1945
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Wizarding Britain scrambled to right itself like a ship sailing out of a summer squall. The remaining days of June poured away with the sands of the hourglass.
Time moved at a painful crawl for everyone but Tom Riddle. Tom, in possession of an outsider's detachment, found himself amused by the reverberations unfolding amongst the highest echelons of wizarding society. "Train Disaster of 1945", they called it, and his own contribution was the convenient discovery of the fuse. Once it was set alight, the consequences were out of his hands. The erupting blast was a problem for everyone else to sort out. Just the way Tom preferred it.
One such ripple was the loss of King's Cross Station and Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, along with the disappearance of the Hogwarts Express, the locomotive and all six carriages. The students had been rescued from Norway on the same day of the Train Disaster, using a series of emergency Portkeys enchanted by the Department of Magical Transportation and the co-ordinates provided by the Prince of Charming. Securing the students was the signal that Tom could safely remove Grindelwald from the board.
The train itself, however, had been left on the slope of a Norwegian mountain, and there was no clear answer for getting it back. It had taken the expertise of a Master Metallurge and his apprentice, the might of a Dark Lord, and enhancements of cosmic geometry along with ritual sacrifice to fuel the original transfer. Britain was thus far lacking in every requirement, and no one had seen hide nor hair of Messrs. Schmitz and Janošík since the trial on June 14, despite the offering of a hefty bounty for their live capture. In the days following the Disaster, Aurors had knocked down the doors of a seedy pub in Knockturn Alley, known for its specialty Jägerschnitzel with dubious "mushroom gravy", and questioned the clientele. They were rewarded with second-hand rumours: the two had allegedly changed their names and escaped to Argentina by boat. The bounty was raised, and a notice printed in The Daily Prophet, warning everyone to be on the watch for a large blond wizard with a coffin.
The London to Hogsmeade train route was foreshortened with the loss of its departing platform and with the Muggle Other Minister upset about the excavation of hundreds of mangled corpses under King's Cross, it was not likely that the Ministry of Magic would get another train line unless they built it themselves. That the wizards had rescued their own, with only one magical casualty (Grindelwald), and left the Muggles to their fates had firmed the Other Minister's uncomplimentary opinion on the character of his magical counterpart. Then came more complications: the Norwegian Lawspeakers demanded a suitable compensation for the "safekeeping" of the train, and later a wild Norwegian Ridgeback dragon noticed the train and decided it would be safest kept with the rest of its hoard. The Ministry's Department of International Co-operation had much business to keep themselves occupied, hampered by a reduced budget allocation from the cancellation of the year's British Quidditch League Championship.
The 1945-1946 school year, it appeared, would be breaking with the Hogwarts Express tradition of the past century. In the new school year, parents would need to bring their children to the newly renovated Ministry Atrium, where they'd be transferred by Floo to Hogsmeade. Muggleborns were to be Apparated in by the overburdened Ministry staff from the Department of Magical Education. No one was happy about this improvised measure, not even the parents who had long warned of the dangerous influences posed by newfangled Muggle contraptions, but it was generally conceded that shiny new steam locomotives and railcars appointed in first class luxury were not exactly thick on the ground.
For the students taken to Norway, the Hogwarts Board of Governors had held an emergency assembly and voted that any student who had participated in the breaking of the wards would be named on a massive plaque in the Trophy Room. Their names and Houses would be engraved, clarified Board Chairman Brutus Malfoy, on the Special Award for Services to the School. Over half of those names belonged to members of Slytherin, so the Board did not mind so much about having to pay for a larger board to accommodate the extra words. Hermione's signature list came in helpful here, and not even Brutus Malfoy dared to argue that a document produced by Muggleborn hands was possibly unreliable.
"A Triumph for House Slytherin", the newspapers had proclaimed after the Governors' vote, on the same day that they announced the settlement between a coalition of family lawyers and the Order of Merlin Nomination Committee. The Slytherin boys who had participated in the defeat of Grindelwald were each to receive an Order of Merlin, Third Class—except Nott. To his great regret, Nott's parents revealed his alter ego of the Green Knight in a carefully phrased public statement, harping on the cultivation of excellence within certain notable bloodlines. The public admission had bumped Nott up to an Order of Merlin, Second Class, the same award that the Committee had settled upon for Hermione, who had devised the plan for cracking the boundary wards around the train. With her clever solution, the children had been snatched away from Grindelwald's side of the negotiation table, and the Ministry was given alternatives other than betting everything on Albus Dumbledore.
While the Nomination Committee was quick to accede to the demands of the supplementary actors, they dithered over the most appropriate awards for Tom Riddle and Albus Dumbledore. Tom, who was not privy to the private discussions of the crones and codgers of the Committee, heard on the gossip grapevine that they didn't approve of his derring-do quite as heartily as the newspapers had.
During a private interview with Auror Evelyn McClure, where Tom was asked to comment on the display of duelling techniques from the memory given to the Department of Law Enforcement, the subject of his reputation had arisen.
"It doesn't hurt that your photograph on a page is enough to keep the papers selling, even if the article itself mentions you for no more than a single line. The editor is pleased as Punch; he's got no grudge against you," McClure told him. "But you've shaken up the establishment, and some people, with an eye on the distant future, don't like it. An individual actor, flouting official authority to deliver justice as he comprehends its meaning... Well, it erodes the fabric of civil society." He tapped the badge on his chest, with the gold sunburst insignia of the DMLE. "Do you not think your actions undermine the value of my position as a keeper of laws?"
"No, of course not," said Tom, affronted. "I don't flout the law. Torquil Travers gave me a writ of dispensation, with not a signature out of place," He dug into a pocket of his robes. "I have it right here; I like looking at the shiny wax seals every now and then..."
"Retroactively granted," McClure muttered under his breath. "Look, they simply cannot appreciate the precedent created from rewarding private citizens who take matters into their own hands, whenever the mood strikes them. Private citizens don't need to take matters into their own hands. That's why the law exists, and why the DMLE was created to uphold it."
"You respect an official piece of paper you call the law," said Tom, "which I accept as a personal conceit of yours. I have an official piece of paper signed by the same people who write the law. I don't understand what you're so worried about; there's no difference between the two."
"'No difference'!" sputtered McClure. "If I hadn't found any legitimate reason to be worried, now you've given me one."
"There's no need," said Tom. "I've settled on a solution for everyone's worries: I'll ask Mr. Travers to put in a good word for me with the Committee, and in return I'll write to the editor of The Daily Prophet and say a few good words about his election run. Then when Torquil Travers becomes Minister for Magic, the elders of the establishment can rest knowing that I'll no longer be an untrustworthy outsider, but rather a friendly insider and staunch supporter of wizarding institutions. There is nothing quite as 'insiderly' as being friends with the Minister, is there?"
"That," remarked Evelyn McClure, "is one way to assure the establishment that they won't have a rogue warlock on the loose. Having Albus Dumbledore running around is enough of a worry."
The Committee convened; Dumbledore was to be given the same award as Nott and Hermione, a Second Class Order of Merlin. Tom had qualified, to his not-so-secret delight, for the First Class Order of Merlin.
The First Class medal was not given out lightly. The average was once per decade, because the Wizengamot members knew that each one diluted the value of their own vote. When a First Class Order of Merlin was awarded, it was for "outstanding actions", and to a nominee who was judged a good fit into the ranks of the plum-robed élite. Anyone who met the first criteria but did not meet the latter was usually bumped down to a Second or Third Class award. Tom began to understand why Slytherins were so fixated on forging and maintaining connections; if one had a special club with special uniforms, it would not do for any fellow who asked for it to be granted the potential to tarnishing that special prestige.
