Chapter 1
A/N: Hi everyone! This story has been fully edited post- publishing as of August 2020 as it was written three years ago early in my fanfiction career as well as my high school years, and while there may not be any new aspects to it for re-readers or followers, it is more cleaned up than when it was first published. It is also very possible that I will rewrite this plot in a completely new and updated story seperate from this one since my writing style has severely changed since this one was published, and I figured it would be fun playing around with this concept again and make up a more developed plotline. Happy reading, and if y'all would like to read my new version stay tuned to my profile!
Disclaimer: All recognizable aspects from the Harry Potter world belong to J.K. Rowling.
~.O.~
A Loss of Identity Within the Past
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, The Great Hall, 1943
"I'm going to go lay down," a curly haired girl whispered in the boy's ear who sat beside her dressed in silver and green. A boy who looked remarkably similar to her in the way that they had the same cold grey eyes that only held warmth for each other, as well as sharp boned cheeks and a chin that obviously made them siblings. Even if you couldn't tell from their looks that they had been born to the same woman on the same day, of the same year, both teens with the dashing looks had an absolutely uncanny way of coercing someone to do anything that they desired.
"I'll be up in a while, love," the boy said, his eyes melting from the frigidness of staring down the wandering eyes of the boys who often found their eyes straying to his sister too much for his liking, although he would never be so obvious as to outright glare at them. Nothing so blatant as that at all.
Chuckling, the girl gave the boy a swift kiss right beside his mouth, a thing in which was too close for simply being platonic siblings and many found odd yet simply forced their eyes from the couple. "Try not to maim or kill anyone tonight Tom, Dumbledore is already growing suspicious enough of us without every boy who talks to me disappearing."
Smirking, Tom just picked up his sister's hand in his own before placing a kiss on it and turning back to his dinner, "Yes, Ma'am."
Still smiling as she walked out of the Great Hall, ignoring the whispers and hidden eyes following her small form, she was suddenly pulled forcibly into a dark alcove just before the stairs leading down to the dungeons. Far from where Tom was, too far from her brother.
"I'm sorry Hermione, you will only make him stronger in the years to come," Hermione heard a familiar voice whisper in her ear as she realized she was incapacitated with her head steadily going uncomfortably fuzzy along with a peculiar feeling in her navel beginning to grow. The last thought within her conscious mind being that of her beloved brother's smiling grey eyes.
Her heartbeat began to increase in rare panic, along with the one she has always been able to feel within her twin's own body like a phantom limb being carried around with her always, his voice echoing her name in her head before it faded entirely.
Gone.
Her body ultimately giving way under the insistent pull of the darkness enveloping her, all that was left of her existence within the year of 1943 being a goblin silver necklace of an emerald eyed snake slithering in and out of the eyes of a skull, a tiny black lavender nestled in the grinning mouth. Along with the panic of Tom Riddle who found the piece of jewelry once the pain of his twin's heartbeat slowing beside his own had receded as if it were never there, only a dark hole of nothingness being left to take it's place. The young boy vowing to the gods that he would burn everything and everyone before believing himself to never again see the other half of his soul.
~.O.~
A New Life
Muggle London, 1979
"Isn't she beautiful?" Sheila Granger asked her husband, in her arms a wrapped pink bundle containing a beautiful little girl by the name Hermione Jean Granger. Sprouts of dark curly haired spirals already beginning to take form upon the head that would eventually look as if it were mocking a lions mane, the babe was as quiet as can be, even coming into the world from her mother's womb.
"She takes after her mother," Mark Granger told his wife, who looked up at him with an adoring smile, then back to the curly haired babe cradled to her hospital gown covered chest. The only sign of her father in her being that dark shade of said curls that made up the tuft upon her small palm sized head.
As the babe involuntarily gripped the man's finger, his eyes teared up just a bit. "She's our little miracle Sheils. The Gods gifted us a little girl."
"She's going to be extraordinary Mark," she said, as her newborn's eyes opened to reveal the most breathtakingly smoky colored eyes she had ever seen. "Absolutely extraordinary," the new mother said while running a gentle finger along the babe's tiny rooting cheek and failing limbs that searched for another miniature sized hand that had been curiously absent within her previous safe and cozy home.
She was never meant to come into the world alone… the gods had never intended it to be as such…
..
Hermione Granger was indeed going to become extraordinary as her parents had always told her she would be, but at this moment in time she didn't think it was a good thing. She never felt as if she had really belonged, not even with the parents who loved and adored her to the ends of the earth, but she couldn't help but feel as if something was missing. As if the life she was living wasn't meant to be, someone was missing from her small world, someone who was always meant to be right beside her and just simply wasn't.
The only time she didn't feel this was when she dreamt. When she dreamt of another life, one where she lived happily no matter the unhappiness surrounding her on all sides while in the midst of one war or another. One where a boy walked the earth with her, a boy who she felt she belonged with no matter what. He soothed her within her mind even during her waking hours whenever the other children ridiculed her for her bookishness and oddness within reality, he loved her, and he was the only thing that felt real.
~.O.~
A Little Too Close
Wool's Orphanage, 1937
Hermione didn't like sleeping alone, not at all. The orphanage blankets had always been scratchy even on sensitive baby skin, and didn't offer much warmth while the lumpy mattress was not at all comfortable, and no other girls would be bunked in the same room as they were all scared of her.
