A/N: It's been a while, for which I apologise. I had a bit of a block with this one, though hopefully I'll be able to get back on track. I also posted a one-shot this morning, which is Tom/Hermione, you might like to check that out. Look out for a Dramione very shortly. I may post the first chapter in the next few days, we'll have to see how it goes. Anyway, after all that shameless plugging, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Thank you for all your reviews so far, they really do help to motivate me. Let me know what you think. =]
Tempora Abducto.
by Flaignhan.
"Toast?" Tom slid the toast rack across the table to her and Hermione paused before taking two slices. Before she could even reach out for the butter, it had zoomed towards her, knife hovering in mid air, waiting for her to take control of it. Tom smirked.
"Thank you," Hermione said stiffly, taking the knife and buttering her toast, avoiding his ever watchful eye.
There was a screech as a solitary owl soared into the Great Hall and dropped a newspaper onto the table. It landed mere centimetres away from Tom's hand, and he picked it up, shook it out to straighten it before he smirked again, setting the newspaper down in front of Hermione so she could read the headline on the front page.
PUBLIC URGE DUMBLEDORE TO TAKE ACTION
Hermione pursed her lips slightly and scanned the article.
"Interesting little premonition you had there, don't you think?" Tom pulled the paper back to his side of the table and opened it to page four, so he could continue reading the story.
"Premonition? They've been talking about that for ages," Hermione replied, trying to keep her voice sounding as casual as possible as she bit into her toast, chewing thoroughly and then swallowing.
"Oh really? '"We've all been thinking it, but nobody's said it. I'm glad the Prophet's finally stepped up to say what needs saying," says Eva Crockford, Salisbury.' Really sounds like this is an ongoing thing doesn't it? Not breaking news at all..."
"Well maybe some of us stay more up to date than others," Hermione said haughtily, taking one last bite of her toast and getting up from the table.
"Eager to get away, aren't you?" Tom commented, his eyes now focused on a story about a town in Austria which had been decimated by Grindelward and his followers.
"You'd prefer it if I hung around you all day like a lost puppy?" Hermione asked.
Tom said nothing and Hermione left.
Hermione had been out of the hospital wing for two days, and had done well so far at avoiding Tom and his questions. The Room of Requirement had certainly come in handy – he had no idea it existed, and seeing as he had completely taken over her usual sanctuary (the library) she was incredibly grateful for its existence.
She had been unable to sit in the Gryffindor common room. It was empty, devoid of life and it was wrong. There was no Ron, frowning over a chess board, no Lavender or Parvati, giggling over whichever boy was flavour of the week, no Neville, running a frustrated hand through his hair as he tried to get his head around his homework, and no Harry, planning some sort of life threatening escapade while she, Hermione, tutted at noisy first years who were interrupting her exam revision.
She had no choice other than to sit with him at meal times, however. She could have eaten in the kitchens, but then that would have gone too far, he would have known she was doing everything she could to avoid him, and he would know she was scared. On top of that, the teachers would think it very odd that two seventh years, the only students present in the school before the start of term, would not even speak to each other.
As nervous as she was, she couldn't wait for the other students to arrive, to find other people to talk to, to have classes, homework, and exams to concentrate on. Hopefully, once they did, she would be able to pretend Tom didn't even exist, and he would become completely uninterested in her, once his Slytherin friends were back by his side. Unfortunately she still had over a week to get through before the first day of term.
She was about to climb the stairs, heading for the seventh floor when she caught sight of something sparkling through the window. The sun was reflecting off of the lake, which rippled slightly in the gentle breeze, no sign of the giant squid. Perhaps he wasn't as giant in this time, perhaps he wasn't even born. She glanced to the spot where the Whomping Willow would be planted in another thirty years and tried not to think of Lupin.
Deciding she'd better make the most of the last few days of sunshine, she headed out to the lake, sitting down at the edge of it, her mind wandering, as it so often had sine she'd got here, to everything that had been left behind.
Being here wasn't just like being back in time, it was like being in another world. Nobody had even heard of Lord Voldemort, none of her friends, or their parents had been born, Dumbledore was alive, the castle stood tall, proud, and undamaged, and the library was a lot less full than she was used to.
