"We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them."
― George Orwell
She looked up at him staring in those silver eyes trying to peek at his soul. Could she really trust him with the reason why she was here? She fidgeted with her watch.
She had asked herself this question numerous times already since she had left the great hall.
Her heart said yes but as she was a sensible woman she needed to lay the pro and contra's before her. The one big contra was that he was the enemy, a Death Eather. But he'd said he was not the enemy anymore. Also a big contra, he could be a real stuck-up pure blooded prick. A smile started to form on her lips with that thought. The big pro's were that she was alone in this and didn't seem to get the job done on her own. Maybe she needed a boy to help her understand the workings of a boys brains. So with some luck his help would get the job done. She was also sure that given the chance to redeem himself for Professor Dumbledore's death he would take it. Plus he already didn't like Riddle for who he was now and hated what he would become. Surely he would help her take him down. The pro's outweighed the con's. She decided she would let him in on her mission.
Made up her mind, she looked at the watch she'd been fiddling with for the last few minutes.
"Well," drawled Malfoy "made up your mind yet?"
"Shit, we have to go!" She tucked at Draco's sleeve. When he didn't seem to plan on moving any time soon, she grabbed him by his wrist and started pulling him through the door and down the stairs.
Draco yelped indignantly and demanded to know what the hell was going on.
"Lessons are starting in a few minutes." Hermione said distressed.
"Of course, because that is a reason to let me almost tumble down a flight of stairs." Malfoy sarcastically replied "or are you tying to distract me from the question I just asked?" He smiled slyly ad her.
"Ow, hush Malfoy. Damn it, why did our first lesson have to be potions?" she questioned, successfully pulling Malfoy through the almost empty corridors. They still had a long run ahead of them before entering the dungeons.
Suddenly Draco pulled his wrist free and grabbed her hand in one swift motion. Hermione yelped and almost fell from the sudden change in direction.
"Mal- Draco, what the hell?"
"Hermione, remember I used to live in the dungeons. I know a shortcut." Draco explained, successfully leading Hermione through several to her unknown passages. Her head was spinning. She was totally disorientated. Her mind seemed to snap back in place as Draco halted before the potions room door. To late realizing what was happening she collided with Malfoy making them stumble in the room.
All eyes were trained on them, in the corner of her eye she saw Riddle's eyes looking at their interlaced hands. She quickly led go of Draco's hand. Only thinking mere seconds later, it shouldn't matter what he thought of her relation with Draco. Although in the muggle world cousins didn't marry with one another, normally. In the wizarding world it was very common. She almost had to laugh at the thought of Malfoy and her romantically involved.
"Mister and misses Grey, nice of you to join us. I am sorry. This morning I should have asked mister Riddle to lead you to the potions lab. It must have slipped my mind." Professor Slughorn smiled apologetically at them. "As the head of your House, it is inexcusable but … ah"
He turned around gesturing them to sit. Draco and Hermione quickly took their seats and opened their books.
"Today we are going to make 'Benevola animi'. Can someone tell me what the properties of this potion are and what it is used for?"
Hermione's hand shot in the air.
"Mister Riddle." Slughorn said. She slumped back in her chair as Riddle seemed to be quicker than her.
"The potion is a dark purble green, thick like syrup and has a boiling point of 40 degrees which makes it very tricky to make. Warm it a bit to hard and the potion is gone in mere seconds. It smells like freshly mowed grass. Benevola animi gives the administrator the power to influence the emotions of a person, to instigate or restrain them."
"Very well, mister Riddle as always." Professor Slughorn smiled at him.
Hermione let out a small sigh of disapointment.
"What are the key ingrediënts of this potion?"
"Passiflora leaves, Panex ginseng root and corpus vitreum of a moose respectivly for restraining and instigating emotions. Corpus vitreum is added allowing the administrater to see emotions and so deciding to tune them down or up."
"Excellent, mister Riddle, you should consider becoming a potion master."
"A master of evil, yeah" Hermione thought.
"What is the main usage of this potion?"
Hermione's hand shot in the air for the third time.
"Maybe we should give someone else a shot, don't you think so mister Riddle?"
"Of course, professor Slughorn." Riddle replied politly.
"Though I doubt they would ever give such a complete answer as you would, Tom. Miss Grey would you like to try?"
