Note:

Sorry for the long wait! And another reminder that this fic is being uploaded on AO3 as well (which I personally prefer) and next chapter is soon.

On the day of her Defence Against the Dark Arts exam, she had a dream.

She was running through the Forbidden Forest, her hair blowing free behind her. The trees swayed, trembling as she ran past. The earth beneath her feet rolled and cracked. The air was thick and smoky, vibrating with a crackling energy that swept into her lungs and filled her with excitement.

The Forest was dark but she felt no fear.

She flew over rocks and roots, her hands trailing the leaves and branches. Joyous.

A warm wind whipped around her ankles, billowing her robes. Somewhere, distantly, a voice called to her, speaking of debts and blood and sacrifice. Shadows slithered over roots in the darkness beyond the trees.

When she woke up, it was dawn. The sheets were twisted around her legs and she kicked them away, panting. The sun had just begun to crest over the Great Lake, bleeding into the cold sky.

She shivered uneasily.

The Defence exam was unusually difficult. Cruel even. The questions were demanding, unrelenting. Precise recall of the textbooks was required, along with a thorough practical component canvassing jinxes, hexes and shields. However, the real curveball was reserved for the final component of the exam. A few students burst into tears after they failed to correctly identify the curse afflicting the object before them: a silver comb, lying innocuously on a bed of dark velvet inside its glass dome. They were allowed to cast one spell only, of their choice, to help them answer the question. The details of what would happen if a person touched it (and combed their hair with it) were given in the paper. Given such a description, what curse was it likely to be? Were there any notable case studies of this curse in recent history? 30 marks.

The exam took four hours in total.

By the end of it, there was an unmistakeable air of despondency that had descended down upon the students. There was no chatter in the halls as they left the exam room; no one was eager to share their answers, ask how everyone else did. Hermione had also found the exam exhausting and she fretted slightly over whether she had settled on the right curse but in the end she had at least finished the paper on time, with a few minutes to spare to check over some of her other answers. The only other student to put their quill down before four o'clock was Tom Riddle, who sat two rows in front of her.

Needless to say, after the exam, the mood in the Gryffindor common room was bleak. Apparently Professor Volanthen had not been kind to the other years either. James flung open the portrait door and stormed in, his hair sticking up wildly in every direction. He flung himself down onto the couch next to Sirius, muttering darkly about what he'd like to do to a certain white-haired dragon-cloaked professor. Sirius was quiet, lounging in his seat, his feet propped on the table. Brows furrowed, he looked mutinous as he twirled his wand between his fingers.

Hermione couldn't take the brooding silence a minute longer. So she left and went to the Room of Requirement.

She had her own research to do. Stacks of aged scrolls and weathered books lay before her as she sat cross-legged on her favourite couch in the Room. The book, the one where she had learned that darn shield charm, was in her lap. It was old, the pages were fragile and singed in some places. The binding was hanging by a thread. There was also a sense of tingling magic emanating from the book itself, which she tried hard to ignore. Because it probably meant that the book was, well, not that safe. It was too late to think about that now, not when she'd used a spell from it already, without considering the consequences. Riddle had read these too, presumably. She didn't think he would have found that book with the Offocare curse anywhere else.

Besides, it wasn't the first time she'd read illicit books in the Room. She wondered how they got there. Some of them had clearly come from personal libraries judging from the faded inscriptions in the front end-papers. Old pureblood families - Avery Archives, Burke Family Library. Another reminder of their privilege. Obnoxious prats like Malfoy had access to books like these and probably so much more. (Hermione had to work hard to repress the sudden roil of jealousy that licked up her insides, like dark flames.)

Anyway, since Riddle was being a tight-lipped arsehole, she would have to figure out the price she'd paid by herself. It had to be in the book, right?

"You're hogging the Room."

She knew who it was before she turned around.

"Hardly. Vol-au-vent?" She waved a hand and a plate stacked with those delicious savoury pastries zoomed towards him.

"Get out, it's my turn." He took a vol-au-vent nonetheless.

"Hm. 'Whoever is first may use the room', didn't we agree? I was first. Ergo, you leave."

Riddle stiffened angrily in her periphery.