While Tom was satisfied with his share of the spoils in the wake of Grindelwald's defeat, having it confirmed that everything he and Nott had confiscated as "evidence" from the German saboteurs was legally theirs, Hermione was less than content about the state of affairs.
She read the newspapers, Muggle and wizard, which was her usual habit. But instead of asking Tom's thoughts about this politician's speech or that fumbling new policy, she had gone quiet. Ominously quiet. Tom was used to Hermione's opinionated nature, along with her disinterest in hiding her opinions, so her quietness... well, it worried him. Because he knew those opinions hadn't gone anywhere. When they shared a glance from across a room, he sensed the thoughts whirling away behind Hermione's soft brown eyes, which were not nearly as soft as he was used to her eyes being. Not when they were directed at him.
When the luggage from the Hogwarts Express was brought back to London by the Ministry's Department of Magical Transportation, Tom and Hermione had gone their separate ways. Tom returned to Yorkshire, where his grandmother fussed over him and complained about the outrageous decline of rail service. Due to the station's explosion, the King's Cross regular trains were routed through Paddington, but that resulted in platform congestion so severe that Metropolitan police had to be involved. All the trains were packed; the rail network management had to remove the spacious First Class carriages to fit in more Third and Second, which had compact rows of seats instead of wasteful private compartments.
On the train to Yorkshire, Tom had gotten off as soon as the train conductor punched his ticket. He could have tolerated slow Muggle transport if it offered him First Class service, but he wouldn't stand for mingling with "the commons". He wouldn't stand either, and those peak-hour morning routes were standing room only. So he Apparated, and let Mary Riddle assume that he was a Brave Young Man who had withstood such wretched suffering as had been inflicted by the ruthless hand of commercial efficiency.
Hermione, in spite of the many subtle and many more pointed invitations he'd offered, stayed with her parents down south. Tom wrote to her every day, and she replied with her usual punctuality, clipping newspaper columns that she wanted him to read. But her words lacked the informal friendliness to which he was accustomed; her sentences had that double-drafted essay look to them, sparing Tom of those endearing ink splatters she left when her thoughts were preserved with the same vigour as they came to her.
Tom didn't like it. It reminded him... of himself. Specifically, the petulance of his First Year self, who had ignored his Foil until she was emboldened enough to confront him directly. It looked like, this time around, he would have to perform in the capacity of the Foil. But it wasn't disturbing to him that Tom was the Foil. It made sense, didn't it? If Hermione was Tom's Foil, then Tom was Hermione's Foil. To put it in Myrtle Warren's terms, in the romantic narrative arc of Hermione's life, Tom was the supporting love interest to the (not plain and beyond clever) heroine protagonist.
In his next letter, Tom enclosed a page containing a single line:
Have you reached your verdict, Hermione?
He hadn't expected Hermione to Apparate to his bedroom while he was asleep, the gunshot crack rousing him, bleary-eyed, to frantically cast about for his wand and call up a Disarmer and a Shield Charm in one quick movement. Hermione's wand flew out of her hand and smacked the carpeted floor, before Tom lowered his own.
"Some warning would be appreciated next time. What if I was naked?" said Tom, setting his wand back on the nightstand. "I don't particularly mind the exposure, but I imagine that you would."
"Oh, Tom," said Hermione, settling on the edge of the bed and adjusting the drape of her dressing gown. Tom could see the lace trim of her nightgown beneath, but for the sake of getting past Hermione's righteous moral prognosis as quickly as possible, pretended nothing was out of order. "I had so many thoughts running through my mind that I couldn't sleep. There were a thousand things I wanted to say to you—about your half-cocked haring off, your ridiculous disguise, your persistent recklessness, your infuriating secrecy, which was especially maddening because you weren't putting a whole lot of effort into keeping it a secret around me. You and Nott kept dropping hints the whole way! Lèse-majesté, Nott said about you. Offending the royal dignity! Argh!"
"But?" prompted Tom. "There's always a 'but'. You wouldn't be here if there wasn't one."
"But," said Hermione. "You're the only person on this side of the Statute who understands what I mean by 'Loose lips sink ships'. You couldn't tell anyone the truth without putting them in danger. The one person you told, I suspect, was Professor Dumbledore. Even while you were off doing one reckless thing after another, you made the one correct decision to confide in a trusted adult who could handle himself around danger. And it worked, didn't it? Professor Dumbledore rescued you from the Dementors—" she pointedly ignored Tom's imminent and vocal objections, "—and afterwards, you were the feature of those headlines: The Prince and the Professor. Dumbledore's association brought the two of you into Grindelwald's direct notice. So, yes, in a logical sense I do understand why, in your calculations, you ultimately chose Dumbledore. Why you didn't tell me," She huffed, her fingers squeezing into white-knuckled fists. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it!"
"Good," said Tom. "I'm glad you got that out. If it helps, I wanted to tell you everything. I wanted to tell the whole world." He shook his head in dismay. "But it was Nott. Nott asked me to keep it quiet, because he was paranoid about being targeted for his participation. He wanted us to pretend to be schoolboy nobodies for as long as we could. When we told Dumbledore, it was mostly because Nott admitted he was 'too young to die' and begged for help. Don't believe anyone who says that I lack regard for my minions."
"Death," said Hermione. "That's another thing I couldn't stop thinking about. If you haven't killed people, then your direct intervention led to their deaths. Tinworth Village Foundry, remember that? The bodies were in the photographs!"
"Oh, those," said Tom dismissively. "I never liked the photos either."
"They were in poor taste, weren't they?"
"Absolutely," Tom agreed. "It was a deliberate mis-representation. They made it look like the Aurors did all the work!"
"That wasn't what I meant," said Hermione. "I was going to mention what Professor Dumbledore spoke of as a 'burden on the soul'. I found a translation of Phaedo, which said that the soul is compelled to pay a penalty for its mortal deeds, for the eternal soul is fixed to the same nature as it had in life. The happiest of souls are those that in life, practised the 'civil and social virtues which are called temperance and justice'. Killing people is neither a civil nor social virtue!"
"This sounds too much like religion for my liking." Tom let out an emphatic yawn. "You woke me up, but now you're putting me back to sleep."
"Tom," said Hermione, "I'm being serious. You know, for wizards at least, the soul is real. You have to take care of yours! Phaedo says 'philosophy offers purification and release from evil'. I wrote to Dumbledore asking him what he thought it meant, and he said it was 'remorse'."
"Hermione," said Tom, "I do take things seriously. Do you think I would waste my time on frivolous affairs? You know that I don't. And you also know that 'philosophy' is a complex subject. Given two Greek philosophers and an amphora of wine, they could come up with a dozen new 'philosophies' in an afternoon. Dumbledore's answer is only an opinion, and should be treated like one."
"But," Hermione spoke hesitantly, "do you not feel anything about having taken a life?"
"Not remorse, no," said Tom. "Vindication, possibly. I don't really sit around mulling over how to feel about the things I've done. They've already been done, so what's the use? If I have erred, then remorse is the least useful means to repair the situation. A feeling doesn't bring the dead back to life. I would rather demonstrate my contrition by deed and spell."
