Peremo

Avery didn't apparate them far. Hermione easily recognised their snowy surroundings as the edge of Hogsmeade, the train station over to one side, forest on their other.

She raised a brow. "Why did you take us where we could've walked?"

"So we don't leave tracks," Avery grumbled, gazing at the snow at their feet.

Hermione checked around them for anyone within ear shot of them, a sense of foreboding steadily building. There wasn't a soul she could see.

"You mean in case they follow us? Would you just tell me what's going... " Hermione slowly trailed off at the look Avery was giving her. He looked mad. "...on?"

Avery leaned in, and with a viciousness that she didn't know he had, he hissed, "what have you done?"

Her stomach dropped. He sounded really upset—oh God. Had Tom told him about the infirmary, about what they'd—?

"...what do you mean?"

"What," he repeated, "have you done to Tom?!"

"I... it didn't mean anything," she mumbled uncertainly. "It was just..."

Avery straightened, tilting his head. Deep lines formed on his forehead. "What?"

Hermione blinked. "Wait, what are you talking about?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Um." Oh dear. "Nothing. I mean— what?"

Avery closed his eyes, his exhale long and tired. "He knows that you know about Myrtle. And did you tell him that you know about basilisk, too?" he demanded. "Because he thinks you do!"

Oh. Oh. Well. While that was better than him asking about giving Tom a blow job, it was also... worse.

"I... no. But... I did suspect that he might—"

"How do you know about Myrtle?" Avery pressed, heavily invading into her personal space. "And don't you brush me aside this time, I mean it! How do you know?"

Avery was insistent, desperate, almost. His urgency had her own nerves alarming—were they in danger?

And he was compelling. She wanted to speak to him, wanted to tell him everything, but... he couldn't know about her travel to the past. It was one of the only things she was sure about anymore. No one could know.

"I... I can't tell you," she whispered.

Avery squeezed the bridge of his nose. "He thinks you're working with Dumbledore," he stated accusingly. "Are you?"

"What? No!" she insisted. "I've got nothing to do with Dumbledore!"

"Well Tom's got it in his head that you do! He thinks Dumbledore's gone and sent you to sniff around, to spy for him and find proof that he opened the Chamber."

Hermione stepped back. She had to process what he'd said, and once she did, she laughed, dragging her hands through her hair.

Was that it? Was that why he'd turned on her so abruptly, why he'd tried to poison her? Where had he gotten the idea she was working with Dumbledore? She'd hardly even spoken to the man of this time!

But then—she supposed that she had been sloppy with her knowledge of Myrtle. To Tom, to have someone show up and probe him about the heir, about the founders' objects, about his family— that would've been incredibly suspicious. As far as Tom knew, time travel was impossible. It mightn't have even crossed his mind as a possibility, it would be so remote. So how else would she know about Myrtle? Logically, then, someone must've told her. And if it wasn't one of his Knights, then... Dumbledore was the only one left. He was the only one who suspected Tom.

It made sense.

And she supposed, he wasn't exactly wrong, was he? She was working against him with Dumbledore... just not this one.

Bugger.

"Oh my God, this is..." She laughed a bit incredulously, "such a mess, honestly," she uttered.

"This - isn't - funny!" Avery snapped, bordering on a yell, and Hermione jolted at the suddenness of it. He looked to be at his wits end. "I'm... fucking hell, Hermione, I want to help you. I don't fucking know why, but I'm trying to help you here. But if you don't tell me the truth... how else could you possibly know about Myrtle? Hmm?"

"I swear, I want to tell you, I do, but... I'm sorry, I— oh." At the cusp of understanding, Hermione's features fell. She could see it in his eyes, and his anger, his desperation, suddenly seemed to click into place. "You think Tom's right. Don't you?"

Avery shook his head. "I don't know what to think! You just... you appear out of nowhere, you push yourself into my life, and start using my family's library to dig into his lineage, and it makes sense, and... for fuck's sake, just tell me how you know! If you're not with Dumbledore... and if Tom wasn't the one to tell you..."

