((A.N. Chapter 11. Finally here, sorry for the delay. This is kind of an extension of the chapter Moonlight Masquerade, which I chopped in half because it was getting too long. A lot of important information and foreshadowing in this chapter, so... watch out for that. I almost had a heart attack. 250 reviews! I didn't even expect 100 for this story! I don't know what to say except thank you to everyone who reviewed, which includes Miss Cleo, SpiritWell (it was Emma wearing the read dress, btw), Klumsee, EuphoniumGurl0 (there are 17 chapters to this story), Lion Eyes, LolaQ, kittykatekat, sexy-jess, flaming-amber, Loriliant Angelisa Snape (I'm scared!), b16, Liz, Mitsuki Ashya, caillion, ydole3343, Avanell, Olivers Quidditch Crazy, lovelyreviewerperson, tomriddlerulz, An Anti-Sheep Cheese muffin (love the name), Nelly-Welly, Jay Ficlover, Tathing, BabyGooGoo2, Jen, ContessMel, Tears-That-Fall, Katie&Sev4ever, her x emo x tears, ramones4me, kamakitty, bandnerd09, p.c. andrews, cocovanilla (Wow great observation in your last review, smart girl... but my lips are sealed), Amerise Rei, Kerrie-A, pat-nosferatu, stargirl, adriana, Milka-Weasely, Black-rose23, reader972, ticklethedragon, steffy-potter, sam, ghurl, kaye, and ice. I love you all... 3 Thanks to my lovely beta, DramaShethan, because if I didn't have her you guys would have to put up with crappy grammar and bad sentence structure and you wouldn't like that. Without further adieu, enjoy.))

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most.

– Marianne Williamson

Chapter 11: Moonlight Masquerade, Part 2

It was not Christoph Black, but Tom Riddle that who stared back.

"How did– what did– but you had a green costume!" Hermione stuttered.

"Green costume?" Tom asked coldly. "That was Malfoy."

Suddenly it sank in. The things she had said to him, how her words must have sounded . . .

"You wore the same costume as him!" she accused loudly. "I thought you were Christoph Black!"

"That much," said Tom wryly, "is obvious."

Hermione's stomach did a little flip as she realized she was alone with him. They stared at each other for a few moments, and finally, Tom said, "So . . . who is this other boy that you like?"

"Oh, him?" Hermione said airily. She paused. "I'm sure he'll figure it out someday."

"I'm sure he will," Tom agreed soundly. He seemed suddenly serious.

"Why did you want to take a walk?" Hermione asked pointedly.

"You were wrong," he intoned rather abruptly, and for a moment she thought he was still talking about Christoph. He paused, seeming to consider. " . . . you said the thing I was most afraid of was love. Well, you were wrong."

He seemed distant, haughty and cold as he said this.

"I'm afraid of myself, most of all," he said after a long while. She could hardly believe her ears. Tom Riddle, admitting a weakness? It was absurd, impossible, unheard of.

"Of . . . yourself?" she asked faintly.

"Yes. I'm afraid of . . . what I'm capable of, I suppose. I'm afraid of what I could do to people with my power."

Hermione looked up at him and was reminded of having an extremely similar conversation with a certain emerald eyed boy.

"But, Tom . . . think of all the good things that you could do with your power."

"Don't," he asserted in a deadly voice, "use that word around me. There is no good or evil."

Hermione was not fazed at all. "Then think of what you could do to help people, to make things better. If I had your powers–"

"You!" Tom looked angry now. "You don't know what it's like to have your entire life planned out for you! Your name isn't riddled into prophecies that are destined to be fulfilled. Prophecies about the end of the world, and ancient evil, the return of Slytherin. You have a choice in who you want to be, so don't bloody talk to me about what you'd do."

This outburst was met by a shocked sort of silence. Tom's face, for once, was full of emotion, as if he were daring her to contradict what he had said.

"You make me so angry sometimes," Hermione said in a low, firm voice. She grabbed his forearms then, and made him look her in the eyes.

"Listen to me. I don't care how many prophecy have been written about you, or how many people expect you to be like Slytherin. You always have a choice. That's what life is about, choices, and no one can tell you who you're supposed to be. So stop giving me this utter rubbish about destiny and fate and the end of the world! Wake up, and get a backbone already!"

