Even the Stars Can Be Moved

It was better to bring the girl to Grindelwald than to bother going through complicated networks to see an action taken on what he realized looking into the Pensieve. Grindelwald, unlike many dictators, rewarded positive displays of individual action. And besides, he would avoid Bellonia Zabini's interference this way. She might be deluded by egotism, but she also had a knack for spotting important matters, which is how she had managed to rise so quickly in the ranks. So Knauss began almost immediately to put out his feelers and approach people to take part in a covert mission of his. Since he was a free agent organizer who could only hint at connections rather than proffer them, it would take a bit longer than usual to come to fruition. And those he involved wouldn't be of a terrifically high caliber. But Mione Potter was, after all, only a girl.

*

"Yes, Tom?"

"The rule of triples states that recurrent arithmantic equations draw from three active sectors of magic, with the arithmantic sector playing a synthesizing role."

"Very good," Hermione responded, with a hint of a sigh in her voice and the consequent of her statement trailing behind in her thoughts: as always. Since she had taken over the majority of O'Bleeke's classes, Tom had become the most vocal of the students, and she couldn't help notice that his increased participation directly followed what she referred to in her thoughts as the incident. He was engaging her in some way, daily, now, but not at a high enough rate or in such a manner that would warrant a confrontation. He'd read her extremely well on that account. Nor was he being an annoyance. He hadn't spoken to her in a way that hinted at the slightest that he'd kissed her full on the lips a mere week ago. Instead, he'd draw her into conversation about some intellectual topic--having read her well there as well--in a manner befitting the relation of a student and a staff member. And each time they spoke, he made full, intense eye contact with her, which she didn't seem to be able to break until he so chose. It was... disturbing was the way she forced herself to qualify it.

Hermione wrote examples of each of the possible combinations utilizing the rule of triples and asked the students to write an essay predicting the results of each that night. She still hadn't broken herself of the habit of posing questions to the class. That always inevitably led to the raised hand of a certain dark-haired Slytherin.

She spent the last of her class delivering a bit of historical context to recurrent equations, and then pardoned the class for lunch. She set to gathering her papers and books and lastly, turned to the board and set a cleansing charm on it. She watched the cloth arc lazily over the board, willing the tension from running the class under less than ideal circumstances to seep out, somehow. Pendrake Malfoy and his silent threats sat at the same table as Tom, after all. A throat cleared behind her, startling her, and she turned quickly, only to find the dark-haired component of her troubles standing before her. Once her eyes met his dark, hooded ones they were, as usual, unable to stray away. She swallowed.

"Is it absolutely necessary for you to stay after?" she demanded in a weary voice.

A ghost of a smile, so transparent she couldn't be sure it was there, played about his lips. "Certainly, Miss Potter. You see, I was hoping to borrow the geodoscope for a project of mine."

She folded her arms. "And what project is that?"

"I was hoping to develop a bit of data for my thesis."

"Which is?"

"The role of geodisic lines in equations supplementing locator spells."

Locator spells. Funny how she could've used his insight months ago, to help her out of a situation he would be responsible for. Whatever god watched over time travel had a demented sense of humor. She didn't share it.

"No," she replied after a moment, with a tinge of wonderment to the pronouncement stemming from the fact that she was able to say it at all to the boy--for he was still that--in front of her.

If his face betrayed surprise, it was slight. "Is there any reason for you to deny me the use of the geodoscope?"

"Because," she answered evenly, "I share Professor Dumbledore's distrust of your every action. This is well-trod ground by now, Mr. Riddle, and I'm sure it's wearisome for us both to repeat the discussion." If only she were able to break away from that uncanny stare of his, she was sure her words would have more impact.

"I don't remember discussing it at all, Miss Potter."

"Broaching the subject is close enough to discussion for me when it comes to you."

"Making it a bit personal, aren't we?"

"Funny accusation of you to make, isn't it?"

That ghost of a smile returned to his lips again, but Tom was silent. He merely returned her attempted glare with an impassive look, and his eyes were very dark under the dark arches of his eyebrows, and she was standing close enough to see his eyelashes, which were girlishly long. They seemed an improper sort of thing for an evil person to have. And then the pale lips parted and he whispered, "Finally."

Unbidden, her hand raised a bit, as if she was attempting to steady herself. It stopped heart-level, as she came to herself. "Don't," she whispered back, and dropped the hand to her desk, and physically pushed herself from it and whatever it was that seemed to lock her to him. The look was finally broken. "I don't know what you're doing or why you're doing it, but don't." There was heat on her cheeks as she said it. She knew she was blushing. She knew she shouldn't be blushing. "Or to put it more precisely, I don't know to what exact end you're doing it, but I know there is an end." She slung her bag over her shoulder, not bothering to see if she'd left anything on the desk, and left the room as quickly as she could.

