Chapter Thirteen

September 2nd, 1944.

Mia hadn't slept. She'd spent over half the night fussing over the hospital wings warding and the other half making her private rooms a veritable Fort Knox.

Of course Tom Riddle was in school this year, his schooling coincided with World War II, she had known this since before she found out about the horcruxes. How had she not placed the dates together?

Several times during the night Mia began to hyperventilate as she imagined those haunting eyes watching her from the dark corners of her room. His deep chuckle reverberated off the walls, sending chills through her. After an hour of that, she'd pulled her beaded bag out and summoned the Marauder's Map to keep an eye on Riddle. He'd remained in his room the whole night, but she couldn't help glancing at his name every few minutes just to make sure.

She was fortunate the Map had been tucked away in her bag and not in Harry's possession when she'd been sent back. Mia didn't think she'd ever have the opportunity to make use of it - now she was grateful.

Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, Mia took a seat at her desk and slumped over the unfolded map. Voldemort looked nothing like his future self, which she supposed was why he'd been able to amass a following. People didn't follow ugly leaders. Psychologists call it the halo effect. The halo effect causes one trait, like beauty, to drastically color one's perception of all other traits. If you think someone is beautiful, you are also likely to assume they're smart, ambitious, interesting, etc.

Mia wasn't sure, but she theorized that it was the multiple times he'd split his soul paired with the necromantic ritual that brought him back that had caused him to look so grotesque and reptilian when she met him in the nineties. Dark magic itself, unless drawn from within the caster's body for power, would empower the user; rather than make the user lose their physical attributes.

At this age, she suspected that Voldemort had created two horcruxes at least. The diary and the ring. She hadn't thought to look to see if he was wearing the ring when he'd introduced himself. She'd been distracted by the revelation of her own idiocy, and had strengthened her occlumency shields tenfold. In any future encounter she'd have to tread more carefully.

Voldemort and Dumbledore were the only two she knew of who could, with enough clues, discern that she was from the future.

And she'd gotten herself shut in a building with them both for ten months with no escape.


Dawn was just breaking when Mia left the castle, heading towards the Black Lake. The last vestiges of summer kept the weather warm still, and Mia was grateful for the light breeze as she passed though the grounds.

Leaving the castle while avoiding some of the areas that she'd discovered over the last week heavy triggers for her had been tricky. She'd ended up taking the long way around and exiting through an old hidden passageway that she'd only known of because of the Marauder's Map. If she happened across any of them in the future, should she survive Grindelwald and Voldemort, she'd have to try and secretly do something special for those boys in the seventies.

That line of thinking derailed as she thought of herself standing by and doing nothing while Harry's parents died.

As she made it to the shore of the Black Lake and began her stretches, Mia thought about how she'd gone back and forth with herself over the years, wondering if she should change everything for Harry or let it all be. They defeated Voldemort in 1997, after all, and if she went mucking up the timeline now it was possible she could end up dead and the future could be worse off.

What would the world become, should Voldemort rise to power?

What would it have been if he never did?

"Oh! I've never seen anyone else come out here this early," a lightly accented voice chirped from behind her and Mia nearly jumped out of her skin as she whirled around to face it. She was met with an impossibly bright smile and the palest blue eyes she'd ever seen. Suddenly a hand was thrust out to her and Mia took it, awkwardly smiling back. "Good morning! I'm Nina Fawley."

"Morning, I'm Mia Gardner."

"I know." Releasing Mia's hand, Fawley started sweeping her long platinum hair into a mess of a bun at the back of her head, still smiling. She wore loose trousers and a faded men's shirt that looked about two sizes too big on her slight frame. "The new healer, right? Welcome to Hogwarts; It's nice to meet another early riser. Are you a runner?"

"I am, you?" Mia asked, leaning down with one leg outward to stretch her calf muscles.

"Yes! Here," Fawley chirped, drawing her wand and flicking it. Two thick gym mats appeared on the sand and she moved to stand over one. "Use this so you don't get sand all over you. It's best to do some of the more intense stretches beforehand, I pulled several muscles a few years back because all I'd done was a standing quad stretch. Nurse Wainscott took me to task for it."

