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He finally came back to himself and gazed down at the basin. It seemed so full yet. Shuddering, he dipped the goblet into the bowl again and drank another full cup of the potion. |
In his memories, Hermione was returning from the seventh-floor room where the Friends of the Founders met. She had just learned that Neville Longbottom’s parents were going to take the oath of fealty to Dumbledore, aligning Hogsmeade under the authority of Hogwarts. He had been outraged that she would go to the meeting... |
"Are they your people, Hermione?" he asked her in the memory, a nasty smirk overspreading his face. The question had been little more than an attempt to get at her; he had not meant to actually exclude her from wizarding England either as a Muggle-born or a part-Norman, but she had interpreted it to mean both. In the c... |
Tom noticed as he pulled himself out of the memory that his eyes were damp. He was starting to feel physically weak as well. He grimaced and downed another goblet of the potion. |
They were standing in one of the paths on the grounds of Hangleton, alone, the summer sun radiating down upon them. "You really have joined these "Friends,’ haven’t you? You have sided against me—betraying me—" |
Hermione was angry now; Tom could tell that in the memory. His words no longer had the same degree of power to hurt her that they used to. She was already hardening to him. That realization was horrifying. Tom watched in the memory as they argued about how he treated her and how he professed to regard witches. At the e... |
Tom stooped over the basin, wiping away the tear that now trickled down his face. He doubted that it would contaminate the potion if it fell in, but best not to let it happen anyway. He realized that he was clutching the rounded sides of the bowl for support, and his head felt light, as if he were soon going to faint. |
Not yet, he thought, drinking another gobletful. At least the basin was finally noticeably emptier, but that was the only good thing. |
It was another Friends of the Founders meeting, this a meeting that he had agreed to attend. He had decided it was best to see if he could guess what their families might be up to, as well as to stake his claim on Hermione in front of Potter, Longbottom, and the others. |
"I asked you this once, and I will ask you again now: Whose side are you on?" |
That still hurt. The implicit accusation of betrayal still hurt her, and now, it combined with anger and outrage over the fact that she was convinced that he had betrayed her by his treatment of her. |
In the memory, they went upstairs together to the meeting, but it had ended rapidly in disaster when Tom learned that Hermione had signed a magically binding oath not to speak of their doings to Malfoy or his allies. He had stormed out of the meeting, refusing to take the oath himself even though he knew it was not one... |
She believed, at that time, that she was bound to me with no choice in the matter, that I cared so little about her that I would humiliate her in public before social inferiors, and she suffered mockery and ridicule from people who knew that they did have freedom to choose their partners, he thought, staring at the gre... |
"What have I done?" he whimpered, his words barely audible, though there was no one else in the cave to hear him anyway. He did not want to drink any more of that potion, but the bowl still had plenty for him. Clinging to the sides, his knees bending, he swallowed another cupful—and immediately wished that he had not. ... |
Hermione had long known that horrible crimes such as rape occurred, but her encounter with the pregnant, morose, terrified Adelaide Lestrange was her first experience with a person who had suffered such a trauma. She had struggled with her misgivings about helping a foe, but in the end, her fundamental compassion and s... |
"What have I done?" he repeated again—or perhaps he only thought it. He did not know, but it did not matter—and worse was still to come. |
The second wave of the memory slammed him like a dragon. He had blamed Hermione’s letter to Bellatrix Lestrange for the fact that he had been tortured over the rapist’s murder. I was angry and scared, he thought. I could have died that day, and I knew it—and I took that fear out on her. |
The horrible fight occurred once again in the memory, only now, he saw it from Hermione’s perspective when he spitefully revealed the bargain he had made with Mother about their betrothal contract. She had been angry, but it had hurt and shocked her deeply. For the first time, Hermione had questioned if he cared for he... |
When Tom came back to the present time in the cave, he realized that he was not standing upright anymore, but rather, was clinging to the pillar where the basin rested, his knees bent. He was not sure that he could rise again. The water, that cold and unnaturally still magical water, beckoned to him.... It could restor... |
