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Chapter 1 and 2 have been revamped, redone, and updated to fit the current story. I had yet to work it in properly in transferring it over from a Dramione fic to a Tomione (what it is now), so I took the time to retype them and make them more suitable for this story. ALSO, the first chapter contains the ACTUAL prophecy that was discovered. Yes, the word for word originally written prophecy that wasn't revealed previously. You'll will find that the new Chapter 1 will clear up some confusion and questions so PLEASE read it as to save me some time in having to not re-work it in in the future.
Summary: GO REREAD CHAPTER ONE & TWO FOR MORE GOODIES!
A/N:
Now, with much excitement, I am glad to bring you chapter 15 of Cobras and Canaries. I haven't worked on it for quite sometime, or simply how much I've wanted to, so now that I've got my college schedule under control, I am going to be posting a 5000+ word chapter at least once every week to two weeks at the most. I would like to aim for each week, but I know that things can get hectic, so I am giving myself a leniency (and you guys a heads up).
Also, in this chapter I have given Hermione a confidence boost I feel is vital to the story. It's a new change I think will make the story progress easier.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy!
-VS
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, the characters, locations, or cleverness. It all belongs to the wonderful J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. Studios.
The light was bright. It shone about the room in a flurry of vivid white and gold. She was looking up to the sky. She heard laughter pouring from the light, and then she heard a thousand voices at once. They all spoke to her, saying her name. Some were loud, some were soft. Some were distressed, some were joyous. All voices she recognized in one form or another.
She heard Harry's voice shouting to hear from beyond the veil, almost inviting her over to join him. She heard Ron calling her over as well. Ginny's laughter chimed in. Her mother started speaking softly to her. Her father quietly chiding her for something frivolous she had done as a child. Dumbledore, McGonagall, Fred and George, Luna—everyone began speaking at once, calling to her.
Then the voices she recognized but couldn't place a finger on came—voices she felt she had heard long ago, thousands of times, but never could seem to remember. She lifted a hand up to shield her eyes from the growing brightness.
"Hello?" Hermione called out.
"Listen closely and you shall find me soon enough. With eyes only, not all truths will you see."
"Who are you?"
Hermione received no response as the light faded to darkness and the voices hushed all at once. She looked around. Hermione heard soft sounds in the distance and began to walk forward.
"Hello?" Her feet took her nowhere but further into the same darkness.
She then felt something rise up behind her, sending shivers through her body. Her eyes grew wide as she felt the presence grow higher and higher. She was too afraid to move.
Apprehensively she turned around slowly as her eyes traveled up to the creatures yellow orbs.
Wide-mouthed and eyes agape, she turn to stone.
Hermione jolted awake drenched in sweat, breathing heavily. Her curtains were still drawn around her bed—just as she had left them the night before. She peeked out and around the room.
Everything was silent and Aviela laid still. Dawn had yet to break. In the half-light of the moon, Hermione looked up at the wall clock that ticked ominously. The time read 4:21.
She thought of home. Would the time be the same there as it is now decades ago? Or was her time stream simply on hiatus? Dumbledore hadn't been too clear. Regardless, she wished to waste no time in returning from this impossible mission.
Hermione could feel her restlessness growing. She slowly climbed out of bed as to not make any noise. She quietly rummaged her wardrobe for her uniform before pulling her school robes on over her knee-length gown. She grabbed her school bag and stuffed the change of clothes inside and slid on her slippers. Nyoka slid out from the crack in the wall and toward the young Ravenclaw as she hissed a brief good morning. Hermione lifted her easily and placed her inside the folds of her robe without saying a word.
She stepped and the floor creaked. Aviela rolled in her bed mumbling something in her sleep. Hermione cringed hoping not to wake her. They had not spoken since yesterday's incident at Hogsmeade, and although Hermione wasn't angry, she didn't wish to have Aviela splurging unnecessary apologies to her this early. She casted a silencing charm around her and continued out the door and down the steps quietly.
She entered the Ravenclaw common room and saw a boy sitting on one of the couches near the fireplace reading a book. Hermione was curious as to what a student was doing up so early, though she was sure they would be wondering that about her in a few moments. Trying not to disturb the student she walked by.
"Hermione?" she heard the voice of Christopher. She turned around to see the lanky, blond-haired boy sitting in striped pajamas with a dark blue robe thrown over him holding a closed book, his thumb marking the spot.
