Author's Note: Wow guys, I'm sorry for the ridiculous delay. November came, and with November came NaNo. And with December came a visit from my boyfriend, who is actually still in town. And... yeah. So basically, I apologize for how long it's been without an update, and I want to thank anyone who is still reading this story. And I'll leave it at that! Enjoy, and reviews are always appreciated!
Obviously, there was no possible way that Tom Riddle could have grown tired of his wait. He appeared to be done eating, if he had eaten at all – she still remembered the previous morning, and wasn't certain whether sitting at the Slytherin table staring off into space was a habit of his or a one-time occurrence – but he was still at what seemed to be his usual seat. She thought his behaviour was a bit odd – not even Harry or Ron would have waited that long for her to show up at breakfast.
Thinking about Harry was perhaps not the best idea for that early in the morning – she felt her eyes begin to moisten, something that didn't happen very often, and certainly not in front of people she was trying to impress. She stopped walking for just a moment and took in a couple of very deep breaths, counting backwards from twenty, until she knew that she was completely under control once again. Again, she felt the urge to just turn around and run away, back to Professor Dumbledore, hope that everything worked out for the best. She had never been the one aiming for adventure, for saving the world in a big dramatic way – she very much preferred saving it one creature at a time. This was a job for Harry, or Ron, or almost anybody else for that matter. It was too big, too important.
No, she couldn't allow herself to think that way. Harry or Ron, even if either of them were able to come and try it, would have failed. It hurt her to think of her friends that way, that they couldn't have done it, but it was true. They were too out-of-control – either one of them would have, by this point, started screaming at him about how evil he was and all how dare he kill so many people. She also prided herself by thinking that neither of them would have even gotten his attention, at least not with anything other than suspicion – and she felt that Tom would have reacted to his suspicion by watching, observing, making sure that their story fit without interfering. He wouldn't want to associate himself with anyone that he felt it plausible would come back and haunt him later. And while she didn't feel like she was making much progress by spending all of her free time with him, it was likely that being stalked by him in a much less interactive fashion would be even less helpful.
Besides, she thought, she really was just helping one creature at a time. This time, the creature just happened to be a bigger player in world events than most – and hopefully, she would be able to nullify his impact on the world. All she had to do was prove that people – not just purebloods, not just certain people, but people as a general group – weren't that bad, and were certainly not worth that much destruction over. His quest for immortality was a completely separate issue, and one that to a degree she could understand – he was probably just so used to knowing everything that having something completely mysterious forced on to him was an unbearable prospect. There wasn't anything she could do about that, at least not yet, and that was beside the more pressing issue.
She stood for a moment before taking her now-customary seat across from him, observing him. He didn't appear to have noticed her yet, though she didn't want to stand there staring at him for more than a few seconds in case he actually had. She wasn't sure of very much when it came to reading Tom Riddle; she wasn't even sure of whether she could read him or not. For all she knew, he could have spotted her the second her form emerged from the doorway, nevermind that he was facing the opposite direction.
She tried to analyze his body language. He was sitting almost straight, but slouched over a tiny bit. The angle was almost imperceptible – so much so, in fact, that she very easily could have been inventing it altogether; she felt certain, however, that this was not the case.
The reason for this slight slouch was beyond her capacity to fathom. As far as she knew, everything was fine with him – at least, as fine as life was likely to be for a teenager planning to rip his soul apart in an attempt to be indestructible. And then, he wouldn't likely tell her even if something had been wrong; for as much as he seemed determined to insert himself into every tiny facet of her life, he hadn't offered up very much of his own.
It was at this point that she halted her reverie and began to walk towards him. Instead, however, of taking her usual seat across from him, she decided to do something quite different; it was only when it was too late to change her mind unnoticeably that she realized how awkward sitting next to him could be.
She had always tried to not be too close to him. The first time it had happened, she had ended up almost entering into a duel of some sort with him – certainly a bad idea, if she had ever had one. And then there was last night, when actual physical contact had passed between them, and Hermione had practically fainted.
It was because he was dangerous, obviously. That was why she didn't feel comfortable sitting next to him. Her body was pumping her full of adrenaline in that age-old fight or flight reaction, readying her for when he would inevitably pull his wand on her once again, and demand she tell him what her real reason was for being there.
That strange, sort of uncomfortable feeling in her stomach was simply a lingering symptom of last night's brief illness.
She blamed her rapidly rising temperature on the same.