This memory was not about Hermione. Instead, he was reliving the horrible argument he had had with his mother after he had killed his father. He experienced it from her viewpoint, and this was just as horrible—if not worse—as anything he had experienced from Hermione’s view. |
Hypocrite. Liar. Every word was a stab to his mother’s heart, as she questioned and second-guessed her own choices in life. She had told lies, but it had not been out of casual unconcern for the truth. It was because she had agonized over when she ought to reveal the awful truth to Tom—the truth that she had eloped wit... |
"Who was it? There must have been someone. There always is for noble spawn." That question, tumbling viciously from his lips, had brought up memories of awful dread in her mind. |
"Why did I say that?" he murmured—or thought—as he relived the memory of saying that to her. "I could tell that the question hurt her, and that was why I asked it. She could have told me the truth in her own way." Shame filled him at the thought of it. |
She had set up the betrothal between him and Hermione because she had had such a bad experience with her first marriage. He had been correct about that, he realized. But she had genuinely believed that two young people barely out of childhood who had so much in common would be happier, and love would come naturally, if... |
Tom’s legs had already collapsed and were unable to support his weight now. He was clinging to the basin for support as he scooped up the last of the potion that he could. He noted, vaguely, that there was indeed something in the basin, though he could not quite tell what it was. It was something elongated. Perhaps a w... |
Tom closed his eyes, feeling his cheeks dampen, as he relived the talk he had just had with Hermione. |
She does not think I set the basilisk on her deliberately, but she does not trust me to ever change—not so much to change my plans; she does not care so much about that, but to ever consider her well-being, her feelings, or even, now, her safety and life when I make my plans. In some recess of his soul, he had already ... |
He was not sure how long he remained curled up on that cold, rocky bank. It might not have been long at all, but the pain—both physical and mental—was so intense, and he felt so utterly, deathly tired, that time itself seemed to become impossible to track. Please, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut, let her never be h... |
I am dying, he thought suddenly. In that moment, he remembered the water. It took every ounce of his remaining strength, but he was able to drag himself to the bank. He did not hesitate. Making sure that his nose remained above the surface, he plunged his face into the water. |
It tasted vaguely unpleasant, not at all like the pure magically infused "water of life" that he had expected, but as he drank deeply, he felt his strength returning to him. The pangs of physical agony returned, but only briefly. Another swallow of the water, and they began to fade. |
Tom crawled from the bank, still feeling tired, but no longer as though he were dying. Instead, he felt as though he had gained several years of wisdom. He stood up on the rocks, the water swirling around his feet, and clutched the now almost-empty basin for support. |
There was indeed something at the bottom. He had not been in a potion-induced hallucination. Tom steadied himself and gazed down at a sheathed blade. Gingerly he lifted it out of the basin. The sheath itself was clearly ancient and valuable, being made of perfectly molded copper, chased with fantastic beasts and Celtic... |
Tom soon had his answer as he examined it. It was not a sword. It was not properly a dagger. This blade, he realized, was an ancient athame, an artifact used by witches and wizards of old in potionmaking, in ritual magic, in blood spells. On the hilt, right below a sharp-eyed raven, were inscribed the words, |
MORGANA, DAUGHTER OF IGRAINE |
Tom gazed at it longingly. It was true, then, at least some of the legend about this cave. What power this artifact might hold.... |
But no, he realized. He knew what he had to do with it. In the end, it was not for him. |
Tom closed the door of the inner cave behind him and faced the storm, which had not abated a bit. Cold, stinging sea spray blasted his face. He pulled his cloak closer and shivered, but the solution was clear. Taking a deep breath, making sure he had the energy and magical reserves to avoid a lethal accident with the p... |
At once, the air was drier, though still cloudy, and the wind was considerably weaker. He shifted his pack on his shoulders. It held the priceless relic he had just acquired, as well as his other possessions that he was bringing with him for the winter holidays. He wanted so much to perform a ritual with it... but he h... |
His mother was already waiting in the high seat, Snape beside her. Her face was grim as she greeted Tom. "My son," she said formally. She met his eyes with hers, which were unusually stern. "We have much to discuss." |
