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Flash back to Chapter 5

Lastly, smirking, he asked, "What's your one of your most embarrassing moments?"

Hermione then responded, "In second year, my two friends and I were making the poly juice potion in order to find out some information. We were going to turn into three other students, and I had thought I already had the hair from my person when we were in a dueling match. It wasn't until I had already transformed that I realized I had used her cat's hair not hers. It was humiliating; my friends didn't let me live it down for a while."

Grinning despite himself, he then quickly composed his face as he noticed her eyes losing their glazed look. He would definitely be using that information sometime.

Chapter 6

Later that day when Hermione was sitting in the Heads common room, books spread out around her, Tom Riddle glided through the portrait hole and for once in their history, sat down across of Hermione.

Leaning calmly and coolly back in the reclining chair, he spoke, "So Georgas, are you going to tell me how you knew about my heritage, or am I going to have to force it out of you?"

Blinking in surprise, Hermione asked, "What? You didn't ask that when using the Veritaserum?"

"No," he smirked, "I found better uses for my questions. Plus, I know your noble caring nature will win out. So tell me, I deserve to know."

Shifting in her seat, Hermione made up the quickest lie she could, "To be honest Tom, I didn't really know until I was talking with one of the girls in my house, she dated a Slytherin, and they knew you weren't a pureblood."

Inhaling quickly, Tom then replied frowning slightly, "I see."

Hermione then quietly added, "I'm sorry to hear about what happened to your parents."

Snarling, Tom said, "I don't need or want your pity Georgas. And one other thing, - never mention my parents or my ancestry to anyone, or else." Turning swiftly around, he began his retreat to his room.

"I don't pity you, Tom," Hermione spoke firmly; "I was merely saying that your circumstances for growing up were unfortunate. I would only pity you if you didn't learn from it, - that despite whatever negative experiences you endured when we are younger, we have the power of choice to not let it define who we are but merely be an experience we learn from."

Sneering, Tom replied, "How touching Georgas. Are you sure you weren't placed in the wrong house? Gryffindor would have suited you – ignorant and noble. See you at the Prefects meeting." With that, he slammed his door.

Sighing to herself, Hermione gathered up her books and put them in her bedroom before returning to the common room to await the prefects.

Inside Tom's room he was pacing, furious that he had lost his cool façade. He was sure his cheeks had flushed red with anger when she had mentioned how she was sorry about his parents – and Tom Riddle never blushed whether from humiliation or anger.

But what was that look in her eyes when she said, "we have the power of choice to not let it define who we are but merely be an experience we learn from," as if she knew something about him that no one else did. But who was she to judge? She had probably lived her life with the perfect happy parents, perfect friends, maybe a pet or two died and that was the depth of her negative world experience. She had no right to judge. No one did, after all he was willing to bet his left hand that no one could compare to what he had to live through.

Stretching his back he glanced into the mirror and smirked as he saw the cool collected face staring back, - dark brown eyes and perfectly combed black hair. Turning around, as he heard voices other than Hermione's in the common room, he exited his room.

As he walked in he noticed that all the prefects were there, so he sat down in the single backrest chair next to Hermione's.

Hermione, casting a cautious glance at Tom and began the meeting.

"Welcome prefects to the first meeting of the year. Most likely most of you met Tom Riddle your Head Boy on the train, I however, was unable to make it for personal reasons, - and my name is Hermione Georgas. Now, today, to start off, I want to let you know that the prefect monitoring schedule for after hours is up in the common room boards, make sure you check, there will be no, "Sorry, I didn't know where to find it" excuses. I tried to partner each of you up with members from the other houses as I felt this was best for inter-house unity. Tom, if you want to talk about Hogsmead trips?" she inquired.

Tom sneered, "How generous of you, Georgas." The other Slytherin prefects smirked.

Calmly, Tom stated, "The date of Hogsmead trips are up on the common room boards as well. Make sure you inform your house to have their permission slips in. The first trip date is October 22 so that they have enough time to get a Halloween costume. Which leads us to the next bit on our agenda, - Headmaster Dippet has informed us that we are to plan a Halloween party. Anyone with ideas or suggestions is welcome to step forward. We need people who are willing to be responsible for decorations, music, food, etc. The floor is open to discussion amongst us. If we can't decide anything then we will resort to asking the rest of our houses to answer a poll."