She didn't feel completely in control of herself. She'd never expected to be in such close contact with the person her mission concerned, after all, and she'd never expected him to try anything like this tactic on her. It wasn't as though she was about to go swooning all over him and reveal all her secrets, but the discomfort and tension from whatever game he was playing was certainly having an unhelpful effect on her.

If she'd decided to look back towards Tom as she left the room and made her way down the hall, she would have seen him smiling a real smile.

*

More than ever, when Tom went to the Founders' section of the library, he wished himself able to pull Rowena Ravenclaw's books from the shelves. He didn't particularly need any more of old Salazar's volumes. Something about being so close to the founders felt simultaneously comforting and elevating, as though he was absorbing the heat of some great power. As he scanned the familiar shelves, he found himself wondering if Mione would be able to pull Ravenclaw's books from the shelves.

Of course, she would never do so at his prompting; that much was established by her demeanor towards him. For some reason, he found that he enjoyed their little confrontations, was satisfied by her need to push against him. Why would she feel the need to push if she felt nothing, if she wasn't concerned with him at all? That motive he'd glimpsed earlier, that Mione's purpose at Hogwarts somehow concerned him, had twined with his fascination of her, so that they were nearly the same thing. He wanted to find out everything she was hiding, and she was compelled to hide. It was a perfect battle for him.

The Formation of Identities caught his eye. He had seen the volume many times before, but it had never seemed to fit his studies or research needs. Well, perhaps it would do for a bit of light reading. What with Mione's refusal to grant him the geodoscope. And he had been so hoping to investigate the secret location of the fabled Sorcerer's Stone. Just as a lark, of course. He did crave immortality, but did not crave a dependence on a substance to provide it. It was a weakness, dependence. He refused to think of how his feelings towards Mione might verge towards exactly that.

He scanned through the table of contents. Chapter One: Identity of Self and Other. Chapter Two: Fiction or Fact. Chapter Three: Formation and Destruction of the Self. This last caught his eye and he flipped to it. Earlier in his career his perfectionism had driven him to read every single word of every book he lay his hands on, since you never did know what may or may not be of consequence. But there was only so much one could read, after all, so he had let himself be guided by instinct more and more, reading chapters that seemed to be of use here and there. The book's chapters seemed to be divided in halves, each being an enumeration of some opposite sides of a topic. The first half, on Formation, was concerned in the main with the formation of an individual's identity of himself. It was described as a manipulation of the self in order to make it strive farther than it would, left to its own recourse. Tom skimmed this.

The half concerning the destruction of a self was nothing short of riveting. The destruction of a self never concerned oneself; always another. It seemed Salazar had constructed a spell that was equal parts Avada Kedavada and Obliviate, in its application. Essentially, it was a way to get away with murder. You could kill someone and make everyone forget they had ever existed. So convenient, really. However, you had to know everyone you were dealing with, in such a spell's situation. If a powerful individual knew of the person's existence, you would have to be very careful to ensure that the spell worked on them.

Tom couldn't help but think of his father, and how nice it would be if no one knew of his existence, and the paperwork that proved it. He also couldn't help but think of Dumbledore, and how he was surely powerful enough and wary enough to detect such a going on.

*

Alicia folded the letter from Mr. Knauss, uncle Knauss, as he insisted, and put it in the pocket of her blue robes. He was an influential old family friend, connected with the French Ministry. He had promised her a position there at her father's funeral. He'd seen a precocious child and made her a promise to secure her potential. He always said she would go far. And he hated Bellonia as much as she did. They knew she was indirectly responsible for her father's death. The name Black Widow had started floating around sometime after her father's death, not long after her second husband, and then she had married Zabini, the new money plebe. A slight to the name of Silversmith. And at the time that it came at, just on the cusp of the Silversmith line. Alicia was the last. Everyone had expected her father to produce more that her, but Bellonia had got to him first. The worst thing about it was, the witch had gotten the Pensieve, one of the more valuable family heirlooms, and Alicia's favorite. Alicia planned to get it back, someday, if it was the last thing she did. Alicia had a feeling Uncle Knauss knew about the Pensieve. Everyone seemed to know about Bellonia killing Alicia's father, but Bellonia Zabini got away with bloody murder in the corrupt French Ministry.

Now Uncle Knauss wanted to know about Mione Potter. How he had gotten wind of her, Merlin knew. Or Dumbledore. They did seem to be chummy. It's not like Alicia didn't know why he'd want to know about her. She'd been at the confrontation in Alsace. Perhaps they were going to send someone over to assassinate her. Alicia wondered if Mione was that dangerous. Well, she was going to meet her, she'd write Uncle back afterwards.

She found a table at the library five minutes before Mione was due, and used her notes to look over the particularly divine proof of Earn's that became a supplement to Almer's Theorem. Learning, to her, was like eating cuisine, lingering over certain foods and creating them over and over again to suit your taste. She read less than she could, but she read well, often memorizing lengths of passages. She would do well to specialize.

