Mirror Image

“Tell me everything,” Theo gushed, rushing through the doors of the Room of Requirement. He had ink smudged on his face, and his hands were dirty from scrubbing desks for detention, and he absentmindedly shucked out of his shoes and over-robes before collapsing on the bed next to Hermione. “Did Potter and the two Weasleys really get a lifetime ban from Quidditch?”

“Draco started it,” Hermione said non-committedly.

“Draco got punched in the stomach for it!” Draco said, throwing up his hands. “Gods, I was only- this was all- Toma told me to rile Potter up. He wants them to get in trouble, to force the Ministry into a confrontation with Dumbledore.”

“And we’re all very worried about your stomach,” Hermione said. Truly, when she’d seen the scene on the pitch, she’d barely kept her temper enough to comfort Harry when everything in her wanted to check in on Draco, who had been rolling on the ground. He’d been in genuine pain, but Theodore was there, holding Draco carefully and kneeling in the grass, and she had a cover to maintain. “But to be fair, you said some cruel things to the boys.”

Draco was staring at her, crystal eyes wide and disbelieving and brow raised. “Are you barmy? I just told you that Toma was-”

“Yes, yes, Toma gave you orders,” Hermione said. “We heard you.”

Theo rolled his eyes. “Seriously, someone told me Potter and the twins got a lifetime ban from Quidditch. Is that true?”

Hermione nodded. “Toma’s little plan didn’t work out, then.” She was all dry wit today, nothing seemed to break her from her focus on the 

Draco and Theo shared a look over their witch’s stomach, and then turned at the same moment and dug their fingers into her sides, tickling her relentlessly. Hermione writhed on the bed, shrieking with laughter and pleas they stop. Theo was far more devious than Draco, though, and he maneuvered himself over her legs, effectively keeping her pinned enough for Draco to really get at her.

She laughed and screamed, the boys laughing above her, and they rolled over the massive bed together. Despite the worry - the rising tensions and the fact that Draco had been hurt and the secret Blood magic lessons - being together in this room was an escape from it all. It was light, and it was comfortable. It felt like it was right where Hermione should be.

~~~

Ginny took Harry’s place on the Quidditch team, and even as Ron congratulated her, Hermione could see his resentment and anger over the situation on his face. Maybe it was because Ginny was younger, or maybe it was because she was a girl. Whatever it was, Ron was mad that Ginny had gotten a spot on the team before he did, and he was doing a poor job of concealing it.

The months turned colder. Umbridge continued to dole out inches upon inches of parchment. Snape assigned more and more complicated potions. Hermione poured over her OWLs preparation, and she worried about her duties as a Prefect, and she dodged Ron’s bizarre attempts at flirting.

It was something of an annoyance, and Hermione found herself dreading Prefect duties because of it. She didn’t want to put herself in close proximity for hours on end, waiting with stiff, uncomfortable muscles for whatever Ronald would try. She took to sharing duties with the other Prefects in other Houses, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, and once with the Prefects in Slytherin whom she did not know well at all.

Samhain passed - Hermione got a note from Lucius and Narcissa wishing her a good season that came with a package of pumpkin juice, potions for protection, candles to light the darkness each night, and enough snacks to host a private Dumb Supper on her own with the boys.

October to November, and then November to December.

Theo’s birthday passed with a small party in the Room of Requirement. Draco had managed to convince the House Elves to make them a round cake with bright green frosting, and Hermione had set up the room ahead of time with a Muggle record player, streamers, and balloons. Toma joined them for only a moment, indulging in some cake and well-wishes, before he pushed a gift into Theodore’s hands and excused himself.

The gift turned out to be a book in archaic latin, something about the properties of blood magic and how it might be used in adoption proceedings. The guide to whatever the hell Thoros had done to baby Theodore all those years ago.

They didn’t dwell on the gift. It was too sentimental and too personal and too sad for the middle of their party. Hermione had spent too much at Honeydukes, showering Theo in sweets, and Draco had requested Narcissa send them a bottle of fairy wine from the Malfoy cellars. And together, Hermione and Draco had gone in together on a chain necklace for Theo. It wasn’t as extravagant as Hermione might have expected from poncey Purebloods, but it was a thick, golden box chain like Muggle rappers in the US wore, and it complimented the tan of Theo’s skin perfectly.

Theodore loved it all, and even as the last notes of their music died and the fire in the corner smoldered, he held Hermione and Draco close, swaying with them to some song only he could hear. Hermione left first, leaving the two of them with deep, loving kisses.

Draco and Theo shared one last dance before they, too, headed for the dungeons with Theo’s gifts and one of the balloons. Draco found that he didn’t want to let go of Theo’s hand, not even with the threat of other people seeing and their arrangement being made public. But he dropped it nonetheless as they stepped into the common room.

It was deserted, quiet and still.

They made their way to the dorms, changed and slid into their beds. They opposed each other in the room, and Draco propped himself up on an elbow to look across to Theo.

“Hey,” Theo said. “Thanks for a really great birthday.”

Draco smiled. “Of course. I love you.”

They froze. They’d said those three words before, throwaway and carefree and tacked onto the end of conversations for years. As kids, they’d said it so easily, like they were brothers and those words didn’t mean anything more than I’ll always be here. As they got older, it had become habitual, something they said on instinct when talking to the other. It was something they said to mean everything is as it always has been and always will be. It should have been easy now, something they shared as adults in the same way they had shared it as children.

But that wasn’t true. There was a weight to the words now, meaning that tethered those words between Draco and Theo, suspended between them in the air. Because now, when Draco said those natural words, he meant them.

He loved Theo.

Not as a brother, not as a best friend. He loved him with every press of his lips. He loved him in the crevices of his being, filling every gap between them, surging in the space between their bodies when Draco held Theo close.

Draco loved Theo.

And Theo found that even with the new meaning behind those words, he itched to return them just as strong and sure.

So he smiled and whispered into the quiet of the dorm room between them “I love you, too.”

