He Is Calculating
Chapter Six: He Is Calculating
London, 1936
Tom very carefully set down his copy of A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court. This had to be the fourth time he'd read it, and it was no more helpful now than it had been the first go-around. He really wanted to throw the stupid thing across his room, but there was no sense in damaging his own belongings, no matter how frivolous they'd ultimately proven. There was a whole stash of time-travel books lined up under his bed now—all fiction and almost none of them concerned traveling forward through time—and not a single one had really furthered his knowledge. It was maddening. Either his situation was curiously unique, or he'd made a terrible oversight while researching book titles.
He had learned one thing though, and it was more just common sense than a revelation: time-travel had consequences. Problem was, he hadn't seen any changes in Hermione's world. Theoretically, altering a single event was enough to overwrite an entire future—Tom's actions in 1936 were utterly guided by his ability to skip forward in time, and yet there was no demonstrable change in the timeline. Did that mean that, from the perspective of the 1980's, he'd already traveled through time and his actions were, therefore, predetermined? Or had he simply not changed anything important enough to be noticeable? The circular logic made his head hurt, and it enraged him that he had not the means to study the idea any further.
The more he thought about it, the more sick it made Tom feel. Were his actions truly so insignificant? It shouldn't be possible to slip in and out of time without changing something, and yet he'd managed it. On another day, he might have decided that meant he was powerful, but the truth was that it made him feel like he was out of control. Nothing was falling in line with his hypothesis, and there was not even the vaguest hint that anything he'd done had generated any sort of reaction or consequence at all. Unless those were on the horizon? Rivers took the path of least resistance, did Time as well? Would it accrue little mistakes within the flow and simply ignore them until the pressure became great enough to reroute it? He liked that theory; it didn't explain much, but it was enough to take the edge off his impotency.
His impulse in the face of a problem like this was to ask after Hermione's opinion, and he wasn't sure if that flustered or infuriated him. The girl had proven to be his equal intellectually, and they'd spent many an afternoon riddling out problems together. Ethically, however… Hermione was overburdened by a sense of moral obligation, she weighed every decision against societal convention. More often than not, he'd had to bite his tongue and agree with her so as not to start an argument, but once or twice he'd gotten her to side with him. However, he somehow knew that time-travel would be one of those issues they'd be strictly divided over.
Tom still had not told her that he was from the past and he didn't intend to until a point when he was certain she would not attempt to send him away. Then again, for all her straight-laced ways Hermione was devilishly curious, sometimes even to the point of self-endangerment. It was possible that she would be more intrigued than angry, and with her help he would be able to look through books and theories that had not yet been printed in his own time. Fabulous reward, but he wasn't sure if the risk was really worth it—despite her easy acquiescence on his birthday, it had taken weeks to repair their relationship, to get her to trust him once more—and if he alienated her now, he wasn't sure he'd be able to win her back again.
The traveling had gotten harder since their reconciliation; or, rather, the void had gotten longer. He counted it up to five seconds now. In another month it might be so high as six. That certainly didn't bode well—if the pattern held, how long would the void stretch before him in a year or two? The problem was that the "pattern" was inconsistent: the void wasn't steadily gaining time so much as leaping forward at erratic intervals. Something deep down told him that it wasn't really erratic, but he had yet to make the appropriate connection. Perhaps, if he wrote it all down, was able to see the shape of his problem, he might be able to think of a way to solve it.
Nothing he'd done so far had soothed that gossamer blankness, and he still wished in some capacity that he could simply pull Hermione through with him and be done with it—strange to think that the girl meant more to him than access to her time period. Each trip was like a petite sample of death, the yawning emptiness waiting to consume him; there were no words for how deeply he hated it, but it was a sacrifice he was prepared to make, time and again, for the time being. Much as he hated to admit it, he might lose his nerve on the day that the abyss claimed him for more than a minute. But at this rate, that day was years off and who knew how he might feel then?
The Countryside, 1988
Winter and spring passed in a blur for Hermione, summer creeping upon her with its sweet heat and lazy-dreamy afternoons. The end of the school year was always marked by a big trip—this year was to a manor-museum where they were meant to be learning about history and conservation efforts, but were mostly just getting lost and playing around on the manicured lawns. The manor itself was a sprawling affair, but was nothing compared to the grounds, which not only had its own lake but an island that had been outfitted with grecian-style ruins. It was all terribly artificial, but she still had fun exploring them with Tom.
