1942
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Hermione wasn't the least bit surprised to see Tom wearing a Prefect badge in the Heads' compartment on September 1.
Her parents had dropped her off at the station half an hour before departure, her mother wanting to ensure she ate a proper breakfast because there was no lunch served on the train, her father helping her unpack and re-pack her trunk for the sixth time to check that she'd remembered every book she wanted to bring, and that there was no room for a last minute addition.
Tom, for all the years she'd known him, went to the effort of arriving hours early, because after the weeks of abstention in the Muggle world, the train was the first place he was freely allowed to practise magic. She was somewhat surprised at the giggling and flushed faces of her classmates when she'd popped her head into occupied compartments—which she could do now, without being told to butt out, due to her status as a Prefect—to ask if anyone had seen Tom.
"Hello?" said Hermione, who'd changed into her uniform robes as soon as she'd entered the train. "Have you seen Tom Riddle?"
The group of Hufflepuff girls looked at Hermione and then at each other.
"Have you seen him?" asked one girl, fanning herself with a magazine.
"No," Hermione gritted out, "I haven't. That's why I'm asking."
Another girl sighed. "I wouldn't mind having detention with him."
"The Hufflepuff Prefects would be the ones organising the detention, even if it was assigned by a Slytherin," Hermione pointed out, rather peevishly. She had no idea how anyone could speak of detention as if it was something to look forward to. "So have you seen him, then?"
"I haven't seen enough of him," said the first girl. "I think every girl in our year is going to be soooo jealous of Sidonie Hipworth. You know, the other Slytherin Prefect."
"D'you think he prefers Slytherins? He helped me re-pot those Wiggentree clippings in Herbology last year, was perfectly polite the whole time, too..."
"Ugh!" Hermione groaned. "None of you are any help!"
She slammed the compartment door closed and headed for the front of the train, where the new Head Boy and Head Girl would induct the eight new Prefects and assign duties. The train hadn't begun to move, but the Prefects would end up gathering there, so she'd see him sooner or later.
She found him in the Heads' compartment reading a textbook titled Arithmantic Theory of Spellcrafting, scrawling annotations in the margins with his enchanted purple quill. Unlike the textbooks she'd seen him use for the last four years at school, this book didn't have a scuffed cover with dinged corners and crumpled pages. His school uniform looked new as well, the wool of his jumper an even dark grey with no signs of the blotchiness that came from over-washed dye; when he bent his elbows, she couldn't see through to the white of his shirt beneath.
And instead of the princess-like fair skin, Tom looked as if he'd actually gone outside during the summer. He'd grown another inch or two; with the healthy colour on his cheeks and a bronze-y sheen to his dark hair brought out by the sun, he looked like the poster boy for a Muggle druggist's wellness tonic. In that moment, Hermione realised why the Hufflepuff girls had reacted as they had: Tom Riddle was handsome.
She'd known years ago that Tom was fortunate in the appearance department. She'd observed, on an objective level, that his features were symmetrical, his proportions well-formed and seemly; if the old masters of the Renaissance had taken Tom's measurements, they wouldn't find him far off the golden ratios of the ideal, in the distance from brow to hairline, or eye to eye, or the breadth of his shoulders and the span of his arms. But not until now would she ever have thought to describe his hair as 'luxuriant' or the shape of his lips as 'sensual'—
Nor would I ever, she told herself.
Tom was more than his appearance, which was only a conglomeration of traits that current day society saw as fashionable, just as powdered white wigs were fashionable two hundred years ago, and conspicuous bulging codpieces had been four centuries past. Tom wasn't just his looks; he was more than his social background, his name, or his blood.
Tom was her best friend, the first friend she'd ever made, and the years had never changed that fact.
"Congratulations," said Hermione, dropping into the seat next to him. "I think everyone was expecting you to make Prefect, but that doesn't diminish the accomplishment."
"Thank you," was Tom's polite reply. He leaned forward, flicking his wand to cast a spell that muted the conversations of the few other Prefects who'd arrived to the Heads' compartment. "I personally believe that Slughorn would have dropped dead before he gave the badge to anyone else."
"Slughorn," Hermione echoed. Her nose wrinkled. "I forgot about him. Does this mean he's going to start inviting us to his dinner parties?"
"I've already been invited to his lunch do at half-past noon," said Tom, putting his book aside. He reached into his robes and drew out a sheet of parchment printed with a Slytherin crest letterhead at the top, and Slughorn's signature at the bottom.
"Are you going?"
"Do you think he'd let me refuse?" Tom grimaced. "I can already tell that he's going to try and hound me into an apprenticeship with his old friend Mr. Jigger, or an internship at the Ministry with his old classmate Mr. Travers. We're taking our O.W.L.s this year—which means we get the career advisory meeting with our Heads of House. And he's my Head."
"Mine's hardly any better," said Hermione, who respected her teachers and trusted their expertise within their individual fields, but outside of that, knew that some of them were... questionable. "Professor Beery encourages us to follow our dreams and slake our creative spirits, but that doesn't exactly count as actual career advice. I think I'd rather Professor Slughorn, now that I think about it."
"You're certain you don't want a career in the performing arts?" said Tom, lifting an eyebrow. Professor Beery, their Herbology teacher, was an avid supporter of theatre, and recruited students every Christmas to put on a performance of a classic wizarding play—it was one of the many reasons why Tom made himself scarce during the holidays, dedicating his time to his private studies. "You'd get to choose an interesting stage name and bring Shakespeare to the ignorant masses—that's two things I know you'd enjoy."
"Monologuing from The Winter's Tale in my bedroom is different from getting on a stage and doing it in front of a hundred people," Hermione said, nudging his shoulder with her own. "I don't have the stage presence for it. Anyway, that kind of career is all about the popular appeal, and there are plenty of other things I care more about."
