Tom had been awake for entirely too long considering how much of his day would be spent without Hermione's conversation to keep his patience in check. He'd been roused in the early hours of the morning by another hazy nightmare, his heart racing and pajamas sticking to his overheated skin. He dragged himself out of bed, down to the prefects' bath, and spent a full hour surrounded by bubbles trying to will his thoughts into some semblance of order.

There was no such peace to be found, naturally. So instead he wound up in his favorite window seat in the common room writing to Hermione while she studied with her friends. She'd be going quiet for several hours soon —as it was getting close to time for her to sleep— but when she woke up later that afternoon, he'd still be without her company. The first quidditch match of the season was set to take place. The weather forecast included a drop in temperatures and heavy rain, so she wouldn't be taking their diary to the stands for risk of it getting blown out of her lap or damaged.

I couldn't miss playing less at present, he'd told her. Playing in the rain was always abysmal. Are you quite certain I can't convince you to skip the match and stay in the warm, dry, Room of Requirement with me instead?

Tempting, but I promised Harry and Draco I'd cheer for them.

She was also having her arm twisted by the remaining members of her study group.

Did I tell you that Neville asked Harry and me if he could study with us? He's nervous around the other Slytherins, but hopefully it means we won't be complete pariahs whenever Harry and I decide to switch houses.

Tom added the name Longbottom to his list of future allies in one of his other journals. Between the two of them, he imagined most of the Sacred Twenty-Eight would be on their side in her time.

Abraxas and Flynn joined him later in the day and kept him company while he waited for Hermione to wake up again. Once she was at the quidditch match, he'd probably cast vigilio servo for good measure. With her luck she'd get hit by a rogue bludger if he didn't keep an eye on her the entire game.

"I don't suppose we'll be at the game?" Flynn asked. "I'd sort of like to see how she acts around us in her time…must be an odd experience for her to deal with multiple people through time."

"You're all rather chummy," Tom said, his voice bland and not-quite committed to conveying annoyance. He remembered watching an older Flynn twirl her around in the future. "But she mentioned you two would be there for certain. I told her I'd be there if I could get away from the ministry."

"I want Slytherin to win of course, but if losing means my grandson has a chance at captain…" Flynn trailed off.

Abraxas chuckled. "I'm curious to see what position mine plays. She didn't say."

Tom checked the spellwork in the back of his diary, cursed at the time on Hermione's side, and burrowed deeper into his couch cushions. His book wasn't of enough interest, but the more O.W.L.s revision he did now, the more he could focus on Hermione before he left for the summer.

He also could have informed Abraxas that Harry and Draco were seekers for their respective houses, but he simply couldn't be bothered to extend the courtesy in his present mood.

The nightmares were getting out of hand, he realized as he stifled a yawn for the dozenth time that afternoon.

I decided not to eat in the Great Hall, bled into the diary's pages, the magical hum instantly grabbing Tom's attention. Ron looked like he was going to pick a fight again since Harry's already off getting ready for the game.

Abraxas and Flynn noticed Tom lunge for his diary with no warning. They came to the same conclusion when he immediately summoned a quill. Neither said a word, though Abraxas was shaking his head as he returned to his studies. Flynn wondered if Tom had any idea how much he relaxed when he wrote to her, but decided against trying to convey such thoughts aloud.

Did you get food at least? Tom asked her. The last thing we need is for you to become a dementor's lunch because you're too weak to fight it off.

I ran into Floren. He's hiding too and he has snacks.

Tom's brows knit together. "Vigilio servo."

Abraxas and Flynn glanced up at the wall in surprise as Hermione and Flynn's future grandson came into view. The pair were tucked out of sight in an alcove that provided them shelter from the wind sweeping through the halls, stirring up dust beside them. Tom could only assume they'd cast warming charms, since neither seemed uncomfortable on the stone bench they shared. Between them was a handkerchief with steaming pasties, biscuits, and chips.

"Are you really not going to tell me how you got the house elves to give you all this?" Hermione asked.

Floren Avery flashed her a grin while he chewed on a chip. "If my grandfather doesn't teach you by the time I graduate, I'll enlighten you, deal?"

Dove scoffed. "Two years of asking a Slytherin for snack- related favors? Sounds like a good way to rack up debt."

Floren chuckled. "We look out for our own, little bird. But since you mentioned it, I'll accept answers as payment."

Hermione flashed him a dark look that did nothing to dampen the amusement in his eyes. "The only person who knows what the future holds is Tom and I don't know how he does it."