A laugh built and bubbled out of Mia as she relaxed. This Fawley girl was pleasant, and there were no Hogwarts rules that said staff couldn't stretch with a student before a run so she took to the mat and moved into a lunge with a spinal twist. "I nearly broke my ankle because I had a muscle seize up on me mid run a few years back, I completely understand."

"That doesn't sound pleasant," Fawley laughed, " there are only a few runners here, most of them Quidditch players, and they have a path around the lake. Mine's a bit different, it dips just barely into the forest because I like my terrain a little more advanced. I'll take you around my route, if you like."

"Aren't you meant to be avoiding the forest?" Mia asked with a raised eyebrow as she moved into a side bend stretch, facing the girl.

She smiled sheepishly. "Technically? I did ask Professor Kettleburn before I did it the first time. He's my Head of House, you see. He said it would be alright as long as I could still see the treeline from where I was running, and asked that I don't run at night. I really just barely go inside."

Well, if her Head of House said it was alright then it wasn't for Mia to tell Fawley she couldn't. Mia herself liked her terrain more challenging so she could empathize. "I'd love to take your route, if you don't mind."

"Great! Feel free to use it anytime," Fawley said, jumping up from her final stretch and vanishing her mat, "ready when you are."

Fawley led her down a well worn path around the lake and then, true to her word, darted off just inside the forest roughly a quarter kilometer from the start. The path here was narrow and showed less wear since only one person had been using it, and the summer months had some overgrowth take over. As they rounded the lake, Fawley lunged over a medium sized boulder and laughed when Mia easily cleared it herself.

"Guess you do like your terrain like me," Fawley said with a happy laugh, face flushed with exertion, "it gets harder up ahead."

True to her word, the path got more rocky as they moved closer towards the mountain side of the lake. Mia, used to the flatness of the Forest of Dean, began to struggle when the path led up a steep incline. Noticing her running partner beginning to fall back, Nina slowed.

"Alright Healer Gardner? I'm sorry, I should've warned you about the hills. I'm used to them, I run a circuit in the mountains by my home throughout the summers; this is nothing in comparison for me."

"It's no problem," Mia waved her hand, coming up beside the girl, and lowering her hands to her knees while she caught her breath, "I'm used to flat land is all. I'll run this trail for a few weeks and be fine. It's a good reminder to diversify, if anything."

When Fawley didn't respond, Mia looked up to see the girl staring above Mia's own head with a faraway look in her eyes. The forest around them seemed to silence, all wildlife cutting off as if a storm approached. Gone was the light breeze and in its place an utter stillness that had Mia on alert, wand already sliding into her hand from where it rested in her sleeve. She turned, concerned about what had the cheerful girl's attention, and paused.

Two black ravens sat on a tree branch just above Mia's head, both unnaturally still with beedy, intelligent black eyes staring down at her.

"Hils til All-Fader, hensynsløs, fryktløs, mektige Gud, våpenvis og vidunderlig herre. Gi meg dine velsignelser her i kveld, og må min bønn være behagelig for deg. Hilsen, Woden."

Mia heard the words falling from Fawley's mouth, recognizing 'All-Father' and nothing else. She glanced over at the younger girl and watched as she pulled a small satchel from the pocket of her trousers and moved forward to place it on the branch between the two ravens.

The birds in question looked at the satchel, and then back at the women. There was a still second where Mia was clueless as to what might happen next. Then the bird on the left took the satchel, the other raven cawing imperiously at the women. They both took flight a moment later, clearing the trees with ease.

Mia turned to look at Fawley with wide eyes.

"Odin, it seems, wanted to make himself known." Fawley gave Mia her impossibly bright smile once more. "Sometimes the gods will visit when I am in nature; it's only happened a handful of times with other people around, though."

"So," Mia began as they both started walking back towards the castle, "you're a Norse Pagan, then?"

"Ja," Fawley said, breaking through the treeline and stepping onto the Quidditch player's jogging path.

Mia, intrigued, stayed in step with the younger girl. "I don't mean to offend, it's only that I've not met a Pagan before, I didn't even know they still existed in the magical world."

"You couldn't offend me if you tried, I assure you. I'm made of steel." Fawley laughed, waving her hand vaguely in Mia's direction. "I can see you practically vibrating with questions. Go ahead, unleash them."

