Nightmare
By: Provocative Envy
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Author's Note: If you thought the excitement was over after, you know, all the murder that happened—you were wrong! Also, the final chapter is basically finished, but I will be re-reading the entire story from start to finish before posting it to make sure that I actually adhered to all aspects of my outline and didn't leave a gaping plot hole somewhere. So it may be another week or two before it's up.
For those of you who live under very large rocks—or just don't follow me on tumblr, whatever, it is basically the same thing—I recently started a second Tomione story. It was supposed to be a one-shot, but it's now kind of a novella, and it will be finished very, very shortly. It's called 'War Paint' and is different from 'Nightmare' in almost every conceivable way. That might be a warning. Or an incentive. I don't know, okay? I don't know you. (I know some of you.)
I'd also like to take a second to just sincerely thank all of you who have stuck around for the past 18+ months, and put up with my erratic updating, and took a risk with me on this pairing and ended up understanding what I saw in it. I'm terrible at responding to reviews—i.e. I don't, usually—but I do read each and every one, and I am consistently blown away by how many people seemed to enjoy this. It's staggering and flattering and I feel like I don't say 'thank you' enough—so thank you. Really.
xoxo
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I chose not to dwell on what the scene might have looked like to an outsider—to Slughorn.
There were two dead bodies. Edmond was wide-eyed and shell-shocked, skin a fluorescent milky white tinged grey with unease; his forehead was crumpled like a flimsy paper napkin, all sweat-soaked pleats and premature lines, and his lips red and dry and swollen from being gnashed together. Tom was hovering in front of me, facing away, towards the door, arms nearly vibrating with tension and hands stretched out behind his back—as if his touch alone could keep me anchored, in place, out of danger.
Meanwhile, I felt like a blank canvas, unfinished and flat, every last straining, sinuous fiber of my body close to aching with the need for color and direction and light.
"Oh, dear," Slughorn was saying, wringing his hands as he stared, aghast, at the three of us. "Oh, dear. I didn't—how did this—it was just a few potions!"
Tom squared his shoulders and made a curling motion with his left hand that only I could see; I stepped forward, slapped my old wand—vine wood, dragon heartstring core, it was the same, it was the same and it had killed someone no no I had killed someone I had killed someone and fuck fuck fuck what had I done what had I done—into his palm. I clenched my other fist around the Elder Wand.
"It was never just a few potions," Tom bit out. "You were spying."
Slughorn's frown drooped.
"Spying?" he repeated, voice small, cheeks ruddy, nose twitching with anxiety. He glanced at the door. "I would never, it was just—"
"Let me guess," Tom said, "it was just a few questions? Just a few potions and just a few questions, nothing serious, nothing that might result in the death of a student—a student like Melania Macmillan, for example."
Slughorn blinked.
"Oh, dear," he said again, more faintly. But then he continued, indignant, "I told Dippet, you know—I told him that seizures weren't a normal side-effect of the poison that was used and that I knew that she hadn't died of that—I did my part for the inquest, even performed the autopsy, said that there wasn't a single physical indication that she had suffered any sort of fit, medical or magical—"
Tom chuckled, and Edmond shrunk in on himself
"God, how do they pay you to teach children?" Tom asked. "You're an imbecile. You were supposed to figure out that her death wasn't an accident. You were supposed to know that she was murdered, on purpose—it was meant to be a warning, you insufferably ignorant old twat, and it was meant for you and the Malfoys. You were supposed to quit spying on Hermione so that Lestrange could take your place. But of course you were too dense to even know that you were spying. Just a few potions, just a few questions—I should have known that you were more interested in planning my wedding than you were in playing politics. Remind me to never again listen to Lestrange, will you?"
Nausea rolled through my stomach like the heaving, dramatic swoop of a tidal wave—because what else had I misinterpreted? What else had I been wrong about?
"You knew all along?" I asked. "That Edmond—that Abraxas—with the Polyjuice—was anything about that morning even real?"
Tom spun around.
"Hermione," he said, patronizing, "of course I knew. Just like you knew that I killed her on purpose. To protect you. What did you think I meant by that?"
I placed my hand over my abdomen.
Pregnant, I was pregnant, and it was his.
My mind felt glazed-over, picked apart—
There was a click in my spine as I inhaled, exhaled, sharp and serious and swift, sudden, sure.
