Author's Note:
I reread Chapter 12 last week and was dissatisfied with what I wrote a few months ago, especially now that I've inserted a new chapter or two. So I tore it at the seams, rewrote at least two-thirds of it and was only done now. In case anyone is asking, yes, I have a rabid perfectionist streak.
'-
12 Hermione's First Day of Classes
Hermione finally gets to go to classes. Hurrah. Or maybe not? They walk to Transfiguration class and Hermione is reminded of a previous conversation she had with Dumbledore. She extracts a promise.
'-
If one were to ask Hermione back in the future (pick a date, Hermione thought, any date past the War), and asked her what she thought the risks of being stuck in time in the 1940s was, she'd have thought it would be in dodging or facing the rising Tom Riddle and his would-be followers, probably already accreting into some semi-solid block around him, like planets coming into their final form around their star.
Because nearly half a century later, that was what Harry had to face, and she had unconsciously projected that into the past without first checking what it was actually like. After all, the past, as they say, is a foreign country. She would do well to scout the terrain first before waging her battles there. But she was only human; we all take mental shortcuts because they help us think faster and this one was Hermione's. This particular shortcut merely happened to be wrong.
Therefore, Hermione was blindsided. She would not in a thousand years come up with the answer of 'Hogwarts' rumour mill', or even the more general and broad-brush 'the archaic and stagnant social strata of the wizarding world'. This was the uncomfortable reality that she would be forced to face a week from now, after she'd truly lived and breathe in the past. The worst had yet to come.
Right now, whatever inconveniences she was facing was actually still minor (not that she knew that).
The wizarding world was just the wizarding world, wasn't it? That was what she'd always thought before now. It was simply there. It was the backdrop to all the action taking place and it doesn't get in the way (well, except in the very physical method of getting in the way, such as a prison wall you need to tear down to escape). She had come to it at such a young age that she grew into it, taking its limits and strictures for granted instead of the question and wonder that would come if she were to first experience it with a mind less childish.
In a way, that was what she was doing now.
She knew her wizarding world, took its shape and customs for granted, but she did not know this wizarding world. It was once again new to her, fresh in form and unfamiliar in character. It was the cousin of a friend, instead of that beloved person themselves, and the flaws that had seemed endearing in a close friend was now harsh and grating when presented in a stranger's face.
Of course, it raises many interesting questions now. As in, were the flaws ever endearing in the first place, or was it merely a matter of her getting too used to it, that she began to tune it out, like some annoying background noise? Now that her attention is called to it once more, was it merely a bad habit, a verbal tic, or was it something that can alter a person's morality?
Hermione had arrived early to her Advanced Ancient Runes class because she liked to be prepared. Of course, she hadn't counted on the fact that coming early meant that she would be open to conversations.
"You're Hermione Curie, right? The new student?"
"Yes, what's the matter?"
"I'm Annette Bartleby, and I heard you were wearing such a lovely flower crown yesterday," Annette said. Hermione stared at the girl. Alright, she gets points for politeness, especially considering that she was actually a Gryffindor than any other House, but this level of attention was getting absurd. Hermione opted to stay oblivious.
"Why, yes, I did. Why? Do you want me to teach you how to make it?" The brunette readily offered.
"No, not really—wait, you made it yourself?" Annette sounded surprised.
Hermione nodded. "Of course. My friends taught me how, back home. It's a special flower crown, you see, because it's still a living plant. It's not dead. I like smelling fresh flowers the whole day and I felt like celebrating the day I get out of the infirmary, you know?"
"Oh." She looked sorely disappointed. Hermione had to hold back not to roll her eyes. "I…maybe next time? I'm just not sure how to free up my schedule right now."
"You can take all the time you need," the brunette insisted.
It was probably never, but who knows? The Gryffindor returned to her seat and Hermione can sigh in relief that the first (of probably many) inconveniences were over. Tom Riddle entered the class some five minutes before the bell actually rang. His gaze caught hers and she raised her hand in an easy greeting and he did the same. They sat in their respective seats.
Some people thought they were being subtle as they eyeballed Hermione and Tom in turn, sometimes even rapidly back and forth like the rapidly bobbing head of a mandarin duck. She pretended they didn't exist.
Just because she and Tom knew each other didn't mean that they absolutely had to sit side-by-side. They can both function quite well on their own. You know, like regular, productive human beings instead of being the awkward one half of a Siamese twin that needs to coordinate their movement so they don't trip over each other's legs? Yes. That.
