Author's Notes:

To anyone who might be worried about recent developments: Relax. Like I said, I have enough self-awareness to know that I suck at writing romance that I don't try. Hermione has more important things to deal with, like Grindelwald. Also, consider Hermione and Tom as rational agents and quite capable ones too for people their age (I would be banging my head on the desk at too much dramatic crap, much less be able to stand writing about them). Soap opera melodrama is a tad beneath them.

I find it fascinating that a few readers can still consider my interpretation of Tom Riddle as 'not evil' at this point just because he has better self control than your average, unimpressive, schoolyard bully. Well, this is Hermione's story, and as such, he would not come to the fore when there are still other things occurring in her life. Still, I'd be happy to prove you wrong once we get past the Hogsmeade weekend chapters... I'll try updating on a mostly weekly basis to get us all there faster, then.

Unrelated: England vs. Belgium. I don't have high hopes now, I just want to see them play well. They're disappointingly defanged when they were playing against Croatia.

'-

33 Hunts II

(See previous chapter's summary for summary)

'-

Hermione was too glad that Evariste thought he'd been taking too much of her time, bowed, and had gone off to look for other people to practise with. Unfortunately, this meant that Julia was free to sidle to her side. Her long ponytail swished and swung as she reached Hermione's side.

"Evariste, Hermione? Evariste de Breteuil?" She asked in disbelief.

"Yes, that is Evariste. I'm pretty certain he wasn't a doppelganger." Hermione said, ignoring Julia's snort for her bad joke. The other brunette was still staring at her with something close to awe.

"This makes it three potential suitors, Hermione. Three. Within a week of you attending class."

"In my defence, it has been a hell of a week. We had violent attacks by Grindelwald, I joined Madam Álava's team to teach a bit at St. Mungo's and provide some wound examples too since some newbs were being idiots. The muggleborn-pureblood tension is ratcheting up in Hogwarts, while I also have to help Tom run the Society meetings, persuade people, come up with a plan. I also have to already start tossing ideas for final projects for my classes—what else did I miss?" Hermione tallied what she thought had been the highlights with a flat and jaded tone.

Julia whistled. That was interesting—not that she cared, but because Hermione didn't think it was considered a ladylike behaviour.

"You're right. It feels more like a month than a week, doesn't it?"

"Well, historical time is a fractal object. You know, the sequence of events happening in time, along with the strength of the reactions to those events? Yes, that's the flow of history, and it's a one-dimensional fractal object—it's a line, or in this case, a timeline. It also happens to have the fractal character of being self-similar at different scales." Hermione muttered in a daze of stress-induced migraine; she found a chair and sat down.

"A time interval with, for example, three major events placed at random inside it would look similar to another time interval with three major events similarly spaced, even if the second interval is only a tenth of the first in length. Just stretch it to be as long as the first, and you'll see them being similar in character with each other."

Julia gaped. Hermione continued.

"So, if we suppose that the current number of extraordinary events usually happen in the span of an average Hogwarts month instead of week, it is not a surprise that it even feels more like a month subjectively." The brunette finished.

Her Ravenclaw classmate was still speechless. "That…I'm in Advanced Arithmancy II, Hermione. I don't think I've heard of that."

She laughed, a little too high and a little too thin.

"That's… oh boy, I don't even know where that's supposed to be. It's the stuff you read when you're taking your Mastery in Arithmancy. I think Benoit Mandelbrot is already writing his papers on chaos theory and fractals now. Maybe I can get you some from the Interlibrary Loan. Who knows? I'm pretty sure that Hogwarts is somehow linked to the Bodleian Library at Oxford—the Occult Bodleian, at any rate." She'd managed to borrow the weirdest tomes and books before.

Hermione shook her head, pulling herself together before she babbled even more.

"Look, I'm sorry, Julia. I'm rambling. I tend to ramble endlessly when I get stressed. Evariste just gave me another ball to juggle in the air while I already have so many balls to manage." She said, trying to keep her tone even so she didn't sound hysterical or pissed off. "I just…I'm sorry. I think I'm losing my verbal filter. Ignore me when I stop making sense."