Mione seemed the opposite. She showed evidence of having done exceptionally well in everything. Word was she got every Newt except for Divination, and Divination was more often than not utter tripe. She wondered whether or not it was coincidence that Tom Riddle and Uncle Knauss seemed to think this girl was important. Although it could just mean that the girl actually was important.

Alicia was lost in contemplating the proof, as one contemplates a detailed piece of art, and Hermione had fully set a place before Alicia noticed her. "Oh," said Alicia. "Hello."

"Where are we?" Hermione asked. She looked harassed, hair escaping and curling everywhere. She had a black quill stuck in her hair and apparently forgotten. "I've just spent the whole day arguing with O'Bleake."

"Um, we were discussing functions."

"Oh, yes, right. Let's have a bit of a talk about the theoretical background to ease us into the more technical bits."

"Fine by me," Alicia replied. She'd noticed Mione seemed rabid on theory. Theory was nice, if vague. And Mione always linked it up to the technical bits anyway. They had a pleasant discussion about it, flipping through textbooks to clarify and expound. That was the thing about theory. You could discuss. When it came to technique, you had to go through the whole thing before you really felt it polite to respond.

Alicia watched the girl as she began to get into the technical bits. Her eyes were intent, focused on something that wasn't there. Her eyes had that intent, distant look to them almost always, she realized. Although none of her features was particularly beautiful or unique, they added up to a quite pretty, youthful face, which often wore expressions that were unsuited to it. The hair could distract from or enhance the face, depending on how you felt about the hair. It was wild, utterly unlike the thoroughly organized, intent girl who wore it.

"I can see why Tom likes you."

Hermione cut off in the middle of her explanation, eyes wide in surprise, her face startled into its innate youthfulness. "What?"

Alicia pressed on, thinking of Tom's request and Uncle Knauss's. She might glean something yet. "No one would dare say it, but it seems obvious enough to me."

"No-" her lips were quirking up in a smile. "That's not it at all. It's just that he's an overly curious boy who's decided he had things to find out about me."

"And why would he decide that, if there was nothing to recommend it?"

"How should I know?" Hermione sighed. "Anyway, you know more about it than I do, and you seem thick with those Slytherin boys. Whatever it is you're all playing at, I don't care to be involved."

Alicia looked at her steadily. "You can believe it or not. Tom is famous for being as inaccessible as he is. He's taken no girl, and he's certainly handsome enough to have a wide choice in it. It says something about you, that he's only ever shown an interest in you."

"Whatever it says, I'm not sure it's what I would regard as complimentary."

Alicia raised a pale eyebrow skeptically at this. "It is certainly better to speak of studies than of matters such as these. Do forgive the nearness to gossip. However, I feel it strategically good to acknowledge his... oh, curiosity about you... And you can't fool me that you aren't attracted to him."

Heat had actually started bursting onto Hermione's cheeks. She felt the way she felt when a bully had picked a fight with her in kindergarten, adrenaline rushing in a rather debilitating way, along with the sheer embarrassment of simply being confronted. It wasn't that she precisely admitted to any attraction, but it was wrong enough to make her feel incredibly guilty about, even if it turned out not to be true. Which she was entirely uncertain about.

"Well?" said Alicia. "You were saying about the constituents of Almer's function?"

"Erm, yes. The thing about them is, the function combines them in such a way as to make them greater than the sum of their parts. And that allowed him to have a set of intersecting functions, which did solve the equation for certain values." She was speaking much more quickly than normal. Alicia was giving her a slightly puzzled look. "Should I write down how it plays out?"

"I'm just wondering how the intersections work."

By the end of the session, they had gone through three types of functions and the proofs they appeared in fully. Mione stayed half an hour later than she had planned, and then took off at an absolutely rushed pace. Only then did Alicia unfold the letter from Uncle Knauss. She looked it over and started to pen a reply back to him.

"Uncle- I shouldn't wonder that you wish to know of Mione Potter," she began.

*

Whenever Harry or Ron had needed Hermione, they had always looked for her in the library. It continued to be her favorite haunt, so she supposed it shouldn't be surprising that anyone who paid the least bit of attention to her whereabouts would know to wait for her coming to or going fro in her frequent excursions to the library. She had just put in a good night's work researching binding spells--they still hadn't figured out how to bind the Time Machine spatiotemporally to the Forbidden Forest--when a pair of cold hands dragged her roughly into a closet. The same one she'd hidden in with Harry when they'd gone back for Buckbeak and Sirius. Only now it wasn't Harry's face half-hidden in shadows, but Pendrake Malfoy's.

"Are you even trying to find a way to relinquish Tom Riddle's hold over me?" He seethed, suddenly altogether too close for her liking. She didn't answer. In truth, she hadn't really. "Have you forgotten the price you must pay for every indignity I suffer?"