"Sickle for your thoughts?"
Hermione looked up and squinted, the sun blinding her temporarily. Tom sat down next to her, a thick, leather bound book in his hands.
"Well?" he prompted.
"Oh, I'm not really thinking about much."
Tom raised an eyebrow.
"If you must know I was thinking about hair potions," Hermione lied, trying to sound impatient. With any luck, if he thought she was shallow enough, he would deem her unworthy of his time, no matter how mysterious her arrival at the school may have been.
"Of course you were," Tom replied, glancing towards her hair. She could tell he was humouring her. "What does your father do?"
"My father isn't alive," Hermione told him. It wasn't a lie, after all. He could interpret it as he wished, and if he interpreted it wrongly, that was hardly Hermione's fault.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I guess we're in the same boat. Is your mother -?"
"No," Hermione said quickly.
"Do you live in an orphanage as well, then?"
"No, do you?" she tried to sound interested and sympathetic but she could tell it wasn't washing with him. Of course the 'my parents are dead, feel sorry for me' trick wasn't going to wash with her, not when he had killed his own father. He'd brought that one on himself.
"I did, but this summer Professor Dippet let me stay in the castle, I'm of age, so it wasn't really a problem. I stay out of the way mostly, work in the library, draw up prefect schedules for next year. It's quite dull really. I thought, with your arrival things would be a little more interesting but you don't seem to like me much."
Hermione's eyebrows drew momentarily together. Did he really expect her to swallow this?
"It's not that I don't like you," Hermione replied carefully. "You just keep asking me weird questions and it makes me uncomfortable. Like you're constantly interrogating me or something. I don't know about you but I don't really class that as enjoyable."
"I apologise if it came across that way," Tom said, "I'm just curious. You arrived with a bit of a bang, that's all."
Hermione's stomach tied itself into a knot. "You were there?"
"Yes, I was eating dinner, and there was a loud bang, and there you were on the floor. All battered and broken and...bald," his lips pressed together after the last word and he cleared his throat, looking out across the lake.
"Ah," Hermione said. There wasn't anything else to say.
"You can't apparate in Hogwarts grounds, you can't enter by stealth at all and nobody had ever seen you before. That's why I'm curious. So where did you come from?"
There was no getting around the fact that her arrival had been out of the ordinary. She figured it would be best to satisfy his curiosity, just a little. And to play dumb.
"I was cursed," she told him. "But I don't remember who by, or with what kind of spell. I just woke up in the Hospital Wing."
"Does the Headmaster know what -?"
"Don't you think he would have told me if he did?"
Tom frowned, and pulled some parchment, a quill and a bottle of ink out of his pocket. "So the side effects were amnesia, hair loss, what else? Is anything different?" he looked up from the parchment, where he was scribbling notes, as though he were a doctor of some sort, taking down a list of symptoms from a patient.
"I don't know - I don't remember what it was like before."
Tom's frown deepened. "I'm going to the library, I'll see you at dinner."
"Wait, what are you doing?"
"Trying to find out what you've been cursed with. There might be other side effects that haven't presented themselves yet – nastier ones."
"So?"
"Do you really have so little regard for your own well being?"
"No, but I didn't realise you had so much regard for it."
"Well it would put a dampener on the start of term if you dropped dead in the middle of the feast. Besides, I love a good project."
He got up and shoved his quill and ink back into his pocket, holding the parchment tightly in his hand. He hadn't even taken ten steps before Hermione scrambled to her feet and chased after him. He merely smirked when she caught up with him.
"You weren't thinking about hair potions at all, were you?"
It was hard work, trying to stay one step ahead of him. Hermione had no idea if there were any books in the library about the Tempora Abducto curse, but she was doing all in her power to make sure that Tom didn't even catch sight of the words, let alone read up on all the details of the curse. His questions would increase tenfold if he knew where she was from, and he might resort to more desperate measures if she refused to answer him. A large lump grew in her throat at this thought, impossible to swallow down.
