Darkness. Floating in darkness. Purple sparks in the darkness. A cold weight on her chest. Blue flames glittering on faceted gold, and the splash of hot rain on her forehead… rain? No… tears…

A soft touch against her forehead… the press of lips…

And then… light…

Hermione's eyes flew open. She bolted upright in bed, gasping for air, her hand flying to her throat, grappling for the hand that wasn't there. It encountered only the cool, solid weight of the rune pendant hanging on its cord. She sat there panting for a long moment, trying to collect her panic-scattered thoughts.

A dream… it really was a dream…

"A dre… ngh!" she tried to say out loud, but winced, gritting her teeth. Her throat felt sore.

She sucked in a deep breathe, looking around herself. The room was just how she'd left it the night before. The sky, deeply grey in the early morning light, was still spitting fitfully against the window, but the storm was clearly long over. From the corner of her eye, she could see the digital clock on the night stand, flashing 12:00am, in need of being reset after the power outage during the night.

A power outage… there was a power outage… and then… she swallowed hard, grimacing in pain. She tentatively reached up to touch her neck, and hissed in pain as she felt a hot swell of damaged tissue.

Throwing back the covers, she scrambled to her feet and practically ran to her jacket hanging on the coat rack. She let out a breath of relief as her fingers closed around the familiar vine wood of her wand. With hesitant steps she turned and walked to the mirror across the room. She stopped short, peering at her reflection; her eyes closed and her stomach clenched up at what she saw.

A swollen, dark blue-black imprint of a long-fingered hand wrapped mercilessly around her throat.

"Not a dream…" she whispered hoarsely against the ache.

Real.

It was tempting to ask the clichéd 'have I gone crazy' questions. Voldemort should be dead – she had watched him die at Hogwarts. But Hermione didn't like to think she was the sort of person so set in their preconceptions that she had to doubt her sanity the moment something challenged her beliefs about reality. Last night had been one thing. But now, she had to face facts. What kind of intellectual would she be to do otherwise?

So she would operate under the assumption that she wasn't crazy. Ghosts obviously did exist but they didn't leave bruises on people...

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable…

The most likely truth, she was forced to conclude, was that Tom Riddle had not, in fact, died at Hogwarts after all.

How he had survived that duel with Harry, Hermione could not explain. But that hardly mattered at this point. Not twenty-four hours ago, she might have considered that as, well, not TERRIBLE news per say. But after last night…? Her mind skittered nervously away from those memories, and landed instead, on the ones she'd been rehashing the day before about him saving her in Malfoy Manor, only to find that they all took on uncomfortable new dimensions. Each one filtered into the forefront of her mind through her new knowledge of Tom Riddle.

When he had sheltered her from Bellatrix's torture, was it her imagination, or had his gentle touch lingered a few minutes longer than was strictly necessary as he held her limp body close to him?

When Nagini had been chasing her and Ron, persuing them through Hogwarts with murderous intent, hadn't it seemed like the serpent had been a little too focused on Ron? With her sleek body movements locked-on to his retreat rather than hers?

And her first memory of him, the most vivid, the one she always thought of first: the smile he'd given her on their first meeting in the Ministry of Magic, so self-assured… too self-assured… it suddenly seemed false, forced, designed to conceal rather than express, to distract with vanity whatever might be concealed underneath… And then the way his eyes had seemed to track her even as he dueled complex curses with Dumbledore, fixed on her like he was mesmerized, that devious, unrepentant smile crooking his lips as he gazed at her, like he was trying to memorize her…

She hugged herself, rubbing her bare arms, suddenly incredibly self conscious, and made herself refocus on the present.

It all made a rather perfect kind of sense in hindsight. Tom had been clearly outnumbered at the Battle of Hogwarts and had failed to kill Harry as planned while Neville had killed his last Horacrux, Nagini. Faking his own death meant escape from incarceration, and now Tom was in the wind, unknown and unsought. It was not only logical, it was really kind of brilliant. Noone would imagine that Lord Voldemort would allow himself to be defeated by Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, a second time. His pride would not allow it. Or so everyone thought. The master strategist, still alive and hard at work. Hermione grudgingly had to admire a mind like his.

Stop it, she ordered herself, realizing that her breaths had become quicker and more shallow the more she thought about him, you are not allowed to be impressed by him, Hermione Granger! Look what he did!

