The Slytherin common room had a dark, surly mood about it. Inside the students were wide awake and murmured amongst their cliques, played games like Wizard Chess, and lounged on the brown leather sofas and comfy chairs, feet kicked up on an ottoman here or there, while a silver platter of cookies nicked from the kitchens was passed around. Two fourth-years fake dueled with Licorice Wands by the roaring fireplace, laughing wildly.

Hermione sat with Elphy on a couch, pretending to read. Fabia, Rosy, and Elphy were falling apart under the awfulness of Abraxas's dirty jokes; Dolohov watched them, stone-faced. The sound of the stone entranceway transforming into a passage preceded the arrival of Crabbe, Goyle, and Regulus. Regulus bounced over, asking what all the noise was about. While he had everyone distracted, Hermione took her chance to discreetly escape upstairs to the girl dormitory.

No one noticed her go.

Halfway down the passageway to the dormitory, however, she heard footsteps behind her. Someone said her name.

No, not someone. Even if her mind was faraway, she could sense the presence of Tom Riddle. She turned around and met his eyes, black as mortar in a fallen angel's face - under his gaze, the Horcrux hanging around her neck started to thrum ever so slightly. Like a second heartbeat. A ripped soul.

Tom raised an eyebrow at her silence. "Nothing to say, Hermione?" he asked. "And here I had thought we were on such good terms." He paused. "At least, up until the point you Disapparated out of my bathroom, so you wouldn't have to share the bed." He winked at her as if her abandonment had been nothing but a well-intentioned, little joke between them.

"I don't fancy liars," said Hermione icily. "Especially when said liar leaves me unconscious in the middle of a snowstorm to pursue his own selfish, twisted goals."

He shrugged. "You're alright now, aren't you?"

Her face darkened, she yanked aside the collar of her blouse to show him Slytherin's locket, arching away from her throat in a futile effort to get closer to its creator. "I wouldn't make jokes, if I were you," she hissed, keeping her voice low in case someone suddenly appeared on the stairwell behind them. Tom's stiffened. "I know how to destroy a Horcrux – and in Hogwarts, it would be all too convenient for me to find the means to do it."

Tom's dark eyes, which had been alight with mocking amusement before, were downright scalding. He glared at her, but Hermione didn't take the words back.

"Accio Horcrux!" he said sharply, slicing the wand she hadn't even seen him withdraw through the air, but nothing happened. Hermione laughed. "A Summoning Spell, really?" she teased. "What, are you so far above the Muggles that you can't even walk forward five feet to get your little Horcrux from me? I thought your unfortunate father might have been able to help with that-"

She caught her breath when Tom suddenly closed the space in between them, close enough for her to back into the dormitory door, too close to be safe, too far away to quite stir the withered wisps of their bond back to life.

His hand raised and she closed her eyes with a cringe, half-expecting him to strike her, hex her, or maybe even rip the Horcrux from her throat. To her shock, neither of those things happened.

She felt him touch her cheek. No, it was barely a touch – it was a brush of fingertips like feathers… if feathers could elicit electricity. Hermione opened her eyes and Tom's lovely face was filling her vision, unreadable save for the way his dark eyes watched his hand on her skin, almost like he was jealous of it.

He looked at her, and it was like the past two weeks had never been.

"How?" he said softly.

Hermione swallowed. "How what?" she asked.

"How could you leave?" His brow furrowed, he dropped his hand, and Hermione almost wished he hadn't. She forced herself not to ask him to touch her again. "You shouldn't have been able to do that," he said, sounding as lost as a confused little boy. "You weren't supposed to be strong enough to-"

"To what?" she snapped. Just like that, the anger was back in full-force again. Of course Tom wasn't hurt, she thought bitterly. Of course it didn't matter to him the emotional implications of what her leaving him had meant; all that mattered to him was that he had lost a game, and he didn't understand why. She stabbed him in the chest with her finger and a lightning bolt of energy seemed to ricochet between them.

"Was I not supposed to be strong enough to see through all your ploys?" she demanded, and his eyes widened. She poked him again, forcing him back a step, following him with more finger jabs. "Was I supposed to be the stupid little girl who fulfilled your every desire blindly and had no voice of my own? Guess what, Riddle." She caught herself, lowering her voice before they attracted attention, and soaking in the stunned expression on Tom's face for a moment that felt far too short.

