When Hermione and Theo returned to the table, the team had been busy sketching out ideas for campaign platforms and filling out paperwork Draco had procured. Daphne and Pansy were working on some sort of press strategy, and Crabbe and Goyle were arm-wrestling on a tree stump off to the side. Theo immediately rejoined the discussion, talking to Blaise and Draco about how best to ensure the hedgewitch community could be courted, while Hermione just took her seat silently.

She felt numb.

Words went in one ear and out the other the rest of the afternoon. She vaguely remembered answering questions about what animals she liked, what symbols she would want in a house crest, and her opinions on other issues, but she didn't remember what her answers were. She felt disconnected, there but not there, some part of her watching her friends work together while some other part of her was wrapped in a blanket of cold.

Her friends were afraid of her becoming a Dark Lord.

Or a Dark Lady. Was it a gendered term?

Didn't matter.

Her friends were scared of her.

The thing that bothered Hermione the most was that Theo had a point. Hermione had embraced Luna's prophecy as a way to break into pureblood-only spaces. She'd focused nearly exclusively on the New Blood portion of Luna's words, not the rest of it.

But there it was. She was predicted to change the world.

Hermione wondered if she hadn't heard the prophecy, if her friends hadn't learned what Luna said, if they'd still think that way. Was she bound to change the world because she'd learned she was destined for it? Or would she still have managed it somehow on her own, even if the prophecy had never been spoken?

Hermione's thoughts lingered on the sword she'd commissioned from the goblins, the secret box under her bed, her plans with her coven, and though she wanted to, she couldn't lie to herself.

Even without the prophecy, Hermione knew she was one to make waves.

It was the assumption she would be Dark that bothered Hermione so much. Sure, she could be mean sometimes, but so could everyone! No one was nice all the time. And the people she was cruel to, they had deserved it – they had acted against her first, and she had only been giving them their just rewards.

Was it so hard for her friends to think that she might become a powerful Light wizard? Dumbledore had managed it, hadn't he? Sure, she was in Slytherin, where magic ran a little Darker by nature, but still…

Hermione broke away from that train of thought. Even in her head, it sounded deluded, comparing her magic to Dumbledore's.

She wouldn't be a Light wizard. She already knew that. But she wouldn't be Dark, either. Her strength lay in the Grey magic in between, in the powerful forgotten magics of times gone by. It wasn't good, but it wasn't bad, either. It just… was.

So that was evidence she wasn't going to grow up into a Dark witch, right? She knew where the lines were, and she was careful not to cross them, wasn't she?

…the fact she had Tom Riddle's diary fully charged under her pillow made it hard to believe that, though.

Hermione gnawed at her lip. She'd given her word to pull him from the diary with a body today; even if it had been a bargain made for a good cause, temporarily manifesting a young Voldemort didn't seem like a terribly good idea from any angle she tried.

When she eventually went home around dinner time, vacantly bidding her friends good-bye, Hermione was fully in her head, lost and disassociated from reality. Her parents seemed slightly worried, but they relaxed when she assured them she was just working on a problem she had. They were used to her withdrawing when faced with a situation she didn't know how to respond to, and they resumed their conversation about a convention coming up.

After dinner, Hermione went up to her room, flopping down on her bed. She pulled out the diary from under her pillow and looked at it for a long moment, before dipping a quill into ink.

Are you ready? she wrote.

Yes. Tom's response was immediate. Is it time?

Almost. After my parents go to bed. Hermione gnawed her quill. Do you promise not to hurt me or them?

I promise, Hermione. Tom's handwriting seemed earnest. You are helping me, Hermione. I'm not going to betray your trust or act against you.

His wording niggled Hermione's mind, and she toyed with the absurdity of asking the bound soul of young Voldemort to somehow swear her an Oath of Loyalty.

We'll do it after dark, once my parents are in bed. And we'll do it outside, Hermione wrote to him. You can't get me in trouble, though, okay? No one can find out.

I will hide from your parents, Tom told her. We're in this together.

Hermione swallowed, uneasy.

"That's what I'm afraid of," she whispered.

The stars were out, the moon waxing and nearing full. There was enough light for Hermione to see in her backyard, diary laid out on the ground in front of her. She stood over it, looking down at the innocuous-looking book, and her hand clenched around the handle of her goblin-forged sword.

She wasn't about to take any chances.

Not with this.

Taking a deep breath to steady her magic, using the quiet bonds with her coven to settle her, Hermione closed her eyes. She sank down into her core of magic, air and earth elementals brushing up against her awareness in greeting, before she reached out with her magic, into the diary once more.

She'd been draining her magic into the diary every night for a week, as she'd promised. This time, instead of letting her magic drain freely into the diary, she held it together, casting it about like a fishing line, like a rope waiting for someone to catch it and hang on.

