces, and smiled tiredly at him. "How are you?"
Tom gave an almost undetectable shrug of his shoulders. "Better than I have been, at least." Weakly, he slid his arms up to his side, planted them into the soft mattress, and, leaning on his hands for support, pushed himself up to a sitting position, his back poised with a kind of classic grace despite the fact that he was sitting in a bed in the Hospital Wing. As was in her case, he was, as far as Hermione could see, only sporting a partially unbuttoned Oxford shirt, and, she assumed, a pair uniform pants, rather than what he had been wearing at the Soiree.
His voice, though, seemed to be fading even more with each word as he added with some amount of difficulty, "Tired, though... so… so tired…"
Almost in slow motion, the Slytherin's right arm gave out from under him, and he collapsed lopsidedly back into the bed, his eyes closing. It wasn't that he appeared to be in pain, as he had typically been these past few months …but, rather, in an extreme, extreme state of exhaustion.
'The moment the Afflicted's feelings of affection turn to those of pure, sincere, true love, the curse moves into the second stage. The Irreversible stage. The preliminary pain stops, and the curse instead turns to the Afflicted's energy supply, gradually leaving him weaker and weaker… until, eventually… the Afflicted dies.'
When she had first found out about the Anima Adflictatio in the Room of Requirements less than a month and a half ago - Had it really only been that long? - when Fatal Curses and Their Symptoms had described the energy-sucking part of the curse, Hermione had never even imagined what a kind of "energy sucking" form of magic actually meant, having never really seen anyone else cursed with something like that before.
Only now, right now, could Hermione begin to accurately grasp the serious, serious implications of the words that had described the second phase of the curse.
"Here, just stay down," she murmured without even hesitating to think, reaching out and lightly placing a hand on his chest. The moment he detected the unexpected contact of her hand, he stiffened rather quickly, but he didn't say a word in protest, only allowed her to gently press his still-raised left shoulder flat against the sheets. "It won't bother me, I promise."
Tom's eyes narrowed just slightly, almost inquisitively, as if he couldn't quite figure out what to make of her actions. Then, out of absolutely nowhere, he said quietly, "Nefertari, I'm…"
Pausing, he ran his tongue roughly over his lips, absently drawing the bed sheets up toward the middle of his stomach with a deep sigh, and stared up at the ceiling as Hermione glanced at him curiously, wondering what it was he wanted to say that was giving him so much trouble. Finally, the phrase coming so quietly she hardly caught it, he whispered, "I'm sorry."
Hermione almost fell out of her chair for the second time in ten minutes. Almost immediately, her eyebrows shot up. "You're sorry?" she echoed incredulously, and carefully, silently edged the chair so close to his bed that she had to tuck her legs under her so they didn't collide with the bed's hard metal frame, unable to hear his words due to the faintness of his voice, even in the nighttime silence of the Hospital Wing. "Why?"
The Heir of Slytherin's weary eyes gazed penetratingly into hers through his drooping eyelids, and now, without a doubt, but with a considerable amount of disbelief…. Hermione was certain that she saw a significantly rueful gleam somewhere in those stormy gray pools.
"You worked… so hard to make last night perfect…" the nearly nonexistent strength of his voice sounded as if each syllable was a struggle to get out, his sentences emerging as jaggedly put together, "and… it was… for everyone… everyone but… you."
Finally seeming to give in to his own exhaustion, Tom resignedly allowed his eyelids to close, his voice evaporating to a mere, breathless undertone. "I suppose that I'm… partly at fault…for that, if… if I wouldn't have insisted on... on coming…"
Immediately, Hermione was assaulted by a torrent of emotions, and, systematically, tried to throw each one away from her. The statement was so atypical of Tom Riddle, so completely unlike anything he had ever done, and Hermione knew that he didn't relished admitting his faults… but, yet, he had sucked it all up so he could apologize to her.
