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The melodic tweeting of early rising birds filtered through the ajar window of the shared bedroom as Hermione slowly woke from her dreamless slumber. She knew Tom had slipped her a dreamless sleep potion into her nightly cup of water the night before, but chose to humour him if anything for her own health. Sleeping had become a troublesome feat as memories of her past, the future that would no longer occur, plagued her like the continuously-mutating flu.
"Hermione," a deep, sleep-thickened baritone broke her from her morning wonderings.
She hummed in response, a questioning lilt to the sound.
"Stop thinking, go back to sleep,"
Hermione frowned as she turned to face the dark haired, green eyed man sharing her bed. Occasionally, when the light of the sun refracted from his lithe figure at the accurate angle, the curly haired witch could see Harry amidst the aura of darkness surrounding the older man. If his perfectly curly hair was more tousled and untameable; if his spectacles weren't so quadrilateral as opposed to cyclical and if there was a lightning shaped scar on his forehead, Hermione would be able to convince herself — over a matter of time — that he indeed was Harry. The boy she had seen die. The boy that had been her brother in everything but blood.
Alas, the man beginning to drift off into another slumber was not Harry Potter— he was, in fact, Tom Marvolo Riddle. Her unborn best friend's arch nemesis.
There was one factor that puzzled her greatly. Aside from the potential psychological illness of megalomania, both boys had been brought up in similarly degrading environments and yet each had fought against each other despite having such similar backgrounds (to the extent they were distantly related).
Hermione recalled how Harry, although always talked down by the public until a figure of authority managed to prove him correct (for example; the arguments against the bitch Umbridge), the young wizard was also given the comfort of support, love, cherishment.
Had Tom?
Slowly, she moved her hand to rest on his warm cheek. His smooth skin brazened by the rough texture of the stubble growing in after his recent shave. Her thumb gently brushed across his beautifully sculpted cheekbones, the tips of his eyelashes nearly grazing the flesh.
Tom had stiffened, his eyes opening to stare at his wife curiously, revealing a pair of devilishly beautiful, forest-green eyes. The witch felt a larger hand encompass her own, halting its movements.
"May I?" she asked quietly as she felt his gaze flitting across her countenance.
Tom Riddle wasn't one to expose his private emotions — the ones he could feel —, thoughts and calculated plans. It left him vulnerable, small, weak. But, he supposed, the witch already knew of many of the more gruesome and perhaps even embarrassing moments in his life (given that Dumbledore had taken the courtesy to document it all). What was the harm in allowing her to know of his opinions and the dark thoughts running through his head at the time?
She could use it against you, a cold, unforgiving voice whispered in the depths of his mind. It filtered through the memories that had allowed him to slowly and surely trust her with an icy tone. She could use it to bring you to your downfall. Again.
"Promise me," the words tumbled out of his lips before he could articulate them properly within the confines of his mind, "Promise me you won't use it to kill me, or harm me or anything of the sort."
His grip had tightened on her hand, a pained whimper released from the back of her throat as she felt the bones in her fingers quivering under the intense pressure. "I promise on my magic that I, Hermione Jean Riddle, will not use anything revealed intentionally to bring Tom Marvolo Riddle to his downfall,"
An almost inaudible sigh was released from both as Tom released her fingers from his grasp when he felt her atoms of magic connecting and latching onto his own.
"Do it. Before I change my mind." he consented.
Hermione reached for her wand on the nightstand and placed it to his temple as he readjusted himself so that his head was resting comfortably on her chest. The witch tangled her fingers in the abyss of chocolate-coloured locks before murmuring softly under her breath: "Legilimens,"
A force of ethereal magic sucked her essence inside, depositing her in front of a barricade of indestructible walls guarded by Basilisks and Garden Snakes alike.
"Tom?" she called out, her voice echoing and attracting the attention of the malevolent guards. "Um, it's me."
The small garden snake— a pale green figure with what looked to be a singed tail— slithered towards her. It's tongue came out, tasting the air around her before hissing at the significantly larger serpent. The Basilisk (which she recognised to be the one from the Chamber of Secrets) manoeuvred to create the smallest of gaps within the wall as the garden snake curled around her wrist.
The snake exhibited some form of power, allowing it to guide the witch through the complex maze of Tom's mind while being able to speak in a language other than parseltongue.