"Good morning, Christopher."
He quirked his head to the side and held up his hand to his ear. She still was under her silencing spell. She rolled her eyes at her own stupidity before waving her wand, removing the spell.
"I said 'good morning, Christopher'," she laughed slightly.
"Ah, good morning," he said stifling a yawn, "what are you doing up so early? It's a Sunday."
"I could ask you the same. You seem exhausted," Hermione said with concern.
"I couldn't sleep," he said as he waved his thumbed book in the air.
"So I see. I couldn't either. I am just off to take a shower," she said simply.
Christopher's face reddened slightly. Although he had warmed up to Hermione more over the past few weeks at Hogwarts, he still tended to shy away or get embarrassed easily during situations.
"Well, uh… make sure you stay safe out there. Hogwarts gets pretty creepy at night, you know?" Christopher said as he awkwardly cleared his throat. "And besides, I don't think anyone but prefects are allowed out before five in the morning."
"Thanks, but I'll be alright. I'll see you and Aviela at breakfast." She bade him farewell before casting a silencing charm over herself once more and walking through the door.
Christopher watched her walk through the archway before flipping his book back over to the front cover and placing a small piece of parchment inside. He slid The Purposes and Policies of Dark Magic back on the shelves before he walked back up to his dorm and crawled into bed.
Hermione continued down the winding stair case, the scones holding torches that lit her way. She then followed a path down the hall that she had come accustomed to and began to make headway for the girls' showers and bathing quarters.
Unlike most muggle schools, Hogwarts and the ability to use magic allowed for them to make the area spacious, sectioned off, and private, giving the students a choice of 30 closed-door bathing rooms that contained a shower, a large bathtub, and a mirror that was magically charmed so it wouldn't fog. At any given time, the shower rooms were usually never full due to two separate quarters being available for both male and female—not including the prefects. This allowed two houses of Hogwarts to "share" one quarter while the remaining two would share the other. Because of this, the quarters were placed evenly in between floors of where the houses were located.
Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs shared two quarters: one for males and one for females. Then, Ravenclaws and Slytherins shared two quarters in the same respect, but because of this, Hermione had to travel down a few floors from the high-up Ravenclaw towers, and nearer to the Slytherin dungeons.
As she walked through the hallways and descended down steps, she pulled her robe tighter around her, shielding her from the chill that had settled in the halls as autumn had finally arrived in full swing. The halls began darken and Hermione cast the familiar lighting spell allowing the tip of her wand to glow dimly. Although she had the silencing charm still cast over her in full effect, she glanced around nervously; even though it was nearly five, it was still considered after hours and she wished not to be given detention by a prefect hoping to snag some early morning students. Also, what Christopher said was true. Hogwarts did have a very creepy, mystifying factor about it before the sun rose each day. Maybe she felt that way more so than usual because she wasn't as quite familiar with the Hogwarts of this time; or maybe it was because she knew of what was stirring deep beneath the belly of the school.
Hermione shivered slightly at the thought of the basilisk slumbering in its chambers, or perhaps slithering throughout the large drain pipes. She wondered particularly how Riddle went about finding its location and making conversation with it. Either way, she was sure it wouldn't be too much longer before she found out.
Hermione descended another set of steps. Almost there. Then she heard the sound of loafers clicking against the floor. In a flurry of panic Hermione saw a familiar painting. A set of slumbering men sat around a table of fallen cards in the portrait. She quickly casted a silencing spell on the picture, opened it quickly—disrupting the slumbering inhabitants—and dashed inside before closing it once more. Breathing heavily she walked quickly down the narrow corridor to reach the last floor.
"Hello? Is someone there?" A male's voice called out. Hermione gasped and snuffed out her wand. She stood still waiting for the prefect to catch her any moment.
"Did you honestly have to take that light away? It has been dark down here for far too long and frankly I am getting sick of it," the voice inquired once more.
Hermione's brow furrowed and she waved her wand again, allowing the light to grace the tip of her wand once more, but brighter this time.
"Ah. Much better."
She winced at the light and followed the source of the voice until she stood before a painting. She lowered her wand from view so she could view the subject of the portrait.
"Hello, there," the man smiled crookedly at her, his hair caught in an ever flowing breeze and his gray irises lighting up even brighter under the luminescence of her wand. She removed the silencing spell from her.
