02 Stranger in a Strange Land
Albus Dumbledore visits the infirmary. Another professor also drops in. Hermione hears just how bad her condition had been. A prefect drops a book from Slughorn. A deluge of Hermione's memories.
In which we see that Hermione's head has a tad more cracks than she realised.
'-
The first thing that she kept in mind was that she didn't know Albus Dumbledore.
Oh, she knew one Albus Dumbledore. He was the wizard who'd had to duel the man he loved, had taken on the mantle of responsibility from the wizarding world and held it for half a century. The man she knew was wise and experienced, but he had also gained an edge of tiredness. Her headmaster knew her and trusted her implicitly. This transfiguration professor would probably saw her as a mystery—and he might even wonder if she was a threat to Hogwarts.
It was a good thing for her boredom that he decided to visit her the next day. Even Nurse Edelstein's encyclopaedia of herbs were getting too dull to read and she was reasonably sure that she'd managed to get her hair under control today. Dumbledore's auburn hair and beard were a surprise, though, as was the reduced number of wrinkles. Without his obscuring beard and moustache, he'd probably look like a well-preserved forty-year-old.
"Good afternoon, Miss Curie."
"Good afternoon, Professor."
He sat on the chair by her bedside. "I'm sorry for your experience. I hope the rest of your school year in Hogwarts will be better."
"Well, as they say, if you start at rock bottom, the only direction left to go is up," she answered. She did her best trying to give a non-answer answer. She glided past his bright blue eyes. Even if he caught her surface thoughts, it would be mostly filled with thoughts of boredom and how it was nice to have food from the kitchens brought here instead of getting the usual hospital food. In addition, she was wondering how she could try to create a thermos. Just for proof-of-concept.
"True. I hope Hogwarts can live up to the standards of your previous school."
"Oh, I'm sure it can. It's just a small study circle arranged by the wizarding families around, Professor, nothing to write home about. 'School' makes it sound so official." There, she'd just avoided giving any details about her hypothetical old school.
"Considering your achievements, I doubt that your school is as humble as you make it."
"Well, if there's only ten or so people in a class, everyone gets enough attention from the teacher. Besides, I've always liked to read since I was young—I think my mother said I've started dragging picture books when I was two and a half and I was already reading a year after that."
It was another child she happened to know who progressed that fast—she simply used it as her fake history. Her memory, however, can't recall who.
She had to suppress a sigh. Draco would've been better at this game of avoiding details and pretending to not know Dumbledore's name. Hermione, however, didn't always have the patience for layered political conversations—and this was one, isn't it? Why would she need to, if she could usually foist it off him? It was as natural as letting Harry to take point on any raid—he was the equivalent of a magical tank, after all.
(Wait, when did she start passing political conversations to Draco? She was sure it didn't happen in the first year or so after the war—everyone was too busy helping with the rebuilding process back then and they were only awkward acquaintances at that point, not friends yet. There's a context here that she was missing…)
"What class do you teach, Professor? And I'm sorry, I don't think I caught your name."
Dumbledore's smile was knowing, but he nodded all the same. "Albus Dumbledore at your service, young lady, and I teach Transfiguration. I also happen to be the Head of Gryffindor House."
"Nifty." She commented distractedly.
"Miss?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Interesting, I mean. I've always found transfiguration to be interesting. It's my favourite subject." If she sounded happy, it wasn't even a lie. She was also relieved that they didn't have to dwell too much on her aforementioned past. "How far has the class gone on, Professor? Would I miss much? If you can give me the title of the reading materials, I'm sure Nurse Edelstein can find someone to get them for me from the library and I'd be caught up on all of them once I'm in class."
Dumbledore chuckled. "Please slow down, Miss Curie. I think you can rest for a few more days before you try to tackle academia head on. I see that your records speak for itself—you are diligent as well as intelligent."
"Well, achievement is 95% hard work."
She couldn't help with the trite sayings. If she didn't focus on finding something pithy to say, she was afraid she'd start spilling something. Her nerves might even lead her to ask when Dumbledore heard from his ex-boyfriend last.
And that would be bad.
"You can take your time recovering for now. Resting when one is tired is not a vice."
"Ah, of course, Sir. I'll remember that."
Still doesn't mean that she wouldn't try to get books from the library, though, or the various class syllabi. They do have class syllabus in this decade, right? Hermione was somehow unaccountably worried at the prospect of a teaching staff with messier habits.
Wait, last year's notes! Yes, if worse comes to worse, she can find some kids from the Ravenclaw Tower who're willing to sell copies of their last year's notes for certain classes. At the very least, she could use that as a syllabus for any class. Hermione let out a mental sigh at the prospect of a backup plan.
