Mirror Image

Hermione woke up furious. It wasn’t a familiar feeling upon waking up, and she was only momentarily confused as to why she was so irate before she threw the blankets off her legs and stumbled to the staircase in the dorms. She was in pajamas - soft cotton shorts and an old college sweater. She couldn’t even wonder who had changed her out of her jeans and top, she could only think about getting downstairs to the Great Hall.

It was quiet in the common room. Unusual for the last week of school, moreso when the news of Dumbledore’s return was spread and the Ministry was admitting now there was a legitimate threat posed by the Death Eaters. Hermione could see discarded, forgotten papers strewn around the room. Headlines proclaimed the Death Eaters had broken into the Ministry, Dumbledore was Headmaster again, and the Dark Lord was prowling the Wizarding world. So it was late in the day, then. Late enough that morning copies of the paper were out in circulation. She paused, looking down at the front page of the Daily Prophet. Fudge was announcing the shift at Hogwarts, his arms raised over his head and his robes wafting with a gentle wind. Behind him, Kingsley and Percy Weasley were standing stoic and firm at his shoulders.

She shook her head.

Hermione needed to find Toma. She needed to find Draco and Theo.

The halls were quiet. Unusually so - every now and then, she would see a few kids rushing up or down the halls to and from other wings of the castle, up and down balconies. For the most part though, Hermione was alone as she raced through the castle from the tower to the Great Hall. She hadn’t even stopped to grab her shoes, her bare feet and her hair wild and frizzy and sticking up where she’d slept on it.

She threw open the doors of the Great Hall and interrupted the lunch feast. The tables around her seemed to grind to a silent stop as each student looked towards the noise she’d made, but she only had eyes for a few people.

Two such people - Draco and Theo - made eye contact from across the Hall and inclined their heads to her, an imperceptible sign they were okay, they knew she’d been at the Ministry, they weren’t going to make a scene but they were going to ask her about it as soon as they got her alone. Theo, ever the bleeding heart, pointedly looked at her feet, bare where she was walking and maybe cold. Draco, the prude of them all, gave her a look that roughly translated to you’re walking around in pajamas?

She turned her attention to Neville - he was sitting at the end of the table with one arm in a sling, a bandage on his forehead, but he looked fine. The manic, crazed look in his eye when he’d been held by Bellatrix was gone now, his warm eyes mellowed back into their usual, predictable coloring. He was banged up, that much was obvious. But he was okay. He was well enough to have meals with the other students. He gave Hermione a glance and a small smile - he wasn’t afraid of her, nor of the things he’d done in the Ministry. He was okay. They were okay.

Hermione drew her eyes to Toma, and it took all of her strength to not lurch forward, a curse on her fingertips and at the tip of her tongue. He was smirking, his face all amusement and knowing. Hermione felt the pulse of her blood in her hands, the sheer force of it knocking her fingers into her thighs, and then the magic ripped through the air with a potent, burnt scent of cinnamon and salt.

Neville’s eyes blew wide and he whipped around with a cut-off gasp. Draco and Theo in the corner of Hermione’s eye both jumped at the familiar scent of her magic - Draco’s teacup shattered in his hand, and Theo rose out of his seat by a few inches. Both of them barely contained themselves.

Toma jolted in place, his face going slack for a moment before the scent of smoke curled around him and-

“‘Moine!”

Hermione whipped around, a split-second of time before Ron and Harry both crashed into her. She could feel Ron’s hands - tight and pointy in a weird way, digging into her ribs where he held her close - and Harry’s arms - tight and strong in a threatening way, keeping her arms at her sides - and she huffed out something that could be forgiven as a laugh.

“Hello, boys.”

“We didn’t know what was going on,” Harry said. “Everyone was in the infirmary except you, they took you to bed!”

“You wouldn’t wake up,” Ron added.

Harry nodded vigorously. “Something about you being magically drained. They said you needed to rest.”

“I was fine,” Hermione said. “Just some bumps and bruises. Is everyone else okay?”

“We’re fine,” Ron said. “Harry got the worst of it, he had to stay overnight with Madam Pomfrey, but he was fine after that. I had some burns from the brains, but they’re better now.”

“And the others?” Hermione asked pointedly. “Neville and Luna and Ginny?”

