Thank you to everyone who has put Fracture in their favourites or are following it (you're all awesome and boost my writers ego until it hardly fits through the door :P) and a special thank you goes to Avalon Kore for being the first ever reviewer on Fracture (and what a brilliant review it was too!). Just to let ya'll know, I will probably respond to reviews or questions and stuff either at the bottom of each chapter or by PM if it's something like a complex question. Right, on with the story.

Enjoy.

Chapter 2

Somehow, through a feat of steel will power and gritted teeth, Hermione managed to shake off the urge to murder Riddle. Instantly averting her gaze from his own eyes, she noticed the broom that was by the side of the young Dark Lord. She stared at it bemusedly.

"so-" Hermione spoke weakly "-you are my rescuer then?"

He gave her a dazzling grin, one that felt vaguely sinister to her.

"I'm Tom -"he offered her a hand to shake but she stuck her hands into the frayed pockets of her robes instead, hiding the tight grip that she had on her wand. He didn't let the surprise register on his face "-Abraxas told me that there was a student stuck up here because I'm head boy. I came to see if I could help you get down, although from your robes I can tell that you aren't a student. They're very nice by the way, your robes I mean."

Hermione stared at him mutely. A warm breeze of wind ruffled his perfectly-styled hair and made his robes blow out behind him. Harry had described Tom Riddle perfectly, right down to the pale skin and expression of calculation hidden in those dark eyes. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets; either to mirror her posture in order to make her feel more at ease during their conversation (which vaguely infuriated Hermione because it was a basic manipulation tactic) or to hide that he was also holding his wand.

It was probably both.

"Right. You're head boy. You came to give me a broom ride back down to the ground and you know I'm not a student." A funny look swept across Hermione's face. I don't feel right. She thought, sort of detached and...odd.

Riddle frowned slightly as he spoke "Yes. You don't need to worry; you will be perfectly safe with me on the broom."

She slapped a hand over her mouth in order to contain her giggles. Perfectly safe? Safe!? Riddle took a step forwards and took a hand out of his pocket to reach out to her. She flinched away and his frown grew deeper.

"I think you're in shock, Miss. Come with me and I'll take you to the infirmary so-"

It was all too much too soon. Everything that had happened was just too much.

She promptly fainted.

-.-.-.-.-

The beautiful sight of a complete stranger looming over her menacingly greeted Hermione when she finally opened her eyes. She almost screamed but as soon as her mouth opened, he shoved a vile tasting potion down her throat. She gagged and coughed as it choked her and winced at the feeling of it travelling down to her stomach. It was probably incinerating her stomach lining.

Hermione clamped her mouth shut and glared at the stranger defiantly. He put the potion bottle back in his pocket and walked away. She stuck her tongue out at his retreating broad back.

A deep and oddly melodious laugh piped up from her left. Hermione's head automatically turned towards the source of the sound. When her gaze landed on a weirdly amused-looking Riddle her body tensed up, ready to run or fight. She tried to pat the pocket of her robes for her wand but found there was nothing there, so she braced herself to jump out of the bed she was laid in at an instants notice whilst taking the time to glare at him with pent-up hatred instead.

Amusement still danced in his eyes.

Tom shifted in his chair to lean towards the girl with his hands clasped in front of him and his forearms resting on his legs. A voluntary smirk tugged at his lips as he glanced down at her with mock disapproval.

"Now, now Miss Gritt, I would have thought that you would know that wands are banned in infirmaries unless you are a healer."

The infirmary? Hermione took a quick glance around and was struck with a feeling of familiarity and comfort as she recognised the Hogwarts infirmary. She would have spent all day just staring at the walls which had been destroyed in her time period but Riddle distracted her. Even as she turned her head to look back at him, he was pulling the twelve inch and three quarter walnut wand out of his pocket and twirled it between his fingers.

"You stole my wand." She stated disbelievingly, noting the irony that the Dark Lord held a wand that would be possessed by one of his future followers.

"Give it back." There was no enthusiasm behind the command. She wasn't really bothered if he gave back that particularly damned wand. Granted, it would leave her without a wand due to her own still being passed around some Snatcher social circle, but the wand that had formerly belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange repulsed her beyond the line of managing to care for it.

