A/N: Here we are guys! Another update! I'm getting back into it big style now, and I think I'm on the home straight. There will be weekly updates for the next few weeks for sure. I've also gotten a twitter for my writing, so you can check progress on there, of this fic and others. I have no followers at the moment, and I'm not usually an attention seeking brat but it would make me rather less foolish if you guys would follow. XD My username is Flaignhan, same as on here, and the link is on my profile. Hope you enjoy this chapter, and thanks for your reviews from last time! =]
Tempora Abducto.
by Flaignhan.
"Wake up!" she hissed, shaking him roughly by the shoulder.
He squinted in the low light, trying to work out who exactly was interrupting his slumber at a quarter to six in the morning.
"What d'you want?" he mumbled sleepily, resting back on his elbows. "How did you get in here?"
"Never mind that," Hermione waved her wand at the dark velvet curtains surrounding Tom's bed, casting a silencing charm upon them so they could talk without fear of being overheard. "I figured it out!"
"Figured what out?"
"What we were talking about earlier! About you being two different people! I've worked out how we can do it!"
Suddenly Tom was wide awake. He was sitting up straight, his eyes wide and attentive while he waited for Hermione to elaborate further, his front teeth nervously (though Hermione thought she would never live to see the day) chewing on his bottom lip.
She explained her idea in a flurry of garbled words and hand gestures, while Tom listened intently, taking in everything she was saying and trying to make sense of it. When she finished, he stared at her, the silence pressing in on the pair of them from all sides.
Hermione's fingers had become gradually more and more tangled in his bedspread as she had explained her idea to him, and now she had her eyes focused on the mess while she waited for his reply.
"That's..." it seemed that for once, Tom was lost for words.
"D'you think it'll work?"
"It'll have to. I'll make it work."
"We can't do it right now though," Hermione impressed upon him. "It was most definitely you that worked in Borgin and Burke's, not Lord Voldemort."
Tom nodded. "Yes, yes of course."
"You'll have to be patient."
"And then once it's done?"
"Once it's done, I guess you go away to somewhere people won't recognise you."
"On my own?"
Hermione avoided his eye.
"You need to stay away from people who will know the real you. We're both outcasts, let's just...be outcasts together."
She laughed softly. "I don't know..."
"What don't you know? Haven't I made it clear how I feel?"
Hermione's fingers became even more tangled in the bedspread at his words, and her eyes stayed determinedly away from his.
"If it works..." she began slowly. "If it looks like it's going to turn out exactly the way we plan it, if you still feel the same when the time comes then...yes, I suppose we can be outcasts together."
He didn't say anything, he simply kissed her, and her hand immediately found its way out of the twisted bed covers and into his sleep-ruffled hair as he pushed her gently back onto the mattress, his lips never leaving hers.
"Oh very good," Dumbledore lowered his wand, smiling, and Hermione exhaled, her defences slackening. Her mind was tired after such a fierce attempt to gain access to her thoughts, but she had succeeded in protecting them three times in a row, each time Dumbledore increasing his efforts.
"D'you think I've got it then?" Hermione asked hopefully, relaxing in the squashy armchair opposite Dumbledore.
"I couldn't find a way in," Dumbledore replied slowly, pausing briefly before he continued, "but I wouldn't claim to be the most talented Legilimens on the planet. And there are certain people who manage to get what they want without resorting to magic, once they've learned the art, I daresay you will have a much tougher time."
"Are you talking about Tom?" Hermione asked, tracing circles on the arm of her chair, eyes not meeting Dumbledore's.
"He is a gifted young man...as you well know."
Hermione said nothing.
"Did you speak to him about his career plans?"
She nodded, but chose not to fill the Deputy Headmaster in on the exact details of the solution she and Tom had agreed upon.
"Do you feel better about things now?" he asked, a hint of regret evident in his tone, as though he knew exactly what was coming for the wizarding world.
"Things will go as they did," she said quietly, still watching her fingers move over the patterned upholstery.
"Then that is the best you can hope for," Dumbledore told her, in what she believed was supposed to be a reassuring tone, but for once, the fixer of all things did not manage to fill her with hope, or lift her heavy heart. His concern was evident, and the general rule she had discovered in all her years at Hogwarts, was that if Dumbledore was concerned, then you'd best run as fast and as far as you can.
"It just seems unfair," she said eventually, meeting his eyes at last, "that I have to live through it again. That I have to stand back while things happen that should never have happened."