"Hmm," mused Tom. "I understand. I can't see you ever being happy in a situation where you're left reciting lines from someone else's script. I couldn't stand for it either, unless the 'someone else' writing the script was me under a different name." He paused, and when he continued, his voice was low and thoughtful. "That's what makes us so alike, isn't it?"
"Oh, Tom," said Hermione, rolling her eyes, "please, please don't ruin the moment by saying something about how much better we are—"
"Hermione!"
The springs in the compartment bench squeaked as a boy enthusiastically threw himself into the spot next to Hermione, pushing her into Tom, and pushing Tom into the window. For an instant, Hermione caught a dark flicker of anger in Tom's eyes, then it was gone, replaced by a friendly expression complete with a benign smile. Tom helped Hermione settle herself back upright and, with a silent twist of his wand, summoned his textbook from the floor and opened it up to the page he'd been reading, the quill marking his spot.
"Um," said Hermione. "Hello, Clarence."
Clarence Fitzpatrick was apparently this year's male Fifth Year Prefect for Ravenclaw. She had spoken to him a few times a week over the past few years—he gave her his Sunday Prophet during breakfast, after he took out the puzzle page because he only bought it for the crosswords, or so he claimed.
In classes and at meals, most students separated themselves by House and sex, the girls sitting with girls and the boys with boys, for the sake of propriety; in those shared benches, it was too easy to give or send the wrong message with an accidental knee brush under the table. (Hermione vividly remembered the feel of Tom's knees in that alcove the previous term, and the thought of being so close to him had brought a flush to her cheeks even weeks later.)
In the context of academics, Hermione didn't put much stock in what other people thought was wrong or right. From her first year at Hogwarts, she'd sat with Tom in their shared classes, and in Potions, a class shared with the Hufflepuffs, she'd partnered with Clarence Fitzpatrick because he was excellent in Herbology and had an eye for choosing the freshest ingredients. She valued skill and competence over maintaining the appearance of being proper and modest, and she supposed that it had formed in Clarence the impression that she was fond of him...
...And that they were "friends".
Clarence was pleasant and conscientious and a good partner for group projects. He felt bad about peeling the skins off dried salamanders in Potions. Of all the people who could have been chosen for the position of Ravenclaw Prefect, Clarence wasn't the worst choice. It could have been Merton Bancroft, who had to be given remedial instruction on how to properly hold his wand after a few too many spell backfire incidents in Transfiguration.
"I knew you'd be picked for Prefect," Clarence said eagerly. "How often do you think we'll have paired patrols?"
Tom made a quiet coughing sound, which he covered up by turning a page in his book.
"Not every night," said Hermione in a firm tone. "I've got to study for my O.W.L.s this year. I picked three electives when everyone else took two."
"We could study together, maybe? Prefects get their own study nook in the Ravenclaw Common Room."
"I don't mind sharing my notes for Potions," Hermione conceded with a touch of reluctance, "since we're in the same class. But I've got a partner already for my other subjects."
"You've got an O.W.L.s study group?" asked Clarence. "May I join?"
"Erm..." said Hermione, sneaking a glance at Tom, whose eyebrow gave the slightest twitch.
Tom shut his book with a loud snap. "The Heads are here."
The new Head Boy and Head Girl were Gerald Mandicott and Hortensia Selwyn, of Hufflepuff and Slytherin, respectively. They'd been chosen on the basis of their leadership qualities and academic merit, but Hermione had to wonder if prominent family connections played a part in the selection process. The Prefects were chosen by the Heads of House, and were usually the professors' personal favourites. But the Head Boy and Girl were selected by the Headmaster, who was subject to the whims of the Board of Governors more than any other staff member at Hogwarts.
The meeting passed without issue, detailing the list of responsibilities and privileges of the Prefects. A curfew extension, at the price of going on night-time patrols. The ability to deduct points and assign detentions, but the requirement to sit those detentions with misbehaving students if a professor wasn't available to take it. Taking charge of the youngest students at Hogwarts and introducing them to castle life, in exchange for extended library borrowing privileges—which Hermione liked—and the use of a special bathroom on the Fifth Floor—which didn't sound so appealing.
Hermione didn't know what to make of it. So there was some sort of a magical bathtub, but one she had to share with twenty-one other Prefects, the two Heads, and four Quidditch Captains? What was wrong with the tub in her dormitory's bathroom, which she shared with five other girls (though she used the shower on most days), all of whom knew how to keep a room clean and not leave their hairbrushes and used towels on the floor?
The whole idea came off as very... untidy to Hermione, especially as she learned there was no official rotation schedule for the use of the Prefects' Bathroom—people came and went as they pleased. She didn't care about the sex separation in lessons, but this sounded like an out-of-class thing, definitely nothing to do with schoolwork. Boys ought not to be in the same bathtub as girls, not at the same time, and from the sly glances shared between the Seventh Year Prefects, they'd considered such a possibility occurring and were not altogether against it.
The end of the meeting came with a delivery of parchment scrolls, invitations to Professor Slughorn's lunch. Hermione got one, and so did the new Head Boy and Girl, but she noticed that not everyone did. Clarence Fitzpatrick didn't, which she was relieved about, even though she felt a bit guilty for it after seeing him cast hopeful looks in the direction of the messenger.
Clarence wasn't a bad person, and he wasn't greedy and mercenary like Tom—which sounded rude, but any other words she came up with to describe Tom's character were equally unflattering. Unlike Tom, Clarence listened to what she said and followed her instructions without debating her on the number of stirs or the heat of the burner. In fact, he did exactly as she told him to, which was convenient in their lessons, but made him a terrible conversationalist outside of them; it was as if he thought being perceived as friendly and likeable came from concurring with everyone else's opinions. In certain ways, Clarence Fitzpatrick was naïve... which was an unexpected conclusion, because for many years, Hermione had heard herself called that for never having missed a meal in her life; she'd been told that the concept of the 'class struggle' didn't apply to her.
