A/N: Ringraziarla a tutto il seguito: Addicted2Love, nehimasgift, Lizzy Evans, san01, Jou Himeko Dah, GinnyGin, MandaPandaAR, PhanPhic-adict, Silver Tears 11, PapayaCrazy, litprincess, The Dead Addict. . ., svelte, Shadows08, and xxxCheezItxxx. Adesso sono via scrivere il capitolo quattordici, dunque piace e non dimentica di riesaminare! If anyone can tell me what language that is and what it says, they'll get a 600-700 word preview of the next chapter. -grin-
Chapter 13 – The University
Tom stood waiting at the door of the carriage for Hermione when trouble in the form of another young soldier appeared at his right.
"Been reduced to a door man, Aramis?" laughed Porthos as two other young soldiers followed him.
"Shouldn't you be at your stations around the castle?" Tom retaliated coolly and without care as he kept his eyes on the large front doors of the castle.
"I'll have you know I was just informed that the Princess is going somewhere, so I volunteered for more guard," the blond sneered cockily.
Riddle said nothing to this, his expression remained unchanged, and he kept his eyes ahead. This seemed to annoy Porthos more than an insult or comeback would, and of course, the future Dark Lord found great satisfaction in being the source of annoyance for someone he hated. Tom smirked and just as Porthos was about to say something more, Hermione came out the front doors.
"Ready?" she asked as she smiled at Riddle who opened the carriage door. She was readying herself to step up onto the step of the carriage when Porthos spoke to her.
"Your highness," he greeted with an inclining of his head.
"Oh, hello, Porthos," Hermione replied, earning him an inward scowl from Tom.
"If it obliges the Princess, I am here to escort you along on your trip?" Porthos offered with a small bow, his eyes never leaving her.
She blushed and bit down slightly on her bottom lip to keep from grinning too broadly. She was about to answer when Riddle's hand touched her left arm just above her elbow, making her look back to him with a little bit of a surprise.
"The Princess won't be needing your services today," he answered snidely for her. "I'm the only other guard besides the two driving that will be going." With that, Tom helped Hermione hurriedly up into the coach and climbed in after her, slamming the carriage door shut in the face of Porthos and his cronies. Riddle settled into his seat across from Hermione with a rather pleased half smile on his face. The reins snapped, and the metal fastening and rings of the leather straps began clinking as the horses pulled the carriage away from the castle.
Tom opened the back curtain and peeked out at Porthos who was standing there in the drive sulkily, glaring at the carriage. Feeling rather high and triumpant, Riddle pulled out his wand stuck it conspicuously out the window, aiming at bitter sapphire-eyed boy.
"What are you doing?" Hermione asked when she looked up from the basket in her lap and saw her carriage companion had his wand out.
"Oh, nothing," Riddle answered as he got a good spot for aim. "Conjectivitus! Densaugeo! Diffindo!"
Hermione gasped and jumped across the carriage to his seat, grabbing his arm and pulling it into the window.
"Are you thick?" she barked, but only the two of them could hear as the clopping of the horses hooves, clinking and creaking of the reins, and the rattle of the carriage wheels drown her out to outside people.
Tom just laughed though as he looked back out the window and saw Porthos trying to cover his big buck teeth as he pointed to his eyes and tried to cover the big split in the back of his pants, all caused by Riddle who was in tears as he laughed.
"That wasn't funny," Hermione scolded as she slapped his chest. "Now how do we explain those colored sparks coming from the carriage? Hmm!"
"Re-Relax, Granger," he sighed as he concluded his laughing fit. "I think the task at hand here should be figuring out how to slip out of that university and down to that cave place in Meadow Rock."
"I suppose you're right," she relented a little reluctantly as she settled into the seat next to him. "So, how are we going to get out of there?"
"Well, I suspect those goons sitting out there," Tom began, motioning to the two drivers, "will be guarding the gate to the place."
"Right."
"So Apparating is out of the question," he supplied as he propped his feet up on the seat across from him. "Any other way out of that place?"
"Climbing the wall, but someone is bound to see us then," Hermione muttered. "What if we just Apparate inside the cave? No one would see us."
"We don't know that though. There's too much danger in Apparating."
"Well, there's no hope of Flooing or the Knight Bus," Hermione said defeatedly.
"The Knight Bus?" Riddle repeated.
"Never mind that right now," she shushed. "We need a way to lure those guards away from that gate."
"There's always the Imperius," he reminded.
"That's wrong to use on another person," she said quickly. "No."
"It's not as though we would be hurting them, Granger," he informed. "We would just be making it so they would let us go. Hell, we could even take the horses on the carriage if we got the guards to unhitch them from the carriage."
"I just don't like the idea of using an Unforgivable Curse on someone... It's not right to enter someone else's thoughts and command them," Hermione mumbled as she stared at her hands in her lap.
Nothing more was said as she noticed the end of the town drawing near. She kept staring out the window, her mind searching for another way to escape the university without cursing those two poor men who were driving the coach. Tom, on the other hand, seemed rather relaxed as he crossed his arms across his chest, his feet still propped up as he began to doze off.