Julia patted her shoulder encouragingly. "It's alright, Hermione. It's fine to just rest and take a break for a while. I think you've gotten enough duels in, right? I don't think Professor Merrythought is going to fault you if you decide to sit out from now on."

"Yes, I suppose so. I'm sorry that I'm not fit for company, Julia."

"Oh, it's alright," she said, waving it away easily. "I did hear about your accident. I suppose it's only natural if you're still feeling somewhat weak."

'-

Hermione lifted her head from where she'd laid it on the table and saw Tom approaching.

Tom had to have at least one of his minions watching me at one time or another, she thought idly, otherwise, he couldn't have made his way here so fast. Not when the ADADA class was spread across three physical classes like now for practise. The other alternative was that he'd been skulking and following her all this time—yet as much as she knew of Tom's potential for evil, he wasn't pathetic. Being a stalker was just the desperate act of people who had no other important thing to do. Tom wanted to take over the world—he always had more things to do.

Stalking was frankly below him.

"Are you done with your duels?" He asked, pulling a random chair next to the table she'd claimed as her own.

"I've just…" she sighed. "I've duelled almost all of your male house mates, barring one or two—Yaxley has eluded me for a while. I've fought, let's see…Abraxas' two henchmen and Gallus Rosier. Gallus helpfully pointed me to Carrow and Rowle. Pendleton just weirdly asks me himself." Hermione said.

"Well, that certainly sounds like Pendleton." He remarked. She had no idea if he meant that Pendleton was always weird or if it was something else, but she moved on.

"I crushed all of them, by the way." She said, as nonchalantly as she could.

Tom chuckled. He couldn't have missed the pride she tried to repress, but it was clear that he didn't mind it at all. His voice was low and unguarded.

"I have no doubts, Hermione. That was why I came up with it in the first place. You need to put them in their place or else they wouldn't have learned of just how capable you are."

"Mmm." She placed her head over her arms on the table again. She was sure that he didn't turn to her, but she could feel his fingers gently sinking into the curls. He was even absently scratching her scalp with a rhythm that made her want to keep lying down and purr.

She lifted her head again with some reluctance when she remembered that she hadn't finished. He pulled his hand away and she regretted the loss instantly.

"Auguste came over and taught me an interesting game when I was thinking of just giving up on finding the last of your Slytherins. Evariste came after that. He misunderstands Auguste, and well… Basically, I had a headache for a bit."

"How unfortunate." He murmured.

"Yes."

"What was their misunderstanding about, Hermione?" His tone was shrewd though his dark eyes were as calm as they ever were.

She sighed. "Nothing important. Believe me, I don't consider it important at all. It's just…argh. This social interaction…thing…is so complicated some times that I wish I don't have to deal with it. But at least I'm much better now than I was before."

He stared at her with that focused, unmoving way of his, the one that in a cobra would be the prelude to a strike. It was eerie to one not used to it, but somehow, she'd also began to see it as flattering. After all, it meant that there was nothing else in the universe right now that he'd rather obsessively study and catalogue than her.

"You've never struck me as socially awkward. You revel in your difference. You flaunt it to those too scared to even begin to know themselves, but you've never let anyone make you feel out of place."

Hermione couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, Tom. You should have seen the younger, bookworm me. She saw the world with a view that is more black and white. That social denseness I still have? I've just learned to live with it—the friends I had helped me handle it. I used to always feel bad about it and envy all the smoother people."

"Is tiny Hermione socially awkward?" He asked, curious.

She couldn't help her smile. "Tiny Hermione will quote Hogwarts: A History to your face and is bossy about all the spells she could already do. Merlin help you if you tell her you haven't managed to cast something taught in class. She'd make sure you can do it even if she has to teach you herself for the next hour, even if her discipline is going to make you hate her."

