Chapter Text
1945
At dinner, on the evening of her Transfiguration N.E.W.T. demonstration, the summer sky in the ceiling of the Great Hall was aflush with violet and gold, and the glittering specks of Draco, Ursa Major and a rising Sagittarius. Twyla Ellerby read the stars and announced their meaning as one of formidable challenges, an impending threat approaching from the northern horizon, and a journey into the unknown—which required trusting in animal instinct to chart her way back. At Hermione's frown, Twyla advised her to trust her reading, because out of the two of them, who had the Outstanding N.E.W.T. in Divination?
Reaching over the table to commandeer a jug of lemon-and-cucumber-garnished gillywater, Twyla said, "Even if you don't trust Divination to foretell your future, readings help you understand yourself in the present. You can't be a great witch unless you know your strengths and weaknesses, your antipathies and affinities."
"I think Hermione has already found her affinity," Siobhan said, her gaze darting down to Hermione's silver ring.
"Hm, I wonder what it could be," Twyla teased. "My inner eye is opening... I think I see it!"
"Oooh!" gasped a rapturous Siobhan. "What are you seeing? Describe it!"
"Hmm, yes," Twyla hummed. "Mmhmm. The fog is clearing... It's becoming clearer now..."
"Tell me, o oracle divine!"
"A figure approaches..."
Hermione held her breath.
"He is..."
Siobhan covered her mouth, bouncing in sheer delighted agony.
"He's tall, dark, and handsome!" pronounced Twyla. "And he says he'll be yours forever. Aww! Congratulations, Hermione, you lucky dog."
"Twyla," said Siobhan, "tell your inner eye it's my turn next time."
"I can't control these things," said Twyla apologetically. "Hermione was born under the blessing of Virgo. Virgos always get the best romantic fortunes."
"You do know that Tom doesn't just like me simply for the fact that I'm a Virgo, don't you?" said Hermione.
"No, of course not," Twyla assured her. "He also likes you because he's a Capricorn."
"He happens to be staring at you from the other table," said Siobhan, nudging Hermione. "Go on, you should go to him. When a Capricorn has decided he wants something, he's relentless. It's the goat aspect in him, that stubbornness and drive. Oh, and you know what other kind of drive motivates the goat-hearted—"
"I'm sure I don't want to know," Hermione said quickly, standing up from her seat. "I'll see you in the dorms. Have a good dinner."
Hermione crossed to the Slytherin side, where Tom and his lackeys, with their Seventh Year seniority, monopolised one end of the House table. Tom, looking rather bored, leafed through a Transfiguration textbook, while his Housemates picked over the first course selection: baskets of sliced loaves and rolls, butter and relish, vegetable soups. Tom had a slice of bread on his plate, lightly nibbled, and when Hermione settled down next to him, he pressed a desultory kiss to her cheek and returned to his book, his mouth turning down in an irritable frown.
"Did the examiners ask you anything unusual today?" Hermione asked, nodding at the book. "Enchanting Transfigured objects and Transfiguration of enchantments isn't on the standard curriculum. Were you asked about it for the extension points?"
"No," said Tom, "I had a food Transfiguration. This is for personal study. Transfiguration is one of the more useful magical disciplines. It'd be a shame to leave Hogwarts without learning as much as I can in the time we have left. It's not like it will distract from my other classes, since we won't be assigned summer homework anymore."
"Where did you get that book?" said Hermione, peering over Tom's shoulder to read. "I don't recall seeing that title in the library."
"Only you could remember the recall the titles of books you've never read," Tom said fondly. "However admirable, too much library time is bad for the vitals. We'll have to find a way to wean you off it; when you're out of school, you'll need to learn how to ration your valuable time for more important matters. For example, me."
"I'm not that single-minded about the library!" Hermione retorted. "I'm only fully familiar with the subject reference section. And on top of that, I don't see what exactly there is about you that I have to allocate extra time for, which I'm not doing with the time I already have."
"Oh, Hermione." Tom gave her an indulgent look. "Never fear, I'll make sure you'll learn it soon enough. Why are you looking at me like that? Don't you trust that I wouldn't bother wasting your time—and mine too? Time with me is time well-spent. You can hold me to that promise."
"You're putting me off my supper," said Nott, pushing aside his half-eaten bowl of Scotch broth. "Why must you bring your personal nonsense to the table, Riddle? Are you not aware that what whets your appetite injures everyone else's?"
"I am aware," said Tom. "But awareness is not the same as sympathy."
"What about it being terribly unseemly?" asked Nott. "Your actions reflect poorly on your family and your upbringing. A gentle and cultured wizard would not abide shame falling onto his family, if he could help it."
"My family would find nothing to criticise after assessing the situation," Tom replied. "They're more likely to clap me on the back and tell me to get on with it. Sons won't sire themselves, after all."
The dinner dishes arrived in the middle of their argument: rolled pork loin with peppercorn gravy. It was accompanied by triangular slices of steaming Scottish bannock, hot from the hearth, and colourful slices of roasted marrow and carrot. Avery leapt out of his seat to snatch the platter of meat—set out on the long tables with one per year group—before the Seventh Year girls could grab it, offering it to Tom to claim his rightful tithe for himself and Hermione. Then Avery and Lestrange fell upon the platter with a vengeance, passing it to the other boys sadly stripped of the tastiest portions of golden crackling. When the girls, sitting further down the table, finally had the roast sent their way, there was only a quarter left.
Sidonie Hipworth, receiving the platter, wrinkled her nose. "You boys always make such a mess of the food. It's appalling. Why don't you ever let us have it first? It's not like we'd be gobbling up the whole thing, anyway. Whatever happened to chivalry?" she told Avery.
"It's over by the Gryffindor table if you want some," Avery answered, his mouth full.
"B-but what about being a gentleman!" said Hipworth.
Avery shrugged. "What about being hungry?"
Hermione snorted softly. From the safe distance of a tourist on safari, the intricacies of inter-Slytherin rivalries were always entertaining to her. This was an alien domain where respectability battled callousness at every remove, but as a migrating Ravenclaw who came and went as she wanted, she wasn't part of the natural trophic order. And then there was, of course, her connection to Tom Riddle. Who, if he was part of the whole Byzantine organisation of Slytherin House, was so far above it that in terms of trophic diagrams, he might as well have been the Sun.
The rosy flush of latent sentimentality spilled over her during dinner. She'd be gone in a week's time, and there would be no more casual dinnertime hubbub with the nearest thing to friends she'd made over the course of her seven years at Hogwarts. Each of the Slytherin boys in Tom's club had a different perspective on wizarding politics, culture, and society, and Hermione found it fascinating, having been impressed with the notion that Slytherin was a House united around their core values of fraternity and nepotism. But that was the impression they—Professor Slughorn most visibly—presented to outsiders; inside showed a different picture.
Nott thought little of magical creatures and plants beyond what utility they served to wizardkind. Avery vehemently disagreed, seeing the care and keeping of magical life as an honourable duty on its own merits, unglamourous but worthy work. Why shouldn't the strength and versatility of wanded magic be turned to the stewardship of other forms of magic? Lestrange agreed with this, and appended the opinion that stewardship of those with superior magic should encompass the "proper management" of a rather broad category of magical-adjacent lessers, which included Squibs, Muggleborn parents, and underage Muggleborns...