Hermione couldn't see herself as being that naïve anymore. She wasn't hardened in the way Tom was, true. But the things she regarded as brutal and barbaric (corporal punishment of children, animal cruelty, or crimes of war) served to produce little to no reaction from him; she couldn't tell whether this lack of concern was a product of his upbringing, or merely Tom's natural disposition. Hermione's disposition was different, or it had been different, at least before the war. But after a summer spent reading into the history of what in the modern age was known as the Dark Arts, she'd begun to understand the murky limits of human cruelty and innovation, which in both the Muggle world and in the Magical were so closely entwined as to be inseparable.
She was quiet during the lunch of venison sausage served with a salad of walnut and watercress, sitting in Professor Slughorn's expanded compartment with the new Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team on one side, and Tom on the other. The compartment was crowded with over a dozen people, each guest squashed shoulder to shoulder from door to window, with Slughorn sitting in the center like a king presiding over his court.
There was a tray table laid out in between the upholstered benches, hosting a spread of cured meats and cold poultry, sliced cheeses and pickles, and bread rolls. Their lunchtime entertainment came in the form of Professor Slughorn rambling on about his holiday in Norfolk, which had a magical forest reserve that made for good sporting and potions-related ingredient collection.
"...He said to me, 'Horace, old chap, if you can make it past the sixth remove at Flume's you can make it past that ridgeline over there'," recounted Professor Slughorn, topping up his glass of claret. "So I told him, 'The last time I had dinner with Flume, he served crystallised ginger with the pudding course'. Crystallised ginger, have you ever heard of such a thing? I hadn't heard of it, but I can tell you that I felt it, felt it intimately indeed, the very next day..."
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Mr. Pacek had visited every weekend during the summer holidays to dine with the Grangers, and each visit came with an armload of new books.
Mum and Dad invited him to dinner even when Hermione was at school, because he was one of the few people they knew who had a good understanding of the national politics on both sides of the war, on top of his knowledge of the state of Wizarding Europe.
Dad had served in the Great War, and they'd discussed how that War had led directly to this one: this war hadn't begun just because Germany had attacked Poland, but because the Allied Powers had been overzealous in redressing their losses, for lack of any better way to call it. It wasn't something spoken about outside the Grangers' house, because it seemed like anyone who publicly criticised the British Government would be accused a dissident.
Mr. Pacek had taken it upon himself to make the Grangers' cellar as home-like as he could, because the three members of the family slept every night underground, and kept the wireless on at all times when they were upstairs. The bare floors had been carpeted, charmed chandeliers hung from the high ceilings, and magical windows were placed at intervals so they got to see the sun, even if it was shining off the coast of Gibraltar and not the lawns and fences of Argyll Street, Crawley. Mr. Pacek had even Transfigured a few broken milk crates into a handsome set of bookcases to hold Hermione's growing collection of magical tomes.
The bookcases were of a dark varnished wood with glass doors to keep off the dust. He'd enchanted the glasswork so it would appear opaque and frosted unless Hermione cast the appropriate countercharm, and tapping the carved poppies on the side of the shelf would cause an image of innocuous school textbooks to appear on the other side of the glass, instead of what really lay behind, which was a series of magical medical books on the physiological theory of Veritaserum.
"It is basic warding technique," explained Mr. Pacek, showing her the tiny rows of runes carved under the stems of the climbing poppies. "Illusion, redirection, and repulsion are the three principles of wardcasting, ranked by their power and complexity. When you want to protect a physical structure or location, you can hide it by making it look like something else or nothing at all. You can convince viewers to think of it as uninteresting or unimportant—that is the foundation of most Muggle-repelling charms and wards. Or you might cast a ward that creates an emotional compulsion, inciting fear or dread, to discourage enemies or invasions. Many a family castle in the Carpathian Mountains is protected by such a ward, which has earned reputations among the local villagers for being haunted sites."
"Compulsion wards," Hermione repeated, trying to remember what she'd read on them. "Wouldn't they count as a form of magical mind control? They're not as invasive as the Imperius Curse, but they plant a suggestion into a sentient mind, which is similar to the Confundus Charm, the effect of which makes a mind suggestible to outside influence."
"Compulsions are general where the Imperius is precise—it is the difference between barbed concertina wire and a scalpel. In fact, compulsion spells and wards were the precursors of the Imperius," said Mr. Pacek, who knew more about the Dark Arts than she had ever thought a wardmaster should know, but he'd always defended himself by saying that it was important to understand these things in the proper historical context. "But in most jurisdictions, they are not illegal, nor do I think they would ever be outlawed—there are too many old and valuable monuments warded with them. Wizarding burial sites are the places where they most commonly used; if you ever travel to Egypt, you could study the ancient warding techniques for yourself."
"I think I'd like to see them one day," said Hermione.
"You are considering becoming a wardmaster yourself?" asked Mr. Pacek, who appeared pleased with the idea. "Or a cursebreaker? The more glamorous version of the profession, as I have heard it called, but also more dangerous."
Hermione shook her head. "For now I want to be able to cast a basic ward. I can't forget the fact that wards kept my parents safe during the Blitz. It seems like common sense for the average witch and wizard to learn how to cast one, the way Apparition is treated as a social necessity—Muggles are the same way when it comes to operating a telephone receiver. For a society where most of us choose to live so close to Muggles instead of going into total seclusion, it should be an essential skill. Not just for convenience, but for safety."
"Are you not studying the fundamentals of enchantment in your school lessons?"
"For the last two years we've been learning to read and interpret runes. We translated various passages for our exams," said Hermione, sighing. "But we won't make anything ourselves until the final two years."
"You are making it a mission to study on your own?" asked Mr. Pacek.
"Should I? Would you mind helping me?"
