A/N: It's finally here! Yay! It's been a year but wow look at that the next (and final) part. This part is slightly more serious than the first part, but I think it should still be okay. It kinda got away from me in terms of length. WARNING: one part got more gory than I originally intended, so if you're not big on gore than skip from when Abraxas re-enters the Come and Go Room to the next separated section.

EDIT: I had to delete and re-upload this chapter because when I first posted it it didn't keep the spacers and without them this story would be super confusing.

Tom's eyes spend the majority of the day glued to the antique grandfather clock in the Slytherin Common Room. He'd already finished all of his homework, and reading just didn't appeal to him. He could almost hear it, the ticking inside the old clock. On and on it ticked, fading in and out of the background.

It is Christmas Eve.

This year, he'd been decidedly more appreciative of the upcoming holiday. He'd gone out of his way to be helpful decorating (this meant he didn't light anything on fire when no one was looking), and had even been particularly kind to the carolers (he'd not hexed a single one!)

Of course, it was all for a purpose. He'd merely been biding his time, waiting for Christmas to roll around again.

He is desperate for answers.

He is desperate to know.

His fist clenches as he remembers.

"No!" Tom shouts. "No, no! What's your name? I don't even know your name!" The girl fades from view, her eyes wide and panicked.

Tom slams his fist against the doorpost, his magic rolling off him in angry waves. He feels something wet drip down his cheek and he freezes. His hand raises up slowly, brushing away the moisture from under his eyes.

Turmoil. That's the only way to describe how he feels. She is gone. She's gone. He'd had her. He'd had his soulmate. His soulmate. And now she's gone.

He yells, voice breaking, and all the windows in the library shatter.

"I will find you," he vows. "I will find you because you are mine."

In the months following he'd done his research. In fact, research was pretty much the only thing he did. It consumed him. The more he learned, the more obsessed he grew, to the point that he had read every single book in the library that so much as mentioned soulmates. It became his foremost goal to talk to her again, to have her.

She'd become something of a prize in his eyes. A gift given to him ever so symbolically on Christmas.

He'd memorized every word she'd said during the time he'd been with her. He'd gone over every possible place she could have come from.

Her Gryffindor robes gave it away, though.

She was from the future.

It had taken him less than three days to figure it out. Everything made so much more sense that way. It would explain why she knew to be afraid of him right away and had attempted to walk away as soon as she heard his name. She knew him in the future, or knew of him. He wasn't sure which was preferable.

The real question was: how far into the future was she from? He couldn't be sure. If she knew of him as Tom Riddle she couldn't be from too far, because he planned on ridding himself of that name completely at the first opportunity. But then, there would likely still be a few, even fifty years in the future, who knew his true name. He scowls at the thought.

Despite her murky origins, he does know that the specific type of soulmate that they are is Core soulmates. The very rarest kind of all. Core soulmates were matched in every conceivable way, from their intelligence to their personalities down even to the way they looked. Matched, of course, did not necessarily mean equal, as he'd come to find out in his extensive readings. It simply referred to the fact that each of their attributes would complement the attributes of the other. Where she was weak he'd be strong, and where he lacked she'd have excess. The ultimate beneficial ally.

It was difficult to grasp, especially since she hadn't seemed to complement him very well. She'd been merely an irritant for most of the time. Still, something in him calls to her, a part of him he is sure he hadn't had before, or that had been buried so deeply he might never have known it was there at all.

"Abraxas," he calls. The oafish blond boy hurries over from where he'd been pretending to be fascinated with the fireplace.

"Yes, Tom?" He'd insisted they refer to him as such in public. Being called 'My Lord' was a good way to make people suspicious, and he didn't need Dumbledore anymore nosy than he already was.

"Make sure no one tries to get into the Come and Go Room tonight. I don't care how you keep them away, so long as you don't get caught." He can't risk being interrupted, he only has one chance to get everything right. Face blank, he continues, "If I am not at breakfast tomorrow morning, you can assume I will not be returning at all. In that case, I want you to take over for me and lead the Knights."

"Me, Tom?" Abraxas gapes. "But they won't listen to me if you aren't there! And what will I tell the teachers if they ask?"

He'd considered carefully his many intelligent options, but the one he'd finally settled on was, "Fuck if I care."

There is something decidedly fearful in Abraxas' gaze as he poses his next question, voice only just barely keeping from shaking. "Are you sure you're alright? You truly might not ever return?" Tom knows it isn't like him to be so blase about something as important as this, but he has no intention of ever coming back, so what does any of it matter, really. So long as his noble work continues under someone relatively competent, as Abraxas usually is, he isn't worried.

The reassuring smile he aims at Abraxas must be more unsettling than he was originally going for, because the boy turns white and practically sprints from the room when Tom dismisses him.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Loud, clear bongs echo through the Common Room as the clock strikes 10. Two hours to midnight. It is nearly time. Tom's smile stretches wider.

Hermione glares at Ginny, who's currently holding her book out of reach, giggling all the while. "Give that back!" Hermione demands, attempting to grab it again. The redhead twirls out of the way just in time. "Ginny!"

Spending winter break at the Burrow was a dream come true, but sometimes there were moments when Hermione wished for solitude from the cramped environment. This is one of them.

"Hermione!" Ginny mimics mockingly. She runs to Ron when he enters the room, using his broad form as a shield. He looks confused before he glances behind him and sees the book clutched in Ginny's thieving hands. To Hermione's gratitude, he makes a swipe for it. Ginny ducks away, a scandalized expression on her face. "Ron, how could you!" she swats her brother.

"You know how Hermione gets when her books are taken away from her," he laughs.

"What?" Hermione rounds on him. "How do I get?" His eyes grow comically wide.

"I only meant that you can take it a bit personally is all," he says, hands raised in surrender. She narrows her eyes at him. He gulps.

"Maybe if people weren't always taking them I wouldn't take it so personally!" at this she turns to face Ginny again, who had taken to reading the back of the book while Hermione was distracted. "Ginny, please give me my book back." She holds out her hand expectantly.

"Why are you reading about being reunited with your soulmate?" Ginny asks, a frown evident on her features. Hermione's face heats up.

"No, reason. It's just-just academic. It's interesting," she says defensively. Lying has never been something she's enjoyed (mostly because she's horrible at it.)

"That's a lie," Ron is frowning when she looks back at him. "You've been acting strangely for months now. What are you hiding?" What a loaded question that is.

Tom Riddle's shocked eyes fade from view and her yells fall silent as she hurtles through space and time. It feels like thousands of knives being repeatedly driven into her navel. It feels like badly done Apparition and broken time turners. It feels like a broken heart.

There is no air, no light, as she stretches across decades. Every cell burns, in a way she's never experienced before. Her lungs crackle, unable to either take in or expel air. Tears sting her eyes but can't spill over.

Pause.

She is slammed back into her time.

Hermione remains frozen.

It takes 30 devastating seconds for her to fully realize what just took place. It will probably take her days to process everything from start to finish. As it is, she immediately doubles over sobbing. Her eyes spill forth hot tears.

Minutes pass.

Hermione breathes in deeply once, twice, again and again. Her fingers tremble when she runs them though her enormous hair.

She's in exactly the same spot she'd left from originally, the book on soulmates sitting innocently on the table. It terrifies her, to have it so near.

Everything looks the same as before. The library smells the same. The same golden sunlight filters through the castle's windows. But it isn't the same. None of it. She's changed things, she knows. The whole world may very well be completely different from how she left it.

She's already in the library, so she dries her tears and does what Hermione Granger loves best - she studies.

Hogwarts: A History is the first book she summons. She runs the pads of her fingertips over the familiar cover. Everything is fine until she cracks it open. Instantly, she knows something is wrong. Changed.

The second to last chapter is labelled 'Modern Headmasters: Armando Dippet to Abraxas Malfoy.'

This is bad. This is very very bad.

