We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.
Patrick Rothfuss.
Do Not Go Gentle
Chapter 13
Hermione was unable to find out much more able Tom Riddle in her searches. Aside from his name on a list of Headboys and that award, she didn't know what else to look for. It was like he had burst fully formed into being as Voldemort sometime in the sixties. There were early articles from 68-69 detailing his little fringe group as it was considered then, but nothing on Tom Riddle as he had been. She read through everything she could though, trying to take in whatever she could on the first war. Finally, help arrived from an unexpected source.
She was sitting alone in the common room one blustery March morning, reading through old newspaper clippings when Emmeline Vance stepped into the room. She was wearing a green cloak and scarf instead of the usual Ravenclaw blue and her hair was slightly windswept. She came to sit beside Hermione, shrugging off her cloak as she settled down beside her.
"I used to do that too," Emmeline told her.
Hermione blinked. "I'm sorry," she said. "What did you use to do?"
"Look through newspaper clippings about He Who Must Not Be Named," Emmeline replied simply. She began to tug at her scarf, slowly loosening the knot at the base of her throat. "I did it all the time back in my third year."
Hermione stared at her as she pulled her scarf slightly looser. "Why in your third year?"
"Because that was the year my mother was killed by him." She looked rather calm in light of the conversation at hand. Hermione, however, felt mortified.
"I'm so sorry," she blurted out. "I had never known." And she had never asked. Emmeline Vance had been a quiet, reserved girl, never forthcoming with information, and Hermione had never felt the need to look for any. She had heard all about Pandora and Aurora's lives, their parents and interests, but never had she asked Emmeline about hers. It had never occurred to her that her dormmate could be harboring such a tragedy of her own.
Emmeline, as solemn as she had ever been, simply finished untying the knot and pulled the scarf loose so that it merely rested on her shoulders. It was the same green as her eyes. "I never told you," was all she had to say about it.
"I…" Hermione didn't know what to say to that.
"You might want to know more about him," Emmeline continued, as though Hermione had not tried to say anything. "I have old newspapers and they might help you."
"Oh, thank you," Hermione said. Emmeline got up and headed towards their dormitory. When she came back a minute later, her cloak and scarf were gone and she was carrying a book in her hands. Inside its pages were old newspapers of the war. There were many from the early seventies, some from the late sixties, and even a few older than that.
"His name was once Tom Riddle."
Hermione looked up from the picture she had been gazing at, surprised. "How did you know that? I thought hardly anyone knew his name."
Emmeline raised an eyebrow at her. "He can't keep his past as hidden as he would like. Not when you know what to look for, and I do. I know that the Headmaster used to teach him. Slughorn too."
"I can't imagine that either of them would want to talk about him much," Hermione said to her. "The whole thing is probably being kept hush-hush."
"A lot of things are," Emmeline told her. "My mother went to school with him. She said that terrifying things used to happen even back then around him." She sighed. Her green eyes, always so closed off, had a hard look about them. Hermione felt sympathy fill her at this girl that she had shared a dorm with since September, but still hardly knew.
"I hope that Professor Dumbledore can stop him then," Hermione said.
Emmeline looked at her, her expression was hard to make out, but Hermione had the strangest idea that she might have been sizing her up. "Well someone will have to," she answered. "Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later. He…" she broke off then, shaking her head. "Go ahead and look at the newspapers Rose." She handed the book to Hermione and left the common room. As Hermione watched her black robes whirl out of sight she realized that this was the most Emmeline Vance had spoken around her all year.
"Well done, well done!" Slughorn beamed down at the color of her potion. "It's as light as it should be, with just the right swirl of blue. Very good! Ten points to Ravenclaw, Miss Perkins."
"Thank you, sir," Hermione said quietly. She watched as he made his rounds about the room, checking cauldrons, exclaiming over some like Lily Evans and Severus Snape's, passing over others without comment. From his place next to Sirius, Remus gave her a smile that she returned, much to James and Sirius's amusement.
"Now class, we have a break coming up next week, so you have a week to forget everything I taught you about color-changing potions!" Slughorn said with a smile and a knowing wink at his students. Then when you come back you will be tested on them. After that we will move on to texture changing ones. I will need a roll of parchment on your studies on gillyweed, to be handed in by next class. Now off you trot."
As Hermione gathered her things she thought of what Emmeline had said about him teaching a young Tom Riddle. Had he known then what the young man he was teaching was likely to grow up to be? Ginny, and even briefly Harry had seemed to be very taken by the Diary Riddle, had Slughorn been too? She wished she could ask him but that was likely to be a very difficult subject to broach and he had no reason to open up about it to her. Still she couldn't help but wonder.
