"Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student-"
"So you blamed Hagrid?"
And he looks at her as if she is stupid for asking the same question again, but her mind is still trying to grasp this. Trying to grasp the fact that she had been here when Hagrid's life was ruined, when his chance for greatness and success had been brutally taken from him, that she had stood by, with closed eyes and shaking hands, and done nothing.
"Yes, I thought I had made that quite clear by now."
"But, but-"
The words aren't coming to her and air is leaving her in great gusts and far faster than she would like it to and she sputters, her words angry and confused and hurt, these emotions casting a shadow over any calm, logical thought.
"Hagrid is a good person."
The sentence is so simple and so small in comparison to everything that Hagrid is and will be, but it's all she can manage, the only words her mind let her string together and release in her fury.
His eyebrows furrow, just the tiniest bit, and he seems perturbed that she cares, confused as to where these feelings originate from, how deeply they run.
"I don't think I've ever heard you mention him before…"
And he's speaking slowly, looking away from her but caging her in as his thoughts swarm around her, and his forced nonchalance angers her. He's trying to analyze her, to figure her out, to trick her into revealing more than she wants to or can say and it makes her angry.
"Don't you dare play that on me, Tom Riddle, don't stand there and try to calculate me. I don't need to be fucking someone to care that their life may have just been ruined when they have done nothing wrong. Besides, you shouldn't concern yourself with who I associate myself with. We are not a couple, it'd be a stretch to even call us friends, so I don't need a single ounce of whatever messed up show of dominance you're trying to perform, okay?"
He's detached, not looking at her and trying hard not to look at his hands, but instead at the bleak grey stone walls of the room they are in, because even when he is being chastised or when he's embarrassed or wrong, he must look strong and proud and important. So, his chin is held high and he looks as dashing as ever, but his hands are inching towards each other, his shoulders threatening to slump, his eyes falling from the wall to the floor and his jaw twitching and tense.
"Right, sorry, I forgot, to do that you'd have to care about me and Tom Riddle doesn't fucking care and he doesn't fucking feel, he just acts, he thinks and he acts and he ruins people and things and lives and he doesn't care."
He shakes his head and she can see the effort it's taking him to keep his mouth closed.
"What is it, Tom?"
If words could cut, Tom would be writhing on the floor, but he just looks away and breathes in deeply as he shakes his head instead, ever collected.
"Is it just some other pretentious thing about how useless emotions are? About how much better than them you are? About how you are going to be immortal? About how you are the most powerful wizard to have ever lived, far too powerful and great for something as human and small as feelings?"
He rolls his eyes and sighs, playing on a practiced image of nonchalance once again, but it's forced, hesitant, a move that still speaks to the lightning thoughts moving in his head of whether or not this is the correct play to make, of whether this will let him out of this situation faster and a winner.
"You're being ridiculous."
The breath she lets out is real and quick and angry.
"I'm being ridiculous? Have I said a single lie? Do you not believe yourself better than us mere humans with emotions? Do you not believe that you will live forever? Are you not just trying to maintain some kind of sick dominance over everyone? Over me?"
She can see his façade crumbling; can pinpoint the exact moment he caves and allows the anger to seep into his eyes, but he is still Tom and he is still calm, an ability that left her long ago perhaps the moment she met him.
"I am not trying to dominate you, Hermione. I think your ego has grown considerably since we met if you think I would go through such trouble just to best you. I am powerful on my own and I have no reason to prove it to you."
Each word he speaks he inches closer to her and by the time he is done, the pair are mere centimeters apart, their eyes ablaze in each other's heat and his confidence rises at her continued display of emotion, he has the audacity to smirk.
"Besides, Hermione, he kept a beast in the castle, it was my job as a prefect to turn him in."
And his perfectly condescending tone makes her want to slap him.
"A perfectly tame creature, while you released a killing machine into the population!"
His words are mumbled, quiet, almost ashamed, almost.
"I got it back."
"Not exactly in bloody time."
And she knows he's not ashamed because someone died, but because he was powerless to control the creature. He's embarrassed, but he does not care about that girl, he cares that the beast didn't listen, that he let himself be distracted, so he has to retaliate with anger and accusations.
"Why do you care so much? You've gone on and on accusing me of this and that and somehow I don't buy that you care just because he's a person. You know what I have done, you know what I did to my father, my grandfather, my uncle, but you did not react like this about them. So, Hermione, I don't buy it. Tell me, why do you care so much?"
