A/N: Thanks, as always, for your reviews and follows. On my travels through the internet researching background for this fic I found an account of life in a 1930s orphanage, and it just so happens that the person had a back story very similar to the one I invented here for Hermione. In case anyone's interested:

kindred-spirit*co*uk/blog/harsh-life-in-a-1930s-childrens-home

~oOo~

In the course of his regular work, Death's day frequently lasted sixty hours – but none of those days had ever felt as long as spending ten hours alone around the house. For the whole of September and October he had gone out only a handful of times, heavily disguised, and the confinement was making him edgy. After several hundred years of travelling the globe multiple times per minute, staring at the same four walls was a truly unique kind of torture. A torture he just couldn't bear anymore.

Death had promised his younger self that he would not contact anyone on the other side, and not allow them to spot him; but why did that even matter, when it was his job to be in a thousand places at once? Why would any of the Elders suspect that there was a more permanent copy? If anything, it was here at home that they were more likely to notice, though ancient protections stopped them from coming onto his property unless called. Being Death did come with a few perks.

Having decided that leaving the house every day was unlikely to blow his cover, he realised that he had, in fact, nowhere to go. So many places to travel – mountains, tundra, forests, oceans, desert, grasslands… He had been to every square inch of the planet, but now he couldn't think of a single reason to visit any of it.

The truth of it was that, devoid of a distraction, Death was lonely. Lonely and bored, and perfectly intelligent enough to realise the irony of the fact that he had brought it all upon himself. If he could return to 1998, he would do it in a heartbeat, and he didn't even have anything much to return to. For the first time, he began to understand the girl and her desperate pleas to go back. Back to her friends, he supposed, or her family; he didn't know anything about her, not really, only that she went around with the Potter boy. None of it had mattered to him then.

In his mind's eye, a vision of long dark hair and pale skin rose unbidden and his pulse quickened as it always did. Always, even after a millennium. Was this hopeless aching what he had condemned another to feel, so thoughtlessly?

With the final realisation of the magnitude of his actions came the answer to his geographical indecision: he would go to the girl. The only one who would ever share his knowledge of a future he had erased, or rather, condemned to be rewritten. He should have kept her out of it. Thought of another way to achieve his plan with Riddle, or not meddled at all. Act in haste, repent at leisure. Death was good at repenting. He had been doing it for centuries.

Once he had come to a decision, he threw himself into it rather wholeheartedly; the next day, a new routine developed. After his younger self left at 8am – to travel to 00.01am and the first unfortunate soul of the day – he too left the house. He would arrive at Hogwarts at 00.01am and stay until 11.59pm, then return home at 5.55pm. Just in time to greet his younger self home, as if he had been there the whole time. Flawless.

At first, his visits were pointless for she was asleep all day. There was ample time to imagine how the future might be, to go over in his mind what to say, to imagine how she might react. So, it was inevitable that once she did wake he found himself at a total loss. In the end, it was her that broke the silence – and it was not until hours later that he realised she had not, at the time of speaking, known of his presence. After that, a sense of unease at his intrusion kept him from revealing himself again. Was he welcome? Probably not. Death was rarely welcome anywhere, in fact.

Over the weeks, Hermione began to spend more and more time with the house-elf, and the sense of unease grew until one day he realised that it was more like jealousy. Good God and Thor and Zeus, what has my life become? Talk to her, man, or go. The ward was quiet now; Riddle had been sent back to the dormitory, and the Fawleys had finally gone home.

"Hermione. Are you awake?" He tried to keep his voice soft, but she visibly jumped at the noise despite being horizontal. Not asleep, then. There was a pause where he could hear her try to calm her breathing down.

"Well," she said, with bit of venom that he supposed was mostly for show, "I am now."

"I had to wait for the nurse to leave. We're alone now." He didn't know what point he was trying to make.

"You say that like I'm supposed to be comforted. What do you want, anyway?"

"I… I'm not sure. I wanted to say sorry." He could practically hear her eyebrows rising.

"…Pardon?"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I brought you here. I'm sorry that I didn't think about your feelings, or that you would miss people. I'm sorry – I am so sorry that I can't send you back. I promise that if I could I would. In an instant."

Through the open window, the cry of a snowy owl pierced the night. The wind rustled the evergreens and, further off, he could just about detect hoof beats from the centaur herd. Inside the room, however, the silence was oppressive and absolute.

"What's brought this on?" She asked, eventually, and it wasn't any of the reactions he'd imagined.

"I've – had time to think, that's all."

"Can you show yourself? I don't like talking to nothing."

