The Light and Darkness Anthology

Hermione wanted to moan, groan, whine, and otherwise annoy Filch so much that he would let her out of this unfair, unfair, unfair detention. She almost wished she actually had done something so intolerable, but unfortunately she had to get caught by one Professor Snape, who had looked like his Christmas gift had finally come after six years of waiting. She really wished she had punched him in the face--in that smug smile--when he found her.

And what was her great transgression? Had she been brewing Polyjuice or been sneaking around in Harry's Invisibility Cloak? No, she had been sleepwalking of all things!

Ever since the Department of Mysteries, she tried to hide from Harry how much it disturbed her, everything that happened there. He had enough guilt on his chest without knowing that she had nightmares and sleepwalked her way first through her house--and once or twice down her street where she was almost run over--then through Gryffindor Tower. Apparently, she had sleepwalked her way out through the portrait hold. Snape caught her while she trailed aimlessly about the corridors. Without heeding the advice not to interrupt a somnambulist, his acerbic tongue started her from the nightmare. She thought that maybe there was a touch of pity when he looked down at her as she screamed and screamed, falling to the ground.

But he certainly had not mercy. He took fifteen points from Gryffindor--thinking about it, that may have been mercy. He would have taken fifty from Harry. However, unable to pass up the opportunity to punish one of the Golden Trio, he had set her to a week with Filch, cleaning the trophy room from floor to ceiling without magic, just ordinary Muggle cleaning supplies.

She was tempted to curse Snape into the depths of the Forbidden Forest, but since he was likely to fit right in, she did not see any reason for it.

So she continued mopping the floor with a mop that was too long for her. She was so busy that she did not notice an oddity that blended in so well with all the quirks of Hogwarts that it was positively unnoticeable to begin with.

One of the trophies in the personal awards display case did not reflect Hermione's toil--there was merely an empty room.

---

On the second day evening of her detention, she was tasked with polishing the glass. It did not help that Filch occasionally came over to check her progress and leaned with a hand against the glass, usually a part she had just finished, smudging it again. He would leer nastily at her and tell her she missed a spot.

Maybe the Forbidden Forest was too good for the Potions Master.

And rubbing at the surprisingly clear pane of glass, Hermione, in all her perceptiveness, noticed. No reflection. And it was not even one of those frosted plates. It was pure silver, round and engraved in embellished letters.

Professor Henry Thyme

History of Magic

1891

"For Time devoted."

She peered more closely, with her nose a half-inch away from the glass. No matter how hard she looked, she could not see herself or Filch, or even Mrs. Norris, who had come in to alert Filch to a misdemeanor.

"Quicker, girl," Filch snarled, adjusting his grimy coat and glaring at her. "Longer you stare madly into the case, longer I have to watch you. Expect you to be finished with that one when I get back."

Hermione sighed, then began working on another, dirtier pane. She would investigate tomorrow, after Transfiguration when she had a few free hours.

She got into Gryffindor Tower at eleven, when the common room was still moderately active with procrastinators. She sighed. She still had Arithmancy problems to work.

Hermione would have told Harry and Ron about the unusual discovery in the trophy room, but Harry was his usual oversensitive, broody self who she had to be careful with these days, and Ron was nowhere in sight.

Oh well, I'll check it out tomorrow and tell them when they're more amenable, she thought, I guess I should finish those problems and attempt to sleep peacefully.

She gave one more concerned look at Harry staring into the fire, but she retrieved her homework materials and began to work.

---

She almost forgot about the trophy plate altogether after she woke up in one of the armchairs before the fire in the common room. Several people saw her, and she had to say she woke up during the night and came downstairs for a small walk and accidentally fell asleep in the chair. Ron did not quite believe her, but when she shot a pointed look at Harry, he did not ask.

It was only when she thought about her detention later that evening that she remembered the empty room in the reflection. She excused herself from the Gryffindor table, leaving Harry to stare at a full plate and Ron to stuff his face. She shook her head as she compared their coping techniques--if Harry was even trying to cope at all. She was concerned for him, but pushing him like she had last year clearly had not worked, not if he had gone so out of control that his Occlumency lessons were abandoned altogether and he felt compelled to lie to her. She did not want him to lie to her again.

She glared at Mrs. Norris as she headed toward the trophy room. Mrs. Norris glared right back in the disdainful, bored way that only cats and Malfoy seemed to accomplish. But she was not doing anything wrong, so Mrs. Norris could not report her or anything. Not that it would stop her if the nosy cat got it into her head to cause trouble. Hermione dismissed Mrs. Norris and focused on the trophy room. She would have to polish the wood of the case later, but that should be as easy as polishing the glass if Filch did not purposely sabotage her efforts.

