Tom was not one to reflect on dreams. At best his were dim and nonsensical; at worst they were morbid and grotesque. What united the ends of this bleak spectrum was that other human beings never figured positively in his dreams—not since the soppy ones he had of his mother when he was little—they were always either strangers or antagonists. It was thus a curious sensation that Tom felt when he woke up on Tuesday morning, and recalled with simultaneous outrage, curiosity, and longing, that which his subconscious had luridly crafted for him the night previous.

He sat with Hermione in a compartment of the Hogwarts Express, alone. There was no noise from any other compartment; the whole train seemed to be theirs. The window opened upon a moonlit vista that amalgamated a beach in Brighton, a painting of a city Tom had seen in the British Museum, and the spectacular night sky of Hogwarts into one infinitely sensual panorama that suffused the little compartment with romance.

Hermione sat facing him. Some nonsensical but affectionate words were exchanged, before Hermione graciously spread her arms like a swan unfurling its wings, or a mother inviting her long-estranged child into a hug. Tom rushed to embrace her at once, albeit to describe the feeling produced by the impact of her body upon his as an 'embrace' did it no justice; it was more of a melting, a dissipation, a communion. Tom's face sank into Hermione's snug, bulbous bosom, while his scrawny form, like a grubby twig being subsumed in pink foam, seemed to sink in the soft, strong pulp of the big girl's figure. He saw nothing but black, a total dark sublime, and was overcome both in sensation and emotion. She was so warm, so complete, so large. Tom could not believe that any boy in the universe could be as lucky as he was—even he who always supposed himself special—in that moment. He felt like a hatchling snug in its mother's nest, or a droplet of venom dissipating into an ocean of sugary black ink. Yet he was still just aware enough of his distinct person to implore of Hermione, "Will you let me hold on to you a little longer? Please?"

"You may hold me unto eternity if you'd like," she murmured with infinite tenderness.

Her answer could not have been more perfect. Like Moses dwelling in the certainty of God's revealed laws to him, Tom revelled in his embryonic assimilation to Hermione for a few more delicious minutes, before he suddenly realised he had yet to profit from the most exquisite part of her—her bottom. Still with his body engulfed in her embrace and his sight immersed in the darkness of her dress, Tom slowly let his hands trail down her back. He knew she would let him do anything to her—she was the antithesis of Mrs. Cole; her tolerance was infinite, and every antic of his would be met with sensible maternal chuckles. The big girl's back became softer and softer—Tom's trembling talon got closer and closer to that bulbous treasure chest which kept the secrets of life and pleasure—before he suddenly woke up.

"Riddle's soiled himself!" exclaimed Erebus Lestrange.

All four of Tom's dormmates had known each other from before Hogwarts, and for whatever reason they had tacitly elected Erebus Lestrange as their chief. A slim boy with dark curly hair, Lestrange looked like a lizard when he smiled. Tom, already loathing this self-satisfied reptile, looked down at his blanket and discovered a wet patch on his willy—he instantly drew the blanket to try and hide the disgrace—and in so doing discovered his right hand had been placed in a levitating bowl of warm water. It must have been done while he was asleep.

For the second day in a row, he had been the butt of a joke—but this one was much crueller than Hermione's. All the boys roared in laughter.

"Who put this here?!" Tom roared, grabbing the bowl of water. "Tell me at once or I'll set the room on fire!"

"Pray tell, Riddle, how does one conjure fire?" snickered Lestrange, unimpressed by his show of anger.

Tom was not used to other children defying him. He affected a calm voice. "You don't want to find out."

"We'd very much like to find out," jeered Corban Yaxley, a loutish boy with glossy blond hair.

All four boys leered sadistically at him. Tom knew his bluff was called. Having no choice but to act, he threw the bowl of water at Erebus Lestrange and charged at him.

This proved to be a bad move. No sooner had Tom pinned Erebus Lestrange to the ground than the other three boys wrenched him back up and pelted him with spells. Within moments his mouth drooled with viscous green muck, his stomach rumbled with his indigestion, and his legs felt like jelly. Four-on-one, Tom's assailants easily tied him to a bedpost by his wrists with ropes produced by their wands. Lestrange took Tom's wand—for a moment Tom looked in terror as he thought the loathsome prat would snap it—before it was merely thrown to the other side of the room.

