Author's Note:
*Whistles innocently.*
All relationships are always renegotiated over time, since to be human is to change and grow.
'-
42 Old Haunts and Old Issues
Chats at the Society meeting. In which Hermione reaches her limits at socialising. Annoyance and anger. Confrontation. A solution is suggested. A fight goes wrong, though fortunately not fatally.
'-
To Hermione's own mild surprise, she did actually manage to talk with more than a handful of people. It was not as awkward as she'd feared either.
She had managed to chat with Abraxas for a moment, as her comment on the table made him go on delighted explanations about the variety of appetizers. Parkinson and Mulciber still looked slightly uncomfortable around her, but they were actually more straightforward than most Slytherins. Once you've beat them, that was it, they'd leave you be. The Ravenclaw didn't stay long around them and wandered away again.
"Hermione! You look beautiful tonight." Melchior greeted her pleasantly.
She smiled. There was nothing sleazy in his appreciative gaze; his smile was warm and his words honest. She hadn't been surprised to hear that he had his share of admirers before, much less now.
"Thank you. You look dashing too." She turned to the wizard that Melchior had been talking with. "We were in Advanced Transfigurations together, isn't that right?"
"Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Hermione, this is Caspar Zabini whose family is from Lombardy. Caspar, this is Hermione Curie, Hogwarts' newest rising star and our very own Nightingale." Hermione could hear the pride in his voice as he said that and couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed.
"Melchior."
"It's true and you know it."
She still felt the praise in her name to be exaggerated and over the top, but clearly Melchior thought otherwise since he only smiled mysteriously. He's picking up a little too much of Tom's mannerism, she thought inwardly.
"Pleased to meet you," the brunette offered her hand instead.
Zabini bowed over her hand with a solemnity she was still not quite used to, and he replied to her greeting with slightly more formality than she expected. She found out that his immediate family lived in Venice, and he'd easily followed her conversation on the time she visited Italy and seen Michelangelo's Pieta or the Sistine Chapel. He could even recommend her about further places to see.
"You're not going to point out that they're muggle works?" Hermione asked him at a lower voice than usual. He gave her a philosophical shrug.
"Art is art, Signora. Beauty does not need anything else to explain it, nor does its existence need justification. Is the mountain magical or not? Does it matter as long as we can rest our eyes on its majesty? Breathe the cool air on its side? Should rubies and emeralds be magical or not magical?"
"They're just objects," Melchior agreed.
"Exactly. We should appreciate beauty where we find them." Subtle, but flattering. She appreciated his conversation skill.
There were also a few fourth-years she definitely didn't recognise, but Melchior helpfully murmured 'friends of Orion Black' to her to provide context. Not that she remembered the names of either. Somehow, they ended up talking about art (attend enough state functions with Daphne or Draco and one ends up picking some of the frequent conversation topics up). She was certainly surprised at Zabini's ability to pull the other Slytherins to talk about art instead of more controversial topics—and they talked about muggle artists without blinking too.
Either the magical-muggle divide wasn't as large as she'd thought, or many purebloods were rather good at ignoring cognitive dissonance. It wasn't long before she took her leave, but it did not feel like time wasted. A particular tall, blond wizard waved at her. How he managed to look as if his hair was artfully disarrayed instead of a plain mess, she didn't know. If she was back in non-magical London, she'd have thought him to either be an artist or a bum. A good-looking bum, but a bum all the same.
"Hermione!"
"Daedalus?"
"Just the witch I want to see. Come on, we've got a little conundrum that I'm sure you can help us solve, considering that you've just gone through some practical experience that almost all of us lack."
"What is it about?" She asked.
"We had a couple of disagreements that I'm sure you can help settle…"
Of course, she ended up chatting longer with Daedalus. He deftly pulled her into a conversation with several other seventh-years on whether the ability to quick-draw your wand was important in emergencies or when you're attacked—her conclusion was, very. She can even give several scenarios where it would make all the difference in outcome, though she didn't bother clarifying that many of them weren't even hypothetical and was actually Harry's experience (Watching and studying Harry's memories on the field was actually a significant part of junior Auror training classes).
Even with the ease that she could chat with many people, including the Slytherins, she could not stop hearing all the other conversations that happened in her vicinity. There was the rising dislike against muggles and the scepticism on whether it was possible to live in peace with them.
She was talking with Julia and her sixth-year friends when the last one happened. Hermione waited until the current conversation topic was over and decided to talk to Ceres and Bernadotte for one last time. Julia bid her friends goodbye and followed Hermione easily.
"I think I'm turning in early," Hermione said.
