A/N: To all my readers—apologies for the unplanned six-month hiatus. To make a long story short, I've been suffering from health problems that have made it difficult to write, but I'm slowly recovering. Thank you to everyone who continues to read.
Tom opened the diary forcefully; the spine had been bent more at one point than any other, about two-thirds of the way into the journal.
His eyes glossed over the page, catching Abraxas's name enough times to approach a chant, but that was not what he had been looking for. Tom was interested in another Malfoy—and what he believed he was doing with Hermione.
Luckily, the journal was meticulously dated, allowing Tom to skip to the younger Malfoy's arrival.
Monday, January 15, 1945
It's still been difficult to be back from the holidays. The respite from Abraxas and Riddle was imperfect, but calm. I'm glad that Charlus insisted we spend the holidays as a couple this year; it reminded me how well we work together. His presence is a soothing balm that dampens the burn of what-ifs. I'm not back where I was when Abraxas delivered the news to me, cold and detached, that he broke it off—that it was done. I don't feel as though I am facing a void. I know our future will be pleasant and warm, and that he'll make me laugh sometimes. But I can't deny that it's worse now, knowing that what I felt for Abraxas—what I feelfor him—is not one-sided as I've been led to believe, but returned.
Tom continued to flip through the diary, bored with her musings over Abraxas, until he found Draco's name.
…his grandson: Draco. I can't let Riddle break up another happy couple. Hermione and Draco were in love once, and I know they can be again. I knew there was a good reason for me to bring the ingredients back with me after break. I thought it was for me, after Abraxas's revelations, but I can make it work with Charlus, and Abraxas's death changes everything. I could never willingly forget him, and I can't think of a better way to honor his memory than to make things right for his grandson.
His body went rigid, a chill running down his spine. Tom couldn't understand the final page—because this was the final page of the diary, finished long before her death despite her years of consistent documentation. But what could it mean to make things right? How could Dorea…?
And then Tom's fist crumpled the journal so tightly that the pages began to stretch nearly past their limit. Ingredients. A potion. Dorea could get them back together by using a potion on Hermione. But what potion could produce this type of effect? The love seemed almost genuine, except for that tainthe had felt emanating from her body. And there was her dream, too. Something didn't match inside Hermione, the effect simultaneously pervasive and yet so much subtler than the traditional signs of a love potion.
A traditional love potion… But Tom pushed the thought once it entered his mind, pushing it back to the place where it lived along with other half-formed conclusions drawn from all he had learned over the past few days.
Tom flipped back to the beginning of the journal, skimming with an obsessive determination as he searched for key terms such as "ingredients," or "potion." He was barely three pages in when the pages began to blur. What the fuck did it matter what kind of potion?Tom couldn't make himself focus on details at this moment where everything he tried to forget was forced in front of him.
Because it had been playing like the broken record at the orphanage in the back of his mind, that Hermione wanted to kill him. And he had tried to forget it, succeeding mostly. And it had been prickling at the edge of his thoughts that Hermione had been ready to cry at a micro-rejection from Draco, but he could dodge it for the moment. It was familiar to him; compartmentalizing any emotion and placing it in a box with the rest that he would never open except in his nightmares.
But what the fuck am I supposed to do with this?, Tom raged inside his mind as the pages were lost to the tears rushing down his face, hot and unyielding as they hadn't been since his first year at school. The Room of Requirement had first opened to him because he needed a place to break down far away from the other Slytherins who mocked him for his unknown name.
Dorea drugged Hermione. She's under a love potion.Those two facts repeated and reverberated throughout Tom's skull until he finally added, just like my father. Just like my fucking mudblood father.
Tom covered his face in his hands, as though burying it would bury the feeling he wanted to rejected. He could not feel pity for his father, his father that abandoned him to live in that place, his father that he had killed with two words.
Hermione was biting her nails two rooms away, still brooding over her earlier encounter with Draco. What had happened between them? She knew that Tom visited her in dreams, but Draco had her every waking moment; couldn't that be enough? Hermione didn't know how much longer she could take this rejection, or "space" as he preferred to call it. And then his failure to transfigure today—she had to wonder if this was about more than just forgetting. Maybe he was finding a possible lifetime as Abraxas more overwhelming than he let on. Had she been self-centered not to ask him about how he was coping with becoming his grandfather?