Hermione flips the pages until she's at the right place, and then she reads. She reads and reads until her eyes are dry and sore and the sun has long since set. Her wand tip shines on the tiny type, illuminating every disastrous word.

Everything she knows has been ripped away. Dumbledore, the book mentions in passing, died in a magical accident involving an experiment in the Unspeakable division back in the 1960s. She was never close to the man, but he treated her fairly and seemed to try to do the right thing. The death of one who would have become such a powerful figure of Light will not have had minimal effects.

Surprisingly, there are no mentions of the Dark Lord in any of the chapters. There isn't a single word to so much as hint that anything in the world is wrong. There are no chapters talking about (as she assumed there would be) the glorious destruction of Mudbloods and Muggles. In fact, it seems quite the opposite is true.

Under the leadership of Abraxas Malfoy, the school only became more inclusive and welcoming to Muggleborns. It's exactly the opposite of what she would have expected. It's suspicious. The book sings the praises of the progressive-mindedness of the man that had been wildly racist in her own time.

"What the fuck?"

Hermione bangs her head against the table.

A thought occurs to her, and she takes off towards the student registry section. Her footsteps echo against the stone in her haste. In the poor light of her half-assed lumos she just barely avoids careening into a bookcase that she's sure wasn't there before.

"Where are you?" she mutters, panting at the exertion in a way that'd be rather embarrassing were anyone else present to witness it.

They're sorted by year, and it doesn't take long for Hermione to find the registry she's looking for. 1943. At least, that's when she estimates she arrived in the past due to how old Riddle looked.

The registry is a faded brown book with a gold inlay pattern that resembles a distant galaxy. The stars glitter and move, and when she looks closer there are occasional shooting stars of silver. It's a beautifully crafted book.

She thumbs through page after page of smiling students in stylish 40's clothing, each one looking directly into her soul. They know, she thinks.

She almost misses him.

The only reason she doesn't pass his page entirely is because of a partially disintegrated newspaper clipping that juts out from the crease. It's so thin she's afraid it will turn to dust when she pinches the corner ever so gently to free it from its prison.

'Star Pupil Vanishes Without a Trace' the headline reads. Hermione chokes on her heart. Beneath the offending title is a picture of Tom. It's the same one as his registry book photo; him flashing a winning smile at the camera in an endless loop of fake mirth.

The article describes the apparent mystery that was the disappearance of everyone's favourite Slytherin. During the Christmas break of the December of his seventh year, he simply vanished from the face of the earth. There had been an astounding lack of evidence; not a single sign of any kind of struggle, and yet all of his personal effects had been left behind. It appeared equally unlikely that he'd been kidnapped as it was that he'd ran article ended on a hopeful note, saying that there had probably been some honest mistake and he'd be found soon.

Had she truly altered the timeline so horrendously?

Is it even horrendous? So far everything in this new, strange world seems far more appealing than her own.

And yet.

And yet, she is an aberration, a glitch, a terrible glaring wrong. The laws of time travel do not yield. Time is unforgiving. It will not long suffer her to remain here without consequences.

"Hermione!" It startles her so badly she drops the registry with a thud. An invisible hand clamps over her mouth, silencing her cry of surprise. "It's just me-it's Harry." The relief that floods into her at knowing that even here, in some distorted parallel universe, he is still her friend overwhelms her. Instantly, she turns around and throws her arms around him, tears pricking her eyes again. She breathes in his scent, the same as she remembers it, thank god.

"What's wrong? Hermione?" he pulls back enough to lift up the invisibility cloak to look her in the eyes. Her eyes fix on his unscarred forehead. His hands come to rest on her shoulders. "I was worried when you didn't show up for dinner. Why are you crying?"

It only takes a split second for her to decide to tell him the truth. The weight will kill her if she doesn't, and he is her best friend, after all. "Harry, I have to tell you something. It's going to take a while, and while I'm talking I just want you to listen, okay?"

His eyes search her face, and he answers, slowly, "Okay, Hermione, you can tell me whatever you need to."

"Come on, we don't want to get caught out of bed, let's go to the Room of Requirement."

"The what?" In this life they must have never needed it to hold D.A. meetings. While that's definitely good, it's also somehow sad.

It takes roughly three hours to recount the whole story, starting with how Voldemort tried to kill him as a baby, to how her, him, and Ron became friends, to all the dangers they'd overcome over the years, to the events of the past day.

She does not, however, tell him that Tom Riddle was Voldemort. It feels too close to betrayal, even though it's not technically her fault. She merely describes Tom as a boy from the past and leaves it at that.

When she finishes, he stares at the wall for twenty minutes, completely lost in thought.

"Well?" Hermione asks, biting her lip in anticipation.

"I just, it's so hard to fathom. I believe you, I really and truly do." She releases her breath in a whoosh. "There's no way you could make all that up. I'm just struggling because, well, it's a lot to take in," he pauses, searching for the right words. His next words are tentative, as though afraid to upset her, "Hermione, do you have any idea what happened to the Hermione from this timeline?" She almost doesn't catch the crack in his voice, but she does.

She understands. She isn't the girl he knows, just as he isn't the boy-who-lived. She's not the friend that he's spent years with.

"No, I'm sorry, Harry." He nods once, swallows, and forces a grin.

They mutually agree not to tell their friends, and she's relieved to hear that her, Ron, Harry, Ginny, Neville, and Luna are friends in this timeline as well.

By the end of the first month of pretending to understand inside jokes and obsessively studying the history of the past 50 years it almost feels like home. There are times when someone will refer to something that she doesn't understand, but will almost understand, like she's just temporarily forgotten.

It is with the passing of the second month that she begins to remember. Only small things at first, like where this timeline's Hermione kept her stash of sugar quills or why Neville has a faint scar on his nose. But then she keeps remembering. More and more important things. Things like why Ron sometimes stares at her sadly or why Draco Malfoy is amiable and friendly. It doesn't take her long to figure out that she's receiving the memories from this Hermione's life.

By the time the third month has come and gone she remembers it all. Not every second, but all the important things. It's a strange feeling, to have the memories of two different lives. It makes her feel older. It's confusing. She knows that she didn't live this life, and yet she has all the memories that say she did.

Harry looks hopeful when she tells him, and in her heart she knows it's because he wants his friend back.

"It'll be okay, Hermione," he says on a cold afternoon in the middle of the eighth month, hands wrapped around a mug of cocoa. "You'll adjust."

"I miss it." He turns to look at her, but she stares out the window at the wind scattering leaves across the grass. "Not so much the whole constant danger aspect of it, but I miss them." She doesn't have to specify who.

He doesn't speak, merely wraps his arm around her shoulders and stands with her, both lost in thought.

"Look, Ginny, just give me my book back, please." Hermione stiffly reaches for the proffered book.

"You're avoiding the question," Ron huffs.

"I'm not having this discussion with you right now."

"That would imply that you're willing to have this discussion later, which I know you aren't! I've been trying to talk to you for weeks but you keep blowing me off and I'm sick of it!" That much was true. In her defense, it was only because she'd known he'd see through her if she lied, and yet telling him the truth was a bad idea. She'd dealt with the situation by pretending it didn't exist. Not the most brilliant of moves in hindsight.

"Guys, maybe we-" Ginny attempts to defuse the mounting tension.

"No! She's being suspicious and I bloody well intend to find out why."

"Okay! Okay you know what? Fine! Ask away! What do you want to know, hmm?" Ron starts to speak but she continues, "And don't hold back on my account, you've made it perfectly clear how much you care about my feelings on the topic."

"Now, that's not fair! You know that I have every right to-"

"That's rich, I've asked you to give me time but you keep-"

"-these things because you avoid the issue every time! If you weren't so-"

"-and seem to have no regard that maybe I don't want to tell you what's bothering me-"

Ginny leaves the room with a shake of her head, yelling out, "Harry!"

