Warm thanks to:
KatieMarrie, Galavantian, efl614, Smithback, Not an animal, Remus lover, LarkaSpirit, Senko Ryu, madluv, bingbing196, tanzainy, belle, ClaireReno, Imeralt Evalon, Anna on the Horizon, loupyloupowell, xXBlueDazeXx, deator11, GabbyCat, sweet-tang-honney, HerLastBreath89, M3dUSa, 13Nyx13, Ools, and Natalie.
Hermione sighed. It hadn't really registered until she had walked into that bathroom and not heard Myrtle's melancholy sobbing that there were no ghosts here – no, of course they wouldn't be here, since they were all back on Earth. It was sort of a depressing thought, that Moaning Myrtle and Nearly-Headless Nick and the Bloody Baron were all actually more alive than she, especially since their defining characteristics had always been... well, being dead.
She looked up at the tall ceiling, her brown eyes questioning, as if searching for an answer in the multicolored tile. How long had it been since she had cried in a bathroom?
A while. It had been a while.
What time was it? Dare she go back to the common room?
No. Even past midnight, there would probably still be at least one person in the common room to stare, to give a searching glance, and it was far before midnight.
She had already been spending too much time alone in the library, and she didn't feel particularly inclined to return, for once. But she didn't just want to sit here, feeling useless, doing absolutely nothing of merit. The only thing she could be doing that might help anything or anyone was talking to Tom Riddle, and that was as unappealing an idea as she had ever heard.
Yet, of course, strangely appealing. Weirdly, bizarrely, and inexplicably appealing, and it was because of that irrational appeal that Hermione found herself trudging to that classroom, wondering the whole time why she was doing it in the first place.
It disturbed her to think of herself dangling off of Tom Riddle, as attracted to him as any Death Eater. In fact, it was highly disturbing. But then, it was that or go back to a universal humiliation from the Gryffindors. Or sit alone in Myrtle's bathroom, as self-piteous as Myrtle herself. Not exactly productive options.
She stopped outside the door and rolled her eyes. Why was she here? Wouldn't it be better not to risk being tortured, having all the information wrung out of her?
All she wanted to know was what he was brewing. That, and perhaps a bit about his inner psyche. The workings of disturbed minds had always sort of fascinated Hermione – if not Dark wizards, then Muggle serial killers. Why did they do what they did? There was always a sort of mental connection between the terrible crimes they committed and things that had been done to them. Perhaps Tom Riddle was the same. Or maybe there was some sort of reason why he thought he deserved to be above everyone else, and he would do anything to fulfill that reasoning.
Yes; this curiosity about him, even tempered by fear, was a powerful thing. Hermione swallowed.
She blinked as Riddle suddenly came into view. She knocked on the door hesitantly, and he glanced up at her. He looked surprised, which unnerved Hermione, because it meant that he wasn't surprised at all, and he flicked his wand at the door, which opened outwards slowly.
Hermione stepped inside, shutting the door behind her, and just sort of stood there. She didn't really have anything to say.
"Hello," he said.
"Hi."
"Er... what's going on?"
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "I would have thought it was obvious. I've 'changed my mind'," she said, drawing air quotes around the words.
Riddle was surprised. She knew specific quotes from the fake conversation he had had with the other Gryffindor? They must have discussed it at length. That was an unforeseen development. "Oh?" he said, drawing himself up and leaning against the cauldron's pedestal with a languid flourish of the hand.
"Though, actually, I don't know what 'thing' exactly you were talking about, back in the maze," Hermione said slowly, eyeing him suspiciously.
"Forget it," Riddle sighed.
"No, I'm serious. I'd really like to know what -"
Riddle looked up at her, and she fell silent. He said, "After I left, I realized that I hadn't actually ever asked you. Just thought about it. Extensively."
Hermione stared at him in confusion. Why would he waste his time thinking about a humble Mudblood? She scoffed a little and turned away. "Sure, Riddle. Whatever."
"Riddle?" he said, a small smile touching the edge of his lips. "What happened to 'Tom'?"
Hermione looked back at him, an almost-amused look on her face. "You said you didn't like being called Tom."
