Flash back from Chapter 7

The walk back was quiet as well, but just as Hermione was opening her door to her room, she heard a quiet, "Thank you again Hermione, it meant a lot," before she also heard a click of his door signaling he was gone.

Chapter 8

The week passed quickly, as the prefects and Head students busily prepared for the big Halloween festival. Hermione and Tom could be found in meetings with the Professors finalizing the plans, while other students excitedly chattered amongst themselves over what costumes they would be wearing.

However, after a stressful week of classes, Hermione was in her last period of the day. Resisting the urge to sign in relief as she heard Professor Dumbledore tell the class that they had no homework due to the upcoming Halloween ball tomorrow night, Hermione gathered her books and exited quickly.

Plopping her bags down on the Head's common room couch, she soon fell asleep, exhausted.

Two hours later, Tom glided into the common room, and he was just about to open his door but stopped when he noticed Hermione on the couch. Smirking, he walked silently over to the couch, and leaning very close to his ear, he then shouted, "BOO!"

Stepping swiftly out of the way as Hermione launched in a tangle of limbs away from the couch. Looking around eagerly to see where the noise came from, she then frowned angrily as she noticed the arrogant smirking face of Tom Riddle.

"Oh, very mature Riddle," she sneered.

Adopting an innocent face he answered mockingly, "I have no idea what you mean, Georgas."

Sighing, she sat back down on the couch, "I was just so tired, I needed that nap. What time is it?"

"5:25pm," he replied meaningfully.

Eyes growing wide, she gasped, grabbed her bags, and ran into her room.

Chuckling, he went into his room to put his bags away too before heading down to the Great Hall.

Sprinting to her room, Hermione ran into her room and quickly dropped off her bags, glanced in the mirror to make sure she was presentable, before sprinting back to the common room to await the prefects' arrival five minutes later.

The meeting that night went fairly smoothly, as Hermione and Tom informed the other prefects of the schedule for tomorrow. However, by the time they were done sorting out different technicalities and minor tweaking, it was well passed dinner time.

Walking quickly to the Great Hall, the group ate until their bellies were full and the remainder of the student body was trickling out of the hall.

Sighing contentedly, Hermione wandered up to her room and sat in front of the fire place, watching the flames flicker. Abruptly, she heard tapping on the glass window, so she stood and opened the window cautiously.

Noticing that it was a tiny barn owl, she let it fly about a bit before noticing it had a letter in its hand. Once the little owl had landed on her shoulder, hooting happily, she took the letter out of its grip and began reading it;

Dear Ms. Georgas,

How are you?

I'm sure you will be relieved once tomorrow is over, what with the stress of the upcoming Halloween ball. However, I am writing to ask you to come to my office for tea on Sunday morning around 9am. I would like to discuss with you how you are settling in and your progress in getting along with the Head Boy and other surroundings. Please be punctual,

See you soon,

Sincerely,

Professor Dumbledore

Stifling the urge to punch the air as she despairingly waved goodbye to her Sunday morning sleep-in, and went back to staring into the flames.

Four hours later, Tom entered the common room, and seeing Hermione staring dazedly into the flames, sat down on the couch next to her, also staring into the flames. She was angry and sad at the same time, Professor Dumbledore's letter forcing her to remember why she was in the past instead of with her friends and family, forcing her to remember her mission.

Hermione, upon realizing that there was actually a presence next to her, calmly took in the ruffled appearance of Tom Riddle, with his black hair wildly straying in all directions, and clear blue eyes intensely gazing into the fire.

She reflected that he wasn't all that bad looking, despite the stern aura he gave off, always standing with his back perfectly erect and uniform and hair neatly in place. But tonight, it seemed like he was finally relaxing, his tie was even slightly off centered.

"Tom?" Hermione softly said.

Startled, Tom shook his head to acknowledge her, his piercing blue eyes meeting with her dark hazel ones.

