AN - Hi friends! This chapter is chalk full of dialogue, which normally I try to avoid, but it was necessary for the plot (hopefully it's not too dry). J K Rowling is a genius and I am merely a fan. Thank you for reading!
- Chapter Eleven - June 21 1929 -
- Grape Coloured Glasses and Group Conversations -
Hermione looked down at little Tom as he yawned out loud and opened his eyes to the group of them. His deep chestnut eyes searched each one of them until they landed on hers. He grinned an open smile with a couple of pearly whites peeking their own little hellos at her. Tom thrust his tiny fisted hands towards her and gurgled a few non-descript words.
"Oh look Hermione! He wants you!" Luna exclaimed clapping her hands together with a large smile on her face.
Hermione grabbed Tom from Justin's hands and swooned at the small boy in her arms. He rested his head on her shoulder and sighed contentedly. What little weight he had shifted only slightly as he nestled further into her willing embrace. Hermione was speechless.
There was a comfortable silence among the four young adults as they headed into the main room. Hermione couldn't help but smile at the way Tom's head bobbed against her frame. He wasn't as vocal as she had been expecting, but she assumed he spoke less due to the lack of stimulation living in the orphanage. His actions promised him to be quite the attention suck though, that made her laugh.
Once seated, Hermione gazed around the room at her friends; she could tell that Malfoy was slowly growing on her because she considered him an ally. It was a loose term, however. Although she still didn't trust him, she decided that there much more to worry about than Malfoy. The group of four now had a little tot to think about and would have to at least try to put their differences aside.
After a prolonged silence, Justin spoke up, "Now what Hermione?" The wavy haired wizard motioned to a comfortable looking Tom sitting peacefully in her lap.
His question hung in the air far too long to be comfortable. Then Hermione sprung into action. She handed Tom to Luna and went to grab her battered notebook to embellish her plan.
When she returned, Hermione couldn't help but smile at the way Luna was entertaining their new son. She dropped the notebook on the wooden coffee table and promptly sat down. Crossing her legs, Hermione cleared her throat to grab attention.
Luna ceased dangling a clay radish for Tom to eagerly grab at. She handed the earring to the little boy to examine. Hermione chuckled at the calculating look of the toddler. He scrunched his nose before swiftly popping the jewelry in his mouth. When Hermione was just about to shout in fear, Luna opened the little one's mouth and took the radish out.
Tom didn't seem to mind. He grinned up at Luna cheekily reaching his hands into her long hair and everyone laughed. The little boy was already shaping to become a charmer.
His chestnut eyes fluttered shut and he slumped down on the blonde witch's lap still clutching what looked to be a lock of Luna's hair in his tiny fist. The little treasure must've been so tired. His easy temperament was quite the blessing
Hermione clasped her hands together and smiled at the group. Her frizzy hair fell into her face as she got up onto her knees and she blew it away with the side of her mouth.
"Okay," she grabbed the attention of the room. "So, in short, we can't stay here long. We mustn't imprint ourselves in this society, not with our real names. And the idea of disguises doesn't make sense for the long term…" She looked up to see Luna casually stroking her long hair, Malfoy fixing his blonde mop and Justin fidgeting his large feet.
Hermione continued. "I say we fix the time turner, and choose a decade to travel to and raise Tom there, er then. That way we will exist in a different timeline. I'm hoping to live in Hogsmeade."
The disgruntled look on Malfoy's face at the thought of living in anything other than an esteemed manor made Hermione snort. Hermione would never willingly live in his manor, that was for certain.
She gazed around the room at the other to to gauge responses. "Well?"
Justin spoke up, "Hermione, why don't we raise him somewhere muggle?" She cocked her head to the side and was about to politely disagree when Malfoy interrupted her train of thought.
"Not bloody likely."
For the first time on their adventure, Justin looked affronted and frowned over at the blonde wizard. "And why's that? Not good enough for you?"
Malfoy replied with a slight edge to his voice as if Justin's accusation was getting on his nerves. "No, it's just that we have to raise Tom among magical folk in an 'average' - if we can call our buggered situation average - wizarding household to prevent any chances of him becoming exceptionally off-kilter in either direction."
Hermione grimaced at the blonde's logic. "Justin, I am loathe to agree with anything Malfoy says, but I have to say he's right. Our mission is to ensure a normal childhood for little Tom." She smiled over at the slumbering toddler cradled in Luna's arms.