There was a sudden feeling of tension, a tugging on her power, and Hermione held her breath.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she pulled her power out.

Though she'd done it once before, it was still an insane sight to see – a head, then face, then body of a teenage boy being literally pulled out of a book by magic. Hermione watched as Tom Riddle slowly emerged from the pages of the diary, her mind holding all the information she knew about the human body at the forefront of her mind as her magic tugged him out.

Once it was done, her magic abruptly snapped back to her, and the diary slammed itself shut. Tom was looking up and down at himself, running his hands over his body as if in disbelief, before looking at Hermione.

"We meet again," he murmured. His dark eyes were bright.

Hermione's mouth felt dry. "We do indeed."

Tom seemed oddly fascinated by his arms, examining them over and over.

"You did more, this time," he said. "I feel… more."

"More what?" Hermione asked.

"Last time, you held the mental image of me in your mind, and that I could bleed," he said. His eyes glittered. "This time, this feels less like a construct, and more like a body."

"Surely that's a good thing?" Hermione said, raising her eyebrows. She tried for a sardonic tone, but it came out wavering, unsure.

Tom turned to her. Slowly, a grin spread across his face – but it was all wrong, his eyes looked warm and happy, his smile charming and her breath was catching in her throat, he didn't look evil at all –

"It's very good," he assured her, sharing a smirk with her, and to Hermione's horror, she felt her face flush and smirk back without her meaning to respond.

Tom seemed content to just look around for a while, walking, running his hands over the wood of a nearby tree, spinning in the open air under the stars. He didn't say much, just seemed to be taking in every sensory experience he could with his new form. Hermione watched quietly, her hand still on her sword as her heart thudded in her chest. Even as alert and wary as she felt, she could feel the heat of her face as she watched him.

It was hard to watch a boy – just a good-looking, teenage boy – revel in the sight of the stars and the simple joy of feeling the wind in the sky, and to then feel afraid of him.

Tom seemed so human. And he was human, really, Hermione supposed.

Even with only half a soul.

Tom turned to Hermione after a while, giving her a slow smile. His jet-black hair gleamed in the moonlight, somehow perfectly groomed, and Hermione bit her lip hard, determinedly reminding herself that this was the young Dark Lord, and that he would do anything to manipulate her to get what he wanted from her.

"You have no idea how good this feels," he told her. His eyes were honest and open, his tone almost reverent, and Hermione hated how genuine he could make it seem. "Thank you, Hermione."

"Don't get used to it," she warned him. "I'm not doing it again."

Tom didn't respond to that. Instead, he'd turned to look at his hands, before holding one out toward the tree. He stood very still, waiting.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked finally. "You've got a limited amount of time with this body, and you're just going to—"

A leaf zoomed into his hand a moment later, and Hermione's words broke off, her mouth agape.

Tom turned slowly to look at her, a smirk tugging at her lips.

"You are very powerful, aren't you, Hermione?" he murmured. "Powerful enough to give me a semblance of magic back."

"I didn't," Hermione shot back. "I did it exactly the same as last time, really – I don't know why you can do magic—"

"Relax. I won't do it again," Tom assured her. "I can feel what it uses; it spends up rather a lot of your magic that's holding me here. Believe me, I'd much rather enjoy the freedom of a body for as long as I can than spend it up on cheap tricks of wandless magic."

Hermione bit her lip, uneasy.

"Can you tell how much is in it?" she asked finally. "I don't know how long we're going to be out here for, and I kind of want to go to bed."

"Please, feel free." Tom's eyes glittered at her. "I can entertain myself, I assure you."

"No," Hermione said, annoyed. "I'm not letting you out of my sight. I brought you here, and I'm responsible for you while you're here. I'm not about to let you gad about freely."

Tom laughed, a low, smooth chuckle. Hermione hated how nice it sounded. How long must he have practiced that laugh in front of the mirror?

"You do realize, Hermione, that you've been pouring your power into the diary for a week, don't you?" he said. He grinned. "I daresay I'm going to be here a while."

"Fine," Hermione huffed, sitting down on the ground in a slump next to the diary. "Then I just won't get any sleep tonight. I can live with that for a night."

Even in the dark, Tom's eyes glittered with amusement at her.

"We're not talking hours, Hermione," he told her. "We're talking days."

Hermione's eyes widened.

"No," she said, astonished. "No way."

"You should be proud of yourself," Tom told her. "This is quite the feat of magic."

"You are not hanging around for days," Hermione said, tugging her hair hard. "I have things to do! I'm going to see my coven tomorrow, I need to meet up with Tracey and them about the campaign, I have to talk to Neville about Herbology…"

"Then, Hermione…"

Tom's eyes glittered.

"…I daresay you'll be taking along a friend."