Author's Note: It is rather unexpected, actually, that I put this up tonight. Chapter four is not yet in progress as I just recently finished chapter three (and when I say recently, I mean within 5 minutes of writing this), but it should be started soon.

Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, along with everyone who's read it in general. This hasnot been beta-read, as is the custom for this story, as I want to keep this as true to my own writing as I can manage.

The last 520 or so words of this was written in one sitting (and by that I mean just a few moments ago) so I have no idea if it's total crap or not as I woke up at an abnormally early hour this morning and should probably be in bed.

There are a total of two happy little foreshadowy things in this chapter! Cookies to whoever manages to find them, and/or figure out why some people can't manage to see Tom!

Okay, I'm done boring you now (as if anybody reads author's notes anyway, besides me).

Untitled

By: Jamie

ChapterThree:Postponed

The going-away party seemed to be beginning well; nobody had gotten attacked, everybody was still speaking to everyone else, and that Tom character was safely locked away in an upstairs bedroom, out of the way until Hermione had a chance to explain the sudden change of plans to Harry and Ron.

She was rather enjoying herself, if truth be told, surrounded by her friends, her current major annoyance stuffed away somewhere, hopefully suffering a bit from the De Sol Rigueur that had somehow become cast upon the two of them.

However, it was getting late. Tom had been pushed upstairs what had to be at least two hours ago, when Harry had come back from wherever he had been (he was rather mysterious as to what he had been doing). Though Harry could somehow not see Tom, they still thought it was best that he not be around, as talking to oneself tends to become a bit suspicious after a time.

She sighed. "Harry, Ron," she said, "come with me for a minute, there's something I need to talk to you about." She went upstairs, followed closely by Harry and Ron, who were looking very much confused. They hadn't done anything wrong lately, had they? "There's… been a slight change in plans."

"Hermione, you have to go, there's no way-"

"Of course I have to go, I wasn't planning on leaving you two all alone, you'd never manage."

They rolled their eyes. She returned the favour.

"As I was saying, there's been a change in plans. We have a, erm, slight addition to our group." By this point, they had been standing still on the first floor for a few moments, in front of a door. It was at this time that Hermione opened the door. "Now Harry, I know you can't see him. Ron…?"

"Hermione, you're out of your mind," said Ron.

She groaned. "Not you, too!"

"There's nobody in there," said Harry.

"Oh yes, there is, he's right - " She swore. Where had that boy gone off to? Didn't he know any better than to go wandering around a strange house all by himself?

She walked briskly downstairs, finding Moody. "Excuse me, sir, the boy who was here earlier, Tom, he's not in his room anymore, and I was wondering if you could help me find him."

Mad-Eye growled his approval and swiveled his magical eye around, apparently searching through the house for him. "Second story, he's in the bathroom. Tell him to keep out of the cupboards, why don't you, it's none of his business what we keep here."

Typical. Nosy little –

"Moody said to keep yourself out of our cupboards while you're here," she said in a tone she had rehearsed to sound bored. She was leaning against the doorframe, watching him snoop through the bathroom.

He jumped a little when she started talking, but showed no other signs of surprise. If she had called him on it, she was sure he'd have lied about being startled by her at all.

"I wasn't going through -"

"What were you doing then? Trying to find a good hiding place?"

"I was -"

"There's no point in lying, Tom. Moody saw you looking through the cupboards fifteen minutes ago, at least."

"How did -"

"Now, now, Tommy, that would be telling."

"My name is not Tommy."

"Your name is whatever I choose to call you, Tommy." She gave him a stone cold glare. He shot her a death-look, which was as ineffectual as always. "And anyway, I thought I told you to stay in the bedroom."

"Don't worry, you did."

"Then why aren't you in there?"

"I got bored."

She sighed. Did he really have the attention span of a three year old, that he was physically unable to sit still for a few hours? "Is your attention span really that short?"

"No," he answered. "But it's much more amusing to irritate you."

He smirked. She punched him.

Twenty minutes later, they – meaning Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Tom – were seated in the bedroom that Tom was supposed to have been occupying on their first visit. Much to Hermione's dismay, however, Ron could see Tom no more than Harry could.

She was just about at her wit's end, actually. It was frustrating enough trying to explain for what had to be the fifth time that day the situation she had found herself in that morning, and Tom's periodic comments – which no one present besides herself could hear – were most certainly not helping her mood.

"I woke up this morning and –"

"You snore terribly, by the way."

"I do not."

"You don't what Hermione?"

"Snore."

"Obviously, you wouldn't know, seeing as how you can't hear yourself sleeping."

"Oh, shut up!"

"I didn't say anything…"

"Not you."

It was, in all, a frustrating conversation, and she had to reign in the urge to punch Tom in the face again. Remus and Mad-Eye had been relatively understanding the first time it had happened – after all, they had been around him too, and knew how difficult it was to play nicely with him – but she had a feeling they would be rather upset should it happen again.

