"We've let our tutoring sessions slide for far too long."

Without notice, Tom stepped into Hermione's room and closed the door behind him. She flinched when he appeared so suddenly, but she did not protest. She had long since realised that her own room here in the castle was not as safe and secure as she would have liked. She had to reckon with Tom entering unannounced at any time - as he did now - and she was accordingly careful with her books, notes, and even her thoughts. Even though he was obviously not yet the great Legilimens he would become later, she did not want to take any risks.

Her eyes fell on a very thick, very old book he held in his hands. "Another tome from the Restricted Section?"

To her astonishment, he grinned and shook his head. "No, this book is in the open, though I doubt any of our classmates would ever pull it off the shelf."

Curious as to what Tom could possibly want with a book available for all to see, Hermione left her seat at her desk to join him on her bed. When had it become so natural for her to sit on her bed with Tom?

He put the book down between them and turned the title towards her so she could read it, "Meditation for Wizards?"

Still with a superior grin on his lips, he nodded. "Yes. I am aware that hardly any wizards practise meditation, but I think it is negligent. We wizards and witches have a source of power within us. The more we know about it, the more we know it, the easier it is to control."

Sceptically, Hermione raised an eyebrow. "If I remember correctly, you weren't that enthusiastic about control, on the contrary. Wasn't it your words that we need to unleash our power?"

Instructively, Tom raised a finger. "There is a difference between controlling something and suppressing it. Every child has an unsuppressed source of power. It is not yet mature and strong, as is the case with adult wizards, but it is enough to unintentionally cast minor spells. Or even to set something on fire. The magic power is there, uncontrolled, unsuppressed."

Hermione understood what he meant by uncontrolled magic - she herself had experienced various strange things in her childhood that she had later been able to explain with magic. But she still was not quite clear what he wanted with the meditation. "So, you want us to control our source of magic even more than we already do?"

Sighing, he rubbed the bridge of his nose as if he was dealing with a very stupid child. "No, my heart, not more. Differently."

He opened the book and flipped to one of the introductory chapters, which talked theoretically about the nature of magic in wizards and witches. He tapped on an illustration that presented the source inside a person as a ball of light. "Here, this is the source of power. Of course, we don't have a ball of light inside us, but as a visualisation it works quite well. In our childhood, the ball is still quite small, it can discharge freely in all directions. The more we use it, the more it grows, with each wizard and witch having different potential. However, and we have talked about this, the kind of teaching we experience here leads us to put a protective cover around the ball, which only allows a tiny stream through at any one time. We only activate part of the energy at a time, and each time we do magic under these self-imposed barriers, the ring closes tighter."

Hermione nodded. "Yes, you've said it all before. The chains that bind us, the chains we need to throw off."

He stroked her head. "So, you listened. Good girl."

She gave him a murderous look. "I don't like it when you talk down to me like that."

He laughed softly as he let his hand trail down her cheek. "I'm going to keep treating you this way, my dear, until you prove to me that you're worthy of different treatment. So, strain that pretty little head of yours and at least try to follow me."

In disbelief Hermione snorted, but she did as he asked. Obviously, on the one hand, Tom realised that she could hold a candle to him and was not only intelligent but also magically strong. But just as obviously, he found it difficult to really put aside his chauvinistic manner, which the society of the time trained him to have, and his very own narcissistic sense of superiority. He did better not to underestimate her, but for the moment she complied. She was too curious.

Silently she skimmed the lines of the chapter, and with each paragraph she read she understood more what Tom was getting at. The ball as a symbol of the source of power was indeed helpful. Like the sun, which sometimes hurled eruptions kilometres into space, the source of power could accidentally discharge magic. The handling of the wand, the spells that were simple and mostly meant for good, the precise hand movements, all served the purpose of enclosing the ball of energy and leaving only a small opening through which the wizard or with could tap into their magic without much effort.

The chapter did not go into this, but Hermione involuntarily wondered what would happen if the securing protection was not there. Would she then still sometimes accidentally set things on fire, as she had done in her childhood? Tom obviously wanted them to remove the protection - and since she assumed he was not completely insane, he had to have thought of a way to control the source of the power even without a guard.

Unleash it, but control it.

Perhaps his words from the beginning made sense after all. An excited tremor gripped her at the idea of being able to use her full magical potential.

"I see you've finally caught on," Tom snapped her out of her thoughts, "Good."

A question burned inside Hermione, "When I was in the hospital wing, after our last duel ... you felt it too, didn't you? The electricity in the air?"

His eyes lit up. "Yes. That is an excellent clue. At that moment, my source of power sensed yours and vice versa. They released each other, uncontrollable, but ... intoxicating."

Slowly she nodded. "Intoxicating. Yes. It certainly was."

Something else surged from her memories. The first time she had had sex to Tom. There had been this something inside her, like a black, huge abyss that engulfed her. It had scared her to no end, and so she had tried never to think about it again. But now the memory was back, clearer than ever, demanding Hermione's attention. Tom not only talked about magic when he told her his theory about shackles, but also about morality in general. This blackness, this vast abyss. Was this her potential as a human being? Her rational, empathic abilities, if only she allowed herself to break free of social norms?