She gasped and felt tears prick at the back of her eyes as a delayed but potent fear started to claw its way past the initial shock of revelation and up out of the pit of her stomach to nip at the base of her intellect. Tom Riddle was alive. Voldemort was alive, and he… she tried again to escape the memories of the night before, but they were insidious, slipping in through the cracks while she struggled to breathe normally.

Helpless, defenseless, exposed, the flash of purple light slicing the air with ozone.

The hot press of lips on her skin. On her mouth.

A crushing hand clamped around her airway, and the powerless and inevitability of suffocation.

"All of it… all of it, Hermione… all of the suffering and destruction, all the fire and screaming and the blood… all of the killing…all of it was for you."

The gray square of the window seemed to gape like a hungry mouth that would suck her in and swallow her into the ruin of London if she dared turn her eyes towards it.

I am not the cause of it. I can't be.

Two tears rolled down her cheeks anyway.

I don't want to be.

She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the bruises at her throat, framed by the black cord.

I won't be. I refuse to be.

She followed the line of the cord down, and her eyes came to rest on the rune pendant. Her face hardened.

Hermione wasn't anyone's victim to stand around crying and afraid. Hermione was the brightest witch of her age. She knew that the only way to combat fear was with knowledge. So what did she know?

Tom was alive. Tom claimed to be in love with her. Tom had made some kind of Faustian pact to gain unnaturally long life, supposedly to bring her back and win her over, but had lost control of the situation, and possibly control of himself, to this "Death" guy. So, was Death an actual entity then? Like in the Pervell Brothers' story? Tom had failed and had been locked up in in unseen realm, where he claimed his mind had been restored (Hermione remained skeptical). He had faked his own death, or rather...perhaps he in fact had died by the Elder Wand but Death released him? Somehow? Now he had turned up in London, in her hotel room, caught secretly casting spells on her. He had confessed everything. He had kissed her passionately. Then he had choked her out cold. Then he had left her here.

Why?

As she chased up and down the timeline, she kept coming back to the fact that Tom Riddle knew that she now knew he was alive, but aside from rendering her temporarily unconscious, he had done nothing about it. No confundus charm...Nothing.

Which meant that either he could not do anything about it - or he did not want to do anything about it.

He clearly didn't want me to know he was alive – he said I'd changed the rules. What does that mean?

Maybe he really was in love with her, and just wanted to be close to her…?

Bollocks. Even if it were true, this was Voldemort - he always had an angle. What is he really up to?

She needed more information. More answers.

Hermione knew what she should do – she should already be sending a patronus to Harry, to Ron, to the aurors in the Ministry of Magic, telling them what little she knew. She should apparate to the nearest muggle-free area and get help. She could see the general direction of the street where the Leaky Cauldron surely sat from her hotel window – brilliant minds like Professors McGonagall and Slughorn could help her figure this out, and dangerously skilled aurors like Kingsley Shacklebolt would keep her safe. Help, resources and protection were practically within shouting distance. It would be crazy to delay.

But…

Her fingers curled around the rune pendant. There were more facts to consider.

Ever since her encounter with the crone on the street, she had felt wrong footed. Something about those women had struck a strange note in her that was still resonating even after all the distractions of last night. They knew something. She could feel it in her bones. Hermione needed the help and protection of her friends… but she needed answers more. And she had a good idea where she could find a few.

Swinging away from the mirror with renewed purpose, her eye caught on a small, glimmering something sitting inconspicuously on the dresser beside her wallet. Her eyes narrowed as her heart skipped with a moment's panic and she pointed her wand, but when the object didn't do anything but sit there, innocuous and inert, she sighed and put a hand over her heart, willing herself to quit jumping at shadows.

The object was a small gold disc about three inches across, and half of one high. It was intricately adorned with fine inlaid knotwork patterns, and a number of Fae runes Hermione recognized from the website she'd visited yesterday, though she didn't recall their names or uses. A seam ran all around the circumference, indicating that it likely opened somehow, though there was no visible latch. Hermione had no idea what it might be. But it definitely hadn't been there the night before. She performed a couple of detection spells on the gold disc but nothing showed up.

Wary, she slowly reached out and carefully picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy for something so tiny, and it glittered in the morning light. Upon closer examination, Hermione discovered even finer etchings had been filed into the planes of the object, clearly the work of a master craftsman. Whatever it was, it was truly beautiful.

It had to have been left there by Tom.

Hermione was tempted to throw it out the window.

