Notes: I am very sorry for the delay, and I'll try to get scenes out sooner than this from now on. We're temporarily jumping back in time for this one. I've got a small political miniplot and two multi-chapter big ones coming up, but I felt like writing a nice couple moment for now. You'll see why when I get to the big political plots.

Thank you to bainsidhe, who has lived in London before, for the information about this part of town.

Chapter Eight: Violet Skies

June 1948.

Hermione walked down the corner where Diagon Alley met Knockturn Alley. She paused at the intersection and glanced at the corner building contemplatively. This building, long used for assorted fly-by-night businesses of a decidedly shady character, had recently been renovated for more respectable use. A bar called the Serpents' Chalice now occupied the site and seemed likely to do so for the foreseeable future. The proprietor, who was somewhat disturbingly from the Prince family, had named it in honor of Tom and Hermione. In fact, he was the very wizard who had attempted to buy Hermione drinks in Hogsmeade one weekend in seventh year after the capture of Gellert Grindelwald. He had been annoying that day, but apparently he had retained his admiration for them despite being rebuffed.

Hermione and Tom visited the place regularly, both as a couple and as part of a larger group. It was classy and low-key, clearly aiming for a more sedate clientele than the Leaky Cauldron or the pubs of Hogsmeade, and Tom found that fact extremely useful for a reason of his own. The bar had become the new meeting place for his coterie.

To Hermione's relief, the new group was not strictly a duplicate of the old Knights of Walpurgis from school, the people who otherwise would have become the Death Eaters. Vincent Rosier, ever determined to be Tom's chief lieutenant, still followed him around like a dog, of course. The other Knights who had signed the loyalty oath—Avery, Greengrass, and Wilkes—also attended Tom's meetings. However, there were several new faces, people Tom had met through his job at the Ministry who admired his views. Occasionally Slughorn turned up, particularly during school holidays, unable to resist meeting with his old favorites—and getting good drinks with them. He pretended not to be interested in it for the politics, but that did not fool either Tom or Hermione. Alphard Black—now playing Quidditch for the Wimbourne Wasps—considered himself a political ally of Tom as well and attended whenever he wasn't working. Hermione found that rather grotesque, considering that Tom had murdered Alphard's father, but she couldn't exactly do anything about it. Even though Alphard was a black sheep in his family—at least since Sirius hadn't yet been born to thoroughly redefine that term—he was still an acknowledged member of it and was a vital intelligence link for Tom's crowd.

In the private rooms of the Serpents' Chalice, Tom was building a new political faction. Had built, for all intents and purposes. Everyone knew it was a matter of time before he was promoted either to Chief Advisor to the Head of Law Enforcement, or to the Head position itself—depending on how long Bob Ogden remained in the Ministry. He had not yet had the chance to do anything truly groundbreaking, but he had not been shy about discussing his ideas in the Ministry.

As he had predicted in seventh year, there were now three distinct political factions, albeit not formal political parties, just unofficial groups with shared views. There were the perennially obstinate blood-purist Isolationists; the Reformists, who wanted to be more like Muggle culture and viewed wizards as a bigger threat to Muggles than the reverse; and Tom's faction, whose leading principle seemed to be "witches and wizards first, then anyone with magical ancestry." Tom intended ultimately to declare all parents and siblings of Muggle-borns to be Squibs, in order to separate them from the population of Muggles, but he needed to lay groundwork first. There needed to be more research confirming it than just Grindelwald's. Hermione's organization, Advance, was working on replicating the work, as was the Department of Mysteries. He also had plans to institute a wizarding adoption system, which was wholly unobjectionable. After that… Hermione was not sure what Tom might do. She did have a general notion of where his ideas tended. The latest meeting of his allies had been to decide upon a name for themselves, since they were being called "Riddlers" in Ministry circles for lack of any other name. Tom had declared that they should call themselves Nationalists. Wizarding Nationalism seemed pretty apt for what Hermione knew of Tom's beliefs. He had admired Grindelwald's views, called "Wizarding Supremacism" by academics, but obviously had not wanted to take on that label for his own group.

"Hermione!"

Her reverie was broken by the sound of Tom's voice. She turned to face him and managed a smile as he approached.

"I didn't expect to see you so early," she remarked.

"It's Friday," he explained. "There was nothing left to do but routine rubbish, so Ogden, Metcalfe, and I dismissed ourselves and told the underlings to do it." A smug grin appeared.

Hermione shook her head in exasperation, but what was there to say? It was hardly unusual in any office. She was a little surprised that Tom had joined Bob Ogden and his Chief Advisor, Payne Metcalfe, in leaving early, because the other two wizards were widely expected to retire from the Ministry in a few years. Tom must really feel confident, she supposed.

