Disclaimer: See Chapter 1, please.

Dear Mrs.shigwa.cobain: HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY! Your long, lengthy review was fabulous, and I consider it as a late Christmas present! Don't worry, when I said 'flames', I didn't mean your reviews. Yours are just honest, frank remarks that, at the same time, give me the motivation that I need. Flames…..well, I have my share of those. But then again, which fic is complete without at least one mindless complaint? =)

Dear Emma Ackroyd: Oooh! I'm annoying you? Whoopsie!

Dear Lady Nessa Fefalas: Uh-oh. I can't change the name to Buttercup now, dearie! LOLZ! Cool story!

Dear Miss Mina Murray: Happy New Year 2004! Whee!

Dear Dragoness Kaei: If you mean the one about Alanna's daughter, nope! I haven't bought it yet. I've just finished Lady Knight, the one about Keladry of Mindelan. Happy New Year!

Dear aiko: Thanx.

Dear anja-boyce: Hello! Nice seeing you here. Happy reading.

________________________________________________________________

Die Another Day.

________________________________________________________________

          Harry tossed and turned in his bed restlessly, unable to shut his lids for even a minute. His mind was perpetually occupied by scenes of his godfather's untimely death, the spats he'd had with his best friend, and images of Hermione. From time to time, a pair of blood-red eyes forced their way into his consciousness. The orbs might be scarlet, the colour of passion and warmth, but ironically, they reeked of frost and cunning. His thoughts travelled to his second year at Hogwarts, the year when he first met Voldemort as a boy. The coal-headed Prefect had the appearance of an admirable, normal-looking being, perhaps even to the point of handsomeness. How on earth did he managed to grow into the unrecognizable creature who possessed the visage of a completely different man?

          "I miss her," came a hollow, flat voice out of the dark. Harry blinked. Could he be speaking his mind now? "But I miss us being friends even more," the voice continued. So do I, thought Harry, but he did not speak. Instead, he concentrated on the Time Portkey, and on Hermione.

**************

          "Don't go in there," warned Tom, as Hermione struggled to free herself from his grip of iron. "You don't want to be caught beside her…it."

          "It?" asked Hermione shrilly, and she threw the Bloody Baron a panic-stricken glance. "It as in basilisk, or in inanimate object?"

          Tom lowered his gaze, his blue eyes clouded with evasion. "It as in corpse. A student's dead, Hermione. Killed by her own interfering nose. Doesn't matter, anyway," he said offhandedly. "She's a Mudblood."

          Hermione's eyes widened unbelievingly, and she restrained herself from giving Tom a nice, hearty slap. "So am I," she reminded him in a voice as hard steel.

          "I'm very well aware of that," he replied quietly. "And so is Valar."

          An avalanche of nerve-numbing frost tumbled onto the brunette, and she took a step backwards from Tom. So…I am simply witnessing history replay itself? And I've done nothing to prevent injustice, she thought angrily. "Valar…is Valar in there?"

          Tom nodded, and his mouth hardened. "She will kill you the moment you invade the Chamber."

          "Come another day," said an ethereal voice, expressionless but commanding, nonetheless. The Bloody Baron had spoken. Hermione stood transfixed at the outrageousity of it all. "Another day," she repeated. "So that I can die another day?"

          The apparition tilted his head, as though deep in thought. "You will die," he breathed, sending a train of chills up her back. "But not today."

          Tom stepped between the ghost and Hermione, but before he could question the Ghost Prophecy, Hermione snapped. She couldn't allow Tom to know that the Bloody Baron was simply commenting on what he saw in the future. It would be disastrous.

          "We should go now," she said to the wraith, as she sent him a look that reeked of conspiracy. "We've got to tell someone about the…..mess."

*****************************

          It was rather late, and the sun was on its way to slumber land, when Tom finally rapped Professor Dippet's door with the very fist that held Hermione earlier. He had appealed to the Head for permission to remain at Hogwarts, despite the attacks. Of course, Tom knew that he would be unharmed, because the attacker was none other than his little companion, the millennia-year-old snake.

******************************

          Hermione was loitering in the Great Hall, when she felt a gusty rush of Artic Frost expelled on her neck. "Please," she said, without so much as turning. "I'm trying to think here."

          "Then you ought to transfer your thoughts to Riddle," suggested the ghost, as he drifted in front of her. "Have you forgotten what is supposed to happen today?"

          Hermione frowned. It had already occurred, the death. But then, she gasped. "Today is the day that Harry witnessed through Tom's diary! Tom's gone to see Dippet, and Harry heard the entire conversation! Then he watched as Tom arrested Hagrid! Of course!" she said excitedly. "Nobody can see him, but he will be there! Oh my god….I have to catch him!"

          She raced up the many flights of stairs, panting like a worn-out athlete. Tom had already entered, when she arrived at the desired door. Without turning a hair, Hermione barged in, very much aware of the shocked stares she was given.

          "In the name of dancing monkeys, what are you DOING, young lady?" asked Professor Dippet, as he stood up, appalled.

          "Harry!" she shouted, just in case the phantom of her friend didn't get what she was about to say. Hermione knew that he was in the room, watching, although they couldn't see him. "The password's REVELATIO! I'm stuck here, tell Dumbledore that Myrtle's already dead, but remember the password!"

********************************

          "Harry! Wake up!"

          Harry Potter shot up in his four-poster-bed, and grabbed Ron by his shoulders. "I remembered!" he gasped, wiping at the beads of cold sweat that adorned his forehead. "I saw Hermione…….she shot into Dippet's office, and she told me the password! Tom and the Head just stared, and the look on his face when Hermione blurted out his precious password! Revelatio! Revelatio!"

          "You saw everything?" asked Ron, their earlier dispute pushed to the very back of his mind. "Like you're possessed?"