"Yeah, and I wouldn't even be opposed to him visiting muggle London, or staying with muggles for a while. But he has to be around magic, otherwise, that's just cruel."
Hermione rolled her eyes and asked, "Does everyone agree with this?"
They did. The discussion turned to time travel as Justin asked Hermione a couple of important questions.
"So Hermione," Justin leaned forwards in his chair and leaned his elbows on his knees. "What happens to our timeline when we time jump with Tom? Will everyone in our time just… disappear? What about us, do you think that we will suffer any damage?"
Hermione sat up straighter and locked her eyes on Justin, "Firstly, when we use the time turner -once it's fixed- (Hermione looked pointedly at her Hufflepuff friend) and actually take Tom out of this timeline, the man who called himself Voldemort will have never existed, therefore, there is a chance that we would not have been created either." She thought for a moment and then said, "Well, you and I most probably would have, but as for Luna and Malfoy, we can't be sure…"
Justin nodded intently at her words. "So, is there any chance of us vanishing as we jump into a future decade?" Justin's eyebrows crinkled in worry and he shot a not-so-subtle glance at Luna.
"No. There is no chance that any of us will be harmed during time travel, but if we proceed to try and make it back to our own timeline, things may get a tad bit messy." Hermione answered. She was quite pleased that she had found some time earlier to read up on time turner use and be completely confident in her answers.
Malfoy joined the conversation. "Hey Granger, why does it matter if we cock up and 'imprint' here if we're just about to travel to a different timeline and erase this one?" He smirked as Hermione felt a blush creep up her cheeks. She hadn't really given it that much thought, other than her personal preference of not living this far back in time.
"It was just part of the plan. We can't very well integrate this far back in time while being so out of touch with everything…" Hermione was trying to think on her feet, "And besides, don't you want to witness the ramifications of us bringing Tom into lets just say, the 70's?"
Hermione stiffened as Malfoy squinted his eyes at her and crossed his lean arms, "you're so full of it Granger, you just made that up on the spot."
Just as Hermione was about to screech back at the infuriating -yet correct- wizard, Justin interjected by reeling the hot headed members of the group back in to focus on the discussion at hand.
They all sat in silence.
Malfoy broke it by asking, "So, there is no way we can go back to our old lives?" Hermione could have sworn that she saw a flicker of emotion in the blonde wizard's eyes. What emotion it was, she couldn't be sure.
Hermione mulled the question over in her mind for a quiet moment. The bated breaths indicated that Malfoy was not the only person who was interested in knowing the answer.
"I think that it may be possible, but there are quite a few risks…" Hermione was about to list the variety of both physically gruesome and emotionally taxing risks that timeline hopping included but Malfoy held a hand up to stop her. He nodded in her direction and cast his gaze downwards.
There was a long silence and Hermione's words rung inside her own head bouncing like worrisome rocks against a tense window pane.
Luna abruptly got up off the couch with Tom in her grasp and promptly handed the little one to Malfoy. Hermione couldn't help a snort at the wide grey eyes of the wizard directly across from her as he lifted his head. Luna quickly and wordlessly left the room.
The quirky witch re-entered the room wearing the most comical looking coke bottle glasses that Hermione had ever seen. They had purple frames and matched Luna's style perfectly. They reminded Hermione of the exact colour grape flavoured sweet wrappers were; bright, fictionalized purple. Hermione let a small laugh escape her lips.
"Luna! What are those?" She giggled even harder when the dirty blonde witch faced her with a serene expression on her face. She reminded Hermione of the horrible Professor Trelawney, just much prettier.
A small smile cracked across Luna's face and then she grinned at Hermione. "These are my appearance changing disguise. I conjured them out of a couple butter beer bottles when we were visiting the pub with those witches the other day."
She tapped the purple frames with her fingers. "They are merely glass. I don't need them for vision, see. I wanted to create my own disguise, but Hermione, your charms were much more effective." The eccentric witch plopped back down beside Malfoy on the couch and smiled at him.
Hermione's eyes turned to Malfoy. He was staring down at the tot sleeping in his lap. Malfoy's mouth hung open in a small 'O' shape and it almost seemed as if he wasn't blinking.
"What's wrong Draco?" Justin laughed from his spot in a velvet armchair to the left of Hermione.
"Nothing really…" Malfoy trailed off. "It's just… this little squeak ordered me to kill Dumbledore just over two years ago, and yet, here he rests."
The entire room fell silent. A chill ran down Hermione's spine. The awkward feelings were so thick and tangible that she swore she could reach out and grab some uneasiness from the air in front of her.
