25 – Liminality
October 31, 1943
"REDUCTO!"
Bark went flying into the cold night's air, exploding violently from where it had once been innocently adorning the tree that was now missing a huge chunk from its core.
"CONFRINGO! EXPULSO!"
The shouted curses flooded from Hermione's mouth, clear and crisp aside from the very light warble to her voice from the furious tears that had wrung her dry earlier. Explosions and blasts sounded deep from within the Forbidden Forest where she ravaged the terrain and she didn't care—she didn't care who heard or IF anyone even did! She didn't care who or what would stumble upon her—she didn't bloody care!
"Treacherous SNAKE!" Another limb exploded off of a tree. "We had a DEAL!" The smell of burning dead leaves and brush permeated the air. "You can't just BACK OUT OF A DEAL!"
Hermione's wand swiped through the air another time followed by the sickening crack and groan of another of the old trees being devastated by her magic. She let out a series of disgruntled noises when her dress robes got tangled on various fallen branches that she'd been responsible for and furiously exploded the offensive objects after she was freed. Her anger had risen to the surface some time ago, bubbling over and overcoming the shame and embarrassment she'd struggled with immediately after fleeing from Tom Riddle's dismissal. Up to that very moment, Hermione had dutifully avoided the 'why' of her rather visceral reaction.
What he said shouldn't have mattered.
She didn't care about him.
It's not as though they were an item—much to Horace Slughorn's personal dismay.
She was stronger than this pissant fledgling Dark Lord anyway.
She did not require his acquiescence to mold the future—she was molding the bloody future!
He didn't need her? Well SHE didn't need HIM!
She would find another route to get her plans on track.
Tom Riddle was NOT the only way to achieve her goals.
She would find another route.
Fool.
Hermione's agitated spellcasting halted. Her head tilted to one side, listening to the whisper of her older self that seemed ever so slightly calmer than usual before she growled and let her bare feet take her further into the forest towards a nest of brambles and roots. "Shut up," she muttered.
Silly, ignorant child.
"I said, shut up." Stupid, old, know-it-all…me, Hermione groused internally, only realizing after the fact that the voice in her head likely would have heard it anyway.
Tom Riddle is the crux. . .
The voice continued as though it hadn't heard…or at least in a way that she wasn't willing to linger on.
He is the reason you've come back so far. He requires your assistance to carve his path, regardless of what he claims. He is the entire reason you are here.
A patch of vines disintegrated at the swish of her wand and Hermione climbed through the dust pile of where they'd once been, igniting small patches of spider webs with hissed incantations as she continued to move. She had no destination in mind, just knew that the moment she stopped, everything would catch up and that was something she was completely unprepared to face.
"HE is the silly, ignorant child!" Hermione snarled at the voice in a most petulant tone. "And for someone who supposedly needs my 'assistance,' he was very insistent that he doesn't need it. That's fine. IT'S fine. EVERYTHING IS BLOODY FINE. I've no desire to be where I'm not needed NOR wanted!" The last made her stutter in her steps, a shaky breath escaping her as she thought of the words he so calmly declared to her beneath her own damned tower. Hermione swallowed down the sour taste on her tongue, continuing on through the forest, winding out the tightness in her chest. "He doesn't need me and I certainly do NOT need to ride his coattails to my freedom in the future! I'll figure it out on my own. I don't need or want him either! CONFRINGO!"
Hermione was sure she heard a disembodied snort echo within her own skull.
If you knew the lies you tell. . .
"IT'S FINE!" And then she was shouting into the small clearing she'd stumbled into. "That little shite doesn't need my help to carelessly delve into darkness and pop out on the other side as a monstrous beast of a man! He did that all fine on his own the first time! He's—"
Hermione's words died in her throat as, when she went to place another foot in front of the last, the world beneath her lurched and a harsh flicker of images passed behind her eyelids. Her stomach turned and an intense pressure pounded in her head, blinding her from the pain. Her knees wobbled, buckling under her weight.
'I'm ready to die.'
The voice was unmistakable and the pain in her head grew more intense at the sound of it.
Cracking open an eye, she tried to make out the fuzzy images before her. Hermione was certain she was hallucinating when the shaking, shimmering flickers of shapes she hadn't seen in…in a long, long time flashed in and out of sight. The harder she tried to focus on them, the more determined they seemed to evade her; it was as though the pristine images only ever existed on the outermost edges of her vision.
'Does it hurt?'
'Dying? Not at all…quicker and easier than falling asleep.'
The strength of the whispered words came and went, reminding her of someone idly scanning radio stations. Hermione's breath caught in her chest, the voices from a life that had burned away in the fires of war hit her so hard that she felt the intense and immediate desire to vomit.
So she did.
She felt the splatter of it on her bare arms and the pressure in her skull went from mild, to agonizing, to unbearable. Bursts of light popped in and out of her narrowed sight and Hermione struggled to even stay upright on all fours. She vaguely registered the taste of copper on her tongue while trying to make sense of any of it.
'Harry Potter: the boy who lived…come to die.'