The only thing that kept her from actually doing it was an insidiously burning curiosity smoldering relentlessly in the recesses of her mind. It was obviously Faerie, an object from another world. What was it? What did it do? Was it functional, or was it decorative? Was it something dangerous, or something useful? Was it valuable? Was it a gift? A threat? A bribe? She couldn't just throw it away, it could be dangerous to muggles – or dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. She tried to imagine the Ministry of Magic finding out she was in possession of a fae artifact, and her fingers tightened around the disc's outer edge until it bit into her skin.

She would go for help. She would.

But first, she was going to get some answers.

Thirty minutes later, with a concealing spell wrapped around her bruised throat and a scarf added for good measure against the chilly rain, Hermione was on the streets of London with the gold disc tucked securely in the pocket of her jeans, retracing her steps from the day before. It did not take her long at all to find what she was after. She recognized the cart amongst the vendors that were setting up their stalls along the sidewalk. She spotted the woman from the day before soon enough; Hermione was relieved to see that her grandmother wasn't with her today.

Steeling her spine, she marched forward and tapped the woman on the shoulder. The woman turned, a welcoming smile already on her face. As recognition set in, the smile faltered.

"Oh…" she said, uncertain, "Good day."

Hermione had to work hard not to scowl when the woman glanced up at her forehead and blanched slightly. Fear had given way to anger about the time Hermione had stepped off the hotel elevator, and she preferred it that way.

"Not really," she replied acidly, her voice still creaky and painful. She tugged the rune pendant out from under her shirt, dislodging the scarf in the process. She couldn't bring herself to take the pendant off; worried about what Tom Riddle might attempt if she was without it, "What the hell is this thing?"

The woman's eyebrows shot up as she looked down at the pendant, then widened as she caught sight of the bruising at Hermione's neck beyond. She looked up at Hermione, back at her neck, up at her forehead and back to the pendant. Hermione was momentarily shocked.

"You can see the bruises? But...how? I have a concealing spell on them and I-"

The woman quickly indicated toward the building besides them, "You had better come inside."

Hermione was all ready to argue, but then she glanced around to notice people starting to stare, including a police officer buying coffee from a nearby Starbucks cart. She nodded grudgingly and allowed the woman to lead her into the shadow of one of the boarded-up storefronts, and through a weather-beaten wooden door that didn't quite hang square in its frame. The woman shouted something up the staircase just inside in that same foreign language Hermione had heard the day before. She thought it might be a Scandinavian dialect, but she couldn't be sure. A moment later, a burly man with close cropped dark hair and a single, bushy unibrow crawling across his square face lumbered down the stairs and, glancing briefly at Hermione, moved past them to take up a station next to the cart. The woman nodded to him, then turned and ascended the stairs. After a hesitant moment, Hermione followed, her need for answers outweighing her wariness of entering a strange building alone with a stranger. Memories of doing the same thing with Harry only to be attacked by Nagini disguised as Bathilda Bagshot entered her head briefly. She shuddered but continued on, wand at the ready in her pocket.

The staircase opened into a rectangular living space that appeared to function as living room, dining room and kitchen all in one. Doors were set along the back wall, presumably leading to bedrooms or bathrooms. High windows interrupted at intervals by floor-length drapes lined the wall facing the street, leading Hermione to believe the apartment had once been a shop. The air was heavy with the aroma of some unfamiliar spice. All of the furniture, from the scuffed dining table to the sagging sofas, was mismatched and rather obviously second-hand. They appeared to be alone for the moment; Hermione was again grateful that the grandmother wasn't around. Hermione hadn't realized just how much the old woman had spooked her until she felt a wave of relief that she wasn't up there waiting for them.

"Look, I need to know what's going on," she demanded as she halted inside the door. "I woke up in the middle of the night… sort of… to flashing purple lights everywhere and the rather spectacular mood swings of… of an acquaintance, who is supposed to be dead. And it all started when you handed me this necklace. You know something. I can tell by the way you keep looking at me." She huffed out a sigh, throwing up her hands, and then motioning at her throat. "You said to wear the rune for protection." She was slightly horrified to realize that she was near tears, her anger crumbling as she vented her frustrations. "It didn't exactly do its job. So, what gives?"

"Yes," the woman said vaguely. She motioned to one of two dilapidated sofas facing each other across a stained coffee table. "Please sit."

She moved to a stove on the far side of the room, pulling down a teapot from above it and spooning some dried herb from a glass jar into it. Hermione vacillated for a moment, hoping pitifully that this wasn't a tea-reading, then gave in and sank onto the faded floral pattern of one of the dilapidated sofas. She watched the woman add water from a lazily steaming kettle on the stove, then pulled down two mugs and a small jar of sugar cubes. Good. Just tea then.