"Tom!" Hermione whispered urgently as she shook him. He jumped slightly as though shocked and pulled out his wand, poking her in the eye in the process. "Ouch! Tom, you clod!" she hissed as she quickly put a hand over her eye which snapped shut as it began to water and sting.
"S-Sorry," he yawned, though it sounded nothing near sincere.
"Sure you are," she growled sarcastically.
"Oh, here," Riddle grumbled. "Let me see." He moved closer on the seat and cupped her face in his hands, his thumb gently massaging her cheek below her eye. She pressed her lips together and took to keeping her mind on steadying breaths. He grinned somewhat as the blush crept into her cheeks while he felt the warmth of it on his hands. "Open your eye," he instructed kindly as he leaned forward a bit. They were now only inches apart, Hermione looking where he directed as he checked to see if the wand did any damage. Suddenly, the carriage door opened, and the guard faltered a bit in his speech.
"Your hi- Oh. I apologize, Princess. I'll wa-"
"No, no," Hermione said quickly. "It's not what it looks like. My eye, you see, and... oh, never mind."
She sighed, and Tom groaned. He knew now that rumors would be flying about worse than before about him and her. He climbed out, taking her hand and helping her down before leading her up to the door of the university.
"We're going to wait right here, Princess," the guard informed as he and the other uniformed man walked up and stood next to the doors. Hermione nodded and entered with Riddle, and right away, she was greeted by a monk in a brown robe who stood on the other side of the gate.
"Good day, Princess," he said with a nod.
Hermione smiled graciously and nodded to him before continuing to walk in with Tom, but the monk stopped him.
"I'm sorry, sir," the monk stated gravely, "but you'll have to wait outside. There are no weapons allowed inside the university walls."
"Aramis is my guard though," Hermione said quickly. "He must accompany me by orders of my father."
"He may follow you in, but he must leave his sword at the gates with the others outside," the balding man replied.
"Give the guards your sword, T- Aramis," she spoke softly. Riddle rolled his eyes and undid the buckle on the second belt around his waist that held his sword. He turned around and handed it to the guard outside before stepping past the monk to stand next to Hermione. The brown robed man nodded with a smile and then closed the gate as Hermione turned and took in the beauty of the place.
The buildings matched the red clay walls, brown tile roofs on each. In the center was the largest of the buildings. It was the size of half of the castle at least, and Hermione felt her insides squirm at the thought of what lay inside. The central building usually served as a church, and more importantly to her, a large library.
"All right, Grang- Hey!" Tom called as she began racing toward the immense building with its bell tower and heavy-looking wooden doors. "Gra-Princess!"
He started after her, but didn't catch up with her until they were past the church section of the building with its worn wooden pews and golden cross in a vast alcove at the front. He passed painted stain glass window after painted stain glass window, all depicting something biblical, until he came to the crisp silence of the library. The sound of chanting monks died away as the door closed behind him. Riddle glanced around and finally spotted her. She was standing in front of a row of books, a glazed look in her eyes as she ran her fingers along the spines of the dusty tomes.
"You know," Hermione said quietly, "we should look and see if they have anything on time travel."
"These are Muggles," Tom reminded needlessly.
"They still know about time travel," she shrugged as she continued along the book case. "Muggles have books by Merlin and Flamel. Even the Muggle equivalents of them knew things about time travel... such men as Da Vinci and Galileo."
No response came to her little speech though. She turned, and Riddle was gone.
"Tom?" Hermione said slowly as she began looking around.
Her eyes landed on him at once. Golden buttons upon his uniform shining in the sun as he stood on a flight of stairs, staring out a window, his uniform a stark contrast to the walls of the library. Hermione sighed and shook her head slightly, giving up to a lost cause. She continued her search through the rows of books, but only got more confused as she went.
"I just want to find something about time travel," she grumbled as she walked over to another book shelf. "I don't understand this method that they've got the books arranged in. Hogwarts never had anything like this. Nor did libraries from home."
"Granger, that is the dumbest thing I've heard you say since we've been here," Tom said as he looked back over his shoulder. "I would figure that a bookworm, one such as yourself, would be able to figure out this arrangement. We're not in 1997, this is 1797... think about it."
"And I'm the one getting too much into my role? Please," Hermione smarted. "I'm not from this time period, Sir Riddle-"
"Excuse me?" Tom snapped. He was disgusted with his momentary nickname, but she continued, ignoring his interruption.
"I have no real idea of how they format their readings," she finished.
"What about by time period? This is some place biblical, they usually go by dates in such a place," he pointed out.
"If you're going to be such a wise cracker, why don't you get down here and search, then?" she hissed.
"Because it's your idea – and a stupid one at that," he retaliated.
"Oh, whatever," Hermione grumbled as she whipped around and began studying the spines of the books once more. It only took her a few more moments to discover the placement method for the books. "They're done by date, yes, and then placed in order further afterwards by author," she stated excitedly as she began running down a row of books for the names of the author she wished to find.
"Fantastic, Granger," Riddle mumbled sarcastically as he sat down on the steps and watched her rush from one row to the next with a billowing flutter of her skirt.
"All right," she said as she came out of the last row with three books in her arms. "Are there any more book shelves upstairs?"