Hermione swallowed down another wave of bile, eyes rolling, fluttering in their sockets as they tried to pinpoint the new silhouette some distance away. This image came into focus more readily. His pale, vein streaked skin, gleaming red eyes, and lipless mouth curled into a smug, utterly self-satisfied smile and Hermione recognized the Tom Riddle of her future—the Dark Lord Voldemort.
She felt her heart jump and an ache of loss panged in her chest at the sight of him.
Her mind reeled and boggled over what exactly she was witnessing; over why.
Sounds of several spatters drew her attention down, to the puddle of sick, to the dried leaves and soil around it, to where dozens of drops of what her foggy mind registered as blood—her blood—were dripping. Shakily, Hermione shifted her weight onto one arm so she could bring her fingers to her face, tracing back to the source of this blood. When she pulled them away again, she realized there was a steady stream of it coming from her nose.
…and Merlin…her head…
…her head…
'Avada kedavra!'
Hermione flinched, the ferocity of the spell uttered and aimed in her direction made her instinctively crumple, hitting the ground fully with a groan. Her eyes had shut tightly of their own accord but she still somehow saw green battering against the backs of her lids. She heard the collapse of not one, but two, bodies and her chest tightened again.
..her head…
Weakly, she reopened her eyes and found herself nose to nose with the suddenly crystal clear picture of the body of Harry Potter.
The bile found its way up again, choking her, mingling with her blood as it all puddled beneath her cheek.
She wanted to look away.
Hermione desperately wanted to turn her head, to make this inexplicable scene dissolve and burn it from her memory, but she couldn't. The harder she tried to make it all stop, the more powerless she became.
Another flickering outline, a woman, one she had known before—Narcissa Malfoy—her image stuttered in and out of existence all while her dead friend remained very, very real. Hermione couldn't wrap her mind around it, she had trouble discerning why—why, why, WHY—and then she saw it.
A quick movement of Harry's lips.
A slight flare of his nostrils.
The barest nod of his head.
Hermione's eyes rolled up towards the distant figure shrouded in familiar robes, shakily gathering himself to his feet. He was the only other clear image in the clearing of fading, fuzzing people-shaped outlines.
…Tom…
Lord Voldemort wobbled on his feet, swiping a hand at the ever persistent doting of Bellatrix Lestrange to hiss expectantly at the Malfoy matriarch.
'Dead,' the shaky image of Narcissa Malfoy proclaimed as she stood, facing a dark robed creature in the distance.
She felt even more sickened when she realized her first urge was not of elation that her friend was alive, but was an inexplicable desire to call out to the Dark Lord, to name Narcissa's treachery, to declare her a liar.
It hit her like a ton of bricks.
…T..om…
Her Harry had died.
…not dead….
Her Harry had never come out of this forest alive.
...To…m…he's not…dead…
What was this?
Worry not, Hermione. . .
That voice, the one calling from inside her head, echoed serenely—too serenely. It was more calm and collected than the sliver of consciousness from her Elder self had ever been.
You just need a bit of. . .perspective.
Hermione coughed, something thicker than stomach acid and spittle coming up this time. Her eyes squinched shut, pressure in her head mounting, causing sparks of light to burst and swim behind her eyelids. This wasn't right. None of this was right. There was something entirely wrong about the lilting voice in her ears.
"You're…not…" The words leaked from between Hermione's gritted teeth. "You're not—"
Allow me to assist you.
The ground beneath her lurched once more and, as quickly as it had come, the oppressive, dizzying force that had been pressing in on her lifted suddenly, leaving her a different kind of light-headed. A great weight felt as though it'd been torn clean away off of her weakened form, though she remained curled and shivering on her side. The flickering images, the fading voices, they'd all seen fit to bugger off and the sultry, resonant voice within her head had gone silent as well.
Everything had gone silent; silent and dark.
So very silent and dark.
It was a final, fleeting thought within Hermione's mind before the silence and the darkness and the cold coaxed her into their folds.
. . .
November 1943
The days that Tom had either missed or been late to class had been very few and far between since he'd been admitted into Hogwarts. In fact, one could count the total number of incidents combined on one hand. If pressed, he would not be proud to admit that he'd finally added a fifth digit to the count and that there was but one person in the world he would blame for it.
He wouldn't say her name, though. No. He'd mentally sworn off speaking the name aloud in much of the same superstition that had run rampant through certain areas of ancient Greece. Calling upon her name would bring ill fate and ruin…so he didn't.
Others, unfortunately, had no qualms with it. As he provided his Arithmancy professor with the humblest of apologies for his tardiness – which was not at all an attempt to not be paired with the girl at start of class; he wasn't avoiding her…he was there, after all – she spouted off the name as though it were nothing.
"Mr. Riddle," she said in an all too transparent manner, "have you any idea where Persephone is this morning?"
His eyes narrowed and it was only then that he realized the witch in question was nowhere to be seen. Tom eyed his professor suspiciously as she looked like she had something else that she wanted to ask him but it was far beyond proper to voice. He vaguely wondered just how many of their professors seemed to think that he and Per—that they were a 'thing.' Considering how generally unobservant they were about anything that actually mattered, he suspected the number was greater than he cared for. "I'm sorry, Professor, but no. I've no idea, actually. Why do you ask?"
