He Is Frustrated
Chapter Thirteen: He Is Frustrated
Hogwarts, 1938
The Hogwarts Archives were set a little apart from the Library. There was a small antechamber behind the restricted section, where guests—though it hardly seemed as if anyone knew it was even there—could sit and read through selected materials. The actual records were kept behind a sealed door; only the Archives' Seneschal had access, and all requests had to be made through her.
The Seneschal was clearly not human, not completely at least. She was a slender creature, with a blueish cast to her skin and the vaguest hint of scales; often hidden under a flowing mane of blond-green hair, her face was pointed and not particularly comely. Her eyes, though—storm-tossed, ocean-dark jewels set deep into her face—were sharp and brutally intelligent, and her voice had a surprisingly melodious pitch to it. Tom was reminded of the mermaids he'd seen swim past the common room windows: not the traditionally beautiful monsters he'd heard stories about, they were more reptilian in appearance. All she was missing was the tail.
Within moments of arriving at the Archives, Tom understood why Slughorn had not been overly optimistic. The requisition process was not so simple as he'd assumed. He could not just go traipsing through the records of former students as he'd hoped, because it was the Seneschal that searched for the materials. Tom had to direct her from afar on what records to pull, a frustrating endeavor when he couldn't even see what his options were. What he wouldn't give for a few minutes of unrestricted access!
His first visit was disappointing, to say the least. A search for his father or anyone else named Riddle had produced one lonely scroll—his own. It had only confirmed what Tom had suspected for several weeks already: his father had likely been a muggle.
He'd had some time to grow accustomed to the idea, but it still left a bitter taste in his mouth. His best possible outcome at this point was half-blood, something his Slytherin classmates only reluctantly tolerated; he had to hope that his mother's family had been well-known or he didn't see how they'd be able to help him at all. And what if they hadn't attended Hogwarts, either? Would he have to admit he was muggleborn—even though his gut told him he couldn't possibly be? His housemates would brand him a Mudblood if that were true. How could blood purity be so important to them? What did it even matter? Hermione was a muggleborn, and even wandless at eight years old the two of them together had displayed more aptitude and raw talent than any of the current First Year he'd met! True, they both lacked connections, but surely powerful magic was more important than social politics.
Tom had never liked the orphanage, but for one very brief moment he found himself wishing Hogwarts was more like Wool's. The subterfuge necessary in London had been shallow at best, just enough to deny any accountability, and obvious displays of sadism had been his greatest ally. He didn't quite understand these high-society creatures—the threatening undercurrents of violence were all around them yet they greeted one another as dear friends, the truth belied only by their sharp smiles and cold eyes. They treated their surnames like currency, buying and selling acquaintances as they expanded their webs of influence. The person that rose to the top was not necessarily the strongest, merely the best connected. He thought, if given the chance, he might be able to learn their game, match his wits against theirs and play them as they played each other, but he lacked the necessary entrance fee. Until the name Riddle held some weight, all he could do was watch. If his maternal relatives failed to bring anything to the table, he would have no choice but to buy in some other way—become a self-made man, as Slughorn had suggested. A daunting prospect, to be sure, but he refused to be left behind.
His second trip to the Archives yielded better results, but only slightly. Without any hint of a surname, the Seneschal had been obliged to pull the records of anyone named Merope or Marvolo. There were four Meropes, seven Marvolos, and absolutely no similarities in surnames between them. Without much else to aid him, Tom tried using approximate dates to narrow the field. He knew his mother had been quite young when she gave birth, perhaps only a year or two after when she might have graduated. However, none of the four Meropes had been at Hogwarts anywhere between 1915 and 1925. Either Mrs. Cole had remembered her name incorrectly, or his mother had not attended school in Great Britain—or perhaps at all.
The Marvolos were a bit more difficult to sort through as he had no idea how old his grandfather was; that made it trickier to set date limits. Four of them had been born well before the 1800's however, so he could discard them safely. That still left three possible candidates: Marvolo Avolencci, Marvolo Gaunt, and Marvolo Selwyn. All three had been Slytherins, so he had no idea how to classify them any further. The latter two were slightly more favourable, as they had appeared in a Pureblood directory that was quietly circulated around the common room—the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight that Andrus Lestrange had mentioned. But Tom had no way of connecting himself to either name, short of a full genealogical study and he rather doubted that Hogwarts had all the appropriate records for that.