Despite her valiant effort, she felt, to her ultimate horror, her eyes begin to burn, tear up. Quickly, without wasting more than a second, she turned her head toward the shadows to her right, desperately biting the top of her knuckle to stop her suddenly unstable chin, thanking the gods that Tom's eyes were shut as she fought back the urge to curl up into a little, dark, deserted corner of the Hospital Wing and start sobbing like the miserable little wretch she was.
"It's... really not your fault at all," she finally managed to murmur faintly.
The man they had come back fifty years in time to stop from becoming a Dark Lord was acting like a normal, considerate human being. He was being more civil than Draco had been the night before.
Draco.
In the blink of an eye, the tears dried at their source, and they were replaced with a brooding gleam as Hermione inadvertently narrowed her eyes, going over as much detail as she could recall of the Holiday Soiree. What on earth had gotten into him last night? For a moment, for just a second, it had seemed as if Draco du Luc had turned back into the old Malfoy, the evil Malfoy that had vanished two and a half years ago…
Stupid, that's an utterly ridiculous idea, some rational side of her mind scoffed irately. No, it had clearly been Draco who had been the most sensible of the two of them the day of the Soiree, it was he who had realized that, once Tom Riddle had fallen in love, they had successfully completed the mission…
Hermione supposed he had had a right to… to gloat as he had, and oh yes, he had definitely been gloating— if anything, over the fact that he had kept his mind to the task that she, he, Harry, Ginny, Lavender, and Ron had been sent out to accomplish in the first place, whilst she had waltzed right off and had… well, Merlin knows what she had done…
"Got… a bit on… on your mind… Nefertari," Tom asked— no, stated in a broken, clear but faint voice, bringing her mind back to center, his scarily intuitive perceptiveness never ceasing to amaze her.
"Yeah…" Hermione muttered distractedly, then, so she wouldn't sound like she was brushing him off, added, "Just random thoughts, really." As the brunette smiled at him halfheartedly, more of Fatal Curses and Their Symptoms materialized in the back of her mind:
'The greater the strength of the Secondary's concern for the Afflicted, the longer the Afflicted will be able to survive. And, although the curse will steadily drain the Afflicted's energy, the secondary can restore a portion of that energy by simply making physical contact with the Afflicted…'
So, all she really had to do was touch him to bring him back…
A more genuine smile tugging at her lips, Hermione found Tom's right hand twisted amongst the crisp white sheets of the Hospital bed and curled her fingers around his, becoming more than a little concerned when his hand remained eerily cold and limp in hers. Determinedly hanging on anyway, she figured she at least owed him something in return for the difficult—for him, at least—speech that he had just tried so hard to complete for her sake.
"Tom, don't apologize to me," she said gently, the smile still on her lips, almost exasperated at the memories. "I'm glad you came. I mean, granted, you did give me quite a bit of a scare near the end, but… Tom, that last song …" Closing her eyes, reliving the feeling in her mind, she whispered earnestly, "Dancing with you then was like… like moving without thinking. Like floating, Tom. D'you know how rare it is, to find something like that?"
When he said nothing, Hermione let out an annoyed breath of air, not knowing what he wanted to hear, and threw her hands into the air. "I mean, I don't know, maybe I've just gone completely mad, but didn't you have a good time?"
Opening her eyes, she glanced back down the dark-haired Slytherin and found his eyes reopened now too, gazing at her face steadily, like they had been doing so for several seconds. "I don't know if I'd call passing out on the ground and nearly cracking my head open a good time, but, you know, Nefertari…" He paused for breath, his voice considerably stronger than it had been previously, an almost amused edge to it. "I think I really did. "
And Hermione thought she saw the faintest ghost of a smile pulling at the edge of his mouth.
Trying to hold back another smile of her own, Hermione gazed without much self-consciousness into Tom's mesmerizing gray eyes. His hand had warmed slightly, had finally regained enough of its strength to gently squeeze her hand, his slender fingers long enough to be nearly double the length of her own. It was then that a little feeling took root in the pit of her stomach, nothing like the knots of stress that normally formed there, but… one that was warm.
Comforting.