"Masssster would like to ssstart with his childhood," the snake hissed as it guided them through a dark tunnel with no lighting. "I am Eden. Massster's firssst ssssnake friend,"
Hermione nodded, "I'm Hermione,"
The snake hissed out a laugh, "Ohh we know, Ms Hermione Jean Granger,"
"Not concerning at all," Hermione commented sarcastically before coming to as top in front of large oak doors she swore she could recognise as the entrance doors to Hogwarts.
She stepped in, revealing doors upon doors upon doors of what could only contain memories, thoughts, ideas and anything else that ran through Tom's puzzling mind.
"Thissss one," Eden nudged at the first door to her left.
Hermione opened it, the door slamming quickly behind her as the heel of her foot crossed the entry line.
A crying baby lay unattended in a rickety, barren crib. Clad in only a thin baby-grow and a flimsy grey hat, the infant screamed, wailed, cajoled, begged for warmth and milk only to be passed off ignored. The grandfather clock ticking dauntingly in the corner of the room suddenly fast forwarded to the next hour, the chimes of the bells ringing eerily as the baby's cries dimmed.
The urge to hold, to kiss, to love the baby overcame her. Unconsciously, her body had slowly begun to step forward, only stopping at the hiss of a reminder from Eden. "It isss a shadow of what hassss been, Hermione. The baby will not ssssee or feel you,"
Hermione frowned yet obeyed.
Another chime of the bells of the clock signified the second hour. The third. The fourth. And moments before the fifth, an exhausted matron dressed in a dirty apron and a patched dress bustled into the room with a bottle of milk. She thrusted the nib into the unexpecting mouth of the baby boy who sucked on the liquid luxury greedily, his hands instinctively coming to curl around the bottle as he fed himself.
A gust of wind blew Hermione's hair into her eyes and by the time she had managed to clear her vision, a child (the age of nine possibly ten) with dark hair and dull green eyes had replaced the hungry infant. She couldn't see what the boy was looking at, only that his mouth was pulled into a frown that resembled one that had formed out of habit.
The sound of children's taunting laughter echoed around the room; figures slightly plumper yet equally as malnourished as Tom's younger self circling around the exhausted, frustrated boy like predators.
"Not so strong are you, Riddle?"
Another cruel belt of jeering laughter, "Haha! The freak wet his pants!"
Sympathy flared within Hermione as she took note of the fear present in the haunted eyes of the child. Despite his stiffened posture and stance for attack, Tom looked to only be around the age of five or six while his taunters were closer towards the double digits of 10. Subconsciously, her hand ran itself through his trimmed hair, the snake coiled around her wrist remaining silent as the frown etched on her face deepened.
The shadow of Tom as a child made no motion to acknowledge her gentle cafuné though he did turn to face in her general direction. The sullen, dead look in his eyes (that were more fitted on a traumatised soldier than a child) was burned into her memories as he looked through her, his gaze unwavering.
Upon pivoting on her heel, the scenario shifted into swirls of grey and muted blues and greens.
Hermione was then looking up at daunting, rickety gates of an orphanage that she recognised from Harry's memories when he had opted to show his memories to herself and Ron rather than spending hours attempting to explain through words.
"Wool's Orphanage," she breathed as the scene swirled inside the building.
"Yessss," Eden hissed, "Massster hatesss the orphanage where he grew,"
"Even with the newer, more qualitative standards in the 90s, children didn't like the orphanages. It's understandable if he hated them in the 30s, especially with World War Two." Hermione explained as the memory focussed on a solitary child locked in a damp, dark room with only an enlarged crack in the wall as a light source. The hughes around the memory shifted— the original, sad tones of blue and disgust of green shifting into a powerful, furious red with tinged of fatigued purple lacing the borders.
"I'll get out of here. I'm special. I'll make them all pay." Tom — who now looked to be almost of the age to attend Hogwarts — chanted. "I'll get out of here. I'm special. I'll make them all pay."
And it was then she saw a sole pebble transfiguring wandlessly, wordlessly, and without the knowledge of spells, into a small bed with a thin blanket. Though despite its size, Hermione assumed it was better than lying uncomfortably and cold on the stone floor of the room.
The memory shifted again and here, Tom looked older. He looked healthier than the other orphans. He had returned from his first year at Hogwarts.
"Tom did not have a pleassssant year as a young snakelet," Eden informed as Hermione watched the boy cast a silencing charm on his room before screaming, crying and finally collapsing on the worn, squeaky bed in a heap. "He was wrongfully known as mudblood. They weren't kind."
A sigh escaped her lips as memories of Draco Malfoy ridiculing her for her so-called blood status, for her prowess in magic despite having not grown around flitted across the forefront of her mind.