Seriously, why was the budding dark lord one of the saner people in Hogwarts at this time? That feeling of weirdness in the wizarding world began to accumulate in her gut again.
Luckily for her, Professor Honoria Gildenstern swept in not long after and had thus unknowingly put a stop to any further stupid behaviour. Dark braided hair and with an appearance that unsurprisingly reminded Hermione of a librarian, albeit perhaps one with punk tendencies, considering the field-worthiness of her boots and the glimmer of defensive runes carved into her leather waistcoat. The Ancient Runes professor had seen Hermione's presence in class at the first sweep and merely nodded to her. The Ravenclaw student nodded back in return and that was that, the lecture started.
Hermione was only too glad that Professor Gildenstern wasn't one of those overly-friendly professors who felt that they need to introduce the new kid right in front of the whole class first. The class was thankfully uneventful and there was nothing unexpected in the material of the lecture. She'd read (refreshed) the books, including the supplementary ones, and next week she might even manage to start on those tangentially-related books that Tom bothered to put in one the list he'd made for her. And continue with the thermos/vacuum flask idea she'd begun halfway during the weekend.
Once she covered the required reading for all her classes this week, she was sure she'd be able to free up enough material to read up about time travel by next week.
It was a pleasant plan with many things to look forward to.
'-
Eugenie caught up with her outside the Advanced Ancient Runes class.
"Hermione! Hermione." Her blonde hair was flying behind her, robes flapping, and Hermione found it almost funny that a prefect was running in the corridors. Eugenie was probably lucky there were no other prefects who'd seen her and can complain about it—they might even deduct some house points to go along with that.
"Take it easy. There's, no need to run."
"I'm sorry, I just forgot. I should've accompanied you to your classes because you wouldn't know where they are." Eugenie said. "You know that the corridors and stairs move in Hogwarts, right?"
Hermione shook her head. "Oh, I can find them just fine. Really, you don't need to worry about me."
"Really?" The blonde was sceptical.
"Oh, yes, really. Let me show you something."
Hermione shoved her hand into her book bag and started rummaging for the various syllabi that Tom had collected and given on the first day of their acquaintance. She took one out and cast an object-based locator spell, using the syllabus as the anchor. Balancing her wand between her thumb and index finger, the stick pivoted around the fulcrum in the ways of a primitive compass—she'd managed to get Tom to teach her this particular locator spell.
"See? This is the syllabus for…Advanced Arithmancy Class. The wand points to where it is and I just follow it."
Eugenie's blue eyes widened. "Does it really work?"
"Well, if the professor spends way more time at their office and doesn't like their class, it would lead to their office rather than their class. Yet even then, I can just try knocking and then go to class with them."
"Or, they might have already gone on ahead before you got lost in that direction," Eugenie pointed out.
Hermione shrugged. "All methods have their weaknesses. The trick is to plan ahead and cover those beforehand."
The blonde witch still looked slightly doubtful.
"I think I'll feel much better if I've accompanied you to your next class."
"And that is my cue to step in."
Hermione and Eugenie looked up at the same time; Tom Riddle had just stepped out of the classroom and was now a few steps away from them. She thought he'd probably had a few questions to ask to the teacher. Eugenie's cheeks unexpectedly turned rosier as she held Hermione's non-wand hand firmly.
"I didn't—I didn't know! Hermione, I'm sorry!"
"Um, what? I'm fine. What are you apologising for?" Hermione asked, perplexed.
"It would be no trouble at all if I were to show you to your next class. After all, it also happens to be the same as mine," Tom said. Was there a spell to do the Windsor knot? Because Hermione was sure that her tie wasn't as perfect as his. Just how much time did he spent in front of the mirror to perfect that? Tom Riddle was all friendly smiles, as usual. Right, that's his public persona. She almost forgot.
"Ah, good morning, Miss Delacour."
"G-G-Good morning, Mr. Riddle." Eugenie managed. "I'll j-just be off now, Hermione. Bye everyone!"
Hermione watched her sprinting form recede in the distance with a puzzled frown on her face. "She was in such a hurry to arrive and now she's leaving again? I just don't get her sometimes."
Tom chuckled. "Well, I suppose she has other things to attend to that she'd just remembered?"
"You don't sound so sure yourself."
