He Is Curious
Chapter Nine: He Is Curious
London, 1990
Hermione found herself in the midst of an unexpected crisis. She'd been so thrilled to have found out about the wizarding world that her lack of knowledge hadn't immediately occurred to her. In a matter of weeks she would be traveling to Hogwarts, yet she knew next to nothing about magical culture while a number of her peers would have been born into that knowledge. Regardless of her rudimentary understanding of how to control her own magic, there was theory and history to catch up on. She didn't want to start off her new life continually a step behind everyone else! It had not even been a full day since Professor McGonagall's abrupt entrance into her life, yet Hermione had already devoured Modern Magical History and was busy devising a schedule to pre-read all her textbooks before term started.
However, she'd be lying if she didn't admit that Modern Magical History kept distracting her even after she'd finished it. The book was full of all sorts of fantastical landmarks and battles, but it was the chapter on Harry Potter that really drew her attention. There was something unsettlingly familiar about the Dark Lord—
"Holding the book closer to your face will not help you understand it any better."
Hermione startled at the unexpected, teasing voice. "Tom," she admonished, finding him suddenly lurking in the corner of her room. "Don't sneak up on me like that!" His appearances had once been preceded by a sharp noise, but lately he'd been traveling with all the cacophony of a shadow. Once her pulse returned to normal, his presence evoked an eager smile. "You must come and look," she beamed, gesturing to the mess of supplies strewn about her. "The most wonderful thing happened yesterday!"
Tom allowed his own smile to bloom, lazy and knowing, as he withdrew a wand not unlike her own from his grey tunic. Almost mockingly, he guessed, "Someone told you about an exclusive school?"
"Isn't it amazing?" She fairly bounced over to him in her excitement, grabbing one of his hands as she danced around. "No more hiding, no more spending weeks trying to figure out how to make something work—there will be classrooms and professors and textbooks!"
He humoured her high energy, but didn't stop himself from rolling his eyes and sarcastically retorting, "The very definition of a school, yes."
"There will finally be other people to work with, Tom," Hermione stopped bouncing, gaze drilling into his dark eyes, "people who understand, who are like us."
But Tom looked away, scratching at the back of his neck nervously. "I'm not so sure of that, Hermione. The professor I spoke to seemed rather perturbed at what I could do." His black eyes returned, staring at her seriously. "I have a feeling that we might be different no matter where we go."
That gave her pause, because she'd had a similar experience, hadn't she? "Professor McGonagall did seem a bit shocked when I did wandless magic." The older woman had tried to hide it, had even gone so far as to encourage Hermione to begin studying at her earliest possible convenience, and yet… For a moment, something unsettled, perhaps even nervous, had flitted across the Professor's face. She shook those gloomy thoughts away with a loud, "But so what?" Tom was a master at making her second guess herself, but she would not allow this idle speculation to tarnish her joy. Not today.
He gave her a strangely pitying look. "You already know what it's like to be top of your class, Hermione. Everyone around you will start to feel threatened by your superior intellect, to the point where even friendly or helpful overtures will get interpreted as criticism—you're living that right now." He took a step closer, carefully laying his hands upon her shoulders as he asked, "And how do you think children from old wizarding families are going to feel about the fact that it's a muggleborn witch upstaging them?"
"It won't be me upstaging them, Tom," she shrugged him off, moving back toward her bed. "You always manage to outdo me at the last minute."
He held his hands up placatingly, but continued, "All I'm saying is not to get your hopes up. People remain the same no matter where you go. I doubt the social climate at Hogwarts is really going to be any different than primary school was."
"Pessimist," Hermione laughed, wanting to lighten the mood. "Why do you always anticipate the worst?" Which was a stupid thing to ask, seeing as she already knew the answer. Aside from the moments he stole away with her, his life was not a pretty one—experience had taught him to anticipate hardship.
Tom sat down beside her and heaved a tired sigh. "You make yourself vulnerable to heartache. I don't want to see you hurt." An arm slid around her shoulders drawing her close. "Anyway, we'll still have each other."