"Rest well, Miss Curie."
"I will, Professor."
It was only after Dumbledore had left that Hermione realised that she had no idea whether Dippet did go to Dumbledore to ask about Grindelwald. If he did, she had no idea what Dumbledore thought about her recommending the headmaster that he was their local expert on Grindelwald.
She groaned into her hand, rubbing her forehead and shifting the bandage there yet again.
"I'm really not that good at these cloak-and-dagger things."
Hermione wished Dumbledore would just ask her about it straight away.
'-
It was one of the things that she loved from heavy duty magical pain-killers. Usually, they just knock her out to sleep for longer periods than usual, something about supporting the body's natural healing mechanism. Once the sleeping period had passed, she can wake up just fine without the high feeling that certain common opioids gave. It was closer to an on or off switch—she was either still sleeping, or she was pretty functional when awake.
All the sleeping was hell on the social life, though. Of course, technically, one doesn't quite have any when one is practically locked inside the infirmary.
(Wait, how did she know about the 'fun' side-effects of muggle painkillers? Why did she know that and when did she even—
Much more effective than oxycodone, that's for sure. Her own voice added.
—know that? How did she know?)
'-
It only took to asking Nurse Edelstein once to get the syllabi for all the classes she was taking. Apparently, the head girl had dropped them off on the day before she woke up—she was informed that she was out for a whole day. That was nice. She probably should thank the head girl and get her something the next time she went to Hogsmeade.
Hermione asked about who the head girl and head boy was to Nurse Edelstein, primarily because she wanted to thank her.
"Oh, the Head Girl would be Agatha Abbott. The Head Boy is her twin brother, Andrew Abbott. They're both from Hufflepuff."
Well, she supposed they were this generation's Cedric Diggory. She might feel it odd because Gryffindor had always had a tunnel vision focus on Slytherin and vice versa, focusing on their houses to the exclusion of all else, but logically, she knew that Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff have their own talented people too. Why can't this year's head boy and head girl come from the same house? And why can't that house be Hufflepuff?
"Does she like sweets?"
It wouldn't be too hard to pick up some from Honeydukes.
Maggie Edelstein paused. "I think so. She was here once for a really bad flu and her brother handed a big block of chocolate to her as if it was digestive biscuits."
Well, that thank-you gift was certainly covered.
"Thanks. Oh, can I go to the library to take some books? I'll go straight back to the infirmary, I promise." Hermione asked.
That had Nurse Edelstein giving her a stern glare. Given her experience with stubborn teenagers, it was also impressive. If she was a real teen, she would be cowed.
"You…! You're supposed to be resting, Hermione! Did you know that the regular potions I stocked here did not seem to do be able to affect you much at the beginning? If Professor Slughorn did not step in to check your internal organs himself and brew a specialised potion, you would be bed bound in St. Mungo's!"
"But, but…classes!"
"No. We'll track your progress in the next two or three days. If you seem to be on the mend and stable, then I'll listen to your complaints."
Hermione wasn't actually that desperate to catch up on her classes—she was sure what she knew would be enough, and at most needing a refresher. It was actually rather relaxing to be able to only focus on classes instead of the next emergency in—
"Oh, fine. I'll be keeping this encyclopaedia, though." Hermione said.
(—her memory drew a blank).
"And if you sleep too late, I'll confiscate it." Maggie warned.
Hermione solemnly raised her hand.
"Promise."
On the other hand, Hermione knew she was going to need to go to the library often. Nobody would think twice about a known swot being seen in the library again and again, and her dedication wouldn't raise any questions. Besides, she didn't even need to think about how to be a bookworm. She was one. It was like putting on an old costume that one thought no longer fits, only to find out that it still did.
She needed to figure out why she was here, and what she can do if it turns out that she can't go back—she was pretty sure that the answer wasn't to help lessen the effects of WWII. It was already running at full bore right now and was going to end in three years, more or less.
A part of her was afraid that there would be no home to go back to.
(What if the world had ended with fire? What if things had gotten so bad that everyone thought their best bet was to send one Hermione Granger back? The so-called brightest witch of her generation?)
If so, it was probably a desperate, haphazard effort. It might explain the state of her mind.
'-
Hermione hadn't expected Professor Slughorn to come the next day. He was happy as he sat down at the chair next to her bed, the poor chair itself creaking slightly at having to bear his weight. Even his tweed coat had a cheerful pattern (how did he manage to find it? She wondered idly). His smile was genial on his pink face. Perhaps because he was looking forward to pulling another apparent talent to the Slug Club.
"My dear Miss Curie, you are looking so much better now! The last time I came here, I was so worried about whether you were going to survive the night or not."