Floren rolled his eyes. "Not those sorts of answers, Granger. For example, today I'm mostly wondering why you're hiding from your housemates."

Hermione seemed to relax in some ways and tense in others as she processed his question. "I…didn't realize how uncomfortable it was without Harry around. We stay together, you know? Unless I'm upstairs, of course. Neither of us is really comfortable on our own anymore, but it rarely happens, so I figured I'd just avoid the rest of the house until the game."

Floren gave her a calculating sort of stare as he leisurely ate his chips. "I know the thought of switching probably gives you both a lot of anxiety, but…we're trying to make adjustments within Slytherin so that it's not quite so…abrasive…whenever you two choose to join us. Draco and Theo are doing most of the heavy lifting, if I'm honest. One wrong word about you and they start throwing their surnames around like knives. I do more…damage control, let's say. Especially with the upper years who have a better understanding of what it means for Lord Riddle to have singled you out for a sponsorship. It won't be a seamless transition, but hopefully it's easier."

"You lot aren't getting in trouble, right?" she asked. "Because it's not worth it, as much as I appreciate it."

Floren shrugged. "I'm keeping them out of trouble," he said. "When I can, at least. Snape usually swoops in and takes a small sum of housepoints if arguments get heated in the common room. Prefects are encouraged to do the same. It's temporary, anyhow, since some other drama will likely invent itself and everyone will forget you weren't in Slytherin from the start."

Tom tuned out their conversation as they switched to discussing the upcoming match. He wasn't overly pleased with her choice of company even if Flynn's grandson had ensured she ate. The boy had Flynn's naturally flirtatious manners, which earned him easy smiles from Hermione while they sat together. He recognized the spark of interest in the boy's eyes, all too similar to Flynn's when he started to take interest in a new witch.

Had her Knight of Pentacles found her already? Tom hoped not. He already hated how much he had to share her with her friends, given how much homework she had to juggle on top of spending time in the room of requirement.

Trust Flynn to have the annoying grandson instead of Abraxas.

Tom successfully distracted himself from the playful conversation happening in two-thousand-thirteen until the pair started to say their goodbyes. Hermione asked if Floren would be at the quidditch match.

"I think I'll pretend to be Gryffindor for the day, actually," he said with a wink. "Don't fancy watching my teammates fail because the captain's incompetent if I'm honest, love. Besides, Draco's gonna moan about it in the common room all night anyway, I won't miss anything."

Hermione's brows knit in sympathy. "If the season goes poorly enough, d'you think they'll give you captain?"

Floren shrugged, looking for all the world unconcerned except for the tightness around his eyes. "Maybe. Maybe not. It's less important than being a prefect in the grand scheme of things. Don't freeze to death cheering Potter and my cousin on, alright?"

"I'll do my best," she promised, pulling her scarf closer as she left the safety of their alcove.

Tom paid half attention to her side of time as she ran up to Gryffindor tower to drop off her bag and their diary. She was already wearing her charmed quidditch kit, which Tom realized he'd never explained when Abraxas asked him how she managed to walk through the Gryffindor common room in a Slytherin quidditch shirt without getting harassed.

"They see it in her house colors," he said. "If you know her well enough, you'll see her in the house colors she should be wearing."

Brax's appreciation for the charmwork was clear in his expression. "Does she know how it was done?"

Tom shrugged. "No idea, but she's supposed to come up here after the game, so you can ask her then. Otherwise, I'll have to tell her I mentioned the shirt to you and convince her to wear it up here another time."

She layered a Gryffindor cardigan under her raincoat for extra warmth before she left to join the crowds of students heading for the pitch. When she finally made it outside, the Longbottom boy spotted her in the crowd and made his way to her side.

"Hullo, Hermione."

She grinned at him, shivering in the wind. "Hey, Neville. Wanna help me find Theo and Tracey?"

The boy returned her grin shyly and agreed, though their search was over quickly. Theodore and Tracey were waiting off to the side, scanning the crowd. Tracey waved her arms, smiling brightly at the pair as the four joined forces.

"There you are!" Tracey said brightly. "Hello again, Longbottom. Sitting with us?"

"If it's alright," Neville replied, despite Hermione rolling her eyes and tugging him along the stairs by his sleeve.

"Granger's decided it's fine," Theo said dryly. "Even numbers should keep all of our housemates off our backs, anyhow."

"Ignore him, his manners are deplorable," Hermione told Neville, causing the boy to laugh quietly.

They arrived early enough to get decent seats, huddled together even as the wind started to pick up.