What she really wanted was her brother's warmth and scent surrounding her.
Silently stepping out of bed, her little feet carried her shivering body covered in only a thin white nightdress to the door down the hall and slipped inside, closing it softly behind her as to not alert the matron she was where she wasn't supposed to be. Inside, a pale skinny boy similar to her lay wide awake, also not accepting sleep without his twin wrapped with him in warmth. He was bunked in his own room as well, the boys all scared of him as all the girl were of her. Slipping into the small bed with her brother, the girl immediately stopped shivering as he wrapped his arms around her, her legs tangling around his as an unnatural warmth filled the air around them as their magic recognized it's twin. A little something they had learned their second year at their new school for magical witches and wizards.
"Better love?" the boy asked into his sister's mass of curls just a few shades lighter than his own black ones, her head bobbing slightly as she tucked her face into his warm chest before finally allowing the sandman to pull them under.
"I don't like it that they separated us, Tommy," she muttered sleepily into his chest as he kissed the top of her head and tangled the hand not around her waist into it.
Night turned into day, and the siblings didn't awake until a plump unpleasant woman pulled them both out of bed, screeching that it was indecent for siblings to be sleeping in the same bed in the teenage years they were at. Taken outside, the siblings were whipped with a switch they had picked themselves until they promised to never do it again, although they would never admit they most certainly would. Tom had so wanted to burn the matron's fingers off for touching his sister, but she stayed his hand, knowing that while scaring the other children was just fine, the woman who made sure they were fed as little as they were was not.
"I'm sorry I didn't wake up earlier 'Mione," Tom said, carefully pulling the thin dress away from the dried blood on his sister's back, making her hiss in displeasure.
"I could have woken up too Tommy, it's not your fault," she said, straightening in the yellow light of the bathroom, now naked except for her white cotton panties speckled with blood.
Turning to unbutton her brother's nightshirt and pull it off him, not at all uncomfortable being naked in her presence as one might have been, or at his wandering eyes. They were simply too comfortable with each other for bashfulness. Reaching up as he was a good half foot taller than her already, she put a hand on his now bare shoulder to help pull his arms out of his sleeves, his eyes not flinching a bit at the slight sting of the cloth separating from his open wounds. Turning him around with her hands resting lightly on the top of his shoulders, she called forth on the advanced magic they shared and ran them lightly down his back, causing him to shiver as the wounds knitted closed before Hermione's eyes.
Angling back to where she was again standing in front of him, Tom grabbed her hips taking care of the sharp marks that had managed to wrap around them as he lightly kissed the corner of her mouth while her arms twisted around his waist.
"I should have healed you first, love."
"They don't hurt that much anymore. There's just throbbing."
Pulling her closer to him to where their bare chests were compressed together, he healed her back much in the same way she did him. His large hands warming her spine from the frigid air outside, all the while his chest warming her breasts from where they had pebbled within the winter air.
As their arms wrapped more securely around each other, Tom made her a promise he had every intention of keeping until a man who claimed to be of the light took her away from him. "I will never let anyone hurt you again Hermione. For as long as I love you, I will always protect you; and I will love you until after death. That is a promise."
Looking up into her brother's face, her twin, her hands cupped his face and brought their foreheads together.
"Do you promise me always Tommy?"
"I promise you always, love."
~.O.~
The Heir
She never told her parents about the voice in her head, even though she knew it wasn't natural for a voice to be in one's head telling her to stab her bullies with the teacher's scissors. But it was in the tone of the boy she often dreamt of, so she had no reason to distrust him. Her Tom who she so yearned for. Or when she started understanding what snakes talked of as they slithered around in the safety of the tall grass.
"Pretty human. Pretty girl. Pretty warm skin to crawl around on." Hermione heard a voice hidden on the ground of her parent's garden one day while sitting plucking the petals off one of her mother's full red roses. Dropping them all around her as if they were droplets of blood.
Looking down, she saw a small black scaled snake with a light blue-grey belly lifting it's head, sticking it's black forked tongue out to her.
"Look my love," Tom whispered in her head, "he likes us. They always like us."
"Hello," the girl said to the snake, holding out her arm for it to crawl up.
"Nice girl," the snake hissed up to her while curling around the appendage, that midnight colored tongue flicking out to taste her scent.
..
"Look at all the shops Tom!" Hermione said excitedly, pulling on the hand said boy was holding onto in the direction of one of the book stores. "So many books!"
"I'm sure Hogwarts will have plenty of books, Hermione," he said, smiling indulgently at his twin while pulling her in the direction of Ollivander's Wand Shoppe.
"Ohh, twins," a man with blonde hair all about his head said as soon as they walked in, "I've just the thing. Haven't had twins in a while."
The brother and sister glanced at each other then back to the man who they assumed was the owner, Ollivander, who was busy opening long thin boxes from seemingly random places. Hearing him cheer in joy, the couple turned back from observing the shop.
Two wands were held out in front of them, Tom taking his in his right hand and Hermione in her left as they still held hands in the middle.
Ollivander explained the making, "13 and ½ inches for the boy 10 and ½ inches for the girl, outer beech, with a phoenix feather core from the same-" he broke off to stare in wonder at the magic that flowed from the two wands.