She left the dungeons, her arms filled with books and her mind wandering. Her attention was momentarily distracted from her thoughts by a group of sixth years congregated by a big sign in the entrance hall announcing apparition tests. She peered over the head of Pettigrew and saw the earliest date was the Tuesday after the Easter break.
"What do you think?" Remus asked her as he turned away from the sign. "Do you think you are ready?"
"I was born ready," Sirius announced before she could answer. "I could pass that test with my eyes closed and hands tied."
Smirking, James leaned in conspiratorially to her and Remus. "So how many sickles do you want to bet he fails?"
Sirius glared at him. "I heard that, and I'm touched by your confidence in me, Best Mate." Remus bit his lip to keep from laughing. Suddenly Sirius's eyes narrowed as he focused in on something behind them. Hermione just had time to see Regulus Black whip around the corner.
"Little git's been around a lot lately," Sirius said. There was a very ugly look on his face that Hermione didn't like.
"Well it is a school Sirius, he has to pass these halls sometimes to get to class," Remus said reasonably. "He's probably just heading to Potions or something."
"Looks more like he's stalking somebody," Sirius said. "With all I've been seeing him lately. It can't be me though, my dear Mum made it quite clear that he is no longer to consider me family, not that we'd want to consider each other that."
"No, he's stalking Rose," Pettigrew cheerfully spoke up. "I've seen them talking in the library." He smiled in satisfaction at her, as if to say, 'you're welcome.'
Hermione tensed as she felt three additional pairs of eyes land on her. "Well, of course you have," she said testily, "When we got assigned detention we had to write an essay at the end of it about what we learned about each other." She looked at Remus in particular as she said this next part, "otherwise, there would be no Hogsmeade trip for us before the winter holidays." She turned to James next. "You remember seeing us there, don't you?"
James, his face looking almost as solemn as Harry's for a moment, nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I thought it was weird seeing you two together like that, but I told Peter it was probably about your punishment or something."
Pettigrew was looking mutinous. "That's not the only time," he told James. "I saw them in the library a month after that too, they were talking really low, but they were both sitting at the same table and everything."
For a second, Regulus's remark about how strange it was seeing Pettigrew in the library popped into Hermione's head, but she brushed it aside in irritation. "Peter Pettigrew, are you stalking me?"
"No," he squeaked out, turning red. "I just thought your boyfriend should know that you spend time with Slytherin boys instead of him!"
Remus frowned at him. "Peter, Rose can spend time with whoever she wants, I'm not stopping her." He looked distinctly uncomfortable at the way the conversation was going.
"But surely she can do better than my little git of a brother," Sirius said quietly. He was giving Hermione a very disquieting look, as though he was assessing her. Hermione was not happy with where this conversation was going, at all. He didn't need to say it, but what he was obviously thinking was that Remus could do better than a girl who spends time with his git of a brother.
"Hey, let's not fight about this, it's not like she's taken to hanging out with Snape or something," James told him. "Come on Peter, don't get so riled." Remus looked grateful at his interjection but neither Sirius nor Pettigrew was finished.
"Only if she tells us why she was spending so much time with a Slytherin?" Pettigrew said. He was still a little red in the face but his lips twitched as though he longed to smile. It didn't matter what she said, he was loving this. Hermione had long realized that Pettigrew, though unable to bully people magically the way James and Sirius sometimes did, had developed a way all his own of doing it just by getting under the skin with words and jabs. It was probably this very quality that made it possible for his to sow discord amongst his friends while they were in the Order.
"I would like an explanation as well," Sirius said, still looking disquieting. His grey eyes, so like his younger brother's, caught her brown ones in a hard look.
Hermione glared at him. "We got caught up talking about books in detention and the conversation was based on that. Satisfied?"
Sirius, Pettigrew and James all looked pretty incredulous and even Remus looked skeptical. "Over books?" Sirius asked her.
"Yes Sirius, over books. You know, pages bound together with writing on them?" Hermione shot back in annoyance.
Sirius's incredulous look was quickly replaced with one of anger. "I know what the hell a book is Perkins, but what the hell would you and my brother find in common about them?"
"It sounds pretty farfetched if you ask me," Pettigrew chimed in. He was definitely smiling now, and it was beyond infuriating to see.
Hermione was fuming. The bell rang then, announcing that they were all late for their next class but no one moved from the now empty hall. James and Remus both looked uncomfortable, Sirius annoyed and Pettigrew gleeful as Hermione tried to keep her cool. "It's the truth."
"That git couldn't carry a civil conversation if it saved his life, and you want me to believe that you two were meeting up to discuss books," Sirius was no longer whispering, rather his voice was starting to raise. James was looking around for teachers while Remus tried to pull him by the arm.