She could hardly repress the sneer that was starting to form. She replied smugly: "It is used in the psychiatry to restrain psychotic outburst of emotions and to ad or remove emotion in different psychiatric diseases like for example turning down fear in anxiety disorders. In order to let those patients learn coping strategies in a fearless state and tuning up the grade of fear as they coping techniques evolves. So they gradualy are exposed to anxiety as to not overload them. With the potion the treatment is succesfuller and more efficient. In court it was used to help determine whether a person is guilty or not. But …"
"Shit," Hermione wanted to say but it was banned in 1970 "of course it's not yet outlawed. How am I going to talk myself out of this?" She saw Riddle questionably and slightly suspicious looking at her.
"Miss Grey, it is still used in court though there are votes to ban it from court. But that still hasn't happened as far as I know." professor Slughorn said sternly. Riddle eyes narrowed at that.
"I am sorry, Professor. In France where I was tutored the usage of Benevola animi was prohibited in 1935. It was my mistake to assume it was also outlawed here."
Slughorn directed his gaze to his obviously favorite pupil. "Tom, it seems I was right in my presumption. Now, not to worry miss Grey your answer was quite well compared to others." Slughorn looked pointly at Thomas Potter. She later learned that he had written a whole paper on the wrong potion and even than had half of the information wrong.
Hermione inhaled deeply through her noise and exhaled through her mouth trying to calm herself . The anger she felt not yet subduing.
"Let's begin with the preparation of the potion. Open up your books at page 368."
Slughorn rambled on about the different techniques used in the preparation. Hermione started neatly writing down every detail. Then she saw Draco leaning towards her, his lips almost touching her ear.
"So Hermione, how does it feel to be outsmarted? The feeling must be strange to you. You're not hurt that your not longer the teachers pet in class?" Draco whispered mockingly, his breath tickling her ear.
Hermione briskly turned her head towards him and spat out, "Just shut it!". Her eyes blazing with the anger she was trying to hold back previously. Their noses were almost touching and lips only inches apart. She didn't know how long they kept looking at each other like that. It was only when she heard Slughorn clear his throat awkwardly, she snapped out of it. She looked down at her papers as a blush crept up her cheeks while absently tucking away a loose strand of hair. She nervously bit her lip and hoped Slughorn would move on with the lesson.
After what seemed like forever to Hermione, Slughorn said: "Do not forget to constantly monitor the temperature because as said before when the potion reaches more then 40 degrees it will vaporise."
As she didn't want any more attention on her during this lesson, she agreed to Draco's preposition to handle the chopping and slicing of ingredients while he took care of the cooking. Wanting to be away from Draco she stood up to fetch the ingredients. She entered the little cupboard and began collecting. She found everything rather quickly except for the Panex ginseng root and began tentatively looking around. Her eyes scanning the different shelves until she found it a few feet above her head. Hermione reached out to grab the bottle, tiptoeing but only her finger-tops caressed the cool glass. She sighed and lowered her arm.
"I can reach it for you if you want?" a voice behind her offered polity. She froze in place. Hermione did not hear him come in. She started to turn around trying to face the person. But as she was turning he reached out to the shelve with the root. Unconsciously she crimped a bit, making herself smaller as he stretched over her to grab it. As he lowered his hand he looked down at her. She'd never seen his face so up close. His smile formed little dimples in his cheeks and his eyes were full with merit. It was probably the most human, happy and free from any charade she had seen Lord Voldemort since they arrived.
"I am not making you uncomfortable, am I?" Riddle teased. He probably felt how she had shied away from him.
"Um...no, thank you." Hermione stuttered as she held out her hand.
Tom planted the bottle in her hand, his fingers brushing her soft skin. Hermione repressed a shudder and hastily left the cupboard before another blush could creep up her cheeks. Draco was already waiting for her at their table with the instruments they needed set up, idly ticking his pen against the hard surface.
She cursed under her breath. "What is it with me today? Blushing like a stupid teenage girl!"
She sat on her stool absentmindedly putting the ingredients on the table. She was thinking about the shudder that crept up her spine. Convincing herself it was because of how repulsive he was, and not the fact he looked absolutely beautiful in that moment. Didn't Harry tell her that Riddle was quite handsome and popular with the girls. Though he never looked twice at a girl. Maybe he liked...she shook her head trying to focus on the task at hand.