Shiny dark silver magic flowed from Hermione's wand and amber gold leaked from Tom's, coming together to form a snake-like form of magic that admitted sensual magic as it flowed around Ollivander's head, peaking it's tongue out to flick him on the cheek. Yanking his head away from it to stare awed with a flicker of fear at the two standing before him, both looking decidedly calm at the advanced magic they did as if it were an everyday occurance, he hastily pushed them out stating they were both free of charge.
Stepping out into the sun, they smirked at each other before wrapping their arms more securely around each other and pushing through the bustling street towards Knockturn Alley. The one street they were told to stay away from by the professor who had shown them the way into Diagon Alley before pushing through the crowds himself with a hasty word back about meeting at the pub in an hour. The pub he had already been making way for.
Making their way into the pet shop, they looked disinterested at the shaggy cats, ruddy owls, and oozing toads until their eyes stopped right at the only animal they were interested in. A nest of snakes. A medium sized red mother laying curled by the glass in the minimal sun shining through the glass window front, along with many of her offspring piled atop each other. These were also not what caught their eyes. A slightly larger silver-grey snakelet lay curled up away from her brothers and sisters, keeping to the shadows in the moist damp. Feeling like she was being watched, the wee one raised her head and made eye contact with the ones she knew were going to be her new owners.
"I want to name her Nagini, Tom," Hermione said as she caressed their new familiar against her cheek as Nagini made a hiss of pleasure when Tom also reached to touch her adoringly.
"As you wish my love," he replied, kissing her temple and leading them to get fitted for their new school robes.
~.O.~
An Expected Visit
Hermione stared at the long white bearded figure perched across from her on her parent's white couch, the two bells tying said beard jingling merrily as he talked. She didn't know how to feel, she didn't know what she was feeling. He looked at her with warm eyes, but there was a sort of cautiousness behind the twinkling in his blue eyes. He had come to tell her and her muggle parents she was a witch, a magical witch. She hadn't outright been told by Tom, only given few memories that hinted at extraordinary things, but one of this man ripping her from the person she loved most in the world stood out against the others. He said they had to pace themselves with her memories of them being different from everyone else, any other bombardment of the past would war with her aspects of reality. Her two worlds colliding too fast would not be very fun.
She was to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry the man told her, as if she had not known for years already.
Headmaster Dumbledore assured her parents she would be in safe hands, but she didn't feel comforted at all. She was unsettled, as if he knew something about her, but it wasn't possible. However, maybe it was, he was the one to put her in the exact place she was in at this moment instead of at her brother's side, wherever he was.
How much of what he had done to them did he actually know the consequences of? Did he know of the piece of her brother living beside her soul, the piece that had taken the place of the heartbeat that should have been there?
"Calm yourself, love," Tom placated in her ear. "I will take care of you."
"You're in my head, Tom," she told him, despite the warmth driving the dread in her stomach away with his words.
"In a way," he chuckled, "But not in a way. You will know soon enough, but not too soon. We would not want him to think we have anything to hide, would we?"
"Everyone has something to hide, Tommy," she told him, watching Dumbledore about to depart, shaking her parent's hands. "You hide plenty from me."
"With good reason, my love."
"I will see you soon Hermione, I just know you will love Hogwarts," he told her, reaching out his hands to shake her's, rearing back a bit when she gripped it a little too tight than a girl would for her age who normally had some regard to shyness, and her eyes flashed into one's' older than her years for a moment.
"Yes, headmaster," she said, smiling politely at his reaction. "I'm sure I will."
Dumbledore left with a wary air about him, only slightly palpable. Seeing he had a very real reason to be on his toes around the girl so similar to the one that had disappeared so long ago. Hermione's parents cooed over their miracle baby, now knowing for a fact she was going to be just extraordinary.
..
Platform 9 ¾, 1991
Three weeks after Albus Dumbledore appeared on her doorstep, Hermione boarded the Hogwarts Express on her way to the castle which she had so many dreams of. Looking for a compartment, she found that she had the same warmth growing in her chest as she has when she talked to Tom, as if his heartbeat thundered within her ears once more. But not quite. Any fabricated link could never compare to the realness of the original.
"Follow it, 'Mione," he told her, "He is important."
So she did.
Stepping outside a compartment with a red-headed boy marked with dirt on his nose, and a boy with messy black hair covering his forehead, she opened the door before asking to sit there as all the others were full. They let her, even though they did not particularly speak to her. The red head was more concerned with the boy sitting beside her who actually did make an attempt to include her in their conversation.
That day Hermione Granger made herself friends with Ronald Weasley, and Harry Potter. That day, Hermione Granger's life changed, for she didn't know it yet, but Harry Potter would eventually lead her towards the one person who truly loved her. No matter how twisted that love had come to fruition.
~.O.~
First Time
Hogwarts Express, 1938
"I don't like how that man looked at us Tommy," Hermione said to her brother, looking out to the new blurred green landscape the train sped past in the bright daylight. She liked trains, they were big and powerful, and nothing could stop them except another train colliding with it's long body. Thoughts swirling around her head all the while as she made them known to her twin, making it all that much more difficult to focus on one thing.
"I know love," he told her, setting his hand on her thigh as he held the book he was reading with the other.