"A-Alphard Corvus," Hermione said incredulously. His painting was unmoving—frozen in her time. How could it be "alive?" Or more importantly, how or why did it become frozen in her time?
"If this plaque wouldn't have been present below my portrait, I would assume there would be a glimmer of hope that you actually knew of me," he laughed sadly.
Despite being confused, Hermione felt slightly sorry for the young man. She had truly never heard of him.
"I-I'm sorry. I don't know of you…" she trailed off as the young man began to lean out of frame, as though hoping to search for a nearby portrait to travel into despite none being on this section of wall. "But," she paused and he stopped, "I would like to."
He smiled and his eyes narrowed slightly as he sized her up.
"When divulging my secrets to the students who eventually came along, I had hoped they would be a bit more… I don't know, imposing, exciting, and powerful—not a girl dressed in a night gown," he said shrugging slightly.
"What's wrong with girls and night gowns?" Hermione felt slightly insulted by the portrait's accusations based solely on her appearance.
"Nothing, I just don't find either of them to be quite what I had in mind when finally speaking with a student," he said aloofly.
"Well… fine then. Find someone else to divulge your secrets to," Hermione said sharply as she turned on her heel to leave.
Hermione felt Nyoka writher around in her pockets.
"Miss Hermione, I do think that you should listen to him…" Nyoka hissed to the young woman through her robes.
"And why is that?" Hermione whispered back mockingly.
"Because I, too, am a parseltongue," The man announced to her retreating form, causing Hermione to stop in her tracks.
She spun on her heel and cocked her head at the portrait of the man who had his arms crossed and only partially out of view now.
"But how—?"
"Magical portraits capture the essence of the subject do they not? Well, being a Speaker is an essence of me—a part of me," he reasoned.
Hermione couldn't help but take note that he had said Speaker just as Nyoka had called the parseltongues of old when they had first met.
"What is it that you wish me to know?" Hermione asked the portrait.
He laughed heartily at her response, leaving Hermione slightly annoyed and nearly wishing he would go back to being the unmoving, handsome man in her time.
"It's not what I want you to know, but why. But if you must know the what, then it is everything," he said simply.
"Everything?"
"Yes, everything. I wish you to know everything," he said waving his hand.
"Why?"
"Ah! And there it is! The why will come later, when you find out everything. Then it'll be the who, then the how, then the why again."
"I have no clue what you're talking about. You're mad. The dust must be getting to you," Hermione shook her head and huffed incredulously at the portrait. He just laughed.
"It's simple: I tell you everything, then you ask questions, I answer them, and then you ask more questions," he stated slowly.
"All right," Hermione sat down with her legs crossed, "let's get started."
The man stared at her, head tilted, and then began laughing again. Hermione brushed a hand through her curls and sighed in frustration.
"If it were that simple, I would have already spoken to and told a student by now."
"So, what's the catch?"
"The catch is—" Then the portrait froze.
"Hello?" Hermione waver her hand in front of the portrait before resulting to tapping it. It was indeed unmoving. Her brow furrowed. This is… unusual.
"Miss Hermione, I do believe it's getting late—or early, rather," Nyoka said, bringing Hermione back to reality.
"Oh, right," Hermione remembered why she had left the Ravenclaw commons and headed toward the direction of her exit.
A she exited the portrait of the sleeping dragon, she was met with slight rays of light that began to flitter through the hall with the rising of the sun. Hermione hung on the portrait for a moment, thoughtful. She smiled slightly. So that's the catch… daylight. Even though the sunlight didn't reach the portrait, it was daytime. That was Alphard's catch; he could only move during night hours. But what about the event in which she had entered the passageway in her own time at night? The portrait was unmoving then despite the sun being far from risen.
She remained thoughtful of her conversation she had had with the portrait. She was unsure of why his portrait was hidden and why he was restricted by the sun, but she vowed silently to visit him as soon as possible and find out what it is he wants her to know… and why, who, how, and why again.
After Hermione had finished her shower, dressed, and headed back up to her dorm to place her nightclothes back in her trunk, she found that Aviela had woken. She practically dove onto Hermione in sobs, apologizing for yesterday's incident and for embarrassing her. Hermione worked hard not to allow Aviela to crush the serpent that was Nyoka within her robe's pockets. She chided Aviela and told her it was okay, and not to worry, offering her a smile. After Aviela calmed, she continued on to tell Hermione about the rest of her time at Hogsmeade. After the conversation, Hermione fidgeted uncomfortably.
