NOTE: These are one-shots, so you can read any of these in any order you want without getting confused. However, these one-shots are sequential, meaning whatever happened in the earlier one-shots will always carry over to the later ones. But like I said, these one-shots are written in a way so that you can still understand what's happening in any of the one-shots you read without knowing any info from the earlier ones.

"Good morning, Tom," Hermione smiled at her patient as she walked into his room with a tray of food. "I hope you're hungry. They're serving baked French toast and cheesy scrambled eggs at the cafeteria downstairs, so I thought I'd bring you some."

Tom Riddle, who was already awake when she walked in, gave a small smile as Hermione set the tray down on a stand by his hospital bed.

"Hermione, you didn't have to," he chuckled softly at the generous serving of French toast, scrambled eggs, and fruit salad on the tray.

Hermione grinned. "Well, I was very pleased to see that your appetite was improving in the past few days, so I thought it would be a good time to surprise you with a nice breakfast. Especially since today is one of the few days that the hospital is actually serving something worth getting excited about."

Tom met her gaze, smiling weakly. "Thank you, Hermione. Unfortunately, I've been feeling rather queasy and haven't been able to sleep well last night, so I probably won't have more than a couple bites."

"Oh, I wasn't expecting you to eat all of this!" Hermione laughed. "I haven't eaten yet, so I was thinking we could share everything on this tray."

Tom sat up and gazed at the extra empty plate on the left side of the tray. "Ah, so I'm assuming this empty plate is for me to take what I can?"

"Yes, of course," chuckled Hermione. "I know the Zenox virus is only transmitted through bodily fluids, but you know I'm extra cautious anyway."

Tom winked at her. "Not as cautious as your mentor," he spoke in a playful tone.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh please, don't even try and make me compete against Lexa Barkson. Her conscientiousness is ramped up to the level of absurdity."

Tom raised an eyebrow. "Ah, but absurdity is a subjective term there. Are there not moments when Lexa's extreme wariness and neuroticism are useful?"

Hermione blinked. Tom was being playful with her again. She gave him a sideways smile. "So you're saying that it's sometimes necessary to be an overly-anxious, emotionally unstable mess?"

"I never said it was necessary to be anxious and emotionally unstable—just that it can be useful to have such traits, sometimes," he was facing her with his gentle smile.

Hermione chortled as she sat on a chair by his bed. She and Tom shared the French toast, scrambled eggs, and fruit salad, while engaging in a deep, philosophical conversation about the purpose of emotions and personality traits. Though both became deeply engaged in their conversation, they also cracked a few laughs over a few philosophical riddles Tom made up in response to the topic they chatted about.

Hermione found herself losing track of time as she chatted with the young man. Even when they had finished eating (there were still lots of leftover scraps on their plates), they continued to talk and talk, naturally prolonging their discussion without even realizing how much time was passing.

Suddenly, Hermione's pager buzzed. She flinched and looked at the little black device she pulled out from her pocket. "Oh, shoot! I have to meet with Snape today and prescribe him some new medications. But apparently Lexa wants me to meet her in his room in 15 minutes."

"Oh dear," gasped Tom, raising his eyebrows with genuine concern. "I hope I haven't taken up so much of your time?"

"Oh, not at all!" Hermione reassured him. "I just lost track of time, that's all. I…I just love having intellectual conversations like these. None of my friends ever enjoyed them to the extent that I did, so I'm always eager to chat about my favorite philosophical topics in as much depth as possible with someone who loves to go as deep as I do in these types of discussions." She gazed at Tom endearingly.

Tom's gentle smile never left his face as he returned her gaze. "Well, I'm glad I can be your intellectual and philosophical outlet, Hermione. I'm glad I could be more than just an extra body for you busy Healers to heal."

Hermione grinned. "Oh, stop. No patient is an 'extra' body to heal. It's never a burden for me to be helping you."

Tom gave an airy chuckle. "That's wonderful to hear."

A moment of silence overcame the room. Brown eyes met brown eyes for what felt like another long time.

Hermione's heart was racing. She felt so entranced, just staring at him there.

Finally, Tom broke the silence. "Well, I would hate for you to be late to your appointment with Snape, so you should probably be on your way. If there's not anything you need to do with me."

Hermione huffed. She felt her face warm up as she remembered another reason why she was here. What am I doing? I'm supposed to make sure Tom doesn't have any feelings for me, and here I am, having breakfast with him and spending way too long having an intellectual conversation with him. She blinked a couple times before she spoke. "Uh—um, Tom, I actually have to put you on another medication before I leave, but it should only take about five minutes." She felt a strong wave of guilt as she took out a small, black bottle of thick liquid from coat pocket.