They were perfectly alone at this point, her classmates giving them a rather large berth. There were a few stares and pointing fingers from the distance—curiosity ran high about the mysterious boy who often accompanied Hermione—but no one seemed able to work up the courage to approach. Fine by her, in all honesty; isolation meant they could speak freely.
In the spirit of that sentiment, she pondered aloud, "Do you ever think…"
Tom ducked behind a cracked column and hummed questioningly.
"I mean," she slipped around to face him, "do you ever wonder if there are others out there? People like us, with magic?"
His brows rose in bemusement, but there was a touch of disdain in his voice when he replied, "If there are, they've kept themselves too well hidden."
Hermione laughed, quite used to his moody petulance, though it had become far less apparent of late. "You resent them!"
"If they exist—and I am willing to concede that it is a possibility, so stop grinning at me—I resent not being informed." Which was a fair enough point. However, this was clearly an issue he'd dedicated some thought to, because he seemed unable to stop himself from expounding further. "Nine years and no one could find a spare second to tell me why I'm different? It's indecent. Not to mention the missed learning opportunities—imagine what someone three times our age might be able to do!" He turned away in a snit, darkly eyeing the mausoleum-like temple ahead of them. "But we'll never know, Hermione, because if these others do exist, they don't seem to want anything to do with us."
"Things change, you know," she gently reassured, slipping her hand into his. Tom was still very sparing about contact, but it did seem to soothe him. "Just because that's the way it is now doesn't mean that's the way it's always going to be."
He studied her for a long moment, black eyes unreadable. "What's brought all this on?" He asked quietly. "Have you met someone?"
"No, not really, but there was this man…" Hermione shook her head and trailed off. At his prompting to explain further, she tried again, "I was out shopping with mum when I saw him, and at first I thought he must be a foreigner because he was dressed a little strange and seemed to be having trouble with his money. He had just bought a book and was looking around a bit shiftily, that's why he caught my eye. Then—Tom, look at me—once he decided the coast was clear, I saw him put that massive tome into a pocket that couldn't have been any bigger than this!" She held out her open palm, internally marveling anew at what she'd seen. That book had been as big as a dictionary, yet it had fit into a space a fraction of its size. "And he caught me looking, you know; he stared at me real hard for a moment, then he smiled wide, threw me a wink, and disappeared into the crowd."
Tom did not seem at all impressed, but then he hadn't been there to witness it. "Could have been a parlour trick," he shrugged. "Maybe he knew you were looking, so he decided to entertain the little girl."
"Maybe," Hermione admitted, "but I'd like to think it was real magic."
He laughed at that, and the sound sent a shiver through her. For such a tightly controlled and precise person, his laughter was always a little unrestrained, a bit wild; it didn't quite seem to fit him, yet it was a pleasant enough sound. "Of course you would," he replied after quieting his mirth. "You don't want to concede to the possibility that we might truly be alone—it's depressing."
She looked out toward the lake, gaze raking over the gently lapping waves as she pondered his words. No matter what he said, she knew it could not just be the two of them; it was a simple matter of probability. Otherwise, why just them? Why both in London? There had to more, or at least a reason as to why it had happened at all, and she rather thought he felt the same way as well. Curious, she pressed, "So do you think there are others?"
Tom smiled and squeezed her fingers playfully. "I shan't answer either way," he teased lightly. "But I will tell you this: if they do exist, they shall have to earn my forgiveness."
Hermione shook her head in good-natured exasperation. Only he would consider it a direct affront that he'd not received an engraved invitation to learn about the hows and whys of magic! "You take everything so personally."
"You're not the one living in an orphanage, Hermione," he reminded her, steering them around an artfully crumbling wall. "It's easy for you to forgive because you have an overabundance of hope. For me, hope is a commodity and I have precious little of it. So, yeah," he shrugged casually, "maybe I am taking it a bit personally, but from where I'm standing it does all seem rather cruel."
It really did, now that she came to think of it. If there was some sort of secret society of magicians, why had they left Tom to be raised in an orphanage? What did they gain by not telling him anything about his heritage—if, indeed, heritage was even the right word. Or did they not even know about the children? Hermione had so many questions that desperately needed answers, but there was no one to ask.