Tom pushed aside the blankets and crawled over to Hermione's edge of the bed. He took her hands and held them to his chest. "Your gentle heart speaks well of your nature. It's in your nature to feel sorry for those who don't deserve your sympathy, and in my nature not to feel sorry at all. You'll only trouble yourself for no gain if you try holding me to the standards of conduct of other people. They think remorse is its own justice, while I would wield my power to act in justice's name. Tell me, Hermione, now that you've had a chance to assess the facts of my so-called exploits, can you determine that I have acted wrongly? Lacking in temperance, I may be accused, but surely not evil-doing."
Hermione sighed. "I think you make a good point about comparisons to others."
"Of course," said Tom, wrapping his arms around her in a close embrace. She rested her head against his shoulder. "There is no comparison. How could there be? I'm Special."
Hermione couldn't keep herself from laughing. "I don't know why I can never stay angry at you, Tom."
"Because you love me," he replied.
Hermione lifted her head from his shoulder, but before she could speak, Tom pressed his finger to her sweet pink mouth.
"You don't have to say anything," said Tom. "I don't care about words. Sincerity to me is about the deed. Meaningful action. When you're ready to show me you mean it, I'll be waiting. December 22. Save the date." He patted the pillows. "Now that you've finished saying what you needed to say, are you going home? I've missed your company, you know. I may not feel regret for the deaths of German revolutionaries, but I regret that the days—and nights—of yours that I'd claimed for myself were unjustly withheld from me." He sighed and sadly shook his head. "That is not what I would define as justice, Hermione."
"I'm sure that your definition of justice, Tom, is only an opinion and should be treated like one," said Hermione. "But I've missed you too. It's very strange being the only one in the house when Mum and Dad are at the clinic or calling on patients. I'm so used to fighting off others for the last slice of toast, but now I'm eating my meals alone."
"You don't have to be," said Tom. He leaned back and lifted one side of the blanket. "Alone, that is. It's a cold and terrible experience I wouldn't wish on anyone."
"Including yourself?" asked Hermione.
"Including me," said Tom.
"Well, I suppose it'd be cruel to leave you by yourself..." Hermione said slowly.
"I'm glad you agree." Without another word, Tom lifted her up under her arms and bundled Hermione beneath the blankets. He pulled up the bedcover and tucked it under her chin, then kissed her on the forehead. "Breakfast is Kedgeree with smoked haddock, served at nine. Good night."
He slid himself underneath the blankets, and in the cover of darkness, made to unknot the waist tie of Hermione's dressing gown.
"The dressing gown stays on," Hermione warned him.
Tom sighed in disappointment. "Haven't I endured enough punishment?"
"Feeling sorry for yourself there, Tom?" said Hermione. "And I thought you'd said feeling sorry was beyond your capabilities."
"If this is what everyone else feels," said Tom, "then I think I'm better off without it."
He held Hermione tucked in under his chin, relishing the sensation of having her so close at hand once more. For some reason, he slept deeper and longer when she was in his bed. When he slept alone, as he had in the Slytherin dormitory, sleep was a waste of hours he could have spent on more productive activities. He got up as early as he could to dedicate extra time for studying. But with Hermione, sleep was something different. It wasn't a misuse of productive time; it was a productive activity on its own merits.
In the following days, Tom wished that the time spent caring about other people's concerns was as productive as it was with Hermione. Dumbledore sent him a flurry of letters requesting Tom drop in for a teatime visit and account for his actions. Tom ignored them. The last few owl-delivered letters bore a return address of a room at The Hog's Head, and after some investigation to determine if forgery was afoot, Tom discovered that Dumbledore's new residence was indeed the old tavern. The Hogwarts Board of Governors had locked him out of the castle while they reviewed his terms of employment, under advisement of several prominent families who had expressed "deep concern" with the school leadership. Then the DMLE had gone and ransacked Dumbledore's cottage in Godric's Hollow, so the professor had nowhere else to stay but with his barman brother while the evidence was collected for an official Ministry inquiry.
Tom thought it thoroughly entertaining. The offers of houseroom from wizarding families had quietly trickled away to nothing as the humiliations stacked up on Dumbledore's shoulders. The announcement that Albus Dumbledore, assumed Dark Lord vanquisher, was to receive a mere Second Class Order of Merlin raised a number of questions, and an equal number of quiet speculations regarding a certain old man's misspent youth. Somehow, Percival Dumbledore's certificate of death, on its original Ministry of Magic letterhead parchment, had found itself featured on the front page of The Daily Prophet, and fuelled yet another round of rumours.
On the other hand, Tom made sure not to neglect his association with Mr. Torquil Travers. And to his pleasure, it paid its dividends. All it took was a few nice words about Mr. Travers to a reporter—the same one who had eagerly quoted him as a "trusted source" regarding the Dumbledore family, despite Tom's being too young to have ever known them—and the acceptance of a dinner invitation at the family's townhouse in Tutshill. He and Hermione attended, as Hermione had been introduced to the family while training with Quentin Travers for their Auror candidate physical examination.
Hermione had expressed the desire to exercise, and she couldn't do it around the Riddle estate—Mrs. Riddle would without doubt intervene with any exercises she did not judge suitably ladylike. And some of the activities involved broomsticks, which couldn't be flown around Muggles. Tom still found Hermione's insistence on an Auror career bizarre. With her Order of Merlin, she had risen above the secretarial drudgework pool, and if she applied to a position as a Wizengamot clerk, it probably wouldn't be turned down. It definitely wouldn't be turned down if she submitted her application under the name "Madam Hermione Riddle".
Tom had expected the Travers family's wizarding townhouse to resemble the Tudor-esque rowhouses he'd seen in Montrose—exposed timber framing and overhanging second storeys, a coat of snow and a horse-drawn sleigh away from the perfect Christmas card scene. But the magical neighbourhood of Tutshill, in Gloucestershire, was of an older character. Travers' home was one in a long line of unassuming rectangular frontages, austere lime-washed walls under a roof of red clay tiles: this was the style of the traditional Roman Domus.
The interior, unsurprisingly, was larger than the outside, the centre occupied by a courtyard bathing pool and an open-air dining room to the side, which to Tom's relief had normal chairs and normal British food instead of reclining sofas and fermented fish sauce. Mrs. Travers, a witch with plump rosy cheeks and dimpled elbows, served a supper of veal cutlets and roasted rutabaga, while Mr. Torquil Travers apprised them of the goings-on at the Ministry of Magic.
"There is no better time to join the Auror Corps," Mr. Travers told Tom and Hermione, taking a cutlet from the serving tray and passing it counter-clockwise. "Advancement is guaranteed, and the quality of this year's mentors meets my full approval. I had to call upon a few retirees, steady hands one and all, into returning to the service to ensure the new crop is trained in the proper way of things. The active Aurors who would have been instructors could not be spared; the department is running at a shortage of personnel as it is."
"A shortage? I heard there was a larger pool of candidate hopefuls this year," said Hermione. "I know Rosier ended up owling in an application; I had expected him to jump to Games and Sports after they lifted the Quidditch moratorium."
"It takes three years to forge a candidate into an Auror," said Mr. Travers. "Until that date, we are running shorthanded. It was unavoidable. The members of the Auror team you retrieved from the train station have had a most unpleasant recovery, and have requested leaves of absence. They were, I am sorry to say, some of our best."
"Oh," gasped Hermione. "I've read of the possible side-effects of Dark magic, but I had no idea it would last this long. I might have been more cautious about casting the spells had I known..."