“All fine,” Harry assured her, pulling away from his tight hug. “Neville has to wear a sling because of his shoulder, but he’s okay. Luna got hit with a few hexes that had to be reversed, but she’s safe. And Ginny’s fine, not even a scratch on her.”

“We were so worried,” Ron added. “About you! That Death Eater that was holding you, he got bloody burnt up from the inside!”

“What?” Hermione asked, blood running cold. “What happened?”

“There was a Death Eater who got cursed,” Harry explained. “Dumbledore said he cooked from the inside out, it was awful. It was horrible, unlike anything anyone in the Order has ever seen before.”

“One of the other Death Eaters was probably trying to hit you and got him instead,” Ron said. “That’s what the Order thinks. Thank God it didn’t hit you instead, you would have died.”

Hermione felt tension bleed from her shoulders, and she took a steadying breath as the boys stepped away from her and finally released their hold on her. Harry put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “It’s okay.”

“What?”

Emerald eyes found Hermione’s. “You don’t have to worry about them. We aren’t going to let them do anything to you.”

It wasn’t the Death Eaters Hermione was afraid of. They were terrifying in their own right, and Hermione knew they would kill her if they had the chance. But her experience in the Ministry had shown just how capable she was at defending herself from their particular brand of Dark magic. Her blood magic, all natural and wild, would be her greatest protection against the Death Eaters.