Mia launched question after question at Fawley as they made their way back. Fawley was incredibly knowledgeable. Mia had never been interested in religion, her parents had considered themselves Christain, but they hadn't practiced, and the more she'd read about the world and learned the less she'd believed in some omnipotent being at the helm of every decision in the universe. The other world religions also held little to no appeal to her, and when she'd gotten to Hogwarts nobody had ever mentioned any gods or any system of belief stemming from some sort of higher power, so any thought of it just fell by the wayside. She'd never really looked back.

Her parents, for their part, hadn't much bothered with their religion after they found out their daughter was a witch. Mia felt a small pang of sadness, thinking about her parents and did her best to shove it down as the two women made it to the castle courtyard.

"Fawley!" A voice called from inside the castle, the Ravenclaw prefect Mia recalled from the night before came bounding out with a scowl on her face, quickly replaced by a pleasant smile when she noticed Mia. "Oh, good morning Healer Gardner."

"Good morning, Miss MacDougal."

"You run?" MacDougal asked with raised eyebrows as she glanced at how Mia and Nina were dressed, judgment clear in her tone and it set Mia's teeth on edge. "I thought only Nina would subject herself to that kind of torture."

"The mental exercise the library affords you is all well and good but if someone ever disarms you how are you going to survive, Isolde?" Fawley said with a laugh and a serene smile that gave Mia a niggling sense of something she couldn't identify, but it made her hackles rise. "You'll be dead, love. Booksmarts and cleverness are well and good… but there are more important things."

It was the same conclusion she herself had come to when she was around Nina's age, but coming from Fawley it worried her inexplicably. Though, she thought, perhaps she was being hypocritical.

"I know these are perilous times we live in," Mia began, "but I doubt either of you will be attacked on school grounds." It almost physically pained Mia that she, of all people, just said something that would've made her balk and release a frustrated outcry upon the staff member that said it to her when she was in school.

"Right," Isolde MacDougal swallowed with slightly widened eyes. "Well, I hope you don't mind if I borrow Nina for something, Healer Gardner?"

"Of course," Mia said, glancing at the Fawley girl, "thank you for showing me your jogging route. I'll be sure to make use of it."

"Anytime!" Fawley said brightly, looping her arm through MacDougal's causing the other girl to blush scarlet. "Have a great day, Healer Gardner."

As Mia headed back into the castle and up the moving staircases to get to the infirmary, she had the sudden realization that she'd been standing in the courtyard where Dumbledore had died and didn't think about it once.


Mia did her best to remain calm and keep her mind from wandering, if she didn't she was going to make herself sick with anxiety over the situation she'd created for herself. She went about her day, the hospital wing had been quiet, brewing more complex potions that she wasn't sure she could trust Professor Slughorn with.

The man was qualified, but he took a lazy approach to brewing that Mia didn't appreciate. Sure, the potions would be fine but without proper care and vigilance they wouldn't be as potent as they could be. It was this reason, and that the man was still very much a sycophant that she did not trust him. Especially considering his connection to Tom Riddle.

It wasn't until curfew that Mia locked herself in her room, warded the door even more heavily under the wards she'd already raised the night before. She opened her beaded bag and set it on the floor in the closet farthest from the door to her office.

To get to her while she was inside it, Tom Riddle would have to dismantle the additional wards on her office, then get through the warding on her private rooms, if he managed to do that, he'd have to go through her bedroom wards, and then through the volatile, violent wards she'd placed on her closet door.

He wouldn't be able to do all that without killing himself in the process. Even if he somehow did manage all that without dying, she'd be ready and waiting for him.

When she was inside her bag she turned down the hallway and entered into her meditation room and proceeded to conjure things. Small day to day objects, training targets, etc.

She could always hear it in the silence, see it in the darkness...

The screams of the Jewish boy that had been beaten to death before she had acted.

The sounds of the gunshots and the agonized screams of the people she'd electrocuted.

The terrorized screams of the innocents she'd nearly caught in the wake of her rage.

As the nights wore on she could hear the subtle sounds of floorboards creaking as those she harbored in her home shifted so they could shake the pins and needles from numb limbs.

