Dangerous Games

Chapter 13: What Happened for the Next Five Months

The next four months passed with few events that are relevant to this story. I will relate these scenes to you now.

Scene: Simultaneous Animagi Transformations

Dumbledore surveyed the past and future Head Girls with affection only ever found in situations of master-protege success.

"Minerva," he said solemnly, but with a definite twinkle in his eye, "I cannot deny that you have been a prodigy here at Hogwarts and easily the favorite of the professors. Personal problems between you two have caused our opinion to diminish somewhat. However, now that you've made up, we all are so proud of you. But let's discuss your academics, both of you."

Hermione and Minerva were grinning at each other in embarrassment.

"You two attemted the two different methods of Animagism, potions and charms. Minerva, you will finally complete the last of the charms today. Charlotte, you have completed the potion, and you are prepared to take it. Minerva, if you transfigure, you will be given fifty points for Gryffindor, a name in the history of Animagism, and doubtlessly scholarships for any university on the face of the globe should you wish to pursue further education. Charlotte, if your potion is not flwed, and it does not appear to be, you, too, will earn Gryffindor fifty points, a name in the book of the few registered Animagi, and the satisfaction of accomplishing such an arduous task. Never in my time have two such fine minds graduated from Hogwarts as Animagi. If you succeed, two more Animagi will be added to the meager list of five people. I want you to know, Minerva, Charlotte, no Head Professor could be more proud of you than I."

Hermione's and Minerva's grins were no longer embarrassed.

"Now, that's enough praise from me. Do you want to finish together, simultaneously?"

Hermione nodded, followed by Minerva, who raised her wand. The former uncorked her vial of Animagus potion. They shared a look, and as Minerva performed her last wand-waving and incantations, Hermione put the vial to her lips and downed the potion in one gulp.

The change was not painful, not like the pain the Polyjuice Potion had imprinted on every nerve-ending in her body. The sensation was gentle, even pleasant. It was the feeling of ice cream and a swim on a sweltering day; it was sun melting butter; it was the bed after a long day; it was an A after weeks of toil; it was a kiss by a boy after a murder.

The transfiguration was complete in less than a minute. Minerva twitched her tail excitedly as she turned in circles in a comically puppyish manner trying to look at herself. Then she stopped as she peered into the grinning maw of a jaguar, a big cat of sleek, flexible grace, indifference, and terrible beauty. Minerva stared at Hermione through the spectacle-shaped markings around her eyes. The jaguar that was Hermione stared back. Around the jaguar's neck was a black band, and on the end of the band was the vague shape of an hourglass.

Dumbledore clapped his hands in delight, the blue eyes behind the half-moon glasses were electric. "Well done! Well done! Now turn back," he said.

The two cats complied, and two humans emerged.

"One hundred points to Gryffindor! Fantastic! Marvelous!" Dumbledore was practically bouncing with excitement. Hermione observed him with amusement; in 1998, Dumbledore had always given an impression of great energy, but Hermione had never seen him this. "Please, please, please, sign here, sign here!" He held out a parchment and quill with a small list of regustered Animagi and their animal and distinguishing markings. After they had each signed their names (Minerva McGonagall and Charlotte Shannen; Hermione belatedly remembered having read the name when researching Animagi in third year.), Dumbledore banished the registration to the Ministry of Magic from whence it came.

"Oh, well done, I'm so proud, you have no idea, that proud..." Without warning, he knelt down and embraced them. "i feel like a father watching his daughters graduating. Really..." He pulled away and wiped tears of happiness from his eyes. "Well, you can go now, if you'd like. Celebrate. You have my permission to go to Hogmeade if you liek. I must tell the Headmaster, the universities; so much to do, so little time..."

Giggling, Minerva left Dumbledore's office, followed by Hermione.

"Oh, good show," purred the voice of Tom. Hermione jumped. "A magnificent beast to become."

"I'm glad I have your approval, Riddle," Hermione said coldly, her euphoria wearing off. Her attitude with Riddle kept swinging like a pendulum: sometimes, she could gladly tolerate him, and other times he reminded her too much of what he would be in the furture. In the near future if his permanent HJ7 potion was succesful.

"And it so completely defines you. I don't know if you've looked in a mirror lately, but you'd see you are a girl, despite those robes you wear to hide it, especially now that you're using the Anti-Frizz Charm." He stroked her hair gently. Hermione jerked back. He hadn't attempted any forward behavior for weeks. "And it's a terrible beauty, Hermione, it makes one want to..." His hand reached out again, but Hermione backed against the opposite wall, two meters away from his casual position next to the office door.

