19|| Knight to B3
Perhaps it is the wanky schedule she is already used to, given the past few months in both the 1940s and the 1990s, filled with power struggles and unnecessary stresses for such youth. But then again, Hermione is not one to conclude on such things without proof, not feeling particularly inclined to research into why she is not exhausted. After all, she is quite busy fighting off the Dark Lord from inside his ranks and divulging his secrets once and for all. And thus, she does not bare one shred of tiredness when she appears at the Knight meeting on that Sunday night, her eyes as absorbing, yet sharp, as ever.
Unsurprisingly, given his warning of business the previous night, Tom is quick in his arrival and departure from the meeting, making excuses as he spies thoroughly upon the mystery of Dumbledore at every chance. But during the meeting, his desire to flee to his promising duties becomes all the more poignant given the idiocracy of his troops. Not only is Rosier failing his mission, but Mulciber's group has no new information on Grindelwald from the Ministry. Indeed, the only positive outlook is the marking of Crabbe and Goyle with the Dark Mark, though their whimpers of ignorance weaken Tom's joy of recruitment. Hermione watches as he grows angrier through the night, Crucio-ing five of them, and finally storming out after Hermione's thorough report. And though Hermione was not tired prior to the meeting, or even during, she finds herself emotionally exhausted by her fears, slinking back to room and collapsing into sleep, only to be awoken for school early the next morning.
Hermione did not think she could ever hate the classes and schoolwork at Hogwarts, and indeed, she still doesn't. However, the sheer joy of learning is diluted by her loneliness in class, having to isolate herself from Abraxas and Clarence under Tom's sharp eyes. And even that boy, as evil as he is, leaves her to eternal aloneness, too busy with spying to bear her a single look after classes end. So, with no one left to distract her, Hermione thinks over her future with Harry and Ron, her plans for the raging war, and how she's to complete her plan by the end of this school year. But with the very monster himself inhabiting these walls, his company now lost to duty, Hermione realizes that she misses his company, not only because it kept her from thinking. Tom Riddle may be a pureblood supremacist, child murderer, and evil monster, but he is the only one Hermione's been able to have an academic discussion with in her many years of magical learning. His smarts match her own in more ways than one, contradicting her yet giving her great joy in arguments. And just as she begins to fear that she enjoys his company, Hermione realizes this is indeed the case.
Wednesday arrives in a fog of loneliness, grief, and guilt--negative emotions, yet only fitting for the company she now keeps. Hermione takes to teaching the Knights with ease and with a greater fervor--anything to distract herself--as she instructs them in the Flipendo and Furnunculus spellwork. They accept her lessons easily enough, distinguishable through her lonely fogginess, coming to accept her as a leader over them, much like Tom, yet not his equal. Rather, it is a reluctant acceptance of her knowledge and the fact she holds Tom's respect that keeps them in line; and this serves to show Hermione that these boys have a great ability in fighting, bad for her cause but bright for her present. By this point, they are well armed with most spells.
Friday morning's Defense class is ever the boring lesson with no duels to be fought and only Merrythought to drone on-and-on. Tom Riddle sits at her side, his typical position in hindering her relationship with Abraxas, his hand scribbling down notes despite the fact he already knows of all this darkness. And yet, Hermione does the same, throwing herself fully into classwork to hide her aching heart, only for it to plummet as the class is dismissed and she remembers the future.
Hermione, overcome by some need to communicate with anyone other than professors, rushes after the Dark Lord at great speed--nearly running--as she takes to a question she's held since two nights before. Around the two, solely due to Tom Riddle, kids cower away and girls swoon at his powerful and strutting sight, more fitting of a catwalk than the halls of a wizarding institution, Hermione is sure.
"Tom!" Hermione calls, her feet quick in dodging the crowds as she rushes to his side. The boy's head turns to her, his eyebrow raised in serious questions, yet slight humour at her obvious interruption of his plans. Around them, people gaze avidly, awaiting some form of secrets to be revealed about the mystery girl and Head Boy. Oh, how Hermione hates their ignorance.
"Come on," Tom orders, nodding his head in his previous direction of motion before leading them off, never slowing in pace. Hermione hastens quickly behind him, barely managing to stay upright as crowds heave, only to let up some seconds later after as traffic slows. Tom does not pay her a glance, though her flustered expression is obvious in his peripheral vision, cracking a grin before asking, "What is it?"