The next was slightly harder to tell, but she persevered. She didn't want to hide who she was. "Tiny Hermione will have no friends even after her first three months in Hogwarts—why, let's make that half a year, even. She'd probably be in the library, pretending she's not lonely among the books. She will definitely be naïve enough to think that Dumbledore, apprentice of Flamel, discoverer of twelve uses of dragon blood, couldn't possibly be wrong."

It was not hard to see that he was trying to divine her past self as he gazed into her brown eyes, to see the girl she once was. She let him. After all, she had read his orphanage files in her own future, even if she couldn't remember the contents word-for-word. It was only fair if he gets to see a glimpse of her childhood in turn.

"So, she'd hate me, then." Tom casually stated.

Hermione shook her head. "She'd be suspicious at first but she won't hate you. We'd be too similar for hate to ever be comfortable. But it would make her curious about younger you—she'd pay attention to a lot of things about him. I think if you can beat her in class every other time, she'd be annoyed at younger you but she won't leave him alone. She simply wouldn't stop hounding him about the class, trying to prove that she still knew the rest of the material better. You'd have a friend for life"

"Merlin, she'd be a menace," he commented with a smirk he didn't quite hide. "I think she'd drive younger me up a wall. There's be endless arguments. I think my first-year self might even be frustrated enough to forget his manners and just yell."

She nodded sagely at his reply. "Oh, yes. I have no doubts about the arguments. That's practically given. She drives everyone not used to her up a wall. But if you don't back down you'd have fast friends in her. She doesn't abandon her friends once she has them—it's probably just because she'd had too few of them. Like I said, I'm sure I'd still end up jinxing and cursing your other House members."

The silence between them was heavy with the shadow of old loneliness that they'd had mostly forgot. It flared again with her stories. Hermione still remembered vividly how her early days at Hogwarts were like before Harry and Ron barged into her life. If Tom's memory was anything like hers, she was sure he had a very good recollection from that period of his life as well. Tom picked up her hand on the table and easily intertwined his fingers with hers. The warmth was a slight surprise—perhaps it was his usually cool demeanour, but she sometimes forgot that he was as warm as her. She clasped his hand at the same time that he did, basking in the comfort of a simple touch.

He stared at their hands with some degree of puzzlement before pulling his arm away again.

As she met his gaze, she realised it wasn't just about the forgotten loneliness anymore. There was this thread of understanding between them about their pasts. If she couldn't help him back then, she certainly could aid him in the present—and indeed she would do that. She was almost sure that his intention to reach out to her was no longer restricted to the self that was in his present, but also to the one in her past. If he could've helped tiny Hermione, he would have too.

Neither of them was going to let the other face the slings and arrows that can be thrown by a capricious future alone. At some point in their acquaintance, they've become partners.

It was an odd thing to be comforted with, but she took solace in the knowledge.

"Hermione, did de Breteuil asked to be allowed to call upon you?" Tom asked.

She didn't bother asking him how he knew. He had either seen the almost-argument Auguste and Evariste had, or someone had told him about it. Either way, he'd certainly kept track of their motivations for some time that it was not difficult for him to reach his current conclusion.

"Yes." Her answer was matter-of-fact. "I already said yes when Auguste asked for the same in the name of friendship, just to allow him to know me better. It would be unfair if I said no to Evariste."

"Ah, I see."

Unfortunately, she was in direct opposite of where he was. She couldn't quite see what he meant, as his eyes were as fathomless as the wine-dark sea. Any treasures of the mind were lost in their depths.

"Tom?" She asked. "What is it?"

"Oh, it's nothing that's very relevant to you, Hermione. It's simply that one of the boards I'm facing has just changed. Social interactions are rather annoying to manage, aren't they?" He shrugged. He didn't even look the slightest bit concerned. Unfortunately, Hermione still hadn't quite trusted in her ability to read all of Tom's expressions. She worried she might still miss something.

"You know how it is. Plans will have to be thrown away or adjusted." He added. "It's a hassle, but not an emergency. Rather routine work, actually."