It fell quiet between them. She didn't know what else she could say that wouldn't be too much, and Avery threw his hands up in exasperation. "Maybe he is right," he muttered.

"Avery." When he didn't look at her, she reached out and took his hand, forcing his attention. "I... okay, okay. I understand how it must look. I do. But... please, just... I can't tell you. I'm sorry. It's too big a risk."

"That's not good enough, Hermione, I can't stick my neck out like this without—"

"If I tell you how I know, then Tom will find out," she interrupted. "And don't bother wasting your time swearing to me that you won't tell him, because it doesn't matter! If I tell you... if you know... then it doesn't matter what your intentions are. He'll force himself inside of your head, and he'll take it from you."

Avery's features shifted into a slow look of understanding.

"Yeah, you know exactly what I mean, don't you? I bet he gropes through your thoughts at every opportunity. Is that what he did after Slughorn's party the other week? Is that where this whole idea of my working with Dumbledore has come from?"

Avery opened his mouth as if he were going to speak, and then closed it again. Hermione nodded. Damn it. She should've tweaked Avery's memory when she'd had the chance. Stupid, stupid.

"So, yes, while I would love to talk to you, and I would love nothing more than to tell you everything... above all else, I can't have Tom finding out. If you can't protect your mind, then I can't tell you, it's as simple as that. I'm sorry. I just can't risk it."

Avery stepped back, pulling his hand from hers to cover his eyes. He stayed like that for a good long moment.

"But then, you are working against him," he concluded, a deep tone of disappointment. "Whether it's with Dumbledore or not, it doesn't matter—"

Hermione almost growled. "He's recruiting, isn't he?" she interrupted, a sense of desperation within her. In that moment, she just wanted him—needed him— to see that he was on the wrong side of things, needed him to see sense. "Recruiting young and impressionable students from prestigious wizarding families, instilling in them this... agenda that they're better than muggleborns, that they're better than half-bloods, that muggles belong under foot. What do you— what do you think is going to happen?! Hmm? That he's going to move into politics, work for change the democratic way? I know you've seen him force his hand. I know you've seen what he's capable of, and that’s not even the start of it. He's... he's not recruiting them for a club, Marvin. He's not recruiting them for the fun of it. He's recruiting them for an army.

"And I know you might've grown up with him, I know he's probably been a fantastic friend to you, maybe even one of the best you've ever had... but I also can see that you're a good person. I know you don't want children buying what he's selling. People will lose their lives for him. Some already have." Hermione had to stop and take a breath. "Maybe... maybe I am working against Tom. And I know it sounds insane, and I know that at the end of the day, you don't know me from a bar of soap, but... please, just... trust me. There is so much at stake here, more than you could ever know."

While she'd been speaking, Avery's features had fallen, washed with what might've been shame. "How do you..."

Hermione just shook her head.

"Is it the Ministry? Have you come to—"

"Avery."

He held his hands up. "Yeah, yeah, you can't say, I know. Sorry."

Avery went on to close his eyes before he sighed, slowly, tiredly. He began to pace, and he looked conflicted, as though he were about to be physically ill. And then, as abruptly as he'd started, he stopped, groaning, and dragging his hands over his face.

And just as she thought that would be that and Avery would call it a day and give up on her—

"He wants you dead," he whispered.

Hermione inhaled sharply. It wasn't exactly a surprise... but all the same... if Tom had gone and told his Knights of as much, then that meant that her obedience hadn't bought her as much breathing room as she'd thought it had. "I know."

"You have to leave," Avery insisted. "You won't be safe at Hogwarts, not while he's there too. He's going to—"

A flash of red passed between them, and the burst collided with the wall behind them, splintering the brick of the wall.

Off in the distance, in the direction of where the spell had originated, Hermione could make out Felix's burly form at the other end of the train station. His wand was pointed at them.

Avery stepped in front of her. "Apparate, Hermione."

Hermione heart skipped several beats. "I'm not going to just—"

"Go!"

A quick knock back jinx from Avery shoved her backwards, and she landed awkwardly on her shoulder in the snow by the line of the forest.

