Notes: These notes aren't specific to this piece, but are general. I just wanted to make it clear, I don't intend to post anything that would answer all of the questions raised in Choosing Grey, especially "did this actually make the future better" and "what are Hermione and Tom's ultimate fates." I do want to leave those questions open.

Chapter Two: Toddler in a Marathon

The night was crystal clear, the wind was calm, and the pair could muffle sounds and simulate different weather in their windows even if it had not been the case.

The problem was that the weather was not why Hermione was still awake at three in the morning.

She gazed across the dark bedroom, her eyes well-adjusted to the near-absence of light. The black cat, a part-kneazle, that Tom had brought home for her that day was curled up in a chair.

"Thank you!" she exclaimed, cuddling the purring Sable, shocked at the unexpected gift—for this gift spoke of more personal consideration than his regular presents of jewelry and elegant clothing, even more so than his gifts of books. Strangely enough, of all the people and things she could have missed, lately she had been missing Crookshanks. Tom had listened.

Sable instantly set eyes upon the patterned brown grass snake that Tom kept around.

"The snake has to be put up," Hermione declared.

Tom held out a hand and hissed to the snake, which promptly coiled defensively around his arm. "This snake can't hurt the cat," he said. "The cat could easily kill my snake, though."

"Then I don't want that to happen either. It needs to go in a tank."

Tom did not argue. He smiled briefly at the cat before heading to his study to Transfigure something into a terrarium.

Hermione sighed. Sable had already bonded with her, as kneazle-mixes were known to do. She still missed her old life. Why now? she wondered. I've been here for two years. Why just now? And… what is wrong with me that I didn't have this until now? The guilt pricked at her conscience.

Her all-too-awake brain instantly answered the question for her. It's because my life is finally settled. For the first several months, I was a target of the Blacks, I had to deal with the interest of Gellert Grindelwald at one point, I was worried and fearful, I had several shocks to my system in my relationship with Tom, and now… my life is peaceful and routine again. That's why. It wasn't my fault; I just didn't have a good opportunity until now.

Her thoughts finally, blessedly, began to drift.

Alone, she could have tossed in the bed all night, but now she could not squirm too much. Tom had fallen asleep pressed against her side, with one arm gripping her around the waist. He usually slept that way, and there was something about it—about the implicit neediness of such a position—that she found irresistible. It was so unusual for him to show vulnerability.

Tom, she had learned some time ago, had a mild phobia about sleep. He specifically did not like dreamless sleep. It bothered him to have periods of total unconsciousness. It was associated with his terror of death, she knew, but also his fear of helplessness.

He had finally opened up to her about what had started these fears for him. It was not, as she had once thought, the knowledge that his mother had died in childbirth. He had never known her. In 1931, influenza had struck the orphanage, and numerous children—and two adult caretakers—had died of it, passing in their sleep. Tom, being a wizard, was not susceptible to the virus, and a few years later he had correctly—if arrogantly—deduced that his then-undefined "specialness" was why he had not become ill. That deduction was also the beginning of his conviction that "magic people don't have to die." However, the spectre of death in sleep had still terrorized him. Until he was an older child, able to think and reason on a more mature level, he had not had any idea of why he had not become ill during the outbreak. And sleep was a period of time when one was not aware of the world.

A new complication had arisen since he had met her. He had disliked being "apart" from her even in dreams.

"I wonder what would happen if you slept holding my diary," he had mused once. "Perhaps there would be a connection through it."

Hermione had been startled—and rather disturbed at the idea. "I'd rather not," she said abruptly. She did not want to admit it to him, but she still did not fully trust the thing not to possess her. It didn't have to be malicious in nature. Tom "in the flesh" was certainly possessive enough of her, and this incorporeal part of him might just get the idea to be literal about it.

Tom stared back at her. He did not argue, but he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.

Allowing him to clutch her like this was the compromise. It was that rarity in which he had compromised more than she had. In fact, she didn't consider it a compromise at all. This was quite pleasant.

Making sure not to wake him with her movements, Hermione set down her book.

What have I been reading? she wondered idly, but only for a second. It didn't matter.

Oh, right, it was that material for Defense. The extra-credit project I was going to do with Tom. Slughorn was going to help me with it. I just have to find the right book in the library….

"Wake up, Hermione!"

Her head shot up. A young man with black hair came into focus in her bedroom. Was it Tom?

No, it was—

"How did you get in here?" Hermione exclaimed.