It was just her luck, surviving to the end of one war (she had decided that Voldemort in her time had been killed – whether it was true or not, she didn't care. She couldn't bear to spend the next fifty years worrying about it,) then being sent back in time to live not only through Grindelward's reign of terror, but through the first war as well. Then, providing she lived long enough, she'd have to go through the second one all over again, without being seen or heard by anybody who might know of Hermione Granger, Harry Potter's best friend, and make the connection between the two of them. It was all far too complex and she wondered what she could have possibly done wrong in her previous life to deserve this.
"Oh look at this."
The fist around Hermione's heart squeezed tightly as Tom approached, an open book in his arms.
"Do you keep getting headaches?"
"No," Hermione replied, and the fist loosened, just a little.
"And you haven't had a sudden outbreak of pustules on the small of your back?"
"No," Hermione answered, unable to keep the disgust and indignation from her voice.
Tom looked up from the book. "I won't think any less of you if you have," he told her, "you've been cursed, and curses aren't supposed to be pleasant."
"Well I don't think it's really affecting me now," Hermione reasoned. "I'm fine."
"You've lost your memory, it's hardly fine." Tom disappeared into the bookshelves once more and Hermione sighed.
"Okay, new approach."
"Which is?"
"We find out who your family are, what did you say your surname was again?"
"I didn't."
"Are you always this difficult?" Tom demanded. "I've spent the last week trying to help you and -"
"No, you're trying to satisfy your own curiosity," Hermione huffed. "As much as I adore being your little project, I'm getting quite tired of it all."
"Well go elsewhere and think about hair potions then," he said impatiently, and took a step towards her. Hermione immediately took a step backwards, knocking into one of the shelves. He took another step, and was inches away from her. "Or, alternatively, you can save us all a lot of time and tell me the truth, Miss..."
"Mercer," Hermione replied, with only a second's hesitation. Her documents had come through from the Department of Mysteries a few days ago, and she would now go by the name of Hermione Mercer.
"Hermione Mercer..."
"If you have a problem with my name, you'd best take it up with my parents. They were the ones who chose it, after all," she turned to walk away, to leave the library and not come back. At least, not while he was in there. He put an arm up to block her.
"Who's Harry?"
The change of subject and mention of her best friend took Hermione by surprise. She opened and closed her mouth several times, and Tom smirked, inching closer, his grey eyes boring into her own, his hands resting on the shelf either side of her. She wasn't going to be able to get out of this one too cleanly. At least, not without telling him something.
"He's my cat, why, where did you hear me -?"
"Rubbish," Tom spat.
"You don't like cats?" Hermione asked, her voice having jumped up a few notes without her consent. She glanced down at his arms either side of her, momentarily back to his eyes and then decided to look over his shoulder instead.
He raised his right hand and pulled a book from the shelf, just above her head. he thrust it at her and she took it.
"Page four hundred and sixty three. I'll be expecting you at dinner."
He left, slamming the door of the library behind him, the windows rattling in their frames. If Madam Pince had been there, she'd have murdered him.
Hermione sat down in the nearest chair and opened the book, flicking to the page he had mentioned.
The fist held her heart in a vice like grip when she saw the title at the top of the page, and Hermione could barely breathe. All feeling had left her body and her brain seemed to go numb in panic. Eventually, she was able to read.
Tempora Abducto.
A curse so intricate and delicate that it has only been cast twice in recorded history. Few wizards have the immense power needed to cast it correctly, and even fewer become so involved with the dark arts that they have tried.
Unsuccessful castings have often resulted in death, though one victim (Laurence Jacobs, 1742-1503) arrived in the fifteenth century missing a foot, essentially being splinched through time.
There is no reverse for this curse, though if caught, the caster will be sentenced to a lifetime in Azkaban. Casting such a spell is considered even more destructive than casting the Unforgivable Curses, as wizarding history has the potential to be changed with one wrong word.
There was a diagram underneath of a man with a missing foot; presumably this was Laurence Jacobs. Hermione turned the page, expecting to read more, but it was the start of a new chapter concerning the Unforgivables. She'd already learned enough about those in her fourth year, and had had far too much contact with them in the years that had followed. She didn't need to read up on those.
She got up and slotted the book back into place on the shelf, her hands trembling.
He'd known. From that very first day, he'd known.