The cracks of spells echoed through the dusk, and Hermione picked herself up to see Felix throwing curses down the main walk at Avery, who had ducked behind a large rubbish bin. Felix's curses were all green.

"You fucking prick, Mulciber!" Avery yelled, poking his head out over the top of the bin and lobbing a curse of his own back at him.

Felix was grinning as he ducked out of the way, approaching them step by step. "Scared to come out, Marvie?" Felix taunted. "Shall I make it easy for you?" The next of Felix's killing curses blasted the metal bin out of its restraints.

While Avery dashed away from his destroyed cover, Hermione closed in, throwing a stunner at Felix.

He blocked it, but only just. "Aha, there's the bint," Felix sneered, aiming his next curses at her.

"I told you to run!" Avery yelled from behind one of the station's benches, standing long enough to toss several hexes toward Felix.

"Not—" Hermione ducked behind a thick tree trunk that took the impact of Felix's curse, "—likely!"

Felix was casting quickly, and as the wood of the trunk splintered, Hermione dashed between his curses to the cover of a different tree. He seemed to be a one-spell wonder, and the force behind his curses was strong. The impact of them into the trees was enough to make them groan, threatening to come down. But what he lacked, was finesse. There wasn't any thought in his duelling, just sheer force.

Avery on the other hand... since meeting him, Hermione had wondered about Tom's recruitment of Avery. He was aloof, relaxed, and youthful; not really the sort she'd expect for one of Tom's early Death Eaters. She'd supposed that his family name and his money must've been valuable assets. But she could see now, that they mustn't have been entirely it.

Avery was a good dueller. His long limbs made him fast, and while he didn't immediately resort to the unforgivables in the way Felix did, she made out the tell-tale indigo of the Imperius curse, and a single flash of green in there. He was cleverer about his use of them, more patient, slotting them in between less severe spells.

But though Avery was more skilful, Felix's bombardment of lethal curses had him just about dancing to avoiding being hit. And with each curse, Felix was getting closer, and at the shorter range, it would be harder to gauge the trajectory of his curses, and they would be harder to dodge.

She had to end the spar while she could. She'd come too far just to be murdered by one of Tom's minions in a back alley.

Hermione stepped out from behind her latest tree when it was hit with another of Felix's green curses and sent a well-placed slicing hex toward his arm back in return. It was a harsher method of disarming, but Felix was duelling to kill. There was a time and a place for a polite expelliarmus, and this wasn't it.

But—oh, oh no—before her hex reached its target, Felix ducked to avoid one of Avery's curses, putting him right in the line of her hex.

And it almost seemed to happen in slow motion, her hex striking him right in the neck.

At the impact, Felix was thrown back, falling back onto the snow, and the duelling ceased.

Avery peered out from behind one of the station's lamp posts while Hermione watched Felix's form with bated breath, slowly lowering her wand. He was moving, twitching on the ground, but he wasn't getting up.

The seconds stretched on. Oh God. He wasn't getting up.

Concern for her own safety rapidly dissipating, Hermione ran over there, skidding down to her knees when she reached him.

Felix had turned onto his side. He was gurgling for breath with gruesome, wet gasps, and a feeble hand was up at his throat. Blood was streaming from high up on his neck. Hermione had never seen so much, not in the infirmary, not in all of her years with Harry.

She reached out and put her hand beneath his, down onto the wound, trying to increase the pressure on it while she readied her wand. The wound was long and deep, her hand only just covering it.

"E-episkey," she cast.

The wound didn't close. Blood was pulsing beneath her hand.

She did her best to steady her wand hand. "Episkey."

Nothing.

"Episkey!"

For the love of—why wasn't it fucking working?!

"Episkey! Episkey!" Her casting became urgent. "Episkey!!"

"Hermione."

In her peripherals, she saw Avery hovering over them.

"Oh good, help me!" She checked the wound again. Still nothing, but the blood flow had slowed. "Avery?!"

She looked up in time to see him drop his wand and lower his head into his hands, covering his eyes.