Her condition wasn't that bad, was it? He seemed to catch her concerned look and waved it away.
"No need to worry now. If you've managed to pass the first two days, I'm sure you'd be up and running in no time at all. Oh, where are my manners? I'm just so excited to see you. I'm Horace Slughorn, Professor of Potions at Hogwarts. I'm also the Head of the Slytherin House, the same way that Professor Dumbledore is the Head of the Gryffindor House."
Hermione smiled. She felt like she could kiss him for giving her the opening.
"I'm looking forward to seeing you in class, Professor. Also, I'm sorry if I sound so naïve, but what is a House? Professor Dumbledore mentioned it yesterday, too, but I forgot to ask."
Slughorn's eyes widened. "The Headmaster didn't tell you?"
"I'm sure he's busy enough running the school every day," Hermione commented.
"Then allow me to do this for you! You see, Hogwarts has four founders, and the characters valued within the four Houses each reflect the character of that particular founder…"
She allowed Slughorn to go on. With enough positive responses at the right time, she would appear to be listening intently at all times.
He was actually rather comprehensive in his explanation, though a careful ear would notice that he was weighted more favourably towards Slytherin compared to the rest—it was where the ambitious and talented came and network among themselves, where people polish their skills and actually find an achievement to aim it at. He did give a good reckoning of Ravenclaw's appreciation for intelligence and the search for knowledge. He was straining in his efforts to find enough good things to say about Hufflepuff but he kept at it, using weird phrases like 'uncommon hard work' and 'for industry and worker bees', enough that Hermione had to bite her lip to stop her laughter. It was probably because their viewpoint was rather diametrically placed from Slytherin and thus was hard for him to make sense of why people would want to be in Hufflepuff.
His description of the Gryffindors were sheer art, though. He highlighted their courage and also their tendency to run headfirst into danger without checking. He mentioned their bravery and their fighting spirit while leaving it open that it really is easy to get most men to fight for their friends, or that rare is the person who checks what exactly their friend is fighting for, and whether they agree with that direction or not. He did not insult them, but he laid their weaknesses bare in a way he did not manage for the other houses.
Hermione grinned.
"Your house and Professor Dumbledore's house must often be in friendly competition," she said.
Slughorn's fluffy brows rose. "Hmm, well, yes. The children do so love to compete for the House Cup. How did you know?"
"You give the longest explanations for Slytherin and Gryffindor, while only covering what is necessary for Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff."
She surprised him into laughter. The chair creaked again as he moved. "Very true! I'm afraid you've seen straight into the heart of the matter. If you are even half as talented as your equivalent OWLs scores say, my potion class would be a delight with you there."
"You think too highly of me, Professor," Hermione said, but she was still grinning.
"I'm sure I'm actually following a conservative estimate. By the way, Miss Curie, what house are you sorted into?"
Hermione furrowed her brows. She hoped she looked confused as opposed to cross-eyed.
"Sorted?"
"You're saying you're not sorted yet? Morgana's—" Slughorn coughed. "By Morgana, Dippet certainly is taking his time. Compared to a first-year, you will have more sophisticated ideas and opinions of your own. If you wish to know more about Hogwarts, you should read Hogwarts: A History."
"Why, I'd love to, Professor! It's just that when I raised the idea of going to the library to Nurse Edelstein yesterday, she gave me a really scary glare. I suppose I'm still under house arrest here. All I wanted to do was start going through the required reading for the classes! If I can't go anywhere else for a while, I might as well get something out of it, right?"
She pouted.
"Excellent work ethics, Miss Curie! You will fit right in with Slytherin. I can help you with that. Why don't you make a list of five books after you've read what is required from your classes? I'll send someone to take that list this afternoon and help you get those books while you are confined to the infirmary. What do you think?"
"I think you're being very generous, Professor Slughorn. Thank you."
"Oh, think nothing of it, dear. I can easily imagine your boredom." His gregariousness seemed to have settled down slightly after that, and there was something like concern in his eyes.
"Truly, Miss Curie, are you alright?"
It was more serious than anything else he'd asked or said. "I suppose there are some soreness, but that's to be expected after being battered around so much. I dislike the weakness the most, though."
"There are no sudden sharp pains?"
Something about the question piqued her attention.
"Well, no. That's a funny question, Professor, because Nurse Edelstein always asked me about lingering pain, but she never asked me about sudden pains."
Slughorn nodded. He didn't deny her statement. "I'm not surprised that she didn't. When the standard blood-replenishing potion and the like did not quite work, Professor Dumbledore and I was contacted by the headmaster. I had recognised a good number of the curses used on you and Professor Dumbledore managed to do the same. Many of these curses are dark and rare that Madam Edelstein cannot recognise them. As for the two of us…we have a, hmm, highly particular specialties."