Tom turned his cool gaze to Lestrange, who coughed over his mouthful of steamed fig pudding.
"Er, I meant the Mud—Muggleborns under eleven, naturally," said Lestrange, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I heard from Grandfather that the Improper Use of Magic Office was always having to send out Obliviators to their homes for accidental underage magic. The older they get, the more it happens because they get stronger, but with no control. You sometimes get Obliviators sent six, seven times in the year before the letters arrive. Waste of time and money, when the parents will be told in a matter of months."
"I had a toy broomstick as a child," Rosier added. "Couldn't get more than ten feet above the ground, but it worked like a regular broom. You had to command it to rise by saying 'Up', and that's as basic an incantation as they get. It's still an incantation, and teaches intent and control to those too young to bear a wand. They say pureblood children are too well-bred for accidental magic, but it's not breeding, really. It's rearing."
"Are you going to suggest that Muggleborn children be separated from their parents and given over to 'proper rearing'?" asked Hermione.
"They used to do that before the Statute, three or four centuries ago," Nott remarked. "Wizarding families swapping Squibs for a neighbouring Muggleborn baby, then Obliviating away the evidence."
"Well, something must have happened, if they're not doing it that way anymore," said Tom.
"The children grew up," replied Rosier. "They went to Hogwarts and when they got to the upper-level subjects, they realised that charting the stars by their natural alignments produced a different set than what their parents had always told them. Anyone with a semblance of the Gift will feel the... the wrongness of reading as a Neptune when you're an ascendant Mercury."
"It caused all sorts of theatrics," Nott said. "Children feeling betrayed, parents feeling dejected, prospective suitors calling foul left and right. Child-swapping doesn't work unless you have fresh newborns on each side. Magical children have ways to examine their own memories from the age of one or two years old. Squibs can see through Muggle-repelling wards, so you can't tell which child is a Squib until four or five, when the accidental magic makes itself obvious. The practicalities of the situation make it... impractical."
"I'm surprised you didn't say immoral," said Hermione. "Stealing children is a dire business, and so is separating mothers from their children."
"I thought it was so glaringly obvious that it needn't be said."
"Good, we agree on that!"
"It is immoral," said Nott blithely, "to deceive a scion of a proper wizarding family into marrying a Muggleborn."
"What if they mutually liked each other before finding out?" Hermione asked.
"Irrelevant."
"No, it's totally relevant..."
She was still arguing with Nott when the evening owl delivery began. It was a trickle compared to the breakfast rush, a dozen owls sweeping down from the ceiling to deliver holiday invitations, summer apprenticeship arrangements, and in Travers' case, private correspondence rush-delivered from the south of England. His letter arrived in the form of a long sheet of parchment folded into an envelope, sealed by a wax blob stamped with his family crest, a drawbridge over the wiggly line of a river. With growing trepidation, Travers opened the seal, which dropped two thin pages onto his lap. The message itself was written on the inside of the envelope parchment, and as he read it, lines deepened on Travers' forehead.
"What's the news?" Rosier asked. Sitting next to Travers, he tried to peer over the boy's shoulder to see the message, but when he drew too close, the seal sparked and set the letter aflame.
Travers yelped and dropped the burning parchment on his half-eaten plate of pudding. The ashes hissed into a thick, furry coat of grey over the caramel cream sauce.
"Haha," said Rosier. "Sorry about that..."
"It's nothing important," said Travers, brushing the ash off his school robes. He tucked the enclosed pages into his pocket, while the others were distracted by smoking ash falling on their own desserts. "My parents planned a celebratory dinner at Flume's for the day we get back to London, but now they want to change it to another evening."
"Good luck to them reserving another table; Flume's is busiest during the summers, lunch and dinner both."
Bored with the frivolous smalltalk comparing the dining offerings in London to the bistros of Wizarding Paris, Tom returned to his Transfiguration textbook. But not before his perceptive gaze flicked over to Travers, and then catching Hermione's attention, mouthed, "Liar", with the faintest upturn of his insincere Good Boy smile.
After dinner, Tom offered to walk Hermione back to Ravenclaw Tower, but she refused him. She glanced at the Slytherin boys heading down to their Common Room in the dungeons, and at Travers, who peeled off the group and walked in the opposite direction.
At Hermione's concerned expression, Tom said, "You don't have to go after him. He's not one of your helpless, homesick First Years who wants hugs and condolences from the next best thing to dear old Mummy. He's a man. Men like to despair in silence and solitude."
"Since you're a man," said Hermione. "What do you have to despair about?"
"Oh, plenty of things," Tom replied, ushering Hermione behind a suit of armour and casting a Silencing Charm. "I despair about you wanting to chase after another, when you have a man of your own right here. What about my feelings, Hermione?"
"It's not like that! I would never betray you like that!"
"Then what is it, if not that?" asked Tom, his eyes flashing in the guttering torchlight.
"I suspect, from the seal on the letter, that it was Travers' father who wrote to him," said Hermione. "He has a difficult relationship with his father—something a lot of boys in your House have in common, for some reason. I think it would be a good thing if Travers and his father resolved their differences amicably. Because family is worth making the effort for, as I've told you before." When Tom made to voice his protest, probably some complaint about his Riddle relatives, Hermione added, "I still hold firm to that belief. And I do believe that... that the Travers family makes a useful connection, if I'm to realise my future career ambitions."
She didn't explain what these career ambitions were, but Tom understood. The smile he gave her was genuine and approving, revealing the sharp gleam of his teeth. Tom bent close to her, trailing his mouth over her ear, his breath hot and echoing and far too close. She shivered, but not from discomfort.
"Hmm, Hermione, robbing me of my own minions now, are you?"
"I wasn't—"
"If you wanted minions of your own, I'd be the last person to stop you," Tom murmured. He was so close that when he spoke, she felt the brush of his tongue against her earlobe. "Travers is a prickly one to manage. He puts stock in proper manners—rather punctilious about it, in fact. Don't try to hug him; he'll reject physical affection, especially from a witch intended for another man. Don't take it personally—unlike Nott, he doesn't do it because he fears the taint of lowly blood. If you want to coax him from the emotional front, start by offering to address him by his given name. It shows that you're choosing to differentiate him from the shadow cast over him by his family's name. In Slytherin House, this is considered an exchange of significance."
"Which I've noticed you've never done with your own minions," Hermione pointed out. "Everyone calls you 'Riddle'."
"Of course," said Tom. "We're not equals. They're not my friends. And I don't want them to be."
"But you can tolerate Travers calling me by my first name?"
"If you go through with it, he won't call you 'Hermione' in public, and never in front of me. He remembers his place and his manners, which is acceptable, if only barely." Tom sniffed, then went on, "If you are certain about keeping him, you need to secure his loyalty. He needs to see evidence of your personal investment—a visible demonstration of strength or aptitude to prove yourself worthy of his time, else you have nothing but the same sort of baseless boasting that clogs up the Common Room every evening after curfew. And this is important: don't frame it as a favour to be repaid at some unspecified date. That puts you on the level of equals, and you're not his equal. You're his superior, and you need to prove it."
"Are you sure this strategy will work?"
"It works, trust me."