"No," she replied carefully. "I haven't."

"Do you know what he did? And in front of everyone? In front of my peers?"

"How would I?"

He glared at her for a moment, calculations hidden in the shallows of his gray eyes. The left corner of his mouth quirked. "Shall I show you? Like for like, after all."

"No," she whispered, but he had her robes fisted in either hand already, and he brought them apart so her robes tore apart violently. Hermione stumbled and tried to escape the small enclosure, but Pendrake had her robes still caught in his hands, and they still had her shoulders and arms in them. The robes barely mattered--a mending spell would fix them, and she had a full skirt and school shirt on underneath, but somehow she still felt exposed. "Let go," she muttered. "Let go!"

"Look at the mudblood squeal," Pendrake whispered. He brought a hand up. This time she didn't duck. She managed to get her left arm out from her robes and had a wand in her hand. And all the time she was thinking he had done it, he'd done that to Pendrake, that he'd probably done worse.

"Stop," she told him, her voice firm. "This isn't getting you anywhere."

"I'm venting my frustrations," he replied. "It's getting me closer to calmness and serenity."

"You're not making me want to help you."

"You'll help me no matter what, Mudblood."

"I am not--" she started.

"You are. You are exactly like Tom Riddle in every upstart way. And you had better understand, you will help me whether you want to or no. You will help me even as I repay you with all that Tom does to me. You will help me if I repay you more. Because if you behave in any way I do not like, my pet will go to him. I assure you."

"I understand perfectly," she replied. She replied the way that she answered an intriguing question in class, putting it together aloud as she fit the pieces together. "You can slap me, and abuse me, and insult me, and even hex me, and I must still do as you say."

Pendrake smiled. "Good, little mudblood."

"This won't stop with Tom. You'll make me do more, things against him. You'll try to use my power."

"Yes." His face was as gleeful as his grandson's when he'd put that tooth-growing spell on her in fourth year.

"There's no way out," she whispered. "There's nothing else I can do."

"Becoming redundant now, aren't we?"

She looked him steadily in the eye, trying for all the life of her to think of another way. She mustn't, but she must. He wouldn't stop, she knew. He might ruin everything, she knew. He might cost her far far more than the price she was about to pay. He might cost her Ron, and Harry. The future. There was no other way, and there was no time.

Her wand was still drawn. "Imperius," she whispered.

She had only ever put Imperius on Ron, and only the once. It was not a dissimilar spell to Legilimens, in that you could discern a bit of a person's mind when you were casting it on them. Only you saw it at a distance, a part at a time, as though you were holding the mind in your hand like a ball, privy to what lay at the surface, what lay open to your perspective. As she saw a blankness descend over Pendrake's face, she saw him sitting with the rest of Tom's lackeys in--was that Grawp's cave? It was, she was sure of it, even though it had been transfigured almost past recognition. Tom was saying he would teach them a new curse that very few others knew of. He would use Malfoy to demonstrate. At first, it was like fourth year's fake Moody with the spider--a carterwhaul, a dance. And then, to the whoops and laughter of Adrian and Jean (Judas maintained a stony silence)--he had Malfoy disrobe down to his drawers. She couldn't help but think of the story Harry had told her about Snape and his father.

"I'm sorry," she said. It was only a half-truth. Her hand had been forced. She didn't want to do this, didn't want to do it at all. For she knew that she couldn't allow him the freedom that Tom had allowed him. It was worse than Tom had done him. Merlin, she was doing something worse than Tom Riddle, something worse than the boy who would become Voldemort. And Merlin forsake her, but she saw the opportunities that lay in what she was doing. She could spy on Tom through Pendrake. She could use Pendrake as he'd tried to use her.

But there were dangers, as well. Surely Tom would be able to understand what the blankness in Pendrake's eyes meant. Surely he wasn't done casting Imperius on him. Hermione bit her lip and leveled her wand at his eyes. A slight glamour about the eyes rid them of the blankness. She would have to be on guard with the danger Tom presented. She could finite the spell easily enough, even if it was from a distance, and she'd have to be sure to do it at exactly the moment Tom cast his own spell. But she had to see Pendrake in order to recast it. This meant she'd have to get to wherever they were before Tom was finished giving Malfoy his lessons, and hopefully in such a way that Tom didn't know she was there. Thank goodness for the Invisibility cloak on that account. Still, it didn't do much if all the doors were closed, wherever they were. Perhaps she could drill peepholes in all the likeliest places. Her mind ran ahead, assessing all possible risks and all the possible countermoves, never letting her retreat back to the realization that she'd just cast another Unforgivable, that she had compromised Pendrake's freedom and life utterly, that she had just done something worse than Tom.

Or that she was becoming more and more entwined in the affairs of the person she had come back in time at great risk to kill. To do another unforgivable thing.

