1943
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Hermione showed Mr. Pacek her study planner when she went home for the Christmas holidays.
It wasn't the prettiest planner she'd ever seen, as she'd bought it from a Muggle stationers' for less than two shillings. The ones the girls in her classes owned looked nicer, embossed with prancing unicorns in silver foil, or bound in richly dyed dragon hide; those ones were heat and potion resistant, for any girl who did her homework on the same desk where she charmed her hair or concealed her spots. Hers hadn't come with any novelty features, but she didn't really want an automatically updating moon phase chart, not as much as she needed discretion and privacy.
"What do you think of it?" asked Hermione. "I don't suppose it's something someone would pay for, is it?"
Mr. Pacek opened the cover and inspected the bindings, drawing his wand along the seams. "It is certainly functional... and inconspicuous."
"I used the information you sent me on redirection wards," she said. "I thought that the best thing to do was to not draw anyone's attention in the first place. Do you think you could break the enchantment?"
"It is not a matter of if I could, but how long it would take." Mr. Pacek stroked his goatee and tapped the spine of the study planner with his wand. "I could tear the cover open and counter your runework with my own, or I could try the faster route and cast an overpowered Finite, which has a good chance of destroying the object before any information can be retrieved. Which brings to relevance the concept of ancillary effects: self-destruct mechanisms and tampering indicators. Rather harmless defensive techniques, but offensive warding and enchantment crosses over into the realm of dark curses—which I presume would bear little interest to you. And of course, they are not undetectable by your school authorities."
"I don't want to risk destroying it..." Hermione said reluctantly. "It's not as if I spent ages on writing out the rune sequences—I know I could create another planner if I had to, maybe a new one for next year—but all my research notes are in there. And I can't just... just destroy them."
Hermione's conscience shuddered at the prospect of destroying a book. Yes, it was a planner, not a rare manuscript with illuminated calligraphy, and yes, she'd tossed her fair share of essay drafts in the past. But destroying something that resembled a book in all ways, and contained valuable information as all books did... Well, it felt close to blasphemous to her.
"Have you read much on the subject of magical linkage?"
"Linkages? Isn't that what they use to make Vanishing Cabinets?" she asked. She'd read about magical inventions a few years ago, when she was looking into Mastery programs and what the requirements were to complete one. Those Cabinets could revolutionise magical communication if they weren't so expensive and time-consuming to build. But it took a skilled artisan weeks to create a single pair, and wizards of that calibre were so few and far between that the Muggle concept of the assembly line just would not be feasible.
"That, and a number of other inventions. Magical mirrors and windows—my personal specialty—enchanted lighting systems, alarm systems. In fact, I had a classmate at Durmstrang who carried a fob watch linked to one of the bell towers of Kraków, on which he had to place a Silencing Charm because it would ring the hour, every hour," said Mr. Pacek, his eyes glazing over in fond reminiscence. "Enchanted linkages are very practical, and very versatile. I had the thought that you might create a secondary book, linked to your original one, so that whatever was written on one would appear on the other—and if you had to destroy it, the copy would remain."
"Oh, that's something I'd like to learn more about!" Hermione's expression brightened up considerably.
Practical, useful magics were what interested her the most about the magical world, in stark contrast to Tom's preference for obscure spells with grand effects. She considered practical spells the wizarding world's equivalent of the Muggle world's industrial mechanisation; their existence meant that seven people out of every ten were not forced by the needs of society to spend their entire lives labouring on farms.
It was this type of magic that gave witches certain freedoms that women in the Muggle world were still fighting to achieve. Witches had career opportunities outside of the home, as magic made it so household tasks were not the sole dominion of any one sex. Although witches and women alike were still under the expectation that they would do their duty to, ahem, propagate the species. (Hermione had decided to be as scientific about it as possible; Hogwarts didn't have a biology class, as they expected students' parents to inform them on these things—so she had no idea what terms wizards used, or even if magic made wizards a separate subspecies from Muggles.)
"After dinner, I hope," said Mr. Pacek, rubbing his stomach. "I believe I can hear Madam Granger's treacle-glazed ham calling my name."
At dinner, Hermione's Dad carved the ham, which was crispy and studded with cloves on the outside, and on the inside, savoury and tender. Mum served the roasted potatoes, and Hermione poured herself a glass of milk.
"Will Tom be joining us during the summer?" Mum asked, after everyone had finished passing around the plates and figuring out which pair of tongs went with which dish, because cross-contamination was gross. Nobody liked cauliflower in their chutney.
"Where did he end up going last summer?" said Dad, uncorking a bottle of wine for the adults.
"Oh," said Hermione, who wasn't expecting Tom Riddle to come up as a topic of conversation during her family's Christmas dinner. "Um. He got a job in the village near the school. He lived there instead of going back to Wool's."
"A job that paid enough for board?" asked Dad, a hint of disapproval in his tone. "Or did the employer provide lodgings? He's your age; he must have been fifteen at the time! You should have invited him to stay with us—it'd be safer here than out there with no proper guardianship. You don't know what sort of people out there are willing to take advantage of a young boy."
"I did offer!" said Hermione. "But he refused it. And it worked out alright for him, which means that he'll want to do it again next summer."
