A/N: You all are amazing. I'm still following up with people from messages. Thank you all so much for your help and outreach :)

When Hermione came to, her head was pounding.

"I think we've got her." Theo's voice was harried, exhausted.

"Are you sure? If there's any of him left, I can—"`

"It's entirely her signature. Whatever you've done, it worked."

"I don't think I did anything – by the time I found where he was, they were gone—"

Hermione groaned, trying to sit up, only for Blaise to hastily push her back down.

"No, no, Hermione—don't move just yet—you've been through a lot—"

"What happened?" Hermione's voice was groggy. She blinked, her vision bleary. "Did Tom win?"

"I have no idea, Hermione," Blaise said testily. "How exactly were we supposed to measure that? By which one was possessing you?"

"I mean, yeah? I guess?" Hermione admitted. "I guess I figured one of them would possess me after they fought, and if it was the bad one, you'd stun me and pull off the crown."

"You're putting a lot of faith in us to recognize the 'bad' one," Theo remarked wryly. "The Dark Lord is a master manipulator. Do you think he wouldn't be able to trick us into thinking he was Tom?"

"We'd know." Blaise's voice was dark. "We'd know when he refused to go back into the diary."

"Is that what happened?" Hermione asked, slowly sitting up. Blaise's arm helped her keep her balance, her head pounding. "He went back in the diary?"

"I mean, we think?" Theo said, shrugging. "We have no idea, really – one moment you were being all cagey, then you dropped the crown on your head just as Tom vanished—"

"You were screaming and thrashing around in the grass," Blaise informed her.

"It was a horrid, unearthly scream," Theo said, shuddering. "And it looked like you were having a fit."

"It looked very much like a possession," Blaise said, his tone dark. "I wouldn't have been surprised if you started vomiting and your head spun around."

Hermione was surprised. "Wait – you've seen The Exorcist?"

"Seen?" Blaise blinked, caught off-guard. "I've read it. Living in Italy, there were a lot of odd novels dealing with the church and demons and the like – wait, seen? You mean they made it into a film?"

"Can we please focus?" Theo said curtly. "Hermione, you were possessed. Blaise broke into your mind to try and fight for you. By the time he found what he was looking for, Tom and Voldemort were both gone."

Hermione looked at Blaise. "'Found'?"

"There was a big battleground in the middle of your mind with fire and lava," Blaise informed her. "I followed our bond to the memory of us making the bond and came out in a cave." He paused, giving Hermione a cutting look. "There was a messy bridge over the lava river. I took it down."

"You… took it down?" Hermione paused, grappling with the implications that Blaise could freely deconstruct things in her mind. "That's… I didn't know that was possible."

"I didn't either," Blaise admitted. "But—I was desperate, Hermione. You have no idea how scary—"

He broke off, not looking at her, but Hermine realized he still hadn't let go of her hand – even though she could see thin half-moon indentations on the back of it from where her nails had dug into his skin.

"It was frightening," Theo said. His eyes were dark, bleak. "Hermione, you should have warned us—"

"If I'd told you ahead of time what I was going to do, you would have stopped me from doing it," Hermione pointed out.

"Of course we would have!" Blaise said vehemently. "Offering your own body as a battleground for shards of Voldemort's corrupted soul—"

He broke off, furious, and Hermione felt shaky, but she didn't say anything.

"It worked, though," she said quietly. "He had a body to fight for. And he's not there anymore, so something happened."

"And what if he's not gone, Hermione?" Blaise said viciously. His eyes flashed dangerously, anger flickering behind his eyes. "What if part of him hid behind your soul, and he'll now be subtly corrupting everything you do?"

"Zabini, he's not," Theo tried to interject. "You know that. You and I both know her magic well enough—"

"Well, what if the soul feels like different than magic? What if it's something else?"

"It's not, Zabini. You know that—"

Hermione looked toward the diary, which now lay a short distance away on the ground. She raised a hand to her face, prodding it – her skin felt oddly numb in places, which was alarming – before reaching the top of her head, touching the crown.

"I'm still wearing the diadem," she said tentatively. "Surely that's a good sign? I'm wearing it and I'm not still possessed?"

Blaise looked over at her, frustrated, before heaving a sigh.

"I guess," he said, massively annoyed. "But the ends don't justify the means."

"Of course they do," Hermione protested. "If this helps destroy Voldemort's horcruxes—"

"Who gives a fuck about the horcruxes? If it means risking you—"

"Can we just ask the diary and see?" Theo interrupted, rolling his eyes. "Hermione, try and pull Tom out. If he's still there, then he won, right? And if he's not—" He shrugged, uncomfortable "—then I guess Fiendfyre to destroy everything is the best option we have."

Hermione bit her lip. "I can try."

Centering herself, Hermione realized her magic reserves were dangerously low, and her core was wobbly, spinning wildly off-center. She hastily felt around on the ground for her coven ring, only to have Blaise hand it to her with a long-suffering sigh a moment later. She slipped it back onto her finger and her core stabilized, now regenerating without risk of flying apart. She closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths to steady herself.