"I didn't expect to see you so early either," Tom continued.

She met his eyes with a level gaze. "It's Friday. I dismissed myself and had my staff do what little remained."

He chuckled. "Shall we have a drink here"—he gestured to the Serpents' Chalice—"or at home?"

Hermione glanced briefly at the bar. It was nice, but they would probably encounter some of his political group, and that would be the end of any private moments between them.

"At home," she decided at once.

Without a word, he drew forward, took her hands in his, and Apparated them to their home across London.

"Have you thought about dinner?" Tom asked a bit later, fingering the rim of his glass.

Hermione scowled. He had not been very demanding about domestic matters in general. He had kept his own private spaces cleaned and assisted with the common areas of the house, which she appreciated. In fact, he had wanted to take on a house-elf to do the cooking and housework—at least, outside his private study—rather than watching her do it. That had been utterly unacceptable to Hermione, because he could not comprehend why she insisted upon having a free elf if they did that. They certainly weren't going to mistreat any elf they owned, he asserted, so why not have the extra security of magically guaranteed silence? He simply could not see her principled point of view, especially since it meant taking more work upon herself. However, once she had decided to do most of the cooking, he had accepted it without further protest. It increasingly felt like being taken for granted.

"No, I have not thought about dinner," she bit out between clenched teeth. "Clearly you have, so maybe you should take the initiative."

He was taken aback. "Hermione, if you want me to do it occasionally, you could just ask instead of simmering in resentment."

She glared at him. "Where I am from, Tom, it's not a woman's responsibility to ask. It is a man's to understand that things that benefit the household are shared duties."

"Well, my philosophy is that people who are better at something—anything—should be the ones to do it, rather than 'equality' for its own sake."

"That's convenient for you, since I have no idea if you are better at cooking than I am."

"I do," he said. "I don't know if you realize it, but some of your dishes have become as good as the Hogwarts fare."

Hermione snorted at this shameless flattery.

His eyebrows narrowed. "I'm not making it up. They are."

She fell silent. Was he being honest? He actually seemed to be. Involuntarily she found herself contrasting this with Ron's spoiled bitching about the quality of food she prepared when they were stuck in the tent. It still bothered her on some level that she was comparing Tom favorably against one of her old friends, but so it was.

"What do you say to going out for dinner?" he suggested abruptly.

Hermione frowned. There were very limited options in the wizarding world for eating out. "The Leaky Cauldron really isn't—"

"I didn't say the Leaky Cauldron. I was actually thinking of… a fine Muggle restaurant." Tom said the last in a rush, as if embarrassed by it.

Her eyebrows shot up to her forehead.

"The wizarding institution with the best food is Hogwarts itself," he said defensively. "You and I both know it. It's a disgrace, but… the Muggles can cook better than we can. Collectively, I mean. In Britain. We should be embarrassed by that, and I'd love to see a nice restaurant spring up on Diagon Alley instead of yet another bloody gimmick shop…." He trailed off. "Anyway, I was thinking of this place in Covent Garden called Rules. I always wanted to eat there as a little boy, before I learned about magic. We could walk along the streets after, see the sights, go through some of the parks."

Hermione was stunned. "Tom, that's an expensive place to eat—and surely you don't already have a reservation—"

He smirked pointedly. "We will when we get there. They're Muggles."

She wanted to scowl at his implication, but she couldn't find it in her to do so. This was all too surprising. "Well, I really didn't think Muggle London held any charms for you."

He got up and moved closer to her. "It is a grand and historic part of town, and grandeur always holds charms for me," he growled. "If it doesn't have magic, then it would only be grander still if it did." He leaned over to nip her ear.

That certainly seemed true enough, she thought.

He drew away and regarded her with a knowing smile. "So, yes, then?"

"Sure," she replied, finally smiling.

"How is the Wolfsbane coming?" Tom asked, cutting his pheasant smoothly, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. Their conversation was inaudible to the Muggles nearby.

She sipped her wine. "The trials are nearly complete. It does what it is supposed to do—though I already knew it would," she muttered. She still felt twinges of guilt over pretending to invent the Wolfsbane Potion and patenting its formula, even though it would do a lot of good—and help enrich her organization.

"Well," he mused, "once the trials are complete and the potion is made available, I think I could do something with that."

"What do you mean?" she asked uneasily.