"Aviela, I have a slight favor to ask of you," Hermione said remorsefully in thoughts of the words Riddle had spat at her the day before.
"Sure, anything!" Aviela practically edged to the end of her four-poster to hear what Hermione had to say, making it all the more worse.
"The first meeting for the Slug Club is today and I am not exactly sure what to wear…" Hermione had barely finished the sentenced before Aviela jumped up, grabbing her silk robe, and tied it expertly around her like a doctor suiting up to go to work.
"Say no more! I have the perfect outfit. I've seen a lot of the students going during their first meeting; dressy casual. It won't be as formal next round, but they do have the Slug Club Ball for students in the club and their dates. Oh, how I've dreamed of attending. I've heard that the food is ten times better than most individualized social events because Slughorn pays for the food out of his own pocket," Aviela continued her ramblings as she searched the closet opposite her bed for the outfit in mind. Hermione, too, had a closet but she had never seen the need for it as all her clothes were worn-in and were unlikely to wrinkle or wear further from her admissions.
Aviela pulled out a sleek black, flared skirt that was a bit shorter than the calf length skirts Hermione had been wearing and a light pink cardigan that buttoned in the center and ruffled slightly at the sleeves.
"I wore this to my cousin's birthday a year or so back, but I haven't worn it since, you're more than welcome to keep it." Aviela offered the clothing items to Hermione.
"Are you sure?" Hermione truly didn't need it, but she felt that turning the gift away would be insulting.
"Positive! I'll go through more of my things later and see if I can't find something I think you would love," the small, blond-haired girl grinned broadly. Aviela had been far too generous to her already. She had never truly had a girl friend that she was close to aside from Ginny. It was nice to have that feeling back once more.
"Thank you, Aviela. I appreciate it, I truly do," Hermione said in earnest.
Aviela dove and gave Hermione a hug, momentarily squishing Nyoka.
"Any time, Hermione! But I am off to get ready for the day, I'll see you at breakfast soon." Aviela grabbed a few of her things and shoved them in a bag before leaving for the bathing quarters.
Hermione sat still for a moment and sighed.
"Something wrong, Miss Hermione?" Nyoka asked as she slithered to uncoil herself from the uncomfortable position she had been shoved into moments earlier.
"No, nothing really. I'm just tired…" Tired of pretending.
"Well, hopefully you will get more rest tonight."
Hermione laughed. The snake could speak, but it was no mind reader.
"Yeah, probably not. Would you mind…?"
"Staying here and about the castle while you go tend to your slug nonsense? I think I can manage," Nyoka hissed as she exited Hermione's robes and slithered up her fore arm, wrapping herself around it.
"You are getting quite big, you know. Before long I am going to have to enchant my pocket." Hemione turned her arm about, examining the snake.
"Or I could always rest upon your shoulder," Nyoka insisted. For a snake to rest upon its master's shoulders was the highest honor and respect a familiar of their caliber could be given.
"Yeah, not happening. I can't let you be seen, or we would both be in big trouble."
"At least I took a chance. Perhaps someday."
"Yeah. Someday," Hermione said thoughtfully.
As the afternoon came to a close and the evening was looming before her, Hermione stood before the mirror in her dorm, dressing herself in Aviela's clothes. The skirt fit her nicely and the cardigan flattered her hourglass figure. She chose a pair of black tights and flats to wear with the outfit. She then opened her nightstand and pulled out a rhinestone clip. She pulled back and twisted a piece of hair to the side before securing it firmly.
This was probably the best she had looked since she arrived. She had found it fun to dress up on occasion before and prized herself on looking neat and well put together, but since she had traveled and had only a limited wardrobe and funds, she hadn't bothered to put much effort into her appearance. Part of her held an uncaring stance on wasting her time in front of the mirror as well. At this point, she felt the time was something she needed to waste the least.
She allowed herself this moment to twirl in front of the mirror, smiling slightly, enjoying feeling put together—whole. But Hermione knew all too well that this did not come from simply appearance, but heart and spirit as well. She had been uncomfortable in her skin for the first four years she spent at Hogwarts. It was only until the past year or so that she begun to accept and love herself, despite her many flaws; most that couldn't be fixed with dentistry.