And most of all, most of all she could hear the screams from the Warsaw ghetto when the Nazi's were rounding them up like cattle to send to death camps.

When she finally did sleep, she was plagued with visions of their eyes as they died.

The sight never left her. The guilt never allowed her to forget.

Once the room was full Mia began to Utterly. Fucking. Destroyed it. She leveled dark curses and hexes at objects, obliterating things into tiny gradules until they exploded around her like lightning striking sand. She scorched the target dummies with lightning and fire. She punched things until her knuckles split and blood dripped on the cold floor until finally she crashed to the ground in a weightless heap.

When she calmed, Mia was curled in the fertile position, entire body heaving as she wept.

At night, while the rest of the castle slept without a care, tucked into their warm beds and none the wiser, Mia was in her own personal hell.


September 4th, 1944.

Mia looked at the young woman in front of her and tried not to show how affected she was. It was surreal, like many things had been since she'd come to Hogwarts. She'd been prepared for the Professors that still taught in her time, and even if Irma Pince had been a surprise it didn't shock her as much as seeing a young, seventh year Poppy Pomfrey wringing her hands nervously in what would one day be her own office.

"So, you're the student that Nurse Waiscott was taking under his wing?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"I see." Mia said, leaning back in her chair. She supposed she had some free time to help the girl, seeing as how she had no other duties than ensuring she was available to help any ailed or injured students and faculty. "And the intent of this extracurricular study was to prepare you for the St. Mungo's 'Healer In Training' Program's entrance exam?"

"Yes, Ma'am. I spoke with my Head of House, Professor Merrythought, last year and she advised me to speak to someone within the medical field and get a head start on the rest of the applicants. My grades have been proficient throughout my time at Hogwarts, if you'd like to see proof I've brought them..." The girl began rifling around in her bag, head down and face flushed.

"Don't worry about that, Miss Pomfrey, I've no doubt you can do this." Mia said, watching as the Ravenclaw's tension began to ease. "Why do you want to be a healer?"

At that the girl's green eyes lit with a passion Mia knew well. "I've seen what happens when a healer brings people back from the brink of death. I sat in the waiting room at St. Mungo's once, watching a family of six as they suffered through worrying whether their father would make it. It had been a harrowing few hours for them. I'd just come in with my mother, she'd been having a regular check up during her pregnancy with my brother, you see, and I went wandering. I watched a healer, looking exhausted, come to tell that family he'd saved their father and the joy on their faces, I can't explain it." Poppy Pomfrey glanced back at Mia, a little sheepish after having looked out the window during her impassioned speech. "I just want to help like that healer did."

Looking at the woman who would save so many lives before, during, and after the Battle of Hogwarts, the woman who had saved her from Dolohov's curse, the woman who'd saved her from petrification and did so many numerous other things Mia could never begin to know, she smiled one of her genuine ones, the kind that reached her eyes while all others fell short.

"I have no doubt you'll elicit that response in many families during the course of your career, Miss Pomfrey."

o-o-o-o

A few hours after Miss Pomfrey left, Mia had been considering whether she should join the rest of the school for dinner or have it in her office when the shrill screams of someone in agonizing pain vibrated off the nearly empty hospital room.

Mia rushed out of her office at the sound with wide eyes and zeroed in towards the patient that was being levitated by Professor Slughorn. Practically pushing Slughorn out of her way, Mia threw up a diagnostic charm and another that would monitor the boy's vitals.

Without looking away from the patient, Mia spoke. "What happened, Professor?"

She began examining the patient, the smell of burnt flesh was worse to her than the smell of decay, and it brought back memories of murdering the men in Treblinka. Mia quickly shoved down the bile that was threatening to make her heave and focused on the task in front of her. There were welts and charred spots that made up the lower half of the boy's face and his neck down to his singed clothing was melted into the skin of his chest. There were tears running down the young man's face and his screams echoed through the room.

"Mr. Fawley was attempting an extra credit assignment with a particularly-"

Realizing the students name (only briefly wondering how the boy was related to Nina Fawley), Mia summoned the boy's file to be sure of any allergies before she began. "Professor Slughorn, I don't need pretty language, I need facts. Now, if you will." Mia spoke sharply as she glanced over the young man's medical file, finding nothing in his allergies column, as she summoned an anesthetic.