"I am running out of spells to perfect. Should I attempt to teach them how to do Patronuses?" she asks him. Of course, as one could expect in the Granger girl, Hermione is curious as to whether the future Death Eaters can produce a Patronus with such tainted souls. With her hours of lonesome thought, these ideas kept arising, and Hermione figures--what harm could come if the Knights learned Patronuses?
Tom stops and turns to Hermione suddenly, his shoulders straight yet tensed like a cobra ready to strike its prey. The girl huffs as she skids to a stop, the boy watching her from under his cold facade, only revealing sudden interest by the blazing in his eyes. "You can produce a Patronus?"
"Yes, I can," the girl responds, looking proud at this ability given that many grown wizards are unable to produce such magic, nonetheless in a corporeal form.
Tom Riddle looks to Hermione with deep consideration, as if testing the weight of her words and their probability of truth. And yet, he knows she has the potential for goodness just from her mannerisms and actions, and surely withholds the power to produce such a charm. So, it is not so much his trust in her words, but the proposition he wishes to make and how secretive she can be.
"Teach me....before you teach them."
Hermione is startled by his words, the Dark Lord admitting weakness to a Muggleborn wizard of infinitely less magical power. Her eyes widen, mask dissolving for mere seconds before reappearing in full calmness. Of course, Hermione did not expect the Dark Lord to be capable of such happiness and goodness to produce a Patronus, but she surely never expected him admit this, nonetheless ask for her help. It is clear: Tom Riddle trusts her...to some extent.
"Alright," Hermione affirms, careful not to show pity or anything of weakness towards him. "Does dusk at the Black Lake work?"
Tom nods the affirmative, saying no more given the sudden interruption of their conversation. A kid to their direct left drops his books and supplies to the floor under the sudden blow that a Slytherin Fourth-Year imposes on him. Hermione does not think of anything more, knowing this child's pain, as she crouches in her long skirts to gather his supplies. But, seeing his shoes so gracefully in the way, Hermione meets eyes with a staring Tom, obviously questioning her kind intentions before she gestures for him to help. Maybe it is the grasp the stubborn girl holds over his plans, or perhaps it is her inheritant need to lead, but Tom follows in her stead--if only for one moment--helping Hermione gather the supplies of the First-Year and restack them in his arms. Hermione, from her position, keenly watches the Gryffindors nearby, watching Tom Riddle help a Hufflepuff as if he will attack the poor child. And she cannot help rolling her eyes at the boys, truly thinking them idiotic as they expect Tom to be daft in his dark ways.
"Thank you!" the kid shouts, running off with the return of his quill and with a merry smile. Tom stands to his feet, giving no help to Hermione, wiping off his robes as if his actions were a squalid in all entirety. Hermione simply wipes her knees, slightly grimy on the old floors, before looking to the cold and harsh look of Tom Riddle's eye, luckily not Voldemort's.
"Why did I just do that?" Tom Riddle asks, his voice on edge as he leans to whisper in her ear with every hint of danger. Hermione pulls back from his slowly, not showing fear but a need for space, yet she keeps her voice low and unheard by the masses.
"The Gryffindors by the one-eyed-witch statue suspect you of darkness. By helping with his books, you look kind, and it makes those who speak bad of your character look like liars," Hermione explains, another lesson of hers and obviously showing. And though Tom ought to be angered by her intentions to 'teach' him, the boy cannot act in front of the crowds. But Merlin, does he wish to curse her to Hades.
And thus, he simply strides away from Hermione, towards Dumbeldore's office and leaving Hermione behind. She watches him go, only turning away and to her next class once he passes from her vision. But as she goes, Hermione catches the lingering look of Lyall Lupin, paying him a small nod and smirk that leaves him both breathless and confused at her every intention.
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Like promised, Hermione stations herself at the Black Lake at dusk, watching the sun's fall on the horizon from the place where she once skipped stones with Hagrid. But that memory is many decades to come, pushed away at the overwhelming beauty of the scene and weather, only needing a light sweater to hold out from the March chill.
"Why dusk?" Tom asks from nearby, Hermione turning from her watching station to look upon the statuesque figure of Tom Riddle, his eyes gleaming powerfully. He walks towards the sun, his cheeks masked in twilight and burning deep in the depths of his cobalt irises. His lips quirk up at her wondering view, like red apples in the warmth of the remaining sun. And his cheeks, as sharp as a butcher's knife, are shadowed nicely by the returning night. Maybe this is why she chose dusk...
"It's easier to see Patronuses in low light, but I figured it may be seen negatively if we are alone out here at night," Hermione responds instead, not wishing to embarrass herself further and bring shame to her future self. Staring star-struck at the Slytherin heir, oh, how Hermione Jean Granger would hate her.
