Chapter 9. Echis - All This and More
Edited January 2024
Tom felt as if the surroundings were spinning as he moved to face Hermione. He was feeling weak and tired, but he didn't want to give her the pleasure of seeing his true condition. So, he did his best to stand, putting his hands in his front pockets and lifting his chin a little.
"Well, to what do I owe the honor of your presence, Miss. Granger?" He asked, with a tone of disdain in his voice.
His attitude didn't impress Hermione, who was still passive and with an 'air' of superiority. She blinked solemnly.
"What is the counter-spell for the curse you put on me?" She asked calmly.
Tom snorted.
"What makes you think I would tell you?"
"Must be because I have the advantage here." She replied, unshaken by Tom's words.
"I don't think so." Tom grinned mischievously. "It doesn't look like you have the upper hand since you need to ask how to break the curse."
It was Hermione's turn to smirk.
"I always try to ask politely first, in order to have a clear conscience later. The answers I get are not always positive, so I stop and think: Well, no one can judge me, I tried to be kind." She answered thoughtfully. "Which brings me back to you. So, yes, I have the advantage here."
"What makes you think that?" Tom raised an eyebrow. He knows he has to manipulate her.
"You have no wand." She answered quickly.
"Why do you suppose that?" Tom's nostrils flared as his face changed to something dark, the veins showing in his jaw.
"Silly boy." Hermione snorted. "You're obviously without it, otherwise you would have already raised your wand toward me." She calmly observed. "Let's face it, you do that a lot, why be different this time? So, we return to the point where I have the upper hand."
Tom narrowed his eyes, breathing like a bull, focusing on Hermione as the basement seemed to swirl with the discomfort he was feeling. That little witch managed to push his buttons in a way no one else ever could. Her smart remark caught him off guard.
"You don't look very well," she observed. "Something left you cold?" She asked very seriously.
"What are you implying, Granger?" Tom practically growled. He didn't like the insinuation in Hermione's words. It is impossible she was referring to the death of the Riddle family, there was no way she could know. Maybe it was his imagination, obviously, he would be suspicious of anything.
Hermione shrugged, putting a blank mask on her face.
"Where were we? Ah! Yeah. What's the counterspell, Riddle?" Hermione's tone had changed. It was insistent, demanding, almost an order.
"I thought you were smart enough to solve it on your own." Tom licked his lips. She would never find it out, this was true. Because it was a spell that he had created.
"Oh, I could try." She replied and Tom coughed to hide the laugh that threatened to erupt. "But I thought for a while ..." Tom's green eyes returned to Hermione, paying attention to what she was saying. "Why not get the answer from the source of all my problems?" She continued.
Hermione stood up, the conjured armchair disappearing. She used her full height, being 5'5", to intimidate Riddle. That wasn't what made Tom Riddle pause however, it was the wand she raised toward him.
"Are you going to torture me, Granger?" Tom almost laughed at the thought. "What would Dumbledore think of his favorite student torturing someone?"
"Why wouldn't I do that?" Hermione spoke through gritted teeth. She didn't like the fact that Tom didn't seem to take her seriously. "You did the same thing to me. Why shouldn't I return the favor?"
"Ah, so here's the reason. Revenge." Tom said. "But I'm not surprised. The world revolves around it."
"My motive is much bigger than that." Hermione contradicts him. "You think you know me, but you don't know anything about me. But I know a lot about you. What you're capable of, the things you do, the place you live." Hermione looked around. "Such pride coming from someone who lives in a muggle orphanage."
What a low blow, Hermione thought to herself. The truth is that Riddle is not to blame for where he was born and raised, it was not his choice and probably not something anyone would choose. No one wants to be an orphan and grow up in an orphanage.
Her words seem to hit him because she notices the swirl of uncontrollable emotions in his eyes that reflect her. But strangely, there is a sneer on Tom's lips.
"I didn't think you were so cruel, Miss. Granger." he said. "I'm downright surprised," Tom continued.
"Proof you don't know me," Hermione replied.
"So...? What is going to be? The Cruciatus? Or are there some other dark curses hidden in that little head?"
