1944
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Hermione couldn't avoid the awkwardness that emerged after the incident in the Prefects' Bathroom.
If she was honest with herself, the awkwardness hadn't been entirely unpleasant. She made a clear distinction of the two types of awkwardness: good and bad.
Bad awkwardness was the dinner last summer with Tom's grandparents, who lacked any and all awareness about the state of the world outside their insular sphere of privilege and affluence. Good awkwardness was Hermione's attempt at a dance lesson during the Veterans' Gala, where she found that Tom didn't need an explanation of metre signatures to follow the steps of a basic waltz.
That designation of... awkwardness without unpleasantness, she admitted with reluctance, could apply to Tom's presence in the bathtub that Friday night.
In the summers she'd shared her bathroom—and the bathroom in her parents' magical tent—with Tom, she had never seen him in this degree of undress. Yes, she'd seen him in the morning with his hair uncombed, barefoot, and wearing his pyjamas, and that was a more private, intimate view of him that few outside his dorm mates ever saw of him. But apart from the instance where she and Nott had Apparated Tom to St. Mungo's, she couldn't recall seeing any part of him that lay below his collar or above his ankles.
Her father was a doctor, so Hermione knew on an intellectual level that despite Tom's boasting about being Special and Different to everyone else, he was physically no different than any other boy his age, Muggle or wizard. Like every English boy in Britain, he had pale skin that turned pink when scrubbed in hot water; he had two arms, two legs, and one bellybutton; he had hair on his forearms and lower legs that matched the colour of the hair on his head. There was nothing remarkable about it; in an anatomical sense, Tom Riddle was completely ordinary.
But somehow, seeing Tom unknot his necktie and unbutton his shirt in preparation of joining them in the oversized bathtub, Hermione was nonetheless entranced by the view.
She didn't want to be—she never liked the sort of talk she'd overheard in the corridors on the way to class, teenage boys ranking which of their female classmates had made the best impression upon their return from summer holidays, or teenage girls giggling in the library about an upper year boy browsing on the other side of the shelf. Tom was often the subject of these off-hand discussions; for him to be reduced to the sum of his social graces and outward appearance, regardless of its complimentary nature, seemed tremendously insulting. (Hermione had been teased throughout her early childhood for her hair and her teeth and the way her hand was the first to shoot up whenever the teacher asked a question, so she understood how it felt to be judged by appearance first, and capability second.)
She was mortified that night to have found herself in the category of people she'd once criticised, guilty of appreciating Tom Riddle for naught but his corporeal appearance.
There was no justification for this unworthy behaviour, she knew. It was degrading to judge women by their looks, as if the colour of their lipstick or the liveliness of their walking gait was a measure of their character. It was of equal superficiality to judge a man by such a standard as the polish on his shoes, or the strength of his handshake.
But—
It had been difficult to look away.
It wasn't because she'd seen anything horrifying or unexpected that night.
It wasn't the sight of any disfiguring scars or marks on his body that had drawn her gaze, but Tom's utter lack of concern when he'd undressed in front of her. In fact, there were no scars, or anything disfiguring at all, just a smooth expanse of skin, sprinkled with a few moles on his back and lower hip. It had been intriguing to observe, because she'd gotten herself used to Tom's being well-admired for his physical attributes; she'd acknowledged that much of his appeal (no matter what she personally thought of it) came of his symmetrical features, but here—up close—she could see that he wasn't so symmetrical, or so perfect.
Without his many layers of clothing, Tom was lean of frame, perhaps a dozen pounds away from looking underfed, an effect of being so tall, and at his age, growing still taller. His waist was narrow, shoulder blades prominent, and his collarbones jutted. On his body, it was easy to discern the places where flesh gave way to tendon and bone, but Tom wasn't as gawky or unco-ordinated as one might expect for someone with his build; he exuded an aura of confidence—or perhaps it was a lack of uncertainty—that distinguished him from boys his own age. Nott, stripped to his shirtsleeves and underwear, was of a similar appearance—thin by nature as opposed to lack of nourishment—but he was nowhere near Tom's equal in sheer presence.
For the sake of her sanity, Hermione resolved that she wouldn't think of that strange, awkward evening (or at least, try not to), nor would she bring it up in conversation with any of the participants. Tom didn't mention it afterwards, but Nott found her in the library the very next day, looking eager to discuss what she had termed, "The Bathroom Incident".
"If there's one thing I can say about Riddle, it's his efficiency," said Nott, having figured out that her favourite table was the quiet little nook by the wizarding law section, far away from the shelves of basic textbooks and out of view of the librarian's desk. "Posturing at you, while threatening me—the man doesn't know how to rest, does he?"
"I... I'm not certain he was showing off, exactly," said Hermione nervously, unable to hide the flush that had risen across her face.
Showing off was so entrenched in Tom's nature that it was hard to tell when he was deliberately going farther than his usual, and when he was being his normal self. Even having no need to impress anyone was not reason enough to stop him.
"Please." Nott rolled his eyes. "Riddle looked much too eager about dropping his trousers in front of you."
"You took your trousers off too," Hermione pointed out.
"I was wearing proper underclothes," said Nott. "Riddle was wearing some sort of strange Muggle unmentionables. You could even see his knees!"
Hermione gaped at him. "I'm wearing a skirt; you can see my knees right now!"
"That's different," said Nott, "you're a girl."
"I don't understand what difference it makes," said Hermione, scowling at him.
"It's tradition," said Nott blithely. "Like bowing before a duel. Or the rule that one must never sleep in a wandwood grove or store Goblin silver in their Gringotts vault."
"That's not tradition, that's just common sense," said Hermione. "There's a good reason for that first one: bowtruckles attack wizards sleeping under wandwood trees."
Nott gave a careless shrug. "It doesn't matter why. The fact is that some things aren't done, but Riddle does them anyway. If he's going to be a proper wizard, he ought to do things properly. No one would ever trust a Minister for Magic if he doesn't at least pay lip service to wizarding tradition."
"'Minister for Magic'?" Hermione echoed, incredulous. "What?"
"Isn't that what he's aiming for?" Nott's eyes narrowed. "I had it from Avery that Riddle asked about Ministry jobs after Hogwarts—Slughorn tries to push him into one department or another every time they have dinner." He ticked each point off on his fingers. "He toadied up to that Ministry lady when we had Apparition lessons. He was making that smug face of his, and she gave him her card! You said he cosied up to the Ministry secretary when you sneaked off the grounds the other weekend. Without me."
He shot her an annoyed look, then continued, "I can sum it up for you: Riddle is in the perfect position to enter politics. He has the connections; he'll have the marks by next year. Having half the witches at Hogwarts eating out of his hands isn't enough. He needs legitimacy. He needs real men of consequence taking notice of him. And he'll have that when everyone sees he's not just some no-name, half-blood upstart—that he's the Heir-of-fucking-Slytherin!"
