Apologies for the wait – it's coming to that point in the semester when everything is due at once and all the tests are in the same week. Shorter chapter, but please enjoy.
-XXX-
The parchment is crumpled, half-ash by the time she finds in in the grate. Hermione has to push aside a few pieces of coal before she can reach it. It takes quite a bit of smoothing before she can make out the message.
"Mr. Riddle –
We appreciate you consideration – application was well received – however, at this time we do not - please apply again in a few year's time – we shall try our best to install you then -
Yours,
Amo—"
Most of it is quite illegible, but she can read just enough to discern the message. Riddle has applied to Hogwarts and has subsequently been denied.
Part of her is tempted to put the scrap back, but she instead leaves it on the table. He finds it when he returns from the market, picking it up with a barely-concealed quiver of rage. Across the room, Hermione watches, silent. When his gaze rises to meet her, it's tight, strained with frustration. He never intended for her to see this. She must know only of his success, not his failures.
"I'm sorry," she says simply.
No other remarks are exchanged, and they never speak of the matter again.
-XXX-
"Dear Dumbledore,
I took your suggestion of using rats as test subjects and have successfully sent three forward five hours in the afternoon. All I had to do was calibrate the number of sweeping waves with the chanting, and write the date in runes. I cannot imagine the process of sending someone forward over fifty years. But it will be well-worth it, I am sure. There are still kinks to work out – two rat returned about fifteen minutes late, a severe calculation error, and all three were missing some fur upon their return. I will keep working on the formula. Eventually I'll get there.
Shall we meet for lunch next Sunday? I just found the loveliest little sandwich shop on this residential street in muggle London…"
She sits back, watching the shiny sheen of ink slowly fade to matte as she considers her next words. His last few letters had worried tones about them. He is fearful of her experiments. Nothing she says seems to persuade him that she is being perfectly safe. Well, mostly.
Reaching back to push away a few locks of hair, she touches the short locks towards the back. Wincing at the memory, Hermione resolves that she will get some grow-again potion before Monday. And if she must go out before then, well, she'll wear a hat.
-XXX-
It never before bothered him terribly that he did not know much about her life. Not much about her background, her education, her family, her friends. It was as if when Tom Riddle accepted Beatrice Garner into his life he took her in as a blank slate, uncaring of who or what had written on the stone previously. He was remarkably accepting.
Fortunately, this had thus far worked in her favor. Had he started asking questions, Hermione would likely be stumped on how to go about answering them. Despite being in the past for nearly a year, Tom is the closest person she has in her small, nay, minuscule circle of acquaintance-like people. And he has an uncanny knack for picking up on lies.
It just so happened that when he decided to become curious, he is entirely curious, and bombards her with questions over one rainy afternoon's tea.
Curled by the fire, completely unsuspecting, Hermione was musing over a novel and vaguely enjoying having a full head of hair again when he starts. It is an innocent question.
"Why have we never met your parents?"
She doesn't bother glancing up. "Why have we never met yours?"
"Mine are dead," Tom replies sharply.
Hermione pauses midway through turning a page. "Right. Sorry." There is an awkward tinge about the air until she continues. "We've never met mine because they're in Canada, at the moment. They moved there shortly before the War. Between Grindlewald and Hitler…." She drifts off, hoping he'll take it as a painful subject.
But Tom isn't about to give up so easily. "They were up-to-date on the Muggle Wars, then?"
"Yes."
There is a beat.
"Why are you here, then, instead of in North America?"
"I was studying in France. When the War broke out they sent me to the UK to be taught by a private tutor under the guardianship of a maiden aunt." It's an elaborate lie – one he will surely see through.
Tom nods thoughtfully. "And where is she?"
"Dead."
"Hm."
A pause claims them for a few minutes before he strikes up another question. "But surely you have friends? I've never met anyone you're acquainted with outside of your work. Surely we would have some common people between us. The wizarding world is quite small."
Her nostrils flare. Hermione resolutely does not look up from the paragraph she is failing to read. "I've no idea why we know no one in common," she grinds out. "Perhaps it is our diverse interests…please, Tom, I am trying to read!"