“I know,” she said as an older version of Tom and Tom himself came into view. One held a rifle, its safety feature toggled off and a finger ready to press the trigger. The other held a wand with a loose grip.
“You’re a freak, just like your mother!” the older man yelled, an angry being protruding from his forehead as a sheen of sweat layered both men.
“I am not a freak,” Tom — around 15 years of age — said in a deathly calm tone, “Nor was my mother. Yes, I’ll admit what she did was wrong but—”
“Don’t you dare say that I shouldn’t take my anger out on you,” Tom Riddle growled, his index finger applying the slightest bit of extra pressure on the trigger. “You and your whore of a mother are nothing more than common street rats!”
Tom’s magic reacted faster than he could move his wand. The piercing screech of a metal bullet soaring through the short distance between the two men rang around the vast grounds of Riddle. The charged atoms surrounding Tom mutated into a shield in an attempt to protect him from the threat. From Tom’s perspective, everything had slowed down to the point where even jumping out of the way would be a difficult task to complete, yet he did it. Just in time too.
The sharp end of the offensive object scraped past his ear and blasted a hole through the victorian walls of the ancestral home. Brandishing his wand, he cast without emotion: “Avada Kedavra,”
A look of regret passed over his stint countenance as he witness his paternal grandparents gaping at him in shock and fear. He hadn’t wanted to scare them, to let them witness his murderous tendencies. But now he had to kill them. Again, he pointed his bone white wand at their jugulars. Pressing a kiss to his grandmother’s cheek (he both hated and relished in their fearful flinches), Tom cast the same unforgivable twice more and watched their bodies collapse to the ground in a useless heap of flesh and bones after the grotesquely luminescent green light faded.
A lone tear escaped the controlled confines of his tear ducts, the salty water falling onto the carpet as he worked quickly to create his second horcrux. The ring.
Another agonising scream erupted from him as his soul was torn, split apart and transferred into the inanimate yet powerful object. One that would aid in Dunbledore’s death in the later years.
Securing the ring onto his finger, Tom glanced around the building he could’ve called his home in an alternate life, and disapparated with a resounding crack; with no trace of his arrival or existence left to be seen in Little Hangleton.
Hermione’s hand smacked onto her ajar jaw as tears pooled in her eyes. Dumbledore had assumed that Tom had initiated the murder when in fact — if the case was thoroughly investigated by the protocols of the future — then they would realise it was an act of self defence (in the patricide at least; his grandparents’ deaths would be classified as murder).
When the view shifted and swirled around her once more, the colours significantly darker and the aura a horrific shade of pink.
Pure unadulterated terror.
The air was thick and difficult to breathe in, the atmosphere dangerous, deadly as bombs rained over the city of London. Tom had been sleeping when the sirens had started and had only woken up when the matron of the orphanage had slammed the entrance door shut.
He had shrunk everything he owned into his school trunk and shrunk that to a size that would comfortably fit in his pocket. He adjusted the straps of his gas mask, the material uncomfortable on his skin as he raced out of the door and towards the closing Anderson Shelter near the gates of Wool’s.
Banging on the metal make-shift door, he begged, he pleaded with Ms Cole to let him inside.
He received no response.
Tears unashamedly brimmed his eyes, sobs wracking his frame as he ran away from the building in search of a public shelter or a family kind enough to let him in their own for the night. Moving swiftly, Tom swerved away from the collapsing building beside the orphanage — a lowly Blacksmith had died, he found out later in the papers.
“Oi lad! What’re you doing out here?!” a loud, military like voice yelled at him as he collapsed onto the cobbled stone. His knees bled from impact and his feet burned due to the friction of running near-bare foot. “Answer me, now!”
A metal barrel was pressed against his neck. He thought he was a german imposter.
Tom didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not when his death would only be a mere incomprehensible figure on the front page of a tabloid or a broadsheet paper.
He wouldn’t allow it.
“Please, sir,” he panted, his throat dry and yearning for the luxury of water, “M-My house was bombed. I ran. P-Please tell me where t-the nearest s-sh-shelter is,”
The officer’s gaze immediately softened, his mind most likely clouded with the need to help a child rather than considering the chance that he was a child actor. The gun moved away from his neck. “Come on lad,” he held onto Tom’s malnourished hand and guided him towards a set of descending stairs. “The nearest public shelter is too far and dangerous of a walk. You’ll be fine in the underground,” the man gestured towards the few that had camped around. “Mi wife’s here too. Ya can stay with her if you’d like. She’s sure to have a spare blanket or something of the sort,”
Tom, in the middle of the man’s speech, had focussed on his breathing. Inhale, 2, 3, 4. Exhale, 2, 3, 4.