~~~

Neville and Hermione resumed partnering in DA lessons, and he agreed to more tutoring in Natural magic theory. With Hermione’s help, and his own power as a Pureblood wizard, Neville’s Natural magic got stronger and with it, his casting magic, too.

He learned wandless disarming, nearly throwing Hermione forward with the strength of the pull on her wand. He learned to cast up protego shields and freezing charms with a crisp, almost sherbert-y scent of oranges in the air.

And he learned to cast a bombarda with a wave of his hand. It was so strong, so naturally gifted, that he broke mirrors in the Room of Requirement and little droplets of blood sprayed from his fingertips.

Hermione noticed the scent of his magic growing stronger outside of their little practices. Never in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but in other classes. In Herbology, when he worked to cultivate a temperamental plant, or reroot a aconite, or prepare a puffpod Hermione would catch whiffs of his distinctly orange scent. Like he was naturally leaning into his magic, no intentions or thoughts necessary. Just a wizard working with his plants.

It might have been a small thing, but it was genuinely one of Hermione’s greatest prides to see how Neville flourished with Natural magic after struggling for so long. It was also one of her greatest fears - the Professors were taking note of Neville’s improvement and she was sure one of them would realize one of these days what they were doing.

~~~

Harry had dreams. They were violent, dark things that had plagued him until he woke up screaming. Sometimes he saw a house - Hermione had a sinking, terrible suspicion it was the Gaunt house she herself had visited - and sometimes he saw a long, dark hallway. Sometimes he dreamed of a door that never opened. He’d told Hermione about them at the beginning of the year, but she’d brushed them off as nightmares. Harry had been prone to nightmares before, and probably always would be.

But the dreams continued. They developed and shifted and grew. They were stronger - nightmares that had once been cut short were suddenly longer, more intense. Even with the changed nature of the dreams, they were still harmless dreams. Hermione only changed her mind that maybe they were something important when Harry confessed that sometimes, he felt like a snake in his dreams.

Hermione asked Toma about the dreams.

Toma didn’t discuss them with Hermione, and he rebuffed her when she asked, but she was smart enough to put the clues together. There was something linking Toma, the dreams, and Harry. She couldn’t be sure what it was without Toma confiding in her, but he’d made it clear Hermione didn’t need to know about the dreams. It had sparked a couple fights, actually, and both Theo and Draco were incredibly tense about the point of contention between Hermione and the Dark Lord. Every time Hermione pushed, the boys would go still, and every time Toma raised his voice, they would flinch forward, like they needed to be between the Dark Lord and Hermione.

The dreams and the tension they brought with them culminated in one terrifying, horrible night. Harry had woken with a scream, sweaty and incoherent, and Ron had frog-marched him to McGonagall’s office, and from there they’d gone to Dumbledore’s office, and the rest of the Weasleys were gathered up and brought to the office as well, and by the time Hermione had woken up, they were all gone.

Hermione’s Death Eater pendant burned hot at six in the morning, two hours before she had been planning to wake up, and she hurried to get to the Room of Requirement. She left the dorm in a plume of smoke and landed harshly in the Room of Requirement with her shirt untucked, her tie loose around her neck, and her sweater thrown over one arm. Draco and Theo weren’t there when she got her bearings, though, and she spun around to see if she’d just missed them. She was still a little groggy from waking up, a little disoriented. She turned back to Toma and tried her best to look like she was settled and awake enough for this conversation.

Hermione raised a brow. “Is there a reason you’ve only called me?” she asked, tugging on her sweater and shaking out her hair. The scent of saltwater, rain, and spices filled the room as she wandlessly cast a smoothing charm on her curls.

“Because Draco and Theodore don’t need to be here,” Toma said. “This does not concern them.”

“What does it concern?”

Toma gave her an even look. “At roughly three o’clock this morning, Harry Potter awoke from a nightmare in which Arthur Weasley was attacked by a large snake in a familiar hallway. The Weasley children were gathered, and Dumbledore dispatched several members of his so-called Order to rescue Mister Weasley, and the Weasley children were sent home with Harry Potter to meet Arthur after he is released from St. Mungos.”

Hermione knew better than to gasp or cry - she’d never been particularly close with Arthur, but he’d been a stable part of her life for the last five years. And yet, Hermione knew there was no space for feelings with Tom Riddle in the room. She would hold any emotion she felt about the situation until she was alone.

“I imagine you were responsible in some capacity for the attack?” Hermione asked, dry and even to match Toma. “And the dream?”

Toma gave her a smile, something amused and knowing and weirdly sly. Like Hermione had just figured out that Toma was planning a surprise party, not taking responsibility for an attack on a man. “Smart woman,” he said. “You still haven’t given up that theory that I’ve been behind those dreams, then.”

“Is there someone else around here with nearly unlimited magical ability and a strange connection to Harry Potter?”

Toma rolled his eyes. It was so human, so normal that it very nearly made Hermione forget what they were discussing. The Dark Lord wasn’t so Dark in the early morning light, looking carefree and sleep-tousled, and joking with Hermione. He was simply another teenager she was peers with. He wasn’t creating attacks on people she knew, people she had shared meals with. He was just her friend.

“You understand the concept of Horcruxes?”

“Theodore has educated me on the theory,” Hermione said. “And I’ve seen the result, in your journal. I understand it fine.”

“The things we retrieved from Gringotts were Horcruxes,” Toma reminded her, and Hermione nodded. She remembered that, and Toma’s vague comments about embracing humanity the following night. “I assume you know why I wanted them.”

“Embracing your humanity?”

“Precisely,” Toma said. “As it currently stands, I have all but four of my Horcruxes in my possession and the fragments of my soul contained in each have been reabsorbed.”