Taking a trickle of her magic, Hermione reached out to the diary, feeling, looking for Tom. She felt a familiar hand grab on, and with relief, Hermione began to pull him free. It was different, though – there was more resistance this time, and Tom felt heavier to pull into reality. Did he not want to come back out, and he was protesting? Or had something changed, and now that he was two parts of a soul, it was harder for him to materialize?

"Oh, Merlin…" Theo breathed, and Hermione opened her eyes.

Tom was emerging from the diary's pages, to be sure, but there was another being being pulled free. It was as though its features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, and the whites of the eyes had a bloody look to them. It wore black robes, and Hermione wasn't entirely sure it was human.

Once they were both free of the diary, Tom and the creature next to him both stood, facing Hermione, and Tom bowed.

"Hermione Granger," Tom said, bowing and gesturing to the being at his side. "May I introduce Lord Voldemort? Voldemort, this is Hermione Granger, New Blood and founder of her House."

Voldemort's eyes gleamed. "A pleasure."

Hermione's mouth gaped.

"No. No," Hermione said emphatically, shaking her head. "This is not happening. You were supposed to reconcile, Tom! You had to feel remorse and stitch yourself back together, not make allies—"

"We can't," Voldemort cut in, his words succinct. He glanced sideways at the younger Tom, nose scrunching in distaste. "It was discussed. Because I was torn from a different section of soul, our edges do not match up. We cannot repair the tears."

"Are you serious?" Hermione groaned, grabbing her face and tugging her hair. "There's rules to this you have to follow?"

"Think of the soul less like a piece of cloth that's been torn and more like a jigsaw puzzle," Tom suggested. "One with massively disproportionately-sized pieces, but a jigsaw puzzle nonetheless."

"My edge doesn't fit into his," Voldemort said, a bit testily. "I came too far after him for us to match up."

"So we need to reunite you all in order?" Hermione demanded. Her tone sounded grumpy and immature, she was sure, but her head was still pounding and she was too tired to care. "We have to find and fix you in order?"

"Not necessarily," Tom hedged. "That would certainly work, of course – my edge with the ring horcrux, for example, would almost certainly match up. But if you could find the horcrux made before the diadem—"

"The Hufflepuff Cup," Voldemort chimed in.

"—then Voldemort could stitch that part back to himself," Tom finished. "We could reassemble piece by piece."

"Is that wise?" Blaise asked bluntly. "This guy – this is Voldemort. You really want his part of the soul getting stronger?"

Voldemort laughed, a cold, cruel sound.

"I am the smaller piece," he said. His eyes glinted. "I would be absorbed. Not the other."

That made Hermione pause. "…and you're okay with that?"

Voldemort's face twisted up in sudden anguish, an utterly human expression that looked warped and alien on such an inhuman face.

"Being trapped in that diadem..." he began, weighing his words. "It is… hell does not even begin to describe it." His eyes flashed. "I would rather have died."

Hermione's eyes widened. "But—you feared death more than—"

"I know," Voldemort said curtly. "I'm well aware. But—" he hesitated, before shaking his head, dismissing it "—some things are worse than death."

Theo, who had remained quiet all this time, tentatively spoke up.

"Are you fully the Dark Lord, then?" he asked. "Do you have Death Eaters? Followers?"

Tom glanced at Voldemort, who tilted his head and seemed to weigh his words.

"Of a sort," Voldemort said finally. "Of a sort."

Hermione glanced back and forth from Voldemort to Tom and back.

"What's the plan here, then?" she asked. "What's the next step?"

Tom sighed.

"I attempt to integrate with the Gaunt ring, which you already have," he said, nodding toward her bag. "I'll need to do it in a body, as we've discovered – and I'd suggest we not do it tonight, as we've already been through a lot."

"Of course not," Blaise snapped. "We'd need to find a body first, wouldn't we?"

Tom neatly side-stepped that conversational minefield.

"Until then," he continued, "the Voldemort shard will reside alongside me. When I attempted to integrate with him, it did not quite work, but it was enough that we are now… attached."

Hermione was rubbing her eyes in disbelief and exhaustion.

"Fine," she said. "Fine. We'll have you heal with the bloody ring next, and then Voldemort, you'll tell us what horcrux is next? You're the last one, so you know where all the others are, correct?"

"After the ring is Slytherin's locket," Voldemort confirmed, inclining his head. "Then the Hufflepuff Cup."

"And these are all things," Blaise said pointedly, glaring at them all, "that can be dealt with another day."

Tom looked amused at Blaise's ferocity while Voldemort looked mildly annoyed.

"That's fine," Tom assured him. "We'll go back to the diary." His eyes glittered. "Enjoy the rest of your holiday."

Tom and Voldemort stepped onto the diary pages and sank away into the pages, and there was a silence on the plain.

"What time is it?" Hermione finally asked. "It doesn't seem like it's too late – it's barely twilight, yet."

"It isn't." Blaise heaved a sigh, then looked at Hermione pointedly. "But you need to rest before you try hopping a line back home. At this rate, you'll get yourself lost in the Faerie lands."

Hermione knew enough to know he was right, and she sighed as she curled up on the ground for a nap.