"What abysmal weather for the first quidditch match of the season," Flynn muttered.

Tom hummed his agreement as a misty drizzle started to fall around her. By the time the game started properly, her face was tight with discomfort from the cold. After half an hour of failing to focus on homework, he noted that she was shivering. When the wind began to blow harder, the drizzling long since turned into a full downpour, she blinked against the rain being blown into her face.

But somehow she was often beaming as she squinted into the spray and the dark overcast skies to track the players, immune to the droning noise of her excited classmates around her. Tracey was holding her right arm, with Theodore and Neville behind them and slightly to the sides, helping shield the girls from the wind and rain, it seemed. Or attempting to, at any rate. The downpour worsened with the harsh wind orchestrating its ceaseless onslaught.

Tom was surprised they were continuing to play in such weather, but he'd yet to notice any lightning. Then again, strong winds had unseated more quidditch players than lightning, at least from a historical perspective. They really were taking chances that none of the players would get knocked out of the sky.

The wind gusted suddenly, spraying Hermione's entire section of the stands face-on with rain for a moment. The chill and water made her gasp, sputtering as she shivered harder and tried to wipe her face. Behind her, Theo cursed and complained that they hadn't yet been taught a warming charm strong enough to make the match bearable. Hermione was shivering too hard to reply but nodded emphatically as she and Tracey pressed even closer into each other's sides.

Tom's eyes narrowed. Their diary was in her dorm, safely tucked away in her trunk, so he couldn't teach her the charm she needed to chase her chills away.

"You're going to get sick," he muttered gruffly to the wall.

His annoyance, worsened by his lack of sleep, was too strong of a distraction to let him make any progress on his school work. Something uncomfortable stirred in his chest, bringing the whispers of his dreams back to the forefront of his mind. He'd pushed the unpleasant thoughts away with success all day, but now, naturally, she was preventing him from doing so.

Desperate to distract himself from the chills of discomfort crawling up his spine, he instead tried to focus on cataloging the expressions she made: pinched discomfort in her face from the elements warred with excitement and worry. Sometimes a relaxed humor he never saw in the Room would steel across her eyes in response to something Theodore would say. Warm, twinkling grins at Neville that almost made him forget she was at risk of catching her death at a cold, wet Quidditch match in October.

But naturally, risking pneumonia couldn't be the most exciting thing about her morning, could it?

Tom zoned back into the rest of the scene on the wall when the crowds around her started screaming, staring up at the sky in horror. Dread and abject terror consumed Hermione and her friends.

"The fuck?" Abraxas asked.

The way she screamed Harry's name echoed into Tom's bones, radiating deeper and deeper until he could almost smell seafoam again and—

He jerked, almost pulling a muscle in his neck as he shifted into a slightly more comfortable position on his sofa.

"Draco caught him!" Tracey yelled— her, Theo, and Neville looked relieved despite the continued anxiety around them. Tom heard several disembodied voices frantically asking if those were dementors they were seeing in the sky and his stomach sank down to his toes.

"Dementors again?" Flynn asked. "Why the hell are these things still at the bloody school?!"

Tom had no answers. Hermione's eyes were tracking something he couldn't see, worrying her lips as she flicked her eyes to, he assumed, Harry and Draco in the pitch, then back out to whatever she could see that he couldn't.

Tom could hear the faraway echoes of waves crashing against a rocky shore as dread crawled over his skin.

"Don't be a hero," he muttered weakly. "Whatever you're thinking, Dove, don't."

But she was going to, because she couldn't hear him and had apparently lost her sodding mind without him realizing it.

"I'll be back!" She told her friends. Around them, panicking students were starting to flee the stands. "Stay together! Draco's probably going to stay near his grandfather. If I'm not back in ten minutes, get Tom!"

Flynn groaned. "Birdie, no."

"Are you mental?" Theo asked. Tom was grateful that someone was saying the words where she could actually hear them. "Where the hell are you going?"

"There's no time!" she said. "I'll be careful!"

She ran from her friends, presumably towards whatever she noticed in the sky beyond their field of vision.

"Is this why the hat put her in Gryffindor?" Abraxas asked. "Because her self-preservation is underdeveloped?"

"I presume," Tom murmured. If she chose to challenge a dementor, especially given her recent close call with one, he might just strangle her when he saw her next. Assuming she didn't get herself bloody killed by not following her friends out of the stands.

They watched Hermione reach the narrow top landing of the turret she'd chosen to climb. The entire pitch, including the turret, was being ravaged by winds that might've blown her off the edge if she hadn't held fast to the nearest banister while getting her balance.