Concentrating on the heat of his hand through her new school robes and muggle trousers, she observed the features of his sharp profile. Shadows from outside casting onto his pale skin, his wavy hair perfectly styled with only a piece hanging down into his stormy grey eyes so much like her that made him look as attractive as can be in her mind, and so charismatic to others who didn't have the strength to resist his charm at even such a young age. His hand tightened on her leg fractionally as a smile tilted his lips slightly upward that told her he knew she was watching him. Standing up she took the book away from him and set it on the opposite seat of the compartment, wiggling her body until she sat herself with her legs draped over Tom's horizontally and wrapping her arms around his neck as his enveloped her waist.
"They won't allow us to stay together, it'll be just like the orphanage," she told him, her voice breaking as Tom set his chin atop her curls and rubbed her back. "What if we don't get into the same house?"
He lifted her chin with his fingertips to give her a smile that instantly calmed her raging emotions. "Trust me love," he smirked, "We're too alike to not be." Tom assured her with a kiss to the forehead and tickling her ribs lightly.
Giggling softly her smile brightened as she looked up into his shining eyes. "Promise."
"Promise." He told her, and so she tucked her chin under his own again, waiting to go to the school where hopefully no one would try to tear them apart from one another. All hell would break loose otherwise.
~.O.~
Sorting Hat
Great Hall, 1991
Hermione already knew what seeing the castle would feel like. Home, but not. It was home to all of the many years of memories she and Tom spent together, other than the orphanage, yet, it was the place she had been ripped from her twin, and the man who had done the deed was now headmaster. She felt cold warring with warmth take root in her stomach, old memories bombarding her as she passed the familiar sights of the castle corridors.
Home had always been wherever her and her brother were together.
"Sorry love," Tom told her in her mind, knowing it was much to take in but was necessary for her to be prepared to keep Dumbledore away from their secrets despite his previous assertions she mustn't know too much in one instance. Harry gave her a questioning look as she stumbled on air when they came to a stop at the steps leading to the wooden doors of the entrance, she just shook her head and smiled as Minerva McGonagall gave the first year opening speech of the inner workings of the houses and the Sorting Hat.
For once in her life, as much as she hated it, she was glad to be in Gryffindor. The house that had once warred with her original one, and seemed to be even more so in this day and age. She was glad to be friends with the boy that contained a piece of her brother's soul in him though, if only to feel the warmth she didn't often feel anymore other than when the voice in her head spoke to her. Although, she still didn't exactly like the fact that someone not of their blood held such a precious object within them, and that her brother decided to gift him with such a thing.
She was still a bit fuzzy on the details of how the boy came to have his scar upon his forehead, but when she did eventually learn of the whole of the story, the anger she felt at her twin dissipated quickly. Most of it anyway.
She would miss the cold air of the dungeons, and have to deal with being surrounded by gold and red and being hated by her old house of her ancestors, but none of that would matter when she found a way to be reunited with her brother while under the ever watchful gaze of Albus Dumbledore.
~.O.~
A Professor's First Impressions
Severus Snape. He is a dark man, anyone could see that by the way he dressed, and acted, and by the subject he favored from the very start of meeting him. The people around him never thought to look beneath the glares and the snark, especially those who knew that he had been a Death Eater from those who had lived through the first war. But Hermione knew all too well than to simply judge a person's character by what others thought, or how their outward appearance seemed. Tom taught her that better than anyone. Harry didn't trust him, accusing him of anything and everything going bad in the castle, especially of trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone Dumbledore had been guarding.
Then there was something about Professor Quirrell, everyone saw him as a cowardly teacher that fainted while running from trolls, stuttering his way inconsistently through any and everything, but Hermione saw something in his eyes. Steel was hiding behind stutters, he was hiding something, something that would get him killed if anyone ever found out, and it was very possible it had something to do with the same warm feeling she tended to get around Harry. It wasn't possible, but somehow it was.
Then one day after class, Hermione had bumped into the professor as he was in a hurry to leave, and it clicked. The burning sensation almost scorched her alive, so much more than she was used to from the Tom residing within her head, and Quirrell felt it too. It was her Tommy. The man with another face had gotten a look on the one he showed to the world, one Hermione had never seen before, and she had wanted to hug him and never let him go. But protecting him would be enough as it was simply her other half's soul that resided in this body that had an entirely separate consciousness, a thing very different that what resided within her mind.
"Give up on the Stone. Harry's getting closer."
The next day he was gone, with no explanation as he disappeared off the face of the earth with only a note to Hermione…
I will come back for you.
Other than the broken pieces of his soul, he still lived on, and he was still connected to her, and her him. But she had not been able to touch him in the way she so desperately wanted, and perhaps that hurt more than anything in the moment she stood in.
~.O.~
Chamber of Secrets
The next year, the hope of being that much closer to her loving brother was heightened even more when Lucius Malfoy gave Hermione Tom's diary with a sneer. The diary she had bought him so long ago to which she had the twin to, lost to the years that separated them.
"Here, Mudblood, the pages are charmed. Only the person with the other book will see the messages, use it sparingly," he held the brown object out to her, the golden letters of Tom's name shining in the dim light of Flourish and Blotts.
As if she did not already know of it's properties.
Hermione ran her fingers over them, feeling the pulsing of the soul inside and Tom hissing within her head, "Is he safe?"
He had a certain look in his eye as he attempted to walk away, "I don't know what you mean, girl."
She grabbed his arm, a fine burning sensation spreading through it as if the small girl's fingers were fire and he tissue paper, a rattled look spreading across his face at her next words, "Is. He. Safe?" The book pulsed even more insistently as her magic sparked at her fingers.