He regarded her with a raised eyebrow as he chewed his food. "I mean that Dumbledore and his crowd of naïfs seem to think werewolves can be 'managed safely' simply by securing them behind locked doors during the full moon. It's bloody ridiculous if you ask me—"

Hermione frowned at this, but she was brought up short by the memory of Dumbledore's decision to have Remus Lupin educated at Hogwarts and how Sirius Black's stupid prank had nearly destroyed that attempt—and had ruined the chance of education for any other young lycanthropes. She hoped that Fenrir Greyback, who Tom had confided was already operating on the sly, would be captured long before he could infect Remus, who wasn't even born yet.

"—but what can be done is that they can be closely monitored by the Ministry—the registry is in a truly disgraceful state and we're trying to fix that—and required to take the Wolfsbane Potion, under threat of Azkaban."

She looked rather dismayed at that. "Tom, I understand your point of view—I really do—they're incredibly dangerous, obviously, as well as being threats to wizarding security. But the potion appears to have some fairly unpleasant long-term side effects, even when it's made perfectly. The wolfsbane plant's toxicity…." She trailed off. "Taking it for years probably decreases the werewolf's lifespan."

"What other option is there? I would imagine that the lifespan of a werewolf would be short anyway," he said harshly. "I assume you're comparing to the lifespan the person would have had without being one."

She nodded. "As I said, I understand and respect your position, but there is a part of me that is really bothered by the idea of the Ministry telling people, 'You must take this toxic potion that will probably kill you in the end, or you'll go to jail.'"

Tom finished his wine and, with a quick magical distraction to the waiters, poured himself another glass of it. "The alternative is for them to be excluded from civilized society for their whole lives… or to be locked up… or put down. And what of Muggles who are infected? They definitely should have to take the potion. I'm sure that if you asked any of your test subjects what they thought, they'd gladly take a decreased lifespan over turning into a ravening beast every month."

"They would," Hermione admitted. "We've been very open with them about what we suspect. They're still grateful for the potion."

"Well, there you have it. When do you think the trials will be concluded?"

"We're going to end them in about two months."

He nodded. "I'll tip off Ogden about it and we can start working on proposals. Something will be ready when your organization makes it public, so it will immediately be the default policy to debate and the Reformists won't have time to mount an equal counter-proposal."

Hermione looked at her food. She could not fault Tom for his idea, not really. Without the Wolfsbane Potion, the debate would have been between Reformists who wanted to let people who became violent monsters once a month mingle in society, and Isolationists who wanted them incarcerated or executed. With such untenable options, and no possible middle ground, the Ministry would essentially do nothing. The plan Tom was talking about, on the other hand, would probably easily get majority support in the Ministry—and the Wizengamot, if it came to that.

Still, he was awfully eager to assert his power over others, and there was something in his voice that told her that it was not out of concern for werewolves' own well-being. It might be partly from concern for the wizarding world at large, but Hermione was pretty sure that most of his enthusiasm for the idea was about demonstrating power over others—and being widely credited for a rational answer to a long-standing wizarding problem.

Well, she thought as she finished her meal, I have known all along that he puts his own ambitions first. At least he's doing some good along the way.

To Hermione's surprise, Tom knew about Muggle money as well as she did, and he actually had some with him—and paid for the meal rather than simply casting Confundus Charms on the staff. A brief snarl did appear on his face as he handled the cash, but only she noticed it—or interpreted it correctly. She supposed that he might have decided on honesty tonight for her benefit, to avoid inciting her ire and spoiling the evening, but at least he respected her feelings enough to do that.

When they stepped out of the fine restaurant, the first thing Hermione noticed was the deep blue-violet cast to the sky. It wasn't possible to see the stars from the city, but the sparkle of urban lights below that purplish-blue cloak was almost as beautiful. She gazed down the street at the quaint shops.

Hermione had been in this part of town before, but only in the 1990s. It was attractive then, but she thought it might be nicer now. Perhaps it's just because my memories of my old life are tinged with darkness, whereas I have some hope now, she thought, clutching Tom's arm. He gave her a smug grin, a single eyebrow raised, and they began their stroll toward the parks.

Tom did get his fair share of furtive admiring glances, and once they moved farther away from the restaurant, their clothes garnered occasional impressed looks. But not a single pedestrian noticed anything strange about them. Hermione had to admit that she was very impressed with Tom's fortitude tonight. He disliked Muggles—he actually had decided to call himself a "Wizarding Nationalist" recently—but in order to give her a romantic night out, he had taken her to a Muggle establishment, paid with Muggle money, and forgone his ever-present tailored wizard's robes to avoid attracting negative attention from Muggles. Even if he only did it for her, he still did it.

She glanced at him. To her utter amazement, he seemed… contented. His face was actually not set in an angry simmer, nor was he smirking, nor did he bear the false mask of politeness that she could instantly recognize. Instead, he looked… almost proud. Hermione did not want to break the spell by asking him about it, but as they passed by the historic buildings en route to the parks, her curiosity heightened. At last she stopped him and gave him an inquiring look.