She chuckled at the notion that she once had in which she thought her parents were miracle workers. They came close in her mind at least.
Ready to go to attend her first meeting as a Slug Club member, she took a deep breath, said goodbye to Nyoka who slithered into a whole within the floor, and headed out the door.
Hermione passed by the common room and a few students seemed to turn their heads ever so slightly. This Hermione was different. It wasn't just the clothes, however. She walked a little taller, smiled a little wider, and shined a little brighter.
Aviela passed her in the hall and grinned. She knew that she had done more than simply given Hermione clothes. She had given her a new attitude; a bit of pep in her step. She couldn't be happier to have helped either.
Hermione continued making her way to her destination, her confidence mounting. She finally reached the room in which the meeting was to be held and entered.
The room held a bounty of silver streamers that stretched across the ceiling. There were any number of different colored balloons that had floated to the top of the room. The lighting was casual and table in the distance was covered with a pristine white cloth. Two serving tables rested on either sides of the room for students to help themselves before the main course. Hermione was quite sure this wasn't a constant, but rather a celebration of sorts, marking the first meeting of the semester.
The students milled about, some had already taken their seats among the large, round table in the room. The attire was just as Aviela had said and she fit right in. Around the room she noticed anywhere from twenty to twenty five students—ranging in age, but most appeared to be around fourth years or up. The number of members was slightly larger than that of her time, but still exclusive nonetheless. She saw a young McGonagall off in the corner to her left enjoying the appetizer table and chatting with some students. To her right she caught sight of Abraxas and Riddle conversing. Abraxas wore smooth, black trousers with a white button up and emerald tie, while Riddle wore black pants and a fitted tweed jacket with the Slytherin logo on the breast pocket. Both of their brows were furrowed in frustration as they continued to converse. Hermione couldn't tell if it was at one another or an object that wasn't present, until they turned their heads.
Abraxas' mouth fell open slightly and even Riddle seemed momentarily surprised by her more put together self, but his brow remained knitted, causing Hermione to conclude that the conversation had to have been about her. By this time, many of the students had seen her and began talking in hushed tones. She wouldn't blame them. In the past month she had neglected herself, but this was a first step toward normalcy—toward moving forward in accepting herself and her path.
Abraxas left Riddle standing near the refreshments while he came over to greet Hermione.
"You look lovely, Hermione. I am glad you could make it," Abraxas smiled as he kissed her hand gently.
"Thank you, Abraxas," she said with a slight grin as she accepted his offer to take her arm and guide her throughout the room. As the crossed the floor she couldn't help but notice the unsightly piano music playing in the background. It reminded her of something she had heard at her great aunt's funeral once. "Is the music always this…?"
"Boring? Drab? Unearthly?" Abraxas questioned as Hermione giggled into her hand. "The Slug Club can get a bit dull at times, but we find ways to… liven it up." With that Abraxas sneakily turned out his wand and waved it in the air. Suddenly, the slow piano music was replaced with a fast-paced type of swing music that was native to the wizarding world—and popular she would assume from the whoops of approval as students crowded the open areas of the floor to dance.
Abraxas began to tug on her hand gently shouting over the music, "Do you dance?"
"Not in the least," she laughed heartily.
"Neither do I!" In a rush, he pulled her onto the dance floor. She was absolutely unfamiliar with this style of dance, but Abraxas knew enough for them to stumble along with the rest of the crowd. Hermione couldn't contain her laughter as he spun her around. As she turned, she caught sight of Riddle standing off to the side, arms crossed, looking almost uncomfortable. She relinquished herself of Abraxas for a moment, leaving him to dance with a Hufflepuff girl whom she allowed to take over, before making her way over to Riddle.
She stopped in front of him.
"Come on, Riddle, let's dance," Hermione said in between breaths from the exhausting dance. Had she not been on a high from the rush of energy, the music, and her confidence, she would have double checked her actions before she asked the future Dark Lord to dance with her. But at this point, she didn't even care.
He looked at her as though she had grown a second head.
"Areyou mentally ill?" He scoffed.
"Quite. So will you dance with me or not," Hermione asked again before she stuck out her hand to the young man.
"You're damned near foolish if you think I'll get out there and dance like some primate."
"So you can't dance?" Hermione smirked, although she knew she was playing with fire, her inhibitions had gone out the window with the piano music.
