Hermione and Tom danced for what felt like hours before she reluctantly separated to run to the restroom. Lyra was there, leaning against a stall in her aquatic glory having a solemn chat with Moaning Myrtle.

"Myrtle!" Hermione exclaimed, a bit startled. As far as she had heard, Myrtle had been banished from school by the Ministry until Olive completed school. Furthermore, seeing the basilisk's victim was not her ideal way of spending time while on a date with her murderer.

"How do you know my name?" Myrtle demanded. She hadn't changed a wink in fifty years; Hermione had always attributed her attitude to years living as a ghost, but apparently she had always been snippety, at least in death.

"I heard about a girl named Myrtle murdered in here. I figured it was a solid guess. I'm Hermione."

"I can't exactly shake hands. I'm a ghost. Anyway, you're interrupting."

"That's quite rude," Lyra said in a sing-song voice.

"Sorry, Lyra."

"I was talking to Myrtle."

"Oh. How is your night, Lyra?"

"It's the same as ever."

"Lyra was just complaining about her date," Myrtle said in a strangely triumphant voice.

"Todd is lovely, but I would like to dance at one of these balls."

"He didn't dance with you once?" Lyra shook her head. She seemed melancholy, which didn't match her.

"I can offer up my date." Lyra laughed. "Just for a dance, of course."

"Who is your date?" Myrtle asked, hanging over the stall like a ragdoll.

"Tom Riddle." Is it bad that Hermione took a bit of delight in the squeal of jealousy from the ghost?

After much gushing from Myrtle, Lyra and Hermione headed back to Ball together, arms linked. Hermione looked all over for Todd, but he was nowhere to be seen. Slightly irritated at her awkward friend, she didn't ask Lyra about his absence. Her date, on the other hand, was engrossed in a conversation with Slughorn. He turned and smiled at Hermione, but she waved him off, and danced with Lyra herself. Apparently this was quite strange fifty-five years in the past, but they didn't let that stop them as a fast song came from the band, laughing and spinning together.

The rest of the night was a blur as Hermione danced with her date. They clung to each other the entire time, save for her brief departure with Lyra. Unlike in her time, there were few upbeat tracks, and she found herself enjoying the slow songs once they weren't the only two people on the dancefloor.

After a night of what felt like floating, they ended up back in the common room, kissing passionately before Tom pulled her into his room for the first time. Before she could fully take in the dark stone surroundings, he had knocked her into the wall so fiercely that it shook the dresser next to them, leaving some of the drawers ajar. There was nothing restrained about their kisses; she was pinned against the wall and there was so much urgency that their teeth knocked into each other a few times before they had made it to the bed. Tom ran his hands along the entirety of her skintight dress before letting out a frustrated sigh.

"How does this come off?" Tom finally asked, flabbergasted.

Hermione couldn't help but laugh. "With magic."

Tom groaned and wordlessly vanished the bronze dress. Hermione felt a chill run down her as the fabric was taken away, but it was quickly fixed as the space between her and Tom vanished as well. Tom was aggressively kissing her neck, leaving trails of hot, wet kisses, making her shiver from the disappearing warmth as he trailed down her neck and toward the edge of her white lace bra. Her left collarbone throbbed from his voracious biting.

Wrapped up in Tom and his kisses, she had completely forgotten what the rest of him was doing until she felt one of his long digits under the white cotton of her underwear. As he began to gently massage her, she let out a moan as his tongue darted under her bra. Wordlessly, she vanished it along with Tom's robes. Tom responded with a low chuckle before quickening his pace and flicking his tongue against her left nipple. As Hermione writhed under his touch, she caught something out of the corner of her eye: a flicker of gold. It was sitting in the drawer they had inadvertently knocked open. She tried to ignore it and focus on Tom but to no avail. She craned her neck to get a better look, and her suspicions were confirmed as she saw the outline of a badger. Memories flashed through her head in quick succession and she could feel her heartrate as it went from fast to erratic. Hermione bolted up, adjusting her underwear that could have barely been considered on.

"Hermione," Tom said with a breathless whine as he pushed back his dark hair. Hermione hesitated at the door for a second, caught between her moral compass and how ridiculously sexy Tom looked at that moment. His dark hair was mussed, the skin on his neck was red with a newly formed hickey she had accidentally given him, and his bottom lip was slightly swollen, making his pout look even more pronounced.

"I have to go, Tom."

"Go where? Your room is right across the hall." His words tumbled out slowly as he regained his focus. By the time he finished his sentence, she had left and quickly crossed the common room before sinking down into her own carpet. He didn't follow her, which was a relief. She didn't know if she had the requisite self-control to say no again.

Hermione threw on her tattered brown robe and wrapped herself in an old quilt her mother had made her long before she knew she was a witch. She crawled underneath the bed and pulled out all the books on Horcruxes she had bought so long ago on her date with Abraxas. She had stowed them away, telling herself that they could wait until later.

Hermione laughed bitterly. Later. What a joke. Tom wasn't supposed to have the cup for ages. But she knew she had changed things; why was she so arrogant to believe that it would be for the better? As she looked at the titles and tried to re-invigorate her sense of determination that she had when she bought them, she found it lacking. Dumbledore sent you here for a reason, Hermione told herself as she stroked the spine of Dark Soule Magick. As she opened the dusty volume, a lone tear fell on the yellowed pages. Hermione just stared at the title page, frozen. Why are you doing this to your soul, Tom? A soul that I…

Hermione tried to comfort herself with the thought that it likely wasn't a Horcrux—yet. If it were, it would be better protected than shoved in a drawer. She laughed, though, as she tried to compare it to the negative energy she had felt radiating off the locket when she held it in her hands. As though she could feel it now; the soul was Tom's, and he hardly made her feel dark and gloomy. His ring molded to him perfectly; there was no extra evil a Horcrux brings. It was just Tom. Her Tom.

