Friday, November 19, 1944
8:30 p.m
When Hermione and Draco finished dancing, half of the people there started whispering rather loudly.
"Sweet Merlin, did you see Draco du Lac dance like that? Nefertari is one lucky girl if she's his date!" —gasps in agreement—
"—for being the Head Girl, she sure cleans up just fine. Did you see that last twist-dip? I almost passed out; I didn't think something like that was humanly possible—"
Hermione groaned and rammed her way though the crowds, for the first and probably only time in her life wishing that Crabbe and Goyle Juniors were in the vicinity so she could recruit them as bouncers. As she passed an abandoned table, she snatched up a paper plate and began to rapidly fan herself, but after five seconds of little or no difference in the growing heat, Hermione dumped it back on the next table and continued on her way along the edge of the dance floor.
"_Draco's just her friend" Hermione turned her head around and saw Columbia standing in front of Celena Coffee.
"But did you see the way they danced? He asked me out here while I was getting my food. He looked happy! Maybe it was a joke" Hermione tensed and felt her eyes widen. Draco said she wouldn't mind. Oh no.
"I'm sure that Ravenclaw practicly forced him, Cece" A lot of Slytherin girls were now huddled around Coffee. They all nodded in agreement. The girl sighed and sapped her eyes with a hankir cheif.
"I'm suppose your right, thank you everyone_" Hermione felt her heart turn in guilt. The girl seemed nice enough and she didn't want her to suffer. Hermione walked over to her.
"Celena I am so so sorry, I didn't think that_" Columbia looked up and glared.
"How dare you dance with her date. Can't you see it made her upset" she said angrily. The increasing girls huddling around Celena glared as well. Celena looked sadly at Hermione.
"I'm sure she didn't mean it. It was an accident" Hermione had to admit, she was impressed with the forgiveness that the blond Slytherin displayed. She smiled.
"I really am sorry" she laughed.
"Forgiven. Come on. Let's leave Nefertari alone" Celene said and turned on her jeweled heel. The girls followed her. Hermione groaned. This night was do complicated.
The right spaghetti strap of her little black taffeta had long since slipped off her shoulder, and she impatiently pulled it back up while gracelessly jumping up and down in the small black stilettos, silently cursing her short parents who had not bestowed her with Hagrid's height. Continuing to hop, trying to catch sight of the top of either Draco's, Ron's, or Harry's head in the shadowy lighting of the dance hall, Hermione quickly discovered that many Dracos, Rons, and Harrys were rotating their way through the crowd.
"Bugger," she muttered, securely landing back down the ground. Reluctantly abandoning the attempt to fly and beginning to seriously consider Accio-ing one of the boys over, she backed up for a different approach — and ploughed right into someone from behind. AHHHH! Where did all these people come from?
"Sorry!" Hermione exclaimed automatically, turning apologetically. "Good Merlin, it's insanely jammed up in he— Riddle?"
All thoughts of finding Draco, Ron, or Harry flew out of her head, and she could only gape incoherently at Tom Riddle, still wearing his uniform white oxford shirt and dark slacks as he always did, standing in one of the less populated corners of the Room of Requirements Dance Hall.
The Head Boy's lips twitched into a small smirk as astonishment visibly exploded across her features. "Don't sound so shocked, Nefertari. Remember, this is my school, too. I have just as much of a right to be here as anyone else."
Of her Room of Requirements Dance Hall!
His words did very little to placate her bewildered mind. Or maybe it was just the heat. "How... how did you get in here?" she finally managed to choke out in disbelief.
Amusedly following her line of thought, Riddle reached into his pocket and mockingly dangled a small gold key in front of her nose, his apathetic gaze travelling from her face to the huge, priceless ruby around her neck. "Drop something last night, Nefertari?" he asked sardonically, cocking an eyebrow.
Good Merlin, her key had multiplied during their argument last night, hadn't it?
Hermione felt like a complete idiot for forgetting about that, for not looking for the key where she had dropped it by the fireplace the night before. Irately brushing some dark, sleek curls off her shoulder and noting with some dismay that her blasted strap had slipped off her shoulder again, she began to think up a magnificent retort...
