A/N: You guys are so, so, so supportive it almost makes me want to cry. But I won't. Instead, I'll give you a really fast update (which is this). Another one comes out on Saturday! Let me know what you think. I really hope you like it. Love you all!

Thank you to: Jade2099, mangokake, BlackBloodedMagic, tfobmv18, Alexybath, Diamondreamer and my Anonymous reviewer for reviewing and being so nice to me.

To all of those who are reading and not reviewing: Hello. I hope you're enjoying.

Chapter 23: Dreams and Bingle Whips

Hermione:

In light of my fresh start at life, I decided it was time to deal with my actual fate. I had put off dealing with the prophecy I'd found out about in London for much too long. Much, much too long. It was Draco's fault, really... he'd put me off track, first with the sex and then with complete abandonment.

Men!

The problem was, I didn't know how to get back to the dream world. Despite the fact that Tom Riddle's parting words "Come visit me" still haunted my brain every once in a while, the bugger hadn't mentioned how I could come and see him again. Honestly, if he had, I probably would've gone there a dozen times already. Not that I was...eager or anything.

At first, I attempted clearing my mind and all that nonsense, during the day and night, but no dream world. I tried motivating my mind to go into the dream world before falling asleep and waking up frustrated because I hadn't managed it. I took potions to stimulate my mind during the night – but nothing. Not that I expected taking drugs would work.

Frankly, it was exhausting. What did he want me to do? Stop everything in my life and just focus on him and his needs? I suppose I was being unreasonable and all, but I had a life too and I had to live it. Certainly that had priority as well. I mean, now that I actually had to look for a job... well, it certainly wasn't that easy. Especially one that I actually would enjoy working at. In the end, I supposed it was inevitable that I accept Draco's help.

It's what was meant to be, I could almost feel it in my bones!

Alright, I lied. I was just desperate for a job, really, and he was offering. I have no morals and a shattered soul, yeah, yeah. You can all throw your eggs at me now.

Eventually, I stopped trying so hard to get to my dream world. It didn't seem worth the effort, no matter how scary it had sounded at the time. Now, it was merely a distant memory I had seen in a haze of pain and drugs. It probably wasn't real anyways. I'd probably imagined it all. So what if I had a few incidents that were somewhat similar? Things happen, right? It was a coincidence.

Then one night everything changed.

On the cusp of unconsciousness, I sleepily thought – Take me to Tom Riddle, now, please – and when I felt myself finally drop into that blissful unconsciousness that is sleep, all was black and peaceful like it should have been.

Except it wasn't.

I was in a bed with very soft sheets. The bed wasn't mine, neither was the pillow under my head. I was aware of all of this, but too comfortable and sleepy to get up. There was a light breeze flowing in from a window. I knew I wasn't in my room anymore, because I hadn't left the window open. And besides, New York does not smell this clean. In fact, my street sort of smells like Chinese food at the night...

"I'm rather sure you haven't been invited here to sleep," said a voice next to me. I could hear the smirk before I even opened my eyes and already I wanted to slap it off his face. Opening my eyes and staring at the spot on the bed next to me, I found Tom Riddle splayed. And yes, he was smirking.

But he was also shirtless.

"Go away," I grumbled, turning away from him and burrowing deeper into the pillows and blankets. "And make yourself decent next time you want to talk to a girl in her sleep!" He only chuckled that irritatingly attractive chuckle. He was dead, I had to remind myself. I couldn't go destroy his body...

"I wouldn't have been shirtless if your mind hadn't demanded it of me." What the... fuck! I sat up straight staring at him in alarm.

"What are you talking about?" I demanded.

He laughed. Tom Riddle actually laughed at me. "Only that your mind...wants to see me like this," he said, gesturing to his nude torso with his amazingly long and delicious looking fingers.

"That can't be, I was planning on dreaming about my hot boyfriend," I responded as indignantly as I could. With such perfect timing, the door to the room we were in opened and in walked Draco. Well, dream Draco. He was clad in only a towel.

"See!" I exclaimed in glee, grinning at Tom who had a slightly dejected look on his face. I got out of bed and literally jumped on Draco, I was that glad he had saved me from embarrassing myself in front of Tom. When I kissed him full on the mouth for being such a lovely person, I heard a forced cough from behind me.

"Alright, that's enough! We have work to do."

