Peremo

Hermione wanted nothing more than to climb into her bed, hide beneath her covers, and stay there for the next ten years... well. Nothing, perhaps, other than to fill Tom's diary with as many stab wounds as physically possible and then feed whatever was left over to a pen full of ravenous pigs.

But unfortunately, she wasn't able to do either of those things, because her top priority had now become to get them the hell out of the Avery's estate. She had a day to get them settled somewhere safe, and she supposed it didn't particularly matter whether it'd been Avery or his sister who'd informed Tom of their whereabouts; what mattered is that Tom had gotten past its Fidelius charm. She could deal with who told what to whom, later.

And so, after she'd showered until her skin had begun to sting from how hard she'd scrubbed, she cleaned up Avery's bed—God forbid, he see the tell-tale, pink-tinged stain—and promptly started packing up their things. She wasn't sure where they'd go next, but that didn't matter. As long as they made it somewhere that Tom couldn't find them, then as far as she was concerned, sharing a shed with a flock of chickens would be good enough.

Her own things were easier to pack than Avery's. Hers were, for the most part, already tucked neatly in her bag, while Avery's clothes were sprawled out by the end of his bed, his toiletries scattered around the bathroom, his bags emptied over the table and floor of the living area.

Despite his mess, she thought she managed to find all of his things, and when the estate was starting to look bare, she next got started on her own bed by slipping her hand underneath her pillow to feel around for the resurrection stone.

Hmm.

Not finding it in its usual spot beneath the pillows, she threw them off the bed and checked on the mattress and underneath the quilt in case it'd been dislodged as she'd slept.

There was a loud squeak and some thumping from the entrance hall behind her, but Hermione kept searching.

"Hey."

Hermione gave Avery a noncommittal grunt back in greeting, and took the pillows out of their cases, checking inside the fabric.

"You'll be pleased to know I got everything you wanted," he announced, groaning as a loud thumping of the table indicated he'd put down a heavy bag, "even that damned book, and— what are you doing?"

But Hermione barely heard him. She couldn't focus, couldn't think over the sound of her own heartbeat. It was getting louder, closing in on her, and she could feel it thudding in her neck, faster and faster and faster.

The stone wasn't there. Wasn't stuck behind the mattress, wasn't caught in the bedding, wasn't wedged between the floorboards.

It wasn't there.

She tried to calm herself, tried to see it logically. It had to be somewhere. She didn't remember seeing it that morning, didn't give it the squeeze and thought of Harry that she normally gave it, so she probably had just dislodged it while she'd slept.

But—

Tom had been alone in the room.

Tom had been alone in the room.

Which meant— if he'd nosed over to her side and had found the stone while she'd been in the bathroom—

Very quickly, Hermione was hyperventilating.

"Hermione...?"

He'd left quickly. He hadn't seemed bothered, not in the way she would've expected had he happened to have found the stone, but he'd left so quickly. He hadn't taken what must've been a perfect opportunity to mock her, to rub her nose in what they'd done, had only stayed long enough to give her that bloody package— oh.

Her eyes found the package over on the floor by the end of her bed.

"Bloody hell," she grumbled, and ignoring her better judgement, she snatched it up. Paying no mind to Avery's pestering, she pried open the wrapping with one finger, and, not wanting to touch the contents just in case, tipped the package out over the table. Out of it, came clattering—

Hermione instantly realised what she was seeing and reared back, and though she'd covered her mouth, they didn't do much to muffle her scream.

Avery was by her side in an instant.

"What?!" he demanded, a hand on her shoulder. "What is it?! Are you okay?!"

Hermione couldn't get a word out, could only whimper in horror, so she pointed to the ground, to where the glasses had fallen.

"What is it?" Avery spoke as he went to pick them up. "Are these... these are glasses," he stated, turning them over in his hand. "They're just glasses. What's wrong?"

"They... they’re…" Her attempt at speaking turned into a panicked sort of sob, and she couldn't say it, could barely think it.

