Hermione didn't go to the Great Hall for supper that night. Instead, she walked directly to the Room of Requirement – the only place she could think to go to where she would be completely alone.

She shut the door to the Room of Requirement behind her and slid down to the floor. A second later, Cat walked through that same door as if it was no more than thin air, and he looked around the junk-infested room for a moment before finding a stack of old trophies, which he immediately leapt into and started to play with.

For a while, Hermione watched Cat wrestle a golden miniature of a Quidditch player in mid-dive on his broomstick. The Quidditch player tried to fend him off with his tiny broomstick, until Cat effectively ended the battle by ripping his head off with his teeth.

Hermione sighed. If only she could send Cat after Alliah Shacklebolt without feeling unbearably guilty about it – or killing one of Kingsley's core ancestors. "I don't suppose you have a taste for overly inquisitive Aurors, do you?" she said hopefully. Cat met her eyes and snarled around the screaming head in his mouth in reply, Hermione frowned. "I didn't think so," she muttered.

As Cat laid down on his belly, she caught a glimpse of the runes circling his head like a strange, crude crown. The markings were hairless, as if they had been carefully shaved onto his scalp, and they mirrored her own runes perfectly.

Hermione's wrist itched, as if the runes there knew she was thinking about them. She looked down at them and her stomach gave a sharp twist, because the carved markings were glowing, as if a neon light on low battery had been buried right under her skin. A warped wave of déjà-vu hit her suddenly – she had seen the runes glow like this before.

Or at least, she had seen it in her dreams.

Her thoughts were broken by the sound of metal hitting the floor. She glanced up to see the severed, slobbery statue head roll away from Cat, who licked his maw and trotted toward her to nuzzle her hand with his face. In her palm, she could feel his rumbling purrs. Hermione gathered him up in her lap, pulling his frail body into her chest carefully. Handling Cat was similar to an archeologist transporting a dinosaur skeleton, she had to be careful or all his fragile bones would fall apart under her fingertips.

"Do you know what I'm thinking?" she asked him. Cat didn't answer – he never did, he was a cat after all – but he didn't say noeither. Hermione tried again.

"What do the runes mean? Why do we have them?" she said curiously, whispering although they were the only ones in the room. Through his purrs, Cat's eyes opened to bottle glass-green slits and met hers, Hermione wondered how much he understood when she spoke. She wondered if he had always been a cat.

"Did they bring you back from the dead, too?" she asked.

Cat simply stared at her. She stared back, and without knowing precisely why, she touched her marked wrist to his head. When their runes met, there was no electrical current, nor any bright, dramatic flashes of light. There was nothing.

But, ever so slowly, Cat's runes began to emit the same dull blue light as her own. She licked her lips in anticipation, opened her mouth to speak the incantation, and-

stopped.

The last time Hermione had spoken the incantation out loud, someone died. True, that someone – the dark shopkeeper Delia – had been an evil witch who intended to kill her anyway, and Tom was actually the one who Avada'd her, but still. She was partially responsible.

Hermione vividly remembered the terrifying sight of a river that flowed with blood and bodies, and the sound of Delia's panicked cries as she was tossed beneath the scarlet current. Delia had already been transformed into a…a thing by the time Hermione had transported them into that weird death realm, but that didn't change the fact that it was Delia's face she saw every night before bed when she closed her eyes.

Because it was her fault Delia was dead. She had said the words.

Relinquo mihi. Ex cineribus resurgam.

Even in her mind, that spiel of Latin sounded creepy. Because of it, she had woken up from the dead; with those eerie words in her head, imprinted on her skin in an inhuman language she only understood because of Ancient Runes class – or maybe because of something even older than Ancient Runes, something vaster, and very powerful…

"Ouch!" Hermione jerked and looked down, surprised to find blood beading on two small holes in her hand. She looked up and scowled at Cat. "You bit me," she said, more shocked than annoyed with Cat, who was growling at her.

"Get off me," she ordered, but Cat didn't. He crawled higher up her lap, hissing low in his throat. Foam leaked out of the corners of his bared mouth as if he had rabies – he looked deranged. Hermione's eyebrows furrowed, she stood up, dropping him to the floor, and withdrew her wand. "Stop it," she said forcefully. "Stop acting like that."

