Chapter 7
The rest of the guests at Myrtle Manor had begun to descend for breakfast and Hermione could safely say that none of them looking particularly well-slept. She imagined none of them could have returned to sleep after witnessing a thing like that.
Hermione was in no mood to eat, especially not with seven other murder suspects, if she included Tom. She had far too much to be getting on with.
She gave the wards one final check, vanished her used set of personal protective equipment and, remembering that she was still wearing her pyjamas underneath, made her way back to her own room to change into something more appropriate for a murder investigation.
In regards to her hair, not much could be done other than shoving it into a tight, practical low bun. It was probably the least flattering hairstyle she could have picked out. It made her look like a hard boiled egg. Malfoy would have something to say about it, for sure.
Shaking her head, she undid the bun and tried some french plaits, but gave up almost immediately. Oh, who was she trying to impress?
Ron? They'd been apart for years now, not that they were ever really a thing. It would have been better if they had never tried going further than friendship. There was no romantic spark there: he didn't challenge her and she couldn't appease him. Simple as that. She still loved and appreciated him endlessly as a friend, even if their friendship had suffered slightly from the failed romance. That morning had been evidence enough.
Viktor? He had been a fourth year crush and nothing more. He clearly still fancied her, but any insignificant, superficial feelings she'd ever felt for him had long fizzled out.
Hermione only then picked up on the irony of her only two 'exes' being stuck in the same house as her for an entire week. If she didn't count Cormac McLaggen and a random one night stand she'd had with Lee Jordan. She cringed at the memory.
She was, of course, not trying to impress Riddle. He was nothing more than a partner in crime investigation (a terrible joke, she noted). Offering him to sleep in her room was just common courtesy.
Reflecting upon it in that moment, two thoughts came to her. The first being that if she hadn't intervened, and Riddle had in fact slept in the corridor, the murder might perhaps not have occurred. Or alternatively, he might have been killed for getting in the way. The thought made her shudder. See, she had potentially saved him. She had not propositioned him, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
Enough, she was getting distracted. She had a murder to solve. Issues surrounding her love life could come later.
She threw on a smart pair of black trousers and a white flowy blouse and settled on a single simple plait at the back of her head.
By the time she was fully ready, Tom had returned. He was still wearing his personal protective equipment, camera strap still around his neck and Hermione had to try very hard to hold back a laugh.
"All sorted?" she asked as he tore off his face mask and gloves with force.
"Yes, his body will be perfectly preserved for at least a fortnight in the present conditions," he replied. "Are the wards in place?"
"Very much so," she nodded, gulping as she watched him rip his way out of the disposable suit and vanish it before it could touch the ground. The rest of his protective equipment followed suit, leaving him only in his pyjamas. He crossed his arms over as he reached for the hem of his white T-shirt. She immediately turned around, warmth spreading across her cheeks.
"I think we need to check the wands next and develop the photos," Hermione said, tapping her foot nervously, unsure of what to say in order to break the thick, almost humid silence between them. "I'm pretty sure I've got some developing solution somewhere in my bag."
"I'll take the wands then."
"Yeah I was just about to say that we should split the workload between us. We'll be more efficient that way." That was a lie, she wasn't just about to say that. She'd thought they'd work on both together. It was getting increasingly awkward between them and Hermione was growing impatient. "Are you done changing yet? Hurry up already."
"I'm changed."
"Well, why didn't you say so?" Hermione huffed, turning around to see Tom wearing a black shirt and trousers.
"I imagined you'd turn around sooner or later."
"Was that your strange idea of a practical joke?" Hermione asked irritably, crossing her arms. "If so, it was very poor indeed."
"It was no practical joke. I didn't think you needed me to tell you when to turn."
"Unlike you, Riddle, I don't have eyes on the back of my head!" she exclaimed.
"Perhaps you ought to invest in some."
"Great idea, Riddle. I'll just go dig Moody up out of his grave and ask to borrow his magical eye," Hermione retorted, lip quivering into a small smile. "'Now come along."
They left the room, although Hermione was not quite sure exactly where they were heading. She imagined Riddle knew where they could get on with their work.
"You knew Alastor Moody?" Tom asked.
"Yes, of course I did," Hermione replied, her plait swinging as she speed walked down the corridor, trying to match Tom's natural speed. "He was sort of, but not really, one of my professors at school for a year, and a pretty big part of a society I was in."
Hermione waited for a response but did not receive one.
"Well are you going to tell me how you knew him or are did you just plan on shutting up about that one too?"
"You didn't ask, Miss Granger. But I am more than happy to oblige you."
What was his weird thing with having to be asked a question before telling her things? If he did it one more time, she swore she would-
"Him and I were also part of a society, if you will, together. Many years ago."
Tom had lead the two of them down the stairs and into the basement of the house by then and was pushing open a door to a room that contained nothing but a long, stainless steel table.
Thankfully, it was not the same room in which Justin's corpse was being kept. That might have been just the tiniest bit off putting.
Hermione reached into her bag and pulled out the six wands that she had collected earlier that morning.
