The only sound, aside from the crackling of the bonfire, is Tom peeling an apple. It's a raspy sound; the edge of his knife ducking shyly under the peel, sending it curling down towards Hermione's jeans-clad knee. He could have sat anywhere, but he chose to sit next to Hermione, close enough to touch.
"I thought it would be harder," she says, jabbing a long branch between the embers, before putting another log on the fire. Tom stops peeling the apple to look at her, his brow furrowed in confusion. A foreign look on his handsome face, highlighted with the glow from the bonfire. She almost laughs.
"Leaving Hogwarts," she says. He hums, approvingly, then nods.
"Hogwarts feels like a sanctuary. I think it has a lot to do with the way it was built. Feelings and intentions are not entirely lost when creating something with magic." He resumes peeling his apple as he responds, until all the skin has come off, then slices it into tiny bits that they share. When only the core is left, Tom throws it into the fire where it quickly turns to ash. Hermione watches it burn, transfixed, even as Tom jostles her slightly, searching for the diary page in his pockets.
So transfixed, that she nearly misses the familiar magical pull of the diary's illusion. Orange flames flicker and bleed into golden as the large bonfire morphs into a small, pumpkin-scented candle. The smell is sweet and thick, and the glow from the wick does little to illuminate the small space around them. She needs a second to realize she's back in the Three Broomsticks, sitting on a bench at one of the tables covered with a dirty, red-checkered tablecloth.
"Back when we were in the pub, you asked why the Three Broomsticks," Tom says, moving to sit opposite of her. He turns his head to one of the other booths, nodding towards a small figure hiding behind a massive tome and an equally massive glass of butterbeer. "That's why."
"Books and butterbeer?"
"Very funny." Tom sneers, but without any venom. "I meant the calm. It's different from London, or a Slytherin common room in mid-celebration after a won Quidditch match. This has always been one of my favourite places."
Hermione's eyes wander. Outside, she can see children running around, and a fire crackles softly at the other end of the room. Except for the rustling of pages and the occasional laugh, the pub is silent.
Breathing in deeply, Hermione takes a moment to savour the calm. Everything smells just the same as it had mere hours ago in the real world. The Three Broomsticks has not changed in years. Somehow, she finds that comforting.
Then, Hermione throws a glance at the boy in the booth. The book looks a couple of years beyond his designated reading level, yet he does not appear to be struggling. Looking back at her Tom, she realizes she isn't the only one studying the boy in the booth. For the first time since they started visiting his memories, Tom's looking at his past self. Really looking. Not superfluously glancing, not halfway ignoring. No. He's looking at his past self as if it's the first time seeing himself. His eyes look far away, yet shackled to the book in the boy's hands.
"I think I can see why," she says, watching Tom more closely. He's still occupied observing his younger self, so she takes the rare opportunity to study older Tom. It's the first memory where she can't find any kind of tension in Tom's body. No strain to distort his handsome face, no stress sitting between his shoulder blades. He doesn't look anything like the monster she had met during the war. Voldemort had been disturbed. Distorted. Corrupted. But Tom looks just like any other student in Hogwarts. Terrifyingly Human.
Her skin prickles, but she can't quite grasp why.
The whole memory plays on without any disturbance. Little Tom reads. Older Tom watches him. Nothing happens, and it ends anticlimactically.
She almost misses when they transition back into the present, the returning warmth of the bonfire snapping her out of her daze. Tom puts another log on top of the fire and throws the nearly forgotten apple skin on top, too. Hermione watches him, tucking her knees up to her chest.
"It never bothered you? Being alone?" She asks after a while, staring at the dancing flames in front of her. Shadows flicker in different sizes and shapes to her feet.
"Why would it? Solitude only bothers you if you define yourself through the people around you." His words are casual, but the unbothered tone leaves a bad taste in Hermione's mouth, like sour milk.
"Still," she pushes, turning the words around in her mouth until they grow harder than intended, "I find it hard to imagine growing up without any kind of support. Ron, Harry, Ginny, Luna, Neville, even my parents to some extent - all of them helped to shape me into who I've become. I can always trust in them to guide me."
"I don't need anyone," Tom says, still without any kind of emotion. It annoys her, how easy it is for him to be alone. To feel alone. To live alone. To endure alone.
"Don't need or don't want?" She almost snaps at him, but stops and readjusts her tone just in time. Tom doesn't say anything. She huffs, too tired to wait for his answer. So tired. Exhausted to the point that a headache blooms. She closes her eyes and tries to get some sleep. Soon the night will swallow them again. Another morning, another memory.
"They're the same," she thinks she hears Tom murmur, low enough to miss. Maybe she imagined it. Maybe not. She feigns sleep long enough to eventually drift off.