Only two visits in and he'd already reached a dead-end! It was frustrating, to say the least, but with no other information to work with there wasn't any point in going back to the Archives. The Seneschal appeared sad to see him go—she must be a deeply lonely creature to have developed such a quick attachment to a boy that regarded her as little better than background noise. How was it that he could be so successful in gaining the favour of adults, and yet failed so spectacularly with his peers?
Well, not all his peers. The two Ravenclaws seemed quite taken with him; they had moaned up and down how, while certainly cunning, Slytherins were not usually very clever. Tom wasn't sure whether to be flattered that they thought him unique or insulted that they thought so little about his House—then again, he himself thought quite little about his House, so there was no point in defending it. Regardless, the Ravenclaws were decent enough company, they had a certain sharpness of wit he appreciated and they caught on to new ideas very quickly. The only irritating problem he'd encountered so far were their priorities: both of them strictly adhered to their books, more concerned with theory than practical experimentation. He was prepared to admit that theory had its place, but at a certain point one simply had to get their hands dirty; however, no matter how he presented his argument, they failed to understand him. How could two eleven year olds not grasp what he'd already known at eight? Magic could not advance if no one was willing to test its boundaries—Hermione had understood that.
In the stillness of his heart, Tom could admit that he was attempting to use the Ravenclaws to replace Hermione, and it was not at all working. While certainly insightful, his two classmates were all study and no action. They either didn't understand or didn't appreciate application—it was just knowledge for the sake of it. What good was that? Why bother knowing if you didn't intend to act? Hermione was the perfect blend of practicality and reckless abandon: she went to extremes for the sake of learning, but fully knew where her limits laid. Bookless, wandless, without any real understanding of what it was that she could do, she had performed more interesting feats than these Ravenclaws would ever dream to do themselves.
Deeper than that though, below the admiration he had for her pure potential, was a confused well of emotions. The two of them, Tom and Hermione, fit together—they had similar drives, similar approaches to magic, and they'd spent enough time together to share small idiosyncrasies. His ego told him that she reminded him comfortingly enough of himself, and while that might be true it was probably more accurate to say that she was the closest thing to family he had ever known. But a part of Tom couldn't sort through what had happened between them, didn't know what his next move should be, and so he tried to content himself with pale substitutions.
His classmates—Eunice Macmillan and Hawkthorne Fawley—were not without their merits, however. Both surnames were listed among the families that made up the Sacred Twenty-Eight. The Macmillans, while not particularly advantaged themselves, had strong, favourable ties to the Black family. Tom could hardly walk around the common room without tripping over a Black; they made up a generous portion of Slytherin, and if he swayed even one of them it could ripple through the whole House. The Fawleys, on the other hand, were practically the ruling class; Hawkthorne's uncle was the current Minister of Magic. Not that Tom could exert any influence in that area, but it was interesting to have an insider's perspective of the current political climate in Great Britain—particularly since the magical community had far different worries than the muggles did. All in all, though his 'friendships' were still in their fledgeling stages, he felt they had the potential to pay off in big ways.
The reward for these social transactions could be great, yet a part of him—foolish, sentimental—longed for the raw simplicity he'd once known in the company of a girl from the future.
Hogwarts, 1990
Hermione began her research by walking through the portrait galleries that she knew of. There were two main ones, each covering about five hundred years of important figures. Unfortunately, none of the paintings or photographs depicted their subjects as students, showing them instead when they had been at their most influential. When she had tried to ask one particularly chatty portrait about the school uniform it had trapped her into an hour-long conversation about declining moral standards. Though the conversation was interesting, it was hardly what she'd wanted to know and so she moved on to the trophy room. She was not much more successful there. While there were numerous pictures of students, most of them seemed to be wearing Quidditch uniforms or dress robes. There were a few class photos, but they were more recent than she suspected she needed to be looking.