"-then I wouldn't be so suspicious of you! You just have to have-"

"-you can't just leave it alone! There was a time when I would've told you but now? Are you kidding-"

"-all the time. It's always you who wins in the end and-"

"Both of you shut the hell up!" Harry storms into the room, a fierce scowl on his face. Ginny stands on her tiptoes to watch over his shoulder. He crosses his arms. "Ron, you have been far too impatient and demanding of Hermione. You should have respected her wish for more time and let her come to you. And you, Hermione," a weary look passes through his eyes, "I think it's time."

"But-I, that's not-"

"Hermione, it's been a year," he says.

"Not quite," her voice sounds small, even to her own ears. "It was three days before Christmas when I left."

"Still, I think we should tell them."

"Tell us what?" Ron's confused face blinks back at her.

"Thank you, Abraxas," Tom says. The blond boy scratches his head, a queer expression marring his aristocratic features. "Yes, Abraxas? What is it?" he reaches for the box of potions ingredients clutched in Abraxas' hand. Inside holds all the final ingredients, including the original sands of time from Egypt.

"Why do you need newt eyes and unicorn tears? I've never heard of any potion having both those ingredients. Together they-"

"-they cause the potion to implode. Yes, I know."

"Then why are you using them? Not to mention the ancient rune stones over there," he jerks his pointed chin at the massive stone slabs leaning against the wall.

"You'll find out soon enough."

"Tom, whatever you're doing I hope you got it from a reliable source," Abraxas eyes the vial of vampire blood that Tom holds up to pour into a measuring cup.

A red glint flashes through the future dark lord's eyes at the implication that he might not know what he's doing. "Yes, of course," his teeth grind together. "Speaking of knowing what you're doing, you should be outside the hall keeping other people away from here right now."

"Right. Yes, of course."

"You have your pocket watch with you?"

Abraxas holds up the flashy gold trinket. "As requested. It's enchanted to always be exactly on time."

"Excellent. I want you to meet me back here at fifteen minutes to midnight."

The blond nods respectfully, taking his leave.

"Finally," Tom says once the other boy is out of earshot. He picks up a container of phoenix ashes and sifts through the contents with a fine strainer. Satisfied with the quality, he turns to the next ingredient. He's already checked each component at least three times, but there's no harm in checking again.

The habit of humming while he works has always been his most hated quality. Not by others, though. Girls found it cute and Slughorn chuckled whenever he caught him. It had actually turned out to be rather a good way of endearing himself to the school populace. His knights even respected him on it, because they believed it to be part of his perfect school boy persona. However, he himself absolutely despises it. It's humiliating. The worst part is that it's completely unintentional; sometimes he has no clue he's even doing it until he's halfway through a song. So, when he purposely begins humming, he considers it part of the start of a new chapter in his life.

The instructions are written in an ancient Babylonian text that had taken two months to translate. The text itself had been difficult to procure, as it had gone missing in the ninth century and he'd had to track it down himself.

In truth, the ritual described in it was even more extensive than he'd thought it would be. Some ingredients for the potion aspect had to be gathered on days with certain moons with certain types of weather, and some had to be added to the potion while standing in a fairy ring, while others still required the potioneer to be mortally wounded at the time of the adding. That was to say nothing of the rest of the process.

Tom pours exactly two cups of unicorn tears into the bubbling cauldron. Purple honey-scented smoke rises in distinct spirals. He pricks his finger with a cursed dagger, the memorized chant echoing in his head.

"Anima sanguis morti mortis infinite duorum." The words taste like charcoal and burning rubber in his mouth. He whispers the words again, hand raised to touch the cut to his lips as he speaks. "Anima sanguis morti mortis infinite duorum."

The liquid turns a furious hot pink when he lets a single drop of blood drip inside. He can feel it as soon as it hits the surface of the potion, bubbling and boiling. It churns in time with his stomach.

It's almost ready.

The clock strikes eleven.

Tom uses his wand to carve a pentagram into the smooth stone of the floor. It's large enough to stand in but not big enough to be more than five feet across. Within each point he carves an ancient Babylonian rune: bumi, munus, zadmin, assur, and kam. Carefully, he fills each rune with the sands of time and the lines of the actual pentagram itself with the phoenix ashes. On each point of the pentagram he places one of the ancient rune stones.

The now scarlet potion simmers as he adds in another drop of blood, this time the vampire's. A dark sheen covers the surface of the liquid. Tom smirks.

He grinds up faerie bones and mixes them in, stirring clockwise four times. He thinks of how he found and killed the faeries himself, their greenish yellow blood staining his fingers for days. He thinks of the tiny, nearly-imperceptible squeaks of terror they made as he cast severing curses at their necks. He thinks of how it made him feel the tiniest bit guilty, though he never would have before her.

The potion has only left to simmer, so Tom walks back over to the pentagram on the floor to make sure the sand and ashes are poured in perfectly. When he feels that not a single particle is out of place he starts setting up the torches to surround the are tall, sturdy metal poles of the strangest design, their twisted shape reminiscent of a broken spine. They bear purple flames that dance slowly and silently. Unnaturally.

He picks up the cursed dagger and places it on the table just next to his ominous ritual area. It is perhaps the most important item he will need for this to work.

His lungs require several deep gasps of air when he thinks of all he will have to endure tonight. It will be worth it. The mantra rings far too inadequate now that he is actually faced with the moment of culmination. Infinite ways this could go wrong strangle his mind.

"Tom?" Abraxas startles him.

"Is it time already?"

"Yes," the blond shifts his weight from foot to foot.

"Take that dagger and hold onto it for me, I'll tell you what to do when it's time," Tom says. The other boy shuffles over to the table and picks up the blade, examining it with thinly veiled interest.

Tom steps into the center of the pentagram, and then uses his wand to levitate the cauldron holding the potion over him. He turns to Abraxas.

"When all of the potion is gone, no matter what state I am in, you need to do exactly as I say. You must place my head, hands, and feet on one of the five points-each on one of the rune stones. Then you are going to carve out my heart and say 'anima sanguis morti mortis infinite duorum.'"

"Tom!" Abraxas cuts in, panic filling his eyes. "Tom I can't do that."

"You can and you will. We don't have the time to debate the issue. At exactly midnight you're then going to stab my heart and repeat the phrase again. Then you might want to get as far away as possible, as the texts aren't clear what kind of reaction there could be."

Tom holds up his hand to silence Abraxas' inelegant stuttering. "Can you remember all of that?" He holds out a piece of paper to the blond, then responds to his own question. "No matter, you can read it all for yourself as it's happening."

"No, Tom, this is where I-"

"Silencio." Abraxas continues to angrily gesticulate for ten seconds before realizing no sound is coming out. He crosses his arms.

"Good. I'll remove that once it's time to begin."

The would-have-been future dark lord looks up at the floating cauldron above his head and mutters a quick prayer to a deity he doesn't believe in.

Tom nonverbally removes the silencing curse on Abraxas, giving the other boy a nod to indicate this. "It's time. Come closer and be ready for as soon as all the potion is gone." His tone brooks no room for disagreement.

With a flick of his wand, the dark portion spills onto his perfectly styled hair. It resembles blood. He turns his head this way and that, letting the liquid spill into his open eyes, his ears, his nose and his mouth. Still, it keeps coming, coating him from head to toe in a gruesome flood of red.

Tom's eyes roll back into his head and his body shudders with violent tremors. Without warning he drops to his knees and lets out a horrifying, unearthly shriek. It goes on and on, at a pitch too strange and layered to be entirely Tom's own. The hairs on the back of Abraxas' neck stand to attention.

It cuts off as soon as the last drop the the potion falls on Tom's head. The dark haired boy continues kneeling in the middle of the pentagram, eyes having closed sometime during his scream. Dread, strong and dizzying, curls itself in Abraxas' stomach.

Tom's eyes snap open. Completely blood red. No whites, no irises, no pupils. Just blood that leaks out in fat drops down the boy's pale cheeks.

"Do it," Tom rasps.

