November had melted into December, and on one such December morning, Hogwarts awoke to a mighty blizzard. With conditions so inclement, Herbology was canceled for the day. So, Hermione had decided to devote that hour by writing that Defense Against the Dark Arts Essay (What would you do to treat werewolf bites and why). Sitting with her Gryffindor friends and a select few from Hufflepuff.
"There's one rumor floating around," Florence Bulstrode whispered in an undertone, "That Grindelwald was seen leaving a building with Hitler last week."
Hermione swallowed as if a large ball was stuffed down her throat. If that was true. If Hitler and Grindelwald were talking….
"I don't think so," pitched in Pauline Miller skeptically. "Not if Grindelwald told someone that Hitler provoking war with the British and the French would endanger wizardkind."
"You think King's Cross will still be standing when the train takes some of us back for the Christmas holidays?" asked Anna Bones.
"Hermione, do you have your Potions notes on you?" Euphemia had asked her. "I want to make sure that my essay would be good enough for Professor Slughorn to grade."
The Christmas holidays. The heads of houses had been passing their lists of who would be staying behind for the holidays. Hermione had checked with Tom to see if he had signed the Slytherin list before deciding to sign hers. Apparently, the Riddle family had sent a letter asking if he could come to their Little Hangleton Manor for the holidays. That he should expect the Earl of Essex (Hermione's father) to pick him up at King's Cross before collecting him the next day.
"You told your parents, didn't you?" he had asked her.
Hermione had swallowed. "I thought it was best, you know?" she had justified. "I didn't want you to go back to that orphanage for that summer."
For a moment, she could see betrayal and hurt flash in those dark brown eyes of his. Half expecting him to declare how'd he'd rather go back to Wool's Orphanage than go with a family who he clearly resented. Hermione could see that he was thinking, though. On what to say.
"Even if you didn't say anything," he'd said finally, "your parents could have been fishing around for questions."
"Though, you'd rather I'd not say anything?" she had asked.
"Whether it would have made a difference or not, I'd rather you not," he had admitted.
On the one hand, Hermione had felt hurt. Hurt that her friend had felt betrayed by her actions. That he'd rather not have her to say anything. On the other hand, she felt that what she did was best for him.
Tom didn't give her the cold shoulder, though he was slightly less friendly. Only speaking to her when it had come to school work. While she missed the familiarity, she was relieved that he hadn't stopped talking to her altogether.
A free period followed, and most of those at her table dispersed to elsewhere. Hermione was putting away the parchment and books into her bag when Tom walked into the library. With Malfoy and Mulciber following him.
"Please don't inform us that you were here during class," commented Abraxas, eyeing her station. "You're one of the last people to skive a class, aside from Eileen."
"The weather was inclement for Herbology," Hermione mentioned, gesturing to the blowing snow outside.
I told you that maybe she had Herbology," Tom had told him in an undertone. Turns out that the three Slytherin boys had come to the library to work on their homework, which Hermione had just got done. Apparently, having returned from History of Magic.
Given Tom's new policy of distance between them, Hermione had decided to leave the boys to it, so she roamed the bookshelves. Browsing for some good titles to take with her for the Christmas holidays for some light reading. There was a promising volume titled Ancient History of Magic which she pulled out.
"…and has been for quite some time, Riddle," Gaius was saying as Hermione neared their table. "No one has heard anything from them, last time I heard."
"They don't have to be all alive," was Tom's answer as he gave a shrug. "I simply need to see where the branches of their tree lead down to."
"What family branches?" Hermione couldn't help but ask. Although Tom would only bother to speak to her about school matters.
"Nothing for you to worry about," Abraxas had answered with a smile. "Not when you don't have wizards and witches in your family tree like I have."
Hermione frowns at his condescending answer as Tom rebukes him with, "It's nothing that she doesn't know, Abraxas. She already knows the family name."