Cat shook his head.

Wait. He – he what? Her eyes widened, she cast a small hex at him – Cat vanished and reappeared before the spell could touch his patchy pelt.

Hermione reached behind her for the doorknob, but the door was gone. Her body became covered head to toe in gooseflesh, she had suddenly remembered that this was no normal cat – it was dead. Very, very dead.

And the runes on Cat's head were glowing brilliantly.

"What do you want?" she said warily.

Hiiisssss. Cat leapt onto her legs, clinging there with his claws dug into her stockings, and as he growled up at her, she saw something small crawling in the pockets that held his eyeballs, little white legless things crawling around and on top of each other… What the hell?

It abruptly hit her what those things were. Maggots. Bile rose in her throat. Oh God-

All at once, she knew what Cat wanted.

Feeling sick to her stomach, she slowly put a trembling hand back on Cat's head. "Relinquo mihi," she whispered. The maggots seemed to move faster, more restlessly. "Ex cineribus resurgam."

The room went dark.

In that darkness, she heard things.

Insects. They were flying in the air everywhere, swarming and buzzing furiously, crawling through her hair, down her shirt and up her sleeves. The floor seemed to have disappeared, everything had – all she could hear or feel were bugs.

Why hadn't she run before? Why did she stay? She knew why, because Cat would follow her wherever she went, just as death would, and Alliah Shacklebolt would soon-

Cold, bony fingers suddenly touched her shoulder.

She froze, she almost wet herself, her eyes flew open wide, trying to see through the blankets of oppressive darkness, and a blood-curdling scream caught in her throat as the freezing fingers slowly traced down her spine, the invisible force of bugs pressing even closer. "L-lumos," she choked out, her voice one octave below a whisper.

Her wand lit. In the semi-darkness, she saw a skull. She stumbled back, screaming from the very bottom of her belly, and dropped her wand as if it was boiling hot.

The Room of Requirement was ice-cold. It slowly filled with a soft, cyan light, illuminating the terrifying skull, which had a black cowl. It could have been an unveiled Dementor, the way it sucked all the light and warmth out of Hermione's body, and pierced her with fear to the marrow of her bones.

In the hood, she saw empty pits for eyes staring at her, and she couldn't look away even though she wanted to. Those pits were crawling with maggots and buzzing with flies, and the skull was grinning at her even though it didn't have teeth. Vomit churned in her stomach.

She closed her eyes when the skull figure drifted closer, supported by nothing but a cloak of darkness, its finger bones digging sharply into her skin. Was she dying, for real this time?

She had never said a prayer in her life, but she prayed then.

"Please," she whispered when no deity answered her. "Go away."

Warm, damp breath was on her neck. She shook uncontrollably, barely aware of the tears on her face – and then the cold slowly seeped away. When Hermione opened her eyes, she half-feared she would find the blood river waiting for her again – with her inside it this time.

But she didn't see the river. She saw the Room of Requirement, fully lit, free of bugs and all wraith-like demons. She stood still for what felt like a day and night, but could only be seconds.

What just happened? she thought.

Slowly, she looked down, and found Cat still and motionless on the floor.

Dead.

Forever this time.

Hermione stumbled out of the Room of Requirement, and she walked through the castle to the Slytherin dungeons without seeing any of the students around her. All she could see was the face of Death. Deep in her bones, she knew that was who had visited her. The Death of ancient legends, who gave the Three Brothers an invisible cloak, a powerful wand, and a resurrection stone. The Death who, for some reason, had brought her back.

"Hullooo Hermione," said a playful voice. "-Oh goodness, are you alright?"

Hermione, who had just walked into the Slytherin common room, looked up at the sound of her name. Rosy, Fabia, and Elphy, who had been speaking in covert tones in the corner, looked up at Regulus's outburst, and they stared at Hermione in mild surprise.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Regulus added. His brows were furrowed as he scanned her face. "Did the Bloody Baron give you a scare?"

"Um…yes." Hermione responded after a beat of expectant silence that lasted too long. "I'm going to bed," she said.