Hermione couldn't help herself; she laughed. "That's the most presumptuous thing I've ever heard."
"It's not presumptuous," retorted Nott. "Can you imagine a man of Riddle's talents ending up as a shop clerk or a sweeper at the owl emporium?"
Can you imagine Tom writing an article about breastfeeding? thought Hermione. Because he's already done that.
It was easy to assume that Tom applied high standards to everything in his life. Easy for those who didn't know him, that is. He earned top marks; his close associates were the children of prominent and wealthy families; he looked and dressed and sounded like a promising young wizard that other young wizards should aspire to be. But Hermione knew that this was merely the surface. Much of Tom's outward appearance was affected, and the truth was far less polished.
(She remembered the early days of First Year, when she and Tom had skulked around the corridors and broom closets, checking the caretaker's traps before and after class each day to see if anything had been caught. For around six months of that year, they'd kept a rat collection. It was far from dignified, but when Tom discovered new forms of magic, dignity was the last thing on his mind.)
"It is presumptuous," she insisted. "What makes you think Tom is interested in being the Minister for Magic?"
Hermione had been thirteen years old when Tom had decided that she should be the Minister. Over the years, he'd brought the subject up on occasion, though he hadn't changed his mind: he wouldn't turn his nose up at the rôle of dictator if offered, but any offer of the Minister's job would be faced with a firm rejection. Public speeches on one's dedication to serving the public good was one thing; deriving one's power from a public vote was another. Tom, unlike Hermione, saw no benefit—no benefit to himself—in a democratic system. Hermione had seen no point in arguing with him about it. He didn't want to be the Minister, and his preference was out of the question—as if anyone was going to make him a dictator.
"What else would he be interested in?" asked Nott. "He's a Slytherin, and a wizard. In the wizarding world, there's no official position as powerful as that of the Minister. I may not be as far up Riddle's... confidences... as you are, but I do know what kind of person he is. He seeks power," he spoke with absolute certainty. "You can't deny it."
"I-I'm not denying it!" Hermione protested. "I just think you're counting your chickens, that's all."
Nott regarded her with a measured gaze. "If you want to do things properly, you ought to avoid those awful Muggle sayings. Unless you like people thinking you're more common than you are."
"I'm not sure why that matters," said Hermione flatly. "There aren't any men of consequence I need to impress."
"Oh, very droll," Nott said. He gave an unamused sniff. "I'm just saying, Granger, that everyone should try to, shall we say, refine themselves."
"Why would I have need of that?" said Hermione. "Nothing I do will 'refine' my blood status."
"It's for the look of the thing," Nott answered. "If Riddle can do it, then so can you. I'm sure he'd appreciate it—that's if he has hasn't decided to throw you over the moment he's landed a position as someone's senior secretary. He'll be an important man one day, and he knows that looking important is part of the job."
"Tom wouldn't throw me over," Hermione snapped. "And he's not interested in taking on an administrative position after Hogwarts. If anyone should be worried about being 'thrown over', it's you."
"How do you know?" asked Nott abruptly. "He's not said anything, has he?"
Hermione hadn't had many friends before Hogwarts; afterwards, sharing a dorm with five other Ravenclaw girls hadn't made her more than passing acquaintances with them. They'd formed their own little sub-groups by the end of Second Year, with Hermione on the outside. Not that she'd minded, of course. She had Tom, who might not have been able to match her eye colour to the most complementary shade of nail enamel, but was nonetheless a wonderful partner for class projects and exam preparation.
She supposed that her friendship with Tom had spoiled her. Tom didn't expect surprise birthday parties. He didn't demand that every spare minute she had outside of lessons be spent with him. He didn't even like it when she read over his essays and was too kind in giving her critique. It wasn't something she thought much about these days: Tom was her friend, she was his, and what had once begun as an alliance of mutual convenience had become something... more. Something reciprocated, somehow intimate, with no expectation of transactional exchange.
It took a moment or two for Hermione to recognise that this—their type of relationship—didn't apply to everyone else. Tom's favour was never an achievement she laboured to earn. Tom favoured her, and she didn't have to buy him expensive gifts, carry his books between classes, or put in the painstaking effort of pin-boning his pickled Shrakes in Potions. (She'd disapproved of Tom gently nudging another student into taking up the worst task in a group brewing exercise. But they'd managed to finish their potion earlier than everyone else, and Hermione left the classroom without the smell of fish clinging to her robes, so that was one instance where she kept her disapproval to herself.)
"If you want to know, you could just ask him," said Hermione. "I admit that Tom can be difficult sometimes, but I do believe he has a good soul."
"'Difficult'," Nott grumbled. "That's one way to put it..."
He shoved his hands into his pockets and wandered off, leaving Hermione to herself in her corner of the library.
She picked up her quill, but didn't resume the essay she'd been working on when Nott came and interrupted her.
The end of this school year was fast approaching, and most students were considering their future careers, with their N.E.W.T.s right around the corner. It was strange for Nott to be considering Tom's future career, as if it was any of his concern. As she thought about it, she began to consider the decisions Tom himself had made about his future. He had a job—not a steady one, but it was flexible and he'd saved up quite a bit in the few years he'd been writing for Witch Weekly, not to mention the bonuses he got for various product endorsements. He had an inheritance courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Riddle, and through their bequest, Tom would one day be a gentleman of leisure.
She couldn't imagine Tom sharing this information with anyone else... Not with Professor Slughorn, career advisor to the Slytherin students. Not with his Slytherin "friends", or with the grandparents who expected him to attend a prestigious university after completing his secondary education. (His field of study didn't matter, as they didn't expect him to actually work.) Tom's plans, which encompassed all his childhood dreams, his wild goals, were so personal to him that he'd gotten upset when he thought Dumbledore had found out about their letters.
Tom would never speak candidly about that subject with his fellow Slytherins. No, Tom Riddle had built himself a reputation as a brilliant student, and everyone who believed what they saw, believed he would go on to do great things—although what exactly these 'great things' were was heretofore unknown. Tom, who enjoyed being an object of mystery and speculation (and wasn't bothered if the things said about him were nice or not) never attempted to correct anyone of their assumptions.
She could understand Nott's concern now, though she wasn't sure she sympathised.
They treated Tom as if he was a firm in which they could invest, which would eventually pay out dividends for their support. Slughorn had cleared out a section of his shelf next to the photograph of the stern and unsmiling Arcturus Black, dropping a few unsubtle hints about his 'reserved spot'. Nott—the rest of Tom's Slytherin followers, for that matter—must be eager to cling onto Tom's coat tails, to bask in Tom's reflected brilliance.