"Your wands," she said, placing them in his palm, careful not to let their hands touch.
"Your camera," he replied, removing the strap and handing it over to her.
They parted, each choosing opposite sides of the long table.
Hermione began to print the photographs they had taken of the crime scene and the evidence onto paper, using her wand to extract the photographs from the camera like a muggle Polaroid camera. The images took a few moments to transfer and show up onto the paper.
The one of Tom showed up first, and Hermione couldn't help but smile as she looked at it. She made a mental note to also get a more serious one of him, one without that suit of his. No, not like that. Wearing clothes, of course, just not personal protective equipment.
Next, Hermione pulled out some old hair clips, cheap rings and a bottle of nail varnish she never used from her bag and transfigured them into plastic trays. After a small search she located her small bottle of developing solution and enlarged it three times the size using the engorgement charm, so that she would have enough liquid to fully develop each of the pictures.
She filled each tray to the height of about a centimetre. She had only ever had to use developing solution once before for a project at the ministry and had never touched the stuff since, but as far as she could remember, this had been her method.
Next, she held the top two corners of the pictures and one by one, lay them flat in the fluid, ensuring that the entire surface area was submerged in the solution. Now, all that was left to do was wait. It would require something between eight and eleven minutes, depending on the complexity of the photograph.
She sat back into her chair, not sure exactly what to do for the next few minutes. She looked over at Tom, who was in the middle of using the reverse spell on one of the wands. It looked like Luna's.
Hermione left her seat and sat down by Tom's end of the table to get a closer look.
"How are you getting on?" Hermione asked once he had used the eradication spell on Luna's wand, vanishing the image of her last spell cast and had lain it back on the table.
"I've checked five out of six wands so far," he replied monotonously. "Nothing of significance. A vanishing charm, a cushioning charm, a summoning charm, and finally a warming charm here from Miss Lovegood."
"Who's left?" asked Hermione.
"Mr Weasley's wand."
Tom lifted Ron's wand from the table and pressed the tip of his own wand against it. He muttered Prior Incantato and watched as a projection shot up in front of them. It was of a flash of blinding green light accompanied by an unmistakeable rushing noise that followed it along.
Hermione recognised that green light. She had seen it shooting past her multiple times during the Second Wizarding War. She had seen it strike several bodies right in the heart.
The Killing Curse.
"No," she spluttered. "No, no. No! It can't be. There's plenty of other spells that emit green light. Ron wouldn't-"
She wasn't even fooling herself. No other spell emitted that exact shade. That filthy, murderous shade of luminous green. It was sickening, toxic even to the sight.
"Miss Granger, are you well?" Tom asked, his face appearing particularly alarmed as he watched the colour slowly drain from Hermione's face.
"Ron," she whispered. "Oh, Ron, what have you done?"
"Miss Granger," he repeated, only slightly louder this time, and Hermione snapped her head up at him, her eyes bloodshot.
"He murdered Justin. Ron murdered Justin," she spoke, her lips trembling. "My Ron, my best friend. He did this."
"Stay here, Miss Granger," said Tom, clearing his throat as he stood, making his way to the exit. "You haven't had anything to eat is all."
"No!" she exclaimed just as Tom reached for the door. He turned back to face her, meeting her watery eyes. "Please don't leave me right now."
He stiffened, was silent for a second and then nodded, but he did not come close to her, only stood watching from the door.
"How could he do this?" she whispered, dropping her head and arms to the table. "My Ron. He was always so good. He'd never hurt a fly."
"Miss Granger, we have analysed one piece of evidence. It is not nearly enough to incriminate an innocent man."
Hermione's head shot up.
"You mean that? You think he is innocent?" she asked, her eyes lighting up with hope.
"I only mean to say that each and every person in this house is innocent until proven guilty. We have proven nobody guilty thus far. Consequently, Mr Weasley remains as innocent as the other suspects."
Hermione's face fell a little.
"It still doesn't look particularly good though, does it?"
"No, that I cannot deny," Tom replied solemnly.
"I know this is going to sound crazy, and I don't expect you to believe me, Riddle," Hermione sighed. "But I just know that it wasn't him. I just know. He handed in his wand first, for Merlin's sake."
"The last thing you could ever sound is crazy, I assure you," said Tom in a low voice. "For now, say nothing to Mr Weasley on the matter. We will question him about it when the time comes."
Hermione nodded slowly. Then, her face suddenly changed, as though she had just remembered something important, and she immediately stood up to her feet, rushing at full speed over to her original end of the table.
"My goodness, how could I forget? They must be done by now."
Tom glanced over to her as she carefully began to remove the photographs from the solution-filled trays.
"Hey, Riddle, can you put a string up above this table so I can hang the photos up to dry?" she called over, eyes deeply focused on the job.
"Miss Granger, this can wait until you are less agitated, I'm sure-"
"No!" she exclaimed. "They can't wait. They'll get oversaturated and I'd have to start all over again."
Tom sighed and used his wand to attach a string across a section of the ceiling, putting some pegs on it in the process.
