shadu-kiam:

(( totally gonna expand on the last one )) 

It was almost 1945. Almost five months since she’d landed here.

It was the middle of Christmas hols, and she was in actual hell. 

The large majority of the students had gone home, leaving the castle achingly empty. At first, the prospect of no class left her feeling excited and hopeful as she continued to tear through the library – a lot of the classwork was less advanced than it was in her time, anyway, so she didn’t feel its loss too keenly. 

She took her meals in the kitchen to avoid the Great Hall, knowing that the staff would have forced all the remaining students to one table. Since there were only about twenty students, the possibility of being stuck sitting next to Tom Riddle was too damn high, and she was not about to risk it. She went to the library only in the middle of the day, when other people were more likely to be there and the librarian was roving around. 

The first four days of the hols had gone well. No Tom Riddle, the common room was peaceful enough to actually read in, and she had her whole dorm room to herself.

She should have known better than to get comfortable. 

After a quick lunch, she was leaving the kitchens and thinking about whether or not it would be worth it to run up the stairs and give her teeth a little brush before she headed to the library again when he spoke.

“So, this is where you’ve been hiding.”

Hermione jumped, swallowing a squeak of surprise. He was leaning against the wall, and when she stared at him, he smiled that awful smile of his – the one that made her palms go clammy with terror. She opened her mouth to respond, and then abruptly thought better of it, pivoting on her heel and striding quickly towards a more populated corridor. The kitchens were far enough out of the way that she really didn’t want to be stuck alone with him.

His hand slipped around her elbow to pull her back, and she whirled on him, her wand flying into her hand automatically – always battle-ready, these days. His eyebrows shot up as he released her, but she didn’t miss the flicker of anger in his eyes. 

“Don’t touch me,” she warned, and his eyes narrowed.

“I really would advise against telling me what to do, Hermione,” he suggested, blandly. “Historically, I have not really taken well to orders.”

“Touch me again, and you’ll be nothing but a scorch mark on the floor,” she promised, flatly. His eyes flicked over her for a moment, taking in the clear readiness of her braced feet, the way she’d half-turned to diminish herself as a target while simultaneously pushing her weight back so she could get the momentum needed to fling out more than one hex in rapid-fire. She saw the moment he realized that she could probably hold her own reasonably well in a duel, and couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

On the one hand, if he considered her dangerous, he might think twice about bothering her. On the other, he might find her intriguing, which was literally the last thing in the world that she wanted.

“Interesting,” he finally said, and she backed away from him. He didn’t move, cocking his head slightly when she continued to keep her wand pointed at his face in silent threat. There was no fear in his expression, and she fought down the childish urge to hex him anyway, just because. “What hexes do you know that could render me into a scorch mark?” he asked, curiously.

“Leave me alone, Riddle,” she repeated, for what felt like the millionth time.

And for the first time, he actually answered. “No.”

Her eyes widened incredulously, and she almost dropped her damn wand. “What?” she demanded, torn between anger and fear. She really couldn’t figure out which emotion was more dominant, at the moment – she felt like she had as good a chance at peeing her pants and running as she did hexing him to pieces.

“No,” he repeated, patiently. When she just stared at him, he smiled.

She turned and ran.

---

Avoiding him became impossible.

Everywhere she went outside the Gryffindor common room, he was there. He was in the library. He was in the corridors. He was outside in the snow. She wondered if he’d just spent those first four days following her around and figuring out her habits.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when she found him outside the kitchen door. “There you are,” he said, when she stopped dead some twenty feet away. “A little late for breakfast.”

“What are you doing here?”

He shrugged. As usual, he didn’t feel any particular need to explain himself. When she turned around, he asked, “Aren’t you going to eat?” She didn’t respond, and he chuckled as she disappeared.

At lunch, defeated, she went to the Great Hall. She was starving and every last refuge she’d enjoyed had been stolen from her.

She might as well eat. 

Tom Riddle was already there, and although the seats beside him were conspicuously empty, she squeezed in beside a Ravenclaw at the absolute opposite end of the table. The weight of his stare lingered on her throughout the meal, and despite her refusal to glance at him, it was nearly enough to put her off her appetite. But she reminded herself that dinner was still some hours away, and she’d regret it if she didn’t eat now.

“Did you want to join?” the Ravenclaw asked her, and she blinked at him. 

“I’m sorry?”

He smiled. “We’re going to have a snowball fight outside. Did you want to come? I haven’t even seen you around this whole week. You should probably get some fresh air.”

Huffing a soft laugh, Hermione glanced around at the other would-be participants. It would be nice, she supposed, to spend some time with the other students – and the crowd would probably keep Riddle at a safe distance. She supposed her research could wait for a few hours. “Sure, that sounds fun.”

---

She was glad she’d gone, in the end. As she’d predicted, Riddle was nowhere to be seen during the snowball fight itself, and she’d even managed to forget about him for about half an hour, which was a feat in and of itself. By the time she was trudging back into the castle, eager to return to her common room’s fire and bury herself in yet another textbook, quite a bit of cheer had returned.

“You look happy.” Hermione stopped short, feeling her heart plummet. He was standing in front of the Fat Lady. In front of the last place she had that was Riddle-less. 

She was very aware of how empty the corridor was. “You’re a long way from the dungeons, Riddle,” she said, with a confidence she didn’t feel. 

He scratched his chin, shrugging again.

“Move.”

“I’d like to talk,” he said. 

“No, thank you,” she snapped. “Get out of my way.”

“Why don’t you move me, yourself?” he challenged, and proceeded to look unimpressed when she drew her wand and pointed it squarely at him. After a tense moment, he smiled. “Well? Go ahead.”

