The ground swirling in a kaleidoscope of poisonous color beneath her (bile green, twisted rotten yellow), Hermione turned her head to the boy, now beside her, an expression of utmost concern plastered on his face.
"Are you okay?"
Swallowing down fluid, or saliva, or more bile, Hermione grabbed her wand and cast a silent cleaning spell. She had barely heard him address her; she didn't want to listen to his empty platitudes about how desperately worried he was about the state of her stomach. Clutching her forehead with her left hand, Hermione dry-heaved for a moment longer, noticing a pale blur of hands on the edge of her vision, and as she doubled over in an attempt to purge herself of this time, of this man, she felt those same hands grab hold of and gather her hair behind her head.
Hermione heaved again. Nothing. Casting another scourgify just to be safe, she quickly shook the boy's hands off her and stood, gasping for breath. He took a step back, arms now crossed in front of his chest.
"Perhaps I ought to take you to the Hospital Wing?"
That voice was laced so carefully with such concern that if Hermione didn't know any better, she would have thought he were genuine. Her entire body shook.
"I'm fine," she blurted out. Hermione couldn't bring herself to thank him for whatever it was he wanted to help her with, whether it was taking her to the Hospital Wing or holding her hair so gently while she vomited at the sight of him.
"Well, if you need anything, please don't be afraid to come to me."
Trying to calm herself, Hermione continued nodding like a bobble-head while she ran up the stairs to what she hoped was the girls' dormitory.
When she reached the top of the stairs, Hermione opened an ornate door with a serpent-styled doorknob and stepped foot in the Slytherin girls' dormitory.
Like the common room, this room was decked in dark, cool colors; the walls were a deep, radiant purple, and silk silver sheets lined the five beds in the dormitory. Similar adornments lay on the large bay window, which too faced the Great Lake. Hermione could hear the water lapping the glass.
The dormitory smelt like dark musty puddles and smoky perfume, something deeper and more earthy than what she had been used to in the dormitory she had called home for years.
Sighing deeply, she made her way to the bed farthest from the door and plopped down face-first onto an embroidered green pillow. She was exhausted. Turning so that her stomach faced the ceiling, Hermione placed her hands (which she realized were trembling faintly) on her thighs and closed her eyes.
Tears, unbidden, immediately sprung and sat like dewdrops amidst her lashes.
She had not even been here a day and yet everything already seemed to be falling apart into thousands of infinitesimal pieces. She had been Sorted into the wrong house: not just the wrong house, but the worst house, the house of her childhood rivals and now the most bitter of her enemies. She did not belong here, in this room of extravagant colors and rich bedding. There was no comfort here.
The Gryffindor dormitory had been warm; though it had its flaws, there had always been a sense of tenderness there which Slytherin lacked.
She did not belong in the dim light of the dungeons, staring wan at a flickering blue fireplace and certainly she did not belong in a chair next to the man she had come to destroy.
Lord Voldemort.
Tom Riddle.
She had dared to hope that she wouldn't meet him here, that she would see him as a child and confront him then, or even if she had to lay eyes on him sooner, that it wouldn't be here, not now.
She hadn't even been here a day.
She had been foolish, she knew, to dream of an easy battle. Still, she hadn't thought she would see him the day of her arrival, speaking with her so casually, even comforting her while she heaved at the sight of him.
And what a sight; she had known, had heard the descriptions of a young man who was once handsome, but yet there remained an urge to scoff and paint him as the red-eyed snake she had known him as. It would have been easier, she thought, if he had not looked so young, so human.
Sitting up, Hermione brushed away the tears that had escaped down her cheeks and pursed her lips thinly. She had run into some dilemmas, yes, but if she was one thing, she was resolute. She was smart. There was no reason Tom Riddle's presence here should derail her plans if she only thought carefully.
In fact, having him so close might only make him more accessible.
Within moments of sitting up, Hermione noticed a plain brown leather bag to the side of her bed, which she assumed contained the school supplies she had been promised. She glanced through it for a minute. A school uniform was provided for her; it didn't look much different from the one she was used to, but the ties that accompanied it now gleamed green and silver rather than red and gold. She murmured disappointedly at the color scheme before hefting out a pile of heavy books. A piece of parchment paper flew out of the first tome and landed on her lap.
She realized suddenly that she hadn't yet had time to pick a schedule or even prove her OWL scores, yet when she unrolled the parchment she realized all the classes she had wanted to take before she had thought a seventh year at Hogwarts would be impossible were scrawled on the paper. Somehow, it seemed the walls of this school knew her mind better than she could communicate it.
Before hunting for Horcruxes with Harry and Ron, she had been looking forward to spending her seventh year studying Advanced Arithmancy or NEWT-level Charms and Transfiguration. Frankly, she had wanted to take every class available to her, though the thought of using a Time Turner again left her queasy.
Humming happily, Hermione perused the books (many of which she recognized) until a soft knock at the door interrupted her.
She frowned, realizing at once that there were only a handful of possibilities as to the identity of the knocker, and the most likely of all was extremely unappealing to her. Play nice, she warned herself. You do not want negative attention.
Steeling herself for another unpleasant encounter, Hermione stood from her bed and opened the door.
Standing before her was the solemn face of Tom Riddle. She nodded at him, not even attempting a smile, and he walked into the room.
Hermione could barely hide her surprise. Though she originally wondered why he was even able to get up the stairs, she reckoned every house had a security measure against boys entering the girls' dormitory. Seemingly Slytherin was no master of propriety; there were no such security measures here. She eyed Tom Riddle as he gingerly, like a shrewd cat, sat at the edge of her bed.
"I hope you're feeling better," he said to her suddenly, turning his face to look at her.
Hermione was struck again by how alive he looked, how the corners of his mouth curved up as he spoke, how his dark eyes, like obsidian, contrasted with the whiteness of his skin, and how, when he spoke, his voice emerged like a quiet rumble. The sheer humanness of him frightened her, scared her even more than it would have to see him as he were, as he would be decades from now.
"I am," she replied, her voice cool. She couldn't bring herself to speak more than abrupt syllables to him; though the urge to vomit had left her, her stomach still churned uncomfortably.
"I'm glad," said Tom Riddle, and he smiled. His teeth were white and sharp. "I don't believe I quite caught your name."
She resisted the urge to tell him she hadn't said it, was too busy vomiting at his appearance to introduce herself. Gritting her teeth, she answered, "It's Hermione. Hermione Granger."
"That's beautiful."
Her stomach churned again, and Hermione gripped the edge of the door until her knuckles turned white. "Thank you," was the only thing she could say in return, and even that had been hard to spit out.
It was foolish, but all she could think of was hurling the Killing Curse at him: two words and she would be done with the entire ordeal, if she could stomach a lifetime in Azkaban and possibly a savage twist of fate, seeing as he had likely already created a Horcrux.
"Well, I'll leave you be. It was nice meeting you, Hermione," Riddle stated, and she slackened her grip on the door to let him leave the room. When she couldn't see the outline of him anymore, she slammed the door shut.
Author's Note: Sorry for taking so long to get this chapter up; I know it's short, but I wanted to give you guys something to propel the plot at least a bit.
I hope you enjoy it!