"Do you ever wish you could change things, so maybe you wouldn't have turned out a certain way, or something wouldn't have happened?" At this, his eyes narrowed, before staring away, carefully contemplating the question.

"Sometimes, I suppose, but then again… wishing doesn't get you anywhere, does it," he said somewhat morosely.

Staring deeply into his eyes, she said fiercely, "Surely, Tom, you can't be that pessimistic, there is always hope," standing up, angrily, she spoke, "I hate your parents for stealing away your chance for an innocent care-free childhood." At that her eyes grew wide, "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have said that. It's none of my business!"

Turning around, about to walk away Tom stood up and spoke quietly, "No, don't apologize… It… means a lot that you care." His eyes met hers at that moment, searching, and Hermione let him into her mind briefly to show him how genuine her statement was.

Letting out a little sob, Hermione ran over to Tom and gave him a hug. Tom immediately tensed up, his arms dangling awkwardly at his sides, having never had a hug from anyone before. Relaxing slightly, he put his arms around her, patting her back hesitantly.

Pulling back slightly, Hermione's eyes once again met Tom's, and she said, "You amaze me sometimes, Tom, how you force yourself to hide your emotions. Why do you do that? Don't you ever wish the charade could end? That you could just be yourself?"

Becoming slightly angry, Tom snapped, "Don't pretend to know me, Georgas."

Looking at him pensively, Hermione said fiercely, "I know, but I want to."

There was an awkward pause, as the two stared into each others eyes, faces close to each other and arms still awkwardly wrapped around each other. Hermione's eyes gazed strongly into Tom's, while Tom curiously looked into hers, trying to resist the urge to search her mind.

Without the slightest idea why, Tom's face began to move closer to Hermione's, his eyes sliding to her lips, rather than her eyes.

Abruptly the portrait hole opened to reveal the surprised face of the 7th year Hufflepuff prefect, - Myrissa Carlton.

"Oh my," she said, her jaw dropping as she observed the intimate position of the two Head prefects.

"I am… so… s-sorry to interrupt. I just needed to talk to one of you about tomorrow; I'll just wait outside, shall I? Yes…. Okay then," she spoke rather quickly, turning around and exiting the way she came.

Hermione's eyes grew wide and abruptly jumped apart as she realized their predicament.

Jaw dropping slightly as well, she used her hands to gesture that she was heading over to Myrissa.

Tom on the other hand, shook his head slightly, eyes also wide, before gliding as quickly as possible back to his room. It wasn't until he was back in his room that he was slapping his forehead, looking very much unlike his usual calm and collected self, muttering things like, "She's getting way too close… Need to put more distance."

Outside of the portrait hole, Hermione's brows were furrowed as she tried to patiently ignore the amused glances the Hufflepuff prefect was sending her way.

"Listen, Myrissa, as much as I loathe doing this…" pausing for a second, she turned around briefly, snatching a piece of paper and scribbling something down, then reaching for her wand, she began murmuring various charms, "I need you to sign this and agree to never speak of this again to anyone."

Giving her, her best Head Girl glare, she waited as Myrissa had an inner debate. On one hand, the girl acknowledged that this was a juicy piece of gossip and she would love to tell her friends, she also knew that the Head boy and Head girl were one of the most powerful students in the school, - especially the Head boy, wouldn't hesitate to curse her, knowing more dark curses than almost anyone else she knew, or so the rumor mill said.

Finally sighing in defeat, Myrissa signed the paper.

Smirking triumphantly, Hermione said, "Just a heads up, as you have obviously worked out, I have placed curses on this piece of paper so I will know if you broke this promise."

Myrissa grumbled slightly at that, but then, rolling her eyes, and muttering how paranoid some people were, she began to inform Hermione of the slight problems that had arisen for tomorrow's ball.

Placing a pen to her chin, Hermione one by one solved them, before saying goodnight and heading back in to her room, glad to have avoided her roommate.