"I'm just as much in the dark as you are, you know," she reminded him, unable to quiet the endless stream of problems now that she'd dug them up. "Yes, I have parents, but I can't stop thinking about the magic. I mean, it's clearly not an inherited trait, or my parents would have it. Or is it an inherited trait, and they're not really my parents at all? What if I'm an orphan too, and no one has ever bothered to tell me?"
He drew her to a stop, offering her a lopsided smile. "You look too much like your mother not to be hers," he said, taking a seat at the steps of the faux temple. "You know that."
Hermione sat down next to him, close in a way no one else had ever dared to get. Were they at the orphanage, she would have been regarded as a daredevil for her casual ease in his presence. He was, at once, both unsettled and entranced by her proximity. A part of him simply did not like to be touched unless he was initiating the contact, but another part of him reveled in her gentle reassurances. With every light brush of her fingers, ever friendly bump of her shoulders, he could feel her magic—feel the way it snaked, unseen, through the air around them, feel the way it hummed under her skin like an electric current—and it was soothing to him.
They sat in a companionable silence, looking out over the phoney ruins, rolling their eyes together as her classmates bleated and gamboled like sheep. He could tell there was a statement perched just behind her lips though, and it wasn't long before she allowed it to spill out, "Mum wants to meet you, by the way. Well, they both do."
Tom felt himself tensing. "You told your parents about me?" He wasn't sure he liked the idea that he'd been reduced to a topic of conversation. Then again, it said something about how close they'd gotten if Hermione could not stop herself from mentioning him to others.
"No," she was quick to reassure, "but between my moping when you were gone and then following excitement upon your return, they rather seemed to come to the appropriate conclusion themselves."
He pondered the scenario for a moment. It would not be unwise to ingratiate himself to the rest of the Grangers, but it wouldn't necessarily benefit him either. He was not interested in her parents; from the few photographs he'd seen of them, he'd concluded that they were decent enough people but unequivocally boring, and certainly not magic as their daughter was. Gaining favour with the elder Grangers could potentially further his campaign with Hermione, but that also had the potential to backfire in ways he would be unable to correct. Her parents held sway over her, a certain control that would always trump his own machinations while face to face. He liked Hermione isolated, liked being her sole focus during their time together; he did not want to share that, particularly not with family members that she would be naturally inclined to gravitate toward in the first place. All in all, he reasoned that it would only be far more trouble than it was truly worth. But how to spin that to Hermione when she was watching him with those eager, doe eyes?
Quietly, voice pitched low and hesitant for best effect, he replied, "I'm not sure if I'd like that."
She frowned, clearly disappointed, but latched onto his tone just as he'd hoped she would. As annoying as he often found it, her adherence to societal conventions did occasionally benefit him. "You don't have to," she said carefully, always tiptoeing around the fact that he was an orphan unless he brought it up first, "if it would make you uncomfortable. It's just, if you met them, we wouldn't have to hide around the house anymore."
It would change the entire dynamic of their visits; their explorations into the nature of magic would be relegated to the realm of play-dates and other such mundane drivel. Tom found the very idea intolerable, if not degrading. "No," he pointed out with a level headedness he did not feel, "but you would have to start asking for permission, and we would still have to hide the magic." A counterargument was brewing in her eyes, so he decided to head her off. Affecting a certain nervous sheepishness, he continued, "Anyway, it's not a good idea—I'm not really supposed to be out of the orphanage to begin with, let alone visiting people on the other side of London. What if they get curious and try to contact the Matron? It would be a disaster." Indeed, they'd think him insane for offering up the name of a woman who was, in all probability, long since dead.
Hermione sighed in defeat and slumped against him. "Can I at least tell them about you? Not the magic, obviously."
"Obviously," Tom rolled his eyes with a quiet laugh.
"I could just tell them that you're from school," she pressed, "that we talk about books and things. It's not so far from the truth, really."
"Why bother?" It struck him then that her dilemma was curiously one-sided. He had no one in his life that he wished to share knowledge of her with; and even if he had, he likely wouldn't. Tom enjoyed the secrecy of it: the private, magical friend that no one else knew about. It gave him a certain thrill to think of her when others dared to accuse him of being friendless—perhaps not as much thrill as it would be to prove them wrong, but the nature of his travel prevented that possibility.