“Yessir, thank you greatly sir,”
“No problem lad.” the man left for his duties.
“Oh dear, child!” a plump, fatigued woman with large purpley-black eye bags cupped his gaunt face. “Oh dear, oh my, come come you can sleep with me for the night.”
Tom followed her to a modestly small tent with two small mattresses in it and a large quilt that had assumingly come off of her larger shared bed at home. The woman offered him a cold bottle of water— one which he took gratefully and gulped down greedily. She allowed him to settle on the mattresses pushed together before throwing the blanket over the both of them, ensuring that not a single gap was left to allow the cool draft outside to permeate through.
“Comfy?” she asked as she turned to face him.
“Much. Thank you for everything.”
“What happened to leave ya stranded out here son?” she asked in good-nature. A means to distract them both from the pounding explosions and cries for help above them.
“I woke up while the sirens were going off,” he informed. He was sure he’d never see her again, and if he did his story would render him an orphan anyway. “By the time I managed to head towards the Anderson Shelter in the orphanage, the matron had locked it all up.”
“Oh you poor thing,” her hand came up to rest on his cheek in a motherly fashion. Tom leaned into it, the warmth radiating from the stranger woman providing the boy a particular comfort he had never received before.
Dark eyelashes fluttered shut as the bombs falling began to sound more like pretty fireworks than deadly atomic devices. Tom drifted off to sleep.
“Come missstressss," Eden said as he tugged her out of the black door barred with chains and a sign warning death, "Massster wishes to show you sssssome happier memoriessss,”
“That wasn’t the last one?” Hermione gaped.
“Of course not,” the snake gave her a pointed look as he led her into a lighter grey door.
These memories weren’t as vivid, weren’t as suffocating. They were brighter than the room prior. Happier. Ones that could be used to conjure a patronus.
“Eden?” Hermione questioned, “Can Tom produce a patronus?”
“Masssster has not tried since his sssseventh year,” the snake informed helpfully, “I think he will be able to, if he usessss the right memory,”
Hermione hummed as brief flashbacks of Dumbledore visiting him regarding his acceptance to Hogwarts were shown. The day he discovered he could control things through his will alone. The day he discovered that he wasn’t a freak, but a wizard. The day he passed all of his first year exams with the highest marks in his year — nigh the entire school since Dumbledore had attended as a student. The day he discovered he was the living, breathing descendent of Salazar Slytherin. The days he tasted thrilling powers that brought forth his adrenaline in manners inexplicable in words alone.
The day he had met... her.
Hermione grimaced as she witnessed herself falling unceremoniously onto his bed; her hair entangled with grime and twigs, her clothes tattered and torn and her scent shrouded in the stench of animal feces, mud, sweat and blood.
She witnessed as each memory including her within, the aura surrounding it grew brighter and brighter till the night where he chose to think spontaneously and act like his Gryffindor wife by taking her on a long stroll around the muggle park close to Diagon Alley before apparating to a low cliff side he had discovered during achieveing his apparation license.
He had stripped both himself and her before pushing them both into the dark, icy waters below. He had been aware of the cold temperatures yet the thought to cast a heating charm before diving had evaded him until he broke the surface of the water and was left shivering.
The brightest memory, however, was one where Hermione was sleeping, unaware of his intense gaze settling on her. He had combed her hair back away from her face and had brushed his thumb against her cheek — much like the woman in the underground. Tom had found a pair of socks and had proceeded to shield her feet from the biting cold in his apartment despite knowing he could’ve merely flicked his wrist to cast a spell.
That was his happiest memory.
Hermione had gained his trust and it seemed that he was tipping over the thin line between love and friendship.
Tom Marvolo Riddle had found a friend, a trustworthy companion within the time traveller even when he couldn’t among the pureblooded scions of wizarding london.
Suddenly, the force of magic that had sucked her in turned on her to push her out. Moments later she found herself cuddling the very man that had reluctantly allowed himself to be vulnerable in front of her as he cried silently into her chest.
She kissed his forehead as his grip around her waist tightened. “I love you, Tom,” she said with a tone of finality, the words tumbling out of her lips faster than she could stop them.
And although he wasn’t quite at the level of understanding to know when he loved her back, she knew from the memories and the trust she had been given that he had begun to.
And that became the memory she used for her patronus.