"Nothing more than what you deserve," Hermione said, raising her wand and pointing toward Tom.
Tom narrowed his eyes when he noticed the glow in the tip of the wand, she was decided, and then the sound of the basement door opening caught their attention. They both glanced toward the basement stairs when they heard footsteps, they looked at each other momentarily and a breath escaped their mouths before Hermione cast a Disillusionment charm, hiding herself from the muggle's vision.
Tom glanced at the place she hid, right in the corner of the basement, but still giving her a privileged view. For a moment he was jealous of her, that she could use magic so freely, then Mr. Wool appears, coming down the stairs with a buggy whip in his hand. Tom's eyes went straight to the whip. Mr. Wool stopped in front of Tom, he could smell the stink of cheap rum on his breath.
"Where have you been, boy?" He asked brutally.
In fact, even if the orphanage was named after this gentleman, it was Mrs. Cole who handled most of the administration and child-related matters, but whenever punishment was needed, specifically for the boys, then it fell to Mr. Wool to conduct it, a task he seemed very willing to undertake. Of course everyone grew up afraid to challenge Mrs. Cole and her severity, which became worse when it came to Mr. Wool, but of course, that fear didn't apply to Tom. He was too sneaky, too smart to be caught in any breach of the rules he committed. Doubt could always hang in the air, but no one could point a finger at him and accuse. There was no evidence.
Here, they were afraid of Tom. The weird things that happened around him and how somehow he always seemed to be involved in the problems that happened, even if they couldn't prove it.
Mad, had problems, evil incarnate, demon, the antichrist. Tom has been called all of that. Doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, priests and even the beginning of an exorcism attempt. All of this had once been attempted on him, but obviously he managed to escape with the help of something that made him unique: Magic. It was easier at that time when he was a child, where even terrible things could be justified such as lack of control and self-preservation. Simply a child's attempt to defend and protect himself, not now. Not when he is supposed to control magic.
So Tom blames Dumbledore again. Dumbledore 'hamstrings Tom' when he leaves him without his wand - supposedly defenceless - because of the stupid rules he is so attached to. And of course, Mr. Wool, with the immense grudge he bears Tom, wouldn't let his punishment pass and to make matters worse, he has Granger as an unwanted audience and he's nervous and sweating like a pig.
"Where have you been, boy?" Mr. Wool asked again, almost growling.
Tom refused to answer, avoiding eye contact, trying to focus on anything other than Mr. Wool's red face with his rum breath. But apparently looking around was not a good idea. The basement seemed to spin more with the dizziness he was feeling, the pressure in Tom's ears made him ignore what Mr. Wool was saying, which was when the whip split the skin of Tom's arm.
Tom turned his head so hard toward Mr. Wool, that he looked like a big cat. He growled, jagging and baring his teeth in anger. The wound appeared in the shape of a bloodline, the fabric of Tom's shirt tearing. The sight of his own blood made Tom's volatile emotions bubble.
How dare a muggle try to hurt him? The heir of Slytherin. He would not allow himself to be flogged.
Tom reacts, trying to take the whip from Mr. Wool's hand. He's sick of having to come to this shitty orphanage, he's sick of faking it, taking orders from foolish people and having to put up with it all with a smile on his face. He will no longer accept it. No longer.
But his body falters, doesn't cooperate with the instructions of his mind. All he knows is that he reaches for the whip, but his hand catches the emptiness. It is dizziness that makes him see things where they are not.
Mr. Wool pushes him, Tom falls to the cold ground and gets whipped again. This time the whip hits the center of his back. He grunts in pain.
"Where have you been, boy?" Mr. Wool snarls.
"I got to meet my father." Tom answers through his teeth, trying to get up.
He stares angrily at the gray basement floor, fighting the tears of hatred and the burning pain in his back. It wasn't supposed to be like this.
"And apparently Daddy discarded you again." Wool sneers. "But I can't blame the man. Who would want a child with that horrible woman? Who would want to have a child like you? She gave birth to a demon. You don't fool me, boy." He points to Tom. "I see the evil in you." Mr. Wool makes the sign of the cross. "God took pity on that poor man and drove him away from you."