"I have eschewed private tutoring for years, but I suppose one can make an exception," he said. "For what have I done this past year but been your tutor?"
"Thank you," said Hermione, giving him a heartfelt smile. "If the Ministry of Magic had mass-produced and distributed simple wards for homes in Muggle areas, it would've solved so many problems."
"Most governments are not known for being clear-headed or far-sighted," he remarked.
"Have you ever thought about making improvements to the government?"
"Have you been talking to Mr. Riddle?" Mr. Pacek asked. "I have often thought governments to be unnecessary to the trained wizard who can provide everything he needs with his own magic. What use have I for a committee whose sole purpose is to institute speed limits on broomsticks?"
"I've never met anyone who was genuinely self-reliant," said Hermione, who hadn't met that many people in the course of her not-quite-sixteen years of existence, but had considered her statement from a logical perspective. In the Muggle world, education, water, electricity, and sanitation were public concerns and a necessity for a civilised standard of living. In the Magical world, there were essential tasks that could not be done with a wizard alone—herding dragons into reserves where they could provide the raw materials for crafts and potions, whilst remaining out of sight to Muggles. Or law enforcement and civil justice.
"Tom thinks he's one of them, but he's not. We're humans, not automatons; even the people who rarely invite the company of others still seek some form of community."
"I do not believe that it is the magical community whose esteem Mr. Riddle truly seeks," Mr. Pacek observed, and his eyes fixed on hers, as if daring her to counter his statement with one of her own.
"Tom doesn't..." Hermione began, struggling to find the appropriate response. "Tom isn't—"
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"Well said, Tom!" chortled Professor Slughorn, toasting Tom with the dregs of his latest drink.
"Tom isn't—" mumbled Hermione, burrowing further into her pillow.
"Tom isn't what?" the pillow asked in Tom's voice.
Hermione woke up.
"What—?" she murmured blearily, rubbing her eyes.
"You said, 'Tom isn't', then you stopped. What were you saying about me?"
The pillow turned out to be Tom Riddle, specifically his shoulder; she'd fallen asleep in the middle of Slughorn's story and had woken up with a red imprint of Tom's jumper's knitted pattern high on her cheek, which matched the bright red flush on the rest of her face. That flush stubbornly refused to go away when Tom had to untangle her hair from where it had gotten stuck to his shiny new Prefect badge.
"Nothing, it was just a dream," Hermione whispered, glancing up at Professor Slughorn on the other side of the table, who'd turned to answer one of the older Slytherin Prefects' questions about magical fauna in hunting preserves and how easy it was to acquire a season license from the Department of Magical Creature Regulation at the Ministry. Slughorn winked at her. "Oh no, he just winked."
"Stay still," Tom hissed, unpinning his badge from his robe and teasing her hair out of the clasp. "And don't look at him."
"Won't he think we're...? Should we say anything or pretend it didn't happen, just like that last time—"
"It's too late for it," Tom sighed. "I'm going to hear about 'our dear Miss Granger' for the rest of the year. For the next three years, probably."
"You should have just woken me up."
"You looked tired. Were you up late studying?"
"Revision timetables don't write themselves, Tom."
"Pfft," Tom snorted. "As if you couldn't get Outstandings across the board if you sat your exams right now."
"On the written papers, yes," said Hermione. "But there's a practical component, too. Defence is the one I'm most worried about."
"Well, you have me," said Tom, pinning his badge back into place on his chest and using that movement to lean closer and whisper in her ear. "And I have a 'Defence homework study group'."
The way he said it sounded ominous to Hermione.
"It's your Slytherin study club, isn't it?" Hermione asked, remembering the way the Slytherin boys in their year gave Tom wide berth when Professor Merrythought told the class to pick partners for spell practice. The boys who surrounded Tom at every meal in the Great Hall, their seating arrangement not much different to the way the dozen or so favourites encircled Professor Slughorn in his private compartment.
"I'm not a Slytherin. None of them like me. That time in Hogsmeade, when we bumped into Lestrange and Avery outside the post office, they called me a—"
"I took care of it," Tom interrupted. "There won't be any repeat performances."
Or else, was unsaid but very clearly implied.
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Hermione enjoyed being a Prefect.
When she was younger, other children had called her 'bossy' because she told them that they had dirt on their nose or their shoelaces were untied. Now that she had a Prefect badge, she could say the same things, but that word, bossy, never passed their lips.
They called her responsible, and she'd begun to understand why Tom so relished having authority over his peers, even if she didn't approve of the way he used his power. To Tom, Prefectship was a means to stack the deck in his interactions with his fellow Slytherins. His Housemates knew that Tom could put a star Quidditch player in detention, or he could grant them amnesty for an offense; he had the power to re-schedule a detention so no player ever had to miss a single training session.
In Ravenclaw, it was a different situation than the Slytherin network of bargains and favours. Hermione's Prefect status made things so easy when people did what they were told. She could tell other students to pick up their crumpled parchments and walk over to the bin, instead of balling it up and tossing it over their shoulders, or worse, trying to Banish them with a charm they'd only learned last week, which sent wads of parchment flying all over the Common Room. When they took a book off the shelf in the library, she could make them put it back where it belonged when they were done with it, and not on the shelf nearest to their study table—Manual of Dendrodivination didn't belong in the same section as The Almanac of Simple Home Potions Remedies.
Tom the Prefect wielded his authority like a tool, while Hermione the Prefect found a way to use hers more responsibly.
The badge made her look trustworthy, or her trustworthiness had earned her the badge. Either way, one reinforced the other, and now Hermione could go up to her Ancient Runes teacher's desk after class and ask for a signed note to borrow this or that book from the Restricted Section, and she would get it.
