So Here it IS! Two years later, I'm sorry it took so long and honestly I had some hard writer's block at first. I couldn't feel myself getting back into the groove of it. But tonight and towards the end of the chapter, I felt it again. I'm sorry it's a little short and I cut it like that, but I didn't want to get a head of myself. I definitely had to read through the story again.

The amount of love I have received from you guys really pushed me, I won't lie. It was an awakening. It's been a really rough two years and I've changed, I'm not even sure I'm even a good writer anymore. But i love writing and I want to have a hobby again. Thank you all for giving me the courage to pick this back up though, I didn't realize the following this actually had! I love it.

Anyway, please REVIEW. I did not go through this and edit it because I just wanted to be on time because I said I would have it posted today.

But really, thank you guys for the support. Private Intentions is coming, but I'm taking a little time on that one. Maybe a few more days, but it's coming. Thanks!

"So how do we get out of here?" Hermione asked keeping as humanly close to Tom as she could, but there was nothing to stop her from wincing inwardly at the soggy grey skin that was now Tom's arm.

"We go downstairs and hurry. Whatever we saw earlier must've been a watch of some sort that Dumbledore set up. I can't imagine that he hasn't noticed some of his things have gone missing. Eventually we will be caught. As i said earlier, getting out of here is going to be a great deal harder than it was getting in here.

"So, what are we…" Her voice trailed off slowly as they reached the bottom of the staircase.

Hermione would've been lying if she hadn't been praying to whoever or whatever could hear her that the bottom floor of the house was just going to be some run down shack looking living room. She couldn't have been more wrong if she had tried. Had Tom not taken the first step, she wouldn't have dared put a foot down. The entire floor was covered in the densest, heaviest fog she'd ever seen in her life, swirling like water around her hiking boots, which had become all but invisible beneath the white blanket.

There was no living room so to speak of and she felt a cold fear burning into her veins and body when she turned and saw that the staircase was gone as well, leaving them in the middle of a very, very old graveyard surrounded by forest. She tightened her grip on Tom's good arm desperate not to lose the only thing that she felt was reality.

"Tom, is this real?" Her shaking voice gave away her fear.

Massive gravestones stood up from the earth at all angles, some leaning precariously to the ground as though the slightest touch would send them crashing to the ground. The air smelled wet and rotten and had become almost unbearably humid. The writing on the stones they passed was illegible, gone with oxidation and age but she wasn't taking the time to bend over and read them either. Her eyes scanning all around for some sort of passage, maybe a cave, another large rune tree, anything.

"Very real, don't touch anything or you won't be able to leave. Do you understand me? Follow my footsteps exactly." Hermione's throat tightened as his response. "We don't need to go far, it's right over the hill."

"Where are we?" Whatever hill Tom spoke of was nonexistent to her eyes, only a pitch black sky with a moon so bright it was almost blinding. The large heavy trees filtered it and spotlights of it's rays sprinkled through, giving them just enough light for Tom to see where he was going and Hermione to examine her surroundings.

Tom didn't answer her, his breathing had grown somewhat labored and Hermioned took a second to glance his direction. His face was pale with a light green sheen to it, his skin covered with a light sheen of sweat. He was exhausted and there was nothing she could do about it but cling to him like some stupid insepid child. Since when did she become so helpless, what happened to post-Grindlewald Hermione that was ready to stand up and look death in the face? Tom's sudden stop reminded her that this was very different than anything she had ever faced with Harry and Ron.

"We're here," Tom nodded at a very large angel statue about ten feet in front of them.

The statue in itself was incredible, the amount of detail that had gone into it was enough to stop anyone in their tracks. It's face chiseled into the most agonizing wail of grief she'd ever seen, it's hands thrown up into the sky as though it was begging for release from it's pain. Billowing robes of stone surrounded the angel's body which was placed on its knees, but what truly caught her attention was the dark stains running down from its eyes and the corner of its mouth giving it the appearance of bleeding from all it's orifices.

"What now?" She whispered looking around becoming very aware of how quiet their surroundings were.

"Now we dig. I won't be able to help you Hermione, my arm's useless until we can get back to our campsite," He reached into his shirt and pulled out a pouch necklace very similar to the one she kept around her neck. He tapped it with his wand before reaching inside to pull out a full-size shovel and handed it to Hermione. "Keep digging until you hit something hard."

"We can't use magic?" She grabbed the shovel out of his hands but quickly turned to start digging when she saw the dark flash in his eyes at the stupidity of her question.

She refused to look at the Angel as she began to shovel dirt away from the ground in front of it. She never wanted to see another graveyard or forest for the rest of her entire life. She didn't even know what kind of life she was going to have after this? There was no way she was going to go back to Hogwarts and try to finish her seventh year for the second time in a row. Was she supposed to go back to class and pretend like she didn't just spend the last year of her life sleeping around with one of her professors? Would she be allowed to go back when people found out? Would her friends and family accept her like Harry did or would they all turn her away?