Tom began to laugh at Mr. Wool's last sentence. Did God really have mercy on Tom Riddle Snr or the Riddle family? That could only be a joke.
Still laughing softly with the last remnants of his laughter, Tom turns his face toward Mr. Wool, he's still on the floor leaning on his arms - shaking with the effort - he swallows a shaky breath as the pupils in his eyes widen. His laughter dies and he breathes heavily like a bull.
"Yes." Tom agrees. "Yes, I'm all that and more." He says. "And I'll be your worst nightmare." Tom looks under his lashes. "And I promise you, that you and everyone else will pay for all the pain you have caused me."
His threat is not intended as an empty one. He will fulfill it by whatever means necessary.
The whip hits him again and again and again and doesn't seem to stop. His back hurts and stings with each blow, but he refuses to cry or scream.
Hermione looks at that scene. At first, she thinks he deserves every blow he gets - that someone may condemn her - but Tom Riddle is vile and mean and all the evil things he has done - and will - deserves the most torturous punishment. However, when the whip hits him for the eighth time, her eyes start to burn with hot tears. She's scared at how he doesn't scream, just grunts in pain, but she can see his eyes full with tears yet he refuses to give in. When a lonely tear runs down her cheek, she knows she can no longer stand it.
Then she closes her eyes, but the sounds of the whip hitting Riddle, tearing the fabric of his shirt, Tom's grunts of pain and the old man's anger, seem worse.
She covers her ears, shaking her head from side to side, refusing to see or hear. But then, the unmistakable scent of blood seems to be carried by the basement dust into her nostrils, that's when she opens her eyes.
Hermione looks around, drawing her arms close to her body, a frightened look on her face. She has seen and experienced many acts that caused her shock, but she has never been a spectator of such torture. Mr. Wool is nowhere to be seen and all that remains in the basement is her and Riddle.
She takes an uncertain step forward but hesitates. Riddle is there, a few steps away from her, lying face down with the back of his bloody torn and shredded shirt. He is pale, so pale that the color of his skin is almost white and the contrast with the crimson blood is bewildering. Strands of black hair like the color of a raven, falling down his face.
She swallows as she watches the fallen Dark Lord like a King who has suffered a checkmate. Her breath sounds too loud for the environment that has become so quiet, and it is likely that the Disillusionment charm she has cast upon herself is gone, as Tom Riddle's eyes open and he looks straight at her.
Hermione can't escape eye contact, she's stranded like a deer in a car's headlights. Tom's eyes are bright green and pure, but there's hell burning in their color. The red veins are highlighted in the white sclera of his eyes, from the contained crying or even the hatred he transmits in the simple look he gives her. He shudders, with involuntary muscle spasms, he makes a deep throat sound as if he wants to contain the sound, but his eyes never escape her eyes. He doesn't even blink.
She doesn't know what to do. She runs away. She Apparates to the safety of her island. To the safety of the tent.
Hermione almost vomited, but she managed to retain the contents of her stomach. She walks into the tent, putting her hand to her heart to calm the heartbeats, looking at Nix on his perch, who returns her gaze.
Hell, no one could judge me for leaving Riddle there. That's what she tells herself for the thousandth time that evening, after taking a shower, trying to forget the basement scene.
She is sitting, staring at the wood of the table, her fingernails drumming on the porcelain cup of tea she drinks.
My conscience is clear. She sighs, trying to make herself happy.
Hermione gets up, throws away the rest of the cold tea she was drinking, brushes her teeth and lies on the bed. Lying down, she looks up at the tent ceiling, her hands folded above the blanket, her thumbs tapping repeatedly, a reflection of her anxiety and thoughts that wouldn't shut up.
Don't think about it. Don't think about it. She repeats several times, but the sight of Riddle's beaten and bloodied body on the floor is very fresh and vivid. He deserves it. Of course he deserves it. Hermione tries to convince herself.
She spends the next day trying to convince herself that she is doing the right thing in ignoring Riddle's condition. Let's face it, he's done things a lot like that to other people, but she can't stop thinking it's too cruel. Maybe it was a catalyst for Riddle's anger, maybe it wasn't, but what she knows is that no one deserves such treatment.