The power of the badge was great, but she took advantage of it in moderation. She asked for a note to borrow expensive out-of-print volumes that she couldn't find or afford from an owl order catalogue. She didn't delve into the darkest of the Dark Arts. The librarian scrutinised every professor's note and Restricted Section book that passed her desk, and made a note of who borrowed what. Hermione wasn't as good at talking herself out of corners as Tom was, so prudence was a sensible course of action.
Tom, on the other hand, could have explained why he was looking into illegal murder spells; when Tom justified his curiosity as nothing more than academic interest, adults simply took him at his word. As Hermione lacked his ability—and his propensity—to prevaricate, she contented herself with obscure but relatively harmless books, Intellectual Indemnity and Elements of Runic Enchantment.
The first book was an overview of common spells used by researchers and academics, those who wanted to protect their research until they could get it published, or until they could pass it onto their designated successors. Before formal schooling was established as the main vehicle of magical education, young wizards and witches lived in the houses of their mentors, similar to the apprenticeship programs of today. Wizards were protective of their trade secrets, and even these days, invented spells couldn't be patented like magical inventions, so magical secrets and techniques were kept close to the chest. Even in the modern era, textbooks and periodicals were protected by anti-duplication jinxes so an enterprising wizard couldn't defraud the authors and publishers whose livelihoods depended on sales numbers.
During the winter and summer holidays, she'd memorised sections of the textbooks that she couldn't bring to Hogwarts—partly because she didn't want them confiscated, and partly because she didn't want Tom to know that she had them. She wrote pages of notes and left them in her enchanted bookcase at home, but she wanted to continue her research while she was at school and had access to the Restricted Section. She'd also gotten to the point where there was only so much she could memorise while continuing to add more. Her standard organising technique was to write colour-coded notes divided by subject with an alphabetised list of references at the end of each section, and her fingers itched at keeping all her notes in her head—but there was a risk to having potentially dangerous research notes at Hogwarts, because while she herself was sensible enough to avoid temptation when it came within her reach, Tom wasn't.
The spells in that book guaranteed Hermione's privacy, because she didn't want Tom to stick his nose where it didn't belong.
Tom didn't see anything wrong with reading over her shoulder when they studied together; he thought he was being helpful when he commented on her essay structure or the strength of her sources. He had a fuzzy definition of what counted as personal property, and whilst he knew that it was too risky to go around "borrowing" things from his dorm mates, he considered information free game. The textbooks in the library had anti-copying charms placed on them to prevent students from cheating on their class essays, but Tom had gotten around it by reading the text aloud to his Dictation Quill.
With this in mind, Hermione began her first foray into magical enchantment.
In class, she'd learned how to shrink textbooks just like how the shopkeepers in Diagon Alley did it. The Shrinking Charm wasn't permanent—the spell lasted a few days before it faded away, or as long as it took for the buyer to bring their purchases home and remove the wrapping papers. It was one of the most common and convenient charms, and often made into permanent enchantments for premium luggage and furniture, like the portable stands and viewing pavilions sold to Quidditch spectators.
She wanted to imbue a common charm with the permanence of an enchantment, and here she was inspired by the notes she'd seen being passed around at lunch and under the tables during lessons—students who took a test in the combined Gryffindor-Slytherin classes often shared around the answers to the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw classes who had the same subject later that day. Hermione had confiscated a number of them, and it was always a simple Concealment Charm they'd used, which rendered a sheet of answers into a blank page of parchment, until one cast a simple Finite or Revelio over it.
She peeled back the endpapers and binding of a memo book she'd intended to use as a study planner, scraped the glue out with her potions knife, and began to inscribe the inner bindings with a series of runes: secrecy, stealth, disguise, security, stability, and permanence.
The interesting thing was that enchanting with runes, although time-intensive, was more flexible than casting the same spell with a wand. If she performed a wand Conjuration of a flower with the visualisation of a pink tulip, she'd get a pink tulip. If she enchanted a flower pot to produce a flower with pink petals and monocot leaves, she might get a pink orchid instead of a tulip, and if she wanted more variety, she could further extend the runes to specify dark pink petals that faded to white, at the rate of one flower Conjured per day, with two on Thursday.
It reminded Hermione of punch card tabulators, where a set of coded instructions was fed into a machine in increments—but in her case, it didn't produce a solved equation, it made magic.
She wrote out a long list of conditions in rows of fragmented Futhark; her instructions were roughly translated from English, complete with questionable grammatical cases, and none of the poetic elegance of an original Edda. But the intent was clear, and that was what mattered most with magic: she wanted to prevent the use of copying charms and hide the planner's true contents until a certain pattern was tapped on the binding with her wand. It was an idea she'd copied from the enchanted locks used in high security Gringotts vaults, which could only be unsealed by an authorised staff member touching specific points on the lock with their finger. Without the pattern, the interior of the planner resembled a standard secretarial daybook, the days of the week marked out within, printed and labelled in neat square sections.
When she glued everything back together, it looked a bit lumpy and the endpapers had dried crooked, but everything worked. And she could even use it as a date planner to write down her homework assignments and library due dates.
It was in her new planner that she marked down the first meeting of the year of Tom's homework club, on Sunday, September 27.
She didn't know what to expect. Desks and books and studying? A group reading of the assigned chapters in their Potions textbook? Tom standing at the dusty lectern of an out-of-use classroom, going around and asking what answer everyone got for Question Eight of last week's Transfiguration homework?
What she got was a half-dozen boys with their robes off, their ties loosened, and their shirtsleeves rolled up, which was the most relaxed of an appearance she'd ever seen for Slytherin students; their House had a reputation for being the most uptight about adherence to the school's uniform code.
She recognised some of the boys from shared classes: Theodore Nott, ash-brown hair, scrawny and paler than Tom in winter, but whereas Tom's fairness passed as aristocratic, Nott in contrast just looked wan and pasty; he was the boy whose father, Cantankerous Nott, had written The Pure-Blood Directory. Sebastian Rosier, wearing his hair with a severe centre part and slicked down with an oily, brilliantine shine; she remembered him as the one who, instead of paying attention to the Arithmancy lesson, calculated Quidditch odds in the back of the classroom. Iain Avery, the rude boy from Hogsmeade over a year ago, whose thin lips seemed perpetually pulled into a dismissive sneer; he'd paid Tom to do his homework from the beginning of First Year.