Lying down in her bed that night, Hermione was conflicted. On one hand, she realized that she was almost successful in her mission in terms of befriending Tom. On the other hand, she was slightly apprehensive as she realized their relationship had progressed to another level extremely fast, and she wasn't too sure how she felt about that.

Sighing, she turned onto her side, her brown hair falling softly behind her, eyes glued to the walls, looking but not truly seeing as her mind revised the day's events.

Two hours later she was still wide awake; this time flipped over on her back, her brown eyes staring upward, until she gave up, and finally walked into the common room. Walking toward the couches she saw the form of Tom Riddle, slouched over, head in hands.

Rubbing her eyes to make sure she wasn't hallucinating, she murmured a wobbly, "hey" before sitting down next to him. All of a sudden, Tom sprang alive, his back straightened, his eyes went wide, his hands furiously also rubbed his eyes.

"Hermione? What are you doing up right now? Its 2am," he said, his voice clearly showing that he was tired.

"Couldn't sleep, my mind is too busy," she smiled ruefully.

"Thinking about what?" he inquired, eye brow raised.

Suddenly uncomfortable, Hermione looked around the room for inspiration, aiming to hide her embarrassment about earlier on, "Just about tomorrow… hoping the setting up and things like that goes smoothly. You?"

Clearing his throat, he too looked anywhere but her eyes as he said, "Same here."

A tense long silence then ensued, while the two glanced around the room looking for something to say. Finally sighing in frustration, Hermione got up and said she was going to try to sleep again, waving goodnight to Tom, she went into her room.

Saturday afternoon came quickly, and the prefects were busy in the Great Hall setting up the decorations and double checking with the House Elfs that the meal was still set up.

By 5pm, everything was ready, and they went their separate ways to get ready. Right after, Hermione and Tom returned to their dorms and began to get ready.

In her room, Hermione was standing in front of her mirror, gazing critically at her Halloween costume of Cleopatra which she had picked up during one of her free periods. Smearing some gold eye shadow onto her eyes, and finishing up with some black eyeliner around her eyes, she saw her face reflected in the mirror; slightly tanned, her black hair pulled back in an Egyptian style hair do; three separately braids with gold hair clips holding them away from her face, two draped down her front, one down her back. Her outfit consisted of a green and gold Egyptian style outfit, which snugly fit her waist and upper body. While Hermione was self-conscious about her body, she realized that she would never 100 be happy with it, she may as well embrace it as it is.

Stepping into the Heads common room she was greeted with the sight of … plain old Tom.

Snorting, she said, "Tom, the whole point of a Halloween ball is to dress up!"

Tom whirled around and took in the new Hermione, eyes slightly wide. Clearing his throat he regained his cool composure, "I am, as me," he smirked.

Laughing slightly Hermione swatted him on the arm, "What time is it?" she asked.

Glancing at his watch, he replied, "6:40pm. Shall we go?"

Biting her lip, and internally berating herself, as she realized she had agreed to go with Ross Cooper, who she had lately seen next to nothing of, as she constantly explaining to him that she was busy with Heads business.

She then replied, "Um, I would love to except I promised Ross I would let him come here and pick me up. You can come down with us though if you want…?" at this point she trailed off slightly, glancing up into his eyes which steadily became more cold and collected as she spoke each word, resembling the old Tom Riddle she knew at the beginning of the year.

Sneering slightly, he replied, "Never mind, Georgas, I'll see you down there."

With that, he turned around swiftly and exited the portrait hole only to come face to face with Ross dressed up as Alexander. Pushing him roughly out of his way, Tom continued down the corridor.

Eyebrows furrowing together slightly, Hermione watched regretfully as Tom stormed out, realizing that she had again had two steps forward, one step backward.

Placing on a bright smile on her face, she greeted Ross before grasping his arm and heading down to the ball.