"Miss Curie, I don't presume to know the affairs of witches and I don't pretend otherwise." His tone was wry, and a small smile grew involuntarily on Hermione's face.
"Wise man."
"Of course. Shall we?"
This time, it only took her two seconds to realise what his offered hand meant and she linked their arms together once understanding dawned on her. She did notice as they walk that they were far from the only male-female pair to walk arm-in-arm, and some of them really did just look like friends. This was a time when men still pull out a chair for a lady to sit.
Hermione supposed she had all the time in the world to get used to the habits of this time.
"So, where are we going now?" She asked. He was oddly quiet for a moment, but his next question told her what had taken him aback.
"You don't know?"
"I haven't exactly opened my schedule before Eugenie dropped in."
His eyebrows rose slightly. She understood why he did that—Teenage Hermione would certainly have memorised her schedule to hell and back as well as the alternative routes around Hogwarts. It was just the sort of thing her conscientious, overachieving younger self would do. Current Hermione thought that she already knew where all the classes are (she could certainly use his last tour of Hogwarts as an excuse), and Hogwarts was safe.
"Then you came and I decided that it was a moot point, anyway. I could just ask you." She shrugged. "It's not really a big deal, is it?"
"You might get lost," he replied.
"And what's the worst that could happen? I have to go through five corridors to get to my next class instead of one? Go up several flights of stairs? I'll live." Her answer was dry.
Nobody would get bitten by an annoyed griffin if they took the wrong turn in Hogwarts, and no one has any pets (*ahem* experiments) that try to fondle you if you get stupidly baited to approach their tanks—and she could still thread her way past the hazards of Department of Mystery with a hangover on most mornings. You can navigate Hogwarts while sleepwalking.
(She had a passing memory of rolling her eyes at her housemate about the other witch's newest project. "No, Malina, I don't think a guard octopus is a good idea—how many people even have pools in their front yard to keep the poor thing in?")
Hermione blinked slowly when she realised that her standards for passable corridors were getting skewed from all the times she had to deal with routine escapees from the experiments of her co-workers…
She knew she missed his last sentence or two, as she had been so lost in thought.
"I'm sorry?"
"I said, I wouldn't recommend being late for your first Advanced Transfigurations." Tom said. There was something beyond his offhand tone. If she hadn't been feeling more-or-less the same, she would've missed it.
Hermione met his gaze and in the span of that moment, she could not help but recall the time when Dumbledore's visit to the infirmary happened to coincide with Tom's, a few days before the picnic…
'-
"Good afternoon, Hermione."
The young witch glanced up towards the greeting from her bed, meeting friendly blue eyes. Her smile was hurried and unprepared; the gleam of long auburn hair had flashed her eyes as he entered the infirmary.
"Ah, um, afternoon Professor…"
Said pair of eyes turned from hers, to meet another of similar hue. Yet where his was sky-bright and light, these were as deep as the ocean was blue.
"Tom," a polite pause. "Good afternoon."
"Good afternoon, Professor Dumbledore," he replied.
It was enunciated with care, his accent clear and true. Tom's bow accorded him formal respect, beyond what a professor was due. A blooming flower of frost could not be more perfect, and just as frozen too.
Dumbledore recognised that Tom Riddle did not put great care into his manners for just anyone. The least he could do was acknowledged it with as much delicacy.
Tom spoke up again.
"If you have things to settle with Hermione, I wouldn't dare to be in your way."
"It's not a problem at all," the witch answered quickly. "You're welcome to stay."
Both wizards turned to her and saw raw earnestness untrained. Yet she wavered not under the observation, or let her mind changed.
Dumbledore conceded to her. "Only if you're sure, Hermione."
"Oh, I'm pretty certain. After all, if we're talking about class, Professor, Tom told me many interesting things today."
She did not know why exactly she insisted, only that she was not blind. Hermione knew her history well, and wondered, what a conversation with both would find.
The professor took the new maroon chair. Tom asked him for his opinion on a topic, drawing him in with meticulous care. Their dialogue flowed fluently, well-practised actors in a play. She found to her chagrin that, at times, she was the one with no lines to say.
'-
Hermione was more than aware of the wariness between Tom and Dumbledore; she had expected to have to play mediator sooner or later. Yet she had to commend them on their conversational skills as the topic turned easily into magical theory and interesting things about non-naïve transfiguration. Her interference was not required. If she did not know any better, she'd have thought that they had a pretty good rapport with each other.