He stood, and any hint of joviality dropped from his expression. "Or, for that matter, what happened to 'Voldemort'?"
Hearing the word from his own mouth was a fearsome thing, but Hermione let the almost-amused expression stay on her face, despite her every instinct to cower in terror. "Let's put that behind us, shall we?" she said softly.
"No. Let's not," said Riddle. "Something happened – something since that King boy arrived here, something since 1971, and it involves me, doesn't it?" Hermione wouldn't meet his eyes. "Look at me!" he hissed, but she just gazed into space.
"Look, I'm not going to tell you, so unless you'd like to waste both time and energy dueling me, you might as well just not bother," she sighed, her muscles preparing to take a dive to avoid an Unforgivable. She nearly couldn't believe her own nerve. A hysterical laugh was building up inside her – what if Ron had seen her doing this! The expression on his face would have been priceless, and on Harry's, too –
But she was shocked by Riddle, who just sat down in a chair, and looked at her, and said slowly, "Okay."
"Er, right. So."
"Yes," muttered Riddle, and ran a hand through his dark hair. "Listen, what was that with your friend at the dinner table?"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "She's just being petulant," she said, her tone clipped.
"About what?"
She let out a short laugh, her intelligent brown eyes wandering over his face. "You, of course."
Riddle raised an eyebrow. "What's there to be petulant about with me?"
Merlin, I can't believe I'm saying this about Lord Voldemort – "She thinks we're too close, if you can believe that."
"Really."
"Really!" Hermione said, and conjured a puffy black armchair for herself. She slouched down in it, looking outside at the darkening sky. "Which is ironic, since there's every indication that you detest me."
"Detest you?" asked Riddle smoothly. "Why would you think that?"
She rolled her eyes. "Don't play dumb," she said, in a mocking repetition of his words to Mina. "It doesn't become you."
Now Riddle was very taken aback. Exactly how much of what had happened did she know? It was almost as if it had actually been Granger in the maze – but no, the voice and the facial expressions had both been completely different. It had to have been the other girl. But then... how...
"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean," he said.
Hermione sighed. "Are you serious? Unforgivable aside, after sabotaging my social life by cursing yourself and blaming me, you go and pull that stupid stunt in the maze just to make my friends hate me? I'm not an idiot, Riddle, even if you'd like to think every person but you is one."
He raised his dark brows and looked back at the potion, flicking his wand to turn his chair into an armchair that matched hers. Yes, she was a lot brighter than he'd like to think, but he'd known that already. But she wasn't done.
"Also, don't think you have everyone fooled with your smart-quiet-studious-attractive-innocent-harmless act," she said, "because, you know, there are people here who don't just take people at face value." Her face was filled with righteous indignance, and she glanced out the classroom window again. Hermione supposed she shouldn't have been surprised when the one bit he chose to take out of that sentence was,
"Attractive?"
"Whatever!" she snapped, blushing bright red. A sneaky grin spread across Riddle's face. "Like you didn't know that already," she mumbled. I can't believe that actually came out of my mouth!
"Well, no one's actually ever said that to me," Riddle said quietly. Hermione felt filled, again, with the weird urge to laugh.
"They're probably too scared that you'll Crucio them," she snorted, and – again! – the grin. It was nearly shocking, that Tom Riddle could even pretend to express any sort of pleasure. It was almost like he was a regular person. "How do you know how to do those spells in the first place?" she asked. That was a good thing to know, although there was no guarantee he would say anything, or if he did, tell the truth.
Riddle's eyes met hers, dark and foreign, a slow burn building inside them as usual. "I... have had to know how," he said.
"Oh, really?" Hermione said, her voice filled with disbelief. As if anyone had to know how to use an Unforgivable Curse.
But he nodded, and Hermione got the weird feeling, somehow, that he was telling the truth. That couldn't be true, though. No one knew how to execute a Cruciatus Curse because they needed to know. That wasn't even logical. "Okay," she said, trying to keep the utter disbelief from her voice. "I – okay." There was a minute or so of silence. Hermione stared at her feet, wondering why he could possibly have had to know the Cruciatus Curse... why?
"I apologize for that day in the dungeons," he said softly, and Hermione stared at him. A legitimate apology? Surely not.
