Hermione arrived in their assigned classroom with two minutes to spare until their 10pm meeting time. Tom had not yet arrived and so she took the opportunity to start getting their supplies set up.

He swept into the classroom at precisely 10pm and she couldn't help but jump a little bit. Dealing with the Gryffindors earlier hadn't been too tricky for her war honed skills, but she was still pretty rattled. Both by the attack, and by how caught off-guard she'd been.

Had the threat been more than simple schoolboys giving her a hard time, her battle reflexes may not have been fast enough. Hermione could not rely solely on her instincts anymore, there were too many unknowns in this time for her to accurately categorize who was or was not a threat.

Luckily the dark-haired boy who just strode into the classroom did not need any reclassification in this time. He was still firmly in Hermione's internal "Threat" category. And right now, the "Threat" was leaning casually against the wall smirking at her.

Noticing her finally looking at him, Tom pushed off the wall and started to approach her, a genuine looking smile on his face. Hermione began to wonder what he was up to, she had never seen that look on his face so far.

"Hermione," he paused and cocked his head "may I call you Hermione?"

She nodded with a neutral expression on her face.

"I'd just like to take this opportunity to apologise for my boorish behavior at our last meeting."

Hermione barely kept her jaw from hitting the floor, Lord Voldemort, apologising? She struggled to keep the shock off her face and her neutral mask in place. There was an awkward pause as she tried to gather herself.

"Apology accepted," She managed to blurt out, "I'm sorry too, I have been told that I can be a bit of an insufferable know it all sometimes." She offered him a forced smile.

Tom grinned boyishly at her, sending an unwilling chill down her spine "Excellent, with that all cleared up we can get to work".

The next hour was one of the most surreal of Hermione's life. Tom kept up a steady stream of pleasant small talk with her as they worked. He engaged her in academic debate about the project and sought her opinions on ideas before implementing them. His behavior was baffling, what was he up to? Had he been slipped a potion?

Hermione and Tom sat side by side on the floor staring at their most recently carved rune, Hermione furrowed her brow as she tried to puzzle out this bizarre shift in behavior, and all the while he snuck glances at her.

This was not the Tom Riddle she had come to know in this time. This was the charming, perfect prefect Tom Riddle she had heard stories about. But why was he choosing to switch over to this persona with her now?

"Hermione? Could you please pass me the chalk?" he asked, snapping her out of her train of thought.

Automatically, her eyes flicked up to meet his. In that instant, his wand popped out of his sleeve and he muttered "legillimens".

She didn't have so much time as to raise her wand before she felt his presence crash violently into her mind.

===========================================

Hovering on the outskirts of the Hurwit girl's mind, Tom smirked to himself. He'd never seen a mind with such clearly formed occlumency barriers before. His earlier exploits being limited to unsuspecting muggles and his not-so-impressive followers. This was going to be fun.

He took a moment to admire the proud metal fortress looming in front of him, slightly obscured by a thick grey mist. It really was impressive for some random girl, a shame he was going to reduce it to rubble.

Considering his approach, he decided that brute force was the ticket here. This girl's walls would never hold against his full power. Why waste his time and talent untangling them when it was faster and more fun to just destroy it all.

Tom gathered up the full might of his magic and smashed it into the outer walls of the fortress, had the fortress been physical, the ground would have been shaking from the sheer power he poured into his onslaught. Not a moment later he could feel the magic he was channeling start to taper off against his will. A wall of thick white fog rushed at him, and the mist started to engulf him, burning him from the outside in. He could hear himself screaming back in the physical world.

The mist then pressed in further, filling his lungs and making him feel like he was drowning. The screams abruptly cut off as Tom's physical body stopped being able to breathe.

Suddenly, a loud boom could be heard beyond the wall of the fortress, and Tom could hear the rushing of what sounded like a large object flying directly towards him.

It smashed directly into him and he could feel his connection to her mind break. His consciousness was ripped from the fortress world and his head felt like it was going to explode. All he could do was scream silently.

Back in the real world, he registered first that he was midair and secondly that his lungs were suddenly clear, he seemed to have been blasted away from her. His back hit the wall first, then his head cracked against the stone wall of the castle and all he could feel was pain. His head was spinning, and his stomach was roiling, he was so disoriented he barely managed the presence of mind to turn his head to the side as his dinner made a repeat appearance on the floor next to him.

After that, all he knew was darkness.

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Hermione just stared at the boy crumpled on the floor in a puddle of his own vomit, frozen by her own shock and fear.

Did she really just do that? Did this really just happen?