The worst part was Tom's taking great pleasure in encouraging their assumptions, neither granting firm confirmation or clear denial, always turning aside the questions with one pretty answer after another, insinuating this and intimating that, but never saying anything. Hermione had since Christmas wondered if Tom's half-baked marriage proposal had been one of his many great teases, as Tom hadn't brought it up since the holidays, and she was almost too afraid to ask. (To an equal degree, she was also afraid of what answer he would give her.)
With a sigh, she uncorked her ink bottle and returned to her work, tapping the desk lamp with her wand to brighten and focus the light. There was no use in contemplating Tom's future career choices, not when there were more important things to concern herself with: her own prospects.
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On the last week of term, Lucretia Black tapped Hermione on the shoulder as she was leaving the Great Hall after breakfast, drawing her aside and off down the corridor, the one with the alcove that she and Tom had used for private conversations over the past few years.
Even in the middle of her N.E.W.T.s, Lucretia's presentation was spotless: her robes were neat and pressed, no ink spots staining the green lining of the sleeves. It was quite unlike the Ravenclaw Seventh Years that Hermione had seen in the Common Room, a handful who'd stayed up studying the entire night and hadn't changed their clothes when coming down to breakfast in the morning. Her immaculate appearance extended to Lucretia's dark hair, fashionable curls held with jewelled pins in the shape of feathers. They had to be roller curls—Hermione's natural curls never behaved like that; trying to tame them with a brush only made them frizz out more.
Finally, Lucretia's Head Girl badge shone on her lapel, the bright silver free of fingerprint smudges. Its sparkle was matched by the silver rings on her hands, of which the heaviest on her left hand was the most prominent.
"Granger," said Lucretia, her wand slipping out of her sleeve and casting about in the downwards arc and flick of the Silencing Charm. "Do you have a moment?"
"Er," Hermione said hesitantly, "what is it?"
"Official business," said Lucretia. She put her wand away, clearing her throat. "Sorry about that. These corridors echo and the portraits have a nasty habit of listening in on conversations—they get awfully bored hanging on the walls all day.
"On a subject of more importance, Granger, I've had word that you've been nominated for next year's Head Girl. Congratulations."
She spoke in a cool manner that wouldn't have been out of place in class, reciting a passage from the textbook. She didn't sound overjoyed on Hermione's behalf; Hermione decided, out of the desire to be generous, that Lucretia's indifference was due to her short time left at Hogwarts. What did next year's Head Girl matter to someone leaving at the end of the week?
"Thank you," said Hermione. "Although it's probably too early for a congratulations."
"There aren't any female Quidditch captains in your year, so who else could it be? Catesby and Fyfe are, hmm, aggressively mediocre," Lucretia continued, without the least bit of apology in her tone. "And Hipworth's so insufferably gauche that even Sluggy can see right through her. There was no other choice but you."
"Um, I don't think—"
"I expect that you'll do a creditable job of it, as long as you know what's expected of you. And for that reason, I needed to speak with you."
She reached into her robes and drew out a thick roll of parchment, offering it to Hermione.
"Blank patrol schedules, divided by House and month," she explained. "The Prefect system is intended to aid the teachers ensure a high standard of order and discipline at Hogwarts. Traditionally, the Head Boy undertakes the discipline, and the Head Girl manages the organisation... but with the position going to Riddle next year, I've reason to believe that he's uninterested in either."
Hermione frowned. "Are you saying that he doesn't deserve to be next year's Head Boy?"
"I'm sure he's a wonderful person," said Lucretia, waving an ambiguous hand and not answering the question. "If he has the patience to coddle Slughorn for six years running, then who am I to say that he's undeserving? The problem with Riddle is the same problem that arises every time someone hands the badge to a Slytherin: that the person who gets it cares less about Hogwarts than he does about himself."
"But you're a Slytherin," Hermione pointed out.
"A formality," Lucretia replied. "The Hat offered me a choice, but all Blacks go to Slytherin. In the end, one's House colours don't define them—it's the person who wears them that matters. And Riddle would be a shirker no matter what colour he wears."
"He's a hard worker, you know. He earned eleven O.W.L.s last year," said Hermione defensively.
"He wags off detention for anyone who can return a favour," said Lucretia. "He's in my House; of course I notice these things."
"Yes, alright, but he—"
"But you can keep an eye on him, can't you?" She graced Hermione with a considering look, then added, "I doubt there's anyone else who could."
"I..." Hermione began. "I'll try, I suppose."
"Good," said Lucretia, nodding. "The last sheet has a list of duties expected of the Heads, sorted by date. You'll want to get a head start in preparing the welcome speech for the September train ride, and the two farewell speeches—one for the Seventh Year graduation evening, and another for the last meeting on the Prefects' compartment. I expect you to attend mine, next week."
Having finished her speech, Lucretia flicked her wand at the walls to remove the Silencing Charm. She glanced both ways down the corridor, and without another word to Hermione, strode away.
Hermione stared at Lucretia's retreating back, wondering what that was about. Lucretia Black, Hogwarts' Head Girl incumbent—for one more week, at least—had always been somewhat brusque, favouring the Prefects whose efficiency and industry met her standards. Hermione thought it unusual for a Slytherin, but she'd appreciated the small courtesies (certain nights off patrol on request) that came of having the Head Girl's approval. When she reflected upon it, she recognised that resourcefulness, one of the traits espoused by Slytherin House, could appear in many forms.
Pride had prevented Lucretia from pandering to Tom, as most Slytherins had been doing since Tom had made Prefect. Lucretia had maintained a professional distance from Tom, but they'd never been convivial. Why should she be? She was secure in her own merits—or that of her family's—that there was no benefit in joining his crowd of admirers, although it must have grated on her that her own brother, Orion, was part of Tom's little club. Like all club members, Orion hadn't seen the inside of the detention room in two years.
Her thoughts on Lucretia aside, the list of Prefect tasks did come in useful. She read through it in one evening and made a copy of it for Tom, whom she met in their usual spot, the abandoned classroom in the dungeons that they'd cleaned up since Tom had made their general club headquarters. (The broken desks had been repaired or removed, the squeaky chairs un-squeaked, but there were a few bloodstains and scorchmarks on the floor that wouldn't budge. She suspected that Tom's half-hearted cleaning efforts had been because he liked the look of them.)
When she presented him with a duplicated copy, Hermione found herself disappointed with his ambivalent reaction.
"The point of being a Prefect is being able to do whatever you want," said Tom, giving a desultory glance at the stack of parchment pages she'd handed him. "This is a rule book. And not even the helpful kind of rules, like 'Mind the Gap' or 'Beware of Sharks', but self-imposed, self-restrictive rules. All I can see is an inadmissible waste of your valuable time."
Tom flicked to the end of the stack, scanning its contents. "'Leaving Day Procedure. One: Prefects will ensure the House Common Room is tidied before breakfast. Female Prefects will inspect girls' dormitories, male Prefects the boys'. Two: Prefects will ensure all trunks are labelled before collection. All misplaced or unattended belongings will be deposited in Lost and Found. Three: Prefects will escort students to breakfast, and after breakfast will escort them to the carriages...'"