"This is what you were trying to hide from me," I said to Edmond. "You knew it was only a matter of time before I figured out you'd taken a blood oath with Abraxas, so that wasn't it—and besides that, Nott and Avery were half a bloody minute away from Apparating me back to Wiltshire—but you were hiding this, and you lied to me when I asked if Tom had known—"
Edmond hurried to interrupt me.
"Tom knew that Abraxas was using Polyjuice to impersonate me, but not—he really didn't know what was going on that morning, not until Abraxas fucked up—I didn't lie about that, Hermione, I didn't. And I knew that you were touchy about Melania, about her death, so I was trying to protect you—"
"You were trying to protect yourself," I said, incensed. "You were covering your tracks, trying to get closer to Grindelwald, but you didn't want Dumbledore to trace it back to you, did you, so you used Tom because you knew that Dumbledore would blame him—"
"Tom...Tom killed Melania Macmillan?" Slughorn gasped. "That's—well, certainly not preposterous, but it's—shocking, yes, very shocking, indeed."
Tom rolled his eyes.
"Melania Macmillan was a malignant little troll who deserved far worse than what she got," he said. "Isn't that right, Edmond?"
Edmond's face flushed a lurid, lilting pink.
"You know, Tom—my family was very fond of Hermione," he remarked, apropos of nothing. Tom's smile faltered. "Don't think I managed to properly convince any of them that I wasn't the father, either—her pregnancy, as you can imagine, was a really fucking popular topic when we visited them over Christmas."
Tom went perfectly still, reminiscent of the way a viper does, right before it strikes—
"Too bad her French is so terrible, then," he replied, smirk somehow venomous and charming and magnetic, all at once. "Besides—I have it on very good authority that she far prefers snakes to frogs."
Slughorn tittered nervously.
"Now, boys, I don't mean to—that is to say—the bodies, yes, we should perhaps...move them, I think—distasteful as it may be, it's unseemly for them to just...lie there, especially if anyone else were to come through the door and see them. Don't you agree, Miss Granger?"
I gaped at him, astonished, and I did not understand, not fully—until I did.
Someone else was coming.
Someone who would care that Abraxas Malfoy and Gellert Grindelwald were now dead.
"Yeah," I answered awkwardly, raising the Wand and pointing it at Abraxas' body. "I mean—yes. Let's—move them, Professor. Wingardium Leviosa."
I didn't watch as Abraxas' body floated towards the center of the room.
"Oh, dear. Is that—the Elder Wand?" Slughorn asked.
Tom's stance turned defensive.
"What do you know about that?" he demanded.
Slughorn's mouth hung open, jowls quivering as he floundered for a response.
"Well—Albus said—I only just discovered tonight that it wasn't a myth! And I must say, dear boy, that of the four of you—ah, three of you, so sorry, rest in peace, et cetera—but Miss Granger is not at all who I would have expected to be its master. Albus was quite convinced that Gellert Grindelwald had it, in fact. Oh! But—is that why he was spying on you all? Because of Miss Granger's relationship to the Deathly Hallows? Just the other morning I heard a fascinating joke about the Macmillan family and a squib in an Invisibility cloak—"
Tom's jaw went slack with disbelief.
"Christ," Edmond muttered, flattening the heel of his palm against his forehead.
"Why are you here, Professor?" I put in quickly. "You don't seem particularly…well-versed in what's been going on."
Slughorn fiddled with the chain of his pocket watch.
"I was at the Malfoys' for their annual New Year's party, as I am every year at this time—I'm always invited, I'll have you know," he replied, puffing out his chest. "And then Albus arrived, and he appeared to be in great distress. He had a rather cryptic conversation with Draco Malfoy—who was found in quite the intriguing position in his study, quite intriguing, indeed, but, really, who am I to judge a man for his…proclivities—and, where was I? Oh, yes, the two of them conversed, and then I was…retrieved, and the business with the Elder Wand was explained—"
He broke off—and then there were more footsteps coming from the hallway, their pace sedate and dignified, not hurried, not rushed—and there was more than one person, I realized, no voices, just the placid, even drag of expensive leather on warped, creaking hardwood—and I knew that Dumbledore was coming, he had all but warned Edmond and I that he would be, but who else would be with him, who else who else who else—
Slughorn fumbled through the pockets of his bottle-green waistcoat.