"And the indoors were not an option?" Tom asks, fully aware of her staring, yet taking great joy in it. But Hermione turns from him, away from the grasp he holds on her and towards the swallowed sun that then moves her into light. It plays prettily upon her black lashes, her pink lips puckering in the slight cold. And her cheeks are highlighted in pink, emphasizing her heart-shaped face and sheer romanticism of her visage. She is a vision.
"It's nice today," she responds with a sudden note of homeliness and pure honesty that she rarely divulges. Of course, Tom thinks she is very strange, moving between intensity and devotion to sweetness and simplicity as if her personality is one for a cat to swat. It's like the girl is two different people, greatly varying in intentions, yet united by her knowledge and experiences in the past. What he does not realize is that this judgement is right: Hermione is perilously placed between the Slytherin identity for this task and her true Gryffindor spirit.
"Alright, have you ever tried to do a Patronus?" She is obviously back to that seriousness, swatted from simplicity.
"No," Tom simply responds, lying of course. It only makes sense that Tom Riddle has tried the hardest of spells in his desire for knowledge, but the Patronus is one of the few which he completely fails that. And though he is asking for her help in a sign of weakness, Tom will never let her know he has tried and failed. Maybe a practitioner of the Patronus charm could reveal the trick, for there is always a trick to magic.
"Alright," Hermione says, pulling her wand from her sleeve and taking the form he assumes she uses to teach the Knights, "to produce the charm, you need to picture a happy memory, the happiest one you can recollect. Draw your wand in a clockwise circular pattern repeatedly as you think of this; it will increase the power of the spell. When you're ready, point your wand at your target with the incantation 'Expecto Patronum.'"
"Show me." He wants to know if she can truly do the charm that even he cannot manage, but he's also acting under the pretense of testing her power.
Hermione stares at him for a moment before turning away in acceptance of his wishes. She closes her eyes as the skies darken, her mind lapsing back to dancing at the Yule Ball, one of the last times of pure joy in the previous years. Her lips twist into a small smile as her wand begins circling like her instructions foretold, unchanging in shape. Some moments pass with utter peace in her deep breaths, so slow Tom imagines for a moment that she's fallen asleep. But as soon as he begins to truly doubt her, small words whisper from her mouth, eyes opening lazily.
"Expecto Patronum."
An otter, grinning like Hermione at the Yule Ball, springs from the tip of the wand, moving free in the growing coldness as the two characters pause in silence. The creature, unreal yet perfectly imagined like the flames of Tom's refuge, bounces and dances across the waters of the Black Lake, free to travel anywhere yet gracefully avoiding Tom Riddle, sensing his darkness. It is a spirit of pure virtue, the first of which the Dark Lord has ever seen, awe splitting across his face in sheer shock of the girl's bright smile and its effect on her magic. The otter continues its trek, far and wide, before Hermione closes her eyes again, the otter springing across the Black Lake like an invincible skipping stone before dissolving into a thousand fireflies, lighting up the night and all its beautiful glory.
Tom Riddle stares at Hermione as if she is an enigma, her honey-brown eyes opening to his with his mask nearly removed. He questions her identity with avid irises, knowing that dark spirits are usually unable to produce Patronuses and making an even more convincing argument of her light.
"I find myself constantly being proved wrong in judging your magical skill," the boy manages, looking at her with a returned mask, barely hiding his awe and skepticism. "That was a corporeal patronus."
"It's the only spell I ever struggled with. I practiced for a year, a-and could not produce it when I most needed to," Hermione stutters, words singing true at the memory of the Ministry and her inability to exercise defense. Her eyes accept a lost look into the future--pained in every way and leaving Tom to question if this failure is what led to her parents' death.
But now is not the time for questing and discovery, the boy closing his eyes in view of the girl. Hermione watches as he furrows his eyebrows, thinking hard on something, before turning his wand into a circle of unchanging shape. She does nothing but listen and watch, finding his ways entrancing yet never wishing to inspect it.
"Expecto Patronum." There are just wisps of blue, something but nothing near a Patronus.
"Expecto Patronum." His jaw clenches as the blue whisps fade around his wand.
"Expecto Patronum!" They disappear entirely, his miniscule connection to the magic gone and jaw clenched in pure anger. His eyes open in their pure redness, pupils unmoving from the horizon as Hermione sees him struggle under the dark emotions of Voldemort. She questions her place: should she ease his anger through silence or words, what would Voldemort prefer?
She figures it is the latter option: "Most wizards cannot create one."