But Avery was properly inspecting them now, and he seemed to get there without needing her help. "Oh, are they— are these Dumbledore's?"

They were distinct, unmistakable, and it was all she could do to give him a stiff nod.

"Fucking hell," Avery remarked with a sight chuckle, turning them over. "Where'd you get these? Hope he's got spares."

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut, and covered her face with her hands, pressing down over her eyes as a high whine slipped from her throat. The room was spinning, floor slipping out from beneath her.

Fuck. Fucking, fucking, fuck fuck fuck, and like a series of dominoes, it was all falling into place.

No wonder Tom had stayed after finding Avery gone. He had lingered because of her, hadn't he, but not for sex. He'd—he'd just wanted to see if she was still there! He'd seen in her memory that Dumbledore had been the one to send her back! If Tom had succeeded this time, if he’d brought his plans forward and Dumbledore was now dead, then that meant he could never send her back, and if the time she'd come from was linked to their current time, then that meant that upon his death, she would disappear.

But she hadn't. And to Tom— that would be confirmation that the time she'd known was meaningless. It was a beautiful test; if the timelines were linked and she vanished, she'd finally be out of his hair, problem solved. If they weren't and she was there for good, then her power, her leverage—her knowledge of what was to come—would be all but gone. It was bloody fucking brilliant, and—

"Fuck!" she yelled.

"Woah, you think..." Avery was saying, "you think this means that Dumbledore's..."

But Hermione didn't hear a word of it.

She hadn't been quick enough with the diary, had misinterpreted, and then she'd bloody well gone and offered herself up on a silver platter! And to top it all off, she'd just about told him she knew about his horcruxes, she might as well have just handed him the stone herself!

Hermione dropped into a squat, hands over her face and just about screamed.

All her plans, ruined, and Dumbledore—Dumbledore—her safety net, the only one she could trust to keep Tom in check at Hogwarts should she fail, the one person who would form the Order, figure out Tom's horcruxes, and prepare Harry...

"Hermione?" Avery said timidly, crouching by her side, rubbing his hand over her back. It sounded like he'd spoken to her from the other end of a long tunnel. "It—it's okay. It might be—they're just glasses. He might be fine. He might've just—"

"Don't," she groaned, rocking slightly. She couldn't kid herself; she knew what they meant. Tom wouldn't have given them to her if Dumbledore was fine. This was his way, his sick, twisted, fucked up way of bragging, of proving her and her timeline wrong, of saying, 'see? I am greater than even time itself'.

And—oh God— I think you'll like it, he'd said.

I think you'll like it.

Was that how well she'd sold it to him that she wasn't working with Dumbledore? Had he interpreted it as hate? Had he thought he’d be doing her a favour, that she'd be glad to see him dead?

She knew she'd fucked the timeline up already, but this... this, was worse than anything she could imagine. And to make matters even worse still, if Tom did have the stone, if he recognised it, realised it was the very same stone that'd been in his ring, then he'd come for them. He'd be an entirely different shade of murderous and no amount of negotiating would help her this time, not even the lure of the locket, which meant—

Get it together, she told herself, swallowing down the urge to vomit. Get it together.

Tom would've been gone... maybe about an hour. That was a long time if he'd found the stone, would've given him plenty of time for him to check on his ring, might've even been long enough for him to check on the diary, too. It was a miracle he wasn't already back upon them.

She could process the ramifications of Dumbledore later; for now, she just needed to keep them alive.

"Grab your things," she told Avery, forcing herself up and out of her ball, quickly wiping her eyes and moving to scoop up her bag.

"I-sorry?"

"We're leaving."

"What's going—"

"Get your things!" she yelled, her panic breaking through.

Avery's eyes widened, taken aback, but instead of doing what she said, he reached out for her. Hermione went to shove him off, but despite his lankiness, he was surprisingly strong. He gripped at her shoulders, held her still. "Hermione. Hermione. Just, bloody talk to me. What's going on?"