Riddles smirk spread into a grin. A very nasty grin, in Hermione's opinion. "Don't you think that you should be a bit nicer to someone who just rescued you from dying? You could have at least said please"

Hermione gaped at him. Rescued me from-?

"Wait, what? No-never mind that, a better question would be why?" The young Dark Lord had no reason to save her from anything.

As she watched him carefully, she saw a blank expression form on his face. Even his body language stopped giving any hints away as to what was going through his mind. He sat completely still. It was quite unnerving.

"What a peculiar question to ask." He stated, never taking his gaze away from Hermione. She felt like she was being examined under a microscope.

"You fainted while we were on the roof and fell over the edge before I could catch you-"his voice was completely monotone; it was as if his mind were thinking of something completely separate whilst he spoke automatically "-I had to dive onto my broom and fly down to catch you before you hit the ground. It was all quite dramatic; any other decent person would have done the same. There was also quite a large crowd of students below the tower who saw it all, if you would like to verify the facts."

Great- Hermione thought snidely –I owe a Voldemort-to-be a life debt. She was saved from commenting on Riddles daring rescue by the return of the stranger that had shoved a potion down her throat.

The walnut wand had vanished from Riddles hands but she noticed that the stranger had a wand of his very own. He gestured for her to lift her right arm into the air; she complied from the fear that if she didn't then he'd just grab her arm and force it up anyway. He used his wand silently to vanish some bandages that she hadn't known were there and proceeded to dab a luminous orange salve onto a wound on her arm that she also hadn't known was there. When he finished his task he walked away again, closing the cotton curtains around Hermione's bed (to her dismay) and probably going off to look after some other injured student.

Hermione turned back to Riddle, slightly afraid that he had done something nefarious during the couple of seconds that she'd taken her eyes off him. "You mentioned nothing about me becoming injured after I fainted."

Riddle raised a quizzical dark eyebrow; somehow he even managed to do it elegantly. "Your injuries aren't from when you fainted and fell. They're quite a few hours old. They also seem to be the result of some very nasty dark magic."

For a moment, Hermione was absolutely stunned that she'd manage to forget about her injuries from the final battle. It now seemed impossible to ignore the various degrees of pain that spotted her body as he reminded her of them; the pristine bed cover that lay over her was bundled and creased as she clenched her fists in reaction. She sought out a topic to discuss in order to distract herself from it.

"So the healer tells you all about my injuries but doesn't speak at all to me while he's shoving potions down my throat and sticking salves on them. That hardly seems fair."

"Life isn't fair. Besides, the healer didn't tell me anything about your injuries." Riddle replied "My knowledge about them is purely from what I've been able to deduce myself. The healer can't speak anyway."

"Can't speak?" Hermione enquired sharply.

The future Dark Lord leaned back in his chair. "Yes, he doesn't have a tongue."

Once again- in the space of about ten minutes- Hermione Jean Granger gaped in shock at Tom Marvolo Riddle. "He doesn't have a tongue!?"

Annoyance flashed in Riddles eyes "I just said that, did I not?"

"You could have said it in a politer way. Why doesn't he have a tongue?"

"It got cut out and they couldn't grow it back. Presumably that's his reasoning for becoming a healer."

Hermione couldn't help it, she stared at Riddle suspiciously. He let out an exasperated sigh and –for some reason not exactly clear to Hermione- handed the walnut wand back to her.

"I was not the one who cut out his tongue. Don't give me that look; I know that's what you were thinking. For some reason that continuously evades me, you seem to blame me for all the bad things that have happened." It irked him, to be honest. He was playing the charming student but she wasn't falling for it and she didn't show the degree of respect that he expected from her after he told her about the rescue.

I know that's what you were thinking. The words echoed in her mind. Hermione's face drained of colour. She speedily averted her eyes to stare at the wooden rafters supporting the ceiling. She needed to be more cautious. Although she hadn't felt another presence trying to brush against her mind she still needed to exercise caution while she was around him. He'd already picked up on everything that she'd accidentally given away and it looked like he'd just used his own deduction skills to do that. Hermione knew that Voldemort was a Legilimens which made her wonder at what point in time Riddle had seen it necessary to learn Legilimency.