Content, safe, happy, and every other word that described what Hermione had felt during the best moments of her life… All those things, and more, she felt right then, felt them spread through every inch of her body, every vein and every pore until every single nerve from the tip of her fingers, curled in his, to her bare feet tucked under her knees felt electrified, rejuvenated…
She hadn't felt this alive since the day before her parents died.
And then, she had to know. She just… she had to. She would never be at peace with herself again until she did.
Impulsively, she burst out in as quiet a voice as the Hospital Wing warranted, "Do you regret it, then? Coming last night?"
It was a loaded question. On the surface, it was a simple yes or no. Below the surface, though, it held so much more meaning. Hermione wasn't just asking if he regretted the Holiday Soiree. Oh, no.
She was asking if he regretted getting into a situation that caused him to fall in love with her. That caused him to give up every single moment of his lifelong, vastly incredible potential, for the fleeting time that he would have to simply… love her. Even when he didn't, couldn't know whether she loved him back or not, because she didn't quite know herself.
But Tom didn't know that she knew all that, thank Merlin.
Another tiny shiver tingled down Hermione's spine as Tom absently began to stroke the back of her hand with his thumb, his eyes becoming pensive. Thoughtful. Finally, he shook his head slightly, causing some flyaway locks of dark hair to fall into his face, which he irritatedly swept to one side with his free hand, and he murmured, very softly, "No."
If Hermione's stomach had jumped to her throat before, then the bottom definitely fell out of it now. All thoughts of him being the Dark Lord aside, no guy she had known had ever so much as… Well, this entire situation, everything… it was all just so unbelievable!
"You mean, you don't regret it at all?" she asked dumbly, sticking her foot in her mouth before she could stop herself. You should've just accepted his answer, idiot! There was no backing out now, though, and she reiterated, nearly wincing at the sound of the words,"None of it?"
"I'm still talking about last night, Nefertari." Tom managed to roll to one side while still dangling his right hand off the edge of the bed, his fingers still interlaced with hers, tangling the Hospital bed sheets round with him even more as he did so, wrapping his left arm across his chest and comfortably sliding his hand between the pillow and his right cheek, his surprisingly amused gray-blue eyes studying her face calculatingly as he continued shrewdly, "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about last night, too," Hermione instantly, defensively replied. What does he think I'm talking about? "And my question still stands."
"And my answer's still the same, Nefertari," Tom drawled coolly, his voice strengthening even more the longer she held on to his hand. "I don't regret it. None of it."
A roguish little smirk jumped to his ashen face — more proof that his energy must have been returning in immense waves — and he added, "Except for the fact that I didn't get to have a go at that absurdly enormous food table; Nefertari, do you realize, it took me eight bloody hours to draw up the entire catering list in simple language for the house elves to follow, and I didn't even get the chance to try one tiny cranberry cream crumpet?"
He was making light of the situation, Hermione knew, and she wasn't sure whether to laugh at that idea, or cry because, well… because he hadn't regretted falling in love with her. Her stomach, though, made the decision for her when it growled in agreement with his last words, and she couldn't help but grin readily at the truth in them. Her eyes glinting mischievously, she asked, "In that case, how may I assist you? Are you looking for a happy night? Or a slightly cheery night?"
He scowled and lightly pushed her hand in the direction of the Hospital Wing door. "Go away, Nefertari, your undying optimism sickens me."
Hermione shook her head in mock exasperation, wrinkling her nose at the exaggeratedly Scrooge-ish Slytherin. "Hey, at least I've got optimism, Mr. I-Don't-Do-Formalities." And taking that same hand, she whacked him soundly on his side with it.
He instinctively jerked backward, yelping, "Ow!" A priceless, genuinely shocked expression at the idea that Hermione would dare commit such an act of violence against him exploded in his gray eyes, and an impish grin instantly jumped to Hermione's face as he hissed, "What the devil was that for?"
He obviously had not been warned to beware of girls who had boys as best friends, Hermione thought as she jabbed a slender finger at him. "Don't you mess with my optimism."