"At seven-thirty?"

"It's been a long day," she mumbled, slinking past them to the stairs. She felt their eyes on her until she was safely hidden in the corridor.

She was changing into pajamas when Elphy – who she hadn't realized had followed her – spoke suddenly.

"What's going on, Hermione?"

Good question, Hermione thought. She turned around and looked up at the Slytheriness, who towered over her in comparison, and had her arms crossed over her chest disapprovingly. "What do you mean?" she questioned, and she sounded stiff and fake to her own ears.

Elphy sighed and rubbed her eyes, not seeming to realize or care that she was smudging her mascara. "Why do you always lie to me?" she said under her breath. Hermione had the horrible feeling she wasn't supposed to hear that last part, but she answered her anyway.

"I don't want to," she said honestly. "But I- I can't tellyou the truth, because it's too…too…" The right words escaped her. Deflated, she sank down onto the bed behind her, and stared at her knotted fingers. "You wouldn't believe me anyway."

"Of course I would." Elphy seemed appalled by Hermione's lack of faith in her. She plopped down next to Hermione, taking her hand in both of her manicured, delicate ones. "Please tell me what's going on," she said in a soft voice. "I want to know, and I won't judge you for it. I swear."

I won't judge you for it. In Slytherin, that promise was nothing short of silver and gold.

Hermione frowned at the emerald comforter beneath them. After a beat, Elphy said in a slightly harder voice, "I heard you and Meredith sat together in class today. I found that very…interesting."

Hermione blinked, looking back at Elphy's frowning face in surprise. She almost asked how she knew, but the answer came to her almost instantaneously. Rosy and Fabia. Blasted gossips.

"We did," she said carefully. Elphy's jaw flexed and she let go of her hand, tucking her own hands under her arms, and staring at the floor. "But we're not friends," Hermione quickly assured her. She smiled. "Trust me, that's the last thing I would ever be with Meredith of all people-"

"Then why on earth are you talking to her?" Elphy demanded in a sharp voice. "You know how I feel about her." She glanced around them despite the apparent vacancy of the dormitory, lowering her voice. "You know what happened between us. How we felt."

Hermione nodded.

Elphy scooted back. "Then why are you talking to her, despite that knowledge?" she said tightly. She sounded betrayed, and Hermione couldn't blame her for it. Her stomach twisted with guilt.

"We're not friends," Hermione repeated. "We're just talking-"

"I don't want you to talk to her."

"You can't control me, Elphy!"

"I'm not trying to! But as my friend, you shouldn't even want to talk to that- ugh."

Elphy broke off on a huff. Her face was bright red with irritation, she jumped up and started to storm back to the common room. Hermione quickly ran after her. "Wait, Elphy!" she exclaimed, catching her arm. Elphy turned around, her lovely face as removed and smooth as stone. But she didn't pull away. "Are you going to tell me the truth?" she said coolly. "Or more lies?"

"I…" Elphy scowled at her obvious hesitation, Hermione raised her hands in surrender and gave in. "Ok, ok. Yes, I'll tell you." She paused. "But what I have to say is nothing you could expect." Or believe, she added in her thoughts.

"We'll see," said Elphy, still chill as the snow queen. They sat down again – or Elphy sat, and Hermione paced. She cast a Locking Charm on the door and a Muffliato for good measure. She wasn't sure why she was doing this, why she was confessing her secrets to Elphy rather than letting her slip away from her. But Elphy Wictz was the closest thing to a good friend that Hermione had here, and Hermione wasn't ready to lose her – even if it meant sacrificing the promise she had made to Dumbledore so long ago. The promise that had already been broken several times.

She began with something simple. "I'm not from here."

Elphy rolled her eyes. "I know that, you're from France. You told us."

"No, that's not – I'm not from France. I can't even speak very good French. I'm from here in England," she said quickly. Elphy's forehead wrinkled, and Hermione continued, feeling lighter than she had in months with every word. Perhaps she should come right out with it? She said, "I was born in 1987."

Elphy blinked, her lips slowly curled into an amused smile. "Are you telling me you're a… a time traveler?"