"Shall we begin?" Draco asked. They worked in silence, only the sound of her knife against the wooden plank and the clinging of Draco's spoon against the kettle was heard.
After an hour their potion was ready. They were the second in their class to finish it. Riddle of course being the quicker one. Professor Slughorn walked through the class, stopping at every pair to assert their result. Sometimes when he looked at the potion ,he just snorted and shook his head or clap someone on the back felicitating them for their effort. When he reached Riddle and Rosier's table, he started gushing over Riddle's supreme made potion with every superlative of great.
Last he came to their table and noted that their potion was probably the second best. Yet Toms potion outmatched Draco's. Draco sneered blatantly at Slughorn's back. Hermione thought that only his "pure-blooded superior" upbringing was holding him back from sticking his tong out.
She couldn't hold back and whispered in his ear, "How does it feel to be second best in potions after years being the first one in class? I bet you miss Snape now." Slughorn dismissed the class. Stools scraped over the ground as students started to gather their stuff.
"At least Professor Snape knew what he was talking about and wasn't giving anyone preference in his class." Draco countered randomly throwing his quill and paper in his bag.
"Are you kidding me? He-" Hermione replied but was interrupted.
Riddle stood next to their table with his bag nonchalantly thrown over his shoulder. "Who is Prrofessor Snape?" he asked smiling.
"No one you need to know about." Draco snapped, briskly walking out of the room.
Hermione looked apologetically at him. "He was our potion master when we were home schooled. He was rather fond of Draco and favored him. I was simply pointing out that he must miss being the best at potions."
"How Slytherin of you Miss Grey." Riddle smiled at her.
"It was only because he had just done the same to me at the beginning of the lesson." Hermione replied.
"How so?" he asked.
"Well, something about being outsmarted by you." Hermione grudgingly answered looking away.
Her attention was drawn back to him when heard his bubbling laughter. It seemed to come from deep within him and sounded so natural that she couldn't understand why he would give up on that. His future self did not laugh so joyfully and lightly. It held the sinister forbidding of pain, death and despair.
"I am sorry, miss Grey. It was not my intention to make you feel inadequate. It was an honest mistake you made since the education you received was French." Riddle said still a bit chuckling but honesty leaking through his words.
"It was my mistake to forget that I was getting an English education." she grinned.
They had arrived before the door of History of Magic, he led her in. She settled besides Draco while Riddle sat down besides Avery. She took a last glance at him and smiled.
"Cozying up to Riddle, are we." Draco said flatly. Hermione did not honor him with a reply but couldn't deny the fact that this was indeed the first civil conversation she had with him. Probably because it was the first time she didn't feel like he was manipulating her.
The rest of the lesson past with her attentively listening to Professor Binns. His lessons seemed to be more animated than they were in her time. That probably had to do with the fact that he was not transparent yet. She wondered when he'd become a ghost. He covered the Second World War that was still raging on outside the walls of Hogwarts.
The next lesson was Transfiguration. She hoped Draco would be able to handle it. It would be difficult to explain too Dumbledore why Draco would get upset. She made sure that when History of Magic ended, she accompanied him to their next lesson. When they entered Dumbledore's classroom, Draco seemed to be startled by Dumbledore's presence as if he'd forgotten that he was still alive and taught Transfiguration at Hogwarts. But he quickly pulled himself back together and took a seat at the back of the class.
Hermione followed him and took the seat next to him. His lips formed a small smile as he looked at her, his eyes shining with a mix of gratitude and pain.
She took out her books and quill as Professor Dumbledore started the lesson. Draco sat on the edge of his chair, his back dead straight and eyes scanning the room as if there could be a threat around every coroner. As the lesson went on, Hermione subconsciously began to flex her own back muscle but Draco kept on sitting straight as an arrow. Every now and than she heard him audibly swallow. Probably trying in vain to get rid of the lump in his throat.
When more than half of the lesson had past, Hermione tried to suppress the urge to touch him. She longed to give him a comforting squeeze, easing his pain. The only thing that held her back was the fact he wouldn't appreciate being comforted by a mudblood. Her right hand lay on the hard cold stone of the desk. It seemed to radiate a heat from deep within her bones that made her skin tickle and her fingers twitching unable to lay still on the surface. She fought a battle within herself to lay her hand on his for almost a quarter of an hour. She finally gave in, reasoning that he looked grateful when she took the seat beside him. She slowly moved her arm and tentatively made contact with the back of his ice cold hand. When he didn't pull away, she gave his hand a small squeeze. At that he looked up at her, tears glistening in his eyes. His eyes examined her face for a second until he seemed to have found what he was looking for. A tiny smile graced his lips before he looked away. She slowly pulled her hand away.