"You take a swipe at me like that again, and I'll mess with your optimism whenever I bloody well please," he grumbled, and a smirk slid back onto his profile. "And I can be an optimist, too, you know." Was that… amusement Hermione detected in his voice? "For example, I'm quite optimistic that they'll have leftovers down in the kitchens for weeks, and I don't plan on leaving any of them behind for you people in the Great Hall to eat."
"'You people in the Great Hall'… my God, do I feel stereotyped…" Hermione groaned, and Tom's smirk widened as she shook her head at him and laughed. "Anyway, that's not optimism, that's a fact—Waaaait a second!"
His last statement reminded her, and her eyes lit up energetically, the slight hungry edge now returning full force. Snapping her fingers, she leapt to her feet without any explanation to Tom's questioning gaze and nearly passed out from the floor from the rush of blood away from her head. "Whoa…"
Woozily, she regained her balance and untangled her hand form Tom's, treading her way back to her own sickbed. Sweeping up the loaded platter of bread and chocolate, she carefully balanced it on one hand as she made her way back to Tom's bed and, lowering her voice to avoid discovery by Madam L, she announced dramatically, "Dessert is served."
"Nefertari. You mean to tell me that that has been just sitting by your bed all this time." Tom eyes incredulously moved between her and the food plate as she neared, and, raising his voice in a rather irritated tone, he sardonically asked, "And you've been with me for… how long now? Twenty minutes?"
As she reluctantly sat back down in the hard chair, her tailbone screaming in protest, all while precariously balancing the plate, a furtive glance over her shoulder at Madam L's door reassured her that she was still safe… for now. Under her breath, she retorted, "Its called patience."
When the beginnings of a smirk broke out on Tom's face at that, she narrowed her eyes and shot him a dirty look. "And you know what, I'll thank you to keep it down.You know she'll murder us if she finds us out of bed!"
"You mean, I know she'll murder you if she finds you out of bed," Tom corrected in an amused tone, pushing himself back up again, this time a bit more confidently. Reaching under his pillow for his wand, he pointed it at the tiny slit of light under the door clear across the Infirmary and, in a tone that strangely reminded Hermione of one she had recently used on Ron, muttered, "Honestly, Nefertari, it's called a Silencing Charm for a reason."
A slim violet jet of light hit the wooden door, and, for the first time that night, he raised his voice to normal volume level, that little smirk still playing on his lips as he nodded at the pumpkin bread and chocolate. "You know, they say eating that much sugar alone isn't good for you."
Ah-ha. So he wanted to be sneaky about it, did he? A teasing smile venturing across her face, Hermione tucked a thick curl of hair that had fallen from her up-do behind her ear and held the platter of sweets up over hear head. "You know, Riddle, I don't really think you're in any position to be making demands."
He raised his eyebrows unaffectedly. "You know, Nefertari, I don't really think you've got a wand on you at the moment."
Damn.
"Alright, you win this time," Hermione grumbled. Carefully shifting her weight, she scraped the chair closer to his bed and eased the holiday red and green plate onto the sheets, shamelessly digging under the chocolates for a slice of pumpkin bread before pushing it toward him. "Here, take your spoils."
Without an ounce of hesitation, he grabbed a chocolate caramel off its place leaning against the little stack of pumpkin bread slices and said conversationally, "I take it you've just woke up, then."
"Uh-huh. You?"
"No. I did this afternoon, once, but Lamberdeau gave me a sleeping potion just as soon. I did see all your little friends swarming around the second or so I was awake, but I couldn't figure out why at the time." He smirked again, polishing off another chocolate and moving on to a slice of pumpkin bread before Hermione had even finished her first. "You must sleep like the dead, what with the racket they were making."
"God, Merlin knows I need to," Hermione said with a sigh and smiled distantly. Tiredly, she covered her mouth, every muscle in her face stretching to their limits as she yawned hugely before trying one of the chocolates. Pausing, savoring the divine mixture of creamy chocolate and sweet caramel that exploded in her mouth, Hermione didn't bother to attempt to fill the silence that proceed to envelop the Hospital Wing…
It wasn't really an uncomfortable one; they never were with him anymore.
