Peremo

Dear Marvin,
I've been thinking things over. I've decided it would be a good idea if we met up to speak in person. Soon would be best—in the next few days, before Christmas.
Let me know when suits.
Best,
Hermione.

On Hermione's journey down from the owlery, she kept to the corridors she knew to be littered with portraits, stopping at each and every corner. At each stop, she slowed against the wall and pulled out her hand mirror. She angled it to see what awaited her around the bends, proceeding on her way only when she found the coast clear.

Her adrenaline spiked each time, anticipating the distinct, large, yellow eyes she remembered from her second year. They frequented her dreams, and now with the knowledge that the basilisk was awake, and with Tom's threats looming over her, she was seeing them in her sleep more often than not.

But—for the time being, anyway—the worry seemed to be for naught. She found every corner she peeked around clear, and she continued uninterrupted on her way down the castle.

Still, she couldn't shake the sensation that she was in the eye of a hurricane.

"What are you doing?"

Hermione jolted at the sudden voice, rapidly turning on the spot. But—oh, good—it was only Cygnus.

"Nothing," she chirped, quickly straightening, tucking her mirror into her waist band behind her back.

Cygnus frowned suspiciously. "Really, Miss?" he pressed, narrowing his nosy little eyes. "Because it looked to me like you were poking around that corner with a mirror."

Hermione pursed her lips. "Don't you have somewhere else to be, Cygnus?" she said. "Some, poor unsuspecting second year to be terrorising, perhaps?"

He snorted and rested his hands behind his head in a lazy, nonchalant sort of way. "You know Miss, if you're that desperate to find the Professor, you don't need to go nosing around corners," said Cygnus. "You could've just asked."

Immediately, she scowled. "Excuse me?"

"Riddle's down in the common room."

"I—well what on Earth is he—wait, what makes you think I'm looking for him?"

"Please, Miss," Cygnus drawled. "Who else would you be looking for? We all know the two of you are shagging."

Hermione just about gasped. "I— ten points from Slytherin!" she snapped.

"Wha—that's not fair!" Cygnus declared. "Professor Slughorn said you all shouldn't be docking points over the break!"

"You'll find that shouldn't and can't are two vastly different concepts," she said, hands on her hips. "And not that it's even remotely any of your business, but you can rest assured knowing that there is absolutely nothing but professionalism between Professor Riddle and I."

Cygnus scoffed. "Whatever you say, Miss," he mumbled, but it was clear he wasn't buying it.

Sensing another sarcastic comment brewing, Hermione pointed a finger toward him and warned, "so much as another word on the matter, and it'll be another five points."

Cygnus vigorously rolled his eyes before he mimed zipping his mouth shut. Then he crossed his arms and went to step past her.

"Don't know what he sees in you, to be honest," he murmured as he went, quickly disappearing around the corner she had come from.

As the sounds of his footsteps slowly grew softer, Hermione closed her eyes. She grit her teeth, having to take several deep breaths to keep herself from following him to snap at him.

She rubbed at her temples. The apple evidently didn't fall far from the tree.

But while the thought of there being rumours amongst the student body about her and Tom was alarming... Cygnus hadn't been entirely wrong.

She had been looking for Tom.

And now, she had the exact information she needed. She hadn't even had to ask for it!

Tom was in the Slytherin common room. What he was doing in there, she hated to think, but at the very least, it gave her a starting point.

And so, Hermione determinedly dashed off, changing course to take the quickest and most busy path down toward the dungeons.

When she reached the lowest floor, she was quick to find herself a secluded corner, and then, she got to work.

Cold, disillusioned, and frankly, a little bit damp, Hermione waited tucked behind the large serpentine statue that adorned the dungeon corridor where she knew the entrance to the Slytherin common room to be.

Nothing was happening.

She'd been waiting in the humid dungeon corridor watching the patch of stone wall where the common room entrance would appear, and no one had entered or left in the hour she'd been stood there. Her feet were starting to hurt.

Ugh.

Signage for the professor's personal quarters would've been far too simple, wouldn't it?

But she figured that Tom had to surface eventually, and when he did, she'd just follow him until he returned to his own rooms, and voilà! She would find his room, forcibly break in sometime when he was busy elsewhere, and the diary—assuming that's where he was keeping it, of course—would be hers.

It would be easy. Simple.

...Except for the fact that nothing was happening.

Time slowly stretched on, and as it did, fatigue started to set in from the effort it took to maintain the disillusionment charm. Hermione rested her head against the statue, her eyelids heavily starting to droop.

But just as her thoughts started to jumble with the early stages of sleep, she was jolted out of her stupor by abrupt, loud yelling. It was the sort of yelling that tended to come from students in heated arguments, and it echoed down the dungeon hall from the direction of the entry hall.