          "No," said Harry, grinning. "It was a memory. Can't imagine why I couldn't recall it earlier!"

          "Perhaps because…..it's a new memory," said Ron sagely. "Hermione's in the past, and she's 'making' history!"

*****************************

          Tom bustled her out the office, and Hermione obliged. She had already said what was to be said, and there wasn't anything that Tom could do now.    

            Hermione raised her eyes level to his, and although the Bloody Baron was no longer by her side, she still had her wand…….and the secret weapon. "How did you know the password of my Book?" Tom demanded, his face livid with fear, fury, and ferocity. Nice combination.

          "I came here because of that darn thing! Didn't Johnson tell you that?" she snapped, annoyed by his theatrics. "Johnson the portrait? Johnson the double-crosser? Johnson the Parselmouth?"

          Instead of admitting that she was right, Tom's eyes glinted chillingly. "Johnson the Parselmouth," he repeated, his visage haunted by hostility. "Johnson the portrait," Hermione nodded.

          But his next sentence brought a wave of dread over her. "I know no Johnson, Hermione. And if you mean that portrait…….it has never so much as given me a glance."

          The girl to whom he was speaking only shook her head slowly, as though she did not want to believe what she was hearing. A very cold, gargantuan lump was clogging her trachea. For a while, it was as though someone had pointed a wand at her, and shouted "Obrigescionsa!" the Freezing Charm.

          "I-I..He….But Johnson said……" she faltered.

          "Johnson said that we scratched each others' back?" offered Tom.

          Hermione couldn't speak, so she nodded.

"Then he must have lied."

"He couldn't have!" she half-whispered in a voice that was quite foreign. She thrust her hands into her pockets-they were trembling. "He knew about Hortense finger! He knew that you spat at her! He………he said that he groomed you!"

But Tom simply shook his head. "Everybody knew about Hortense and I. That worthless rubbish was actually proud of the fact that I picked her for her finger, out of the many witches in this school. About the spitting………I recall that half the school saw that act? Hermione! Are you alright?"

Hermione, defeat and shock crushing her like a Blast-Ended Skewrt, fell to the ground. Her kneeling posture struck a satirical pose of a servant kneeling to her master, which was Tom. It was the sinister foreshadowing of the future, in which a certain gaunt-face lady, the woman who held the title as Sirius Black's murderer, would kiss the robes of Lord Voldemort. Johnson had smiled…..while he was burnt….Her head hurt a little, but she pushed further.

I hate this place, she thought, silent sobs threatening to shake her. A new lie seem to be presenting itself every time I look away. What other atrocities are lurking, waiting for the right moment to make their appearance? When Johnson's lip curled, she couldn't call to mind the reason…….she had read it, somewhere, just last week. There was only one explanation as to why a portrait would want to be a fire's meal…..and that was-

          "Tom!" she shouted, clinging onto his arm in her hurry to rise. "Forget blaming Hagrid for the attacks. Don't give me that surprised look; I know what you're planning to do. Aragog didn't do it, and you know it! Hagrid's insignificant, compared to what's awaiting us in the Chamber!"

          "But Valar…" protested Tom, as he hurried after her.

          "The Bloody Baron said that I'm not going to die today! I was stupid enough not to take a hint, when it was dropped. He wants me to enter the Chamber today, Tom. That's why he told me that I wouldn't die today! If there's a day, when I'm entering the Chamber, it would be today."

          "Besides," she added as an afterthought. "All is not what is seems."

          Hermione quickened her steps, matching Tom's own long strides. "I was told the Ten Commandments today,' she disclosed, when they stood in front of the carving of the snake. "Salazar's Ten Commandments. And……I think that…….maybe there is a way for a Muggle-born to enter the Chamber."

          Tom's pulse raced, faster than Harry's legendary Firebolt, and he tuned away from Hermione, who was shivering. She looked distraught, but the tenacity in her eyes flashed like a beacon. "And I will be breaking His rules, if I let you in," he said.

          Hermione gritted her teeth in vexation, and she thrust her anguished face into his. "Look at me!" she instructed, in a voice so commanding that Tom's startling blue eyes swerved themselves her in mild surprise. The twice-deceived girl summoned all her remaining strength, and prayed that her voice did not quiver.

            "Forget His rules. Today is MY day, and the even Salazar can't stop me from entering. Although, if what I was told is right, Salazar won't be stopping me today. Tom, have our kiss meant nothing to you?" she asked, although she hated that dirty trick. Resorting to emotions was always the very last trick in her book, but Hermione was desperate. Myrtle had died, and she had done absolutely nothing,despite being given a chance to re-shape history. "And I've just realized, the Fourth Commandment-Thou wilt stand as one/ and say thy first command? Nothing in the verses implied that Salazar was only talking to one person. Maybe 'to stand as one' has a double-meaning."

            Tom's robes made an angry swishing sound, as he staggered backwards. She was smarter than he thought…….. "Hermione," he breathed, "I think that perhaps Salazar didn't rule out the possibility that a witch might come along, and use "outstanding logic" to outsmart him."

          He smiled a little, his eyes glittering dangerously. Hermione, although jaded and drained, felt a faint flutter in her stomach. "And to answer your earlier question……yes. The kiss did mean something. It meant a lot."

          "But you are still You-Know…but you're still Lord Volde..Voldemort."

________________________________________________________________

Obrigescio=freeze (Latin)

Author's note: Too confusing? If you have the slightest doubt, even the teeniest bit, tell me. (hint: review). I think that I've earned my rest, for now. And…you needn't fear that this is one of those long-winded stories that just can't seem to end. I'm trying my best to write the conclusion that doesn't finish with, "AND SHE WOKE UP, AND IT WAS ALL A DREAM."