Author's Note:
Just saying hi to all the new readers. Thanks for the faves and reviews! (Passed the 100 faves milestone last week).
So, for anyone who'd complained about the inconvenient cut-off of last chapter's ending, I hope this satisfies you curiosity (it's one of my longer chapters).
EDIT: AO3 says that I have 119.9k words up to chapter 18 - FFNet says that I've got 135.8k words. That means I have 15k words just for my author's notes. Whoa.
'-
18 Afternoon Entertainments
Tom has lunch. In which Tom and Hermione talks about Punch and Judy. There is a dinner for two. Very interesting discussions happened. A short chat at night in the Slytherin common room.
'-
It was at lunch when Tom noticed something was wrong.
Orion had gone off sometime earlier to arrange a casual game of quidditch. He certainly had a love of the game, for he was on the Slytherin House team as a chaser along with Alphard. There was no shortage of people who joined him; it might simply be how everyone seemed to be high-strung this morning, or the remaining ones who weren't might simply be bored. With not much to do, he was not the only person feeling restless. The last time Tom checked, Orion might have even picked up some people from other houses.
The day's classes were written off as a loss. While on the one hand Tom welcomed the extra time to plan and coordinate schemes, he was still somewhat annoyed by it. Why were they in Hogwarts if not to study magic? He can certainly read up ahead of the class, but he'd be missing the potential discussions, the opportunity to raise interesting questions and even direct the class' interests. It was rather inefficient for everyone else, just because some of them might prefer not to go to class at all.
It wasn't a surprised that the hall was rather empty even as lunch began. Everyone must have thought that they'd have all the time to eat. Almost by habit, his gaze flicked past the Ravenclaw table and he saw that Hermione and her friends were missing. Eugenie Delacour was unexpectedly sitting on the Gryffindor table, and Tom easily picked up why that was.
It was the loose association of French expatriates—most of them had ended up in Gryffindors. Not that Tom was surprised with the way they were generally angry at what they call the fake French Ministry of Magic currently extant in Vichy France. He wondered whether any of the French Exiles' locations had been attacked last night, but he waved it off as something he can figure out later. Chakravarty, he noted, was with Lucretia and her seventh and sixth year hangers-on.
He couldn't see Hermione anywhere.
She might just be late, he reasoned, as he sat next to Melchior. Abraxas, he presumed, was also off the at the quidditch game. Yet even as lunch continued and other students began to trickle in, she was nowhere to be seen. The volume of her hair itself would've rendered her easy to notice. The usually high-spirited Vespasian was fortunately sitting near the exuberant Alphard and the higher years of the Slytherin quidditch team, drumming up not a little noise with their enthusiasm.
It did make his particular spot at the Slytherin table more peaceful.
He knew he was falling slightly in making small talk when Tybalt Yaxley settled to talking with Mulciber and Parkinson. Mulciber and Parkinson, whose usual stellar contributions to conversations with him and Malfoy were either grunts, a slow expression of incomprehension, or tentative effort to ask if anyone followed the results of the last major league quidditch game.
How Abraxas didn't feel his brain was dribbling out of his skull when he talked to the two of them, he didn't know.
"They're actually rather alright," he remembered the Malfoy heir saying once. "A bit simple, but they still have their likes and dislikes. It's just that you scare them so much they're always nervous around you, Tom."
Well, he was sure he scared Gallus Rosier too, but being partnered with Gallus at Potions did not fill Tom with the resignation of Sisyphus that always came over him whenever he ended up partnered with either Mulciber or Parkinson. They were certainly boulder-like enough in form and he was always the one pushing them up an intellectual hill. Whether they stayed at the top when he was done was up to the whims of either a malicious god or an uncaring world (newsflash: they were always at the bottom of the hill when the next potion class rolls around). It was most fortunate that neither were taking Advanced Potions, though Rosier certainly did.
He had gone halfway through main course, and yet another check at the Ravenclaw table showed that Hermione had still not arrived.
Abraxas had arrived, freshly showered, and Tom could see Orion trudging in the general area of the fourth-years, nodding as he passed. Tom noted that neither of Hermione's friends seem concerned of had even been checking for her arrival. Odds were, they knew where she was and they didn't think that she'd even come at all. A thought struck him then.
Was she back at the infirmary?
He turned to Nott.
"Mind saving some of the dessert for me?"
"No problem at all, Tom. Wait, you're going somewhere?"
"I'll see you at the dorms." Tom replied, before standing up and leaving.
'-
The infirmary was empty.
The rows of empty bed stretched from one end to the other, on both sides of the hall. That was not usually his concern, but it was when even after straining his ears, he couldn't hear any other sound. Usually, there'd be the faint footsteps of Madam Edelstein surveying her domain—he was familiar with the distinct click of her high-heels after visiting the infirmary for two weeks. Sometimes, he'd hear the clinking of bottles if she was checking potions.
Tom's strides quickly took him to the infirmary office, but even before he pushed the doors open, his instinct told him that it was as empty as the rest of the place.
There was a note pinned to the cork board.
Out to St. Mungo's. We will be back by afternoon.
It was signed by one Madam Edelstein and Hermione Curie.
The casual nature of the note and the fact that Hermione signed it along with the nurse belied the possibility that the Ravenclaw had been taken to St. Mungo's because her condition worsened. If that happened, only Madam Edelstein would have signed the note, and Hermione's friends would most probably be worried instead of eating lunch with ease.
It was a conundrum. He did not like conundrums as he much preferred to have answers.
He walked back out of the office and saw the generous curves of one particular Ravenclaw just entering the infirmary. Her amber eyes did not change when she saw him and she continued to make her way towards where he was standing by the infirmary office. He simply waited for her to approach him.
"I thought I'd find you here, Riddle."
"Miss Chakravarty," he greeted back.
"She's in St. Mungo's." Lakshmi Chakravarty said.