Slughorn was glossing over a lot of his own and Dumbledore's history there. It wasn't really a surprise, what did surprise her was how bad her condition seemed to have been. He grew quiet for a while before taking one long breath.
"Between the two of us, I think we've identified the worst of the curses and managed to stabilise your condition enough for the mediwitch that came later to work her miracles. Yet if we had not been available in the first few hours of your discovery…"
Hermione knew that Slughorn wasn't even talking about St Mungo's. Was she that close to death?
"I…" she took a deep breath. No, she wasn't going to avoid it. She'd picked up some field mediwitch skills, and the least she could do was face it with open eyes.
"How bad was it, Professor?"
"I'm sure you don't need to be concerned about it at all now. You're already healing most of it away."
She shook her head, unwilling to be redirected.
"Did I lose a loop of small intestine or so? No, it can't be, because a burst gut of that magnitude is usually signified by a burning pain." Hermione paused, thinking, "Oh! I remembered another symptom; possible vomiting of blood. I didn't recall vomiting blood. I was in a bad shape but not that bad. There had been no follow-up fever. I don't think I'd have only slept a day away if that was the case either, so I don't think this is it."
Her gaze was steady as she met Slughorn's eyes, not reacting to his surprised or intrigued look.
"I remembered the persistent pain on my lower back. How were my kidneys? Were they bruised?"
From Slughorn's wince, she figured out that she was on the money with that.
"They're alright now, Miss Curie. Really, you don't need to worry about it."
"I still have blood in my urine. I don't think my kidneys are exactly 'fine' yet."
Her flat reply pulled Slughorn into giving her an answer. "There's still excess blood that needs to be disposed of. Now, I'm sure hearing more will just lead you to worry excessively about it."
"I'll still worry even if I don't know, Professor. The difference is that it would be a more irrational worry, one that's harder to contain."
Hermione didn't realise that she'd looked down, her hands tightening into fists. It was still a shock for her to face her own mortality, especially when she couldn't even remember how it happened. Did she fought well against forces that outnumber her? Was she negligent and was ambushed? If it had been an ambush, if she had been negligent, she couldn't help but wonder who else was with her at the time?
Who else had died because she'd let them down?
"Shh, shhh. It's alright, Miss Curie, Hermione. Everything's going to be alright now."
Slughorn had been confused for some moments before he decisively brought his chair forward and started patting her shoulder. His large left hand was awkwardly patting her hand. She appreciated the gesture. He might be a coward, and he might be odd, but for all his efforts at being an ambitious social butterfly, you can never accuse him of not caring for his students.
"It's just…" she started. "Maybe I left someone behind—maybe I left many people behind. Maybe people were left behind because they were trying to save me. I don't know. Why did I find myself alone? I can't quite remember what happened, but I wish I was stronger—"
"You're already stronger than many witches I know, Hermione. It's not your fault, do you hear me? Whatever happens, it's not your fault."
She let herself cry on Slughorn's shoulder, because she was just so tired of holding everything back.
'-
Slughorn apparently sent one of the Slytherin prefects to the infirmary—she could see his badge easily from the moment he entered, shiny dark hair and perfectly polished shoes. There was a thick tome in his hand, and his robes seemed to be of a deeper, richer black than regulation.
He moved with an old-world elegance as he approached her bedside slowly, respectfully. With that grace, he could be a courtier anywhere from the frozen courts of Muscovy to the cutthroat decadence of Istanbul. His sophistication was something that Draco would kill for, back when he was still the prat of his Hogwarts days.
"Miss Hermione Curie, I presume?" His accent could cut glass.
"Um, yes, that would be me."
He had the darkest blue eyes and Hermione was chagrined to discover that having a teenage body meant going through puberty again. It was an annoying distraction, as she struggled to remember that she was in the 1940s. Even in the twenty-first century, it was not polite to jump a man without getting his name first.
"And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?" she asked.
The words came out with more polish than she expected, as Hermione had half-expected to stumble through the sentence. Apparently, all the times that Draco insisted on showing how it was done among the purebloods ensured that something stuck.
She could see the almost-smile on the prefect's face turning into genuine interest.
I don't really mind taking over the lobbying, Hermione, but you know I can't always be around for all the meetings. It's better if you know enough to stick a dagger back in the legislation when those bastards try to take advantage of you. Draco had said with exasperation.
(There. Another memory about Draco. When? And what were they talking about?)
"Tom Riddle, fifth-year Slytherin prefect."
