A Truth Universal
by everambling

For six months, almost down to the second, Hermione Granger did not hear the word "Mudblood" spoken aloud.

She heard it in her dreams. She heard it on the tips of people's tongues, here and there, when she crossed paths with an old name. It hung in the air. But never, ever, was it said outright.

When it blackened the room within her earshot after so long an absence, she froze.

"Yes, I hear Potter's Mudblood made quite the splash with her article in Transfiguration Today."

Ginny's head swiveled. Neville gritted his teeth.

"Tom!" said Slughorn severely, his hand fluttering to his heart. "Now, that kind of talk simply isn't acceptable. People have died over that word. I'm afraid I will have to ask you to leave!"

Tom Riddle turned an inscrutable mask on the Potions Master. From her position across Slughorn's study, Hermione receded behind acres of gauze draperies and was able to remain unobserved as she listened to the exchange.

"My sincerest apologies, Professor," said Riddle. "Old habits… But I see I've overstayed my welcome." He turned to leave.

Slughorn danced from one foot to the next, his walrus mustache aquiver. He looked to be in the grips of a painful internal struggle.

"Now, Tom," he said. "Let us not be hasty. I invited you here because I've been pleased with your… progress. An adjustment period is to be expected."

"You might say that," said Riddle quietly.

"Adjustment period, my foot," said Ginny, sidling up to Hermione's hiding place. "They should have left him in Azkaban to rot."

"You wouldn't know he was even there, would you?" Neville added. "I mean, Azkaban doesn't show on him the way it showed on Black or—or Bellatrix Lestrange."

Hermione eyed Riddle appraisingly. She had not seen him since he had sprung from that accursed diary in her second year. At the time she had been rather more concerned with appraising herself of Ginny's condition—Ginny had come a hair's breadth from death that day. Still, she had mentally catalogued his appearance. It had been impossible not to. Tom Riddle towered above his peers. He had been gifted ivory skin and the eyes of some feral creature from the heart of darkness. Hermione could understand how Ginny had lost her head over him.

More than five years later, Riddle was taller, gaunter, handsomer than before. She thought his face looked almost waxen. Hermione knew that he had been kept in the bleakest catacombs Azkaban had to offer all through Voldemort's rise and fall, hauled out only when the Ministry required insight on the Dark Lord's movements. She could not imagine that the Dementors had been able to inflict anything on him that was not dwarfed by seeing his own future self defeated at the hands of three teenagers.

Then had come the Ministry's great failing. Improperly supervised, a pair of Dementors had set upon Riddle on the day of his Wizengamot trial. They had been subdued moments before performing the kiss.

The kiss, it was observed in a timely biography of Rita Skeeter's, could only be performed upon a soul that was whole and untarnished. Riddle had no link to the defeated Voldemort. Spurred by the publication of Rita's book—fifty-seven pages of which were given over to a highly colourful account of the miseries of Riddle's orphaned youth—the Riddle trial had focused almost entirely upon rehabilitation.

The ultimate sentence of a decade's probation for the act of opening the Chamber of Secrets, in this case, severely stretched even Hermione's sincere belief in second chances.

"I didn't realize Slughorn had invited him," said Hermione.

Ginny snorted. "Of course he did. There are idealists, and then there's Slughorn."

In the course of making the decision to complete her NEWTs after the war, Hermione had not taken into account the continued existence of the Slug Club. Never in her darkest fantasies had she expected to come upon Tom Riddle while picking at a tower of Chocolate Frogs at a Halloween party. If Ron could see her now, lurking behind Slughorn's curtains, his expression would have been infuriatingly smug.

She halted the thought mid-way through. Ron was still too sore a subject even for idle reminiscence.

On the other hand, continuing to crouch here a moment longer was intolerable.

"Excuse me," she muttered to Ginny and Neville. Spotting Eldred Worple across the room, she emerged with her head held high.

"Mr Worple!" she called, badly startling the bespectacled little man. "Yes, hello! There you are. How incredibly rude of me, but I haven't given you an answer yet on your proposal. I can't think of anyone better to pen my biography. Perhaps we could give it a nice, catchy title. Something like Magical Mudbloods. What do you think?"

Poor Worple looked nearly apoplectic with enthusiasm. Hermione would have to find some gentle way to renege on her offer at a later time.

Riddle was watching her.

"Let me fetch you a Butterbeer," she told Worple in a carrying voice, "and I can tell you about the time I broke out of Gringotts on a dragon."

Hermione led him towards a more secluded part of the room, beaming until her face hurt. She could hear Ginny chuckling behind her. She could hear Slughorn Oho-ing good-naturedly. She could not hear a word from Riddle.

