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"In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again."
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland — Lewis Carroll
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When Tom tried to approach her the next Monday the cool glare in her eyes stopped him short. He paused for just a moment before taking the seat two places to her left and one row back. She was careful not to watch as he piled his textbooks onto the old wooden desk, and scanned over the roll of parchment containing his essay. She was careful not to notice that he glanced at her exactly three times in the two-minute period before Professor Wolfe began the lesson.
Hermione had mainly spent the weekend in the tower, only emerging for meals and to go to the Library with her friends, surrounding herself with an unwitting bodyguard.
But she was weak; she had missed him. She'd woken the day after, anger already dulled. After all, she had suspected he was spying at the time hadn't she? She'd deliberately lost a duel to Sophia and underplayed her hand because she'd expected him to check up on her. She'd used it to win.
However, that had been before. He'd been disguised in Claire's mind, mostly, but Hermione would have known the inflections of his voice, the way he cast, his unique intensity of focus behind any face. The disguises had been flimsy things, not meant to hide from a lover.
And by the end of Sunday she'd identified the root of her bitterness: the real betrayal was in his undermining her, in manipulating Claire to make her lash out at that Gryffindor girl. It was in the remembered sting of lost essays and wondering if she was going mad.
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On Wednesday, Penelope Greengrass cornered her in a dim second-floor corridor. An icy draught drifted down the hallway, swirling around her ankles. There were no portraits here to pry, just a dusty statue a little further down of Hestia guarding an unlit fire.
"Please just talk to him, Dearborn," the beautiful blonde girl said abruptly, pausing as she passed Hermione, hand resting lightly on Hermione's sleeve.
Genuinely surprised, she had stopped short at the contact, at the blunt words.
"I'd never seen Tom happy until you turned up. Never, not really, not in six years. Just do us all a favour and get over whatever tiff you've had."
"I didn't…" Hermione trailed off, rubbing her eyes, unsure how to exactly explain that she'd never believed a Slytherin capable of such unselfish feeling. This girl could have been a rival, if only in her own eyes. Or so Hermione had thought.
"We care about him - although I doubt he's ever noticed - and he, well, he cares about you. Maybe only you. He smiles now. But this week he's been atrocious and it's unsettling everyone. So just talk to him."
And then she was gone, in a cloud of amber and musk, blonde hair shining in the weak spring sunlight just pushing through the clouds as she passed a window, leaving Hermione staring over her shoulder after her.
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On Friday evening an owl arrived at the dormitory window. Kaitlyn O'Malley, whose bed was closest to the windows and who, incidentally, was the only other girl in the room opened it briefly. A sharp blast of wind followed the bird into the peaceful blue room, and Hermione glanced up to watch as Kaitlyn took the letter from its leg: evening owl deliveries were unusual enough to be notable events. It flew off without waiting for an answer, soaring wide-winged out into the dark, the window thudding shut again behind it. Kaitlyn read the name, and sent it flying to Hermione's bed with a flick of her wand and a smirk.
"That'll be from Tom I daresay," she said, her soft Irish lilt cutting through the quiet of the room.
Hermione thanked her, surprised at the delivery. She had thought he'd have more restraint. Her traitor's heart lurched in excitement.
It was just a rolled up piece of parchment with her initials in his distinctively perfect penmanship, the crisp H and the swooping D either side of the E – for Ellylw, her adoptive great-grandmother's name. That in itself was telling; she was reasonably sure she had never told him the middle name Cerdic and Albus had written on the notice of her birth. Nor indeed had she really thought of it in half a year. She hated the name, truth be told. Her Muggle aunt was an Eleanor and Hermione didn't like to be reminded of Aunt Elly. Memories of her inevitably led to grey-tinged thoughts of her removed and fearful parents, which already orbited around her mind, a constant, distant ache of loss and regret.
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Out of principle, Hermione left the paper by her bed while she finished her reading and washed her hair. But she thought about it. She wondered what he could possibly have to say, tried not to imagine the letter's contents, told herself whatever he said shouldn't make a difference anyway.
The parchment, when she unrolled it, was blank.
She half-huffed in irritation, but a little smile betrayed her, creeping across her mouth at the puzzle.
A week of not talking had been empty. All the Avalon-related reading in the world couldn't replace Tom challenging her, Tom making her laugh, the warmth of him at her side in the library, the way he somehow brought light into this strange situation, pushed away those pain-tinged thoughts of those she'd left behind. Dazzling and bright, like a full moon outshining the stars of grief.
Eventually, she cracked it. A tricky, little-used spell with a Celtic, rather than Latin, tether. It was usually used to reveal the hidden writings on ancient stones.
He was, if nothing else, a swot.
Hermione, whatever brought us together was surely worth any cost – and yet, I find bringing you pain is something I now find so wholly abhorrent that I can only regret such a foolish act.