The only upside to the situation was that Harry finally knew that she wasn't insane. Actually, he still had his doubts, but as Hermione's insanity would mean that of Mad-Eye Moody and Remus Lupin as well, he decided to pretend that everything was normal. Even though, as he had been told during his second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, hearing voices no one else could hear wasn't a good thing, even in the wizarding world; he supposed that, as at least two people besides Hermione could see this person, she was at least bordering on normal.

Hermione. Normal. Right…

He mentally thwapped himself upside the head. Just because the world was evidently going mad was no reason to think mean things about his friend. Then he spent a moment wondering if it were possible to mentally thwap yourself upside the head.

Upon reaching no conclusion, he simply shook his head – physically this time, to avoid pesky thoughts like the one he had had a moment ago – to rid himself of the thought.

"Harry, are you all right?"

"What?" he asked.

"You just started twitching or something…"

"Oh, that," he said in a dismissive tone. "Nothing."

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry thought he saw a figure laughing, but as he turned his head to get a better look, it disappeared.

"Are you sure you're alright Harry?"

"Yes, I'm sure," he said forcefully. "I just thought I saw something for a moment there… Maybe I'm going daft, too." He added this last part, of course, in a seriously diminished voice, and found – much to his delight – that Hermione didn't hear it. It was just what they needed, three – four, if you count the invisible one – mentally unstable teenagers, fighting the Ultimate Evil and saving the world.

As opposed to, of course, three – four, if you count the invisible one – mentally stable teenagers, fighting the Ultimate Evil and saving the world.

He thought the first one sounded better; the second made him sound delusional, as if he were unaware of his own insanity.

So he was crazy, then?

He was giving himself a headache with all these puzzling contradictions. "Hermione, Ron, whoever the hell the invisible guy is, I'm giving myself a headache. I'll be back in a minute, once I find some bloody medicine…" As he left the room, Hermione could have sworn she heard him say something about invisible people and muggle books.

Hermione shot a puzzled look at Ron, who returned it.

Tom sat still, looking somehow proud of himself. As if he had caused it.

Hermione groaned. "What did you do this time?" she asked. Ron looked confused. "Not you, Ron. Him."

"What, so I don't have a name anymore?" he asked, in a mock-hurt voice.

"Oh, shove it. What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," he answered. "It's not my fault if your friends are insane."

"They are not insane!" Half a second later, "And I'm still not talking to you, Ron."

"Yeah, Ron, she's not bloody talking to you."

"Shut up, you irritating… twit! You know he can't hear you, and it's doing no good. Now be a good boy, else I'll leave the room, and then where will you be!"

"Alright, alright, I was just having a spot of fun, no need to overreact."

"I am this close," she said, holding up her hand and demonstrating a centimeter or so of distance with her fingers, "to punching you in the face again. In the space of less than 24 hours, I've put up with more insane situations than most people do in their entire lives. I'm leaving tomorrow, and you're going with me, and you're going to behave else I'll lock you up somewhere and we'll just see how well you deal with that!"

"Yes, mother," he said in a voice that was somehow more resigned than sarcastic.

Hermione did the meanest thing she could think of to do at the time; she got up from the bed she was sitting on, walked calmly over to the door, and left, closing it behind her.

"That wasn't very nice, Hermione," said Harry when she told him what she had done. They were now in an even further upstairs bedroom, with the door open a crack. After all, he may not be able to see this character, but that was no reason to assume that he didn't have feelings.

That, or he was going stark raving mad.

Either one would work, really.

Of course, as the future of the world (not to mention everyone in it) seemed at present to be depending upon his capacity to defeat the closest thing to Evil itself that had managed to come out of hiding, he preferred to think of himself as sympathetic rather than insane.

And yet, he was talking to himself…

Dreading the fate of the world itself, he swung his head back with a bit of force, intending to knock some sense into himself at last.

"I told you he was a loony."

"For the nth time, Tom, my friends are not insane. A bit odd maybe, but certainly nothing noticeably out of the ordinary."

As she said that, she fought back memories of Harry and Ron acting particularly insane. Ron defeating a mountain troll their first year, purely by accident. Harry's personal goal of defeating all of the evil that will ever exist, and saving everyone he's never met.

Not crazy, she told herself, just a little odd.

"Besides their insanity, you mean." She shot him a dirty look. "He intentionally banged his head against the wall hard enough to make him lose consciousness. That's not even stupid, that's just plain crazy."

She sighed. "Well, yes. There's that. But I'll have you know he's usually perfectly stable! He has a lot on his mind lately, after all, and then you come into the picture and make him believe that the world is going completely daft on him, and what do you expect to happen?"

"Oh, I don't know. Why doesn't he start drinking, that's how it's usually dealt with. Or he could just have a breakdown, like a normal person. Bloody bashing his head against the wall… that's just not right."