Since he did not consider whatever it was as important, she chose to trust him and not worry about it. He wasn't a fool, she reminded herself; he wasn't someone who would take on too many things himself just because he 'didn't want to trouble her'. Hermione could easily imagine Tom scoffing at the sentimentality of that statement as well as the idiocy of the one who said it; this is because it meant that the idiot didn't believe her to be competent enough to help. She nodded mentally to herself. Yes, that was Tom alright. She didn't have to worry about it.

'-

Hermione did manage to squeeze two more duels in the end. What she did was to just hail the next idle looking classmate she saw and ask them whether they wanted to duel her. It was a rather simple procedure. As she did so, she knew that Tom had stood up as well and did the same. They exchanged rueful glances with each other. There just wasn't enough time for a proper fight between them.

It would have to be a fight rather than a duel. After all, she couldn't imagine that she'd win against him easily without being able to resort to environmental elements. She had a feeling that his spell repertoire might even be larger than hers when it comes to combat spells. She was, after all, more focused on research as an Unspeakable, and at most more of a sort-of field healer and transfigurator.

Of course, the last part of ADADA was always when Merrythought gathered everyone back to a single classroom and gave them feedback, as well as addressing the most common type of mistake she'd seen or the bad habits she kept seeing that many hadn't broken off—the usual.

Once the class was over, Hermione couldn't exactly turn down Tom's polite insistence that he escort her all the way to the Ravenclaw Tower—not when she knew that for all his placid expression, he was still rather vigilant after the accident.

Even Abraxas who'd been saying that Hermione looked pretty well to Melchior knew enough to shut up around Tom. Melchior was of the opinion that Hermione's whole presence in ADADA today was a calculated act to show people who might underestimate her (Slytherin House, the purebloods) that she wasn't in the slightest bit weakened—she found it funny that he was overthinking her actions. Her first reason was her not wanting want to miss more class than necessary before Tom put forth the idea that she might as well establish her place in the Knights' pecking order.

The pale Pendleton even paused (hey, alliteration bonus, Hermione thought) at their little group, in the hallway not far from the classroom's door after their ADADA class was over.

"Curie had an accident, you say?" Pendleton asked.

"I'm fine, as everyone had seen today," Hermione insisted. The blond nodded in agreement with her, but soon turned his attention back to Tom.

"It was the sort of accident that wasn't exactly one." Melchior clarified.

Pendleton nodded slowly after a few moments of thinking.

"I see."

With a nod to everyone, he walked away again. Hermione shook her head. "What was that about?"

"That means he's going to look into it as well," Melchior said. She sent him a disbelieving look.

"You get that from just two words?"

"No, that's just Pendleton being Pendleton," Melchior said. Abraxas was nodding all the while, as if his answer had been very obvious while Nott also received a brief, absentminded nod from Tom with what was probably similar meaning. She shrugged it away. It was clear that the boys knew each other well enough from all the years of their acquaintance; she'd probably figure out what it was about sooner or later.

Gallus stopped by before he left too.

"Is there a meeting I didn't know about?" He asked, worriedly.

"Oh, not at all," Abraxas assured him. "Melchior and I just thought we'd catch up with Tom for a while before he goes to escort Hermione to the Ravenclaw Tower."

"Ah, I see." The wiry Slytherin nodded.

"He's being thorough, because of Hermione's accident, you see." The blond said.

Apparently, Gallus didn't realise the unusual circumstances of her arrival. He thought she'd just missed class for one reason or another (or taking some other class that her clashing schedule offered). Abraxas gladly told him what they know. At the rate the guys gossip, the Slytherin house might actually be more up-to-date on what happened to her than the Ravenclaws, she thought with a bizarre sense of humour.

Several other Slytherins passed by and paid their respects to Tom as well and to Hermione (whether grudgingly or not). From the nods that she saw Abraxas and Nott also received, she could easily guess that they were Tom's lieutenants.

"So, who's going to find out who did it?" Gallus asked.