"Untie me now! You'll be sorry if you don't!" Tom yelled in pure rage. Though he knew he was at the mercy of the other boys, he voluntarily entered into anger so that he would not be stricken by fear.

"Look at 'im," said Burton Avery, a short tanned boy who was always amused. "He's made a right mess o' himself."

"Never seen a piss stain so big," Corban Yaxley observed with an upturned nose. "Makes one wonder what his willy looks like under his knickers."

"Go to hell!" screeched Tom, trying to kick. His legs, magically slackened into jelly, failed him.

Hungering to slake his perverted curiosity, Yaxley grabbed Tom's grey pyjama trousers but Lestrange wrenched him back. "Let's not, Yax. I'd rather not turn my stomach before breakfast. Speaking of breakfast, Riddle, you shan't be having any. That's what you get for laying your mudblood hands on me."


"You're always so energetic on our first days back, Hermione," said Septimus Weasley. "It's unnerving, you know?"

"And you're always so cheerless on them, Timothy," Hermione rejoined with a smile.

The fifth year Gryffindors were harvesting the fangs of monstrously overgrown fanged geraniums in a greenhouse. Before summer, the greenhouse had hosted an eclectic variety of carnivorous plants; but the geraniums—overfed as they must have been by some dedicated, horticulturally competent prankster—had outgrown all the other plants and eaten them. Some of them had grown over three yards tall. Their buds, normally petite and well-formed, were now the size of bludgers and hellishly hideous. When they opened their flowers, you saw disjointed, stringy clusters of flesh possessed by demons that leered at you with their dead, dislocated maws.

"I'd be a little more cheery if Auror Pernickety here would drink his skele-gro," Septimus complained, unceremoniously whacking a closed geranium with his nursing bottle.

"Continue like that, and you'll get your fingers bitten off and become even less cheery."

"No finer way to end third-period herbology than a trip to the Hospital Wing."

Hermione rolled her eyes and snatched the nursing bottle from Septimus's hand.

"Let me show you how it's done."

To ensure that Septimus's hellebore syrup-sleeping draught concoction was properly blended, Hermione gave the bottle a thorough shake. Then, she gently applied the bottle teat first to the geranium bud, and with her free hand massaged its stem with regular motions, neither too hard to cause it fright, nor too soft as to be unfelt. Soon enough the bud unfurled its horrible flower and eagerly drank the sedative syrup.

"She sure makes it look easy," Septimus remarked to Balthasar Bell.

"Witches have the maternal instinct." Balthasar shrugged.

"I don't suppose wizards have the paternal instinct, by any chance?" asked Hermione, roughly shoving the bottle into Septimus' chest.

Balthasar made the obnoxious smile he made whenever he was about to say something annoying. "Not until we make little wizards we don't."

Hermione snorted in spite of herself, before shooting the laughing boys a glare and walking away. She returned to the corner of the greenhouse where a cluster of particularly large geraniums entwined in sleepiness, like the algaed coils of a shipwrecked frigate suspended lengthwise in some recess of the Atlantic Ocean. This part of the room had initially caught the interest of everyone; but none were able to wake the primal geraniums—and now there remained none but Camomile Brown and Hermione herself.

"I've harvested some of the smaller ones," said Camomile, showing Hermione her bucket of fangs. "No luck with any of them taller than a table."

"Have you tried rubbing their stalks with both hands? They'll need even more heat and pressure than the others."

"That I have. No upshot from it 'cept that my hands now smell like cheap perfume. Wish we were allowed to just slice them open."

Hermione took her friend's hand and pressed it to her face. It indeed scented like some fragrance that only the most garish witches would wear. Yet the hand itself was soft and warm and pleasant to touch, so its attendant aroma was quite tolerable. Not quite as warm as Hermione's own, but one never felt heat quite as acutely as when it came from others. "Oh, Cam—I've got an idea. Don't suppose you could hold a little incendio at the tip of your wand for a few seconds?"