She didn't look up from her book. "Or, you can take one of the couches over there," she gestured to the other side of the room, "and leave me be."

"I don't share."

"Well, I don't mind – sharing. I'm generous like that."

"What are you reading?"

"None of your business."

"You still haven't figured it out." It was an assumption but all the more annoying because it was true.

Hermione sighed, closing the book. She stood up crossly and swiped a vol-au-vent from the plate. The plate which he was now using as his own to prevent his crumbs spilling on the floor.

"What did you ask the Room before you came in?" she asked, suddenly curious.

"Same thing you asked for, obviously." He looked at her as if she was stupid.

"Which was?" she asked with a saintly amount of patience.

"A place to study …"

"… and to get away from everyone else," she finished, raising an eyebrow pointedly.

He gestured at her. "Clearly not since you are here."

She chewed thoughtfully and then decided to use the opportunity to pry more information out of him. "Is it a big one or a small one?"

He coughed. "Excuse me?"

"The price. Is it big or small."

"Where did you get these, anyway?" He picked up another vol-au-vent.

"Don't avoid the question."

"As far as I know, the Room is able to provide everything except food."

"The elves. Now, give me a hint."

"The elves? You mean they give you food whenever you ask them? Since when?" He sounded infuriated.

She glared at him. "Answer. The question."

He ignored her and moved towards the door. "You have an hour. I'll be back after and you'd better be gone." He threw over his shoulder as he left, "Or I'll drag you out."

The door closed behind him. She scoffed. As if. Then she realised he'd taken the vol-au-vents with him.

"Merlin be damned, that bastard–"

Now that exams were over, the silly season had begun.

Hermione had to stop herself from rolling her eyes when Professor Slughorn entered the classroom one day with a large Christmas tree in tow. He parked the ridiculous fir tree in a corner and clapped his fat-fingered hands in apparent paroxysmic delight.

"Today, dear students, we will be learning a very special potion. Now, I won't spoil it but there's a prize in it if you guess correctly by the end of the lesson."

A list of ingredients materialised on the board along with a set of instructions. Valerian root, salamander scales, salamander blood, powdered manticorn horn, crushed fairy wings and powdered moonstone.

Hermione sat next to her usual potions partner, Ophelia, who was a bright but incessantly chatty Ravenclaw. Apart from the first time she'd accidentally sat with the Slytherins, next to Riddle, every lesson thereafter she'd made sure to sit with the Ravenclaws.

Because they were nice. And they were actually pretty decent study partners.

(Sometimes, she wished she was in Ravenclaw.)

There were a few Muggleborns and half-bloods in Ravenclaw. Ophelia was a half-blood. Her mother was a singer that toured the globe and her father was a Ministry employee. But Ophelia didn't know much about the Muggle world. Her mother had eloped with another man when she was six years old, leaving her and her father behind (she had casually divulged this one cold morning as they frantically stirred and chopped).

Hermione wondered if Dippet would put her back into the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff classes in the second term but found that she almost didn't want to. The Ravenclaws were much better company, all in all. Ophelia's tendency to natter was somewhat surpassed by her neatness and unabashed curiosity about, well, everything.

Ophelia whispered to her just then, her dark hair falling over her face, "Powdered moonstone? Fairy wings? Sounds like a love potion."

"I doubt it. Love potions aren't 'special'. Maybe it's Melior Modus."

"Why would Melior be more special than a potion that can induce love?"

"Nothing can mimic true love. True love is more powerful."

Riddle, who was sitting across the aisle, suddenly scoffed.

Hermione closed her eyes briefly, indulgently, tamping down that flare of annoyance Riddle seemed to be so good at conjuring. When she opened them she realised that Ophelia, who was sitting on her left, furthest from Riddle, was now leaning completely across their shared desk in an inane attempt to start conversation. Her dark head of hair blocked Hermione's view of her parchment, the dark strands trailing over it, brushing the still-drying ink and leaving black feathery trails.

Ophelia whispered shyly to Riddle, "Do you think it's a love potion then, Tom?"