Hermione's article on cross-species switching in Transfiguration Today garnered her what could only be referred to as polarizing notoriety. Not since Albus Dumbledore himself had a Hogwarts student been published in the pages of the famously selective quarterly. Unfortunately, she had flat-out contradicted Dumbledore's praxis, arguing that the optimal method of casting cross-species enchantments was prior analysis at the reproductive, rather than the skeletal, level. Hermione had thought little of the matter, having consulted with Dumbledore's portrait in the Headmistress' office and found him delighted by her theories. Yet somehow, within a day of the article's publication, rumor had been transmuted into solid fact, so that half the castle's occupants were assuring one another that Hermione had been engaged in a secret feud with Dumbledore prior to his death.

Harry owled her a note. Congratulations—And sorry to hear about your lifelong hatred of Dumbledore. I never knew.

Ginny, Neville, and Luna also took the matter with a grain of salt. However there were many even among Gryffindor house who accosted her in the corridors to ask what exactly she meant by speaking ill of the dead. Hermione also received a slew of Howlers from disgruntled readers, so that she was regularly forced to sprint from the Great Hall with a smoldering envelope held in her outstretched hands.

By the following week she was so exasperated with the owl post that she lifted the newest syrupy envelope from her stack of morning pancakes and tossed it across the table at Neville.

"You read it," she said morosely. "I can't stand it anymore. But be careful of curses."

Neville opened the envelope and unfolded the parchment within. His fork clattered from his fist onto his plate.

"What is it?" asked Hermione, alarmed.

"It's—It's from Tom Riddle," croaked Neville.

"What?"

Ginny leaned in to have a look, scowling.

"Are you all right?" Hermione asked, reaching for her wand.

"'M fine," said Neville. "It's just a normal letter."

"Well, don't read it," Ginny suggested. "You can feed it to those giant mutant wasps Hagrid's been breeding down by the pumpkin patch."

But denying her own curiosity had never been Hermione's strong suit. She snatched the letter back and read it with growing incredulity.

Miss Granger,

I had the opportunity to read your piece on cross-species switching in Transfiguration Today and found it enlightened. A pleasant surprise. I was particularly stricken by your deconstruction of Bridget Wenlock's 1257 experiment involving Phoenix-Augurey hybrids. Though perhaps overextended towards its conclusion, the comparison was commendable.

I write in order to direct your attention to the study conducted earlier this Fall in Wales by Cassius Fawley. I think you will find some of his observations align with your own, and may serve to inform further investigation into the matter.

Regards,

T.M. Riddle

Hermione stared at the writing for a full minute without blinking. Eventually she became aware that someone was clicking their fingers in the vicinity of her face in an effort to capture her attention.

"Hmm?" said Hermione vaguely.

"Well? What is it?" Ginny demanded.

Hermione shrugged. "I suppose it's some strange way of trying to humiliate me. He'll have to do better than this. He must be forgetting that I grew up during the reign of Rita Skeeter."

She stuffed the letter haphazardly into her bag, deliberating whether or not to run to the library and look up Cassius Fawley's study. No, she decided. Surely there would be nothing to find. Why would she credit a single word written by Riddle?

She put the letter out of her mind all through first period Alchemy, as well as second period Charms. After lunch was Defense Against the Dark Arts, which was being taken that day by Professor Sinistra. For all that Professor McGonagall had assured the Wizarding world that the post was no longer cursed, there had been an insurmountable dearth of applicants to the Defense post. For the time being, the other Professors were splitting the class between them.

Defense was normally uneventful without either Harry or Ron present. Both of them had elected to callously throw away their educations and proceed directly to the Auror Office, a move Hermione had treated with the pointed disapproval it deserved. She had at first consoled herself over their absence by reflecting that her study time would be multiplied tenfold without Ron constantly enlisting her help with his homework. But even this became a hollow comfort. Hermione missed partnering with one or the other of them when practicing spells. Harry, at least, had never complained too loudly when she hit him with a well-aimed curse. Hermione thought she would tear her hair out if she was forced to partner with Lavender or Parvati one more time. Her dorm mates were rather shrill about expressing their discomfort when Hermione succeeded in cursing them.

She arrived early in the hopes of sitting with Ginny, but the latter was absent. Resigned, Hermione took a seat between Lavender and Neville.

"Where's Ginny?" Hermione asked Neville in an undertone as the lesson began.

"She didn't mention?" said Neville. "Slughorn excused her from class for the rest of the day so she could attend tryouts for the Holyhead Harpies."

"Oh, that's wonderful—"

"Quite enough chatter over there!"

Hermione straightened to attention, blushing at Sinistra's reprimand. When the Professor turned back and flicked her wand at the board, the words that appeared there made Hermione's jaw drop.

Cassius Fawley and the consequences of cross-species switching…

Ginny returned from her tryout with the Harpies triumphant. Her arm was in a sling.

"I've been asked on as an alternate when I graduate," she informed Hermione and Neville over dinner.

