Mirror Image

“You,” Hermione spat, a surge of anger welling up to meet his impersonal introduction. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You know him?” Draco asked, but Hermione couldn’t spare him a look. She did seem to remember then, at Draco’s words, this was the Dark Lord. He’d held her at his wand point, tortured her, mocked her. He was death and pain personified, and Hermione was afraid of him, but she hadn't thought of him as the Dark Lord until Draco had spoken. It was a discordant kind of concept in Hermione's mind - she had seen him, and she'd been angry and scared, but she hadn't thought of him as the Dark Lord until just now. Until Draco had asked who this was.

Tom Riddle was standing here, in Draco’s Library, facing Hermione and the two people she cared most for. His wand was at his side and held loosely in his fist, and even if it wasn’t, he could perform wandless magic. Hermione had seen him do it before, and she had heard tales. There was no way for Hermione to predict his next move, to protect herself and the boys from an attack she couldn't see coming. She stepped forward, putting herself firmly between Draco and Theo as if that would do anything other than focus ire on her and her alone, and Tom Riddle. Her hand knocked against pale, cold fingers, still suspended in an offered handshake and they fell to Tom’s side. She snarled a little, inhuman and scared.

“You won’t shake my hand?” Tom Riddle asked. “Peculiar. I thought you would have wanted to keep our previous encounters strictly between ourselves and start anew here.”

“I want you to swear right now you won’t hurt anyone in this house,” Hermione said, staring at this great, terrible man in front of her. Her magic was sparking, great waves of salt in the air and swirling around them. “You will not touch Lucius, Narcissa, Draco, or Theodore. Do you swear it? I promise I will kill you if you- if-"

It was the kind of threat that was more amusing than anything, the kind of threat that was clearly empty because there was no way Hermione was going to actually do anything to the man standing here. She could use every drop of her magic, spring it on him unsuspectingly and with a spray of blood, and he’d deflect it easily. She could drain her magic, her blood, and her mind and he would still beat her. There was just no way to win, and to pretend otherwise was foolish. Was lying to herself.

But the man just tilted his head and regarded Hermione with a strange look. And then he smiled.

“I swear, I won’t hurt a member of the Malfoy family, nor Theodore.”

Hermione’s posture slumped a bit. “Thank you.”

“You did not include yourself in that bargain,” Tom said slowly and deliberately. Hermione’s whole body flushed with a true fear so much more visceral than the fear she had felt upon seeing Tom Riddle step out of the fire, her skin went pale and sickly, and the tremors in her hands redoubled their intensity.

Theo threw himself between them then, effectively cutting off their little back and forth, and stuck a finger in the older teen’s face. “Don’t hurt anyone!” he said. “Don’t hurt Hermione, especially, and don’t hurt Draco.”

“How do you know each other?” Draco asked, tilting his head. “Who are you?”

“Toma Grozdanov,” Tom Riddle said, and Hermione physically jerked back. Her hair flew as she turned on her heel, staring back at Draco.

“It’s Tom Riddle,” she said. “From the journal.”

The air in the Library seemed to still and the temperature dropped, and Tom- Toma- Tom smiled something cold and cruel. He had wanted her to say it, to admit what they were to one another, or to continue his ruse. Impossible choices, given that Hermione still dreamed of that night and the body of Wormtail weighted in her arms and the feel of blood and the pain. It was easy enough to see what she was saying, though, to read between the lines. She’d told Tom herself how helpful the boys had been, and they would understand. They would know that Hermione had gone on without them, had done something no one in the wizarding world would ever forgive her for.

“A pleasure to meet you both,” Tom said. “Hermione has told me about how helpful you both were. How key you were to my return. I can’t imagine either of you really knew what she was doing, though.”

Draco was gaping, his mouth hanging open and confused, and Theo looked like he’d been hit with a bludger, and Hermione was turned away from them both. Her head was tilted down. She wished she’d left her hair down, because in this moment, she ached for a curtain to hide behind. Instead, it swung at her shoulder, the weight of the braid thumping against her neck.