Surprisingly, it was Tom who spoke first, and, lowering his unfinished slice of pumpkin bread to the sheets over his lap, he asked, quite abruptly, "Do you miss them?" When she regarded him blankly, he added, "Your parents."
My parents? The utter unexpectedness of it struck Hermione, so much so that her jaw froze mid-chew. It was, by far, the most random question Tom Riddle had ever asked her, ever… And it was a question that no one had really ever asked her before. She could tell that his curious gaze was waiting for her answer, though, so she took a deep breath and sighed. "I do… all the time."
Wordlessly, Tom studied her keenly, his eyebrows rising just slightly, almost attentively. Two months ago, Hermione would never have predicted the Heir of Slytherin's open, almost inviting expression would actually cause her to want to keep talking… or that his expression could even be open, inviting, and attentive.
Biting her tongue as she indecisively wavered for a moment, Hermione finally added, a bit roughly, "And it's been more difficult than it should be, really, because people positively tiptoe around the subject. They have ever since it happened. Harry's parents—"
Hermione paused abruptly, wondering whether it was really her place to tell Tom what was in reality Harry's, but then figured it wouldn't hurt matters much if she did. "What happened to mine happened to them—much longer ago, though— so just knowing that he's been through sort of the same thing has been a bit of a relief… but even he doesn't like to talk about that sort of thing. And…" Her voice cracked, and, to her mortification, she felt a tiny flush burn up the back of her neck. "And it's hard, getting over them like that."
As soon as she trailed off, a question flickered in Tom's conscientious gray eyes. She could tell that he was vacillating, trying to decide whether to speak or not, so she held back any other response she might have given and waited… until he made up his mind and asked quietly, "What were they like?"
Hermione's thin eyebrow shot up. "Who, my parents?"
He nodded.
"What were my parents like…" Hermione mused, once again, honestly never recalling a time when she had been asked that question before, and asked rhetorically, "How do you answer a question like that?"
Closing her eyes, resting her chin on her fist meditatively, the brunette began to systematically shuffle though the countless memories she had of her family, smiling as she encountered ones that she was particularly fond of…
Like her father accidentally shaving off half his moustache, walking around in public for two days without noticing, finally finding out when—bless his good-natured soul—a ten year old Hermione solemnly informed him that he strongly resembled a man she had just learned about in class, who was the leader of something called the Not Zees…
But, yet, he had always been there for her when she had needed someone to talk to, when she was nervous, or excited, or scared…how he always seemed to know what to do, had a perfect little quip or piece of ridiculously cliché but appropriate advice that helped show her the right way without directly coming out and telling her the answer, like 'Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body' when she felt overwhelmed with schoolwork and 'If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun' when she got too uptight…
Well, actually, that one fit her mum a bit more, like when Hermione would take early morning runs with her mother through the city streets during the first four summers she was home from school, together braving the blowing wind, the blazing sun, the pouring rain, whatever mother nature threw at them, tearing through the deepest puddles…
And, of course, the inevitable arguments that arose each year upon the approach of Hermione's birthday, which, she was ashamed to admit, she had rather relished eavesdropping on… Hearing what they were planning to do… Where they each wanted to take her… Occasionally siding with either her father or her mother, giving the other a bit of a cold shoulder until they relented…
"Merlin, Nefertari, they spoiled you right and proper, didn't they?" Tom's voice interjected, sounding considerably amused as it interrupted her line of thought.
Whaaaat? Hermione's head jerked off her hand, her eyes blinking open. How did he... ? Tom's head, his right ear, was cocked interestedly toward her, seemed to be listening very intently, to something… Sweet Merlin!
She gaped at him, openmouthed. "Please don't tell me I just said all that out loud," she said weakly, not especially wanting to know the answer.
Tom actually smiled—only slightly, just a little tug up at the corners of the lips—but the corner of eyes crinkled softly, genuinely. "There was nothing wrong with what you said." He paused, idly twirling his wand around his fingers, and then added, very quietly, "They sound like they were… good people, your parents."