Cursing inwardly, she lowered her wand. She couldn’t exactly just start a duel with another student – someone in the year below her, no less. The staff didn’t know that he was about fifty years from becoming the biggest monster in existence, and she didn’t really want to risk detention. “Just go away,” she seethed, feeling so frustrated that she almost didn’t catch the moment he drew his own wand.

She barely had enough time to throw up a Protego when he flung a hex at her. Eyes widening, she stumbled back a few steps. Was he seriously trying to fight her?

His eyes narrowed as he threw another hex, which rebounded harmlessly as she threw up another shield charm. “What are you doing?” she demanded. He threw two more spells, rapid-fire, and she managed to dodge one and redirect the other, stumbling backwards at a rapid pace as he advanced towards her. “You’re going to get expelled–”

The next spell was a curse, and she felt her throat close up as she redirected it. He wasn’t trying to scare her.

He was trying to hurt her.

“Riddle!” she warned, and got another curse lobbed at her for her trouble. Gritting her teeth, she threw up a shield long enough to bounce the curse off, and flung a hex right back at him the second she dropped it.

She must have surprised him, because he stopped advancing on her and threw up a shield charm of his own.

There was a tense pause, probably only a heartbeat long, but it felt like forever as they stared across the corridor at each other. Then, his wand arm lifted, his expression a stony mask.

The next few minutes were a dizzying firework display, spells of all colors zipping back and forth. He was good. Very good. And she had a feeling that she was a lot better than he expected her to be. They were steadily destroying the paintings and tapestries on the wall, and she knew that she’d likely get thrown out of Hogwarts entirely for this – losing access to that humongous library, which was possibly her only chance to get home. She had to immobilize him.

They’d fallen into a sort of rhythm in the two or three minutes they’d been dueling – hex, shield, curse, shield, hex – and her mind whirred with how she could disrupt that rhythm and catch him off-guard without endangering herself.

She saw the gargoyle out of the corner of her eye and slid towards it. The next hex sent her shield charm up, protecting both her and the statue, and after she sent one back, she slipped behind the statue and didn’t cast the shield again.

Even knowing what was going to happen, she bit back a squeal of surprise as the head of the statue exploded. Before she could register the stinging slap of the debris against her face, she flung her hand out and shouted: “Stupefy!” She could see where his wand had been raising to shield himself, but he’d stalled when he destroyed the statue – probably wondering if he’d gotten her, too – and he wasn’t quick enough.

The spell sent him soaring back, landing on the stone with a grunt. The charm had partially protected him, but she could see he’d been stunned and was coming to rather slowly.

Ignoring the coarse feel of little bits of statue in her eyes, she bolted for the Fat Lady and swung herself inside before he could come to his senses.

She didn’t leave for the rest of the night.

---

Hunger drove her out the next morning.

She didn’t know what would be waiting for her when she finally re-emerged. Tom Riddle was undoubtedly furious at being beaten, even if it was sort of by trickery, and she didn’t relish the thought of having to deal with that. She wondered how long it would take him to stage some elaborate scheme to kill her, probably blaming Hagrid again in the process, somehow. 

She was shocked to realize that the corridor outside the Gryffindor Common Room was completely put back together – including the statue.

Not daring to risk the kitchens and the lonely corridor just outside of it, she made straight for the Great Hall and the relative safety of the small crowd inside.

He wasn’t there, and she nearly collapsed in relief. Maybe he was waiting outside the kitchens for her, again.

She had nearly five minutes of uninterrupted eating before he entered the Great Hall, finding her and immediately making a beeline for her. The croissant went to ash in her mouth as he sat beside her without a word and began to fill his plate. 

It was with great difficulty that she continued chewing. Swallowing that bite of croissant felt like swallowing a ton of lead.

Everyone continued to chat around them, oblivious.

“You’re good with your wand,” he finally said. His tone was placid enough. “Did you learn that while abroad in America?”

“Yes,” she lied, through her teeth.

“Perhaps I should visit there.”

God, she wished he would. “Perhaps you should,” she said, shortly, before turning away to try and strike up a conversation with the Hufflepuff on her other side. It was short-lived; within seconds, she felt his hand on her knee, squeezing.

She twisted back around to him, furious, and the warning died in her throat at the expression on his face.

“Don’t. Ignore. Me,” he enunciated, and beneath the chill of his frozen expression was a white-hot rage that made her stomach twist. His fingers were slowly working bruises into her knee. When she tried to shift her leg away, his grip tightened until her expression became strained. “Where did you learn to duel?”

“America,” she hissed, reaching down to pry his hand off of her. She slipped it off her knee with no small amount of effort, but he merely transferred his iron grip to her hand. She battled him beneath the table, trying to wring her hand from his grip to no avail.

“Where did you learn to duel?” he repeated, stonily. 

She ground her teeth together. “None of your business,” she snapped, and something like victory flashed in his eyes, and he released her. As she rubbed the life back into her aching fingers, he returned to his food. It didn’t seem like anyone else at the table had noticed the short-lived altercation.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you, you know,” he said, his tone returning to the mild one he’d employed when he’d sat. 

My arse, he wasn’t. 

“I simply wanted to see if you were decent. You were. I don’t offer sincere compliments very frequently, Hermione. You should be flattered.” That smile flashed again, the charming one that made her feel seasick. “I think I would really like to get to know you better.”

“The feeling is not mutual,” she muttered.

“It will be,” he assured her, breezily confident. She wrinkled her nose, understanding why he was confident – by all accounts, he was a charmer and a half, and it wasn’t as if he could have guessed that she was from some war-torn future where he existed as a twisted, even more evil version of himself. He took her expression in with some amusement, and repeated, “It will be.”