He gave a loud scoff and said, "Look at this—you're expected to watch them eat, clean up after them, dress them to standard, and make them do their homework. The only thing that's missing is the bit where you're expected to wipe their bums."
"But the Prefects' job is to oversee the younger students," Hermione protested. "Isn't that why they choose the most responsible students of each House in Fifth Year?"
"The function of the Prefect is to lead," said Tom. "In Latin, 'Praeficere' means 'to put in front', and was a title used by Roman military officials. What you've got is the mistaken assumption that you're supposed to go around minding other people's children." Tom, looking quite intently at her, added, "The last I heard, you don't even like children—or that's what you told my grandmother when she asked you about it."
"T-that's not what I said!" said Hermione. "I told her I wasn't interested in, you know, settling down, right away. I didn't say it was out of the question."
"It's not?" said Tom sharply.
"I want to finish school, of course," said Hermione in a nervous voice, feeling bewildered at the unexpected shift in the conversation. "And I'd like to have a stable situation that gives me more than a choice between living with Mum and Dad or living in a ladies' boarding house."
Her mother had lived in a ladies only public boarding house whilst undertaking her medical training. They were touted as affordable, clean, respectable, and that last quality was very important to many young, unaccompanied women who'd moved to the city for work, and planned to return to their villages with their reputations intact. The boarding houses' respectability was maintained by strict proprietors with even stricter rules, upheld on pain of ejection: no loud music, proper presentation at meals, prayers on Sunday, no male guests. Even after Mum and Dad had been engaged to marry, she hadn't been allowed to invite him into the public sitting room.
Mum had plenty of funny stories that she'd told Hermione over the years, but after going to Hogwarts, Hermione saw the reality of Mum's experiences. It seemed incredibly unpleasant. Every boarding house guest got her own private bedroom, which was better than the shared Ravenclaw girls' dormitory, but no one at Hogwarts enforced prayer before supper (in fact, praying at Hogwarts was unusual and quietly mocked by certain members of Slytherin House) or limited association with only their House or sex.
It had shown Hermione the difficult journey of becoming a Modern Woman. She'd read about this feminine ideal from a young age: the woman who was educated, voted, never wore a corset unless it was by her own choice, and had more to contribute to society than motherhood. (Hermione had never seen fatherhood used to gauge a man's respectability. Integrity, rectitude, faithfulness, and sobriety, yes. But outside of an occasional ambiguous reference to the ideal of 'fruitfulness', she'd never found the act of siring children to be a great virtue for the virtuous modern man.)
Wizarding Britain had a different set of expectations for the feminine ideal. Witches had magic, an inherent utility beyond their ability to bear children, but from what she'd seen, the notion of Modernity was yet unheard of.
Well, that wasn't reason enough to stop her from aspiring to it.
"You're always welcome in my mansion," Tom offered magnanimously. "I have servants. You'd never find that in a boarding house."
"You also have a grandmother," said Hermione. "If I started living at the Riddle House for good, I can imagine that she'd bring the vicar around for tea every week to remind us that we're living in sin."
"You'd be sinning no matter what you did," Tom replied, shrugging. "I shouldn't think the God-bothering types approve of witches."
"That's—" Hermione scrambled to find the right word. "—Reassuring."
"You could follow my example, and disregard anything they say," Tom continued blithely. "Really, it's the most sensible course of action. Why should you or I allow other people—Muggles, the government, some insipid rulebook—to determine what we can or can't do?
"B-but..." Hermione stammered, "the government passes laws for good reasons. Without law and order, we'd be much worse off."
"The natives of colonial Rhodesia or Palestine would be glad to hear that," said Tom. "I'm sure they thank their British viceroys each and every day."
"That wasn't what I meant!"
"But it's what you said," said Tom. "It's alright, Hermione. When you're ready to accept the truth, you need only admit it to yourself."
Hermione let out a loud huff of irritation. "There's no use arguing with you!"
"I'm a natural pacifist," said Tom, giving her a gentle pat on the hand. "It's one of my many admirable qualities."
While Tom was not appreciative of Lucretia's comprehensive guide to good Prefectship—he'd snorted at the tips on effective speechwriting—Clarence Fitzpatrick thought it was a splendid idea. Clarence, who by nature was not particularly assertive or confident, had taken to it immediately. He was under the impression that the recipient of next year's Head Boy badge was still undecided, and had welcomed it as authoritative advice for someone unused to having authority thrust upon him. Hermione hadn't had the heart to contradict him—and she did enjoy having someone agree with her on the importance of proper procedure and responsible oversight, which Tom counted as less important than his own particular habit of delegation. (Those were his words; what it really meant was Tom encouraging the younger Fifth Year Prefects to overlap their patrols with his, under the guise of "extra training".)
For the final week of term, Clarence accompanied Hermione on routine patrols, following the instructions given by Lucretia. This included a map of patrol routes, and a checklist of places where students were most often found past curfew: the stairwell leading up to the Astronomy Tower, an empty classroom on the Third Floor corridor, the alcove behind the statue of a witch with a severe spinal deformation, and the broom cupboards on the First and Second Floors.
"I didn't even know about half these places," Clarence remarked while they were finishing up the last evening patrol of the year. He closed the broom cupboard door and tapped it with his wand, murmuring a locking charm. "How do you think Lucretia found out about them?"
Hermione had recognised the cupboard from First Year, when she and Tom had explored the castle, looking for a place to experiment with their "borrowed" rats.
"Perhaps she heard about them from an older student when she was a Prefect?" said Hermione. "I can't imagine that she'd have any use for them herself."
"Oh," said Clarence. His steps slowed, drawing to a halt on the curving staircase that led up to the Ravenclaw Tower. Hermione almost ploughed into his back. "I forgot about that. Isn't she marrying Prewett?"
"I'm afraid I don't know who that is," Hermione replied. She didn't pay much attention to the wizarding gossip that her female classmates indulged in during lessons, other than to deduct points when they got too loud. The social column in the back of The Daily Prophet was similarly ignored; she read the newspaper for news, not for announcements of newborn babies or diamond anniversaries.
"Ignatius Prewett—he and his sister were Gryffindors, I think," said Clarence. "Left a few years before we started First Year. His and Lucretia's wedding is set for next year."
Hermione frowned. "Wedding? She's barely eighteen!"
"Most girls of the old families marry at nineteen or twenty," Clarence said. "Their families expect them to—though they never seem to push the boys quite so hard." He gave her a curious look. "Hasn't anyone mentioned it to you? The, um, other boy I saw you studying with in the library the other day? He was in Slytherin robes..."
"You mean Nott," said Hermione. "No! We don't talk about that sort of thing; we just study together."