"Alright," Bernadotte accepted her words without much fuss. Ceres seemed to be thinking something over.
Julia, on the other hand, was surprised by her statement.
"What about Tom? You came with him, right?"
"Expecto Patronum!"
Hermione hadn't been paying attention to her patronus when she cast it in the fight against Tom in the ADADA class. A messenger patronus could locate him and so she used it, more intent on following where the blurry white form went. She hadn't focused much on it, so it wasn't surprising that it was blurry.
When she cast it now, at the edge of the room filled with scions of old wizarding families and nothing to distract her, the creature that burst from the end of her wand was finely rendered and lifelike. It was lambent with bluish-white glow. She could hear the gasp of awe from Ceres, as well as an impressed whistle, courtesy of Bernadotte.
Her patronus was one of the owls with funny ear tufts on its head. It cocked its head to the side as it watched her curiously. With a nod that she almost swore was sentient, it flew up above the crowd, carrying the message she'd thought clearly at its formation.
(It's not even an otter anymore, is it?)
She felt another pang of loss, as another piece of her old life fell away. Hermione Granger was an earnest, hardworking Gryffindor witch.
Yet who was Hermione Curie, Ravenclaw prodigy?
"You could cast a patronus?" Julia asked, not quite believing what she'd seen. She was instantly distracted by the flight path the bird of light took in the air, sparkled motes trailing at the edges of its wings.
"I've always thought it would be convenient if I can do that, but I'm not sure I have the time to spend just to practise that one spell." Bernadotte said.
"It's not as hard as it looks." Hermione said. "I can teach you, if you want."
"After ADADA class on Wednesday," Julia replied quickly, with the zealousness of someone who'd been waiting all this time for the right moment to say it. "I've checked my schedule, cross-checked with your schedule, and it's safe to say that most people are free then."
"That would be after Advanced Charms for us, but I think we can manage," Ceres said.
"Let's just try it for next week first," the brunette said, wry, knowing enough of Julia's overenthusiasm to realise that she could easily overcommit if she let the other Ravenclaw coax her. She sighed.
"Now that I've done that, I can certainly leave." Hermione concluded.
Julia was still baffled. "Wait, what does that have to do with you leaving?"
"That was what the patronus is for—to tell Tom I'm leaving. What, you thought I was bored enough to randomly cast it?" Julia's unsure expression and Bernadotte's shrug told Hermione clearly of what they thought. She huffed. She wasn't that eccentric. "It's a messenger patronus. It's a modification of the usual one and you can use it to send messages to other people."
"Oh, that's useful," Ceres said.
"It is. See you later, everyone." She left before anyone could ask her more questions or detain her.
If Hermione didn't leave now, she'd throttle the next pureblood spouting yet another idiotic comment. She might cast Avis and send ravens to peck at their heads.
She might direct the birds to pluck their eyes.
It wasn't as if it was impossible to grow eyes back if it was an actual, physical trauma that caused it than some mysterious dark hex. (When her thoughts are this bloodthirsty, that was a clear sign that she needed to leave).
'-
Her feet had taken her to the library before she quite realised where she was going.
Hermione even passed the rarely seen Grey Lady. The ghost curtsied gravely to her, and Hermione couldn't stop herself from curtsying back.
The Ravenclaw ghost had disappeared when she lifted her head again.
In the archaic, dark blue dress she was wearing, Hermione felt more than ever that she was another phantom among the many that haunts the hallways of Hogwarts. Just another one whose memories of life were too strong for them to wish to let go, even if holding on meant remembering again and again events that they found too painful or bitter. Was she simply masochistic to want to go through various wizarding wars again?
I should probably just go back to the Tower and go to sleep, she shook her head, as if it would loosen all those ideas from cluttering her mind. Her thoughts were getting maudlin. It was probably only the events of the day that was beginning to get to her and maybe tiredness.
But she was too close to the library already, and seeing the familiar double doors gave her a more intense feeling of home than what she'd felt when she first saw Hogwarts' castle.
It's not as if she even knew what owl her patronus was, right? She could look it up if she's in the library. Plus, she hadn't even taken any charms classes last week. She might as well read lightly for next week (she knew most of the material covered, but a refresher was always nice).
"Good evening, Madame Cobb." Hermione greeted the librarian. She was actually a rather beautiful witch with dark hair, though there was something eerie about her indeterminate age.
"Good evening, Hermione. Beautiful dress. Was there a party I wasn't aware of?" Arachne Cobb asked.
"Oh, it was just a mostly-pureblood affair. You know how it is." Hermione replied dismissively. The librarian's smile was understanding.