It sounded like it was a decent distance away, and though it sounded like the altercation might've even been violent, Hermione decided to ignore it. She'd leave it for a professor to deal with. She was on a mission.

She kept watch of the common room, trying her best to tune out the muffled yelling, until a few minutes later, something finally happened. A Slytherin student, one who looked to be about a fifth year ran past her hiding spot, quickly barging into the common room.

The door disappeared once more and then all was quiet for another few moments—

And suddenly, there was a flurry of action before her. About ten students all filed out of the common room at the same time, and— oh. There.

Tom was amongst them and— oh, shoot. As he made it out of the common room, he pushed past the students to run.

The students all hurried after him, and, swearing under her breath, Hermione joined, trailing on behind the group.

With the sudden burst of activity, the dungeon corridor had become rather busy, and following the Slytherins was difficult while disillusioned. She must've barged into multiple baffled first years on her way, but, oh well. With any luck, they'd think nothing of it.

She carried on following the crowd of students down the hall toward the source of the yelling until they made it to the staircase, just in time for her to overhear Tom loudly barking, "get out of the way."

In the middle, she could just see Tom's form shoving through the students, and Hermione did her best to follow, jumping on the spot to try to get a view of what had happened. There seemed to be a student lying in the centre of the group, and they were shrieking. They must've been seriously hurt.

Hermione sighed. This clearly wouldn't be her day, and so, while everyone was focussed on the injured student, she removed her disillusionment charm.

Now fully visible, Hermione started pushing through the students toward the centre. But when she reached the middle, her breath caught.

The injured student, the one shrieking, who was now in the midst of being scooped up into Tom's arms, was Edward.

Tom was fast, wasting no time before he started to move them toward the stairs, presumably en route toward the infirmary. Hermione followed, instructing the students who had congregated to clear out as she went.

"What happened?!" Hermione demanded when she caught up with him in the entry hall, just about needing to run to keep up with Tom's pace.

"Ah, ah, ah, ahhhh," Edward whined.

"I don't know. Looks like it's his leg," Tom murmured, and then he frowned at her. "Where did you come from?"

Hermione ignored him and fell back to move around to Tom's other side to get a look at Edward's leg. She could tell by the way the fabric was sticking to his leg that it was soaked in blood, and—oh—

There was a sharp bone protruding from his mid-thigh.

"Oh my— goodness what happened?!"

"Ahh, ahh, ahhhhhh."

Tom sighed irritably over Edward's sobs. "I told you, I don't know—"

"That little rat bastard!" Hermione declared, cutting him off. "You can't tell me this wasn't Cygnus!"

"Like I said, I don't know what hap—"

"Ahhh, ah, ah."

"Ooh," Hermione growled over Edward's cries, "when I get my hands on him, I'll wring his little neck myself!"

"Perhaps it would be best—"

"Ahh, it hurts, it hurts..."

"—to worry about strangling Mr. Black after Edward has received some sort of medical attention?" Tom suggested.

Again, Hermione ignored him. "He can't possibly think he can continue to get away with this sort of behaviour! What if that had been his neck rather than his leg?!"

Edward's howls of pain grew even louder.

"Oh, it's all right, Edward," Hermione tried in a feeble attempt to soothe him. "We're nearly there, we'll get you all taken care of."

They hurried around the last bend to the infirmary, and as they entered, Hermione caught sight of Madam Spindle by the window maintaining one of her succulents. Her neck craned toward them at the sound of their entry.

"Oh, Tom, how good to see— oh my," Spindle said, hardening rapidly. She moved quicker than a woman her age should, gesturing to one of the beds. "Down there. The first on the right."

Tom obediently did as instructed, gently dropping Edward onto the bed. Hermione reached over to take one of his hands.

"Ahhhhh." Edward's whines had become long, quiet howls. He was pale and covered in a layer of sweat.

"Hermione, give him this, would you?" Spindle levitated a small purple phial in her direction.

Hermione untwined one of her hands from Edward's to take it, swiftly uncorking in with her thumb and forefinger.

"Edward," she said over his whines, "Edward, I know it hurts, but please, drink this. It'll make you feel better, and I'll be here the whole time."

Edward looked terrified, but still, he let her lower the phial to his lips, and obediently swallowed the potion down.

Within seconds, Edward was asleep.

"Ah, thank goodness," Madam Spindle murmured. "Impossible to think straight without peace and quiet."

Then, with very little in the way of discussion, Hermione and Spindle began to work. Hermione covered Edward with a sheet while Spindle vanished his pants and started to clear the wound. While Spindle got started chanting over his leg to slow the bleeding and straighten out the bone, Hermione got started on filling in Edward's chart.