"And what if it doesn't?"
"Tell me as soon as you can. I'll Obliviate him and you can have a second go," said Tom. He chuckled and brushed a kiss to Hermione's forehead, smiling to himself. "Just joking. A word of advice: men don't sit and brood forever; they search for direction, and you'd best be there to point him the right way. Go on, then. Catch him before it's too late."
Hermione left the castle through the same door Travers had used, her shoes tapping on the stone risers that descended from the Entrance Hall to the colonnaded courtyard beyond, which in turn connected to the Viaduct Bridge. The true sky of the outdoors wore an evening cloak of the deepest blue, sprinkled with the same constellations as the Great Hall, and the enormous bulk of the castle behind her glowed from dozens of leaded windows piercing through the thick stone. She could see her feet well enough not to trip over a crack in the flagstones, and her hand held in front of her face reflected light like a pale moon, but she couldn't see Travers.
How was she to "catch him", as Tom had advised her to do? In the dark, she could have amplified her voice to call his name, but she didn't think a typical Slytherin would respond appreciatively to being beckoned like a dog. She could cast a wandlight and search like a Prefect on her nightly rounds, but that was for student rulebreakers of unknown identity. She knew Travers, his name and face, and that was enough to fuel magical intent.
Closing her eyes, she returned to the warmth of Tom's arms, his hand on her lower back, stroking the soft velvet pile of a formal robe, secured by a badge in the shape of an M over a set of scales. In the darkness behind her eyelids, the illusion was as clear and vivid as her mind would allow: the broad expanse of a bureaucrat's desk, an overflowing Out tray and empty In tray, an attentive husband with pillow-tousled hair bearing a tea tray and a scathing opinion about the designs submitted for a new Atrium fountain...
"Expecto Patronum," Hermione incanted, holding the fragile quivering emotions close, lest they be extinguished like a matchstick in the wind. A silver ball of light coalesced into her delightful little otter, floating on its back on an invisible current.
Patronuses, unlike real animals, were always silent, but the Auror manual she'd read mentioned they were used as signals between patrol teams and partners. The animals were the soul manifest by magic, and possessing human reason, could be given intelligent direction. They couldn't speak, but could be directed to twirl in place, point like gun dogs, or find specific people. During the meeting of the Homework Club at Hogsmeade, interrupted by Aurors, she'd seen Patronus animals drifting through walls like silver ghosts, informing the Hogwarts guards of an emergency from the London headquarters.
"Find me Quentin Travers," she told the otter, who wavered, as if her instruction had been unclear. Hermione repeated herself, and holding her wand in the starting stroke of the Patronus movement, fixed on her impression of Travers' character: a solemn young man whose aloof public demeanour faltered in the wake of heavy expectations, in dark corners and quiet alcoves where no one else could witness him screaming.
The otter bounded ahead with a liquid, loping grace, turning its head back every now and then to see if Hermione was following, the radiance from its glowing silver body enough to light her way. It ducked through one of the arches lining the covered gallery on each side of the courtyard, and Hermione climbed through a few steps behind, concentrating on the warmth of a future that had not yet come to pass. When she turned the corner, trailing her Patronus, she heard the swish of robes and the squeak of leather shoes on stone flooring.
"Granger? Is that you?" came Travers' voice. He lit his wand, and she saw him standing in front of one vaulted archway, where it rose from the ground and narrowed overhead, forming a waist-high partition that students sat on in good weather and free periods. The otter drifted to him and draped itself over his shoulder like a limp washcloth. Travers poked at the otter, but he couldn't dislodge it and his finger passed straight through.
"I don't mind if you call me 'Hermione'," she said. "If you don't mind me calling you 'Quentin' in return. We've known each other long enough for that, I'd like to think. Out of long fellowship, I noticed that you made the unusual choice of wandering off after dinner. Is your family alright?"
"I..." Travers began, and one nervous hand pressed over his pocket, which gave off the soft rustle of folded paper. "Riddle wouldn't approve of anyone but him being that familiar with you."
"I don't need Tom's approval for everything," said Hermione. "When we're married, we'll be Riddle and Riddle. I imagine it would be awfully confusing if my friends could no longer tell me apart from my husband. If you feel the familiarity's unearned, then you have my permission to call me by name—for clarity's sake, if nothing else."
"Very well... Hermione," conceded Travers, and the act of stringing together those unfamiliar syllables seemed to unnerve him, for he glanced around to assure himself he wasn't overheard by anyone nearby. He cleared his throat. "I question its necessity. There's little chance we'll share the same circles after we graduate."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Hermione, frowning. She brushed the dust from low stone wall and sat down on it. Her Patronus otter wriggled off Travers' shoulder and came to rest on her lap, its furred white belly facing upwards. "Tom isn't going to stop me from having friends, husband or not. That's too presumptuous an action, even by his standards."
Travers rubbed the back of his neck as he sat down also, rolling his wand between his palms in an anxious tic, which struck off red sparks from the tip. "Here's how it is: Riddle doesn't need any of us. He tolerates us because it's convenient, and as a Slytherin, he understands there's no sense in being uncivil with those who share the same living quarters. Even he has to sleep, and he knows it. Outside Hogwarts, what have we to offer him that he can't get more of, and better, from someone else? Slughorn can land him an apprenticeship in any magical discipline Riddle chooses, and he's even got Dumbledore teaching him personally. I don't see a future where Riddle bothers to maintain his school connections. What is the purpose of our Homework Club when there's no more homework? That's why Lestrange has been slimier than usual—he's grown too used to dodging detention and ruling the dungeons, riding on Riddle's name. Without Riddle and Hogwarts, he's an elf with no home and master. It drives him mad."
"Do you..." Hermione began hesitantly. "Does everyone assume me and Tom are together for the utility of the match? That he doesn't really want me, he just thinks it's convenient?"
The expression on Travers' face was one of sudden panic, that odd sort of masculine terror Hermione encountered in Ravenclaw Head meetings when male Prefects reported being asked about sanitary towels from the Second and Third Years under their care. (Tom, to his credit, had no self-consciousness about dispensing sanitary towels. At the Little Hangleton village shop, he asked the clerk if this or that brand was better, with the casual air of buying a tin of beans or having butter weighed by the ounce. Of the two of them, Hermione was the more embarrassed. This was one instance where Tom's complete lack of shame about anything to do with Hermione's bodily processes came in handy.)
"Uh... Well, no, that's different. Riddle's association with you is different from his association with me or Lestrange."
"How?"
He coughed, muttering, "You're a witch."
"I still don't understand," said Hermione.
"Let's just say that if you were a wizard and not a witch, Lestrange would have found a way to corner you in the dungeons or bump you off a staircase," said Travers. "You would've been... replaceable, in a way that you aren't now. A witch wife is not in the same league of rival that a wizard can possibly compete against. Lestrange is aware of this."
"I don't think your analysis is entirely wrong," Hermione admitted. "When it comes to Tom and his character eccentricities, that is. Tom is of an independent spirit, and doesn't take well to being beholden to anyone or anything. Favours beyond the scope of student life are serious, and he recognises that associates within Slytherin aren't retained without the mutual understanding of transactionality, even close associations."