It wasn't just studying, but she wasn't going to tell that to Clarence.
"Oh," Clarence said awkwardly. "That's good, then. I was going to say... but I suppose I oughtn't to mention it now..."
They'd reached the Ravenclaw doorknocker by now, though this late in the night, the eagle sculpture was quiescent, its eyes closed and a soft snore emanating from its cast-bronze beak.
"What is it?" asked Hermione.
"You're Muggleborn, so you might not have heard, but pureblood boys don't usually marry as young as the girls do. That doesn't meant they don't—they can't—you know, um," Clarence broke off in a stutter, his throat bobbing.
"Oh!" said Hermione, clearing her throat. "Yes, I see what you mean. You don't have to worry about that, not with Nott." She made a face. "He's that kind of pureblood—I think he'd cut his own hand off rather than let it touch me."
"Oh, um," said Clarence. "I see. I just thought..."
Hermione looked down at the floor, then the wall, then the sleeping eagle doorknocker.
"I wouldn't, not with anyone who saw my blood as a mark against me. A stain on my character. It doesn't matter," she said fiercely, reaching for and seizing the ring held in the eagle's mouth. "The only thing that matters to me is one's talent and ability."
She knocked on the door, waking the eagle with a loud squawk.
"O-oh," said Clarence, and the little puff of noise he made sounded crestfallen.
.
.
The last day of the school year was chaotic for the Prefects.
Students of all ages were underfoot, packing their belongings, collecting everything they planned to take home with them, and sometimes demanding them back from whoever had asked to borrow them earlier in the year. In the Ravenclaw Common Room, the items most frequently exchanged and misplaced were books, and Hermoine had had quite a job of sorting out ownership disputes with the contents of the Lost and Found box, containing all the lost odds and ends that the cleaners had picked up from the beginning of September.
Watching Twyla sort through her nightstand and dump out dirty, lipstick-stained handkerchiefs and broken hairpins, Hermione wondered why the other girl hadn't packed her trunk days earlier, like she had.
"You could've done that last week, you know," said Hermione, folding her nightgown and placing it in her trunk, atop a stack of folded blouses and uniforms.
"The train goes at eleven," Twyla replied with a sniff. "That's plenty of time! I even set my school alarm this morning, and we don't even have lessons today!"
"You're meant to be at the station at half past ten," Hermione pointed out. Lucretia had written it in the Prefect instruction list.
"That's only a suggestion, not a rule," Twyla insisted, inspecting a bottle of nail enamel whose colour had separated from the oil base. "Like party invitations—everyone knows you're supposed to come an hour after the listed time. If you show up when it says, there won't be any people there, and that's no fun, is it?" She giggled, and added, "But I'm sure you wouldn't mind that."
"Just be there so I can tick your name off the list," Hermione huffed, slamming shut the lid of her trunk.
For the rest of the morning, Hermione helped her fellow Ravenclaws gather their pets and stuff them into their cages, before herding down to the Great Hall for their final breakfast. The banners on the walls weren't the normal set of gilt-tasselled purple velvet embroidered with the Hogwarts crest, but a set in rich emerald green. Slytherin colours, for Slytherin House had won the House Cup again, beating out Ravenclaw through the additional points earned in Quidditch games.
(Ravenclaw students were awarded the most points by the teachers, but Slytherin Prefects never deducted from their own House, and had the strongest Quidditch team of the whole school. Based on what she'd heard from Fiona Catesby, a Gryffindor Prefect, the Slytherins were just the best at cheating. Hermione could neither support nor refute it; she hadn't attended a Quidditch game since First Year.)
After that, she and the other Ravenclaw Prefects ticked the names off the roll, a difficult task with the number of students milling about and mixing with their friends of other Houses. They'd had the House Cup ceremony at last night's farewell feast, and this morning's students were no longer cowed by the threat of point deductions or detentions. From across the Great Hall, she could see Tom, among the tallest of his year, his group of Slytherins hovering about him. He didn't appear distressed in the chaos; rather, he appeared to have gotten his friends to forcibly shove the younger students into some semblance of a queue.
"Right," said Hermione crisply, ticking the last name off her list, Twyla Ellerby, who'd just arrived at the end of the queue, panting and puffing. Twyla had a canvas-lined wicker basket dangling from her elbow, and a spitting cat clamped under her other arm. "You're the last on my list. They've already started moving the carriages, so you'll probably have to share one with the stragglers."
Twyla nodded, turning to follow the now-thinning crowd. Wih a sudden yowl, the cat tucked under her arm latched its claws into Twyla's sleeve. Twyla cried out, her grip loosening, and the cat, a black and orange calico with long tufted ears, dropped to the floor of the hall and ran for freedom.
"Stupefy."
A jet of red light struck the cat in the back of the head; it toppled to the floor, paws akimbo.
Tom ambled up, tucking his wand back into his pocket.
"Someone should pick that up," he remarked. "It's bad form for people to leave things lying around like that, someone could have a nasty fall. Hermione, are you done yet? I've sent the others ahead to save us a good compartment—the ones at the back of the carriages have the most leg room."
"I'm done with my list," Hermione replied, rising up on her toes to peer over the crowd. Clarence still had a few people waiting to be marked off, one lower year girl at the head of the line looking rather unhappy with him. "Clarence isn't done with his."
"I don't see what that's got to do with you," said Tom, glancing over at Clarence, who had dropped his quill on the floor, and after picking it up, dribbled ink on his hand and down into his sleeve. "Let's go, before we end up in a carriage with the Gryffindors. I think Hagrid was at the back of the queue."
"You can go ahead, if you'd like," Hermione said. "I'll just pop in and see what's taking him so long."
She folded up her list, tucking it into her robe pocket, before striding over to Clarence and tapping him on the shoulder.
"Is there anything wrong? The train leaves in twenty-five minutes! And it takes ten for the carriages to take us down to the station!"
Clarence's expression turned sheepish. "I'm missing someone from my list, a Fourth Year. Her dorm mates said she liked taking her time in the bathroom, and that she'd catch up to us at the carriages."
Hermione held out her hand for Clarence's list, scanning the crossed out entries. She'd been assigned the names at the beginning of the alphabet, A through F, while Clarence had been all the students from U to Z. It was an organised way of sorting all the students in their House, compared to the Gryffindor slapdash method of First Come, First Served, or the Hufflepuffs' cumbersome chaperone system of older student mentor matched to a group of three or four younger students.
"'Warren, Myrtle'," read Hermione. "I checked all the girls' dorm bathrooms before we left, and told the doorknocker not to let anyone back in.
"If she's still in the bathroom," continued Hermione, "then it can't be the ones in the dorms. It must be one of the bathrooms on the First or Second Floor—they're the only ones in between Ravenclaw Tower and the Great Hall." She sighed. "Should I go and fetch her? It's the girls' loo; you wouldn't be allowed in, obviously."