"Let's let it go Sirius," he started to say, but Sirius jerked his arm free. "That's a bullshit story and you know it!"
"Remus is right mate; let's just go to class before McGonagall gives us detention."
"Shove off, James." He regarded Hermione was annoyance and suspicion. "So what were you really doing with my brother? On behalf of Remus, we really should all know."
"I was snogging him!" She snapped. "Is that what you want to hear? There, you've heard it. Now I'm going to class." She stalked off towards Transfiguration, leaving them all in the dust, her shoulders shaking with rage, ignoring Remus's calling after her.
She lost ten points from Ravenclaw for being late, but it was not as bad as the amount the boys all lost when they finally showed up. Professor McGonagall had looked extremely miffed to have multiple students arrive late and repeatedly interrupt her class.
"Now then, if this happens next lesson, I shall not just take points, but start assigning detentions," she said angrily. "Now do sit still all of you and pay attention!"
Hermione tried her hardest but she was still angry. Pandora shot her a confused look as she clenched and unclenched her fists under the table they shared. She was so distracted that she was unable to silently transfigure her glass, and was given extra homework practicing that night. When class was finally over she grabbed her things and hurried towards Ravenclaw Tower, ignoring once more Remus's calling after her.
Instead of going to dinner she remained in her dormitory, poring over her Potions essay. She found herself scratching lines after line out as she made countless foolish mistakes. Finally, unable to keep up the pretense of studying any longer, she threw aside her books and crawled up onto her bed with a sigh.
She supposed she shouldn't have run away from Remus, but Sirius had frustrated her so badly that she had been unable to remain calm and discuss the problem the way it needed to be discussed. The problem wasn't Remus or even Sirius, infuriating though he had been. It wasn't even Pettigrew, much as she would dearly love to blame it all on the sneaky little rat. The problem was her.
Hermione had been warned about meddling with time when first given her time turner, but she had already meddled her way into several people's lives. Remus's for one, and she didn't know how she was going to untangle herself from that one, and also Regulus Black's.
It wasn't as though she liked the haughty Slytherin boy, but she found herself feeling torn between exasperation and pity towards him. He was just a boy, younger than her by almost two years, and he was not unintelligent, but he had such a dark future ahead of him and to see him ruin himself… He was walking the path to ruin, just as Severus Snape was and she had not forgotten how she had felt when she had sat with Snape and discussed potions. The regret of letting anyone with the promise to be more destroy himself like that… She had kept herself from meddling in Severus Snape's life and had instead meddled in Regulus Black's life. Like that was so much better.
She clutched her pillow tightly as she thought of all of the people this war had taken, how many people she would risk having to watch die if she stayed here any longer. There had to be a way out of here, a way back to her old time before she either altered things too much or went mad from the stress. Though if Professor Dumbledore couldn't find a way, how in the world was she supposed to?
"If I stay here, I'll find myself going mad," she said quietly as she stared up at the blue and bronze canopy handing above her. "But what can I possibly do?"
There was no easy answer to that.
The next day she was quick to pull aside Remus before classes. He did not seem angry, only confused as she admitted to spending time with Regulus Black. What he was surprised about, was her defense of him.
"He can be a jerk, but he is rather fond of reading and I was just recommending books to him," she told a skeptical looking Remus as they headed to Charms together. "He needs to broaden his horizons."
"That might be," Remus told her quietly as they climbed the stairs, "but Sirius isn't going to believe that. He was in a terrible mood all day yesterday, mumbling about his brother and the rest of his family." He looked uncomfortable as they neared the Charms classroom and Sirius, James and Pettigrew came into sight. They were talking and did not seem to have noticed Remus and Hermione. "You know, Regulus spends time with a really bad crowd." Remus continued seriously in a low voice.
"I know," Hermione sighed. "That Evan Rosier, for one, is a creep. I think that Regulus is trying to act worse than he really is and I think that he is upset over the way things are with Sirius too." She broke off then as Sirius had noticed them and was giving her a rather dark look. He said nothing, however, as the group filed into the classroom and took their seats.
"Trouble in paradise?" Pandora whispered as Hermione settled down beside her.
"Not exactly," Hermione whispered back, "but not for Sirius Black trying." She couldn't say anything else then as Professor Flitwick had started talking and her attention was absorbed elsewhere. She threw herself into the lesson, determined to shut out all thought of the Black brothers and was even awarded points, which helped make up for her losing some the day before. She was in a much better mood by the end of class and it was with some surprise that she found herself being asked to stay after while the rest of the students filed out. What could she have done wrong?