"What do you mean?" Harry said, raising his eyebrows. "Were you trying to keep me out?"

"It's my bedroom," she said, confused.

"It's the tent." He gestured around the room, and Hermione's gaze followed. It was the Weasley tent. She had been sleeping on a chair. Where was Tom?

"Do you have the locket?" Harry asked anxiously.

Hermione looked down at her jumper. "No. It's all right, though."

"No, it's bloody well not."

Why was he so angry? He must not know. "Yes, it is. It's not a Horcrux."

"What? Hermione, don't be stupid," Harry said, a nasty snarl forming on his face. "That thing killed Ron."

"What?" she exclaimed. She wanted to get up, but her body seemed anchored to the chair. She gazed at Harry's face, which was set in a cold, simmering anger. "It didn't happen that way and you know it! Bellatrix—it was Bellatrix. Why are you saying this?"

"It showed Ron pictures of you and him doing—you know," Harry said in disgust. "I saw them."

But that isn't right, Hermione thought in despair. Why did Harry think that?

"You're being stupid," Harry said again, that nasty, uncharacteristic snarl still on his face. "Did it get into your head?"

"It wasn't the locket. Or the ring. Or… anything. Just the diary. Don't you know that? Maybe you're the one who is stupid. I always checked your stupid homework. You never even read the assignments first. Lazy and stupid. And Ron was even worse." She was angry, and if Harry was going to talk to her this way, she could give it right back in kind.

"It doesn't matter," he sneered. "The diary showed me pictures of you and him. You're sick. Anyone who feels bad for him is sick. He should be fed to a dementor and destroyed utterly." He put his hands on her shoulders and shook her. His fingers dug into her arms.

How dare he raise a hand to me! She reached out and slapped him across the face.

Then she was outside the tent, wandering through the forest. It was winter, and the snowpack made it difficult to walk quickly.

The heavy drifts of snow transitioned to light patches, with bare ground exposed beneath. Flakes were coming down heavily. They would stop any minute, though.

Two redheaded people were seated on a rock. They stared straight ahead, as if Hermione was not even there, but she continued toward them. It was strange. She knew, somehow, that she should be happy about this, but instead she was apprehensive.

I thought they were dead. Am I dead too then?

"No."

She turned to Ron. He is going to die when I turn away, she thought suddenly. As soon as I leave, he'll die. They will both die and so will Harry. He may be dead already. And I hit him. I called him stupid and hit him.

"Who are you?"

Hermione collapsed to her knees and stared blankly at Ron. "How—you know who I am!"

"I've never seen you in my life," said Ginny.

"You have to get away from here," Hermione urged frantically. "As soon as the snow stops falling, both of you are going to die."

The Weasleys ignored her. Hermione stood helplessly as the snowflakes grew smaller and the rate tapered off. Then the two redheads stood up, turned their backs to Hermione, and went through a small copse of trees behind the rock.

There was a cliff on the other side of the trees, she realized. Her heart stopped. Although she knew it was a terrible idea, and that she would lose her balance, she leaned over the edge and looked down.

Down.

Down.

It was impossibly high, higher than any mountain on earth could be, but there it was. At the very bottom was a thin crooked line, a river that flowed blood red.

They're gone. She had not seen them fall, but she knew it.

Hermione stumbled.

Her eyes snapped open. The first thing she became aware of was darkness. The second was her thudding heart.

It was a dream. They didn't—

No. They are gone.

A dry sob escaped Hermione. As twisted, wrong, evil as that nightmare had been, at least they were there. She had interacted with them again in a dream. Now there was just the horrendous, hideous reality that they were gone.

And worse, it was 1946 and neither they nor their parents had even been born.

Another sob, this one wracking her entire body.

That wasn't even like Harry, she thought as she felt Tom stir. He would never say that. He even remarked several times that a part of him felt sorry for… Tom. He wouldn't be like that. Why would I put those ugly words into his mouth? Why would I dream of him hurting me, and of me striking his face? What is wrong with me?

A wave of tears finally broke the proverbial dam.

"Hermione?" Tom mumbled. His arm left her waist as he woke up. He blinked a few times and sat upright, watching her cry.

"Hermione, what is it?" he asked again.

She shook her head. What must he think of her, crying over a dream?

"Nightmare?" he guessed.

She wiped her face. "It was stupid," she muttered. "My… old friends were alive, and they were…."

Tom hardly knew what to say. Finally he responded, somewhat lamely, "They don't have to die like that this time."

