Notes: First, thanks for all the interest. I want to respond specifically to reviewer Hin. (I hate doing this in public, but I can't PM guests.) I really don't think Hermione is "clueless and stupid." She didn't immediately realize "ah, that must've been Polyjuice" because it wasn't a priority. Dumbledore had messed about with her memories, and she had just heard of a plot that she wanted to tell Tom about. Her rationale for trusting Tom is explained in previous chapters, but essentially, she is completely alone, and he is brilliant, interested in her, and wants to keep her safe. She's choosing not to think too hard about certain things he does, because subconsciously she knows the alternative is isolation. She is just as capable of self-centered emotionally based reasoning as anyone, doesn't make friends easily, and therefore tends to gravitate to people who actually take interest in her (Krum, Slughorn, even the boys). I have tried to depict her having some influence on Tom, as well, which implies that he respects her. Finally, this Dumbledore doesn't really know her, she suspects he used her for bait, and she has learned that she was lied to about history and that Dumbledore's "faction" is partially responsible for the world she left.
I'm actually going to address Tom's dark behavior starting now, because I've always intended for Hermione to have a rude awakening, and this is it. That said, I know some of you may go "nope" after this chapter. I'd hate to lose anyone, but not everyone is going to like the specific story I'm telling. This story is about pragmatism, hard choices, and compromise, and it'll only become more so.
A general note: You can probably surmise this from the preceding, but for this chapter there is a warning for explicitly detailed dark content. Those of you who do want dark Tom, here you are, as promised. I hope this doesn't disappoint. :)
Chapter Fifteen: Fracturing a Fairy Tale
Hermione was relieved when the familiar creak of her door sounded. Whatever Tom had been doing, he was back. She got up from her desk and prepared to meet him. He looked good, she thought idly as she hugged him in greeting. His hair was windswept and his clothes had that look that indicated that their wearer had been very active and busy.
His return hug was distracted and halfhearted. "Did you do—whatever it was you intended to do?" she asked, half afraid of the answer.
"Yes and no. Right now you need to come out to the Forbidden Forest."
"The Forbidden Forest?" she repeated. "What's out there?"
He smiled oddly. "You'll find out. I told you I would start sharing things with you, remember. I want you to see this."
Hermione grabbed her cloak and wand and hurried out the door next to him. They began to walk down the many flights of stairs. She thought about what he had said as she walked. Although it seemed that she would finally get some answers, she was no longer sure that she wanted them. Everything about this felt ominous. What could he have to show her that he couldn't bring into the castle? What could he not discuss in the Secret-Kept Room of Requirement?
They left the castle, crossed the grounds unseen, and headed into the forest. It was night, so the forest was ill-lit and felt sinister. Hermione unconsciously drew closer to him.
They walked deeper into the forest, and Hermione soon sensed a powerful magic shield ahead. It was the same type of shield that she herself had put up during her travels with Harry and Ron, one that made anything in it invisible to outsiders, so this was very familiar magic to her. It was also very powerful. What was Tom hiding? He had left with a threat on his lips to take care of "unfinished business."
They were on the periphery of the shield, she could tell. She looked at him expectantly. Tom smirked and waved his wand. The edges of the shield appeared as ripples of light and glittered up the bubble as the shield dissolved from the ground up. A yellow-white glow emanated from under the shield, and Hermione observed that Tom had hung a lantern from a sapling that was completely beneath the shield.
Underneath the shield was a bound, unconscious man sitting with his knees bent. He was breathing but immobilized. Hermione's heart sank as she recognized the man's face. This was Pollux Black, who had brutally tortured her and who was planning to falsify evidence framing them as spies.
She turned to Tom, suddenly understanding the situation. He was busy replacing the shield around them, making Black, the light, and themselves invisible to anyone or anything that might approach this clearing in the forest. He finished putting the shield back up and turned around to face her, his eyes gleaming with greed, triumph, and vengeance.
"How did you capture him?" she whispered.
He shrugged arrogantly. "It was embarrassingly easy. I Disillusioned myself and ambushed the fool outside the Ministry Apparition area. Disgusting, really. All the more reason to remove him. He is a disgrace to the position he holds."
"Tom," she said, her heart seeming to drop through her shoes. "If this is about avenging what he did to me, I appreciate the thought, but this is not a good idea."
