As it turned out Hermione had been leaving anyway, it was as if she knew Tom would show up exactly when he did. Which she probably had known. She had spent her welcome in the hovel of a room in muggle London, apparently her funds were limited.
The Leaky Caldron was their final destination, apparently Hermione had worked it out with the bar keep that she would work if they would give her room and board. Tom had never really liked the place. Too many people, it was a central hub for witches and wizards coming and going from London.
If it were possible her new flat was worse than the rented room. Smaller, dustier, and housing more spiders, if that were possible. Hermione didn't seem to register the state of the furniture or the cloudy window. Undaunted she waved her wand and the room expanded, furniture popped into existence, dust swirled in the air before piling itself into a waste basket. When it was all said and done the place looked very stately indeed. The only thing left uncleaned was the milky glass of the window. She must have removed her spells from the hotel before he arrived, he was loath to admit he was impressed.
"You're husband chose right when he married you, you know your way around domestic spells." It was demeaning of her skills, and he knew it, but what could he say? He wasn't a nice person, he only kept up the appearance of one.
"You're a right git, and you know it," but there was no heat in the insult. She knew she was good and thinly veiled insults to her sex or talent rolled off without effort.
"So," Tom picked up a paperweight that had appeared with the desk and tossed it from hand to hand,"where do we start?"
The next weeks were rough, he came by after work almost every day, and they read, compared notes, and debated possible spells and potions that might lead to a solution. Sleep was a low priority, and as it turned out Hermione was right when she said they were the same.
Neurotic and perfectionists, the two made quite the study partners.
It turned out that Ancient Grecian Magic was heavily embedded with arithmancy as well as forms of magic that were abandoned long ago. Complicated spells that took days to prepare and sometimes never delivered their promised results. It was hard work, and Tom loved it.
It had been so long since he had been challenged, and with the addition of being rewarded, in the end, the knowledge of Time travel, he found himself enjoying the work more and more.
They were too much alike though, and picked at one another condescendingly. Sleep deprivation and a steady supply of strong coffee made them both irritable.
"This is never going to work!" Hermione screamed one day, chucking a book across the room into a wall, it skittered under a chair and shivered for a while before becoming inanimate again.
"It must!" Tom urged, a little too enthusiastically.
Sharp narrowed eyes inspected him, and he knew he had messed up. "You don't think you're going back with me, do you?"
"Of course not."
"You do plan on using the magic though, did you honestly think I was going to let you remember anything? I know who you are and what you become. I can't stop that, no one can, but I sure as hell am not going to let you use time travel." She scoffed.
"I could keep on without you, kill you, eraseYOUR memories. What's stopping me after we've solved everything?"
Of course Tom didn't remember any of that particular conversation because she had in fact obliviated that fifteen minutes from his memory with such skill that he hardly noticed at all, except for a slight headache that he attributed to no sleep and too much coffee.