"This was not a direct result of your actions, Miss Granger," said Mr. Travers, "It was unquestionably the work of Gellert Grindelwald." In a low voice, he spoke: "Keep this in confidence: while they were under the Imperius, the Auror team were compelled into the disposing of the Muggles. They were tasked with rounding them up by the hundred, ensuring their compliance and complacency while they were buried alive. After which Grindelwald cast his Inferi ritual over the dying bodies. Their memories were faint and deadened in the days after the curse receded from their minds, but the residue of false-bliss never lasts forever." He shook his head in regret. "They have lost the knack of casting a corporeal Patronus Charm, and the lack of signalling ability renders them useless for routine patrols."
"The Muggle newspapers report that their government remains terribly upset about the Inferi ritual, despite the leaders knowing that it wasn't us. It was clearly the fault of the Germans," said Tom. "I suppose it doesn't reflect well that the bodies were dug up with rapturous grins on their faces. Grindelwald has managed to strike a blow to the Statute of Secrecy even after his entirely deserved death."
"What do you make of it, Granger?" asked Quentin Travers. "Do you think the other Muggles will accept that the Inferi were really the result of some mad German experiment? Muggles possess some knowledge on the fundamentals of alchemy, although I doubt it's anywhere near as comprehensive as ours. They don't have our magical ingredients, after all."
Hermione bit her lip and poked her rutabagas with her fork. "I suspect that the Muggles' Military Intelligence would look into it. They have restricted departments that don't share information with the Prime Minister's office, so we may never find out what conclusions they've drawn if the Minister doesn't know and won't be told. The Other Minister is the main point of contact with the wizarding Ministry, isn't he? It's well-known that the current Prime Minister is prone to embarrassing indiscretions, but the next one may be different. The election's tomorrow, and Mum and Dad are certain it'll be for Mr. Attlee."
Travers asked, "Will you be taking the day away from training to put in your vote?"
"I can't vote, not yet," said Hermione. "Voting eligibility begins at twenty-one years of age."
"And not at seventeen? Astonishing," said Mr. Travers. "Muggles are such a perplexing race, are they not? I am surprised they allowed the vote to women. It seems like exactly the sort of barbaric regulation to which they would approve."
"Oh, erm," Hermione said in a flustered voice. "They only allowed that in 1928."
"As I said: barbaric," pronounced Mr. Travers, and around the table heads, including Tom's, nodded in agreement.
The blush on Hermione's face lasted until the arrival of dessert, when Mrs. Travers brought in a large bowl of trifle. And it was not just any trifle, but the 1945 summer entertaining trifle with the peeled white peaches, sherry-doused sponge, and the blackberry custard swirl. Tom couldn't keep the smirk off his face while he enjoyed the fruits of his own success; when Mrs. Travers asked how he liked those fruits, he responded with such fawning praise that Hermione kicked him from under the table.
After supper, Mr. Travers took Tom aside to his private study, one of many rooms in the house which faced the courtyard, decorated with a plaster fresco of a Greek phalanx constructing a pontoon bridge across a rippling river. The soldiers wore muscular bronze armour and heaved at a wooden windlass, all of them swaying under the magic of an animating enchantment. As Tom watched, a soldier was struck by a flaming arrow and tumbled screaming into the river. Mr. Travers tapped the fresco with his wand to silence the noise, then poured them each a measure of brandy from a cabinet behind the desk.
"I read your endorsement in yesterday's Daily Prophet," said Mr. Travers. "It came across quite favourably. I would not like to see the end of our association, Mr. Riddle. We find ourselves so frequently of use to one another, do we not?"
"I concur," Tom replied. "My Hermione will be an Auror soon. It would grant my heart great solace to know she has dependable allies within close reach. It's not easy to begin a career with fewer connections than I'm sure her fellow candidates will boast. I've never considered being Sorted into Ravenclaw a detriment to Hermione's education, but in a world of unfamiliar politics, she's lacking in the natural instincts of a Slytherin." Tom swirled the brandy around in the glass. "Then again, not everyone can be a Slytherin."
"No," Mr. Travers agreed. "True Slytherins are born, not made."
"Just so," said Tom.
"Tell me," said Mr. Travers, "have you not determined what path your own career will take? I have heard that Horace Slughorn has owled letters of recommendation in your name to every Ministry department head. He discovered that no one had received applications from you, and took it into his own hands that you should be offered a position worthy of your talents. Brutus Malfoy has revealed that Horace has set aside a place for you in his collection. A week past graduation, and you have already made The Shelf! It must be a record." He chuckled, and continued, "A First Class Order of Merlin is nothing to dismiss, but a wizard of your distinction surely would not accept he has reached the height of his career at a tender eighteen years. Your career prospects, Mr. Riddle, have attracted the interest of men of consequence, many of whom should be willing, nay, eager to make your acquaintance."
"You can inform those men of consequence, with my highest regards, of course, that I already have plans," said Tom, putting aside the glass of brandy. "Wedding plans."
Thomas Bertram had a few weeks left to finalise the details for Lucretia Black's wedding to Ignatius Prewett. The highlight of the summer social season, it was expected, so every detail must be exact, from seating, dancing, eating, and spectating. The bride's family was paying professional rates, so it wouldn't do to disappoint. Especially since Tom was using that wedding as practice for the one that really mattered: his own.
He really was looking forward to it.
.
.
Hermione Granger and Tom Riddle were married on December 20, 1945. And on December 21. And finally, on December 22.
December 20 was the date Hermione and Tom filed their Muggle civil registration of marriage in London. Afterwards, Tom visited the parish priest in Hangleton to collect their Church of England certificate, though it was somewhat redundant as they'd already gotten their civil certificate. Tom's family had placed the wedding announcements in the local newspapers for months, and had the banns read out in Sunday services weeks prior, so there was no purpose in a wedding licence other than Tom's sense of thoroughness.
December 21 was the date they brought their papers to the Ministry of Magic's Department of Administrative Services, the last full business day before the Christmas holidays descended, with the remaining souls in the office limited to the DMLE emergency dispatch crew and a handful of maintenance elves. Hermione and Tom had gone to submit their forms, and had been met in exchange with beady-eyed looks from the witch at the desk.
"Last working day of the year. Are you in a rush, darlings?" asked the witch, peering at them over the rims of spectacles. She pursed her lips and very slowly read through the stack of parchment.
"Yes," said Tom, quietly placing a small Christmas hamper on the counter. It contained a bottle of spiced wine, a tube of caraway biscuits, and white goat cheese in a thick log. "Wouldn't you be, if you were engaged to such a lovely creature as my own Hermione? I'm sure you're looking forward to celebrating the season with your dearest ones as much as I am."
"Tom!" whispered Hermione. "Aren't you laying it on a bit too thick?"
Tom watched as the witch slowly got out the ink pad and the rubber stamp, then even more slowly place the mark of notarisation on each page.
"Witches like it thick," said Tom. "That's what all the books say."
"That is not what the books say," Hermione replied, her face reddening.
"I've read more romances than you have," said Tom. "That qualifies me as the expert here."
But then they had their Duplicated stamped copy with a receipt for the clerical fees, and Hermione, for the second time in her life, was told she could now proudly call herself 'Mrs. Riddle'.
December 22 was the date of the wedding ceremony, to take place in Little Hangleton's own church, at the foot of the hill beneath the village's great house. The date was significant in that it was ten years to the day of Hermione's becoming a Foil, although the nine-year-old Hermione hadn't any knowledge of it at the time, and she was certain that the eight-year-old Tom had no idea either.