She reminicences about being tortured by Bellatrix - Riddle's fault again - and how she had prayed for someone, anyone, to save her. Of course, Harry and Ron came to her rescue, but for a fleeting moment, she thought she would die and had the same hatred for Bellatrix that Riddle exhibited to Mr. Wool.
"Don't even think about it!" She told herself. "No, no, no! It's out of the question to help Riddle." Hermione continued. "What would Harry think? He will kill me if he knows! And all the others? What would they think of that? Obviously they would be unhappy! Oh! But what about my parents? Argh! My mother would talk until my ears bleed because I didn't help. So...? He's Voldemort and I'm a muggle-born Gryffindor. Riddle wouldn't think twice before letting me die there if the situation were reversed." She took a deep breath. "Okay. Okay. We must come to a conclusion."
Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.
Hermione apparated to the orphanage's basement.
She looks around to see if there are any muggles and to her surprise, Riddle is still there, in the same position she'd left him. He has his eyes closed and is shaking like a jackhammer.
Hermione hesitated for a moment, really reluctant to help him, but when Tom grunted slightly in his misery, she advanced toward him.
What am I doing? She wondered for the thousandth time.
She knelt beside him and gently put a hand on his back, making him hiss in pain like a snake when threatened.
"Riddle? Riddle?" She called a few times. Hermione saw his eyelids flutter before he opened his eyes.
"G-Granger...?" Riddle muttered with a husky voice and dry lips.
"I'm here to help you. Can you get up?" She asked, watching his eyes roll in his eye sockets. "Come on, Riddle, help me so I can help you."
Hermione wrapped an arm around his shoulders and held him tightly around his abdomen, her grip causing some more grunts of pain from Riddle.
"Sorry," she quietly muttered.
She noticed his effort to get up and when he stood up, his entire weight fell on Hermione. She flinched, trying to steady both of them. For a slender, muscular boy in perfect health, Riddle was considerably heavy for Hermione to manage. His head tilted forward, sweat-damp hair falling down his face. He tried to look at her, but when he opened his eyes, he probably thought it was a bad idea, given how quickly he closed them again.
"Riddle, hold on to me. Try to hold on tight. I won't let you go." Hermione ordered.
At first, she doesn't know if he really heard her, but the squeeze of his hand on her shoulder made her realise that at least he was aware. She Apparated.
The first thing she did when she reached the tent was to put him on the bed, face down, lying on his stomach. In addition to easing his weight from her, she needed to take care of his wounds. Riddle was at this point almost unconscious.
With the tip of her wand, she made a straight line on the side of Riddle's shirt, and cut it off his body. Underneath his dress shirt, he wore a white men's vest, which Hermione also removed with the help of her wand.
As soon as she looked at Riddle's back and arms, she let out a long breath she didn't know she was holding. There was much blood and several deep line-shaped wounds with the flesh open. She wiped at the blood, feeling him shudder every time she touched him, then she took the potion kit to ease his pain and aid the healing process and lastly, Hermione applied an ointment to seal the wounds and then bandaged them.
It was hard work, she wasn't a St.Mungo's healer, though she had plenty of knowledge learnt the hard way in the field. She took care of him like she took care of Ron, spending much of the night looking after him, sitting in an armchair near the bed, with Nix beside her on the arm of the chair.
He had a fever, she had noticed. The way he was sweating indicated that he had become worse over the last few hours, which she diagnosed as a result of his injuries, almost as if it could be an infection. She put a damp, cold cloth on his forehead to help reduce his temperature.
Hermione wondered how Riddle couldn't defend himself against a lame man like Mr. Wool. Riddle was a tall, strong young boy, surely he could beat or push Mr. Wool away from him, yet she noticed that he had been acting strangely since she had arrived in that basement. This is when Hermione looks at his hand.
The ring, she recognized. The Horcrux. Creating a second Horcrux had left him temporarily weak.
Hermione sighed, suddenly the notion of helping the young Dark Lord felt like a bad idea to her. She didn't know how he would react when he woke up, but she knew what he had already done and she wondered again if it was right to save Riddle.