He frowned. "Hermione, don't be absurd. This man tortured you. He carved part of the word 'traitor' into your very skin."
"But you fixed it. Tom, it's too risky. He's a Ministry official," she pleaded, trying to appeal to his reason. "A Department Head."
"Exactly," Tom hissed. He gave her a penetrating look. "Because of that, the risk of letting him live is greater. There is a conspiracy afoot and he is the key. You overheard the conversation I had with Lestrange."
"The conversation you had with Lestrange? It was—" She broke off, suddenly realizing something. "No, of course, the other potion you took from Slughorn's office—"
Tom looked smug. "Five points to Slytherin. I knew that they were up to something, and I had to find out what. Polyjuice is really incredibly useful. The problem with Veritaserum is that you have to ask the right questions. You should be glad I did, so I can take care of the situation pre-emptively."
"But Tom, you won't be able to cover it up…." She trailed off, remembering the fourth year from her own time, and how a Head of a Ministry Department had been murdered on school grounds and it had been covered up until the killer confessed. They had never found the Transfigured body of Bartemius Crouch.
Tom was smirking. "Don't tell me what I can't do, Hermione. I assure you I have no difficulty covering anything up." He put up his hand as she opened her mouth to object. "I know that you found out some things I did, but I have learned. I can get into his cousin's house now, after what I got out of his mind, and he will be found dead in the parlor, the apparent victim of some of the nasty objects Arcturus keeps around." He smiled darkly. "There is a silver-and-opal necklace in there that holds an incredible curse. Possibly that."
Hermione winced. That was surely the same silver-and-opal necklace that turned up in sixth year. At some point the Blacks must have sold it to Borgin and Burkes. That necklace almost killed Katie Bell in her time, so this plan might well work.
She tried something else. "Tom, I'm—not all right, exactly, you can never be all right after that, but this won't fix what happened. It won't make it go away."
"Then if it makes you feel better, I'm not doing it just for you. He has to die. He will accuse us of espionage to the Minister otherwise." He turned to the bound man and flicked his wand. The ropes binding him vanished, and he opened his eyes. They fixed upon Tom and Hermione with hatred.
"You vile little reprobate!" Black spat. Apparently he was still immobilized by some spell, but it let him speak. "Filthy-blooded upstart from Merlin knows where—"
"Tsk tsk," Tom said airily, swishing his wand. "Such prejudiced talk for the Head of a Ministry Department supposed to protect all wizardkind." He peered at the man with an evil smile. "But then, you don't even uphold your own laws, do you? Capturing Hogwarts students, taking them to your private residence, and torturing them for information they don't have? Plotting to fabricate evidence in order to discredit your political opponents? Not a good Law Enforcer at all, are you?"
Black sneered. "Your girlfriend deserved what I did even if she didn't have information on the Kraut blood-traitor. She is an aberration, rather like you."
"Crucio!"
Black twitched and screamed on the forest floor, his movements restricted by the spell that he was still under. Tom stood over him, his gaze hard and set.
Finally he lifted the curse. Black continued whimpering from the pain. A stream of silver magic then flowed from Tom's wand, shining and sharply edged as the blade of a knife.
It reached Pollux Black and wrapped around his arm three times, slicing cleanly through his robes, through his flesh, like razor wire cutting into his skin. Blood erupted from his arm in ribbons. He screamed again. Branches split off the primary stream of magic and cut new paths into his skin, like silver vines growing rapidly on his arm. The blood puddled on the forest floor.
Tom ended the curse. All the blood, whether on the ground or on Black, swirled into the air in a stream of vapor. Black yelled as it was apparently sucked from his arm. The red vapor vanished, and Black's arm thudded to the ground. The open wounds were gone, but the arm looked shriveled. Hermione was reminded of Dumbledore's cursed hand, except that Black's arm was dead white. He continued to whimper. Tom scowled at him, annoyed at the noise. He silenced the man and turned to Hermione, who was staring in horror.
"Don't tell me that doesn't make you feel good, watching him suffer the same way he made you."
Hermione could not respond. A dead weight was seeping through her body. I am going to watch someone be killed, she thought with a strange level of detachment. But of course his idea of a token of affection was the tortured corpse of her enemy. She never should have let herself forget what he already was. He was not the red-eyed, snake-faced, insane inhuman monster of her time, but he was still a Dark wizard with a thoroughly dysfunctional moral compass.
