Harry and Ron planned to Stun Draco after dinner the following day. So Hermione, listening three feet away in the entrance to the girl's staircase, planned to Stun him after lunch. She waited outside the Slytherin Common Room under Harry's invisibility cloak, watching the newly stolen Map. The Map! She quickly scanned it, realizing that if she could find "Draco Malfoy" on it, that would mean Draco himself were here, and no imposter. But as her eyes raked the map she slowed, and looked up. On the wall next to her was a human shaped shadow… It was not hers, because the Invisibility Cloak cleverly took care of that. Invisibility spells however… Hermione looked fearfully to her right but, as she suspected, she saw no one. The Map showed no one. But someone distinctly said, "Stupefy!"

Hermione woke up on a cold stone floor. After a groan and a minute of rapid blinking and remembering she sat up abruptly and almost screamed as she came face to face with an enormous stone face. Gulping, she waited for her memory to kick in and sure enough she could identify the face as Salazar Slytherin's. As she turned her head she saw that she was lying directly between two huge stone snakes, rearing up like an honor guard on the border of a low stone bridge surrounded by pools of dark stagnant water. What interested her more, however, was a small stick of wood floating a few feet away. Eagerly, Hermione scrambled to the edge of the bridge and, reaching over, managed to touch her wand with the tips of her fingers. Painstakingly she pulled it back in towards her, trying not to think of what might be living in the water she was barely touching.

Her wand safely in her hand she smiled. "Point me." Her wand didn't spin to point north. It did not move. She tried again, moving the wand in all directions but never even seeing the slightest vibration. Hermione's initial thrill at getting her wand back began to fade. She tried other spells at random: "Lumos!" Nothing. She called for fire, water, wind…

"I see you've discovered why I left you your wand." A voice hissed behind her. Hermione whipped around to face a tall man. Deathly pale, his features: large eyes, a thin nose and cold thin lips, looked like a caricature. She could sense something reptilian about him, and his robes draped so loosely that Hermione's mind could easily provide images of a snake tail beneath them, tall and straight and thin. Hermione's hackles rose and she gripped her useless wand even more tightly. The man only smiled. "No warm welcome? But I thought you liked Slytherins."

"You're You Kn… Voldemort." Hermione steeled herself, putting her chin up jauntily and standing as tall as she could to face the seven foot skeletal snake before her.

The man only smiled. "I knew you wouldn't disappoint me." He stepped forward, reaching out a skeletal hand to an inch from her face. "Just like before, in Hagrid's cabin."

"Hagrid!" Hermione cried out. She had been so absorbed in what was wrong with Draco, that she had forgotten about him. "Where's Hagrid?" she demanded, earning herself an amused smirk from Voldemort.

The man twirled his wand in his long fingers, clearly still enjoying the sensations of being flesh and blood. Watching his own hands, intrigued by them, he carelessly laughed. "Hagrid indeed. I do seem to cause trouble for him. I would imagine he truly wishes that he hadn't come back a little too soon and seen me. Of course, he didn't see you or else even that brainless oaf would have tried to fight. I have no doubt though that he's run away to Aragog and they are both living happily in fear of me." Hermione just glared at him. "You look prettier when you are furious." He commented and leaned forward, head tilted, large eyes open even wider.

Hermione shuddered under his inspection, wishing he would go back to being intrigued by his own flesh. "And what about the three of us. Me? Ron? Dra… Malfoy?"

Voldemort smiled wryly. "Do you know, this is the longest conversation I've had in a long time. Unfortunately too many of my… friends… expire too quickly for in depth discussion."

"Like Draco?" Hermione was surprised to hear her own voice, accusing the Dark Lord no less.

"Kill Lucius' son? No, not yet. He's a talented boy, I'm sure he will be useful later on. If he's not I'll kill him then." Voldemort laughed his mirthless laugh, exalting in his dark humor. "But I could hardly let him go back to school, and to you." Hermione's mouth tightened. "He already told me all about you. Though not enough for my actor to deceive you. Polyjuice, yes." Voldemort waved his hand to her unasked question. "Again, you did not disappoint me. Not many witches could have identified that."

"I'm full of surprises." Hermione said wryly, fighting fear with sarcasm. "And when you keep using the same tricks…"

"Crouch?" Voldemort arched his eyebrow. "Perhaps. But you were right about the first part… you are full of surprises." He stepped towards Hermione, cape swirling and she stepped backwards, and caught her heel on the slightly raised edge of the walkway. Only her quick grab for one of the stone snakes saved her from falling into the dark water. She clung to the stone as Voldemort walked in a semicircle around her, sneering angrily. "Do I repulse you that much?"

He turned away, still pacing. "There was a time when every girl in this school was mad for me. A time when I was the perfect man."