"You have that fierceness, that power, that stealth. You are that mystical creature, that wild, mighty creature."

She was not used to being praised in such a way, and his complete lack of subtlty was uncharacteristic enough to make her wary.

"Go away Riddle.

Riddle smirked, then tossed a small box to her. "Happy Valentine's Day." Then he walked away.

Hermione waited until he had turned the corner before she opened the box. Lying on the velvet plush was a small vial that read in neat script: Enhancement Potion- 60 Galleons. On the back, the slip read: Let the world see you as I do. Make that Harry stare and Hagrid drool. You deserve worship. T.

In a sudden bout or rebellion, and against all her common sense, Hermione opened the vial and downed the potion.

Scene: Hagrid's Hut

Hagrid and Hermione were talking about the giant squid in the lake and how it had grown when Hagrid suddenly became very quiet.

"You know, Charlotte," he said awkwardly, picking at his cuticles and refusing to look her in the eye, "we've been good friends since you fall, and I just..." The words caught in his throat. "Um, well, here." He thrust some pretty wildflowers into her hand.

Hermione stroked the velvety, delicate petals gently with a small smile.

"Hagrid, they're beautiful, but..." Hagrid's face crashed to the floor in disappointment. "Oh, no, don't take it that way. I love you to death, and you know it, but I hope you haven't expected more, because you're like a brother, or an uncle, to me."

"So," Hagrid said, sniffing, "yer sayin' Ah don' have a chance over tha' Riddle fellow."

"Hagrid," Hermione snapped emphatically, "do not bring up Riddle in the one place I can escape him."

Hagrid gave a hopeful grin. "So yeh don' like him?"

"Quite frankly, Hagrid, I'm still undecided about whether I like him or hate him. And not like him in that way," Hermione said quickly. "He's just done some things good and some things, more things, bad. Now, let's forget him."

"Okay," said Hagrid, happy again.

But Hermione was struck by the way Riddle had known Hagrid liked her. The effects of the Enhancement Potion had begun to surface the week before. She had ceased using the Anti-Frizz Charm because her hari now settled into the curls naturally. Hermione non-descript chestnut-brown eyes had deepened slightly until they were softer, and to the distinct disgust of Hermione, doe-like. Her proportionate figure had thinned out a lot in the middle, and opposite in the chest. She grew two inces. She was forced to but completely new clothes at Hogsmeade, and when she went back home, she would have to bring the outdated clothes with her. She was profoundly beginning to regret having taken the potion. The person she saw in the mirror was not Hermione anymore, but someone Parvati or Lavender might generally hang out with, and that annoyed her as much as anything. Not to mention having to quickly adjust to having her weight redistributed in the course of only days.

At the thought of home, Hermione's thoughts snapped back to the present reality, or past reality, or, oh, whatever; the lines were less distinct now. Anyway, thinking of home made her dreadfully homesick.

Scene: Letter to Dumbledore from Hermione, written in Transfiguration class (which she had resumed after her Animagus transformation)

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

I need to ask you a terrific favor. Could you keep the forward Time Turner for me? I've been increasingly paranoid about it; I'm afraid I'll break it or someone will find it and steal it or some other disastrous event of that nature. Do you mind?

Hermione

And so the five months commenced.

~888888~

A/N: I've been struck by how Hermione fics usually get rid of the frizz, and while I break Snapefic tradition with Unfurling of a Rose , I don't have the energy to break Hermionefic tradition here. So the frizz goes. I just hope you forgive me for that and like my method of getting rid of it.

Also, I changed the length of time that the Time Turner must set to five months. In my ignorance, I hadn't realized that Hogwarts ends in the third week of June. Silly me, just because I end in May and begin in August...

~888888~

Chapter 14: Confrontation

---

"How did you know me?" he asked.

"On your side," said Mr. Utterson "will you do me a favour?"

"With pleasure," replied the other. "What shall it be?"

"Will you let me see your face?" asked the lawyer.

Mr. Hyde appeared to hesitate, and then, as if upon some sudden reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the pair stared at each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds. "Now I know you again," said Mr. Utterson. "It may be useful."

-Stevenson's DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

~888~

Hermione woke up that evening to the sounds of the morning bell rung without fail by Minerva. The poor Head Girl was finally calm now that she had passed the NEWTs with flying colors. Hermione had done the tests, too, and Professor Dumbledore had set the results in his desk drawer for "future" reference. Hermione would have to wait until she got home before she received the results.