"Brilliant, thank you," she shouted over to him.
Hermione reached onto her tiptoes and still she could not quite reach the top of the peg to unfasten it. When she began to try and climb on top of the table, Tom immediately went over and clipped the first photograph in place for her, stiffening as he accidentally brushed against her hand in the process, feeling Hermione's breath halt in response.
"I can manage," she insisted, but her voice was feeble in its breathlessness.
"I know," he replied. "You could manage this entire murder case on your own. I'm just here to take hold of some of the burden."
Hermione suddenly grew very aware of his closeness, of his positioning right behind her, of the inch gap that was between them, that if either of them moved in the slightest, they would be pressed right against one another.
And then -
"Miss Granger, am I mistaken or is that a picture of me?" he asked in a bewildered tone, stepping back to get a fuller view of the image.
She looked up at the picture that was hanging on the line and let out a small giggle, which slowly turned into a bigger and then into a full on laugh.
"I took it when testing out the camera," she spluttered through her laughter. "Did you really not notice?"
He was absolutely silent. His face was motionless. Hermione's laughter slowly faltered as she started to think she had offended him.
"Take out your hair," he said.
Hermione was convinced she had misheard him.
"Pardon?"
"Your hair. Let it loose," he repeated, his whole body perfectly composed save only the knot in his throat.
She wasn't exactly sure why she did it. She couldn't even blame it on the heat because the room was ice cold. She was under no spell; she was perfectly in control of her actions.
And so she pulled at the simple black hair tie at the bottom of her untidy braid and let it unravel. She had kicked down the gate to the cage of the savage animal she always tried so hard to domesticate, letting it loose into the wild. If she were to be vulnerable as a result, so be it.
She combed her fingers through her mane, pulling apart the last few interwoven strands of hair that would not budge.
"Just like that," he muttered.
"Why-"
"Turnabout is fair play, Miss Granger," Tom grinned through that eldritch smile of his, grabbing hold of the camera that was resting on the table and pressing down on the button sharply.
When Hermione heard the shutter click, she gasped in astonishment and immediately reached for the camera, desperate to pull it out of Tom's hands.
All he had to do was hold it just above his head, in a place that was out of Hermione's reach by less than an inch, increasing her frustration when she just about missed it each time she jumped up to try and grab it.
"Riddle, I swear to Merlin, if you don't give me that camera-"
Tom only held it up higher, grinning brazenly. Hermione climbed up onto the table and tried to grab it from this new, higher position. All Tom now had to do was sidestep away from the table, finding a position that was again only less than an inch away from Hermione's reach, this time horizontally.
"I wasn't even ready for the picture, you cheat!" she exclaimed, her cheeks red with energy.
She now jumped down from the table and ran straight for Tom, eyes narrowed and predatory. Tom was faster than her, but he was acting in defence and she in attack. She could beat him to it, she just knew it. And that is how Hermione Granger started chasing Tom Riddle around a cold, dark room one late November morning.
"Miss Granger," Tom panted laughingly as he dodged another attack from Hermione. "Your photographs will oversaturate if you do not remove them from the liquid immediately."
Only this managed to stop her and with an incredibly alarmed face, she rushed over to her pictures, removing them all from the fluid as quickly as she possibly could, resorting to levitation to hang them up. She'd very much had enough of reaching or jumping up on her tip toes.
She exhaled in relief and collapsed into her chair once she had finished with all the pictures. She took a couple of minutes to regain her strength and composure.
"They'll take a few hours to dry. Then we can analyse them properly."
Tom nodded and went over to the further end of the table to gather the wands and tie them back up with Hermione's ribbon. He handed them back to her and she placed them back in her bag.
"I imagine we can return their wands," said Hermione. "If our murderer were to commit another crime, I don't think that not having a wand will stop them. There's plenty of knives and other potential weapons about the house, many more than we can try to confiscate. And a good deal of them know wandless magic - I know Malfoy does."
"Yes quite," said Tom in agreement. "We can return the wands to their rightful owners after their questioning."
"I also think we ought to lay off using our own wands in front of them," Hermione suggested slowly. "It wouldn't be right, you know?"
"No, indeed."
Hermione turned back to her station and began to untransfigure the plastic trays back into the random objects she had taken from her bag. Tom quickly placed his hand over the final tray just as she was about to untransfigure it, halting her at the last moment.
"If you will, I'd like to hold onto this for a little longer."
"Alright," said Hermione with a confused frown.
"And some developing solution," he added. "If you have any left."
Hermione picked the enlarged bottle which had a small quantity left at the bottom and handed it to him.
"You can enlarge the solution further if you need any more. This should be about enough for one tray," she instructed.
Tom nodded at her and accepted the bottle.
"Alright," she exhaled. "I think we're done here for now. We are definitely in need of some food. And some fresh air."
Hermione looked down at her watch and gasped.
"Goodness me, it's already time for lunch," she gasped, slinging her bag over her shoulder and running to the door.
"Well, are you coming?" she asked.
"You go up without me. I just have one more thing to check."