Riddle's nostrils flared. It clearly agitated him for someone to tell him he could not do something. And that is just what he needs; a little something to bring him back down to earth. Hermione thought.
"What I can and cannot do is not limited to your assumptions. Whether I choose to dance is my choice, and right now, I choose not to," Riddle said through clenched teeth trying to seem as civil as possible in the public setting. Hermione would hate to have seen what things would have escalated to at this point had they been alone.
"Oh, come on, Riddle. I could use a dance partner," Hermione agitated him with a smirk, knowing his frustrations would only grow. She glanced down at Riddle's hand twitching toward the pocket of his black trousers. His wand.
In a flurry of panic, Hermione allowed her wand to fall from her sleeve and held it expertly, pointing it toward him like a snake ready to strike if he even dared to moved. He disarmed her wandlessly and silently, sending her wand scuttling across the room and into the floor, rolling under the appetizer table. Some of the students began to take note of the exchange, including Abraxas who looked on with concern in between spins.
"Oh, sod it…" Riddle said informally as he gripped Hermione's wrist painfully, almost dragging her to the floor. At this point, she no longer wished to dance, but fight Riddle. Although she had been prodding at him, she hadn't expected him to nearly pull his wand on her. How quickly he was to settle the matter with violence unsettled Hermione.
Once on the dance floor, Riddle turned and jerked her about just as expertly as any of the other male dancers on the floors. He then pulled her close, taking her breath away with a slight squeak. Her heart pounded as she struggled to keep up—whether it was from the quick movements or the sudden closeness to the young, dangerous Slytherin she could not tell. Senses heightened, she was aware of everything: the whoosh of the air going past her, Riddle's strong hand that pulled hers as they spun, the frequent gracing of his fingers upon the small of her back ever so slightly, it was all becoming too much to handle at once, so instead, she tried to focus on his face.
Although his feet seemed at place on the dance floor, his face wasn't; his face was impassive and he looked bored with it all. They made eye contact for a moment as he spun her around once more. During that time, she felt a slight prickling at the edges of the walls of her mind before a force flooded through. Hermione felt him quickly beginning to rifle through her thoughts and only allowed him to see what she thought wasn't detrimental: a snippet of her sneaking down a corridor at night through an unmarked passage, a snake slithering up her arm in a dark cellar, falling from a great height before smacking the wet ground, four imposing statues in a half-lit room, and then something she didn't remember; the tail-end of a voice saying, "with eyes only, not all truths will you see." Then, Riddle was abruptly ripped from her thoughts as Hermione procured her strong barriers once more.
As the song quickly came to an end just as it begun, he dipped her dangerously close to the floor before pulling her back to his chest. Everyone stood around them clapping, clearly impressed by Riddle's unknown prowess and the intensity of the dance. Abraxas' eyes were nearly bugging out of his head.
Hermione, too dizzy from both the sudden intrusion of her mind and the dance, she couldn't manage to bring her full frustration together, instead she settled with looking up at Riddle. She felt his heart thudding heavily in his chest.
"So, you can dance," Hermione spat at him breathlessly.
"I never said I couldn't, just that I preferred not to. You'd be surprised by what I am capable of doing if you'd allow yourself more than just to open your eyes, Miss Sivad," Riddle stated quietly with frustration, his face flushed; Hermione did not miss the dark undertone his words held. Was this a threat or an invitation to…?
"Well wasn't that something!" Slughorn said joyously from the front of the room, clapping his hands together quickly as another swing track began playing in the background. "I assumed you kids might've found this music too stimulating so I thought we might steer from it, but as I can see, you students could use a little de-stressing, eh?"
Hermione and Riddle, quickly realizing their proximity, nearly shoved one another apart.
"Such passion in your dance! I think I picked my pairings quite well," Slughorn said with a wink to the two of them.
Hermione blushed furiously at what he was implying and Riddle simply sighed and rolled his eyes.
"I honestly have no time for such frivolities, Professor, you know that. A dance is nothing more than a dance just as a potion is nothing more than a potion," Riddle said simply to Slughorn.
"A potion is never just a potion, Tom, it requires many ingredients, ground and mixed in different ways, then brewed for different amounts of time, and it can always be tweaked ever so slightly," Slughorn said as he accentuated each part with the enthusiasm only a potion's master could have.