Abraxas jumps to action, setting down the dagger and grabbing Tom by the shoulders to push him down into a lying position. He half drags him the two feet to the nearest point, putting Tom's head on the thick stone slab placed there. With each limb he follows suit until Tom is in spread eagle position in the pentagram, each of his main appendages touching one of the points of the star.

"Do it," says Tom again, this time weaker. His eerie eyes flicker.

Tears well up in Abraxas' eyes. "If this goes wrong I want you to know I considered you my friend," he says. He imagines that Tom would roll his eyes were he capable.

He picks up the dagger.

"I'm sorry, Tom," Abraxas whispers, and plunges the blade into the other boy's chest. The effect is instantaneous; all the purple torches simultaneously flare up, washing everything in a violet glow. A buzzing sound fills the room. Tom goes rigid, his body locking in place.

Then his breaths come faster. His heart pounds against his rib cage and blood, real blood, oozes out around the blade. Yet Abraxas keeps carving away.

The blond boy forces the dagger to tear through muscle and flesh, tears now falling freely. The air tastes of copper, salt, and the acrid film of smoke. He chokes back bile. His fingers slip on the handle, damp with sweat and blood that has spurted up.

Tom gurgles, now frothing at the mouth. Abraxas sobs, every cell begging him to stop the madness.

He drops the dagger, pushing it as far away as he can. It clangs as it smacks against the leg of the table.

Fingers trembling, already sticky with blood, Abraxas reaches for the opening he's sliced in his friend. He stops, index finger just barely brushing the puckered wound, and takes a breath.

One, two, three, four.

It's too much. He retches, puke splattering the floor just next to Tom's head. He tries not to look at it.

With a final deep breath through his mouth, Abraxas pushes his fingers into Tom's chest. It's warm and damp, and he can feel the blood seeping out in time with the erratic heartbeats.

His hand just fits through Tom's ribs. Using his free hand, he fishes his wand out of his pocket and mutters a spell to widen the gap between the bones. A sickening crack echoes as the ribs spread apart.

Abraxas glances down through swollen eyes, looking at his hand gripping Tom's heart. It's not beating as hard anymore, and with each beat Tom's face loses more colour. He's nearly dead.

With a yell of hysteria, Abraxas rips his hand, along with the heart in it, from Tom Riddle's chest. It continues to beat, expanding and contracting in Abraxas' palm. The boy drops it back onto its owner's mutilated, unmoving chest.

"Anima sanguis morti mortis infinite duorum," he manages to say.

He stares.

The only sound the faint ticking of his pocket watch.

Then it hits him. Frantically, he digs out the gold trinket.

40 seconds to midnight.

He drops it to the floor in his haste to get to the cursed dagger. He crawls to where he'd foolishly cast it, closing his fingers around the handle, sticky with partially congealed blood.

30 seconds to midnight.

He's starting to hyperventilate when he gets back to Tom, eyes wild and lungs starved for air. Without looking he takes Tom's heart from his chest and sets it on the floor next to his body. Hand trembling, Abraxas positions the dagger above the heart.

15 seconds.

A film of sweat beads on the blond's brow.

The purple flames cast shadows that twist and loom in the corners of the room.

A fresh bout of nausea wells up.

8 seconds.

The grandfather clock in the Slytherin Common Room begins its melancholy chime.

5 seconds.

Sweat coats Abraxas' hands, causing the dagger to slide down through his grip. He adjusts and re-tightens his hold.

3.

2.

1.

The blade pierces Tom Riddle's heart at exactly midnight.

"Anima sanguis morti mortis infinite duorum!" Abraxas shouts.

If the torches were bright before, then they are glaring now, the purple drowning out every colour but itself. The ancient rune tablets light up from within, yellow beams pouring out from the inscribed characters. The sand and ash from the pentagram ascend into a column in the air, a dark vortex of powder.

The ground shakes, a crack splitting open the stone, and Abraxas remembers that Tom told him to get as far away as possible. He takes off in a dead sprint.

Tom's corpse ascends of its own accord, the ash and sand swirling around it. They gather and flow into his body through the gaping hole in his chest. His body vibrates with magic.

The purple and yellow lights descend on him and split through his atoms. Brighter and brighter shines his skin.

Pure white envelops the room.

Three corridors down, Abraxas Malfoy skids to a halt at the sight of his Transfiguration professor.

"Professor Dumbledore," he says, gasping for air. The man's garish purple and gold robes shine in the dark hallway, his auburn hair and beard stirring gently in the breeze Abraxas created.

"Mister Malfoy," Dumbledore inclines his head ever so slightly.

"It was good to see you, Professor," Abraxas says, already starting to move past the man in order to resume running away.

He's made it nearly to the turn in the corridor when Dumbledore speaks again, "You don't have to follow this path. You can forge your own. You can forge a better path."

"Excuse me?" Abraxas' voice trembles. He stops right at the end of the hall.

"I can help you," blue eyes puncture holes through his skull. Abraxas grips the rough corner of stone, working his jaw.

He turns to face the professor. "How?"

"Can someone please explain to me what's going on?" Ginny asks.

Hermione ignores her. "Harry we have no way of knowing how they might take it!"

"You two didn't have an affair did you?" Ron interjects, face appropriately red and angry at the thought.

"No! I would never do that to Ginny!"

"I already knew that, but it's nice to hear you say it," Ginny says.

"Harry, can I talk to you in private for a moment?" The pleading tone doesn't impress her friend.

Hermione and Harry stare at each other, Hermione silently begging and Harry impassively looking back at her. Then, at the same time they speak, talking over each other.

"Hermione's a time traveler and she went back really far and-"

"I've contracted terminal Dragon Pox and only have six months-"

"She's lying!" Harry cuts himself off. He turns to her, "What a horrible lie to come up with anyway! That's honestly even worse than the actual truth."

"It's worse than the fact that I completely destroyed the original timeline and-"

"Wait! So it's true?" Ginny's jaw falls open. "Why didn't you say anything sooner? What was it like? How far back did you go? How'd you get there? Did you-"

"Leave her alone, Gin," this from Ron, who's brows knit together and jaw locks. He, too, turns to Hermione. "Why didn't you tell me? I thought we were best friends." His harsh tone cracks at the end.

"Ron, I would have, but I'm not…" she trails off. "I'm not the Hermione that you've known for your whole life. I'm a different Hermione from a different timeline. I've lived a whole different life from the girl you knew.

"We were best friends back in the life that I came from, too. We had plenty of adventures, and got into all kinds of trouble," she smiles fondly at the memories. When she glances at Harry he smiles encouragingly, urging her on. "When I came here I was scared and terrified, so so terrified, that due to what I had changed we might never have become friends here. You can't even imagine my relief when I found out I still had you and Harry. I was selfish, and I didn't want to lose you when you found out I was an imposter-an error in time who'd replaced your best friend. I'm sorry, Ron."

Ron stares.

The silence stifles everyone standing in the room that's suddenly too small.

Harry clears his throat.

Hermione bites back her nervous laughter.

"I have a question: if you aren't the same Hermione as before, then how'd you know all that stuff from the past? This past, I mean, like inside jokes and just random history." Ginny tilts her head to the side, eyes narrowed in scrutiny.

"Right, well as it turned out, after a few months here I started to get memories from this Hermione's life. It took a while, but now I know pretty much everything. To be honest it's really confusing. It feels like I've led two lives. Sometimes I have a hard time figuring out which memories are from which life."

"Plus I helped her when she first arrived. I tried to get her out of answering certain things without making it too noticeable," adds Harry. Ginny nods with a look of realization.

"That's so strange, though." Ginny takes all of this in stride, seemingly already having recovered from the shock.

"Yeah I know, I've researched it since-"

"You could have told me," Ron whispers. The three others glance at each other. "Finding out when you first came back would have been better than this. It would have been better than hiding the truth for months on end with no intention of ever sharing."

"I was going to tell you-"

"When? When were you going to tell me? In another year? Two? Three?"

