Jukebox Plays- just about any soft Gaelic music

Chapter 12

"I don't know how you intend to heal, sitting in the Infirmary staring out the window."

Tom said, looking over at the curly haired young woman lying in the bed beside his chair. It had been almost a week since Hermione had woken from her sleep, almost a week of Tom's nightly visits.

She could always hear the students leaving the Great Hall, voices raised, and the pattering of hundreds of feet on the dense stone. Like a muted thunder, or a herd of elephants capering through the savannah. Regular as clockwork, just as the sun was beginning to set below the window frames, he would sit down beside her. They almost never spoke; it was like an unwritten rule. Neither one had anything to say, nor the faintest idea of how to start a conversation.

And so they would sit there in the quiet, the scratching of his quill against parchment as he did his homework. The whisper of pages, as she read through whatever textbook he wasn't using. But for all that, it was a comfortable silence. Lost in their own thoughts, both knowing that if they broke the peace- then they would have to examine their own motivations.

Why he came to her each night, and why she spent most of the day waiting for him to arrive. A constant around which they fixed their waking hours, and if neither were entirely and wholly happy with the situation- nor were they unhappy enough to risk changing it. Because while they were together, they could focus on the present- casting away their separate worries for the midnight hours, when sleep would refuse to come nearer then a glimpse.

But today was a little different, no shadowed by the secret hues of night, the purples and blues that usually painted the walls of their meetings. For today was Saturday, and the morning of the first Hogsmeade visit of the year. The hallways had been a bustle of chaotic energy all morning, as students hurried about, setting everything in place for the day. It had died down since then, the school falling into an almost reverent hush. The few people left in the school made footsteps that echoed in the empty space, so much louder then they usually would have been.

From her vantage point, Hermione could look out into the beautiful blue sky. She had heard the trilling voices exclaiming what a wonderfully warm autumn day it was, and for a moment hated them their freedom. His calm, measured voice pulled her from her reverie, as she looked over at the young man beside her.

His face was still tilted towards his Potions text, though his eyes gazed up at her with an unreadable expression in their grey depths. In another person, it might almost have been curiosity, or teasing- but in him they were altered, like as lemon is to lemonade. More concentrated and intense; and entirely lacking in the artificial sweetness that most people poured on so thick.

She sighed, shrugging her too-thin shoulders slightly. Hermione couldn't explain why she wasn't getting better faster. Why for all the strengthening potions and Dreamless sleep, she was forever fatigued. Madam McAllister promised and reassured her that it was only her body fighting off the lingering effects of Dark Magic. Hermione could only hope, in her own apathetic way, that the older woman was telling the truth. There was so much she could do, needed to do, that she simply couldn't do from this bed.

"I don't know. If you're so bright, then why haven't you come up with the solution?"

She said after a pause, closing the cover of the Transfiguration text that she hadn't been reading anyway. He mimicked her action, setting down the book he had been holding on the bedside table. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, in something that could almost be called a smirk. If only it reached his eyes, she supposed he would look quite handsome. Of perhaps if she were shallow enough not to bother looking for slight mistakes in his mask.

"Perhaps I have. I suppose it all depends on weather or not you plan to take my excellent advice."

Hermione waved a hand negligently, unable to resist the lure of this little challenge. For all the time they had spent silently together, she had come accustomed to his presence. It wasn't trust- no, it had a long way to go before it could be called that- but it was enough that deep down, at the place where conscious though and unconscious meet, that she almost wanted it to be.

"Alright then, Dr. Tom, what is your expert opinion?"

"I don't think you should lie here any longer."

He said, rising from the uncomfortable folding chair with his usual economy of movement. It wasn't planned; when he had entered the room this morning he had no intentions of changing the status quo of their…Whatever it was they were. Neither one had come up with a satisfactory designation, and so had none. He was Tom, and she was Hermione, and there were no more complications then that.