She had not only seriously injured Tom Riddle, but she had let slip one of her biggest secrets. No one knew just how strong and complicated her occlumency defenses were. This would make her stick out so much more than just being the new girl already had.

This could not be good.

Focus! She scolded herself. What should she do with him? Leave him here? What if he threw up again while unconscious and choked and died? What if the head injury had caused serious damage and he bled out internally?

Could she live with that on her conscience? Even knowing who and what he would grow up to become. Was that something she could risk?

She could take him to the hospital wing, or get a teacher, but how could she explain what had happened here? Whilst she hadn't really done anything wrong, it was only self defense, she would have to have explain about the occlumency. That was really not the kind of attention she wanted to call to herself.

She could bring him to his friends to watch over him and step in if he took a turn for the worse, but she was sure that exposing his vulnerability to more people would certainly sign her death warrant, if it wasn't already.

Hermione sighed, there was only one option left. She couldn't live with herself if she left him unconscious with a possible head injury and something happened. No matter what atrocities he may or may not go on to commit. She would check on him, and assuming he wasn't on the verge of death and required immediate professional intervention, she'd heal him as much as she could.

Steeling herself, she stood up and cautiously made her way over to him. She waved her wand and the mess he'd made on the floor disappeared.

Crouching over him she cast a basic diagnostic charm that she had learned while on the run. To her relief he seemed mostly fine. He had nasty bruises on his back and head, a piercing headache and a concussion. But no brain injuries, internal bleeding, or other permanent damage.

Hermione smiled ruefully to herself as she reached into an extended hidden pocket of her bookbag, old habits die hard, and she couldn't help but be prepared. She withdrew two vials from her bag, a pain potion and a mild healing potion, to help with the headache and bruising. She wasn't a mediwitch so she wasn't sure what to do about the concussion, but was fairly sure that that should heal on it's own given time. That's what muggles did.

Reaching her hands out towards him, she hesitated. She couldn't get him to swallow the potions while slumped over like that, but touching the unconscious boy felt wrong.

Taking another deep breath, she told herself she had no choice and he was just an unconscious schoolboy, he wasn't Lord Voldemort yet. She lifted up his slumped head and quickly dumped the two potions into his mouth and shut it, forcing him to swallow.

She gently lowered his head back to the ground, so as to not cause more damage.

Sitting back on her heels Hermione realized she was stalling. She'd done all she knew how to do and so it was time to wake him up. She needed to make sure that her diagnostic spell was correct and that he was able to function safely before she could leave him alone.

Before she could lose her nerve, Hermione whipped out her wand and said tersely, renerverate.

The boy in front of her jerked and started to sit up with a groan, hands clutching at his head and shielding his eyes from the harsh lights of the classroom.

Quickly, Hermione cast a spell to dim the lights of the room and he sighed in relief.

"Tom?" she asked in a quiet voice, cognizant of his likely pounding head, "Do you know what day it is?"

Glancing up from his hands, he met her eyes with a look of irritation, but not necessarily malice. "Thursday." He gritted out after a brief hesitation.

After answering he dropped his head between his knees and squeezed his eyes shut, likely still dizzy and nauseous.

She nodded and conjured him a quick glass of cool water. Hermione set it down next to him and he grabbed it and held the cool glass against his forehead.

They sat in silence for a few minutes while Tom breathed deeply.

Finally, he lifted his head up and opened his eyes, so Hermione took that opportunity to speak, "I think we need to get you back to the common room and to your bed, can you stand up?"

A confused look flashed across his face, clearly the concussion was clouding his thoughts. Perhaps this was good for her, Hermione thought, if he remained dazed, she could get him safely to bed before he figured out that he wanted to murder her. And if she was lucky, maybe by tomorrow he'd have a change of heart on the whole murdering her thing.

Realizing he probably wasn't going to respond, she gingerly took his arm, still reluctant to touch the boy. And gently helped drag him to his feet.

They walked in silence, as she held his arm and he shuffled and stumbled a little. Luckily, the halls were deserted at this late hour and so they didn't run into anyone. Trying to explain this would not be fun.

As they approached the entrance to the Slytherin common room, Tom seemed to snap slightly out of his daze. Either that or the familiar route he'd taken hundreds of times before put him on auto pilot.

Hermione muttered the password and paused as the door opened.

Not looking at her, Tom mumbled only his second word since the incident, "goodnight".

He walked away from her with none of his usual grace, making a slightly uneven beeline for the boys dormitory.

Stepping into the empty common room, Hermione quickly headed to her own bedroom and flopped down on her bed, drawing the curtains around her and casting a quick silencing charm.

Finally, she let out the breath she hadn't known she had been holding. Then she slapped her pillow over her face and screamed.