And stopped.
Hermione had no idea, absolutely no idea why she did it... but the fact remained that she did.
With the calming symphonic strains of a waltz floating in the background, Hermione Granger Nefertari smiled the warmest smile she had ever smiled at Tom Riddle. "Well, since you actually decided to show up, I honestly do hope that you have a good time," she said with only the slightest hint of forced sincerity.
The haughty expression of superiority faded slightly from Riddle's face. His grey eyes squinted at her in the semi-darkness as if he was trying to make sure it really was her he was talking to and not some other random tan girl with curly dark chocolate hair. "What?" he asked, raising his voice over his typically more reserved tone in order to be heard over the volume of both the masses of students and the music.
"I said, have a good time!" Hermione repeated more loudly, surprising even herself as the words flowed more easily from her mouth. Being polite to Tom Riddle took an unexpectedly and vastly smaller amount of energy than constantly arguing and coming up with snappy comebacks, and it did seem to throw him a bit. She mentally kicked herself for not having tried this earlier. "All I ever see of you is you working on something or another. You need a break like this."
She smiled at him again, more genuinely this time as she realized that her words were pretty much truth. Absentmindedly, she began to make her retreat, her face glowing and slightly breathless as she began to wonder if Draco had apologized to Celene or was being attacked by her army. Her eyes slipped around the sea of dancers again in search of a familiar face before coming back to focus on Riddle once more. "I'll be seeing you in the morning?"
Riddle was still staring wordlessly at Hermione as she benignly turned to go, his eyes betraying the smallest hint of confusion. "I—oof!" he suddenly gasped, jerking. For the briefest of moments, he staggered, then bent double into a sideways 'L,' clutching his stomach.
At the gasp, Hermione spun back toward him, and for a split second, she stood, dumbstruck at his motions. She would not be lying when she said she was completely stunned to see Tom Riddle voluntarily moving into such a weak position before a room full of people, even if most of them weren't even looking. What on earth is he doing?
Then the reality of what was happening hit her.
"Riddle!" she hissed urgently, springing toward him as quickly as her heels would allow.
The dark-haired Slytherin, though, stumbled backward a few steps, hastily moving away from her before she had a chance to touch him. "Nefertari-" Breathing hard, he held out one arm as if to fend her off, the other arm still gripping his side, a grimace on his normally unruffled face. "Go...find whoever you were... looking for -" He gasped in a breath of air, sounding very much like he was drowning. "I'm fine..."
Hermione furtively glanced around, making sure that, in the heat of the dance and the obscurity of their position in the room, not too many people were noticing the drama unfolding between their two Heads. Sighing in relief at the lack of attention, she retorted edgily, "My arse you are, Riddle. Do you think I'm an idiot?"
When Riddle smirked at her comment and began to chuckle dryly, Hermione seriously considered slapping him, but she resisted the urge when the snicker died on his lips and he cringed over again. "Riddle," she tried again, shocked to hear the concern in her own voice.
Maybe something really was wrong with him. But why wasn't he letting her help him stand?
"Do you need me to get Madam Lamberdeau?" she asked tightly, referring to the 1944 equivalent of Madam Pompfrey as she crouched down beside his still-doubled over form and tilted her head so she could see his face more clearly.
His grey eyes burned into hers, but in the darkness, they were even more impossible to read than usual. Hermione could only watch helplessly, completely clueless, as he began to shake his head in a No, but abruptly sucked in another sharp breath, his face contorting into a mask of pain as he yanked his arm more tightly around his waist.
"Tom!" Hermione exclaimed, alarmed now. This time, she reached out and firmly grabbed Riddle's shoulders before he could jerk himself away. She didn't even notice that she called the boy his real name. "Breathe! Try to breathe!"
As if he had actually decided to listen to her advice, Riddle froze and clenched his jaw, moving nothing save his heaving chest. He seemed to be trying to conserve as much energy as possible as his ragged breath slowed and began to flow more evenly.
"That's right," Hermione said soothingly, her relatively composed exterior giving away nothing of her raging inner sea of questions. What in Merlin's name— Lord Voldemort had never been sick! It wasn't in the records!