"Perhaps, in retrospect, I should have given you a talisman for Emalgiz. It may have provided a truer barrier, instead of merely a deterrent." She opened the refrigerator, pulling out a carton of milk and pouring a measure into a small pitcher. "But it sounds as though it served it's intended purpose.

"Care to enlighten me as to its true purpose?" Hermione demanded, recovering quickly. "What good is a magical protection necklace that doesn't protect you from anything?"

"I gave you the Emhagalaz to protect you from secrecy," she replied. "To inactivate the spell that was shrouding your senses while you slept. To repel uninvited contact as well, but more to remove unwelcome influence. Like a sleeping spell." She shot Hermione a meaningful look. "I did not wish to block the god's ability to interact with you – I wished to force him to face you."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at her, and her mouth fell open, confused and a little incensed

"He is NOT a god," Hermione retorted, "He's a dark DARK Wizard."

The woman hmmm'ed and asked nonchalantly, "Do Dark Wizard's normally come back from the dead?"

Hermione was taken aback, "You seem to know a lot more about what's going on in my life than I do." she seethed accusingly.

"I know only what I see."

"What does that mean?"

The woman ignored her. "I wanted you to be able to decide for yourself," she said decisively. "The women of my family have seldom been allowed a chance to choose. Their fates were thrust upon them. I would not take the choice from you if I could help it." She shrugged almost self-consciously. "Perhaps it was a mistake."

Memories of seeing the hotel room with her eyes still closed made Hermione's head spin. "What… what was I supposed to decide?" she asked faintly. How was she supposed to decide on anything when she didn't even know the rules of the game she was playing, much less the stakes?

"Your own fate," the woman said. "Grandmother was right to warn you. The touch of a god is always a dangerous thing. But a danger is not always an evil. You had the right to judge that for yourself."

Of course it's evil! she thought automatically… then had to pause as she reflected on that thought. And on her memories of him – from Malfoy Manor and from the night before, of all he had told her, all he had endured, and why he had done what he had done, and all that Harry had told her. Whatever Harry had experienced while being briefly dead in the Forbidden Forest, he seemed to almost....pity Tom Riddle...Was it so simply black and white? Or had it been so dark last night that she couldn't see the shades of gray…? Is it evil? Or is it just dangerous? How do I tell…?

He strangled me. Evil.

And yet... Is that more bias? After everything he had done that had failed to drive her to hate him, was it okay to decide he was really pure evil based on that one act? An act which happened to be perpetrated against her? Am I heartless, being so eager to condemn him just for what he did to me? Or have I been a complete idiot to even consider excusing what he has been doing all along to everyone else?

Hermione shook her head, dispelling the shades of gray that threatened to overrun the banks of her memories. Now was not the moment. He was evil. And that was that. She wasn't playing that game.

"What else was your grandmother right about? Am I…" Hermione grimaced, "Am I cursed?"

The woman leaned her hip on the counter and cocked her head, for the first time staring openly at whatever she kept looking at on Hermione's face.

"The Quill's mark upon you may yet prove to be a blessing. Or a curse. Maybe both." She shook her head. "Grandmother assumes the god cursed you because she believes she is cursed. She cannot see beyond the wounds of her own heart. I am not so eager to assume I know the mind of the god."

"Voldemort is not a god!" Hermione snapped. The woman's eyes flashed wide at the mention of Voldemort's name, and she turned back to the counter, fidgeting with the tea things. "And what quill mark? You mean on my forehead, don't you? You keep staring at it, but I've tried a bunch of revealing spells and there's nothing there!"

"There is nothing that you wizards can see."

Hermione blanched, "Your not a wizard?" She had expected as much, but it was still a surprise to hear it confirmed. They carried no wands, so she had imagined that perhaps they were squibs trying to pass off magical objects.

The woman hefted the tea tray and carried it to the coffee table. Turning back, she opened a drawer in a bureau next to the staircase and pulled out an old brass hand mirror. She wordlessly handed it to Hermione and moved around behind the couch.

"Look," she instructed, standing behind Hermione and stooping so that both their faces were visible in the mirror.

Hermione didn't see anything.

She reached past Hermione and touched the rim of the mirror. "Alaguz," she whispered. The tip of her finger glowed with purple for an instant, and the mirror face flashed with purple in response.