There were two other boys she didn't recognise. One was stockily built, with heavy brows and a dark shadow of stubble around his chin; his sleeves were pushed up to reveal the shiny pinkness of freshly re-grown skin in patches about his wrists and forearms. The other had grey eyes and black hair that fell past his ears, worn longer than any decent Muggle school would have allowed for male students.
He was currently facing down Tom, who unlike the rest of the boys was dressed in his full school uniform, even though it was a Sunday afternoon. A section in the middle of the classroom was cleared of desks, which had been pushed back against the far walls and used as seats by the rest of the boys. They watched in interest as Tom cast spell after silent spell in the other boy's direction. By the colour of the spell and the wand movements, it was the Knockback Jinx, but Hermione had never seen anyone cast it so quickly in succession—one blue flash of light was in the air when the tip of Tom's wand was already glowing in preparation for casting another.
Tom looked almost bored by the time he sent his opponent's wand flying out of his hand, where it rolled under a pile of chairs at the front of the classroom.
"Your defence is weak, Black," said Tom, summoning the lost wand and handing it back to its owner. "Next time, take the lateral stance and pick up your feet—present your side at all times, instead of your chest, and you'll make a smaller target. And your Shield was uneven. Show me how you cast it."
The other boy must have been a member of the wealthy and prolific Black family who had several of its number attending Hogwarts. Hermione recalled that Lucretia Black had been in the Heads' compartment as the Sixth Year Slytherin Prefect, and her brother (or was it her cousin? Pureblood families made it so difficult to tell) Alphard Black was a Chaser on the Slytherin Quidditch team. There were a few others, the baby who'd started this year, and to no one's surprise, was Sorted into Slytherin. Then there was the annoying one in Sixth Year who had the most irritating laugh, which sounded like the last breath of a dying donkey. Hermione had heard it more times than she would have liked whilst peacefully minding her own business in a bathroom stall.
Black gripped his wand with white-knuckled fingers and cast the Shield Charm. "Protego."
Like a proper Shield Charm, it was invisible, only showing itself when it took the force of another spell.
Tom threw a trio of Knockback Jinxes—one to the upper right, one to the upper left, and one to the lower centre, at knee level. The shield flared blue-white, absorbing the jinxes at its outermost edges, and revealing that its shape was ovoid and irregular, stronger and brighter on Black's right side compared to his left.
An unbalanced shield.
"Expelliarmus!"
A red streak of light, then the shield glowed brighter than ever, before it popped like a soap bubble, and Black's wand was once again clattering to the floor.
"Still uneven," Tom stated, swishing his wand and effortlessly summoning Black's to his hand. "Your wand movement was correct, but what was your visualisation?"
Black frowned in consideration. "A uniform hemispherical construction, rigid of consistency and flawless of surface..."
"Hmm," said Tom, turning Black's wand between his fingers and inspecting the carvings on the handle, "that's Slinkhard's method, isn't it? Word for word."
"Yeah," Black said, with a shrug. "It's from the textbook."
"Well, I know it works, as long as you're doing it right. Which you're not—I can tell that you aren't concentrating hard enough. You're watching me and what I'm doing, and not paying enough attention to preparing your own spells. You also focus too much on your dominant hand, your wand hand, and you leave your left side wide open." Tom returned the wand and lifted his own. "Let's try it again."
They tried it.
Again. And again. And again.
The wand flew across the room and smacked into the blackboard, and soon Tom began to lose his patience, so then it was Black's turn to hit the desks.
Hermione found herself stepping in and casting a Shield Charm to block a Knockback Jinx that was so powerful that the colour was a deep indigo instead of the standard bright blue. It would have punched through Black's feeble shield.
Hermione was well aware that it wasn't easy for anyone to concentrate while a frustrated Tom Riddle was staring them down with a wand pointed at their chest.
"Enough!" Hermione cried, and her own Shield Charm flared blue and rippled as the jinx bounced back in Tom's direction. "It's not working for him, can't you see?"
"He's not focusing hard enough, that's why," Tom retorted, side-stepping the reflected jinx. He lowered his wand, nostrils flaring. "It's the standard textbook method; it should work for anyone if they're doing it right. As you obviously are."
"Let me try," said Hermione, gesturing at Black to come forward. "There's another way to cast a Shield Charm."
"Reciting the textbook at him one more time isn't going to work." Tom pocketed his wand and smoothed down his robes, which had barely gotten wrinkled in the duel. "I should know—I've tried."
"I'm not going to use the textbook," Hermione said firmly.
She knew Slinkhard's Defensive Theory back to front, and she'd struggled with the same textbook instructions for casting the Shield Charm. In that she'd been no different than Black, bleeding frustration and dissatisfaction, which made each subsequent casting more difficult as she slipped farther and farther away from the absolute confidence necessary to will magic into existence. The issue came from the approach: the book's recommended visualisation was a rigid, inflexible barrier to deflect incoming spells, with an emphasis on ensuring that every point in the shield's ambit was solid and consistent. It worked in theory, certainly, but it was more than demanding to set one's mind into that perfect, structured level of thinking in the middle of a duel.
She'd asked for advice during the summer, tired of the repetitive cycle of struggle and failure—although her own attempts hadn't involved bouncing off stacks of classroom furniture. She'd remembered the way Tom had improved his Incendio casting during the summer of their Second Year, beyond what The Standard Book of Spells had ever indicated was possible. She still trusted the school textbooks to work as they were supposed to—they did work, or else they wouldn't be published and sold to students. But by now she'd recognised that they weren't the only solution, just one of many.