The trickling, tingling sensations cascading down his spine were not any sort of signs of anxiousness or concern over the whereabouts of the nameless witch-they weren't.
His professor seemed taken aback by that response, letting her stare linger on him until she was satisfied with the apparent lack of deceit—as if she could tell either way—eventually shaking her head. "No reason, Tom, no reason."
The reason is, Tom thought to himself, because that witch has nearly as spotless of an attendance record as mine.
The only times she'd missed classes were the days she'd been utterly incapacitated and warming a cot in the Hospital Wing.
Tom's tongue ran over the tops of his teeth, his vision blurring into an unclear haze as the professor's voice faded into a dull hum. He tried to pay attention, quill scribbling across parchment in as methodical a fashion as it ever had before, but the fact that not one other person in that classroom gave a moment's pause as to the whereabouts of their classmate sat heavily in the forefront of his mind.
The topmost performing student in that class already, tied with him, and not a one paused to think it odd or amiss or even slightly concerning.
He was stirred from the errant thought by the snapping of his quill, the nib flying off somewhere he couldn't spot. Cursing quietly, he hefted his bag up to sift through for another, all the while shaking off his earlier…observations.
He was done with that girl. DONE.
. . . . .
Abraxas settled into his typical seat in second period, moving a bit groggily thanks to the heavy imbibing from the private Slytherin festivities the night before. He'd preempted the foreseen consequences with a gratuitous dosing of hangover prevention potions that he and Nott had smuggled in along with one too many bottles of his father's best whisky, yet, as he found that morning, there was only so much magic could do.
At least, he thought blearily, it's one hour closer to over.
Methodically, Abraxas extracted his charms book and an assortment of small items and knick-knacks that had been on that year's supply list. He went about arranging them all in parallels or strict ninety degree angles near one another in a way of keeping himself occupied on something other than wanting to expel his breakfast onto the desk before him. He was nearly done with his knolling efforts when the class bell rang and startled him out of his daze. Though the professor started in on his lesson, Abraxas couldn't help but feel as though something was off.
It wasn't until Professor Flanagan asked his first question of the day that he realized what it was.
Suddenly a great deal more sober than he'd been a minute earlier, Abraxas stared at the empty seat across the classroom to find it distinctly devoid of a confident, stiff armed hand that he was so used to seeing being the first thrust into the air. He straightened in his seat and, as casually as he could, chanced a few glances around the room to see if his Lady had seated herself anywhere else for their class. When he found no trace of her, Abraxas felt a gnawing anxiety growing in the pit of his stomach.
Tom had it in his mind to speak with her last night…
That anxiety became just a touch more pronounced.
Tom had not returned to the dorms the night before, not that he'd seen or heard, anyway. Abraxas doubted his master would miraculously disappear from classes the day after someone like Persephone Callaghan disappeared, though.
And yet he hadn't seen Tom or Persephone at breakfast that morning.
His thoughts lingered on all the possibilities, especially after what had happened to that loser student that had supposedly been her date to Slughorn's party. It was that last bit that caused him even further pause.
No…Tom wouldn't. He fancies her too much…mumbles her name in his sleep even…
His eyes drifted again to the empty spot where his Lady had been since the very start of the year and he frowned deeply.
And yet…
. . . . .
Tom would not be available to confer with – if he did, in fact,even show up – until the lunch hour, so, having a free period before then, Abraxas made to keep himself busy by flying out all his excess energy on the Pitch. He donned his Quidditch uniform and took to the sky, sharing the space only with a select few others that appeared to have the same idea. Abraxas spiraled, he bobbed and weaved through a handful of invisible opponents. He chucked a quaffle back and forth through an unmanned hoop, tossing and zipping around to the other side to catch it and start the looping practice over again. Mostly, he entertained every action he could think of to nudge his mind further and further from the tumultuous thoughts regarding Persephone Callaghan's unexplained absence and the undoubtedly uncomfortable discussion with Tom Riddle that he'd been trying to bolster himself to have for the past hour and change.
Abraxas stretched out on his broom, one arm out and poised to snatch his freshly thrown quaffle out of the sky when he heard it.
"Abraxas. . ."
He startled, the ball tumbling off his fingertips as his whole body tensed at the voice. Head whirling around to the Slytherin stands, Abraxas scanned the seats for the figure of a bundled up Persephone, his heart thumping excitedly with what should have been relief but served to be an inexplicable anxiousness instead. Imagine his confusion when there was no body for him to behold.
Squinting, he hovered on his broom, eying the bleachers hard from one side to the other, top to bottom, his face scrunched as though any of it would help him track down the source of his name on the wind. Thinking he must have imagined it, he swiped a calloused hand across his brow. Abraxas resolved to head inside soon to pester the elves for an early snack in order to stave off whatever midday hallucinations had come from his woefully empty stomach when it came again like a gentle caress down his spine.
"Abraxas. . ."