Know the family name? Hermione had thought in confusion before it had dawned on her. Gaunt. Tom was interested to see where the maternal branches of his tree led down to.
"How, if she's – ow, Riddle!" Gaius rubbed the spot on his head where Tom had hit him.
"If you please, we're in a library," Hermione had pointed out, gesturing to the passing librarian. "This isn't the place to slap each other around. Save that for your common room."
Even if Hermione had saved Tom from trouble with the librarian, he didn't seem pleased about it. "I was standing up for you back there," Tom said. "He was implying that you were an idiot or something. You were in the library with me when I showed you the paper."
"Funny," Hermione had said. "I thought you wouldn't speak to me unless it was about school work, remember?"
"Doesn't be that I shan't defend your honor," he disputed.
Boys. Oh, how Hermione failed to understand them and the things they do.
"Have your parents heard anything from your aunt and uncle?" Frances asked Judith as the three girls pulled their trunks behind them on the way to Hogsmeade station.
Judy shook her head no. Appearing quite distressed before she answered. "Father still hasn't heard anything from him since that night in November. Hopefully, that has changed by the time I arrive home tonight."
Hermione had noticed that Judy's hope had seemed to be in vain. Over a month had passed since the ninth to the tenth of November when a report came of a massive pogrom in Germany on the radio. Jewish businesses were destroyed, synagogues burned, and reports of Jews being rounded up and deported or murdered.
There was so much broken glass that it was referred to as "The Night of the Broken Glass" or alternatively, "Kristallnacht" by the BBC reports after the pogrom.
"You should hear from your uncle soon, Judy," Hermione had tried to assure her friend, though even that had sounded hollow in her own ears.
On the train, Tom wasn't keen being the only boy with two other girls in the compartment. So, he went off to join his Slytherin friends in another compartment. Though Hermione was displeased that Tom wouldn't join her on the trip back to London for the Christmas holidays. Though, she used that time to speak with Frances and Judy about their plans for the break.
"Chanukah just started today," Judith had said as she turned a Chocolate Frog in her hand. "I'll be home just in time for the lighting of the first candle.
"Mum had purchased tickets to see the Nutcracker ballet," Frances had beamed. "My parents have always taken me to see the ballet ever since I was seven."
Hermione had seen the Nutcracker a few times. Eleanor had loved it and often beamed in excitement when the Waltz of the Snowflakes came on before the close of the first act. Perhaps they could be able to see it at the West End sometime during the Christmas holiday.
Snow was softly falling from a dark, purplish-amber sky as the train arrived at the platform. Tom had waved farewell to Abraxas, who was straying towards a tall, elegant woman and her formidable husband. Both as blond as Abraxas and could only be his parents. A wizened old guard was up by the ticket barrier, letting them go through the gate in twos and threes, so they didn't attract attention by all bursting out of a solid wall at once and alarming the Muggles, even there were not too many of them.
Hermione and Tom had pushed their carts past the barrier, after Frances. As Hermione had gazed around for her parents, she didn't have to search for too long.
"Ah, Hermione, dear!" exclaimed mother, her arms outstretched for a hug. Wearing one of her wool, fur-collared coats and a cloche hat over her made-up, brown curls. Next to her was Hermione's father, wearing his wool-double-breasted coat over his expensive tailored suit. Her mother still smelled of powder and perfume as she embraced her. "And you must be Hermione's friend, Tom," her mother said, addressing Tom after she had separated from Hermione.
"Ah, Sir Riddle's boy." Father had outstretched his hand, and Hermione could see that it took Tom a few seconds to shake it. "I apologize that my friend isn't taking it very well as of now. However, if he knows what's best for him, I hope he comes around."
To this, Tom had said nothing. Merely nodded. Though she didn't miss the doubt in his eyes. That he had not expected for his father to come around.
Father helps them load their trunks into the trunk of the car. With Edgar – their driver – closing the trunk's lid before their black locomotive leaves the train station.