Nodding, Hermione re-stated, "So, any suggestions?"

A reserved 6th year Hufflepuff prefect named Helga Devine quietly said, "Well, what if we had the Skele-Guys to play? My brother went to school with one of their brothers at Durmstrang."

Hermione's eyes lit up at that, she had heard so much about them from Professor McGonagall of her time. "That's a great idea! All in favor raise your hand."

Immediately a majority of hands rose up minus two slytherin prefects and the Head Boy who sat there sneering.

"Well, majority rules," she said smiling, writing it down on a note pad she had on her lap. "We'll leave getting in touch and setting that up to you then Helga once our proposal is approved? You can choose another person to assist you, if you like."

With that, the group moved on, an hour later coming to a general idea of what they wanted for the Halloween feast.

"Great!" Hermione said, "Tom and I will submit this proposal to Head Master Dippet, and keep you up dated. The next prefects meeting is October 3rd, same place and same time."

With that, the prefects got up and left, chatting amongst themselves.

"Tom, wait a second," Hermione requested, "We have patrol duty tonight, will you meet me here at 10?"

Tom stopped to nod to Hermione before getting up to leave.

Later that night, five minutes prior to the clock reaching 10, Hermione packed up her homework and entered the common room only to find Tom waiting for her.

"Shall we?" Hermione asked lightly as she continued toward the portrait.

The pair walked in silence for the majority of their shift until they heard a moan coming from a nearby classroom.

Raising an eyebrow, Tom walked swiftly toward the door, muttered the unlocking charm and burst the door open.

"Well, what do we have here? Two Gryffindors frolicking about after hours," Tom sneered.

The half dressed teenagers blushed as the couple quickly pulled their shirts back over their head, scurrying about to be removed from the Head Boy's evil gaze.

"That will be 25 points from Gryffindor each. Let that act as a warning," he smirked.

Hermione rolled her eyes and quietly murmured, "20 points to Gryffindor," before continuing on her path.

Tom, catching that, turned around infuriated, but paused until the couple was out of sight.

Angrily he caught Hermione's shoulders in a firm grip and pushed her roughly against the wall, bodies firmly against each other.

Sneering down into her face he hissed angrily, "How dare you undermine my authority. Just because you have this insufferable I-want-to-be-popular complex doesn't mean I have to suffer for it. If you had taken the initiative you could have decided how many points you wanted to deduct, but you didn't. I am clear?"

Looking down into her eyes Tom saw a flicker of fear. For the first time in his life, there was a twist in his gut, but it was gone before he could make anything of it.

In a small voice, Hermione whispered, "I'm sorry Tom. You are right in the sense that I shouldn't undermine your authority. But you could be a little nicer, it wouldn't kill you. It's not like you have never snuck out after hours… wait… you haven't have you?" she said as she saw Tom's look of scorn. Her eyes widened and her smile grew, "We're going to fix that," glancing at her watch, she smirked as she grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the kitchens.

Tom's eyes grew wide as he realized that he was holding hands with her, however he didn't have a chance to react until he was standing near a portrait of a pear. He watched, mesmerized as Hermione ran her fingers lightly over the pear, which more amazingly, giggled, and in turn, opened up to reveal the Hogwarts kitchens. As soon as they entered Tom disentangled his hand from Hermione.

Abruptly they were greeted by a house elf.

"Hello Misses and Mister, I is Pinky. Can Pinky get Misses and Mister anything? Pinky wishes to help," it said excitedly.

Hermione bit her lip for a second (internally fighting her war to start S.P.E.W. in the 1950's, as she realized that if it didn't work in the 2005's, it definitely wouldn't work this far back), "Can we please have two hot chocolates and a plate of cinnamon buns… Tom want anything else?" seeing him shake his head no, she added, "Thanks." Grabbing his hand again, she led him to a small table near by.

Within seconds the house elf was back, "Anything else Misses or Mister wants? Pinky aims to please"

"No thanks. Thanks anyways Pinky."

With that, Hermione pushed a mug toward Tom and drank hers, while grabbing a cinnamon from the plate. Still kind of dazed that he had lived here 7 years and yet had never visited the kitchens, drank his mug silently before asking Hermione how she knew about this place.