“You’re…” Theo trailed off, his mind whirling with this new information. Draco at his side was suddenly very, very still and very, very tense. Then, with a speed that Hermione had never seen from him before, Draco had grabbed her hand and pulled her away, stepping as he did so as to get in between her and Tom. She found herself in Theo’s arms, her face sort of shielded away from Draco, and Theo whispering in her ear. “It’s okay.”

It all took a moment, a split second, and Hermione was effectively held in Theo's arms, behind Draco's back, and out of the line of fire. Out of Tom's sight, out of the danger zone.

“You’re the one who tortured Hermione,” Draco said smooth and cold, voice like silk and danger. Hermione had never heard him talk like that, had never heard his voice pitched down to this register. It made a shiver run up her spine, and not out of fear.

That wasn't entirely true - she'd seen glimpses of this Draco in the years before they'd become friends. Cold, distant, harsh Draco. But even then, this was so much more. It was like he'd been turned to ice itself, like he was a soldier. Draco’s wand was in his hand, held at the ready but still lowered at his side, and what littler Hermione could see of his hand was white. He was holding it too tightly, he was going to snap it. Hermione tried to get a better look, to peel herself away from Theo’s chest to see Draco in this state, as her protector instead of her friend.

Theo tightened his hold on her. “Don’t look.” It was a warning.

“Perceptive,” Tom said. “I imagine it was our dear Theodore who spotted the aftershocks of the cruciatus, no? With how quick Thoros is to throw it across the room.”

Theo went tight with tension and attentive muscles, his arms like marble around Hermione’s own body. She abandoned her hopes to see Draco and instead tried to look up at Theo, to tilt her head up against his chest, but he was holding her too tightly to allow any movement. Maybe he didn’t want to be seen as much as Hermione wished she could hide.

“You’re not welcome here,” Draco said. “You can see yourself back to the Nott Estate.”

But Tom just tilted his head. “I don’t think Hermione wants me to go. If I did, she’d never get a response to her wonderful writing.”

It was as much a threat as it was a confession. There would be no kicking Tom Riddle out of the house unless he was ready to leave, and he wanted the boys to know just how much information Hermione had given him. Just how badly she’d fucked up. And strangely, he wanted to be there. He didn't want to torment them, to antagonize them. He genuinely wished to speak to Hermione.

