Chapter Forty-four:

Deep Dark Dreams

Hermione conjured a mattress from the stone of the cave in which she was hiding. She was completely exhausted, and Lestrange had elected to remain for a while so she could get some rest.

She found it very difficult to get to sleep, but when she finally did she found herself in the realm of dreams. She found herself riding along a beach on horseback, and Tom was at her side on a horse of his own.

"There you are, my love," he said with a smile. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"Have you?" she asked with a smile. "But I've been right here all along."

"I wasn't talking to you," said Tom as he looked past her shoulder. Behind her, Albus Dumbledore rode on a pitch black steed. He smiled wickedly when she turned and saw him.

"Did you really think you'd have him forever, my dear?" he asked with a smirk. "You've no more chance of that than you do of returning to 1998. Perhaps you'd care for a little something to ease the pain? I have some wonderful lemon drops—"

The dream changed. They were in the forest where they'd been when Gellert was shoved down Tom's throat. Only this time, when he went in, Tom laid back as if he were enjoying it, and then he groaned with delight. Hermione thought she was going to be ill.

He's in my head, she thought wildly. Somehow Dumbledore's gotten inside my head.

Hermione woke with a start and looked around at her surroundings as if she were in an alien world. She couldn't fathom what she was doing in a cave for at least half a minute before it all came rushing back. The dreams, the loss of her baby, Tom's predicament, everything.

She felt a great, heaving sob rack her body, and tears washed down her face. She wanted to be quiet so Lestrange would not hear, but in the end it was impossible. Her sorrow was just too great.

"Hermione?" called Lestrange as he stepped into the darker section of the cave and came to sit at her side. "Are you quite all right?"

"It was just a dream," she muttered as she wiped at her eyes. "A horrid, horrid dream. Nothing more."

"Hey, don't worry about it," said Lestrange with a half-smile. "It happens to the best of us. Tom's going to be all right, Hermione. You wait and see."

"But what if he isn't?" she sobbed. "What if I'm stuck back here without him, and I've nothing left of my wish but shattered hopes? Perhaps I made the wrong wish after all. Maybe I should never have been so selfish."

"The heart wants what it wants, I suppose," Lestrange said. "What did you wish for, anyway."

"Oh, you wouldn't understand," she sighed.

"Try me," he said, giving her his most winning smile.

"I wished—well, I suppose I wished that dreadful war had never happened, and that Tom Riddle would be content with his life instead of waging it to begin with," she admitted. "What a silly thing to wish for, eh? Especially since in my heart I was truly thinking—and wouldn't it be lovely if he could be content with me?"

"He was, you know," he told her. "For this whole time, ever since you walked into his world, Tom has been content. You gave him that, Hermione Granger, and it's something he's never been able to find in his entire life."

"But perhaps that's just made it worse," she pointed out. "Perhaps that will just make him even more bitter when he cannot recover what he lost."

"Don't you talk like that," he scolded her. "We're going to get Tom out of there, and fix him up just right. You've nothing to fear on that account."

"Yes, I know you're right," she agreed. "Perhaps I'm just feeling the loss of our baby too much right now. They do say it takes the body time to recover, and after all he did speed up the whole process. Who knows how long it's going to take to feel better after that?"

"So you said he's put your son inside of some book?" said Lestrange thoughtfully. "I wonder if it would wreck his hoped for future if we destroyed the thing now."

"But he could simply make another one, couldn't he?" she pointed out.

"Not one with a lad that looks just like his father, inciting you to want to come back here," he said. "No, I believe I have the right of it. We need to start finding those horcruxes he intends to make in Tom's image now, and stop him before he even begins. You said there were seven of them, did you not?"

"Well, yes, eventually," she said. "But I've no idea where any of them were or what they were made from. Harry and Ron never told me."

"Well, there is another way to find out," he said. "Old man Dumbledore's got a time turner, hasn't he? What do you say we find out?"

"You mean go into the future, find out, and then return here?" Hermione asked uncertainly. "But I can't. People there would know me."

"Maybe you can't, Hermione, but that doesn't stop me from doing so," he pointed out. "I promise I'll stay well away from you, find out what I need to know, and return to tell you the details, yeah?"

"How do you intend to get the time turner, then?" she asked.

"Leave that to me."

With no other choice but to do as he suggested, Hermione settled down and tried to sleep again. Hopefully a dreamless sleep.