"It's just a few questions. Tell me about them. I know you have friends. Their pictures are above your head right now."
He's right. The photograph of herself, Ron, and Harry from Bill and Fleur's wedding is just above her on the mantel. She'd been a little sentimental in putting the photo up there – not expecting, of course, that the Dark Lord would be frequenting her residence.
"Tom, I don't want to talk about it," she says hopelessly. "I'm in the middle of a very important –"
Setting his teacup upon the coffee table, he interrupts her gravely. "I realized yesterday I know nothing about your life before coming here, Beatrice. It does not seem right that I have so little understanding of you. Please. I only ask to know you better."
She sighs, closing her book. "I don't believe you the least bit," she tells him. "It's never that way with you."
Tom tilts his head innocently. "Beatrice, we've been together nearly six months now. I should only think it right –"
"Muggle-born," she says flatly. "Alright? I'm muggle-born. My parents were terrified of the wizarding community in conflict so they pulled me from school when Grindlewald started building up power, and I got a muggle and magical education here England."
For what feels like an age, all Tom can do is stare blankly straight at here. Not a muscle in his body moves. His face is utterly devoid of all feeling. His eyes are dull and blank, reminding her of a shark's. She is petrified.
Then, abruptly, he seems to launch himself across the room at her. With a squeak, Hermione is lifted from her chair, book clattering to the floor, tea sloshing as he lifts her up to give her a savage kiss. It's filled with longing and despair and frustration and cold, cold hate, but mostly – surprisingly – fear. Hermione struggles to overcome her stunned self before returning the kiss with as much fervor, wrapping her arms around his neck and twisting fingers in his perfectly styled waves.
When he pulls back, his eyes are alive again, sparkling with an emotion akin to rage, but far more tame.
"You're still bloody brilliant," he whispers breathlessly. "Beatrice, you're still…Oh, Merlin. Damnit all!"
Without another word, Tom swirls from the room, scooping up his cloak from the couch and slamming the door in one perfectly executed motion leaving Hermione alone, with swollen lips and a dizzy head.
-XXX-
The next day finds him on her threshold with a kiss and a new book on rare magical fungi of Wales. He doesn't refer to the previous afternoon, except once, saying that he'll overlook "any vice, any flaw, so long as she remain ever-his." It sounds corny and dangerous, heart-throbbing and threatening at the same time. Hermione is speechless. She just blinks at him as he pushes back stray, fussy locks back from her forehead.
Lips against her brow, Tom murmurs silently into her skin. The words are almost like prayers or mantras. She pointedly chooses not to ask.
-XXX-
It's April, and Tom is still in London.
It's April and Tom is still in London and Hepzibah Smith is still alive and everything is wrong.
She's taken to reading the obituaries first in the Daily Prophet now, pushing aside the weather reports and features to go straight to that middle page. There are never very many. Hepzibah's name has yet to appear. It's driving her positively mad. Tom always remarks on this peculiar interested in the obituaries section, and Hermione can only smile half-heartedly and say she's looking for acquaintances. He doesn't believe her, naturally, but lets the issue lie.
What's even more bothersome is all of the annoy indications that Tom has no intention of leaving London, at least not anytime soon. He even made the suggestion that they start looking into getting a flat together this summer. There's not even the slightest hint that he's planning on leaving the country for the next decade.
Its giving her ulcers to think that he might very well not be leaving, because that would mean…that would mean….
She shakes her head. "I don't want to think about it."
But Hermione Granger has never been one to advocate not thinking. So she stares at the calendar, biting her lip worriedly until Tom summons her to the bedroom. When she doesn't move fast enough, he finds her before the calendar. Slipping an arm around her waist, he buries his face in the halo of her hair, inhaling.
"What are you looking at? Have you still not figured out its April?"
She leans into him, not answering.
"Beatrice?"
Hermione turns in the circle of his arms to kiss him, hands going to the nape of his neck. Tom returns the gesture, brow furrowed.
-XXX-
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