"Yes."

"Hm." Tapping a French nail on her chin, Elphy tilted her head and eyed Hermione critically. "So how did you come back here? With some sort of spell?"

"No, with a Time Turner. It's an enchanted object that allows its wearer to go backward or forward in time."

"And how did you get it?"

"The future Headmaster, Dumbledore, entrusted it to me."

"Dumbledore?" Elphy repeated, dumbfounded. A bubble of laughter burst out of her. "Wait a moment, you mean the Transfiguration teacher?"

"Yes. He sent me back here."

"You can't be serious."

Hermione swallowed. "Unfortunately, I am."

And the way she said those final words, without an ounce of doubt, and with all too much apology, made the smile on Elphy's face finally disappear.

"What on earth are you talking about?" she said slowly.

"I used a Time Turner to come here, back to your time," Hermione repeated. She sat down next to Elphy, who watched her warily, as if she came too close something very bad might happen to one of them. "In my time, there's a war going on, and many creatures are dying – not just wizards. I came back here for the wizard who starts that war. I'm supposed to stop him, because he's an… he's a Dark wizard in the future." Her eyes glazed over, seeing terrors this world wouldn't know for another forty years. "He does horrible things."

"Who is he?" Elphy questioned. Hermione bit her lip, looking down. "I can't say."

They sat in tense silence for several moments, waiting for the other girl to speak first.

Finally, Elphy smiled and laughed slightly. "Wow, Hermione. I didn't know you would go to such lengths to lie to me. If I didn't know you so well," she said, "I would think you're bloody bonkers!"

Hermione's face fell. "No really, Elphy," she said earnestly. "I'm telling you the truth-"

Elphy shot to her feet, but her icy smile never wavered. "Stop it," she said in a strangely soft voice. "I would have expected something like this from Rosy or Fabia maybe, but…you?" She shook her head to herself. "You're a liar, Hermione. I would have hoped you could at least tell me the truth."

She strode out of the dormitory, and the door slammed shut behind her with an ear-splitting BOOM. Hermione winced as the door trembled.

First, she lost Tom. Then Cat.

Now Elphy had left her too.

She thought of the face of Death staring at her in the Room of Requirement, his cold fingers freezing her skin with one touch, and she wondered what would happen to her if she tried to die.

Throughout the entire school day, Elphy didn't talk to Hermione, and Hermione didn't try to approach her – although they did make awkward eye contact more than once. She hated not being able to talk to Elphy, to hear her amusing comments about the students here, or to have her walking by her side with her head so high in the air she might have been the High Duchess. They had never spoken about important things, but that was alright, because Elphy had always been sincere in her friendship.

It hurt to lose her.

Meredith, on the other hand, was unsympathetic.

"The same thing happened to us," she said breezily. "Don't worry, you'll eventually get over it. There are plenty of dragons in the sky."

Hermione looked at her oddly, Meredith smirked back.

During Defense Against the Dark Arts, the class was observed by Alliah Shacklebolt again. "I don't like this," Meredith whispered under her breath as they took notes on Wood Polish Charms. "She keeps looking over at us."

"I know," Hermione whispered back. "Just act normal."

"Well, duh."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"If you don't mind, Professor Portebello," said Shacklebolt suddenly, at the end of Portebello's speech on the importance of using the correct polish on different floor surfaces. "I would like to borrow a few students for an impromptu interview."

"Of course," said Portebello, because what else could she say to an Auror? "Who did you have in mind, Mrs. Shacklebolt?"

Shacklebolt hummed under her breath and her deep orange eyes swept over the classroom once, twice; even though she must have had their seating chart memorized by now. At last, she said, "I would like to speak with Meredith Smith, Tom Riddle, and Hermione Granger, one at a time." She smiled minimally. "And in that order."

Hermione's heart sunk. Crap.

Meredith looked at Hermione, and the uncertainty in her dark brown eyes was all too clear. Hermione nodded at her, Meredith stood up and smoothed her green robes, walking to the classroom door where Shacklebolt stood waiting for her with dignity. They all watched her go wordlessly.

Portebello resumed the lesson without further comment.