Hermione pushed a stray toast-colored curl away from her face, watching with mild interest as he lightly pushed a wheeled chair from some part of the room hidden by the half-closed screens around her bed. It was brass and worn leather and wood, polished and preserved as everything of value in the Wizarding world. The wheels spun smoothly and silently against the stone floor, making only slightly bump noises as it crossed from one stone to the next.

"Your carriage awaits… Unless you'd rather sit here?" Tom deadpanned, raising an eyebrow slightly. The second unwritten rule (the first having now been broken quite nicely,) was that at no point, for any reason, did the two of them touch. It was too personal, too invasive. And so they kept their distance, as he held the chair still and steady with his free hand.

She didn't bother to dignify that with a response, carefully, slowly sliding down from the bed that had become both her support and her prison. Unused muscles protested the movement, as her body trembled slightly. It was easier this way, as she settled herself into the well worn seat. He never offered to help, and nor would she have accepted it. Tom, who couldn't the cowardly weakness in the people he saw- couldn't help but be quietly pleased that she had the pride to struggle through it.

Looking back on it, he was never quite able to explain why he said what he did next. It was one of those moments, the rare times when the real Tom spoke through the layers of deception. Smothered as that little voice was beneath the avarice and envy, doing what was best for him- and not just his ideals.

"I know a nice place, if you'd let me?" He asked, resting on hand lightly on the back of the chair to illustrate his meaning.

Hermione was never quite certain what possessed her to agree, she who hated surprises even before her life was destroyed by the war. Only that it didn't seem important where she went, as long as it was out in that beautiful fresh air, and away from the stuffy air of the Infirmary. That he had had plenty of opportunity to hurt her before she had woken, and never caused her harm. Removing her hands from the wheels slowly, relinquishing that tiny bit of control, and folding her hands carefully in her lap.

Hogwarts in the fall was even more lovely then she remembered. The trees seemed specially laid out in their best for her, clothed in cloth-of-gold and deep russet and shades of orange that seemed plucked from the heart of a flame. Caught between air and earth, clear blue and green that made for the perfect frame.

The air smelled of wood smoke and rich, loamy soil. Hermione breathed deeply, closing her eyes as she cleared the scent of the Infirmary out of her body. It was chilly, used as she was to the warmth of the indoors- but it felt fresh and vibrant against her skin. Temporary goose bumps were a small price to pay for this feeling of delicious freedom.

Tom shook his head slightly at the expression on her face. The lawns here were deserted, as he made their way closer towards the arm dark lake that faced away from the main grounds. He couldn't help but notice the way the sunlight brought out shades of copper in her hair, and how such a small thing as this light made her look so very much healthier. And at that moment he didn't care much that it was unplanned, or that he didn't know why he had invited her out- he was only glad that he had.

He hadn't been here since the middle of his fifth year, since that horribly unplanned accident. He had come here to think before that, a place where he could be away from the Machiavellian machinations of the rest of his housemates. There was a large tree near the lake, with low braches and thick roots that make a perfect place to sit. It was far enough away that students never really came out here, and to Tom, it was the little piece of the school that was truly his own.

Someone a long time ago had carved KH+CB into the trunk, and he had wondered idly as a child, weather or not that love had proved as enduring as the letters they had carved. Tom was never quite sure if he hoped it had, or hoped it hadn't. The leaves on this, his, tree had turned the color of claret or red wine, the sun shining through them, luminous and glowing. A halo of rosy radiance that fell over Hermione's pale skin like a forged copy of what she must have looked like, before. Before what, was the question that continually pricked his mind.

A lightly breeze blew through the trees, making the dry leaves rattle faintly. Brushing errant strands of her hair to tickle the back of his hand. No touching. His inner monologue reminded sharply, but since she didn't know, he couldn't resist a moment's hesitation. Uncomplicated human contact.

"Thank you, Tom… It really is so wonderful here." She said, glancing over her shoulder to give him a small smile. Beneath this light he looked so thoughtful, as though his marble features had been softened. A trick of the illumination, she was sure, but almost entrancing to watch the shift.