"Feel free to stay as long as you want."
"Thank you. I think I will."
So, Hermione took up one of the carrells at the back, the one closer to the Restricted Section, several books at hand. As she read, she found that there were several owls that her owl could have been—it didn't help that being made of monochromatic light meant that you can't determine the actual colouring of your patronus if it was a real animal. Size doesn't help either, because she'd seen people with rat patroni who can summon rats the size of a Great Dane when they needed to fend themselves against certain dark creatures. She supposed it wasn't that important in the grand scheme of things and simply moved on to reading about charms.
At least, that was before she fell asleep somehow. The book slipped on the table and her head fell on her arm and Hermione lost herself in a timeless bliss.
Sometime later, something compelled her to wake up. It was unclear whether her subconscious heard and realised the presence of someone else or whether it was the gut feeling that almost always meant sensing changes in her magical surroundings. When she did open her eyes and lift her head, she saw Tom was writing on a parchment on the seat across the table.
He was still in his dress robes.
"When did you get here?" Her voice was still slightly scratchy.
"A little over five minutes ago. Something came to mind when I was walking so I wrote it down."
He didn't seem to be writing an essay—considering the crossing out he was doing and the long lines, it seemed to be more of a diagram.
"What time is it?"
"An hour and," small green numbers floated before vanishing quickly in front of him, his wand movements rather abbreviated compared to those actually required by the Tempus spell, "fifteen minutes since you left."
Hermione dropped her head on her arms again, letting out a long sigh. She still wasn't in the best of moods, not even after that impromptu nap. After trying to breathe slowly, she picked herself up again and met his dark blue eyes.
"Why did you come here?" She asked.
"Why can't I visit the library?"
She had no patience for his games right now.
"Fine. You can do whatever it is that you need to do. I'll just head back to the Ravenclaw Tower to sleep."
The brunette had started to collect the books she'd taken. She didn't even care if he took around half of them—she only wanted to drop them on the collection trolley. Neither was she surprised that he'd rolled up the parchment in no time and slipped it somewhere, probably the sleeve of his robe. The quill had probably been sealed with a tap of his wand too.
"We need to talk," Tom said.
"Oh, so now we need to talk?" She kept her voice carefully low. No need to bring the wrath of Madame Cobb on them. If Irma Pince was serious and implacable, then the always smiling, polite Arachne Cobb was surprisingly five times scarier.
"I was allowing that time might be necessary for you to relax."
She laid the books on the first trolley she saw and Tom did the same.
"Look, I'm in a bad mood. Not everything is about you, Tom, but if you stay around longer, I can't guarantee that I won't start throwing barbs in your direction too, considering that you're not exactly uninvolved. This is my last and only warning." Hermione hissed.
"I'll take the risk."
She threw her hands in the air. "Don't say I didn't warn you."
Hermione wasn't exactly walking anymore—she was striding, just short of breaking into a run. It helped that Lucretia thought that boots were perfectly acceptable footwear for formal events as long as they were elegant, so her spare pair had been transfigured into something more fitting. Tom kept up with her fast pace.
At her speed, the brunette witch only managed a hurried nod at the librarian. Madame Cobb was not the slightest bit surprised at her hurry; the librarian simply smiled and nodded back.
Hermione was already heading for the grand staircase that would end right at the doors to the Hogwarts grounds on the ground floor.
"What's wrong?" He asked.
"What's wrong? Everything! Nothing! I don't know!" She snapped. "It would all make better sense in the morning. All I wanted to do right now is strangle half of the people attending simply the petty crime of being idiots! Which I know would not help my cause the slightest, and it's not as if they were raised any better, but it still doesn't change what I'm feeling right now, does it?"
She didn't like the slight helplessness that appeared at the edges of her anger.
"That's where you're wrong." He said.
"What, that they're not idiots?" She raised her voice.
"No, you said half. I say almost all of them are fools. You don't have to take everything they say seriously. If you start with that assumption, people will never disappoint you."
He got a laughter out of her, even if it was more bitter than anything.
"Well I can't. I still have high hopes for the human race, though goodness knows I question myself about it at times. It's why I sometimes envy you, of your ability to carelessly dismiss huge chunks of the populace. Not that your approach wasn't without its weaknesses—it would give you blind spots if you're not careful."
"I know. But you'll catch the details I'll miss, the unexpected—" he waved his hand with the unpleasant expression of one shooing flies, "—quirks of the human psyche. Like mercy and love and all that rot."