At 7pm people began entering the now decorated hall, jaws dropping in awe as they noticed the life like figures of classic Halloween characters and bats fly around, while the relatively unknown band played haunting music in the background.

As Hermione and Ross entered the Hall, Hermione furiously looked around for any sight of the Head boy. Finally seeing him by the punch table, talking seemingly amicably with the 7th year female Slytherin prefect as the two whispered in each others ears, she furiously turned around to Ross and dragged him onto the dance floor. Pasting a smile on her face they danced rather closely to a fast song, while Hermione attempted to slyly keep an eye out to see if Tom was watching. Ross on the other hand was grinning ear to ear as they danced.

At the other end of the hall Tom was forcing himself to pay attention to the conversation with his fellow Slytherin prefect, - Dahlia Lestrange. She wasn't the prettiest girl in the grade, but she definitely was nothing to scoff at either. She had a petite form with sandy blonde hair and dark blue eyes. Generally, Tom tried to stay away from girls like her, - conniving, flirtatious, and ambitious. These types of girls only looked for two things, - power and status.

However, he needed something to distract him from the tantalizing form of one Hermione Georgas on the dance floor.

Two hours of trying to ignore each other, all three of them – Hermione, Ross and Tom, were getting frustrated. Hermione was annoyed because not once had Tom looked over her way or tried to talk to her, while Tom was annoyed that Hermione was practically throwing herself at this Ross fellow.

Ross, on the other hand, clearly caught on to what was going on with Hermione after the first twenty minutes of trying to see where Hermione's gaze was so consistently focused on. No longer grinning as smugly, he finally gave up and broke away from her.

Sighing and glancing into her eyes, he said, "Hermione, you're a great girl, and I really like you, but I think that you need to sort some things out before anything could ever happen between us. So why don't you suck up your pride and go talk to Tom, eh?" and with that, Hermione watched as the tall form of Ross walked away from her, leaving her on the dance floor, gaping.

Grumbling as she took a seat at one of the tables, she finally glanced over again to where Tom was still talking to Dahlia.

Standing up and straightening out her dress, Hermione walked over to where the two were standing. Clicking her heals loudly across the floor so that the two would be aware of her presence, she gently said, "Hello Tom."

Upon hearing his name, Tom jumped. For some time he had grown so annoyed that he had given up looking at what Hermione was up to. Nodding goodbye to Dahlia as she gracefully, yet all the same, sneeringly bowed out and headed toward some other unsuspecting boy, Hermione moved closer.

"How has your night been?" she asked gently.

"Fine," he replied.

"What?" she asked questioningly, as the loud music blocked out her reply.

Rolling his eyes, Tom grabbed her hand and led her toward the door.

Breathing in deeply as the somewhat frosty night air hit their lungs the two sat down on a rock by the lake.

"Much better, so where's your date?" he asked coldly.

At his tone, Hermione tilted her head downward slightly, her black hair falling in her face, "He said he didn't want to dance with me anymore until I sorted something out," she said quietly, only lifting her eyes to his when she finished.

His eyes blinked in surprise, as he then asked hesitantly, "What sort of thing did he think you needed to sort out?"

Staring now more fiercely into his eyes, she paused before she said just as quietly, "He knows that I'm not interested in him in that way, but someone else."

At this point she was gazing at him expectantly, as if silently hoping he would pick up on her queue, having only just come to terms with it after Ross mentioned it.

Clueless, Tom pressed on, "Who do you like?"

A soft rose colour then found itself crawling onto her cheeks as she looked away, then gathering some of her old Gryffindor courage, she sighed exasperatedly as she said, "Isn't it obvious Tom? I like you."

She waited then, expectantly for him to say something, while her hands idly twirled a piece of grass.

What seemed like a half hour of silence but in reality was only two or three, Tom responded, his voice breaking slightly as he choked out coldy, "That's cruel Georgas. I didn't think you would be one to toy with people's emotions like that."

