A/N: Thanks, as always, for your comments!

~oOo~

The days kept passing, as if they had no concern for the way her life had imploded and ground to an angry halt. There was still breakfast, lunch, dinner – still lessons, still homework. A few days after she received the chocolate frog card, Hermione was called in to see Professor Merrythought, and it transpired that her teachers were 'concerned' about her. Frankly, she was surprised they had even noticed, but she was forced to nod along and say that she was fine, that she would try to put more effort into her work, but she was just finding it all a bit difficult at the moment. Professor Merrythought had simply smiled kindly and said that plenty of muggle-borns found it hard to settle in, but that it would get better.

It was almost painful to insinuate that she was struggling academically, particularly when talking to the head of Ravenclaw. But it suited her to be underestimated at the moment; underestimated tended to mean ignored. She particularly did not want the Professor to find out about her sleeping arrangements, for fear of being sent back to the dormitory and watched more closely. It was obvious that the other girls would not tell on her, but she was keen to avoid all suspicion.

In her lessons, and at mealtimes, she threw what little energy she could muster into appearing normal. She ignored most of the other students, and they learnt to ignore her, until it was only him left. As she became more and more invisible to the others, so Tom Riddle was increasingly her only observer. She saw him not only at mealtimes and in the library, but lingering by secret passageways and in remote corners of the grounds. They never spoke, and she was sure that he was almost never following her. It was simply that they often seemed to find themselves in the same place at the same time.

One such time was the nineteenth of September – a Monday – in the library, sometime after dinner. In deference to the date, and in an uncharacteristic fit of self-pity, she had just visited the kitchens to spend some time with the elves, since they were the only company she enjoyed. They loved her, for she had managed not to mention her views on enslavement, but regularly complimented their cooking and cleaning and now remembered many of their names. Of course, as soon as they learnt of her birthday, they insisted on celebrating. There was a flurry of activity, and in next to no time there were trays of little cupcakes emerging from the oven. The elves topped them with coloured stars stamped out of jelly, leftover from dessert, and her beaming smile was entirely genuine.

Hermione eventually managed to persuade the little creatures to have some cake with her, but there was still quite a few left afterwards.

"Miss Hermione takes for her friends!" said Tiggy, who was one of the younger elves and had become particularly attached to her. Several dozen heads nodded in agreement, ears wobbling. She could not bear to disappoint them, so settled instead for reaffirming her thanks and praise, and accepting the box. Her feet carried her to the library as much out of habit as intent.

So that was how, in a moment of unthinking stupidity, she had come to offer Voldemort a cupcake. (It was also how, tangentially, she came to realise that Voldemort had so far been more pleasant to her than a significant proportion of the others).

He was looking at her as if she had sprouted a second head.

"Err - it's my birthday," she added, as if that made it normal. There was rather a long pause, in which he entirely failed to give her the traditional greeting of the day. Eventually, he took a cake somewhat suspiciously. The one with the green jelly. Of course. He ate it silently, but obviously enjoyed it, since a few minutes later he ensured there was nobody else about and then took another. She returned to her Transfiguration homework, too surprised to be offended.

His voice startled her, since she usually only heard it in class. There, it was charming-Tom. This was simply Tom.

"Did someone send you those?" He spoke with the brusque confidence of someone who is always answered, right now, or else.

"I- I got them from the kitchens," she said, since no suitable lie presented itself. Tom looked annoyed, excited, curious, stern – a combination only he could manage.

"Tell me where they are." Only the briefest of hesitations before she answered:

"No."

His shocked expression rapidly gave way to anger and he stood up threateningly.

"I said, tell me!"

Hermione had always been expecting Tom to try using force against her, and hence she had spent some time idly considering the best response. Safe in this knowledge, she too stood up.

"No."

The air suddenly felt chilly and she could sense the power rolling off Tom, not unlike before he had raised the great wave from the lake. She drew her wand.

"Petrificus Totalus."

The feeling of Tom's power exploding against her spell was something quite foreign. Instead of going stiff and falling over, as she had expected, he merely staggered back a step. She wasted no time.

"Incarcerous!"

Tom looked murderous as the ropes tightened around him, and she knew that he would be able to break out soon. He was astoundingly in touch with his magic; she had never yet seen him use his wand outside of class. Distraction tactics, then.