"I still want to create vultures to send after you." The admission came easily to her as her wand slid into her hand with the smoothness of hot knife cutting through butter.
"What for?" He asked, more amused than concerned.
Hermione turned around to face him as they'd reached one stair landing, one floor below the library entrance, her curls already flowing wilder from the magic she'd pulled into herself in anger.
"I am not deaf, Tom. One speech was not enough to win all the purebloods over, is it? That was what all those conversations was for. All the platitudes about doing what the Ministry couldn't, of putting muggles and muggleborns in their places, of all the dumb cattle muggle jokes—" she raised a hand to stop him from speaking. "I know it's all just bait for your little fishes. It doesn't mean that I'm not still bloody pissed off."
He stepped forward without fear, his raised hand pausing in the air beside her face.
"Give me the name of anyone you hate and I'll find a plausible fatal accident for them."
"You can't be careless with accidenting someone, Tom," she was exasperated. "There are people are still looking for your faults, people waiting for you to slip up."
"All the people in that room scarcely mean anything compared to you."
"Shut up." She snapped, furious. "That doesn't mean they're nothing. They all still mean something to you. It's why you even bother with all the theatrics in the first place. I know. I don't need your sweet talk to calm down."
Hermione was glaring at him, enough magic curling around her to fuel an impressive Fiendfyre if needed.
"Power is your poison of choice, Tom—and they're the worker bees that would bring everything you need to construct your damned kingdom. This is why I walked away before I started tearing all the freaking idiots I found there, maybe even beginning with you."
He kissed her next to a suit of armour, yet kindness was beyond her right now even with their mutual flame. Her faith in humanity was battered and worn—the bleakness was dragging her under and he just won't leave her alone. She scratched his back, ignored her own need to breathe to pull him down and drown with her. Hermione turned their position around at one point and pushed him against the wall in turn. Her bites were sharper than usual. Yet from the way he answered everything she gave to him with a relentless fervour, it concerned him not in the least.
When her fury had abated slightly, they were both panting.
"Feeling better?" He asked.
Hermione groaned when she spied the right side of his neck. "God, that is going to be an awful bruise."
"That's what the concealment charm is for."
"That's not what I meant." She retorted, before sighing. "As pissed off as I am, the last thing I want to do is to vent it at you."
Tom tilted his head to the side. "Why not?"
Because domestic abuse is wrong, she thought, before realising how absurd her entire situation was if she had to say it to him, of all people.
"I'm hurting you."
"Nothing worse than what I'd get in a duel."
She was a little flabbergasted by his response that her next words were unplanned.
"It's not exactly fair, is it?"
From how he simply stared at her for another moment or two, it was obvious that he wasn't quite clear why the statement even made sense to her. Based on his amusement, it certainly didn't for him.
"Hermione, I suggest that you check the corresponding marks you have before you say that."
She shrugged. "I still don't think it's going to be as bad as yours."
"Well, if that's your issue" he finally said. "Why don't we make it fair, then? Let's have another fight in the Room of Requirement. You're free to unleash your annoyance and I'm free to defend myself."
She looked askance. "In a dress?"
"Let's set that for another half an hour, then. Shall we? That would be enough time, wouldn't it?"
Since Hermione wanted urgently to thrash something, she certainly wasn't going to decline if Tom came up with an idea of a fight.
'-
Hermione took the elegant dress off with dispassionate precision. There was none of the lingering sighs that some may express in having to return such exceptional dress. For her, it was a costume, and she'd finished playing her part in the play. She undid the charms Lucretia had used to shorten the hem and sleeves to return it to the original lengths.
"How's the meeting?" Lakshmi asked curiously from her bed.
"Successful," she said. "Though I suppose you can't help the prejudice thrown around, it still pisses me off."
"Ah. That explains your sour expression."
"Yes. And I still want to kill something."
Unlike Eugenie's possible concern as to whether she was feeling alright, Lakshmi considered that statement to be absolutely normal and barely reacted except to eat more pistachios. Hermione slipped the hanger in the dress again and hung it on the outside of Lucretia's wardrobe. It wasn't even certain that something that fine could be given to Hogwarts' laundry. She picked her usual pair of boots, took the only trousers she'd bought with her stipend from Hogwarts and chose a random shirt. After that, Hermione started to bundle her hair up and pinned it that way, leaving only a few tendrils that had escaped.
"You're going out again?" Her dormmate asked curiously.
"Yes."
"Where?"
"I did say that I still want to kill something, right? Well, Tom volunteered to be that something, so I thought, why not?"
Lakshmi tapped her plump lower lip with a painted nail. "I know Riddle's a cold person and all that, but I'm having weird pangs of sympathy for him somehow."
