Chapter 15: Anima Adflictatio
Friday, November 19, 1944
7:51 A.M.
The first three words that floated into Hermione's mind were soft, warm, and bright. The fourth was Riddle.
Gasping, Hermione bolted upright. At the same time her eyes flew open, though she had absolutely no idea what she expected to see...
Of all the possibilities that had raced through her mind, however, she certainly didn't expect to see herself laying in her own bed in her own bedroom. She saw the pale November dawn through her floor-to-ceiling windows in evidence that the morning had arrived. Automatically, Hermione blinked and quickly glanced at the clock on her bedside table. It was almost eight.
Oh bugger. If she ran, she might just make it to Defence Against the Dark Arts on time. "Just" being the key word.
Yeah, that's exactly what I need for the rest of the year, my own personal Defence Against the Dark Arts system installed in my own common room, she thought sarcastically. Throwing back the blue and bronze covers, she glanced down at her clothing from the day before: still on, but creased.
It was enough to send the events of the previous night rushing back to her. Had she really and truly passed out? Had she really had an enormous fight with Tom Riddle and not died, or even emerged seriously injured? Had Tom Riddle actually taken her upstairs - up to her room? - rather than leaving her lying, sprawled, in the middle of the Head common room like she most certainly would not have hesitated to leave him?
Was her life even making the slightest bit of sense? Her periwinkle blouse pulled halfway off, Hermione thoughtfully paused in front of her mahogany bureau-mirror combination. Had Riddle really told her everything that he had? Had she really done the same?
Eventually, she shrugged, too rushed to ponder the mysteries of the night before, and finished tugging off her shirt, yanking her uniform skirt and blouse out of the top drawer and slipping them on. Sweeping her hair into an inelegant bun, she distractedly attempted to push the drawer shut. After five shoves and no results, she impatiently slammed her hip up against it, closing it with a BANG!
I can still make it, I can still make it... Hermione practically flew across the good-sized Head Girl bedroom. Lifting the strap of her book bag, she was about to sling it over her shoulder and hurtle out the door...
Until she saw the piece of yellowed parchment that definitely hadn't been there before. It was stuck haphazardly in the folds of her bag. The paper itself was large enough so that she would notice it, eventually, but small enough that it wouldn't be especially conspicuous... And it sported the slightly antique colouring that Tom Riddle favoured.
Ohhh shoot. Warily, Hermione regarded the parchment slip as if it had suddenly sprouted beady red eyes and a mouth with dozens of sharp teeth, wondering what in Merlin's name it was doing there... and why he would bother to leave her a note. Hadn't everything that could have been said basically been said the night before? The seconds ticked by. It was then that the reality of the situation truly gripped Hermione. Sweet Merlin, Tom Riddle has been in my room. While I was unconscious!
Cautiously, half-afraid it would turn out to be hexed, or worse, Hermione drew the parchment out of her bag and turned it over. Oh, come on, Hermione, don't be a wimp! Biting her lip, she gingerly forced her gaze downward. In doing so, a solitary line of extremely neat and now-recognisable script was revealed.
'Nefertari –
I don't want to know what you saw last night.
TR'
For a moment, Hermione's heart stopped beating, and she stared at the note in confusion, her brow furrowing as her mind floated off into thought. What had she seen last night? How could she not tell Tom Riddle what she had seen when she didn't even know herself. Abruptly - and out of absolutely nowhere - a wave of dizziness swept over her. She gasped, stumbling, and her hand flashed out blindly, grasping her desk. Like a tsunami, the words Anima Adflictatio slammed into her head, the force behind the single thought so powerful, she nearly bowled over for the second time in less than twelve hours.
Panting, she crouched down, balancing her elbows on her knees, while her eyes slowly refocused, blurred, and refocused again on the note in her hand. For a moment, she suspiciously ran her hands over that familiar yellow paper. She had begun to harbour the possibility that Riddle actually had hexed the note...
But, deep within the corner of her mind, Hermione realised that that morning had not been the first time that she had heard those two words, and she involuntarily shivered. Those two words had been the last thing resounding throughout her entire body before she had lost all memory and consciousness the night before.
Hermione slowly sank from her still bent-over position and sat cross-legged on the floor, resting her throbbing head in her hands. She never, ever had migraines. Or headaches, whatever people preferred to call them. So had she actually had a real vision last night? How else would she ever have come up with something like Anima Adflictatio?