Tom blinked at the bottle. "Is that Antisorcery Serum?" His voice was still calm, though Hermione detected a minor tone of concern.

Hermione sighed. "Yes, Tom. Lexa says I need to put you on this because it will help diminish the Zenox viral load in your bloodstream." She hated herself for lying. Lying to patients was never a good idea. But Lexa was right. She couldn't just tell Tom the real reason for injecting him with this serum. She couldn't just ask him if he was secretly in love with her, and if he was secretly using his magic to try and kill Ron for trying to win Hermione back. At least for now, it was best to suppress his magical powers just in case he was secretly using any magic he had left in him to harm her ex-fiancé. Without telling him the real reason why he was receiving the serum.

"Really?" Tom raised an eyebrow as Hermione grabbed an injection and prepared to inject him with the black serum. "How does that work?"

"Well, the Zenox virus silences your wizarding gene and prevents you from using any magical powers. Similarly, this Antisorcery Serum prevents you from using any magical powers by stimulating an enzyme that will silence your wizarding gene. The enzyme works by binding to one of your cell receptors and stimulating some special molecules in your cell, and those molecules will work to silence your wizarding gene. Since the Zenox virual genome is already inserted into your wizarding gene, that means that once the enzyme binds to the cell receptor, the special molecules it will work to try and get rid of the Zenox virus's genome from the cell. Within a few weeks of taking this serum, the majority of the Zenox viruses will be extracted out of the wizarding gene, so that once you stop taking the serum, you can get your magical powers back." It was the most B.S. lie she could come up with. "Lexa and I just discovered how that works, so you're one of the first patients to go on this treatment."

Luckily, Tom didn't question her further. "I see. But wait—" he held up a hand before Hermione could inject him with the serum. "Before you do anything with me, I should probably tell you that I was teleported to the Barren Island last night, and was able to find my way back here."

Hermione widened her eyes. "What?! No infected wizard has been able to teleport back from the Barren Island." All wizards who were infected with Zenox virus were vulnerable to being randomly teleported to the snowy, blizzarding Barren Island where the ice dragon, Zenox, was sleeping. None were able to apparate away, because the Zenox virus had their magic suppressed.

Tom nodded. "Somehow, I was able to use magic to apparate myself away from the island, even though the Zenox virus has silenced my wizarding gene. I was shocked about it myself."

So he IS able to use magic…Hermione didn't know whether she was more shocked with the fact that Tom just admitted to her that he was able to use magic, or with the greater possibility that he could have been the one to change the chemistry of Ron's chemicals.

"Hermione, are you alright?" Tom was gazing at her. "You're looking almost as pale as me," he chuckled.

Hermione cleared her throat. "Y-yeah, I'm fine. But…you're saying you were able to apparate back here? You actually are still able to use magic, despite the Zenox virus silencing your gene?"

Tom nodded. "I didn't even realize I was still capable of using magic until I was at that island, teleported there so unexpectedly. I'm sorry…I know I should have mentioned this to you as soon as you walked in the room. Can we please talk about this some more later? I was hoping that I could use whatever magic I have left in me to apparate myself back to the Barren Island with a Healer like yourself, so that we can heal the other wizards who were also teleported there, so that they can all apparate themselves back to where they belong. I cannot rescue them myself—after I realized I was able to apparate back here, I apparated myself back to the Barren Island to try to rescue the other wizards I had met over there, but I was unable to apparate with them. There's some magic in the snowstorm on that island…it prevents nonmagical creatures from teleporting out of the island, even if they are in physical contact with a wizard."

Hermione's heart skipped a beat. "Go with you to Barren Island…you're going to need your magic back for that."

Tom nodded.

Hermione bit her lip. Currently, there was no other way to rescue the lost wizards from Barren Island. No one even knew where it was, so no one was able to apparate there. But if Tom had already visited there, he would be able to go back. And with a Healer like Hermione returning with him, she would be able to help the infected wizards heal so that they, too, could apparate away from the island with them.

Only one problem: it was possible that Tom was not telling the truth.

Hermione gazed into his eyes. Such warm, gentle, dark-brown eyes. She really hoped he was telling the truth.

"Thanks for telling me, Tom," she murmured. "I'll be back in a few hours to discuss this with you."