And suddenly Hermione could see it.

A symbol, gleaming with an icy blue glow, had been written into the skin of her forehead. She gasped, reaching up to touch it. The skin was slightly raised around the cut, though there was no pain, and the edges felt warm and clean. It wasn't an illusion. It was there.

"Uruz," the woman told her, her eyes thougthful. "See how it is not laid on top of your skin, but is literally cut into it with the Quill tip, the magic threaded into the wound. Hmmm… no wonder he wanted you to sleep. Not merely secrecy."

"But… it wasn't there before…"

"It was," the woman replied quietly. "You just weren't meant to see it." The woman's eyes narrowed as she examined the mark in the mirror. "It was incomplete yesterday. Now it is not…" Her eyes flicked down to the bruising at Hermione's neck, and when they came back up to meet Hermione's, they had hardened with regret. "I am sorry…"

Hermione barely heard her. She stared, fixated, trying to absorb the presence of this mark on her body, the fact that it had been there, and the fact she had not been aware of it. There was something viscerally disturbing about the idea. So this was why Tom had been in her room, rendering her unconscious with sleep spells, and when that failed, with brute force. The edges were precise. The magic inside glowed like crystalline blue fire. Her jaw clenched as she fed her growing fear to her curiosity. What was it? What did it mean? What did it do? Was it dangerous? Harmful? Permanent?

Images of Harry's lightening mark on his forehead flashed in her mind and she gasped, suddenly worried. Had Voldemort marked her like he had unwittingly marked Harry?

And how could these women see it, when no one else could? If they weren't wizards and didnt use wands; what were they?

Hermione pried her eyes away from the glowing mark to stare into the reflection of the woman's eyes.

"Who are you?"

The woman walked around the couch and sat down beside Hermione. She silently poured the tea, adding milk and sugar to Hermione's cup as well as her own. Pressing one warm cup into Hermione's free hand, she took a sip of her own before settling back and pinning Hermione with a serious look.

"My name is Alexa Solberg," she said at length, seeming to weigh each word carefully before it left her mouth. "I have, perhaps, caused you trouble. Because of this, I will tell you our story."

Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it, resisting the urge to pepper the woman with more questions. This wasn't a social call, it was an expedition to gather information – not share it. She sipped her tea, the warmth and flavor of which she found instantly soothing, and made herself listen instead.

"Over two thousand years ago," Alexa began, "Before the time of Merlin and King Arthur, my ancestors walked amongst mortals here on Earth. There were contentions between the fae and mankind. Well, mostly between Wizards and the Fae, as muggles have no mention of it in their history books. However, despite these battles, one of the Fae, a man named Taldur, met a woman whom he took for a lover."

Hermione sat up straighter, looking at Alexa with new eyes as a piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

"You're Fae!" she exclaimed.

"Mostly human," Alexa replied with a self-conscious shrug. "Many generations have passed since then. But yes, my family line is descended from the Faerie. And sometimes," she gestured towards the mirror, "we show signs of their magic. Magic which, we believe, was given to us for a purpose."

She fixed Hermioned with a thoughtful stare, "What do you know of the Quill of Acceptance?"

Hermione's brain immediately began to recall facts she'd memorized from the different books she had studied, "The Quil of Acceptance is a magical Quill at Hogwarts that detects the births of all magical children and writes their names down in a large book known as the Book of Admittance."

Alexa nodded, "I meant, what do you know of it's history? Where does it come from?"

Hermione blinked, "It was created by the founders."

"Wrong." Alexa sipped her tea, her eyes distant, "It was given to the Fae and stolen by the founders." She smiled at Hermione's expression and explained, "None of the founder's objects were created by the founders. The Quill of Acceptance was created before Hogwarts was even built. It is a gift, one of three Quill Feathers of Power given willingly from the Augureys."

Hermione had to acknowledge that this just might be true. After all, Griphook had confirmed that the sword of Gryffindor had actually been stolen from the goblin Ranuk and belonged to Goblin-kind. Was it so far fetched to imagine that the other items originally had different owners?

"But," Hermione countered, remembering something," Augurey feathers repel ink, so how could the Quill of Acceptance really be from an Augurey? I thought that was mere speculation?" Hermione frowned thinking hard. It was rumored to be from an Augrey, but not confirmed. The exact nature of the spells placed upon the Quill was unknown. And while it was believed that some wizards might have known the secret to the Quill, none have divulged it. Why?