Visualisation, she'd learned, was the key to conveying the correct magical intent. There was more than one way to reach that state of mental focus necessary to cast a spell; on top of that, the wand gestures and incantation, which her teachers drilled into the students every other lesson, were optional to the highly skilled. But if Hermione, who struggled with practical Defence—the offensive part of the curriculum, and anything involving physical stamina, floor dives, dodging, or all-around athleticism—could block Tom's attack with a Shield Charm, then Black could do it too.
"No textbook? Now I'm curious," said Tom, his brows rising toward his hairline. "Go on, then. Show me that someone else here knows what they're doing."
Hermione turned to Black, who looked askance at her, then at the boys lounging on the desks by the door. He shrugged helplessly.
"Um," Hermione began, shuffling over to where Black stood. She'd celebrated her sixteenth birthday a week and a half ago—she'd gotten a box of rose scones from the girls in her dormitory, bought from the tea house in Hogsmeade, and a subscription voucher to Minutes of the Wizengamot Proceedings from Tom, which according to him, was Wizarding Britain's most boring periodical. (Apparently it was also authored by a Dictation Quill, as the names of the speakers were all spelled phonetically, with a series of footnotes on the last page added by the printer to explain who was who.)
She knew she was the oldest student out of their entire year. But all the boys had already outstripped her in height; even Black, in the year below, was half a head taller. It was hard to project an air of authority, as Tom did, when she had to crane her head up to look them in the eye.
"Here." She tapped him lightly on the shoulder, then on the elbow. "Relax your shoulders. Lower your arm; bend your elbow. Don't squeeze your wand like that—you're not trying to choke it. Relax. Now close your eyes. Yes, I said close your eyes. Erm," she continued, clearing her throat nervously. "This is going to sound silly, but it's what works for me.
"Imagine a small tropical island, somewhere in the South Pacific, white sand and coconut palms and a round lagoon right in the centre." The words were hesitant and awkward and recited from memory, from how she recalled Mr. Pacek making a very similar speech in his accented English, full of rhotic trills and harsh consonants. It was scarcely any better than reading from the textbook, but as she spoke, her words slowly gained a measure of confidence.
"It's a perfect lagoon, with clear blue water, not a ripple on it, the surface as smooth as glass. During a storm—a wild, roaring typhoon, the sort that tosses ships and crests forty feet high—the little island is in danger of being swallowed up. But this round lagoon acts as a breakwater. The waves crash, the wind howls, and the water rises and rises and rises, but the lagoon absorbs everything that comes its way. And when the storm blows itself out, the lagoon and the island are still there, safe and sound, and the water is as blue and clear as it was before. It wasn't a rigid barrier; it was never rigid. Its strength was always in its resilience."
"Now," said Hermione, gently nudging Black's elbow. "Cast your shield."
Black took a breath and adjusted his feet. "Protego!"
Tom, Hermione mouthed silently, sliding to the side and out of the way of what she knew was coming next.
Flash—flash—flash—flash.
Blue, blue, red, white, red.
Hermione's eyes followed the wand movements, as Tom had cast non-verbally. It looked like he was proficient enough with the Knockback Jinx to abbreviate the movement somewhat, from the full-arm dip, flick, and flourish that they'd learned back in First Year to a shallow twitch of his wrist that conserved energy and let him proceed straight into the next spell. Another Knockback, a Disarmer, that white one she didn't recognise, and the last one was a deep, rich red with a precise slashing wand movement that she had seen in a diagram printed in this year's Defence textbook, but had never performed herself. A fully-fledged Stunner, which they hadn't yet been taught in class.
The first four spells dissipated on Black's shield, the boy gritting his teeth at the fizzling sound they made upon impact, but the final Stunner shattered it, red cracks crawling over the shield's half-dome shape. The power of the spell was being absorbed, the cracks yawning open, limned in fading red light that flickered and dwindled to a dusky pink. Black's wand arm shook with the effort of holding his shield for so long, and then the onslaught was over, and Hermione sucked in a lungful of air; she'd realised that she'd been holding her breath for the extent of the demonstration.
Black sank to his knees to the dusty flagstones, his right arm flopping down, his left hand rising to swipe the sweat off his brow and push his fringe out of his eyes.
"Finally," said Tom, not the least bit out of breath from the magical exertion. "Now that you've got an O.W.L. level spell down, all you have to do ensure you haven't forgotten it by the time you actually get to the exam."
"There's no need to be so uncharitable, Tom," Hermione sighed. She inclined her head at Black. "You've successfully cast a Fifth Year charm, and you only started Fourth Year a few weeks ago. I'm proud of you. Tom is too, only he doesn't know how to say it, so I'll speak for the both of us—"
She pointedly ignored Tom's muttered, "Whatever."
"—And say that it's a wonderful accomplishment, and very practical too, since you're basically immune to Peeves now, and anyone from Gryffindor who stocks up on firecrackers on Quidditch match days."
Hermione beamed and helped Black back to his feet.
"Where did you learn that?" Black asked her, brushing dirt from the knees of his trousers.
"From my summer tutor," she said. "He studied at Durmstrang. Class of Thirty-Four."
"Oh?" Black cocked his head, his grey eyes bright with curiosity. "Is that why Riddle invited you to the group? I'm Orion Black, of the House of Black. Alphard is the oldest of us at school, but he's in the cadet line, of course."
He offered his hand to her, and assuming he wanted to shake, Hermione took it. To her surprise, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed the air above her knuckles.