"Yes, and those who want to retain Riddle's consideration have no worthy token of exchange," said Travers. "Riddle doesn't have the usual vices to exploit. He doesn't drink or gamble, has no known relatives or debts, and the less spoken about dalliances, the better. For all intents, he's self-sufficient. To which I can only conclude that the one person whom he'll keep when we're done with school is you. When we part in London a week from now, that will be the end of our club and our continued association."
On Hermione's lap, her Patronus otter sat up on its hind legs and laid its little front paws on her breast. It had no mass, but she could feel the weight and warmth of its presence, an aura that leaked from it in trails of white smoke, and it gladdened her heart with an unexpected confidence. The otter gazed up at her, then turned its head to Travers.
"Then... After Hogwarts, do you want to be friends? Not a friend of Tom's, but a friend of mine," said Hermione. She winced, mindful of how awkward it sounded. The only other time she'd asked someone to be her friend, it was Tom Riddle, and in the aftermath, she'd questioned the decision and had been forced to explain to her parents why she'd given an orphanage boy a half year's worth of saved pocket money. To ask outright was no Slytherin strategy; to them, it spoke of desperation, and there was nothing Slytherins avoided by instinct quite like the distinctive miasma of the desperate.
Her otter dropped off her lap and crossed over the stone floor to Travers. It bumped its whiskered nose at Travers' knee. And although Patronuses were made of no stuff more substantial than will and magic, Travers' trembling hand extended in a closed fist, as if he was being scented by a living dog, and the otter sniffled it, whiskers passing through the boy's knuckles. He let out a faint sigh, fist uncurling, and let his fingers brush through the glowing halo of light that surrounded the otter's body. The trails of radiance wisped away into the air like the fumes of a cauldron, to be replenished by Hermione's magic beating within the otter's silver heart.
"Your Patronus light is just as strong as Father's, but yours feels warmer, somehow. Life and warmth in the lance of sunlight through a forest canopy. I didn't know there could be a difference..." Travers murmured. "Slytherin House deplores the notion of friendship without caveats, which is why Slytherins have so few true friends. I know I'm hardly deserving of such an honour. But I would be honoured to have it..."
"Good," said Hermione. "Then it's settled! You can be my training partner in the Auror Office this August."
This statement caught Travers' full attention. "You—you're going to be an Auror?"
"I have the marks, don't I?" she said. "Do you remember that quote, 'Right lives by law'? If I want to do right, make the right changes, then it must be through law. The most effective way to enter the ranks of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is through the Auror Corps. I accept that other positions in the Ministry are far less meritocratic, and as unfair as it is, there's naught to be done about it today. I'm well enough at practical magic—and I'm still improving—but I know the rules back to front, so by the listed requirements of such a situation, I'm perfectly suited."
Travers fell silent for a half-minute in careful consideration. "You do know that you're not guaranteed a desk position... Lawbreakers who don't care much for the rules also don't care much for consequences. They have to be brought in by force. The Aurors are that force."
"I do know," said Hermione. "I know enough that I won't enjoy it, but it's not meant to be enjoyable, is it? It's not easy or pleasant either, but at the end of the day, it's a necessary job for a functioning society."
"It's also uncommonly dangerous. They hold open applications for good reason: they need to fill the empty positions—and they always have empty positions," said Travers, and speaking low and fast, his voice cracked on the last word. "My father wrote to me saying that Grindelwald himself has turned his eye to Britain. The accused were broken out of their chains in the middle of the trial, right under the full Wizengamot and the Minister's nose, and with a dearth of wizards of the power and wit to accomplish this, the fault is laid upon the most obvious suspects. If you seek to serve the Ministry, they'll expect you to do so as a soldier."
"The traineeship is three years long," said Hermione. "They'll not throw trainees straight into the battlefield on the first day."
"Three years in normal circ*mstances," Travers said.
"My father was a medic in wartime. He had to watch soldiers die, unable to do a thing but offer them the chaplain's blessing and a tincture of laudanum—that's similar to an all-purpose pain reliever, but powerfully addictive. But we're wizards; we have magical achievements in medicine beyond the most modern advancements of Muggle science," said Hermione, who'd read that the new anti-infective, penicillin, was the odds-on recipient for this year's Nobel award. "By the time three—or even two years—has passed, I'm sure the need for soldiers will not be quite so very urgent. The war's already reaching a close on the Muggle side. If Grindelwald has been relying on Muggle supply lines as I've suspected he has, then he'll last no longer than another year."
"Is that how you've come to your decision? You're counting on the prospect of not having to face a real wizarding war?" asked Travers.
"One never knows how things will turn out," said Hermione. "I'm only being realistic about the possibilities. From Tom's perspective, I agree with his advice of not worrying overmuch—better to concentrate on the changes you can make in this world than the ones you can't. And what better way is there but to enact change by going where changes are made? After all, law lives by power. I aim to be the best witch I can be, and by the measure of sense and conscience, there is no more I can ask of myself."
Travers' eyes dropped to his hands and his sparking wand. He rubbed at a groove in the handle, the slick varnish worn away in that one spot, and for a few minutes he said nothing. Hermione closed her eyes and took the opportunity to organise her mind and practise directing her Patronus through silent orders. She felt the warmth of its soul-heartening light, bright and pulsing through her eyelids, as the otter floated out of her lap and bobbled around her head, suspended within a cloud of silver mist.
Paper crinkled and rustled.
Hermione opened her eyes. By the light of his wand, Travers' head bowed over a few sheets of parchment, studying the printed words with a lowered gaze.
"Do you have an exam tomorrow?" asked Hermione curiously.
"It's not study notes," said Travers. He let out a rattling breath and showed her the papers. Ministry of Magic letterhead, the sunburst insignia of the DMLE, the heavy serifed text reading, AUROR OFFICE: APPLICATION FOR TRAINEE CANDIDACY. "Father sent it with his letter at dinner. He ended the salutation with the advice, and I quote, 'You know what to do'." Travers laughed humourlessly. "He even filled out the form for me."
And Hermione saw what he meant—the name and birthdate sections had already been completed in a precise copperplate hand. It wasn't the same handwriting with which she was familiar from reading his essays upside-down in the library.
NAME: QVENTIN MENANDER TRAVERS
DATE-OF-BIRTH: IV - ♅ - MCMXXVII
She didn't know what to say in response. Hermione had always found the strictures of pureblood society rather perplexing relative to the indulgence of her own Muggle childhood, where she had been given all that she needed, and anything more than that was only granted after proving to her parents that what went wanting was wanted for good reason. Her discomfort was compounded by the fact that she was a witch becoming audience to a wizard's dissent against his father; as with Tom staring down his own father at the Riddles' dining table, it was her natural instinct to slide down out of sight and let them have at it, then creep back quietly when it was finished. Emotional confrontation, even when she wasn't directly involved, had the troublesome tendency of making her cry—it happened every time she attended the opera!—and she had spent enough time at the Slytherin table to understand that a girl's tears didn't make unhappy boys any happier.
"Oh," said Hermione, somewhat awkwardly. "I noticed that you have a Greek middle name. When I was little, I used to think my Greek name was the odd one out. The other girls at the Muggle school I went to before Hogwarts had nice normal names everyone knew how to spell and pronounce. Who doesn't like a fine, patriotic 'Georgia' or a sweet and fashionable 'Shirley'? I was a 'Hermione', and that was another strange thing about me atop the strange accidents that followed me in my darkest moods..."