Not knowing where else to turn, Hermione went to the Library. Madame Pince, the librarian—a tight-faced and cantankerous old woman—helped her find a small selection of books pertaining to the school. The first two were more directly about the Founders and provided her with no useful insights. It was the third book that finally brightened her day. She was passingly familiar with Hogwarts, A History, having already browsed through it once. The tome was impossibly thick and full to bursting with more interesting facts than she could rightly memorise; the middle third even had a small comparative study on the changing standard of the Hogwarts uniform.
Students' robes had changed far more than she'd ever suspected. While the outer robes had endured unaltered since the time of the Founders, the uniform below it had apparently somewhat followed the fashion of the day. Every couple of decades, it seemed that a slightly different iteration of the outfit had become the new standard. Aside from the glaringly obvious blazer—which had been part of the official dress until the 1970's—it was difficult to pinpoint exactly how Tom's uniform had been unique. It didn't have the stiff, detachable collars that had been so popular in versions before 1910; in fact, his shirt had looked practically identical to hers. His jumper, though… It had been sleeveless, ribbed, and in a much darker grey than her own. After some restless page flipping and comparing, it turned out that that particular style had been used from the late 1920's until the about the mid 1950's. She was left with a window of approximately thirty years and didn't know how to narrow it any further without talking to Tom directly.
At least now she knew why he was always so hesitant to talk about his traveling; it wasn't likely he even knew how he was doing it. Did that explain why he hadn't told her, though? As much as Hermione tried to keep an open mind, she was a bit of a skeptic at heart, and she knew she wouldn't have believed him without some sort of proof. In his own mind had he worried that offering her that proof would damage the fabric of time somehow? Obviously, he couldn't have been that worried because she'd seen him more often than she hadn't. And if the watch fob-turned-bracelet he'd given her or the books he'd borrowed were any indication, he was rather flippant about bringing things back and forth with him.
A part of her balked at the idea of time-travel. There were other explanations, easier explanations. She knew for a fact that Tom had bought his uniform secondhand, surely that would account for a bit of a fashion gap. That thought felt strangely like a bit of a reach for some reason—after all, Ron, Fred, and George Weasley all wore secondhand robes and they still looked the same as the current uniform. Besides, even if the truth was so simple as out of date clothes, it didn't explain Tom's constant disappearing. Or, when she really thought back on it, his fascination with the modern furniture in her bedroom; and he had given her the constant runaround about exchanging telephone numbers or addresses. In fact, he'd been very careful not to mention anything specific about his home. She had assumed that was because he disliked the orphanage, but now she was beginning to suspect it was because something about it might have helped her pinpoint the fact that he was from the past.
But why had he been so careful? When he'd said there could repercussions for telling her the truth, had he meant that? Had he truly believed that outright informing her he was from the past might be dangerous? Abruptly, Hermione realized she didn't know nearly enough about time-traveling, and there was no time like the present to rectify that problem.
The Library had a very small collection on the subject. She suspected that it actually had much more in the restricted section, but there was no way for her to check without explaining to a professor why she wanted permission—something she had a feeling might spark a full ministerial inquiry. There were five books she had access to, all of them by Author Unknown; she wasn't sure if that was supposed to imply they were time-travelers, or if the publisher just thought it was clever to make people think that. The first two books—'So You've Fallen Through Time. Now What?' and 'The Traveler's Directory: Important Historical Dates To Avoid Mucking Up, Unless You Were Supposed To, In Which Case Do'—were both very straightforward essays on the supposed dangers of messing with the timeline. 'The Ouroboros Effect: Predestination and the Nature of Infinity' was a complicated treatise that she didn't really understand. It kept talking circles around itself and by the time she finally began to think she had it figured out, she suddenly found herself right back where she'd started. 'Time-Turners: Man's Hubris or a Second Chance?' was a little easier to navigate, but it hardly said anything new that the first two books hadn't covered. The Time-Turners themselves were fascinating, though; it suddenly made the idea of time-travel that much more possible. The final book—'Could Have Sworn I Had A Cat: Telling The Difference Between Senility and Rewritten History' (which had been dedicated, 'In Loving Memory of Mr. Tiffles. If, indeed, he ever existed'; she had a feeling the silly line wasn't a joke)—was another read that left her on the verge of a headache. It seemed, simultaneously, to confirm and contradict all four other books.