"Lay off her, Ron," Harry says, reaching out a placating hand. Ron slaps it away and takes a step backwards. "She went through an extremely difficult experience and it's a wonder she handled it as well as she did. She did what she thought was right at the time, which is all we could have asked of her."

"I need time to process all of this," Ron responds, shaking his head. He Disapparates with a crack.

"That could have gone better," Hermione stares at her feet.

"Frankly, I think he took it rather splendidly," Ginny reassures her. "He'll come around."

"I know, and I'm so grateful for that, even if he is cross with me for now."

Harry speaks up, using a finger to push his glasses back up his nose, "If you want to hear the full story, Hermione and I can tell you now that it's out in the open anyway." He looks to Hermione for confirmation.

"Yeah, that's fine," Hermione concedes. Ginny's eyes light up. "What do you want to know first?"

"Hermione, it's Christmas, you're not allowed to be in a bad mood," Ron sits next to her on the couch and claps her shoulder with a friendly hand. He'd gotten over his anger in record time, having only completely ignored her for two weeks and been surly for an additional week before giving in.

"I just-I just really thought that he'd be there. I really thought he'd decided to travel to the future. I did my research, and all signs pointed to him showing up. It was exactly a year from when I left. Three days before Christmas. But he-"

"We've been over this, Hermione. No one knows what happened to him. Maybe he didn't decide to travel to the future, that was just a guess anyway. Maybe he just decided to run away and-"

"You know that's highly unlikely!" Hermione crosses her arms, irritated without a valid reason.

"Actually, I know nothing of the sort! You've explained everything else but you've been tight-lipped where he's concerned. You don't seem to want us to know anything about who he was in your original timeline, which makes me wonder if he-"

"Would you stop being suspicious of everything I say or don't say? Ever since I told you, you've been ridiculous with your-"

"That's not a denial! You can't even deny it!" He stands, pacing in front of her.

Hermione sighs. Her tone softer than before, "I wish I could."

"Look, I'm sorry, I know you were hoping-"

The Burrow rattles as the very earth trembles beneath it. Dust pours down from cracks in the plaster and gaps between boards. Ron throws his arms up to protect his head while Hermione casts a shield charm over both of them.

A ripple of magic splits the air above them. It flattens out into a glowing, pulsing disc that emits a low hum as it hovers over their heads. From the middle of the disc starts a hole that grows wider and wider, stretching open to reveal the inside as a dark void straight up.

A large object, too fast to be identified, shoots out of the hole. In her surprise, Hermione drops her shield and the thing lands on top of Ron at full speed, knocking him to the ground with a sickening crack.

She rushes over with a gasp, her mouth a perfect 'o' of surprise at the discovery that the object is actually a person. Not just any person, either.

Tom Riddle lays unconscious on the floor next to Ron Weasley.

A groan jerks her into moving again, and she kneels next to Ron. She mutters healing spells under her breath, trying not to look at Tom. Ron pushes her away, turning to look at the boy next to him.

"Where does it hurt?" Her voice quivers, trying to contain her redhead ignores her. "Ron, where does it hurt?"

"That's him, isn't it," he states it as a fact. Because, really, who else could he be?

"Yes, I believe so, now let me tend to your-"

"Is he dangerous; yes or no?" Ron's piercing blue eyes search her face. She remains silent, opting instead to look at the dark haired boy sprawled out on Molly's family room floor. "Is he a threat to my family?" He demands, already taking out his wand.

"I don't know!" Ron's lips flatten out into a pale line of frustration. "Yes! Okay, yes, he's bloody dangerous! I really wish I could tell you that he's not, but everything I know about him says the opposite."

"So you brought someone potentially harmful to my family's house-"

"I didn't bring him, he fell through a magical portal thing and-"

"Either way there's a dangerous person here-"

"Listen!" Hermione shouts, chest rising and falling in short bursts. The terrified look that he only gets when she's furious with him creeps up his features. "I had nothing to do with his coming here, and I'm sorry that he is! Everything would be so much easier if he'd never existed in the first place! Having him," she points at Tom, still passed out, "as my soulmate ruined everything!"

Softly, Ron says, "I'm sorry, Hermione." He touches her arm. "But he did come didn't he? You were right."

"We have to do something with him, we can't just leave him on the floor." Hermione asserts, choosing not to comment on his statement. She brings her hands up to place one on her hip and run the other through her hair.

"We could-"

"I know!" She cuts him off. "Go get some rope; it has to be non magical. I'll take care of the rest."

Tom Riddle wakes up in an uncomfortable metal chair, sore and drained of energy. He raises a hand to rub over his eyes, but finds that he can't move it. Groggily, he blinks the sleep from his eyes. He jerks his arm, trying to free it, and his wrist burns as it chafes against something rough that binds it to his other wrist.

"What the-"

"It's only temporary." He whips his head around to look at the speaker, a shaggy haired boy with glasses. "Or, we assume that it will be. If you do something threatening or otherwise questionable we might have to turn you over to the Ministry."

Tom remains silent. The boy walks closer, Summoning a chair for himself. He sits across from Tom and folds his hands in his lap. The old, yellow bulb that dangles over them buzzes faintly, occasionally flickering.

"Who are you?" the boy asks.

"Who are you?" Tom counters.

The boy looks momentarily surprised, as though this was not the reaction he expected. "My name is Harry Potter," he says after a pause.

Silence reigns. Tom lets it stretch on, perfectly comfortable. He stares at the wall behind the boy's-Harry's head.

The light flickers, casting shadows over their faces.

"Well?" Harry breaks down first, as Tom knew he would. "Who are you? I told you my name, now you tell me yours."

Tom slides his gaze over slowly, taking his time locking eyes with Harry. He raises an eyebrow. "I'm Tom Riddle."

"And how did you get here, Tom Riddle?"

"Why do I get the feeling you already know the answer to that?" Tom queries, a faux innocent expression plastered on.

"Dammit, just answer it!" Harry's nails dig into his palms, leaving dark purple crescents in the skin.

"I invented a new kind of magical portal," Tom lies easily.

"Wrong," Harry shakes his head. "I know for a fact you time traveled. I want to know what method you used. I want to know how you did it."

"And if I don't have the answers you want?"

"Then I'm afraid I'll have to resort to more convincing tactics."

It's rather obviously a bluff, based on the look on the boy's face, but Tom decides to humour him. "A ritual."

"What?" Harry's nose scrunches, glasses shifting higher as it does.

"The method," Tom elaborates, now speaking as though Harry is a child, "It was a ritual."

"Oh. Right," Harry doesn't look pleased. "Which one, specifically? We found several that we suspected you might have used, but none were conclusive."

"Where is she?"

"We need to know which ritual you used," Harry goes on, ignoring Tom's question as much as Tom ignored his, "because some alter the space-time continuum and some are designed to keep it intact. If you used one that damaged it then we only have a limited amount of time to fix it before things start to get messed up."

The rope restraints that keep him tied to the chair are frustratingly Muggle. They aren't magically tied, either, which means he'd have to manage a wandless nonverbal slicing hex in order to get free unnoticed. Tom focuses all his concentration on performing the spell, but he's still drained from the ritual. His magical core needs time to recover.

"It was the Ancient Babylonian method," Tom spits, the knowledge that the sooner he gets this over with the sooner he can leave driving him forward. "By now the texts containing the process will have been destroyed, but I assure you, it did no damage to the space-time continuum. It was created in the days when magic flowed freely and was wielded precisely to control all of nature, even time itself. You will run into no difficulties on my account."

"Did you get that, Hermione?" Harry half shouts to the door. "He said it was the Ancient Babylonian method!"

"Yeah, I got," comes the muffled reply. He knows that voice. He'd spent weeks thinking about it. It belongs to her.

"She's here?" Tom strains against the ropes. "Let me talk to her."

"No," Harry stands and brushes imaginary dust from his collar. He walks to the door and exits without another word.