I just shrugged. Soon, I found myself sitting in my old desk in Professor McGonagall's transfiguration classroom. Tom was leaning against her desk, staring at me with interest. He said nothing. Why was it that everyone expected me to start conversations these days?

"So..." I ventured.

He grinned. "Right!" His grin only widened when I rolled my eyes. "You did quite the job managing to come back here with such little effort. Quite the feat." And here he was complimenting me.

"But...I took months to come back," I said, slightly ashamed of myself for not giving this priority.

He smirked, again. "You weren't really trying all those months, were you?" Point one for Riddle. I suppose this was payback for getting Draco to come see me nearly naked. Hmm... perhaps I could get him to come see me nearly naked in real life. That would be very pleasurable...and no Tom Riddle to interrupt. "Your thoughts are wandering, Hermione," he said, right on cue.

Well, fuck him. I can think about my boyfriend in any state of dress, or undress, whenever I want to! Tom Riddle or no Tom Riddle. Regardless, I attempted to pay attention to him.

This time it was his turn to roll his eyes. "If you are quite finished. The prophecy has progressed faster than I thought it would through all of these months that you've been gone." I nodded a little hesitantly this time. It had progressed.

Then the man threw me for a bender. "Do you trust me?"

I thought hard for a minute. "No, of course not."

He seemed affronted but I just shrugged. "Well, why the hell not?" he asked. When I raised my eyebrow, he grinned sheepishly. "Besides the whole mass murder thing, of course..."

"Besides the whole mass murder thing!" I scoffed.

"Yes, yes. Well, if you trust me, you need to tell me the details of the prophecy. What was told to you and what you gathered that day in the library. Otherwise, you'll have to manage this on your own. Or perhaps find someone else willing to help you – which, considering who you are, will probably be many," he finished, looking a bit sullen at the proposition.

"You mean, I can have someone other than you guide me?" He nodded and I considered. "Like who?"

"Dumbledore," he immediately muttered, vehemently. I only grinned because I knew how much he hated my old headmaster. "Though I suggest you not ask for him," he continued, quickly.

"Why? Did you have some bet with Dumbledore, or something?"

"Well, yes. But he's also very vague. Doesn't give his charges much help, does he? At least I can form sentences without being cryptic, for God's sake!" This I could really agree with. I respected Dumbledore and all...but come on. The Beadle and the Bard will haunt me for the rest of my life. Vague fucking indeed! "And you certainly don't want to call on any of the Founders, or any writer in general, really... They really like to meddle." Founders... writers? Miranda Goshawk? He just nodded as if he knew what I was thinking.

Suddenly, I realized that because of who he was, he probably hadn't had many actual people to communicate with. Or at least, no one pleasant. "Am I the first... you know. Person you've helped since you got here?" He just shrugged.

I don't know if it was pity or if I temporarily lost my sanity, but I decided it was probably best that I keep Riddle around to help me. If my subconscious had thought it best that he be the person to choose, then so be it. My subconscious or conscious hadn't been wrong as of yet. I wasn't about to mistrust it now. Besides, he was rather... a genius, despite being a crazy mass murderer. If only Dumbledore was better than you... well, you had it going on!

Then again, he had been stumped by a baby.

"I saw a few visions and some of them have already happened... and then you told me the prophecy, I believe. After. When I was just about to leave," I said. He stared at me as if I was stupid, or something close to it. "What?" I finally asked.

"I already knew that. You're going to have to be specific... Are you really what passes for the smartest witch of your age these days? The lot really must be stupid!"

Glaring, I was already reconsidering keeping the fucker around. Vague or not, at least Dumbledore knew how to respect people! As if sensing my anger (not that it was all that hidden, really), he smiled a little guiltily, apologized and gestured for me to be more specific.

"Well. I saw me walking down a street completely plastered, I saw my parents and I saw Draco and I. All of which already happened... Then I saw Draco writing something and he was quite angry about it, I saw two kids playing in a sandbox, I saw myself running away from something really bad and I was rather scared... I saw a fire and a man burning and then I saw myself and Draco lying in the rain."

"Was that all? That doesn't sound so bad, really...rather unremarkable, in fact," he almost seemed relieved on my behalf.

"No," I said.

"No?"

"No...I... saw myself dying. At the end... I was bleeding pretty badly..." An uncomfortable silence followed. He scratched his head and it painfully reminded me of Draco. I wanted to cry. No, I wanted to get out of this dream world and curl up against Draco.