In nearly the blink of an eye, the hot, burning sensation again sprang around the rims of her eyes, and the harrowing threat that tears would spill over became very real…but Hermione forced forward a smile, did it for her parents. "They were."
Oh God, at that moment she longed, longed with everything in her soul to tell Tom that her parents were Muggles; that yes, it was true, that so many Muggles existed who were good, good people… But, tragically, he had never in his seventeen years encountered a single one of them.
"And being here only makes it worse, really," she continued quickly, forcefully shoving the renegade desire from her mind. At his sharp glance, she shrugged halfheartedly. "It's not that I don't like Hogwarts, but…" Trailing off, Hermione let out a tiny, frustrated puff of air.
But I was sent here with the sole mission to destroy you! And I did! And… and, God, I don't want you gone.
"But what?" Tom asked in that same soft, attentive tone, simultaneously going for his fourth slice of pumpkin bread.
Momentarily distracted, Hermione gawked at him as he ate. Merlin, he could compete with Ron! And that was saying a lot — although, from his slight frame, one would never be able to tell. And, from how thin he had been looking lately, Hermione was relieved to see that the fault didn't appear to lie with him himself—as it was now clear that he was more than willing to consume food—but, probably, with the curse.
Backing up to the subject at hand, Hermione mentally weighed her options. Well, she could be honest, without completely telling him everything…
"But I've been under this…. pressure… lately," Hermione began carefully, choosing her words conscientiously. She glanced over at him, shifting in the wooden chair to avoid cramping her back, pulling her pajama-clad legs up and sitting cross-legged on the seat. "You know when you have to do something, but you're not sure if you want to do it?"
Not that it matters much now, anyway. It's already been done.
When the dark-haired Slytherin nodded, not interrupting, she continued tightly, "Well, that's a bit how I've felt, and Harry and Ron…Draco, Ginny, Lavender… They're my best friends, they really are, but sometimes they just…"
Hermione waved her hands slightly, her eyes distant as she searched for a way to continue, "They just don't understand it. At all," she added, rather darkly, under her breath. "But…" Dare I say it? "But now, something's come up, something I didn't expect to happen, and I've been berating myself to death over it because I feel like I'm betraying them, somehow, with this new… idea I'm having."
Tom's eyebrows again lifted slightly. Thank Merlin he wasn't asking her to go into specifics. "Have you told them about this?"
"Well…" Oh God no. They would throw me into St. Mungo's Ward for the Mentally Insane. "That's the thing. Even if I did tell them, they wouldn't even make the slightest attempt to understand, save investigating an avenue that would only clarify their already preconceived beliefs—and some of them are faulty, let me tell you."
Sighing heavily, the deep breath of air, flowing from her mouth in a rather loud whooooosh, Hermione's stressed lungs seized the chance to relax. Staring at her hands, she finished softly, "And… I don't know what do to."
She had always wondered why Muggle psychiatrists made so much money, when all they really seemed to do was sit there and listen to people ramble about their problems, but as soon as those words parted from her lips, as ridiculously vague and general as they were… she felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off her chest. It felt so... so freeing, there really was no other word for it, to feel like she had truly, honestly been listened to, with no disruptions for Quiddich practices, or whatever else usually came up.
No wonder they said Tom Riddle could charm the teachers. As she had just found out, Tom, if he really wanted to do it, had a way of making people feel as if what they had to say was important. As if they were important. She supposed that talent had helped him win over followers early on in his rise.
Tom, for his part, was studying her rather seriously, now that he had finished up the slice of pumpkin bread and another caramel chocolate truffle. "This thing that you've had to do," he began slowly, as if he was going over each line before he said it, "From what you said, it sounds like it's just you who's been going at it. Not them. Doesn't that give you the right to make your own decisions about it without their influence?"
Hermione gave him a thin, watered-down smile, the sparkle in her eyes dimming just a bit. "If only it were that simple."
Right. If only. That alone was already too much to ask.