Tom wore a bespoke black tailcoat and a tall hat of shining felted fur, looking very handsome but at the same time appearing rather pale and anxious. His eyes darted from side to side; his fingers twitched inside their white gloves. He didn't seem to relax until the guests had settled in, including the Grangers and assorted bushy-haired Granger cousins, members of North Yorkshire's gentle society, and in the front pew in pride of place, Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Mary Riddle. Next to them sat Mr. Tom Riddle the elder, a trim figure with hair in debonair waves, skin still bearing a hint of golden tan from months of country pursuits.
Tom's father had been invited to the wedding.
Hermione had no idea why he was there; she certainly hadn't asked that he be invited, or seen his name anywhere on the guest list for the luncheon that was to be served after the religious ceremony.
She suspected Tom had known about the invitation, because he kept sneaking glances at his father, and every time their eyes met across the crowded nave, he held the awkward contact and smiled. The elder Tom Riddle became more and more agitated as the wedding progressed, and by the time Hermione walked down the aisle with her father, and Tom held her hand in front of the priest, rubbing his thumb soothingly against the laurel leaves on her silver ring, the senior Tom Riddle snapped.
"The doctors told me it was nothing more than a dream. A terrible dream, but one of no real substance. Only a phantom fashioned by the infirmity of my inner mind," he said, standing up from his seat. He pointed his finger at Tom, and then at Hermione. "But it was never a dream. I was trapped in a prison of endless torment, and all of it was real!"
Tom looked down at him with a benign smile.
"I remember," rasped Tom Riddle the elder, with the wild eyes of a madman. He raked his hands through his hair. "I remember everything. Everything she did to me... is the same thing you're doing to me right now!"
"Father," said Tom gently. "Are you well?"
Thomas Riddle laid his hand on his son's shoulder. It was shaken off with a loud cry.
"I would have been well had you not intruded into my life!" said Tom's father. "My life would have been perfect. It was perfect, but it was ruined. By you, and her!"
He jabbed his finger at Hermione, whose face was partially concealed by the folds of her white chiffon veil. She began to slide her wand out of the tight sleeve of her wedding gown. The sleeve did not stretch like her typical comfortable jumpers; it was cut close to the arm and buttoned down the wrist.
"Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT!" roared Tom's father, striding forward to the stage. "This prison will hold me not one day more!"
When he made to climb up to confront Tom with raised fists, Hermione was pushed back behind the pulpit by the vicar. She tore the buttons off her sleeve, drawing her wand, ready to cast a silent Shield Charm to deflect any blow aimed at Tom.
But Tom's father never landed a blow. He was caught around the waist by his father, and then another man, Chief Constable Swindon, had flung him down to the floor, bellowing obscenities, as the wedding devolved into shocked whispers and camera flashes from a photographer sent by The Ripon Observer. Members of the congregation stood up from their seats to gape at the scene. Three men near the front took off their frock coats and helped the Constable secure the flailing limbs of the ranting Tom Riddle, who was quickly bundled to the church doors and taken out of sight.
Hermione let out a nervous breath. "The village will gossip about our wedding for years to come."
"Oh, excellent," Tom remarked. "I'm glad to know that 'ordinary' is the last thing anyone would associate with our joyful union."
At the end of the wedding luncheon, where Mrs. Willrow served a sweet butter cake covered in white marchpane icing, Hermione asked the question which had burned in the back of her mind during the whole ordeal at the church.
"Tom, do you know who invited your father?"
"Yes," said Tom.
"It was you, wasn't it?"
"How did you know?"
Hermione sighed. "I think you enjoy newspaper headlines far more than is healthy."
"You should be pleased about my father humiliating himself in front of the whole village," said Tom. "My future inheritance has been secured in one swoop. And I didn't even have to lift a finger."
Hermione ate her cake and braced herself for her upcoming fifth marriage—and yes, she remembered the number, what with Tom counting them off as they passed each milestone—the ceremony of magical vows. Tom's favourite, which he'd been keen on telling her, but not on sharing the precise details of the event.
"Suspense heightens the emotions," he told her. "If I ruined the surprise by telling you, then your emotions would not be as heartfelt and sincere. And I want this to go perfectly. It has to be perfect; it's my wedding."
"Don't you mean our wedding?" asked Hermione.
"That's what I said," Tom agreed.
The reason for the magical ceremony to be a surprise, Hermione discovered, was because Tom chose the graveyard as their venue. The Little Hangleton graveyard, next to the church which had hosted their Muggle ceremony, had been warded off with metal stakes pounded into the dirt. The stakes were imprinted with runic phrases for repulsion of non-magical beings, the uniformity of size and enchantments indicating that they'd been mass-produced. Tent stakes, she'd guessed, bought from a sporting outfitter. The same shop where one could buy collapsible cooking cauldrons and doxy repellent.
Snow lay on the ground in a crunchy white blanket, a path of packed ice leading from the road down to the more ornate half of the graveyard occupied by the Riddle family graves. On each side of the snowbanks lining the path, transparent rosebuds bloomed within spiky ice trellises, sparkling under the twinkling lights of magical lanterns—icicles imbued with temporary lighting charm, dripping off the eaves of the surrounding mausoleums and commemorative statues. And for a touch of macabre humour, the angel sculpture in the centre of the the graveyard had been charmed to brandish a bouquet of ice flowers where it had once carried a massive scythe.
Hermione drew her robes tighter around herself and renewed the warming charm she'd applied earlier. December in Yorkshire was cold, and even colder in the evening, but Tom had insisted that it had to be today: December 22. Not just the date of their "Tin Anniversary" according to the etiquette books Hermione had donated to Wool's Orphanage all those years ago—which Tom gleefully applied to him and Hermione despite being reminded, over and again, that it was both ridiculous and impossible—but the date of the winter solstice. The winter solstice increased the efficacy of magical workings between sunset and dawn, or so Hermione's Astronomy textbooks claimed. She trusted that it applied for the harvesting of aconite or moondew flowers, but doubted its effects on magical vows. Tom must have read the words "More Power" and his usual cynicism toward superstitious beliefs leapt head-first out of the window.
At the end of the packed ice path, Tom and his minions waited for her, dressed in black cloaks with their hoods up. It was reminiscent of Tom's days of adventuring under his infamous pseudonym, and seeing it, Hermione wondered if the ten intervening years that separated Tom the Orphan from Tom the Fiancé had wrought any changes to his character. She remembered the dozens of exchanged letters, the elegant turns of phrase laying over a barely-stifled discontent, the consuming desire to show the world that Tom Riddle was the equal of any historical figure whom the books referred to by only their given name. It was simply absurd, but for Tom, the optimism was sincere.
Tom halted his conversation with the boy next to him as soon as he saw Hermione, his eyes flashing under his hood, cloak fluttering as if it was his automatic instinct to embrace her when he noticed her presence. His mouth opened, and a faint mist rose up in the chill air, shaping the syllables of her name. She couldn't hear it, but she knew; she knew that Tom Riddle had changed in those ten long years. He had once despised the institution of marriage, thought that it a trick that Society used to swindle the weak and gullible. But here he was, his doubts forgotten, ready to plunge himself into the swindle of a lifetime.
"Hermione, it's time," said Tom, stepping forward and taking her hand. She noticed the barest tremble in his voice, the high colour on his cheeks. He looked less handsome than he had at her Muggle wedding, and somehow... more intense. Despite the cold, his palm was feverishly warm.
"Alright, let's do this quickly," said Hermione. "I have a jug of rum cocoa that I took from the afternoon tea buffet. I haven't had a chance to sit down all day."
"You don't sound excited." Tom sounded affronted by her lack of enthusiasm.