It had taken a good year and a half for them to get to that point, the point where they could work without needing to communicate. And while Hermione wasn't particularly fond of Spindle as a person, she could appreciate an expert at work when she saw it.

Over her time in the infirmary, she'd witnessed Spindle heal all sorts of students with all sorts of injuries, including many she herself wouldn't have known where to start with. She'd learned a great deal from the old woman.

It almost made sharing an office with her manageable. Almost.

But this time, as Hermione worked, scribbling down as many observations as she could, she was distracted, acutely aware that Tom was hovering. He wasn't going away, but he wasn't helping them either.

Ugh. Maybe if she gave him a prod...

"So I take it, you didn't actually see what happened to Edward?" Hermione asked, getting to the description of ailment section of the Edward's chart.

Tom glanced down at her, raising a neat, irritated eyebrow. "Like I said," he drawled, "no. Hawkins came and informed me a student had fallen down the dungeon staircase, and that it looked serious. That's all I was told."

"Hmm." Hermione filled in, 'fall down the stairs'. "All right. Thank you. We'll take it from here," she said dismissively.

That ought to do it.

"Oh, Tom, dear boy," Spindle said then, breaking off from her chanting. "Fetch me that bottle from over there, would you? The grey one?"

"Certainly."

Hermione rolled her eyes as Tom dutifully did as told. And then, as if Spindle had sensed he’d been about to leave, she put him to work. She had him vanish some blood for her, summon a towel over, fetch another couple of potions, tweak the lighting for her.

Hermione ground her teeth together. It looked like he'd be there to stay.

Bloody hell. But... oh well, she supposed. Spindle might've been old and frail, but she was adept with a wand, and Hermione knew Tom wasn't stupid enough to try to harm her in her presence.

Aside from the occasional instruction from Spindle, they all worked quietly. And though being in Tom’s presence was just as uncomfortable as ever, and though Hermione would never admit it, they actually… didn’t make a bad team.

"That should," Spindle panted a good while later after Edward's skin had been woven back together, visibly spent. "Just about... do it."

"It's very clean, Ma'am. He mightn't even scar," Hermione commented, admiring Edward's skin where just an hour previously, his femur had been protruding from.

"Yes, well," Spindle breathed, "see as many... of these as... I have... and yours will be... neat, too."

Spindle started to trot around the bed to look over Edward's chart, looking a bit wobbly on her feet. And—predictable as ever, really—Tom swooped in, taking hold of Spindle's arm to steady her.

"You look exhausted, Marigold. How about I stay and help Hermione here, and we can clean up and make sure Edward has stabilised," Tom offered helpfully. "You go and get yourself some dinner, have a bit of a rest."

At once, Hermione blanched, but Spindle's features lit up like a Christmas tree. "Oh, you wonderful boy, you wouldn't mind, would you?"

"No, no," Hermione chimed in, "that's not at all necess—"

"Of course, Marigold, it's absolutely no trouble at all," Tom said over Hermione, gently taking the chart from Spindle's hands. "It would be my pleasure."

Tom gave Hermione a warm smile. Then, when Spindle wasn't looking, he winked.

Hermione felt sick. Oh no.

"Actually, Marigold, why don't I help you to the Great Hall—" Hermione tried, only to be cut off.

"Oh, nonsense, the infirmary must be tended to," Spindle insisted, starting to hobble toward the exit. "A break in classes doesn't equate... to a break in injuries, as you can very well see."

"Oh. Um. Well—"

"Best to have two sets of hands," Spindle said, almost at the door. "Why don't you show... Tom where everything is."

A lump was forming in Hermione's throat that she couldn't swallow down. There were no portraits in the infirmary. With the dose of sleeping potion Edward had been given, he'd be unconscious for hours. Aside from him, there were no other occupants of the infirmary, which meant that if Spindle left... she would be entirely alone with Tom.

Tom, obviously well aware of that fact, smiled down at her, a smug turn to his lips. "That's a wonderful idea, don't you agree, Hermione? It would be so terrible if someone else were to be hurt without anyone here to care for them."

Hermione gripped her wand. She heard the threat in his words. But Spindle didn't, and gave them an over-the-shoulder wave as she gripped the doorknob.

“Such a dear boy,” Spindle cooed, stepping out of the door. “I’ll be sure to bring you back a cake for your troubles.”

“Thank you, Marigold, that would be lovely,” Tom said musically.

With that, Spindle vanished out of the door, leaving Hermione entirely on her own with Tom.

The door swung shut with a loud groan.

Their eyes met. Tom licked his lips.

Then, Hermione ran.