"Well, yes, there was a note." He replied. "A rather unspecific note."
"She couldn't bear not doing anything, and she was familiar enough with the effects of the muggle weapons on the human body." Chakravarty might not realise it herself, but her shoulders had tensed as she said this before slowly easing back to her languid pose. He dispassionately noted that it was one that subtly drew the eyesight to her significant bust. Tom's attention was still on her eyes.
"She thought she'd talk to Madam Edelstein about what she knew and check if St. Mungo's already knew about it. See if they already have an established procedure for wounds by muggle weapons."
"It turns out they hadn't," Tom finished, somehow not surprised at all.
For all the practicalities that the wizarding world had over the muggle one, other common-sense solutions escaped them entirely. If the wizarding world was a person, it would be an idiot savant.
"She sent me a note by house elf. I've informed Eugenie and Lucretia, and I didn't see you all morning."
Tom did not comment as he knew she would not have scoured all Hogwarts just to find him. She did not owe him that much and Lakshmi Chakravarty had never struck him as someone who would do favours to other people just because it was the nice thing to do, and she was not one who cared much to have endless favours owed either. Even her sinuous body language was simply one she slipped into naturally instead of any active effort to seduce him. She was already quite satisfied with where she was.
Chakravarty was thinking, trying to recall things.
"She said that if she's not back for lunch, she'd probably only be back by tea, at the earliest." The dark-haired witch said again. "I suppose we'll just find other things to amuse ourselves with."
Her smile was alluring.
"Well, I suppose we shall," Tom said, right before he bid her farewell and she returned it easily. He made his way to the infirmary door first.
"I did notice that you didn't thank me for informing you," Chakravarty said this lightly. She was walking some three steps behind him, also on the way out of the infirmary. As she was being yet another meddlesome female, he didn't bother to turn around.
"If you have managed to reach me this morning, I would certainly have." He said.
He only gave politeness as much as was due. She let out an unexpected peal of laughter.
"Hermione was right. You do have more sharp edges than you allow others to see, Mr. Riddle."
"As you do," he noted.
"I think everyone knows exactly where I keep them. That's why most of them are so adept at avoiding it nowadays. You, however…you're too perfect. You have no apparent flaws. Most can only say good things about you."
"Well, one must take care not to scare the children, mustn't we?" He noted dryly.
That gained him another chuckle from her.
"Oh, I like you, Mr. Riddle. I really do."
'-
Now, there were only the two of them remaining in the infirmary office, as Nurse Edelstein had been kind enough to go off earlier. As Lakshmi's steps faded in the distance, Hermione felt Tom gently prying her from him.
She would have sent him a questioning look if his hands did not cup her cheeks before he covered her mouth with his. Her eyes fluttered to a close while her right hand rose up, all too happy to play with his silken hair again. He bit her lip and took the gasp that came with it as an opportunity to take her open mouth. If the way she ran her nails over his scalp came with the added bonus of getting him to kiss her deeper, she really wouldn't complain.
One of his hands glided at her side, gently following the outer curve of her breast. Yet when his thumb tweaked her nipple over her clothes, it sent a jolt of pleasant surprise and she moaned. Tom paused and took half a step away. He glanced at his hand with the perplexity of one who couldn't quite figure out how it got there. He still didn't remove it.
"Did I hurt you?"
Hermione blushed. "That's the farthest sound from hurt I could get."
"Really?" He was observing her carefully as he asked.
She didn't understand what he was asking until she felt his thumb moving in a circle in exactly the same spot it had been. She took a sharp intake of breath and bit her lip. That was when his eyes grew darker, far closer in colour to black.
"I think I'll have to try a few more times to be sure."
He stepped forward once more to kiss her with more fervour than before. This time, Hermione wasn't shy about placing a hand over his backside. He should wear robes less often, she randomly thought as she caressed the firm curve under her palm. The advantage of muggle clothes was certainly in how form-fitting they were. Jeans—he should absolutely wear jeans. But then Tom was placing open-mouthed kisses down the side of her neck, and suddenly she found thinking to be wholly superfluous and unnecessary.
Hermione had been pulling his tie all this time—the man had a lovely neck—and was already working two of his buttons open and easing his collar to the side. She leaned forward to the juncture between his shoulder and neck and gently bit down. He hissed. Another moment later, she was up against the wall and he was pressed along the entire length of her body. Her skin was hot where they touched and then he kissed the life out of her and she welcomed the heat. Something distinctly hard was pressing against her lower half. She really needed to stop now before they couldn't find the willpower to stop at all.
When they separated, they were both breathing heavily. She leaned back in a daze while he dropped his forehead against the wall. He was not in a much better state.
"Well," he murmured, "this is a pleasant surprise."
Hermione chuckled as she rested her head against his shoulder.
"It is," she agreed. "It has been a good day in some aspects but a terrible one in others. I'm just tired of everything. I'm not looking forward to coming to dinner and maybe hear the whole speculations about muggles and muggleborns again."
"I was about to say that muggles do seem to have a penchant for war, but I gather that you're not in the mood to discuss it right now." Tom noted. She retaliated by kissing his jaw, enjoying the way his hand on her waist tightened as he tried to control himself. She was not unaware of how he'd been pulling it out of her skirt.
"You're right. Thanks for being here. It's nice to be able to not think about things for a while."
He was watching her face with that perfectly neutral expression that made him unreadable to many.
"Would it be the same if Delacour or Chakravarty had been here? Or perhaps some other Ravenclaw, perhaps Verrault?" There was a particular intensity to his tone that she didn't quite get.
She certainly remembered the sixth-year Ravenclaw prefect. Verrault was a serious wizard, but he did not think twice in passing her his notes on Ancient Runes yesterday, just so she can get caught up. She handed it back to him within ten minutes, to his surprise. Still, she wouldn't even have remembered him at the top of her head if Tom didn't mention it. It confused her. Why would he—
Oh. Oh.