"Damn," he said, holding up several empty glass vials. "I don't have—must've given it all to the Malfoys—"
"What are you searching for? Polyjuice? Why?" I asked, avoiding Edmond's searching, pleading gaze.
Slughorn looked up at me, surprised and slightly panicked.
"Oh, my darling girl," he replied, as if it should have been obvious. "To hide you, of course."
"Right," Tom said abruptly, striding forward and jamming the tip of his wand—my wand, my wand, not his—into Slughorn's collarbone. "That's it. I think we all get that you've made a career out of lying to people who are more powerful than you are, so why don't you tell us what the fuck is really—"
"Tom, stop it," I chided him. I glanced at the door. Edmond had his head cocked to the side, listening closely. "He just told us. Malfoy and Dumbledore—they're coming. Now. Just—"
I was cut off by the squeak and rattle of the doorknob being jostled.
Tom crept back to my side, the tail of his untucked linen shirt swaying as he moved.
Slughorn shuffled away from Grindelwald's body.
The door opened gradually, unobtrusively—shyly, I thought with a grimace; it seemed inappropriate.
"Oh, hello," Dumbledore greeted us, edging into the room. He was wearing a midnight-blue velvet blazer with a sunflower-yellow carnation tucked around a maroon paisley pocket square; his trousers were faded grey pinstripe, loose-fitting and mud-spattered. "Miss Granger. Mr. Lestrange. Ah—even Mr. Riddle, how fortuitous. Thank you for locating everyone, Horace. This house is enormous—Gellert has always enjoyed an exaggerated state of being, hasn't he, Draco?"
Abraxas' father was following several steps behind Dumbledore, clothing rumpled and countenance haughty. I felt my pulse race, speed up, hammer against the paper-thin skin of my wrist in a muted cacophony of orange-red arteries and powder-blue veins.
"It would appear that Gellert is now dead, Albus," Malfoy said with a disdainful sniff. "What a tremendously unfortunate turn of events. Now, where is my son?"
Dumbledore smoothed a long-fingered hand down the lapel of his jacket, unperturbed. His eyes, however, were not twinkling.
"Yes, yes, tremendously unfortunate, indeed, Draco," he replied, turning towards Tom. "We shall, I think, need to determine the cause of Gellert's demise posthaste. Mr. Riddle? Were you a witness?"
Tom chewed the inside of his mouth, as if staving off a laugh.
"I don't know, Professor," he yawned. "Was I?"
Dumbledore paused.
"Expelliarmus," he said sharply, gaze narrowing as he watched Tom's wand—my wand my wand it was my wand—float towards him. He caught it gingerly, posture tense, and examined it with careful, sweeping caution.
"That isn't the wand you're looking for," Tom supplied helpfully. "Although, I was the one to kill Grindelwald. Excellent guess, Professor—very…intuitive."
Dumbledore pursed his lips.
"This is not a game, Tom," he replied, sliding Tom's wand—my wand my wand—into his trouser pocket. "What have you done with it? Where is it hidden?"
Tom shrugged lazily, and I cast a surreptitious shield charm around us both.
"Where is anything hidden, Professor?" he mused, tapping the toe of his shoe onto the parquet floors with no discernable rhythm. "Furthermore, if you can't see it, does that mean it was never even real?"
"The boy thinks he's clever, Albus," Malfoy scoffed, disgusted. "This is a waste of time. Gellert is dead—let's just collect Abraxas and transport Mr. Riddle and the mudblood to the dungeons at the manor. I still have the Macmillan squib on retainer, and he does meticulous work with a scalpel—"
I cleared my throat. Abraxas' body felt huge and cumbersome behind me, a brightly burning asteroid in the middle of starless sky.
"I have the Wand, actually," I announced with a half-hearted wave. "No scalpels required."
Dumbledore's expression remained unreadable.
"Miss Granger," he said slowly. "May I inquire as to how…" There was a harsh clatter, like the sound of a gunshot, and he trailed off, craning his neck to peek into the hallway. "Ah. It would appear that we have more visitors."