"Tom."

She had never said his name before, and the surprise was just enough to snap him out of his rage for a second.

"Tom. Listen to me a minute." His eyes narrowed, but he remained still. "You don't scare me. And I don't scare you. So please, let's stop this. I'm going to untie you now."

A bell in the distance announced the impending curfew. Silently, she collected her things and vanished the ropes.

"Goodnight, Tom."

~oOo~

Since the library incident, Tom had been avoiding the Granger girl where possible. At first, it was simple anger, which morphed into angry humiliation. Later, it was more that he was… unsettled. There were not many people who had ever stopped him getting something he wanted; nobody at all, in the end. Everyone succumbed to either charm or violence. Ah. Charm. Maybe that's the answer.

It was Friday afternoon, their free period, and she was sat at her usual table in the back corner of the library. He put down his bag a few seats along and plastered on a particularly winning smile.

"Hello, Hermione." Hermione – he thought, sidetracked – that's as strange as some of these wizard names. But it can't be. Interesting.

"Hello, Tom." Her expression was deeply suspicious, but he kept up the smile.

"You look nice today."

She let out a startled coughing sound, which turned after a while into a sort of laugh. That wasn't really what he had been hoping for.

"Good God, does that really work on some people?" He dropped the smile, glared and sat down. He was confused, and he didn't like being confused. It made him angry. She didn't shut up, which was even more irritating.

"Is this still about the kitchens?"

He couldn't answer; didn't really know the answer. Settled for ignoring her, and took out The Pure-Blood Directory. He had just had an idea he wanted to check, mostly in the hope that he was wrong. Marvolo. Simply a strange name, or a wizard name?

"Oh, suit yourself." Granger turned back to her own book, the title of which was obscured from his angle. He began to read, too, and the silence fell between them as was customary.

Her voice, several hours later, took him completely by surprise.

"I'll tell you where the kitchens are if you tell me why you're reading that book."

Tom was not really used to people bargaining with him. It seemed like a poor deal, when he thought about it, since he was accustomed to getting what he wanted with nothing in return. He considered for a while.

"Malfoy was bragging about being related to Salazar Slytherin. I wanted to check he was lying."

Her expression was thoughtful; he presumed it was in consideration of Abraxas' ancestry.

"Opposite the door to the potions classroom, there's a portrait of Merlin. That's the entrance."

She was gone before he could think to ask her to be more specific.

~oOo~

Death was bored. Gosh, if he had thought doing the soul-collecting was monotonous, that was nothing compared with not doing it. It had only been a few weeks, but he had already been banned from the kitchen, having driven the house-elves nearly to distraction trying to learn how to bake. He had taken up hiking, muggle grocery shopping, chatting to rabbits, translating Shakespeare into Old Norse, and even cleaning (which the elves were also unimpressed about). He was almost considering Thestral-quidditch again, but squashed that thought violently and took a chocolate frog to keep his mind off it.

He added this latest card to the collection on the wall – it hadn't taken him long to persuade his younger self that the ludicrous Ragnarök tapestry was overdue for removal.

Queen Maeve (circa 1st century AD) taught magic to young wizards and witches in Ireland, long before schools such as Hogwarts were founded. She is still remembered in Muggle folk tales.

Now there's a soul he would have loved to have been there to collect, quite apart from the frankly obscene entertainment value to be gained from someone dying by being hit with cheese. Witches were so much more independent back then – now it seemed to be all about laundry and cooking, terribly dull.

Death spent a pleasant few minutes remembering old Pythagoras telling him the Maeve-cheese-bath story. It was very tempting to summon him up, as it had been a while since they had spoken. Death liked old Pythagoras. It wasn't everyone who could empathise with the job of soul-collecting – being, as it was, a rather rare occupation. Still, he must keep his word and not blow his cover. No one could be allowed to find out where he came from, and so he would proceed with the endlessly tedious occupation of not being noticed. Perhaps he would teach himself to play the violin or something.

~oOo~

It was exhausting, feeling angry all the time, but once the anger had ebbed away all that was left was a heavy depression which made her feel hollow and weak. Getting up each morning was a herculean effort, let alone going through the motions of the school routine, let alone being surrounded by children whose main interests were quidditch, sweets and minor bullying. She still could not see a way out of the situation; nothing, at least, which achieved her main objectives of seeing Ron and Harry again.