Maybe he already was a Legilimens.

Memories of the final battle began to flood back to her. It was like her own mind was betraying her by showing all the wrong information after realising that a possible Legilimens was in the room.

No, she thought this can't happen now. Not in front of him.

"Are you in pain?" Tom asked curiously as he observed the girls fists clenching and unclenching over the top of the infirmary bed covers.

"I'm fine. Go and get the headmaster." She spoke through her gritted teeth.

A cold anger slipped into his eyes at her command and dismissal, Hermione didn't see it as she closed her eyes and covered them with her hands in order to block out the memories.

"Very well." He spoke evenly as he stood up and strode through a parting in the curtains around her bed. He was halfway across the infirmary when Hermione called out to him.

"Riddle!" she shouted, Tom paused momentarily and looked enquiringly over his shoulder at where the curtains enclosed the bushy-haired witches bed. "Make sure to send professor Dumbledore to me before you get the headmaster!"

He didn't reply, instead choosing to be silent as he strode over to the infirmary doors.

She made absolutely no sense to him at all.

-.-.-.-.-

Hermione curled up into a ball and clenched her jaw as memory after horrible memory attacked her.

Narrowly dodging Confringo curses while running through the Forbidden forest; desperately searching for Harry and trying to ignore the shards of wood that slashed into her skin as the Confringo curses hit the looming trees around her. A burst of sickly green light and Harry's eyes turning a murky, glassy green as the life seeped out of him. The scorching pain when Hermione dived in front of Ginny to take the Crucio curse that Bellatrix Lestrange had aimed at her, somehow managing to tell her to run while she could.

Hermione pressed her hands to her face harder and bit her lip until blood was drawn. "S-stop." She gasped out.

A house elf stretching a hand out to her, blood splattering it's skin as Hermione took hold of the hand and was apparated to what looked like an empty corridor until a masked Death Eater and Fenrir Greyback turned the corner and saw them. The wide eyes of the house elf staring at her, an empty void where there should have been awareness as the Death Eater's Diffindo charm severed it in half. A raw scream of rage tearing out of her throat as she snapped, throwing curse after curse at the followers of Lord Voldemort. Desperation and hopelessness clawing inside her when she tried to climb the astronomy tower in a bid to stop Neville from jumping off the top of the roof while he was under an Imperious.

-.-.-.-.-

As soon as Albus Dumbledore had stepped through the green fire in his fireplace and into his office, he knew that something was extremely wrong. His skills as a Legilimens meant that he would occasionally pick up on a broadcasted thought or image subconsciously with no effort on his part; it was very rare but it could happen. However, never before had his mind been bombarded with such strong images and feelings until that instant. It knocked the breath out of him.

When Albus opened his wooden office door and walked into the corridor to find out what was happening, the assault grew ten times stronger. It felt like his mind was being needled with a silver spike. He had to stop it. If not for his sake, then at least for the sake of the person undergoing the mental battle.

He aimed his destination at the first floor, although he wasn't precisely sure of why it was that particular floor he was going to. He didn't question it. With every inch that he came closer to the source of the mental war, it grew stronger. As he reached a second floor staircase, Tom Riddle looked up at him emotionlessly. The boy tracked his movements as he continued to traverse the staircase as quickly as he could.

"Professor, you're wanted in the infirmary." Tom finally said, moving to the side of the stairs so that the professor wouldn't barrel over him.

Dumbledore didn't stop to speak and didn't have to be told that it was the infirmary that he was needed in. For some inexplicable reason, he could feel where the source of mental overflow was coming from.

Anguish, as she watched those around her dying and falling to their opponents. Fred...

As soon as he reached the corridor to the infirmary he could barely split the images and feelings picked up with his Legilimency from his own sight and feelings. The things he saw chilled him to his bones. It was so dark.

Everywhere there was just death and destruction and devastation.

He would need the healer to put a block in whoever's mind it was before he could even begin to work out a solution to help them.

Stone walls tearing themselves apart, vacant portraits being eaten by fire, gaping holes gouging into doorways...