"If Tom wants to work, we can't tell him otherwise," said Mum, the voice of reason. "We aren't his parents. And I think having some sort of work experience in the summer wouldn't do him any harm. Hermione, have you thought of doing the same thing?"
"Taking on a job, you mean?" Hermione frowned, fork hovering halfway to her mouth. "But where? At the clinic?"
"Well, darling, when you were younger, you'd always seemed so interested in pursuing medicine," said Mum. "And you've only a few years left at Hogwarts. When you finish, and if you decide to stay in London, we could find you a place at the clinic, and if you wanted to enroll in a university, we'd help you there as well. With the war the way it is, taking a job on the reserved occupations list would meet the National Service requirements."
"The holiday is only ten weeks. I'm not sure I could do much good there—by the time I've gotten the hang of how to keep the books or operate the switchboard, you'd have to find someone to replace me."
"Then there are a few charity events during the summer I'm sure we can find time for," said Mum, who could be just as stubborn as Hermione when she'd found a cause worth supporting. The letters she'd sent Hermione during the school year had indicated that Mum had taken an interest in veterans' affairs, because soldiers who'd made it out as well as her father had were in the minority.
"We don't mind if you want to study for your Hogwarts exams during your holidays, but it would do you some good to get out of the house now and then," she continued, eyeing Hermione's winter skin and her faded freckles. "Your father's old army group has a fundraising evening that you might be interested in—there'll be specialists in attendance, and it'll be a good chance to ask them about career opportunities. And to introduce yourself, too."
"There'll be a pathologist. And a few chemists," Dad offered. "If you like the idea of research more than practice, it would be a good place to ask. I'm just a general practitioner, after all."
"You're not just a G.P.," replied Hermione adamantly. "You're my dad! Of course I'll go—I haven't made any firm decisions about what kind of career I want after Hogwarts, but it wouldn't hurt to learn more about my options."
"If you want to pursue an occupation in the Muggle world," Mr. Pacek suggested, tapping his wand to the half-drained bottle of wine to refill it, "I recommend that you make your connections as early as possible. Once you have your foot in the door, so to speak, you may find it easier to keep it there if the war ends and the soldiers return en masse looking for work of their own."
"He's right," Dad agreed. "Veterans were and are given preferential treatment; it was for that reason that I didn't challenge the recruitment office when they sent me my papers last time. I knew that if I'd tried for the Non-Combatant Corps—the service that the pacifists and objectors were sent to—it would be on my records and I'd have had a great deal of trouble applying at hospitals afterwards to finish my training."
"And then we'd never have met," added Mum, smiling at Dad.
Dad looked at Mum. Mum looked at Dad, and then they seemed to be communicating across the table without saying a single word; the conversation had suddenly and without warning drawn to a standstill.
Hermione busied herself with her baked carrots. It wasn't like it was embarrassing. They had not done anything but exchange glances over the platter of glazed ham.
But it was remarkably intimate, and some part of Hermione hoped that one day she would find someone who looked at her the way Dad looked at Mum.
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When the holidays ended and term resumed, it was as if all the students who had been relaxed in the beginning of the year had remembered that they had exams in less than six months' time. The library was crowded, the professors' supplementary books missing off the shelves and reserved for weeks; even trying to track down and buy the books by owl order was met by apologies from the booksellers, who were back-ordered for months. It hadn't bothered Hermione, as she'd asked for and read through the recommendations list back in September.
On top of that, there was also a spontaneous string of emotional outbursts where a student would burst into tears at the dining table or in the middle of a class lesson, and soon you'd have three or four people follow suit.
Hermione didn't feel that she was particularly equipped to deal with this sort of issue, Prefect or not. She'd resorted to handing them off to the Hospital Wing for a Calming Draught, and conjuring handkerchiefs when she spotted the first signs of tears. She wasn't the best person to come to for emotional counsel; she tended to approach problems—other people's and her own—from such a logical perspective that she came off as unsympathetic.
(What was she going to tell them, anyway? "If you'd started your exam revision last year, you wouldn't be crying on the floor of the girls' bathroom today"?)
One of the few places where she felt like she could study productively was in Tom's homework club.
The members, for the most part, were the children of wealthy and prominent wizarding families, so they didn't treat their exam marks as the sole entry or barrier to their future careers. Of course, good marks in school were never a bad thing, but they were all Slytherins, so they were aware that perfect marks weren't the only means of getting them where they wanted. And being Slytherins, Professor Slughorn was going to be writing them a glowing recommendation letter when they left Hogwarts, no matter how they did.
Hermione couldn't quite bring herself to approve of their lackadaisical attitude toward academics, but there was something appealing about being able to study in a place where her fellow students weren't trying to make studying a competition. In the Ravenclaw Common Room, she'd heard people bragging about studying twelve hours straight and going to class in the morning with only three hours of sleep and a pot of tea brewed as thick as tar. That sort of thing was unhealthy and only served to fuel her exam anxiety.
True to his word, Tom had moved from practical Defence wandwork to textbook theory, and on the prompting of the study group's members who needed help with their homework, to Charms and Transfiguration theory.
"—You can turn a needle into a matchstick, but there are reasons why you—by that, I mean you in the individual sense—can't just transfigure that matchstick into a broomstick."