Unwillingly, she fell asleep. Taking care of anyone required a lot of attention, taking care of someone with Riddle's injuries was tiring, and certainly being alert against someone like Riddle required all of her focus and effort. Hermione wakes up in the middle of the night when she hears a loud noise. Riddle fell off the bed as he tried to get up.
"Riddle? Riddle!" She runs to him.
He is kneeling, breathing heavily, placing a hand on his head. She bends down to his level and tries to help him, but with one hand he shoves her and she stumbles to the ground.
Hermione gets up to rest on her elbows, looking at him, startled and surprised. She watches him stand up, tripping over his own feet, his wobbly walking as he bumps into things and throwing everything he touches with his hand to the floor.
He is delirious. She insightfully notes.
She doesn't know what caused this. Maybe it was his fever, maybe it was his belated reaction to try and defend himself. Hermione watched him take a few steps before falling hard onto the hardwood floor. She and Nix look at each other and then she slowly gets up and walks towards Riddle. With a strange expression, mixed with curiosity and fear, Hermione hesitantly approached him. She notices that he has passed out.
After she puts him to bed again, Hermione checks his injuries. She does so because she believes that some of Riddle's sudden movements may have reopened the cuts even more. Fortunately, it's nothing serious, on the contrary, he is much better than a few hours ago. Magic is really amazing.
Hermione doesn't think Riddle would die if she had left him in the basement of Wool's Orphanage, having a Horcrux made him technically immortal. Unless someone destroys the Horcruxes, Riddle would not have the final encounter with death, yet he can feel pain and hurt himself as far as she understands. Well, it's obvious he only has two Horcruxes, and it's nothing compared to seven.
Her gaze falls on his ring. The Horcrux is right there, just inches from her, so easy now. Just take the ring off his finger and destroy it. She would be doing everyone a favor. Hermione took Riddle's hand, staring at the ring. Some might say she had a soft heart, she was definitely empathic, she was classifying herself in this way. That is, she has compassion and understanding for broken things and people. Even if she was angry, Hermione tended to forgive or feel for people when she recognised their motivations. For example, Snape. Snape was never kind to her, his comments to her were always sour and sarcastic. He thought she was just a Gryffindor smart-ass, yet after all that, she still couldn't stop crying when she saw his death.
There was also Grawp, or when Dolores Umbridge injured one of the centaurs - that was cruel and she is ashamed of harming a centaur indirectly in order to rid Dolores from Hogwarts. There were also her attempts to give rights to the Elves.
She doesn't know if Riddle turned into Voldemort because he was born this way or if it was a series of factors that contributed to creating the monster, the only thing she knows is that things are really complicated.
Hermione drops his hand from hers, ignoring the ring. Ah, that urge to destroy the Horcrux is there, just slip the ring off his finger and it's done. But she couldn't do that, first because as soon as Riddle awakensp and misses the ring, he was going to kill her and second - and most importantly - was the timeline. Destroying the Horcrux could trigger a series of events that would irreparably change everything she knows in the future.
You are already destroying the timeline. The voice of her conscience was speaking. Riddle shouldn't be in this tent.
That is right. Riddle shouldn't be here, however, she doesn't want to worsen the damage already done.
She looks at Riddle's face. Perfect is too inadequate to describe it. Tom Riddle is really very handsome, Hermione knows that Riddle supposedly benefited from all his father's stunning genetics, but damn... she's pretty sure the love potion his mother gave Riddle Snr must have contributed. The reality is Tom Riddle Jr is the perfect combination of his parents' genetics. He took all the beauty of the Riddle family and took all the magic of the Gaunt family. A dangerous and lethal combination, certainly.
o0o
Tom opened his eyes slowly, blinking repeatedly to adapt to his blurred vision. He looks up to find a pair of big orange eyes staring at him, surprised he retracts in one swift motion, banging the top of his head against the wood of the bed. He lets a little ouch come out of his lips. He looks around, lifting his chest and leaning on his elbows, trying to understand where he is.