"I am that strong," she finished quietly.

Tom threw his head back and laughed.

"Funny," he said, his false, cold laughter coming to an end as quickly as it had begun. The smirk on his face bordered on narcissistic. "Because you didn't seem so strong-" He tapped her chin, not lightly. "-when you were sucking my cock."

Hermione saw red. Her fist bounced off his jaw, his knee sank into her stomach so hard she saw stars and went breathless, his wand was at her throat, and her wand was stabbing into his side, and he was laughing of all mad fucking things. She wanted to rip his entrails out with her bare hands for a wild moment. "Well, well. It looks like we have a standstill," Tom said, grinning down at her with a bump blooming on his jaw. His face flickered under a moment, like an unclear television image, and Hermione realized it was an illusion.

"What are you staring at?" he snapped.

She sneered back at him, the hate in her eyes palpable, and elbowed him in the groin.

"Fuck." He groaned and dropped to his knees, face slightly blue. She scrambled to her feet, pointing her wand dead between his narrowed black eyes.

"Did you come here to bully me?" she asked, only slightly breathless. "Or do you actually have something meaningful to say?"

"I have many meaningful things to say at the moment," he spat through gritted teeth. Hermione rolled her eyes. "Homenum Revelio!" she cast.

Tom flinched and grabbed for his wand, but the Revealing Charm had already stripped the illusion from his face, revealing shadowed eyes, dull hair, and sickly, chalk-white skin. So he wasn't unaffected by the severed bond... Tom glared up at her, furious. "Does it please you to see me so weak?" he said lowly.

Hermione shook her head. "I thought it would," she admitted. "But..."

"Don't bother." Tom got to his feet and reached into the satchel hanging off his shoulder to pull out a pair of school robes; he tossed them at her feet. She looked at him strangely. "Is there a reason you're giving me dirty robes?" she said in confusion.

He sighed and Summoned the robes back into his hands with a flick of his wands, opening them to reveal dark red stains splashed all over the black fabric. Blood stains. Hermione blinked, turning cold inside. "Where did you find those-?" she started to say shakily, but he cut her off.

"These were left outside of an unused classroom, hidden behind one of the knights," he said with pointed precision. "After Alliah Shacklebolt's little speech earlier, I thought it would be wise to check the school for any unseemly…footprints…you or I might have left behind. After all-" He glanced behind them once before finishing. "You and I both know what really happened to Chanté."

Hermione said nothing.

He smirked at her and folded the robes, neatly replacing them. "Anyways," he said in a casual voice. "I thought you might be interested to learn that a simple Tracing Spell showed me three key people came into contact with these robes the most recently: you, myself, and Meredith Smith."

"You don't say," she replied – but of course, she had already known all of this. The night of Slughorn's soiree – which felt like a lifetime ago – had been the night Tom fooled Meredith into taking a love potion and giving him Salazar Slytherin's locket, which he'd later used to store his Horcrux.

Most importantly, Meredith had suffered at the hands of Tom that night, the future Dark Lord. Hermione had been the one to find her and clean up Tom's mess. She clearly remembered hastily stashing her own robes behind a knight outside of the abandoned classroom, so that no one would see her walking around the school covered in Meredith's blood.

She had thought nothing of it at the time, in fact she hadn't thought of it at all…until now.

Tom's smirk widened as Hermione clearly struggled to control her emotions. "Can you imagine," he said in a voice that clearly insinuated he was enjoying her torment, "how surprised Mrs. Shacklebolt would have been if she had found them, not me?"

Hermione glowered at him. "Tom, if you're hoping I'm going to thank you and kiss the crud off your shoes," she fumed, "then you can guess again-"

"Spare me the tirade," he said flatly. She fell quiet, but didn't stop glaring at him. "I'm not interested in you – and you're not interested in me, that much has been made clear since the last time we saw each other," he sneered. Hermione could feel his dark energy leaking into the air, corroding the atmosphere around them like a poisonous gas as it sought an outlet.

Without looking at her, he said, "I only want to get rid of Alliah Shacklebolt. And then I never want to see you again."