Once the last carriage had departed, anyone left behind would have to travel to Hogsmeade by foot. It was a journey of twenty minutes, twice the time it would've taken the enchanted carriages; Hermione had done it before, when Hogsmeade weekends had fallen on fair weather days—and when she hadn't bought anything from the village bookshop or stationer's. It was a scenic trip around the Lake and past the edge of the forest, but it wouldn't be as pleasant with a pet carrier or owl cage, as this scenic route involved a stretch of rocky path that led down from the castle. She could manage it with a handful of convenient charms, but a Fourth Year wasn't allowed to use magic past the front gates.
"You could wait for her to finish her business," Clarence suggested. "I thought all girls took ages in the loo."
"We can't just leave a student behind!" said Hermione. "The teachers have already gone home, and they left us in charge. If she needs to do her business, she can do it on the train."
With that, she turned on her heel and marched to the door of the Great Hall, robes flapping.
Hogwarts' First Floor contained the Great Hall, and a central corridor that connected it to the great double doors by the Entrance Hall. In turn, it was connected to a flagstoned quadrangle that led into the grounds proper, finally terminating in the covered bridge that spanned the narrowest part of the Lake. Hermione had traversed this corridor thousands of times over the years, for classes during the day, and patrols at night. With the students either en route to Hogsmeade Station or settling themselves into their compartments, it was eerily silent, and her footfalls echoed off the stone walls.
She checked the tiny visitors' bathroom that led off the Entrance Hall, no more than two stalls and a washbasin for any guests and Ministry inspectors who might tour the castle, but it was empty. She hadn't been expecting to find anyone there, so she continued onwards.
There was a larger bathroom on the First Floor, one that people queued up to use after Quidditch games. Due to Quidditch's ridiculous rules, no one knew how long a game would last, so most attendees held themselves in as long as they could, and if they couldn't, this was the nearest bathroom to the school pitch. Hermione peeked in, noting the ink-daubed lions that a vandal had painted over the stall doors, charmed into animation so that the lion bounded after a fluttering doodled Snitch. Commendable charmwork; it was almost a shame that they'd be removed during the holidays.
That bathroom was empty too. With a sigh, Hermione climbed up the nearest set of stairs, holding the banister as it swung across the central chamber of the castle and connected her to a Second Floor landing.
She was very familiar with the Second Floor, because this floor contained the Hogwarts library wing, the largest public collection of magical literature in Britain. The Defense Department had a wing at the opposite end of the corridor, which contained Professor Merrythought's office, classroom, and a duelling room with a regulation-compliant platform and a number of enchanted practice dummies. There was a bathroom in between the two wings, Hermione recalled. The students who'd been ejected from the library for being too noisy had often congregated in that particular bathroom to finish their conversations.
The library was closed now, the lamps shuttered for the summer, and the door closed. However, something, a shadow, moved behind the glass window on the door, then the door swung open, and Nott stood in the threshold, stuffing a large, rectangular object under his robes. He'd drawn his wand, and as Hermione watched, he prodded the door handle with it, which let off a scraping sound, followed by a firm click!.
Hermione cleared her throat.
"What are you doing?"
Nott turned around, scowling. With the movement, a corner of a book poked out of his pocket, which he shoved back in.
"Some last minute borrowing," he said coolly. "I'll, ah, just be on my way, then."
"Borrowing?" said Hermione. "It's against library policy to lend books over the summer."
"Well," Nott said, "perhaps I got a permission slip from Slughorn? You know he throws them at Riddle whenever he asks."
"Yes, but that's Tom," spoke Hermione with as much patience as she could muster, "and you're... you."
"And glad to be," Nott retorted. "Now if you don't mind..."
"Show me the book."
"No."
"I'm a Prefect!"
"Slytherin's already won the House Cup!" said Nott. "There's nothing you can do."
Hermione drew her wand. "I could hex you!"
"You could, but you won't," said Nott, eyeing her wand, then her face. "You're a Prefect."
"Then I—I'll tickle you!" Hermione cried. "Rictusempra is only a First Year charm, but I don't know anyone who could suffer ten entire minutes of it!"
"Are you going to tell Riddle?" asked Nott, narrowing his eyes.
"No," Hermione conceded. "As long as you return the book in the same condition you got it."
"Fine," said Nott. He reached under his robes and flashed the cover of the book at her.
Hermione couldn't help herself; she gasped.
"A Compleat History of the Founders!" she groaned, covering her mouth. "That's a N.E.W.T. reference book! No one's allowed to borrow it, and you need a teacher's note to even touch it—and everyone knows that Professor Binns never gives them out!"
"I know," said Nott smugly. "I had to wait until the librarian was gone before I could nick it. I'd have got my own, but Hogwarts has the only public copy, and any other families who might have one squirrelled away in the back of the attic won't share."
"Are you quite sure you'll put it back?" Hermione asked, glancing down the corridor to make sure the librarian wasn't hiding behind the nearest suit of armour.
"Yes," said Nott, grimacing in distaste. "I'll bring it back in September. Someone will notice if it's gone, and by then I'll have made a copy of the most important bits." He stroked the spine with a languid finger. "I'm sure you'd like that, wouldn't you, Granger?"
"Um." Hermione bit her lip. "Maybe."
"Maybe, maybe," Nott said, his expression wary. "Maybe you should tell me what you're doing here. Did Riddle send you up here to sneak around for him?"
"Tom doesn't send me to do anything," said Hermione snippily. "I'm looking for a missing student. A Ravenclaw Fourth Year—she was supposed to have gotten on the carriages with the rest of her year, but we can't find her."
Nott rubbed his chin. "I suppose that's where the crying came from, then."
"Crying?"
"I heard someone sobbing in the loo down the hall," he explained, jerking his head in the direction of the Second Floor bathroom. "Didn't know what that was about—not that I care, as I have obviously got more important things to worry about."
"So have I," said Hermione, marching down the corridor and into the bathroom, where she could hear the faint sobs of a young girl from one of the stalls.
The Second Floor girls' bathroom had a high, vaulted ceiling, but unlike the corridor outside, there were no chattering portraits or moving tapestries here. The walls were interspersed with lead-framed windows set with thick panes of rippled glass; on this summer's morning, it was bright and airy, the sunlight reflecting off the panel of mirrors over the pedestal sink feature, casting shimmers of white and gold over the floor. The bathroom's position as a much-trafficked meeting room had made Hermione avoid it early on; this was a place where girls gathered to chatter, to gossip, and to her great agitation, express their feelings in a most intimate and alarming fashion.