"Yes," he had aimed to steer clear from Hermione that day.
..
The first time she sat in her bed and wrote in the yellowed pages, she was transported into a ghosty Chamber of Secrets, the link between Tom's soul keeping the latest body he was inhabiting alive recognizing it's other half and bringing her to him in his dreams.
Magic truly was an extraordinary thing.
Looking around her, Hermione saw a black and white chamber with a long walkway led by snarling snakes to a large statue of Salazar Slytherin's face. Hearing shuffling behind her, she pirouetted on her heel and gasped, her hand flying to cover her mouth, along with the sob that threatened to escape. The once again thirteen year old Hermione came face to face with her fifteen year old twin, one of the first of the horcruxes he had made. One of the first pieces of his soul he had split into two.
"Hermione," Tom said, his face glazed over as if in a trance while staring at his twin.
"Tommy," Hermione whispered, her hand reaching out to touch his face, but knowing it would go right through, the sob broke through without her control as it indeed did.
"My 'Mione," Tom said, his voice cracking as he stepped closer to her and hovered his hand over her cheek. "My 'Mione," his voice was soft, as if not believing she was here in front of him. "I've missed you."
"I've missed you too."
His face broke further as it contorted to anger and sadness warring with one another. "50 years." He told her, his hands curling into fists before turning his body away from her, Hermione only seeing his tense back.
"50 years Tommy," a tear fell down her face as she remembered the day she was taken from him. "It's been 50 years."
"Was it him?" he asked, finally able to have all the questions he had been ignorant of for so long answered. "Dumbledore?"
"Yes."
Suddenly he spun around and stared at her smiling a bit with one corner of his mouth and asked, "Do you remember when I made this first Horcrux, love?"
Smiling softly as she watched him pace in front of Salazar's head, she replied, "The parts that I was awake for."
Instantly, in-between them both appeared ghostly copies of themselves at fifteen years old talking to the large snakelike dragon with razor sharp teeth sticking out of her mouth, porcupine needles like a mane about her neck. Almost as soon as came it was gone, a shrill girlish scream from the sink's opening to the chamber calling for her attention as a golden glow shone around Tom who then fell to his hands and knees, ghostly Hermione turning him on his back, a look of panic on her face.
"I hated making that one," the black and white Tom said to her, his eyes still stuck to the scene in front of them as the golden glow transferred to Hermione and she fell to the ground beside Tom. "I couldn't feel you until you were awake again."
"The same thing happened to me, Tommy," Hermione said, walking around to stand by his side to watch the events unfold, "I thought you were dying."
Hermione woke with a gasp to Tom hovering over her and he grabbed her round the waist as she fought to gain breath until she was half in his lap.
"It worked," apparition Hermione said in an echoey sort of voice. "It worked Tommy!" she gasped a laugh as Tom landed a hard kiss to her lips as the scene vanished in a white unsubstantial steam and thirteen year old Hermione looked to Tom who was already looking down at her with a wistful expression in his eyes and on lips.
"I wish I could touch you again," he repeated his earlier gesture of hovering his hand by her cheek.
50 years he had not been able to touch her, she would be able to wait a few more.
Hermione smiled sadly before quickly dropping it as a thought occurred to her, "We won't be able to see each other again like this." It wasn't a question.
His hand dropped, "No. The body I possess is too weak, I will soon have to find another."
Her hand copied his dropped movements, "Our Basilisk is asleep. She will be ready for our call."
He started to fade just in front of her eyes, and smiled as his voice echoed out to her, "I love you, my girl."
Hermione fell back on her golden sheets and sobbed into her pillow once she returned to her dorm, knowing that she wouldn't see her brother for many more months, or possibly years. She knew though that no one, no one would get in her way to bringing him back. It was only a matter of who would give him the push he needed, and it seemed that the next years after this, their knights would do all the pushing for their master and their long lost Mistress.
"We will be alright, my love," Tom told her, "As long as we have each other, we can get through anything," watching through her eyes as a dark mark came to life of Hermione's left forearm, a lavender nestled in it's mouth to mimic that of her necklace Tom still wore about his neck since finding it upon a cold stone floor all those years ago.
~.O.~
Bad Memories
Hogwarts Express
She never thought that dementors were scary creatures, although she had only been by them a handful of times when Tom had decided they had needed them as allies. Sirius Black escaping Azkaban had brought them here, and she could feel the air turn to ice. Tall, willowy, living shadows with the ability to suck all the happy memories from you, they had the power of allowing you to relive the worst one you've had in all the years you have lived. But for some reason Hermione was the first to be seen in the compartment, and she was the one to relive a memory of anger instead of fear, a feeling along with thoughts she hoped she would never feel or ever think again.
Wool's Orphanage
Summer, 1942
Hermione walked down the dark dusty hall of the orphanage while dragging her hand along the wall, alone as Tom was meeting with their knights in a rare summer meeting when she heard giggling coming from a cracked door she had just passed. A girl saying her brother's name made her freeze in place just outside.
"He was so good," a girl named Sara giggled from inside, her voice always having grated Hermione's nerves, she was tempted to leave until she heard the next words out of the girl's mouth. "He felt so good, Dawn. It was like he had done it forever."
The other girl, Dawn, giggled to her friend, "It was about time you got laid. I'm just surprised you got Tom! He's never away from his sister."