Avery scratched his head. "But they're both made of wood. Isn't Transfiguring like to like supposed to make the result more stable?"
"Transfigurations are dependent on other factors as well, not just how alike one object is to another," explained Tom, who in trying to simplify the fundamentals of magic that he'd read and understood from First Year, looked like he was getting closer and closer to tearing out his hair. "Apart from structural affinities, the stability and longevity of Transfigurations are also determined by magical power, intent, visualisation, and mass."
"But we Transfigured cups into cushions in class," said Avery, "and they aren't the same size."
"It's not just size—it's mass," Tom answered. "Or more specifically, mass and gravimetric density."
"What's density?"
Tom stared blankly at Avery for a moment, before he schooled his features, shut his textbook, and walked to the door of the classroom.
"Tom?" said Hermione, watching him reach for the door handle. "Where are you going?"
"I'm taking a walk. If you could finish the review of Chapter Six while I'm gone, I'd more than appreciate it."
"Aren't you coming back?"
"Probably not," Tom admitted, giving her an apologetic shrug. "Teaching Remedial Transfiguration is like being stuck in a revolving door, only without the door. I'll see you next week, alright?"
Hermione sighed. "This is your study club."
"The ultimate goal is to get an Acceptable or above on the exam. I could easily tell them how to answer the questions, and write an essay for them to memorise verbatim, but I'm sure that it would go against the spirit of academic integrity," said Tom, his brows furrowed in an expression of earnest concern. "But you care about their educations, don't you?"
"Fine," she conceded, rolling her eyes. "But you'll tell Selwyn that you're going to take my curfew patrols for next week."
"Deal," said Tom, leaning closer to whisper in her ear without being overheard. "Don't hesitate to be harsh on them if you need to; sometimes you have to take a firm hand if you want something done right."
Tom left, and Hermione, with some amount of reluctance, resumed the review session on Inanimate Transfigurations.
In dealing with those of 'lesser ability', a diplomatic way to call it, she had more patience than Tom, who grew frustrated when other people couldn't grasp abstract concepts as quickly or as intuitively as he did. Tom was used to being the fastest to complete his classwork during lessons, and had long since designated everyone else, with the exception of Hermione, as his intellectual inferior; he therefore considered it a waste of time to continue teaching them a concept if they struggled to learn it.
Hermione didn't give up quite so easily. She commiserated with these pureblood wizards who had never gone to primary school before starting Hogwarts, which was not far removed from Hermione's never having heard of the wizarding world before the delivery of her Hogwarts letter and her subsequent cultural immersion. It was only reasonable that they should be unfamiliar with modern scientific concepts that Tom and Hermione had studied as children. Their Muggle educations had instilled in them basic skills in logical thinking. It made Transfiguration, one of the most systematic of magical disciplines, easier for them than those brought up in the wizarding world, where logic was an option and not a necessity.
So she stayed and tutored the Slytherin boys, who were uncomfortable with her at first—to her relief, they didn't make any comment about her blood status—and by the end of the session, had stopped gawking at her like she was a talking monkey. Perhaps they were intimidated by witches, or a witch lacking a magical pedigree who was clearly better at magic than they were. Or perhaps they were unused to someone who showed no sign of intimidation or condescension in her interactions with them; as patient as Tom had tried to be, he couldn't hide all traces of disdain directed at the people with whom he'd shared a dormitory for the last four and a half years.
Slytherin really was an unpleasant place, or so Hermione thought. But at least the Slytherins didn't hold Tom's condescension against him. It appeared that snobbery and élitism were the natural course of things over there, so to them it was shocking for Hermione not to disparage any club member who worked at a slower pace than the others.
She called it a success when she'd gotten everyone to complete their Transfiguration homework without leaving a single question blank. And she called it progress when they called her "Granger" without drawing out the syllables in an annoying sarcastic drawl, because that was apparently how Slytherins were taught to greet students of other Houses.
When the other boys had packed up their books and gone to dinner, Hermione went to wipe the chalkboard clean of her wand movement diagrams. Nott, who had lingered in putting away his parchments, came up to the front desk.
"Granger," said Nott, eyes darting from side to side to ensure there was no one left, "I need to talk to you."
"Is this about Transfiguration?" asked Hermione. "Because you managed it well enough in class; I don't think I can give you any advice, unless you want recommendations for supplementary reading."
"It's not about the exams," he said, his voice lowered to a hiss. "It's about Riddle."
"What about him?"
The way Nott was looking at her was... suspicious. She didn't trust him; she'd noticed him looking at her and Tom oddly from before the Christmas holidays. She'd assumed that as a Slytherin, and one who believed that a witch or wizard's blood status was directly correlated to their worth as a person, her friendship with Tom was some kind of rare spectacle. To outsiders, Tom was a very competitive person, and on the duelling platform, she'd been told he was ruthless, aggressive, and pushed the boundaries of what the rules called 'reasonable force', while Hermione was a goody two-shoes who, outside of class, was quiet and slightly awkward and could be found in the Hogwarts library more often than not.
They made strange companions, for anyone—which was everyone—who didn't know them like they knew each other.
"You can't trust him," Nott said, clutching his wand so hard that his knuckles had turned white. "Riddle's not the perfect Prefect everyone thinks he is. He's... dangerous."