Everyone was leaving that afternoon except Hermione, who wanted to remain long enough to say good-bye to everyone and everything. Her Time-Turner had finally emerged from its chrysalis and was free to be used whenever she wanted. Dumbledore had also furnished her with a gift. Because the Turner she had made was a year-Turner, if she went forward fifty years, she would finally be home at graduation of her seventh-year, and she would have been missed for a little less than half a year. As a gift, Professor Dumbledore gave her a day Time-Turner that went back in time to counter the effects of her own Turner.

When she had received the gift the day before, she had thrown her arms around Professor Dumbledore and hugged him tight. He had been surprised, but pleased.

"I'll miss you, Hermione, but you do have an advantage over my other students because I'll see you again."

Those had been their parting words, and Dumbledore had presented her with her own forward Time-Turner

~888~

The seventh-year girls were teary and sentimental, and while Hermione had always found such conduct embarrassing, she joined them, knowing that she was only going to see a few of them again.

She said good-bye to all of her teachers, even cantankerous Professor Figg, and then she went out to the giant squid and Hagrid's hut that he shared with Ogg.

She stroked the giant squid as she kissed Hagrid on the cheek and bid farewell to the ogre-like gamekeeper.

Then she went to Tom Riddle.

Hermione stood about two meters away as she whispered, "Good-bye, Riddle."

He just smiled and replied, "The permanent HJ7 potion is complete." He left her, and he did not look back.

~888~

The Great Hall was nearly empty. Only the teachers, Hermione, Hagrid, and Riddle occupied the entire teachers' table which had been moved to the center of the Hall.

Riddle sat on her left and Hagrid sat to her right. This arrangement made for a very quiet dinner. Dumbledore looked at the three with a piercing gaze that seemed to completely read the tension.

Hermione ate quickly and left. She hurried to her empty dormitory and closed the curtains to her bed. Midnight yawned from her pillow and crawled into her mistress's lap.

She was filled with a sort of nervous excitement. Home. She would be going home tomorrow morning. This is what she had worked for all year.

But then...

Home?

Where she was ignored by her peers, coddled by her teachers, and not understood by her parents? Where she would always be that Mudblood or that bookworm or teacher's pet? Not where she was just Hermione, something Harry or Ron couldn't understand anymore?

No, I have to go back, she told herself forcefully. So maybe I don't like it, but I do belong.

The thought did not imbue her with any sort of comfort, and she collapsed against her pillows and stared at the curtains, still in her school robes, until her eyes closed of their own accord and she slept.

~888~

"He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable... He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, althought I couldn't specify the point..."

-Stevenson's DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

~888~

Near the middle of the night she awoke, her eyes wide and alert. She would not be able to sleep again that night, she knew.

She slipped her feet over the edge of the bed and started walking. She did not care where she going, she just wanted the movement.

Harry had once told her that if one just starts walking in Hogwarts with no particular place to go, one's feet could take one to the most extraordinary places Hogwarts could offer. Hermione, being Hermione, had scoffed at his statement, but she always had somewhere specific to be. Harry almost never did whenever he went out on the castle at night. He had said it was always relaxing.

Hermione had put up with this "nonsense" from Harry mostly because he never told Ton. He think Ron might think he was sentimental. It was the last real thing he ever said to Hermione.

But now Hermione understood.

The school opened all its doors to her. But she did not enter any of the doors until she reached the trophy room where she heard a low mumbling.

Her hand reached out to grasp the doorknob. A cold finger of dread slid down her spine. But her new rebellious curiosity prevailed, and she turned the knob.

The room was void of any light save a pentagram of candles inside a chalked nine-meter diameter circle. A boy was standing directly in the center of the pentagram with his back facing her. The words... no- the incantations he was mumbling came in gutteral bouts from his throat. Suddenly he stopped and his shoulders slumped as the candle flames grew until they were as long as a finger. Hermione could see the boy better now. He had shaved his head bare and the light flickered horrifically on the white skull. He was wearing robes that merely draped over his shoulders; where his sleeves should have been, there were yards of cloth draped over his arms. When the boy moved, glimpses through the cracks revealed to her that the boy was naked underneath.

No, she need not kid herself. This was Riddle.

No, she thought again, revelation illuminating her face.

"Lord Voldemort," she breathed, terror paralyzing her where she stood.

~888~

--Nowhere was there a trace of Henry Jekyll, dead or alive.

--Strange to relate, this ludicrous accoutrement was far from moving me to laughter. Rather, as there was something abnormal and misbegotten in the very essence of the creature that now faced me-- something seizing, surprising and revolting-- this fresh disparity seemed but to fit in with and to reinforce it; so that to my interest in the man's nature and character, there was added a curiosity as to his origin, his life, his fortune and status in the world.

-Stevenson's DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

~888888~

A/N: Ha ha ha ha! I'm leaving you there for now.