"This is the fifth time in three days, Tom," said Hermione. "I've been wearing my visiting shoes the entire time."
"You should have said something," said Tom. "You know that a witch's unhappiness is her husband's sorrow."
"Excuse me, but aren't those my lines?" Nott interjected. "You know, you can do the whole thing yourself if you want to. The third party isn't compulsory. It's just traditional. Don't let us get in the way of your little tête-à-tête; we'll just go back down to the village pub and wait for you to finish. I heard on the way here that the drinks were free until they ran dry. Well, don't mind if I do."
"Let us begin, then," said Tom, and the ceremony commenced.
It should have been sinister, a meeting of cloaked figures in a cemetery at midnight. Under a dark clouded sky, the natural sounds of chuffing wind and creaking branches were dulled by the enchanted ward boundary. Yet for some reason, Hermione felt no trepidation as Tom clasped her hand in his and Nott laid his wand over them both, and a golden rope coiled over and between their entwined fingers. Shining tendrils bound them, wrist to wrist, with a strange prickling heat that permeated through flesh and burrowed so deep that it touched Hermione's soul.
She shivered. The sensation was strange, but not unpleasant. It reminded her of summoning her Patronus, only the Patronus came from the inside out, and this was going the other way around.
Nott made his speech, in a sarcastic monotone like he'd memorised the words by rote the day before the exam. Tom swore his portion of the oath, to uphold the duties of the wizard husband as within his liberty, for this and every life.
That was rather unorthodox phrasing, wasn't it? She couldn't recall that line in the sample vows offered in the book on wizarding weddings, Magical Matrimonials.
Then Travers settled his wand over Hermione's knuckles, and a second golden rope wove itself around; their joined hands looked like they'd been dipped in a cauldron of Liquid Luck. Tom's breathing hitched. The eerie sensation of a permanent enchantment being inscribed into the essence of one's magical existence was truly disconcerting. Alchemy altered the fundamentals of material existence, and commanded a reputation as the most powerful of magical arts. This magic, soul magic, was on another level.
"...I shall forsake the wanton enterprise of all others; to my wizard husband I dedicate such faithful and reverent conversation as he dutifully entreaties me," recited Hermione, and Tom's grin of elation upon hearing those words startled her.
The antiquated language of the wizarding world was charming in its own way. The book had explained that intent determined the meaning, in the case that a word had both an archaic and a modern usage. For instance, to "converse" with another person, the older definition which had faded out of the Muggle vernacular, meant to "keep company" with him. Hermione considered the irony of the situation: the graveyard didn't bother her, nor did the ineffable potency of soul magic that ancient scholars scarcely comprehended. But Tom's enthusiasm about properly sanctioned "conversation" really was beyond the pale.
The golden light faded. Travers pocketed his wand, and the circle of witnesses delivered a round of polite applause. Tom didn't stay long enough to receive the claps on the back that Lestrange was keen to dole out in the name of fraternal encouragement.
"Make sure you clean things up before you go down to the pub," he ordered. And having not let go of Hermione's hand from the start of the ceremony, Tom tightened his grip and Apparated them directly into his bedroom.
.
.
Heloise knelt below the windowsill, straining to hear the music. A fortepiano played in the drawing room of Schloss Aldersbach, and it was the one and only piano in the entire village; the creaky church organ supervised by the elderly Frau Bachmeierin was of no comparison. The music of the fortepiano, the skill of its player... Oh, she had never heard its like! Such handsome melodies, performed with such sublime emotion! In her soul she felt an ache she did not know existed, as if it was made whole when she was ignorant that some part had ever been absent. She sighed in wonder.
The plinking of the piano ceased abruptly. Heloise turned to run, but her skirt caught on the hedges. The window was thrown open and a dark figure seized her by the wrist. Her captor possessed a terrible enchanting beauty: ghostly fair skin, fine-hewed features, a scholar's brow, a grave mien. She was transfixed by the sight. How could someone as comely as Maximillian von Aldersbach eschew company as was his wont? He owned a carriage and a driving pair, but no one remembered seeing them turned-out.
"The villagers know better than to approach the house at night," snarled the Ritter von Aldersbach. "I tolerate no trespass or thievery."
"Please, sir, I am no thief!" cried Heloise, tugging desperately at her arm. The Ritter's fingers were slender and smooth, but they held as firmly as an iron clamp.
"Then explain your presence!" ordered the Ritter. He shook her by the arm.
Tears sprung from Heloise's eyes. "I heard the music of Heaven. I could not stay away!"
"You are mistaken. This house contains no trace of Heaven," said the Ritter, shaking his head. "Do not return. Not unless you wish to fall afoul of an unholy curse."
The man let go of her arm and slammed the window closed. Drapes fell over the glass panes. Heloise rubbed her sore wrist, determined to find another way to sneak up to the house. This haughty aristocrat was just trying to frighten her. Everyone knew there was no such thing as curses!
.
— The Mysterious Mister Maximillian
.
.
Tom had read all the books, all the way through, although he'd been tempted to skip past the boring scenes with the ball dancing and the shrewish mothers. He studied all the techniques. He had waited two years for this moment, ever since he had decided that having a helpmeet of his own was not as bad of an idea as years of fiery sermons had made it sound.
When they appeared in his bedroom, Tom released Hermione's hand and herded her to the bed. The servants had replaced the old bedclothes with new linens from the wedding trousseau, and the room was re-decorated to better suit a married couple instead of a bachelor. Hermione fell onto the heavy winter blanket with an "Oomph!", as Tom shed his cloak on the floor, kicked off his shoes, and unbuttoned his robe as he crawled atop her.
"Hermione," murmured Tom, kissing her on the forehead, either cheek, and finally, her soft sweet mouth. His hands tangled into her hair, plucking out the pins and tossing them aside. "Hermione, Hermione, Hermione..."
Hermione kissed him back, rubbing her cold hands on his neck and shoulders. Laughing, she said, "You're not as articulate as usual, Tom."
"Do you need me to be articulate right now?" asked Tom. He unclasped Hermione's cloak and began working on her robe buttons. "We could have a conversation, if you wanted. Or we could have a conversation."
Hermione let out an amused snort. "Oh, a conversation? Will it be as faithful and reverent as you promised?"
"Of course," said Tom. "I'll ensure nothing else for as long as I should live."
The cold hands on his shoulder paused in their movements. "If I didn't know you any better," Hermione mused, "I might have said those were words of romance."
"But you do know me," said Tom. "And you know that I think romance is nothing but a comfortable fiction for the credulous mind."
"I do know you," Hermione agreed. "So I expect that you think that this is too real to be romance."
"Precisely," said Tom. "Prose could never hope to emulate this." He slid his mouth to her neck, and revelled in the flicker-flutter of her pulse. "Or this." Hermione's robe fell open. Tom peeled the wings of her collar apart and laid another kiss right in the hollow at the base of her throat. "Or this." Finally, he pushed aside the halves of her undone blouse and, lingering for an indulgent minute to take in the view of Hermione in his bed, placed a last kiss on her sternum, right below the soft satin of her brassiere.
"Tom..."
"Hermione," said Tom, lifting his head up and admiring the disrobed state of his wife. He appreciated that the tenor of his thoughts was opaque to everyone but a trained Legilimens, because the tattoo of WIFE WIFE WIFE echoed within, as if a gear in the normally smooth functioning of his mind had slipped loose. "This will be very pleasant for both of us, I'm sure. Don't you trust me?"
"Yes, but—"
"Good."
"Tom!" Hermione pushed herself up by her elbows. "You said that you'd defer to me for the first time."