Hermione didn’t allow herself to be stunned by that revelation. She only nodded. She would think about this all, unpack it, later. “The journal, and which others?”

“The Cup of Hufflepuff we retrieved together, and the lost Diadem of Ravenclaw.”

Hermione hummed. “What does this have to do with the dreams Harry has been having?”

“I have other Horcruxes. One of them is the snake Mr. Potter saw in his dream. I believe there may be a mental link between myself and Mr. Potter, through his… scar. Because my Horcruxes contain fragments of my soul, it would appear the link exists between Mr. Potter and my living Horcrux.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “Surely you could safeguard secrets if you wanted to. I cannot imagine you would allow for such a connection to persist unless you allowed it. So you allowed Harry to see your attack.”

Toma smiled wider, more genuine, and nodded. “Perceptive. You know I asked Draco to foster a relationship with Umbridge to better monitor the Ministry’s response to the Death Eater’s activity. So far, there’s been very little of interest. Dumbledore’s current theory contends that Death Eater activity is synonymous with my return and reclaiming power over them. The Ministry has denied both the rumors I have returned, and the evidence that Death Eaters are active once again. Both are inaccurate in their assessments. The Death Eaters are, currently, organizing their own attacks and actions. The Order is correct in their claim they are resuming violent behaviors, but the Ministry is correct in their claim I am not at the helm of those attacks.”

“Why did you organize this attack, then?” Hermione’s eyes narrowed. An attack on an Order member, witnessed by Harry Potter himself, was incredibly risky. It was almost stupid, and it didn’t make sense. “Isn’t it a danger to your plans?”

Toma wiggled his fingers in the air, like he was twirling a quill.

“The Order sent their own agents to guard a Ministry door on the word of a little boy having bad dreams. The Death Eaters perpetrated an attack, brutally, on those very agents, resulting in a wizard being sent to St. Mungo’s.”

“Yes,” Hermione said. This was just fact, easy and real and tangible.

“So now, the Ministry must admit that not only did they allow the Order to bypass their security to station a guard in the middle of the night, but they also allowed the Death Eaters, a group they deny are even active, to similarly bypass those same securities.”

“It creates confusion. And it forces the story into the public eye.”

“We need the public to know,” Toma said. “If the public knows what is going on, they know to be very scared of a war. And there can’t be a hero to cling to. Dumbledore and Harry Potter can’t help us, they’re too delusional. The Death Eaters are bloody, thoughtless, violent.”

“The dreams make Harry appear slightly unhinged,” Hermione conceded. “And it does create a complicated minefield for the Ministry and Dumbledore to navigate. Why the dreams in the first place? What is in that hallway that both the Death Eaters and Dumbledore would care about it so much?”

“Do you know what hallway Mr. Potter dreams of?”

Hermione shook her head.

“It is the hallway in the Department of Mysteries. It leads to the Hall of Prophecies, where every prophecy ever recorded is kept. There is a prophecy there pertaining to my life and potential success.”

“Surely you’ve seen a prophecy about yourself already?”

Toma shrugged. “The prophecy was relayed to me years ago. What is in it no longer concerns me. But there are parts of it that would, in theory, be rather intriguing to both the Death Eaters and the Order.”

“You planted the image in Harry’s mind,” Hermione said. “And he told Dumbledore. Dumbledore sent his Order to guard it, and now there’s been an attack. You’ve created the perfect situation in which to frame the Death Eaters. And, I imagine, you’ve tipped the Death Eaters off in the first place. Should no evidence be found suggesting the Death Eaters are behind an attack, Dumbledore will have to answer to the Ministry why he had Order members in the Ministry in the dead of night, and if the Death Eaters are implicated explicitly, they’d say you were giving orders.”

Toma hummed but he didn't confirm that yes, he'd been the one to give the Death Eaters the orders to get there. “And I’ve forced the Ministry into a further difficult spot. They must deny the attack on a Ministry worker, on Ministry grounds, or admit there is reason for concern in the rise of the Death Eaters. This was not a singular attack on one man. This was an attack on every person involved, with no clear instigator.”

Hermione nodded. It made a certain kind of sense, and Toma was right. It forced the Order and the Ministry into impossibly worse situations, it escalated tensions without being in any way related to Hogwarts. It confirmed Voldemort’s return without weakening his position, and it made the Order appear to be dramatic, near-hysterical. And it made Harry vulnerable.

If the Order claimed they were attacked, and the Ministry denied it, it would make them look insane. If the Ministry confirmed an attack, it would make the Death Eaters a legitimate threat, overreaching even the Ministry’s protections. Actually, thinking about it clearly, it might have been the greatest, singular action Toma could have taken to further their cause. In one evening, Toma had moved them three steps ahead, and he'd done it without leaving any trace of his meddling.

“These tensions we create will be the stage you stand on when you publish your first essays in the newspapers.”

Hermione nodded. That made sense. He’d asked a few times now to rewrite her essays and redevelop her ideas. It was one thing to write about Muggle relations, it was another to write about the issue when there were serious attacks by the Death Eaters, manufactured or otherwise.

“Only when we’ve done these things, forced the tensions to a boiling point, and effectively made people fear what we need them to fear will they start to look for a hero. When they’re looking for a hero, they’ll be more forgiving when they read the essays of an admittedly brilliant teenager.”

He hadn’t said who would do what, where they would all fall, or how he would continue his ruse. He had just barely complimented her, and he'd only hinted at her role as a hero the Wizarding world needed in the midst of chaos.

But she had faith. Strange as it was, backwards and foolish and stupid, Hermione trusted that Toma would ultimately keep her safe. He might torture her on his own, he might use her up and spit her out, but he wouldn’t allow others to play with his toys. He was too possessive, and too powerful.

“I can be whatever you need me to be,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “What do you need from me now?”