Tom furtively examined her. There was no visible sign of her pregnancy... but then, he supposed, there wouldn’t be. It was too early. He glanced at her and nodded. "My congratulations, Mother," he said. |
"Yes, that is one matter that we will discuss," she said. "But it is not the only one." |
Tom’s heart sank. Had Hermione told Mother her intentions already? She had said that she would merely do it "at some point" over the intermission. |
"High Master Dumbledore sent me a letter this morning," she said, her words hard. "Tom, when I let you read the family history books, you gave me your word that you would not use the information for destructive purposes." |
Tom realized what she was talking about now. "I was excited," he said simply, no hint of petulance in his words. "I was excited and eager. I shouldn’t have opened the Chamber while people were there, but it was not my intention to attack anyone, least of all Hermione." |
Merope studied him for a second before deciding that he was telling the truth. She nodded. "I believe you," she said, "but Hermione is extremely upset about this. If I were you, I would go to her soon. She informed me that you have barely discussed it with her so far." |
Tom’s heart thumped at that. Despite her obvious disapproval, that was promising. It meant that Hermione apparently had not told Mother what she had told him. There was still time. "I mean to do that," he said feelingly. "I don’t think I apologized to her properly, which is probably what she means and why she is upset.... |
"I hope you do too," Merope said. The meaning of her words was clear from the tone; Tom realized that she knew quite a lot about their estrangement and disapproved of it. "In the meantime, welcome home." |
Tom brooded in his room for a little bit as he considered how to approach Hermione and what to say. He fingered the athame, not removing it from its sheath, merely gazing at it as though it could offer him advice. Though perhaps I should not want advice from this particular ancestor, he thought wryly, recalling that ac... |
Hermione would be interested in hearing about his experience in the cave with the potion—after she was amenable to him again. She would not want to know immediately about how much he had suffered from the potion. This is about her, he thought. I suffered that much because that is what she felt too. |
The snake she had given him slithered up the arm of the chair where he sat and coiled on top of his desk, flicking its tongue at him occasionally as he thought. He smiled at the creature, mentally contrasting this snake—his true familiar—with the basilisk of Slytherin. He had only ever thought of the basilisk as a weap... |
It was always Hermione, the entire time. I never even wanted to dally with other girls. I never even considered it. Every night that I felt those urges, I fantasized that my hands were hers. I never stopped loving her; I just stopped accepting that fact myself or showing her. Tom sighed. His task now was a monumental o... |
She will want to speak, he thought, reaching for the athame again. She will have things to say. The alternative is that she is immovable on the subject. There is essentially no chance that she will have little to say because she is accepting everything I say uncritically. She will want to speak, and I should listen to ... |
He picked up the knife and rose to his feet, quickly leaving the room. |
Tom had a hunch that Hermione was in the library rather than her bedroom. He hoped it was the case; he doubted very much that she would welcome a visit from him in her personal quarters. He opened the great double doors to the library and eased inside, closing them behind him immediately. Since it was the day before th... |
Hermione was seated in the corner. A single candle flickered on the nearest table. She was not reading a book, but was instead staring out the window, having turned to face outward. As Tom approached, she heard his footsteps and turned her head, catching his eye. Her eyebrows narrowed and her lips thinned. |
That was an inauspicious beginning, Tom thought, but he supposed it was to be expected. He gazed at her for a moment. "Hermione," he finally said, "there is something I would like to give you." |
She instantly drew up into herself and glared at him with suspicion. "I suppose your real plan is that I will take back what I said this morning at Hogwarts due to this, and therefore that this "gift’ will really turn out to be a loan." |
Stung, Tom instantly protested. "No, Hermione, it truly is a gift." He withdrew the athame from his robes and held it out to her in his palms. |
She eyed it, surprise filling her face as she read the name of its original owner, but did not take it. "Where did you get this?" she said. |
"There is another site where one of my family briefly... stayed," he said, searching for the right word. "As you can guess, about six hundred years ago, my royal ancestor left her grandmother’s athame behind in this... place. I think she or her mother must have been a Seer and had a premonition to do so...." He trailed... |