Being without you, even for such a short space has been unbearable. Wherever you came from, you are my only peer in this world. What is dark within me you illuminate. You burn so bright, Hermione.
Know this. I am on your side, now and forever. Forgive me.
Yours,
Tom
Attached to the bottom was a scrap of newspaper that unfurled as she finished reading.
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NOTORIOUS THIEF ARRESTED AFTER INSIDER TIP-OFF
Lunarchon Glamgungle, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, says Aurors have rounded up and arrested a gang of at least ten wizards, known as the Magpies. They confirmed the gang's notorious leader Slurrungus Fletcher was one of those arrested. Fletcher and his gang have been linked to several kidnappings and robberies over the years. Glamgungle says the several of the gang members were taken to St Mungo's for treatment immediately following the detainment, but that their injuries were sustained prior to the Aurors' arrival. Fletcher and one other man remain in hospital but are thought to be in a stable condition. The DMLE chief also thanked the anonymous source who led the Aurors right to the gang.
"They were all tied up with several missing items in their possession. It was extraordinary," Auror Bliffney Pemckle told the Prophet. "We think someone betrayed them from the inside. Easiest job I ever had."
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Hermione, who had carried out her share of vengeful acts in her time, took a moment to to really revel in what he had done for her. No one, not even Harry or Ron had ever tracked someone down and sent them to jail for harming her. That sort of thing had always been her job.
It was a glorious feeling, and she wondered how she was ever going to control her stupid, mad, insane, relentless hope that he was changing. Because he hadn't killed Mundungus Fletcher's horrible ancestor for trying to kidnap Hermione. She knew he'd have wanted to, but he hadn't. Had hardly harmed the man, if the Prophet was right.
The paper was dated the same day the law banning underage wand use outside of school had been announced. He'd been quiet about this for weeks. Clever, cunning, sly man to wait until now to draw her attention to it.
Hermione found her copy of that paper and cross-checked it just in case. She wouldn't quite put it past him to fake such a thing to trick her, but really she doubted it. He was, whatever else he was, on her side.
She believed him, and even if she was wrong she didn't care. She'd never, in fact, cared so little that she might be being deceived.
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When she picked the note back up to read it again, a postscript appeared. How well he knew her, she thought, and it was warming to be so known.
Meet me, his cursive less neat here, in the girls' bathroom on the first-floor. I have a secret to share, too.
The first-floor girls' bathroom was, of course, one Hermione was more than usually familiar with. She had spent every spare moment for a month in there in her second year, after all.
She knew what secret lay within. It would be insane to go. She hid the letter in the secret compartment in her trunk and checked her watch. It was five minutes to midnight. Everyone except Kaitlyn was still down in the Common Room.
Going would be stupid. Beyond stupid.
Hermione got into bed and thought for a while about how it could be a trick, about how he knew she was a Muggleborn now and could be taking her to her death. It was the sensible hypothesis, given what she knew. But she also knew his taste and touch and that he was the only thing that made her feel alive sometimes and that she didn't care who he would or could become anymore. Who he was now mattered to her more.
Cognitive dissonance, she thought to herself, was a remarkable thing, and got out of bed.
Hermione opened one of her most niche transfiguration textbooks and prepared. She would go, with warded eyes transfigured into mirrors. She would go, and if she was wrong, if he was taking her to her death she would kill him for it and fuck the timeline.
Sneaking around after curfew was something Hermione hadn't done much of without Harry's invisibility cloak and the Marauders' Map. More than the boys had known, admittedly, but it was far more difficult. Still, that had been before she'd spent almost a year on the run from the Death Eaters.
The irony that she had learned the spells she used to disguise herself with as she slipped out of the tower and through the dark castle to evade the man she was now deliberately and willingly going to meet was not lost on her.
She had not, in that year, gone to the trouble of checking her legs were smooth. Nor had she worn matching silk underwear. Witches in 1945 did not wear modern bras – preferring spells and corsets - and even the Muggle ones weren't what she was used to. But they were pretty enough, and she'd grown used to them.
As she walked down the corridor, pretty silk underwear concealed under her robes, she listened to the sounds of the castle settling at night. Her own breaths were loud in the dark, and unsteady despite her careful, quiet steps as she slipped down towards the first-floor.
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Tom was waiting in the dark when she arrived, tossing a ball of golden light back and forth between his hands. His head shot up and he nearly dropped it when she opened the door.
The slip in his façade calmed her own nerves, and she stepped close to him.
"I want to be clear," she said low and firm, "that that sort of thing stops, now. No scheming, no bringing innocents into this."
He nodded, and trailed a finger along her cheekbone before pressing his forehead to her own, and breathing in deeply.