His façade is cracked, just a little. He is annoyed. Annoyed that she is chastising him, annoyed that he has upset her, annoyed that she cares so much about that half-breed creature. He is annoyed and the distaste shows clearly on his face, the perfect calm he had been fighting so hard to regain finally given up as a lost cause. That seems to happen quite often around her.
She turns to him, rage and sadness alive in her eyes.
"How do you not care? Hagrid did nothing wrong, you and I both know it, yet, you blamed him anyways. What did you have against him? You killed someone, Tom Riddle. A perfectly innocent girl. And, instead of feeling remorse, of trying to make amends, you go ahead and pin the blame on someone else, have them expelled, their magic stripped. Can you imagine your life without magic, Tom? Because I certainly can't and I find it horrendous that you would condemn someone else, a man that you have not spoken two words to, to live such a life. And for what? To maintain your quest for immortality? You're a smart boy, Tom, I know you could have found some other way to get out of this, some other excuse to make that would still have let you off as the innocent prefect. But you blamed Hagrid instead. Why? Why? I just want to know why."
She can feel her hair crackling with her energy, with the anger she feels no need to control, to contain it, to hide what she is feeling. She is angry and upset and he should know it. She's spent too long trying to hide, too long trying not to feel. She was meant to be changing him, she was meant to stop this entire thing from happening, but she hasn't done anything to change the course of time. He's still out, killing and ruining and destroying and nothing she has done or can do will change that. She has made no difference. She has not fulfilled her mission and she's tempted to give up, to give in, to let herself fail completely.
But she can't. There are things and people bigger and better than herself that are at stake here, that are waiting for her to do what she is meant to. But she can't let herself keep getting distracted, keep letting pity and fear get in the way of everything.
And he still hasn't answered her. He's still looking at the ground, still desperately annoyed, vaguely confused.
"Is it because he's a half-breed?"
And Tom shakes his head, after just a second of hesitation.
"If not prejudice, then what? I'd really like to know."
He looks away from her, looks at the floor and she can see his gaze wants to turn towards her or to the door and run. But he stays put. Hermione almost wishes he would run away, disappear and then she would never have to see him again, never have to deal with him, never again have to force her life to revolve around him.
But, she knows she would have to find him, have to continue her mission. Her life is not her own. It belongs to a cause and to a man.
"You smile at him."
She, so lost in her own thoughts, draws blanks for a second after Tom speaks.
"I- what?"
"You smile at him, you always smile at him. Even before, when you seemed so lost and it seemed that a hatred for me consumed you, even when you're upset or angry, you smile at him."
"You ruined him because… you were jealous?"
Her voice is incredulous, maybe more angry than before, her shoulders tensing, her breaths coming in and out quickly, quicker than they should, quicker than they come to the calm, collected person she is meant to be.
He does not reply but the words he could say ring her head.
I couldn't exactly ruin Alphard.
"I- I need to go."
Her breaths have brought her no air, no calm, no joy. She feels faint, her vision is spotting.
"I- bye, Tom."
"Wait, Hermione, you can't just-"
"I don't know what to do! It's not helping! Everything I do- he's going down the same path, Alphard! I- I can't stop this! I'm not smart or powerful or strong. I can't do anything. I'm not helping. I can't save the world, that was always Harry's job. It was always Harry's job. I'm just- I'm just me, nothing special, nothing important."
She's sobbing, tears streaking down her red face, her eyes glistening with more tears ready to fall, her voice shaking and cracking and miserable.
And he kisses her.
They're alone and he kisses her. Not to trick Tom, not to convince his parents, not to show his friends the validity of their relationship, but just for them. He kisses her and she kisses him back, desperately, as if she was drowning and he was air.
She kisses him desperately because she is desperate and afraid and sad but
But she's not alone.
She's not alone.
She's not alone.
Alphard is with her, Alphard will always be with her. Alphard loves her.
She's not alone and she will not fail. They just need to make a new plan, a better plan. They can do it. She's not alone.
They can't let him rise to power. They must save the world, not only for everyone else, but for themselves, for their love, for their sacrifices. They deserve a safe world. Their plan is foolproof. They will win, together. She's not alone.
She's happy, she's smiling. She looks at him, at this dark haired, handsome man who should have been so happy, who's smiling at her now, who kisses the tip of her nose, and she wants to love him. She wants to be able to look at him and feel nothing but the warmth and joy of such a powerful emotion filling her. But she cannot look at him without seeing Sirius, without seeing Harry and Voldemort, without seeing death. And she's sad again, but she's not alone. She's not alone and she hopes she'll never be alone again.