(She understood the cathartic release of crying, but did people have to do it in such a public venue? Pushing past the girls crowded in front of the mirror to touch up their lipstick, Hermione had come to appreciate the privacy—the exclusivity—of the Prefects' Bathroom, which had toilet stalls off to the side of the changing area. She'd mentioned it to Tom, and he'd nodded sagely and said, "No one likes sharing with the peons if they can help it", which wasn't exactly the affirmation she'd been looking for...)
Behind the locked door of a bathroom stall, Hermione heard a wet sniffle.
"Hello?" she said, rapping on the door. "Myrtle? Myrtle Warren?"
There was a brief silence, punctuated by the sound of tearing paper and the swish and gurgle of water going down the drain.
"Who is it?" The question was hesitant, the voice unsure.
"Hermione Granger, Prefect. You're meant to have gone down to the carriages; I'm sure your friends are already on the train and wondering where you are."
She heard a hiccupping gasp, the slide of the latch, and the creak of the opening door.
A girl stood in front of her, brown hair bound in pigtails, and a pair of thick spectacles perched on her nose, fogged with steam. Her face looked pink, her cheeks wet, and there were dark splotches on her uniform robe. Hermione was instantly tempted to cast a Tergeo, but restrained herself in the name of politeness.
"I," croaked Myrtle Warren, "don't have any friends!"
"Everyone has at least one frie—"
"Everyone hates me!" she cried, bursting into a round of fresh tears and throwing herself into Hermione's arms. "They all left and forgot about me! No one remembered I was here, not one of them!"
"Actually, I came because—"
"Because you had to! But you don't really care!"
"I—" Hermione began, attempting to pick her words carefully, "I care about the welfare of all Ravenclaw students. And I really do want to make sure everyone gets home safely..."
"That's all you care about, I knew it!" Myrtle wailed into Hermione's shoulder, dribbling a line of snot over her lapel. "They're all the same, you know; they say nice things—'Oh, Myrtle, don't cry, we're here for you!'—but as soon as they leave—I just know it—they'll, they'll—who's that?"
"What?" said Hermione, trying to peel Myrtle's hands off her robe.
"There's a boy in the girls' bathroom!" Myrtle shrieked, glaring over Hermione's shoulder.
Hermione craned her neck to see.
Nott was inspecting the sinks in the centre of the bathroom, tapping his wand to them and muttering to himself. When he felt them staring at him, he straightened up, his eyes darting down to the wet streak of gobby mucus on Hermione's robe.
"You weren't doing anything important," Nott said. "And I haven't had a chance to look around the girls' loos yet. The mirrors here are larger than the one in the boys'... But ours is better maintained. The handle on this tap won't even turn—"
"That one's always been broken," Myrtle said.
Nott drew his wand along the porcelain bowl of the sink, but suddenly he stopped and glanced at Hermione.
"Interesting," he remarked, and then without warning, he pointed his wand at Myrtle. "Petrificus totalus."
"What was that for!" Hermione scrabbled into her robe pocket for her own wand—
"Imperio," said Nott.
"Nott—"
"You'll leave this bathroom and walk down to the carriages, and take one to Hogsmeade. You won't mention seeing anyone here. You'll forget anything that happened here. If anyone asks, you'll say you were alone."
"What are you—"
"Go," ordered Nott, and with a flick of his wand, he broke the Body-Bind on Myrtle Warren and watched her totter out of the bathroom, her eyes glazed behind her spectacles, her expression blank and oddly gormless. He turned to Hermione, twitching with eagerness. "I think I've found it!"
"You just used an Unforgivable Curse on a student! That's illegal!"
Nott waved away her complaints, gesturing at the sink, the one with the broken tap. "That's not important. This is. Look—Slytherin's sign!"
Cast into the aged, tarnished metal of the spout, along the side where it joined the porcelain bowl, was a small curled serpent in relief, its tail and throat twisted in the shape of an S, a design that matched that of the crests worn on Slytherin robes and the House banners in the Great Hall. This tap was identical to the others, but it was this single detail that differed. No other tap had that unusual symbol; they all produced a steady stream of water when she turned the handles, and no conclusive result when she cast Revelio upon them.
All except for this one.
"What does it mean?" she asked. "Slytherin hid the Chamber of Secrets inside this broken tap?"
"You've no imagination," Nott scoffed. "It's obviously a door handle, magically sealed so that only the Heir can open it."
"So how are you going to open it?"
"I..." Nott began, but he caught himself just as they heard Tom Riddle calling Hermione's name from the corridor outside.
"Hermione!"
"Tom!" Hermione replied, passing Nott and throwing open the bathroom door, where Tom stood, his sides heaving, wand gripped tightly in his hand.
"Someone attacked the missing Ravenclaw with dark ma—" He stopped mid-sentence, then asked sharply, "What are you doing here?"
Nott tensed, his shoulders stiffening. "How did you find us?" he asked, carefully adjusting his body to block sight of the tap.
"I asked the portraits about the girl, since she couldn't tell me herself. She was compelled into silence," answered Tom. "Now I see why. What are you hiding, Nott?"
"Nothing," spoke Nott in a hoarse voice.
"Don't lie to me," said Tom, pushing past Hermione and stepping into the bathroom. "There is nothing I despise more than being lied to. Tell the truth."
A vein pulsed in Nott's forehead, and he shuddered, the cords of his throat bulging and twisting as he tried to wrench his face away from Tom's burning gaze.
"The truth, Nott," said Tom, his words ringing off the stone walls. The brightness and warmth of the summer morning seemed to darken, the atmosphere dissolving into one of fraught anxiety.
"I—I've found it," Nott finally choked out, clutching his throat and casting his eyes to the floor. "The Chamber of Secrets."
"Show me."
Nott moved out of the way, gesturing at the tap with the design of the serpent. Tom inspected it, running first his fingers, then his wand, over the sinuous curves of the metal snake, his eyes hot and fevered.
"How does it open?" he asked, tearing his attention away from the tap.
"There's a... a password." Nott hesitated, his eyes drawn to Tom's wand, which Tom was absently stroking. "I haven't a clue what it is."
"Hermione?" Tom prompted.
Hermione had been dwelling over Nott's casual use of the Imperius Curse, but upon hearing her name, she jerked to attention. "Er... After he was expelled by the other founders, Slytherin was said to have entrusted knowledge of the Chamber to his apprentices, who were allowed to remain in the castle as long as they renounced their blood purity ideologies. The other founders never discovered the Chamber, so the password must be something special or significant to Slytherin. Perhaps it was a spell he invented, or in a language he spoke—according to historical record, Slytherin returned to his estate in Ireland and spent the rest of his life there; his given name, 'Salazar', suggests his ancestors were of Celtic Basque descent."
"The password is in Gaelic, then?" Tom asked, looking doubtful.
"You could try it," Hermione suggested.
Tom shrugged, then bent over the tap and whispered a few words.
Nothing happened.
"Are you sure you're saying the right thing?" said Nott. "Maybe the password is 'Reducto'?"