Hermione decided than that she would take him to the Room of Requirement during lunch break. When the lesson ended she 'clumsily' let her back fall from the desk and asked Draco if he could help her. He looked longingly at the door but seemed to decide to endure his agony for a few more minutes in order to help her. When they were finished, the classroom and corridors were empty. Draco began to walk towards the great hall when Hermione said: "I want to show you something."
"Can't it wait, Granger? You may have noticed I am not really in the mood. I would like to be alone for a bit." Draco replied irritated.
"I can help you save our professor." Hermione blurted. That stopped Draco death in his tracks.
"I mean my mission can save him. I want to tell you the reason why I am here. What my goal is for this trip to the past." Hermione explained. Draco just kept on standing still.
"I can further explain it to you if you want too. Maybe not here in the middle of the corridor but in the Room of Requirement I can show you." That seemed to snap him out of it and he turned around stalking towards her his robes billowing behind him.
"Then show me," he snapped. Hermione turned around and walked down the hall towards the Room of Requirement. Draco followed her in silence. When they arrived at the Room of Requirement, she walked before the invisible door three times while chanting the verse in her head: "Open for me and show me the mirror of goodness."
A door appeared before them, behind it laid an empty chamber with only two comfortable chairs and the mirror in it. Draco followed her and took the seat beside hers.
Silence enveloped them while Hermione tried to form the right words in her head. In the end she decided to just say the words that came to her. She cleared her throat and began: "I came here back in time to try to prevent the future from happening. My goal is to change Tom Riddle and so preventing him from becoming Lord Voldemort. You see, by changing the future Dumbledore would never have to die"
Hermione noticed how he didn't flinch anymore at the mention of those names.
"How did you want to do that? Put a heart in his empty chest?" Draco said sarcastically.
"I think I can help you with that." Tom's yang replied smugly as he appeared in the mirror: his arms crossed, his foot tapping and a mischievous smile on his lips.
Draco snapped his head around, shock written all over his face. "Welcome, Draco Malfoy I presume. Let me introduce myself, I am Tom Riddle's yang." He held his hand up for Draco to shake. But he just stared at him with his mouth agape. After a few seconds, yang let his arm fall to his side.
"No need to be rude, Malfoy." he grumbled mockingly.
At that Draco snapped his mouth shut.
"What the hell is going on here, Granger?" Draco demanded pointing his finger at Riddle's yang. Tom seemed to find that the excellent timing to laugh gleefully.
"Ow, shut it, Riddle!" Hermione snapped.
"Come on," Riddle's yang protested "his reaction to my presence was marvelous! I could almost see what he had eaten this morning." He opened his mouth wide mimicking Draco's earlier state of astonishment. "Though he did not try to hex me, contrary to Potter and Weasley."
"I see you have the same kind of distasteful humor as your stuck-up duplicate." Draco drawled.
"At least-" Riddle's yang tried to reply.
"Would you just both shut it!" Hermione sighed "and let me explain."
Hermione told him the whole story from the beginning, of how she had met Riddle's yang and his preposition to reunite him with his body. Then about her first attempt to reunite him with his body but how it didn't work because he was to far gone. She had to teach him love and friendship.
"I just don't know how I can teach him about love and friendship? I thought maybe you could help, I mean your a man of his age. You could know how to make that happen, not? I really don't know how to go about this. I've been pondering about this for a while now.
Could I make him fall in love with someone? I don't know. Maybe I could become his real friend, not one of those friends he sees as servants. Honestly, I don't know. So that's why I brought you here. Maybe you and yang could find a way."
"Hermione," Draco said carefully "I really don't think he is capable of love even friendship. You've seen the way he is. It's not all an act."
"I disagree." Riddle's yang prompted.
"Of course you disagree, you are on-"
Tom Riddle's yang interrupted him, "He could fall in love with Hermione."
"What?!" they both said stunned.
Author note: Special thanks to HarrietMitchellx , my super reviewer!