While it was an endearing sentiment, she felt that it lacked his usual foresight. "Tom," she said slowly, pushing back enough to see his face, "Hogwarts is going to change everything. We might not even end up in the same House, and we'll more likely than not make different groups of friends—I'm not saying we can't still be friends ourselves, but it's not really going to be just the two of us against the whole world anymore."
Something flashed in his dark eyes, but it was there and gone too quickly to interpret. "We'll see," he replied easily, but there was an underlying note of warning in his tone.
She tilted further away, confused now. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means I don't anticipate drifting apart and certainly won't be making premature allowances for it." He drew her back in, stalwart as he explained, "Yes, Hogwarts is going to change everything, but we will adapt. We've been friends for three years already, why throw that away at the first sign of trouble?"
"What trouble?" Hermione pushed her hands against his chest, wanting to see his face. More and more, she'd noticed that there was occasionally a disconnect between what Tom said and how he said it. Cutting remarks were carefully hidden behind brilliant smiles, his eyes glowed with errant greed when he expressed concern—sometimes she got the impression that she was seeing behind cracks in a mask, but instances were becoming less frequent even as she became more aware of them. She wanted to attribute this strange behaviour to the toxic environment he lived in—life at the orphanage had taught him nothing but cruelty, putting him at odds with more sincere emotions—because the alternative, that he was simply acting, was terrifying. She studied him for a long moment, then carefully said, "I'm just pointing out that things will be different."
His lips twitched into a momentary frown, but it was quickly overshadowed by a flood of nervousness. "Look, there's something I haven't told you about myself, Hermione." He raised his hand, cutting off her immediate response as he explained, "I thought I was protecting you by not saying anything, but it's occurred to me that you're going to notice something's wrong sooner rather than later." There was something cold and implacable in Tom's eyes, a harshness that said whatever was coming was inevitable.
Hermione was chilled to her core. Though they argued often, they hadn't truly fought in years but this conversation was quickly promising to stir up something ugly. "I don't understand."
"You will once we get to Hogwarts," he replied shortly. Then, to head off her inevitable torrent of questions, added, "I can't come right out and say it because there could be repercussions, so you'll have to guess first."
What on Earth was he talking about? It sounded serious, dire even, but she couldn't pull her attention away from the implications enough to appreciate the full picture. Softly, full of an anger so hot it bordered on malice, she asked, "Do you mean to tell me that you've been lying to my face for three years?"
He grimaced, clearly frustrated by her question. Instead of answering, he grabbed her hands between his own and repeated, "I thought I was protecting you."
"From what?" She snapped, trying not to let his words soften her.
"I didn't want you hurt by the truth. And to be honest, I don't fully understand the nature of this thing." Despairing, he added, "I thought that if I drew attention to it, something bad might happen to us."
Hermione's immediate response was to be furious he hadn't trusted her enough to confide this secret—even now he was making her jump through hoops to earn the truth. On the other hand, what if the truth was dangerous? He'd taken it upon himself to shield her from potential peril, an action that could not have come naturally to the downtrodden orphan. It was sweet in a way, oddly chivalrous. And in the grand scheme of things, she knew that friendship was still a relatively new concept to him—perhaps, in the interest of preserving what they had, he'd failed to consider the importance of shared burdens. The whole thing still irritated her deeply, and it would be a lie not to admit she was hurt by this revelation, but she thought she at least understood why he'd lied for so long.
Not wanting to spur on the ugly argument that could still erupt between them, she resolved to swallow down the brunt of her anger until she fully understood the situation. She took a few deep breaths to center herself, then asked, "Could you give me a hint?"
"No, Hermione," he laughed—and even she had to admit that his patronising tone did nothing to help solidify her resolution. "You have to figure it out on your own."
What did she know about Tom that seemed out of the ordinary, and could anything truly be ruled out when magic was involved? Yet, even in the face of that great conundrum, the answer came to her almost immediately. "It's something to do with your traveling, isn't it?" He nodded, but his confirmation wasn't any great boon. What could he have possibly lied about in regards to that power? Biting her lip, Hermione guessed, "Are you not really from London?"