"Hermione…" Tom's voice interrupted her thoughts and her neck snapped up, his voice coming out as a soft whisper of warning. "Dig faster."

She turned back to her shovel and began to dig furiously, her palms and fingers burning and sweat dripping down her face at an alarming rate. The humidity in the air had her clothes and hair sticking to whatever they could latch too and seemed to do nothing to help with the rise in her body heat.

"Tom-"

"Hush! Dig Faster!" His whisper was harsh and more frantic, a quick look in his direction sent a heavy shiver down her spine as she realized he was slowly backing up towards her.

The need to look at whatever he was seeing between the urgency to dig so they could leave was equally overwhelming but curiosity killed the cat.

"Oh my god…" The shovel fumbled in her hands and she felt her throat constrict holding back a scream that would've put a horror flick to shame.

Less a hundred yards out were two people slowly making their way toward them. Except, they weren't people at all. Even far out Hermione could tell there was something hugely wrong, the way their bodies hung down at an unnatural limp angle and the way their heads drooped and swayed with every step. She could see that it was a man and a woman, that she was positive, she also knew they were dead, very dead.

"Move!" Tom had backed up into the hole that Hermione had dug and ripped the shovel from her hands.

Whatever pain or issues he was having with his arm were obviously not as important as getting away from whatever was making their way towards them. He hissed and cursed quietly in pain but began making a great deal more headway than what she had been making. She turned back towards the couple and felt the hairs on her arm stand up, with every step their features coming into more horrifying detail.

"Hermione, use your hands! Help me dig!" Tom's frantic voice broke her out of her quick stupor and she didn't stop to argue, bending down to start physically clawing the dirt out of the hole. "Fuck!"

She was scooping and throwing dirt as fast as her body would allow, not caring about the worms and beetles crawling out from the dirt, ignoring the stabbing pain of roots and dirt shoving their way under her fingernails. Sweat poured down from her matted hair into her eyes, clouding her vision and leaving a salty hot taste in her mouth mixing with the acrid taste of bile that was starting to come up from her stomach.

"Get back!" Hermione jumped as Tom's good arm suddenly grabbed her shoulder and shoved her roughly back into the deeper part of the hole that he had dug, her elbows catching her fall and knocking the breath out of her.

She heard the sound of screaming faintly in her head as she looked up and saw clearly the faces of the couple that had been making their way towards them, with the sick realization she was meeting the arguing couple from earlier in the woods, as both of their names were embroidered into their matching jackets.

Hermione took in everything at once, the rotting skin peeling back revealing bones and dying muscle, peeking out from holes in tattered clothing, the partially rotted eyeball hanging by nothing but a thread that bounced against the woman's face as she leaned in towards the grave her and Tom were digging. It was only when Tom shouted in Hermione's ear that she realized it was her who was screaming, and it might've had a lot to do with the nightmarish smiles that sat on the faces of the two zombies in front of them. The skin from their cheeks ripped savagely back to expose the entire length of their teeth and jaws, the skin jagged and pulp like, giving them both a terrifying more vulgar version of the Black Dahlia smile.

"KEEP DIGGING!" She snapped out of it and turned to grab the shovel from Tom's hands as he began to wave his wand, using her entire body weight to push the shovel as far into the dirt as it would go and as fast as her body would let her. "DON'T STOP DIGGING NO MATTER WHAT!"

Hermione didn't think her arms would physically let her dig any faster. Dirt was flying around her and she could see in her peripheral vision bright sparks of color flying from the direction of Tom's wand. Sweat continued to burn her eyes and fall in large droplets off her face, running down her arms and causing the shovel to repeatedly slip from her fingers. This is it, She thought, I'm going to die. I'm digging my own grave and I didn't even know it.

"Hermione-WATCH OUT!" Tom's voice cracked an octave causing her to whip around desperately reaching into her pocket for her wand, her mind already forming a deflective spell in her mind.

Her mind didn't move fast enough and as soon as she turned her head, the mottled dead face of who she immediately realized was Daniel as he spoke.

"Master doesn't like his things to be disturbed." His already torn smile widened until it reached all the way to his ears as his hand gripped a large handful of her hair to rip her body out of the grave.

If she had a moment to scream, it would've ripped her throat open but her body was slammed back into the angel statue before she could even open her mouth. She felt her neck snap back and could see flashing lights all across her vision, her entire head ringing with what she imagined being shot must feel like. She clenched her fingers, a deep sense of relief running through her brain upon feeling the etched wood of her wand still in her palm.

Do not lay down, do not give up, do not stop fighting, get up. Fight back. Her own mind was screaming at her, willing her body to do something, willing her to get up and be useful. Her head felt heavy and she was sure that she could feel something hot and warm slowly running down her neck and into her shirt. A heavy daze was beginning to settle over her mind, creeping from every corner as though it were a blanket quieting the voice in the back of her head; it's okay, just close your eyes. How did you think this was going to end? Did you think you were going to win, that you could actually help Tom Riddle defeat one of the darkest wizards to ever grace the planet? You're not Harry Potter, you're not Tom Riddle, you're Hermione Granger. You're nothing but a mud-blood, a lowly stupid mudblood who's got way in over her head.