"Congratulations!" exclaimed Hermione. "But, er, what happened to your arm?"

"Oh, the Harpies' new beater is very keen," said Ginny airily, waving her wand with her left hand so that her rolls buttered themselves. "They were impressed that I was able to hang onto my broom and score six goals with a broken arm."

Neville choked on his pork chops.

"Have you been to see Madame Pomfrey yet?" he asked.

Ginny shrugged. "I was hungry."

Hermione and Neville exchanged a glance and marched a protesting Ginny out of the Great Hall and up to the Hospital Wing. The Matron greeted them with her customary exasperation, lecturing Ginny for failing to present herself as soon as she had returned to the grounds. Hermione was turning to leave when she collided with another visitor, and her book bag slipped from her shoulder.

She had not yet retired the roving library housed in her bag for the day, having gone to dinner directly from Arithmancy. Thus it was no surprise when the bag split along the seam, spilling all thirteen of her school books onto the floor.

"Sorry," Hermione muttered, bending down to retrieve the contents of her bag. She did not look up at once, and so failed to notice who she had collided with until a cool voice spoke her name in amused recognition.

She looked up. Tom Riddle was standing over her.

"What are you doing here?" blurted Hermione, scrambling to her feet. She looked around to see whether Madame Pomfrey was aware of the intruder on her premises, but the Matron was going about her business as usual.

"Merely familiarizing myself with my new colleagues," said Riddle, extending a hand to her. Seeing that Hermione had no intention of shaking it, he smiled. The effect on his face was transformative; Hermione frowned. "Do you always carry this many books with you to the Hospital wing?"

"Did you say new colleagues?" Hermione asked, ignoring his question.

Riddle inclined his head. "I look forward to seeing you in my class, Miss Granger."

Hermione pinched herself through her pocket, expecting to wake up. Surely, surely, no one in their right mind would have appointed Tom Riddle a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Lucius Malfoy was no longer on the Hogwarts board of governors, which diminished the pool of candidates for bribery.

With a flick of his wand Riddle repaired her bag and sent all her books sailing back inside it. Hermione strode away without another word to him, Neville hurrying along in her wake. She scrawled a frenzied letter to Harry the moment she returned to the Gryffindor common room. A disgruntled Ginny returned to the common room half an hour later, but both she and Neville seemed afraid to speak to Hermione when the latter was in this state.

Left alone by the fireplace, Hermione engaged in a fierce staring contest with the flames until the common room had emptied itself. In the early hours of the morning she received a response from Harry, which must have meant that the Aurors were encamped on a mission not so very far from Hogwarts.

Harry's response did little to lift Hermione's spirits. He had planned to send an owl to Hogwarts at dawn so that Ginny would not be caught unprepared by Riddle's appearance, and had not counted on their running into Riddle in the corridors that evening. He had only just been notified by the Ministry the previous day of Riddle's appointment. After a row with the head of Magical Law Enforcement, Harry had been told in no uncertain terms that the matter was settled. Riddle had been cleared by every truth serum and enchantment known to Wizardkind. Further, through some legal technicality, Riddle had a few years past been willed the entirety of Barty Crouch Jr's fortune, and had promptly donated large sums of his inheritance to Saint Mungo's hospital upon his release from Azkaban. Now really, had said the Head of Law Enforcement, was this consistent with the behavior of a criminal madman?

"Honestly!" Hermione exclaimed to the empty common room.

The next day, Riddle was charged with a class of third-years. The backlash from parents was immediate and tremendous. Over the course of the following week the school was pelted with owls, until Hermione witnessed a very strained looking Professor McGonagall engaging in an argument with Kingsley Shacklebolt in the corridor outside her study.

"My hands are tied, Minerva," Kingsley was telling her in a pained voice.

"The parents won't have it!" McGonagall replied fiercely. "And frankly, neither will I. Something has to be done!"

Harry was brought in to handle the younger years.

This caused quite a stir among the female population of Hogwarts. Between sharing a staff lounge with Tom Riddle and dodging Romilda Vane everywhere he went, Hermione did not know how Harry was coping. She spent the majority of the time leading up to her upcoming Monday class with Riddle pacing the grounds alongside Harry, brooding. Ginny had obtained a special exemption from the staff to receive private tutoring from Harry, but Hermione had been given no such allowance. She would have to attend Riddle's class if she wanted to pass her Defense NEWT.

Monday dawned bleak and cold, an unnecessary omen. In a show of bravado, Hermione made sure to take her usual seat in the front row of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. She was not about to be intimidated.

Under Lupin's stewardship, the room had been stacked with glass cages housing strange magical creatures. In Snape's era gruesome posters had adorned the walls. Now, the room was bare. The curtains stood half open, casting the cold light of November snowdrifts across Riddle's desk. In every corner of the room, the spectre of Riddle's presence loomed large.