"If she survives this, I might kill her," Tom said, his jaw clenched painfully tight as the turret swayed and creaked under her feet.

She was afraid of heights and flying on a perfectly safe broom, but scaling a rickety old tower in the middle of a violent storm?

Tom had just decided that she was absolutely relearning how to fly whether she wanted to or not as he heard Abraxas inhale sharply. "Dementors."

She was still holding the banister for support, but the rain freezing on the wood had quietly turned into sleet, beginning to coat everything in clear ice and slush. At the same time, Hermione's squinting gaze widened with relief as she seemed to spot whatever she was looking for. "Accio Harry's broom!"

She released the banister to sprint around to another corner of the thin catwalk, resulting in several other events taking place almost too quickly after the other for Tom to process.

As one of her steps landed, the sleet transitioned into small pieces of hail and clumps of snow. Then the rest of the water around her, most of which was pooling in the worn wood beneath her feet, began to freeze at too unnatural of a speed for it to be blamed on the weather, trailing in her wake. Hermione was too focused on her self-assigned mission to notice the continued drop in temperature.

Behind her, he could see the rest of the pitch. Students on the far side were almost fully out of the stands. The gusting wind was too loud to make it out clearly, but Tom recognized the hollow, airy rattle that had joined the whistling of the wind.

Why wasn't he already there saving her? Why couldn't his future self save her before the dementors got too close again? Where were Abraxas and Flynn in her time, if they were at the game?

She was halfway between corners when the last of her luck ran out. He could tell by her posture that she was planning to jump, presumably to grab the broom she'd summoned. A broom she felt the need to risk her safety for. The quickly spreading ice had overtaken her stride between steps. The foot she was about to plant and propel herself upwards with was going to land on a puddle that had just frozen solid beneath her.

Time.

Slowed.

Down.

Sound was gone, except for the vibration in his ears. Tom couldn't do anything but watch her foot slowly come down on the ice. A thousand spells sat like lead on top of his tongue, but it wouldn't matter what charm he cast, none of them could reach her. And his older self was nowhere to be seen.

Her trainers met the ice with just enough momentum to throw her backwards. Tom helplessly watched her fall, unaware that he was slightly trembling from the agony of his temporal-induced uselessness.

Her hips hit the freshly formed sheet of ice first. Then her back and shoulders. He hadn't noticed that the wind had blown her hood down until her hair fanned out on the ice — providing the illusion of cushioning her head on impact.

He didn't hear her head hit the ice, but his body must've felt it because he flinched into the cushions he could barely feel. His world went white around the edges.

Wake up.

She didn't move. Her stillness made him aware of a faint burning sensation in his chest that he couldn't place.

Wake up.

He saw the edge of a dementor, circling, before another swooped in to feed off her for seconds too long for his liking. Only then did her eyelids flutter, opening sluggishly.

A dark trail of crimson seeped from under her hair, brilliantly vibrant against her neck as she slowly tried to move her head — wincing with a quiet groan that brought all the sound rushing back into his ears.

"Come on, Birdie, get up," Flynn whispered, his voice somewhere to Tom's right.

She was trying to. Her self-preservation had, it seemed, decided to show itself far too late. Her unfocused eyes pinched with pain as she jerkily rolled onto her side.

He could still only really see her, could only hear what was going on around her, but the rattle he'd noticed before was louder. There were more of them. If that horrid rattling sound and the ever-accumulating frost closing in on her were any indications, the dementors had begun to circle her. The small pool of blood left behind on the ice froze once she moved out of it, searing the sight of crystallized crimson into his vision.

She crawled towards the banister near the top of the stairs as fast as she seemed capable of moving, which was far from quick enough to avoid yet another dementor snatching a taste of her happiness when her shaking legs almost dared to support her weight. The attack sent her back to her knees, swaying unsteadily as she fought to keep her eyes from rolling back into her head.

The burning sensation worsened.

Keep moving.

She dragged herself along the rest of the railing, only daring to stand again when she reached the banister closest to the pitch. He started trying to think of ways she could safely get down and away from the increasing hoard of dementors around her, when another flew up, blocking her view of the pitch entirely as it too leached away another piece of her.

She fell forward, towards it, and the old wood of the railing was frozen enough to be fragile. Half her body weight fell toward the offending dementor and into the banister, snapping it clean away from the rest of the wood as she plummeted from one danger into the next.