Hermione glared at him. "Look here, just because Tom beat you in the Duelling Club doesn't mean you have to be sore about it—"
"He's a Legilimens!" snapped Nott.
There was a moment of silence.
"He's a what—?"
"Honestly, Granger," said Nott with a sneer, "you spend all your time with your nose in a book, and yet you're still so hopelessly ignorant."
"Not everyone has access to private family libraries," Hermione countered, folding her arms across her chest defensively. "Just tell me what it means."
"It comes from the Latin root Legere, which in the infinitive case means 'read', combined with Mentis—"
"—Tom Riddle reads minds," Hermione finished for him.
Nott's eyes widened, and for a second or so, his jaw hung slack. He quickly collected himself and remarked, "I see that it's not news to you."
"Um. Sorry," said Hermione. "Should it be?"
She'd seen Tom do magic—back then she'd thought it was telepathy—at the age of ten years old. He'd called it mind control, and it was how she'd thought of it too, and she'd been afraid of it. In imposing his will over hers, there was nothing she considered more invasive; it was the removal of her personal autonomy; it was a profound violation of self.
Mr. Pacek had called Tom's ability a unique form of magical perception, without using that word that Nott had just dropped, Legilimens. Mr. Pacek had told her that meditation would help her counter Tom's unique persuasive abilities, advising her on techniques that she had made a good attempt to practise over the years. But her mind was not a calm and tranquil place; Hermione often found it difficult to sleep due to all the thoughts buzzing around when her eyes were closed. She kept her planner on her nightstand in case she came up with an idea that she wanted to study later.
She admitted that she wasn't as good at meditation as she wanted to be—but there had been no urgent reason to prioritise it over her extracurricular projects. Tom hadn't tried anything since the beginning of First Year. She knew he could tell when people lied to him, so she made sure to never do it in front of him; she had gotten decent at deflection and omission, and when she'd looked him in the eye while doing sums in her head, he had made no indication of ever being suspicious of her.
If she took the time to think about it, she trusted Tom.
He'd learned to restrain himself over the years. She knew he wasn't a perfect Prefect—but then again, neither was she. And she knew that he could be dangerous—but everyone who owned a wand had the potential to be dangerous. That Tom was skilled and magically powerful didn't automatically make him dangerous, or a danger to society. And it certainly didn't make him untrustworthy.
Hermione was suddenly reminded of that incident with her dorm mate Siobhan Kilmuir, who had accused Tom of being a cheater, back in Second Year. Siobhan had been correct, but she hadn't had solid proof other than hearsay, and Hermione had defended Tom.
And here was Nott, accusing Tom of... of being a mind reader?
Evidence or no, it wouldn't change the fact that Tom did possess some sort of magical control over minds.
She didn't know what to do now. Deny it, and cover for Tom? Or try to get more information out of Nott? He, very irritatingly, had access to resources that Hermione didn't.
"It doesn't matter," said Nott. "So. You know. How did you find out? Did he...?"
"That's none of your business."
"Yes," said Nott, who hadn't put his wand away. "It is. Don't you know what it means?"
"Since I'm so 'hopelessly ignorant', why don't you enlighten me?" said Hermione irritably, sliding her hand into her robe pocket.
"Riddle's, what, fifteen? Sixteen? And already he's a Legilimens of uncommon power, which suggests that he's been trained for years by a master, which I know he hasn't," said Nott, rattling off facts while pacing back and forth in front of the chalkboard. "I remember his first days here, when he was Slytherin's mis-Sorted Mudblood boy, with his second-hand books and his cast-off robes, his grubby Muggle name. No one would have looked at him twice, much less taught him something as valuable as Legilimency.
"The other explanation is that he didn't have a teacher—that he didn't need to be taught. From that, I surmise that he possesses some natural propensity to the art," Nott muttered, and whether he was talking to himself or Hermione, she couldn't tell. "A gift of the blood. Inherited magic—magical heredity—his name is Riddle; he's a Mudblood... unless he's not."
Nott stopped in his tracks. "Granger, what do you know of Riddle's family?"
"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Hermione spoke with unconcealed ill-temper; she was growing increasingly uncomfortable with Nott's impertinence and presumptuous manner. She was familiar enough with wizarding culture to be fully aware of what kind of language was considered acceptable in or out of mixed company, and Nott was completely out of line. She was within her rights to put him in detention, but that would mean sitting in a classroom with him for hours at a time... and his presence right now was more than too much.
"Because he doesn't like me. He'd start asking me why I'm asking him questions," said Nott, trying and failing to hide a wince. "But for some unfathomable reason, which I cannot account for at all," and here he looked pointedly in Hermione's direction, "—he likes you. Surely you could get information out of him."
"Surely," Hermione repeated in a flat voice, rolling her eyes.
Nott continued, ignoring her. "All you'd have to do is undo the top two buttons on your blouse and lean over a desk; Riddle wouldn't be able to resist—"
Hermione had had enough of him. She drew her wand and pointed it at him. "Flipendo! Expelliarmus!"
Nott, who hadn't been paying attention, smacked into the chalkboard, wand flying out of his hand and into hers.