Of course, their exchange on some topics were simply rather…telling.
"I had never considered the transfiguration of animals much," the brunette commented.
"Yet small wooden blocks are changed into mice with regularity in transfiguration classes," Dumbledore pointed out.
"Oh, but that is temporary. The mouse is not a real mouse. At the end of the day, it would return into a block of wood once again. I'm sure Tom wasn't referring to that either, were you?"
She glanced farther to the left. An odd half-smile flitted upon his face as the Slytherin shook his head lightly.
"No, I wasn't. I was considering what it takes to turn a mouse into a rat."
"So simple a change. So similar too that someone might comment that it's wholly an unnecessary action to try," Dumbledore said. Hermione knew better than to take his words to represent his opinion, since she'd experienced Dumbledore prodding her arguments to get her to defend them properly, regardless of his own position.
"But it's a useful first step to try before one begins to consider the change required to, say, begin with a lion and end with a manticore, isn't that right, Professor?" Tom answered.
There was a quiet second or two, with an undercurrent she could not quite glean.
Hermione frowned, considering the technical requirements. "If you were considering changing a lion to a manticore, I don't think you can rely on transfiguration alone."
"Oh, I'm very aware of that," Tom's answer was mild and he added nothing else. His attention was still trained on Dumbledore, who was thinking carefully.
It took Hermione another second to realise that if you can transform a lion into a manticore, you're also another step closer to trying to change a man into a manticore. There was no time to dwell on it further as Gryffindor's Head of House had spoken.
"You're looking for permanent change, I presume?" The professor asked again.
"Why would anyone wish for impermanent change if they can achieve otherwise?" His tone was still that preternaturally calm one.
"To push so hard and so alien a change, one might think you were trying to bend the laws of nature." Dumbledore stated.
"To find the loopholes in natural laws…one can say that it is the entire principle behind magic itself. What would a muggle say to the ease that we can defy gravity?"
Tom was still perfectly polite. Hermione, on the other hand, wondered if he was not a little too stark about his intentions to Dumbledore. The transfigurations professor took a long, careful breath.
"The last time an entire society agreed with you, they were the vanguards of old Atlantis."
He did not need to be more detailed in his answer—any student of magical history knew of it. They not only brought their nation down, they have managed to erase it from this plane of existence as well. So great was their hubris that their mistakes had torn their fair isle from reality.
There was a reason why no one has managed to find the archaeological remains of Atlantis.
The island did not exist anymore.
"So," Hermione said casually, "can anyone enlighten me as to why we still cook our food instead of transfiguring them from their base ingredients?"
If the conversation from that moment on was less rigorous in its academic topic and more frivolous, Hermione was all-too-glad that it was not as freighted with second meanings either.
'-
"You do not trust him."
There was no doubt in her words, as light and steadfast as the sun rising in the morning. Hermione let him guide her towards their transfigurations class. Tom only afforded her a glance at that.
"Why would you think so?"
The witch huffed. "Please, there's a little too many…pauses in the only conversation I had with both you and Dumbledore. It's clear that you have a history with each other."
"Academic differences are a fact of life between scholars."
"It went deeper than that." She disagreed.
"Entire careers have been made and broken on competing theories no matter the field." He replied glibly. "These differences are certainly Very Important Things, Hermione."
"Tom."
Hermione knew he could feel the tug on his arm as she came to a standstill on the corridor, and his easy dismissal about the tension between him and Dumbledore was getting to her nerves. She knew she wouldn't be able to reach him if all his walls were up, because even as he answered her questions randomly, he was able to sidestep her concerns with ease. His quicksilver tongue was a little too smooth for her to be fully comfortable with.
"Can we find a quieter corridor and talk?"
"We don't seem to be having any problems talking right now."
"Don't we? You're avoiding the truth right now and it makes me feel like I'm only imagining things when I thought that we'd be working together with a common goal." There was more than a touch of asperity in her voice. "You're losing me right now, Tom."
Tom gave her his full attention at that, though she had yet to really understand what that particular tilt of his head meant. He set off again at an angle, and they were soon down one of the less-populated side corridors. It almost certainly meant a longer trip, but the Founders were considerate enough of first-years perpetually getting lost between classes that she knew they still had ample time to reach transfigurations even with the detour.
"Please don't hide or avoid the truth with me. It's the easiest way to lose my trust."