Tom's vision blurred, tilted, then came back when he inhaled sharply. His chest was on fire, like he'd been suffocating. He blinked, the fiery sensation stinging in his eyes too as he forced himself to breathe through the pain, barely registering that the wood falling with her vanished as he watched her doomed downward spiral.

He didn't piece together what he was seeing until a spell hit her back from below, slowing her descent, and he watched her land in the arms of his older self. Watched himself hold her against his chest.

In parseltongue, his adult self was quickly muttering healing incantations Tom didn't recognize, but the half-frozen river of blood slowly flowing around her neck and below her shirt collar began to move backward, as if the life force was being called back to her body to heal itself.

He was cradling her unconscious form, her cheek laid gently against his shoulder, his own bent over her hair, spells whispered to the bow of her black hair scarf as he adjusted his hold under her knees. They were crouched in the stands, which looked notably warmer compared to the frozen turret she'd been on an eternity of a moment ago, though the rain remained unrelenting. His dark robes and hair were sodden, skin dotted with droplets just like Dove's now that she was warm enough for some of the sleet and ice in her hair to thaw.

Despite the apparent newfound safety, his older self balanced the weight of her lower half on one knee and summoned his wand. Tom watched his own expression darken with icy fury as his wand pointed skywards, bright white light already gleaming from the tip. It wasn't Tom's familiar basilisk Patronus that raced in the air to ward off the dementors still intending to chase their current target, however — it was a young fox.

Brighter than any basilisk Tom summoned since he mastered the spell earlier that year, his future patronus leapt into the sky beyond the boundaries of vigilio servo, and Tom could faintly hear the distressed, hollow wails of the dementors as they began to flee.

"If you can hear me, Dove, I'm taking you to St. Mungo's. I have you. Try to stay awake for me if you still are, alright? I'm right here."

His older self tucked his wand away, hooked his arm back under her legs, and began a brisk pace out of the stands.

"Surely she'll be alright," Abraxas said quietly. Tom had forgotten the boys were even in the room with him again, barely managing not to flinch when Brax spoke. "We couldn't prevent it because we remembered it happening, right?"

Tom wasn't sure he could speak yet, his chest still ached, so he only nodded in response as they watched his older self carry Hermione. Near the base of the stands, the elder Abraxas was standing with Draco, Theo, Tracey, and Neville, all of whom were refusing to get out of the rain without Hermione.

"So we're all immortal, huh?" Flynn said under his breath. "We should talk about that once she's better."

Abraxas murmured his agreement, but they both shut up again when Draco saw she was unconscious. The boy seemed at risk of being sick. "Poppy…" he said. "Is...is she alright?"

"She will be, Dragon," Abraxas the elder answered gently, giving Tom's adult self a brisk nod when they made eye contact. "Nearest floo is open, mate. Flynn's with Dumbledore and the heads of houses resecuring the wards. Prefects are manning the rest of the students. Sent Sirius and Harry ahead to Nott already. Focus on Birdie, we've got things here."

"You know your orders," Tom the elder said rigidly as he continued past them without pause. His pace didn't slow, remaining smooth as he crossed the distance between the pitch and the castle. He passed two empty classrooms, though the door to the third was open and had a steadily blazing fire in the hearth.

A small pouch levitated out of his pocket and dumped floo powder into the fire as he approached.

"St. Mungo's Hospital, Dai Llewellyn Ward, Nott's Office."

"Shocker you didn't make him eternally young," Abraxas muttered when the green faded to reveal a spacious, tidy office, and a familiar if not notably older wizard standing behind the desk.

"There you are," Theron said dryly. "Theater three is ready for her. We might as well go together, as keen as I'm sure you are to have her out of sight."

"You'll have plenty of time to be an arsehole after you heal her," Tom replied darkly. "You have additional orders as well."

Theron led Tom down the bland white halls to an operating theater where two mediwitches dressed in sterile robes awaited their arrival.

"Lay her down on her side, then let me do my job. And take your privacy invasion spell with you."

"And the research project I gave you?" Tom pressed.

"I'll try the spell I found while she's back here and let you know."

When he left the room, vigilio servo followed Tom's older self instead of staying trained on Hermione.

"How the hell?" Tom muttered, finally finding his voice again. "I don't care what I'm doing! In what world would I leave her in Nott's care unsupervised?!"

"He's chief of the ward," Abraxas said. "There was a placard on his desk."

Tom stared, unfocused, as his older self turned down a nearby hall and slipped into one of the rooms. Tucked into a stark-white hospital bed, Harry seemed to be sleeping soundly. Beside him was a rugged-looking wizard Tom didn't recognize, but his older self did.