As he looked down at her, his mouth quirked a bit. An awkward little smile that almost made her chest hurt. It was so hesitant, as though he had been worried about her reaction. The vein of insecurity that ran so close to his heart, protected there where nobody would ever find it. A place where nobody before had ever thought to look. And perhaps it was still an illusion of the burnished light, but those fathomless grey eyes didn't look so steely. As though there was a color there, only she couldn't quite make it out.

" 'Allo there!" Came a familiar voice, shattering the moment into a thousand shards of maybes. Tom looked up, the words he had been forming, dying silent on his lips. Coming around from the direct of the Forbidden Forest came a large man, to which 'large' was a woeful understatement.

His hair was a disarrayed mess of coarse waves, dotted with colored leaves that had drifted down from the trees overhead. His body was warded from the faint chill by an enormous moss green sweater, frayed and marked with grass stains and soil. He carried about him the scent of wood smoke, his voice deep and cheerful.

The scorching lump of tears that welled up in her throat left Hermione unable to speak, mutely staring at a much younger version of the man she would later claim as a dear, dear friend. Healthy and hale, and so many tears removed from the blanched and bloodless cadaver he had been, the last time she had laid eyes on him. And more then anything she had seen, more then anything she had heard- the convinced her that it was all true. That something had happened to drag her out of her own time, and into this one.

"Hagrid… Hello" was Tom's artificially polite response. Only the rigid tension in his hand gave her any indication that he was not entirely calm. And had she been in any state to notice that, she might have had some warning before the next shell was dropped on her unsteady world.

"So I hear you made Head Boy, all that good work for the school'n all, I expect. Still, no hard feelings, right? I 'spose you was only doin' what you felt was best. But who's this 'ere young lady?" He said, grinning in a friendly way at Hermione though what was eventually going to be a beard.

"H-Hermione..." she managed to choke out, earning her a sideways glance from Tom. He relaxed his grip on the back of her chair instinctively, calming the annoyed cracks he could feel spider webbing across his façade. Hagrid had been helpful, and more then helpful in his 5th year- not that he had meant to be, though. The entire situation had been sticky at best, and Dumbledore had never quite looked at him the same way after that.

"Ah well Miss Hermione, you'll be in no better hands. I can think of half a dozen girls who would love to have the undivided attention of Tom Riddle! Quite the catch, they seems to think." Hagrid laughed deep in his chest, waving a goodbye as he kept on his way through the grounds towards the main section of the school.

Hermione stopped short, her mind struggling painfully to fit the pieces together. The sudden appearance of her old friend had thrown a spanner into the works, cluttering up her orderly mind with tiny, extra bits of memory and emotion. Indeed, had he not left when he did, she may have missed out on it entirely. Her stomach turned over, clinging to itself in sickening knots. She could hear the blood pulsing in her ears, as her hands gripped the arms of the chair, leaving tiny, crescent shaped marks on the underside, where nobody could see.

It's not possible. No. Not him, anyone but him!

Her mind buckled, freezing in place as she desperately tried to shove all of the feeling into the back of her mind. Away from where he could see, away from where she would have to feel the pain of unknowing betrayal. Her words were strained, catching sharply against her throat as she tried to force them into existence. All she wanted at that moment, to hide within the safety of somewhere, anywhere - but no such sanctuary to be found.

"I… I want to go back now. I'm tired."

He didn't say a word as he helped push her back to the Infirmary. The only thought that occupied the mind of the young man was 'What did I do wrong?' And indeed, as was the pattern with so many things since she had fallen into his sphere- the answer was nothing but a blank.

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I am so proud of this chapter! grins Thanks to everyone who review, you guys really inspire so much of why I write. 70 reviews, I can't believe it!

Lilith Kayden

Svelte Rose

Killtheenviousmoon

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Annikacan

Rachhulk

Speed of Darkness

Ryn

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Pink (because Voldie's Pink Teddy is a pain to type every time )

And my dear Nerys - you people should go read her fic 'Masters of Manipulation' ( and review it, because it is really, really amazing! If you want a wonderfully nasty Tom, then this is exactly what the doctor ordered.