"Perhaps so, sir," Riddle regarded him with respect.
"All right! Now if all students would kindly take their seats, we shall begin the evening's meal and discuss," Slughorn announced as he lifted the needle off the record player, killing off the swing music and the lively mood with it.
"So what do we discuss?" Hermione whispered to Abraxas as the students began milling about once more.
"Nothing worth discussing, that's for sure," Abraxas said out of the corner of his mouth.
Groaning inwardly, Hermione grabbed her wand from under the table and relinquished it into her sleeve once more before taking her place beside Abraxas, allowing him to successfully divide her and Riddle.
The following week had went by without incident. Riddle had avoided her as much as she had attempted to avoid him. In class, neither made a move to start casual conversation. Hermione felt violated from his mind reading he had done while dancing and he had felt mortified from having to dance in the first place. All she could be thankful for was the fact that she had reacted in enough time to steer him clear of her most private and personal thoughts—the ones vital to the mission. She suddenly became familiar of the cold burning on her breast from the time turner. Although, she couldn't help but wonder about the last thought he had pulled from her. She also couldn't place a finger as to where it had come from either, meaning it had to be a product of a wiped memory—or most likely—a dream.
She hadn't had a vivid, memorable dream since the first she had experienced after arriving to Hogwarts when she passed out and awoke with different colored eyes in the infirmary in her own time. Did that mean that she was having vivid dreams but simply could not remember them? This unsettled Hermione. The words clearly had a message or meaning—just as her first dream was symbolic. What other dreams could she possibly be having without knowledge of their intent or meanings? She did not know, but she was determined to find out somehow.
She had also yet to visit the painting of the unusual being that was its subject: Alphard Corvus. Their conversation had hardly left off on a complete note after he was cut off with the rising of the sun, but she was hopeful that she could manage to sneak away from the Ravenclaw commons, her studies, and the omnipresent Riddle to speak with Alphard once more.
Later in the week, Hermione had managed to make some conversation with Riddle in potions class. They had decided to start on the project that following Monday, or in Riddle's words, she "must have simply been incapable of doing it without him." Letting him think what he wanted to she was content that they finally agreed on a time to begin; she was almost sure that they were behind already. She knew they would have to bring up the topic of what his possible invitation meant and on her anger at him reading her mind—but that could wait another day.
Hermione marched into the dining hall one evening; the students already seated and feasting. She looked about the room at the various students chatting and devouring the food before them, then she saw none other than Rubeus Hagrid sitting near the front of the Gryffindor table. She could tell he was much by himself as there was plenty of room around him. He looked down with a slight frown as he picked at the food on his plate. She drew a deep breath.
With her recently adopted devil may care attitude, Hermione surpassed her usual seating at the Ravenclaw table, and ventured down the center of the divided tables with purpose in her step. By the time she had passed the halfway marker between the tables, much of the chatting had ceased to interested murmurs and even the staff were watching her with intent. Hermione paid them no mind as she veered off to left and sat down across Hagrid, her blue-lined robes standing out in a sea of red and gold.
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, hands crossed, nearly chuckling at her guile and the students' reactions. They acted like they assumed it was border, and if crossed, they would be electrocuted or hexed. The students were always given the choice to sit where they chose, but none had ever strayed—at least not until now.
Riddle had watched her curiously. Like the other students, he too couldn't help but be somewhat shocked at her actions. Just when he thought he had her figured out, she became another matter entirely. Another ingredient added, another tweak to the potion that was Hermione Sivad.
Aviela smirked in the distance at the curly-headed girl who had become her friend. She knew this girl was gutsy, but now she was sure Hermione was one hell of a rebel.
The students of the Great Hall—as well as a confused Rubeus Hagrid—continued to watch Hermione as she quietly reached over and grabbed a plate, piling it with her favorites: mashed sweet potatoes, a biscuit, broccoli, and some carved turkey. She then folded a napkin neatly in her lap before picking up her utensils.
"So how was your day, Rubeus? Mine was great," she smiled to the half-giant as she began eating and telling him about her day—not giving the slightest damn of what anyone else would think.
A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. The next should be up in a week or so at most! Feel free to review, favorite, follow, or even message me with any questions you may have! I will admit, seeing people review does let me know if I am heading in the direction readers would enjoy (also, they give me a confidence boost to write the next chapter sooner)! But, until next time,
Much love!
-VS