Abraxas' entire body swiveled, an unseen force pointing him towards the Forbidden Forest. His eyes immediately began searching the tree line for any sign of her, hands tightening their hold on his broomstick as an unsettling chill trickled down his spine. "Miss Callaghan?" her name left him in a quiet question and he immediately chastised himself. Idiot, he thought. She certainly wouldn't hear you mumbling from up here—
"Abraxas, please—"
The choked plea sounded loud and strong, as though it were humming from inside his very head and he spared absolutely no thought for the strangeness of it before kicking off the nearest goalpost and soaring directly into the forest.
Abraxas touched down on the forest floor, drawing his wand from his boot and carting his broom along with him at his other side in preparation for a hasty exit. "Persephone!" he called, her name being swallowed down by the sudden oppressive shade beneath the trees.
He hadn't expected a response, not really, so the disconcerting—and probably inhuman—shifting of brush and branches somewhere off to his right had his fingers clenching more tightly around his wand. Schooling his nervousness into a tight grimace, Abraxas kept moving farther in, making more of an effort to quiet his steps while still making haste.
"Persephone," Abraxas hissed into the eerie stillness of forest. "My Lady, it's me, Abraxas. Please, are you hurt? If so, I need you to—"
A frigid gust of wind whipped up in front of him, cutting off his words and the cold slicing through his layers of gear to send goosebumps prickling to life all over his skin. It was short but strong enough to make him falter in his steps, shutting his eyes against the blast. Once it had abated, Abraxas reopened his eyes, his breath catching in his throat at the path it had revealed and the broken and scorched trees and earth that lay beyond. Without hesitation, he climbed back onto his broom and sped into the depths of the forest, frantically searching the grounds for any sign of Persephone Callaghan.
. . . . .
Lawrence took a long swig of one of his many prescribed draughts as Madam Aubrey dutifully watched. He held the potion in his cheeks, unsure if the burning sensation in his throat would be more or less forgiving than the wretched taste of the liquid on his tongue. It was the movement of his stern faced caregiver, readying herself to do something with that wand of hers that would make him swallow that decided for him.
He gulped down the potion and coughed out a loud BLEAGH in its wake.
"Will he be well enough to return to classes soon, Madam?"
The Mediwitch eyed Lawrence a moment longer, making sure he wasn't about to cough back up his treatment, before smiling and saying, "Yes, dear. Young Mister Pettigrew has made excellent recovery time. At this rate he should be back to the dorms in another one to two days."
In the midst of his dramatic hacking, Lawrence managed a tight smile. He swiped his mouth with the back of an arm and managed to not grimace at the taste still lingering on his tongue. "See, Hazel? Nearly right as rain. No need for you to keep coming here." At the sudden drooping of her expression, Lawrence hastily added, "N-not that you're not wanted! I-I-I mean…"
Madam Aubrey blinked at the young couple and rolled her eyes, excusing herself back to her station to do…anything else. She was halfway back to her desk when the doors to the Hospital Wing were kicked open and Abraxas Malfoy tromped in, eyes flicking around the room until they settled on her.
"Mister Malfoy!" Aubrey cried out in a startled shock. "What on EARTH—" She didn't realize the frantic look in his gaze until he'd closed the distance between them in a scant few steps and she finally took note of the bundle in his arms wrapped in what appeared to be his Quidditch robes. "Oh my Merlin!" She gasped. "What happened here?"
"I-I don't know, Madam, I-I found her in the woods—"
"The woods?!" The witch clicked her tongue and it seemed to snap her head back into place. "Quickly, here, over here on the cot. Place her down—yes—there."
Madam Aubrey shooed Abraxas away from the form of Persephone Callaghan with more than a little effort, very nearly drawing back from how cold her skin was to the touch. The boy hovered at her heels with every step she made, his grey eyes wide and locked on the girl he'd brought to her barefoot and, aside from his robes, draped only in a fine evening gown that was partially shredded by brambles from the forest. She passed her wand over the girl, murmuring incantation after incantation that cleaned crusted blood from the corners of her mouth, from beneath each nostril, and set scrapes and gashes that looked to be, thankfully, not at all caused by any of the questionable wildlife lurking within the forest, to mend.
Once the worst of it seemed to have been dealt with, Madam Aubrey turned back to the pallid Abraxas. Her initial glare softened. "Mister Malfoy." When there was no response, she snapped her fingers several times before the boy's nose until he jolted and blinked at her with the most heart stopping, stricken look upon his face. "Mister Malfoy," she said again gently, "are you alright?"
Abraxas thought about it a moment and nodded dumbly, eyes drifting towards the figure on the cot once more. "Fine. I'm fine. Is she—"
"Miss Callaghan will be just fine," she said, expertly concealing any doubts she had to the contrary until her more thorough examination. "I need you to go quickly and fetch the Headmaster. Alert him and Professor Ogden as to what has happened. Can you do that for me?"
He swallowed thickly, looking up to the Mediwitch, over to Persephone, and back. "Y-yes Madam, of course."
Abraxas was once again staring at the far too still, far too cold, far too shallowly breathing for his tastes Persephone. Madam Aubrey frowned, braced a hand on either of his shoulders and ducked her head into his view. "You're sure you're alright, Mister Malfoy?"
Nodding, he politely tugged free of her grip and fled from the wing.
"Lawrence? Lawrence! MADAM AUBREY!"