At the entrance of the trophy room, she paused. Maybe it was just a trick plate, not really anything. Maybe she had just been driven to fatigue when she saw it. Maybe she had been hallucinating.

Maybe her subconscious was just looking for a way for her to ignore the plate and walk back to the dinner table, back to the semblance of normalcy in the midst of a war.

The sudden aversion, an impediment to knowledge that usually would have Hermione sparkling with the prospect of something new to learn, put her on high alert. If she felt like this, then the plate must be something important that did not want to be disturbed. Or that was so important that something else was warning her.

That was it, she had to investigate. If Harry was a zombie, she had to make the rash decisions for him. Squaring her shoulders, she approached the display case that held the trophy plate. It was not an empty room anymore. Her own reflection was still absent, but now there was a person sitting in the middle of the room, incanting.

There was a boy. From what she could see of him, he had dark hair in a longish cut that would be old-fashioned in her day and age, and his back was so straight, as though he thought he would be whipped if he slouched. He was not holding a wand. It was set beside him, parallel to his body. His hands were outstretched, and she could see the contours of his jaw and cheekbones shift, so he must be doing Intangible casting. It was not quite wandless magic, which Hermione was almost sure not even Dumbledore could do. Intangibles still worked through a wand, but the wizard or witch did not have to actually handle the wand in order for the magic to flow through it. There were few spells that were Intangible, and Hermione's eyebrows rose in admiration as a beam of light shot down over him, creating a red-gold halo.

The boy started to convulse, and Hermione tensed. How could she go to him? She looked behind her. No boy. What was it that she was seeing? The boy collapsed onto his back, and she could see his face. He was handsome, well sculptured like his hands. Pale, with dark eyes that were wide as he bit his lips against the obvious pain he was feeling. He looked older than she, maybe seventeen or eighteen. He had a Head Boy badge pinned to the lapel of his school robes--his Hogwarts robes! Her eyes widened. This was not a Head Boy of her time. This was not Ernie Macmillan by any means. Ernie was not this good-looking and not nearly this powerful. She was almost more transfixed than she was worried for a moment. When his seizure stopped and he slumped on the dirty floor, her worry returned, and she peered earnestly to ascertain whether his Intangible had been too draining. For a wizard with less than a certain amount of power, an Intangible could kill. She waited with bated breath for movement.

She let out a sigh of relief when his arm twitched, and he blinked. She jerked away. It was like his eyes had connected with hers, but when she cautiously approached the plate again, he was not looking at her anymore. He was rubbing his head, looking around with a self-satisfied grin on his face. He retrieved his wand and stood up. Hermione was in awe. Seeing him from the front was better than from the back. Like Dumbledore when he was furious, he radiated power like heat. Hermione would not be surprised if she was drooling down the glass that she had just recently cleaned. Intangible also required a great deal of discipline, and so many wizards did not know about them. This wizard was clearly intelligent--he was Head Boy, and he knew of obscure spells that required a great deal of power. This was an ideal boy. Not like Ron.

She winced as she remembered the fevered snog in the train compartment. They had both frozen with their tongues still intertwined and pulled away. It was just... wrong. It felt good, but it was... wrong. It was like she was kissing someone in third year. But this boy... definitely a seventh year, definitely someone who knew what he was doing. Of course, he could have no social life, but looking at him... how could anyone resist that eye candy?

Okay, maybe it was easy to say while she had a space of time between them. She knew that this was a different time--probably past, or else the vision would be a bit blurrier. If he were in her time, she would bet that she would not even notice him. It was sort of like her secret crush on Cary Grant. If he actually walked up to her, she would dismiss him, treat him like a normal human being, like Ron or someone--but watching him on screen, she could giggle and fantasize all she liked. That was what she was doing now. But still... Head Boy and looking like that....

His eyes passed over the case again, and her heart skipped a beat when his eyes seemed to focus on hers. But he did not react, so she suspected it was once again a product of a cursory glance. Still smiling surreptitiously--and deliciously--he exited the room.

"Oh look, my pretty," Filch murmured to his cat, loud enough for Hermione to give a little shriek and jump away from the glass as though she had been doing something naughty. "Someone is ready for her next detention."

He threw her a container of wood polish with a rag tied around it. "Enjoy," he said, smiling nastily. Hermione wrinkled her nose and complied. When she finally came to the trophy case with the plate, the room in the reflection was empty again.