"Of course not, Tom. You're…"
Well. What was he again? She was pretty sure that if he was just a friend, she didn't exactly make a habit of snogging Neville.
"You don't know either, do you?" His tone was amused when he said this. She narrowed her eyes.
"And what do you know, Mr. Riddle?"
"I know that other people aren't quite real, witches included. You, Hermione, are real." His hand curled underneath her jaw, holding her with unaccountable care.
Hermione didn't quite understand what he said, but the depth of his gaze was unmistakable. It floored her. It wasn't love. She couldn't quite imagine him ever being someone selfless, to act in a way that would not serve his own interest at the same time, but she had found the beginnings of something deep and unfathomable nonetheless that was centred on her. She had the sensation of someone who waded into a natural pool by the beach, only to find themselves in an inlet open to the ocean. There were depths and undercurrents there, coaxing her to stop holding on to anything else and follow them into the abyss. Suddenly, anything she'd thought to say felt inadequate.
"I was rather annoyed this afternoon because Chakravarty had not seen fit to inform me of where you were gone to until then." He said, out of the blue.
"Next time, I'll make sure to leave a message for you, then." She answered without thinking.
It was an easy question to answer. It was just taking precautions. It didn't force to her to find meaning to a storm of thoughts and emotion she did not know how to begin to appease. His thumb was stroking her jaw line and her throat felt dry.
"Why am I real?" She asked.
He shrugged. "You just are. Perhaps it's how you refuse to be afraid, or how you will not back down from what you believe. Then again, your mind is a rich labyrinth, Hermione, with unexpected treasures waiting at every turn. Your defiance is not an empty boast because of it."
"I'm hardly the first to choose not to fear you." She said.
"You're the first who chose to stay close despite knowing what I am." He said, the answer brilliant in its simplicity.
Hermione's breath caught in her throat because for the first time she thought she saw more of his facets than before. She was familiar with the intelligent student and she'd seen the dutiful prefect more than once. Like the young man who showed her how to cut bread in perfect thin slices, this time, she saw echoes of the abandoned orphan again. Did he really have to show all these sides so easily to her? What could she do about it, anyway?
Why her? Why?
She didn't know what her expression looked like, but the second he caught it, he couldn't help himself from kissing her. It was neither chaste nor sedate—perhaps it could never be perfectly chaste between them anymore, not after they'd tasted each other like today. Yet it was sweet and thick with the promise of something more, like a long draught of honey wine in summer.
"I…" she took a deep breath, her mind still a-scatter. "How are other people not real?"
His blue eyes met hers as he contemplated her question. Tom seemed to be weighing something as he answered slowly, carefully.
"They never are to me. You remember watching Punch and Judy, don't you?"
Hermione nodded, remembering the puppet shows of her youth. The humour was slapstick, it was silly and Mrs. Punch (Judy) always ended up hitting Mr. Punch with a stick and vice versa, but it was enough to absorb a young child's attention.
"You see any puppet show on a stage and you can clearly see their sticks and strings, the hand inside. You know where the puppet master is and where he's directing them, but you don't interfere because you find it entertaining. Now, the world? There are many puppets with various masters, most of them useless, and after that they don't even give you the courtesy of being amusing." He stated.
"I've always thought, I might as well start taking over their strings and pulling them if it was the case."
"Strings, Tom?" She asked, finding herself fascinated with the topic against her better judgement.
His focus returned to her, but his hand was stroking underneath her collar bone. "Most people are rather transparent, don't you think? This one has popularity for strings, and that's what other people pull him with. Another one has wealth. This one need social approval oh-so-very-desperately that they'll allow anyone who can grant it to move them as sock puppets."
"Many, of course, are varieties of power." He finished.
Tom was curious enough to taste her skin with his tongue, to follow the line his hand had been tracing. Hermione tilted her head back at the sensation with a surprised gasp.
"And it makes them not real?" She asked.
"Hermione," there was something wry in his tone now as he drew back to meet her gaze again. "If a person moves to the right when you direct them to the right, leaps to the left when you wish them to, and jumps up when you set the bait above his head, wouldn't you also doubt the notion of free will and intelligence?"
"But they have their own life," she began.
"Puppet shows. All of it." He answered with a dismissive tone.
"But that's not—"
"Hermione, you did ask me about why they're not real, didn't you? I've just told you."
"And I'm not just another doll with my own puppet show?"
Tom chuckled, and Hermione found herself unable from stopping herself from touching his face. "You create whatever you wish, pulling any puppets around you into your orbit. You easily destroy several others' strings and you take other people's sock puppets with barely a thought. You're a force to be reckoned with. You're the last thing from weak."
"Why do you not care that I can kill you?" She asked, baffled.
"Yet you've chosen not to, haven't you? You told me yourself, Hermione. You've stayed your hand and now you can't stay away. Your curiosity won't let you—I've begun to take your measure, dear. You simply have to move closer. You wish to see what the monster you've let go can become, now that you've gifted me with your foresight. Perhaps you feel responsible."
He was elated with what he saw in her eyes. "Ah. You do. You clearly do. You don't need to worry, Hermione. It's the same way I've found you too interesting to leave alone or kill."
"You're not a monster, Tom. Not yet," she murmured, her hands sliding under his blazer. She was enjoying his warmth, contented in the way he unconsciously leaned into her touch.
"Yet you're the one who first brought me up as Jörmungandr."
Why did he even have to remember her offhand comment on world-eating snakes? She was really only referring to his Slytherin background and Parselmouth skills. Not that he knew that she knew.
"And now?"
"Now we're two stars falling into each other's orbits. It's especially true when you can hardly find someone who can talk to you on your level, clearly someone whose massive intellect can distort the world around them. When you do, it's rather hard to stop, isn't it?" His voice was completely casual.
She was agreeing with him on more than one level as his hand began to slip under her shirt and up her back.