"Well, I suppose I did, but—"
"Good," said Hermione. With a devious twist of her knees, she manoeuvred them so that he was suddenly the one lying on his back, his head buried amongst the pillows. "In this conversation, I'll speak first."
A single lamp over the fireplace mantel illuminated one portion of the room. In the dim half-light, bedcovers rumpled, clothing was discarded on the floor; the covered dish of sandwiches and bucket of champagne, helpfully provided by the staff, lay untouched. A soft hand trailed down Tom's bare chest, fingernails catching on his nipple. The touch made him squirm, but the hand, wending its way into the southern frontiers of terra incognita, made him frenzied. He felt a restless heat burning through his veins, urging him to act, to lunge and feast upon the sweet, oblivious prey before him. He felt that restive urgency just as deeply as he felt the gripping paralysis of suspense holding him back.
Where was her hand going? What was it doing? It was best not to interrupt Hermione's rather provocative ministrations until those demanding questions were resolved.
Ah! Her hand was still moving.
His breathing became rough with need. Hermione giggled in his ear, her smiling lips gently brushing against his cheek. Her eyes glittered in the shadowed light, and they lay together in the bed, face to face and skin against skin, as Tom counted backwards from one-hundred and reminded himself of the existence of his superior restraint. Despite seeming, in the present moment, almost mythical a concept.
When her hand grasped him around the root and squeezed, he couldn't hold back a shudder.
"Oh!" gasped Hermione. "Are you finished already? Is it usually that quick? I researched the subject but I never found any specific numerical durations."
"Hnng," groaned Tom.
Her thumb stroked upwards, rounding his head and swiping right across the slit.
"Oh, hmm," said Hermione. "I see now. That was just the dew of anticipation, and not the flood of satisfaction."
"Where exactly," wheezed Tom, "did you learn these terms?"
"A marital health manual my mother gave me," said Hermione. "It was a few decades old, but I'm sure the information is still relevant."
"Here," said Tom, taking hold of her hand under the blanket. "Let me show you what's relevant. Wrap your fingers here. Move your thumb here, right under the ridge... Gahh!"
"Huh," said Hermione, her treacherous hand rubbing over his most sensitive spots, "you were right."
"I know," Tom gritted out. "Manuals of common knowledge are... inapplicable... to... someone... like... me..."
His body convulsed in a series of inexplicable tremours beyond his control. A smile brightened Hermione's face with the light of discovery, and with a smug look, she wiped her sticky hand against his thigh.
"So that's how it happens," she said, still smiling to herself. "That was interesting."
"That's not all that happens," said Tom. "There are other things that come next."
"Yes, according to the manual—"
"Damn the manual," said Tom. "I've already studied everything I need to know."
To Hermione's squeaks of surprise, Tom burrowed under the blankets and crawled over to Hermione's side of the bed. Curious, Hermione lifted up the bedcovers to investigate what was going on, and when she caught sight of Tom slithering in between her knees, her eyes widened and her cheeks went pink in flustered mortification. She put the bedcovers back down and Tom, intrepid adventurer of the feminine mysteries, was plunged back into darkness.
Due to his rigourous training over the last few months, Tom wasn't intimidated by the journey ahead. His fingers trailed over Hermione's smooth thighs, to a muffled gasp from above the blanket. Within the cocoon of darkness, he felt the heat of her body burning as hot as his own, the heat of passion that enticed him as much as her scent did. In the past, Tom had observed that Hermione had a distinctive smell. Something about her hair and her skin drew him in, particularly in the summer months when she went around with only the one or two layers of clothing that modesty stipulated. Right now, the alluring scent was similar, but slightly different. It still goaded him to seek her touch, but seek it in a more... indulgent manner.
He found the crease of her thighs, the soft thatch of curls at their juncture. He remembered the initial revelation that such an act was possible, and moreover, desirable. It had been a pivotal moment in Tom's education, and now he had begun his ascent beyond the theoretical. His hands teased apart the slick folds of flesh; Hermione whimpered when he brushed against the most delicate and hidden part of her anatomy. Tom chuckled to himself. So that was what all those fictional heroes were on about—Silas Spickernall, Maximillian von Aldersbach, Don Rafael, the ones who earned their epilogues without the narrative shutting the door of romantic propriety in their faces.
His fingertips, in their exploration, became wet and slick. With no more than a second's deliberation, he tasted of the strange, clinging substance and judged it agreeable; he bent down to its source and, to his delight, found there was no shortage of the "dew of anticipation". His hands pressed and massaged open the soft skin, his tongue swept out, and Hermione's hips, pressed into the mattress by the weight of his arms and shoulders, bucked in reflex.
He refused to budge, and maintained his hold on her knees and inner thighs, while Hermione made such noises as to send the blood roaring through his ears and elsewhere. Tom recalled a joking observation he'd once made about the "conquest" of his wife, and it was here that he understood its true meaning. This was what it meant to have his prey, defenceless and unresisting, at his mercy. He gave a chuckle, surrounded by the addicting perfume of the carnal darkness, and opened his mouth to devour her with his relentless technique.
He exalted in those cries, just as he always had, back when the orphans he despised stumbled down a flight of stairs and cracked their heads on the landing. But Hermione's cries, the glorious breathy wails that came from above the blanket, were more precious to him than any tears he had extracted before. Anyone could make an orphan cry. Just smack one enough and the snot would flow, as inevitably as turning on a faucet. No one else could make Hermione plead in surrender like he could. The quaver in her voice appealed to him to a deeper degree than the simple gratification toward another's misfortune. This was a contentment at the depth of the soul. It prompted him to wonder why traditional marriage vows had fallen out of fashion in recent decades; Nott claimed the "Break it and you'll die" penalty put people off, but Tom thought it a coward's excuse.
Hermione quivered, and Tom held still, two of his fingers wet to the knuckle. With renewed enthusiasm, he continued his efforts until her knees fell limply open, too tired to squeeze against his shoulders, and he heard her let out a great sigh of satisfaction. Her hand slipped under the blanket and tousled his hair.
"So that was what those silly novels were for," said Hermione, peering down at him.
"That is not the only thing they're for," Tom replied, sliding up the bed, holding tightly to the dip of Hermione's waist. "There's more to it than that."
"I suppose you have no choice but to show me."
"I'm sure you want to know what comes next," said Tom, "just as much as I do."
"How sure are you?" Hermione asked.
"Very sure," said Tom and, inching over to her, kissed her very thoroughly. Her hair spread out over the pillows, flowing over the hand that cupped her flushed cheek, while his other hand gripped her waist. Beneath the blanket, he felt the torturous friction of her body against his. His length, seeping with wetness, rasped ineffectually between the slippery juncture of her thighs.
"Hmm," said Hermione, her hand stealing between their bodies. "Maybe you're right."
Nestling closer and hooking the back of her knee over his hip, Hermione's hand guided him to her slickened opening. His tip nudged against her, his own hand adjusting the angle until the head of him breached the narrow gap. Hermione inhaled sharply, and Tom paused in his movements.
"It feels... odd," she murmured.
"Odd, in a good way or a bad way?" he asked.
"It makes me feel short of breath, as if suddenly there's less space inside for air," Hermione observed. "But that's illogical, isn't it? My lungs are up here!"
"Hmm," Tom responded. "Do you like it?"
"I'd like a bit more time to decide," she answered.
"Of course," said Tom, and began easing himself deeper, savouring the exquisite pressure all around him. Hermione panted softly with every motion, and she buried her face into the crook of his neck, her hands pat-patting against his shoulder as he pushed further inside.