A frantic, wild-haired Theodore Nott flew through the open door, wand emitting a cloud of vivid violet smoke; startled, Edmond leapt backwards, falling bodily into Slughorn, and Avery sprinted in next, sweat beading in glistening droplets across his forehead.
"Don't draw any more attention to yourself or the Wand," Tom whispered in my ear, breath hot. He wrapped a lock of my hair around his hand, as if memorizing the texture. "I'm going to distract them all, and I need you to make sure the shield that you cast stays in place. Okay, sweetheart?"
"What are you—"
"Hermione! Are you alright?" Nott panted, leaning against the doorjamb and holding himself upright with a tarnished brass wall sconce. "Is everything—"
"And they say that chivalry is dead," Malfoy drawled, lip curled.
Tom brushed a casual, proprietary finger over the ring of bruises on my neck and stepped aside, showing off Abraxas' body.
"No, that's just your son," he retorted coolly.
I flinched, tears springing to my eyes, unbidden and uninvited and unwanted, truly—because I could see it, could see the precise moment that Malfoy understood what Tom had meant, could pinpoint the shift in his expression from smug to confused to horrified to devastated—and I would not look away, would not allow myself the luxury of pretending that I had not been the cause of this telling, tumultuous silence and the heavy sort of spark in the air that felt like a precursor to something as violent and vicious and unpredictable as a thunderstorm—
"Why—you foul little miscreant," Malfoy hissed, raising his wand. "How dare you—"
"Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore said, face pale. "Perhaps we should not be so hasty as to jump to potentially erroneous conclusions—I would hate for one of us to make the wrong assumption and incur the penalty of yet another...untimely death. Miss Granger? If you would enlighten us as to the circumstances surrounding this, ah, incident?"
He stared at me expectantly, knowingly, and Malfoy snarled.
"My son is dead!" he roared, grey eyes trained on Abraxas' body. "My son is dead because of your ineptitude, Albus—if you had just given us the girl, if you had just kept her away from the Riddle whelp, like I told you to—but no, no, you had to go and appease Gellert and his crackpot theories about time travel so that you could get closer to that—that ridiculous bloody wand—"
"Draco," Dumbledore interjected sternly. "You and I both know that Abraxas made a variety of very questionable choices in the past six months—choices that neither myself nor Gellert Grindelwald had any involvement with. You are appropriating blame where it does not lie, and I would urge you to keep your accusations to yourself until we have a better understanding of what, exactly, has occurred here tonight."
Malfoy's jaw worked.
"He—I didn't—" I stumbled over the words, unable to articulate an explanation, or even a proper response—unable to do anything, really, in the face of Malfoy's wrath.
I reached out, blindly, for Tom's hand.
I squeezed.
I squeezed.
I squeezed until I no longer wanted to cry, until it pinched my skin and it hurt like a third-degree burn and it reminded me of why I had killed Abraxas in the first place.
Tom was real.
Tom was there.
And I didn't feel any less sick with myself, with the situation, with the grief-saturated fury that was wrecking Malfoy's composure—but it was a start. It was enough.
I opened my mouth—
Except Edmond stepped forward, then, eyelashes touching the rounded curve of his cheek as he studied the floor, collecting himself.
"I did it," he declared. I choked. Tom did not react. "He was going to—he was raving about Melania, and all of these plans that he had, and he was going to try and kill Hermione so that he could get the Elder Wand—"
"Bullshit," Avery suddenly said, his eyes compressed into red-rimmed, resentful slits.
Edmond was visibly baffled, and I remembered, with a jolt, that I had stolen his memories from earlier in the evening—he would not have known that he couldn't lie about this, that Avery and Nott would be able to tell that he was lying—
"Abraxas took a blood oath that he wouldn't harm Granger," Avery continued. Nott gripped Avery's wrist, tethering him to the doorway. "He was going to kill Riddle, and Grindelwald, and Granger was going to emerge unscathed, as fucking usual, because every last one of my fucking friends apparently has a fucking permanent hard-on for her, which—don't really see the appeal, myself, but I've always liked them a bit less skinny, haven't I, Lestrange?"
I furrowed my brow—Tom, though, Tom laughed.
"You're joking," he said. "Macmillan, Avery? Really?"
Avery sneered.
"It's irrelevant now either way, yeah, Riddle? You made sure of that."
