The Sortinghat's Mission

Chapter 17

I did not come up with the arthimancy in this chapter, the original writer can be found here: https://www.quora.com/What-do-the-numbers-of-arthimancy-in-Harry-Potter-mean

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Having all her friends leave for the holiday was a different feeling. Usually she always had Harry and Ron, this time, she wouldn't have either of them. And none of the Ravenclaws she knew were staying for the holiday. In fact, there was an even smaller amount of students staying for the holidays than in her own time. She figured this was because more students came from broken homes in her own time thanks to a certain Voldemort. A certain dark lord who would also be staying over the holidays, and who had expressed a want to spend time with her during their stay. Hermione figured she could do that. The only downside of it was that Riddle tended to spend the same amount of time in the library as she did, which would mean almost no research on time traveling if she didn't want him to know of it. Given that almost four months of research had gotten her nowhere, it wasn't such a hard deal to make.

As she was waving her friends off she noticed Riddle standing a few steps behind her, also saying goodbye to his friends. It wasn't a warm encounter, but not a hostile one either. They simply shook hands and said Merry Christmas. Malfoy noticed her watching them and quickly made his way towards her, a big lopsided grin on his face.

"Come to see me off Hermione?" he asked as he came closer.

"Of course. Because I'm certainly not here to wave my housemates off." she snorted and crossed her arms over her chest.

"I'm 100% confident you came for me." he said, a smug tone in his voice. "Missed me since our date?"

"It was a nice date. I did enjoy it. And I might have given you a thought or two." she confessed, lowering her arms.

This made Malfoy smile even bigger.

"I'm gonna miss you during the holidays. Try not to get too bored without me will you? Is it okay if I owl you?"

"Oh, er... sure. Why not?" Hermione blurted out.

"Great. I'll hear from you then, yeah?" he said as he once again embraced her in another somewhat awkward hug.

"Uh, yeah."

She hugged him back, thinking that she really did enjoy being in his strong arms.

"I'll sure miss this warm body against mine." he cooed in her ear, earning another fierce blush to make its way over her face.

Mafloy then proceeded to jump into the same carriage as his other friends, shooting Hermione a cheeky wink as they started to roll away. And her stomach was fluttering again. Damn that boy.

"New boyfriend?" asked a cold voice from behind.

It startled her so much that she jumped up, clutching her pocket where her wand was being held. She set eyes on Riddle who was looming over her, looking utterly displeased.

"Uh, what?" she asked confunded.

"You and Malfoy? I've heard him bragging about you accepting a date, but you two looked a bit more cozy than just having gone out once."

Hermione scrunched up her nose to the fact that Malfoy had been bragging about being on a date with her. It wasn't very... purebloody of him. But then again, why would he take her out on a date if he were prejudiced? It didn't make sense in her mind.

"We're not a couple, if you think that. It was one date. I went on one date with Wood as well."

"Yes, you did. Whatever happened to that bloke? Got bored of him so soon?" Riddle mocked her, a snide grin appearing.