"How's Eleanor?" Hermione asked as the car drove began driving through the London city streets. She and Tom were sandwiched between her parents in the backseat as she watched the bustling city around them. Bustling with people doing their Christmas shopping or leaving work for their homes.
"She's well," father answered. "She's been most looking forward to your return for the Christmas holidays." He turned to Tom. "I'm certain that you're ready for a good dinner after you and my daughter were on that train all day."
"I'm alright," said Tom. "I don't want to give you any sort of trouble, sir."
Her mother chuckles. "No, you won't be of any trouble," she said. "You're welcome to make yourself at home at our abode."
"We have a library, even," Hermione had advertised. "It's not as big as the one at Hogwarts." If there was anything Tom wasn't going to deny was an opportunity to tour a library.
At long last, after passing through the city and the snow-laden country lanes, did the car pull up to the winding drive leading up to the handsome manor house that had been around long before the Great War. She could recognize Eleanor peering from one of the curtains of the third-story windows before dashing presumably towards the stairs.
She didn't Tom gazing at the manor before him. "Not any larger and smaller than their manor, I must say," he said. "Nearly the same size."
When Patsy and Walter removed them from their coats at the door – "I'll take that, miss," Patsy said with a smile as she took one of Hermione's trunks – Eleanor came running to the vestibule. "Hermione!" she squeals as she wraps her arms around Hermione. "You should see the tree! They put it up a couple days ago!"
Hermione allows Eleanor to drag her to the parlor. Where a wide tree decorated with elegant ornaments sat by the fireplace. The angel was first owned by her great-grandmother, sitting at its top as it always had. With Bing Crosby's Silent Night playing on the nearby gramophone, to its left, Great-Uncle Archibald Grayson sat in his usual chair. Putting a book aside as he got up. Tom was just walking into the parlor.
"Now, here's the brightest girl of our time," Uncle Archi mused as he approached her. "Your parents have shared with me your letters over dinner, though there's a lot that could be written into letters." His attention then turns to Tom, who's gazing up curiously at the tree before him. "And you, lad, must be her friend that she often talks about. Tom Riddle, is it?"
"Yes, sir," Tom answers politely. Shaking his hand.
"Archibald Grayson to you," he said warmly. "Your father was a student of mine back when I taught Oxford. Bright young chap. With what little Hermione here tells me, you would fit that same mold."
That night, dinner chatter was confined to one topic: Hermione's and Tom's time at Hogwarts. When asked questions, Hermione had talked about not only Hogwarts and explaining the four houses, but some of the things she had read in Hogwarts, A History ("Do you know that to outsiders, the school looks like smoldering ruins and has a sign to keep off the premises?" Hermione had explained as she scooped her peas with her potatoes).
"How do you think of Hogwarts?" her father happened to ask Tom after Hermione was finished answering her mother's question.
Tom had swallowed his bit of lamb before answering. "Very interesting, if that's the word you're looking for," he had answered. "The orphanage wasn't too bad. Though, Hogwarts is better than the orphanage."
"I suppose it would," said Uncle Archi. "Any child would prefer a world where magic is the norm."
Dinner had finished off with a key lime pudding, and the adults convened in the parlor for a nightcap while Hermione, Tom, and Eleanor were sent to get ready for bed. Tom was shown to the room he'd be in for the night, and Hermione had volunteered to help him unpack.
"I'm good," he had said. "Not too much to unpack anyway. Besides, it's been a long day on the train."
Seeing as Tom had a point, Hermione had left him to it. They, after all, would need to wind down after spending practically a whole day on the train. She'd unpacked her bags and changed into her nightgown before sliding under the covers. Picking up one of the thick volumes she had taken from the Hogwarts library.
Technically, Tom wasn't lying to Hermione when he said he hadn't gotten much to unpack. When it had come to his clothes, at least. He only had a handful of threadbare coats, shirts, and shorts as given to him by the orphanage. All of which takes a fraction of space in his beat-up trunk. The rest of that trunk space and his second trunk held his books and wand. The last which he was careful to wrap in a cloth.