"Uh..."
"It was juvenile and unnecessary," he continued.
There was a long silence.
Then, he added, "Plus, it hurt like hell."
Hermione couldn't hold back a startled laugh. "I'm sure," she said. "I don't even know what curse that was."
Riddle sighed with relief inwardly. She had accepted the apology without getting incredibly angry, which was far more than he had hoped for. He made a mental note to use humor more often; it seemed to loosen Gryffindors up. "Oh, I wouldn't expect you to know it," he said, still attempting to wring out of her whether she knew Dark magic or not. "It's Dark."
"Why am I not surprised?" said Hermione, rolling her eyes.
"Useful, though," Riddle said. "Lacera." His wand hand twitched, and Hermione nearly whipped out her wand and made a shield, but then she realized he was just telling her the incantation. Why is he telling me that?
"Great," she said slowly, "but, um, I'm never going to use that, if it's Dark magic."
Riddle nodded. "Okay," he said, "but just so you know, there's really not much of a difference between Dark magic and other magic. It's like the difference between shooting someone in self-defense and shooting them before they attempt to attack you."
Opportunity arose for Hermione to wring information out of Riddle – information she already knew, but that he couldn't know she knew. "Shooting them? Like with a Muggle gun?"
Dammit! Why do I always let down my guard around her? Riddle was infuriated with himself. This was the second – the second – time that he had let something slip unintentionally. He had to be more conscious of what he was saying. He couldn't let this type of thing keep happening. "Yes," he ground out, attempting with little success to keep the anger from his voice.
"So... how do you know about that type of stuff?" she asked slowly.
He raised his eyes to her, unable to all the irritation from his gaze. "To my great chagrin, I was raised in a Muggle environment," he said, and he looked like he was choking back disgust as he said it.
"...you're a Muggle-born?" said Hermione, looking most surprised.
"No!" he spat immediately. "No, no, that's not – no. I was put into an orphanage." Damn that girl – more and more information was slipping from his hold. Why was he telling the truth? Why wasn't an adequate set of lies seeping into his mind for him to recite, like they usually did? Something simple, something easy? He glared up at Hermione.
Hermione looked a bit alarmed at the sudden venom in his eyes. "Merlin, calm down. What, you think I'm going to care if you were raised in a Muggle orphanage?" she said defensively. "Me being who I am? It's not like I'm going to spread it around the whole school or anything."
Oh. Okay.
Wait – she didn't intend to publicize anything he told her?
Why?
Riddle was a bit confused. He always thought that people of intelligence, people with minds that could calculate, would always obtain information they could use, and use it. "Well, if you're not going to tell anyone," he said, "then why did you ask?" Riddle reassured himself that he wasn't the only one who liked to put information to good use – none of his followers would just go around asking people things with no real purpose either...
Hermione stared at him. He seemed genuinely baffled. Was he serious? "Look, you don't have to have an ulterior motive to ask about someone's life," she spluttered.
Well, when she put it that way, it seemed sort of obvious. Riddle put his chin on his fist, calmly surveying the girl opposite him. He spent a lot of time with people like Revelend and Herpo, who weren't malicious, per se, but they definitely wouldn't ask anyone anything without a specific reason for doing so. The Granger girl seemed so... innocent in saying that, like she didn't know how to plot and scheme and get around barriers. But Riddle knew that wasn't true. She knew as much as he did about manipulation, as was evidenced by her confounding his every attempt to maneuver her into talking. "I suppose not," he mused aloud, and blew his hair out of his eyes in mild puzzlement.
Hermione nearly smiled. He looked like a lost puppy, his bottom lip pouting out slightly, his brown eyes having lost their vicious touch. She supposed that, what with all the unsavory characters he usually associated himself with, he wouldn't be used to someone asking about him just because.
"Well, in that case, why won't you tell me anything about your past?" Riddle asked.
Hermione fixed him with a clear, level stare. "You're you," she replied simply.
"Now, is that fair?" said Riddle with a smirk.
"Yes," she said instantly. "Yes, it is."
He sighed. Already, she knew him too well. He waited for a minute to ask the question for which he knew she wouldn't have an answer. "You know, why are you here, really?" he said.