"How's yours?" Tom asked. "Mostly unscathed?"

"Mostly," the other man replied gruffly. His eyes were red, jaw tight with tears that looked on the verge of starting again. "Earlier, Malfoy said you'd be around, but didn't say why. I couldn't really focus on anything but Harry once I realized why Draco was racing to catch him. Might have to buy the little brat a Quidditch team for Christmas."

"It was a good catch," Tom agreed. "Abraxas, of course, encouraged Narcissa to allow Draco's quidditch training to incorporate more dangerous aerial maneuvers at a younger age."

The other man snorted. "At your insistence, I'm sure."

"Didn't have to. We watched this happen."

Understanding washed over the other man's gaze as he nodded slowly. "Still haven't told me what you're doing here. I would've thought you'd be busy keeping Hermione from losing her mind worrying about this one." He inclined his head towards Harry.

Tom watched his older self's features tighten. "Sirius, surely you've deduced by now that if your trouble magnet gets hurt, then mine's nearly gotten herself killed by comparison."

Sirius's eyes widened with anger and fear. Tom cast a quick silencing charm around Harry before the wizard raised his voice. "What do you mean she almost got herself killed!?"

Tom sighed and leaned against the far wall, his expression blandly displeased. "She decided that, given his incapacitated state, Harry needed her to go retrieve his broom in his stead. That way he wouldn't have to ask you for a replacement. She knew he'd worry that needing to ask you for something as expensive as a broom after getting so many presents for his birthday would make him uncomfortable. Especially given their boggart situation. She wanted to spare him the guilt of asking you for something that significant. And I'm sure he'd be worried about you thinking him irresponsible despite the circumstances, et cetera."

"I can buy a thousand brooms," Sirius groaned "I can't buy him a new best friend."

"We know that. She didn't think she'd get hurt. Fully believed her plan would inconvenience her less than Harry's guilt would trouble him and set back your burgeoning relationship progress. So naturally, she climbs a turret, gets swarmed by half a hoard of dementors, slips, hits her head, and nearly gets herself Kissed into a soulless waste of existence before plummeting off of said turret in fate's hail-mary of an attempt to put her in an early grave."

"Tell me you caught her," Sirius hissed.

Tom rolled his eyes. "Of course I fucking caught her, Black. You think I'd choose not to do the one thing I could do in this situation? Honestly."

Sirius exhaled a shuddering breath and all but fell back into the chair he'd planted beside Harry's bed. "How the hell are you holding it together right now if she nearly died today?"

Tom's grin was sardonic and didn't reach the flatness in his eyes. "Don't exactly have a choice, do I?"

"So, what, fifty years ago you and Malfoy and Avery were just watching Nott heal her, then?"

"No. I took over Vigilio, so I'm stuck following myself around until I set it back to her."

Sirius shot him a look. "Sometimes I forget how complicated the charmwork you're capable of really is. Then you casually tell me things like how you took control over a spell your younger self cast fifty years ago, like it's just some normal bit of magic."

Tom shrugged. "Surely you've noticed Brax's hard-on for charms and transfiguration. There's an endless list of reasons I keep him and Flynn around."

Sirius shook his head. "Yeah and not a single one is sentimental, right? Not that you'd ever admit to at least."

"No," Tom said with a weak smirk. "I wouldn't. But Dove's fond of them, so I couldn't off them anyway. She'd be, at a bare minimum, immensely cross with me for taking such liberties."

Sirius shook his head, smiling. "Merlin forbid."

Tom raised a brow. "Have you ever seen her angry? Because I have. She may be small, but she's downright vicious when provoked. Sinister even."

"She's gonna be alright then?" Sirius asked pointedly. "Figured you'd have already started burning the world to the ground if she wasn't."

Tom snorted, but looked away. "Nott will be done healing her soon. She'll be a few doors down the hall. Abraxas and Flynn will help me keep an eye on her while she sleeps, to monitor the effects of her head injury."

"And…?"

"And I can't tell you more than that with me listening."

Sirius grimaced considering their additional audience. "Just how nosey were you in school?"

"I watched her flirt with death twice within a month of creating vigilio servo," Tom said. "What started as a desire to keep my favorite Knight safe quickly began to seem like a necessary vigil As long as I could see things happening, I could take notes and ensure I'd be equipped with a detailed plan for her survival when time repeated itself."

"Fair enough," said Sirius. "So you just have to wait for Nott to finish healing her then?"