"Nott!"

Riddle's voice rang out as he entered the classroom, silencing all chatter. The students dared not turn to look at Theodore Nott, seated in the back row.

"There is a student in this class by the name of Nott," Riddle repeated. His eyes swept the room, and the room held its breath. At length, Nott raised a shaking hand.

Riddle's posture did not change. He withdrew his wand from his sleeve. Hermione's nerves sang.

"Mr Smith," said Riddle, not troubling to raise his voice or to acknowledge any of the other students present. "There is something in your bag that ought not to be there."

Mutely, Nott shook his head.

Riddle flicked his wand, and Nott's school bag caught fire.

Even in his distress, Nott set up an outcry. Hermione imagined he must have a week's worth of homework in his bag. As suddenly as they had appeared, the flames vanished. The bag was unharmed.

"Open it," Riddle commanded.

Cornered, Nott lifted the bag onto his desk and emptied its contents. Riddle picked up what appeared to be an ordinary black quill.

"Auto-answer," he said. "A Zonko's, perhaps?"

"Dervish & Bange's," murmured Nott.

Riddle pocketed the quill and resumed his post at the front of the room.

"There will be no cheating in my class," he announced. "Those under the misapprehension that they are exempt from this rule may find themselves facing more than detention. I trust that is clear."

Hermione could hardly believe it. Her incredulity was not due to Riddle's threats, or to the trembling in Nott's lip, which were to be expected. She wondered whether anyone else realized that Riddle was using Dumbledore's old tricks. Harry had recounted the memory to her in detail. It was the revelation that Riddle was clearly not as self-assured as he pretended to be, after all, that allowed her to unclench her fists inside her pockets.

"This subject will tax many of you," Riddle told the class. "I expect the number of seats filled in this class to halve by Easter. To defend oneself against the Dark Arts is to guard a fragile bastion against all but insurmountable odds. You will be fighting an enemy with a thousand masks, an army of a thousand blades. It is not enough that you should have righteousness on your side, for your opponents will seek at every opportunity to turn your greatest weapons to their own advantage. They will be cunning. More cunning than you."

Silence reigned absolute. In spite of herself, Hermione leaned forward so as not to miss a word.

"Which is why," Riddle went on, "you are fortunate to have me as your instructor."

He broke them off into pairs and set them to work on the most complex non-verbal shield incantation they had yet to attempt. The class seemed at once petrified of performing magic before Riddle, and desperate to perform at standards satisfactory to him. Only Hermione, working in at the center of the room with Neville, was more preoccupied with watching Riddle than with her progress. She had learned to cast this spell in sixth year.

"Try not to swish your wand horizontally," she told Neville, somewhat distracted as Asteria Greengrass went flying past her in a blur, victim of a poorly cast charm. "And fix your eyes on a single point. The base of the throat usually works best."

"Excellent form, Miss Granger," said Riddle. Stars above, he had a way of creeping up unheard that made Hermione's blood run cold! "But perhaps your talents would be put to better use furthering your own education, rather than overseeing Mr Longbottom's. Then you might be able to correct the upwards tilt of the latter half of your wand movement. Broader motions make for more precise spellwork."

Hermione wanted to shrink under his criticism. His mere proximity made her itch to raise her wand in a defensive pose. But, recalling his display at the beginning of the lesson, she held firm and stiffened her spine.

"Flattening the end swish does increase precision," she agreed, as steadily as she could manage. "But conversely, isn't it true that a vertical motion, properly executed, can as much as double the shield's potency?"

There were murmurs of shock, hastily stifled, as the students reeled. They had seldom heard Hermione defy a teacher, let alone such a teacher as this one. Riddle's lip curled.

"A theory brought forth in the fifth edition of the Standard Book of Spells: Grade Seven," he said. "However, you will find that the Standard Book of Spells is now in its twelfth edition, and has, for good reason, amended such instructions to account for variable distance. Furthermore, Miss Granger, I suggest you consider the value of practical experience over theoretical expertise."

"My practical experience," said Hermione, unable to help herself, "comes from dueling Bellatrix Lestrange."

Every pair of eyes in the room darted between Riddle and Hermione, enthralled.

"Ten points to Gryffindor," said Riddle at last, and Hermione's head swam with victory. Then, abruptly, he turned and added, "For Neville Longbottom, holding up in a duel against so formidable an opponent." He gave Hermione an ironic bow. "Though should she follow instructions in the future rather than her own rigid code of operations, you may not be so lucky. I urge you to choose your partner carefully."

Hermione stood frozen with indignation as the class returned to its business, buzzing at the scene they had just witnessed. Riddle's eyes held hers for a moment. Then, in a clear and cutting dismissal, he turned away from her and raised his wand to prevent Asteria from colliding once more with the far wall.