At Travers' uncomfortable expression, she cleared her throat, and said, "Receiving my Hogwarts letter altered my future irrevocably. I learned I was a witch, a citizen of magic, and my odd Greek name was least odd thing about me. When I heard from you that civil service was a solemn duty, it was a sentiment to which I truly concurred. This wizarding world of yours and mine had set aside a place for me, a lost daughter come home. Not that parents and children always get along without strife, but the magic of my witch's soul surely flows as thick as the blood of the covenant. For an outsider to be tasked with the maintenance of an institution of law and democracy—on the basis of merit, no less—is a great privilege. My citizen's privilege."
"Your name comes from Hermes, messenger of the gods, god of travellers," said Travers, after a few quiet moments of considering her rather inane speech. "He who walks between two realms."
"Yes, surprisingly fitting, isn't it?" Hermione replied. "I only know Menander as a poet, likely Athenian—the most famous ones were. Tom studied Ancient Greek; he'd be more familiar with the Athenians than I."
"If you don't know Menander by name, you may have heard his most famous quotation before," said Travers. "'Anerríphthō kýbos', originally. But in Latin, 'Alea iacta est'. Let the die—"
"—Be cast," Hermione finished.
"Were I only as decisive as Menander," said Travers regretfully, tucking the papers back into his trouser pocket.
"Being circ*mspect is no great offence, not in my books," Hermione told him, standing up and brushing off her robes. "If you must excuse yourself to any singular entity above all others, then let it be your own conscience. Come on, the clocktower is soon to ring the curfew peal. I'll walk you back to the dungeons. No Prefect can slap you with a detention when the Head Girl stands at your side."
The clocktower rang the quarter-hour when they'd returned to the castle. Fifteen minutes until nine o'clock. On the walk down to the lower levels, they passed a Hufflepuff holding a large crock containing a whole braised chicken, coming out of the kitchens.
"What?" he said, when he noticed Hermione and Travers staring at him. "I'm hungry."
In the dungeons, they encountered a Slytherin boy with a handle of whisky in each fist, hurriedly hiding the bottles under his robes when he saw them come around a corner. "It's for the party. Over seventeens only, so that's not against the rules," he explained. "And it's not curfew yet."
When they passed the door to the Homework Club's meeting room, with a lock enchanted to recognise members, Travers paused. "How did you manage to cast your corporeal Patronus?" he asked. "For the Defence demonstration, I could only cast the shield-mist for half an extra mark."
"I constructed my own version of a memory—a detailed visualisation with strong emotional significance," said Hermione. "I took notes from the Auror manual on guided meditations, if you want to borrow them. They're tips to help command your thoughts and emotions, similar to the exercises in basic Occlumency."
"Can you teach me how you did it?" said Travers. "The Patronus Charm is an essential spell for Aurors."
"Oh," said Hermione. "Well, yes. Of course I can. Most wizards can find great utility in a Patronus, Auror or not. Shall we meet here tomorrow, after breakfast?"
"Alright," Travers agreed. A muffled chime came from his watch, secreted in an inner pocket of his robes. "I should return to my Common Room now. Goodnight... Hermione."
"Goodnight, Quentin," Hermione returned, and somehow speaking his name didn't sound as awkward as she had expected it would. She watched him retreat deeper into the cool, draughty depths of the dungeons, until he turned around the next bend to disappear from sight. She wondered if this new development to their previous state of rapport meant that she had "caught" Travers as her minion, as Tom had described it, with the dispassionate veracity to which he approached all other relationships but the one he shared with Hermione.
If she had only made a friend tonight, not a minion, then that was a success on its own merits. She wasn't Tom Riddle, and she didn't look for docility as the prime trait for those she might choose to share her company. A dependable disposition, of the nature to deliberate thoroughly before forming a decision: that was a prime trait in Hermione's eyes. There were too few wizards with this valuable quality, although Tom would disagree with her on its value. He had little use for independent thinking when it came to good minions. But then again, Tom was not one to be fully relied upon for any deep insight on human fellowship.
Were Tom to be asked how many friends he had, the answer he gave would be clear as to how much wisdom he truly possessed on the nature of "friendship". A harsh summary, perhaps, but Tom had no grounds to take offence given how often he applied such harshness to other people.
Hermione met Travers in the Homework Club classroom the next day, to steer him through a range of mental exercises to test his focus and control. She'd Transfigured a desk and chair into a simple rope-strung bed frame, complete with a thin mattress, explaining to Travers that if it was comfortable enough to fall asleep, then he was missing the purpose of the exercise. He needed to sort through his own thoughts until calmness became second nature, and only from there could he induce happiness through intention rather than accident.
"Try it one more time."
"I still can't get more than a blob, why should this time be any different?"
"Because I gave you fifteen minutes to choose a new memory!"
"New or not, none of my memories are strong enough to fuel the spell."
"Then invent one from whole cloth. That's what I did."
"What invented happy image could ever hope to be happier than a happiness you've already known?"
"An image that reflects what truly matters to you," was Hermione's succinct answer. She contemplated her own visualisation for casting her Patronus. Happiness for her wasn't simply about achievement, the mark of a legacy she wished to leave behind in the world of her naturalisation. She'd tried that approach, but it didn't work until Tom had stepped in with an assisting hand. The precipice of achievement alone wasn't enough to fuel her intent. The foundation of her psyche was built from the bricks of unswayable resolve, a hunger for answers, friendship and true companions.
"When I asked you and the rest of the Slytherins to forgo your day at Hogsmeade to attend my meeting at the Hog's Head, I was ever so thrilled that people came." said Hermione. "I've never been popular, affable, or even likeable. Between me and Tom, he's always been the superior when it came to charms and graces. Tom makes friends so easily; all of you were his friends before you knew who I was. But on a day when Tom was absent, everyone still chose to spare me their hours and listen to what I had to say. The memory of that day, of speaking well despite my own nervousness, of being heard without instant dismissal, that unity of purpose... That's the feeling I amplify into the vision of my future. If you don't have a memory, then to create its equivalent which resonates in heart and spirit, in truth and ego."
While Travers laboured over his visualisation, Hermione read over the The Daily Prophet's interview with the Minister for Magic. The Prince of Charming, a mysterious figure of the past few months, had appeared in public and, once again, saved innocent lives that did not so much put him in a heroic light than make the Ministry of Magic appear clumsy and ineffectual. The Minister had a few words to say on the subject:
Ministry of Magic, 1PM
After the events of Thursday afternoon, Minister Spencer-Moon re-iterated that faulting the Ministry for its response to the emergency was too hasty a conclusion to draw. "I was advised to evacuate the courtroom by my personal Auror detail. Was I to question their professional judgement of the situation? That the doors were locked was nothing more than a minor oversight; the locking mechanism automatically engages when the courtroom enchantments are damaged or tampered with. If you want to know who's responsible for that, ask former Minister Spavin—I'm told by my secretary that he's the one who approved their construction in 1872, not me. I had nothing to do with it!"