Aubrey heard a surprised yelp from across the room and turned to see what in the great green earth had happened NOW. What she was met with was a previously hardy looking Lawrence Pettigrew who'd lost all color to his cheeks, was blubbering nonsensical babble, and staring with terrified eyes at the newest patient who lay several cots away.
"Sleeping draught! There! On the nightstand!" Utterly out of patience, she flicked her wand so the vial in question floated into the hands of the panicked girl at Lawrence's bedside. Within seconds, Hazel was insistently coaxing the liquid down his throat and, at least for the meantime, Lawrence's sudden panic attack subsided.
Sweet Merlin, this school is falling apart.
. . . . .
In the Great Hall, Tom and the others were gathered at their usual spots having lunch in relatively easy silence. The question of Tom's late night and morning absence was tangible in the air between them all, though not a one of his minions dared to actually voice it. Someone—Tarquin Nott—did, however, muster the courage to ask about the whereabouts of their fellow housemate, Abraxas.
As though speaking his name brought him into existence, the group of them watched a blond mopped blur of green robes and Quidditch pads burst through the large doorway and stride with great haste straight up to the dais at the head of the Hall. Tom looked up only after his followers had started murmuring excitedly to one another and just barely caught Headmaster Dippet and the Ravenclaw head of house exchanging tight looks and excusing themselves from the room. It was then that he noted the form of Abraxas Malfoy who turned from watching the adults exiting hurriedly to make way to their table and the very spot at which he sat.
Tom's eyebrow rose higher and higher the closer Abraxas came. Unable to stifle the sneer at the sight of that terrible uniform, Tom intoned flatly, "I thought it customary to wash up before joining us after a practice, Malfoy."
"Tom, it's Persephone, she—"
The blatant use of that name that every-bloody-person kept throwing at him that day finally triggered a low, reflexive growl from Tom. "We will not be speaking about that witch any more, Abraxas, do you understand?" He snapped defensively in as loud a voice as he could without drawing any more attention than the awkwardly looming boy already had.
Abraxas was floored by his reaction. It simply didn't compute based on how much Tom had been fussing about the witch leading up to Halloween. His brain hadn't quite caught up to his mouth or the rest of him when he flopped heavily into the spot next to Tom and words insisted on still fumbling past his lips. "But Tom," he argued, "I found her, hurt, in the Forbidden Forest! She was—"
Tom stiffened at the word "hurt" but exhaled calmly through his nose and said, "I don't care how you found her or even that you did. She is no longer my concern."
"And that's not a bit shirty then, is it?" Abraxas' immediate snarl of a reply was something the likes of which none of them had ever witnessed before—especially Tom. "I suppose we'll also call it a coincidence that you were the last to have seen her before I find her all scraped up and freezing in the middle of a warscape in the woods then, eh?"
If he'd been more in his right mind, he would have seen the surprise on Tom Riddle's face. As it was, Abraxas didn't realize exactly all that had escaped him until his master's face had lost any and all traces of the polite disdain it always held for creatures around him and turned into a stony mask that exuded the extremes of his displeasure. Abraxas felt his heart leap into his throat and, at last realizing his error, he dropped his gaze immediately.
A tight, uncomfortable silence stretched between them until Tom's icy voice broke it. "Precisely what are you implying, Abraxas?"
His nostrils flared in frustration at his own fear of the wizard in front of him, hands clenching to fists making the leather of his gear creak with the movement. Abraxas swallowed, tongue thick in his mouth, and he shook his head. "Nothing, my Lord. Please, forgive me." He shut his eyes against the pounding of his heart in his ears and knew, he just knew what kind of fate he'd secured for himself in his moment of weakness. Controlling the shake to his voice, Abraxas pushed through the sour taste of bile on his tongue and groveled as well as he could in the midst of a room full of people. "I-I just meant that...the Headmaster may have…questions for you once more details of your last encounter with—" He winced at the near misstep. "There may be questions."
Tom eyed him for a long, long time before blinking one equally long, slow time.
At last, Tom's carefully controlled tenor hissed throughout the space, quiet enough that none outside their circle would hear but firmly enough to instill the appropriate amount of sheer, absolute terror in every one of his followers. "I will show you leniency this one time, Malfoy, with consideration to your previous service and your—" He looked Abraxas over as if he were a piece of shite on his shoe. "—heightened state of barbarism coming off of the pitch. However, if you or any one of you, for that matter, mention her to me again, you will report to the Room every evening for drills at my hands until I am satisfied with your punishment. Is that understood?"
A murmur of "yes" sounded from all at the table, all except for Abraxas whose jaw and shoulders were still taut, muscles working through the clenching and grinding of his teeth.
"Abraxas?"
"Yes…my Lord," Abraxas said finally.
"Brilliant. Now go clean yourself up. You smell of sweat and the filth you touched."
The corners of Abraxas' mouth twitched toward a scowl but he bowed his head slightly still. "Yes, my Lord." With that, Abraxas hoisted himself to his feet and fled the presence of them all lest his temper and concern for Persephone Callaghan get him slaughtered for all to see.