Tom nodded, his expression equal parts tired and annoyed. "Essent—"

The door opened abruptly, catching Tom and Sirius off guard. In the doorway stood a furious Abraxas and just behind him a similarly tense Flynn, with their combined anxiety swirling around them like a whirlpool—the maelstrom eddying toward the room's occupants, willing them into the pull of its conflicting currents.

"How much have you already changed?" Abraxas demanded.

In nineteen-sixty-three, Tom, Abraxas, and Flynn all shared a confused glance but remained silent.

Tom the elder's surprise faded into resigned fatigue. "Enough, considering you shouldn't be here yet."

Sirius glanced between the three in confusion. "What do you mean he shouldn't be here yet? I thought the three of you were constantly trying to prevent changes to the timeline?"

"Have we told you about the notes she sometimes sends us across time?" Tom asked. "From future-Hermione, a version of her existing further down the chronology of this timeline? No? Well, she's sent us notes from the future for years. Mostly to these two idiots, and very rarely to myself until recently. She sent me instructions a few weeks ago saying she'd figured out how to change...a rather catastrophic series of events that would've occurred next year. Before I finished seventh year, we searched for a way to alter the aforementioned event without destroying our timeline, but there were no viable methods to alter a timeline that substantially. Apparently, two years after finishing school herself, she figured out a way to alter time. I wasn't planning to tell any of the Knights about the alterations yet, so I can only presume she sent Abraxas and Flynn instructions of their own. I also assume she was informing them that I was acting under her direction…" He sent an inquiring glance towards the doorway, getting confirmation from Flynn's stiff nod.

"Kind of you to leave out the part where if this fails, this timeline ceases to exist, and we all die," Abraxas said harshly. "Have you both gone completely mental? The timeline could destabilize today if you follow her instructions."

Tom nodded slowly, his eyes trained on the floor. "She said it won't."

"How does she know that?"

Tom, once again, shrugged. "I neither know nor care. She says she found a way to fix things and she wouldn't lie about something this dangerous."

"She would if she still has a death wish," Abraxas countered. "Or had you not considered that two years after graduation she could still be shattered enough to be suicidal?"

The words made Tom flinch and clench his jaw. "You know why I have to take that risk, Abraxas."

Abraxas sighed with so much force that it should've released all the frustration from his body, but some remained when he re-fixed his now resigned expression on Tom. "Whatever side project you gave Nott behind our backs isn't going to work," he said tightly. "She said you have to do it."

Tom's head jerked up in abject horror. "It has to. What are you on about?"

It was Abraxas' turn to shrug. "I don't know what you told him to do, Tom, so how the hell would I know?"

Behind him, Flynn made a derisive sound in frustration. "Did the obscurus form today? Is that what this is about?"

Abraxas paled, staring hard at Tom, who was already nodding. "Remember that darkness in her aura when she was a third-year?"

"That was the obscurus?!" Abraxas asked in shock. "It forms this bloody early?"

Tom shook his head. "The beginnings of it have been in place since she was small, but the...the seed of it has been growing more steadily since she first arrived at Hogwarts. All the added mental and emotional trauma this year has strengthened its volatility. It likely would have remained dormant in her mind until her magic matured fully and purged it without additional intervention. But we have to get it out of her head today, before she wakes up. If she wakes up and remembers the last few hours, she'll wind up in a negative thought-spiral that will feed and anchor a fully formed obscurus to her insecurities and anxieties. Even though her magic won't be in the necessary state for the obscurus to physically manifest until—"

"—fourth year," Flynn and Abraxas finished with him.

"Exactly," Tom confirmed. "That's why Theron has to do it today."

"You, you mean," Abraxas corrected. "She said the spell will only work for you."

Tom cursed. "I'm not the one with four degrees in mediwizardry."

"Her magic knows yours though, doesn't it?" Flynn chimed. "Didn't the parselmagic ritual thing take root on her birthday? Doesn't her magic recognize your magical signature now?"

A sea of emotions stormed over Tom's face until defeat finally won out. "The obscurus was born out of her magical core...she has no familial or magical connection to Theron so her magic will fight against his in assumed defense from something this magically invasive — Fuck!"

"So we can't let her wake up, right?" Flynn continued. "Which theater are they in?"

"Three," Tom said. "Tell Theron that if he wakes her up, he'll spend the rest of my life begging me to end his."

Flynn shot him a quick, lifeless grin. "With pleasure."

"How do we do this?" Abraxas asked as Flynn walked away. "How do we fix this?"