"Do you trust me?" he asked at last.
"I'm here, aren't I?"
He took her hand, and his touch – familiar, electric, gentle – sent her heart racing again.
"Let's go then," she whispered, "wherever it is that we're going."
Perhaps her tone was off, because his shoulders tightened, and he froze halfway through turning towards the taps. One of them was leaking, and a few drops splattered down into the sink below, clinking out into the dim room as loud as gunshots.
"What," he asked, more curious than cold she thought, "do you know?"
"You're the one who told me you were a Gaunt, Tom," she said. "And I've never heard of Acromantulas petrifying anyone."
"Have you known all this time?"
"I've known for a while," she agreed. "Does it matter?"
Instead of replying, he tugged her forward and hissed at the tiny snake she knew was etched on the copper pipe. The tap glowed bright white in the dark and began to spin, baring open the enormous pipe behind, a black hole of nothingness.
"This wasn't always the entrance," he told her, looking suddenly and strangely awkward. "In the old plans… anyway this is an old entrance remade after they put in modern plumbing for, well, there's a basilisk down there as you seem to have guessed, and this was supposed to be for her. The other way in is in the Slytherin Dungeon and it's pretty well blocked off by new additions."
He was rambling, really, but it was soothing – and interesting. It was odd to think of the deadly serpent as a her, instead of an it. What he was saying made sense and she wondered if the little snake she knew was etched on the copper pipe had, in fact, been his work. She also wondered what other Hogwarts secrets had been hidden over time as the castle was reworked.
"It's not precisely what I would call modern plumbing," she said, looking doubtfully at the pipe. Last time, caught up in the rush before the battle, dirty from Gringotts and months on the run, from crash landing off a dragon, she had hardly noticed how filthyit was.
He laughed, looking relieved.
"It'll be worth it, I promise. There's a library down here," he said, smiling, and stepped in, sliding away into the dark. The golden ball of light he'd conjured stayed with her, as she took a deep, shuddering breath, cast several charms to keep the slime off, and followed, sliding down to face whatever lay beneath.
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And it was worth it.
There was no slime on the walls here now: they were dark, clean stone illuminated by a cloud of golden balls floating around them. He'd caught her as she landed, staggering into him for just a moment. A safe landing.
Tom led her silently through the tunnel to the great stone wall, carved snakes entwined more beautifully than she'd remembered, emerald eyes sparkling in the golden lights.
With another hiss from him, they parted, the solid stone splitting soundlessly and sliding away.
Behind them lay the Chamber, but how different it was from its wrecked future self. The snake-carved columns rose elegantly to a great expanse of gothic carving lit with a thousand tiny lights like stars. Their reflection shimmered in the water below, two strips from which the bases of the columns rose up, tall and majestic and eerie. It reminded her of a scene from a James Bond film, a chase through a flooded underground hall in Istanbul. The Basilica Cistern, she remembered. From Russia with Love. That wouldn't be in cinemas for seven more years. A favourite of her father's.
"This is just the ante-chamber," he explained, his hand wrapped around hers the only warmth. "Come on."
"Where's the… the basilisk?" she asked, with as much bravado as she could muster now she was confronted with the reality: she was miles beneath the castle, or beneath the lake perhaps, with no easy way to escape. And still she trusted him.
"She won't come. I told her to stay in her cave, sleeping."
Hermione's breath surged out less evenly than she'd like and she stepped forward, gazing at the otherworldly space around her as they walked down the centre of the chamber.
Last time she'd been here it had been filthy, filled with the stench of rot, rats scurrying away from their wandlights into the damp, dark around them. A ruin of something she now realised was beautiful in its way.
The great statute at the end was as she remembered though, a wizened, bearded man carved from some dark and foreboding granite.
"I don't," Tom said quietly, "think I got my looks from that side of the family."
Hermione's startled laugh echoed loudly around the room, and then it was drowned out by the sound of stone moving, a grating sound as the statue slid forward and then began to turn around. Her mouth fell open at this wonder even in a world of wonders.
It stopped halfway round, and she saw it wasn't really a statue at all, just a huge, thick façade hiding the great doors behind it. The black marble gleamed darkly, reflecting their distorted forms back before swinging open at his command.
"Welcome to the Chamber of Secrets," he murmured. "I've never brought anyone here before."
"It's nothing like I'd imagined," she said, honestly. And indeed the difference had displaced her; she'd been so sure she'd known where she was going, and now she was clueless as to what might lie beyond.
A library, he'd said. She'd assumed it was a joke… but now anything seemed possible. A palace, a country, another world.
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In fact, it was a suite of rooms. Unimaginably fine for their time, carved into the rock deep beneath the earth's surface. A study with piles of scrolls and thousand-year old leather bound books ("Later!" Tom promised, pulling her on), a rudimentary potions lab, and so on. They ran into each other consecutively in an ouroboros shape.