Tom lifted my hand, brushing a wet, deliberate kiss across the back of my knuckles. I shivered.
"Extra sure," he confirmed sweetly.
"Anyway," Avery sniped, addressing Malfoy. "Lestrange didn't kill Abraxas. Couldn't've. I'm betting you had the right of it, Mr. Malfoy, and he's covering for Riddle."
"Oh, dear," Slughorn mumbled from the corner.
"Tom? Is this correct?" Dumbledore asked gravely.
Malfoy lunged forward, brandishing his wand.
"Hasn't denied it, has he, Albus? He murdered my son, my heir, like the sniveling coward he was a month ago—were you jealous of him, boy? Jealous of having a father who wasn't a repulsive fucking muggle, a father who didn't pack up and leave before you were even bloody born—he must've known what you'd turn into, you, you despicable—overreaching—ingrate—"
Tom snapped his fingers and Malfoy flew backwards, slamming into the wall with a ferocious explosion of crumbling white plaster and ashy grey dust.
"You should perhaps reconsider your position atop the moral high ground, Mr. Malfoy," Tom seethed. "Or should we ask Hermione to perform a reenactment of whatever it was that transpired between the two of you in your drawing room?"
Malfoy hunched his shoulders, grimacing as he pressed his fingers to the back of his skull.
"Abraxas told me all about you, half-blood," he shot back, attempting to stand up; there was a bloodstain where his head had hit the wall. "Told me how arrogant you were, how you thought yourself invincible because you could torture a few sewer rats without even lifting your wand—"
Tom's nostrils flared, and his expression turned deadly.
"Oh, Mr. Malfoy—that sounds suspiciously like a request for a demonstration."
Dumbledore was alarmed.
"Tom," he said urgently, "I've already confiscated your wand. You cannot—"
"Oh, no," Tom replied with a dangerous grin. "I can. I've no idea why the lot of you seem to be under the impression that I'm as easily neutered as a puppy—but my magic has missed me, Professor, and it will always do what I ask it to."
And then he nodded towards Malfoy, not even bothering to cast a spell, to speak, to say the words to an incantation—
I recoiled as Malfoy began to scream.
"The thing is, Professor," Tom went on nonchalantly, talking over the noise, "Mr. Malfoy had the audacity to try and harm someone very, very precious to me. Why should I allow that to go unpunished? Why shouldn't I exact revenge?"
Malfoy writhed on the floor, agony apparent—his nose was bleeding, and I scratched ruthlessly at my left forearm as my scar began to itch.
Mudblood mudblood mudblood—
"Tom," Dumbledore warned, moving tentatively towards Malfoy. "You need to stop this—"
Tom shook his head and flashed his teeth in a smile—with a flick of his index finger, Malfoy's screams intensified.
"Do you know how they train hounds, Professor?" he asked loudly, tone benign. "Well, there are several different methods, to be fair, but I've done some reading on the subject—research, of course, for my various leadership positions at Hogwarts—and by far the most effective method in terms of efficiency and return on temporal investment is the judicious application of pain as a deterrent for undesirable behaviors. Shock collars, choke chains—it's peculiarly easy to intimidate a hound. Isn't that interesting?"
Across the room, Edmond was biting his lower lip, impassive, as he watched Malfoy struggle. Nott was fidgeting uncomfortably, arms crossed over his broad, muscular chest. Avery's mouth was pinched, and he was leveling a murderous scowl in Tom's direction while Slughorn stood stationary in front of the reflective glass panes of the window.
"You have made your point, Tom," Dumbledore replied, quiet and unhappy and weary, it seemed, even as Malfoy screeched and shrieked and clawed at the ground with quaking, fractured fingers.
"I don't think I have, actually," Tom said, eyes darkening. "You see, Professor, Mr. Malfoy was also rather unabashedly cruel to me about a month ago, towards the beginning of my incarceration. And while I would relish the opportunity to take credit for Abraxas' death, I was not the responsible party—and so a debt remains unpaid. It's an eye for an eye, Professor, and Mr. Malfoy has made me blind with rage."
Malfoy's screams reached a fever-pitch, thin and reedy and excruciating, and as his limbs shuddered, bending against the hardwood floor at an unnatural angle, I felt my nails dig into the scar tissue on my arm—mudblood mudblood mudblood—and I could not breathe—I could not—I would not—and I recalled, forcefully, with clean crisp clarity and a sudden loss of oxygen—mudblood mudblood mudblood—
"Stop, stop, stop, please, stop," I gasped.