She brought herself up short, realizing that she had been yelling. She looked up at him with huge eyes. She would not have been surprised if he had walked away, if he had yelled back, or even if he had hit her. But what he did do caught her completely off guard. He wrenched her mask off, and kissed her heatedly.

If she had found his lips icy before, it was different this time. As he drew her closer, she found that his skin was burning hot, with a passion she had never known before. At first the kiss was timid, soft, inviting, but as their tongues met, Hermione felt some kind of hunger, as if she had been starving all of her life and had finally found food.

Right then Hermione knew that she did not want to be anywhere else. Not back in the future with Harry and Ron, not anywhere but right there, with Tom's arms around her.

It is peculiar that at the exact moment when she realized that she would rather be no place else in the world also happened to be the exact moment when she were so inevitably forced to move.

They broke apart when they heard a loud gasp from their left. Hermione whirled around to see Emma and another girl standing there, looking at Tom and Hermione with a dumbstruck expression.

"Helen? You . . . him . . .?" Emma tried to get the words out, but they did not come. Instead, Emma turned and fled with the other girl.

"No!" Hermione said, without knowing it. If the other students found out about this, everything would be ruined. People would suspect Hermione more than ever.

She turned to Tom. "I have to . . ." but he was already striding away, and she did not realize that he was shrouded in darkness until it was too late.

When Hermione reached the Gryffindor common room, it was half past one. Most of the students were still at the masquerade, which ended at two. Emma, however, was sitting in an armchair by the fire, staring moodily at the flames.

"Where's Christoph?" Hermione asked experimentally.

"We had another row," Emma snapped waspishly. "But not before he had kissed me."

"What about?"

"About whether those flying things were pixies or fairies," Emma said, flushing after she realized how stupid this sounded.

"Honestly, Emma . . . you two are impossible. Why can't you just stop arguing and admit that you like each other already?"

Emma grimaced. "I'm not sure it's my love life we should be talking about, Helen."

"Look, Tom and I were just kissing, we don't have anything serious . . ." Hermione trailed off, noting that this was blatantly untrue.

"Oh, so you just go around snogging random boys, I suppose?"

"That's not true either," Hermione replied, red creeping up her cheekbones.

"No wonder Christoph was so interested in you," Emma said venomously.

"Since when did Christoph get into this! Not everything's about him, Emma! Not everything's about you, either!" Hermione yelled, fed up.

"Look, Helen," said Emma coldly. "I'm not going to spread this around or anything, you know I wouldn't do that . . . but Mary might. She was off and running before I could catch her."

"No! That's not–" but she stopped as she heard voices and footsteps outside of the common room. Doubtless it was the rest of the students coming back.

"I'm going to bed," Hermione said disgustedly.

What would happen if . . . when . . . the other students found out? Would Tom deny the whole scene, or would he gloat about it?

All Hermione knew was that she had a very big headache. When she reached her dormitory, she leaned against her bed in silence, exhausted.

It happened so quickly that it might not have happened at all. One moment, Hermione was leaning against the bedpost, and the next a blur and sight and sound engulfed her. It was a flash of colour and coldness, light and darkness. Suddenly she was back in the forest clearing, and Lord Voldemort had his wand raised at her. Then, like a light flickering off, it was gone.

It was not a memory. It was like a flash into another dimension. For one moment she had felt unstable, as if she was not sure which scene she belonged in, and then had come back. What happened?

Hermione looked down at the time-turner around her neck, and felt terribly alone in the roaring silence of time. Was it possible that she had just glimpsed the future? Was she merely losing her mind?

She lay down and tried to sleep, but the image of Voldemort and the forest clearing was superimposed behind her eyes. She could still feel the silkiness of the mist on her skin, and she could still see the flash of green light traveling toward her, too vivid to be a memory.

Hermione tried to relax, but sleep in all of its cruelty evaded her for the rest of the night.

((A.N. Oooh scary foreshadowing, lots of foreshadowing... what do you think isgoing on here? And what will people say about Tom and Hermione? Take a guess in a review.))