"Alright," Camomile said with uncertainty. "Incendio."

A little yellow flame alighted on the tip of Camomile's wand. Hermione put her hands around it as closely as she could without burning herself. She felt sweat condense in her palms and the flame sharply lick at her skin every now and then. A knowing look came on Camomile's face; she dutifully kept her flame and said nothing.

Soon enough Hermione's hands felt like the underside of a steaming teapot. The pain made her grit her teeth, but she decisively snuffed Camomile's flame by closing her fist. Then, she courageously approached the tallest of the entwined somnolent pythons. It stood in front of all the others, a hibernating titan standing sentinel over its hibernating tribe.

"Brutus, thou sleep'st: awake and see thyself!" Hermione exclaimed as she vigorously ran her hands up and down the great girth of the snake's stalk. "Awake thee!"

Camomile raised her eyebrows at Hermione's prosodic ejaculations, but was far too used to her friend's antics to make any comment. Hermione continued madly churning the immense flower with her febrile hands. She fancied that she felt it pulsate—in an almost mammalian way—but after several minutes of toil the plant seemed not the slightest bit roused from its sleep.

"You'd best leave it," said Camomile. "The plant's too pigheaded for its own good. You'll spend the rest of the period looking like a twit if you go on like that."

Loathe as Hermione was to admit it, Camomile was right. She gave her comatose adversary one final glare and swore that she would come back for it, before moving to some smaller plants along its periphery. The pair of girls continued steadily with their work, and settled into an easy conversation cycling the topics of fifth-year curricula, fifth-year boys, Minister Fawley's wife, Professor Dumbledore's wife or lack thereof, anticipated visits to The Three Broomsticks in October, and whether Hermione should stay at Hogwarts or return home for Christmas. Class was nearly over, and Camomile eagerly looked forward to history of magic followed by lunch; or in her words 'nothing followed by nothing'.

Then, Hermione screamed with all her lungs. Something hard, heavy and spiky crashed into her bottom with the force of a cricket bat swung by a malicious strongman. Instinctively jumping forward, she found that whatever struck her had fastened itself into her, like a huge, magically empowered leech. It was the mammoth geranium she had failed to wake earlier. Indignant, horrified, and perplexed all at once, Hermione tried to shake herself free; but movement on her part seemed only to arouse the depraved flower's strength. Then, she drew her wand.

"Diffindo!"

The incantation was yelled and the charm was deadly effective. The twenty-pound bud of the pervert-flower was cleaved from its overgrown stem, and from the cross-section lesion dark bluish sap amply flowed to make a small puddle on the ground.

A small crowd had gathered around Hermione. Professor Beery, looking like a tired, emaciated Santa Claus in his vermilion robe, wearily pushed through the mass of fifth-year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws to investigate the scene. Hermione glared at one of the Ravenclaw boys staring intently at her feet, before she noticed that she stood upon dozens of large black shreds of uniform robe. Her heart skipped a beat. She placed her hands on her behind and found her robe tattered as though a dozen hungry rats had chewed through it.

Balthasar saw the sudden panic that came on Hermione's face and understood her misfortune at once. He took off his robe, sped towards her, and tied it around her waist to hide her shame.

"Are you alright, Miss Granger? Unharmed?" asked Professor Beery.

"I-I think so, sir."

"You'd better go back to your dormitory and mend your robe. Miss Brown, accompany her. The rest of you get back to work." With a snap of his fingers the professor summoned the decapitated geranium bud to his hand and examined it. "I must say this is very anomalous behaviour from fanged geraniaceae. They are not known for their predilection for human flesh."

Hermione knew that Professor Beery was eccentric rather than snide, but the wave of chortling that broke through the greenhouse mortified her nonetheless.

With Camomile patiently supporting her by the waist, Hermione limped back to their dormitory.

"Does it hurt?" asked Camomile as the pair of them sat on Hermione's bed.

"Only when I sit down or stand up. It's mostly numb. Makes me wonder if this is how you felt, getting hit by a bludger."