"Be patient," Tom replied softly. "I know you'll put it all together soon."
His confidence in her went a long way in soothing her bruised ego. A sudden and frightening thought occurred to her, and she blurted out, "You are still going to Hogwarts though, right?"
He smiled wide, eyes glittering merrily. "Absolutely." And that was the last word he said on the matter, refusing to entertain any further questions from her.
Instead they spent the afternoon recounting the marvels of Diagon Alley, talking about the funny creatures and the wonderful merchandise they'd ogled. Eventually, Olivander's popped into the conversation.
Tom eyed her wand consideringly and asked, "What was it like?"
"It was a bit strange, actually," Hermione admitted, recalling the unusual encounter. "Mr. Olivander got nervous when the first wand I tried turned out to be the right one. He said I was the first person to do that in about fifty years, and when I asked him about it… He became very jittery." She hesitated, stroking her wand thoughtfully. Dropping her tone to a hushed whisper, she finally confided the thought that had been plaguing her, "Do you know, I think he was trying to imply that the boy who'd done it fifty years ago was actually the last Dark Lord?"
Tom's eyes flashed in curiosity, a brow rising as he asked, "Who?"
"Honestly," she clucked disapprovingly, "have you not picked up a single book?"
He smiled in that particular way of his—a crooked twist of his lips that always preceded something deeply uncomfortable—and replied, "The stipend I was provided with only covered necessities; nothing on modern history, that's for sure."
"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't think—" Hermione cut herself off, blushing profusely. She hadn't given a moment's consideration to his financial state, and it made her sound insensitive. Embarrassed, she handed him Modern Magical History and explained, "Olivander said that boy became so dark and terrifying that the wizarding world is afraid to so much as speak his name. And look!" She pointed all over the chapter about Harry Potter. "In all these books the Dark Lord is referred to by little epithets—You-Know-Who, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I don't know whether to be insulted by the comparison, or simply mystified."
Tom chuckled and shrugged. "I'd take it as a compliment."
"Of course you would," she rolled her eyes. "It's not exactly the moral outlook I'd like to be known for, however."
One black brow rose mockingly. "And yet I see you take the comparison of power in stride."
"It's nice to be recognized," Hermione admitted easily. "I don't want to be feared though, and I got the impression that Olivander did a bit."
That really made Tom laugh. "You're about as threatening as a fluffy bunny. What's there to be frightened of?"
"Potential, I guess," she shrugged, feeling a bit silly for bringing the whole thing up now.
"I don't see the sense in being threatened by what could be rather than what is," he replied, looking back to the book in his hands. He flipped a few pages, scanning lightly, then asked, "What happened to this bloke, anyway?"
"No one's entirely sure. He just sort of disappeared after being defeated by a boy named Harry Potter." It was strange to have so much new history to learn, stranger still that she was only just finding out about something that had happened during her own lifetime. "Harry's our age, you know—he might be attending Hogwarts with us. Isn't that exciting?"
"It's certainly something," Tom deadpanned.
"You're such a killjoy," she accused. "Does nothing interest you?"
"That's quite the case of hero worship your developing there," he teased, ignoring her question. "I'd be careful around Potter if I were you—the boy might come charging after your head, what with Olivander having prophesied you as the next Dark Lord."
"Dark Lady, technically," Hermione corrected, "and that's not funny."
Tom gave her an exaggerated bow and drawled, "Yes, My Lady." However, as he straightened up the humour fell from his face and his fingers tightened about the book almost compulsively. Despite that, he enquired in his politest tone, "May I borrow this?"
It was amazing how far they'd come together—she could remember a time when he wouldn't have bothered asking. "Just make sure you bring it back," she answered generously—after all, it would be weeks yet before he'd gain access to the Hogwarts Library and she was sure he'd want to study a bit before arriving.