"That's because it doesn't write in ink. It writes in magic. There is no ink in the inkwell at Hogwarts. The three quills were given as a gift to create peace between the fae and wizards, although it didnt work in the end."

Alexa continued, "But while the gods had some knowledge of its uses, not many truly understood its power, or how it worked."

Hermione had to cut in, "You keep saying gods..." she shifted a little uncomfortablely in her seat, "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean those that are friends with Life and Death." Alexa stated simply.

Hermione's brow furrowed, "So...Death is an actual being? And Life?"

This was all getting quite overwhelming.

Alexa nodded. She sipped her tea and her eyes took on a far-away look.

"The Augurey Quills of Power are volatile and ill-understood. Those who, in their arrogance, have used it to achieve their goals have almost always brought about cataclysmic side events. Imagine a group of uneducated muggles who discovered a working nuclear power plant nearby their homes. They knew enough to understand that if they pulled certain levers and pressed certain buttons, it provided their city with light, heat, water, all sorts of fantastic benefits. But they had not enough understanding to fathom the source of the energy, how it worked, how it could be maintained – or how to contain it if something should go wrong."

Hermione nodded, catching on. "It would be tempting to use it, but the results of messing with it could be devastating."

"Exactly," Alexa concurred. "And so it was with the Fae and the Quills. Their power is almost without equal, but without a clear understanding of the Augurey quills' nature, even the gods could easily shred the very fabric of the universe."

"Taldur, my Fae ancestor, was far-seeing, and he feared the Quills' power, the destruction they could cause, even in the hands of one as wise as his father, Oberon. So when he was sent by his people to bring them into battle, he instead hid the quills. He secretly placed them in the hands of his mortal lover, before he went back to the front line. That very day, he was slain in battle. The day ended in failure and the massive death toll was blamed on Taldur's betrayal. Worst of all, he had told none where he had secreted the quills, and he had instructed his lover never to reveal the quills to anyone. For these crimes, his name was made forbidden, and his memory banished from verse. The Fae eventually left this world for another realm. And for a thousand years, the stolen relics were never seen or heard of again with the exception of the Quill of Acceptance which the founders were somehow able to seize."

Alexa paused for a breath, pressing her lips together as though wary of speaking the words she held behind them.

"This is my family's story, and secret," she said at last. "The faithful woman that resided in the village and took care of the feathers was called Stella Solberg. She was my ancestor. You see, since that day so long ago, my family's sacred duty, handed down from the mouth of Taldur himself, was to hide the quills for all time, passing it down the maternal line from mother to daughter."

Hermione thought she understood now what Alexa had meant, when she said the women of her family had rarely been given a choice in their own fates. The weight of that kind of legacy had to be overwhelming.

"My great-grandfather was the last keeper of the Quill of Memory. When Grindlewald discovered its hiding place in 1922, he murdered my grandfather and great-grandfather in cold blood, and ordered the destruction of the village and all its inhabitants." She held the teacup close to her face, almost hiding behind it, her brow tightening. "My grandmother was a young woman then. Though she was raised from infancy with this duty before her, to defend the magic quill unto the very last drop of Taldur's blood, she felt herself to be a wife and mother first. She had two young children, and could do nothing against Grindlewald's army and Elder wand. So when she saw that her father and husband were dead, and that the Quill was already in the hands of evil men, she did not lay down her life in a futile effort to retake it. Instead, she took my mother and uncle and she ran."

"She escaped into the wilderness as the village burned, and made her way south, then west, and eventually joined a train of refugees from the war; very soon they boarded a boat to London, where they settled. Here." She gestured to the old brick and plaster walls around them. "So our family escaped Grindlewald, but lost the Quill of Memory." Alexa shook her head sadly. "To this day, Grandmother cannot forgive herself for choosing her life and her family over her duty."

"That's crazy!" Hermione interjected vehemently, absorbed in the story. "I mean, of course she chose to save her children! She shouldn't be ashamed!"

"Your sentiment is appreciated," Alexa said with a small, sad smile, "and we have consoled her with such talk again and again. But it is her faith. Grandmother cannot bear that she failed the god, our Fae sire. It is her great shame, which she carries to this day."

"When…" her voice thickened suddenly, and she had to clear her throat before she continued. "When the Dark Lord descended with his army of Deatheaters, Grandmother tried to throw herself to the Dementors. She believed that this was her punishment for her weakness. That we would all suffer and die for her failure." She offered Hermione a watery smile. "We managed to stop her just in time."