She hesitated for the briefest moment, then twisted her wand into the curl-and-flick she'd practised in her parents' cellar during the summer. "Confundo!"
Nott slid down to the floor, back to the wall, chalk dust raining down over his shoulders. His eyes were bleary and unfocused.
"Why are you so obsessed with Tom?" asked Hermione, bending over him, his wand held tightly in her left hand, and her own wand pointed at his chest.
"Because... because he thinks he's perfect," Nott said dazedly, his words slurring together. "Perfect Prefect Riddle. Sluggy thinks he's the second coming of Merlin. Edmond-bloody-Lestrange would cut off his lopsided left foot if Riddle told him to. Does anyone else see it? Has everyone but me gone completely mental? Am I the only one?!"
"Why does it even matter?"
"Because he's a Mudblood!" Nott shouted, spit flying out of his mouth.
Hermione leaned back, grimacing.
Nott spoke again, his voice lower, barely above a whisper. "It doesn't make any sense."
Her anger dissipated; all she could feel for Nott now was pity. He made a pathetic sight, slumped on the floor of the classroom, chalk on his tailored robes and hair falling over his brows. His eyes were wild and bloodshot, his fingernails digging red crescents into the pale flesh of his palms. Like the teary-eyed girls Hermione had seen hogging bathroom stalls over the last few weeks, Nott looked as if he was experiencing a hysterical fit.
Wizarding children were deprived of the comprehensive education that the Muggle government provided to everyone under the age of fourteen. Hermione had gotten six years of science, arithmetic, grammar, geography, and history before she'd even heard of Hogwarts. She'd come to Hogwarts already knowing how a library was organised, how to write an essay, and how to read, research, and draw her own conclusions. The classmates of hers who had been raised in the wizarding world only got as much of a primary education as their parents thought fit to give them. In the case of pureblooded children—
If she called what their parents did as 'indoctrination', she didn't think she'd be far off the mark.
Nott was one such victim of childhood conditioning. But he was her age, sixteen or thereabouts, one year away from the age of majority in Magical Britain. He was old enough to assert his own beliefs, living at school as he did for ten months out of every year, so when he repeated the words and dogmas he'd heard at home, he wasn't some poor, innocent victim who didn't know any better.
He was a... a chauvinist sympathiser.
(The London newspapers used the word 'sympathiser' with the same tone and insinuation as the word 'heretic' had been used five hundred years ago.)
Hermione sat down next to him, just out of arm's reach. She chewed her lip, thinking.
Nott wasn't a nice person. He'd just slandered a fellow student, and used that word.
But it wasn't as if Tom was totally innocent, not if Theodore Nott knew that Tom could read minds. Tom wasn't blameless, and he wasn't nice; he was insensitive and cynical, and just like Nott, he had created a separate category in his mind for the people whom he'd decided were beneath his notice. The word he used was 'peon', and the way he said it was not much different than the way Nott said 'Mudblood'.
If Hermione dismissed Nott for good—and she could, because he hadn't done a single thing to earn her goodwill—and yet remained on good terms with Tom Riddle, then she might as well build her own separate category, label it 'Hypocrite', and jump into it headfirst. In this entire affair, not one of them had clean hands. Not even Hermione, who could have reported Tom a dozen times over for cheating in First Year to abusing his Prefect privileges in Fifth.
(She knew for a fact that Tom only volunteered to oversee detentions if it benefited himself, even as he spoke the words 'falling standards of acceptable conduct' with a straight face.)
"I think you're an absolute scrub," said Hermione, watching Nott's breathing slowly even out as the Confundus Charm wore off. "And you're acting like a spoilt child. Tom Riddle is better than you at magic, so you have to grasp for an excuse to justify your own narrow little worldview that blood status means something? And what about me? I get better marks than you on every test, and I've no more of a prestigious lineage than Tom. How do you explain that?"
"Hector Dagworth-Granger. Looked it up. Made Grandmaster of the Society of Potioneers in 1902. You have a wizarding name," said Nott, further adding, "though there's not much to say on the quality of the blood or the size of the fortune."
Hector Granger?
She wasn't completely certain, but she'd remembered an Uncle Hector on her family tree somewhere. Dad wasn't very close with his extended family, and Hermione hadn't grown up with cousins, so she couldn't say for sure. But her interest had been caught on one main thing: Dad was a Muggle, yet she (supposedly, if Nott's word could be trusted) had wizarding family? How did that work?
She resolved to look up wizarding genealogy the next time she was in the library.
"I don't understand your logic," Hermione said, having decided to treat Nott like a child, which included speaking in the same stern and disapproving tone that her Mum used to do when Hermione stayed up past her bedtime to finish a book. "And I'm not sure what your goal is. You want to prove that Tom isn't a Muggleborn?"
"Maybe you're too ill-bred to know any better, Granger, but there's a natural order for all things in our society," said Nott, his tone making it unambiguous as to where he stood in such an arrangement. "Everyone should know their place, whether they happen to be wizards, goblins, house-elves, or Muggles. Or upstart Prefects.
"From the the very first day Riddle arrived here, he was intent on ignoring the order of things, because he thought he was too good to know his place—or that the rules didn't apply to him. Arrogant bastard." Nott scowled, then continued, "I gave him the benefit of a doubt at first, because the Hat put him in Slytherin. But we've come to the point where we ought to confirm the facts. Why was Riddle Sorted into Slytherin? Is he of proper wizarding stock, or is he a fraud who's tricked half the House into licking his boots?"