Tom immediately lowered his hand.
Malfoy went still.
The quiet was deafening.
"His son is dead," I said, voice soft.
Tom wrinkled his nose.
"He tried to kill you, sweetheart. Him and his son."
Malfoy was unconscious; Slughorn dashed forward to prop him up against the wall.
"His son is dead," I said again, emphatic, hand straying down the still-flat plane of my abdomen—
Tom's confusion was palpable.
"Yes," he replied slowly. "He is. You murdered him less than an hour ago, Hermione. I was there."
I swallowed.
"I know," I said, deflating. "I know that."
And I did know, of course I knew—and I was guilty, was consumed and confined and spent, exhausted by the mess that I had made—because it was a mess, unfixable and unassailable, a stain and a tear and the final rusty nail in a dented, decaying coffin—
My timeline was gone.
I could feel it, feel the unwilling pull of my memories trudging along, trying to realign themselves, reorder and reorganize and reanimate—and I was angry at that, so incredibly angry, angry at Tom for needing me to save him and angry at Abraxas for forcing me to choose and angry at myself, at Dumbledore, at Grindelwald and at Edmond and at the Elder Wand, at the way it fit into the curve of my fingers like a tailor-made glove, like it was meant to be there, meant for me.
It was not.
It was not meant for me, not meant for anyone—it was a magical parasite, a fairytale gone wrong, a beacon of invincibility, of impossibility, and I could not keep it.
"Oh, Hermione," Dumbledore was murmuring to himself. "What have you done?"
I giggled somewhat hysterically.
"Would you have preferred that Abraxas Malfoy carry on with Gellert Grindelwald's illustrious reign of muggle enslavement and terror? If I'd left him alive he probably could have expanded into Australia by this time next month."
"That does not justify—"
"No. No, that's where you're wrong. I did what I had to, Professor. And I'm not quite done yet, either," I added.
Dumbledore removed his half-moon spectacles, rubbing the lenses on the hem of his jacket to clean them.
"What is it that are you not done with, Miss Granger?" he asked tiredly.
"I'm destroying the Elder Wand," I stated, matter-of-fact. "You, of all people, should understand why."
He froze.
"I cannot allow you to do that," he replied, nostrils flaring. "There must always be balance—"
"No," I snapped. "No. There is no greater good, there is no balance between good and evil—too many people have already died because of this, and do you know how many more will if it's still around? Do you? Hundreds. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. No one can be trusted with it, least of all you—least of all me, God—and it has to fucking go."
Tom made an aborted movement towards me—Edmond and Nott each had a hold on Avery's elbows, Nott's other hand pressed into the center of Avery's chest, keeping him back, keeping him away, from me, from Tom, from Dumbledore, Abraxas' body lying between the four of us like a daunting, damning obstacle course—Malfoy was still unconscious, sitting up against the wall, Slughorn hovering in front of him and mopping up the blood that had trickled from his nose with a heavily embroidered silk handkerchief—
"Hermione," Dumbledore said, gaze piercing. "You don't know what you're saying. I don't want to hurt you, not over something like this, but I will."
I smirked.
"You don't—you don't want to hurt me. That's—well, Professor, that's a noble sentiment, really, but it's a bit late for it, don't you think?"
He raised his wand, grip steady.
"There isn't a way out of this, Hermione," he said calmly. "You cannot shield yourself from a killing curse. You cannot run away. Your only option is to give me the—"
"That isn't her only option, actually," Tom interrupted, glaring at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore hesitated, considering.
"Ah," he replied with an indecipherable nod. "Gellert's time turner. Of course. Would you really be willing to jeopardize Miss Granger's life like that, Tom? The life of your unborn child? Time traveling is viewed as a vastly unsafe endeavor for pregnant women, as I'm sure you are aware."
Tom clucked his tongue, dismissive.
"Hearsay. No one's done it before."
Dumbledore's jaw tightened.
"You realize, though, that if she leaves, you will be blamed for Abraxas Malfoy's death. Draco will retaliate, and you will be sent to Azkaban," he tried again.