"He was attempting a Draught of Living Death and added Wormwood with an infusion of Asphodel instead of-"

Mia cut off Slughorn as she put the young man out of his misery; administering a sedative laced with the anesthetic. With magic, he was able to fall into a deep slumber instantly. "Got it."

Too much wormwood in the Draught of Living Death would cause the ingredients to react poorly and trigger an explosion. Combined, many of the ingredients became corrosive and would eat through whatever surface it would touch including the caldron itself should one add too much wormwood. Thus, the chemical burns and the welts. Mia began to slowly peel the clothing that had infused itself with Mr. Fawley's face.

"A student happened to be passing his private work room while he was brewing and witnessed the scene. He was able to find me right away."

The two Hufflepuff girls that had come in with Professor Slughorn gasped in horror as some of Mr. Fawley's skin pulled away with a piece of the clothing. Mia didn't even bother to look up.

"Please leave the hospital wing, you may remain outside the doors until the procedure is over if you wish but I can assure you it only gets worse from here." The girls made no fuss as they quickly exited the room and Mia turned the subject of her conversation to Slughorn. "Professor, if you could inform Headmaster Dippet that he needs to contact the student's parents, I would appreciate it. I need to be alone with the patient. I must remove the clothing from his torso."

Stammering, Slughorn agreed he should leave and could not get out of the room fast enough.

With everyone out of the room and most of the joined skin and clothing removed Mia felt confident that she wouldn't cause the patient undue harm in vanishing the rest of Mr. Fawley's uniform shirts. Now bare, Mia could assess that the patient's burns reached only to the end of his sternum.

In the wizarding world, burns of this magnitude were easily remedied, unless they were created by dark magical means, whereas in the muggle world Mr. Fawley would be forced to live the rest of his life with the scars of this incident marrying his face and neck. Some patches of hair would never grow back. He was fortunate to be a wizard.

The damage to Mr. Fawley was quite extensive, it had singed off quite a bit of his hair; the lower half of his face was a mass of red, welted flesh as was much of his shoulders and all of his chest.

Mia summoned an extra strength burn salve and set it on the bed side table while she used her wand to sanitize her hands. When she was satisfied, she dipped her right hand into the salve and grabbed out a heaping amount and began methodically smoothing a liberal amount over the affected flesh. She repeated the process until a thick layer of salve covered the patient's affected area and then cast a charm to time a half hour and placed a blanket to levitate just over his body so that it wouldn't affect the salve and maintained the boy's modesty.

Mia knew she would have to repeat the process at least three to four more times and hold the patient for a night, maybe two, for observation.

Satisfied with the patient's recovery for now, she silently moved towards the door of the hospital and opened it. Outside there was quite an assembly of people. Professor Slughorn had returned with the Headmaster, the two Hufflepuff's were still there, as were a few more students of various houses.

One student that stood out in particular was Tom Riddle, standing there with fabricated concern in his dark eyes as they observed her. Her eyes met his for only a moment before she turned to the headmaster and professor.

"Mr. Fawley is on the mend. It will still take several hours but I expect him to make a full recovery."

The Headmaster stepped forward at a pace, "If I may, Healer Gardner, I must assess the damage for the report I'll be sending to his family."

Mia nodded. "Of course Headmaster," she held the door for him and shut it once he had entered.

They briskly walked towards the patient's gurney and Mia rolled the blanket down just until the damage to the boy's chest was visible. The headmaster nodded once and Mia reset the position of the blanket.

"He was lucky that Mr. Riddle had been close enough to the work room he was in to discover him right away." The Headmaster commented flippantly as they walked back towards the door.

Mia's blood boiled as she realized that Mr. Fawley's potion must've exploded due to outside influence. The thought of what Riddle must have done to make this happen to Mr. Fawley almost made Mia decide to march out of the hospital wing and wring him by his neck.

He was seventeen, after all, not quite as powerful as his elder self would be. It would be so easy to finish him off long before he ever became a problem. Jaw clenched tightly, teeth grinding, Mia followed behind Dippet, the Headmaster unaware of the fury and murderous intent leaking off his staff member.