*

It looked as though she would also have to break herself of the habit of wandering the halls of Hogwarts so late into the night, Hermione thought. There was no doubt as to who the dimly lit figure at the other end of the hall was. It was the height, she told herself, that made her recognize him so quickly, and with so little hesitation despite the lack of light. Or the smooth, floating movement of his limbs. There was a moment where she thought she'd turn back, fly to the library and sleep there until such an hour as no one, not even the Head Boy, would be up. She knew how to undo all the wards, after all. But no, that was foolish. She'd just have to get out the Maurauder's Map and find a way to charm it to respond to this time--it had been blank since her advent into 1943, unlike the Defense Diagram. Then she could avoid Tom Riddle except for those times when it was unavoidable, such as when she taught class. Hermione squared her shoulders and made her way down the hall briskly, determined to avoid any sort of eye contact or exchange of pleasantries. Even if he offered one.

She committed the dark figure to her peripheral vision, determinedly staring straight ahead. She noted his advance. His face was indiscernible still, owing to its fixed place in the periphery of her vision. She looked more towards the wall, envisioning the Ravenclaw entrance. It was just around the corner, but seemed an unbearably long way away even so. Her skin was prickling. She gave a frustrated internal sigh. He wasn't the dark lord yet, for Merlin's sake. There was no reason for him to have this effect on her. She could feel him getting closer, feel the pull of eyes she was sure were looking her way. She almost couldn't bear it, and her heart seemed to be skipping beats that she needed. Pull yourself together, Hermione, she told herself. She'd been in a war, hadn't she? Surely she could manage to walk past Tom Riddle in a secluded hallway without having some ridiculous sort of nervous breakdown. Was he next to her now, or had he begun to pass? All she knew was that he was close, too close.

And she looked over just to make sure he'd gone by her by now. But he hadn't. He was looking straight ahead, but before she could do the same his eyes flicked towards her and caught. Her heart gave a great, unhelpful leap. She clutched her hand in a fist. Ludicrous, this was absolutely ludicrous, her mind insisted. The shadows seemed to fall across his face perfectly, making his face an unreal mask. Her fist unfolded and rose to her heart, clutching at a span of mended robes that lay across it. She turned away, quickly, and hurried down the rest of the hall, past that damned corner, and there was the Ravenclaw entrance, which had never seemed the sort of sanctuary it did now. She leaned against it, and slumped to the floor, adrenaline coursing through her veins and that unreal mask and those eyes stubbornly set in the forefront of her mind. It was a good while before she managed to say the password and get herself to her room.

*

He always offered her lemondrops, Dumbledore did. Hermione wondered if he thought she'd developed some sort of taste for them. Really, she just took them out of a sort of combined nervousness and gentility. It could have just as easily been a sugarquill. But Dumbledore, being the overobservant man he was, always offered her a lemondrop. He'd called her to this meeting for the first time in weeks. She hadn't seen Dumbledore at all except for mealtimes. She was fairly sure, that for him to call her, he must have figured a way to fold Tom back in time. After that, they only had to finish the time machine. And then, she couldn't help thinking, she would bring Tom to Harry. For Harry to kill. But also for her to kill, in bringing him to his fate. At this point in her thoughts, sitting in the quite comfortable couch in his office, Dumbledore offered her another lemondrop.

"How do you do, Miss Potter?" At this, Dumbledore winked and tapped the air with his wand. It was an extra spell that he enacted whenever they spoke on privileged information. She wasn't entirely certain what logic it had. He would do better to keep those sort of charms up all the time. Perhaps he wanted people to think he didn't have defenses up. It might even be like him to do just such a thing. "Miss Potter?" Dumbledore repeated.

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Are you troubled?"

"Constantly," she replied drily.

"Yes," Dumbledore stood a moment. "I must admit that I question what we are doing. I question it very much. It seems, though, that the end justifies the mean. It is only under such very extreme circumstances as these that we feel we must commit a horrible act to prevent a still more horrible act. In this case," he continued to himself, "a series of them."

"Professor Dumbledore..." she began, tentatively. "Do you think, perhaps, that we are changing time? Or, more in particular, me? It seems hard to see why my presence wouldn't... perhaps unmake the future."

"There is a spell," said Dumbledore. "As there always is. In this case, it is a very old one from Australia. You know they have the Dreamtime over there. They have had great fun playing with time, In Australia. This spell enables one to go back in time, and in such a way that the past doesn't change, but the future does. And it, the future, often exhibits the changes the person's impact really would have made in time. But when the subject returns, the past returns to its original telling."

"What if I--killed someone?"

"Miss Granger," said Dumbledore, in a mock grave voice, "You must really tell me if you are thinking of doing such a thing."

"No, it's just... do you see my point?

"You must strive to keep things in a sort of balance. There are things you should not do. Where I think of them, I have given you warning."