"Kind of. Would've dislocated my back if it were an inch to the left. I suppose it's lucky the geranium chose to munch on your arse of all things. Your adipose tissue would've borne the brunt of the impact."

Hermione was always surprised by quidditch players' developed understanding of anatomy. "But why did it choose to munch on my arse at all? Oh my god, Camomile. What am I going to do?! The whole school's going to hear about this. Tiberius's going to hear about this. They'll give me the worst sobriquets, oh I can already imagine it! Flower-bottom, Grangeranium—I would do well to forfeit my prefectship now wouldn't I? No one will ever respect me again."

"Oh hush, you great squalling merwoman," said Camomile, stifling laughter. "Everyone will forget in two weeks. A month at most. We both know that. McLaggen might even be aroused. Say, why don't you go take a bath and collect yourself. I'll fix up your robe."

This idea displeased Hermione; she hated disrupting her schedule for any whatsoever reason. Baths were supposed to be had at night, after Camomile and before Thea. But Hermione supposed that getting her knickers chewed apart by an overgrown magical plant wasn't an event that was ever supposed to happen, and decided that exceptional measures had to be taken for exceptional circumstances.

"Alright. I'll leave my clothes just outside the door."

In the bathroom, Hermione examined her nude figure before the mirror. She had theorised that the geranium attacked her bottom merely because it sought the warmest part of her body. Turning around to examine the part in question in the mirror, Hermione found that none of her wounds were severe—besides the imprints and scratch marks left by individual fangs, her bum just looked very red, as though it had been spanked multiple times. Healing herself, Hermione began to frown at her reflection. Her shape was more mature than she thought it was. She remembered being pleased with the relative narrowness of her hips just last year. They had expanded against all natural and aesthetic principles over the course of the summer, which was odd, because she ate better at Hogwarts than at home. Perhaps it was just that the entirety of her butt was swollen from the geranium's attack. She knew such a diagnosis was ridiculous but considered it within the realms of possibility to give herself some hope. She recalled the perplexity she felt as a child, contemplating the largeness and roundness of the figures of adult women—but now she knew she was only a few years from physiologically becoming her mother—who was, albeit not plump, not lithe either. Hermione wanted to be lithe.

She sullenly turned away from the mirror, and pointed her wand at the tap with the enamelled lion to fill her bathtub up three-quarters with boiling water, before casting aguamenti thrice to fill it to the brim. She sank into the tub and exhaled in pleasure. At least for the next half-hour, none of her troubles would matter.

When she entered the Great Hall for lunch, Hermione was afraid that everyone would look at her. Reality relieved her; only the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors took notice of her at all. Indifferent to the opinions of the pretentious anoraks that belonged to the former, she saw that on her own table most of the younger students were too abashed to look directly at her. Only the sixth and seventh years dared stare straight at her, and most of them stared with compassionate amusement.

Among the sixth-years, Tiberius McLaggen stood up and walked to Hermione, who was simultaneously trying to neither blush nor stare at the floor. She had, ever since the older boy asked her for help with a transfiguration essay a year ago, considered Tiberius McLaggen—with his sportsman's frame, curly golden hair, and proactive disposition—the perfect physical and temperamental incarnation of Gryffindor.

"'Afternoon, Hermione," the heroic sixth-year boys' prefect said in his steady tenor. "I hope you're doing well."

"I'm doing very well, very very well, McLa—Tiberius," she blurted. "How are you doing? Excited to see the new quidditch prospects next Thursday?"

Hermione cursed herself for speaking so awkwardly. If she just spoke the way she did to Balthasar or Septimus—

"We only got to get a chaser to support Aldrich and your girl Brown. Shouldn't be hard to find one. I'm more excited for the tryouts of other houses. It gets the juices flowing to see one's enemies and plot their downfall."

"Nothing better," agreed Hermione. "I love to see my enemies weep and gnash their teeth."

"I wouldn't go far as to say that." Tiberius let out a sonorous laugh that sounded like a summer afternoon. "Say, Hermione, I don't suppose you're free next Saturday are you?"

"Oh, of course! I mean, I should be—unless the Head Boy requires anything of me."