His smile nearly split his face in two, and he gave her another mocking bow. "As you wish."
London, 1938
Tom grit his teeth as he endured pure nothingness. There was no sound in the Void, no light by which to see, nothing to touch, taste, or smell. He was cut so completely from his senses that it was difficult to know if he even had a body in this hellish place. For all he could perceive, he was nothing more than pure consciousness—like a ghost slipping in and out of the veil. The experience was trying, traumatising even, but this was the price he paid for his access to the future.
His ticket had just gotten wildly more expensive. That morning, his journey through the Abyss had lasted all of a few seconds—over in the proverbial blink of an eye. Now, mere hours later, it was half a minute and counting. What had changed? What had he done to cause this?
His understand of the nature of Time was still depressingly murky, and though he wasn't sure what caused the Void he did have a theory about its presence. The more information he gained that could potentially impact the course of his future, the longer the Void stretched before him. If that theory was true, then the book he'd borrowed off Hermione was possibly worth its weight in gold.
Wool's Orphanage finally appeared before him in all its drab glory. Much as he despised the sight, it was still a relief. Feeling somewhat shaken by the extended taste of full sensory deprivation, he decided to immerse himself among the treasures hidden in his room—the sooner he put the experience behind him, the better.
In service of that idea, he turned his attention to Modern Magical History, rabidly devouring chapter after chapter. Hermione's words whispered at the back of his thoughts, giving him all sorts of grand ideas—it was a struggle to remain realistic in the face of such information.
But aside from eerie coincidence, Tom honestly had no reason to believe that the 'boy from fifty years ago'—the future Dark Lord—was him. Yes, the general timeline fit and it did match his recent experience, but Olivander could have lied, Hermione might have misunderstood him, or perhaps finding your wand on the first go wasn't as rare as the wand-maker wanted people to believe. There were any number of likely explanations that didn't involve Tom becoming infamous. It was an interesting idea, though—a single person becoming so powerful that the whole world feared them unequivocally. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named seemed a bit out of Tom's immediate time range, however. Not like Grindelwald, an international figure that was about to impact the wizarding world in a big way, if only briefly.
War was on the horizon—it was something everyone felt in the air, but no one wished to acknowledge. One spark could set it all off, changing the world forever. Perhaps Dark Lords were opportunists—Grindelwald was noted for his rise to power amidst the chaos of the Second World War, a conflict that was about to erupt with all the fury of a wildfire. His power had been meteoric, boundless and increasing, until 1945. Until his duel with Albus Dumbledore.
How and why would a professor of Transfiguration challenge a Dark Lord—and more to the point, how had Dumbledore won? And then that trend had continued, leading Dumbledore to champion the side of Light in a war against the next Dark Lord! Either his bleeding heart ideology was a front for a lust of power that rivaled Tom's own, or the man truly cared that much. Either way, it was clear that he was an important person to keep an eye on—that Tom was about to spend seven years under his tutelage was fortuitous.
It struck Tom that in one afternoon he'd learned more about his immediate future than he had in the last three years. Then again, he'd approached the whole situation as an intellectual exercise—he'd been so wrapped up in the hows and whys of time-travel that he'd failed to take full advantage. It hadn't properly crossed his mind to use this power to his benefit, aside from visiting Hermione. Knowledge of the future was like possessing a crystal ball—he could avoid disasters, profit on "chance", cheat death even. The only gatekeeper standing in the way of that information was Hermione.
And Dumbledore, apparently. Fifty years seemed like an awful long time, long enough that there wouldn't be anyone left at Hogwarts that might recognize him—assuming his power still worked within school grounds. And yet there in plain black and white, the book declared that Dumbledore was Headmaster. That could be problematic; unless the old wizard was completely senile or blind by the 1990's, then there was the possibility that Tom might be found out. For all he knew about the nature of the timeline, Dumbledore could already be on the lookout for him in the future. He would have to be particularly careful when visiting Hermione, although if there was one thing Tom knew how to do, it was blend into a crowd.