"Oh, simple, Ross told me about it, says he comes here all the time to get food when his house wins a Quidditch match," she replied.

Nodding, Tom continued his drink.

"By the way Tom, you are now officially out 10 minutes past curfew and patrol duty," she smirked.

Eyes wide, Tom let out a small snort before returning to his hot chocolate.

Hermione merely smiled as she continued to enjoy what Pinky had brought for them.

After they were both finished, they returned to their common room in silence. However, before Tom went into his room he said quickly, "Goodnight Georgas." Smiling to herself, Hermione skipped into her room, calling out a, "Goodnight Tom!"

The next day went quickly, Hermione got a few homework assignments back from her Transiguration and Charms class, and smiled as she saw her usual high marks. As she walked through the hallway on her way to potions she ran into a figure, falling backwards and her things scattering around her.

"Ah man, I'm so sorry. Hermione Georgas right? Head Girl?" the red headed boy grinned impishly as he bent down to help her pick up her things.

"Yeah, yeah, no problem. What's your name?" she inquired.

"Basil Weasley at your service," he winked.

Abruptly she gasped eyes wide and tempted to water, without saying a word she grabbed her things and ran, memories of her past flashing before her eyes.

Basil stood there puzzled as he watched her leave, shrugging, he continued on his way.

Potions class came and went and Tom sat there with a composed look on his face, all the while wondering where Hermione was.

Ever since that first potions class she had never been late, always at least 5 minutes early. But today, she missed it completely, it was very unlike her. Furthermore, they were doing one of the most fascinating potions – she even said that, and she missed that!

Determined to get to the bottom of this, he searched their head dorm, and didn't see her, then wandering into the hall way he saw Ross. Grudgingly, he calmly asked him if he had seen her.

Suspiciously, Ross, demanded, "Why, Riddle?"

Sneering, Tom responded, "Heads business, Cooper. Grow up."

Sighing, Ross said he heard from his friend Basil that she had run up toward the Astronomy tower before last period, but for all he knew she might have left. Nodding, Tom walked toward the tower.

Upon entering he noticed it was unusually dark, and by the balcony, he saw the lone figure of Hermione, hunched over, and her usually neat straight black hair sprawled everywhere.

"Georgas? Hello, Georgas?" Tom hesitantly spoke, "Hermione?" At that, Hermione's head turned around, and when she noticed him, her eyes widened.

Quietly she asked, "What are you doing here Tom?"

"You missed potions, you never do. Professor Peters was angry. I believe he deducted at least 40 points from Ravenclaw," he smirked. Looking closer he saw that her eyes appeared sparkly, "Were you crying Georgas?" he asked surprised.

Quickly wiping at her eyes Hermione sat up, "No, of course not. Don't be silly."

Eyes narrowing, he snarled, "Don't lie to me Georgas. I'm no fool."

Rolling her eyes, she said, "Fine, so what if I was? Going to tease me? Call me weak?"

"No need to, you just did that for me," he smirked.

Chuckling slightly, Hermione asked, "Why did you come looking for me?"

Clearing his throat, Tom answered, "Professor Peters assigned us as partners, and our assignment is due tomorrow. I wanted to find you so we can finish this, as you didn't show up to class we lost valuable time."

Hermione's face sagged slightly in disappointment; she had thought for a moment that she had had a break through.

"Alright, well, I'll walk back with you, but when we get to the common room I need a few minutes to clean up" she said.

"Sure Georgas," Tom said, "Um, Georgas?"

"Yeah?" she asked.

"If you don't mind me asking, why were you crying in the first place?" he questioned.

"I just ran into someone that reminded me immensely of my friend who recently past away," she said in a small voice – for in her mind, the fact that she could never see them again meant her friends were as good as dead.

"How?" he further asked, his eyes widening as his mental stereotype of what Hermione's life must have been like shattered slightly before his eyes.

Taking advantage of the situation, looking directly into his eyes, Hermione answered, "He was murdered by an evil wizard because of his beliefs."

That night, after the two had finished their project and said goodnight, Tom laid in his bed, arms behind his head and he reflected on Hermione's words in the Astronomy tower. So maybe he had been wrong when he assumed her life had been perfect. Clearly she had been exposed to some evils. But how was this possible? She was so happy and positive.

That night Tom fell asleep after an hour of fitful tossing and turning.