Slowly, almost like he was trying to hold on to what was left of his dignity, Tom Riddle gracefully, stiffly straightened up, a cold sweat beading around his dark hairline, his hand still tensely holding his side. Wordlessly, his eyes travelled down to glance at Hermione's hands, still tightly gripping his shoulders. "You don't have to cut off the bloody circulation, Nefertari."
Whatever concern Hermione had previously felt for Riddle quickly began to fade, and she dropped her arms, only to end up crossing them expectantly. "What was that, Riddle?" she demanded.
The Heir of Slytherin swayed precariously, reached out for the corner junction between the south and west Room of Requirements walls, and steadied himself. He stared at her flushed face intently, almost suspiciously, as he regained his balance and didn't loose it again. "You just touched me, and nothing happened. No visions."
Ah, his no-touching phobia is explained, Hermione thought, only slightly brushed aside his challenge. "It doesn't always happen, you know. And don't try to change the subject. Are you going to tell me what just happened to you?"
Riddle slowly, gingerly dropped his arm from about his stomach, by now having returned back to his full height. His normally immaculate hair, perfectly parted on his right side and carefully kept out of the way, was hanging more messily and in his face from when he had jerked over and inadvertently thrown it out of place. "No," he eventually said shortly.
"No?" Hermione echoed incredulously, cocking her ear toward him in disbelief. Her dark eyebrows flew up, and her foot began to tap impatiently. "No? You practically have a seizure, scare me half to death, and you won't tell me why?"
A new, foreign expression crossed his face. Had it not been Tom Riddle she was dealing with, Hermione would have thought it had been a flicker of... remorse? But no; Riddle licked his lips roughly, quickly searched the ceiling as if the answer to his thoughts was floating somewhere above his head, and glanced back at her petite self. "Listen, Nefertari, I—"
"Mione! Good Merlin, we've searched this whole bleedin' place twice, what in Merlin's name are you doing hiding over he — Oh." Ron and Harry stopped two steps from Hermione side, staring in a most unwelcome manner at the Head Boy and possible future Dark Lord. Ron scowled threateningly and took a step forward, hand over his wand. "Bloke's not bothering you, is he?"
Irritatedly rolling her eyes, Hermione turned on her gangly, overprotective friend. "Oh, for goodness sake, Ron, just because he's a Slytherin doesn't mean he's trying to kill me."
Did I really just say that?
She tilted her curly head back toward Riddle as he stood warily, the wall still supporting most of his weight, all but recovered from whatever kind of fit it was that had just struck him. "If anything, I have him cornered."
Harry, diplomatic as always despite the dark glare that had initially crossed his green eyes, cut in front of the temperamental redhead, his eyes silently warning the Head Boy away as he casually wrapped one arm around Hermione's shoulders, tugging up her disobedient, fallen strap as he did. "Riddle."
Riddle's left hand released the wall; he had apparently regained enough of his strength to stand on his own. "Evans," he said flatly, his tone somehow... harder, much darker than it had been before Ron and Harry had come. His calculating gaze moved between the openly hostile Ron and the protective Harry, finally returning to the half-confused, half-annoyed Hermione.
"Well, Nefertari, far be it from me to disrupt your grand party," Riddle said coldly, nonchalantly nodding at Harry. His eyes lingered on Hermione for the briefest of moments before he strode briskly past Ron and into the sea of dancers in the general direction of the door, running a hand through his mussed hair as he tried to smooth it back into place, his other hand stuck offhandedly in his wand pocket.
"What was that all about?" Harry asked as he, Ron, and Hermione rotated in a 180 degree half-circle, watching Riddle make his careless exit.
Hermione couldn't help but stare at the spot at which Tom Riddle had blended in with the mob and vanished, her eyes distant, her mind moving at dizzyingly fast speeds, the last seven minutes of the night replaying like a closed circuit, a broken record, over and over, over and over... but not seeming to make any progress.
"I honestly have absolutely no idea."
A/N: Hope you guys like this chapter! I am updating so much lately lol :) Love u! s.b