Draco’s voice was no warmer when he next spoke, and Hermione was belatedly reminded that really, Draco was a Dark wizard in his own right. “You have a half-hour to convince me why I shouldn’t send you back to Thoros’ house.”

~~~

Hermione and Theo were seated together, close and almost touching, on the sofa across from the big fireplace in Theo’s room. There was no way the boys were going to let Tom in Hermione’s room, and Draco’s room was comfortably theirs, but Theo had already shared so much of himself with Tom. He could give them this room, he could give them this space, so they could have a frank conversation with the world’s darkest wizard.

Draco was standing behind them, still tense, still full of hard muscles and power. He hadn’t looked at Hermione once since they’d retreated to Theo’s rooms, and the clear apathy he was showing was enough to crack Hermione’s heart in two. Any shred of goodwill between them was crumbling now, with this one action.

Tom was across from them all, sitting in one of the armchairs closer to the flames. The golden light licked up his profile as the fire spat and sparked at his feet. Hermione couldn't be sure, but it felt like the fire was reaching for Tom, more wild than usual in his presence.

“Who is Toma?” Theo asked, breaking the still silence.

“Toma is Tom,” Tom Riddle said, his eyes firmly on Theo’s. “I’m a half-blood, bastard child. I can assure you, I have not lied to you this summer so far.”

“You’re half-blood?” Theo asked, stuck on that part of the story. It made sense - passages from the journal coming back to him now. Hermione had pointed them out, but Theo hadn't really paid too much attention to a dead wizard's parentage. Well, rumored dead. He was very much alive now, standing before them.

“I am,” Tom said. “And I truly do believe your mother deserved better.”

Hermione’s mind caught on that - had something happened to Theo’s mother? Over summer, or long ago? Now that it was brought to her attention, Theo had never mentioned his mother before. Draco, too, had never mentioned her. Was that on purpose? Did Draco know who she was?

“You believe the Death Eaters are a genuine threat to Wizarding culture?” Theo asked, a sudden change in topic and a distraction from Hermione’s thoughts on his mother. Theo’s tone softened in that way only Theo did when he was intrigued. His anger was always secondary to his thirst for learning, for understanding, for connection. Draco was less easily swayed from his anger for the way Tom had treated Hermione, with the fact he was here in their home. And, Hermione thought, likely his anger towards Hermione as well. Draco was angry, borderline rageful, and he had a thousand reasons to be.

Tom regarded Theo carefully. They had spent weeks together now, living together and occupying the same space. Sharing Theo’s life at home. Perhaps that was the reason Theo was able to relax, albeit only just.

“I do. I think this conversation might be more productive if Hermione were to tell us why she helped me come back to this form. It will answer some of these early questions.” Tom tilted his head to Hermione.

There were eyes on Hermione, and she wrung her hands a little. She couldn’t bear to look at Draco and see his cold mask of anger and mistrust, couldn’t stand to see Theo’s eyes shining with betrayal even as he softened for Tom. Least of all, she couldn’t face this terrible, awful man she’d served and helped. The man she’d driven into the boys’ arms, into their orbits. The man who might burn the wizarding world to the ground, her bones the first on the fire.

Hermione wasn’t sure where to begin, so she just took a deep breath and spoke, keeping her eyes on her hands in her lap. The nail polish she and Narcissa had picked out for their manicures was chipping.

“It was after my parents,” she started, her voice small and her tone pleading. “I realized the Death Eaters were actually back, a real threat and all that. I knew they were back at the World Cup, but it was like- Like I realized just how powerful they were. Even before they had a real army to fall back on, they’d already ruined an entire family. And then I saw that potion and realized they weren’t going to stop until they’d gotten their leader back.

“But I was also reading a lot about Horcruxes. Tom Riddle’s journal contained the largest part of who he really was, the most human part. Everything since had been slivers, really, leaving Voldemort from the first wizarding war essentially a soulless man.

“But the only man who is strong enough to take down the Death Eaters is the man who made them with his own magic and his own hands. So I used the potion we found as a template, and I reached out to Voldemort, and I offered to perform the ritual myself with Crouch Jr. now back in Azkaban. I added the journal, and the sand from my Time-Turner. I figured- I figured if I could bring him back with more of his soul, as his 16-year-old self, we might be able to reason with him. To make him see that violence gets us nowhere, but real change happens slowly. With- with a lot of trust from the people.”

The room was silent. It was as if Tom saw Hermione's slights on his character, her hopes to reason with him, as necessary in getting Draco and Theo's support, so he let them stand. He didn't protest. He didn't interrupt. He simply watched.

“And you thought bringing back the most dangerous wizard of all time by yourself, with no backup and no assurance your deranged plan would actually work, was the best course of action?” Draco snapped, and Hermione flinched back. Theo reached over and put one hand on Draco’s arm, the other on Hermione’s leg.

“Drake,” Theo hissed. But then he turned to Hermione and leveled her with a disapproving look. “Though, Hermione, I have to say. This was stupid at best. Do you realize you’ve essentially kick-started a second wizarding war? We could all be killed tomorrow. Bloody hell, witch, I could have been killed the first half of summer with that man in my house.”

Hermione, not Mya. She hung her head impossibly lower, because as much as she knew they were right - they were right and she’d doomed them all - she was still proud of what she’d done. Even Tom Riddle’s current presence was, in a way, screaming proof she’d been right. He wasn’t reconnecting to his Death Eaters, finding them to re-employ them in his quest for violence, he was here. Subtly reinserting himself in the wizarding world. He was living alongside other wizards. He was, unbelievably, as Hermione had expected. He was listening. He hadn’t abused Theo over summer, if anything, it seemed as thought they’d gotten close. They were friends.