It was hard for her to remember sometimes that Draco Malfoy was alone in this group. The one on the other side. Or at least, he had been. He was an infuriating wizard, but Hermione stubbornly admitted to herself that he was human too.
Hermione was beginning to question if he really was telling the truth when he said that he was on their side. Her constant fear was that once the time turner was fixed, Malfoy would curse them all and use it to travel back home; regardless of the risks, she was sure that he would rather be anywhere than here with this rag-tag bunch.
Night had fallen quickly. Hermione felt her eyes begin to droop. It wasn't as if they had a lot to do tomorrow other than focus on detailing their plans, but it would be nice to get a good night's sleep. Hermione crossed the room towards the silent Malfoy and reached for Tom.
"I can take him to bed."
Hermione got a small nod in response before she swept the little tot away. She bid goodnight to the boys and headed up the steps with Luna to their room. They had placed the transfigured crib in there for the time being.
Luna placed her hand on Hermione's shoulder as they took the steps one at a time. Both of them were dead on their feet, but they had priorities now. Once they reached the room, Luna all but fell into bed and was almost immediately appeared to be asleep. Hermione smiled at her dear friend and found herself once again envying the girl's innocence.
Draco remained seated on the couch a little while after Justin headed up the stairs up to his room. It didn't hit Draco until little Tom Riddle was in his lap that Granger's plan was to raise Voldemort as an entirely different being. Tommy would never become Lord Voldemort is they had any influence.
More than once during the past few days, Draco had wondered to himself what his purpose was with this hodgepodge group. He couldn't help but feel like a dark stain on their white sails.
No matter what he did, Draco would never be enough for them; his hopes for redemption felt like a lost cause.
He was tainted. A broken toy soldier with something much worse than a missing leg; he had a missing heart. The very being who took it away was lying in a crib beside two witches he never thought he'd ever speak to again.
Only a few minutes after Justin left for the smallest bedroom available (the damn Hufflepuff was always being all humble and tosh like that) did Draco make his way up the stairs to his room.
Besides the creaking of well worn stairs beneath his woolen sock clad feet, Draco could hear a soft noise. If he strained his ears, he could hear it almost well enough to make out the words. The melodic sound was coming from the girls' room.
He quieted his steps and strolled slowly past the door, lingering for a reason he wasn't sure of. It was cracked open slightly. Draco could see through a thick sliver of the door frame that Granger was rocking little Tom in her arms with a comforting smile on her lips.
"You are so loved. You are so loved…" The witch repeated the words in a soft tune that made Draco's heart ache. The frizzy witch shifted Tom in her arms so that Draco could see dark brown eyes staring up adoringly at Granger in a way that Draco wanted to gag.
How was she so good with the little boy? From what he knew about her, she was an only child with no younger siblings. It seemed strange that Tom had such an instant affinity for the grating Gryffindor. Of all four of them, Tom should at least admire him; he was the Slytherin after all!
Draco continued to watch the pair comfort each other in their own way until the thick bush that Granger called hair whipped around and her light brown eyes locked onto his. Immediately her countenance changed into a sour line.
She carefully placed the dozing toddler into the crib and placed a kiss on his head before Draco thought it best to spin around and leave. It was too late because she caught his arm and hissed into the quiet hallway.
"What do you want Malfoy?"
He shrugged out of her grasp and sighed. "Just checking on Tommy, Granger. It's none of your business what I do."
"It does if it involves looking into my room!" Her quick wit bit back at him; even in the dark he could see a slight fire in her eyes. He had to admit she had a point.
"Don't flatter yourself Granger, I can promise you I was just checking on Tommy." He turned on his heal before she could reply and spoke over his shoulder at her, "I'd say goodnight, but that would imply I wish you well."
Draco felt a smirk cross his lips as he heard the frustrated witch splutter before shutting her bedroom door.
Hermione fumed as she climbed under the covers. She tried her best not to shake the bed too much with Luna beside her. When the other witch spoke, Hermione realized she hadn't needed to be so careful; Luna was still awake.
"You mustn't be so hard on Draco, Hermione."
Hermione ground her teeth and whispered back at the blonde, "He's such an insufferable prat, it's second nature for us to bicker."
"I think that you should be kinder to him... He is going through much more than you believe."
"Yeah, like what?"
"It's best if you ask him."
Hermione was about to retort back when Luna's chastising words made her mouth go dry.
"And perhaps you could try actually listening to what he says…"