She gave him a look that quite plainly asked him since when is anything right, really, and who is he, of all people, to judge appropriateness? "Well, there's nothing to be done about it now, is there? He's on bedrest for at least twenty-four hours, depending on how well he's doing. Damn house…"

"It's not the house's fault your friend lost his mind, deary."

"It's the house's fault it hurt him so badly, though. I swear, every enchantment known to wizardkind must be enacted somewhere on this property… none of us would have guessed that his 'unpure' blood would set off alarms, though."

"Did I miss something?"

"Apparently you did, Tommy boy." She sighed. "Ordinarily, he would have been free within an hour or so of waking up. But since the former owners of this fine abode were prejudiced Dark wizards, the house put some kind of a poison into his bloodstream."

"So you're trying to tell me that the house poisoned your crazy little friend?"

"That'd be it, yeah."

"So you're all daft, then."

Once again, she didn't punch him.

But if she had, he would have deserved it.

Hermione had no idea where Tom was. She had kicked him out of her bedroom shortly after he called Harry daft (again), because she needed a nap more than anything else in the world. If Lord Voldemort himself had come walking through the bedroom door with a self-destruct button on his forehead, his wand snapped in half, and his arms tied behind his back, she would have asked him to kindly leave so that she could sleep.

Or, more fitting with recent events, she would have called Harry, told him to push the button, and then cried when he said that he couldn't see Lord Voldemort either.

So she woke up after what felt like a good six hours but had probably been closer to five, with no idea at all where Tom was, and not especially caring. However, she knew that he was basically her responsibility thanks to the spell that made him more or less completely dependent on her, so she should probably find him.

Of course, he was perfectly fine. In fact, he was rather angry that she interrupted his game; he was downstairs in the kitchen, playing poker with Remus and Moody (who she thought ought to be behaving more responsibly). Judging by the large pile of coins sitting in front of him, however, it seemed as if they were paying for their lapse in judgement already.

"Tom, what are you doing?"

"Playing poker, obviously."

"For money?"

"No, for biscuits," he said sarcastically.

She rolled her eyes. "Where did you get the gold for gambling?"

"He loaned me some to start off with," he said, gesturing vaguely to Remus.

"Come on Hermione," he said, persuading her that he was innocent in a markedly guilty voice, "he's been here for ages! You can't keep someone locked up and not even allow them a game every once in a while!"

Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it. So instead she settled for turning on her heel and leaving the room, letting the door slam behind her.

Hermione was quite used to Harry being confined to bed for medical reasons – after all, his adventures were rarely safe, and he had, over the years, spent almost as much time in the hospital wing as in his classes.

It had never bothered her quite as much as this time, though. For one, their trip was postponed indefinitely. As it was not simply a vacation, or even one of their more traditional 'let's go save the world' jaunts, she was in an even bigger hurry than usual to get started; however, with their obvious leader confined to a bed for some period of between a day and forever, they couldn't exactly take off without him.

Also, the fact that every moment she stayed at Grimmauld Place was a moment of her life she was spending with Tom that she would never, ever get back wasn't exactly a pleasant concept to get used to, either.

She had no idea how she was going to survive the summer, as he would have to accompany them (much as she would like to ignore him altogether and leave him at the mercy of De Sol Rigueur, Moody and Lupin – not to mention her own conscience – wouldn't allow it). Especially seeing as how Harry and Ron were, in fact, under the impression that she was completely and totally worthy of being institutionalized. Hallucinations, delusions, maybe even a bit of paranoia… in the kitchen earlier with Moody and Lupin, had she been regressing?

She told herself firmly, not for the first time, to stop reading psychology books, as it did nothing but make her paranoid.

Looking around her, Hermione found that she truly wanted nothing more at that moment than to hit something. The house itself was one object of her fury for postponing their mission for a while at least, but she knew better than to try to attack it after what had happened to Harry.

The other primary cause of her anger was, of course, Tom himself. Since he had been brought into the picture just a few hours ago (but what long, painful hours they had been), it seemed as if nothing had gone right. If she had been the 'emotional' type, she would have started crying. If she had been the 'musical' type, she would have written the longest, most angst-filled song the world had ever heard, and it might even have not sucked very much.

As it was, she was more of a 'literary' type, so she pulled out her Work In Progress and set herself to the painful task of editing.

Even as a child, Hermione had never really been the type for fiction, which is why it may seem a bit odd for her to be writing a book. Rest assured, however, that it was not fiction.

It was, in fact, a record of her first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

As fantastic as the tale was, even to her, she had begun to keep a journal. Not for the purpose of sorting herself out, or bashing people she disliked, but so when she had the time, she could write out, in length, all of the events that had transpired.

She had finished writing about her first year before the second term of her sixth, and she still had a lot of editing to do before she would allow anyone's eyes but her own to find it.