"Yes, Professor Dumbledore," she said at last, feeling not at all satisfied. "What was the name of that spell?"

"Om Dolg."

"Funny name," she replied, filing the words away in her head. "What does it do, exactly?"

"That is for me to know and for you to find out. Learning shouldn't be made easy, don't you agree?"

She did, in a way, but certainly not about this. She shifted a bit, stretched her legs. Dumbledore offered her another lemondrop. Fawkes made a little croak from his perch. "Have you found a way to do it, then?" Hermione whispered, looking down at her lap.

"I assume you are referring to the process of folding Tom back in time."

"Yes, I have."

Hermione nodded.

"Imagine if we were to make the Time Machine send Tom to both the future and the past at the same time? Then the self sent to the past would relive it, in such a way that he did need to go forward into the future."

"And--that self would go on to become Voldemort, wouldn't he?"

"Well, in a way, it doesn't matter, because of Om Dolg. However, it is quite possible that we are destined never to change the future by going into the past, and all such doings merely bring about what will happen no matter what."

"Yes," Hermione sighed. "We'll never quite know, will we? It's the sort of thing we couldn't know."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "I do like life's little mysteries," he said. "And surprises, I like even more."

"So" she said. Have you any idea of how to fix the Time Machine to do such a thing?"

"I do have a shrewd idea or two."

"Oh," she said.

"I assure you, Miss Granger, I will do my utmost to help you accomplish the mission my future self has sent you on."

This prompted a smile, but also she felt like crying. They were coming to the last steps before she had to kill a boy who had kissed her and gone on to kill her parents. In one possible future. In which it had happened to her. "I don't want to do this," she said.

Dumbledore watched her, carefully, for a moment or two. "You should understand something about Tom, Miss Granger. You may see the poison in him, but there are many kinds of poisons that are sweet."

"He never seems sweet," Hermione.

"Good then" Dumbledore replied, and offered her another lemondrop.

*

"Oh, surely you want this, Mr. Borgin," came Hepzibah Smith's treacly voice. "I know you'll pay good money for my little trinket."

"I refuse to grant you anything other than the standard price unless you give up one of your more useful baubles."

The wide face creased into a smile, and the odd mixture of vileness and blankness in her eyes didn't change. Ms. Smith was possibly, Borgin thought, the most loathsome creature on earth. Everybody knew she had more treasures than even the Malfoys, but all she did was dangle some paltry little trinket in front of his nose, grabbing bigger prices than they deserved because of the promise of her treasure. Then she bought up all of his most interesting merchandise before he had a chance to show it around the clientele. And Lord knew Burkes was maniacal about the clientele.Well, Borgin was just about done playing things the slow and plodding Helga Hufflepuff way.

"Now now, Mr. Borgin," she said, waving a fat finger in front of his nose. "You know I like kind and gentle people to take care of my treasures. I need to audition you with the little pieces before I can show you the really interesting things."

"I'm beginning to doubt there's anything interesting about you at all."

Hepzibah's drooping and several jaws set to working a bit at this.

The doorbells announced the arrival of an interruption to an argument that Borgin had been sure he was going to enjoy. Dash the woman, if she wouldn't help his business. But it was Mr. Knauss, and the last time he had come in he had been with that Bellonia woman, and Borgin definitely wanted to be on her good side.

"Al!" Hepzibah fairly shrieked, running over to him.

Knauss brought her hand up to his lips perfunctorily and gave her a grin. "How do you do, my dear Hep?" He stood. "How very efficient it is, finding the both of you here."

"And why is that, Mr. Knauss?" Borgin asked in a rather overly dignified manner.

*

In the days since she had Imperiused Malfoy, Hermione discovered that she could forcibly hold his mind and doings at length, putting him on a sort of autopilot, which she did when he was in class, having him explain problems away as an earache. But whenever she saw Tom Riddle out of the corner of Pendrake's eye, she readied herself. For what, she wasn't sure, but she wanted to be ready for anything that might go awry. Which it might, with him. So of course she couldn't help but look closer and guide Malfoy's actions more carefully. After all, she had to keep him from being suspicious of Malfoy. So of course, she drifted in as close as ever when Malfoy went with Jean LeStrange and Adrian Avery to the cave. She was so close she could smell the wetness of the winter air, feel a faint cool breath from it. She could feel the ease with which he climbed to the cave. She had done it a million times with Ron, to visit Grawp. No matter what, she was always breathless at the top. Boys had it so much easier than girls.

The inside of the cave was busy and breathtaking, evidencing the skillful work that far exceeded his age. Tom immediately went over to the shelves and tinkered with some of his toys. The three boys stood together in the center of the room, neither sitting nor speaking. It became obvious after a few moments that they were waiting for Judas Rosier. It was despicable how much power Tom wielded over these boys. It was fifteen minutes before he arrived, saying nothing, and sitting on a transfigured chair. Tom remained at the shelves, and waved his hand after a moment so the boys drifted to the chairs beside Rosier. He stayed by the shelves for a good long while, and a tension mounted in the air, everyone's annoyance with Rosier becoming visibly present.