Ouch. Although he wasn't looking, Hermione ducked her head to hide the pain on her face and collect herself. From her position, she noticed the hands at Tom's sides were balled into fists. Hands that had tucked a curl behind her ear, that had brought her pleasure and pain alike countless times, hands that belonged to a seedy manipulator…

"So do I," she finally said.

They looked each other in the eye for a second, and it almost seemed as if the both of them had something they were about to say. As Tom's mouth opened, however, the sound of footsteps on the stairs wrenched Hermione out of her daze. She blinked and stepped back, forcing space in between them again. Tom's expression shuttered.

"We'll discuss this later," she said. Tom nodded, and then he was gone, briskly striding past Meredith, who had appeared at the end of the hallway, without a word. As he passed her, Hermione noted that Meredith stiffened ever so slightly.

Before she walked into the dorms, Meredith stopped and looked over at Hermione. "Are you alright, Granger?"

"Um… yes," Hermione said, confused. Meredith crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow at her, clearly unconvinced. "Honestly," she insisted. "He only wanted to talk."

And then she wondered why she was explaining herself to Meredith Smith, of all people.

"Hmph." Meredith flipped her long black hair back over one shoulder, which she had spelled into beautiful, heavy ropes of braids at some point since dinner, and pointed her finger at Hermione threateningly. "Don't trust him," she warned. "I did, and you know what happened because of it."

Hermione nodded. Yes, she knew…she knew all too well.

But that didn't change the fact that she didn't have much of a choice at the moment.

Hermione woke up to the sound of scratching. When she opened her eyes, she looked around and found Cat next to her bed, scoring the floorboards with his claws as if he was digging for China.

"Stop that," she whispered, batting him aside with her hand when Cat ignored her. "Stop!"

He stopped.

She started to fall back asleep – and the scratching started again.

"Merlin." Hermione sat up, threw off her blankets, and swung her feet over the side of the bed. Cat skittered back to avoid being hit as she wrestled herself into a robe over her nightgown and a some mismatching boots. He rubbed his face against her leg with satisfied purrs when she had finished. "Yeah, yeah," she muttered, rubbing her sleep-crusted eyes.

She followed Cat, prancing out of the girl's dormitory with his bottlebrush tail high in the air, and glanced down at her watch – then she remembered that some time ago, Tom had broken her watch, and she had never bothered to replace it. That thought brought back the memory of their feud last night.

He was such an asshole, she thought furiously.

For safety measures, Hermione tapped her wand on her head and cast a Disillusionment Charm. As if an egg had been cracked on her noggin, the sensation of wetness spread down and over her from head-to-toe – to an outsider's eye, it would seem as though she had suddenly vanished into thin air.

Ahead of her, Cat walked straight through various walls and entranceways. Hermione followed him through them, too, without hindrance; perhaps Cat used the same magic that was used at King's Cross, where students ran through the brick wall to access the station 9 ¾, she thought. She would have to research it later.

When they ignored the enchanted staircases headed to higher floors, it occurred to her just where Cat was taking her – and her suspicions were proven right when he led her into the first floor girl's lavatory.

Inside, Helena Ravenclaw was waiting. As soon as Cat saw the ghost, he hissed and vanished.

"How delightfully peculiar," said Helena upon Hermione's arrival. The ghost tilted her head down at her, the glowing whites of her eyes appearing to be speculative. "I was recently thinking of you, Hermione Granger, and now here you are," she murmured. "Very, very peculiar."

Helena, of course, hadn't seen Cat. Even with his guidance, however, all of this still seemed very peculiar to Hermione as well.

"Why were you thinking of me?" Hermione asked curiously. She fixed the sash on her robes, which she had tied haphazardly in the semi-darkness of the Slytherin girl dormitory, and walked over to sit on a dry spot of the sinks. All the while, Helena slowly floated in her wake as she spoke.

"I was recalling our conversation from two days past," she began. "You were clearly distressed over the loss of your beau-" As Hermione opened her mouth to protest, Helena shot her a severe look. Hermione reluctantly shut up, but not without a scowl and grumble. "You were clearly distressed," Helena repeated, "and I had been thinking to myself that you must be even more distressed now."

Hermione frowned at the ghost. "Why is that?"