Felix's hand wasn't by his throat anymore, and had fallen limp by his side. It was then that she noticed he wasn't gasping for breath anymore. He wasn't breathing at all.

It dawned on her why her charms weren't working. Healing charms were only effective with a live subject.

She jolted back away from Felix, falling onto her backside into the snow. "No. No, no, no, I..."

Bile burned in her throat. He was dead. Her hex had been the spell that'd hit him, and she'd...

"I..." she glanced up to Avery as though it would help, "I didn't mean..."

"I know," he whispered, and as he pulled his hands from his face, she could see he was shaking.

"It... it was an accident, I didn't mean to..."

He didn't look at her, but he nodded. "I know."

Hermione glanced around them. It was dark now, and while she couldn't actually see anyone, there could've been witnesses hidden in the dark. Their fighting hadn't been subtle.

Her pulse pounded in her ears.

"It... we… we have to do something," she uttered, trying to pull herself back to it, to force herself back into her body. "We have to move quickly. We either... leave him to be found... or we get rid of him."

She looked up at Avery. He wiped his eyes. He looked just the way she felt— on the brink of a breakdown. But then he took a deep breath and nodded.

"Um. Okay, you levitate him up and disillusion him," Avery decided. "I'll vanish the blood. We'll head down there, take him down to the lake." He gestured off toward the forest. "The mermaids and the squid will take care of it."

Hermione hesitated. While the thought of leaving him there for someone to find was awful enough, the thought of leaving his body to be eaten by wild creatures was even worse.

"I..."

"Well, do you have a better idea?!" Avery asked insistently, bordering on panic.

"Well—no, I just... no."

Avery nodded stiffly, and when he swallowed, it was audible. "All right then," he muttered. "Let's get to it, shall we?"

They stood side by side, not close to touching, staring out over the black of the lake. The ripples that'd formed as Felix's body disturbed the surface had long since dissipated, and the moonlight reflected neatly on the still, half-frozen surface.

Hermione held her icy hands together by her chest, still achingly cold from having rinsed off Felix's blood from them in the lake. Despite the pain, she didn't use a warming charm. She wanted to feel it.

Beside her, Avery was still. He seemed thoughtful, eyes unfocused.

She hadn't expected him to seem so… put together, to be able to function so quickly after having seen his friend bleed out before him. But he was one of Tom's knights, she supposed. He would've been hardened to death in a way that she never had been. He'd even thrown a killing curse himself.

She was grateful for it, his togetherness. She didn't know what she would've done, had she been on her own.

"Why are you helping me?" Hermione whispered, the question slipping out of its own accord.

Avery's eyes remained firmly fixed on the lake and he shook his head, a slow scowl on his lips. "I'm not going to Azkaban for Mulciber. He tried to kill us. And... it just as easily could've been me—my curse, I mean. Could've been either of us."

There was another pause.

"I'm sorry," she breathed.

Avery didn't speak, and the silence became loud. Hermione tried not to think about them, the two Mulcibers she'd known from her own time, but it was hard not to. How directly would they have been related? Were they his son and his grandson? His nephew and great-nephew? How many other descendants had there been that she hadn't met, who now wouldn't be born because of her?

"It's just..." Avery eventually muttered without tearing his eyes from the lake. "I've known him since we were kids."

A sob slipped free. Hermione couldn't hold it in. She covered her mouth with her hand.

Avery turned to her at last. "Hey—"

"No," she said, stepping back to avoid his touch. "No, I'm fine."

She wiped away the beginnings of her tears. She couldn't cry, couldn't let it out. If she started, she wouldn't be able to stop.

Avery's arms dropped to his sides. "None of this is fine," he uttered.

Hermione laughed, but there was no humour in it. "Yeah. But I just— I don't have the time to not be fine. So..." She took a deep breath. "I'm fine."

They stood in silence for another long while. Every now and then, the sound of the wind brushing through the trees would reach them, the gentle hooting of the forest's owls.