"You're looking for someone who is not a puppet?" Hermione asked, wry.
"Yes."
"And yet you don't mind that it's someone who can kill you," she observed.
He pulled her close, his lips a hair above her ear. His voice was intimate. "I'm sure if you were that unrefined in your methods to stop me, you'll find that I'm also completely able to kill you to preserve my own life. I don't see you avoiding me just for that reason."
Tom was completely unconcerned. Then again, Hermione supposed she really shouldn't cast aspersions against him when she wasn't exactly worried about him standing between her legs either, his hair mussed and his smile as charming as the devil's.
"Maybe I just haven't decided yet." She murmured.
Where a naïve virgin might be fooled into thinking that sexual attraction and love are the same thing, she's not an actual innocent, is she? Hermione was quite aware of how different the two feelings are. As such, she found it foolish to deny that she did find him attractive, that his intelligent conversation made him so fascinating to her compared to most people. After all, it did not change the fact that she will still bring him down if he tried to become a dark lord.
"You have to admit, we're quite well-matched, Hermione."
"That's just your silver tongue talking, isn't it? Are you persuading me towards an attachment, Mr. Riddle?" Hermione shrewdly asked, but not without her own grin.
"What is life, without taking a few calculated risks?"
'-
Tom found himself in good humour that night.
He'd easily agreed to Hermione's suggestion that they eat at the kitchens, because she was not in the mood to face the Hogwarts student body yet. The decision was swift as it presented him the opportunity to monopolise her company even longer. It also happened to coincide with one of the nights where he was free of his prefect duties. Even if it hadn't, he'd exchange his patrol schedule with someone else's—Merlin knows he'd accepted other people's schedule switch often enough before to have accumulated many favours. It was worth it for a private dinner with her. It had been a while since his interest was caught by something new this completely, whether it was a new project, a mysterious tome, or something else.
Tom was not unaware that it was the result of this odd push-and-pull between them that neither felt particularly inclined to name.
He found himself pleased by the littlest things. Like the heat in the kitchen that vexed Hermione enough that she discarded her outer robes and other excess clothing until she was down to her shirtsleeves, and she rolled her sleeves up without a second thought (thank Merlin for the pragmatism her healer training gave her on the subject of clothes). The fireplace behind her added touches of gold and copper to her curls and it also made her shirt slightly see-through. He could see the fine side-profile of her breasts.
Hermione calling up his name pulled his attention back to her and he smiled before following suit, discarding his robes and blazer. As they had been taking shortcuts and back ways, he'd felt confident enough to not put on his tie on again and hadn't done anything to his buttons either. From the way Hermione's attention had drifted to his neck, he knew she was not unaffected.
"Missy?"
One of the house elfs had approached Hermione, its unusually large eyes wide open. In Tom's opinion, it made her look like she was permanently concussed. He supposed it might pass as 'cute' to other people.
"Ah, hello. I hope we're not being a bother." Hermione smiled warmly.
The house elf with what looked like a patchwork apron rapidly shook her head. "No, no! Missy is not a bother at all. Young Miss and Master is welcome to stay."
"I'm afraid we haven't been introduced. I'm Hermione Curie."
"Oh, we knows who you are. We knows much. Miss Hermione and Mister Riddle is welcome to have a good meal. Pinny will serve you. Pinny will always serve you." Pinny nodded vehemently as she said this.
"Thank you, but you don't really need to be aware of me in the middle of the night, do you?"
The house elf was horrified. "Pinny have to! Pinny always listens for Young Missus' call!"
No amount of negotiating managed to make the house elf budge.
Out of all the strangeness he'd seen that day, he hadn't expected Hermione actually becoming embarrassed at the house elf's naturally servile attitude. In fact, he didn't even understand why she needed to make small talk with it.
She was not only polite to the house elfs, but she was extraordinarily chatty in a way he didn't even see with her classmates. She asked about their families, she asked about who planned the menu for tonight and why that particular menu was chosen and she promised them that one day, she'll hear the recipes along with the stories that came with them.
As with other oddities of hers, it piqued his curiosity. He had a method to deal with many of her inexplicable actions—he simply memorised it for now to find out the reason behind it at some other time.
The food arrived. It was a more complex menu than was offered at the House tables—he was impressed. Hermione's knowing smile showed that she was aware of it. She did not tease him about it but proceeded to explain that the house elfs never quite dared to experiment with the menu. They were considering it, yes, but they simply don't know where to begin without a human guide to start with some baseline.
"Someone like you, I suppose," Tom casually said. She nodded without irony at that.
"Yes, exactly. Not right now, no. I already have too many things I need to do. Still, one of these days, I'd help the house elfs revamp the menu. Then, I might even have time to help them construct a cook book and publish it."
"A cook book," he repeated, as he had no idea of what else to say.
"Yes. Because they perform such a wide range of services for the wizarding world but they're so invisible that people take them for granted. I know that it's unfortunately part of a house elf's make up to be psychologically attached to wizards and witches. It also makes sense in a way because they need to absorb said wizards and witches' excess magic to thrive instead of merely just survive. Still, it does not mean that their culture had to be sublimated under the wizarding world's!"
Everything she'd said at the beginning made complete sense. It wasn't even something that most people knew, but she was Hermione, and he'd begun to expect encyclopaedic knowledge on esoteric subjects as something normal from her. Still, he had no idea how that related to her final conclusion.
"Sublimated? Hermione, they have no unique culture of their own." Tom couldn't help but say.
"Exactly! If they can easily subsume any sense of self in service of their human masters, why not unique cultural expressions of their own? That's why I'm going to help them establish their own culture, and to remind people that some things we might think as part of the wizarding world are actually contributions by the house elfs that we've taken in and accepted as our own."
Tom blinked.