Hermione fell asleep thinking of Horcruxes and of Tom, having an odd dream where she was seventeen years old again, holding the locket in her hands, but instead of destroying it, she hugged it tight to her chest because it felt like Tom.

Hermione didn't know how long she slept for, but when she woke, it was still dark out. She slipped on a pair of bunny slippers that were falling apart; one bunny's head was nearly detached from the whole. She also grabbed Crookshanks for support; she had a hunch that Tom was waiting on the other side of the door, and knew that this would not be a fun conversation.

Tom was sprawled on the couch, wearing wool checkered slacks and a white button down that was wrinkled as his knitted forehead. "Good morning, Hermione." His tone was crisp, formal, and decidedly distant. She tried not to let it hurt.

"May I sit?"

"It's your couch, too." Tom didn't look up as she sat down, and didn't reach to move his reading glasses, turning his page in a move that signaled he was not going to speak first.

"I'm sorry." Her voice was soft and small.

"For what?" He still didn't look up, but Hermione heard his voice waver slightly.

"For leaving."

"Why?"

"Well, I know it was bad timing."

"Not why are you sorry; why did you leave?" The glasses were off, fixed on his head like a crown. His gray eyes bore into hers, and she could see them searching her, assessing the veracity of her words.

Hermione had decided to tell a half-truth. It was all she could do because she couldn't talk about the Cup, or Horcruxes, or her mission. And the sad thing was, it wasn't just about dooming the future. If Tom asked, "so what?, or if he asked her if she could live with him making more Horcruxes, she didn't know her answer. And that's what was really bothering her.

"It's just that I haven't had sex with anyone since my boyfriend died." It was half-true; she had pushed thoughts of Draco to the back of her head fairly effectively, but sometimes they popped up out of nowhere when something seemingly insignificant brought his memory crashing back like a wave, reminding her that he had only been cold three and a half months. That she had kissed him three and a half months ago. Loved him three and a half months ago. And Tom had effectively killed him. Not yet, but eventually.

That was not what Tom had expected, clearly. He looked a bit dumbfounded, which didn't fit with the certainty his face normally carried. "Oh."

"What is it?" Hermione asked.

"I didn't realize you had had sex before. I kind of assumed you left because it was your first time or something." The last few words ran together to almost constitute a mumble, but not quite.

Now it was Hermione's turn to say, "oh."

"What happened to your boyfriend?" Tom said the term like she had imagined he would have pronounced Mudblood.

"He died. Grindewald's followers." Did that qualify as half true?

"You're lying." Apparently not.

"Yes. I can't say who killed him, but he was murdered."

"Were you there?"

"No. Dumbledore told me." A shock of surprise erupted in those pretty gray orbs. She had mentioned the detail as a gesture of peace, an attempt to give him as much of the truth as she could muster right now. She could see the wheels turning in his head and wondered if it had been the right move.

"How long were you together?"

Hermione had expected to talk about this during some cozy late-night conversation bundled up in his arms, not in the harsh light of Tom's wand after a mess of a night during an interrogation. But things never seemed to turn out quite right with Tom. Hermione sighed. "Almost two years."

"So it was serious."

"Yes."

"Do you think you would still be together if he were alive?"

"Yes." Hermione could see the question he really wanted to ask from the slight twitch of his shoulders: Did you care about him more than me? But she didn't answer that question. The answer was clear, but she felt much too conflicted about her feelings for Tom to give it to him.

Tom nodded slightly. "It's strange you've never mentioned him."

Hermione shrugged. "How would I bring it up, exactly? Let me tell you about my dead boyfriend? It's not exactly a wonderful conversation-starter."

Tom scoffed at that, turning his head slightly to break eye contact. "I've told you plenty of things that aren't great conversation-starters, Hermione." His tone was borderline dangerous, but Hermione didn't let it deter her.

"I know," she said softly, reaching out to touch his arm.

He flinched and scooted away from her. It hurt. "You aren't telling me the whole reason why you ran away last night." It was a statement, not a question.

"You're getting better at Legilimency."

"I'll just keep getting better." He said it in a snobbish voice that she rarely heard from him, but it fit.

"I know."

"I can't be with someone who keeps so much from me; who can't even explain why she left me."

Hermione felt Tom testing her, prodding her, poking her, knowing that he would likely accept something less than everything; that he would probably accept something merely amounting to reassurance. But for the first time in months, she couldn't look away from the ring on his finger that glinted in the dim glow of the moonlight. And she couldn't keep putting off the future.

"I know," she whispered, staring determinedly at her feet, knowing that his pleading gray eyes could only lead to loss.

"So you choose your secrets over me?" His voice was smooth and viscous like molasses but she saw his toes curl and twitch as her eyes stayed trained to the floor.

"I wouldn't put it like that," Hermione said, trying to keep her voice steady, but doing much worse, as she heard it waver and shake and tried to ignore her heartbeat and suppress the violent shaking she felt underneath her left hand that was glued onto her ribcage.

"I would." Two simple words and she wanted to say three of them in quick succession because then she couldn't take it back, but she didn't.

Instead she said simply: "I thought you would."

"You know me well," Tom's words were filled with sadness and bitterness, and she could almost taste the metallic irony dripping from his words, insisting that she heard the unspoken conclusion: I don't know you well.

"Tom…"

"Let's finish this conversation when you're ready to tell me everything about you. Everything. Not just a name, even if it is a lovely one."

And Tom retreated into her room, leaving Hermione thinking: He thinks my name is lovely? And just like that, almost all her conviction left her at a throwaway comment from Tom, and Hermione knew what she had to do, as painful as it might be.