"You will find joy in the little things," Dumbledore assured her. "And you'll make do with what you're given, which is all one ever can do. Of course it's unfair that all of this should land on the shoulders of one so young, especially when you've clearly been through so much already, but life isn't fair. It never has been fair and it never will be fair, but you will be a stronger person for your experiences, and one day, you'll be able to rejoin your friends. Look forward to it, try not to dwell on the bad."
"I'll be about seventy when I next see them," she said with a sigh. "And they'll be eighteen. I'm not sure I'd even want them to see me at that age. I'd be old enough to be their grandmother."
Dumbledore smiled good naturedly. "Hermione, coming from a man who is edging towards that milestone himself, trust me, you're only as young as you feel."
His blue eyes twinkled mischievously, bright as they had been when he was Hermione's age, no doubt, and she felt the ache in her chest dull just a little.
"The little things," he repeated. "Look for joy in the little things, and you'll find it."
Hermione nodded. "Thanks Professor," she said as she got to her feet. "Thanks for everything."
"Anytime, Hermione. You can come to me anytime."
Not when I need you most I can't, she thought sourly. Not when Harry needs you most.
"Thanks," she said, pushing the embittered, sniping little voice out of her mind and forcing a smile in Dumbledore's direction. "Bye."
"I think we need to steer clear of each other publicly."
"Mmm," Hermione murmured in ignorant agreement as she slid her finger down the index of the book in front of her.
Impatient, Tom rapped her on the head with a roll of parchment and she looked up, eyebrows set in a scowl, fingers forcing their way through her bushy hair to try and neaten up any mess he may have caused.
"What?" she demanded, keeping her voice low so not as to attract the wrath of the librarian.
"I said I think we need to steer clear of each other publicly," Tom repeated with a roll of his eyes. "Honestly, what's so important that you're not listening to me when I talk?" he pulled the book away from her, flipping it round so he could read the contents the right way up, before he too began scanning the index.
Hermione placed one finger on the yellowing page, and Tom snapped his eyes to the words below.
Human Duplication
He looked up at her, his eyes wide, as though he could barely believe she'd managed to find any mention of it at all, let alone in the school library.
Hermione pulled the book back off of him, flicking to the appropriate page number and hurriedly reading a small paragraph before slamming the book shut and pushing it away from her with more force than was really necessary. She glared at it, arms folded across her chest, while Tom watched her bemusedly.
"Well?"
"What is the point of featuring something in the index of a book if you're just going to say you can't do it at all? What is the point of even mentioning it in the whole book? It's wasting paper!"
"Well let's face it," Tom said, "we were never going to find anything of value in here. That book isn't even from the restricted section. Besides, I don't think we'd achieve that sort of thing without venturing into slightly...murkier waters."
Hermione knew he was right, but refrained from telling him so.
"But back to my point – you might end up getting wrapped up in this mess if people see us together. You might get hauled in for questioning when it all kicks off, they might think you're one of my...minions," he smiled briefly at his word choice, then waited for an answer from a still sulking Hermione.
"Yes, fine," she said. "We'll just have to find somewhere else to talk."
"You know my dormitory is always open, should you ever wish to visit...again."
Hermione ignored his comment. "Well, no time like the present, I'll just head back to my common room. See you whenever."
He smirked as she gathered up her things, placing them carefully into her battered satchel, before she turned to leave.
"The password is Serpents, by the way," he said teasingly. "But you already knew that."
She didn't respond.
Hermione's final exams crept up on her at an alarming rate, and between revision time tables, homework, and burying her head in books that she knew off by heart anyway, she barely had any time to see Tom. They communicated mostly by owl, almost ignoring each other in the corridors, but remaining polite to each other in lessons. They had decided that even more attention would be drawn to them should they downright blank each other, so careful courtesy had been deemed the most appropriate, and more importantly, low key, way to behave.
Tom had also done a very good job of stepping into the role of potential dark wizard. He was now being openly manipulative with Slughorn, and showing even more dislike for Dumbledore than ever before, yet not to the point where Dippet even considered describing him as anything other than the best student Hogwarts had ever seen.
Long before she was ready, (though she did freely admit to herself that she would never be one hundred per cent ready) she found herself sitting at a desk in the great hall amongst her fellow seventh years, with a Transfiguration theory exam paper sitting in front of her.