---

When she was let out, again around eleven at night, she was atremble with excitement. She could not possibly keep this to herself. Of course, Ron and Harry would not understand the significance and complexities of Intangibles, but she could brush over it by telling them that it was difficult. They could understand something that simple. But this was too strange, too wild not to tell them. Maybe it would bring them out of the rut of self-pity that they both seemed to fall into in their own ways.

But she found them rowing. Over her.

"If you still like her, why don't you grab her and snog her in a broom closet and stop annoying me with your bloody moaning?" Harry sniped.

"Look, mate, you weren't there when I did grab her and snog her in a train compartment. You were sulking in another compartment, but it just didn't work. I'm not moaning about not having a girlfriend. I'm moaning about the fact that she hasn't been talking to us. I'm moaning about the fact that you don't care and are pushing us away."

"I've an easy right to sulk. I owe myself the opportunity to sulk, mope, skulk, and just wait for someone to come after me, trying to kill everyone that I care about to get to me," Harry said.

"Harry, contrary to popular belief, not everything is about you! Hermione's never been this quiet with us. It's like she doesn't need us. And it's more than not needing us around. She's lying to us. She's lying to us about what she does at night. I don't know whether it's something that I need to worry about, but I do because she feels that she needs to lie to us." Ron paused. "Or maybe she just feels like she needs to lie to you so that you don't explode in her face."

"I wouldn't explode in her face!" Harry shouted. "She can come to me at any time without me exploding in her face!"

"Sure, Harry," Ron said. "I'm going upstairs. Maybe Hermione can come to me if she needs to talk. I hope she doesn't come to you if you're going to explode in her face. And I suggest you take a look at what you're doing and what's happening... then get over it. You've still got people who are here and who care about you. We're growing up. Maybe you should join us. Good night."

Hermione knew better than to walk in, and she sat outside the portrait hole for about ten minutes, running over the five ways to clean a ruined potion. She found potions oddly relaxing when she was not in Snape's classroom with that bat breathing down her neck. That bloody bat.

When had Ron become so mature?

After she thought she had let enough time simmer, she sneaked through the portrait hole. Harry did not see her--she was glad--and she headed up to the sixth-year boys' dormitory.

"Ron," she whispered through the open door. She heard snoring from Ron's bed, an indistinct murmur, something about a 'baby ship.' Hermione stifled a smile and a touch of disappointment. She closed the door and went to her own dormitory to do homework without having to confront Harry. He would have to work through his problem alone.

---

Tapestry cleaning today. She would be in there until after midnight, she knew--with Filch's rickety ladder and special fabric solution and his annoying, beady eyes looking for something wrong with her technique just so that he could drive her absolutely crazy. She would not be able to look into the trophy plate during the detention, so she would have to go after her afternoon Potions class.

Harry was in the class with her, and they sat next to each other and everything, but they did not talk. Hermione noticed that he kept glancing her way. Maybe he had thought about what Ron said, but Hermione was going to let him make the first move--she would wait until he was ready. Of course, it may have something to do with the fact that he found her in the common room that morning, dealing out a game of solitaire with Parvati's Tarot cards. Like Snape, he woke her up like he shouldn't, but unlike Snape, he did not berate her for it, just asked if she was okay. She lied and said it was a childhood thing that was probably coming back with hormones. Harry could tell she lied, but he did not say anything else. Just let her.

She wished he wouldn't.

Snape was his usual snarky self, but he did slip her a Dreamless Sleep potion when no one was looking. She did not even notice until she went to the trophy room and reached into her bookbag to return the quill. She lifted the vial to the light, still baffled that Snape would do such a thing, even if he was a part of the Order and a spy for the Light. He was supposed to hate her. And maybe he did. She did not know what to think of it, but she was perfectly prepared to take the potion later that night. Maybe a dreamless sleep would keep her from sleepwalking.

Unfortunately, the trophy room in the reflection was empty again. She peered more closely.

Then screamed.

His eyes, his dark, deep eyes were right there, staring into hers. She jumped back about a foot, but the face did not move from the plate. The boy smiled at her, the same surreptitious smile he had when he left the room yesterday. Hermione stared back, still a measure away from the glass. The boy lifted his hand and beckoned her forward with a finger.

She paused, but she edged toward the trophy case. She could see him laugh.

He held up a piece of parchment on which he had written: My name is Tom. Who are you?

Hermione fell to her knees and began rummaging through her bookbag for the quill she had replaced, an ink bottle, and a sheet of parchment. She started writing frantically on the parchment.

My name is Jane.