Hermione seemed to be following along a similar line of thought. "Other people don't keep quiet about their friends, it isn't fair that I should have to!" She straightened from her slump and turned to look him in the eye, imploring. "Why all the secrecy?"
It took a moment for him to realize what he was seeing, but once he did he could not prevent himself from smiling. "You want to show me off," he accused teasingly. "Are you proud of me, Hermione? Want to trot me out in front of everyone you know to prove that people like us can have friends?"
Her eyes narrowed and she fluffed up defensively at the false mockery in his tone. She clearly didn't appreciate his playfulness in that moment. "You're clever and determined; you love learning new things just the same as I do," she listed off quietly, a touch desperately. "Why shouldn't I get to prove to everyone that it's not just me? That I'm not a freak?"
He sobered instantly at those words, voice falling deathly gentle as he asked, "Did somebody call you that?"
Her eyes nervously shifted away. "No," she answered, but it sounded more like a question than a statement.
"You're lying. I hate it when you do that," Tom replied carefully. He wanted to snap and shout; he absolutely despised it when people attempted to deceive him, but he could not risk her anger just now. Instead, he swallowed his natural impulse and offered her a chiding, "You aren't very good at it, you know."
Hermione seemed not the least bit apologetic. "I don't need you avenging my honour, Tom," she told him darkly. "We've talked about this."
"It was that Smythe brat again, wasn't it?" He asked knowingly, spotting the familiar blond mop of hair in the distance. It chafed that she still would not concede his right to defend her—that she would eschew protection in favour of wasted diplomacy—but for now, he had no choice other than to respect her decision. He couldn't afford to drive her away, and this was still a sore point between them. In time, he felt he would be able to refute her argument, or perhaps simply seize control, but in this moment their situation was still too volatile.
"Please," she pressed, slipping her hand into his, "just leave it be."
He swallowed his anger, forcing an amiable smile to his lips. "You are too sweet for your own good," he announced lightly, although in the privacy of his own thoughts it was more of an accusation. "He doesn't deserve your mercy."
She bit her lip, but couldn't seem to stop picking at the argument. "Tom—"
"No," he cut her off, squeezing her hand reassuringly, "this is me leaving it alone. I'll not say a word." He mimed locking his lips sealed for her benefit, a silly gesture he knew she enjoyed.
Unfortunately, Hermione had picked up on his habit of soothing through omission—carefully phrased non-promises that allowed him to keep his word while still doing as he pleased. "Or do anything," she amended firmly. He wasn't sure if her astute observation on this front delighted or enraged him.
"Well, aren't you clever," he sang lightheartedly. "Fine," he acquiesced, wrapping an arm around her so as to use the soothing press of her magic to calm himself, "I won't do anything, even though he absolutely deserves it. You know," Tom shook her gently, pressing her more firmly into his side, "you're not doing him any favours—bullies who don't get stood up to stay bullies."
"Better than you stooping down to his level," she argued stoutly.
Her words irritated him, but the way she ever so slightly burrowed into his warmth made up for it, so he decided to continue teasing her instead of quarreling. "Protecting my virtue?"
Thankfully, she accepted the shift in tone and laughed. "Safeguarding your honour," she nodded in a mockingly serious voice.
"You are a strange girl, Hermione Granger," he smiled at her. And it was true—she was unlike any girl he'd ever met. She was too independent, too untamed to even compare to the boring hags at the orphanage.
His proclamation seemed to strike the wrong note with her, however. She looked nervous as she quietly asked, "Am I?"
Tom studied her for a brief instant, calculating. Independent or not, she was always so desperate to prove herself worthy that this moment, this very invitation from her own lips, provided the perfect opportunity to twist himself even deeper into her life. "You're clever and you want to fit in," he answered seriously, "but you aren't willing to make changes to do so even though you know that would help—too much pride. You are right though, people should have to take you on your own terms or not at all. Although that attitude does throw a bit of a wrench into making friends, doesn't it?" I see you, he told her underneath all the pretty words, I see you in ways no one else ever will. "And for all your book-smarts, you're a bit wild around the edges, you know—the hair, the clothes, the temper that you keep buried under all your insecurities, to say nothing of the magic. But you know what, Hermione?" He pressed her closer before her embarrassment could drive her to wiggle away, laid his head atop her own and whispered, "I rather find that I like strange."