As if to prove the point she was making in her thoughts, he cast a punching curse at Black. The twitching form reeled again.
"Shall I give him more, or end it? You were the one this scum tortured, Hermione," Tom said. "It's up to you." He considered. "Or perhaps you'd like to have a go yourself?"
It was then that Hermione realized that there was nothing she could do about this. She had already tried to persuade him and failed. If she took his wand, he would try to take it back. Tom saw this as a necessity. No, he also saw it as a gift, with his "unique" take on chivalry, and she knew that he would not react well to having his "gifts" scorned.
But she was not going to torture someone. She was not going to tell Tom to further torture someone who was doomed anyway. She was better than that, and better than what this same man had done to her. And, so help her, but she actually saw Tom's point. Black did have to die, considering what he was planning to do. A minor Obliviation wouldn't suffice; he would just be reminded by his peers. A major one would put him in the permanent resident ward at St. Mungo's, which seemed much crueler to her.
She shook her head at Tom. "Just finish it," she said, trying to project strength.
"I hope that isn't out of mercy."
Hermione's heart twisted again at the contempt he put into that word. "I might have been able to cast Cruciatus on him—in retaliation—soon after it happened," she said haltingly. "But it's been long enough, and some of the pain has faded, and you've already punished him. I'm sure you made him hurt more than he made me," she added, the words sour on her lips, disgusted with herself for using his torturing skills to try to compliment and influence him.
He regarded her loftily. "No doubt… and this is just the prelude, after all."
Hermione turned her face away. She still did not want to watch the green light actually strike Black, or the life leave his body.
"Hermione, you wanted to know. I am placing immense trust in you by letting you see what I am about to do. I insist that you watch. I do not often bestow sincere compliments and I don't like having them rejected when I do."
Well, after all, it isn't the first time I've watched someone die of that curse. At least he's not an innocent. Hermione reluctantly turned around to face Black, who was gritting his teeth and glaring defiantly at Tom, aware of his fate.
"You will lose," Tom said in flat tones to Pollux Black. "All your ilk. You are obsolete. You are blind. No, you will not lose to fools like Dumbledore, but you will lose. This is just the beginning." He smiled hollowly. "Avada Kedavra."
The jet of bright green light shot from Tom's wand and struck Black squarely in the chest. His eyes closed, his jaw slacked, and he fell to the ground with an anticlimactic thud.
Hermione's chest was tight, and her breaths were coming short and fast. She hardly dared to speak. That was murder in cold blood, she thought. She tried to argue against the conclusion, to convince herself that it was pre-emptive self-defense, but she could not do it.
"That's done," Tom said, almost to himself. He turned to Hermione. "He will never hurt you again," he added unnecessarily.
She could not reply.
Tom reached in his robes for something. Hermione frowned. Now what was he up to? Something else to do to the body, since Tom was going to make it appear that his own possessions had killed him? Did she have to watch that too?
The movement in his robe pocket ceased; he had apparently found what he was searching for. He smiled faintly and withdrew a diary bound in dark blue leather.
Hermione reacted instinctively. "No!" she shouted. She launched herself at him, grabbing for the book.
He swished his wand and flung her away harmlessly, diary still in hand. She landed against the side of the shield, which stretched slightly to dissipate the force of the impact and then rebounded. She righted herself and stared at him, pleading with her eyes.
"Tom, don't do this to yourself."
He looked at her oddly, affronted that she would dare to attack him and impressed that she instantly grasped what he planned. He raised an eyebrow. "I told you I was not killing Black just for you, Hermione."
"So this is better? Tom, don't. I knew you didn't have any—I thought you weren't going to—"
"I've been intending to do it for two years, and this is the perfect killing to use. I'm not about to change my mind because of your inexplicable squeamishness on the subject." His words were suddenly cold.
Hermione felt something die inside her. Weeks—months—of investment in the hope that he could be saved from himself were vanishing before her eyes. This was much worse than watching him kill Pollux Black to avenge her and thwart a conspiracy. A dark part of her had whispered that Black deserved exactly what he got, but this was very different. This was not an act of harsh justice. It was an act of violence against the very essence of himself that Hermione had—she had to admit it—fallen in love with, and that she thought had fallen for her, against all odds.