"Hermione," Tom murmurs. "Her name is Hermione."

They stand in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, debating the issue of the boy locked in one of the spare rooms. In this timeline, Sirius had never gone to Azkaban, but was still Harry's godfather, and had willingly lent the room to them in order to figure things out.

"I want to talk to him," Hermione says stubbornly.

"No, I think it's a bad idea."

"Harry, he's tied to a chair and his magic is almost completely gone! Not to mention I can handle myself."

"I won't stop you if you really want to, now that we know he was telling the truth about how he came here," Harry searches her face. "Just be careful. I know you've said that you don't think he'd try to hurt you, but he came here for a reason. I don't trust him."

Hermione takes a deep breath. "I know, and I don't either, but I have to talk to him, Harry. I have to know."

"I understand," he says, lips slanted downwards. "Ron won't be happy about this," he mutters to himself once she's out of earshot.

She trudges up the stairs to the room they've been keeping him in, wondering if she should knock. It would be impolite to just barge in, but he's kind of a prisoner, so she's not sure politeness is still applicable. Then again, she isn't the type to be rude.

In the end, she doesn't have to decide. "Are you going to stand out there forever or do you plan on coming in?" Tom's scornful voice filters through the door. She scowls. Hermione casts the spell to undo the many complicated locking charms, and enters with a huff.

He looks the same as she remembers him, if a bit more tired. Dark smudges under his eyes reveal exactly how taxing the ritual he performed must have been. His dark hair has a dull quality to it, so unlike the perfectly styled, shining waves from before. A wry smile twists his lips.

"You came," she states. Her heart thunders through her body. She sits in the chair across from him to steady herself.

"You did not think I would?" His expression shifts to one of genuine puzzlement.

"I didn't know what to think. We barely even met."

"You're my soulmate, Hermione," her name on his tongue sends shivers running down her spine and through her arms to her fingertips. He watches her expression with rapt interest.

"How did you-"

"Your friend Harry said it. It's a beautiful name. Greek, isn't it?"

"Yes, after the daughter of Helen of Troy and the King of Sparta." She bites her lip. He tracks the movement, gaze fixed on her mouth.

"Hermione," he whispers.

A beat passes with neither saying anything, each simply staring at the other, drinking them in.

"I didn't tell Harry all the details, but I found the Ancient Babylonian method. I know what you had to do to get here."

"It was worth it," Tom immediately says.

"You carved out your heart. How did you even do that?"

"Abraxas Malfoy did that bit."

"He what! You're telling me that the current headmaster of Hogwarts carved out your heart for you?" Hermione incredulously asks, eyebrows disappearing into her bangs. She'd thought the Malfoy patriarch of this timeline had seemed alright.

"Abraxas is headmaster? He did his job much better than I could have predicted, then. And I assume he's liberated the place of those wretched Mudbloods?"

"I'm sorry, what did you just say?" Seeing her outrage, Tom frowns.

"Don't tell me you sympathize with that scum. They aren't worthy of magic and it shows. We are so much better than them, Hermione." He has a sinking suspicion this was not the right thing to say.

"We," she begins, shoulders shaking with rage, "are not better than anyone! And you-you certainly aren't! You obviously knew I was from the future, well this isn't my original future. I know what you would have become if you had stayed. I know what you've already done. Where I came from you were a monster, a vile and disgusting creature! I thought maybe this would have changed you, but I see now I was mistaken."

"Why would this change anything?" he asks, tone sharp as the blade that pierced his heart.

Hermione stands, hands fisted in her sweater to keep her from punching him outright. Her breaths come in short bursts. She whirls on her heel, stalking back to the door.

Without turning to look back, she answers, venom dripping from every syllable, "Because I am a muggleborn!"

Tom's already pale face turns ashen.

"No! No, you can't possibly be-"

The door slams shut behind her with a ring of finality.

A Mudblood. She was a Mudblood. His soulmate was a fucking Mudblood. He'd come all this way for an inferior, for a thief of magic.

It was perhaps the worst revelation he could have received, second only to, "I'm pregnant with someone else's baby." Even with that it was a close call. At least then he could have just killed the father and been done with it, but no. No, now he had to figure out if she was worth making an exception for.

He'd been willing to make exceptions before for truly powerful witches and wizards of unfortunate blood status, but he'd never found any. Over time he'd given up looking for them, convinced they didn't even exist.

But he'd felt her power rolling off her when she came in, and he remembers it from when she came to him in the past.

She's special.

Fate matched them, and it would not have put him with someone weak or unworthy.

He's in the middle of formulating a way to figure out if she's worth his time when the door flies open. The knob bounces off the wall with a crack, leaving a dent in the plaster.

"What did you say to her?" shouts a furious redheaded boy, storming into the room. And his head is completely red. Not just his hair but his face, too, and all the way down to the collar of the green sweater he wears.

"And who might you be?"

Ignoring the question completely, the boy yells, "You bloody bastard! Hermione's been upset for over three hours now," Tom tenses, barely retraining the urge to flinch, "and we know it's because of you. She won't tell us what you did, but I intend to find out!"

"So she doesn't know you're here?"

"What do you care?" the redhead sneers. "Clearly she doesn't mean anything to you or else you wouldn't have made her so upset. I can't even tell if she's angry or sad, that's how bad it is." Tom stares back, face etched in stone.

"Are you quite finished?"

The other boy slams his hand down on the chair. "No, dammit, tell me what you said!"

"I really don't see how it's any of your business," Tom replies irritably.

"Because she's my friend and if I don't know what she's upset about then I don't know how to comfort her!" Tom snorts, pathetic.

"It's not my problem that you don't know her well enough to be any use to her."

"You watch your fucking mouth or I'll-"

"Ronald Weasley!" Both boys turn to look at the door as a livid Hermione stomps her way in. Her magic swirls around her, glowing and pulsing. Mouth drawn down into a frown and brows scrunched together, her furious eyes lock on her ginger friend.

The boy, Ronald, panics, backing as far away from the irate witch as possible. He cowers, hunching his shoulders to appear smaller and making himself into the picture of dutiful fear.

"How dare you come up here after I told you not to! I said I was fine. I said I was handling it! Yet, you chose to ignore me, just barging ahead with your reckless plan!"

He stammers, "I only wanted to help." Hermione steps forward and points an accusatory finger at Ron's chest. Tom watches with amusement.

"I didn't need your help! What I needed was time to think, which you haven't given me. Get out."

"What?" Ron's eyes widen.

"Get. Out," she commands. He flees her wrath, running past Tom without a backward glance.

"And you," she whirls on Tom when Ron's footsteps have faded, "don't think you're getting off so easily. You're the one who started this."

He says nothing, merely watches her face shift as she considers what course of action to take.

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

"I am," he stops, wondering if honesty is the best course. He doubts it can make things worse. "I am unsure how to react. Everything I know tells me that you are inferior, and yet you've been picked as my soulmate. My equal. You know where I am from and who I was and was to become. Did you, realistically, expect me to be open minded? I'm conflicted. I traveled all this way for you, because I had to know. I had to meet you and get to know you. And now you tell me that you're from filth? I can't comprehend it."

Hermione counts to ten in her head, willing herself to discuss this calmly. "That's where your problem lies, you think muggles are filth. They aren't. They're imaginative and clever and they invent new things all the time. They do more without magic than most wizards do with it."

"I've never seen any evidence of that. A wizard would easily defeat a muggle in a fight. If there was ever an actual war, we would win easily."

"What year did you leave from? 1944 right?" her tone reflects a certain level of smugness that he doesn't appreciate.

"That's correct," he answers.

"Then you wouldn't know that muggles developed a bomb capable of destroying an entire major city in one blast, would you?" Her eyes glitter with a self-satisfied light.

He'd never heard of such a thing. More importantly, he'd never heard of a spell capable of such damage. If she was telling the truth, that meant that an entire army of wizards would be taken out in one fell swoop and they wouldn't even be able to retaliate in like manner.