Damn. I have no idea. Hermione thought fast. "Too much embarrassment awaiting me in the Gryffindor common room."
"Couldn't you just go to bed?"
Hermione shook her head. "I share a room with Mina, and I don't even need to express how awkward that would be." She looked up at Riddle. This was perhaps the longest consecutive time she had spoken with him where he did not have a distinctly evil look in his eyes – and he wasn't restraining it, either. He seemed genuinely relaxed.
The thought struck her – she was enjoying being in the presence of Voldemort. It seemed sacrilegious – the man who had killed her, feet away, was the most relatable person she could find in this damned place.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Riddle said softly, but just as Hermione looked at him there was a lightning-quick expression on his face that she didn't like.
"No, you're not," she mumbled. "If it weren't for you, everything would be absolutely fine."
His expression changed to one of near-indignance. "Look, the curse thing is long past," he said. "If your Gryffindor friends can't see fit to get past that, they need to work on moving on."
"I told you," said Hermione with forced patience, "my friends think that we're too close."
"And why would they think that?" Riddle said.
"I don't know!"
"You haven't even spoken to me in public. Ever."
"I know that," shot back Hermione. He was talking fast again, and it worried Hermione. If he kept pushing her, staring at her as if he already knew everything inside her mind, grinding at her patience with that dark, mesmerizing, unbelievably potent stare, she was probably going to let something slip –
"In fact, if I recall correctly, the only actual contact we've had since you were last here was the maze, and unless you told them about that, there's no reason that they would -"
Hermione interrupted, "It wasn't me in the maze."
There.
Shit.
Not that it really mattered – except that now she was running the risk of infuriating him – but it was out in the open, that he had tried to seduce Mina into giving him information she sure as hell didn't know.
"Uh... what?" Riddle said, a faint shock tingeing his features.
"It wasn't me," Hermione repeated. "It was my friend, Mina. We traded Polyjuice Potions so that we could win."
Riddle blinked. "Ah," he said. "Ah."
"Yes."
"Wait, then how do you know the conversation we had?" Riddle asked. Merlin, it was an excellent opportunity to ask her. He was surprised that she had just told him so easily, actually, after –
"I was there."
Now he was genuinely stunned. "Wait..."
"I was about a foot to your left, watching," said Hermione impatiently.
"And you didn't curse me and get out with your friend?" asked Riddle, looking back at her. That seemed like the most Gryffindor thing to do, just make a rash decision in favor of heroism –
The girl opposite him shrugged her slim shoulders, messing with her hair. "I thought it through," she said, "and I figured it would be better for everyone involved if I just stayed hidden, in case you happened to toss out another Cruciatus." Her hazel eyes found his, and Riddle held her gaze. Had she really been there, the entire time? How embarrassing, that someone had seen him shamelessly attempting to seduce someone – a Mudblood, of all people, even though it hadn't really been a Mudblood at the time...
"Well, that was very Slytherin of you," said Riddle with a smirk, and was pleased to see that familiar defiant look make its way back onto her face. He was becoming almost fond of that look. The reactions that accompanied it were always so amusing.
"No, it was not!" she argued hotly, and, seeing that his smirk was unchanging, she stuck her dainty nose up in the air with a righteous sort of 'hmph'. Riddle chuckled dryly, but it was not contrived or forced – it was entirely of his own volition. She was very entertaining to watch.
"So," he continued, his tone of voice suddenly almost sultry, "did you like what you saw?" He could barely restrain himself from smirking as her rosy cheeks turned as red as apples, and her eyes opened wide.
"No-I-did-not-like-what-I-saw" was what she blurted, and she stared intently at the potion, as if it would relieve her from the uncomfortable conversation. When she looked back at him, he supposed his expression must have slipped into one of extreme amusement, because she said, "What are you smirking about?"
"It's amusing to fluster you," he said, "and it's so easy." Her eyes narrowed into a frustrated, penetrating glare, but she didn't look away from him this time. There was a long silence. He was completely shocked when she said,
"All right, why do I get the feeling you're not surprised that it wasn't me in the maze?" Her tone was suspicious. Riddle blinked, opening his mouth to reply, but words didn't come out. Where were his lies? They had always come so easily, and now, just when he needed them, they had vanished. There was a long, awkward pause. Riddle could feel the seconds ticking by, but his mind was blank. His mind was never blank.