The remaining of Tom's minions shared a most curious look with one another around the table at the new development. There was a mixture of ambivalence, confusion, and anticipation that, if Abraxas had still been in attendance, he would have noted as very concerning. Tom, for his part, returned to his meal and if he, perhaps, stabbed his fork into the meat on his plate more firmly or aggressively than usual, well…nobody commented on it.
. . . . .
Abraxas showered, changed, and played out the remainder of his day as though he hadn't already scheduled his execution by snapping at his master during their lunch hour. Just another solid day of questioning his personal decisions and fearing for his well-being - nothing new about that piece of his life really. He did at least find that the day had passed much more quickly than he'd realized as his thoughts were largely occupied on getting to the Hospital Wing after classes.
Madam Aubrey had been reluctant at first to allow him to visit, knowing full well he'd not already taken his meal in the Hall as he'd said, but she'd finally, begrudgingly agreed if only he was out before curfew. Abraxas quietly moved a chair to Persephone's bedside and settled into it, staring somberly at her unconscious form. He spared a glance once or twice over his shoulder to see Madam Aubrey shuffling about the room, cleaning one thing or another and generally tromping about making an indelicate ruckus, and it only served to irritate him more that for all her noise-making, Persephone's form remained quiet and still.
His palms itched to take her hand, his fingernails scraping at the weave of his trousers over his knees where his hands rested as way of trying to dissuade himself of doing just that. Abraxas wasn't fooled by whatever his Lord was blustering about this time. The way she'd gotten under Tom's skin so much, so quickly, the way he lost his composure at the drop of a hat on the topic of her—not that Tom had ever been much of one for "calm" per se, but things certainly had gotten much more chaotic since her transfer—at least to him, the signs were obvious. Which made the desires and urges he'd shamefully allowed to flourish within the privacy of his own bed curtains much more dangerous to his health than his stunt earlier that day.
That thought made Abraxas' heart skip a beat and a distinct lump lodge itself in his throat.
That's right. Already signed that warrant then, haven't I?
"Hanged for a dragon as an egg," Abraxas mumbled, took a deep, steadying breath, and reached out to take one of Persephone's limp hands between both of his own. He was surprised at the immediate wave of relief that washed over him as soon as he felt the more normal body temperature emanating from her skin than when he'd brought her in. He released a heavy, shuddered sigh, head drooping and he briefly pressed her knuckles to his forehead.
Fuck. Thank Merlin…
His grey eyes darted up to look at her sleeping face and he chanced the barest press of lips to her fingertips before returning to just cradling her hand in his. "I hope you will forgive my boldness when you awaken, my Lady, but you will never, ever enter that forest alone again," he spoke softly as though she could hear, his thumbs tracing circles across the back of her knuckles. "And, actually, I've been thinking all day about what summoned me to you and, certainly after seeing you there, I know it can't have been you…although…frankly, I find that I don't care." Abraxas swallowed thickly and let out another sigh. "…just as long as you plan on waking from this, I truly do not care."
Abraxas lost time there, stooped by Persephone's bedside, murmuring his idle one-sided conversation next to her. The dull ticking of the wall clock that had been so loud between Madam Aubrey's rustling around eventually faded into an afterthought even as the hour grew later and the cold chill of the evening seeped into the ward. He'd taken to rubbing soothing patterns over her skin, trying not to think of the choices that may present themselves to him should it turn out that Tom was behind this all. To choose between his Lord who promised power, yet would likely slaughter him if he had eyes in that very room, or stand by his Lady who was nearly as blindly infatuated with said aforementioned Lord?
Rocks…hard places…all that rot.
Finally having run out of words to fill the space with, Abraxas let his eyes wander over the mending job Madam Aubrey's spells had done. He couldn't see the bulk of what injuries he'd remembered peeking from anywhere beneath the soft cotton chemise she'd been changed into, but what scrapes had decorated her neck and arms seemed tended to at least. Sighing to himself, he shook his head again, grateful that she had been found. Absently, he drew her hand towards his lips again, intent on pressing another light and thankful kiss to her skin when a series of darkened marks on the underside of her arm caught his eye. His brow furrowed, wondering if the Mediwitch had missed some of her cuts after all. Abraxas turned Persephone's arm gently towards him, eyes scanning over the jagged slashes carved into her flesh once, twice, his grey eyes going wide on the third.
"Mister Malfoy?"
The sudden sound of his name jolted Abraxas into tucking Persephone's hand back at her side and nearly stumbling in his efforts to come to his feet a more appropriate distance away from her cot. Once he managed to right himself, he saw Madam Aubrey standing near the edge of the drawn privacy curtain, wearing a very odd expression of interest as she stared at him. He felt a heat climbing into his face and apologized automatically. "Forgive me, Madam Aubrey, you surprised me. I didn't hear you approach."
The Mediwitch straightened suddenly, a little shake of her head clearing the expression at once. She smiled coolly at him but stayed hovering near the curtain. "My apologies, didn't mean to startle." Madam Aubrey nodded towards Persephone's sleeping form and met his eyes again with a gentle look. "Miss Callaghan will be fine, she just needs a good long rest and she will be on her feet in no time. And, speaking of rest, it is time for you to return to the dormitories."