"I don't think you need to. Tom is just as destructive, actually. He's fascinated that I'm someone he didn't have to hold back much in a fight against. Trust me, the fact that I'm a witch doesn't make him suddenly hesitant at attacking—he sends Reducto as easily as a common jinx."
Hermione nodded at Lakshmi's surprise. "It's true. Then, some of the spells we use aren't exactly…hmm, how do you say it, approved for Hogwarts curriculum."
Her dormmate's eyes sparkled with interest.
"Ah, well. It's good that you have each other to sling spells at, then."
"Oh, you have no idea how cathartic it is to be able to attack him. Even if we're sticking to non-fatal damage." Hermione's tone was coloured with more than a little dark humour. She might still have some Voldemort issues she wanted to exorcise and she was even humming a little at this stage.
She was about to pick her jacket and walk out before something crossed her mind. The velvety, almost-black rose with the spicy scent might be beyond her to transfigure (and without a wand, no less) but she could do irises and daffodils. The brunette witch tore a loose parchment into four pieces, and made three, sweet-smelling black irises to tuck into her hair and one daffodil.
She bared her teeth in a smile that wasn't exactly friendly at the mirror. There. That's it. She was ready for battle.
"Hermione?"
"Yes?"
"Sometimes, you can be scary."
Hermione grinned at her friend. "Why, thank you."
'-
Tom had arrived with an ensemble that was as basic as hers. He was holding the door to the Room of Requirement for her.
"You didn't pick a field that would advantage you, right?"
"Where would the fun be in that? I thought you'd appreciate a little escapism."
She took his offered hand.
Hermione understood what he meant by escapism once they stepped in. The room was large and done in Rococo style, as the bright and playful wallpaper and ceiling stuccos can attest. Elegant French windows lining one length of the wall and she could smell rose and jasmine scents wafting in from their direction. There's a well-maintained garden outside, then—or in this case, a very good illusion of one.
There was even a grand piano on one end of the room, and a four-poster bed on the other, with carvings no less detailed than the ones displayed by the table and chairs. The rest of the furniture displayed similar levels of taste and pedigree.
"Now, we get to destroy this beautiful room," Tom said with ease.
She can certainly get behind that—Hermione had already started calculating the dimensions of the room. "This level of detail…I assume this is a reproduction of a real place. Where is it?"
"The Malfoy's summer manse on the banks of the river Orne, Normandy."
"Abraxas plays the piano?" Hermione asked in surprise.
"Contrary to how he seems to be at times, he is actually a very sophisticated man." Tom said.
She couldn't help but laugh at that. It seemed that was his intention in the first place, because he was smirking right beside her.
"You're joking."
"No, not at all. You can easily gain this as your holiday home if you were to become Mrs. Malfoy."
The brunette witch snorted. "As if I'm not aware of his family's position on blood purity. They wouldn't let him look outside the Sacred 28, or maybe France's Gilded Lilies."
"Yet even the Malfoys bend to power," he commented.
"If I have to subjugate his family to get him to marry me, that means they're mostly blind to what I am from the beginning," she said, letting her voice cool. "Why would I choose people who can't even see me as a person until they're forced to? If it was power I was looking for, it's still not a good enough reason—how powerful could they be if it turns out that I can actually take them down?"
It should be unsettling how easily she could slip into his worldview and wear it like her own.
(He would lend you his crown when he's bored—if you would just ask.)
"So, let's rip this room to pieces?" He asked as they walked to the exact middle of the room.
"Oh yes. Let's rip this room to pieces." She nodded firmly.
"When the handkerchief falls, then."
Tom transfigured a scrap of paper into a handkerchief and then threw it into the air with a quick upward Ventus. Both of their wands were out. Hermione began moving backwards quickly, to Tom's amusement.
"What? There are no rules on distance. There are no rules but for lack of permanent harm."
She had the feeling that he would have chased her down if it wouldn't cause him to lose sight of the drifting handkerchief. He certainly had second thoughts about throwing the handkerchief that high in the first place. The piece of fabric had already floated lower than shoulder level.
This is it.
The moment the handkerchief touched the ground, Tom opened with a series of hexes and jinxes, with a good number of Reducto and the fireball that is Confringo in between to make it harder to simply hold it all back with shield spells. Hermione dodged the first, shielded against the next few while pulling the room's table in front of her and tipped it to its side as a physical barrier. The marble surface would hold against any number of fire spells and even a Reducto wouldn't take it down quickly if Hermione reinforced it.