Wearily, Hermione shook her head, and her hand reached for another slice of pumpkin bread… to find that there was only one left. She split the soft, spongy cake down the center and offered him half, mildly surprised that the more than generous pile of desserts had gone so quickly. She had only had one slice, herself… and two chocolates… so he had to have had…
"To-om!" She exclaimed reprovingly as he readily accepted it, questioningly cocked his head at her outburst, and proceeded to down the sweet bread readily. "You ate a ton!"
"How very perceptive of you, Nefertari …" A little smirk spread across his face, studying her in a kind of amused fascination, and he added, "Now I think I'm going to go and sleep it off, if you don't mind…."
As if in testimony to this, his eyelids drooped a bit, the dark circles under his eyes becoming a bit more pronounced under the shifting light of the moon. Tiredly replacing his wand beneath his pillow —strangely enough, a habit that he and Harry seemed to share, Hermione noted—Tom gingerly eased himself back against the pillow, another flash of exhaustion flickering across his face.
It was the Curse; he was starting to enervate again, Hermione realized, and instantly, without even thinking… she took his hand. Even she was rather shocked when she felt her fingers rest on him, surprised that she had done it so reflexively, and when Tom's muted gray eyes laded on her, a confused shimmer to them… she smiled, her shining eyes forming the words her mouth couldn't quite bring itself to say yet. Let me, Tom.
Let me help you.
The Slytherin nodded stiffly then, though, like he understood that… somehow. As he did, Hermione's surveying gaze meandered down from his face and rapidly zeroed in on a shiny chain, a gleaming, absolutely exquisite silver and green pendant poking haphazardly out from under his partly unbuttoned white oxford.
Leaning forward, her right hand still comfortably interlaced with his, Hermione reached out with her left. Tom's eyes sharply followed her motion, but he didn't seem to figure out what she was so intent on seeing… until she carefully pulled the left collar of his shirt a bit more open to the left and laid a slender finger on the pendant. "What is this?"
Hermione noticed his shoulders tense, heard his breath audibly hitch, but he skillfully kept his expression completely clear and nonchalantly nodded at the Amulet of Eras hanging from her neck. "The same thing that you wear," he said calmly, shrugging as best as he could while lying in bed. "A family heirloom."
Her keen brown eyes having long become adjusted to the otherworldly light of the full moon, Hermione studied the twisting silver snake with two glittering diamonds for eyes and a smooth, emerald encrusted boarder. The chain screamed wealth, was dripping with it. No wonder Tom wore it beneath his shirt—hid it, really. There was no doubt in her mind that Calugala Malfoy, the insufferable, prattish snake that he was, would have launched a full-blown investigation of the simple 'half-blood's' background had he seen it…
... But, then again, if Malfoy was working with Tom to manage the Death Eaters, wouldn't he have known that Tom was the Heir of Slytherin? And if that was the case, was the entire 'half-blood' game played just to keep up appearances?
Ah, not this debate again.
Hermione mentally frowned at the unfathomable paradox and decided to keep up the innocent act. "But I thought you said your father was a Muggle," she said softly, tucking the chain back into his shirt, covering it back up with the collar, and patting the material lightly before pulling her hand away.
Tom seemed to visibly relax the moment the chain was out of sight. "He was." He scowled briefly, and then managed to suppress it… but that didn't mean there was any less acidity in his tone. "My mother's family was a bit extensive as far as magic goes, though… The pendant is the only physical proof of her—my—bloodline that I possess. But…but now…" his voice trailed off, the fatigue beginning to verbally make its presence known.
Hermione glanced over at him, and now it was her eyes urging him to continue. "But now… what?"
Tom's worn-out yet aristocratic face twisted into an empty smile, a smile that really did nothing for him. "But now, my family's secrets will vanish with me. And no one… no one will ever know," he mumbled under his breath, more to himself than to her, Hermione realized. Although, she thought she had an idea of what he was referring to, and she wasn't especially inclined to think about it.
"Tom." Hermione's grip on his hand involuntarily tightened. "What do you mean?... Tom?"