Sara made a sound of disgust, "She's such a whore, Dawn. She never leaves his side, it wasn't even that hard to get him to screw me once…"
Hermione stopped listening as her whole body turned numb at the realization that Tom, her Tommy, had sex with a girl, and didn't tell her. There have been many times that they had sex with someone else, but they had always told each other before they had done it and who they did it with if they decided to. He didn't tell her. That's what hurt the most, and at that thought, anger flooded her body. He was the only person that could hurt her in any way possible, her only weakness, and she hated it. She hated that anyone had an advantage over her, but she would never trade him for the world, no matter how vulnerable he made her.
Already having a plan in mind, Hermione opened the door just a bit more and cast the imperius curse towards Sara, her and Tom having cloaked their wand's tracker long ago, and whispering in her head as she sat bolt upright from her relaxed position on the bed.
"Tell Dawn you are going to look for some food," Sara robotically tells Dawn, "walk out the bedroom door, go down the stairs into the woods, and make sure no one sees you."
Sara does as Hermione tells her, her movements automatic as she stops short in the hallway to avoid a boy going to his room, continuing on outside with Hermione following her the whole way with her wand tip lighted slightly. As they tread half a mile into the forest, Hermione blended in completely in her black dress, only the small amount of skin at her face, hands, and tops of her feet glowing in the darkness.
"Stop," she said out loud, binding Sara's hands and ankles with invisible ropes before pushing the blonde girl roughly to the ground as she took the imperius off her mind. She couldn't help but relish in the fearful look the girl cast around her as she struggled against her binds.
"What's going on? What am I doing here?" she cried.
Hermione ignored her tears and straddled her waist, wrestling her arms to the ground above her head and laughing as she cried out for help.
"Scream all you want, girl," Hermione licked the side of her neck where she had cut herself, feeling her shiver in disgust, their little grapple for power already making her grow tired as her energy weakened. "No one will hear you."
"Please, why are you doing this?" Hermione sighed, already growing bored as she summoned a blade and aimed it at the girl's jugular.
"Did you enjoy fucking my brother?" she asked, watching the girls eyes widen in fear just as she felt an all encompassing warmth spread throughout her body as a familiar voice spoke from just above of the two girls.
"Are you jealous, love?" Tom asks his sister as he leaned against a large tree, his hands casually in his suit pockets and a smirk on his lips.
Seeing him brought all the anger back that she had previously felt, slapping the dagger on the ground and earning a cut on her palm for her troubles before she stalked up to her twin and slapped him across the cheek, smearing a trail of blood across.
"You son of a bitch," she said, her voice shaking with fury. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me?" she asked, hurt now entering her voice as his stormy grey eyes darkened to match their hair. Unexpectedly she was thrown to the ground next to Sara as the girl cried out and tried to wiggle away from them, Tom's hand wrapping around Hermione's throat, caressing it more than contributing to anything painful.
"Why did you want to date Jason?" his voice was as calm as could be, but Hermione could tell fury similar to her own lay beneath it.
She narrowed her eyes at him as his hands wandered down to graze her breasts, down to her hip, then to wrap around her thigh which he then painfully squeezed and could already feel bruising. Sara's whimpers filled the forest around them, echoing off the trees as they increased when Tom wrapped Hermione's leg up around his hip where it was not exposed to the cold air once her dress succumbed to gravity.
"To get him to quit following me around, Tom," she didn't even feel angry with him anymore as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, bringing his forehead down to hers to feel his breath against her lips she closed her eyes. "He means nothing to me. People were talking, we needed to keep up appearances, they could separate us. They may be muggles, but they know where to hit us where it hurts. We've made that perfectly obvious in the past years."
"They are nothing 'Mione. I promised you no one would take you away from me," his eyes bore into her's as his own anger dissipated. "We promised each other."
She said nothing, only tilting her head to kiss him gently, breaking away when they heard Sara start up again. They both turn their heads to see the girl staring at them with revulsion. "You're both sick!" she screamed at them, tears pouring out of her blue eyes and making her cheeks flush.
"Yes we are," Tom said, pulling Hermione to stand back up above the bound girl. Hermione grabbing the jewel encrusted dagger from the ground while she knelt by the sniveling girl.
"If love is sick, then we are diseased beyond help," she told her, just as she sliced the girl's jugular and watched her gasp while her life blood seeped out onto the ground beneath her.
Tom pulls her up and grips her hips as she holds her mouth in front of his, allowing a golden glow, a piece of her soul, flow from her into Tom, bringing them both to their knees still clinging to each other. Unlike when Tom made his first Horcrux, Hermione's was filled with coldness, and despair, their bond forcibly severed once more, soon to return with an even more all consuming warmth. But not without sending them into the deepest depression before granting them the gift of feeling everything the other felt as if they themselves were experiencing it.
Hermione gasps Tom's name as she wakes, finding herself laying on the cushioned bench of the compartment with Harry, Ron, and Professor Lupin hovering over her. Shivering with wet cheeks, she just knew they were going to be flushed and blotchy if she looked in a mirror..
Lupin gave her a piece of chocolate and smiled at her, "It's medicinal. Eat." Harry asked how she was doing and she started sobbing with a mouthful of the bittersweet treat in her exhaustion.
"Are you okay 'Mione?" Ron asked, worry lining his face as well as Harry's, Lupin looking slightly uncomfortable sat next to her.