Hermione couldn't help but interrupt his musings. "And killing Muggle-borns? I bet that was popular."

"Ah, yes. Jump up for Mudblood's rights." Voldemort laughed again, sending a chill down Hermione's spine. He turned to her, suddenly intense. "I won't kill you because of your parents." Hermione stared back, pulling her quivering bottom lip into her mouth. Voldemort watched it, intranced, murmuring absently, "My own father, in the lowest sense of the word of course, was a Muggle. But I wish you'd seen me as the perfect man. So much more perfect than the Malfoy boy." Hermione's brown eyes widened in true fear. A clap of blinding light forced her to duck behind the snake but when she dared look out, she almost cried out. Standing in front of her was a sixteen year old Tom Riddle.

Riddle smiled at her, smoothing his school tie. "Unchanged for fifty years, just waiting." He offered her his hand.

"Waiting for what?" Hermione deliberately spat in his face.

"Well not for that, I can tell you." Riddle stepped up to her and grabbed her arm with superhuman strength. He touched her cheek with the palm of his hand. The gesture was so different from Voldemort's studied hedonistic view to the five senses. Even the illusion of Tom Riddle possessed a teenage crudeness and unveiled lust. He lacked the Dark Lord's iron control and sarcastic distance.

Riddle also seemed to share a certain amount of the teenage boy's mind. "You're different, arent' you."

"I'm very unique." Hermione tried to pull away but he only pushed her backward until she was flush against Salazar Slytherin's beard.

"Very unique for a Mudblood." Hermione was beginning to see where Voldemort had gotten his tendency to muse lethargically from. "You see," Riddle continued, "when I came here, to this place, for the first time, I thought that disposing of people like you was my mission, my destiny, my purification. I thought it was something I had to do but when Hogwarts almost closed, I gave it up. I defied Salazar Slytherin and look what I became!" Riddle spread his arms. "The most powerful wizard ever."

"Dumbledore—"

"Potter's words. Don't you think for yourself?" Riddle's hatred couldn't be disguised. "He defended that weak old man and yet look. Dumbledore's been protecting Harry well, I will admit. But who got Harry's blood? And who lured him down here, and into the Department of Mysteries, and to fetch me the Sorcerer's Stone?" Riddle smiled. "And who's protecting you?" Hermione glared at the boy in front of her furiously, ready to protest that she didn't need saving. "You're alone, defenseless, with the Darkest Wizard alive, in the Chamber of Secrets."

Hermione's mouth fell open. "The Chamber of…"

"Well," Riddle grinned in a disconcerting surfacing of innate charm that made Hermione remember Ginny's descriptions of Riddle's seductive personality. "I would have made it Penelope's Garden but you'd already been there. I had to go for the more Slytherin, less romantic."

Hermione wanted to scream, but they were both silenced by a splash on the bridge. Riddle turned behind him and pulled a knife from his robes. "One move, Potter, and she dies." Hermione's eyes were riveted on the knife. She took in its ornate engraved handle that twisted into the shape of a serpent and even had time to wonder about the irony of the most powerful dark wizard resorting to a Muggle tool before Harry's voice floated into her hazy mind.

"Let her go, Voldemort." She looked up, dazed by mortal fear, and saw Harry stopped in the middle of the bridge. "It's me you want to kill."

"I can deal with you later," Riddle shrugged carelessly. "Right now I want to have a little talk with your pretty friend. Our last conversation was all business."

"Last conversation?" Harry echoed. He whipped out his wand but stopped as he saw a drop of blood form on the blade against Hermione's neck.

Riddle's voice began to thin and Hermione could hear the "s" sound elongating with each word. "Last conversation, Potter. In Hagrid's cabin. Before her rather pointless quarantine." His laugh was even a hiss now and Riddle's dark head bowed for a second. Hermione could almost feel the magic in the air around the man, growing as more and more was called to keep the sixteen-year-old boy.

"An illusion would probably be easier to maintain." Hermione commented vacantly, all her senses seeming dumbed by the knife against her neck. Through the fog in her mind, she chided herself. She hadn't been this useless while they had searched for the Sorcerer's Stone, or when she knew a Basilisk was running around the school, or against Sirius when they thought he was a murderer. She had even fought grown wizards in the Department of Mysteries. Why was she so numb now.

Voldemort looked at her disparagingly, all of Riddle's quiet interest gone. His fingers wrapped around her neck, flexing, enjoying their own strength, but now with no interest for the girl in his power. He tightened his fingers experimentally as he told her, "when I need your advice, Mudblood, I'll ask for it." Hermione coughed and spluttered in response as she began to feel dizzy.

"Stop it! Stop it right now!" Harry jumped forward, his wand outstretched.