"Will you come with me?" Avery eventually asked. "My family has a holiday estate out by York. It's well protected," he offered, before he added semi-jokingly, "there's a basement we could stash you in. Tom wouldn't find you there. Although at this rate, I should probably join you."

Her lip quivered. She wanted to.

She wanted to more than anything, but...

"I can't," she murmured. "There's still something... I need to do."

Avery gaped at her. "You can't honestly be suggesting that you're going to go back to the castle."

Hermione shook her head. She couldn't leave without the diary. Couldn't. And the ring was still in the room of requirement...

"I don't have a choice."

"Are you kidding?!" Avery said incredulously. "Hermione—he's not going to just stop. Especially after..."

"I don't expect him to, but... maybe if I could just convince him I'm not working with Dumbledore, then maybe I can—"

"He'snot going to stop. If you're actively trying to get in Tom's way, then it doesn't matter who you're working with. He will kill you. The only reason that you're still here, is because he was silly enough to send Mulciber of all people."

Hermione massaged her temples. "I've handled him for this long... I only need a little bit longer."

"You won't be alive a little bit longer, he's got a plan to—"

"Well I've got to try!" She yelled. "I don't have a choice! I've come too far to give up now!" She gestured over at the lake, over to the gap in the ice where they'd lowered Felix's body. "Too much has happened, too many have lost their lives, and I've given up too much to be here—"

Hermione stopped when her voice broke.

No. She couldn't let it out, not here. She could process later, could break down after Tom was dead.

"Ah. I'm sorry," she murmured, and unlike when she and Avery had spoken at Slughorn's party, this time, she realised her mistake as soon as she made it. "I've said too much."

Avery's eyes were rounded. "...Hermione?"

She drew her wand.

"Woah—" He eyed its tip. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "But I can't risk Tom knowing what we've spoken about, not again."

"Hermione—"

"You might not put it together, but he might. I can't risk that." She aimed right at his face. “Thank you for helping me. It means more than you know.”

"N—"

"Obliviate."

She left Avery by the train station, stunned on one of the benches with a warming charm on him so he wouldn't freeze out in the snow. She tucked the scarf she'd bought for him for Christmas beneath his head as a makeshift pillow, and before she left, she pressed a light kiss to his cheek.

When he woke, he would remember his night at the Hog's Head with his friends, and with any luck, would assume he'd had one too many Christmas drinks. He would wake, bemused that he must've wandered down to the station alone in a drunken stupor, but that would be all. He wouldn't remember Felix, wouldn't remember what she'd done. He wouldn't remember seeing her at all.

While it killed her to do it, and while having someone to lean on felt like all she'd been craving... it was for the best.

And sure, if Tom tried to get any answers from Avery, he would figure out that his memory had been tampered with, but it didn't matter. It would be apparent that it was her doing, and hopefully the blame for what had happened would rest solely on her.

She hoped it would be enough. She didn't know if she could bear it if something happened to Avery, too.

Hermione wandered back to the school grounds, taking her time to clear her head. It only dawned on her as she walked that she'd completely lost track of the time. It'd been dark for hours. It must've been Christmas morning.

Happy Christmas, Hermione.

There was a tremble to her limbs that remained all the way back to the castle, and it wasn't from the cold.

Tom would be enraged to see her again. She'd seen with Harry that each failed murder attempt only drove him to further lengths. What would he throw at her next, she wondered? Would it be the basilisk? A curse? Or would he come for her himself?

She'd lost him a knight. How long would it take for him to realise Felix wasn't coming back? Would he be upset? Mournful, never, but inconvenienced? Absolutely. Would he torture her for that? Take it out on Edward?

But the most pressing of all, her biggest worry she couldn't shake—how the fuck was she supposed to get to his chambers now?

Adrenaline, regret, and panic were weaving together, threatening to drag her down. She wanted to give in, to find somewhere safe to curl up and hide, and let them drown her, but... to do so wouldn't get her anywhere. It would be a waste of her time, and it would only make stopping Tom all the more difficult.

She would have plenty of time for panic later.

But now, for the time being... she had a ring to destroy.