"This seems like more than simply 'admiring grandeur,'" she remarked, quirking an eyebrow. "I'm really surprised—you wanted to live in the metropolitan area, but I always assumed it was for convenience and sociability reasons."

He managed a brief, thin smile. "Why would you have thought that convenience and sociability would be factors for us?" he replied in a quiet voice. "Distances are not an issue for us."

"There's still a psychological factor of being surrounded by other people—or knowing that… certain areas… are nearby. Even though I can travel somewhere instantly," she said too softly for the Muggle pedestrians to overhear, "there were times before when I was utterly isolated. But I still wonder…."

He continued to gaze at her, seemingly anticipating the question but waiting for her to say it.

"What does London actually mean to you?" she asked.

He took her arm and resumed their walk, gathering his thoughts or deciding how he was going to word them. Finally he replied, still in a quiet voice, "There are two things. This city has just overcome a terrible war. Whatever the enemy threw at it, here it is, still standing and thriving as it has for centuries. Even though they're Muggles… well, there is a part of me that still admires it. We're a strong, proud people."

Hermione stared at him in surprise. She had no idea he harbored sentiments like that. "And the second thing?" she asked softly.

He stopped again, with Buckingham Palace visible before them, providing a fitting backdrop for him. "There are traces of magic in some of the old sites. Some of them were built with the aid of magic… some had charms and curses put on them over the years… and some must have been occupied by several generations of these people like your family, non-magical but with some magical blood. Some of them do have magical abilities… the ability to see ghosts or handle charmed objects, and I also suspect that they leave a 'residue' over time just as we do. Anyway, very old places often have a trace of magic. It used to be an accepted part of the world, not locked away and choked with regulations," he said, scowling.

Ah, of course, wizarding politics. But still… he really was being extremely open with her, she thought, and on a Muggle sidewalk at that. Then Hermione suddenly remembered that Tom had drunk rather more of the wine in the restaurant than she had. That explains it. He does mean this—he means everything he just said—but would he have said it otherwise?

There was no point in speculating about that. Even if the wine had made him open up, he did have these thoughts. She certainly was not going to use this moment of vulnerability to make sport of him in the future. It was sincere, and she was going to encourage more of it.

They reached the park and passed through it. The night sky was turning deep bluish-purplish-black, and the canopy of trees made it seem darker, even though the park was surrounded by and dotted with lamps.

A smile spread across Hermione's face and remained there. He really was being quite nice tonight. Maybe he did feel bad about their brief spat at home and decided to make it up to her this way. Tom was not one for verbal apologies, most of the time, but perhaps this was his way of making one….

In the middle of the park, he suddenly pulled her off the sidewalk. Her heeled feet caught in the grass as he backed her against a large tree.

"Tom, what—"

He pushed her against the tree. She felt the bark through the fabric of her gown, very acutely indeed. This would require a spell to clean and possibly repair, but there was a more immediate and pressing concern for now.

"Tom, whatever you're doing, people will see—"

He smirked, his gaze not leaving hers. His hand slid under his coat and withdrew his wand. He gave it a discreet flick.

"You were saying?" he murmured in a low growl.

She glanced from left to right. The Muggles who were milling around in the park passed nearby, not getting very close, but more importantly, not even noticing them.

"All right, it's a Repelling Charm."

"More than that." His smirk somehow became even cockier. Hermione knew that it was because he enjoyed demonstrating his magical abilities over unsuspecting Muggles, but that didn't bother her right at the moment.

"Anyway. You'd still better not—"

"Don't worry, your gown isn't coming off. Yet," he growled. "Not till we return home. But in the meantime…."

He leaned in closer. Her hair, which had been combed into an elegant updo, bumped against the bark. Strands caught on the rough texture, pulling loose from the knot and tumbling down her shoulders in untidy waves. His eyes gleamed at the sight of her slightly unkempt. He pressed himself against her from the chest down to the hips and drew in, threading a hand into her hair and messing up what remained of her hairstyle.

Well, two could play at that game. Hermione slipped her hands into his perfectly combed hair, thoroughly mussing it. She dug her fingernails into his scalp, smirking back at him as she did.

He growled and closed the remaining distance, pressing his lips against hers. She felt his teeth graze her lips and then nip lightly. She tightened her grip on him in reaction. He responded by grinding his hips against hers. Her eyes flew open at the pressure she felt at that. Yes, she thought idly. Her gown probably would not stay on her long once they got home….

The pedestrians continued to amble by, not noticing the inappropriately intimate public display of affection before them, as the violet sky faded to night.