It seems that she was correct in advising him to not ask her about house elfs, considering that this was what a random chat about them already could get her to say. At times, she'd say the most outlandish things that he could not quite tell whether she was serious or not, and his best method in dealing with it so far is just to continue the conversation into something more reasonable.
Like chimeras.
"What do you think about creating chimeric animals?" Tom asked.
She pursed her lips in thought. "Hmm…that's not so simple or straightforward, is it? You need to know beyond mere Care of Magical Creatures."
"You'd need to know Care of Magical Creatures, Transfiguration and Blood Magic, to be precise."
"Ah, of course. I should've remembered that. Their organs wouldn't work cross-species without the blood magic, would it? So, of course it's necessary. I wonder how the wizarding world deals with histocompatibility…"
He stared at her, hiding his surprise well.
Hermione did not even realise that she was nowhere in the vicinity of normal as she accepted the inclusion of blood magic without blinking, as if it was a mundane magical subject like the first two. Some of the Slytherins he'd talked to would still even balk at it and turn to check whether there are any eavesdroppers nearby. Hermione was completely unconcerned. The colour was bright on her cheeks and her hand movements were lively and arresting.
"The problem with chimeras is that, it's just that most wizards and witches are so irresponsible about it, you know?"
Instead of affronted, she was exasperated. It took him off guard.
"I'm sorry?"
The Ravenclaw witch pointed out at the number of wizards and witches who were determined to leave their mark through the creation of a new species. Half of them failed, and almost all of them are definite megalomaniacs, she flatly noted. The creation of a new species was rarely ever for any benefit whatsoever but to cater to the ego of its creators. Her tangent astonished him for a long moment.
"It's irresponsible and damaging to the ecosystem of whatever poor place they choose to release their experiments to! It almost always results in an ecological disaster!"
He had to be impressed at the speed the witch marshalled her arguments.
"Most chimeras created are top predators—usually they're too competitive and territorial to gather or even grow in population. Their numbers are thus limited by design," he commented quickly, to hide the fact that he had no idea what else to say. Ecological disaster? How did she even reach that point in the first place?
She huffed. "It's not surprise that they're usually a predator. It's all one grand ego-stroking display, like I've said. And I suppose yours would be some species of giant snake, am I right? You'd probably want the Titanoboa as one of the basis species, in that case. I'm sure that particular snake can certainly swallow an elephant. But have you thought about how the chimera will mesh in the local food web?"
What?
Tom was fortunate that none of his underlings were here to see him stop and stare for three whole seconds. He had never thought that after experimenting with blood magic on magical creatures that it was important to start considering their role in the native ecosystem. Most people would ask about why he was making a hundred-feet, cunning man-eating snakes first and ask him to stop doing something so distinctly dark wizard-like.
Hermione, it seems, cast her gimlet eye towards the preservation of the natural world.
"Well?" The Ravenclaw was tapping her fingers on the table, waiting with an arched eyebrow.
It was clear that she expected him to come up with an ecologically sound plan to introduce the chimeric snake on the spot.
"And the blood magic?" He asked instead, dodging her question. He was now morbidly curious about how she thought.
"What about the blood magic?" She asked back, her brown eyes wide and guileless. Inwardly surprised, he quickly eliminated the possibility that she was joking.
"You would need to use it to create a healthy chimera. As I've stated earlier, the skills required is found across Care of Magical Creatures, Transfiguration and Blood Magic."
She nodded while listening to what he'd just said. "Why, yes, I agree with you. You'd need to mine the depths of those three fields. Otherwise, you'll have a lot of self-aborting foetuses inside wombs or eggs, and then you'll also have major organ death due to irritated immune system—it relates to the histocompatibility like I've said before. MHC is hard enough to deal with in intra-species organ transplants, much less inter-species ones."
Hermione seemed to realise what she was saying at this point as she shook her head.
"Oh, I suppose that's too far into the weeds for your level of interest, isn't it? Never mind that for now. I do have to say that you're off to a good start already—you'd probably have better odds starting with a reptilian species as a basis than a mammalian one."
"Because with snakes, you can keep lowering their body temperature since they don't generate their own body heat. It slows down their physiological processes that you can practically check the changes you made in slow motion—what more could you ask from your experimental animals?" He added before he could help himself.
Tom had only planned on listening, to make her talk and allow him to gauge the limits of her knowledge that way. Yet some part of him did not want her to have the impression that he had not done the groundwork research for it.
His pride would not let him seem a complete novice to her, even if he knew that her knowledge of physiological processes would probably exceed his, what with her healing background.
Hermione beamed at him, her smile unexpectedly wide and warm.
"Yes! Exactly! Not to mention that reptiles generally have slower immune response than the members of the warm-blooded taxa that it lowers rejection of grafts and alien body parts to attach too. I suppose there might be some really potent blood magic ritual that can merge or blend species, but there's really a dearth of texts that I can't be sure…"
The brunette drifted away as she become lost in thought. Tom, on the other hand, was readjusting his perspective on Hermione yet again after she said 'alien body parts to attach' without blinking. It was why he said the first thing in his mind without holding back.
"'Ritual to merge or blend species', really? So vague and without any example rituals mentioned? No mention of any particular schools? That's practically guessing by your standards, Hermione. I suppose this means you've never actually read a book on blood magic, have you?" He teased.
Hermione reddened slightly, but she didn't quite admit her ignorance.
"I couldn't possibly miss that much from those texts. I'm sure some of the knowledge in them can be found in other magical branches…" she muttered.
Other people might be fooled, but Tom knew that she was dithering. He also knew that blood magic was a field where he definitely had the advantage—though he had never even expected her to be familiar with it in the first place.
Not in his wildest imaginings.
Fascinating, he noted. He even asked her about several more-complicated blood magic rituals and watch as she evaded and blushed at her lack of knowledge of them. Hermione settled with a glare when she finally realised that he was teasing her.
"You—!"
"I had to figure out the limits of your knowledge somehow."