"Disagreements are a natural factor in critical discussions, Hermione. As agreeable as he is, I even have them with Slughorn. It's not a wonder if I'm not always of the same mind with Dumbledore."
She dropped her arm from his, turning back. He caught her wrist in the next moment but didn't pull her by the arm; he let her lead instead and a passer-by would have the impression that he was following her.
"You're upset."
"Wonderful statement of the obvious."
"Hermione."
Hermione could feel him tugging her hand behind her. With a sigh, she slowed her pace and turned around, steadying her breath and counting to ten as she tried to order her thoughts together. To his credit, he did wait for her to gather her words instead of forcing her to talk immediately. Otherwise, she'd be snapping straight back at him.
"Let's start this again. I was there during your talk in the infirmary, and I can see there are some issues between the two of you. Even if I didn't know that, I could have tried mapping the British wizarding world in an arithmantic model and generate a future projection from it. Dumbledore isn't someone you want to have working actively against you."
"Are you telling me you've actually performed arithmancy on Dumbledore's future while you were in the infirmary?"
It was a reasonable disbelief. She, however, already figured out the answer for just this sort of occasion since several days ago.
"Of course not. Some future of myself did."
"Why would you need to do that for Dumbledore?"
His voice was a little too level for someone who'd just heard such an outrageous claim, but his steady gaze on her was a clear sign of his complete attention.
"Not Dumbledore in particular, of course. I didn't speak wrongly earlier—I was calculating for the entire wizarding world."
"Impossible." His hands were clasped behind his back at this point, his eyes dark. Probably because he was holding back the urge to…what, throw his hands in the air? Would he draw his wand against her and demand that she starts speaking something with sense?
"Why not?"
"You'd be doing the calculations for how many hundreds, thousands of people in the wizarding world? And you will also need to factor and calculate all the possible relationships and influences between them." He paused and she met his gaze squarely, without concern or doubt. She had the feeling that there were a multitude of sentences and disagreements that he was holding back just then before he settled on a final one.
"It would take years."
Tom was right, in a way. The traditional arithmantic approach began as a method of personal divination—to find out how the future of one person would develop. If you were trying to see how the future of two people together, it's only marginally more complicated. The calculations for ten would start being pretty crazy, and the first time she casually asked that to her arithmancy teacher, the dry answer was to rely on astronomy altogether—it might be vaguer, but it was certainly made for a larger scale of augury than old-school arithmancy.
"You're correct—if you were to use the methods of arithmancy available this year, yes. Give a few more decades and one can begin charting the flow of history." She answered.
"If you were to calculate the turbulence of a river, you do it by modelling the river itself, along with its large rocks and obstacles. You don't try to calculate every single water molecule in a typical flow."
Even when she purposefully looked away, she could feel the pressure of his gaze at her back, where his initial reflex to deny the possibility of what she was saying warred with his curiosity and greed. Arithmancy had experienced a minor renaissance from the 1980s, led by muggleborn witches and wizards who'd went to the muggle world to study higher mathematics in graduate school and then returned to the wizarding world with new ideas and innovations.
There was a reason she ended up writing a proposal to the higher ups in the Department of Mysteries, asking them to send her to Trinity College. It wasn't a surprise that they agreed; half of said muggleborn experts disappeared or died during Voldemort's reign. A part of her knew even without enough memories that she had become one of the best.
(It takes not just mere years. A soft voice inside her whispered).
Hermione took a deep breath and turned it down with ease, refusing to wonder yet again how old she was exactly. By now, the sorrow of her lost memories was a familiar old ache to her instead of a fresh pain.
She did not stop Tom from taking her hand, or from slowly linking their arms again as they made their way down the side corridor.
"You talk of many impossible things." He commented. "Of the moon to fly to, a fine future to forecast far."
His alliteration reminded her of something else.
"Of shoes, ships and sealing wax," Hermione murmured.
"Of kingmakers and kings." Tom continued, the quirk of his lips the only sign that he noticed her surprise at his deliberate (but apt) misquote. "Is it truly possible, Hermione?"
"You would not say it was impossible if you see the field equations I'll use, if you can see how I'll calculate the forecast for the entire wizarding world based on it. I can still see it clearly in my mind."
"Do you know that actual seers never quite remember the real prophecies they've made?" His voice was deceptively gentle.
"I know," she answered without concern. "I didn't say I was one, did I?"
"Then what are you, Hermione?"