The Slytherin's eyes were slowly closing, and Hermione could tell that, even though she was holding on to his hand, her effect wouldn't last forever, the portion of the energy that she had restored to him was leaving him far too quickly, and this conversation was still going to steadily drain him until he lost consciousness. Just thinking about it made Hermione's skin start to crawl, and she let out the most unnoticeable of shudders.
His mother…Merlin, what kind of woman would curse her own child with such a terrible end?
Resolutely, though, Tom reopened his eyes and feebly pulled her closer, close enough that Hermione could still hear his fading whisper. "I… never told you the rest of the story, about my father…" —A word that should have held so much affection he rolled off his tongue like the dirtiest of curses— "did I?"
Hermione felt her stomach tighten uncertainly. "No, you didn't."
Her eyes widened, concerned, but she waited quite curiously and expectantly as he closed his gray eyes again but continue to speak. "The orphanage had overcrowded… they had sent me to his house for the time being, because they needed the room, and as far as they saw it… I had another place I could go if I had to," he began tonelessly, his voice becoming lower, more gravelly with sleep the longer he spoke.
"He… he hadn't anticipated my coming, quite obviously, as he was throwing a bit…a bit of a social gathering that night… Nothing but an excuse to spend time with his drinking mates and their wives, rather than with his own son, I'm sure…And after… after it was over, he saw me…. But…. he couldn't remember who I was… why I was there… thought I had broken in, so, of course… he had to stop me from buglaring his enormous house, his precious… treasured silver, his expensive furnishings…"
His worn out voice twisted bitterly, sarcastically, "I suppose he… he didn't realize what he was doing, he was so revoltingly intoxicated…"
Suddenly, his hand squeezed Hermione's with more energy than she would have thought him capable at that point, but she let him hang on and tiredly continue the narrative, "But, at the time, I honestly think he... he would have killed me, would have… woken up with nothing more than a hangover the next morning… figured out that it was actually his… his son who was lying, stabbed to death, on the… on the den floor…and wouldn't have thought a thing of it…"
He was slipping away into unconsciousness quickly now, and progressing painfully slowly. "I couldn't use magic to help me, at the time… wasn't old enough for it to be legal… but I… I still got the knife away…and… he lunged. He fell… on me." Tom's voice had grown so faint, Hermione practically needed a pair of Fred and George's Extendable Ears to hear his final words before he drifted off.
"He fell… on… on the knife…and… and then it was… he was gone…."
Tom trailed off, his breaths becoming slow, even… but Hermione's mouth dropped open in complete horror.
When Dumbledore had told them of it, that Tom's father had died at Tom's hand, the deed had sounded so... so wicked, the kind of thing that someone would whisper in hushed tones to the morning gossip, the sort of: 'See him, over there? He killed his own father. Now, honestly think, what kind of person it takes to do such a horrid thing as that, can you imagine…'
So it was true, then, that so much of Tom Riddle's life was to be one big misunderstanding.
Hermione bet that no one had ever really given him the chance to explain it fully and properly before. My God, we've all condemned him for this, and it was really an accident!
Gently, she tucked his hand back under the blanket, watched his chest rise and fall calmly, systematically, his right cheek buried in the pillow, his dark hair again mussed, spilling across his closed left eye. He would have been irritated with it like that. Hermione hesitated, and then, very lightly, leaned forward and affectionately brushed the soft, dark brown locks to the side, back off his face…
And a throbbing, painful ache began, this one not in her back…. or in her temples…. or in her elbow…
But in her heart.
Mum… Dad… What have I done?
A/N: QUESTION: As you might have noticed, Christmas is fast approaching, and I need to know… What should Hermione give Tom as a gift? Nothing extravagant, you know, just a little thing that she could easily pick up at Hogsmeade or something, but what do you think would be appropriate? (because I really don't know, and I'm not as creative as many of you are). Oh, and if you have a question about the pendant… no, its not the same one from the HBP, and he doesn't have the ring either, because, like I said, I wrote this before HBP.
Peace out,
Lady Moonglow