Hermione was at the end of her rope. The circular logic of the subject made her head hurt. There was no clear consensus on the nature of time-travel at all! One school of thought argued that there was no such thing as personal agency—everything that happened was meant to and there was no conceivable way to change the timeline. Another school seemed to think that even a minor disruption from the known sequence of events would change the whole course of history, likely for the worse. And then there was the meta-universe school, which appeared to suggest that any known deviation could spawn an infinite number of alternate realities. Of the three theories, only the second one seemed dangerous, so she hoped that it was wrong. There was one glaring problem with all three schools of thought, however: they only talked about someone going back in time, not forward. She understood the oversight as all the books went out of their way to say that the future was always in motion, but… Well, wasn't the future just somebody else's past? How could something that had already happened from one point of view be considered unwritten from someone else's perspective? It made no sense!
Thankfully, she was saved from the agony of contemplating that thought any further by Harry. "Do you have a moment?" he asked her nervously.
Hermione had an idea about what he wanted.
That afternoon had been their first flying lesson and it had turned into just as big of a disaster as she'd feared. Although, admittedly, for very different reasons. Initially, she'd been stuck between her abject loathing of heights—the very idea of her feet leaving the ground, of forfeiting that level of control to what was essentially just enchanted janitorial supplies made her break into a cold sweat—and the certain knowledge that she had prove she could fly, because she refused to fail at anything. In the end, it hadn't mattered; mere minutes into the lesson, poor Neville had lost control and broken his wrist. She'd never met anyone with more rotten luck! Of course, the second Madame Hooch had gotten out of sight, escorting Neville to the Infirmary, trouble had erupted between the Slytherins and the Gryffindors—Tom, of course, hadn't been there, but by now she hardly expected him to be. Draco Malfoy apparently couldn't resist an opportunity to show off and Harry, for reasons that were becoming clearer by the day, couldn't resist an opportunity to stand up to the blond git. Events had quickly spiraled out of control, confusingly ending in Harry becoming the new Gryffindor Seeker.
Of course, Malfoy hadn't been able to resist getting in his last digs at dinner that night, and now they were somehow all sworn to a wizard's duel at midnight. Well, Harry was sworn, Hermione was just his second—or maybe Ron was; they hadn't actually cleared that up yet. The two of them had jumped into the argument at the same time and hadn't backed down. Ron probably knew better how an actual duel went, but she was willing to bet that he didn't know as many curses as she did. It was the perfect opportunity for the two of them to team up, but she had a feeling she was the only one who would enjoy that. Harry, even though he had to sense the trouble between them, hadn't done anything to break their tie; in fact, he'd seemed flattered that they'd both jumped to his aid so quickly.
Now though, in the intervening hours between dinner and dueling, he'd clearly sought her out for a bit of preemptive help. As attached as he was to Ron—who was ten steps behind him and looking offended to be anywhere near the Library—Harry seemed to understand that Hermione's knowledgeability was an asset. For once, being a know-it-all had actually made someone seek her out! Well, twice, if she counted Tom, but she was trying very hard not to think of him lest her temporal ponderings and their accompanying headache return.
This time it was the redhead who interrupted her thoughts, asking, "So do you know any spells or not?"
"Ron!" Harry scolded him, shifting from foot to foot nervously. It still wasn't entirely clear if he liked her or not, but it was apparent that he didn't want to get on her bad side.
Ron didn't share his worry, snapping, "She's the one who stuck her nose into our business!" He rounded on her, taking several steps forward. "Either help us or butt out."
Hermione was unimpressed with his attitude; she couldn't think of anything she'd done to deserve such absolute dislike. "I already said I'd help, but first—"
"Here we go," Weasley sneered, interrupting her. "Going to try talking us out of it, aren't you?"
She ignored the jibe, partly because she really did want to talk them out of it and partly because she knew she wasn't going to. Instead, she continued, "—you have to say please."
"What?" His mouth hung open, nonplussed.
Harry, on the other hand, immediately gave her a bright smile and said, "Please."
Hermione couldn't help smiling back. "Not you, Harry," she shook her head, "I already promised you I'd help."
"But not me?" Ron asked, tone indignant. She didn't understand his surprise—he'd been singling her out for two weeks, why shouldn't she return the favour?