"You already knew!" she accused suddenly, an expression of discovery dawning on her face. Riddle cursed inwardly, but he just put an expression of indignance on his face and said,
"What? That's ridiculous."
Hermione scoffed. "I can't believe this," she said. "How in the name of Merlin did you find out? And then the so-called 'thing' you asked me to do – there wasn't really any 'thing' in the first place, was there? You were just – you were just trying to make Mina mad at me!"
Hermione was really just guessing, but by the strangely-transparent look on his face, she could tell that she was absolutely correct. Of course Riddle would know that they had switched. He knew everything, somehow; it had been childish to assume that he wouldn't know this one little thing. That explained his feeble excuse about the 'thing' earlier. It also explained why he had been so disgustingly... up-front in the maze.
She felt weirdly relieved that the pieces had fallen into place so easily, but simultaneously she was enraged. How dare he play her like that? How dare he work so hard to sabotage her life here, as if it weren't bad enough that she was trapped here in the first place?
"I can't believe you!" she spat. "I've worked so hard to try and get over my past by being a normal person here, and you have to go and ruin it! Why would you do that? You don't even have a good reason! You're just... you're just messed up!"
She buried her face in her hands in disbelief, closing her eyes exasperatedly. Of course he was messed up – he was the Dark Lord. How could she keep forgetting that? Was it because he looked like someone else? Was it because he acted like someone else? Bad reasoning, Hermione.
Riddle was at a loss. What should he do? He couldn't quite believe that she had unraveled everything so quickly; smart girl. It had been such a good sequence of events, after all – but he supposed he shouldn't have relied on anything going completely to fruition, with Granger to reckon with. Now the thin layer of trust that he might have built up had gone back to square one. "Why would you want to get over your past?" he found himself asking, and she glanced up at him with something near disgust in her eyes.
"Because I miss everyone I left behind when I was killed, you idiot," she said.
He ignored the last two words, because the rest of the sentence caught him up. Was killed? Hold on. Not just 'died' – she had been killed? By someone? Or something? Who would want to kill an eighteen-year-old girl? He mentally stored the information, and replied, "But that doesn't mean you should try to 'get over' your past. It's still a part of who you are." God, he sounded sappy and sentimental. Then again, wasn't that how they all were in Gryffindor? Granger was probably used to it. She curled up in her armchair, looking miserable.
"It's too hard to keep remembering. It would be easier just to forget it all," she mumbled.
It was pitch-black outside now. The girl's eyes were reddening, and Riddle was terrified that she might start to cry. Then he would have no clue what to do. None at all. Usually, when people cried in front of him, they were sobbing out of unprecedented agony. "Would you like to go for a walk?" he suggested quickly, somehow scared more by the mere idea of her crying than he had ever been by any legitimate danger.
Hermione looked up at him quickly, the tears that she had been fighting receding in favor of slight confusion. "Sure," she said, with a belabored sigh. "Why not." Since I'm already going to hell.
She stood, flicked her wand, and the chair vanished. She yawned – the fumes rising from the potion were quite soporific. Hermione realized that she hadn't even broached the topic of what the potion was, which should have irked her more than it did.
Riddle unfolded himself from the chair, and Hermione was instantly and involuntarily reminded of his physical charms as he stretched out to his full six feet. It was a wonder that he had gone so bad, with so much in his favor, and Hermione wondered why it had even started to happen. Curiosity itched at her, but she couldn't exactly come out and ask, because that would give away far too much, so she just followed him out of the classroom.
They walked in silence down to the main entrance to Hogwarts, and then Riddle suddenly said, "Look, I – I'm – what I've done -"
He couldn't really finish that sentence, because he wasn't really sorry he'd done any of it. So he just stopped talking.
"Was that your lame attempt at an apology?" muttered Hermione, as they stood in the doorframe. Both doors were wide open, and the warm light inside washed in a golden arch out onto the dark green lawn.
"Not really," Riddle replied. "It was going to be more of a justification, but I can't really think of one at the moment."