Ten minutes later, the door opened and Meredith came back inside. Shacklebolt beckoned Tom through the door with a wave of her arm, he got to his feet with a charming smile and followed her out. The class could hear them exchanging pleasantries before the door swung shut behind them.

In a hushed voice, Hermione asked, "How did it go?"

Meredith shrugged, but didn't meet her eyes. "Fine. She asked all these meaningless questions, like what I would do if I was on a boat without a wand and could only take five magical creatures with me. I had to pick between a dwarf, a giant, a Mudblood – oh, get over it – a pixie, a centaur, and all these other things." She broke off with another careless shrug. "It was really weird."

"What did you say?" Hermione said skeptically.

"I said that it was a ridiculous scenario that would clearly never happen," Meredith sniffed. "I would have to be an idiot to buy into that blatant display of racial profiling, I'm not stupid." Her head swung around, eyes narrowing at Hermione. "Quit grinning at me, Granger. I was only protecting myself."

"Oh yes. Of course."

Meredith sneered at her.

At that moment, the door opened – five minutes sooner than it had for Meredith – and Tom rolled back into class, looking rather unphased. He didn't look Hermione's way once. She swallowed and stood when Shacklebolt curled a finger at her expectantly, Meredith gave her a shove in the back when she remained rooted to the spot.

"Nice to see you again," said Shacklebolt with a warm smile when she had reached her. Hermione nodded. "Likewise," she mumbled. They walked into the corridor.

It was a short and silent walk, Shacklebolt turned at the classroom next door and unlocked the door with a sharp rap of her wand. "You first," she said, stepping back. Hermione preceded her into the room and sat down in one of the empty desks. Shacklebolt sat in the one next to hers.

With a wave of her wand, she magicked a scroll into the air, which floated down to the desk she sat at gently. "Let's just check some routine things first, shall we?" said Shacklebolt. Hermione nodded. "Alright, I am going to repeat some information to you, and you will tell me whether it is true or false. Ready to begin?"

"Ready."

Shacklebolt cleared her throat and slipped on a pair of glasses from her robes, which were deep purple and bright against her dark brown skin. Eyes on the scroll, she read out loud in a flat monotone.

"Name: Hermione Jean Granger."

"True."

"Height: 5"4."

"True."

"Birthdate: June sixth 1926."

"True."

"Birthplace: Nice, France."

"True."

Shacklebolt took off her glasses and looked up to meet Hermione's eyes. She smiled softly. "Have you spoken all the truth and nothing but the truth to me, Miss Granger?" she asked.

Hermione didn't blink. "Yes."

"Wrong."

Despite the sudden steel in Shacklebolt's voice, her smile remained kind and lovely.

"Pardon me?" said Hermione, stunned. Her cheeks were bright pink.

"You lied," Shacklebolt said. She glanced at her scroll absently, before she waved her wand at it and cast it away. "You were not born on the sixth of June in 1926, you did not move here from France, your parents were never refugees of the Grindelwald Pureblood Movement – in fact, I could locate no records of them in the British Ministry or France's – or anywhere at all."

Shacklebolt leaned forward into the aisle between them, the smile on her face never losing its force. "You can be deported for illegal immigration," she said softly. "And you can be held in the Department of Mysteries until the Minister sees fit for excessive time travel."

Hermione's jaw dropped. "I- what?"

"You heard me, Miss Granger," said Shacklebolt. She sounded downright deadly now. Leaning back, the Auror adjusted her sari and crossed her legs, threading her fingers together over her knees. "Listen. I don't want to tell Headmaster Dippet or the Minister about your little indiscretion here, but I will have to if you don't help me discover what truly happened to Lucas Chanté. Now are you going to help me help you, or is this going to be difficult?"

"Define difficult," Hermione said through gritted teeth. Her heart was pumping, she could feel her face was flushed deep red. Why was she such an atrocious liar? she asked herself miserably. And how the hell did Alliah Shacklebolt know all of this?

How did she know she had time travelled here?

Fuck.