No, it wasn’t the Death Eaters that scared her. It was the Order.

~~~

Hermione’s rage simmered, but it never died. There was too much to be angry about. It was easier to ignore during the day when she was catching up on what she’d missed in those hours when everyone returned to Hogwarts and she’d fallen asleep. It was easier when Neville was down the table from her, when she went with Ginny and Luna to take a long, much needed bath. When she was focusing on smoothing out her hair and combing the tangles. When there were assignments to work on before the end of school, and when she was thinking about going home, and when she was packing her trunk.

But at night, when the rest of the students went to bed and she had run out of candles to work next to, she was left with her rage and no distractions. It crept up on her slowly. Each moment from the second she laid her quill down, the anger and heat in her body grew.

The feeling of that rage, hot and stifling in her own chest, was something she couldn’t quite control. It was pumping through her veins and her heart and her lungs, it was overwhelming, it was like a tide she couldn’t hold back. It felt almost exactly like the split-second she threw the curse at the Death Eater holding her in the Ministry. It built and built, taking over her entire body. She couldn’t comprehend moving from her desk - the trip up the stairs to her dorm seemed impossible to tackle with the surge of power and fury racing through her.

She had a singular thought - Toma should answer for this - before the room around her spun and twisted and disappeared in a shadow all around her. The feeling wasn’t dissimilar to the way she moved when called by Toma, a sort of lurching sensation in her navel and a burning in her eyes. The castle around her was a blur, inverted images of the stairs moving and a collage of faces in the paintings.

She tried to calm herself, but it was as though her magic had a mind of its own. She couldn’t stop, not mid-flight, and she was hurtling towards the third floor where the Room of Requirement was waiting. Perhaps Toma’s ears had been burning, perhaps he had called her to him in such a coincidental moment, it felt nearly impossible.

Hermione landed roughly, stumbling as she did so, and she got a faceful of curls as she tried to right herself.

The Room was empty. Simple this time, it was just a cozy room with a few armchairs, a fire roaring in the corner, and a rug beneath Hermione’s feet. This - being called to an empty room - had never happened before. Her rage, uncontrolled as it had been just a moment ago, was gone now and replaced with confusion. She turned around in a circle, checking behind her. But no, the room was empty.

And then three balls of smoke shot into the room, seemingly through the wall, and they exploded into the ground. Draco, wearing his own pajamas; Theodore, wearing boxers and nothing else in a scandalous display; and Toma. Toma, who was sleep-rumpled and confused, his hair sticking up and his shirt wrinkled. It seemed impossible - the Dark Lord so caught off guard and so confused and so lost. Hermione almost laughed, but she held her tongue.

“Why did you call us here?” she asked, and Toma’s eyes swept to hers.

“I didn’t,” he said, low and dangerous. Hermione froze up, that half-smile locked on her face and her rage momentarily derailed by such a silly looking Dark Lord. Toma just tilted his head and blinked slow, like his eyes hurt just keeping them open. “You called us.”

It was as though the tension in the room snapped at that. Hermione’s own confusion grew, Toma raised a single hand, Draco jumped forward, and Theodore let out a strained gasp. Hermione felt a strange sensation wash over her. It might have tickled if it were gentler, but as it was, it felt like unforgiving, harsh fingers digging into her abdomen. A painful farce of tickling if it were done by someone who never knew what tickling was. Hermione felt the rage from before well up again, coming to her fingertips with a vengeance. She pushed it out of her blood in an instinctual attack, throwing the energy back towards Toma’s raised hand.

Blisters, red and raised and shiny with blood, raced up Toma’s arm. Just as soon as they appeared, they were gone again, his arm once again normal looking. He flinched as they raced up his skin, but it was a small thing. Inconsequential.

Hermione stiffened and her shoulders hitched uncomfortably. It was like her lungs locked up in her chest, and her muscles were bunched and strained behind her shoulder blades. Toma across from her was just as still, his hand hanging in the air like he was suspended on the wires of a puppet. Even if his arm was still rigid, his fingers were limp. The room now felt cold - the fire had blown out - and Hermione shivered. Whatever was happening, whatever had happened, Hermione knew now she wouldn’t be able to return Toma’s torture from months ago. Toma wouldn’t pay for his actions, nor would he answer for Hermione’s terrible evening in the Ministry.

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she remembered that night before they came back to school. Her magic had betrayed her, but her fists wouldn’t.

Before any of the boys could move, Hermione had taken two quick steps into Toma’s space and buried her fist into his chin with a sickening crack. Toma’s head snapped to the side, his hand flying from where it was outstretched to where Hermione had hit him. Hermione wrung out her hand in three, hard shakes. The entire episode took less than a minute, less than half a minute, and no one breathed through it.

Draco and Theo were frozen in place. They didn’t know what had just happened. They didn’t know all the history - the way Hermione was intimately familiar with Toma’s Dark curses, the way Hermione had been hit physically in the absence of curses, the way Toma and she had a relationship built on servitude and power and someone always being on top of the other. They weren’t privy to what had happened that night at Gaunt Manor, nor at the cemetery, nor at any other private meeting between Hermione and Toma since.

But they knew that Hermione had just hit the Dark Lord, and their heads warred with their hearts on what to do next.

For one moment, Hermione’s mind raced with possibilities - would she be killed? Allowed to live? Sworn to service again, her autonomy and freedom with her articles revoked? Would she even see her engagement come to fruition? Would Draco and Theo continue on together when she was cold in the ground?

And then Toma laughed. He laughed.

“Oh, how fascinating!” he cackled, delighted in some bizarre way. It was the way a child laughed when someone else was hurt, when empathy warred with amusement. Or maybe it was more apt to the way disgust gave way to morbid, terrible interest. Maybe it was the way he would laugh if his torture had been more serious. “We can’t curse one another! You can use the Dark Mark!”