“You read my papers?” Hermione asked, still looking down. She didn’t need to be specific, Tom knew she was talking to him. And right now, Hermione knew how to talk to Tom. She didn’t know how to talk to Theo in his chilled mood, nor Draco in his hot, burning anger.

Tom smiled. “I did. It’s admittedly a much cleverer plan than the one we enacted in the 1980s.”

“So you agree?”

Draco and Theo were looking between them as if watching a tennis match, their eyes always on the move between one or the other, always trying to catch the conversation happening in real time. Draco wouldn't stop long enough between them, but Theo paused on Hermione's face as she pushed for Tom's agreement. She was brave, braver than anyone Theo had ever met when dealing with the Dark Lord, and he wanted to memorize that look of brave, self-assurance on her face.

“I think you have potential,” Tom conceded, and Hermione gave him a look.

“So you think I was right, but you’re still learning to say that.”

Theo’s eyebrows quirked up, delightfully pleased at Hermione’s gumption, while Draco went pale and tense waiting to see how this witch would be punished for her impropriety, but Tom just gave a snort. His dark eyes swiveled to Draco - he hadn’t missed the way Draco was still tense, cold, and clearly distrusting. “Despite the reputation fostered by an older, near-soulless iteration of myself, I am not opposed to being challenged. I find Hermione’s eager mind and strategic planning to be something of an asset, both for the cause of preservation of the wizarding world, and selfishly for my own amusement.”

“Hermione is sitting right here,” Hermione added, and both Draco and Theo seemed to relax minutely, giving her smiles. Draco’s was still slightly cold, just a little guarded, and she ached for his usual warmth.

“I think now,” she said. “Tom should tell us what he plans to do next. I wasn't specific in my writing, though he might have guessed.”

“I did, but I wasn’t satisfied,” Tom said. “The plan you laid out would work, yes. But it would be putting too much of our future into one ideal circumstance. Hermione’s plans, as proposed, suggested I return to school. Make a name for myself as being a good student, with good grades and strong magical talent, just like I was before. But where I had been, admittedly, enamored by the idea of immortality and thus willing to sacrifice what made me successful in the first place, I would lean into that humanity.”

Hermione leaned forward, capturing the attention in the room. “Think about it, boys. You think Tom Riddle got what he wanted as a teenager by simply cursing those who stood between him and his goals? No. He charmed them. He was a man like anyone else, and he was well-liked.”

“So I utilize my own personal charms,” Tom said with a wiggle of his eyebrows that was uncomfortably reminiscent of Theodore. “And I become a well-respected thinker of my time.”

“His powers are still just as strong as they were in the last years of the war,” Hermione said. “So he’d be strong enough to help disband any and all efforts on the Death Eaters part to rise to power again, meaning wizards and Muggles alike are much more safe with him on our side.”

“And with a Mudblood and a Pureblood to lend credence to our new cause, it wouldn’t be the ramblings of a blood-purist. It would be change from the inside, by the very people we wish to make new legislation for.”

"And while we work to change social climates around muggle-born policy, we can also bring the Death Eaters down," Hermione added.

Theo shook his head and raised his hands. “I don’t- stop. Stop. You two are talking about a plan, some kind of change to the wizarding world. What the hell are you two talking about here?”

But where Theo was staring at them with confusion, Draco was staring at Hermione with understanding. He'd known for more than a year now that Hermione had more conservative thoughts regarding the inclusion of Muggles in wizarding culture than she let on at school, and this was the most expected part of her plan so far. “The Muggle-born orphan,” he said, remembering Hermione's early letters. “Without complete integration, there must be complete segregation.”

Hermione nodded. “Exactly. We introduce the idea in the mainstream wizarding world. We capture the majority of the wizarding world, everyone who thinks there needs to be a barrier between Muggles and Wizards, but who don’t identify with either the blood-purists or the blood-traitors. Create a new policy of tracking muggle-born witches and wizards. Their names appear on the Ministry’s manifests as soon as the first signs of accidental magic come up. We place Muggle-borns into Pureblood or Half-blood families, and they’re raised entirely within the wizarding world.”

“And while we do that,” Tom said. “We continue to bring down violent extremists, like the Death Eaters.”

“You haven’t gotten to your plans yet,” Hermione said, finally bringing her eyes up to Tom. "These are all plans I left with you at the Gaunt house."

“Because my plans depend on you,” he said. “You, and Draco and Theodore if they are so inclined.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed instantly, distrusting and cold. If there was one thing about Draco that Hermione had learned in the years before they grew close, it was that he was a leader, not a follower. He didn’t pledge allegiance. He did not follow others for the sake of having someone else to make the plans. He wouldn't serve a master just because he was there to issue orders.

Tom didn’t seem too worried, though. “Don’t worry, Draco. I don’t plan to create a new army of wizards to follow my every direction. At least, I don’t want that from you. I want you and Hermione and Theodore here to be my council of peers, my advisors and officers. As loath as I am to admit it, I want the three of you to serve as my equals in this new world. I have specific roles for you all, and assignments I will ask you to see through.”

Theo couldn’t help but let out a disparaging sort of laugh. “Old Thoros would curse me where he stood if I told him Voldemort wanted to make a Mudblood his equal.”

It wasn’t really funny, not in a long shot, but it was an attempt to ease the tension. Draco snorted despite himself, and Hermione gave a crooked smile, and even Tom seemed to find some humor in it, the corner of his lips ticking up for a split second.

"Let me be clear," Tom said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "I will carve a space for the three of you in this new world. You will have power and influence. You will also serve this mission with dedication, even if it means lying or cheating. I will take your thoughts into consideration, but in return, you will listen to me. You will follow me. And you will not doubt me."