Helena shrugged, but the graceful throw of her shoulders seemed more…smug…than dismissive. "No reason, truly, girl," she said in her slow, deep voice. As if she meant exactly the opposite of that. "I am only concerned by Hogwarts newest guest, and how that might…affect you," she continued airily.

Hogwarts newest guest. Helena definitely meant Alliah Shacklebolt, the Auror who had arrived last night, and was bent on finding Chanté's murderer. But why did she care about that? When it came to school affairs, ghosts generally kept to themselves. Or at least they usually did.

"Why would it affect me?" she asked, striving for an air of nonchalance. "I'm not a centaur, and everyone knows it was a violent clan of centaurs who attacked Professor Chanté."

Helena smiled slyly. "My dear girl, I said nothing about him."

Hermione blinked, and her face slowly turned red. Whoops…

"Besides, don't you think the guardians of Hogwarts know that you and Mr. Riddle snuck out of the castle the night Professor Chanté died?" she asked, and she would have sounded amused had she not been – well – Helena. The ghost circled Hermione with her hands clasped behind her back, skirts and thick braid swaying. A smirk curved her long mouth. "Lucky for you, none of the dead liked that man very much, and we hold a greater allegiance to our students than to spies…"

"You knew he was a spy?" Hermione said, balking. "B-but why didn't you tell anyone?"

Helena's eyes shrunk into white slits. Dangerously, she asked, "Would you prefer some of Hogwarts dead went around telling your secrets? We know you have many."

Hermione frowned and crossed her arms. She didn't want to, but she saw Helena's point. "Still," she said grudgingly.

Helena shrugged a second time.

"This is not the matter I wanted to discuss with you, Hermione Granger." Helena sighed and ran her fingers over the emerald eyes of a snake-shaped faucet, close but not close enough for her fingers to go straight through it. "I understand you are in a bit of a sticky wicket here-"

"A what?"

"A sticky wicket," Helena repeated coldly, clearly annoyed with Hermione for interrupting her. She continued, "I would be willing to help you…derail Alliah Shacklebolt's attention, in exchange for another favor."

Another favor. Helena had been collecting many favors from her lately… Hermione pursed her lips. "What do you want all these favors for?" she said suspiciously. "You haven't even used any of them yet."

"That is not your concern."

"Then the answer is no." Hermione slid off the counter and shook her head, starting to head toward the door. She should have been sleeping right now, not discussing school secrets with a ghost. "I'll take care of this on my own."

"I saw Tom Riddle find your bloodied robes," said Helena suddenly. "If he could find a clue that would link Chanté's untimely death to you, surely Mrs. Shacklebolt can."

At the door, Hermione stopped and slowly turned around – but Helena was not looking at her, she was staring into the reflection of the enormous gilded mirror hung over the sinks, which did not show the cursed spirit staring into it, but an empty bathroom. Helena looked pained.

"How could you possibly help me?" Hermione demanded. She didn't say what they both were thinking: How can you help when you're dead?

"I can," said Helena, so firmly that she imagined not even Merlin would have doubted her. Hermione sighed exhaustedly.

"Fine," she said, too tired to argue the point any further. "You can help me distract Shacklebolt or…or whatever it is you're going to do."

"And you will promise me a favor?"

"Alright."

Helena bowed her head - the 1600s-version of a nod, Hermione supposed – and she said, "My efforts will not disappoint you, girl."

It seemed like a strange thing to say, even for a ghost.

She walked out of the lavatory – and straight into somebody else.

"Oh, sorry!" Hermione gasped, pulling back to find Meredith – Meredith? – staring down at her with a wide smirk on her face. To her credit, Meredith looked extremely good for someone who had just woken up – unlike Hermione, who was still bruised and pale from the comedown of the destroyed bond.

"What are you doing up at this hour?" Hermione demanded, as if she was still a Prefect, not a random Slytherin who hardly had a right to be sneaking around the castle at the crack of dawn, much less scolding other students for it. "And why are you here?" she said angrily. "Are you following me?"

"Yes I am," said Meredith, completely unabashed. Her braids were hidden in a colorful head wrap, she lifted her chin with a haughty air, and bragged, "I knew you and Tom had something to do with Professor Chanté's disappearance."

The world froze as Hermione replayed that sentence in her head.

Meanwhile, Meredith kept smirking at her.