"If I accept your assumption that any of that even matters, I don't see how it changes anything," Hermione sniffed. "Tom might be Merlin re-incarnated or Grindelwald's long lost great-nephew, or he might be a Muggleborn. But everything's still the same: he's still Prefect, he gets all Outstandings, and he's swept the brackets in Duelling Club for the last two years."
"It changes everything," said Nott. "The fact that you don't understand it is why I'm in Slytherin and you aren't." Nott paused for a moment, his eyes narrowed in calculation. "I saw the way you looked when I used a word whose meaning you didn't know. Information for information, Granger. I'll lend you my family's books on Legilimency, and in return you'll tell me what you know about Riddle."
Hermione was tempted.
She didn't know much about Tom's family, so she'd be giving up barely anything as her part of the trade—not that Nott knew. And in return, she was being offered books she'd never have access to. Legilimency, what little information about the subject that Mr. Pacek had divulged to her, was heavily restricted; the few books that might have been printed on the subject had never been sold on the open market; instead, like most books on rare magic, they had been bought directly from the authors and hidden away for years in family libraries and private collections.
(Hermione had researched Alchemy when studying the illogical rules of magic. She'd learned that there were recipes for permanent Transfigurations of base metals into precious metals, and not just the traditional formula of lead into gold, but iron into a magically-enhanced metal that the wizarding world called 'Goblin Silver'. Of course, what she'd read was more speculation than fact, because the details on how it worked were closely hoarded for being trade secrets. And there was nothing in the world—Muggle and Magical—more maddening to Hermione than being given a single page's worth of information and then being told she wasn't allowed to read the rest of the book.)
"What's stopping me from leaving right now and telling Tom what you're doing behind his back?" inquired Hermione, knowing that anything she did would have consequences, and even if this seemed like a good deal, there was such a thing as something that was Too Good to Be True.
"Why would you?" Nott sneered. "You'd throw away an opportunity and get nothing in return. That was a nice try at Slytherin-style thinking, Granger, but in the end you're too much of a Ravenclaw. What you have to realise is that people like Riddle don't have friends."
She didn't bother arguing that last point. "Fine," she conceded. "You'll lend me a book regardless of how helpful my information turns out to be? And you won't throw another fit about whatever answer you get?"
"I don't throw fits."
"And I'm not hopelessly ignorant."
"Alright!" Nott gritted out. "I'll get the book and you'll find us a place to make the trade, since you're the one with the Prefect badge."
Hermione groped inside her book bag for her study planner, turned to the nearest unused page—January 16, 1943—and tore it out of the book.
"Here," she said, shoving the page at Nott, along with the wand she'd taken off him earlier. "We can't send owls to each other because Tom knows what my owl looks like, so if we need to arrange a meeting, use the paper. Whatever you write on it will appear on another copy I have in my dorm—but do try to write small because I haven't figured out a way to erase the ink and reuse the paper without de-stabilising the runic sequences."
Nott took the paper, trying to hide his interest in the enchantment, folded it into quarters, and slipped it into his robe pocket.
He left the room without glancing back.
.
.
Three days later, Hermione found herself stamping her feet in the snow of the East Courtyard, behind the statue of Hipparchus the Stargazer. Hipparchus was stationary now, as it was daytime, and his sightless eyes were coated by a velvet rime of frost; ice had gathered into the crevices of his face and the folds of his toga. His features were distorted and blurry, and the unforgiving months of winter had rendered him more of a lump than a man.
She had arranged meetings behind the statue when she was in First Year because it was placed in a corner of a quiet courtyard near the rocky edge which overlooked the Lake. It wasn't en route to any outdoor classes, and few people passed through the area unless they were arriving from outside the castle grounds—and that number was limited to parents visiting severely injured children in the Hospital Wing, members of the Board of Governors, or any official guests invited by the Headmaster or the Heads of Houses.
The area behind the statue couldn't be seen by anyone unless they were looking out of one of the windows on the upper floors. The closest windows were the ones in the Hogwarts clocktower, and students only climbed to the top in their First or Second Years, as it was one of those sights that defined the quintessential 'Hogwarts Experience'. Similar to walking through a ghost, being paint-ballooned by Peeves, or splashed by an exploding cauldron in Potions, having done it once, one was happy to never do it again.
To keep herself occupied, Hermione began tracing a rough outline into the snow, a basic warding scheme she'd put together with Mr. Pacek's help over the holidays. The Stargazer statue was convenient for this, since it had compass directions marked out on the plaque; Hermione could have told north by the angle of the sun, but in the tail end of winter, most days were wet and cloudy with no hint of sunlight or warmth.
North, south, east, west: the cardinal points were marked in the snow by the tip of Hermione's wand. They were followed by a series of runes in the corners, a few she'd used in enchanting her study planner, and some others she'd found in a book on wizarding woodcraft. She'd read that campers and naturalists used them when they wanted to hide their tents from Muggles, or their blinds from rare magical wildlife.