"What? Oh. It's just, I promised the other me that I wouldn't attract attention. They are always watching." In the near-darkness, he could just about make out her brow furrowing. He winced at his own faux-pas – nobody enjoyed discovering the true extent of the surveillance of the dead. Himself included.

"Why don't you just change clothes or something?" He pondered how to respond.

"They will recognise my face."

"Well, use a glamour charm then. Or polyjuice potion."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're quite bossy?" There was a chuckle, devoid of any real mirth, and Death was afraid that he had miss-stepped again. He tried to save it.

"I mean – I mean – it's not an insult. I can't abide weak women, they're horrendously dull."

"I don't understand," she said thoughtfully, "why are you suddenly so keen to be nice to me? It doesn't make any sense. You can do whatever you want, after all, without consequence."

He took a deep breath and forced himself to speak.

"I remembered something." She said nothing, and the silence stretched on and on until he realised that he was being encouraged to elaborate.

"Someone I once knew. She used to tell me over and over how wrong it is to use power for the purpose of manipulation. I didn't listen, of course. I was young and foolish and eventually I… paid the price. I swore I'd never make the same mistake again, and I didn't – for about a thousand years, anyway."

"So I'm not the first. Who were the others?"

"The others? Oh. No, you're the first soul I've not… sent on."

"You've lost me. Do you often, erm, make friends with humans then?"

"Of course not – well, not since… not since I started this job, you might say. People don't tend to be very pleased to see me." Death waited patiently for the pieces to click into place.

"Oh." And then, more slowly, "oh."

"So. How long? I mean, how long, have you been doing this… job?"

"Oh, a thousand years. Give or take."

The silence stretched on for so long that Death began to think Hermione had fallen asleep.

"Why are you telling me this?" Her voice was small, fragile. He struggled to voice the answer even though the question had been anticipated.

"A thousand years is a long time. Without a friend. I've only just… realised, I suppose."

Through the dark, he saw a hand reach out tentatively. He touched it gently, expecting her to jerk away, but instead felt small fingers encircle his own.

~oOo~

Death's hand was smooth and warm, and it was some time before the thought of it faded from her mind. Her own loneliness, perhaps, was making her desperate for any crumb of human contact and comfort.

The day after the frost fair passed quickly, then the next week, and Hermione was so pleased to have somebody to talk to that she put off asking why Death was hanging around with her all day when surely he must have something better to do. She also felt that she should probably find it creepy, knowing he was always watching, but somehow she didn't. Sure, at some point they were going to have to talk about it, but right now she didn't want to risk… upsetting him? The castle was maddeningly quiet, and the prospect of Christmas in the hospital wing was bad enough without being all alone.

Hermione found Death to be an interesting conversationalist; at the very least, living so long had provided him with a lot to talk about. If, perhaps, there were some topics that made each of them become moody and silent, the other was careful not to bring it up again. Death would talk about the world of the past – until he stumbled onto something that triggered painful memories – and Hermione would talk about her life in the future, until that came to the same sort of halting conclusion, but mostly they talked about magic.

It turned out that Death was a good teacher, with a knowledge base quite different to anything she had learned before. With his encouragement, her wandless and non-verbal spells kept improving.

"Humans are either born with the ability to channel magical energy, or they aren't," he said on Christmas Eve as she was trying to transfigure the desk chair into a Christmas tree. "That much has always been clear. But people are wrong in thinking that some humans are born with a higher magical capacity than others."

With a huge act of concentration the chair began to sprout pine needles, but there was no getting away from it – it was still a chair. She glanced at Death, or rather at the spot he was invisibly occupying, and decided he was in lecturing mode and did not require a response.

"You know, it's not only the desire for secrecy that has led purebloods to dislike those born to muggles," he continued. "It's because they are often particularly magically strong. Not in every case, of course, but being muggle-born presents a perfect opportunity to practice what you're doing right now: feeling the magical pathways within. Using a wand dulls it; it's an aid to laziness, not to power. You've become unaccustomed to channelling magic alone, but it will return."

Several straggly branches appeared from the chair back, and Hermione huffed in exasperation and took a calming breath.

"So you're saying that Tom's no better than anyone else, just more practiced?" The chair lengthened, condensed and smoothly grew neat branches until it was entirely a Christmas tree: Death had obviously taken pity on her.

"Tom Riddle has many qualities," he said eventually, "but magical affinity is learned, not given. Magic is in the earth and the air – not in ourselves."

She knew well enough when to drop a subject, so she picked up her water glass and began to change it into a star for the tree. By the time the clock chimed midnight, the room looked almost festive.