She could hear the weight of his inquiry. The Slytherin had paused in his steps and turned to fully face her. Her smile was the broken fragment of one, and her answer was the most honest she'd given him about her past (future).
"I don't know."
Hermione shook her head slowly as she could see objections flickering past his mind even if he had yet to voice them.
"I can't give you a full explanation Tom, not with my memories as they are. Perhaps you'll never have any. Perhaps I'm just a madwoman after all." She sighed. She knew he didn't really believe that either, not when she was perfectly capable of debating against him on a variety of topics. "I will never force you to trust me, but now you do have to choose. Would you trust me with the truth? Otherwise, this agreement of ours is never going to work."
"Yet truth always depends on who is telling it."
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, we can both read Rashomon and debate the relativity of human experience until the cows come home. Yet I'm not trying to find the answer to the meaning of life, the unified theory of the universe or everything. Some measuring weights are more accurate than others; some truths are closer to the real world than most. A picture built from a hundred perspective is usually more representative of the object than a picture relying on just one viewpoint."
Hermione needed to take a deep breath to collect her thoughts, to reach her conclusion.
"I guess in the end, it comes to this: would you trust my perspective on the future more than a random student picked out of the blue? If you say no, then this is where we part, isn't it?"
She would not let him redirect her easily into some other topic, to distract her with interesting issues to discuss. The answer she was waiting for was simple now—yes or no.
His smile had an unsettling edge to it now. Like any predator, she knew that Tom disliked being pushed into a corner. It was too bad because she wasn't budging either.
"What are you looking for?"
"We never did formalise our agreement, did we?" She asked back. "Time to state our terms properly. I wish for your truth. It's not enough to have the absence of lies. I wish for no hiding, no avoidance of it."
She did not know what he was searching for when he simply stared for a moment. Hermione pushed back the urge to find a reflective surface and see whether she had something on her face.
"Would you return the favour?" Tom asked.
"On anything you ask me to assist you? As long as you're not asking me to help you hurt or kill someone? Yes. The only promise of truth I can't make is regarding myself." She was apologetic, but his mind was quick to see the answer.
"Because you don't even know your own truth."
"Yes."
She couldn't help sounding slightly bitter, hated that it was a gap in her armour that she couldn't hide from him, even if her primary concern of saying so was not disclosing that she came from a future. He must have catalogued every tic of her expression right now, since he had scarcely looked elsewhere, but to her surprise he didn't mention it at all.
"If you ask for truth, then I'll ask for trust." He raised a hand before she managed to express her scepticism. "I'll ask you to not jump to conclusions easily."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "I've seen one very probable future when you've killed a lot of the people I know, my friends, and yet I'm still your friend right now, aren't I? Who is La Belle Dame Sans Merci in this equation? Certainly not me—"
"I don't know," he murmured. "You certainly destroyed my dreams with spectres of death. You killed me once in a future. Lady Death. It's quite a fitting title, I think."
Hermione gave him a look. He gave her his most innocent smile and pushed an errant curl behind her ear. His fingertips brushed past the shell of her ear and she could feel the tingles down her neck.
"Well?" He asked.
She bit her lower lip as she made up her mind, looking away from his dark eyes.
"Alright. I'll do my very best not to. So, you'll give me your friendship, then?"
Nothing she'd said earlier surprised him as much as what she'd just asked.
"Friendship?" He finally managed to say.
"That's what friendship is about, you know? Mutual trust and assistance?" Her thousand-yard stare almost dared him to disagree with her, or to express an opinion on her naivete that she believed in such things as having friends.
"I stayed my hand, Tom Marvolo Riddle. I knew what you are and the worst you could be and I still stayed my hand. If that's not me stopping myself from jumping to conclusions, of proof of my tentative trust, I don't know what is." She enunciated his name clearly, carefully.
He tilted his head to the side, and she thought she'd seen the same behaviour once in a wild wolf. Observation: he was trying to decide whether taking the leftovers from the camp was going to kill him.
"You would offer me your friendship for my truth and a little self-restraint?"
"Yes. My friendship for yours."
She stopped herself from commenting that she didn't believe it would take just a little self-restraint. The reducing-violence front was probably going to be a work in progress for a while.
"What do you gain?" He thought out loud.
"Are you telling me that your friendship comes cheaply and easily? That it's barely worth anything compared to mine?" She raised an eyebrow in challenge. She thought she saw a ghost of a smile, just before it vanished all-too-quickly.