The owl above his head flies and lands on the perch, looking curiously at him. He watches his surroundings, noticing a broom that sweeps the floor alone, the sound of a boiling kettle and the smell of soup.
He looks under the blankets, realising that he is not naked as he had originally thought. He still wears the same trousers he remembers. Then he makes an analysis of his chest and arms, which have been treated and are well bandaged with clean linen.
"Finally. I thought you would never wake up. "
The female voice catches his eye and he looks at the entrance and sees Granger. Her hair is loose, a few strands to the side, she's wearing cropped trousers that reach her calves and a short-sleeved shirt. Tom freezes, looking at her with huge unblinking green eyes, he retracts on the bed, his gaze never leaving her face.
That's when the memories come back to him. Granger saw things she shouldn't see, made threats she shouldn't do, and they offended each other, yet in the end she helped him. Granger sat in a chair near the bed and looked at him.
"Are you alright?" She asked softly.
He narrowed his eyes at her.
"What do you want?" He almost growled at her, but she didn't seem surprised by the tone of his voice.
"Nothing. I don't want anything," she replied. A moment of silence passed between them before she spoke. She sniffed a little and scratched her nose slightly as if she were as uncomfortable as he.
"I'll get the food. You must be hungry. When you're done, I'll check your injuries." She gestured with her finger.
"I don't want your pity." Tom almost spits out the words.
Pity is for the weak, for the foolish and he doesn't want to be part of this segment of the population. She offends him in the worst possible way with her pity. She shakes her head and sighs before getting up from the chair. Tom watches her movements curiously, indecisively, with anger still encapsulated within him. She comes back carrying a tray with a plate of soup and he looks at her like she's crazy.
Hermione makes no mistake, she's not a formidable cook, but she's not as bad as Ron made her out to be either. Obviously she's not had years of experience or a knack for cooking, but her food is not bad. Ron's criticism was largely based on the influence of Salazar Slytherin's locket.
She sits in the chair she was occupying moments earlier with the tray on her lap and the soup bowl extended toward Riddle.
"I hope you enjoy it. You need to eat." Hermione speaks softly. She doesn't want to attract Riddle's wrath and wants to be patient with him.
Riddle looks at her in disgust.
"I'm not hungry." He speaks and it seems he's so happy to deny her effort with his words.
"You need to eat." Hermione tries again.
"I'm not hungry." Tom growls at her.
Hermione gritted her teeth in frustration, her patience over. Just like that, so fast. He makes her crazy. He is like a spoiled and rebellious child, delighting in undoing the help and efforts of everyone else.
She took a deep breath, glaring at Riddle.
"Fine," she says abruptly. "Don't eat. Starve yourself. "
She gets up, taking the tray away from Riddle and turns her back on him. Riddle watches her from the bed, and that's when his stomach decides to make a long rumbling noise, loud enough for both of them to hear. She tries to control the threatening laughter.
Well done, she thinks wryly.
Of course, after two days without waking up, waking up only on the third day at noon, Riddle would wake up hungry.
Tom looks at her taking the food away. He knows she heard his stomach complain with its lack of food, but she doesn't stop and doesn't come back with the tray. This little witch... If she's thinking he's going to beg her, she's very wrong, however, she is moving further and further away.
Damn it! He curses mentally.
"Wait!" Tom says. She stops. "The food," he says. "I want the food."
She turns around, tray in hand.
"What's the magic word, Riddle?" She asks with a sneer on her face.
What a bitch!
"P-please."
The word came out, almost as if he was choking on saying it.
Hermione almost corrected him, that he should say the word more softly, but she was content for the moment with his discomfort and his need to ask her. So she returned, sitting back and resting the tray on her lap, taking the soup bowl and lifting the spoon toward him, offering.
He narrowed his eyes again at her.
"I have hands," Riddle said and Hermione dropped the spoon into the soup bowl, which splashed a little on him.
"Ignoramus," Hermione murmured, covering the word with a slight throat clearing. But that didn't go unnoticed by him.