She extended her right hand, but he kissed her knuckles instead of shaking it. His lips were soft over her skin spreading tingles while her memory scrambled at the name. It was familiar, but she didn't know why.
"I'm sorry that you're stuck in the infirmary for days on end."
Hermione shrugged. "It's annoying, but I do realise that I'm probably going to faint after one class if I tried to go, so I made my peace with it."
"Yet I'm not at all sorry that I monopolise your company right now."
It was hard to hold back her grin at his confidence. He was interesting, yes, but she wasn't a fool that would be easily taken in—she had no doubt that he had many fans. Hermione didn't want to be yet another one among the many girls trailing behind him.
"Really? You don't even know little old me. Maybe I'm going to bore you to death talking about the standards of cauldron thickness. I'm sure you have much more interesting things to do than stay around, Mr. Riddle, heaven knows I don't find running errands for teachers as one of my favourite things to do."
Hermione met his gaze with a bland smile of her own. She really did not have a good track record with men with large egos. She already felt compelled to tweak him just on that basis, for one.
"You think too poorly of yourself, Miss Curie." he replied.
"Well, no one else seems to volunteer for it. Clearly someone needs to." she said easily. "Whoever would check my inflated ego otherwise?"
It was her flippantness, she knew, that caught him. She saw his eyes sparkle with interest now, as opposed to the more even politeness he'd started out with. His confidence implied that he was not one to back down from a challenge. Thus, if she couldn't care less whether he stayed or not, then he was determined to stay to find out why.
"How far have you read Cook's Encyclopaedia of the Magical Plants of Britain?" he asked, out of the blue. She furrowed her brows, not quite expecting the question.
"I don't know, I jump around. That's the whole point of keeping an encyclopaedia—I wouldn't run out of reading material any time soon."
He leaned back on the chair, his glance entirely too knowing and thus being generally annoying.
"If I were to make a blood cleansing potion, can I use red liverwort?" he asked. Hermione frowned.
"That wasn't even in the ingredients…no, wait, you're trying to replace something, aren't you?" She turned her gaze to him, weighing his question. "You can replace blood kava with it, but it also means adjusting at least two other ingredients as well. The red liverwort is richer in metallic traces than most other plants that doesn't react well with many others. Exchanging anything with it isn't exactly an efficient substitution." Hermione pointed out.
"If I say I was looking for some eight-petaled dryas in the Midlands?"
She snorted. The mistake was too blatant. "Looking for a dryas in the lowlands? Please. I'd say you're either looking for the wrong thing or is in the wrong place. If the eight-petaled dryas is what you want, then I'd recommend checking the Lake District…or the mountains, even."
The stared at each other for another second before he raised an eyebrow at her. He spoke up again.
"There are at least three common potions with laxation as one of their effects – I can easily exchange the laxative herb in each with rhubarb leaves. Is this true?"
Everything he'd said was correct. Hermione was about to nod her way through it until she noticed the wry edge to his smile.
"Wait, no! That was a trick question, wasn't it? You'd want rhubarb stalks—the leaves are bloody poisonous! And these are closer to potions question than herbology!" She frowned.
He was undaunted by her indignant protest and gave his assessment.
"You already know around half of the Encyclopaedia's contents." He stated.
"I…" what was she supposed to do, deny? She didn't even know how much she'd read, but it wasn't the first herbal compendium that she'd read. His guess might not even be that wrong.
"What is it to you?" she asked back.
"Please don't pretend you're boring to me when we're both perfectly aware that you're not. You're not average." he said.
"You will never be average, Miss Curie. I'll stand witness to that." His statement sounded strangely like a promise, and the solemnity caught her off guard. He was serious. But those words…he should've been more careful with those words because just like 'I swear', 'I stand witness' had been important words in various magical rituals. What was he trying to do?
That odd not-quite-a-smile played at the corner of his lips. He was too intriguing for his own good.
"I just…sometimes there's nothing more rewarding than sitting by a fireplace and read in winter. I've always read too much." She spoke quickly, because she had no answer to her confusion, and she did not want to start losing her head around him. "What about you? If I ask you where I can find winter aconite in the wild, where would it be?"
A pause, and the answer rolled smoothly as if he'd just read it. "I would say 'not here', not outside a botanical garden, for the winter aconite is native to Europe and not wild in Britain. That, is also a trick question."
There was the mildest reproach in his tone. If he expected her to look contrite, she certainly wasn't. Hermione wasn't exactly a young girl prone to stumbling in front of a crush, even if he was distractingly pretty for a guy. She merely smiled.
"Well! I didn't even worry, because surely someone with your extensive knowledge would have found the answer too obvious. Even if it's clear that you will be potion master faster than a master herbalist."