"I..." She squeezed her eyes closed, breathed in heavily. "I did something very, very stupid," she said. "He knows where we are. We have to leave, now."

"What? But—how could he possibly—"

"Because you went and opened your damned mouth, didn't you?!" she yelled, unable to keep it in.

Avery let her go, stepping back. "What?! No! No, I wouldn't do that!"

"And then I had to clean up your mess! All because you told your fucking family! Didn't you? While you packed your bags and I waited for you, you told them where we were going, even after I explicitly told you not to!"

Avery's features fell. "I... but it was... only Clarissa, but she wouldn't..."

Hermione scoffed and rubbed at her temples.

He gave you up, and he'll do it again.

"Well, it doesn't matter now.” She paused to take a long breath. “Tom was here. While you went to Diagon Alley," she told him. "I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want to worry you, but he's going to come back, and when he does, we need to be far, far away from here."

"Well— what happened?! Are you all right, did... did he hurt you?"

"It doesn't matter," she hissed, "we just have to go."

"But where else are we supposed to g—"

"It doesn't matter! Just get your bloody things!"

Avery huffed, but at least he finally started to move, picking up the backpacks and slinging one over each shoulder.

"Thank you," Hermione murmured before she pocketed Dumbledore's glasses, shrunk down the bag of items Avery had just bought and added them to her bag, and returned all of the estate's items that she'd transfigured to their original state.

Looking back over the small house… that was it.

"Come on," said Hermione, leading the way through the estate's back entrance.

Avery followed along closely, and as they crossed the gardens, she gripped his hand tightly, earlier than she had to, just for the comfort of it. He gave her a reassuring squeeze back, and once they were past the charm line, with the most mundane location she could muster in mind, she twisted them on the spot, and the estate was gone.

"Where... are we?" Avery asked as they stepped out of the alleyway they'd appeared in.

"Albert Square, Manchester," she said, finding it a bit jarring to see the same area that she'd seen many times over in her grandparents' old photographs. "As muggle an area as they come."

Avery turned on his heel, taking in the drab street and the busy, lower-class muggles passing by them. Some of the muggles were staring back; with her and Avery's long coats and Avery's bright shirt, they must've looked really out of place.

"Come on," she said, grabbing his hand again and pulling him onward. "Shouldn't be too hard to find a hotel that'll take us."

The first establishment they tried was too flashy, too predictable, but the second was a middle of the range hotel around the block from the square. It seemed so perfectly nondescript, that when they were told they were fully booked, Hermione had a light confundus charm ensuring that had a last-minute cancellation would pop up in the nicest suite they had to offer.

The room on the top floor that they were subsequently led to was musky-smelling and generously sized, and the moment the muggle left them, Avery turned his nose up. "Disgusting," he remarked, eyeing off one of the light fittings. It looked like as though it hadn't been dusted in quite some time.

"You say that as if you know how to dust it yourself," Hermione mumbled, locking the door and pulling her wand to start warding off the room. She'd have to pop back down to the lobby soon, make the muggles forget ever seeing them.

"That's not the point," Avery said as he put down the bags. "These people claim to be running a business."

Leaving Avery to his muttering, Hermione sealed the room's door and windows, muffled it, shielded it, warded it for apparition...

"And they've got no taste, whatsoever," Avery said to the tablecloth, "and—good bloody Merlin, what is this?"

"That's a toaster," Hermione provided between her charms.

"A 'toaster'?"

"For making toast," she clarified.

Avery scoffed loudly. "It's bit much, isn't it? It takes up half the counter, and the cream doesn't at all match with that other big old thing."

"It's a fridge."

"A 'fridge'?"

"Refrigerator. It keeps things cold," she snapped, her stress wearing her patience thin.

Recognising her irritation, Avery continued to mutter about the eyesore that was the fridge at a lower volume while she finished off her charms and pulled her bag onto the kitchen counter.