Hearing the name, she sobbed harder and grabbed the closest person to her, which happened to be Harry. Having another piece of Tom's soul beside her made her feel calm, no matter that it wasn't truly him, yet that realization made her fall even more into her sadness.
"Who's Tom Hermione?" Harry asked over her shoulder, his chin resting on her shoulder with his nose buried in her curls.
She pulled back and smiled at him, wiping her tears away, "No one Harry, just someone I used to know." She didn't see Lupin flinch at the name.
~.O.~
Exceptional
Hermione's year had continued on, and it seemed as if she were cursed to find everything horrible in the castle and have it turn on her to rip her from the bliss of knowing each day pulled her closer to her twin. Her worst fear stood right in front of her in the form of a boggart: Tom's walking corpse telling her she did it to him, she let him die by leaving him. As she cast the spell, she felt herself shivering as she vaguely heard Professor Lupin say she could leave early, looking unsettled himself. Harry steered her towards the Gryffindor common room. She was tired, and she wanted her brother, but she was at a dead end with finding someone she could trust to help him and be her number one person, Lucius Malfoy may be somewhat trusted by her brother, but she didn't know him. And that made her wary. Hermione wasn't going to lose her hope though, for later that year, she found exactly who she would trust her and her brother's lives with. The one man she had previously thought might come in handy someday, Tom had written when she had told him of her plans...
Excellent idea, sister
Severus Snape. A man who lost the woman he loved to his childhood bully, a man who was scarred by his family way before that, and who had run to the Death Eaters in search for a family. The place he truly belonged. The fact that he very well be a spy now was simply irrelevant in the long run, Tom might distrust him for now but Hermione was not the master who had killed said woman who had been the reason for his defection. Hermione knew he was the one the instant she saw his eyes filled with hate at Sirius Black, and fear of Lupin once he set foot in the shrieking shack on a full moon. Hermione could just see the teenage boy hiding behind the snarling lined face that stood holding Black at wand point.
"I trusted you!" Harry yelled to Lupin, "I trusted you, and all this time, you've been his friend!"
Lupin's face was sympathetic, "Harry-" he began, not getting a chance to explain as Severus barged into the room and everyone stared, unmoving at the two men staring each other down.
Severus came up to Sirius with his wand pointed at his neck, his face filled with unconcealed loathing, "I could do it you know. But why deny the dementors? They're so longing to see you. They say a Dementor's Kiss is the worst thing to have happen to you. Your soul taken away, not being able to feel anything, stuck inside your mind."
"Severus, please." Lupin tried persuading him just as Hermione saw Harry's wand move up, but was too late to stop him from rendering Severus unconscious with a well executed Expelliarmus to the chest.
In the chaos, Peter Pettigrew in the form of Scabbers jumped out of Ron's hands before scampering off through the creaky floorboards out to the base of the Whomping Willow, bringing along everyone except Hermione and the groaning Severus all proceeding after him. Hermione approached Severus on the broken bed raining dust everywhere, wary of how he would react to help.
Crouching down next to him once she revived him to wakefulness he noticed her and scowled blackley, and seeing he was about to tear her a new one she interrupted, "Are you alright?"
The lines between his brows became more prominent in his irritation, "Yes Miss. Granger, I am fine, but when we get back to the castle-" he tried to get up as Hermione moved away to give him space, wondering how she was going to go about bringing up this conversation. But he grabbed his leg suddenly as he tried to stand, grinding his teeth together.
"Let me help," Hermione told him, bending next to him again and ignoring his protests that he could do it himself, but she knew just as well as him that healing yourself never worked as well as someone else doing it for you.
Putting a hand where he had grasped, she called upon her magic, concentrating it to flow neatly through her hand and into his leg. Severus was astounded, he didn't know what to think when the pain had receded. This girl, this girl who he had grown to dislike immensely for being friends with Potter and being an insufferable chit, was healing him with magic she shouldn't possess at such a young age, as well as doing it willingly. Growing groggy, he felt faint and almost fell back on a board if Hermione hadn't caught him and lowered him softly down and sat next to him.
She apologized, "Healing another person other than my brother usually has some side effects."
"You don't have a brother," he slurred, far less intimidating now that he wasn't scowling at everything that walked within ten feet of his person, the air absent of his frequent tongue lashings.
Smiling slightly, Hermione brushed a piece of hair out of his closed eyes, sadness filling her when he flinched away slightly but allowed her to brush her hand down his cheek regardless, "Of course I do. It's a secret."
He slowly rolled his head to look at her, his eyes hooded, "What is your brother's name?"
Hermione watched his face for any sign of emotion, "His name is Tom. Tom Riddle."
Severus simply stared at her, until a flicker of fear entered his eyes, "You look like him, before he came back, but that's not possible. She disappeared 50 years... ago…" his eyes were confusedly rolling about the room in his dizziness, but thoughts swirled all throughout his wobbly mind. It had been almost of an urban legend among those older Death Eaters who had been loyal to the Dark Lord since his school years, of the missing sister of their Master who had been his balm, his other half who had never much been parted from his side. The girl who had suddenly disappeared the winter of their sixth year of schooling within Hogwarts, and the catalyst of their master just about losing his mind with pain and anger. The start of his obsession with immortality as well. Dumbledore's wariness of her, the girl's familiar name, and her appearance so alike her older brother suddenly made all that much more sense.