Hermione felt her cheeks growing warm. She'd known that purebloods and most traditionalist wizards had little contact with the Muggle world, and had thus fallen behind with regards to modern social conventions. It was a quirk of magical life she'd observed with interest, but only from a distance, as she was a Muggleborn, and rarely socialised with other students outside of schoolwork or Prefect-related business. But she'd noticed that boys raised in those families sent notes via owl mail or left visiting cards on a girl's desk if they wanted to walk her to Hogsmeade, and the girls complained about how tawdry the knee-length woollen uniform skirts were, fondly recalling their mothers' days in the Twenties, when the skirts had been calf-length. She definitely hadn't made an attempt to break into the circles of those wealthy wizarding traditionalists, who were known to be as snobbish as any group of London society ladies who only lived in the city for the length of the "Season".
"I—I'm Hermione Granger. Fifth Year Ravenclaw Prefect. I'm here because this is a homework study group," Hermione said, still flushing, "and I'm the only one in our year who can match Tom's marks."
"Riddle lets you call him by his given name?" Black inquired, a thoughtful frown crossing his face.
"He hasn't said not to," said Hermione, wondering what Tom and his 'friends' got up to when she wasn't around. She understood men being more formal than usual when present in mixed company, which this was, due to her having been invited, but she didn't know how far that formality went amongst the stodgy, conservative Slytherin contingent. If it was anything close to what got on in élite Muggle old boys' institutions where institutionalised bullying was a rite of passage, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.
"—And he also says it's time to get back to work," Tom interrupted. "Who's next? Rosier? I recall last year that you tried to make up for your weak defensive spellwork with clever footwork. I hope you've been practising during the summer, because now it's time to prove you can out-run a Tripping Jinx."
Rosier groaned; Black found a seat between the other boys, who pounded him on the back and ruffled his sweaty hair.
Tom brandished his wand, paused for a moment, and his eyes fell on Hermione. He gave her a pleasant smile. "Would you like to give it a go? In class, you've never quite caught up to my casting speed. How about we give Rosier a fighting chance?"
"Just Tripping Jinxes?"
"For now."
"For now?"
"You'll still need to be able to cast a Stunner for the O.W.L.s," said Tom, his Reasonable Face on full-force, which was only a few self-effacing smiles and an eyelash flutter away from being his Wheedling Face. "Isn't that why you're here? It's the best way to build experience for the exam practical, performing in the midst of a demanding situation. We'll just have to work our way up."
"Fine," Hermione conceded. "I want you standing by to cast a Cushioning Charm if he needs it."
"He doesn't need it," Tom said, and before Hermione's mouth could open to argue, he added, "But fine, I'll do as you wish."
By the end of the meeting, Hermione felt like she'd made a significant improvement in her spellcasting. For all that Tom as an instructor was unforgiving and unsympathetic, he was also very effective at teaching other people. He had an eye for picking out weaknesses and pointing them out, showing where they could be corrected or counterbalanced by one's individual strengths.
She didn't go so far as to call him fair-minded, an attribute of a good teacher that he apparently lacked. Hermione noticed that Tom gave her better treatment than the other members of the group; he settled the others into pairs and took her as his personal duelling partner, spending more time talking to her and only making training-related conversation with the others. He advised her on a series of traditional duelling stances that had him standing quite close to her and adjusting the angles of her shoulders and hips—something she didn't see him doing for anyone else.
Afterwards, the boys left to wash up and change for dinner. She and Tom stayed behind, clearing up the mess. Tom dusted and scoured, washing sweat and scorchmarks off the floor, his household charmwork graceful and effortless. Hermione repaired the broken chairs and desks, her wand movements not nearly as fluid as his, but she'd put in a good amount of practice in recent weeks helping the First Years—many of them hadn't known how to pack their trunks, and she'd had more than a few students bring her broken picture frames and self-winding alarm clocks.
"How was that?" Tom asked, when they stopped to inspect their handiwork.
"It was... interesting," Hermione replied honestly. She had never been exposed to this many Slytherins in close quarters. In classes, she sat with other Ravenclaws, and even the shared classes, the only Slytherin she really spoke to—the only Slytherin most people of other Houses spoke to—was Tom, whose reputation for helpfulness had only grown since becoming a Prefect. "But I thought your club would have more people."
"Travers is hosing down Greenhouse Four for Beery—couldn't get him out of that one," said Tom. "And Lestrange went to Quidditch practice. Still a good showing, and if you plan on staying, we'll be going over textbook theory at the start of next term."
"I think I might." Hermione sat down on one of the cleaned desks and fiddled with the hem of her skirt. "They respect you, Tom. I wasn't expecting that."
"Why shouldn't they? Don't you?"
"Well..." Hermione began. "I do, but I like you too. I don't think they have that, not with you; I see that they're closer with one another than they are with you. It feels like the difference between an army officer and the enlisted—the more you prove you can teach them, the more that distance grows. Tom, if you started this group to try and make some real friends at Hogwarts before you graduate, instead of having a bunch of 'friends'," Hermione put particular emphasis on that word, "I... I'm afraid that it isn't going to happen."
"You've seriously been worried about how many friends I have?" Tom laughed, and settled next to her, desk creaking under their combined weight. "Oh, Hermione. You shouldn't be worried about that. I don't need them, and I wasn't trying to collect 'friends'. You're more than enough for me."
"I thought we weren't friends," said Hermione, remembering the Tom of First Year who had derided his Housemates as a bunch of gullible inbreds. That Tom had told her friendship as a concept was foolish and shallow.
"Of course we're not," Tom stated, standing up and offering her his arm. "We're more than that. Now may I escort you to dinner?"
"This isn't because Orion Black kissed my hand earlier, is it?" Hermione asked. "You don't have to put on the gentleman dandy act to fit in with them."
"It's because Sidonie Hipworth keeps following me around if I don't look like I'm in the middle of a conversation with someone else," said Tom, holding the door open for her and locking it behind them, placing a jinx on the doorknob so a casual Alohomora wouldn't pop the lock.
"And because I want to," he added, his smile as benign as ever. "You must have noticed that I'm a Prefect now... which means I can do whatever I want."