She remembered it well. Tom had humiliated her, humiliated her in ways she had never imagined. He had forced absolute loss of control on her, had shown her that she would allow herself to be used by him. He had reduced her to an object. She had fought back, inwardly, had tried to hold on to her dignity, to convince herself that she was deliberately giving him what he wanted, that it had been her choice, that she could manipulate him like this. But the moment Tom, completely preoccupied with his own lust, had relentlessly marked her as his, the moment she had abandoned all rational thought, the blackness had come. And with it an orgasm, a feeling of pleasure that made her forget all previous humiliation. She had felt panic at the strange sensation.

Suddenly Hermione became aware that Tom moved closer to her, that the thumb of his hand, still resting on her cheek, was caressing her lips while the other caressed her thighs.

"You remember, eh?" he whispered in a raspy voice, "You remember me. Us. How you gave yourself over."

Hermione shivered. "Yes. You were so ..."

"Relentless?" Tom suggested softly as his lips neared her ear, "Hard? Ruthless?"

The words failed her and so Hermione just nodded. His physical closeness seemed to stop all her thoughts, all her concerns, leaving her with nothing but pure, undisguised lust. A moan escaped her throat.

"Rousseau was right," Tom murmured, "Women are the beings with the stronger sex drive. And at the same time, you are so much better at controlling it."

Several times Hermione swallowed before she was able to formulate a decent sentence. "You've read Rousseau?"

Slowly, Tom forced her to sink backwards until she was lying under him, his legs to her right and left, his one hand buried in her hair while the other traced incessant circles on the inside of her thighs. Unlike her, he seemed completely unimpressed by this intimacy. Almost mockingly, he replied, "What, I'm not allowed to read it because he was Muggle? The moral philosophy of the Enlightenment had many interesting thoughts. The French in particular were very inventive."

Hermione remembered that there were some philosophical works in her parents' house. She had only heard of Rousseau from her mother's conversations, but she knew he was an important thinker. Which made the fact that Tom had read him - and other philosophers of the time, if his words were to be believed - all the more dangerous. His ideas about morality and magic had a theoretical underpinning that made it hard to counter him.

Tom breathed a kiss on her forehead, then jerked upright, releasing Hermione. Slowly, still dazed by the sudden lust that had overtaken her, she straightened up as well. She had to remind herself that this was how she reacted to him. She absolutely had to realise how dangerous he could become to her. She could not forget that her goal was to kill him.

She swallowed.

She should better think about that another time. For the moment it was irrelevant anyway. For the moment, it was much more exciting to see whether she could unleash her source of magic in a controlled way through meditation. Her gaze wandered back to the book that lay between her and Tom. He had flipped further to the back, to a chapter that explained the basics of meditation for wizards and witches.

Without giving her time to read the contents of the chapter for herself, Tom explained, "The most important thing when meditating is that you have a balanced mind and calm breathing. Your body must not disturb your mind. Only when your mind is completely free of external impressions will it be possible to direct it inwards."

She nodded. These were things that were commonly known about meditation. Nor did she see any difference between wizards and Muggles.

"If you manage to achieve the state so described," Tom continued, "it will be exciting. Muggles use this to perhaps sort out thoughts or simply rest the mind. We, on the other hand, can go deeper within ourselves, to our source of magic. And unlike normal energy use, we can enter the source instead of just using it."

Hermione's head began to spin. "Enter? I admit, I have a hard time imagining that."

Tom smiled sympathetically. "That's because you've never tried it. It's an uplifting experience, believe me."

"So you've already tested this?"

"Please." Tom was indignant. "Do you really think I would let you in on some abstruse theories? What I'm discussing with you are things I've tried myself. I'm hardly going to put myself through the embarrassment of anything turning out to be a failure or nonsense."

To this Hermione merely rolled her eyes. "Sorry, Your Highness, I forgot for a moment who I was dealing with."

"Hermione, Hermione," Tom replied with a laugh, "You have a sharp tongue."

"As if you didn't know that before."

"You're right," he agreed with her surprisingly seriously, "That's what makes you such an interesting person. Most women these days are soft and docile in their nature. You are not. Not at all."

She was not from that era either, Hermione thought to herself, but she remained silent. Instead, she turned her attention back to the book, trying to figure out exactly how this sinking into one's source of power was supposed to work. Tom, she was as surprised as she was pleased to discover, was actually remaining silent to allow her to acquire the knowledge herself. It was obvious that the chapter - as well as the following ones, she realised after a brief leafing through - did not deal with that application of meditation Tom was aiming at. Nowhere did it say anything about loosening the protection. But then again, Hermione had to admit, they had never learned anything in class about building up that protection either. Not explicitly. It was always just about control and the correct, good use of magic. The fact that this involved an impenetrable shell around a ball of light had never been mentioned.

She was more than eager to try Tom's theory. If she managed to use all her power, she might finally be Tom's equal in duels. And maybe back in the future she would be able to defeat him in a direct confrontation. Perhaps he was just handing her the key to his defeat.