"Well, I find myself often parched in your school, Hermione. I believe it's because this castle has a bad draft," Shacklebolt started. She stood and crossed the room to the teacher's desk, where she flicked her wand at a knickknack of a dancing troll, and transformed it into a teapot. The hairs on the backs of Hermione's arm rose, and Tom's earlier warning about the Auror's drinks came back to her.

"Where I come from, tea is a commodity," she went on. She Transfigured a mouse scurrying across the floor into a teacup with unnerving accuracy, picked it up, and carried her items over to Hermione. "I love tea. I love it when people do not lie to me, as you have already done," she said tranquilly. "Now. Would you like a cup of tea, or would you prefer to not be difficult?"

Hermione stared at the brewing pot of Truth Serum, her fingers tight around the arms of her chair. "I'm not thirsty," she said. Her voice scraped out of her throat like a rake over dead leaves.

Shacklebolt put the teapot down. "Have it your way," she said airily. "Now, why don't you tell me what you are doing here, and how you came to acquire a Time Turner?"

Hermione swallowed thickly. Her temples pulsed and her heart – strangely enough – wasn't beating hard, but very slowly, as if in slow-motion. She licked her lips. "It was given to me by my headmaster-"

At that moment, the door flew open. Standing outside of it was Meredith, and she was panting as if she had been running for miles. "Professor Portebello told me to come get you two," she said breathlessly. Her eyes were wide, she looked frightened. Shacklebolt frowned, slowly standing up. "Something's happened to a student, I think. Some sort of accident," Meredith said, rushing to get all the words out in seconds.

Behind Meredith, Hermione and Shacklebolt could see hundreds of students hurrying through the halls while teachers shouted and tried to control them. "Headmaster Dippet has ordered all the students to go back to their houses," Mereidth went on, "and all the professors are supposed to report to him."

Shacklebolt barely glanced at Hermione as she strode past Meredith and into the corridor. "We will finish this conversation later, Miss Granger," she said firmly. The next moment, she had been swallowed by the crowd, and Meredith gestured at Hermione to get a move on – the two of them squeezed into the current of bodies forcing itself through the stone corridors. Admist the confusion of voices and shouting teachers, Hermione instinctively grabbed Meredith's hand. She was surprised when the girl didn't shake her off.

"What's happened?" she yelled over the cacophony. Meredith shook her head, apparently just as boggled as her. "I have no idea," Meredith shouted back. "But Professor Slughorn rushed into our class a few minutes after you and Shacklebolt left, he said there had been an accident or something, and that everyone had to go to their common rooms-" She was cut off when a group of students shoved in between them, wrenching them apart. "Meredith!" Hermione cried, but she couldn't see her anymore.

She searched the sea of faces, and she couldn't believe how many students there were at Hogwarts that she didn't even recognize. A terrible sensation of dread had fisted itself around her heart, she forced herself through the crowd in the opposite direction that it was moving in – the students moved out of the way easily enough, once they realized she wasn't trying to butt them.

Hermione eventually escaped the claustrophobic bubble, gasping for air when she was free. She saw the groundskeeper, Gregovitch, close ahead. He was patrolling the students, and making sure they weren't trying to sneak off and see what the commotion was about.

"Hermione, wait up!"

At the sound of her name, Hermione whirled around, and blinked rapidly at the sight of Meredith disentangling herself from a group of crying first-years. "Bloody hell," she puffed once she had reached her. "It's like a war zone back there-"

"Yeah, I know," Hermione interrupted. She took out her wand and hit Meredith with a Disillusionment Charm, a moment before she cast the charm on herself. "Hey!" Meredith's bodiless voice said indignantly. "What did you do to me? Where am I?"

"Ssh, quiet down!" Hermione hissed. "We're going to see what's happened." She felt through the air until she grabbed something soft – Meredith yelped and kicked her. "This is my hand, you idiot," she snarled, and Hermione felt her fingers thrust into hers. Blushing, Hermione muttered apologies.

"Come on," Hermione whispered. "We'll go down the corridor Gregovitch is guarding and see what all this fuss is about." They set off in the opposite direction of the other students, whose faces and frantic, worried voices were distant now. The memory and terror of the Chamber of Secrets was still fresh in their minds.