"Merry Christmas," she said, and there was no response but for the appearance of a small box on the nightstand and the slight magical flare of Death's silent apparition.

She reached for the box, and was entirely unsurprised to find a chocolate frog card on top.

Cassandra Vablatsky (1894 -1949?) is a popular seer who has repeatedly made false prophecies predicting her own death. Her book, A Beginner's Guide to Fortune Telling, contains the memorable advice "Don't bother".

On the reverse, Death's familiar script simply read, I'm sorry, then, below, a flowing signature. Zorion.

Her surprise grew as she opened the box and found it to contain a necklace. The chain was light, made of silver, and bore a tiny pendant resembling a cat. There was the flare of apparition again; Death returning for the new day. She had got used to his bizarre schedule.

"Erm… thank you," she said, and regretted immediately the way it came out more like a question than a statement.

"You said you missed your cat," said Death, a bit hesitantly. "But it – it has a purpose. If you touch it and say my name I will hear. I will come. I – I thought you could keep it with you."

Hermione didn't really know what to say, because none of her previous experiences had prepared her for the idea of Death having a name. Or for Death giving her a Christmas present at all, let alone such a thoughtful one. So she simply slipped the necklace on and said "thank you" again.

~oOo~

Not a word had been said when he limped off the ice, away from the crowd gathered around Cassandra. Not a word when he returned to the dormitory after getting his broken wrist mended. Not a word the next morning when they all left to catch the train. One stupid moment – and he didn't even understand how it had happened, because he'd been doing just fine before that – had wrecked everything, somehow, and now they didn't want to associate with him anymore.

How lucky that they had now gone, giving him valuable time to think about what to do. Saving him the trouble of avoiding them.

Several weeks ago, when they had found out that he was remaining at school for the holiday, they had looked at him with varying degrees of pity. Perhaps he ought to feel sad that he had no family to spend Christmas with – but since he could not even imagine such a thing, he could hardly miss it. Besides, he was going to have Hogwarts virtually to himself for two weeks, and he wouldn't swap that golden opportunity for anything.

For the past month he had been conducting most of his exploring outdoors, where the weather often prevented him from being disturbed by too many others. Now, though, he turned his full attention inside. For a week he wandered about, memorising corridors and trick steps and examining tapestries and statues, talking charmingly with ghosts and portraits and the occasional passing teacher. It seemed as though everybody wanted to console the poor lonely orphan boy at Christmastime, and he basked in their attentions.

Christmas itself was strange – Mrs Cole had not sent him anything, probably because she had no idea how to, so his morning was devoid of the only traditions he knew. He was not woken by the bell, followed by the raucous shouts of the younger children – he did not have to queue up for the special breakfast of bacon instead of the usual porridge, or go to church, or sing carols. For all that he hated the grey place he had grown up in, filled with dull grey muggle people, there was a moment just after he opened his eyes where he felt… something. A vague sense of disappointment, perhaps, at the quietness of the empty dormitory which was making him feel so very far from home.

The moment was gone in an instant, and he looked up at the stars on the ceiling and the embroidery on the bed hangings and told himself he had a new home now. Somewhere his ancestors – ancient, pureblood, respectable Gaunts – had always belonged; superior in every conceivable way to the city grime and high walls and tasteless food of Riddle's cold world. Tom Riddle. What a constant reminder of every insult ever paid to him. As if it were not bad enough to share a first name with half of London, he must share the whole with an unknown weak muggle father. Tom refused to be weak, refused to stand in the shadow of another. That morning, he vowed that he would rise higher; fashion something new for himself until the last vestiges of Tom Riddle were gone and forgotten.

He spent the second week of the holidays mostly in the empty library, reading and thinking. Gaunts and Malfoys, curses and hexes, potions and history. The days passed quickly; wizards and witches, charms and transfiguration, Legilimency and Parseltongue – hang on – Parseltongue, and Slytherin and muggleborns and basilisks and Parseltongue and… oh.

Oh.

In his head, he could still hear Abraxas' smug voice bragging about being related to the founder of their house. They had not been friends then; he had not been involved in the argument, which mostly involved Einar saying he was lying because he was not a Parselmouth. At the time he had not known what that meant, and the ability to speak to snakes had not come up since.

He imagined the look on Abraxas' face if he found out that it was Tom, not he, who was related to Salazar Slytherin – and it was lucky that the library was empty, because his laughing would have probably had him admitted to an asylum.

What a discovery. What an end to what a year – and the next looked even brighter.

Happy birthday, Tom.

~oOo~