In a single, fluid movement, Hermione's face became smooth as an opal stone, and she leaned back to look Meredith in the eye with a cocked brow. "Excuse me?" she said coolly.

"Oh, don't play dumb, Granger." Meredith stuck her finger in Hermione's face, brown eyes narrowed. "I heard you. I heard what you and the Grey Lady said. All of it!"

Hermione calmly moved the digit waggling in her face out of the way. "Listen, Meredith," she said slowly. "I don't want to do this, but-"

"Don't you dare cast a spell on me." Meredith whipped out her wand, a second slower than Hermione did, and the girls faced off with equally irate expressions for a minute. Then Meredith snapped, "Besides, I'm not going to rat you out, you dolt. I want in on this."

Hermione's face twisted with bewilderment. What? "Why would you want that?" she said, confounded.

Meredith smiled in a decidedly vile fashion. "Because I want a favor too, Granger. I want you to use your weirdo magic to free me from my arranged marriage. If you do, I'll help you."

"I don't need your help," she growled, not moving an inch to drop her wand. More than that, Hermione didn't think there was a magic in the world that would help Meredith – much less the Founder's magic, which she had lost control over.

"But don't you?" Meredith asked. She lowered her wand, her entire body taut with tension. "I saw you in the corridor with him last night. You were white as a ghost. I know you two didn't just 'talk'," she added, before Hermione could say it. Her lips curled into a sneer. "Tom is…" she started. "He can be…"

"Evil," said Hermione. Her voice was quiet.

"Yeah." Meredith looked away, thinking intently. "Anyway," she said a moment later, in a significantly lighter voice. "Someone should stop him before he gets worse."

"Like who?"

"Us."

Hermione scoffed, shaking her head. "No no no, I don't want you to get wrapped up in this." Even if she didn't explicitly like Meredith, she didn't want the girl to get hurt again – she had suffered enough at the hands of the future Voldemort. She didn't need to go through it again.

"You don't have a choice, Granger," Meredith said waspishly. "If you don't let me do this, then I'm going to go out on my own and do it anyway."

"For the love of-" Hermione broke off, swearing so violently Meredith blinked in surprise, and finally she said, voice quivering with irritation, "If you die, it is not my fault."

"Of course it isn't," Meredith scoffed – but behind her scowl, she was hiding a little smile.

Alliah Shacklebolt was observing classes.

Hermione found out from Elphy, who found out in the corridor by overhearing two Ravenclaws who had Shacklebolt in their morning Muggle Studies class. At lunch, Elphy told Hermione, Rosy, and Fabia how it was suspected that the Auror was studying students in classes and picking them at random for interrogation. A third-year, Cecil Diggory, had been one of the unlucky fellows to be chosen – he had returned to class in tears.

As Hermione left the Great Hall with the girls, Tom caught up to her and pulled her aside.

"If Shacklebolt selects you," said Tom under his breath. "Don't take any drinks she offers you. Apparently, she sugars her tea with Truth Serum." He gave her a pointed look, she nodded, and he left her to rejoin Abraxas, Regulus, and Dolohov. As soon as he was gone, Elphy grabbed Hermione and yanked them away from Rosy and Fabia.

She hissed, "What was that about, Hermione?"

Hermione's face paled. Had she heard what Tom said? Just as she began to try to explain herself, Elphy added, "I thought you said you two broke up."

Oh. Of course all Elphy was concerned about was her relationship status – she almost laughed with relief. At Elphy's annoyed glare, however, she wiped the amused smile off her face. "We are," she assured. "But we're still on, um, speaking terms."

Elphy pursed her delicately glossed lips. "Uh-huh."

"Really!"

Elphy still didn't seem to quite believe her, but she had to leave at that moment because the Astronomy Tower was on the opposite side of the castle and she was going to be late. Hermione walked to Defense Against the Dark Arts on the third floor. She was one of the first students there, except for a Hufflepuff and Gryffindor snogging at the back of the classroom. Hermione sat down in her seat, waiting.

The door opened, and her stomach flipped before she even saw who walked through. Was it Tom? Shacklebolt? Or just some random students?

It was none of the above. The statuesque form of Meredith stepped through, she glanced over the classroom, and seeing Hermione, propped her hand on one curvy hip with a dubious look. "Seriously?" she demanded.