"I-"

"Exactly! And you wouldn't know that Muggles have eradicated a good portion of the diseases they used to consider fatal. Wizards have only managed to figure a small portion of theirs. Plus, Muggles can even weaponize diseases.

"And they've created something called 'the Internet' and it's a resource capable of holding all of human knowledge," she finishes with a nod.

"I'm not going to simply take your word for all these grand claims, nor am I going to dismiss the notion that Muggles are inferior so easily. They don't have magic. They may be smart but they aren't capable of harnessing true power."

Hermione snorts, then changes the subject without warning. "You're free to go." He can't keep the surprise from his face. "We can't continue to hold you here since the ritual you used didn't hurt the space-time continuum, and, sadly, it's not illegal to be racist."

"I have nowhere to go," he tries to play on her sympathy.

"I was afraid you'd say that. The Weasleys have offered to let you spend the rest of winter break with them. Personally, I advised inflicting you on the Malfoys, but Mrs. Weasley insisted. Not that she would have if she knew who you are. Of course, you don't have to accept."

"No, I'll stay with them," Tom says, smiling at her unconcealed annoyance. "That sounds lovely."

Hermione feels almost afraid of how well he's managed to handle himself among Ron's family. Mrs. Weasley took to him the moment she laid eyes on him, and he'd won over Arthur with a ten minute discussion on the merits of the galleon. Percy had been awestruck at Tom's apparent wellspring of knowledge, and the twins with his inability to be pranked. Bill and Charlie mostly ignored him at first, but she caught the three of them in an avid discussion of the theory of curses and their effects on magical fauna.

Still, the day isn't over yet and he still has plenty of time to say something damning.

Harry glances over at her every few minutes to check that she's okay, and her smile gets shakier with each time. A sickness creeps up her throat.

"They're quite nice," Tom says to her after dinner, having cornered her on her way up to her and Ginny's shared room.

"Yes," she agrees, tired eyes staring past him.

"I won't do anything to them, you know," he moves to the side in an attempt to make eye contact. Not at all a suspicious comment to make.

"I didn't think you would. There would be nothing for you to gain from it." Hermione tries to move past him but he blocks the stairs with his arm.

"You think so little of me and my motivations?" he might sound hurt. She's too exhausted to care.

"You haven't given me a reason to think better of you."

"I came all this way for you," he states, face and tone blank again.

"No, you didn't. You came for the pure blooded girl you'd built in your head to be me. Once you heard my heritage, you were outraged, as though it changed how you viewed me. And honestly I'm not totally convinced that you came here for me at all, there are plenty of other reasons for wanting to come to the future."

"I don't hold your blood against you, I know that we would not be soulmates were you anything less than a very powerful witch." How confidently he just told her that he still plans on being racist (with the exception of her) as though she should be happy with it. She notices that he doesn't comment on the second part of what she said.

She can't help but laugh at the absurdity. "Wrong answer. Goodnight, Riddle." She ducks under his arm and runs up the stairs.

"Last name basis?" he calls after her.

"We were never on first!" she yells back.

His eyes land on her as soon as she comes back down the stairs, looking much as though she's washed her face and taken a Pepper-Up potion.

In truth, he still has no clue what to make of it all. When she'd brushed him off on the stairs he'd been surprised, to say the least. He was her soulmate, and he'd made an effort to give her what she wanted. Yet she hadn't seemed remotely as pleased as he'd expected she'd be.

She laughs at something one of the identical twins says and something clenches in his chest. It's not jealousy, that he'd recognize. It's a twinge in his sternum that spreads coldness through his blood. It's hurt, raw and unwarranted.

Everyone exchanges gifts, sitting around the fireplace, and Tom watches as Hermione gasps at something the redheaded girl got her. She holds it up, a thick book of which he can't make out the title. She hugs the other girl and whispers something in her ear. They giggle to themselves.

He's never felt more out of place. Even in the orphanage he had the sense that he was in charge. He had his place.

Here he's a stranger, an out-of-time invader.

"Tom, dear, there's a present for you, too," Mrs. Weasley hands him a green and silver wrapped gift with an attached card. He reaches out and takes it. Mrs. Weasley smiles at him.

As soon as she's moved on to the next person he tears into the card.

Open this gift when you're alone.

There's no signature, but it feels like- he meets Hermione's eyes from across the room. She turns away. Why, he wonders, would she get him something?

The rest of the evening he struggles to be patient. Several of his smiles come across more strained than they normally would, and his responses shorten. At the concerned elbow touch he receives from Mrs. Weasley after he'd been staring daggers at the fire for five minutes straight, he finally decides to call it a night.

He stands outside her door, thinking that he should at least end the night on a good note. At his knock, he hears the scrambling of footsteps and what sounds like the hasty closing of a drawer and then, "Just a second!"

"Hello," he says as soon as the door opens, revealing a disheveled Hermione.

"Oh, it's you," her face shuts down. Her dull tone and cold words hit him hard.

"Look, I wanted to say thank you." He waits for her to ask him what he's talking about, but she doesn't. "Thank you for allowing me to stay here. I know that you could have insisted I go elsewhere, or even turned me in to the Ministry, but I'm grateful you didn't."

She blinks and looks down at her sock-clad feet. She appears to wrestle with herself, before coming to a decision. Her eyes meet his with determination, and she smiles. No, she lights up the evening.

"You're welcome." Her fingers drum against the door. "Goodnight, Tom Riddle," she says softly.

The lock clicks into place.

He presses his lips together. His own room that he shares with Ron and Harry smells of sweat, broom wax, and the tiniest hint of body odour. Delightful. Ron has already passed out on his bed when Tom enters. Harry stands to meet him, his cot creaking in joy at the weight being lifted. He'd been waiting for him.

"Potter," Tom greets, walking to the dresser to grab the small bag of toiletries he'd been given. He fishes out the toothpaste and toothbrush and turns to exit.

"Wait, I need to talk to you." Ron stirs and Harry lowers his voice. "It's important."

Tom shifts around to look back at the bespectacled boy, tapping his foot to show his impatience. "Go ahead."

"I watched you today. I watched how you treated the Weasleys. I saw how you looked at Hermione. You seem like you have the potential to be an alright bloke." Harry fidgets with his hands. "Hermione hasn't said much about who you were in her original timeline but I do know that that's not the road you should go down this time."

"Inspiring, truly," Tom drawls. He turns to go again.

"Don't hurt her." His hand closes around the doorknob. "I know you're her soulmate or some other shit, but don't hurt her. If you do I will make sure you're put in Azkaban for life." The threat rings through the air. Tom opens the door and steps out.

In the bathroom, he locks the door, pulls the present out of his pocket, and undoes the shrinking charm he placed on it. The pretty wrapping falls to the ground in strips.

He opens the simple cardboard box, and at first is dismayed by what looks to be just pieces of paper. On closer inspection, he sees that they are letters, each addressed to him. His heart jumps.

Dear Tom,

It's been three weeks since I went to the past and met you. I've returned now to a future different from the one I knew. Everything feels strange and oddly warped, yet still the same.

I don't know if I will ever see you again. I looked up what happened to you, and as it turned out, you disappeared over the winter break of your seventh year. It's not clear what happened to you.

To be honest, I find it disconcerting that someone like you could be my soulmate. It seems like the least likely event possible. Where I'm from, you became a maniacal tyrant intent on destroying everyone of my kind. (Rather hypocritical from a half-blood wouldn't you say?) I fought against you. I was going to help destroy you.

Yet, I can't think that the boy I met was irredeemable. I can't. You seemed so human and normal. You felt things, I know it.

But even then, I cannot be sure. You fooled everyone the first time, and it would be unwise to think that it was anything but an act.

Your soulmate,

Hermione

Dear Tom,

It's now been two months since I saw you. I've started to gain memories from this Hermione's life. I don't like it. I feel like one day I'm going to wake up and not remember my original timeline at all. Even though there's no way to get it back, I feel like if I forget it then it won't have meant anything.