"Watch your step!" said Hermione sharply, when Meredith tripped over a fallen book on the floor and sent it flying into a knight, which bristled indignantly. "Well, excuse me," Meredith snapped, "for not being able to see my own bloody feet!"

Hermione gasped and shushed her. Not too far off, she heard voices. "Stay here," she whispered to Meredith. "No, don't you go- wait!" Meredith started to say, but Hermione had already pulled away and ran off, in the direction of the voices. She could hear the sounds of Meredith bumping into things and swearing behind her.

Around the corner of the hallway, Hermione could see a group of teachers gathered around a blanket. She saw Dippet, Slughorn, Portebello, Dumbledore, and Shacklebolt among the circle of stern, lined faces, and dark-colored robes. She suddenly remembered what Meredith had said about an accident having to do with a student, and her blood ran cold. Careful to be quiet, she slowly tiptoed up to the group, waiting for somebody to move so she could see.

"What a shame," said Slughorn, shaking his head – and the fluff of blonde ginger still on top of it – as he stepped back. He dabbed at his damp cheeks with a handkerchief. "Such a nice girl, she had so much to offer!" he sighed.

Hermione froze when she saw what was lying on the floor behind him. Her body was covered with a black blanket, but the spool of strawberry blonde hair, and the half-curled, delicate hand emerging from under it were impossible to mistaken.

All the air in her chest whooshed out. She drifted closer, as if in a dream, and her brain couldn't process the dead girl on the floor until behind her, Meredith stumbled out and screamed horrifyingly enough to rival a banshee.

"ELPHY!"

The professors looked around in confusion at the sound of Meredith's voice, Dumbledore's blue eyes narrowed behind his spectacles, and he waved his wand. At once, both Hermione and Meredith's Disillusionment Charms came undone. Portebello gasped in shock at the sight of the spying students.

"What is the meaning of this?" Dippet demanded, coming forward to stare at Hermione and Meredith, the latter of which was staring at Elphy's covered body in horror. "What are you two girls doing here?"

"I think it's very clear what they're doing, Headmaster," said Dumbledore. His clear, deep voice rang like a church bell through the hallway, he looked at Hermione and shook his head. She was too stunned to feel ashamed. "They've come to see the cause of mayhem."

From the floor where she had dropped on her knees next to Elphy, Meredith moaned – it was a haunting sound that sent shivers down Hermione's spine. Hermione pulled her eyes away from the veiled body of their friend to meet Dumbledore's heavy gaze. "Who did it?" she said numbly. "Who killed her?"

Dumbledore began to reply, but another voice beat him to it – Shacklebolt's.

"The Ministry will know the identity of the perpetrator in two days' time," she said in her smooth, powerful tenor. They all watched her expectantly. "For now," she finished, "all the students must be retained until the murderer is found out."

Under the Head Boy's orders, all the Slytherins had gone straight to their respective dormitories. The Slytherin common room was empty save for Tom, sitting on an armchair with his elbows resting on his knees as he gazed at the dancing flames in the fireplace, when Hermione walked in. His robes had disappeared, his thick black hair looked as though he had been pulling at it all night.

"Hermione," he said when he heard her come in. His voice didn't sound soft or hard or cold or warm, she noticed. It didn't sound like anything. "I had wondered when you would show up and grace us all with your presence," he murmured.

Hermione wondered who he meant by us, since they were the only two people there. She sat down on the sofa closest to him, and looked at the fire too. "Elphy is dead," she said, because how could she keep the death of her only real friend here to herself? Tom would be the last person to go around spreading gossip anyway.

Tom looked at her. The shadows of the flames leapt across his beautiful face in tendrils of fierce oranges and reds, they seemed to fill his dark eyes for a moment, so that she thought of the inside of a boiling furnace when she looked at them. She remembered what Meredith had said before about her giving Tom the love eyes all the time, and she quickly looked down at her hands in her lap. "Someone killed her," Tom assumed.

"Yeah." She cleared her throat to get rid of the roughness in her voice. Was it awful of her, she wondered, that she didn't feel like she would be able to cry over Elphy? Not because she didn't care. Just because she couldn't.