Riddle flashed a charming smile as he turned to Ophelia and Hermione, who was scowling into her desk partner's hairline. "Do you think so, Ophelia?"

"Well, I–"

Hermione coughed. "Ophelia? I can't see."

Ophelia ignored this. She seemed inordinately happy that Riddle knew her name.

Hermione wondered who she found more revolting in this moment– Ophelia's girlish adoration or Riddle's disgusting insincerity. At least she didn't have to sit next to Romilda Vane in Gryffindor. Or Lavender Brown. With a quiet shudder, she stood up and made her escape. "I'll get the cauldron."

When she returned, Ophelia had taken over her side of the desk. Which was no problem actually until Hermione realised that Ophelia was doing more chatting than chopping.

"–I believe powdered moonstone is a key ingredient in all love potions. Amortentia, as you know, offers a different scent for each person, revealing the depths of their heart–"

She'd never heard anything more insipid in her life.

"Ophelia!" she barked.

The girl jumped in her seat.

"I need you to chop the roots, please. If it is a love potion, which I highly doubt, I hope nobody is in danger of being dosed with it."

Ophelia flushed pink and turned back to her work. Riddle smirked.

Hermione briefly reflected on the merits of slapping that smirk right off his sly face and weighed it against the consequences of assaulting another student.

Breathing deeply through her nose, she nudged the roots in Ophelia's direction and decided against violence.

Hermione knew that it wasn't a love potion, despite the moonstone; the addition of manticore horn was evidence enough. She wrinkled her nose. Love potions were certainly not useful or 'special' as Slughorn had intimated theirs would be. The most powerful love potion of them all, Amortentia, could only inspire infatuation, obsession, desire. But not love. Furthermore, Amortentia took away someone's free will and that was not something to be even remotely desirous of, let alone tittering about in Potions class. Considering it was illegal to dose someone with Amortentia, what did Ophelia find so fascinating about it? It was as if she expected to be able to divine her soul-mate from one whiff. Which was as ridiculous as the concept of soul-mates.

She frowned as she stirred the cauldron, the potion slowly darkening from a russet orange to something that looked like blood. A quick jab of her wand and the flames under the cauldron strengthened, causing the liquid to bubble. By the time they had finished following the set of instructions, the colour had darkened further into a deep burgundy.

"Have we done it correctly?" Ophelia asked, leaning over to inspect it. The other students had arrived at markedly different coloured brews; one was even a poisonous-looking shade of blue, emitting jets of steam that caused the Slytherins behind it to jump back in alarm.

Hermione chanced a look at Riddle's and Avery's. It was also burgundy.

"I don't think so," Hermione replied. She bent down to delicately inhale some of the fumes. It smelt earthy. Pungent. "It's definitely not a love potion," she concluded. Her Amortentia, as she had discovered earlier that term, had smelt like the books in the Room, like lit candles and fresh ink. Unsurprisingly, these things were not her soul-mates.

In the end, their potion, along with Riddle's and Avery's, were the only correctly brewed potions, as she had suspected. Slughorn awarded a generous twenty points to both Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

"Now, all four of you, come up to the front please. I have a vial of this special potion that I brewed myself. Quickly now." Slughorn waved his wand and Vanished their cauldrons as they stood up.

Warily, Hermione followed Ophelia and the two Slytherins to the front of the class. Slughorn held up a large vial full of the dark-red potion and wiggled it for them to see.

"Each of you take a sip – now, now, don't be alarmed, it's perfectly safe – and you may take a guess as to what the potion is. Remember, there's a prize!"

Ophelia was first. She took a tentative sip and sputtered. Avery was next, then Riddle, then at last, Hermione.

It tasted like mud. She barely restrained herself from spitting it out immediately.

Slughorn turned to them each, a sly smile on his face. "Now. How do you feel?"

"I don't feel anything, sir," Riddle replied, with a slight frown, his lips twisting.

"Hold your wand," said Slughorn, undeterred. "Cast whatever comes to mind."

Ophelia was the first, again, to obey. She lifted her vinewood wand and a fleet of small golden birds burst into the air, wheeling, fluttering, transfiguring mid-air into petals that fell softly to the floor. She jumped up and down in pure excitement. "Oh! I've never been able to do that before! I didn't even have to think about it."