Finally, she was at the table, pulling out the seat next to him. He looked up at her, evidently surprised to see her so near. Tom, then, had not been oblivious to the few feet of personal space they had generally been allowing each other. It was too late now, though. She couldn't very well just say, "Oh, sorry. I meant to sit over there," and jump over the table to her usual position, as tempting as it seemed.
Saving the world, it seemed, required pushing her personal boundaries by quite a lot. She hadn't considered herself particularly shy, but never would she have presumed to sit not a foot away from a boy she hadn't known but a week, and especially one to whom not even she was aware of her intentions.
The part about spending hours every day around someone whom she was fairly certain was a sociopath at best was also a slight divergence from her typical activities, but was somehow far less of a contrast. Maybe all that time around Ron had desensitized her to more or less any strange or absurd variety of the opposite gender. If nothing else, Tom certainly behaved more civilized than Ron ever managed.
She still shouldn't think about her friends. It was a bad habit to get into, as it made her significantly more prone to emotional outbursts. On the plus side, however, it did put a smile on her face, thinking of Ron shoveling his face full of food at every opportunity. It was especially funny in how starkly it contrasted her current companion; the mental image of Tom Riddle stuffing his face in such a gluttonous manner was laughable.
Luckily, the laughter held itself back. Smiling upon seeing him was an acceptable response, whereas laughing was not. He might have thought her mocking him, and she was fairly certain he would not take very kindly to that.
"Good morning, Tom," she said. She was trying very hard to act as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on, disregarding the fact that she was sitting maybe eight inches from his side. She didn't allow herself to realize the appeal of leaning into him. She was still so tired, she felt like she could just put her head on his shoulder and…
"Morning, Jane," he replied before she could finish the treacherous thought. She needed to get her thoughts under control, tired or not. She was sleepy, not drunk – she couldn't use that as an excuse if she did something she probably would regret.
She didn't know what else to say, and so concentrated on filling her plate with the most edible-looking things she saw. She felt awkward, eating in front of Tom when he was either already finished or on some extremely strict diet, but she would likely need her strength to get through the ordeal that would almost certainly be her Transfiguration essay.
After a minute or two, she realized the presence awkwardness between them. She saw no reason for there to be awkwardness, apart from her unusual and poorly thought out proximity, but it seemed unlike him to allow something so minor to get in the way of cordiality. Regardless of the reasoning, however, it occurred to her that one generally does not sit with somebody at a mealtime and remain in silence for the duration.
"How are you this morning?" she asked, trying to break the silence. She didn't mind the quiet, obviously – it gave her a chance to think, and aside from that it lowered the chances that she would say something unforgivably stupid. But her name should not bring about the connotation of awkwardness in Tom's mind, as that would likely not be the appropriate path for friendship or… whatever it was that she was aiming for in this situation. She had a difficult time thinking the word seduction in the context of this particular sociopath, at least as long as she was trying to keep a straight face.
"I'm quite fine. How are you feeling?" She was grateful that he didn't directly mention the previous night, though she would have been more pleased had he declined to allude to it altogether. On the positive side, at least he was concerned for her.
"Very well, thank you."
Hermione found it difficult to eat whilst speaking with Tom; she was too afraid that he was going to ask her a question right as she was taking a bite. So she pushed her plate aside with a mental sigh. One of these days, she thought, I am going to enjoy a full meal.
Yeah, as soon as Charles started talking to her again.
She grimaced mentally – not outwardly, of course, as she did not want to appear to be the sort of girl who sat making funny faces at nothing in the middle of a conversation – at the thought of Charles. He could have really been a friend to her, in this place where she so direly needed a friend. She had no time for a friend, of course, and not really much use; a friend at this point would be a distraction. Thinking about it logically, she knew that Charles had been put to a much more productive purpose in securing a small hint of jealousy in Tom. No, jealousy was not the appropriate word. Jealousy would imply some sort of emotional connection with the object. Possessiveness made a much more accurate description; Hermione was certain that he saw her as property, a thing to be owned, far more than he did a person that he cared about.
Hermione needed to figure out how to cross the barrier between an object and a person. But with Tom, she wasn't sure how to do that, or if such a feat was even possible in the first place. She needed to get him to see her as being on the same level, the same degree of existing and being worthwhile… but she found it extremely hard to believe that she would be able to make any progress on that count.
Tom Riddle interrupted her thoughts by pushing his chair back and standing up, offering her his hand as an assistance.
"Shall we?" he asked. Hermione knew that today's real tests were about to begin.