"You could just ask." She was definitely not amused.
"I can teach you further about those sacrificial rituals I mentioned," he said this to distract her.
"How much do you know? Celtic or Germanic?" Hermione asked, forgetting her annoyance quickly.
"Oh, I do study both and a couple of others," he replied with a modest tone that Hermione no longer accepts at face value now. She kept staring at him without blinking. "I pride myself in being an amateur Luwian ritual specialist and I do have some Hittite ones I've memorised alongside."
"In their original languages?" Her voice was soft when she asked, solemn. She was completely hooked.
Tom nodded and he did not expect the high-pitched sound of excitement she made. If she had been sitting near him instead of across the table, he suspected she would've jumped up and hugged him.
"Really? How did you even find someone who knows exactly how it sounds?"
"I have my sources. I've even tried out one—turns out that a deer can power a decent blood ward for a house."
His grin was wide and true, with the bloodthirst of an old pagan god riding with the wild hunt. Hermione's understanding of how rare the rituals he'd found as well as her appreciation was one he'd never received from other people before. Simply put, most wizards truly didn't understand the effort required to collect rituals in a language that died some three millenniums ago, along with the persistence required to learn said language. The look of amazement and wonder she gave him reminded him of the first time he drank wine.
Her adulation was intoxicating.
With her enthusiasm, it was clear that he could mine her healing knowledge for his projects and she'd assist without a second thought. Not to mention that he already had several tomes on blood magic at hand that he knew she wouldn't be able to resist if he could place them under her nose. It was almost a shame that the couldn't follow that particular topic for now and he had to pull them back to his first question.
"What about the Ministry for Magic's issue with Blood Magic?"
He stumped her for a few moments before some form of understanding finally grew on her face. She gave him a bored look.
"Oh! That was the problem you were trying to point out earlier. You could've been more specific."
He shrugged carelessly. She continued.
"I don't see any problem with it because contrary to what most people thought, I know that blood magic is one of the oldest magics in the universe. It's not particularly good or bad either—it was as easy to create a protection spell with blood magic as it was to curse someone. Of course, forcing someone to sacrifice their blood instead of using your own to power your blood magic spell is definitely Not Good."
"No! Really, you don't say?" He dryly commented. Hermione glanced upwards but mostly ignored his sarcasm.
"Other than that, I basically disagree with anyone using it to curse someone the same way I disagree anyone using a wand to cast a Killing Curse. But we don't see anyone outright banning hexes, curses and jinx, do we? Why put a blanket ban on all blood magic, then?"
"The Ministry might disagree with you on that," Tom noted with a slight grin.
"The Ministry can be a right twat sometimes and you know it too," she answered without care. "One of these days, we're going to make the Wizengamot be more specific about the kinds of blood magic it outlaws."
"We will?" He asked, highly amused.
"Oh, we certainly will." She was all confidence.
Did she realise how easily she used 'we' to refer to herself and him? No, he didn't think she did. He thought he'd have more fun with this by avoiding any mention about it for now.
'-
They did end up talking about the technicalities of constructing a chimera for a while as they eat, losing track of time as they did so. Tom began to notice this when he realised he'd taken a second helping on purpose to delay, and Hermione kept adding more dessert on her plate later as she slowed down to only occasionally nibble on it.
If they were at the great hall right now, the tables would've been half empty at this point.
"It occurs to me," he said some moments afterwards as they were more than done with their meal, "that you have yet to inform me of how I could have fallen into madness."
Hermione's warm brown eyes met his, and he could see her coming up with words to say and then discarding them as fast as she made them. The quietness stretched into seconds, broken up only by the faint tinkle of silverware.
"It's that bad, is it?" He asked with a smile, trying to lighten her mood.
From the way she cringed, he was probably more correct than he knew. He sighed.
"Alright. So, how terrible was it? If you continue to stall, I'm afraid I'll also continue to be deprived of the knowledge of how to not destroy myself. And here I thought you liked me, Hermione."
She didn't even react to his light-hearted comment, which moved it from 'concerning' into 'alarming' very quickly. He wanted answers immediately, of that there were no doubt. Yet from the way she seemed to be lost in some disturbing vision of a far-off future, he wasn't sure he was willing to prod her too much that she'd be annoyed enough to viciously provide him all the terrible, embarrassing details.
Hermione finally told him. The words came tumbling out with a long, drawn-out sigh. "It was the dark arts, Tom. You went too far into them to ever came back whole again."
"That's highly unspecific," he replied, mildly irritated.
She gave him a warning look to not interrupt which he chose to listen to this time. He gave her the opportunity to collect her thoughts again.
"It's the soul, you see. Many of the magics that fall under the purview of the dark arts are classified thus because they affect the soul. Contrary to what people say as they curse lawyers, it is not actually possible to be alive if you were soulless. It is still impossible to be alive and stable if you have only a small amount of your soul healthy and untouched." Hermione noted.
"So, did I happen to destroy mine?" He asked with a cheer he definitely wasn't feeling. "Taint my soul beyond all recognition?"
The sad, understanding look that she gave him made him feel worse, for some reason. Yet even when he knew his smile had gone cold, her expression did not waver. Her next question surprised him.
"Can I hug you?"
A beat. He continued to stare blankly at her, uncomprehending.
"Pardon?"
"Look, this is a very depressing topic, and I still haven't exactly bounced back from all the mess of today. So, if you'll allow me to hug you so I don't have to feel as miserable, I think I can continue to follow this personal hole to China that you're intent on digging."
"I suppose I can."
Hermione moved off her bench and slid next to his. She didn't sit facing the same side, though; she faced the opposite. In that way, it was easier for her to slip her arm around him and lean into him. He found himself not minding the contact too much. She was warm and soft in his arms—certainly a very pleasant object to hold. He could catch the faint fragrance of roses that inspired him to give her one, along with ink, the scent of fresh parchment and something sweet that was distinctly her.