When informed that the late Mr. Faris Spavin was an unfortunate victim of extended Dementor exposure, whose funeral is planned for July 1 (Page 18), Minister Spencer-Moon, added, "Well, I have here the forms he signed with his own name, and you have nothing on me. Presumed innocent until proven guilty, that's the way the law is read in Britain under my watch. I should know, I'm the Minister!"
On being curtly rebuffed by both the Prince and Professor Albus Dumbledore, Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Spencer-Moon said, "They came at once to the aid of the Ministry, so of course we're on friendly terms, no matter how it looks on the surface. The Prince of Charming, as I understand it, is a stalwart ally of the Ministry of Magic. Always has been, without a doubt. He's refused to collect the bounty prizes to which he's legally entitled, and only a noble soul would gladly turn away from thousands of Galleons like that. Wizengamot Interrogator Claudius Prince assures me that the Prince of Charming is 'too honest for his own good', and Mr. Prince is a better judge of character than most wizards. As for Dumbledore... He's an intractable personality, but it seems the Prince has finally convinced him to get his priorities in order. Charm really does win the day, doesn't it!"
It took until the third day for Travers to finally cast a corporeal Patronus, from where he lay on his back on the creaky Transfigured cot, staring with sullen determination at the soot-blackened wooden beams of the ceiling. Hermione glanced up from her newspaper when Travers whispered the incantation under his breath, and the amorphous blob that poured grudgingly out of his wand took on finer details—a tail, nubby legs, a discernable face—as the boy frowned up at it, brows knitted and lips pressed together in concentration.
Hermione didn't dare to utter a word, silently folding the newspaper and setting it aside. A large English sheepdog, whose fluffy white coat glowed with its own inner light, stared down at Travers from where it had planted itself on his chest. Travers raised his fist, and the dog lowered its great hairy head imperiously to nose at it, and when it was finished, it lay down and flopped its weightless paws over Travers' shoulders. When Travers tried to push himself up to a sitting position, his concentration wavered, and the silver radiance dimmed, the delicate tracery of each feathery white hair losing its crisp detail... Then the dog faded away, and Travers was left behind on the swaying ropes reeling from the sudden and aching loss, clutching his wand between white knuckles.
"It feels like that before you get used to it," said Hermione in consolation. "But if you know the trick of casting a Patronus, it'll always come back to you."
On that same day, the door to the classroom was slammed open by Avery, who called over his shoulder, "He's not here!"
Hermione lowered her wand from where she was Levitating a desk over Travers' head, an exercise to incentivise quick casting of his Patronus, because it wasn't likely that any time someone needed to use the Patronus Charm, he would be granted ample time to Transfigure a bed and meditate on a suitable visualisation. While distracted, the desk dropped, Travers scrambled out from under it before it struck him, and Hermione sheepishly lowered it to the floor with a embarrassed apology.
"Who's not here?" asked Hermione.
"Riddle," said Lestrange, entering the room on Avery's heels. "We've been looking for him for days. He hasn't showed himself at breakfast and when he's at dinner, he's got that face on, y'know, that one he has when he's in the mood to flip some brains inside out."
"He's not in the mood for answering nosy questions when he's like that," said Rosier, sidling into the room after Lestrange and Avery. "More like he's in the mood to see what colour brainfluid is when it squirts out of your nose." At Hermione's expression, he added, "In a manner of speaking, of course. Riddle wouldn't actually do that, hah. Oh, Travers. Having fun with Granger, are you?"
"We thought Riddle would've been off doing things with you," said Lestrange, elbowing Rosier in the side. "He's been excited about it for the past few weeks, if his private bathroom time is any indication of it. If he's not with you, where could he be?"
"Why are you looking for him, anyway?" asked Hermione. "Haven't you any hobbies of your own?"
"I wanted to discuss holiday plans," said Lestrange. "If he gets those eleven Outstanding N.E.W.T.s like he's been expecting, then they'll put his name in the paper. Important men will take notice of the highest marks of the century, so I'd planned to introduce Riddle to my father. All the important men in this country know each other; that's how they stay important."
"And the rest of you?" asked Travers, dabbing sweat off his brow with a pocket kerchief. "Who else is out in the corridor? Mulciber? Black? Haven't you better things to do than chasing rogue geese?"
"Chasing down the Head Boy is important," said Black. He tapped his Prefect pin. "I got the nod from Slughorn that I've been nominated for next year's Head Boy. If my term marks are good enough, I should be ahead of the competition when the letters are owled out in late July. That means I'll be needing the duty schedule Riddle used this year. You won't be seeing me on holiday decorating duty next year; the other students can take charge of the tinsel and pumpkins, thanks."
"Four Slytherin Heads in a row. Selwyn, Black, Riddle, and now Black again." Hermione frowned. "That seems a bit irregular, to make three other Houses jostle over the one available Head spot, year after year."
"If the others wanted it that much, then they should have put some effort into stacking the Board of Governors," said Black indifferently. "Father's been wining and dining Chairman Brutus Malfoy since September in preparation for my last year. Mother had to send out for Madam Rosier's house-elf to bake the broyé poitevin, Malfoy's pudding course favourite. If a Black gets another Head badge, then it was earned on Black toil."
"You do realise that Tom never had to do any of that for his Head Boy badge, don't you?" remarked Hermione. "Neither did I."
"Well, I'm not the same as Riddle, am I?" answered Black. "If I was, Riddle would probably have ki—er, not taken very kindly to that. Say, Granger, has he told you where he'd gone off to?"
"No, he hasn't," said Hermione. "Now that you've confirmed he's not in here, shouldn't you look somewhere else?"
"You have a way to find him, Granger," Travers spoke up unexpectedly. "The Patronus notes you took said that they could be used to find specific individuals, if you knew them well enough. If there's anyone who knows Riddle, it's you."
"Oh, you can cast a Patronus, then?" Black said, eyes narrowing. "I suppose you found out about the bonus mark in the Defence exam for it. Why don't you cast it for us, and then we'll get out of your hair?"
At Travers' subtle nod, Hermione swirled her wand in the proper movement of the Patronus Charm and summoned her silvery otter, impressing upon it the desire to find Tom Riddle, anchored by thought and memory: the constancy of Tom's unwavering affection, his lovely dark eyes engrossed by a textbook when they weren't fixed on her, the sardonic lilt he gave to his most candid thoughts. The otter dashed away, soaring straight up through the ceiling, and then it returned a minute later, shaking its sleek fur out and climbing onto Hermione's shoulder.
"Is Tom in the castle?" Hermione asked.
The otter shook its head.
"Is he outside on the grounds?"
The otter preened.
"Is it somewhere I've been before?"
The otter gave a little shimmy of its body that Hermione struggled to interpret. She took its meaning to be, Somewhat true, but not fully.
"Can't you make it lead us to him?" asked Avery. "If speaking isn't within the capabilities of a Patronus, you should allow it to do something that is."
"I'm rather busy at the moment, actually," Hermione began, but Travers nudged her and hissed in a low voice:
"Being a leader means taking charge even when you don't want to."
She sighed. "Alright. We'll try to do this as quickly as possible." She nodded to her Patronus otter, which pulsed with light from where it hovered by her head. "Lead us to Tom, then."