~~~

Hermione offered to take Tom to his room, to see him settled so Theo and Draco could talk without their presence there like a constant reminder of how much their lives had changed in the last couple of hours. Without her there to remind them she was the reason their lives had, in the last year, become living hells. Labyrinths of danger and politics and a stupid, stupid Mudblood who had cursed them and invaded their home.

Tom had been clear - he would respect them and their opinions.

In return, he demanded their servitude. Hermione wasn't too concerned - so far, Tom had listened to her reasoning just fine, and he'd only killed a man at her feet, not demanded she do it herself. Theo, too, seemed to be somewhat resigned to Tom's request. It was something Hermione wondered about, if Tom had been issuing orders at the Nott estate. Of all of them, Draco was the one most angry about Tom's request for service, and he'd dismissed it out of hand and habit. Immediately.

Hermione and Theo had put an end to the conversation there. Draco needed time and space, Tom needed to be out of hexing-distance of Draco.

Hermione made sure Tom was settled into one of the guest rooms on their hall, with a few doors’ buffer between her own room and his. He was strangely kind, thoughtful, and reassuring. He was gracious, thanking Hermione for the extra blankets she got him. He even retrieved a small stack of books from his things and held them out for her. He'd brought her books from the Nott library.

It made sense how Tom Riddle had once been well-liked at Hogwarts. He'd even been Head Boy. Dumbledore had told Harry it was an act, but Hermione wasn’t so sure anymore, not now that she'd met the man. Especially not when he caught her eyes as she turned to leave him in his room, and he gave her an unexpectedly warm smile. Genuine, reaching his eyes as much as it pulled his lips up.

“Draco and Theodore won’t hold this against you,” he said. He'd somehow read her mind, but Hermione hadn't felt the same pinch and splitting pain in her mind as she had back at the Gaunt house. So he'd just picked up on the tension between them, the way Hermione was so desperate for Draco's absolution and the way she leaned into Theo's space when he offered it.

“Men are quick to forgiveness when there is the heart of a woman on the line.”