NO.

She felt the words forming on her lips, barely aware she could even remember the curse at a time like this. She didn't even realize she knew it but here it was, the magic coursing through her fingers, a surge of warmth so hot and heavy she was surprised she didn't drop her wand. The force of the spell jerked her back again, her eyes opening just enough to aim her wand into the back of the man who'd tossed her so carelessly into the gravestone.

Fiendfyre spewed from her wand as though it had been hidden in there for centuries, a large phoenix roaring so loudly that her ears began to ring from the sound rendering her temporarily deaf. She clenched her wand even harder, desperate to control the animal flame that now engulfed Daniel, the heat from the flame burning through Hermione's boots.

"T-T-Tom!" Her voice was gravely and the effort it took for her vocal cords to come out louder than a whisper made her head pound. She had to control the flames, she had to pay attention. Where was Tom?"

"Hermione!" Solace flew through Hermione's veins at the sound of his voice.

Her eyes stayed trained on the flame, watching with every ounce of effort she could muster as Daniel's body crumpled and burned under the taloned flames that she held steady with her shaking hand. She looked over and saw that Tom was now following her lead but with much more grace and elegance than she was able to handle. His wand waved in a circular motion to create a massive flame tornado around the woman whose skin was melting off her bones as she fell to her knees, the putrid smell of burning flesh filling Hermione's nostrils. Tom moved his wand into another circular motion and the flame receded but Hermione's hand was shaking more than ever, her flames beginning to burn out of control. The smell of burning rubber from her shoes now mixing in with the scent of smoldering skin causing her eyes to water and burn from the smoke.

"Don't let it get away from you, you're going to let it lose control." Tom's voice was closer, his tone soft but still on edge. "Open your eyes, it's your beast. Control it, remember why you cast the spell and let it go."

She sat up slowly, his voice giving way to a stored strength she didn't know she had. Her arm lowered slowly but her wrist held tight, her fingers tightening their grip around her wand. Why am I here? Grindlewald...no not Grindlewald. Dumbeldore, I was here because Dumbledore. Not the Dumbledore she knew, the one whose eyes twinkled and told silly sock jokes that seemed hardly appropriate for their settings. She'd just spent countless moments, years, and seconds fighting her for her life and the lives of those she loved. She was strong, she was still fighting. A piercing scream reverberated as Hermione forced her arms up, the back of her head and neck were begging her to stay still, to heal.

"Remember what we're fighting for." Tom's voice was quiet and controlled in her ear, though she could tell it was through gritted teeth.

She sat up further still and willed herself to end the spell, her body now shaking violently from the effort of moving any part of her body. She felt it deep within, the feeling of something inside her body physically connecting to the wand; slowly the phoenix curled while it's screeching flames began to whisp out along the edges. Then it was gone and her body jerked back with Tom's hand catching her head before it could fall back onto the stone again.

"Sit still while I mend your head. We have to keep digging, there can't be just two." His eyes cut around the darkness surrounding them.

His movements up close were much less graceful than she had recalled minutes ago. When he stood straight up, Hermione could see a large dark stain through his shirt and his entire abdomen seemed to be shaking. She sat still for a few moments while Tom muttered quickly, sometimes going silent for a second and then mumurring aloud but so soft and fast she was unable to tell what he said. Ease softly came over her as the wounds from her head and neck subsided but her entire body still throbbed sharply. At this point anything would have to do.

"We haven't very far left, let's go." He grabbed the shovel, his cheek turned sharply as he bent over.

Whether or not Hermione wanted too, her mouth betrayed her. Small sobs burst through her lips every now and then from the pain, her palms burned and blistered, her feet burned from her shoes, it was all too much; but she kept going. She almost cried out purely of relief when finally Tom's shovel struck something. Both Hermione and Tom sank to their knees frantically digging with their hands at this point with a sick sort of desperation.

"It's a coffin." Hermione stated shortly as they revealed the top of the wooden crate now directly beneath them.

"It's the way out, stand aside." Tom was being curt but his face softened quickly when he looked back up at Hermione. "We still have a long way to go to get back."

Hermione jumped up slightly with her feeting hugging the walls. Tom pointed his wand swiftly at the coffin blowing the nailed bits to pieces before prying the top off. It might've been scarier had there been a body in the coffin but after the night Hermione had experienced, the pitch black emptiness that physically stretched into nothing was far more terrifying than a corpse. She looked expectantly at Tom whose face was giving away nothing.

"We'll go together." He stated it simply, as though there weren't another option. He stuck his hand out at her and she grabbed it without any sort of hesitation.

"Together."