Many times, she considered running away, but what was the use in it? A life without her friends and family would not be made better by a change of scene. If anything, the old castle and its elves were her only source of comfort.

Then there was him. She felt some terrible need to stay close to Tom Riddle, in the way that one feels compelled to stare at the aftermath of a car crash while driving past in the other direction. But it was more than simple morbid fascination; Death's words were still floating somewhere in the back of her sluggish mind.

If Tom Riddle had never made a horcrux…

Somehow the phrase had warped, corrupted, until it became "if Tom Riddle ever makes a horcrux…"

If Tom Riddle ever makes a horcrux, it will be your fault.

There was no running away, and there was no going back.

No going back.

No going back.

~oOo~

After a week of standing aimlessly in front of Merlin's portrait when no one else was looking, he finally came to the conclusion that Granger had been lying. It took him a while, largely because he hadn't imagined her to be capable of it – besides, he could usually spot a lie. She had left so quickly that he hadn't had enough time to look, with hindsight. The realisation of her deceit felt oddly like a betrayal, and somehow it didn't seem relevant that he, too, had been untruthful. The anger settled back around him like a familiar blanket, and he began to think.

It was the end of September now and the nights were getting longer; the first chills of winter seemingly approaching though in London it would still be mild and autumnal now. Tom had never been to Scotland before; never been anywhere, really. He enjoyed the fresh air, the space, the solitude here. He enjoyed the bad weather and the increasing cold, too, because it kept people inside the castle whilst he was out walking.

Friday afternoon, and those few students not in classes were probably huddled around fires in common rooms; the biting wind was pelting incessant rain sideways against the windows. Tom turned the collar of his cloak up against the elements and walked swiftly through the quad, down the one path he had not yet travelled on his methodical examination of the grounds.

Several days of rain had made the path muddy, and he noticed smugly that his were not the first set of footprints in this direction, though none were going back up.

The path slipped out of sight of the castle below a line of trees, and he could now see that it led down to a part of the lake shore he had not yet visited. A small jetty protruded from a wooden hut in the distance, beyond which stood the boundary fence. The rain was beginning to seep cold through his cloak, so he hurried into the boathouse.

The previous footprints had clearly entered the building, but it was apparently empty. He approached the line of rowing boats tied along the jetty, and began to hear small sniffling sounds.

"I know you're there," he stated, in what he hoped was a confident but bored tone. He could guess who it was – who he hoped it was, alone in an isolated spot very far from any teachers.

"Go away." It was definitely Granger, sat in one of the boats judging by the direction of the voice.

"You lied to me."

Granger became visible, several yards away in the final boat. Rain was driving in through the open end of the building, hitting her down one side, but she didn't seem to be noticing.

"You lied to me," she echoed. His heart rate inexplicably began to rise.

"How did you know?" He had to know. Nobody could detect his lies; he had spent years perfecting it. The expression, intonation, eliminating the little tells that others made. She smiled that small, sad smile in a way that conveyed she had been expecting the question.

"You were reading it from start to finish. If you had been looking for Malfoy, you would have gone straight to 'M', then jumped about. No… you were reading the whole book, so you weren't looking for a surname. General reference, then? Doubtful – you would have just told me so. More likely you were looking for a first name – not Tom, of course, that's clearly Muggle – some other name, then."

At some point during her speech, his eyebrows had made a bid for his hairline. He consciously wiped his expression, wanting nothing more than to shut her up, stop her irritating insights. The familiar anger drove his power so easily, as it always had done, and before he knew what was happening there was the sound of snapping rope and the tiny boat began to drift slowly away from the jetty.

Tom smiled. It was perfect. Giving the girl no time to jump out or retaliate, he willed the boat forward with all his strength. The pushing wave rose higher and higher and the boat swept out onto the lake until he could barely see it.

The wave broke with a crashing sound and the ripples that eventually returned were still powerful enough to make spray when they collided with the jetty. He stepped backwards, out of the way, and then looked out onto the water. The small boat was visible, a rounded speck in the distance, wooden hull face up and slowly disappearing below the surface.

There was no time to waste. He hurried away from the boathouse in the direction of the castle.

~oOo~