"You know, I didn't think I ever really checked what the pieces that have fallen off you look like—in that future, I mean. We were too busy staying alive and just trying to kill you as quickly as we can. We were trying to keep more people from dying and the world from falling apart even more." Hermione continued conversationally into his shoulder. "All those fallen pieces of your soul might be the blackest black, for all I know. What I do know is that at the end, you barely had any piece worth speaking of inside you. You've just torn it to so many pieces. At the end, you're really not all there. Did you know that you were bald, snake-like and had no nose? He was —"
"You don't need to say it." His hand curled around her waist without thought. It would seem I'm still a coward about facing my own destruction after all, he thought, with a bitter sort of humour.
"I told you it was depressing." She said this with a hint of that know-it-all tone that could be very annoying if she deployed it in full. Luckily for Hogwarts so far, she seemed to restrain herself most of the time, even in classes.
"I miscalculated just how depressing it could be," he murmured, his nose buried in her curls. "Now, I find myself in need of a new topic."
She snorted inelegantly. "You've just needed a new topic now? I needed it a few minutes ago."
He knew she was going to be insufferable if he let her go on for a while; Merlin knows he has enough experience with it whenever she was winning arguments against him in their discussions in the infirmary. What he did instead was to pull back and kiss her. It was a different sensation now, especially since they were only in their shirtsleeves. He could feel the faint rise of the goosebumps on her arm and had the unobstructed access to the full curve of her breast. Well, not quite that unobstructed yet, but it wasn't as if he was incapable of remedying it soon as his hand trailed down her collarbone—
"Tom?" Hermione's voice was breathy, and he found that he liked feeling the reverberations through her chest as his nose was stuck in front of her sternum.
"Yes, Hermione?"
"You're unbuttoning my shirt."
He leaned back, taking stock of his work and feeling rather satisfied. "Why yes, I believe I am."
His nonchalance caused her to roll her eyes as she proceeded to button them back up. He was watching the tantalizing line of flesh disappear with a resigned sigh.
"I am not going to provide a free show for the house elfs." She insisted.
"I think you know as well as I do that their wonderful virtue is that they're utterly unconcerned about people's personal business." Tom noted.
"If you were going in the direction that I think you're going, you still owe me some real dates."
He quirked an eyebrow in her direction. "A date?"
"Yes. A date. A real dinner outing, to a restaurant, to demonstrate that you're not a skinflint and you can actually show a lady a good time. I do like to dance, if you must know," Hermione instructed. Merlin, she was bossy. Oddly enough, he didn't find the annoyance he usually felt when most people thought they need to order him around—probably because when Hermione said something, she had the knowledge and good reason to back it up.
"I think I can manage a few dates."
"Good." The pleased smile she gave him was bright enough to light up the room. It took such a simple thing too, he mused, curious.
"Now that you're not in such a melancholic mood, would you tell me about what happened in St. Mungo's?" Tom asked.
Hermione tucked herself to his side and started recounting her day from the beginning. He wrapped his arm around her once more without even thinking.
Tom listened first curiously, and then with increasing interest. Her parents had considered it important enough for her to know how to operate a muggle weapon? What kind of life had her family lead in Norway before her parents died? Slughorn had only said that they were expatriates, but Tom were beginning to have his own theories that they were Ministry agents of some sort—why else had her entire family been hunted down by dark wizards? Why else did it seem that there was no news of other survivors from the British magical circle of Kopervik that she came from? After asking Slughorn of her origins, he'd checked.
All anyone could find was that it had been burned down to the ground, with casualty numbers unknown. The news had strangely never made it into Britain's newspapers either. Hermione did not even seem to try to find news about her family and friends on the Prophet or the other papers she reads in the infirmary whenever he saw her reading the paper.
It was as if the news blackout was not a surprise to her at all.
The easy way she listed the injuries she'd seen and the risks that mediwitches and mediwizards not familiar with muggle weaponry would miss told him that her medical knowledge was beyond mere first aid needs.
He was caught up with the entire mystery that was Hermione Curie.
She was all for the cultural revival of the house elfs and she did not think that there was anything unusual about studying and utilising (some) blood magic. She could apparently operate a muggle exploding stick—gun, and she knew more about the deep arithmantic calculation required to even begin charting time for an entire society than everyone in the whole castle whose blood were 'purer' than hers.
Hermione thought he was most likely going to destroy the world and still chose to be near him.
We're all walking contradictions, Tom, Hermione had said to him once. He found that none were more so than her. He was going to enjoy unravelling yet another new mystery from her, to figure out more of her secrets that she might not even realise were anything special (like the way she did not even blink about stating outright that not all blood magics were inherently bad). He was not even sure what made him gave her one last kiss after they've put on their entire uniform again. It simply felt like a slightly different good night that was a fitting way to end the dinner.
It was convenient for him that neither of them seemed to be interested in drawing away from each other then, isn't it? He had all the time in the world to figure her out.
'-
It was late. Melchior and Abraxas had been minding their own business at the corner table* in the Slytherin common room when Tom found them.
*this is the distinct privilege of an upperclassman, even more so when said upperclassman is associated with Tom Riddle, who had been known to chat in Parseltongue with some of the common room's fixtures.
"Melchior, Abraxas," Tom called out cheerfully.
Two heads looked up. Where one head was dark, the other was light.
"Afternoon, Tom." Melchior greeted back, which his friend followed a moment later.
Where Melchior had been reading and annotating calmly, Abraxas had been fiddling with his quill as he thought, its feathered tip frayed from absent-minded nibbling. If it hadn't been one of the more expensive writing quills of Scribbulus' that he used, he would've earned the ire of his partner for splattering inks all over their work. For all the contrast that they presented, they were the highest-ranking of Tom's underlings and were amongst the smartly-dressed Slytherins.
"You're just the people I've been looking for. You're working on that Potions essay we need to turn in on Friday?"