She could sense the first powerful cutting spell crash against the table. Hermione cast Farina in the air, and when the white powder began to fall, she cast Conspergo to spread it.
Tom would have avoided the expanding haze of white powder as he had no idea what it was. Hermione cast an invisible bubble-head charm on herself, and then Confringo and a Ventus in their general direction.
The fireball of the Confringo met the suspension of flour in air and started a thermobaric explosion. From human chest height and higher, the space on the other half of the room was simply filled with burning air. The only saving grace was that the wind she called by Ventus blew it away from her. Even as she ducked down, she could feel intense heat at her back and Hermione wondered whether it meant she had something a bit worse than a sunburn.
Wait, thermobaric explosions also propagated a shockwave, right? And didn't an indoor explosion suck out a lot of oxygen from the room, increasing the risk of asphyxiation?
"Tom? We need to call this off. I might have screwed up."
"You mean, you didn't mean to burn the upper half of the room in one colossal blast?" His tone was drier than dust and came from right the other side of the tipped table. It was far closer than she'd expected—he'd certainly moved fast.
"How's your breathing?"
"I used the bubble-head charm the moment I felt lightheaded. It's supposed to do that, then?"
She could hear him standing up and walking over to her side. How he could still be this relaxed, she had no idea. His clothes looked singed and she could smell burned fabric. The burned skin scent became more obvious as he came closer.
"Um, sucking out a good amount of oxygen in a closed room is a well-known side-effect. You see, I might have not quite remembered it to be that potent. I thought it would simply be a conflagration, which it's empathically not. It's an instantaneous combustion" She ran a diagnostic spell on him at the same time he did the same to her.
"Burns," they said at the same time. Hermione couldn't help but chuckle. Tom merely had one of his not-quite-a-smile.
"You didn't expect to burn yourself either, I gather?" He asked, as she had started removing her jacket.
"Yes," Hermione said with a sigh as she popped her bubble-head charm and his. "It's been a while since I tried anything that deadly, alright? It takes fine control to ensure it doesn't spread to your own side. I ignited too fast and I certainly didn't calculate the wind speed properly. Should've let it get carried away a bit farther."
"What spell was that?" He was so interested that he almost forgot about his own burns. She pointed her wand at him.
"Clothes. Off." She ordered. He followed her directions promptly.
"Well, if you really want to know…"
The brunette trailed away and busied herself with unbuttoning his shirt. She ignored the unamused expression he had.
"Hermione?"
"Hmm?"
"You were saying?" He asked.
"That I needed to treat your burns rather than go to the infirmary? Because Maggie Edelstein is really going to roast us otherwise?" She said, innocently blinking at him. Her insolence gained her a rather intense kiss, probably because he channelled all his annoyance into it. His hands did not go lower than her neck. Since even her shirt rubbing slightly against her back had made her wince, it was a good precaution.
Hermione sighed. "Alright, let's treat the burns first."
"What spells did you use?"
"Nothing you didn't know." She replied, unbuttoning her shirt.
Hmm, being cryptic and annoying people isn't so bad after all, she mused, noticing the flicker of a frown passing his forehead. She stared at the burned cover of the grand piano and turned around to see the bed still undestroyed at the other end of the room. Picking up their articles of clothing was something she did without thought. "No, really, I'm sure you know all the spells. Well, the first might be unfamiliar, but simply because it wouldn't occur to you that it has an offensive use."
"What's the first spell?" He asked.
"Farina."
"Flour?" He asked in disbelief. "That white powder was actually mere flour?"
"Oh yes," she nodded sagely. "It wasn't magic that I relied on, it was simple chemistry. Once you know the basic reaction, you can adjust it as you go and improvise with whatever ingredients happened to be at hand. Hmm, it's a pity I don't have a muggle chemistry textbook with me so I can't illustrate what exactly the reaction that happened. It would have worked even with sawdust."
She was sure that Tom was aware of the jab that she made, he was simply prepared to not take it personally.
"Any reason to choose the bed?" He asked.
"Because I suspect that it's a lot more extensive than the burns we inflicted on each other after the duel in Defence class, and I'm not going to do that standing up and tiring myself. As for the chairs, well, they're on the other side of the room and I don't think they escaped unscathed, did they?"
He walked slightly ahead of her and turned around, walking backwards now as he gazed at the burnt side of the room.
"No, definitely not."
"Thought so."
'-
Episkey truly worked rather well to restore all layers of skin to good health, blood vessels included. Covering the whole back was a tedious but routine work. It was checking for deeper burn damage that was harder, though on the upside, it meant that the wizarding world wouldn't see a lot of the burn shock that can be regularly seen in a non-magical A&E department.