"Why must there be someone who did it?" Hermione couldn't help but ask. All Slytherin wizards turn to her at the same time with varying degrees of bafflement.

"You have made yourself some enemies. Ergo, someone is going to attack you sooner or later," Gallus spoke first. "I don't need to be an arithmancer to be able to predict that series of events happening."

"Do we really have to go through this again?" Melchior asked her with a tired look.

"What they said," Abraxas threw in lazily.

"The world doesn't always have to be filled with hostile groups against you…" She started, before she saw the looks of blatant disbelief from all around her and she had to stop herself. "Oh, alright. That one was reaching. We do have Grindelwald out there. There are hostile forces against us."

"Thank you for understanding," Tom finally said.

"I'm just saying that this small event might actually be an accident." She said,

"Hermione," Tom said with evident amusement. "You are the most intelligent witch in our year, and probably even the one above ours. You have experienced things many people twice our age hasn't even lived through. With that said, I'm sorry, but you're an awful liar. Please stop. It's rather painful to listen to."

She huffed and elbowed him for the cheery insult. It only grazed his side (of course), and he did that quick back-stepping move that ended with his left hand on her hip again. Damn his dodging speed, Hermione thought, but with a distinct lack of surprise. Being a good fighter meant his reflexes were fast. Of course, this only made them stand closer than before.

Gallus Rosier blinked slowly as he digested what he'd just seen.

"…right. Well, good luck, then! You know you can always contact me if you need anything. I'll be heading to the quidditch pitch." Gallus said.

"No need to take your leave from us. After all, we're heading in the same direction," Melchior dryly replied without wavering even the slightest. He gave an ironic bow to Tom and Hermione, which Tom received with a royal nod of the same degree of mock-seriousness. Abraxas, on the other hand, did a double take as he stared at either Hermione or Tom. He almost said something, but Nott had pulled him away and he bid his goodbye too while being dragged by his friend.

'-

Lakshmi was once again at the door of the Ravenclaw Tower due to mysterious reasons. She grinned when she saw the two of them arriving.

"Ah, Hermione, Riddle, welcome!"

"I have an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu seeing you here—as in, I'm almost sure your presence heralded the coming of chaos and annoyance for me," Hermione commented, ignoring the annoyed look her dormmate shot her. "What brings you here now?"

"Oh, I thought I'd get some fresh air. The dorm is nice, but the air doesn't circulate that much there, if you know what I mean." Lakshmi said idly, observing her bright nails.

Hermione's eyebrows just kept creeping towards her hairline.

"Right," she drawled out, in that supremely sarcastic way that Draco had perfected for the first twenty years of his life. It was very satisfying to see Lakshmi deflate into a pout at that. The brunette turned back to Tom.

"Tom, thanks for escorting me. I'm sure I can climb up the stairs of my dorm without falling," she said, and he chuckled. "I'm certain that you have other things to do as well, right?" Hermione asked.

"Alas, I'm afraid I merely have boring solo activities scheduled." She would swear that he almost sighed.

"No other meetings?"

"Remember the Slytherin quidditch practice I told you about?" His expression was sardonic.

Hermione winced. "Ah, yes. Quidditch practise. The bane of the march of progress. If only people would not spend so much time on it, wizards might have landed on the moon already."

"Indeed, you will find no arguments from me on that front. Speaking of your convenient presence here, Miss Chakravarty, would you mind terribly if I asked you for a favour?" Tom suddenly turned to her dormmate. Lakshmi was too interested to say no.

"Well, it certainly depends on the favour, Mr. Riddle," she hedged.

"Please help Hermione look out for her enemies." He ignored Hermione's snort of incredulity. "Considering the accident that she experienced this afternoon, I find this very pertinent."

Her amber eyes widened. "I knew something was up! I saw Hattie running towards the Slytherin table and Hermione of all people, not showing up at lunch. She was in the infirmary, wasn't she?"

"She was, indeed."

"She is right here," Hermione reminded both of them.