She looked amused. "So you can't think of any sort of justification... but you're not going to apologize. How does that... you know, how does that make sense in your mind?"
He shrugged. "I had reasons. You're an interesting girl, Granger, and I don't see fit to apologize for any of it, because it was in pursuit of better acquainting myself with you." There. That was the usual Tom Riddle response – charming, concealing, almost complimentary, not suspicious.
Acquainting himself with me? What was that supposed to even mean? Hermione leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms expectantly. "So manipulating me and everyone around me doesn't merit apology."
"Nope."
"How about lying to me at every turn?"
"No."
"How about the Cruciatus Curse?"
He considered for a second. "The Cruciatus was a bit unpremeditated," he mused, scratching his jaw lightly with his pale fingers. "Usually, though, it's highly effective, so -" He broke off again. Dammit! There it was again! That stupid, conversational slip. This was why he didn't associate with people. It just didn't work. In the attempt to relax himself to put them at ease, he got sloppy and stupid. That was just stupid.
"'Usually'?" she asked slowly, but he was surprised to see that her face was free of fear. He almost missed that terrified look she had used to have when he was near her – not that he was particularly near to her now. A few feet away.
Riddle bit his lip and walked towards her, closing the distance in a subtle attempt to bring back that slight tinge of apprehension on her face, but it didn't work. "All right, I -"
But she held up a hand, and for some reason, he fell silent. One did not order around the Dark Lord Voldemort, and the Dark Lord Voldemort most certainly did not just stop talking simply because some Mudblood raised her hand, but she lowered it again and crossed her arms and he found that he was listening. "Look, you don't have to talk about that," she said.
"Why?"
"Because it's private," she answered, as if it were obvious, and then she sort of smiled. "There are things that are more important than just getting what you want. You know, out of people."
Riddle's eyebrows furrowed. She was so strange. Nothing about her made sense – one moment it was as if she were like him, trying to get information out of him, and the next, she didn't seem to have any objective in the conversation. "Well, yes," he said. "It is private."
"Well, then," she said pointedly, "moving on. What were you trying to say?"
Riddle stared at her for a second. Her face was calm.
He usually never took note of people's physical appearances, but he did now, for some reason. It seemed like a bit of a long shot to say that Granger was an attractive girl, but she did have a certain charm in the way that she held herself – with confidence, with poise, with power.
He realized he had just been looking at her for longer than was necessary, and he said, "I, er – what I was trying – I…"
Hermione's lip curled in an amused smirk. Was Tom Riddle flustered? Because of a simple act of graciousness – letting him slip away without having to make some sort of lame excuse about all his torturous exploits? He certainly couldn't seem to find words. "Yes?" she said, enjoying the fact that she had the power in the conversation. But then he moved a little closer to her, and just like that, all the power that she had seemed to drain away.
His hands were in his pockets, and he looked down at her with almost-softness in his eyes, which was perhaps the most disconcerting thing about the situation. It was harder to fabricate certain emotions than others, and caring was one of them, but he did it well. Then again, Tom Riddle does everything well.
"Look – what I meant was that I did what I did for selfish reasons."
"I know that."
"Well, one selfish reason in particular."
Hermione swallowed. He seemed to have gotten even nearer, though she hadn't noticed him doing it. Maybe it was just a trick of the light that seemed to be bringing him in even closer proximity than before... "Yes?" she said, glad that at least her voice was covering for her, sounding as bold as ever.
"I really would like to get to know you better, Granger," he murmured, and just like that, one of his hands was around hers. He was holding her hand. He was holding her hand with the same fingers that had already killed her, the same hand that had tortured hundreds, the same hand that had tried to kill Harry, the same hand that held the wand that did all those terrible things -
For any other girl, that might have been the melting point. For Hermione, it was the exact opposite. "No, no, no-no-no no," she said, yanking her hand out of his grip. "Let's get one thing straight. You might think that you can get any girl you want just by staring deep into her eyes, and saying vaguely incompetent romantic phrases, and looking... like... like you always look, but someone's got to tell you that not everything is always going to just come easy to you. Not every girl is exactly the same. Especially me." She took a deep breath, placed her hands on his chest, and moved him back a couple steps. "Let's try this again," she said. "Legitimate apology?"