~~~

The Yule Holidays were gorgeous at Hogwarts, but they were better at the Manor. Hermione adored the tree the Malfoy’s put in the main foyer that seemed to stretch all the way up from the floor right up to the ceiling, the way Narcissa lined every ridge and surface in the Manor with greenery and bright, golden and silver baubles, and the bonfires in the garden. She’d missed the festivities of Christmas day itself last year, but the decorations were gorgeous in the days before and after.

Hermione was, more than anything, excited to join the Malfoys this year for their celebrations.

But Toma needed her to accept the Weasley’s invitation to the Black House for the holidays. He needed to know what Dumbledore was saying about the attack, about the Order, and how they would proceed. They needed to understand what the result of the attack and what was happening inside the Order’s camp.

Hermione understood her role and her job. It was still a severe disappointment for the holidays.

The train ride home was spent with Toma, reading and conversing quietly in their minds. With the Weasleys and Harry gone already, Hermione was free to sit with Toma in one of the cars alone, and it was the first comfortable train ride home in Hermione’s entire Hogwarts experience. It was quiet, cozy, and friendly. It was spent speaking in hushed tones, bent over books and the Prophet.

Draco and Theo made sure to stop by the compartment just before the train pulled into the station, and Hermione made the boys promise to take photos of the holiday festivities for her, and she promised to wait for them to do gifts, and they left her with lingering, heated kisses to the cheeks.

They got off the train first, Toma joining them, and then Hermione made her way from King’s Cross to the Black House, wanting to go back home all the way.