"How should I know?" he asked lazily as he leaned back on the stairs, his elbows resting on the step above that which he was sitting so as to prop him up.
"You were standing on the stairs up there, you could have at least looked up to the next floor. To say that you lived in an orphanage for the first eighteen – or however many – years of your life, you sure are a spoiled little sod," Hermione commented vehemently as she walked up the stairs past where he was sitting.
"Don't go there, Granger," he growled as he sat up on the stairs and turned his torso to watch her ascend the rest of the stairs.
"Then don't be such an ignorant prat," she scolded as she stopped on the next flight up and looked over the railing at him.
"Then don't be such an ignorant prat," Tom mocked as he rolled his eyes. "Get over yourself."
"You first," she commented as she continued up the stairs and across the second floor of the library.
"You know, you're worse then a hag!" Tom bellowed.
"In case your ignorance still persists," Hermione hissed as she leaned over the railing of the second floor once more, "we're in a library, so keep your voice down."
Tom clicked his tongue in annoyance and sighed impatiently as she shook her head and rolled her eyes. As she turned to go back to searching, one of the books in her arms caught the railing and tumbled from her arms.
"Ouch!" Riddle groaned.
Hermione quickly looked back over the railing and saw him rubbing the top of his head as the book lay a few stairs down from where he sat. She pressed her lips together and bit down on them to keep from laughing, but the corners of her mouth still curved upward, and her shoulders shook with the silenced giggle while her eyes grew a tad bit brighter in amusement.
"That's not funny," he complained. "I think you did that on purpose."
"Oh, don't be so thick," she stated quickly. "If I had wanted to drop a book on your head, I would have dropped a whole shelf of them." Not a second after she said this, another book dropped, and Tom dodged to the left. He looked at the book on the stair beside him for a moment before glaring up at Hermione who smiled and shrugged.
"On purpose," he mumbled as he grabbed the two books off the stairs and went up to the second floor. "So, even if you do find books on time travel, what do you expect them to tell us? They're not going to have an exact formula on how to get back to 1997."
"I know that," she replied annoyedly. "But knowing more about time and how it works just might help us. I'm surprised you didn't think of that."
"Sorry, I'm not completely in favor of the whole Muggle research and methods process," the youthful Voldemort droned as he stood next to her while she stared at the top shelf, her eyes scanning the horridly dusty row.
She said nothing to this, instead, she began reaching for a book, but her fingers just barely touched the bottom tip of the spine. He watched her for a second before sighing inwardly and stepping forward. He stood up as tall as he could and grabbed the book, pulling it down and handing it to her. She was about to say thank you when Tom let go of the book before she had a firm grip upon it. It dropped from her hand and landed, hard corner first on her foot. She took a sharp breath and bit down on her bottom lip, her face instantly twisting into a grimace of pain as tears came to her eyes. She looked at him with pain written all over her face as she moaned in agony. He snorted with laughter and quickly turned his back to her as she grabbed one of the books in her arm, letting two others she had collected fall to the floor. She began beating Riddle over the back with the book, but he just laughed. She grew more angry over this and moved her blows upward until the book came in contact with his head.
"Bloody hell!" he yelled as he tried to shield his head. Hermione stopped instantly, the pain in her foot now distant as her heart crumbled a bit.
"Ron," Hermione spoke softly, instantly reminded of her friend by Riddle's outburst.
The tears that had been in her eyes from when the book fell upon her foot began to grow and fall. He turned slowly, almost cautiously to her and stared as she gave a great sniffle, letting the book in her hand fall to the floor atop the others as she turned and quickly left the row.
"Granger!" Tom called, but she was gone.
He followed and began looking down row after row until he came to the last and saw her sitting in a paled stain glass window. She was sitting on the window sill, her legs curled up beside her, and her face in her hands. Riddle stood staring for a moment at her small figure in the colored light that bathed her. Dust was visible in the yellow rays, and it swirled around her figure as she shook gently with silent sobs. He couldn't help but admit that she looked sort of like a broken angel. There was yellow stained light pouring through the window onto her head, and the only thing missing was her wings.
He approached steadily, reaching a hand out semi-shakily to her shoulder. He frowned and paused. What was he doing? Comforting her? He knew nothing about comforting someone. He had never comforted anyone, let alone a sobbing girl. He sighed inaudibly and shook his head. He had never been around someone like Hermione though either.
"Granger," he said softly as he put a hand on her shoulder.
She showed no signs of surprise. She didn't look up at him, in fact, she didn't move at all. Her shaking had subsided, and her face remained in her hands, no doubt covering her tear stained cheeks.
"Granger," he spoke again.
He felt awkward staring at her and wondered what he would do if she looked up at him. What was he to say if he had her attention? How was he supposed to look at her? He removed his hand from her shoulder and looked up at the window, and suddenly, through the lighter colors of green, yellow, and pale blue, he saw something that excited him.
"Granger!" he said again, grabbing her with both hands this time and shaking her.
She looked up, and he instantly pointed at the window. Her eyes traveled the path to the panes of glass, and she too saw it. A stable to which a monk was leading two horses.