After a while, Tom came to stand in front of them. He held a glove in front of him. It was a moment before Hermione, through Malfoy, saw that he was turning it into different shapes and cuts of glove, of varying shades of white. She noticed he waited until everyone caught it. Then he began to change the shades of the gloves, settling finally on a garish polka-dotted pattern that made a titter go through the group. He looked up at them.

"In order to win anything, anything at all, one must be able to do anything that is required. One must not be hindered by weakness, or ignorance, or moral compunction. Learning Dark Arts as well as the Defense against them opens up one's mind to twice the possibilities. Doing what others will not doubles the chance of overcoming them. One must overcome everyone before they have a chance to overcome you, and one must overcome all possible obstacles before one overcomes others."

He spoke well, and naturally commanded the boys' attention. He gave Judas a significant look before continuing.

He continued, "Judas, did you anticipate that arriving late would yield any obstacles to you?"

"Clearly," said Judas, "you're going to make an obstacle."

"Nonsense," Tom said with a wide, rather terrifying smile. "Actually, I will, but a very light obstacle. Now suppose we had all been talking about transfiguration earlier, and I had been telling everyone that I wanted them to memorize the set of changes I spelled into the gloves and replicate it with their own. Could you do that for me now?"

"No."

"Try." Tom proffered the glove, and after a moment of hesitation, Jude took the glove and changed it into a random white glove. "Wrong," said Tom, and the glove disengaged itself from Judas's hand and gave him a sharp slap in the face. Everyone laughed. Hermione coaxed Malfoy into a roughly similar laugh. And she realized that this was how he held sway over them. He constantly made them laugh at and belittle each other, so that no one was sure of their status.

Seeing the shadows of Tom's future self made her feel less guilty about her ulterior motive in spying on him. Having solved the problem that Pendrake posed, she was now in the position to solve another: how to find out where Harry was taken to when he was taken. The centaurs had told her that the contents to the event lay in Tom's head. Somehow, she thought she would find the answer by spying on him. He looked cold and powerful, standing in front of the other boys with his hands clasped behind his back and shadows sculpting his perfect face. Hermione shivered, and fought to keep the inclination from reaching Pendrake. Holding the Imperius over him was proving to be much more subtle and tiring than she'd anticipated. She had to sleep, and she could only hold a rudimentary Imperius over him then, and she dreamed now of nothing but war, and of evil.

*

Ollie Fletcher was a smooth-haired, shark-smiled con man. You could often find him at the fashionable Flying Horn club, his little boy often with him, learning the trade. Whenever he told anyone the kid's name, Mundungus, he'd explain his sainted wife forced him to name the poor boy after her grandfather. It was, like most of his charms, manufactured for the sympathy it garnered and the innocence it conveyed. No one would have known that he dealt in triple W wands, which expelled users' spells at three times the normal force, to the user's great weariness. He also dealt in illicit potions materials, false snooker balls, and the like. He didn't know anyone who he wasn't getting something from or giving something to, with the exception of his little boy, who was the only thing Ollie ever loved, and that grudgingly. The real mother had been a Muggle waitress, who'd kept him away with threats of financial prosecution and the lack of prenuptuals. She'd got everything, in a word. Even though Ollie had been a shyster for a long time then, he felt very justified about it after her. After all, he was doing it for the kid. Who she'd named Mundungus, of all the names in the world.

They were at the craps table when Monsieur Knauss walked in. Ollie had talked to him maybe three or four times, but Knauss had really saved him at a Muggle poker game he'd played in Paris. Ollie knew he owed Knauss one, and he knew Knauss had come to collect.

*

Judas sat down with Pendrake at the library. Hermione had decided it wasn't too out of form for him to do it at least once a day, and she could keep an eye of him that way. So when Judas sat down next to Pendrake, Hermione didn't have to use the Imperius at all. Except to talk back to Judas, which turned out to be distressing once Judas addressed some sort of plan he and Pendrake had. Which she knew nothing about. When she tried to glean the facts from Malfoy's mind, it turned stubbornly against her, a last vestige of Malfoy's attempt to fight the curse. And then Judas brought out a little black book. It looked very like the one Ginny had written in all through Second Year.

"Yes," she made Malfoy say. "Tom's little black book."

"I can't make it out," said Judas.

"Oh no?"

"But he used it as a diary."

"And you haven't found a way to read what it says?"

"No. You try."

Hermione made Pendrake take it. After all, he should. She concentrated on the area of his mind that was looking at the blank book with a shiny clack cover, terribly familiar from Ginny's descriptions. And she knew just how to make something happen. All she had to do was write something. And before she'd really decided on it, Pendrake was writing in the diary. It was a noncommittal "Hello."