Abraxas seemed skeptical about her diagnosis but he nodded anyway. "Yes, Madam. Thank you for allowing me to visit so late." He allowed another short look at the unconscious witch before turning back to Madam Aubrey and offering her the most appropriate smile he could muster. "Have a good evening, Madam."
Madam Aubrey returned his smile and a nod, tracking his exiting form with a steady, curious gaze. "You as well. . . Abraxas."
. . . . .
"Tom, hand me those records over there, will you?" Hermione intoned absently, motioning with her chin towards the far end of the long, oaken desk they were seated around. She barely budged her eyes from the page she was scanning, blinking only between flipping it to the next as her other hand scribbled easily upon a parchment to the side of the tome she was bent over.
She heard a rustling of fabric, the sliding of a chair over wooden floorboards and vaguely noticed the figure at her side after seeing a short stack of parchment come into view. Hermione murmured a thank you, finishing her scribing of one particular note before sitting back up and reaching for them. She read over the first page and, several lines in, scrunched her face in confusion and then a slow, dawning realization.
Setting the stack back down very slowly, very deliberately, Hermione spoke with a deceptively calm cadence, "We've been over this…it's not possible." She watched him take a seat on the desk and his hand come into view to gently rest upon hers. She had to shut her eyes tightly, willing away the ache in her chest.
"I think, if you continue reading, that you shall find that it is quite possible, actually."
"Tom—"
"I've done the maths. I've checked it a hundred times over to be certain. Look, here, I'll show you."
She felt him reach awkwardly between them with his far hand, never releasing her other one, to pluck a few pages from the stack he'd given her. She resisted opening her eyes, she didn't WANT to see. She didn't want to because it was impossible and they'd been THROUGH it before.
"Hermione," Tom's voice was near her ear, louder, more insistent, yet somehow still gentle. "LOOK. I promise you—"
"Don't make promises you cannot keep, Tom Riddle," she said quickly, harshly.
He was undeterred and also utterly unfazed if his repositioning and the new, gently coaxing touch to her cheek was any sign.
"Hermione, please."
She opened her eyes at his plea. Even after all they'd been through together, he still so very rarely asked her for anything. When she drew her eyes back to his, she nearly hissed at herself over the waterworks that were swiftly fighting past all of her defenses. She ultimately lost the fight when she watched his normally stoic dark gaze soften in a way she knew in her gut that only SHE had ever, and likely WOULD ever, see. "Tom, don't…"
"Do you trust me?"
"What?" Hermione flinched at the abrupt and obvious question. She felt a bubbling of anger slipping into place between the budding pangs of loss and hope inside of her and her reply was snappy and immediate. "Of course I do! Why would you even ask such a ludicrous question?"
"Then look at the research before you bloody dismiss me," Tom's voice snapped in a stern tone, his hand dropping away from her face so she could, in fact, finally take a look at the papers.
Hermione felt his eyes on her during every long second of scanning over the spellwork theory and calculations along with all the arithmancy work he'd included.
Well, he certainly was not lying. He HAD checked his work at least a hundred times over.
…and they all pointed to an impossible, IMPOSSIBLE result.
She placed the papers down gently once more, though this time she couldn't steady the shake in her hands. He seemed to understand the gravity of this information being saddled upon her shoulders and he allowed her to breathe in the reality of it slowly, several times, before he finally spoke again.
"…they don't have to be lost."
"What if—what if your worst case happens?" Hermione was shaking her head already. She shut her eyes again and felt the trickle of tears sliding down her cheeks. His hands were there again, steadying her, swiping away the moisture.
"They don't have to be the ones lost," Tom repeated himself with a deliberate emphasis that made her wince.
She choked at his careful phrasing—always careful with his phrasing, but she knew. She KNEW the truth of it, as did he! It was right there in his perfect looping script. She reopened her eyes to inspect him as if to confirm that he truly understood, feeling her heart lurch when she saw the way he appeared to be memorizing every tiny detail of her face.
Bastard. Bloody bastard!
Saving her parents within the timeline and restoring their memories was possible but it came with many risks. The most devastating of them all would bring an entirely different kind of loss to them both.
Her breath hitched with a hiccup and she tried to protest again, but more and more, Merlin help her, she realized she wanted it. Gods, she wanted them back but she wasn't ready to lose this; to lose HIM. "You—"
"Have found…at least one thing in this world that I care more about than myself, Hermione," he spoke quietly, eyes never leaving her, even when his mouth twitched up into a smirk. "Even if there IS only the one."
Hermione watched his mouth moving, that delightful smirk of his still talking, trying to ease away the thump-thump-thumping of her heart in her ears. He knew. He knew as well as she what the decision would be and yet he still…
Bastard…
Tom stroked her hair from her face while looking at her with an expression of longing that cut her to her core.
Stubborn…
He leaned in, trailing his hands between them to link with her own.
Incorrigible…
His lips pressed a gentle kiss to her mouth before he shifted again, pressing his forehead lightly against hers.
Brilliant…
Then he murmured three words that shattered her heart.
"I've already begun…"
Bastard.