They found Tom—and Nott—on the lakeshore practising Transfiguration, with Professor Dumbledore of all people. The sun above their heads shone like a yellow coin in a brilliant summer sky; the distant forest, in full growth and a light breeze, creaked and groaned out its primordial whispers; the windy highlands were clothed in long grasses, bowing under the weight of flowering seed-heads. But on such a wonderful day, Tom was not enjoying the ripe bounty of nature; he paced irascible circles in a bleak patch of packed dirt, glaring across a line of barrels at an amused professor sitting under a beach umbrella.
This was the "Switching Game", and it took some time for Hermione to understand the trick of it after seeing it demonstrated, and taking the opportunity to test it herself. Before she knew she was a witch, she'd read speculative theories of the preternatural, which most rational authors concluded to be no more than exceptionally ingenious legerdemain, sleight-of-hand to which Muggles were just as capable of as executing as wizards. Or more, since physical finesse was somewhat lacking in wizards who didn't like walking if they could Apparate, or picking up an unwieldy weight if they could Levitate it. It required an excellent dexterity of co-ordination to swap a rubber ball between three cups without anyone in the vicinity being any the wiser.
When Tom had gotten around to the solution at long last, Dumbledore approached Hermione and the rest of the boys, his greying eyebrows raised in curiosity, and remarked, "I seem to have overlooked Mr. Riddle's thoughtful forewarning, informing me that he had seen fit to invite his friends today. Are you volunteering to accompany us for an impromptu class of extension Transfiguration?"
Hermione replied, "Yes!" immediately, which Travers echoed, slightly slower. The other boys followed in a ragged chorus, with Avery at the end, after taking the lay of the land, heaving a deep breath of quiet suffering before gamely putting his wand in with the rest of them.
Professor Dumbledore demonstrated to them the theory of the elemental shield: "The traditional Shield Charm, as you've studied with Professor Merrythought, is a transparent half-dome that protects against both standard spells and physical assault. Miss Granger, a Disarming Charm, if you please?"
Hermione cast a silent Expelliarmus at Dumbledore, who held a Shield Charm at the tip of his wand. When her spell hit his, the Shield juddered, red sparks crackling over its hemispherical surface, outlining its shape and dimensions. Dumbledore had cast it very well indeed, the Shield's bottom edge extending to protect his feet, and the top curve the silk tassel dangling from his wizardly hat. A lot of wizards were careless about their edges, since the Shield Charm was transparent and most opponents aimed for the chest anyway. She was intrigued to observe that even in a perfect casting, the Shield's edges faded out of existence, not as a hard outline of border.
"Now, it's your turn to cast the Shield Charm, Miss Granger," Professor Dumbledore instructed her. With his wand, he carved out a great scoop of soil, and pouring it over with Conjured water, moulded it into a floating ball of thick brown clay. It churned and kneaded itself, floating in the air under Dumbledore's manipulation, the sticky wet slurry of a potter's slip. Then, with a shallow flick of his wand, Dumbledore flung it at Hermione.
Her Shield took the blow with a sizzle and a thump, splattering right in front of her face, the bowl-like curve around her body fully defined under a layer of dripping clay. From where she stood in safety within its bounds, she maintained the spell, although she could feel the twenty-five pounds of clay weighing down the tip of her wand, even if her physical muscles were unaffected.
"Can you see through the Shield?" asked Dumbledore.
"No, sir," said Hermione. "You've robbed me of my visibility. If I dismissed the Shield, the mud would fall to the ground, wouldn't it? Then I'd have to cast it again if I wanted the protection of a Shield. But during that small gap, you could hit me with a Disarming Charm if you were fast enough."
"Ah, so you have seen the problem there," said Dumbledore, pleased by her quick analysis. "The Transfiguration of true matter is a powerful skill, when applied with proper discrimination. Even had you dismissed the Shield, the mud would collect on the ground at your feet, an unpleasant obstacle for anyone to cross, including yourself. And this is where an alternative to pure spell-based Shields comes in useful. Tom?"
Tom came forward, his yew wand hanging at his side. His robe hems bore salt-streaks in white, his pale cheeks were flushed pink from several hours under the sun, and the soft waves in his black hair had lost some of their usual cherubic spirit. "Sir?"
"How would you shield yourself against a mud projectile?" Professor Dumbledore asked in his mild classroom voice, and with shocking speed, he'd gathered up another enormous clay lump and hurled it at Tom.
With snarl and a sharp slash of his wand, Tom summoned a vicious, shrieking gale that swept the mud around in a vast circle and back again to Dumbledore, who wordlessly bounced it away from himself with the unceremonious manner of serving a shuttleco*ck. Tom split the mud ball into quarters when it turned to him, and the four smaller balls Duplicated into eight, then sixteen, aiming themselves in Dumbledore's direction. But Dumbledore smiled and the mud bullets flipped around, sixty-four of them buzzing through the air like angry wasps, straight for Tom's face, whereupon a wide-eyed Tom cast a roaring wall of fire that he frantically shoved outwards.
When the fire extinguished itself, there was nothing of the mud but a faint, fine dust that lofted to the ground. And there was Tom, brushing the dirt off his robe sleeves and shoulders, nose wrinkling at the smudges on his white starched cuffs.
"Whoa," breathed Lestrange from behind Hermione.
When she turned around, the boys were gaping at Tom in awe, for he'd cast all his spells silently and with nary a pause to strategise on what spell to use and where to aim it. He'd drawn with Dumbledore, as near as Hermione could tell with her limited experience with wizarding duels, and he hadn't cast any of the standard duelling spells they'd been taught in Defence over the past seven years. Tom wasn't just fast and clever, but he moved on instinct, as if he had an internal sense of how much time he was allotted between the rhythm of each volley. He worked within it with a ruthless grace, attempting to constrain the professor to nothing more than reacting and defending against Tom. The only boy who showed anything but open admiration was Nott, who had joined the others; he appeared bored, but the tightness of his brows suggested something nearer to intent calculation.
Tom was bombarded with questions.
"Is that what you've been doing all day?"
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"I've never seen you duel like that before!"
And finally, "You have to teach us how you do it!" from the ever-obsequious crony, Lestrange.
To Tom's displeasure at losing what he must have assumed were private magic lessons, Dumbledore permitted them to stay and observe some of the advanced exercises he'd been teaching Tom. And Nott, for some reason. Judging by Tom's expression, he was torn between the satisfaction in modelling sophisticated elemental Transfigurations and Conjurations that the other boys couldn't hope to match, and annoyed that indulging those of lesser ability produced no result but a waste of his time. Not Hermione, however, whom Tom treated with a fond sort of clemency which she assumed was due to her being such a quick study of Transfiguration concepts.
Once one understood the laws that governed the nature of materiality, momentum and diffusivity and thermodynamics, the logical counter-response became predictable, and the real trouble came from getting it out fast enough before the other side went and disarmed you. It was a good job that wizards were familiar with the simpler physical laws, as Hermione had only the learning of a secondary school Muggle textbook; disappointingly, she lacked the sheer power to manipulate huge masses as Tom and Dumbledore managed. But she knew it well enough to explain it to the boys, despite Tom's grumbling that for practical purposes, anyone without the brains and creativity for Transfiguration would be more effective with rote-learned curses of the duelling orthodoxy.