Riddle's mouth opened a little. How had that just happened? Had a Mudblood girl literally just pushed him around and rejected his advances? He couldn't understand her logic. He was attractive and there for her – wasn't that all girls wanted? Actually, wasn't that all boys wanted, too?
Hermione stared at him. He looked like someone had just kicked him in the ribs. Well, a mixture of that and complete disbelief. Like he was in physical pain because something he did hadn't worked. Wow, he certainly isn't on the ball tonight. So she repeated, "Riddle. Are you going to apologize?"
He shook his head slightly. "I told you, I don't -"
Right. He was probably going to say that he couldn't feel remorse, or something. Hermione nearly rolled her eyes, but then a thought struck her mind, triggered by the mere thought of that word – remorse. R.J. had said that it was the only way to fix a broken soul... Could Riddle actually feel remorse? Right now, he was seven horcrux fragments loosely held together – Nagini was back on earth, still wreaking havoc, but the other seven horcruxes were all here, destroyed... the original six, plus the unintentional one, which had embedded itself in Harry. Would feeling remorse heal him – join the pieces back together? It was an interesting thought. Hermione knew she couldn't find something like that in the library, but she would ask Miranda and Albus about it, since she and R.J. weren't speaking, and maybe she could come up with some sort of theory...
"I'm not going to say I'm sorry to you," he said simply, and Hermione blinked calmly, coming back to her senses.
"Then we're done here," she answered coldly, and she turned on her heel and started to walk back into the castle, but she felt Riddle's hand grab hers again and she froze.
"I'm not going to apologize," said his quiet, smooth voice from behind her, "but what I said about getting to know you wasn't just some cheap pseudo-romantic shot."
Strangely, as Riddle said the words, he felt like they were almost true. She slowly turned back to him, one thin brown eyebrow raised. He took a breath. What he said now could ruin all his work, or help it forward. It was a dangerous precipice to walk. "I know it's asking a lot, but I'd like to leave the past behind us."
He felt like he had said exactly the right thing. The look on her face indicated that she was taking something out of the words that he didn't know, but whatever it was, she took her hand out of his gently and didn't walk away. She had cool, small hands, he thought absentmindedly – a nice, calm feel to her dry skin, as if gentle water rushed behind it.
There was more context to that phrase than he would ever know, Hermione thought, amused. It was like whatever God there was had made him say that just to get to her. She waited a second, looking up at the ceiling, and then back at Riddle. Then he said, "So, would you like to take that walk?"
A small smile made its way onto her lips. "Which way? It's really quite dark out."
So it was.
"We can just stay here, if you'd like," offered Riddle. "Or, I mean, if you'd like to go back to your common room – it's a bit late."
"No, I still don't really... want to go back there," mumbled Hermione. "No thanks to you." She punched him lightly on the arm, and his face filled with an almost laughable horror, as if the gesture of familiarity were deadly poison.
Riddle took a couple steps away from her, shooting an uneasy glance in her direction. Then he took out his wand and waved it. The two squashy black armchairs rematerialized in the doorway, facing the encroaching darkness of outside. Hermione flopped down onto the chair to the right, and he perched himself on the one to the left.
They talked about frivolous things – mostly about Hogwarts and how it had changed, about teachers, about classes, about history, politics, social trends, some about Diagon Alley. Things that they could talk about safely, without being at each others' necks. And Hermione found herself thinking that it was almost... not that bad, speaking with someone who – at last – could match her intelligence, and she almost felt that he might have been having a not-that-bad time of it himself. A thestral or two rose into the sky above the Forbidden Forest, flat black against the blinking stars, and both of the people sitting in the armchairs noticed, but neither brought up the fact that they had seen death, because neither really wanted to talk about it.
Meanwhile, a very angry Araminta Meliflua, who had been standing just behind the door to the Great Hall the entire time, seethed with rage, and snuck down to the Slytherin common room soundlessly.
Also, a very jealous and very talkative pair of Ravenclaw twin sisters stood at the top of the entrance to the Grand Staircase, exchanging very interested looks.