With an astounding bang that echoed throughout the room, Albus Dumbledore finally threw the infirmary doors open, immediately pinpointing the location of Hermione despite that he couldn't see her for the curtains around her bed. He moved towards her, calling the healer to his side.

Tom stalked in behind Dumbledore; a frown marring his features as he took in the desperate state of the old fool. He'd met Dumbledore about halfway to his office; the tottering old dolt was already practically running towards the infirmary so Tom had merely turned around and followed him back at his own leisurely pace after a few words. He wasn't exactly sure what all the fuss was about so he stood back and observed as the healer ripped open the curtains around the girl's bed and glanced at Dumbledore for direction.

"Her mind-"the fool wheezed as he began to catch his breath "-can you put a temporary block in it?"

The healer gave no other response except to move his hands to the temples of the girls head and close his eyes in concentration. Curiosity urged Tom to move in closer so he could fully see what was happening. He'd heard of healers being able to temporarily block things like memories or sub-conscious reactions from the minds of their patients using a combination of old Chinese magic with chi points and the knowledge of which parts of the brain functioned for what. He'd never seen it in practice though. It was an experience that he wanted to see.

As Tom finally came close enough to watch what the healer was doing in detail, Dumbledore turned his head slightly to address him.

"My dear boy-" he said in what Tom interpreted as a patronising tone of voice "- don't you think that you should go and wait outside of the infirmary? After all, it is not very polite of you to watch as this poor girl tries to recover from her illness."

Illness? Tom was damn well sure that it was not illness that was causing the girl to curl up in what looked like agony. Nevertheless, he turned away briskly and walked out of the doors of the infirmary, closing them with carefully controlled movements and silently seething despite that he knew it wasn't very logical for him to be so angry.

Pretending to be the obedient student around Dumbledore usually annoyed him slightly but never to this degree of anger. He supposed it was because the old man had quite obviously lied to his face without even trying to cover up the fact that he was lying, it was something which Tom despised. In his opinion, either people should out-right tell the truth or at least put a presentable effort into lying. A dark smile curved up the corners of his mouth. Generally, it was the truth that people told to him.

As he made his way towards the Slytherin common room to see if he could find Abraxas, Tom mulled over everything that had just happened. None of it was very logical.

For starters, the circumstances were odd: who would get themselves stuck on the top of a high tower with no means to get back down again? And how and why would the girl have gone to the roof of that tower to start with? She'd also reacted and spoken in a way that Tom perceived as unusual. He almost felt like smirking as he reflected on the horrified expression of her face when she'd found him on the roof with her instead of someone else being there to rescue her. It was definitely not the sickeningly happy reaction which –Tom knew- was the general reaction that the female populace seemed to have around him.

There had also been the peculiar line of questions. Any normal person would have first thought to ask him how he'd rescued them instead of why. Unless, of course, that person had a reason to doubt his motivation for rescuing them. And those injuries... Unless the girl had been at the battlefront of a fight between Grindlewald himself and some opposing forces then Tom could see no other reason as to why she would have recieved so many injuries from dark magic. He'd even detected hints of the Cruciatus curse when he'd examined her before the healer got to them.

Tom let his head drop down and watched the worn grey stone pass beneath his feet as he carried on walking; instinctively knowing which direction to go in to get to the Slytherin common room. Why would she have a reason for doubting his acts of kindness in the first place? As far as Tom was aware, they had never even met before. He supposed it could be a coincidence that she was a naturally suspicious person but he had never believed in coincidence before and he wasn't about to start to.

The empty corridors began to get darker and colder as Tom got closer to the common room, matching the expression on his face.

Dumbledore had also seemed to know an awful lot more about what was going on with the girl than what Tom himself knew. A muscle in Tom's jaw jumped in annoyance. He hated being bested by the head of Gryffindor.

And his name! That small, insignificant-looking girl had shouted "Riddle" when she called for him to stop in the infirmary, although Tom didn't ever tell her his last name when he introduced himself to her. Either his reputation preceded him or the girl had far too much knowledge than Tom was comfortable with having a stranger know.

She was a puzzle. The first one to ever leave him with more questions than answers.