"My friendship, is it?" His voice was soft.
A nod. "Yes."
"I suppose if you were my friend, you would know that I'd kill anyone who'd tried to kill you." He mused. "It would show that I take threats against people around me seriously, and it would be a nice deterrence against future fools who thought they've found a flaw."
She had opened her mouth to protest when she realised that he was waiting for her to disagree. It was there in his half-smirk, the knowing look in his eyes. Hermione remembered then that the Aurors were not always the full-fledged police force that she knew them to be. A century ago, wizards and witches still settled family feuds and disagreements with duels, sometimes leading to death.
"We can't always help acts of self-defence." Hermione finally said. "As for the rest, we can talk about it later."
If his expression was a touch too confident, she tried not to see it. He might believe he could make her forget about it, but she knew her own mind. Still, it was no use borrowing trouble for now when it seems like they've finally managed to hammer out the basics of their working relationship. Not that she'd believe that he'd immediately refrain from pointing his wand at her—she wasn't that naïve.
There was still that gleam in his eyes that spoke of some particular knowledge, though, and it caused her eyebrows to draw down.
"What?"
"You could kill." He stated, an interested smile growing on his face.
"Well, otherwise I wouldn't be prepared to face any dark lord—"
"No, no. I know of your avenging tendencies. You're such a perfect student that even I sometimes forget that you're not the angel the teachers are half-convinced you are," he stopped her from denying that she was nowhere near perfect with a gentle tap at her lips. "Yet Hermione, your wings aren't quite pristine white anymore, are they? Not when you could accept someone else's death for your self-defence."
"Because I know you won't be slinging spells in moderation," she was quick to find a reply, but Tom only chuckled as he took a step closer. She stepped back without thought.
"Your feathers are spattered with red. You have blood on your hands already, don't you? Hermione?"
The brunette witch closed her mouth and sent him a dark look, but she could not deny him outright.
"I don't know where you get this angel idea from. A bit cliched, isn't it?" It was a weak reply by her standards and Tom clearly realised that too.
His smile was genuine now, intriguing, even if that glimpse of teeth was as cool and comforting as the flash of a knife's blade.
Tom had found a scrap of parchment one of his pockets and with one hand folded it into another paper rose. When he slipped it into her hair, it had turned into yet another real flower. This time, it was dark purple, the closest colour to black as she'd ever seen on a rose. There was a hint of spice in its perfume. She supposed he was making a witty allusion to her being Lady Death, but she was too busy thinking.
Tom was right.
Hermione could kill.
It was not something she ever advertised even in her old life. She did her best not to, as whenever Harry brought her what he thought were new movements, new groups involved in some attack or another, she analysed whether they were dealing with desperate youths or the darker, more brainwashed fanatics that would not think twice before they take innocent people down with them. She would kill in an emergency or to save people, but she really didn't want to start considering it as the first thing she could do. It would be too easy to consider it as the fastest way to solve problems.
She was stubbornly staying on the side of the light here, striving to stay there even if she had to grip that slippery edge in a death-grip with all her available hands and toes.
"We shall certainly be friends, shall we not?" His drawl was dark and smooth.
"So? You do accept?" She asked quickly, pulling herself to focus.
"As long as you won't be careless with your life while I still live." He answered, and it was clear that he remembered their last argument. "It would be useless agreeing to have you as an advisor if you were to die too quickly."
That one was easy. "Agreed."
He raised a hand to her face, a hair's breadth above her skin and only the shadow of a touch. If she were to go off and catch a falling star, she'll get two neutron stars, darkened and faint but no less capable of burning the night away. And they would look exactly the same like his eyes now.
Alive.
"I accept all of it, Hermione." He said.
Tom sealed the deal with a kiss over her lips. It was not the furious rush of last night, of a verbal argument turned flesh. This was the novel sweetness of the first fruits of harvest.
The enticing taste of a promise.
His hand was warm over her cheek and the other was snug around her waist. It was soft and it was solemn, with a touch of genuine longing at the edges that made her breath catch and she just wanted to stay there for just a moment more. For forever and a day. He tilted his head slightly and somehow, they fit together better with it. She melted into his touch even as she pulled him closer. One of her hands were in his silky hair while the other was appreciating the fine lines of his shoulders properly, clutching him to her. His lips parted and she followed suit, and as they slipped deeper suddenly they were both caught by the unexpected undertow of their mutual thirst. Neither could stop drinking any more kisses, impulsively taking yet another sip. Hermione lost track of the future (the past) and the ever-extending present as her awareness crystallised in one single moment.