Voldemort only hissed a laugh. "How pathetic. Is everyone in this school in love with her?" Then his eyes turned a gloating red and he pulled out his wand, ready to engage Harry as the boy ran towards them. Harry, even with his wand up, would not be able to hold the connection. The Dark Lord smiled as he raised his wand arm artistically to perform the killing curse.

Hermione however, used all her strength to push off the statue. She was no match for Voldemort's unnatural strength but her leg connected with something soft and mobile. Voldemort dropped the knife and let go of Hermione's neck to brace himself against the statue as he winced in pain. Hermione fell to the ground without his tight hold and the pain of a skinned knee jolted her back to awareness.

She rebounded instantly and jumped up. Harry was staring at her. "Run!" She canned to him. Harry simply continued to stare. "Run! He's bewitched the room, my wand won't work!" Hermione grabbed Harry's hands as she passed him and pulled him along for a moment before he too came to life and began to run, even faster than she, headlong towards he door. Hermione however gazed at the thick stone in despair, the door was closed.

Riddle's laugh sounded behind them. "Bravado and bravery and all that stops you is one closed door. Ironic, don't you think." Hermione stopped running. She looked over her shoulder and saw Riddle, sixteen in his entirety once more, lounging against Salazar Slytherin's head. He grinned at her. "I can see why you have so many lovely boys head over heels for you: Malfoy, Potter, the Weasley boy, Krum… and of course, we can't forget Riddle."

Hermione felt close to tears, but her blood froze as she heard a snake hiss close behind her. Riddle jerked upright and Hermione turned to see Harry standing before the door, which was opening very slowly. He turned back to look for her and saw her further back than he had expected. As she began to run, Harry pushed his weight against the door, as if that could make it open faster. Hermione could hear Riddle hissing in Parseltongue too and she threw herself against the door. "Oh please open, open, open!"

The door stopped when it had opened about a foot. Harry, thin as ever, scrambled through and held his hand for Hermione to pull herself through. But the door was beginning to close and now Hermione was left with little more than six inches. Hermione squeezed Harry's hand as she pushed herself desperately against the door but quickly realized that she was lost. She pulled back just in time to prevent herself from becoming completely wedged in. The door closed: Harry on one side, Hermione and Tom Riddle on the other.

Riddle had now reached the breathless girl. She eyed him suspiciously. "Well, for the most powerful wizard on earth, a fifty percent capture rate is not very good." Hermione taunted breathlessly, needing the brave words to hide her helpless terror. You're a Gryffindor, she told herself, you can do this.

Riddle seemed unconvinced. "I let him go. Potter's a rather annoying little boy."

"You let him go? Interesting, it took you what, four failed attempts to kill him, before you realized that he's just an annoying little boy? Are you stupid or just really slow on the uptake?" The words were coming from somewhere, Hermione couldn't guess where as she felt herself trapped inside a little girl's body, helpless, waiting for her minute to become Voldemort's next victim.

He seemed to read her mind, his eyes boring into hers, a deceptively rich chocolate brown without the slightest hint of red. "I'm not going to kill you, you stupid girl." Riddle crossed the distance between them and watched amusedly as Hermione instinctively pressed herself against the door in an effort to gain even the slightest bit more space. "I am that repulsive, am I? Why, Hermione… may I call you Hermione?" Now Riddle was in his element, mockingly polite. "Why am I so disgusting?" He made the question seem philosophical, not an accusation at all. "You love my little minion Malfoy, you like that annoying Potter and that stupid scared Weasley boy and even that oaf Hagrid! But not me…?" He grinned winningly.

Hermione abandoned all pretense and felt her voice shake. "Are you saying I should like someone who kills people like me?"

"The past… all in the past. I thought it was my duty, then my destiny to kill Potter. For Salazar Slytherin's noble work or my war, but now… well, I see an opportunity. A year ago I would have been furious that Potter escaped and I was left with some sixth year Mudblood geek, but now? I think I'm quite lucky. You have a lot of friends in high places that I would really love to make friends with. I'm sure you can help me, shall we say, bridge the gap?" His voice was icy cold, but his eyes softened as they looked into hers, becoming a very interested gaze. He smirked again, "And, according to Malfoy's memory, you are an excellent kisser." Riddle leaned in.

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Updates! Hope you like the more… plot focused… sections of the story. Gi Xian, yes I had thought of the Marauder's Map and was going to just hope no one noticed but you reminded me right before I wrote this chapter so I thought I'd just give Hermione our stellar realization. Oh, Midnight Pixie, I totally agree with you. Philosopher's Stone actually makes sense! Anyway, enough shout outs, I love everyone who's reviewed, even if I don't mention you by name. Please keep them coming! Oh, and if you wait a bit there will be more happy fluff later I'm sure.