Once the door was opened again and the Headmaster outside of it Mia noticed that Riddle must have excused himself when he learned that the boy would be alright. No one else seemed suspicious, but Mia was.

"Healer Gardner, may we see Lucas?" One of the Hufflepuff girls approached and questioned with a pleading look.

Mia smiled placatingly. "I'm sorry, but you can't. I don't want any outside interference with the burn salve as it works, just in case. And he's not awake yet, which is honestly better for him right now. I may be able to let you see him tomorrow, if he's awake."

Once the girls trudged off, sulking, Mia turned her attention to the Headmaster and Professor Slughorn, the former berating the latter.

"… allowing a student private use of one of the NEWT preparatory rooms in the dungeons on the first day back to classes without checking the expiry on your ingredients in storage!" The Headmaster was vehemently chastising. Mia was suddenly glad she didn't go to Slughorn to re-brew all the hospital's potions.

"Gentlemen, pardon the interruption but I have a question for the Headmaster." She spoke, alerting them that she had not gone back into the hospital wing.

The Headmaster looked annoyed as he looked over at her, raising an eyebrow as if to say 'well, spit it out girl.'

"When the Fawley family arrives, as I am unfamiliar with the procedure at Hogwarts, shall I expect them to floo into my office?"

Gruffly, the headmaster answered her quickly, as if he couldn't be bothered by her foolish question; "They will come through the floo into my office and I will have them escorted by a prefect or one of the Heads."

Mia fought her scowl. Headmaster Dumbledore, as much as she didn't trust him now, had always personally escorted parents of injured students to the hospital wing. He'd spent the walk easing the parents' worry with gentle quips and his general friendly charisma.

Perhaps it was unfair of her to compare the two, Dumbledore was only a Professor at this point in his life, he hadn't yet defeated Grindelwald either. Armando Dippet was over three hundred years old, and had seen more than Dumbledore ever would.

"Of course." she stated before re-entering the hospital wing and allowing the door to snap shut behind her and calling for Whimsy to bring tea to her office.

Mia remained in her office for much of the afternoon, pausing her reading only to check her personal project and clean Mr. Fawley's wounds so she could reapply the salve. The hospital wing had been quiet once again after everyone had left and no one else had come to try and visit but she assumed there would be an influx of well-wishers the next morning.

It was nearly curfew when she felt the shift in the atmosphere. The dousing effect of cold sinister magical energy shrouding her room. Someone had managed to silence the hospital's wards, a rather amazing feat considering they were ancient wards that had been set up by the Founders themselves. She'd read about it when she was eleven and several times after. The wards shouldn't have been able to be completely silenced like that, they should have been impenetrable, unless of course a founder themselves was entering.

But of course, there was a direct descendant of one of the Founder's residing inside the school, and he'd made a gross miscalculation in thinking Mia hadn't set up secondary wards of her own.

She had always been paranoid. Now that she had survived three wars she was even more so.

Mia made a quick decision to stop him from doing whatever it was he thought he would do. The young man still had not woken, and Mia was certain he likely wouldn't know of Riddle's involvement even when he woke. Riddle was subtle.

Mia made no noise as she stepped out from her office into the pale moonlight room, Riddle was already at the young man's bed but had no wand drawn. She could see the perfectly sculpted crevices of his face when his head bobbed upwards, the candle on Fawley's bedside illuminating Riddle's dark and handsome features.

His silhouette stepped just a fraction away from the bed, his expression schooled to betray absolutely nothing as he noted the healer's presence. Mia only hoped that she had stopped him from whatever it was he'd been doing in time.

Casting a silencing charm to ensure the boy did not wake, for who knew what kind of reaction he would have to seeing Riddle above him so soon after his incident. "Visiting hours are long past, Mr. Riddle, and I hadn't approved anyone to come in."

He was the perfect picture of a charming and well-mannered student when he spoke, and Mia didn't buy it. "Of course, Healer Gardner, I apologize."

His eyes drifted over the boy on the bed. Mia knew he was about to lay the manipulation tactics on thick in order to get out of trouble and she would have to let him feel like he had won.