"There'd be no use in having special lessons if Dumbledore could teach them to the whole year," Tom complained. "Not that there's any point in having them now, anyway. Might as well teach potatoes to sum."
Hermione harrumphed. "It's not nice to compare your friends to potatoes."
"I'm not impugning the noble potato," said Tom. "The Irish consider them a bulwark against starvation. That is what they're most suited for, and where their capabilities should best be reserved."
He charmed a cool breeze to dry the stickiness of the summer heat. "You once lightened your trunk for the benefit of my servant, Mr. Bryce. I don't see it as any different than that."
"It is different!" said Hermione.
Tom co*cked his head, and spoke quietly, "You could lend your wand to your mother, but no amount of tutoring would ever make it anything more than a wooden stick in her hands. Perhaps it's tactless to say it, but saying it nicely doesn't change what can't be changed. It should only serve to remind us that those with ability should use it to properly care for the ones who lack it, don't you think? We didn't choose to be better, but we are, and there's nothing to be done about it. What is the alternative, after all? Let those without our wit and skill and benevolent intent do it instead, as the blind man leads the blind?" He took her hands in his and held them against his chest. "You'll understand it better when you collect more minions. Ah, I'm too glad to see you taking my advice. I should ever be willing to advise you further, Hermione. Do know that where you're concerned, I shall hold nothing back."
Laughing at Hermione's pink flush, Tom said, "There's no shame in wanting my, hmm, assistance. I would be quite despondent if you didn't, to be honest."
And so, for the last week of their final term, Hermione and the Slytherin boys joined Tom and Professor Dumbledore every morning to practice Transfiguration. She had known, of course, that Professor Dumbledore was a certified Master of the discipline, along with two others, Defence and Alchemy. To observe how exactly Transfiguration could be applied to Defence was marvellous, as she had known from researching battlefield magic that this was how wizards controlled a theatre of war. Where Muggle militaries used entrenchments and landmines, wizards eschewed physical labour and factory materiel for something far more aesthetic, but no less formidable.
In the afternoons, they returned to their dormitories tired and sweaty and all over with mud, cleaned up for dinner, and reviewed their day's accomplishments at the dinner table. Tom was always the top duelliest and did not let it go forgotten, but the others had also made good strides in their magical skills. Avery was decent at animal Transfigurations and Conjurations, to Hermione's surprise but not Tom's, slow but very meticulous in his technique, which the boy explained as having grown up among animals at his family estate.
"He harvests their organs for potions ingredients," Tom whispered into her ear. "His knowledge of anatomy is better than most."
Lestrange was better at pure Defence spells than Transfiguration, and had a remarkable pain tolerance. Hermione replicated a smaller version of Tom's flame shield to keep him at a safe distance, but Lestrange would douse himself with water and walk through, though it burned his robes and charred his flesh with hot blisters, and still have the strength to buffet at her with his heavy fists until he had her wand snatched away. The first time it happened, Hermione was dazed at the intensity of a physical disarming, which was against the rules of competitive duelling. But Tom didn't disapprove of it; he only reminded Lestrange not to leave marks and let him duel Hermione for another round.
"He was cursed back in First Year with leg pains," explained Tom. "No one knew where it came from, so he just had to endure it until his family could take him to a private Healer during the summer holidays. Good to see that at least he got something out of it."
She discovered that apart from Travers and herself, Nott was the other member of their group who had discovered how to cast his Patronus. Contrary to his usual habit of smug superiority, Nott was reluctant to admit his Patronus-casting abilities, only volunteering, under the pressure of Dumbledore's insistent stare, that he could do it, and it was fully corporeal. Hermione thought it strange, given Nott's bragging in the library not long ago, when he had been able to cast a half-corporeal Patronus and held it over Hermione and Travers' heads as proof of his magical prowess.
Dumbledore was pleased by this news, and directed them in a handful of exercises in finding and communication, a skill to which Hermione was becoming proficient; her Patronus could find Tom every time, even when he hid himself through Transfigurations and Disillusionment. Nott's Patronus, she was interested to see, was a proud but erratic male ring-necked pheasant that didn't perch on its wizard's shoulder as Professor Dumbledore's phoenix Patronus was fond of doing. Instead, it preferred hiding under Nott's robes so no one could get a proper look at it. Particularly Travers, whose eyes narrowed with suspicion when he first saw Nott summon it, after Dumbledore had firmly requested Nott's participation in their exercise for the sake of his own education.
"Not many wizards have a pheasant Patronus," Travers had remarked.
"And too many wizards have dog Patronuses," Nott had coolly replied. "There is no more significance to it than what you make of it."
"As you say, Nott," said Travers, and did not comment further.
Hermione had asked Travers what that meant later, but Travers shrugged and mumbled about something his father had mentioned. She let it be, and was distracted when Travers handed her a set of Auror candidacy application papers, explaining how exactly she was to fill out the form in the proper fashion so it wouldn't end up in the bin before the August call-out.
"You'll have to explain to your Auror mentor later that you plan to change your name after your marriage," Travers informed her. "The Auror Office doesn't like irregularities in the paperwork, especially for trainees so early on in their careers, but a witch marrying is one of the few exceptions. But you mustn't let Riddle get a child on you before the three-year training period is finished. If they find out you're, uh, gravid, they'll drum you out of the programme and make you re-apply later on. Even if you're two-and-a-half years in, you'll have to start fresh from the first day if you go through again. It's one of the reasons why the applicants will mostly be wizards."
"Oh," said Hermione, a bit awkwardly. "Thank you for telling me."
"Um. Of course," said Travers, sounding just as awkward. "There's a potion for that, in case you didn't know. Married witches usually want as many children as they can bear, so it's uncommonly brewed, at least among certain families. But I'm sure I could find a receipt for it—"
"No need," Hermioned hurriedly interrupted him. "I know about it."
"Alright," said Travers. "If I can be of service, please do ask."
"Please, Quentin," said Hermione, intending to lay her hand on his forearm. But she stopped herself in time, and tucked her hands behind her back, twisting her silver ring with nervous, pale fingers. "I don't expect to be owed favours for any help I offer to you, and I hope that goes vice versa. I'm not like Tom."
"I know." Travers' mouth tightened, and his shoe scuffed against the stone steps leading up to the Owlery.
"Good," Hermione said brightly. "Now let's mail these forms. Which of these owls can get to London the fastest?"
On the last afternoon of the Hogwarts school year, Hermione and Travers attached their Auror application forms to the legs of a pair of owls, and watched them sail off into the southern horizon. She would look fondly back to her time as a Hogwarts student, but as the orange glare of sunlight glittered over the Lake, she considered sending the letters off as the opening of a new chapter in her life, just like the fateful delivery of her Hogwarts invitation so many years ago. When she was eleven years old, she had only Tom Riddle as a familiar face. She was eighteen now, and while she still had Tom, she had a lot more besides.
Tomorrow, she would be on the train back to London, and then she was to begin her new life as an adult witch. Despite the low flutter of nerves from possibilities for which she hadn't accounted, the assurance of having allies and friends and, yes, even a fiancé at her side, buoyed her assurance into the too-nebulous future.
She didn't need star readings and Divination to feel secure in her faith. Some things were more powerful than chance and fortune.