"Wow…" Hermione looked down into her teacup, horrified. And ashamed.

Riddle's voice echoed in her head. "All of it was for you"

She swallowed hard. It's not my fault. He chose to do this, not me. But perhaps she knew more about what Alexa's grandmother was feeling than she liked to admit. Because even though it wasn't really her fault, she couldn't help the cloying guilt that threatened to close her throat.

"It has been 2 weeks since then," Alexa said. "When Grandmother saw the mark of the quill upon your brow as you walked the street…" she shrugged. "Another woman beloved of the gods, set to drown in the beginnings of a heavy destiny not of her own making… For her, it was as though she was seeing our ancestor, Stella, walking out of time. She held a hope that perhaps she could still absolve some measure of her shame by helping you avoid the trials our family has endured. That is why she accosted you. And the reason why I gave you Emhagalaz in her place."

Hermione sat back, clutching her mug, and glanced down into the mirror. The blue mark glared back at her. All this talk of gods and fae and destiny… She had come for answers, and she was getting them, but they weren't what she expected. She wanted hard proof, measurable data, a solution she could test and control. A spell or a potion she could master. This was all beyond her experience and understanding. It left her feeling lost, adrift.

Memories from the night before, lightening and thunder, pounding rain, purple light and the low, accented tones telling her sad, strange, terrible things. His hand at her throat. His lips against hers. She swallowed hard, suddenly acutely aware of her own body. Of her mouth, and her throat. Now that she knew the mark was on her forehead, she thought maybe she could feel that too. Tingling. Warm. Energetic. Inside. She shivered.

"What is this thing?" she asked, gesturing towards her head, almost reluctant to know. Her voice broke over the last word, and she took a scalding gulp of her tea to brace herself. "What did he do to me?"

"I do not think he has done anything to you. The Quill's power seems dormant right now, very quiet… but uruz, like emhagalaz, is a mark of the Fae. A realm that your...dark wizard...traveled to while his soul was lost in the void. Perhaps nothing more than a sign of possession. A warning to those who would harm you."

Hermione stared blankly at Alexa for a long moment. Her face darkened.

"Are you saying he branded me?" For the first time, Hermione decided definitively that it was a good thing Tom Riddle was alive; she needed him alive, so that she could kill him.

"No! No, not as such…" Alexa said hurriedly, eying Hermione's furious expression warily. "Uruz is powerful magic. I strongly suspect that any one who tried to lay hands on you in harm would be repelled. Possibly in much the same way he was repelled by the pendant. Possibly in a much different way. Whatever the case… I strongly suspect they would regret it."

"'Uruz' is another Fae rune, right?"

Alexa pursed her lips, casting a sidelong look at Hermione. Her expression said she was once again weighing her words.

"Uruz is the symbol of the aurochs," she said.

"Auroch… that's an extinct species of wild oxen…"

Hermione remembered reading about them in her worn out copy of 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Extinct Version' from her 5th year. Aurochs, massive, volatile and incredibly dangerous wild oxen similar to modern longhorn bulls, had once roamed all over the European continent. It was said that the average auroch was only slightly smaller than average African elephant, with horns that grew up to six feet in length. Hermione could barely imagine such a creature; they must have been truly fearsome to behold.

Alexa nodded. "The auroch is a symbol of great strength in Fae folklore."

"So what does the rune mean?"

Alexa sipped her tea, thinking again. Hermione waited with poor patience, tapping her foot slightly against the threadbare rug.

"Uruz," she finally said, "is complex. It is a mark of wildness, but may also mean the taming of that wildness. It's meanings depends on It's context, but among them are…" she glanced at Hermione, then away, "primitive irrationality, bestial strength, primal instinct, intuition. It may also be invoked as part of the ritual of the hunt, or as a rite of passage or initiation … And then…" she grimaced, clearly uncomfortable, "it may also represent raw passion. Unabashed sexual hunger. Desire that drives one beyond rationality." She hid her face behind her mug, taking a much longer and slower drink than was necessary. She was probably embarrassed and trying not to show it.

Hermione was plenty embarrassed herself. In her memory, Tom's voice echoed in the dark, his eyes so fervent she could barely remember them without squirming, his words impossible in their revelations…

Alexa cleared her throat.

"It, ah, has another meaning, more esoteric, less well understood."

"Oh?" Hermione replied faintly, her face flaming.

"Yes. Uruz may also mean 'Rain'. This mark of yours was very poetically crafted, as the Augurey's cry actually foretells the rain fall, and not death as imagined."