Hermione considered for another moment before gingerly touching the athame. She picked it up and unsheathed the blade. "It’s very sharp," she observed, "and—yes—very powerful." She stroked the hilt with a single finger. "There is no binding magic in this...." |
Her implication hurt, but he supposed he could not much blame her for being wary. "I’ve done nothing to it. The magic in it was there from the beginning. I would not use an artifact to entrap you, Hermione. I just... wanted you to know that I truly am sorry about everything." |
Hermione sheathed it and set it down on the table next to her candle. "I see." She met his eyes with hers briefly. "Tom, I know what you want, even if you don’t say it." |
"I don’t deny that," he agreed. "It’s true. But... it’s your decision, Hermione. I won’t even insist that we talk about it right now unless you want to." |
"I don’t want to talk about it if you are just going to say what you said at Hogwarts. I need more than that, Tom. I warned you against this repeatedly... I know that circumstances have changed, but you pursued this—you went looking for this monster—knowing that people were there. Your obsessions almost cost me my life... |
Tom was appalled at that representation of it, but he knew better than to scold her for saying it. If she said it in such a calm, level voice, she had a reason to fear it. "You are," he said simply. "I know I haven’t treated you as much more than that—if even that—for a long time, but you are. I took you for granted. Y... |
"But you did, and you did not seem to care." |
"I didn’t," he admitted. "I told myself that you would understand why I did it and ignore it because it was just an act." He gazed at her. "Because they also hated the Norman wizards’ rule, I thought they would view it as a weakness if I let them see how much I truly cared for you, but it’s not a weakness to show affec... |
Hermione considered what he had said as he lapsed into silence. "I’m glad that you finally understand that," she said pointedly. "What about those alliances, then? I confronted you about that, you know, after your mother established formal sworn alliances with their families. You’ve had those alliances for quite a whil... |
He winced at that memory. "That was the time that the business with Adelaide Lestrange occurred," he said. "I actually intended, the very day that I was tortured, to talk about it then... but Carrow had other ideas. And," he added quickly, "you were right. I blamed you for what happened. I was frightened that day... I ... |
"You were certainly eager to show me how little you trusted me," Hermione said tartly. She had been listening to his words, and although they were explanations, somehow they did not feel like justifications to her. He knew that his actions were unjustified. Somehow, something had occurred to him over the course of the ... |
"I still think their families are up to something," he said, "especially the Weasleys. But that doesn’t mean that their children are part of it. I don’t think Potter is, or Lovegood, or probably even Longbottom." |
"They’re not," Hermione said. "Of course their families are up to something. Do you imagine you are the only person to deduce that? They know it too, and every time they see their families, they attempt to find out anything they can about their parents’ secret correspondence. Harry knows that his parents are involved i... |
"Yes, we have. Part of the reason I advanced to your level this year is my own studying, but we have practiced dueling and other magic in these meetings. It has helped quite a bit." |
He smiled. "That’s great! I’m glad for you." |
"I wanted to know what they were doing too, and whether their activities—if we could ever discover them—would make them useful allies for this family or something that your mother should be wary of. I have never been your enemy." |
"I know," he said penitently. "I realize that now." He ran his hands through his hair. "That argument about Lestrange was a time when I was purposely cruel to you—the end of it, when I told you about my bargain with my mother. I have nothing to say about that bit except that I am sorry. I’m sorry for giving you reason ... |
"And Saxon," Hermione said sharply. |
"Yes," he admitted. "Muggle women have not had it very good in this country for several centuries, and now, Malfoy and Lestrange are trying to do the same thing to witches. I want to rip this weed out of magical culture by the roots before it can take hold... but what I’m trying to say is that I have not really conside... |
"It can never be like that again, Tom, and you know that. We were fourteen years old and...." Her voice wavered. "So much has happened since then—so many dark things. We’re not innocent anymore." |
