Tom Apparated with a crack to the pitch dark cemetery in Little Hangleton. His thin-soled, borrowed Muggle sneakers sunk into the cold mud as he waited for his eyes to adjust.
The September night air was chilly and sharp, stinging Tom's cheeks. He had always liked the cold. It invigorated him, though it didn't feel quite the same in his semi-corporeal state.
Tom trudged through the mud up to his father's cemetery plot. His namesake and doppelgänger, the man whom Tom had done everything to disconnect from.
The worn-down gravestone read:
THOMAS EOGHAN RIDDLE
1905 – 1943
BELOVED SON, HUSBAND AND FATHER
Tom snorted.
He remembered that day in the summer after his fifth year. It was a cool May evening. The Riddles had just finished eating supper, and Tom Riddle Sr. had been rather startled by his sudden appearance at the front door. Tom's grandparents had welcomed him in, offering spaghetti bolognese and a fizzy drink.
Tom killed them first, just to see his father suffer. The man had dived fruitlessly for the hunting rifle which was fixed above the mantel of the fireplace. Tom laughed and vanished the gun. His father crouched on the ground, sniveling pathetically, begging Tom to spare him.
"I'm your father, for Christs' sake!" the man had said.
He died with his face fixed in a horrified scream.
Throughout his young adulthood, Tom had often replayed that night in his mind with glee. Now, as he magically cleared dirt from his father's grave, he felt nothing but a sort of hollowness.
After most of the soil was excavated, Tom conjured a spade and climbed into the hole.
Normally, he would never resort to crass manual labor like a Muggle. But Tom couldn't risk damaging the old bones, or contaminating his potion with a trace of magic.
As he dug, Tom thought of Hermione.
The shock in the witch's eyes as Tom pinned her to the threadbare run has been intoxicating. He could have killed her right there, and she knew it. Tom hadn't felt such a surge of power in what felt like years.
He wanted more.
The mind-melding the two had experienced did not concern Tom. It was a reaction caused by their soul bond, no doubt. The wizard supposed there could be other bonding effects they were experiencing without even knowing it.
But the visions of Hermione writhing on the floor, tortured by some rabid Dark witch, made him feel strange. Something close to… pity? Surely, it was't empathy. Dumbledore had been a fool, but he'd known Tom was not capable of that.
He pushed the idea out of his mind, along with thoughts of Hermione's tousled honey-scented curls.
Tom's plan was coming along nicely.
Though Hermione put on a nice show of strength, she was pliable as butter. From what Tom had read in The Rise and Fall of The Dark Arts, it seemed she had every reason to hate him. Though he had been a Muggle-killing despot, the silly witch swooned whenever he entered the room.
Tom chuckled to himself. He'd always been quite the ladies man at Hogwarts, but seducing a woman while barely mortal was a new feat.
Tom finally hit casket after an hour of labor. He dusted the remaining dirt off the wooden coffin and pried open the lid.
Tom Sr.'s remains had clearly been ransacked. His skull was gone, and many bones were fractured.
Tom managed to salvage a full tibia. It was important the bone be intact to ensure his mortal soul was as robust as possible. He conjured a sack to hold the remains, then climbed out of the grave.
He grabbed the spade and began carefully lowering small piles of soil back into the hole. It wouldn't do to damage the bones. After all, he might need them again.
When he was finished, Tom cleaned up and cast an invisibility charms. Then, he wandered into the village square.
The town looked very different since he had last been here more than sixty years ago. The streets were wide and evenly-paved. The muggle stores were much larger and shinier, and looked like cheesy copies of each other. Though it was late, there were a few Muggles walking around, wearing similar clothes to the ones Hermione had lent him. It all looked very odd.
Tom came across a shop called Xtra-vision, with a large, flashing red and yellow sign. Peering into the window, he discovered that Muggles had figured out something close to magical photographs. The moving pictures were displayed on a thick black box.
Tom closely watched one of the photographs. It was a sappy story about a golden retriever that died. The image of the dog brought up a strange sensation, a tight feeling in his chest. He walked away.
For nearly an hour after Tom stormed out of her flat, Hermione lay curled up on the carpet, clutching her wand to her chest as if it might vanish.
Every time she closed her eyes, Hermione could see Bellatrix standing above her, the witch's wild black hair electric with Dark magic.
Hermione had never really talked about what happened that day. After escaping the Manor, the trio had been so focused on winning the war and staying alive that there had been no time to process. Then after the Battle, it had felt wrong to complain when so many had not been as lucky as she to survive.
So Hermione had decided to push it away. She went back to Hogwarts, got a Ministry job, moved in with Ron, and moved on with her life. It seemed like it would be enough.
But here she was.
Eventually, Hermione found the strength to lift her trembling body off the floor.