'-
Hermione blinked. She was trying to gather her thoughts together and figure out how she ended up pushing a budding dark lord against the wall to kiss the life out of him. Not that he was complaining, or that she wasn't enjoying herself. His chest was as solid as it looked; she'd know, she'd been held against him for a while. For a wizard who wasn't a muscle-bound hulk of a man, he wasn't reed thin either. There were definitely more muscles there than was obvious, as her wandering hand could attest.
Pesky teenage hormones, really. This was just a momentary distraction, she reasoned, and she was sticking to that explanation.
The delicate way his fingers trailed up and down her back raised goosebumps and shivers. Currently, he was more interested in planting distracting kisses along the line of her jaw. Considering that she found the line of his neck mesmerising, so much that she was stroking her thumb along its length and tugging his collar aside, she supposed she was just as occupied as he was. She used her right hand to tap the top of his shoulder blade.
"Tom."
"Yes, Hermione?"
His reply was soft, but it didn't need to be loud said next to her ear. She closed her eyes at the most diverting sensation as his mouth found her skin again.
"We have…a class to go to. Advanced Transfigurations?"
"I don't suppose you feel like retiring from it and make your way back to the infirmary later?" He asked. She pulled back and narrowed her eyes.
"And miss what, another three days of classes? No thanks."
"Well, I thought I'd ask all the same." He straightened up with an ease she envied as she stepped away from him. His collar was slightly lopsided, and as she worked to correct that, he smoothed down her hair and adjusted the new rose in it. His touch was light at her temple.
"Right. We should—"
"Go together," he finished, extending his arm to her yet again. She was a little too confused to think straight right now. She could only blink a few times while staring at his hand before managing to ask something.
"Why?"
"We are friends, are we not? Then we'll go together. Present a united front and all that rot."
She found herself mildly sceptical of his claims. It did not stop her from taking his arm. "A united front? Really? Against what, the gossiping hens of Hogwarts? The nosey parkers choosing for an Outstanding in rumours rather than NEWTS?"
"You are not a Gryffindor," he pointed out.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"And you are an anomaly that most does not understand. When it comes to Albus Dumbledore, I find that those factors inform any interaction with him very well."
There was that coldness to his tone that she didn't hear often and it took her by surprise.
No, she wanted to insist. She would always save Hogwarts and fight any current dark lord. It was just something that she did by now (she, Harry, Ron, Luna, Neville…). She was the last thing that Dumbledore ever needed to worry about. But the words, in any form or explanation that can be understood in this time, could not come out. For the first time in her life, she felt doubt. It was not about her Headmaster's younger incarnation as she was sure he was undoubtedly also a force of good when he was younger, but more about how this Dumbledore saw her. She sighed in defeat, at least for now.
Hermione Curie (Granger) understood that trust is one of the most expensive things in the world.
'-
.
.
.
End Notes:
If anyone notices me falling into meter/rhythm at a section of the flashback scene, um, yeah, I did that. It just feels right to do it at that point due to... [message redacted due to excessively convoluted explanation].
'-
List of Stuff One Might Try to Look Up:
Rashomon: (Japanese, Literature) A short story by Akutagawa Ryunosuke, inspired by an older collection of short stories. It's a recommended read for anyone who is interested in the art of storytelling. It succinctly illustrates with its handful of characters how we are all heroes in our own narratives and how no narrator can be completely reliable all the time.
'-
Additional Trivia:
La Belle Dame Sans Merci: (French, Literature) Translated literally into English, it becomes 'the beautiful lady without mercy'. It is also a title of a poem by Keats.
The poem follows an unfortunate knight who hand found a beautiful woman and thought she was in love with him as he is in her as she took her to her elfin home. Unfortunately, the next time he pulled himself awake from a nightmare, he turned out to be sleeping outdoors, by a barrow in the cold, with her nowhere in sight. The nightmare itself was about many pale kings and prince clamouring and warning the knight that "the beautiful lady without mercy" has enthralled him. Make of that what you will.
Of shoes, ships and sealing wax: (Literature) from Lewis Carroll's poem 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. The actual section that has it goes like this:
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes-and ships-and sealing-wax-
Of cabbages-and kings-
And why the sea is boiling hot-
And whether pigs have wings."
'-