Tom considered it for a few moments, before he leaned over the sink and whispered something in an unrecognisable language, the sharp consonants giving his voice a peculiar hissing quality.
He stepped back, his brows furrowed, glaring at the pedestal sink feature.
"Let me try," said Nott. "You mustn't have gotten the conjugation right. I think I can—"
There was a pop, a metallic creak, and a low rumbling under their feet that Hermione could feel as much as hear. Something squealed, and Hermione realised that it was the handle of the broken tap; it was turning, spinning now, faster and faster, and from the worn pewter spout a brilliantly glowing light emerged.
With a groan, the sinks descended into the floor, the blackened iron drain grates vibrating under the soles of her shoes. Tom stepped back, his eyes bright, his expression hungered, bumping against her side; she felt his hand slip under the sleeve of her robe, his fingers tight against her wrist, clenching, unclenching, shaking in agitation—in excitement—as a hole opened up in the centre of the Second Floor girls' bathroom.
"The Chamber of Secrets," he murmured, stepping forward eagerly—
Hermione yanked him back. "No one's going in!"
"What!" both Tom and Nott exclaimed, staring at her in astonishment.
"The train leaves in less than ten minutes! We'll have to run to the gates, then Apparate to the station to catch it before it leaves!"
"Damn the train!" said Tom heatedly. "We can Apparate to London—our luggage has already been sent on."
"You can't Apparate six hundred miles!" said Hermione. "You'll splinch yourself!"
"I'll stop in Yorkshire," Tom replied. "I'll be fine."
"No," said Hermione firmly. "Lucretia Black is delivering her farewell speech in the Prefects' compartment in fifteen minutes. We'll both be there. I... We'll pretend nothing happened, that everything's normal. No one will have any reason to suspect that we've done anything wrong." She glared at Nott, who appeared completely unaffected about his recent use of the Imperius, an offence worthy of an Azkaban sentence. "And then we'll spend the summer coming up with a plan for what to do with—with that."
She flapped her hand at the hole in the floor. "You weren't going to just jump in headfirst, were you?"
"No," said Tom. He sent a sideways glance at Nott. "I was going to toss him in first."
"My vote goes with Granger!" said Nott.
"You don't get a—"
"Two against one, Tom," said Hermione. "If we're missing on the train, they'll send a teacher to look for us. And if the teachers know we've found this, they'll send the Ministry to investigate."
Tom looked rebellious at that, but he gave a sigh and turned away from the sinks.
"Very well," he spat. "We'll work on a plan. Together. You'll spend this summer with me, won't you, Hermione?"'
"O-of course," said Hermione.
"Good."
"What about me?" asked Nott.
"What about you?" Tom gave him an irritated look.
"Aren't you going to release me from the oath?"
"No," said Tom instantly. "Since we're apparently not going down there, there's no proof that it's the real Chamber."
"What else could it be?" said Nott, his tone contemptuous.
"Slytherin's secret laundry chute," said Tom. "Really, it could be any number of possibilities."
"Oh, come off it, Riddle," snapped Nott. "What about this summer? Am I going to be let in on the plans?"
"No," Tom said.
"Yes," said Hermione, remembering the book Nott had taken from the library and stowed under his robes.
"Hermione—" said Tom.
"He found it," said Hermione. "It's only fair."
"I found it," insisted Tom.
"There's still the issue of Slytherin's monster," Hermione reminded him. "Three wands are better than two, when we don't even know what it is. With Hogwarts closed for the summer, we won't have access to the library anymore. But Nott has a family library..."
"The contents of which I'm gracious enough to volunteer," said Nott. "But only if it's tit for tat. Anything you—we—find down there, I'll pay a fair price for it. Scrolls, artefacts, trinkets: better that they go to someone who'll appreciate them properly than have them disappear into the Department of Mysteries forever."
"We have two and a half months to settle on the finer details," Hermione said. "Let's put the bathroom back to rights and get to the station."
Stepping off the drainage grate around the sinks was enough to make them return to their proper position, to Hermione's relief. She'd been expecting another set of complicated passwords. When the hole was covered, there was no sign of anything unusual about it—no hollow noise when she rapped her knuckles against the mirrors, no suspicious cracks between the sinks, no glowing lights when she tried to turn the handle of the broken tap.
Tom gave the sink one last, longing look before they left the bathroom. They hadn't much time left; leaping down a flight of stairs to the Entrance Hall, the three of them pelted down the stone-lined path from the castle to the front gates, guarded by a pair of winged stone boars, each bearing a formidable set of polished tusks. The gate shut behind them, great crossbars sliding into place, but Hermione didn't spare a moment to admire the impressive enchanting; she was too busy drawing up a mental image of the Hogsmeade train station: a twee little country station with a single platform, iron rails over weathered wooden sleepers, the signage placards painted in glossy black and red, matching the livery of the locomotive itself. A few rustic cottages owned by village locals backed onto the platform, a tiny island of civilisation in an ocean of lush green foliage, thick with summer growth.
Crack!
Tom had already arrived when her feet hit the platform, and Nott came seconds later. They had to run to the half-closed door, shouting and waving their hands, and inside Lestrange was arguing with a student in Hufflepuff robes who wanted it shut for safety's sake. The student fell silent when Tom appeared in the doorway, closely followed by Hermione and Nott, just as the train began to pull away from the platform.
She and Tom were the last Prefects to enter the Heads' compartment, and for all Tom's efforts to present an air of serene self-possession, he couldn't hide the red flush of exertion on his skin, the sheen of sweat on his brow, or the slight catch to his breathing. Hermione was awfully aware that she was just as out-of-breath as he, and that Lucretia Black had noticed it too, her eyebrows rising in disbelief.
"Riddle, Granger," remarked Lucretia, sliding a stack of note cards out of her robe pocket. "What excellent timing. If you wish to set a good example, I would recommend that, next time, you'll ensure your indiscretions remain... discreet."
"We weren't—" said Hermione.
"Of course, Black, if you'll forgive us," said Tom. "Distractions come so easily in the presence of such delightful company." He gave a quick look in Hermione's direction, and just as quickly lowered his gaze in what appeared to be bashfulness, showing the high colour on his cheeks to full effect.
A few of the female Prefects tittered; Lucretia quelled the noise with a sharp glance, cleared her throat, and began the opening to her well-rehearsed speech.
As Tom and Hermione had been the last Prefects, there hadn't been much room in the compartment for them to sit, so she spent the first hour on the Hogwarts Express pressed bodily against Tom. He bore it with quiet dignity for the rest of the journey, but whenever she met his eyes, she saw in them hints of the same dark hunger that she'd noticed when the floor had opened up at their feet. It was that look he wore now, when he looked at her, smiling; Hermione could almost rate it as somewhat... ominous.
In the end, she didn't.
She could believe in magic, but superstition was a step too far.