Melchior was too busy thinking it was unusual for Tom to still have something to do after he finished his prefect rounds. It was Abraxas who asked first, without much too thought or guile.
"Yes, it is. What can we do for you, Tom?"
Tom slid easily into an empty seat on the table.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but your family holds around fifteen percent of Daily Prophet's share."
The blond Slytherin shrugged. "Thereabouts, sure. might even be more if I consolidated my mother's holdings as well."
"And yours are not significantly smaller either, isn't it, Melchior?" Tom asked yet again.
Melchior had yet to say a word, still trying to read Tom's expression. He was unaffected by the pleasant mien his liege lord wore. His face was a studied exercise in neutrality.
"Yes. If you would tell us what story you'd like to run, we can have our contacts working on it tomorrow." He answered, cutting straight to the meat of the matter.
"Ah, but I need it tomorrow."
The Nott heir frowned in thought, even as Abraxas nodded and said that it would be no problem. His friend would probably even say that he'd write the article himself if necessary, recklessly taking on a task he had considered neither of them had much training in. No. Personally, he'd rather delay than do a less than excellent work. He had been so lost in thought that he'd missed the witch that had come up to Tom's right. Her cool expression and undeterred composure was familiar to most people by now. Emma Eccleston, sixth-year prefect. She had fine cheekbones, he can admit. Yet with her hairstyle, it made her look more severe and older. Not a hair escaped her bun.
"There would be no need to trouble yourself on that front. With a little help, I've done most of the work this evening."
Melchior could see Abraxas's brows creasing slightly as the witch spoke up before Tom even signalled to her, but he was more laidback on that point. She was an outsider—she wouldn't know the proper protocols, would she?
Eccleston brandished a scroll in their direction. Abraxas picked it up and scanned the words quickly.
On the other hand, if Tom had been busy doing this, it would explain why neither of them had seen Tom at dinner. Neither Melchior nor Abraxas had disturbed him earlier this evening either, when it seemed that he was busy meeting with the Policy Swots. They decided to just play cards right then.
"Oh? Really?" Abraxas commented out loud as he read.
It was the surprised tone that did it. Melchior glanced across the table.
"There's nothing I've written that isn't the truth," Emma stated. Yet there was an interesting glimmer in her eyes.
Tom's smirk was as inscrutable as it had always been.
'-
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End Notes:
In case anyone was wondering why Hermione didn't even blink when Tom implied he'd killed a deer for a ward, remember that she'd given enough clues that she'd studied the basics of blood magic before for pragmatic reasons. If you can come to terms killing cows and chicken on a regular basis to be able to eat meat, occasionally killing the odd deer, goat or black chicken to power protective wards and whatnot is as functional and justifiable as the first.
'-
List of Stuff One Might Try to Look Up:
Luwian: (Linguistics) A language (or group of closely-related languages, the linguists aren't settled on this) spoken by the Luwian people. The name of the Luwian people itself comes from Luwiya, the name of the region they live in, as they are registered in the written records of the time (usually written in Hittite). It was once spoke roughly around western and central Anatolia (present-day Turkey) and northern Syria. Part of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. Time of existence until extinction: from sometime in the 2nd millennium BCE (Before Common Era) to 600 BCE.
Hittite: (Linguistics) A language once spoken by the Hittites, who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia (present-day Turkey). Also known as Nesite or Neshite. It is the oldest Indo-European language to appear in written records. Part of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is written in cuneiform that is adapted from Akkadian ones. Its written records exist from 16th century BCE to 13th century BCE.
There have been many evidence, though indirect, that Hittite died out before Luwian did. These evidences argued that in the later centuries of the Hittite Empire, the colloquial language was Luwian even though the scribes still learn Hittite to write official records, based on the evolution of the Hittite that they used through centuries. (See Ilya Yakubovich's Sociolinguistics of the Luwian Language).
MHC: Major Histocompatibility Complex (Biological Sciences, Medicine). The set of proteins that whose parts/limbs 'stick out' of the cell walls of vertebrate cells. The function of which is so that the immune system (the T-cell in this case) 'reads' the proteins. If the cell is healthy, the T-cell leaves it alone. If the cell is not okay (say, heavily infected), the T-cell recognises it by the changes to parts of the histocompatibility complex. This is because invading bacteria leaves a trail of many different proteins* that can be bound to one or more proteins of the MHC, thus changing its shape. The T-cell then destroys the cell it recognises as 'not okay'.
*to be more specific, peptides.
The problem arises when the cell that the T-cell recognises as 'not okay' is actually a healthy cell, like, say, an organ transplanted from a different individual. This is because different people have different sets of proteins that make up their MHC. The host T-cell might recognise them wrongly as 'infected cells' and promptly starts destroying them. And this is still within the same species! Cross-species transplants are even worse. Don't get me started on auto-immune diseases that basically came down to a case of mistaken identity by the T-cell, in which no alien cells are even involved. Type I Diabetes is one of these.
Punch and Judy: (Culture) A traditional, violent puppet show in Britain. I am not ashamed to say that I liked watching it when I was a kid (kids are simple—and violent). The puppets range from sock puppets, to marionettes, and everything in between. It has roots in 16th century Italian commedia dell'arte (Pulcinella and his wife). It used to be a staple of the seaside towns, (playing to the holiday crowd, I suppose).
The telling thing here is that, even as Tom and Hermione share this cultural reference, it's also a mostly muggle thing.
Titanoboa: (Palaeontology) A genus of giant snakes that lived some 60 – 58 million years ago, during the Palaeocene epoch. It's not a surprise that they're all extinct right now. The largest fossils found is estimated to belong to a snake that is 12.8 metres (42 feet) long (by scaling them with the skeletons of modern snakes closest to it), and is estimated to be 1,135 kg (2500 lb). The further details are obviously courtesy of Wikipedia.
'-