"I think you know that there are no whitish dead skin areas from the fact that your clothes took the worst of it," Tom commented when she asked again for the third time about what he saw at her back.
Hermione sighed. "Start pressing gently, then. If something's tender, then there's a deeper damage that I need to do something about."
"That I need to do something about, you mean?"
She huffed but accepted his correction. "Yes, yes. Something you'd need to do something about."
Considering that she didn't really find anything that bad on his back, he was probably right. She was farther from the blast than him, not to mention that she was behind a table too. Still, she paid attention to his hands casually checking every inch of her back all the way down to her waist. It was only as she shifted around and finished checking that there also wasn't anything bad on the backs of her thighs that she realised she was down to her underwear and knee-high socks (and the acromantula silk wand holster, but that never counted). Tom didn't have more layers on either and her eyes were already trailing down the planes of his chest to the lean lines of his abdomen.
Tom could certainly model as Theseus for Michelangelo to sculpt.
Hermione blushed.
He was staring at her with curiosity. "Why only blush now?"
"Because I was being professional and in a straight-up healer mode earlier!" She sputtered. "You just focus on the damage, how much damage is there, and how you can fix it as quickly and painlessly as possible. If I let myself get distracted, someone might die."
"No one's dying now."
"Exactly." Hermione groused.
The Ravenclaw witch didn't quite enjoy being the only one flustered between the two of them. She was beginning to suspect that Tom would find a way to maintain his equanimity even if he suddenly found himself on a bed with several undressed veelas. Before she could huff and pick her way out of the bed, he'd already crushed her mouth to his. Suddenly there was all this warm skin against hers, an explosion of sensation that overwhelmed her for the first few seconds before she answered it with her own rising desire. It was only when she found herself sitting on his lap that her eyes widened at what she'd just felt.
"Oh." She murmured, surprised. "I thought you were unaffected."
His huff was halfway a chuckle. "By you, when you were half naked and touching me? If I said that, I'd be lying through my teeth."
It was a flattering statement, though it also meant that her blush wasn't going to go away any time soon. Goosebumps rose on her back as she felt his hand skimming her side and trailed up the middle of her back.
"I'm not even wearing my pretty bra."
"Well, it wouldn't matter if I'm just going to take it off, is it?" Was his unabashed reply.
She glared at him while she knew that her face was getting redder, but he did prove true his words as he unclasped it with one hand. He slid it oh-so-very carefully off. Seeing the hesitation on her face, he simply leaned back.
"You still have some anger about tonight, don't you?" He asked. He lightly trailed the back of his hands at the undercurve of her breasts, sometimes straying to the sides and occasionally even brushing past a nipple.
"It's generally not at you."
"But there's still a part of it that is."
"A small part that doesn't matter," she said. "You might be power hungry, but you're not an actual idiot."
When he flicked her nipple for the third time, she scored her nails down his spine, not missing his darkening eyes.
"But you blame me for arranging the meeting in the first place, for placing so many fools in one room, for forcing you to bear their company for one evening—"
"Tom," she warned him.
She could feel her anger prickling to life again at the edge of her sense, and the irrational part of her mind wanted to blame him for everything because it was convenient and he was there.
"You still blame me for forcing you to be nice to them and to act as if their opinions were brilliant wisdoms that would surely be passed on to future generations—"
Hermione silenced him by taking the breath right out of his mouth with hers, her hands gripping his upper arm and the back of his head. She bit his lower lip hard and sank her nails into the back of his shoulder, but it only seemed to burn his heat into a blazing inferno. His hand was on her backside, pulling her tight against his hardness and she gasped at the sudden friction.
That was when she noticed that the bruise she'd left earlier in the night on his neck was turning bluish.
"Do you actually want me to be angry at you?" She asked in a low tone between irregular breaths.
"You are," he answered. "Denying it would change nothing. Now, pulling it to the surface…"
His left hand was slipping under her panties, over the curve of her ass.
"…is only going to make pissed off at you for no good reason." She finished.
"Vent it, then. You wish to channel that vehemence? Use me."
She had noticed then that his hands laid very still over her.
"I can't, no, I'm not going to treat you like that no matter how much you piss me off!"
Like that amused smirk that Hermione wanted to wipe off his face.
"Do I look like I mind?" He asked back, and before she could answer he snapped his hip upwards right against hers and Hermione completely lost her train of thought. Tom was still solidly beneath her and waiting for her first move. "Would you still say it would be a horrible act for you if it is my natural interest is to have sexual relations with you?"