Sweat beaded on Tom's brow. A frantic urgency came over him, encouraging him to just thrust away and be done with it; it was that marvellous a feeling to know Hermione in this fashion, to feel her squeeze and clench around him with the luxuriant heat that an indifferent hand in a dormitory shower could never imitate. Ignoring the impulse, he took his time, and Hermione sighed breathlessly into his ear.
"Is it all the way in?" she asked. Her fingers circled him around the base and explored the place where their bodies joined. "Oh! There's still a lot left! It doesn't feel like there's any space left to fit it in!"
"There's space," Tom mumbled, continuing to rock back and forth until he had reached the end of her. "See? It's like magic."
"It's not magic," Hermione protested, but any further words were cut off as he began to withdraw himself and slowly drive back into the welcoming warmth of her body. In and out he moved, an inch at a time, producing slick, visceral noises through the motions of their bodies that were almost overshadowed by Hermione's short gasping breaths. "Oh," she whispered, "Oh, Tom, I think I like it."
"Good," said Tom approvingly. "We'll be doing a lot of this in the future."
He kept on with the persistent roll of his hips, the sensuous drag of heated flesh and languid limbs. Tom's palm smoothed against Hermione's stomach, intrigued by whether or not he could feel himself within her. His searching hand dipped lower and discovered where the root of him ground against the glossy petals of her entrance; he found the concealed pearl of her apex and ran his thumb against it, and was rewarded by a flutter of Hermione's lower belly.
"Tom!" she cried.
Tom laughed, kissing her on the nose and then on the cheeks.
The blankets tangled and fell aside. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked away, and the ice melted in the champagne bucket. The box-spring mattress gurgled as Tom put it through its paces. Hermione, bare and pressed beneath him, was flushed pink, her skin shining with exertion. It was the convergence of years of plotting through which he had finally reached his journey's conclusion, and with a triumphant noise, he arrived to the pinnacle of his elation. His hand kept stroking Hermione between her legs, even as he pulsed inside her, and he did not retreat until he had wrested from her an indication of her own profound satisfaction.
"Urgh." Hermione flopped bonelessly into the pillows.
"Now that's how you have a conversation," said Tom, carefully rolling himself to one side of the bed.
"Stop gloating, Tom," said Hermione.
"Do I not have a reason to gloat?" he asked.
"Please, Tom," said Hermione, "I'm the last person who needs informing of your accomplishments."
She lifted a knee and glanced downwards, where the evidence of Tom's intimate affections matted the soft brown hair. A bead of white glistened in the very tantalising centre, tempting him to renew his attentions once more to that delightful locale. Tom ignored the temptation, and instead brought over the tray of sandwiches and the champagne bucket. The bottle was lukewarm, but a spell chilled it to perfection, and he poured Hermione a glass.
Hermione sipped the champagne, the blankets rucked up to her chest. Tom, reclining on the pillows, admired the half-flush lingering on her cheeks and throat. She was his, and his alone. Hermione was his wife, five times over: to man, wizard, society, bureaucracy, and God. He expected that he'd never tire of the thought.
She sent him a suspicious look. "You want to go again, don't you?"
"I'm keen when you're keen," said Tom.
"If that's the case, I'm going to have a rest," she said. "When it's time for breakfast, tell them to send up a tray."
She settled under the bedcovers and, soon after, began to quietly snore. Tom slid out from the bed and returned the tray to the desk, picking up the discarded shoes and clothes from the floor. Finding himself in possession of Hermione's underwear, he furtively peeked around, and seeing that Hermione was asleep, stuffed the scrap of fabric into the trophy box on the bottom shelf of his bookcase. It lay atop the various trinkets of his childhood—the broken yo-yo, the hoarded pennies, the fountain pens he hadn't touched in years. The entire collection, of which he had been so proud when he'd obtained it, seemed so puerile in comparison.
He was putting the lid back on the box when a quiet tap sounded from the window. Tom glanced over his shoulder. The curtains were closed but for a slim gap in the middle, which showed a sliver of nothing but black sky behind foggy glass.
In the dark hours before a winter dawn, on the second storey of the house, it had to be an owl. But who would send him an owl on the eve of his wedding? Tom silently Summoned his wand and crept to the window. Readying a spell for his defence—and Hermione's—he raised the sash and peered into the night.
"Leave the letter on the sill," he ordered. "I'll write a reply at my own convenience."
"Psst," hissed Rosier, clinging to the gutter pipe beside the window. "Riddle! Over here!"
Tom narrowed his eyes. "Rosier. What do you want?"
"Are—are you naked?" asked Rosier, mouth agape.
"Yes. Yes, I am," said Tom. "What did you do?"
"Why do you assume that I did something?" complained Rosier. "It's Lestrange. He's lost his feet."
"Has he checked the bottom of his legs?"
"It's not a joke," Rosier groused. "He's really lost them. He drank too much at the pub, and when he tried to Apparate home, he splinched himself. We've been searching for them, but there are only two of them, and there's a lot of snow! We're trying to get them back before sun rises and the Muggles notice a twitching foot hanging off a lamp post."
Tom turned to the folded clothes piled on the bureau and Summoned his trousers and robe. "I really, truly do not understand why I bother with this."
"Oh, that's easy," said Rosier, with the irritating sprightliness of the well-pickled. "We're the Schooler's Seven, aren't we? That's what the papers call us."
"I hated that game when I first heard about it, and I hate that title now," said Tom. He threw on his cloak and began clambering over the windowsill. "I swear, if we aren't finished by breakfast time, I'm going to force you all to attend Muggle church with me. Yes, that's right—today's Sunday, and the sermon will be lengthened for the Christmas holidays. I hope you enjoy your penitence. I certainly shall."
"It appears, Riddle," Rosier said, "that marriage hasn't changed you one bit. You're still as overstrung as you usually are. Looks like I owe Nott five Galleons."
At the path down the village, a chorus of voices called up to him.
"Riddle!"
"Did you—?"
"How was it? Was it good? You never read Le Jardin Parfumé!"
"Argh!" Tom groaned, rubbing his temples. "Will all of you please shut up!?"
"I told you, Rosier," said Nott. "Relieving Riddle's tension does nothing for his personality."
Tom had no choice but to dole out a generous helping of Stinging Jinxes for everyone, in the name of restoring order and re-establishing his authority. Lestrange even got a dose, although he barely felt it with his combined drunken state and hard-earned pain tolerance. It gratified Tom to confirm that powerful soul magic had no perceptible effect on his magical abilities or personality. He could still churn out wandless, wordless Jinxes like he was accustomed to doing. And he still enjoyed the winces of pain from his minions accepting their natural positions in the hierarchy.
Perhaps soul magic had potential worthy of being properly studied and researched. Not until after his honeymoon, naturally.
.
.
THE END.
.
NOTE:
UK historical context:
- "Women of property" aged 30+ allowed to vote in 1918.
- Women aged 21+ allowed to vote in 1928.
- Men and women aged 18+ allowed to vote in 1969.
In Wizarding Britain, witches and wizards aged 17+ have been allowed to vote in Ministry elections since MoM founding date in 1707.
Finally finished, thanks for reading. I have written some post-epilogue bonus material about life after Hogwarts. If you're interested in this sort of stuff, drop a comment and let me know. If not, this is the ending of Tom and Hermione's magical journey. Hope you enjoyed the ride. :)
P.S. Point out typos if you see any. Thanks.