Hermione sunk her arm deep into it and took the diary and her knife out of her bag, placing the diary in the middle of the counter. She gestured for Avery to come over.

"Here." Hermione pointed the handle of the knife at Avery. "I need you to stab this," she told him.

She didn’t want Avery to know about the diary, didn’t want him to see it, think about or even so much as smell it, but something always seemed to get in the way. She wasn't sure what it was, whether it was an effect of having written in it, or an effect of one's relationship with the soul in question, but it was starting to feel like the locket had all of those years ago, like her head was clearer when she wasn't around it, and every time she went to destroy the diary, something seemed to stall her.

Whether it was just a coincidence or if it truly was a defensive mechanism of the diary—she decided it didn't matter. It was too important. Hermione wouldn't be taking any more chances.

"...sorry?"

Avery, who'd been so distracted by the room's mundane-ness, looked between her and the diary blankly.

"Just— take it!" she just about yelled, and at her insistence, Avery hesitantly took the knife. "Now, stab the book."

"Hermione—"

"Just— trust me, stab the book!"

"Whatever did it do to you?" He laughed hesitantly. "What does this have to do with—"

"I'll explain everything soon enough, but just, please Avery, if you want to make it through this week, then just stab the bloody thing!"

Avery stared at her as though she'd lost the plot, but then he sighed, and with a solid swing, he brought the blade of the knife down into the diary.

It was slower than the ring. As it was pierced, the diary started to ooze out a thick, tarry, black substance and started to let out a high-pitched shriek. It visibly shocked Avery, and seeing him about to let up, Hermione lunged forward to put her hands over his, driving the knife in deeper.

With the increased pressure, the shriek grew louder, louder, and louder, and when it felt like it was on the brink of bursting her eardrums, it finally broke, and a bright white flash threw them back.

Hermione had been thrown to the side, colliding with one of the dining chairs. Muggle furniture was built differently in the fifties; the chair remained intact as she hit it, and the impact of its back with her hip and shoulder was hard enough that she'd surely be left with a couple of nasty bruises.

She lay there for a moment, one of the chair legs driving painfully into her back, and she groaned when she mustered the strength to push herself up from the floor. She couldn't hear anything but the deafening ring of white noise.

Her eyes took several long blinks to adjust back to the room's lighting, and she quickly made out Avery's form slumped over by the fridge.

"Avery?"

She scrambled over and crouched by his side, giving his shoulders a testing shake. But though he didn't respond, he was clearly breathing, and a quick glance over was enough to see that didn't seem to have any overly serious injuries. Must've been knocked out.

Leaving him where he was, Hermione's eyes locked onto the diary, still on the bench, impaled by the knife. The bench top around it was marred with scorch marks, the same way the floor of the room of requirement had been from the ring. The black fluid that'd seeped out of it was trickling down to the linoleum flooring.

Hermione slumped against the wall, body aching all over, and the tears she'd been holding in since Tom appeared at the estate finally escaped.

It was done.

It was done.

Both horcruxes, finally destroyed. Whatever happened now, Ginny would at least never be possessed by the diary, the chamber would never be reopened, and Harry would never have to risk his life fighting a bloody basilisk.

Good. Her efforts to save Dumbledore from the ring might've been for naught, but at least Ginny would never be harmed by Tom's memory. That was still something, right?

And now, all that was left, was to find Tom and kill him before he got to her first.

His learning about her knowledge of his horcruxes might've meant she'd lost her element of surprise. It might've meant she needed to strike as soon as she possibly could, and had no time left to plan, and he'd be actively trying his hardest to murder her in return, and it might've meant she had no idea where to look for him, but...

She couldn't give up now. She'd made it this far, further than she ever thought she would. Both horcruxes were down and Tom was finally killable.

She had nothing left to lose, and she'd escaped him before. She could do it again.

Easy. No problem at all.