"Well, I'll suggest that you ask Hermione for the rest of the details then. She is, as she'd said, right there. If you doubt the severity of my request, you can ask Shafiq, as I've asked him for more or less the same thing."

As Tom took his leave, Hermione realised that he'd gotten what he wanted from it in the first place; to get Lakshmi to know about the accident. She groaned. Lakshmi tailed her with all the bright-eyed curiosity of a cat, shining amber eyes included. Hermione walked into the common room and towards the stairs to their dorm with her friend following very closely behind.

"So! What on earth happened before lunch, Hermione?"

'-

Lakshmi, frankly put, did not believe that Hermione simply fell down the stairs on her own either. It didn't take too long, not even a quarter of an hour, but Hermione's attempt at prevarication and dissembling didn't work with her and simply fell apart.

"Hmm, so, do I know who these idiots are?" The other Ravenclaw asked. Hermione frowned.

"Why must there really be some sort of shadowy culprit?"

"It's more because of who you are, really. If it was someone else, I might still believe it. But you? You who are too damn smart and was crazy enough to take nine advanced classes?" Lakshmi scoffed.

"Ravenclaws are highly competitive in academics. You would not believe some of the sabotage efforts I've heard from the upper-years about what the top ten students in their year had experienced. I have no doubts that they sent some of those efforts against each other too."

Hermione snorted. "Sabotage, really?"

"There have been ingenious attempts at swapping other people's inks with vanishing ink, and that's the mildest form." Lakshmi pointed out. The brunette winced at the thought of having to redo several inches of essays.

"What's the worst?"

"The one that I know? Which is basically only what people would admit knowing? Blackmail. A few years ago, I think there was one Ravenclaw pureblood that was nearly brought down by a witch about to claim that she was carrying his offspring to his family. He had to quickly find evidence to discredit her claim in case she went forward, but during that half a year or so, he couldn't focus on his school work and his grades faltered as a result."

The story sounded like something from a completely alien world to Hermione, as she simply listened with wide eyes. "That's just…"

"Crazy, I know. But look at the risk on the witch's side—it's practically none. He's not stupid enough to expose her when it would bring his family down on him as well, and other than him, no one knows about what she was saying to him. The benefits of it is clear; she gets him falling down the ranks off as a competitor."

"The risk is always there that someone else might hear it and she'd also lose, though," Hermione said.

Lakshmi nodded. "Oh yes. But there's no chance to win big if you are not also prepared to bet big, right? This is just a rather extreme case of that."

The dark-haired witch thought about it for a moment before she spoke up again.

"Thus, in the same way that no one in Slytherin would have believed Riddle to not be dangerous—he wouldn't have survived, much less thrive there otherwise—no one in Ravenclaw would believe him to be naïve either. He'd been the number one academically for years. He wouldn't have kept his position without being able to handle and outwit the saboteurs—both from his own House and from ours."

"And I'm, what…?"

"You're another player easily vying for the top spot as well. They're probably disappointed that Riddle didn't even seem to mind your presence—which any observer can take to mean that there were good odds that he wasn't going to sabotage you. At worst, you'd get number two instead of number one. That still means there's at least one person you'd kick out from the top ten, and eight others you're kicking down the ranks."

It was hard not to stare helplessly at Lakshmi, lounging on her own bed, snacking on pistachio nuts and looking for all the world like the perfect picture of decadence. It reminded her of something from one of Eugenie's unexpected muggle movie posters she put up (the Delacours were cosmopolitan in their tastes), one of Errol Flynn's swashbuckling adventures. In all the years at Hogwarts, Hermione had never really felt the cutthroat competition. She had her own suspicions.

"What happens when the people on the top ten ranks are Gryffindors or Hufflepuff?"

"That's when they get lucky. The 'Puffs never turn on each other. Never. They'd actually viciously take down anyone who ever did, and that's when they're really scary compared to the other houses—your life would literally be hell in the dorms for the determined time period of their punishment. No one wants to risk angering their whole House."