Tom twisted the chain of the time turner around his fingertip, looking thoughtful.
"How long, do you think, would it take me to get the Dementors on my side, Professor? One week? Two? Three, at most, probably—as content as they are in Azkaban, I don't imagine that there's a whole lot of happiness to feed off of in a place like that—and I'm told that I can be very…persuasive. Plus, if they joined me, I could give them Hogwarts. I could give them you."
Dumbledore licked his lips.
"Tom," he said, plaintive. "Tom. I have known you since you were a boy, Tom, a child with untold potential and near-limitless talent—and you have always understood that magic is special, haven't you? That you are special. And this, this is the Elder Wand, the very pinnacle of magical ingenuity, and it, too, is special. It needs to be protected. It needs to be cherished. And you would risk that? You would risk throwing it away, destroying it—and for what, Tom? The whims of a girl you never should have even met? A girl you cannot feasibly come close to having a meaningful future with?"
Tom gritted his teeth with an audible screech of enamel on bone.
"Tom," I said, helpless, imploring.
But Tom was clutching the time turner, frustrated and furious, and I could hear, dimly, in the background, Edmond and Nott and Avery all arguing, and Slughorn babbling—and Dumbledore was turning towards me again, appraising me with regret and with sadness and with a fearsome air of finality, iron-strong and implacably, impressively unbreakable—
Tom spoke.
"You underestimate, Professor, exactly how much I am willing to risk for her," he ground out.
And the next moment stretched and stretched and stretched, endless and ending, and I knew, I fucking knew, that there would never be another like it, that I could live a thousand lifetimes, could travel all the way through and across and around a timeline made up of nothing but magic and infinity and I would still never find it, never find him—not like this, not with his choices laid out before him like a map, dog-eared and ancient, and only a spinning, superfluous compass to point the way—
His dark eyes flickered and sparked like lightning through the sheen of my shield charm.
"This isn't over," he vowed, throwing me the time turner.
I caught it, stunned into inaction.
"You—" I began shakily.
"Granger! Get out!" Nott shouted from the doorway.
I continued to stare at Tom. Why had he given up? Why was he letting me go? I did not understand, and nothing felt real, least of all time, least of all Dumbledore aiming his wand at my heart—
"I am sorry, Miss Granger," Dumbledore was saying.
"Oh, fuck this," Edmond swore, and there was a scuffle, a maelstrom of flashing red and blue light as he wrestled with Avery for his wand—
"Do you—this isn't over, Hermione," Tom repeated, and it sounded like a threat and it sounded like a promise and I didn't care to differentiate between the two, not with him, not when I had never had to—
"Everything I've done for you—tonight—I would do it again," I said to Tom, vision hazy.
"Albus, you can't—" Slughorn bleated.
"Go! Hermione, go now! Fucking—you cunt, stop—stop biting me, Christ—" Edmond yelped, jabbing his knee into Avery's groin as Nott pushed a meaty forearm up against Avery's throat.
"You are mine," Tom whispered fiercely, as if sharing a secret. He jerked his chin at the time turner. "It doesn't matter what year it is, it doesn't matter where you are, when you are—I will find you, I will follow you, I will find you, Hermione, it does not matter—"
I spun the dial on the time turner with a single vicious flick of my wrist—it would not be accurate, I had not done the calculations, I did not know where I would end up—but it would be enough. I would get away.
"Avada—" Dumbledore started to say.
The Elder Wand snapped into two neat pieces with a perfunctory, anticlimactic crack of fine-grained wood and jagged, ragged splinters.
"You are just as much mine as I am yours," I reminded Tom with a small, private smile.
And then the world shifted on its axis, tumbling like a pebble in the midst of an avalanche, and I was caught up in a forbidding whirl of stuttering lights and desperate voices and I lost my balance, felt myself tip over, fall to the side, hurtling towards the ground—
Gravity broke.
"Hermione!" I heard Tom yell in a dizzying, pounding, reverberating echo. "This isn't over. It will never be over."
I shut my eyes.
###
Author's Note: Tom explains his actions in one last journal entry at the beginning of the final chapter. So. You know. There's that to look forward to. (Also, more Edmond. There should always be more Edmond. Also, I am sorry for the cliffhanger. [I'm not sorry.])
xoxo
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