"What?" said Hermione, bewildered. She looked down at herself, but didn't find any jam stains on her robes or anything else offensive that could put Meredith off. Meredith stomped over with a huff. "Why on earth are you sitting in the seat next to Tom?" she said furiously. "Are you going to be buddy-buddy with him now, after he stomped all over you before?"

Hermione scowled. "Of course not. But this is my assigned seat-"

Meredith's loud snort cut her off. "As if Portebello is going to know that. She's too busy hexing the dirt out of her skirt and pronouncing all our names wrong-"

"Then what do you suggest?" Hermione said sarcastically.

"You'll sit with me, of course," Meredith replied, as if this was the most natural thing in the world. She arched one sculpted eyebrow at Hermione when she didn't get up. "Come on, Granger."

Grumbling, Hermione stood and went over to sit with Meredith in the back of the classroom. The view of the chalkboard was atrocious from here, and the wet sounds of the snogging seventh-years behind them grossed her out – "Would you two have some decency and take that to the broom closet? For Salazar's snake," Meredith snarled at them, effectively ending the snog session – but half the classroom was already full, and Professor Portebello had just rushed in moments for the bell, flustered because she had gotten lost on her way there again.

Hermione watched Tom sit down at his empty table and peer around him to survey the classroom. When his dark eyes fell on her, a frown slanted his fine mouth – Meredith jabbed her in the side with her elbow. "Stop giving each other the love eyes, and at least pretend to pay attention," she whispered harshly.

"I am not giving him 'the love eyes'!"

Meredith scoffed.

Twenty minutes later, the class was practicing the Scourgify Spell after a lengthy lesson on the use of Cleaning Charms (although Portebello failed to explain exactly why they pertained to defending oneself against dark magic). Through the sounds of dirty footprints on the floor and cobwebs delicately popping out of existence, the classroom door opened, and Meredith whipped her braids out of her face to look up. "Oh hell," she said, looking back down quickly, and busying herself with hexing a troupe of dust bunnies under their table.

"What is it?" Hermione started to say – and stopped when she saw Alliah Shacklebolt in the middle of the classroom, speaking to Professor Portebello in hushed tones. Without thinking, she looked to the right of the room, where Tom was already staring at her. He tapped his mouth with his finger, and even without the bond, she knew precisely what he meant.

Don't drink anything from Shacklebolt.

Luckily, Meredith was too busy chasing balls of dust to notice Hermione and Tom's exchange.

Hermione looked away first, joining Meredith on the floor. She tried to seem as small and unassuming as possible – although she did tense when Shacklebolt slowly walked past them, hands loosely clasped behind her back as her vibrant orange eyes ran over them.

In the end, Shacklebolt chose Rosy Parkinson and James Henderson. She disappeared with one student each into the backroom for a few simple questions, as she put it.

When the bell rang, freeing them, Hermione barely refrained from running straight out of the door. Tom had casually walked out first, side-by-side with a Ravenclaw boy he seemed to be teaching tips for the Scourgify Spell. Nearly out of the door, Hermione tripped over the hem of someone's robes – a firm hand caught her arm, helping her back up.

"Thank you," she said gratefully, dusting herself off with an embarrassed laugh.

"You're welcome, Miss Granger," said a rich, slightly accented voice. She looked up to find Shacklebolt smiling at her. Was it her imagination, or did the pupils in Shacklebolt's bright orange eyes seem to be shaped like a cat's?

"You should be more careful," Shacklebolt went on, releasing her. "There are many students in this school – and many more opportunities to fall," she joked.

Hermione smiled. (At least, she tried to.) "Yes, Mrs. Shacklebolt. Thanks again."

"Anytime," Shacklebolt murmured.

Hermione left quickly, resisting the urge to glance over her shoulder back at Shacklebolt, who she had the eerie feeling was watching her from the doorway. When she had boarded an enchanted staircase and stepped onto the seventh floor, however, she let herself collapse against a locked classroom door, and laughed shakily.

Shacklebolt had come to her class, she had told her to be careful, and she knew her name.

She definitely knew she had something to do with Chanté's death.

AN: Thank you all for reading. :) Only a few more chapters left!

ImmortalObsession