She knew better than to give her real name to an unknown person, especially after the Riddle diary fiasco. She was not prepared to completely reveal her identity and everything about her life just because a good-looking boy from the past asked her.

This is strange, isn't it? he wrote.

When did you discover it? she wrote back.

When I saw your face yesterday. I hoped that you would come back around the same time. You realize what this is?

A time window is coming to mind, she said. But that's me making up a name. Is there an official name?

Time window is appropriate. I've never read anything about this. He was grinning now, and he wrote quickly, Wish we could talk properly. This could get old quickly.

Hermione found herself smiling back. No one you know has a Dictaquill, do they?

He looked confused.

Hermione winced and wrote, Must not be around when you are.

The confusion on his face turned pensive. He sat on the ground to write something a bit more lengthy and thought-out. He held it up to the plate. She read: If you aren't from my time or close, you have to be from the future. This means that we have to be careful, don't we? With time and everything. In fact, maybe we should just walk away from this.

Hermione just wrote against the case. You're right. This could be dangerous. Something wrong could be said. I've already revealed the Dictaquill. But I do want to ask you one question that has nothing to do with what time you're in: Where did you learn how to do an Intangible?

His eyebrows rose. Where did you hear about them?

I read about them.

In Forces of Will?

She wrote frantically, excited that someone had read it. Yeah, and have you read

She stopped writing as she realized that publication was later than Forces of Will. She crossed the words out and just rewrote Yeah.

Time mistake?

She nodded.

I have a question for you that is time related. Can I ask? You don't have to answer.

She nodded again.

Is the Dark Lord Voldemort reigning in your time?

Hermione's heart stopped. She backed away from the plate, slowly and carefully.

Tom Riddle, she mouthed. He raised an eyebrow, and his relaxed face hardened as though it had turned to stone. Stay away from here.

He held up the parchment that was now almost covered in his unnaturally neat writing. Don't be afraid of me. I am not someone for you to be afraid of.

She wrote in large letters on the other side of her parchment about four feet away from the plate. Why not? You know who you are. I'm not entirely sure why you're asking, but I'm not going to talk to you anymore.

But you know about the Intangibles. No one else seems to know about them. He was writing up against the glass. The neatness of the hand was made spiky in haste, and Hermione spared him the minute. You apparently know who I am. I don't know how, but it means that I'm someone that has made an impact. I've done what I wanted to do. But I want to talk to you. Not as Voldemort. I'm just Tom. That's all that I wanted. I'm glad you know me. I don't know exactly what that means to you. But I like the way you look, I like the way you think, and I like the way you smile. I'm a human boy, Jane. I don't know when you are. You know when I am. You're the one with the power here. All I can do is talk. All I want to do is talk. Please. I'm powerful, Jane. But I can't do anything through this plate if you're an age away. I want to know you.

I don't want to know you, she wrote simply. This needs to stop now.

You'll never meet anyone like me. And you know it.

Hermione paused in her effort to return her writing materials to her bookbag. Instead, she grabbed a new sheet of parchment and began to write. She nearly broke the quill. Yes, I know you. And I can't do this. You're a charmer and an evil person, and I don't want to know you like you want to know me. Sure, you're intelligent. Sure, you're powerful, but you're no one I want to know. And I'm stopping this now.

She let her parchment drop, and she approached the trophy case. With a deft Alohomora, she opened the case. Hermione took the plate in hand, prepared to dash it upon the floor. Tom's mouth opened in a silent yell.

Something pulled at the navel and everything went dark.

She found herself in the trophy room with the plate in her hand. She stared up in horror at Tom Riddle, large as life, and five times more handsome. He was smiling now.

"I didn't know the plate was a Portkey or that it was time-keyed," Tom Riddle said. "But welcome to my world, Jane. But that's not your name, is it? Because you know better than to give me your real name."

Hermione was speechless. "I need to... I need to get back... you... I... you can't..."

"Sometimes an Intangible Legilimens is useful, Hermione." Tom reached over and stroked her hair. "I think we'll have plenty of long talks, and you'll like me, Hermione. I have great dreams, and you know all about them. You've fought against me, but you don't have to fight against me now. I am no threat to you."

"But," she started. Her voice was caught as she saw his utterly innocent face that she knew was not innocent, even now. But he was not really Voldemort, and there was a bit of human decency there still. She could see it. But... he was going to become Voldemort. She had to get back now. If only he would stop looking at her like that, like she was one of the best things that could happen to him just because she knew about the Intangibles.

And he knew about the Intangibles. And understood them. And used them.

Yes, Hermione," he said softly, making her tremble, and not entirely in fear, "we'll have a wonderful time together."