Hermione’s hands shook suddenly, great tremors that seemed to ripple up to her arms. “What?”

“You called us all tonight,” Toma said with an exaggerated bow. “You are in charge. So tell me, great Dark Mistress, what can we all do for you?”

It was cruel and mocking, but there was a kernel of truth to it as well. Hermione had been the first to show up tonight because she was… she was the one to call them all. She’d been so angry and she wanted Toma to answer for her night at the Ministry. She had felt something inside her shift in the last few months. She knew something was changing within her, with every Dark instinct, but she hadn’t thought it was this. She was angry, and she was scared, and she-  and-

Hermione schooled her face into something cold and unfeeling, her fear and surprise pushed away. It wouldn’t do her any good here, but the shift was strange to watch. Theo took a step away from her, and Draco grabbed his hand, and they stared at her with something close to fearful.

She couldn’t think about them right now.

Toma was the focus here, and Hermione wasn’t going to let him off the hook. He’d said it himself - Hermione was in charge tonight. She was as powerful as Toma in this room, she was his equal. “You sent me to the Ministry.” It wasn’t a question.

“I did,” Toma confirmed.

“You told me you were using the Ministry as a point of contention. You lied to me about the prophecy.”

Toma’s eyes shone with amusement. “I did. You thought a prophecy issued almost 16 years ago would be news to anyone anymore? Dumbledore knew what it said. The Death Eaters knew what it said.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. “You told me this was a strategy for making people scared. It wasn’t.”

“It wasn’t.” Toma pushed a hand through his hair in some approximation of smoothing it out. “It was, at the start. I wasn’t lying about that part. If we want people to accept our guidance, they need to be afraid. At first, I started pushing the Order towards the Ministry because it was the fastest, easiest way to get the Death Eaters to show up at the Ministry, too. They have too many members working in the Ministry to not know the Order was guarding something.”

“Was the prophecy just an excuse?”

“An excuse that proved to be useful. I found out a new prophecy had been issued while I was living with Theodore in Nott Manor. Thoros heard from the Death Eaters in the Ministry about the appearance of a new prophecy about my life. The Seer had given it alone, in their private residence. No one had heard it but her. She didn’t remember a thing of course, but the Hall of Prophecies records full prophecies as soon as they are spoken regardless of witnesses, and it was news then. I naively thought it would be a prophecy about my return, nothing of interest.” Toma shrugged. It was such a human gesture. Hermione had seen him like this before, and Theodore had lived with him like this, but for Draco, it was the first time he’d ever seen the Dark Lord look like a teenager.

Hermione hummed. “You sent me to the Ministry to stand between the Death Eaters and the Order to sate your curiosity?”

“Was I wrong?”

Hermione’s fists shook at her sides, barely held there as Hermione seriously considered trying to curse him again. The anger, the hurt, and the fear had nowhere to go - they were trapped within her and not even magic would grant her some kind of release from it. She breathed through it, some theatrical pattern of in and out, and it helped just a little bit. Just enough to make her hands stop shaking. Toma didn’t care about her, but he cared about his plan.

“I almost revealed myself,” she whispered into that silent, cold room. “I didn’t know what you wanted me to do or what you needed me to save. The prophecy about me was confusing and unexpected. The Death Eaters were terrifying. Those emotions are unstable, my instinctual magic lashed out. By sheer chance, the Order thinks that man was hit by a stray curse by another Death Eater. I killed a man for you, and if the Order weren’t led by a bumbling old fool, they would know who I am.”

She hadn’t said the words out loud. That didn’t mean they weren’t true. Hermione had killed a man and she’d done it without a second thought. She’d done it cruelly. She’d been worse than the Death Eaters in that moment - even the killing curse was painless. Theo and Draco were each staring at her, their jaws slack and their eyes wide, and Hermione couldn’t bring herself to look at them. They wouldn’t see their girlfriend, they would see a monster. Tom Riddle’s protege and protector. She couldn’t bear that kind of loss right now.

Toma was staring at her, too. But he didn’t look frightened, nor surprised. He just tilted his head.

Behind him, where the fireplace had been smoldering, flames leapt up from the logs. Around them, armchairs and loveseats sprang from the ground.

“You’re right,” Toma said as he lowered himself into one of them. “I believed telling you would make your cover harder to maintain. I did not consider the instability of shifting plans and reactive magic. I am sorry.”

Draco and Theo both released harsh breaths, and they too sank into the loveseat conveniently behind them.

After a moment, Hermione slumped into an armchair.

“It is not in my nature to work well with others,” Toma said.

Hermione snorted. “Have you not seen the way we come when called? I publish what you tell me to, and Draco does what you ask. Theo reports back what everyone in the castle is doing. How much longer are we to be treated like dogs before you see us as worthy of trust?”

Toma inclined his head. “A shortcoming I will rectify. You will not be sent anywhere without appropriate preparation,” he promised. “I will tell you things.”

Hermione nodded. “Thank you. I will still go willingly where you need me to, but I would appreciate more information next time.”

Toma regarded her with quiet, thoughtful contemplation. “I am glad you are safe.”

“Not your plans?” Hermione teased. “It was a bit of a whirlwind.”

“Not my plans,” Toma said earnestly, and Hermione’s smile fell off her face. “You. I am glad you are safe.”

Hermione’s mind stuttered. Of all the things she expected him to say, she hadn’t expected that. She hadn’t thought he would be so genuine, let alone admit that perhaps she was more needed and more central to his plans than he admitted. It was something she couldn’t prepare for.

It was something she couldn’t respond to. So she just smiled.

“Now,” Toma said, steepling his fingers and leaning into their little group. “I think it’s time to come clean about some things.”