As Hermione said this, something skimmed against her bottom—she jumped back and made an unbecoming squeal.

Ignatius Prewett, a third-year boy predisposed to inappropriate pranks and neglecting his homework, held a conjured rose in his hand and wore a smirk on his face; around him his club of admirers cackled in irreverent delight. Hermione glared at the miscreant, snatched his flower, and vanished it in a puff of fire.

Tiberius McLaggen apparently considered Hermione's punishment insufficient, for he took Prewett's head and smashed it into his bowl of stew. All the other third-years ceased laughing at once; every boisterous Gryffindor boy worshipped their Quidditch Captain—and to see their God violently dunk their prophet's crown into a crucible of beef bourguignon made them very penitent.

"Let him go, Tiberius," Hermione said concernedly. "You'll suffocate him."

Tiberius relented with reluctance, gave Prewett another slap on the head, and then turned to Hermione with a strangely condescending smile. "I shall see you next Saturday then. Be at the Quidditch Pitch at four."

Hermione made her way to her portion of the table. She walked quickly but kept a wary eye out for mischievous boys and conjured flowers. Seating herself between Camomile and Balthasar, she announced, "I believe Tiberius McLaggen just asked me out on a date."

"It was only a matter of time Hermione dear, you're too lovely," purred Camomile. "Where, when, and how do you feel?"

"Next Saturday, at the Quidditch Pitch but we're going to Hogsmeade, and—to be frank—I'm not terribly excited."

"How come? You've only pined after him for the last year and a half."

"I don't know. I suppose I shall tell you when I understand myself," Hermione said with a shrug. "Say, what did I miss out on history of magic?"

"I wasn't aware you could miss out on history of magic," scoffed Septimus.

"Are you having a laugh?" asked Balthasar. "Today's topic was more capital than anything we had in fourth year. Fourteenth and fifteenth century Wizengamot families. Some of them were completely mental. The Gaunts for instance—supposedly the last descendants of ol' Sally Slytherin himself—bred themselves out of existence because they only bred with each other. Every generation was more lecherous than the next, till magic itself no longer tolerated their lechery."

But Septimus did not care about the Gaunts, thank you very much, nor the Stabschmidts, nor the Morgans, nor the Malinterants—mediaeval magical history was the worst because everything was small, parochial, familial; only ancient and modern history was interesting. To Balthasar, ancient and modern history were like commercial brooms—fast and flashy and glossed attractively—whereas mediaeval history offered something truly exquisite and culturally real. But Balthasar you idiot, asserted Septimus, modern brooms are faster.

Hermione was about to interject into the boys' asinine argument—but then she saw Tom Riddle enter the Great Hall. He came in alone, sombre, pale, and guarded. Clearly he had not made any friends—if he had been in Gryffindor he would have made friends—and Hermione had an idea of why he missed breakfast. She clenched her fists in indignation and looked at him with a pitifulness diluted by wrath. She had considered her humiliation at herbology horrible, but now thought herself petulant—she was a fifth year prefect who had suffered a comical misadventure in the presence of friends—Tom was a little boy who languished among more powerful creatures who hated him for the blood in his veins. The muggle middle class abhorred Tom because he reminded them of their hypocrisy; and now his very own housemates hated him because he reminded them that blood wasn't everything. Hermione wanted to run up to him, take him in her arms, and turn him into a Gryffindor by dint of pure affection. But she knew she could not do that. Yet she had to do something. She could not let him—whose darling little self, well-kempt but gloomy, had kept her company for the entirety of her ride to Hogwarts three days ago—suffer any longer, now that his suffering was confirmed to her. The least she could do was supply him with a friend; and why not herself?

"Cam, I need a sheet of parchment, pass it on," Hermione whispered.

Camomile nodded. She whispered to the fourth-year boy to the left of her, who in turn carried the message to the boy next to him. In three minutes Hermione had her parchment. In lieu of a quill, she drew her wand and wrote in big, cumbersome letters:

Meet me in the library after classes? I shall be happy to show you around.

H.G

She folded the parchment into an aeroplane, tapped it with her wand, and made it fly to the Slytherin table.