"The best wizards can. And I am the best," the boy responds, his flickering red eyes finally falling onto her form though with lesser fury at her than at his ignorant choice to let her see his weakness: happiness.
"It takes pract--"
The boy storms off before another word can be managed, his feet echoing loudly on the large pebbled stones before silenced into the grass nearby. She watches him disappear over the hills, not managing one breath before he is gone. And only then does she turn her back to his departure, sighing under the weight of the future and with every increasing urgency.
He wishes to kill her and torture her in that moment, impose every little pain and fear on her small form if only in revenge for his pain. But he holds back. Tom Riddle does not wish to kill the only person who can help him in the future...the only useful follower...even if she now knows his weakness.
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She cannot help the pity she holds for the boy after that Friday night. And yet, Hermione cannot help the bullying she imposes upon herself simply for pitying him. The girl finds herself needing to constantly remind herself of his identity, his snake-like face masked perfectly well under the eloquence of Tom Riddle. It's Voldemort, Hermione; do not pity him.
When she is studying in her room Saturday night, continually questioning if she should apologize (she has nothing to apologize for), it greatly shocks her when the snake on her arm begins slithering, tempo increased yet not accelerating in its movements.
Standing from her desk and her schoolwork, Hermione replaces the wand in her sleeve before sweeping from her room in graceful strides. She moves ahead of the other followers, all intending on the same location, wishing not to take company in their annoyances and masculinity. It shocks the male Knights to see Hermione without their Lord at her side, and yet, they greatly fear the girl's power over Riddle and say nothing in response to this sight.
She arrives seconds before the others, but it provides plenty of time to take her position beside the fireplace, Tom perched at the other end with a cold expression. Hermione tries to meet his eyes with her whole heart, but he avidly avoids her own gaze, watching as the others meander in without masked expressions of curiosity. They perch themselves on the couches uneasily, feeling the tension between the two almost as much as Hermione does.
"Orion, you will now take the responsibility of pranking with Crabbe and Goyle's help," Tom orders, getting the affirmative of all three before turning to Robastian. "Lestrange?"
"We're reaching out to Durmstrang. There have been many upperclassmen expressing interest," the boy responds, a brilliant idea in Hermione's mind though it does not bode well for her future if this continues.
"Very good. Mulciber?"
"Grindelwald is moving south slowly, but he's gaining followers along the way. It is predicted that he will reach Hogwarts by the end of the year," Mulciber responds, watching Tom's eyes flicker to Hermione as she stares at Mulciber with interest. But when she moves to meet Tom's gaze, his eyes are back to the figure of his follower.
"That will be trouble for Dippet. Abraxas, listen into Dippet's conversations," the Dark Lord orders, getting the boys affirmative before continuing. "Rosier?"
"Peeves said something the other day that caught my attention. I am currently working on a way to trap him and get answers," Rosier vaguely remarks, much too concretely given the flickering of thought on Hermione's face in response. Given this information, it is clear that Tom is searching for something old and likely at Hogwarts, information Hermione can use to narrow her possible ideas of Rosier's task.
"Sounds reasonable. Have results by next week," Tom responds. He turns to the girl with tension showing in his jaw, eyes sweeping over hers with heated emotions. "Hermione?"
"They have progressed greatly. I plan on teaching a new spell this week," Hermione responds within her own line of duty, yet it only serves to further the Dark Lord's fury. Voldemort rages beneath the Tom Riddle mask, his eyes flashing red for all to see and nostrils flaring in mortal signs of anger. They all flinch back, minus Hermione whose Gryffindor spirit has revealed itself yet again--this time, for all eyes to see.
"Very well," Tom hisses, restraining his inner demon with the reminder of the girl's absolute worth. But in fear of his own character, a bloodthirsty and corrupted creature, he sends them off with the wave of his hand. "Leave, all of you." No one is resistant to his order as they flee the room, and no one seeks a second look as books tumble from the shelves and fires burst into scenes of great imaginative potential. The Dark Lord burns under the paper weight and fire, but Hermione highly doubts he will be reborn from the ashes any better of a man.
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Alright, so I have finally returned from my vacation to England and Scotland. Honestly, for all my British/Scottish readers, I am so jealous of where you live. When I had to return to the 107 degree heat of Arizona last night, I just about cried...and passed out...I am so jet lagged at the moment, it is not even funny.
But enough with my personal opinions. From now on, I should be updating more regularly througout the summer with three posts per week on Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday.
I hope you are all having a wonderful summer (or winter for my Southern Hemisphere readers)! Please vote and comment!
xo
Patagonian