Despite her vast knowledge from perusing thousands of books throughout her lifetime, Hermione could honestly say had never heard of the spell before. Was it a hex? A charm? A Dark Arts curse? Was it even a spell at all, or was it the result of random words that had been strung together?
The situation suddenly struck her as so ridiculous, she almost laughed. She, Hermione Granger, the ultimate Divination non-believer, have her own true vision? She leapt to her feet exactly as the clock chimed at eight o'clock, a rude reminder that she was going to be horribly late. Again.
The humorous thing was that, up until that point in her life, she would gladly receive detention before she would ever do anything but arrive early or on time. Even now, she never meant to be late; there just always seemed to be extenuating circumstances over which she had no control, but which were, of course, too complicated to take the time to explain to anyone who might be willing to listen... She had a feeling that Riddle would never let her live this one down.
Flinging open her door and peeking around the wood panel, Hermione made a hasty, cautious scan of the common room to ensure that Tom Riddle was safely out of range. Luckily for her, the common room was completely deserted, the embers from a fire that had been blazing the night before now cold and black.
Oh, good, at least Riddle made it to his class on time, she thought sarcastically. Bounding down her staircase and dashing past the fireplace's smoking ashes, the morning sunshine weakly streaming through the bay windows, she nearly flew past Sir Cadogan's portrait and into the corridor... And, at the last minute, skidded to a stop at the top of the staircase outside the Great Hall. A burning curiosity had begun to overwhelm her senses. Last night, Tom Riddle had unintentionally touched her, catalysing—maybe—a vision. Anima Adflictatio had magically popped into her head that morning.
Hermione! What are you thinking? Something's up, and you need to find out what it is! Her hand lingered on the smooth, glazed walnut railing for only a moment. Right then and there, Hermione decided that life was so much more important than her next Defence Against the Dark Arts class... for which she was already five minutes late anyway.
Instead, she spun around and headed straight for the library.
6:02 P.M.
"So, did you set up the Room of Requirement?" Ginny asked Hermione brightly, lying on her back on Hermione's Ravenclaw bedspread, her red hair spread like a devilish halo around her head. She reached out a finger and absently traced the stars that Hermione had recently charmed to appear on her ceiling as they proportionally had become more visible with each moment of vanishing daylight.
"Umm-hmm", Hermione responded absently, busily scanning book titles. "Finished it after Herbology."
Ginny yawned and closed her eyes, and Hermione averted her attention back to the extremely important matter at hand. Her library trip had turned out to be an utter disappointment. Having thoroughly searched what she knew of the library from tip to toe, the only literature she had found on Anima Adflictatio simply described it as '...an extremely advanced and ancient dark curse about which little is known.' Even now, she groaned at the memory of her single discovery. Big help that was.
She had begun to go through some of the Dumbledore Ancestral Library bookcases, half of which were set up along the walls of her room, the other half shrunk and packed away in her trunk due to lack of space. Her eyes moved deliberately along the rows of ancient volumes lining the shelves, and she pulled out random books she thought might be helpful in identifying the Anima spell as she went along.
Dark Arts Curses, A Description of.
She had a bit of a hard time imagining Albus Dumbledore taking out some of these books for a light late night read, but she set the book down on the small coffee table to her right nonetheless, thankful that the man seemed to collect all sorts of antique books despite the Light or Dark tint of their subjects, so to speak.
One down, one hundred more to go. Hermione spied a copy of Hexes and Dark Magic Throughout the Ages hiding far back and partially obstructed on the second highest shelf of the particular bookcase in front of her. The only way to get to it was by pulling out the ancient, nearly falling-apart book in front of it entitled The Most Thorough and Complete History of the Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
She glanced at it in mild interest for a moment before gingerly setting the old leather manuscript on top of her first book, a cloud of dust erupting from its pages as she did so. Back up on tip-toe again she went, with determination stretching her hand out toward Hexes and Dark Magic. She could reach it... she really could-
Hermione paused mid-reach and tilted her head back at Ginny. "D'you hear that?"
Ginny cracked open a brown eye. "Yeah. Don't worry, I'll get it, you keep..." She arched an eyebrow at Hermione, who had practically dug one foot into the bottom shelf, and it appeared that she was preparing to rock-climb the rest of the way up the daunting bookcase. "...You keep doing whatever it is you're doing."