Hermione awoke in the Hospital Wing sometime in the dead of night, her pulse hammering in her ears, heart racing, and short of breath with a painful sting behind her eyes. The terrible ache of loss in her chest trumped the more physical one permeating her joints and muscles from head to toe. One trembling hand came up to cover her mouth, stifling quiet sobs that shook her to her core as her glazed eyes pointed towards the darkened rafters.
She waited, with a sick kind of hope, for the dream to fade, for it to dissolve into the recesses of her mind where the rest of the things that were kind and nice and good in her world had always disappeared to. When it didn't, when it lingered, when it pounded against the backs of her bloody eyes, vivid like a fresh memory, an audible, choked sob slipped through her fingers.
"Miss Callaghan?"
Hermione gasped, only mildly startled out of her personal sorrow at the appearance of the school's Mediwitch. Madam Aubrey's head peeked around the privacy curtain, highlighted only by a select few slivers of moonlight and, at seeing her awake, the witch glided to her bedside. The woman's arm was out and brushing a clean white handkerchief over her face before she realized what was happening, paying particular attention to blotting at her nose. Hermione flinched away, her head hammering now more as she was waking and coming into alertness but Madam Aubrey was insistent.
"Here now," she chided in a cool, calm speech that had to have been honed over decades of nursing. "You've a bit of a nosebleed—yes, just pinch that there. You'll be fine."
Hermione groaned but, after a bit more fussing, acquiesced to the demands and took over the handkerchief at her nose, using the back of her opposite hand to scrub away remnants of her tears.
"Good to see you awake," Aubrey said, drawing back to look down at her patient. She eyed Hermione, watching the girl fidget under her gaze. An attempt at a kind smile spread slowly across her face. "Was it a nightmare?"
No…and yes.
Hermione swallowed, her eyes darting to the side, shaking loose a few new tracks of tears with the movement. It had been wonderful and horrible: the excitement of having something she'd longed for, for so long returned to her as well as the terrible anguish of the impending loss of someone else that she'd loved just as dearly. It was something she wanted to savor and scrub from her memory all at once.
Hermione had almost forgotten Madam Aubrey was still there until she settled herself on a chair at her bedside and one of her hands came out to pat her arm. She shivered at how cold the woman's hands were, idly thinking to herself that it apparently wasn't just Muggle doctors or nurses that had no circulation in their digits.
"Young Mister Malfoy found you in such a state," the Mediwitch said as she straightened and smoothed her robes. "All cut and rumpled in your gown following an undoubtedly festive evening. I count it no surprise your sleep would be disturbed by nightmares after having been found unconscious in the Forbidden Forest like that." She added this last bit with a raised brow. "Perhaps some residual thoughts about what you experienced out there? Or perhaps about how you came to be here?"
The Mediwitch cast a knowing look over her shoulder alongside a crooked smile and Hermione felt sick.
"My dear child. . . I won't be quite so bold as to say that I know ultimately why you were brought to me in tatters, extracted from the center of a forest that had been charred nearly beyond recognition. . . but I would say that no simple boy is worth making you feel all that." Madam Aubrey motioned dismissively at Hermione, insinuating the dream she'd just awoken from and seemingly missing the way the girl swallowed and her chest hitched. "When you're older, as I am, you'll understand that there are very few boys—or men, for that matter—that are worth such stress and heartache. Allowing someone like that to keep a piece of your heart. . ." She trailed off, shaking her head and letting out a heavy sigh.
Hermione's headache increased and she felt a new wave of tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. She wasn't sure if she should attribute that one to the ache in her body or the ache in her heart at that point and just turned away from the meddling witch.
Madam Aubrey seemed to take it as her cue to withdraw and, as smoothly and serenely as she'd appeared, her gliding steps took her to the edge of the curtain. The woman's head tilted to one side, eyes scanning over Hermione from top to bottom and back. "Get some rest," she whispered evenly, "tomorrow is another day where all is not lost. You'll see, dear, you'll see. . ."
The Mediwitch finally bid Hermione goodnight, ignoring or perhaps just not hearing the stifled sobs as they returned to the otherwise silent ward. She began making her way from whence she came, pausing only due to the low but building groans from behind another of the curtains. Hesitating, she listened to the sound, listening for signs of waking and, with an annoyed exhale, turned on her heel to address the issue.
Slipping through the curtains, she watched the boy twitching in his sleep, his fussing increasing as she neared. His mouth was moving with anxious murmurs, head tossing on his pillow from one side to the other until his eyes groggily opened. His dazed look cleared and his chest started to rise and fall to the beat of someone that had climbed to a very fresh state of wakefulness. She watched him watch her, his eyes taking in her figure and form until his mouth was gaping and he'd begun to hyperventilate.
Padding to his side, his wide, panicked stare tracked every step she made. She plucked up a vial from his bedside, cooing and shushing him softly to no effect. With a sigh, she dragged the knuckles of her free hand across his cheek, choked noises puffing past his lips. "Time for your next dose, love," she soothed while she firmly coaxed the liquid down his throat. "I'll be right here when you wake up."
Lawrence tensed and whimpered, eyes locked onto hers for as long as it took the effects of another draught to forcibly pull him into slumber.