When they reached the chamber within The Chamber, Hermione gasped again. It was not exactly rose petals and champagne, but a fire burned bright and welcoming in the hearth, a bottle of wine stood uncorked on the little mahogany table, and merry candles lit up the dark corners. A four-poster bed, far grander than those in the dorms, stood, intricately carved and hung with green velvet. The walls were lined with tapestries; embroidered knights galloping across the silken surface until they were out of sight, a trees really waving in an invisible breeze, a pack of silent wolves emerging from a thickly wooded hill. The ceiling was hung with stars. It was like the Great Hall's and yet unlike; these were constellations she had never seen and far closer, dizzying and glowing and gorgeous.
Once she tore her eyes away, she realised there were signs of Tom here. A discarded textbook, a broken quill, a bowl of fruit, a stack of fresh parchment.
"I used to stay down here sometimes," he explained, following her eyes. "When… when things were less easy within my house. But then after fifth year it became too dangerous, so I have stayed away."
"How did you find it?" she asked. Harry had been led there, by Tom's old diary, a thought she refused to dwell on, but she couldn't fathom how he had pushed through to this inner sanctum.
"The Chamber?" he asked, surprised.
"Yeah. I mean it's pretty well hidden isn't it?"
"I felt it calling to me. As soon as I walked into the school I could feel it. This is my real birth right, all of this. This is who I am."
She realised he'd waited to say those words until they were here, in the deepest sanctuary within the Chamber. Not in the grandness of the ante-chamber, sprawling and huge and containing who knew what else, but here in the bedroom, humble in comparison. A safe haven.
This time it was she who tugged him forward for the kiss. And when their lips met, gentle at first and then desperate, she felt some fire unleash inside her for the first time, something wild and free, and she pulled his shirt loose sliding her hands against the heat of his smooth back. An hour or a minute or a day passed as they clung together, lips and hands holding a conversation she had no words for.
"I do trust you," she breathed against his skin, wandlessly casting the unbuttoning charm that sent her robes sliding off to the floor. She stood before him, clad only in her pale pink silk and he took a rough, gasping breath.
"You make me believe in… something more, Hermione," he said, some dark shadow passing out of his eyes as he took control of his breath, splaying his fingers across her stomach.
In reply she pulled his shirt off, sliding it over his head. They hadn't been naked together since that night in her room, every encounter since had been stolen moments in the castle's hidden corners. But here they were free, and their clothes fell piece by piece, discarded and unwanted on the woven rushes spread over the stone floor. Hermione undid the silly silk bra, letting it fall and bare herself to his hungry lips, until he picked her up and carried her to the bed, a romance fantasy come to life, dark and glorious and passionate in way she had never believed real outside of romances.
He slid the last barrier away, pulling her knickers slowly down her legs and she gave a half-giggle, propped on one elbow as she watched. She felt glorious and wanton and powerful as he met her gaze, dark eyes hungry, his hair falling forward onto his forehead as he kissed his way back up her legs.
He had learned how to kiss her there in the weeks past, how his tongue and fingers could dissolve her into a writhing mess beneath him but there was an extra level this time, the anticipation that finally they would cross that last line, that he was delaying an inevitable, prolonging her pleasure and frustration as he explored her anew.
She came, his hands bruising her thighs as he held her still around his head, sweat beading between her breasts. Time seemed outside of them here, an irrelevance so far removed from his place and this time.
And when he pushed into her, holding still for a moment, she knew there was no going back. How could she throw this aside when her body felt full and joyful, when they were entwined like the serpents on the chamber doors. The act moved beyond the sex she'd experienced before into another plane and it was this: intimate and slow and tender and outside of consciousness. It was this: long-burning embers fanned with oxygen bursting into sudden flame. It was this: her body turning into molten magic. It was this: a world made only of them together, where he had no beginning and she no end. It was this: a desperate need to finish, for there to be no end.
It was this: the bed's hangings catching flame as she screamed, crackling and dangerous and unnoticed.
He shuddered against her as he came, and they clung together on Salazar Slytherin's bed as the fire spread, forcing their attention. It was this: laughing as they rushed to extinguish them, naked and giggling, before lying back on the singed velvet eiderdown, the rumble of his joy vibrating against her, deep in his chest.
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So they finally had sex! Shoutout to D.H. Lawrence for writing "We fucked a flame into being" which I decided to take literally for this chapter.
This took longer than I meant it to. Thank you for all the love. You are extraordinary and wonderful people and I hope 2017 brings you more joy and wonder than any year yet. It's going to be a wild ride, at least. Rather like Tom.
Anyway it's the Chamber of SecretS not one secret monster okay. Plural secrets. What else is down there?