"I'm still feeling weird," Hermione muttered.
"I did cause all the unpleasant tension you're currently feeling," he reasoned, his tone even. "Why shouldn't it also be my responsibility to ease you out of it? Really, allow me to correct the wrongs I did to you."
He had already lifted her hips and she raised herself just to make it more straightforward. He was easing down their final articles of clothing (except for her socks).
"You are such a smooth talker," Hermione murmured as she kicked her panties away, unsure whether she was actually approving or not. Yet she'd dropped her wand into her hand from its holster and started the motions for the contraceptive charm anyway.
"It did get your knickers off, didn't it?" He replied easily, dodging the swat she aimed at the side of his head with a move to kiss her sternum. "Unless you wish to rescind your agreement?"
Hermione couldn't say that she didn't imagine herself being in this position sooner or later. She was figuring out more from the twists and turns of his mind than she had expected she could, and somehow, he'd begun to see the things that made her tick.
She kissed him hard and fast, before drawing back to make a point.
"Whatever we do would be the result of our choice. I'm not using you," she just had to say it bluntly. "I don't do that to my friends. With how much we know of each other, we can never be acquaintances anymore. We can only be close friends or familiar enemies."
Hermione took another breath, this time picking her words with care.
"As I know the darkness in your soul, you know the flaws of mine."
It was nothing as nice or sweet as love.
"How many souls have you cracked open in front of their owners, Hermione?"
She didn't roll her eyes at the shadows in his eyes, merely quirking an eyebrow in disbelief. As if she had much time to make a psychological study of any other people between all the things she wanted to do to change the current (past) world. Admittedly, she did know that he was very bad at sharing. When she sat back down, the tension between them was higher than before. The rapid thump of the heartbeat in her chest was obvious to her.
"You do realise that I scarcely have time for a personal life, don't you? Much less to peer into anyone else's damned soul?"
"Yet you stared into and interfered with mine all the same."
"Because you're a linchpin to many things, Tom. Your presence, your fall, casts a long shadow over many futures. But everyone else? They're scarcely that crucial individually, even if they might end up leading or starting important factions in the wizarding world."
Hermione did roll her eyes this time when his raised eyebrows and lightening mood clearly meant he took it as a compliment. Seriously, 'you might destroy the world' was hardly a flattering comment.
"Look, I'm not saying that you're the most important person in current history or anything. it's probably just because no one else had turned crazy enough to burn the world down."
"So, you are using me to change the future. Why the fuss over something similar?"
"Because technically, I'm also using the entire bloody Hogwarts to change the future." She pointed out, while he was more interested in mapping out the shape of her shoulder blades. "You're… different. More than that."
"A soul mate, Hermione?" His tone was almost mocking. She snorted outright and gave him a sarcastic look. Seriously…
"I refuse to use the word 'lover' because we're not even besotted out of all things. I happen to think that Romeo and Juliet are a pair of nitwits."
"Both very good points." His hands were sliding down the smooth expanse of her back, to her waist and the upper curve of her ass and then up again. Her eyelashes fluttered and she watched him from under half-lidded eyes.
"You're already my partner in 'let's not get the world destroyed' project and that's probably going to take up an entire lifetime. Is anything else strictly necessary?" She really wasn't up to thinking a lot after everything that happened today. Her hands had minds of their own and had already started wandering, with one following a trail of fine hairs down.
He shrugged, but his eyes were completely focused on her. "Not really."
"Good. Because I want to shut my brain off for a while as this has been a trying day."
"I did say I'll help with that, didn't I?"
Words became more or less superfluous for some time after that.
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End Notes:
List of Stuff One Might Try to Look Up:
Thermobaric: (adj.) (of an explosive device or an explosion) detonated by means of an explosive substance reacting spontaneously with air. The explosion itself produces a blast front since it occurs in a large enough volume of air, in contrast to a condensed explosive in which oxidation in a confined region produces a blast front emanating from a single source. It accelerates a large front volume, producing pressure fronts both within the mixture of fuel and oxidant and then in the surrounding air.
(Mostly from Wikipedia, because my brain feels like spaghetti right now that the most coherent explanation I can give is 'this entire face of air then goes whoosh!').
Also, I'm not kidding in saying that a cloud of flour in air is extremely flammable due to its dry and energy-rich character (all those long carbon chains, ho) and how it's almost perfectly immersed in another necessary fire fuel (the oxygen in the air) when it's aerosolised like that. Do not start an open fire in the kitchen when you've just accidentally dropped and exploded a bag of flour, for example.
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