As Hermione grunted a muffled "Thanks" in reply, Ginny rolled off the bed. She had made it halfway to the door when the knock came again, louder and more quickly, as if impatient. "Yeah, yeah, hold your blast-ended skrewts—"
Hermione's fingers had just triumphantly brushed the spine of Hexes and Dark Magic when she heard the door click open, and Ginny's voice halted abruptly. Hermione frowned to herself as a good ten seconds of complete silence passed. Finally, the younger girl said sourly, "Oh. It's you." Only a limited number of people warranted Ginny's use of such an acidic tone. And unless Abraxas Malfoy was standing at her door, which she highly doubted, Hermione knew exactly who 'you' was. And she didn't exactly want to get him wondering about why she had suddenly taken to scaling rather old bookcases.
Promptly, she reluctantly dropped the Dark Arts book and casually stepped away from the shelves. Lightly dusting her hands on her robe, she nonchalantly twisted about her finger a lock of curly dark hair that had fallen from her bun and glanced toward the door. Her supposition had not been wrong: the resident Head Boy's tall and slight but relaxed form was leaning one shoulder on her doorframe and eying her indifferently, yet she wondered why she was still vaguely surprised to see him.
Hmmm, maybe because you were on the verge of killing each other last night? her mind answered sarcastically. Regarding Riddle with a mixture inquisitiveness and suspicion, she decided to skip the formalities. After all, he didn't 'do' them anyway. "Was there something you wanted?" she snapped frostily.
"Now, now, no need to get feisty, Nefertari", Riddle countered tonelessly. Pushing himself up off the door, he calmly prowled into her room, just barely acknowledging Ginny with his gaze as he passed her. Ginny, for her part, rolled her eyes and continued to hold the door open. Probably in encouragement of a quick exit, Hermione thought in relief. Keep it up, Gin.
Her muscles instinctively tensed as Riddle slowly—leisurely, it seemed—strolled across her wooden floor. He was clearly eying the pictures on her dressers, the trinkets on the bureau, the clothes in her open closet, too, probably – Merlin, Hermione, calm down! He's already been in here before, remember, and he didn't take anything then! You checked!
For the first time, she noticed the stack of papers tucked under his right arm. "Rickter", he finally began offhandedly, referring to the current Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, "wanted me to give these to you, seeing as we do share a common room". He pulled out the parchment and set it down on her bedspread. "Had you not been skiving off this morning, you would have discovered that we've been assigned a group project."
Oh, wonderful. Hermione stomach lurched as if she had just stepped out onto a tiny lifeboat in the midst of a rocky, rolling, stormy ocean. With growing feelings of dread, she had a very bad idea where this was going to end up, but she drew herself up to her full height, crossed her arms coolly, and tried to level with his steely grey gaze. "No need to guess whose group I'm in, I suppose."
Riddle hardly blinked in response, but the next time he spoke, his voice was one level lower on his anger-management detector. "Oh, I can assure you, Nefertari, Abraxas Malfoy and I've taken as much pleasure in the idea of working with you as you'll with no doubt take in working with us". He sneered, and not at all reassuringly. "Just think of the fun we'll all have together!"
"It won't be fun", Hermione countered swiftly, Ginny's choking and generating sounds akin to throwing up in the background not helping matters in the least.
Riddle shrugged his unconcerned disagreement. Hermione followed his gaze as it travelled around her room again, and her back stiffened, her heart beginning to pound more rapidly, when it came to land on the two books on her coffee table. "You've got a copy of The Most Thorough and Complete History of the Founders?" Riddle asked suddenly, his originally apathetic tone completely transformed to a mild level of what could have actually been genuine respect. "Only two of those books were ever made, Nefertari, and our lovely library doesn't own the other print."
Hermione let out a soft whoosh of relief, praying that her face hadn't gone red from the blood rush. She couldn't care less if he took an interest in The Most Thorough and Complete History; she had been more concerned with him seeing the book under it: Dark Arts Curses, A Description of.
Right, she could just imagine how that conversation would go: - "Nefertari, you never told me that you were interested in the Dark Arts!" - "Oh, I didn't think I should, Tom, you didn't strike me as the sort of boy who would get wrapped up in that sort of thing!"
"Yes", she managed to say offhandedly, making a casual motion of her hand in what she hoped passed as a spoiled rich-girl gesture, "the thing's been in the family for centuries". He momentarily glanced at her before he reached down for the book. "In that case, I don't suppose you'll mind if I take a relatively short look at it—"
"No!" Hermione exclaimed. Instantly, she sprung forward and lay a protective hand on top of the aged book's pages, practically knocking over the coffee table itself in the process. "I mean, sorry, I... need it."