Tom turned his head away from her, studying the fire again. "Classes are cancelled until further notice," he said without any particular emotion. "Dippet gathered all the prefects and Augusta and I to tell us." Rubbing his thumb over his lip contemplatively, he asked, "What did Shacklebolt say to you?"

Hermione shook her head. "Nothing of importance. You?"

He shrugged a shoulder. "Nothing important."

They were both lying.

Tom opened his mouth – to pepper her with questions until he heard the answer he wanted, probably – but then he seemed to change his mind, and he turned away. Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione watched him rub his thumbs over each other and torture his bottom lip with his teeth. She couldn't help but ask him how he felt.

"How do I feel?" he echoed, without looking at her. He sounded lost. "About what?"

"About me." Hermione tried to lock her feelings away, to remain subjective and aloof, as she waited for Tom to drop the knife on her. She sank back into the sofa cushions, as if his response was so insignificant she had no worry in the world about it.

That wasn't true though.

Not true at all.

"I hate you," he answered. No hesitation. No apology. No it's not you, it's me. Of course not, this was Tom Riddle she was talking to.

She started to leave, but he spoke again.

"I felt…differently…before," he said lowly. His voice still sounded like nothing, no more different than when he had spoken about prefects and Hogwarts rules and Shacklebolt. Hermione looked at him, and his black eyes met hers and skipped away, the tops of his pale cheekbones – which he had used some sort of potion on to hide the bruises there again, she suspected – reddening slightly.

It was the closest to a declaration of affection – of real affection, not the simulated kind - for her that he had ever come to.

Hermione's throat tightened so much it felt sore. "But was it the bond, or was it you?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said quietly. "It doesn't matter now, does it?"

Tom finally looked at her, his face ashen, and perhaps he hadn't rode out the most detrimental of the effects of their severed bond, because for a moment, he looked like a sick old man trapped in a younger man's body. Sounding very tired – or was weak the right word? – he repeated, "I don't know."

They were interrupted by a soft meow.

Hermione's brows furrowed, she looked around in confusion, and a black cat trotted over to them. He sat down in front of Hermione, staring up at her with eyes as green as bottle glass. Cat.

"But…how?" said Hermione out loud in a wondering voice, without realizing she was speaking. Cat rubbed his head on her leg. He felt real.

"Is this that cat you told me about before?" Tom queried, staring at the feline that had unexpectedly waltzed into the Slytherin common room and started nuzzling Hermione with equal surprise. Hermione blinked up at him. "You can see him?" she said, bewildered.

"Of course I can," said Tom. He gestured at Cat obviously. "He's right there."

Hermione frowned at Cat. "But… you're supposed to be dead," she said in confusion. "Not that I'm not glad you're back, of course," she added hurriedly.

Tom raised a questioning eyebrow at her, she waved at him dismissively. "It's a long story."

"I didn't say anything."

"No, but you were smirking."

With effort, he wiped the smirk off his face. Hermione sighed and bent down to pick up Cat, who curled against her chest once she had. Studying him, she found his fur was thick and rich-looking instead of patched as it had always been before, and the chip in his ear was gone, too. The only part of him that was the same as before were the runes carved into his scalp.

Experimentally, she touched her runes to his.

Nothing happened.

"How curious," she murmured to herself, and Tom said, "What is?"

"Nothing." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter."

Tom frowned.

But what did matter was the idea Cat's reappearance had just given her. He had been dead, but she had brought him back to life in the Room of Requirement…and now, now he was here again. If she could resurrect him, what was stopping her from resurrecting Elphy?

If Elphy was alive – even for ten minutes – she could tell Hermione who had killed her.

"What are you going to do?" said Tom suspiciously. He was watching the emotions rapidly flash across her face with narrowed eyes, she stood up with Cat in her arms and shrugged a touch too casually to be nonchalant. "I'm just going to bed, Tom."

"Sure you are," he said disbelievingly.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Hermione replied. She smirked at him and disappeared upstairs to the girl dormitory, leaving Tom in the common room alone with his thoughts.

AN: Thanks for reading. Leave a review if you're darling, there are only a few more chapters left!

ImmortalObsession