Hermione grabbed his left arm and rolled up the sleeve to expose the faded Dark Mark, "Are you truly loyal to him Severus, or are you loyal to the man who allowed Lily to be murdered?" He tensed up at his former love's name, and if Hermione hadn't been holding onto him, she wouldn't have noticed. She smiled before he could say anything. "He was never meant to be like this, we were never after power. We just wanted to be together, forever. It seemed though that people were constantly trying to tear us apart, including the man who claims to be on the side of the light but had more darkness in him at the time than me and Tom." Sadness overcame her as she traced the mark's outline, "We may have killed people, but it was never for fun. It was necessary, never let a body go to waste. He never would have turned out this way if I had been with him, I was never one to believe in prophecies in the first place. Like the one that led him to walking the earth as if he was a common parasite," she paused for a moment as tears gathered in her eyes, looking to Severus who stared at her as if making up something in his head. "We were never meant to be apart for this long, we always lost our minds a little bit if we were even apart for a day."
"You aren't like him at all, are you?" Severus asked Hermione, sitting up as the effects of being healed weared off.
Her mouth lifted a bit, "Not how he is now, no." she hesitated, "Does he hurt you?"
"Yes." Severus wondered why she cared, she may not act like the Dark Lord's sister, but she was in all ways but attitude at the moment.
Her face fell again, "If you had a choice, Severus, would you choose to be free of your masters? Of my brother, of Dumbledore, of all magical obligations? Would you be loyal to the person who would free you to make your own allegiances to who you want to, not out of any compulsion but your own will?"
Severus' mind stopped, not even wanting to contemplate the possibilities of a masterless life. It was too good to be true. He looked to her with a hidden vulnerability much like that hint of his old teenage self he had shown just minutes ago, searching her innocent seeming face that looked so much like her brother, yet so different. He made up his mind. "Yes. I would."
Hermione's face lit up as if he told her he would give her the stars before lifting his arm to her lips, and so she kissed the mark that was never meant to bind someone to another person, but was meant originally as a sign of devotion between only her and her brother. Severus' body radiated warmth from her mouth touching his skin, never having felt such a thing as her energy warming him to his dragon hide encased toes before. Hermione pulled back, watching as the Dark Mark turned pitch black once more, shifting slightly with the addition of a blooming flower within the mouth. Severus could feel deep in his gut that he made the right decision.
"You are part of our family now," Hermione said, helping him stand finally, "You won't have to worry about Tom anymore. I'll deal with him."
"He is still truly alive."
"Yes. He is."
A howl suddenly broke through the creaks and groans of the shack, and they know exactly who and what it is.
"Lupin," Severus growls, the fear reentering his eyes no matter how hard he tried to contain it.
"Damn it," Hermione said, "Harry and Ron are out there."
As they emerged from the base of the ground of the Willow, they saw Lupin make the final changes of his transformation into lycanthropy and Sirius transforming into his animagus form as well to lunge at Remus. Severus and Hermione both run in front of a scared Harry and shaking Ron who was once again holding Peter Pettigrew in his rat form, all the while Hermione could feel Severus shaking as his wand lifted and sent a nonverbal sleeping charm at Remus, causing Sirius to whimper slightly and turn to Severus with his mouth foaming, thinking he had caused harm to his best friend. He lunged, and Hermione stepped in the way at the shocked gasps of the two boys behind her, only to get bitten on the thigh and knocked back into Severus who held her up as everything went dark.
..
Hospital Wing
Hermione was taken to the Hospital Wing as Sirius put Remus back into the Shrieking Shack, Harry and Ron then taking him, as well as Pettigrew, to Dumbledore under the Invisibility Cloak. Madame Pomfrey was then bustling around Hermione's bed who had a pillow under her newly bandaged thigh.
Severus was sitting beside her bed, looking at her with an indistinguishable expression, "Why would you do that? Why would you risk yourself for me?" his deep drawling baritone uncharacteristically quiet and low so as to not be overheard by the castle's ears.
She smiled at him as she could hear Madame Pomfrey muttering to herself in her office, drawing his left arm into her lap to caress his newly darkened arm through his frock coat.
"This mark, Severus, is a symbol that will forever connect us together. It is a sign of your love and loyalty to me, as well as protection on my part. When I offered this chance to you, I was offering a wardship to you. My reincarnated body may be young, but I still have my mind." She said to his face that showed so much vulnerability that he never had shown to anyone, such as it was those he would have shown most likely would have used it against him in some way in the future. She felt like weeping as he asked himself as well as her why she chose him, why he was so special to this one girl who may have well saved his life from the animagus who had spent years loathing him.
As if she read his thoughts, she raised a hand to his cheek, "Your life is very special, and if anyone has ever seen the real you and not the snarling mask you put up everyday, they would see it too. That is why I chose you, Severus. You were a man, sentenced to death at a very early age by joining my brother, and then Dumbledore. I would never ask you to do anything I would not do myself, or do anything to you that I myself would not take."
He brought himself together, looking at this small girl that held so much power in more than her wand, he kissed her knuckles. "Thank you."
She smiled at him, and she asked him something she knew very well he could refuse but wouldn't.
"Will you help me bring my brother back, Severus? My brother, not Lord Voldemort, but the man he used to be before he was taken from me?"
He knelt on bended knee, bowing over her hand, "Yes, my lady. I swear to you that I, Severus Snape, will do anything in my power to bring back your brother."