"Oh," Riddle finally said. I just shrugged. "It's going to be okay, though." I could immediately tell he was trying to make it seem alright.

"Everyone dies eventually, Riddle. Look at you," I gestured. He cringed. I admit, it was probably a rude thing to say, but we were talking about my death here... so I suppose I felt entitled to it.

"What was the prophecy?" he finally asked after a moment.

"What, don't you remember?" I asked stupidly. To be honest, I was still a bit shaken up from reliving my death... that hadn't happened yet. It was quite a strange experience if truth be told.

But for once, he didn't poke fun at me or my diminishing intelligence. Apparently the concept of death was no joking matter, certainly not to Tom Riddle. "I, like any seer, as that is the function I had been playing, would not recall any true prophecy I had channelled from this world to you."

"Right," I nodded and then began to recite.

"You were brought here for a reason. That, which you have been given is for your fate to be decided in your hands, to show the man of identity that is challenged that the good must be put on his shoulders, from his to yours. Heed wisely, you shall learn that you are the vessel of fate, born for this purpose and happiness shall not be short lived. Heed and all shall be well."

He stared at me blankly. "Once more, please," he asked, a little more politely than necessary. I nodded and repeated while he listened intently.

We sat there in silence for a while and unsure if I ought to even bother speaking. Eventually, I plucked up enough courage to open my mouth. "What do you think?" I asked.

"I think," he said, slowly, "that we have a lot of work to do."

Draco:

Psychotherapy, it turns out, is very intense work. Not only am I learning how to deal with my repressed issues, I'm learning to do it with a creepy blonde little thing that really should not classify as human. Well, alright, that was exaggeration. She was most certainly human. But that's all she has in common with everything else that is normal.

But what would I know about normal, right? I was the one getting therapy in the first place.

I, of course, was not allowed to ask her questions that were not related to my actual treatment. So I didn't know what she was doing in New York or how she came to occupy such a prestigious position. After the war, I hadn't really kept in touch with anyone from back home and I certainly hadn't deigned it important enough to keep track of where they went or what they did. So I wouldn't know why she was here or when she had come.

I'm not sure why I felt morally obliged to find out.

Luna said this was a character flaw I should really work on fixing or the Bingle Whips in my brain will eventually take complete control of my body. I'm not sure if she's joking and I really don't know what Bingle Whips are... but I still make myself go to her wretched office in her wretched building every Saturday.

Despite her complete unorthodox way of treating my issues, I certainly was feeling a lot better. I have a feeling though this has more to do with the potions she prescribed to me rather than the actual therapy in itself. Though, thinking about it more clearly, the potions made it bearable to go to therapy... so, perhaps it was a circle?

Whatever it was, it was definitely working.

I cannot say I was happy in those weeks while adjusting to reliving and accepting my issues, but I no longer wished to repress them. Yes, I would suddenly disappear for a while each day to an abandoned washroom because I could not hold back tears any longer, but at least the memories did not want to make me blank. Or worse, kill myself.

She made me question my own guilt and the reasons I found myself guilty to begin with. Was I really at fault? Or was it a mass murdering psycho who had done all those things? I had to accept the fact that the events would have taken place exactly as they had even if I were not there. I had come to accept the fact that not all of it was my fault.

I didn't deserve to die. Not yet, anyways.

It was difficult, it was gruelling and it was so painful that sometimes I didn't want to get out of bed for days. But I was persevering. It was real slow progress, but I was going somewhere. And Hermione was not going to settle for the short end of the stick, this time. Things were definitely looking up.

When you're at the bottom, the only place to go is up. So that's where I'd go.

But seriously? Luna Lovegood is bat shit crazy.

A/N: Unsigned Reviews

Jade2099: I completely agree with you. :) You are so very insightful. I agree about Hermione about the mental therapy, wholeheartedly. Who knows, maybe Luna can snag her in too! Thank you for reading so faithfully!

Alexybath: I adore Luna too, she's quite the doll. And rather strange. I added a bit of crazy Luna in this chapter for you. Hoped you enjoyed!

Diamondreamer: Thank you for your double review. You're very sweet and you should know that reviews like yours are recognition enough.

To the anonymous reviewer who likes it when I swear: I'm glad you think it's rich vocabulary! Much more of it to come (wink wink). Your review made me laugh and I'm very glad that you liked it. Enjoy! Try to leave a name for me next time so I know how to address you, though, if you don't mind. :)