There was no way that she'd allow him to trip her up, and if he owed her no apologies, then she didn't either. Silence collected in the room as they held long steady glances at each other. He nodded first, as if giving respect to the position she'd taken.
"Professor Slughorn has informed me that you needed more information about Hogwarts. This is his personal copy of Hogwarts: A History." With that, he stood up and deposited the book on the side table. Hermione's eyes widened.
"I can't take this—"
"You're not taking it. You're merely borrowing it for now and will return it later." He clarified. "Please, don't trouble yourself over something so trivial. Unless, of course, you can assure him that you've borrowed the same book from somewhere else?"
She couldn't answer the question with an affirmative.
His words were firm, and she remembered other things too. Exchanging and taking small favours were sometimes a game among the young purebloods and halfbloods in Slytherin because it was casual and it was an easy way to start learning more complicated social games later. (She knew she'd heard this first from Draco somehow, even if she can't remember how). She needed help so Slughorn gladly gave her this. She probably can say her thanks in the form of his favourite, crystalized pineapple candy.
"Alright. Please give the professor my thanks."
"Certainly. Professor Slughorn also mentioned that you have books you'd wish to borrow from the library?"
"Ah! I've written them down and I'm sure I have the list somewhere…"
She started patting down the blanket in front of her, trying to find the errant scrap of parchment. That was when she could feel the lightest tap over her left elbow, over the fabric of the oversized robe she was stuck with.
"Hold still." He was too close to her ear. She could almost feel his breath over her neck, feel the hand that was still on her elbow. She could feel heat blossoming from the two contact areas.
He caught a slip of parchment about to slip away from under her arm and pulled it free, stepping away.
"I believe this is it?"
Hermione took it from him quickly, focusing on the script and hoping her face did not just blush. As if going through a second puberty was not a horrifying enough occurrence.
"Yes, this is it." She returned it to him. "No need to rush."
He stared at her carefully, as if he was looking for something.
"What?"
"I might be free this evening after prefect rounds." He stated.
"Alright." she said. She thought she could see him almost surprised. Almost.
"Alright?"
"I did say that there's no need to rush, right? So, it's fine however it turns out for you tonight. I'm sure you have other things to do apart from running errands for Slughorn or the current Hogwarts invalid."
Hermione truly had no idea what it was that she said that made him observe her minutely again, it was enough to give her feelings of sympathy for the butterfly underneath the magnifying glass.
"I'll visit tonight—if it's not too inconvenient for you."
With that statement and a firm nod, he was gone.
'-
She had a nice satisfying nap in the afternoon (she still needed a lot of sleep to recover). She woke up sometime around five and started to skim through Hogwarts: A History quickly.
Hermione had known what it was like, memorised sections of it. But she knew that the book didn't exactly stay the same across editions. What she was trying to locate first were the differences. Once she had the time to sit and read carefully, they were always enlightening.
This was especially true for editions that came out at around the same time that a new Minister of Magic had been elected. Why? Because it would reflect the new official position. It told her what parts of history gets scrubbed and hidden, what parts are now considered inappropriate or unnecessary for children. It told her about what the current Ministry likes to highlight; it was a canary in the coalmine to their future policies.
She'd turned this into her personal early warning system.
It was how she got the drop on the new Werewolf Registration Act when it was still in the planning stages. When she knew who the individuals responsible for it were, finding their personal weakness one by one was not difficult. Over the negotiating table afterwards, with Hermione's ammunition and knowing their family histories backwards and forwards, Draco Malfoy owned them completely. (Being an upper-class twit has its uses, he'd said dryly).
(Draco rolled his eyes. For all his grudging praise and sore-loser attitude before when he came short in the investigation with her, today, he'd gladly raised his glass and called for a toast in her name to the whole damned room. The entire fricking ballroom. All her hissed calls of 'Malfoy, quit it!' was soundly ignored. It probably helped him that he had Harry on his side. The Boy-Who-Lived casually dropped an arm across her shoulder and winked at her, eyepatch and all—though does it get called a wink when one only has one eye? Harry kept her from going after the pale twat. Neville and Luna were also blocking her way, damn them.
Ron was some distance away from them, but he did raise his glass for her all the same. There was a stunning blonde next to him…oh, Lavender. Ginny gave an awkward wave, but Hermione didn't have any hard feelings. She waved back with ease. If Ginny wanted to accompany her brother, why not? They were family. Hermione and Ron were on one of their longer breaks and she was surprised that any jealousy she felt was just a passing twinge.)