"No, we aren’t," he agreed. "But it’s inevitable that people lose some of their innocence and idealism as they grow up. I regret that I wasn’t there for you when you went through it, and I regret even more that I was the cause of some of it." He took a deep breath and released her hands. "If you still want to take an o... |
Hermione took a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly before facing him once more. "I need time to think about it. The basilisk attacked me yesterday, Tom. It’s obvious to me that you have thought deeply about all of this... and this knife," she said, "I don’t know where you got it, but I would guess that this has so... |
"It does," he said. "I’ll tell you about that if you want. It was a... profound experience." |
She considered, then shook her head. "Another time, Tom. If it was profound, it... well, it might be too much right now. I need to think about everything." She handed him the athame. |
"Keep it," he said immediately, drawing away. "It’s yours, Hermione. I meant that." |
Hesitantly she took it back, unsheathing the blade once more to study the intricate designs of both the athame and its sheath. "It is beautiful," she finally said, "and powerful. You say that her granddaughter placed this—wherever you found it?" |
He nodded. "The Princess Ceridwyn—dispossessed, of course, but the Gaunts still recognized her title in our family histories. It’s a cave on the western coast, a very magical site where she stayed for a while after Camlann to escape Arthur’s loyalists who blamed her father for what happened. It seems fitting to me that... |
She glanced after him as he left the library, sighing deeply once he was gone. She had been so sure that she knew what she had to do, but now, she was not certain anymore. I should go to bed too, she thought, rising from her seat. It’ll be easier to think in my bedchamber, where I know I won’t be interrupted. |
She took the blade. |
Crookshanks curled against Hermione’s side as she lay in bed, the athame resting on the shelf inside the heavy headboard. The heavy draperies that hung from the bed in winter kept out the magical torchlight from the ramparts and gates of the castle that shined through her window, so she had her wand lit dimly as she th... |
Tom had seemed sincere. Much of what he had to say had been explanatory of himself, and it had hurt on some level to have those memories dredged up again, but he had never used his explanations to excuse or validate his actions. Every time he had mentioned something, he had been clear that he knew now how much it hurt ... |
And the discussion itself was civil, she thought suddenly. That’s the first time in quite a while that that’s happened. He never even came close to losing his temper with me. He truly did sound respectful in that talk. I wonder what happened to him? She reached for the athame, regarding the artifact with awe. A sea cav... |
Though, perhaps he also realizes at last how hard it would be to make that happen. Malfoy and Lestrange must be removed from power, but it does not follow that a wizard must sit on the English throne. Perhaps he realizes that too. |
She thought about his parting words. "You deserve to be loved," he had said. He did love her, according to his own words, and would continue to do so. Hermione thought about the happy times she had experienced with him two years ago. She had looked forward to marrying him. In fact, she remembered, they had even assured... |
Have I even been happy at all? she thought. I suppose there have been times when I was, but since then, it’s mostly been drudgery, apprehension, fear, sadness—and resignation. I want to be happy again. If there is a war coming, and it does seem that there must be one, I want more than just resignation, duty, and friend... |
If he means what he said tonight.... |
A thought occurred to her, one that satisfied her as soon as her mind formed it. This is still very sudden. He opened the Chamber yesterday. He must have had an interesting experience today in that cave, but I will see if this lasts for more than a few hours. I will wait a bit before deciding what to do. I will see how... |
The next day was the winter solstice. Hermione emerged from her bedchamber to find the castle decorated for Yule, with mistletoe and evergreen branches decorating the arches, ledges, and furniture. It brought a smile to her face. |
At breakfast, Tom sat next to her and ate his food very properly, without the faintest allusion to their conversation the night before. Evidently he was sincere about leaving the decision in her hands, as difficult as that must be for him. Across the table, Lady Merope and Lord Severus ate quietly. Hermione observed th... |
Could I have that someday with Tom? Hermione thought. If he meant what he said, I could. Her heart thrilled at the possibility, which she had all but given up over the past year as she resigned herself to the prospect of a loveless marriage of convenience and a husband who regarded her with disdainful coldness—and then... |
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