"She's set our course," Tom murmured. "We keep her unconscious and remove that Merlin-be-damned parasite. She said the timeline won't destabilize until...other events are affected by the changes I've set in place and start to unfold. As long as we don't mess this up, we're in the clear for a while."

"I understand none of this," Sirius declared from across the room. "Not fully anyway. But if you have the opportunity to prevent her from becoming an obscurial of all things, then you should definitely take it. And if she's found a way to keep this universe or whatever intact...well, I don't think any of us know another witch who has even half a chance of managing that bit."

Tom and Abraxas shared a resigned stare. "You should've told us, mate," said the latter. "We would've helped."

"Before or after you wasted time trying to stop me?" Tom asked blandly.

Abraxas winced. "Fair. Still. We've been with you since the beginning. Birdie made us take our oaths, but we'd have been here regardless. You know that."

"I didn't have time for the fight," Tom said. "But if I get any future change orders that don't explicitly tell me not to bring you into the loop, I'll be sure to share them."

Abraxas rolled his eyes. "Cheers. Come on. Let's wait for Birdie and Theron while we figure out how the hell we're going to keep the obscurus from going right back into her head once it's out."

After scrubbing his hands over his face, Sirius addressed Tom once more. "Good luck. When she is awake, I'd like to know. I need to talk to her and Harry, separately and together, I think."

"You do," Tom affirmed as he passed Abraxas and made for the room's exit. "One of us will get you. Harry's fine. Have a kip, if you can manage it. If I don't disembowel Theron, you can ask him for a calming draught."

"You're a lot calmer in the future, even when you're stressed," fifth-year Abraxas said from across the coffee table. "It's...weird watching us talk about changing the timeline when I get the sense that what we're watching isn't what our future selves remember about today. But...if she really has an obscurus right now, then I hope we can get rid of it."

"We have to," Tom announced numbly. "An obscurus could kill her. I'm struggling to accept that there's a version of our future where we don't remove it."

"I'm admittedly confused," Flynn said. "But…the sooner we heal her, the sooner she comes back to the school right?

If she didn't come back, Tom couldn't give her the necklace, and if he couldn't give her the necklace then she could get hurt again. The sight of her laying limp in his older self's arms, blood painted on one side of her neck where it slowly trailed down from her head, was burned into his eyes, stirring up long-buried memories of the orphanage. Of bashes to the back of his head, copper flooding his mouth from a bitten tongue, and nausea from a blow to the stomach.

He was all too familiar with the particular brand of pain and helplessness she'd experienced today. It was a connection he didn't rejoice in sharing with her. It made him want to vomit, set things on fire, and hide her from their enemies until he could eradicate every last one from existence. Until he could prevent them from tainting her life more than they already had.

Tom hadn't even considered that she could be at risk of getting seriously hurt if his older self was present, but he now knew that wasn't the case. Clearly he couldn't prevent her from knowing pain, or suffering, in the capacity he'd planned to. Maybe he couldn't always keep her out of harm's way, but at least if she was wearing the necklace she'd have something.

He reached a hand into his pocket, threading the chain of her necklace around his fingers as both versions of himself waited for Theron to finish healing Hermione. Tom hoped that this awful, maddening series of events would give credence to Abraxas and Flynn's belief that Hermione would wear the necklace and leave it on at his request, without any sort of force being necessary.

Then again, with how danger-prone she was turning out to be, Tom was still inclined to make the necklace impossible to remove unless he took it off her himself, rather than trusting her at her word to leave it on. If he was staring at the consequences of such a risk, then he certainly wasn't inclined to take it.


A/N: Hiya gang, sorry for the wait. I hesitated with dropping this chapter for a while bc Tom is giving me headaches in 57 and I didn't wanna leave you guys on this hectic of a cliffhanger without knowing exactly when I'd be updating again. But then I remembered that you guys are the best and know how to remind me to/ask for updates without being rude (you're often very funny and supportive, which I appreciate immensely *hearts*) so I said screw it and decided an update was long overdue.

I'm no longer with my former roommate (that situation was...special), but my bestie of 17 years moved up here and helped me get into our current apartment. Its a cluster of a complex (yay American housing :/) but still better than what I had going on before. Now if I could get steady hours at my job, that'd be excellent, but I'm always job hunting for better situations. Help me manifest some prosperity, yeah? ;)

As always, you guys can find/reach me on my socials (twitter [I mean "X" -eyeroll-] and tumblr). I'm very terrible at staying active on social media but I do have notifications for tags and DMs. Love you guys as always! xoxoxo