He quickly shrugged on his nightclothes and stowed all the books but one in the trunks under the bed. The book in question titled History of the Gaunt Line.
Tom had planned on researching his maternal branch of the tree. He could have done so with the green silk hangings closed around his four-poster bed a few weeks after learning that the odds of his mother being a witch were great. However, he thought that the Christmas holidays were the best time, for he'd like to be the very least disturbed.
As he carefully fished for questions, he found that each of the pureblood scions in his house had to be trained to know the names of other extant magical families. Of his Slytherin acquaintances, Abraxas had shown no hesitation to owl home a letter asking to borrow the tome with the history of the Gaunt family. That book arrived at Hogwarts the day before they had left for the Christmas holidays.
Even if magic had kept the book from wear and tear over the centuries, Tom was still careful as he opened the ancient book in his hands. Gingerly turned the yellowed pages as he reached the first chapter.
The Gaunt family, it turned out, had been around since the time of the founders. Even attending Hogwarts when it first opened. Upon graduation, Nichol Gaunt and his brother, Amis, had married into other wizarding families. The former married Étaín Slytherin, the eldest daughter of Hogwarts founder Salazar Slytherin; the latter married Hilda Peverell.
Tom had stopped there. His eyes became wide as Galleons as he read that particular line again.
Nichol Gaunt married Étaín Slytherin.
Nichol Gaunt married Étaín Slytherin.
Nichol Gaunt married –
He was actually descended from Salazar Slytherin, after all! He could feel the hands holding the book shake with sheer shock. Even if Tom did entertain the idea that he could have been descended from one of Hogwarts' founders and fantasized that he could be, he'd thought it was too great to be true.
But it was true. Tom was indeed descended from Salazar Slytherin. Hailed in Slytherin as the greatest wizard of the Hogwarts Four. At that point, he was too giddy to even continue. Too giddy to even sleep soundly even.
When morning had dawned at Granger Manor, Tom was careful not to show his fatigue as he approached the breakfast table. Hermione and her family already helping themselves and filling their breakfast plates.
"Morning, Tom," Hermione had chirped from the table as he took a seat next to her.
"Morning, Hermione," Tom had greeted back as he put a slice of toast on his plate before taking the marmalade jar nearest to him. He had taken a liking to the condiment ever since he began Hogwarts. If he didn't have marmalade on his toast, it was blueberry jam.
"Slept well, I hope," remarked Mrs. Granger.
"I did, thank you," he lied, making sure that he did not yawn at the moment to reveal that he hardly slept.
It was an hour after breakfast when the Riddles' motorcar had come up the drive. Deep down, it might have been Tom's funeral. Tom had made himself sparse as his father and his wife Cecelia came through the front doors.
Blast, he had a better heritage than the Riddles.'
"Where is he?" he had heard his father ask stiffly.
"He should be around here," said Earl Granger before he heard him shout, "Tom!"
Tom took a deep breath as he came into the vestibule. Managing to compose his face in a polite mask as he gazed at the people who'd be taking him away from here for the holidays. As much as he despised them, he didn't want to give them any more reason to dislike him even more.
"Is everything all packed and ready?' father asked him rather formally.
"Yes, sir," he had answered as politely as possible. "I only have two trunks."
It had only taken one trip to transport his trunks from the guest room to the compartment of the motorcar. For the ride to the train station and the three-hour train ride to Great Hangleton, Tom selected Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities to read. Tom would rather much prefer to continue reading that Gaunt family tome he started reading the night before, but that wouldn't make good for appearances.
Even if they knew he was a wizard.
"See you soon, Tom!" Hermione exclaimed in farewell as the motorcar engine revved up.
Tom waved goodbye to his friend as the car drove away from the manor. Feeling confident that he'd see his friend again.