Her worries were interrupted by a pained sound coming from outside her door. She quickly glanced around for Crookshanks, who was not the source of the noise, as she was in a seemingly peaceful sleep in the corner of Hermione's room.
Hermione was indecisive about staying in bed for only a moment as the sound repeated itself. Rising, Hermione wrapped her tattered robe around herself and stepped out into the common room. The sounds continued, and Hermione bit her lip nervously as she realized the sounds were certainly coming from Tom's room, and they sounded like sobs.
Tentatively, Hermione knocked on the door. She was still upset with Tom for whatever he had done to Dorea—because she was certain it was him—but she couldn't turn her back on him when he was so clearly struggling. "Tom?" She called. There was no response.
She bit her lip nervously as she pushed the door open slightly. It wasn't locked. Tom didn't react to her slow opening of the door, and her heart twisted to see him sitting on his bed, head bent down between open fingers that couldn't catch the tears pouring out, uneven and merciless.
Hermione sat on the bed, thoughts abandoning her, as she embraced Tom.
"Tom, do you want to tell me what's going on?"
He didn't respond.
"Tom? What is it? Can I help?" She felt a bit desperate, her mind flitting to Harry before the start of fifth year, emotions brimming over while she stood by helpless.
Tom responded suddenly, grabbing her face and searching her eyes wildly. His hair was sticking up at odd places, slightly wet from sweat or tears, it was impossible to tell which. "Was any of it real?"
Hermione squinted, confused. "What, Tom?"
"You. You said you loved me, Hermione. Was it part of your plan to kill me?"
Hermione glanced around the room that suddenly seemed smaller, fear beginning to blossom in her chest. Why had she stepped into this room?
"Tom, I don't know what you mean," Hermione replied guardedly.
But her caution broke when his eyes began to well up again and he only choked out, "please." His voice was raspy and hoarse when he finally continued, "I need to know, Hermione."
Hermione nodded, small, nervous nods as she hid her eyes under her trembling hands. "I loved you, Tom, but it's in the past; it's gone."
Tom shook his head furiously.
Hermione nodded again, "Yes, Tom, yes, it is."
Tom turned around and grabbed a huge book that had been sitting behind him, placing it in Hermione's lap so that she could read it. Looking down at the page, she saw that it was handwritten.
But they all follow him around as though he's the Malfoy; I don't understand what the other Slytherins see in him.
Hermione glanced back up at Tom. "What is this?"
"It's Dorea's journal. Take it." He shoved it closer to her so that the open book was against her stomach, the edges prodding at her sides.
"Tom, what am I supposed to do with this?" Hermione grasped at the large book to try and give it back to Tom, but his hands were on hers, shoving the book at her so hard that she had to reach out her hand to steady herself, her fingernails digging into Tom's Slytherin-green bedspread.
Tom began to speak quickly, his words tumbling over one another. "You know something is wrong, Hermione. Your waking life and dreaming ones are separate, skidding off in opposite directions and it has shaken you."
Hermione leaned farther back as Tom closed in on her, continuing to push the oversized journal against her as her hand slipped over the edge of the bed, forcing her to reach up and grab one of his bedposts to prevent herself from falling.
"Tom," Hermione rasped out, her breathing inhibited by the weight on her chest, "you are scaring me."
"Promise me that you will read it." His voice was earnest as he seemed to slightly steady himself, releasing the pressure on her and sitting back. His face was streaked and red, but he was no longer crying. "I was not attempting to hurt you, Hermione, but I need you to read that book. Cover to cover." The subtext in his words were clear; he wasn't trying to hurt her, unlike Hermione who wanted to kill him. How did he know?, Hermione asked herself as she absentmindedly chewed the inside of her mouth.
"Will you promise?" Tom repeated, his eyes boring into her as she was brought back to the present moment.
"Yes," Hermione agreed in a small voice.
"Good. Then you can leave," Tom snapped. Hermione scuttled out of the room before he could change his mind.