It caused her stomach to knot, being this close to him and being unable to drop a quick unforgivable while he was in school and complacent. One quick curse that would be the end of it, the end of all the suffering she'd endured.

What would her world have become, if not for Tom Riddle?

As she watched him silently prepare to play on her emotions in some way that allowed him to get out of losing points she continued to play out his death, right here in front of her.

She wanted to make it quick to ensure his death.

But the other part of her, the other side that had been molded by her journey through the past, wanted only one thing before granting Tom Riddle death. The darker side of Hermione Granger wanted to Make. Him. Suffer. She wanted to relish in his cries of agony as she slowly flayed him alive and incinerated the scraps.

But she couldn't.

"I found him screaming, you know." He stated in a detached voice, as if he were traumatized and having difficulty processing.

'Murderer.' She thought as her mind drifted to Myrtle and Cedric.

"I had thought someone had assaulted him, but when I entered the room and saw the injuries I ran to find the Professor."

'Sadist.' Her mind accused as she thought of how he molded his Death Eaters with pain and false promises of a world free from muggles and muggleborns.

"As I understand it," his velvety voice continued, mockingly concerned "burns of a magical nature are not the easiest to heal without residual pains and life time scarring."

'Coward,' she thought of how he killed Severus Snape.

"You misunderstand, actually." Why was she conversing with him, and when had he come to stand so close to her? He was directly in front of her now, his beautiful dark eyes boring into hers but not attempting Legilimency. Not that he'd glean anything from her. "Magical burns aren't terribly difficult to heal, it's when the body is burned with dark magic that healing is impossible, at least for now."

He smiled, as if her answer pleased his inquiry and weaved the pieces of some puzzle together for him, his white teeth illuminated further in the dim lighting. "My mistake. He won't suffer side effects, you say? You're quite the proficient healer."

Mia was disgusted. If she was reading this conversation correctly, he had blown up the cauldron knowing very well that Mr. Fawley could have sustained lasting injuries that would mar his face and cause him pain for the rest of his life. Not to mention that as he was so young, and his body having not met full maturity, his skin would still stretch to accommodate for years to come. He'd endure a lifetime of discomfort.

'Treat him like a student, not like a Dark Lord.' Mia reminded herself.

"As far as I can tell he should not suffer any side effects. I can assure you that I have a far more extensive resume than the simple healing of burns caused by an exploded potion, Mr. Riddle."

She knew she should not have taunted him like that.

She especially knew she shouldn't have when his carefully serene smile turned into a very small, almost non-existent smirk and his eyes glinted darkly. Fear crept over her and she tried her best to remain neutral as she could almost see him schooling his rising intrigue.

Mia cursed herself internally; she was supposed to be staying out of his eye, supposed to keep away from him.

And now she may have just inadvertently issued him a challenge.

"Of that I am sure, Healer Gardner," he spoke low and in an almost seductive manner that she assumed made many girls' knickers wet. If she were being honest, it may have done the same to her if she wasn't more concerned with who that voice belonged to and how she was going to get him away from the recovering student. Riddle bowed ever so slightly, "I apologize for my late entry; I was worried for Mr. Fawley and wished to see for myself that he was indeed recovering. His sister is my counterpart as Head Girl, I didn't want her to have to come and see him like this."

She nodded outwardly, but inside she was instantly nervous for Nina Fowley, because who else could be Mr. Fawley's sister? Would Riddle hurt Nina Fowley like he had her brother? Oh, never had she thought about the poor girl who had to share a dorm with Voldemort.

"I understand Mr. Riddle, I'll let it slide this once."

Mia heard him chuckle darkly as he exited the doors, and she released a shuddering breath as her entire spine tingled at the sound.


Note: The wiki doesn't say anything about Poppy ever being married so I'm rolling with her having not been for my own selfish plot reasons to be revealed in time.

Hermione and Tom will be doing a bit of a dance around each other for a bit, they're gonna burn slow. Some things will still have to happen/be revealed before Hermione/Mia can have a relationship with Voldemort. Mia is confident in her abilities, she's just been derailed by shock and anger at herself for forgetting at the moment, give her a month or so and she'll be all fire and fury and Tom won't know what hit him.