With that, he got up and made his way toward the dance.

"Tom, wait! What are you talking about?" she asked part angrily.

Running awkwardly to catch up, she roughly grabbed his arm and pulled him to face her.

"Tom, I'm telling you the truth. I do like you. If you don't believe me I'll announce it at the dance. Why don't you believe me?" she asked sadly.

Tom angrily gazed into her eyes, and roughly grabbed both of her forearms as he pushed her against the nearest tree, his body ensuring she stayed where she was.

He passionately said, "Don't you dare keep repeating that lie to me, Georgas. I couldn't take it. I don't need your pity or false friendship. Stay away from me."

Feeling her heart break vaguely as she realized truly how hard it must have been for him, she moved her face closer to him, their lips touching lightly before pulling back to see his reaction.

She didn't have a chance to fully comprehend the torrent of emotions she saw in his eyes as he quickly brought his lips to meet hers roughly, yet passionately, his arms letting go of her forearms and instead wrapping them securely around her waist.

Pulling back slightly for breath, he said, "Last chance, Georgas. If I find out this is nothing but a prank, you'll be sorry."

At that, she simply brought her hand up to cup his cheek, "I promise Tom," before kissing him again gently on the lips. Gazing once again into his eyes, she then rested her head on his shoulder, sighing happily.

Smiling slightly to himself, Tom allowed himself to enjoy this small moment.

A little while later, the two walked quietly toward their Head common room, rather than rejoin their peers at the dance.

Sitting on the couch, fairly close together, still somewhat awkwardly, talking about random things. While Tom had by no means become a butterfly – opening up and becoming a whole new person, but he had opened up slightly to her, and that was all that mattered.

As they said goodnight later on in the evening, they hugged somewhat awkwardly, still somewhat unsure of their new level of relationship.

Early the next morning Hermione made her way down to Professor Dumbledore's transfiguration classroom office she knocked firmly before entering.

Smiling brightly behind his half moon spectacles Professor Dumbledore motioned for her to sit down.

"Good morning Ms. Georgas, how are you?" he asked warmly.

Smiling despite her groggy state, she replied, "Quite well, and you?"

"Just fine, just fine. So, how are your studies going? I take it you are settling in well?"

Thinking pensively, she then said, "It's going smoothly, I admit I am not putting as much effort into achieving the types of grades I would have, had I been back home, which is understandable given the circumstances."

Nodding his head in understanding he then retorted, "That is fine, although I must admit you are still doing extremely well. Now then, is there any other concerns regarding your studies and your Head Girl duties?"

She then pushed a piece of her hair behind her ear as she responded, "No, not really. Although, I must admit that the Halloween ball kind of slowed down my progress with my task. Hopefully this term will give me a bit more free time."

"Ah, ha. I see, and how is your… task, going?" he inquired.

"So far, things are going unexpectedly well, in fact…" at this she trailed off.

Raising his eye brow slightly, and smiling warmly he silently encouraged her to go on.

"Well you see, sir, my relationship with Tom has progressed… a bit past friendship. It's mutual, or at least to my knowledge. I have a feeling though that if this plan fails, it may compromise plan B given my current feelings," she said as she twisted her hands nervously in her lap.

Unexpectedly, his smile broadened, "My dear that is probably the best news I have heard all week. "Now, I wont inquire as to how this transpired, my concern right now is that you make sure you take the appropriate steps to ensure that his trust and dare I say love is not misplaced. Tom is insecure in his relationship with others, hence why he has none. Therefore, it goes without saying that in order to maintain one with him, especially at that level, you must realize he will need some reassurance and patience. He will most likely not lightly accept your actions or word as being genuine. With that being said, is there anything else you would like to discuss?"

Shaking her head no, Hermione waved good bye, taking a lemon drop with a smile before returning to her dorm.

………………

Hey guys… so that's chapter 8, hope you like it. Sorry about it taking so long! Let me know what you think.