Riddle quickly withdrew his hand, his grey gaze piercing hers. He quickly opened his mouth as if to say one thing, but at the last minute shut it, clenched his jaw, and said in a low but unperturbed voice, "Relax, Nefertari; I wasn't going to burn it". You better believe you weren't. Interested in doing a little brushing up on the family tree, Mr. Heir of Slytherin? "Is that all?" she asked bluntly, not at all caring if she was being rude. At this point, she just wanted him out of her dorms before he saw something that he shouldn't. Tearing her gaze away from his, she pointedly tilted her head toward Ginny, still at the door. "We were sort of discussing something rather important before you arrived."
To her irritation - to put it mildly - the boy just did not move – or, when he did, it certainly wasn't in the right direction. Hermione could only stand and watch in disbelief as he casually sat down on the arm of the coffee table chair, leaned back, and crossed his arms, his eyes surveying her in a curiously unreadable fashion. "Didn't we have an agreement about social gatherings in the Head dorms?" he asked, though from the way he said it, it was more of a statement.
"Head common room, yes; Head dorms, no", she countered witheringly, impatiently sweeping an escaped curl from her eyes. Honestly, was he deliberately being slow today? What part of "get out" could he not see radiating from every inch of her body?
Riddle cocked his dark head at her thoughtfully. Apparently, Hermione thought sardonically, he simply wasn't ready to leave. "I never imagined you as one to skip class, Nefertari", he noted casually, as if he were simply observing the weather. Hermione bit her lip to hold back a very loaded retort. "There's a lot that you don't know about me", she finally responded quietly.
Riddle surveyed her a moment longer, bearing her obviously irritated gaze well. "Yes, I suppose that's very true", he finally said in just as low a voice. Finally taking her hint, apparently, he nodded to himself, stood, and turned sharply, his black robes sweeping out behind him as he headed for her door. Pausing halfway there, he suddenly added unexpectedly, "You're welcome, Nefertari". His voice was unusually subdued, almost... disappointed.
Erm, thank you? As Hermione watched the dark-haired Slytherin start up again and briskly stride out of her room, she was abruptly, unpredictably struck by... well, she didn't know what it was, but it caused her mouth to move. "Hey, Riddle!" she called at his retreating back, and he stopped a step outside her door. More correctly, he just froze in place without even bothering to look back at her. Somehow, though, she could tell that he was listening, and she said, "About last night... Thanks".
As the words left her mouth, softening against her wishes, Hermione had to fight to keep the horror off her face, and Ginny's gaze disbelievingly moved back and forth from Hermione to Riddle. Riddle, though, merely turned his head back toward her slightly, nodded stoically, the expression on the side of his face visible to her still completely unreadable, and disappeared down the stairs.
Ginny momentarily watched him go before quickly banging the door shut, leaning back on it and crossing her arms. She stared at Hermione accusingly. "You thanked Lord sodding Voldemort for most likely causing you to pass out last night?"
Hermione let out an irritated breath of air and shoved the offending Most Thorough History back onto the shelf. "Ginny, I don't know why I passed out last night, and he took me up to my room after we had had the most violent non-physical fight you can possibly imagine". She bounced down on the mattress, blowing more stray wisps of hair from her face, and added thoughtfully, "I searched my room and did a spell check on myself after I went to the library. He didn't take anything or do anything to me while I was out, Gin. However you look at it, that alone was an indirect peace offering, and I want him to know that he did the right thing."
Ginny threw up her hands resignedly and walked over, sitting down on the bed beside her friend. "Would I be weird if I said I found that he really didn't do anything just a tad bit hard to believe?"
"No, I already think I'm a bit weird for letting it slip so easily". The entire situation was just strange, really. Hermione paused, then smiled slightly. "It'll probably be his one good deed for the year." Ginny laughed. "Probably. I'll be so happy when this whole bloody mess is over with, though. The whole bloody mess", she muttered darkly, staring out the west window and into the darkness. "So what do you think about Friday Night Dance? I mean, now that Riddle already knows about it from the prefects..."
Hermione winced slightly as she realised she would once again have to at least get semi-dressy for the party that night. "Honestly, Ginny, I think the rest of the school will kill us if we cancel it."