How could I not have seen it coming? she wondered. Had she really been so blinded by her heart as to dwell in a fairy tale? With a sinking feeling, she realized that she had been ignoring weeks of occasional hints that he was still interested in the idea, most recently the assertion that he was going to challenge Grindelwald for the Elder Wand and "had a plan" involving the Dark Arts.
"So that's it?" she asked, her tones now as icy as his. "I'm squeamish? I guess I'm too squeamish to watch you do it, then."
"You are going to watch me."
"No, I'm not." To reinforce her statement, she defiantly turned her back and faced the shield and the forest surrounding this clearing.
She felt something lash around her and pull her around against her will. The magical confinement remained even after the motion ceased, and Hermione found that she could not turn around or even turn her neck. Tom was glaring at her. "Yes, you are. I told you I don't like it when my compliments are spurned."
Bitterness and disbelief filled her. "This is your idea of a compliment? You think you're flattering me by making me watch you torture and murder and then tear part of your soul out? What do you—"
"Silencio," he snapped.
Hermione felt a new wave of betrayal flood her. He had never dismissed her with a spell like that. She glared at him, meeting his eyes.
I'll tell someone. I'll tell Dumbledore. She willed him to read the thought.
He laughed. "No, you won't," he answered her verbally. "You're not on that old man's side anymore, for one. But more importantly, I would go to Azkaban for life, and they would destroy it. You would not be able to watch a part of me be destroyed. Not now."
He's wrong. I will tell someone. I will. Hermione thought this over and over, rolling the conviction over in her mind as if it were a talisman. Or trying to convince myself? She quickly banished that thought.
Tom seemed to know what she was thinking even though he was not looking directly into her eyes anymore. He smirked knowingly at her before turning his attention to the ritual.
He slowly levitated the diary to the forest floor and flicked his wand to open it. Pages fluttered in the cold air before it settled. Tom cast a spell at the diary that manifested from his wand as a gold shining thread of light. A bead of gold appeared at the wand tip and sped down the thread with a whooshing sound, disappearing into the pages of the diary. The book glowed golden briefly before the light faded.
Hermione was reminded of Harry's description of the Priori Incantatem effect. There had been a thread of gold connecting his wand with Voldemort's, and he had to force a gold bead down the connection. Hermione had also read all about the steps to create a Horcrux in Secrets of the Darkest Art, and she knew which one this was. Tom was connecting the diary with his own personal magic. That was what the gold thread and bead always meant, in fact, in many spells. With Harry, there had been resistance because he had been fighting another wizard's magic. There was no such resistance from the diary.
Hermione also knew this would be by far the least disturbing step of the procedure.
Tom took a deep breath, apparently steeling himself for what he had to do next. His face was set, resolute, and grim. He rolled up his left sleeve and held his arm over the open diary. He swiped his wand over his forearm, opening a deep wound on his otherwise pristine skin, the Dark magic cutting through layers of integument. Bright red, pulsing blood spurted from it and spattered onto the pages of the diary. Hermione could smell the iron from where she stood. This was arterial blood. That horrible book had specified that. After being connected with the caster's magic, the object had to be infused with the "life-giving blood" of the caster, establishing it as a "body" of sorts through Dark symbolic magic.
Tom was paling as his blood pulsed out, but he held his arm over the book anyway. After enough drops had finally fallen on the pages, he quickly cast a healing spell on his arm, wincing as the wound closed. Hermione realized it was probably the Dark healing spell he had used on her, and it appalled her that he would use it for this. But of course it wouldn't do for you to die of blood loss before you can finish the job, she thought angrily.
She knew it was a three-stage ritual, and she knew what the last, most dangerous step was. Once he started that step, he had to complete it successfully or unpredictable phenomena could occur. The soul fragment might be lost entirely. It might reintegrate with him, though that was unlikely, given his intent. It might go for her, she thought with a shudder. Or he might die. She still held a faint hope that somehow he would be prevented from starting it—that someone would approach, or he would lose his nerve, or anything.