Luckily she didn't take the soup away, handing him the soup bowl. He mixes the soup back and forth, trying to figure out what it tasted like. Hesitantly he takes the liquid to his mouth, tasting. Not bad, but not wonderful either, though it was certainly better than the cabbage soup he was eating at the orphanage due to rationing.
He ate a few more spoonfuls, his stomach warming as he received food. It was quiet, but Tom knew he was being watched by her.
"I don't want your pity," he murmured, keeping his eyes toward the bowl.
"I have no pity."
At her response, he turned his head toward her.
"Why did you get me out of there? We don't have a good relationship, in fact, we are practically declared enemies and if I remember correctly you would probably like do something similar as Mr. Wool. What a hypocrite." He shrugged.
"The hypocrite is you," Hermione replied. "You had already tortured me with one of the unforgivable curses. If I did hit you, it wouldn't be any different from what you did to me."
"Then why? Weren't you happy with what you saw? Didn't you like it?" He said, throwing the tray with the bowl and spoon away, splashing the rest of the soup on the floor. With the noise, Nix flew off the perch.
"Pity and compassion are different things!" She shouted at him, rising from her chair.
They both fell silent, breathing heavily.
"If you didn't like my help, that's fine. Get up." She walked to a trunk and took off one of Harry's shirts. "Get dressed." Hermione tossed the shirt on the bed. "I'll take you back to that place. Come on, let's go!"
Tom fell silent, his hands gripping the covers tightly. He didn't want to go back to that place, not to that hell. His relationship with Granger was complicated, but she's familiar, with her he doesn't have to fake it, he doesn't have to hide his magic.
He looks around. He sees the bookcase full of books about spells and potions, even some muggle books. He sees the alchemy table with the cauldron, he sees the broom sweeping alone, he sees the owl that returned to his perch. Here is something he likes. All this is what he likes, what he considers normal, is an environment he dreams of obtaining for himself, this is magic and she is giving him the opportunity to stay.
"Otherwise," Hermione speaks more softly as she observes the negative movement of his head. "Don't treat me badly. Don't act like I've done something horrible to you."
He nods. A moment of awkward silence sets in.
"Okay, get up," she says. What? But I hadn't agreed with her? You can never trust. "Sit here, I want to check how the wounds are."
Her words cut his thinking. He blinks solemnly and after a few seconds he gets up slowly. When he is standing, Tom feels his leg muscles tremble, because of the long-time lying in bed.
He takes hesitant steps toward the stool she indicated. As he sits, he feels her settle behind him. She begins to undo the bandages and when it is over, he feels her fingers gently trace the wounds.
"They are healing. One more day and soon they won't be visible." She explains to him, rubbing the ointment on his back and arms. "I think you can move now, they certainly don't bother you as much anymore. However, I'll still continue to apply the ointment and bandage you up to finish the healing process."
Tom simply keeps silent. He feels her begin to wrap the new clean bandage around him, the silence is awkward, but he ignores it. Her warm breath touches his skin as she approaches to wrap the bandage across his chest, signaling him to raise his arms a little.
When she finishes, he feels her move away. She doesn't seem to mind seeing him basically half-naked. He knows he's considered handsome by the other girls, he understands that his physique is attractive, he doesn't know how comely he is for Granger now that she has seen the scars on his back. But damn, he knows what seductions he's capable of, not with Granger, though.
Tom turns toward Hermione, who is handing him clothes. The shirt and a clean pair of trousers this time.
He approached her, looking at her with his eyes slightly closed, the intense green color of his iris was fervid. He was taller than she, which forced Hermione to raise her head a little to face him. The intensity of his gaze was different from other times and she didn't know how to react to it, and against her will, her cheeks flushed.
Tom watched the color on her cheeks before she blinked and cut eye contact, she offered him the clothes. He took the clothes with one hand. Suddenly Hermione snapped her fingers, the broom stopped sweeping and went toward Hermione's hand, which she caught.
"Take it." She handed the broom to Tom.
"What am I going to do with it?" Tom asked. It was an ordinary broom, a muggle broom.
"Clean up the mess you made," she replied, pointing to the floor with shards of the bowl and the rest of the soup that spilled. "I'm not your maid."
Tom narrowed his eyes at her.