I've done some research and it looks like you might have decided to time travel to the future. Sometimes I hope that it's true, and others I beg whatever deity there may be that it's not. I can't decide if I want to see you again.

In my heart, you're the boy from the past, but in my head I know that you're the monster from my future. Is it silly to hope that you're capable of change? To think that you might one day look on Muggleborns and Muggles without contempt? Maybe. Perhaps you'll never truly be a member of the Light. But I don't think that not being a member of the Light and being a member of the Dark are the same. There's a grey area, and if I see you again I hope you find it.

Your soulmate,

Hermione

Dear Tom,

It's been eight months.

I don't know what to say. I've adjusted to life here as well as I think I'll ever be able to. So many things have changed because of you. There are people alive who were dead and there are people dead who would have been alive. Some inventions that I remember are nowhere to be found, but there are new products here, too. Biggest of all are the policies on Muggleborns. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this future is much less racist.

You really had an effect on the future, and were it not so horrific in its scope, it would be fascinating to make note of all the things that your vanishing has altered.

I wonder, if you come to the future, will you waste your potential as you did before? You could have been so powerful and really made a difference, but you squandered it in favour of your deluded ambitions which proved to be your downfall. I've had time to think, and if you were to stand for what's right, I would proudly stand by your side.

Abraxas Malfoy, who I know was one of your devoted followers, managed to turn his life around after you left. He became one of, and still is, the biggest advocated for Muggleborn equality. The magical community is stronger than ever, and magic itself is stronger than ever, now that it isn't hindered by inbreeding. Perhaps this, in and of itself, would be an incentive to change your views on Muggleborns, because your archaic prejudices would certainly place you in the unpopular minority here.

I don't doubt that you'd find a place here.

I'd like to get to know you and figure out all this soulmate stuff. Maybe one day I'll get the chance.

Your soulmate,

Hermione

Saturday, the day after Christmas, was almost conspicuously quiet. The energy present the day before dove to a lethargic level. Tom had only said one thing to her the entire day, and it was to ask her to pass the salt at breakfast.

When the time came for everyone to leave, Molly cried and gave bone-crushing hugs while her family looked on amusedly.

"Give my love to James and Lily, won't you dear?" she asked of Harry.

"Of course I will, Mrs. Weasley. Thank you again for letting me spend Christmas with you."

That had been another thing that Hermione'd had to get used to. James and Lily Potter were alive. Not only that, but they were every bit as loving as she'd always thought they would be. This Harry had grown up adored and happy, as he'd always deserved.

When Harry had taken her to his house she'd been in wonder. The atmosphere was warm and joyous and filled with life. James and Lily made her feel at home, and it had been the first time since coming to this future that she'd felt a sense of belonging.

"Oh, we're always glad to have you," Mrs. Weasley dotes on Harry.

He leaves via the Floo, disappearing into the swirl of green flames.

"Hermione, dear, you'll give our love to your parents as well won't you?" Molly asks her.

"Yes, I definitely will," Hermione smiles.

"Tom!" Mrs. Weasley calls. "Tom it's time to leave! Don't make Hermione wait for you," she chides him and he hurries into the room, clutching a small bag. The blood drains from Hermione's face.

"He's not-"

"Your parents will be so proud that you've found such a chivalrous young man," the Weasley matriarch goes on. There's been a mistake, but how can she ask Mrs. Weasley to keep such a hazard with her for the rest of break?

"Yes, they will," she makes sure to look directly into Tom's dark eyes as she says it. He probably planned this somehow, she thinks. "Come on, Tom." His eyebrows rise in surprise. He must not have expected her to go along with it.

She sticks out her arm for him to grab and he latches on. "Goodbye, everyone, I had a wonderful Christmas!"

"Goodbye, thank you for your generosity," Tom adds.

"Bye, Tom! Bye, Hermione!" the Weasleys chorus.

The dizzying sensation of Apparition whooshes over them as Hermione takes them to the living room of her house. She lets go of Tom as soon as they arrive, holding her hand up to her aching forehead.

"Mum, Dad, I'm home!"

"Hello sweetheart, I'll be out in a minute, I'm helping your father make dinner."

A minute later a short, pleasantly plump woman emerges from the kitchen. Her wild brown curls frame her face and she beams at her daughter. "It's so good to see you! How was- oh! Who is this?" she gestures at Tom.

Before Hermione can reply, Tom extends a hand, "I'm Tom Riddle, Hermione's friend. I didn't have anywhere to go after Christmas and she graciously offered your home. I hope I'm not intruding." The way he says it makes her sound so noble.

"It's no trouble at all, we're happy to have you!" she reassures him, taking his hand. "I'm Mrs. Granger."

"Pleased to meet you."

"Mum, can I speak to Tom privately for a moment?" Hermione cuts in. Her face gives away nothing but calm.

"Yes, of course, I'll be in the kitchen. Don't take too long, your father wants to see you."

As her mother retreats, Hermione glances up at Tom through her lashes. "Thank you for saying that, you didn't have to cover for me."

"I was happy to do it."

"Listen, Riddle, I love my parents, so it would be nice if you could at least make an effort to get to know them." She sighs.

"Okay," he agrees. She smiles like she doesn't believe him.

It is three days later that they find themselves sitting in the family room at one in the morning. Hermione sits on the couch flipping through the channels of the tele to find something to watch. She pauses briefly on a documentary about ducks, but moves on when the narrator jokingly refers to the show as a 'duckumentary.'

Tom laughs at this, warm and genuine, and it's so shocking that she turns to stare at him. His head is thrown back, mouth stretched wide as he shakes with mirth.

"That wasn't even that funny," Hermione says in wonder when his laughter has died down.

"It was funnier than anything I've heard in a long time." She averts her eyes back to the screen when he looks at her.

They sit watching infomercials for twenty minutes before he breaks the silence again.

"I like them," Hermione turns to him in confusion, glancing between him and the advertisement for an improved thigh master. He glares. "Not that, I meant your parents. They're nice."

A guarded expression takes shape on her face. "I'm glad you think so."

"I've been trying, you know. I still can't say that I see them completely as equals, but I wouldn't necessarily say they're inferior, either." She nods, still looking at the tele and not him. "I'm trying," he repeats.

She doesn't move when he leaves, and it is only an hour later when his seat is cold and she remembers him laughing at the word 'duckumentary' that she turns to survey his spot.

"I'm trying," he had said.

It's more than she'd hoped for.

New Year's Eve. His birthday. He's officially eighteen.

She buys him a book on history, and wraps it in white, for new beginnings. Her parents bake him a cake, topped with eighteen candles of all different shapes and sizes. It's not much but he seems to appreciate it all the same.

Hours and hours later, when the day is almost over, they watch the special on the New Year. The volume is set low, giving a surreal background noise quality to the excited yells of the featured people.

"I've thought about what you said the other night," she says. He raises an eyebrow. They've talked every night since that first conversation they had watching the tele. "About trying.

"I want you to know that I believe you. I don't know how to put it into words, but something in me tells me that you're being truthful. Normally, I'm highly logical and don't rely on feelings, but even logic tells me that you wouldn't come all this way and then just throw it all away without first trying to adjust.

"I don't expect you to change your ways immediately, or even soon, but just the fact that you're making the effort is tremendous.

"I think we could be friends or something or-"

"Hermione," Tom interrupts. "Hermione, I understand." He looks into her soft brown eyes.

Together, they watch the countdown to midnight.

"Happy New Year!" shouts the man on the tele.

Hermione reaches out and takes Tom's hand. He squeezes her fingers.

It's the start of something, and it's tentative and hesitant, with both sides having to give ground, but it's beautiful. Peace begins at the end of war, and they've both fought theirs.

It will be hard. It will take time, and effort, and some days it won't seem worth it.

But it will be.

It will be, because in the end they'll have each other.

fin.