The memory disappeared as fast as it came, but something inside her relaxed. They were still there, even if in pieces, even if not easily recalled. Her memories were still there.
Nurse Edelstein checked up on her sometime before supper and then rang the bell to inform the house elfs that they can start preparing for Hermione's meal and send it up.
It was at that time when she managed to remember who exactly Tom Marvolo Riddle was. Well, at any rate, she remembered who he came to be, in her future.
He was Dark Lord Voldemort. The mad man with seven horcruxes. The dark wizard who tried to kill Harry and failed (twice).
She laughed, free and without compunction.
It was just…the sheer irony of the meeting. He had no idea who she was. At all. She herself had no idea who he was either. They were but two highly-intelligent students chatting each other up in the Hogwarts infirmary.
Tom had looked so normal—but of course, why shouldn't he? He wasn't that mad man yet. People overestimate how abnormal killers should look, as if there should be some chilling aura that they oozed. But if the neighbours of many a serial killer never quite noticed the wolf among them, as evidenced in their interviews, why should anyone notice what Tom Riddle is or is becoming?
(She'd helped sort various criminology and criminal psychology papers based on their relevance for Harry to read as he rose through the ranks of the DMLE and tried to change the Aurors into something more modern. She'd also read many first-hand accounts of some of the more famous crimes, and this includes the eyewitness statements. She knew the pattern of the Befuddled and Concerned Neighbour very well).
People wish to think that these callous killers should look different because they don't like to contemplate that they, too, can easily be one. The average person does not like to think that the line between the upstanding citizen and the norm-breaking monster was not a firm wall set by a benevolent emperor to keep out barbarians, but a simple path drawn by a stick upon sand, with a ringmaster standing by.
Come on! You know you want to. Think of all the people that have harmed you and your family! Step this way, ladies and gentleman! Step right this way, and let's make them pay with blood…
If Hermione was younger, she might have been tense at the prospect of going to school with a budding Dark Lord. If Hermione's mental age matched her physical age, she might have been angry at him for all the crimes he'd yet to commit, she might have been struggling to hide her alternating rage and wariness.
But she had vague memories of her and Harry (and Ron, and everyone else) hearing about yet another wannabe dark lord and her first reaction had been to roll her eyes. 'Not this again', she had complained to Luna (another Unspeakable, different division), ignoring the looks of awe from the junior Aurors as she walked to Harry's office to plan their next campaign.
(Her Gryffindor boys always pulled her from the Unspeakable when there was a major assault, regardless of how much they complained about the inter-departmental paperwork that was required. She was only too glad not to let her skills in the field deteriorate.
And she wasn't going to let them go into the field for a high-risk action without medical support, not after Harry lost his eye to a particularly dark hex. It couldn't be regenerated as the curse had lingered in the scar tissue. But if she'd been faster, perhaps administered the right first aid…
Regardless of Harry's assurances that it wasn't her fault, Hermione began to study medicine and healing.)
Of course, at least half of those new rising dark lords couldn't hold a candle to Voldemort, but that wasn't the issue. She remembered what Harry told her, of how some of the junior Aurors were surprised about what the blood purist zealots were actually like when they raided their homes. Many were kids, still living with their parents, dreaming of non-existent and completely fictional past age of pureblood glory.
If they had not been born to decaying pureblood families, with nothing left as their legacy but vitriolic hate, who knows what they might have been, instead?
Tom Riddle was in a similar position.
Orphaned and abandoned, Tom Riddle survived the rigours of life in a 1930s muggle orphanage when he was the odd one out, a magical child without even the slightest idea that magic was possible. His accident of birth, unwelcome in both worlds, decreed that he would always be an anomaly somewhere, an aberration. Perhaps that was where he arrived at the conclusion that life is a matter of survival of the fittest. Perhaps that was when he transformed into Voldemort—who knew? Once he was Voldemort, he seemed to consider that the nature of life was Hobbesian—nasty, brutish and short—that men are by their nature a cruel beast. It was clear that his personal philosophy was to take what he wanted and destroy anything in the way.
For all that she was a witch on the side of Good, Hermione also knew that she wasn't as naïve as she'd been when she was younger. She hadn't hesitated to throw a strong wind spell at one of the idiotic Yaxley cousins to blow him away from Luna when they were ambushed, even if it meant she was pushing him off a cliff. Does it make her a better person for casting Ventus instead of Avada Kedavra on him? After all, the result was still the same.
He was just as dead.
She had been bloodied more than once in battle. The people she'd sent spells against had died in numbers too, whether directly like with that wind spell or later on due to their wound's complications.
The truth is, Hermione Granger could be a killer just as easily as Tom Riddle can.