Just to drive the point home, she told him pointblank, "I don't have to teach you anything, Weasley, especially not when you're being so rude." Then, mimicking his own tone, continued, "Either say please or butt out."
It took a boney elbow in the ribs from Harry and several long minutes before Ron finally managed to grate out a very insincere sounding, "Please."
It would have to do. If she pushed him any further he would walk away and she knew that wouldn't go over well with Harry. Instead, she nodded pleasantly, bundled up her things, and led them both out of the Library.
It took a few minutes, but eventually they found an abandoned old classroom to practise a few spells in. They started first with Ron explaining what he knew about wizard's duels, like a few of the different stances, and then Hermione picked out a couple of spells she thought would lead to a quick victory. Despite asking for it, Ron seemed perversely determined to ignore all her advice, producing little more than weak pops of light. Harry, on the other hand, was very quick to perform a spell, but seemed to have trouble keeping the incantations straight—at one point, he'd mixed together the Tickling Charm and the Jelly Legs Jinx, which had left them all feeling uncomfortably like their legs had fallen asleep.
Before long they had to return to the common room; it wouldn't do if they were found breaking curfew well before the duel. Whiling away the rest of the evening was difficult and it left Hermione with far too much time to ponder. She didn't like the thought of breaking the rules, of disappointing her professors and fellow Gryffindors. They could end up losing all of their House points or get kicked out of school entirely! But then again, so long as they weren't caught, what was the harm? Malfoy had been so painstakingly rude, he deserved to be taught a lesson. It had brought to mind Tom's words from years ago—bullies that don't get stood up to remain bullies. Deep down though, she had a feeling that Malfoy wasn't going to bother showing up; he'd love nothing more than to get the rest of them in trouble while he was safe and sound in his warm bed.
By the time they finally left the common room, the three of them were so riddled with anxiety that they practically screeched when they tripped over Neville sleeping in the corridor. Apparently, he'd been out there for quite some time, having forgotten the new password.
Hermione scanned him quickly—his wrist had been mended and he looked somewhat shaken by a supposed encounter with the Bloody Baron, but he appeared no worse for the wear. "Oh, Neville," she sighed sympathetically. "You should have gone to the Great Hall before dinner let out; we could have walked back together."
"Well," he shrugged, looking hopeful, "we can walk together now, can't we?"
"It's no use," Ron replied. "The Fat Lady is gone; you'll just have to wait until she comes back. The new password is 'pig snout'."
The trio had hardly taken a few step away before Neville caught up. "Wait! Where are you three going?"
Harry made a shushing motion, then whispered, "We're off to settle the score with Malfoy."
Realising that the other Gryffindor boy had missed the whole scene, Ron explained, "He was going to chuck your Remembrall into the forest, but Harry stopped him."
"I still think this is a terrifically stupid idea," Hermione murmured, unable to stop the thought from leaving her lips.
"Then go back!" Ron rounded on her. "No one asked you to jump in as Harry's second."
Instead of getting mad, she gave him a serene smile and asked, "Do you know any hexes?"
He geared up for what looked like a furious rebuttal—likely remembering his earlier failures—but Harry beat him to it. "Keep your voices down," the green-eyed boy hissed insistently. "It won't matter who my second is if we get caught before we even make it to the trophy room."
Hermione's hunch had turned out to be right, though—Malfoy didn't bother showing up, and had even gone so far as to tip off Filch. It had taken several mad dashes and a terrifying encounter with a monstrous, three-headed dog before all four of them finally made it back to the common room.
Over the course of the last two weeks, she had reconciled herself to the fact that Hogwarts was simply a strange place, but a three-headed guard dog seemed a little extreme. And it was guarding something, of that much she was certain—one of its massive paws had been planted squarely atop a trapdoor. Harry appeared intrigued by that idea, but she hardly gave it a second thought. After all, she already had her own mystery to figure out.
Later, when Hermione was finally nestled in the safety of her bed, she slipped her watch fob-bracelet out from beneath her pillow. As she ran the cool silver links through her fingers, she thought about how complicated her friendship with Tom suddenly seemed if they were really so far apart in time. Was it greedy to want to see him again, even though she now had an idea of how dangerous their contact could potentially be? Because as angry as she still was—and she definitely was—she couldn't deny the fact that she missed him.