She dipped her quill into her inkpot, and with a shaky hand she wrote her name at the top, before taking a deep breath and turning over the first page. When she saw the question, she exhaled in mild relief, and began to write.
Afterwards, Tom caught up with her on the way to the library, where most of the seventh years were heading before their practical exam, which would start in a few hours' time.
"Well?"
"I think it went okay," she said, looking straight ahead, as though people would notice, and find it odd, should she make eye contact with him. "What about you?"
"Easy," he said, in a tone that was so genuine, Hermione wanted to hex him.
"Hermione, d'you think they'll test us on Switching Spells? I haven't done one for ages!" a panicked Joanne was pulling at the sleeve of her robe, front teeth buried in her bottom lip in anxiety.
"I've got no idea," Hermione replied, panic flooding through her at the thought of being tested on spells she had learned in previous years. Sixth year had been two years ago for her, not just one, like everybody else. She wondered how much she had forgotten during her year on the run with Harry and Ron.
"Ohhh!" Joanne moaned. "I'll go and ask Lucy, she might know," and with that, she had disappeared amongst the crowd.
When Hermione looked back to her left, Tom had disappeared too.
The exams finished as quickly as they had come, and all that remained for Hermione to do was to worry about her results, and where she was going to live, once term had finished.
"I believe you have a job offer from the Ministry?" Dumbledore said, peering over his spectacles at her.
"Yes, but I can't very well live in the office," Hermione replied.
Dumbledore chuckled. "No no, I wasn't suggesting any such thing. It's just that once you have your first months' wages in hand, you should be able to find somewhere to rent. I believe you have a fairly healthy salary awaiting you, so it's just a matter of where you live for the first month."
"I suppose so," Hermione agreed.
"I shall talk to Professor Dippet. Tom is in a similar situation, and I see no reason why the pair of you are unable to stay in residence a little longer than the other students."
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you Professor."
Dumbledore smiled. "You are, as ever, most welcome, Hermione."
"Dippet tells me you're staying too."
It was late, and they were sitting on the stone steps that led up to the astronomy tower, Disillusionment charms temporarily removed while they spoke. They may be fully qualified wizards, and they may have finished their N.E., but Apollion Pringle would not hesitate to give the pair of them a beating should he find them wandering around the castle after hours.
"Yeah," Hermione said. "Just for a month, then I'll be able to find somewhere of my own."
"You know we could probably find somewhere together...split the costs," Tom said slowly, brow creased slightly in uncertainty.
"But people would realise, so what would the point of us avoiding each other be?"
"Well we don't have rent a place in the middle of Diagon Alley, do we? We could get somewhere far out...have it registered in your name, and I can just be...mysterious."
Hermione laughed. "Mysterious? Is that what you call lodging at someone else's house?"
"No one will know, and that's the mystery."
"Right," Hermione said, holding back a smile.
A torn page from a newspaper was placed in front of her, and she took it. Circled in green ink in the corner was a small black and white photo of a cottage, looking rather squashed under a heavily thatched roof. There was a small garden, enclosed by a white picket fence, which was overgrown with shrubs and flowers. Underneath the picture were a few lines of text. It took Hermione only a second or two to read it.
"Very nice," she said, handing the clipping back to him.
"It's only twenty galleons a month, how much are your wages again?"
"Fifty five," Hermione replied.
"What d'you think I'll get as a shop boy? Five? Seven?"
"I think around thirty," Hermione corrected him. "You know shop workers aren't so lowly that nobody cares if they're paid illegal sums for their work."
"I'd better not go down in history as the greatest shop boy Hogwarts has ever seen," he huffed.
"No, you'd have to have good customer service skills for that. And work in a reputable shop."
"True. How long does this shop work last for?"
"Until after you've gotten something important."
"And how long until that happens?"
"I'll tell you when it's time."
Tom said nothing, and Hermione knew he was frustrated because for once, somebody knew something he couldn't find out in a book. It seemed he was also now resigned to the fact that she would not tell him anything more than what was absolutely necessary. It was obvious from his scowl that he didn't like being left in the dark, and his frustration was similar to that of Harry's, when the hunt for the Horcruxes seemed completely directionless. Tom's life, like Harry's had been planned out from the start, down routes which he did not want to go. He was left with no choice; he had to do what the world required of him, not what he wanted to do.
Unfortunately, what the world required was for Lord Voldemort to tear it to pieces.
And then it would require Harry to come along and clear up all the mess.
Dumbledore was right. Life wasn't fair.