Tom hesitated for a moment. Hermione held her breath, hoping, hoping—but in the next moment, he pointed his wand at his own head to perform the final process. He cast a whispered spell that she did not hear, but it sounded profoundly sinister. He moved the wand away slowly from his head in an arc, and she could tell it caused him exquisite pain. He widened his eyes and sucked in his cheeks. Part of her wanted to rush over and stop him, make the hurting cease, but she couldn't move—couldn't even speak—and she was not responsible for his actions. She was not.
Hermione watched helplessly as a small glowing blob of white emerged from his body, connected by a few fine silver threads to his head, following the tip of his wand as he directed it over—but she knew instinctively that there was something terribly wrong with it. It was misshapen, looking like an irregular slice hacked crudely out of a circle. The curved side of it had a softly tapering white glow, but the shattered edge crackled with a thin border—a wound kept from healing—that was very dark red, fully saturated, and so close to black that it felt like a void that could suck in anything that drew too close. A faint cry wailed from it, and the dark edge seemed to fluctuate minutely as it did, glittering with tiny red flashes.
She didn't want to see this. It made her sick. It made her sad. That book had not said anything about how it would look, and she was not prepared for this. Hermione realized that she was looking at the manifestation of a soul—part—in the worst agony, bleeding in a way, calling out in protest and pain from the separation from the rest of itself, and it made her want to weep. Or vomit. Or both.
The broken orb of light hovered just above the surface of the diary, drawn there by the faint, but renewed, gold glow of Tom's magic in the book and the power of his lifeblood. Hermione tore her gaze from it to observe that it was still connected to him. The silver threads glimmered faintly in the lantern light like strands of a spider's web, thinner and more fragile than they had appeared a moment ago, linking to the soul orb on the jagged edge and continuing to Tom's head. Hermione held her breath. If he didn't cross the point of no return, it might still be drawn back to him with that connection intact….
With a huge, devastatingly final sweep of his wand, he severed the threads. They disappeared, breaking into segments and fading in a fraction of a second. The shattered orb sank into the diary.
The book glowed with white and gold light, pages fluttering although there was no wind. Everything on the pages—writing, picture memories, drops of bright red blood—vanished, sucked into the diary at the behest of their producer's soul fragment, leaving unassuming blank pages. The light surrounding the book faded, and the cover closed itself.
Tom gasped for breath, then breathed again, heavily and repeatedly. He seemed determined not to look weak by bending or collapsing on his knees. Finally he regained his composure and seemed to remember that Hermione was there. He waved his wand, lifting the spells on her.
Hermione whirled away and ran into the invisible shield immediately. Wincing, she turned around to look at him. He was gazing at her with an air of knowing, amused patience that made her feel far more despair than anger at this moment. He summoned the Horcrux and moved toward her with it in hand, looking utterly satisfied with himself.
She was haunted by that soul fragment and the evidence of the pain it was in. Her gut twisted again at the memory, still fresh and vivid in her mind. "How could you?" she choked out. Tears came unbidden to her eyes. She wiped them away roughly.
"Hermione, I know I'm not a paragon of honesty, but I've never lied to you about the kind of magic I practice. It is hardly my fault if you chose not to see that."
Hermione stared back at him, eyes wide and empty, unable to argue.
He glanced back at the body with distaste. "I have to take care of this," he said clinically. "I don't insist that you watch." Before she realized what he was doing, he had an arm possessively around her shoulders, trying to bring her close to him. He pressed the diary against her chest. "But if you would take this to your room and keep it safe—"
Hermione could not believe this. It was twisted. It was mad. He was mad to think that he could do this and then immediately offer her affection—and even expect her to keep and protect the thing. She recoiled, shoving him away. His eyes flashed with surprise. As they did, she noticed that there was now a glint of red in the life dots of his pupils at a certain angle that had not been there before.
"Get away from me!" she snarled. She took her wand out and darted around the periphery of the shield, eyeing him like the predator he was. Her wand hand shook. "Don't come anywhere near me, you Dark wizard!" She hurled the term as if it were a curse.
His features were devoid of emotion, but it appeared forced, a deliberate closing down to avoid showing something else to her. The glints in his pupils flashed red again, windows of the soul. "You can't possibly be that surprised," he said. "You knew what I was before you ever met me."
End Note: There is an illustration for this chapter on my Tumblr: betagyre-penname DOT tumblr DOT com /post/142608019169/illustration-2