Avery lifted his wand and, with a mutinous expression on his sharp, pointed face, transformed … himself. His features became longer, his lips thinned – dark blue eyes became almost black and deep lines formed on his forehead. His eyebrows became thicker and overall, he looked like an older, colder, haughtier version of himself.

"Ah, Avery Senior. A remarkable likeness." Slughorn chortled and gestured for Riddle to be next.

Riddle's eyes widened. He gripped his wand tightly, his knuckles turning white, and Hermione found herself holding her breath in anticipation.

The yew wand lifted a fraction. His dark eyes locked with hers.

Instantly, visions and memories filled her mind.

Her parents reading together on a tufted velvet couch in their holiday home in Nice, her father's head in her mother's lap, both wearing their reading glasses, a bottle of wine, opened and aerating on the coffee table.

Waving goodbye to them on the Hogwarts Express that first time, feeling her heart clench painfully.

Mudblood. The way she had felt when she realised it was a slur. When she realised what it was like to be 'other' for the first time, in this new and fascinating world. The ache of it, the bitterness.

James and his sandy hair, ruffled just so, smiling handsomely as he slings his arm around her waist. The warmth of butterbeer and laughter.

Moonlight and chiffon. Tom Riddle stared down at her in the snowy courtyard before pressing a gentle kiss against her lips, his eyes wide open.

The way she feels the Forest call to her, making her blood thrum and sing–

A horrified gasp broke the slew of memories.

Hermione came to, her wand raised in her hand, shaking, furious, blood rushing in her veins.

She blinked when she saw Riddle ensnared in a tight cage of twisting roots and vines that had seemingly sprouted from the cracks in the stone floor, a wild expression of rage and confusion on his face.

It seemed those at the front, including Professor Slughorn, were frozen in shock whilst the rest of the class finally stopped gasping and began to talk loudly over each other, the clamour building and building, an incessant, seemingly uncontrollable current of noise that swept over them.

It took Slughorn several tries before he could quiet the class. Riddle, meanwhile, was still bound by her roots, seething, flexing his hands and forearms under the restraints which would not give an inch. He was glaring at her while the students gradually fell silent under Slughorn's pleas and threats, telling her without actually telling her that she needed to remove the roots now or he would do something horrible, unforgivable.

Slughorn finally turned to Riddle and murmured a Finite. To everyone's surprise, nothing happened. Riddle's expression darkened further, his eyes were like sharp stones.

"Miss Granger, would you please?" Slughorn said, flustered.

Gripping her wand, Hermione willed the roots and vines to retract, to slither back into the floor. When she opened her eyes, Riddle was free. His sleeves were rolled and she glimpsed a criss-cross of red marks on his skin. She carefully avoided his gaze but felt it burning on her nonetheless. Avery was also staring at her, an unreadable expression on his father's face.

Slughorn noticed the tension between them and laughed nervously. "Well, I can hardly blame you for what happened under the potion." He tried to laugh again but it came out stuttering, a pathetic half-giggle without humour. "In case it was not apparent, Tom here seems to have engaged in Legilimency and Miss Granger has … well. We all saw it, I assume." He cleared his throat. "There is still a prize for anyone who guesses the nature of the potion."

Silence. Hermione endeavoured to clear her throat. Still not meeting anyone's eyes, she answered, looking at her school shoes. "It might be the Affinity Potion, sir." What else could it be?

"Excellent," Slughorn intoned, a trace of pleasure in his voice. He still seemed very much shaken.

As soon as they were dismissed, Hermione sprinted out of the classroom and did not slow down till she had reached the corridor that led to the Gryffindor Tower.

Heart hammering in her chest, she pressed a hot palm against the stone wall as she tried to regain her breath. Her mind was filled with a million things at once but she could hardly focus on even one as her chest continued to heave.

Later, when she finally reached her dorm room and sank into her own bed, she remembered the look in Riddle's eyes and the way her magic had ensnared him. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

In her dreams, she felt the thrum of the earth beneath her feet as she ran, whispers and promises in her ears.

Note:

Exciting things ahead! :)