Chapter 11
Much to Hermione's delight, it was her own natural body clock - and not deafening screams and a murder - that woke her up early that morning.
Her eyes fluttered open peacefully. Lifting herself up to a seated position, she yawned and stretched her arms out wide.
She looked over to her side and noticed that the space in the bed beside her was empty, although it looked vaguely slept in.
That was when the memories from the night before all came rushing back to her. She caught her breath.
So, he had left after all.
In fairness, Hermione had told him to stay just until she fell asleep. She had meant it more as a means of persuasion rather than literally.
It almost hurt that he hadn't stayed. Not a big sort of pain - no, nothing like that. It only bruised a little.
People rarely stayed in her life. Blink, and all of a sudden they were gone. Close your eyes for longer, and you had lost them forever.
She almost wished she would never have to shut her eyes again, just so that she could keep hold of someone. If she could always see them, they would never disappear, right?
But Tom hadn't disappeared. He was fast asleep on the armchair he had slept on the very first night. His eyes were shut gently and the only movement was of his chest as he inhaled and exhaled slowly.
He looked almost angelic in that early morning light - almost golden. Hermione had never seen him in this way before. In fact, she had always associated him with quite the opposite, as if he were the embodiment of darkness. As if it were not blood that ran through his veins, but an inferno of fire.
He was beautiful, even.
Would the skin of his cheek be warm to the touch, or cold as ice? Hermione wondered whether he could somehow be both at once.
As she crept her way out of bed, careful not to make any loud creaking sounds, Hermione spotted the crinkled brown paper bag on the floor. She quickly picked it up and peered inside.
There they were: the three macaroons that Tom had snatched for her. She hadn't imagined it.
Trying her best to be as quiet as possible, Hermione dressed herself for the day, selecting a simply navy suit and white blouse. She scraped her hair into a ponytail at the back of her head, praying to Merlin that it would hold for at least half of the day.
When she was done, Tom was still asleep on the armchair.
Hermione checked the time to see that it was only quarter past six in the morning. Tom probably wouldn't be rising for another twenty minutes and the others would vary between the next hour and the next three hours.
Carefully and quietly, Hermione slipped her way out of her room.
As soon as Hermione had shut the door behind her, she pulled the crumpled paper bag out of her pocket and extracted one of the macaroons. She popped it into her mouth and almost groaned at the taste. Raspberry macaroons were her favourite.
She could hardly stop herself from gorging on the two remaining macaroons, one of which was matcha flavoured, and the other was vanilla buttercream.
They were absolutely exquisite. No wonder Ron and Blaise had finished them all last night.
"Mione - that you?" croaked a small, scratchy voice that was coming down the corridor. Hermione squinted her eyes, trying to make out the person's features in the low light.
"Oh, Ron, hi. Yeah, it's me," she replied in a hushed voice, wary of the fact that most of the others would be sleeping. Speaking of which, why wasn't Ron sleeping and why was he coming down the corridor that way? His room was in the complete other direction. "Up early?"
"Yeah, I'm-" he began, immediately stopping when he caught sight of some green and pink crumbs around Hermione's mouth. "Are you eating macaroons? Where on earth did you get them?"
She immediately wiped at the general lower part of her face with the back of her hand.
"It's a secret," she giggled, licking the extra crumbs off her fingers.
"Pooh, I was craving some." Ron seemed to have woken up a little more by that point.
"Didn't you have enough last night?" she asked with narrowed eyes. "You didn't leave any for the rest of us."
"Oh shush, you had some just there."
Hermione didn't want to explain how it was that she had some, so she ignored the comment and changed the conversation.
"How are you feeling? Did you sleep well?" she asked.
"Not too bad. Bloody early though," he replied. "You?"
"Yeah, fine."
They were silent for a moment before Ron took a deep breath and spoke.
"Listen, Mione, I know it's early for this kind of talk but I don't know if I'll get a chance to say this later. You're always so busy these days, even here."
Hermione grimaced weakly.
"I'm just- I'm sorry for getting angry at you yesterday. Okay? I really am. You're still my best friend, you know?"
"Thank you, Ron," she said with a frail smile.
"Even if I never really see you anymore, especially not after what happened two years ago."
Hermione pressed one palm against her temple and groaned.
"Oh, Ron, please don't bring that up again. I thought we'd agree to forget it and move on."
He stepped towards her and shook his head.
"But I can't, Mione, I can't forget it."
"Ron, please, you know that you and I can never be more than friends. You know that as well as I do. You said so yourself."
"I know, I know. Deep down I know that it's true, but I don't want to believe it."
Hermione reached out and squeezed his hand.
"You'll always be special to me, Ron. You always have been: every minute of these past nine years we've known each other. Let us not lose that."
Ron hugged her tightly and Hermione squeezed him back. She really did miss her friend. In this moment, she vowed to herself that she would stop prioritising work over her friends. As soon as they were all out of here, she would work hard to build those friendships back up again.
"Thank you, Mione. You've always been the best."
She smiled warmly at him. They continued down the corridor together.
"I've got to go now, but I'm really glad we did this," she said.
"Me too, Mione, me too."