She shook her head. "It wasn't that. Two of them said they didn't know me, and they ignored what I told them, and one of them—I got in a horrible argument with him and… slapped him in the face… because he was hurting my arms."

Tom's face darkened. "They don't deserve tears if they treated you that way," he said in a hard tone.

Oh God. A fresh round of tears sent salty rivulets down her cheeks. "They weren't like that," she said.

"Then… the dream… I mean, it shouldn't bother you if it wasn't really like them, right?"

What the hell? Hermione gazed up at him, her face twisted with confusion and unhappiness. "Tom, haven't you ever dreamed about having a horrid, vicious fight with someone you like?"

He paused for a moment.

"Tom?"

"No," he said quickly.

Of course, she thought miserably. Until me, he never liked anyone. But—

"Not even with me?"

Even in the dark, she could tell that this made him defensive. "Do you want me to?" he said. "Do you want me to dream about hurting you?"

She suddenly realized something. "You're lying to me," she accused. "You have. You have had that dream before, haven't you?"

He glowered. "Once. It was loathsome," he muttered, "and I tried to forget it. What I did to you in that dream—trust me, Hermione, you really don't want to hear about it."

Hermione winced as she realized the gist of what he must have dreamed about whenever he'd had that dream. She had had foul, violent, gory dreams before as well.

"It wasn't you, though. And it wasn't me."

He was trying now. She could see that. He was attempting to comfort her in some way, the only way he knew how.

"They… he… what I told him—"

"Who?"

"My… best friend," she said quietly. "What I said to him—there were grains of truth to it. In the dream, I said ugly things to him about—it sounds so stupid—about checking his homework for him, and how he sometimes didn't read the assignments."

Tom managed a chuckle.

"But there were other things…." She hesitated, unsure as to whether she should tell him the rest of it.

"Other things?" he said.

She closed her eyes. "It bothered me. It was like… a metaphor, or something. He said that this thing, this Horcrux that we carried around for months in my old life, 'got into my head.' But in that time, it didn't, so it must have meant… now. Here. Us."

To her dismay, a smirk burst onto his face at that. "Well, that's true, then."

She shook her head. "It was an accusation, the way he said it."

"An accusation," Tom repeated. "Hermione. You shouldn't let it upset you this much. Things will be different, and apparently, a lot better for everyone—including for me. You just said that these people aren't like their counterparts in your dream, anyway."

Her eyes fluttered shut. He didn't understand—or if he did, he was unwilling to admit it, whether to her or consciously to himself.

She supposed that what he said was true, at least. But it didn't comfort her. Why didn't it?

He was trying to make her feel better, though, and that meant something. He was trying, and she could tell that it was for her, rather than merely because he wanted to get back to sleep as soon as possible. He just hadn't needed to make anyone feel better about anything before her, and he did not really know how.

Suddenly it hit her. The real problem, and the problem that he just couldn't handle, was that she felt guilty about the dream. She felt guilty, and at the same time, she knew that another type of guilt had itself produced the dream.

She did know that wasn't Harry. That was the issue. Her dreaming mind had made Harry into that, for some reason, and that was why it upset her. It was what she had done. Her mind had put the ugly accusations into Harry's mouth.

She felt guilty about thinking of her old friend that way, even in a dream outside her conscious control. Tom wouldn't understand that, and he definitely wouldn't understand the rest of her subconscious guilt, the part that had created the dream.

Harry would not think that way. He would understand what I'm doing. I don't need to feel guilty about it. Tom is a person, and because he is a person, I'm trying to help him instead of writing him off. I shouldn't feel guilty about loving somebody. It's a good thing.

"Hermione?"

She still didn't want to talk to him. He was trying, and she understood that, but his words were not accomplishing what he intended. She didn't want him to continue saying things that she knew would just make her angry eventually.

She shook her head again and leaned forward, resting her head on his shoulder. "I'm all right. Just hold me."

For a second he looked as if he wanted to protest, to continue attempting to talk her out of her distress, but in the next moment his face cleared. He reached out and enclosed her in his arms.

They remained like that for a bit. As she focused on the sensation of his grip—he was possessive of her, and at this time, it was a great comfort to know—and the warmth of his body against hers, Hermione's heart slowed to its normal pace, and her breaths became even. The lump in her throat dissolved.

He patted her on the back, and she managed a weak smile.

End Notes: There will be more interesting scenes coming up in the future, including some political/Ministry-related ones. I just felt like writing these little psychological dramas first.