She took a deep breath. There was work to be done.
With a wave of her wand, Hermione began to rebuild the wards around her flat. She perfected every minuscule thread of magical weaving shielding the room. After she was done, not allow a single soul would be allowed to enter without Hermione's explicit permission.
When she was satisfied that her wards were sufficiently strong, she went to the bathroom to wash her face.
These days, Hermione was constantly startled by her reflections. It was like looking at a stranger. Her brown eyes seemed wistful, silently screaming all the heavy secrets she was keeping.
She splashed her face, wishing she could erase them like the day's makeup.
Hermione was rattled, more than she wanted to admit to herself. Voldemort had been able to physically overpower her. Without magic, it was just man against woman. She hasn't stood a chance.
And then, there was the powerful psychic merging that had occurred right after. Hermione was certain it wasn't legilimency. Even if Tom had been capable of wandless magic in his incorporeal state, Hermione was a highly skilled Occlumens. She had been required to carry out a rigorous Ministry training course just to file papers and schedule meetings in the Department of Mysteries. For someone in her line of work, Hermione felt unusually unsettled by this unknown magic.
To calm her nerves, she reviewed the plan of action as she brushed her teeth.
Tom would probably arrive around eight o'clock the following evening. They would complete the potion's final stage of brewing. When Tom drank the brew he would, according to Magia, temporarily incapacitated. Then, Hermione would kill him.
The only hitch in her scheme was that the building, by British wizarding housing law, was fortified with an anti-Dark magic framework. Any Unforgivable cast within these walls would trip off an alarm and send an instant notice to the Ministry. Though, Hermione was fairly confident she could temporarily dismantle the wards until a custodian could arrive to resurrect them.
She spat her toothpaste into the sink.
Then there was the incantation.
Hermione had been practicing the suflet stabil spell for a week now, with consistently unsatisfying results. She had attempted the incantation several times, but had thus far only been able to conjure weak flashes of magic. The long evenings Hermione had spent repeating the wandwork had ended with her collapsing on the sofa in a frustrated huff. For a perfectionist like Hermione, it was maddening.
Tonight she would not accept failure.
The witch grabbed a Muggle pencil on her coffee table and quickly scribbled out a magical memo. First thing in the morning, the note would fly into Firestone's office, informing her that Hermione was terribly sick with the flu.
Hermione perused her bookcase in search of Magia. Curiously, she noticed a missing volume in her collection. Between Robinson Crusoe and Shrubs & Trees for the Garden, there was an empty space where The Rise And Fall of the Dark Arts should have been.
Hermione shrugged, supposing she had brought it to work and left it at her desk.
When she located the old Romanian tome, Hermione flipped to suflet stabil.
The spell theory, though slightly butchered by the translation spell, was fascinating.
Souls were enigmatic things. They were held in the body, but not attached to it. When the physical body died, the soul lived on.
This spell, however, would anchor Hermione's soul to her physical form. Unlike a horcrux, it would not be split or bound to an object the mortal realm, but to her own body.
If she could cast the spell successfully, Hermione theorized it would prevent her soul from being flung out into the ether along with Voldemort's, and their bond would snap under its own weight.
Soul magic was nothing to play around with. But if nothing else, Hermione trusted her own judgement.
The witch felt a pang in her chest, realizing she would have once deliberated on something like this with Harry. Everything was different now. Hermione couldn't put him a risk, not with a new baby.
And besides, Harry was too headstrong. If they had known Tom was there, Harry and Ron would have broken down her door, wands blazing- the thought made Hermione smile to herself. But exterminating a threat as insidious as Voldemort necessitated a cool, calculated head.
Hermione raised her wand arm, carving the spell's gesture into the air. Unlike most wand movements, which were typically simple shapes, suflet stabil was a 10-sided form with intricate lines crossing through. It was imperative to draw the lines in the exact right pattern with the exact right timing.
Hermione held her breath as she delineated the pattern.
Nothing.
She tried again, raising her wand to perform the elaborate gesture.
Slowly, she felt the magic begin to surge through her arm. Hermione kept pushing, beads of sweat springing on her forehead as she pushed her magical energy out.
Hermione finished the movement with a decisive flourish, and her wand emitted a blinding pale blue flash.
Then, Hermione felt a forceful snap. She gasped as the magic rebounded on her body like a rubber band. The magic seemed to burrow into Hermione's body, searching until it found the core- something deep within her that she couldn't localize. She fell to her knees, overwhelmed by the sensation.
Instantly, Hermione was imbued with a sense of strength and groundedness that she had never felt before. She sat there on the carpet, giddy with the new feeling.
But still, she was exhausted. Hermione hauled her drained body into bed as the blue predawn light began streaming in. She would need rest for the night ahead.