All it takes was for her to be pushed to defend herself or the people she cared about. Why should she be afraid of Riddle, then? If he ever tried to kill her, she wouldn't even think twice about defending herself and trying to kill him back. But before it came to that, she was quite capable of just sitting down and talking with him.
Should she fear him because he might kill her? Because she could die?
Many of the people she knew had died— (Blurs, flashes of images but no face she could recognise. Who, dammit? Who had died that she couldn't remember—)
—what was death but the next great adventure? She had seen that tiredness in Harry's eyes after more than a decade in the wizarding world. She could recognise it easily since she'd seen it often enough in the mirror.
Hermione Granger no longer cares for the spectre of death. She does not fear it.
I will not fear, she said to herself, almost giddy with the realisation. She felt free. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that can destroy me. I will face it and let it pass through me. When it is gone, only I will remain.
She was chuckling to herself when Nurse Edelstein walked in.
"Oh, honey, are you alright?"
Hermione wiped the tears escaping from the sides of her eyes. "I'm fine, Nurse Edelstein. It's just…some of my memories were coming back."
"Really? Are they of your family?"
Her friends. The Hogwarts graduates of her generation that had survived the war.
("So, what made you drop in today?"
Daphne Greengrass stared at her oddly. Yes, she knew they needed more experienced people, and in an emergency like this, it also meant pulling those who were not Aurors. She just didn't know why Harry would choose Daphne. It was going to be dangerous and messy, and the blonde pureblood princess didn't seem like someone who'd care to do anything that would break her manicured nails.
"Granger, you know that they got my father, right? They only need to use thirty curses for it." Her tone was dry, ironic. "My mother only made it because she threw floo powder on a burning pile of support beams and hoped it would work. Did you know that she crawled halfway our dining room because they've broken both of her legs by then, and even cut off her left feet?"
All because the Greengrasses wanted to be left alone instead of fighting for one side or another. Now? Now Daphne wanted her pound of flesh and the DMLE that was stretched thin easily welcomed her.)
After that, no matter how awkward she and Daphne were, they were still far more comfortable with each other than Hermione would be with people who hadn't gone through the War and the post-war clean up.
"Hermione?"
She blinked and looked up into Maggie Edelstein's concerned hazel eyes. It would seem that she was drifting again. She needed to do something about it soon.
"Family…" the young witch murmured. Maggie's expression softened.
"If it's too difficult we can postpone it for later—"
"Are we talking about all the people I've gone through the war with together?" Hermione asked all of a sudden. "Because if so, then yes, they're family. We're family, from the sheer amount of blood shed and deaths mourned, we will always be family until death parts us all."
The witch had no idea what it was that she said that had created such a sorrowful look in the nurse's eyes, but she wasn't going to complain if Maggie was going to hug her. It was nice to be hugged. Hermione hugged her back with a content sigh.
Perhaps…perhaps there was a reason her memory was incomplete. She didn't really want to know the depths of grief she could sink to if she knew that too many of her friends had died.
(There was an echo of truth at that idea that she did not like, and several memories with the vaguest glimpse of limp bodies, bruises and blood. She didn't want to think that more than just a few of her friends had died over the years after the War).
Perhaps this way, she could keep holding on to the hope that they're peacefully living their lives in the future she'd left behind and let that thought soothe her.
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End Notes:
Yes, I know the title is Asimov's. It just fits so well that I'm borrowing it for the chapter.
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List of Stuff One Might Try to Look Up:
Dryas: It is actually the name for a genus of plants. They're shrubs native to arctic and alpine regions. It's easy to imagine why Hermione snorted when she was asked whether it was a lowland plant or not.
Red liverwort: Something I really made up. Ha! Well, the liverwort itself does exist (I'm thinking of the flowering plant, not the one that was the primitive cousin of moss). I just thought I'd make up a new species from within the same genus or order. Blood kava is just as non-existent, but the kava does exist, many of its cultivars have psychoactive properties.
Rhubarb: It is actually an edible species of vegetable. Its stalk is edible and usually treated like a fruit; it is drenched in sugar water and then baked into a pie. It's pretty tart without the sugar. The leaves, like Hermione has said, is poisonous. Cut it away and don't eat it, folks.
Winter aconite: A genuine flower, generally poisonous. Native to continental Europe.
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Additional Trivia:
"I will not fear, she said to herself, almost giddy with the realisation. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that can destroy me. I will face it and let it pass through me. When it is gone, only I will remain.": Hermione is reciting to herself an abbreviated (and slightly modified) version of the Bene Gesserit quote from the novel Dune by Frank Herbert. It's not precisely the same as she was going on memory and it wasn't as if she had memorised it on purpose:
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
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