Not long after, she heard footsteps crunching over the layer of snow that coated the ground. Peeking around the edge of Hipparchus' toga, she saw Nott crossing the courtyard, the hem of his black winter cloak powdered white. He wore a fur-lined hat pulled low over his eyes; his chin and lower face were covered by a green-and-silver House scarf.
"Granger? Where are you?" he called. His head turned from side to side. "This had better not be a trick. I'm not here to play games!"
He passed in front of Hipparchus, digging into his pocket for a folded square of paper, and he didn't notice Hermione's presence until it was too late and she'd dragged him by the elbow, and then they were behind the statue and inside the diamond-shaped rune boundary.
"Sorry," said Hermione, who wasn't apologetic at all, "but you were making too much noise." She pointed at the runes melted into the snow at their feet. "If you stay inside the lines, no one will notice us."
Nott's gaze flicked from Hermione's face down to the ground.
"Algiz," he muttered. "And thurisaz reversed. I've seen this before—this is the Poacher's Pall, isn't it?"
Hermione had seen the logical applications of a ward that could hide a wizard from magical animals; the same spell that could hide a researcher from his subjects could easily do the same for a hunter and his quarry. She didn't approve of poaching, and as a native of suburban London, the concept of hunting for sport was far removed from her personal experience. Perhaps if she was younger, she'd have seen the value of restricting information from the general public in order to prevent its abuse by those of unscrupulous intent, a necessary sacrifice for the protection of innocent endangered creatures.
She was older now, and she'd been at the affected end of a number of information restrictions, so her view on censorship had developed a shade of nuance over the years. Academic magical theory was one thing; practical application was another. The lives of wizards and witches should be guided by moral principle, but adherence to morality was an individual prerogative. She therefore considered the use of magical knowledge a personal responsibility, and not a public responsibility to be taken upon the shoulders of a governing council or committee.
This was Hermione's respectful way of saying that she wasn't going to give up her book collection at home, questionable subject matter or not. And that she understood why wealthy families kept private libraries and never made it public what titles they had or didn't have. She didn't like it, but it was the standard way things were done in the wizarding world, and for now, there was nothing she could do about it.
"I can't cast a Disillusionment Charm," Hermione admitted. "Not for long, at any rate. I'm sure you can't do it either, so this works for both of us. And no, this isn't a poachers' ward. I've only got the visual concealment down, without the scent or thermal components, so we're only safe from being seen by students and teachers, not animals.
"Anyway," she said, knowing that a lecture on ward substructure was not why they had arranged to meet in a deserted corner of the castle grounds, "did you bring the book?"
The material of Nott's cloak rippled as he rummaged in the book bag hitched over his shoulder, under his robes. He drew out a thick book with a worn leather cover and deckled pages, so small and compact that if Hermione pressed her hand flat on the cover, the tips of her fingers would stick out from the top end.
Nott turned the book over to show her the title. Insight of the Mind was embossed in gold foil on the leather cover, though half of it had rubbed away. The light tan leather showed the signs of use, too: the corners were worn shiny, and there were several darker oval marks the size and shape of fingerprints pressed into the front and back covers.
Hermione took the book from Nott, turning it over and rubbing the spine.
Soft, buttery leather on the outside, fine onionskin paper on the inside, the font-face within smooth and regular, but lacking the serifed strokes of typecast text. Instead of being printed like most books sold today, it had been copied with some sort of enchanted quill. She'd seen books like it at Glimwitt's, the antiquarian book dealer, and the shop assistant had told her that books produced in small runs didn't merit the use of a printing press, where each page had to be set in metal type before it could be printed.
In the past, specialty and rare books were produced on commission and advertised through word-of-mouth and personal connection; a buyer would arrange a copy with the author directly, bringing with them their own ink and quill and paper. Afterwards, they'd have the covers made to their specification, often with heraldic crests on the cover and custom anti-theft enchantments in the binding, so that the book couldn't be removed from the family library unless it was by a member of the family.
"Have you read it?" Hermione asked, tearing her attention away from the book and back to Nott.
"Over Christmas," he said. "I knew what Legilimency was years ago, but never thought I'd need to learn about the particulars of it... until very recently. It's rare magic, and a rare book—the Blacks might have a copy, but I can't think of any other family library that would. This is my family's copy, so if you get it confiscated, you will be breaking into a professor's office to get it back."
"I know how to take care of a book," Hermione retorted, holding the book close to her chest. "And how to disguise a cover."
"Now," Nott prompted, rubbing his gloved hands together for warmth—or in hungry anticipation, "what about my side of the deal? What do you know about Riddle?"
"Not much," said Hermione honestly. "Tom is a private person. And he doesn't trust people easily."
"I already knew that," Nott said. He gave an irritated huff, and white steam whistled out between his teeth. "Come on, give me something I can work with."
"He's an orphan," Hermione said, organising her thoughts and sorting out what was safe to share. Which things were secrets and which ones weren't. "He's never known his parents. His father's name was 'Riddle'."
"'Father's name was "Riddle"', was it? Someone owl The Prophet, we have a headline for tomorrow's edition," Nott said, lip curled in a mocking sneer. "I didn't take you for a swindler, Granger."
Hermione's nose wrinkled in distaste. He had just lent her a rare book, near-priceless in value by her estimation, which almost made up for the fact that Nott was a unrepentant rudesby.