Ah, so even the Hufflepuff has their teeth and claws. They just choose not to use them most of the time. She'd begun to consider them under a more wistful light recently, especially after the conversation she had with the Sorting Hat—they are too loyal to let you face the dangers alone, it had said.

"Gryffindors don't really care much about academics as a principle, but sabotaging your own house mates is frowned upon, instead of it being a matter of course like in Slytherin or Ravenclaw. Their house members will also tend protect them from other houses. Not to mention that among them, they're also more likely to band and study together."

Alright, that really explained the relative peace she experienced as Hermione Granger. Even if she didn't get study partners most of the time because she was too drawn into the complications of Harry's life, at the very least, she did avoid the cutthroat competition that seemed prevalent in Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

"What would you do in my position?" Hermione asked out of curiosity.

"What, me? Drive them out of Hogwarts." She scoffed. When she saw the stunned look on Hermione's face, she clarified.

"Look, academic sabotage is one thing, but threats against your safety and your life? They've crossed the line. We have no way to know if they'd stop there or if they'd keep trying. You better start planning to take them out permanently."

Hermione was troubled at the coldness in Lakshmi's voice. Her friend had been laid back, casual, and mischievous, but she hadn't seen her in a mood that was close to Tom's 'burn their fields and salt their earth' level of cold fury.

"Drive them out of—"

"I'm going to find and even make enough blackmail material that if I choose to send it to their parents, they're going to be married off quickly over the summer. It doesn't help so much with wizards, yes, but I'm sure a rushed marriage like that would frazzle their nerves with preparation as well as adapting to the in-laws that are practically strangers to them. That's at least a whole year of disrupted concentration right there. As for the witches? Now, that would certainly pull them out of Hogwarts alright. Good luck at playing good housewife now! Ha! Good riddance for attempted murderers—at least I didn't try to kill anyone." Lakshmi cackled at the end, the very picture of the malicious witch in Macbeth.

It was even worse for witches than wizards because that was it. Their social life ended there. Their education also ended there. They were now shackled to the rest of their life to a stranger.

"That's…"

Harsh? Oh, it undoubtedly was, but Hermione had no doubt that Lakshmi already knew that before she said it. But considering Hermione's story, she was treating it as payback for someone trying to kill her friend.

It was definitely not nice, but Lakshmi had a point in that she was concerned that the attempts at bodily harm would not stop and were only just starting. In a way, it was also a preventative measure. And in the end Lakshmi did stop at outright murder. The dark-haired witch, like everyone else, was simply a product of her era.

"I think I have to think about all this first. It just…it's never occurred to me before. My friends and I were always a closely-knit bunch." Because of all those near-death experiences we survived together, Hermione thought.

"Oh, certainly—take all the time you need, though not so long that someone might already decide to try to off you again. The perfect plan for payback is never the first one that comes to mind. It's usually one that you've thought over and refined over time." Lakshmi answered.

She stared at Hermione thoughtfully, and the brunette could almost see her mind turning all the little bits and pieces of knowledge that she'd known before over and over in her head and then linking the connections together.

"I forget that you're from one of those smaller private schools, aren't you? Where everyone knew everyone else and even everyone else's parents and families? Well, I suppose I can understand if you're more used to a nice, familial atmosphere. It really is rather different in the big and famous schools like Hogwarts, darling. The politics and competition are very real and vicious here."

"What's wrong with just reporting it to the professors?" She couldn't help asking.

Her friend actually laughed at that, and the look of pity she sent afterwards didn't help either.

"It depends. What sort of evidence do you have? What sort of backing do they have? It almost always never works against people with parents on the Hogwarts' Board of Governors. I mean, who are you, when compared to their pedigree and the size of their annual donation to the school? Really, when you're good at planning, you're almost always better off handling it on your own."

Lakshmi didn't pull her punches at all and let her knew all the forces she'd be going against if she decided to go forward through the official channels. Hermione had the bitter realisation that she'd glimpsed what school must have been like during the early years for Tom Riddle, the school's charity orphan with the muggle last name.

'-

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