Hermione started upright, nearly dropped her mug. A few drops of hot tea splashed over the lip to sting her fingers.

'You are my rain.'

Alexa caught the movement, eyeing Hermione curiously, and continued,

"As I said, uruz may mean wildness, or it may mean the taming of wildness. My understanding after much study is that, if uruz is to represent the wild strength of the auroch, fires of passion, and the dangerous chaos of irrationality, it is also to represent the will that tames it, the rain that quenches and stabilizes it. It is both the sickness, and the cure."

His sickness..his cure...

"You are my rain, Everything depends on you..."

Hermione swallowed hard, trying desperately to banish his words from echoing inside her head. The harder she tried, of course, the more her mind circled that memory, bringing it into sharper focus, cementing it, forming neuronal bridges, building and extrapolating all sorts of implications, meanings, and worse, emotions…

Voldemort had written a mark upon her forehead with one of three magical quills of power. The Quill of Memory. What did he want her to remember?

She stared at the mark, an array of questions welling up in the back of her throat, ready to spill from her lips. Could this mark be a horacrux? The queries vied viciously for a place on the tip of her tongue, each more crucially important than the last.

"Am I being influenced?" She was proud of how calm and even her voice sounded when she at last rediscovered her ability to speak.

Alexa shook her head. "I do not know."

Hermione's jaw clenched against the urge to panic, recalling Ron's ineffable brokenness after the Horacrux had influenced him in the wilderness. And Harry had always seemed a very sober and downtrodden boy...

"Damn it…" Hermione whispered, afraid.

"No one truly understands the magic of the Quill. It is unlike Fae magic, Elven magic, Goblin magic, Giantkind's magic, or human magic. It, I guess you could say it is Death's magic, as Augurey's have long been associated with him. But it seems clear that the Dark Lord knows more than most about its secrets."

Hermione stared hard at her reflection, willing the answers to come together in the eerie blue glow. "What does he want from me…"

"That is why I gave you emhagalaz. So that you could discover the answer."

"Can you get rid of it?"

The words were out of Hermione's mouth before she knew she'd spoken. She hadn't meant to say them. Reflecting over them, she felt a sickening mix of relief and reluctance. It felt like asking a barber to do brain surgery. But if a horacrux had anything to do with this mark, if there was even an outside chance that it might be poisoning her mind…

Alexa looked away, troubled.

"I do not believe I should…" She looked up at the mark, clearly as wary of interfering with the magic as Hermione, but at the tight, troubled expression pinching Hermione's face, she sighed. "Come closer. I cannot promise this is a good idea. But I will try."

Hermione let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Sitting forward, she set aside the mirror and her mug. Alexa did the same, pulling in a slow deep breath and releasing it as she reached for the mark on Hermione's forehead. Hermione's eyes widened as she noticed the tips of Alexa's fingers glimmered with green fire.

Before she could do more than brush the skin of Hermione's temple, there was a crackling noise, and then a deafening, ringing whine filled the air, like feedback from a microphone. Both women screwed their faces up in pain, scrambling to their feet as the light from the windows darkened. Hermione thought a massive cloud front must have passed across the sun, until she looked around and realized that the lamp in the far corner of the room had dimmed as well, as though some invisible fog had fallen over all the surrounding light sources, blocking them out.

"Hermione."

The bottom dropped out of Hermione's stomach as her head jerked towards his voice. Her eyes stretched wide and her face went slack as her hand crept unconsciously up to grip the rune pendant hanging from her neck like a lifeline.

He materialized from empty air like a specter emerging from a shadowy corner of the room. His gaze burned through her like a wave of fire, so that she staggered back a step from the force of it before she caught herself. Her heart raced between terror and adrenaline, and her mind spun with all the battering gale of a hurricane. But her voice, when she spoke, emerged from the still, calm eye of that raging storm, which twisted around the one fact she fully understood: the name of the man in front of her.

"Tom."

So! I had to go back and change the "you are my heart" to "you are my rain". In case you guys were wondering. It just seemed to make more sense since the Augurey's cry isn't a cry of death but actually a cry of rain.

HUGE chapter, a lot of information, if something doesnt add up send me a message and give me ideas on how to fix it. This chapter was really hard to write (and took a long time because I had to think up a magical relic and give it a history. The Quill of Acceptance seemed like a good relic so I made two more of them; The Quill of Memory and the Quill of Unity.