~
Hermione made her way down the stairs very quickly. She needed to take one final look at the wall of photographs in the basement to satisfy her before they began questioning.
Once she was down, she slipped her way through the warded door and into the obscenely grey room - the kind of grey that washes over you, washes you out, washes into you. The only colour was the splashes of pigment in the photographs.
The line that the pictures had been hung on was gone, as was the photograph that Tom had taken of her.
Pacing quickly and efficiently, the heel of her shoe tapping away on the gritty concrete of the floor, Hermione made her way over to the photographs. She stood there and scanned over each and every part of them carefully. She did this once, then once again, and was about to go for a third round (just to be sure) when the door swung open.
"Good morning, Miss Granger," said Tom, placing his briefcase flat on the stainless steel table in front of him. "I imagined I would find you here."
"Morning," she replied.
"Did you sleep well?"
"Like a log," replied Hermione. "You?"
"Well, thank you."
This sounded altogether too much like business small talk, and Hermione hated every moment of it. Couldn't she just have normal conversations with people around her? Even her one with Ron had been largely functional.
"You didn't have to sleep on the armchair," she said quietly, the intensity of her gaze increasing.
"I stayed until you fell asleep," he replied, almost dismissively.
The conversation fell flat. Hermione turned back around and pretended to analyse the photographs once again. She imagined that Riddle would pretend to have something to look for in his briefcase. They continued these pretences a little while longer.
"Have you found anything new?" he asked, finally.
"No," she huffed. "But I'm just checking."
They flatlined once again.
"We begin our questioning today," he stated.
"I know," she groaned, covering her face with her hands. "Did you have to remind me?"
"We need to discuss techniques, questions, an order."
Hermione nodded.
"We have so many 'prime' suspects that I hardly know who to start with. Ron, because of his last spell. Blaise, because of the watch. Susan, because she found the body. Luna, because of the Butterbeer cork. The only two people that have no particularly incriminating evidence to hold against them are Malfoy and Viktor."
She let out a long sigh and slumped herself down on one of the chairs.
"Actually, now that I think about it, while Malfoy may have no evidence pointing towards him, we can't ignore the fact that it was a muggle-born that died."
"Then let us question Viktor first," said Tom.
Hermione shook her head.
"No, I need a little more time to figure out exactly what I want to ask him."
Tom gave an understanding nod.
"Who would you feel most comfortable questioning?" he asked.
Hermione stopped and thought for a second.
"Probably Luna."
"Then it is settled," said Tom decisively. "We question Miss Lovegood first."
Hermione nodded slowly.
"What did you mean by techniques?"
Tom smiled and opened up a compartment in his briefcase.
"I am so glad you asked, Miss Granger."
He held up a vial of clear liquid in his hand. His fingers ran down the curved edge of the bottle.
"Absolutely not!" cried Hermione almost in disgust, jumping to her feet. "It is completely unethical for us to resort to such a measure, not to mention unreliable too, given that some witches and wizards can resist it. I may also question where on earth you got your hands on that vial given that use of Veritaserum is so strictly controlled by the ministry."
Tom chuckled at Hermione's outburst and placed the vial back into his briefcase.
"It was a gift."
"A gift from the black market?" asked Hermione with narrowed eyes.
"It would have been rude to ask," he replied with a smirk.
Hermione gasped.
"We are not going to compromise the validity of our investigation by resorting to extreme or illegal measures!" she exclaimed.
"As you wish," he said with a small smile. "What about Legilimency?"
"Again, no!" she cried. "It's extremely invasive and unfair. There are also people like Malfoy who are skilled Occlumens and thus could easily resist it."
"So I take it we are to rely on honesty then? How unbelievably dull."
"It's not dull," said Hermione in a shrill voice. "It's called being fair and not doing anything illegal."
Tom inhaled sharply.
"Would you object to the use of a Pensieve, if we had access to such a tool?"
Hermione thought for a moment.
"It would be useful, but still, we should leave all these things to the Wizengamot once we hand the culprit over to them."
"The Wizengamot?" asked Tom in disbelief. "You mean that you intend not to finish what you have begun?"
"Precisely. I'm abiding by the law."
"And in doing so the Ministry will receive full recognition for the crime that you solved."
"I am willing to accept that."
"Miss Granger, I am not accustomed to doing a half job. When I commit to something, I see it through."
"So, what? You were just going to take matters into your own hands and imprison the culprit yourself?"
"Something like that."
Hermione threw her hands up in exasperation.
"You are unbelievable."
"Hardly. I simply trust the two of us more than I do the Wizengamot."
Hermione scoffed and crossed her arms.
"You must have a very low opinion of the Wizengamot for that to be possible," said Hermione, almost with a sneer.
"Or a very high opinion of our capabilities," Tom suggested. "Or both."
Hermione began to pace backwards and forwards, deep in thought.
"You are a very strange person," she stated. "More and more am I inclined to believe that you are not who you say you are."
"Who exactly do I say I am?" asked Riddle, a strange expression settling on his face. Hermione glared at him. "No, really, I am curious to hear."
Hermione huffed.
"I am onto you, Riddle."
Tom leaned back into a chair and smiled.
"Be my guest, Detective Granger.”