"His middle name is 'Marvolo'. I assume it's after a family member, but I don't know who, or which side," she said.
"'Marvolo'," mused Nott. "I've seen his initials but didn't know what the M stood for. It must be a given name, if it's his middle name. Shame there's no family name to go with it, otherwise I'd have tracked down the bloodlines within the week. Is that all you've got?"
Hermione only had one other piece of reliable information. "If I tell you this, it's under the assumption that it'll never leave this ward boundary, alright?"
"I don't know," said Nott, a speculative smile forming on his face. "I'll take any advantage I can over Riddle, especially if it's something useful I can hold over his head."
"Well, if you go around sharing this one, I can't see it going very well for you," Hermione spoke in a cold voice. "The last thing I can give you is about Tom's... Legilimency. He's been able to do it since he was a child, before he started Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore knows about it and suspects it to be inherited from a parent, but since they're both dead, he doesn't know for sure.
"On the subject of his abilities: Tom always knows when people are lying to him. Always. And I believe that he has a good sense of when people are hiding things from him, too. So if you try to gloat over him by saying that you know things you shouldn't, I'm sure it'll go over well for you."
"I haven't anything concrete... not yet," muttered Nott, kicking at a chunk of ice with his shoe. "Legilimency isn't an ability anyone announces to the public—makes it hard to trace it by blood when it can be hidden away, unlike the Metamorphs or Maledictions. But I know there are a few old families who claim it; it's only rumours but there's always some truth in those... The Wizengamot's chief interrogator last century was one, they said, who was it—Claudius Price? No, Claudius Prince, but there's no proof it being hereditary..."
He glanced up at Hermione, brows furrowed. "How do you know about it? You never answered how you knew what he was. He—he didn't try anything on you, did he?"
"I didn't think my personal welfare mattered to you."
"You're right," Nott agreed. "It doesn't. But it's the principle of the thing, Granger. A proper wizard wouldn't molest a witch like that, and for all that you don't act like it, you're still a witch. We're civilised people, not Muggle brutes. Though with a name like 'Riddle', I can't say I'm surprised. Blood always tells."
"For your information, he hasn't 'tried anything'," said Hermione, her tone chilly. "And that's the last thing I'm going to tell you. We're done here. You can go now."
"Very well," Nott said stiffly, "I want my book back in two weeks. If you want to borrow anything else, then you had better have something good for me. And I don't care how you get it."
With that, he stomped out of the warded boundary and back up to the castle, grumbling to himself.
Hermione sighed, then looked down at the book in her hands.
This book was what she'd traded some of Tom's secrets for.
I hope it's worth it.
She opened it up to the first page.
.
.
Legilimency is not, as the name suggests, and as it is commonly understood to be, a means of reading the mind. It is more than that: Legilimency is both art and magic, skill and explication; it is the ability to delve into the far reaches of human consciousness and interpret the convoluted layers of conscious thought and subconscious impression. It can be learned with sufficient instruction, it can be practised with or without a wand, and may come easier to the rare practitioner who possesses an inborn gift. Despite being an exceptionally useful and versatile talent when honed to the level of the master, Legilimency is not indefensible: it may be neutralised by its equal and opposite talent, the art of Occlumency, a meditation-based approach to achieving complete mental self-discipline...
.
.
This was worth it.
The questions she wanted the answers to, the answers that Dumbledore had withheld from Tom all those years ago. She had them now, right here in her hands, and it had only cost her a few minutes of candour with Theodore Nott.
She drew her wand from her robes and began casting a charm to disguise the cover of her borrowed book. When she was done, she melted the runes of the concealment ward and stepped out from behind the statue.
I'd never had expected it, thought Hermione, with the advantage of hindsight, that the few people with whom I can be perfectly forthright are two Slytherins and a Durmstrang alumnus.
.
.
Author's note: If anyone is upset about Hermione making a deal with Nott as "out of character", Hermione of canon "betrayed" Harry and Ron when she took the Firebolt Christmas present and gave it to McGonagall. She also badgered Harry through PoA for the Marauder's Map and sneaking around Hogsmeade, OotP because he wouldn't tell anyone about his weird dreams or Umbridge's torture detentions, and then continued through HBP when Harry refused to turn Snape's textbook in. Hermione may be loyal to her friends, but her ethics are just as—and sometimes more—important, especially if she has to choose between doing the right thing versus standing aside and letting other people get hurt.
In regards to the internal consistency of Hermione's characterisation in this story: she is uncomfortable about mind reading, has asked Tom not to experiment on his classmates back in Chapter 6, asked other people for information on mind reading, and has done independent research on defending herself against it in the previous chapters.
There are other external factors: someone throws a hint of rare knowledge in her face, which she's mocked about not knowing, then offered a chance to have it. Hermione might be logical and rational most of the time, but one of her sore points is being mocked on her intelligence/knowledge, which is why she broke down in Canon HP when Snape called her an insufferable Know-It-All in front of the whole class in PoA. This Hermione is older than her canon counterpart, but she still gets riled up about it... So in this situation, Nott is nowhere near innocent either, as he's basically emotionally manipulating and negging Hermione to get what he wants.