"I must say, Miss Perkins, that I overheard some of your argument with Mr. Black and Mr. Pettigrew yesterday," Flitwick said. When Hermione did not answer, he continued. "Now you mustn't mind them, I think it is splendid that you and the younger Mr. Black have become friends and I'm sure that Professor Slughorn would feel the same. House unity is something we all strive for and is especially commendable in two talented students such as yourselves."
"Thank you, Professor," Hermione told him. He was beaming at her, a look of fondness in his eyes that showed how pleased he was with her.
"Not at all," he told her cheerfully, "I am just glad that you were both able to put aside your differences in detention and become friendly."
Hermione smiled uncertainly. "We tried our best, Professor," she lied, feeling uneasy as she thought of all of the arguments they had had.
"Of course, and so nice to see. Now you will be wanting to get to your next class, so do hurry along!" He walked her to the door and she slipped out and past the line of fourth years waiting for class to start. All the way to Arithmancy she found herself wondering about their talk. Her and Regulus Black friends! She wondered what the proud, haughty Slytherin would have to say about that.
As she sat beside the taciturn Emmeline in class she found the thought lingering in the back of her mind. Was he a friend? 'Certainly not,' she thought as she copied down the notes off the blackboard. 'More like a project, really.' A strange, frustrating project that was intelligent but far too stubborn and haughty to want to spend too much time with. Rather like his brother in that regard. She brushed the thought from her mind.
Still she found herself seeking him out in the library the following day, textbooks in hand. He was at his usual table, his books spread out in front of him. There was no Evan Rosier, Sirius Black or Peter Pettigrew in sight, only a handful of seventh year Ravenclaw's studying for N.E.W.T's two tables down and a small group of chatty Hufflepuff's near the door whom Madame Pince was regarding sourly with her beady eyes. She slid into a seat across from him and placed her books down.
"O.W.L's revision?" She asked, feeling sympathetic.
He scowled without looking up. "Well, it is in less than three months." He turned another page in his notes.
"I've been there," she replied simply.
That got his attention and he looked up. "What do you mean you've been there? This is your first year here, isn't it?"
Hermione flushed over her mistake. "Well I've had exams before, and my mother made sure that I knew everything that was required for the O.W.L's," she told him. "She was very strict."
"So is mine," he muttered as he glanced back at his notes. "She expects the very best and I intend to do the best."
"For her or for yourself?" Hermione asked him. It was apparently the wrong thing to say. His grey eyes narrowed as he regarded her testily.
"I don't remember asking you to sit with me at this table."
"I didn't ask," Hermione replied simply. "I just thought you would like some company."
"Well you thought wrong then."
"Tough, I've got homework to do too and this is as good a spot as any to sit," she opened her Arithmancy test, carefully ignoring the look of ire he was sending her way. Across the library, Madame Pince was stalking up to the giggly Hufflepuff's, her patience finally gone. Hermione and Regulus sat there for several more minutes, ignoring each other as she wrote down notes for her Arithmancy essay and he looked over his Transfiguration notes. There was a tension in the air, same as with most meetings between them and it was just a matter of how long it took to break.
"What's this I hear about you defending me to my brother?" He finally blurted out.
Hermione choose to ignore the question at first. She carefully copied down the remainder of her page, taking care that no ink splattered down on the parchment. "I believe I was simply telling him to stay out of my business."
"You told him we were snogging each other, how the hell is that supposed to be keeping him out of either of our business?"
"I told him that to shut him up," Hermione replied. At the frosty look he was sending her way, she continued: "Look if you want to blame someone, blame Pettigrew. He's the one apparently going around stalking us when we are in the library, the nasty little rat." She hadn't meant to say that last part aloud, but it slipped out.
Regulus to her surprise laughed. "I knew you hated the fat little bastard as well." He smirked at her. "All high and mighty with your 'I don't particularly care for him.'"
"Well I don't," Hermione told him. "He's a sneak."
"He looks it," Regulus replied. His mood seemed to be lifting by the abuse of one of his brothers friends. For a moment he looked cheerful, almost carefree in spite of the smirk adorning his face. Hermione was about to offer her help in studying when he glanced up and looked behind her. At once his face changed, becoming more arrogant as he turned back to regard her.
"In the future though, however annoyed my brother may get with it, don't tell him we were snogging," he said haughtily. "It's ridiculous. I don't snog halfbloods."
And with that, the haughty, prejudiced Slytherin was back. "I doubt you get much snogging done at all," Hermione told him. "Most girls have standards." She started to gather her things, ignoring Barty Crouch Jr. who was approaching their table, a questioning look in his eyes. She turned and headed out, not noticing the frown that crossed Regulus Black's face for an instant before he smoothed his features into his usual defiant look as his friend settled at the table beside him.