"You," said the diary, the ink appearing in blobs and conforming into letters, and continued, "are not Tom."

"No. And who are you, if you are not Tom?"

"I am not privileged to disclose my secrets."

"By whom?"

"My owner."

"And is that Tom?"

Judas leaned forward and exclaimed, "Clever", and Hermione and Pendrake ignored him. The diary did not answer for a long time, and then it said something softly.

"No." It was in smaller letters than there had been before.

There was nothing else to say. "Then who?" Hermione prompted.

The diary wrote back, "Myself."

"And who are you?"

Another pause. The page sat clear and bland before Pendrake's eyes, and finally, Hermione saw it write, "Lord Voldemort."

Oh. Suddenly, things that didn't make sense before, made sense. The two and one, divided, yet to be united, the thing Uru had hinted at. It was Tom, but it was also the diary. He'd grafted himself to it in a more idealized form. Although it was an idealization that had horrible consequences, she realized.

Then it wrote: "And who are you, little girl?"

Judas laughed. "Blimey, it's an insult book or sommat."

Thank god for idiots, Hermione thought, after an initial moment of panic.

"Never you mind," she wrote.

Something surfaced quickly in the book and disappeared just as quickly. It looked like "Last Chance." And then, quite suddenly, something was pulling at her mind. She realized it was the diary, and already it was too late. The diary had both herself and Pendrake within its grasp. She backed away as quickly as she could, but it wasn't quickly enough.

"It's you," wrote the diary. "You have an Imperius--"

Hermione slammed the book shut, which clearly wasn't the right move. But there was nothing else to do. Technically, she was certainly in a better position than she would have been if that book had just proclaimed that it was Mione Potter, not Pendrake Malfoy, who was doing the Imperiusing. Judas was looking at Pendrake now, a smile stretching wider across his face.

"Well?" he said. "Who is it you've got an Imperius on, then, Pendrake?"

"You think I closed the book because I wanted you to know, Jude?"

Jude made a fist, knuckles crackling in the process. "I could just take the book and open it if I want."

Hermione forced a smirk onto Pendrake's face and made him draw his wand. "And I could turn you into a mongoose if I wanted." Judas backed off at that. Pendrake sat placidly as Hermione ran through all the possible solutions. Better that she satisfy Judas's curiousity before he ran around talking about Pendrake Malfoy and the Imperius curse. "I might as well tell you anyway, if it will make you happy. I do still want your help. But don't you go around running off your mouth, Rosier. All right?"

"Too right," Rosier agreed, looking piqued to get any information at all.

"I put an Imperius on Alicia Silversmith," Pendrake finally said.

"Got the frigid thing to open up, did you?" Judas chuckled.

"No, you pervert, I did it once, under Tom's instruction. Made her behave uncivilly to her roommates, after she refused a bit of information. Made sure it wouldn't be a problem in the future."

Judas chuckled again. "That's a nice one, i'nnit?"

"Yes," Mione made Pendrake say with a bit of relish, "a nice one for a half-blood, you twit..." She made Pendrake tap his lower lip with a quill. "Now, let me think of how we might use this wretched little book best to bring down his lordship." Another smirk. "Lords... who but the muggle-raised use terms like Lord?"

* * *

As much as she would have liked to profess otherwise, Hermione had not read every book within the library she had brought with her back to Tom Riddle's school days. She still aimed to achieve exactly that, however, and was going methodically through the hundred-some unread volumes that made up her light reading list. She knew all of their titles and most of their contents. She wouldn't have thought she missed those volumes pertinent to her interests. However, she had never thought to look at the contents of "Pamphlets of Yesteryear", seeing as it looked to be nothing more than pseudo-political tabloid ranting. It was exactly that, she found, until the third pamphlet within its covers.

The pamphlet certainly had the tone of a paranoid piece about the conspiracy against the purebloods. In it, however, there was a mention of the 1954 deaths of four pureblood scions. Although their deaths were separated by months, the pamphlet contended, they were surely connected. After seeing their names, Hermione couldn't help but think so too, and wonder why no one else had come to the same conclusion.

The first was Pendrake Malfoy, leaving two sons, Lucius and Lyon. The second was Judas Rosier, a few weeks later. He left a girl, Henrietta, and a boy, Evan. The third was Adrian Avery, who married Alicia Silversmith and left her to raise four children alone. The last was Jean LeStrange. Although he had nephews and nieces, he produced no heir.

At last, it made sense. Hermione had wondered how Tom managed to gain such loyalty from the families of boys who seemed to dislike and mistrust him. No one after these four would even know him as Tom Riddle. They would know him solely as Lord Voldemort.

*

Julian LeStrange had found many of his best investors through Monsieur Knauss, so that, when Monsieur Knauss called on him for a bit of tea, he immediately agreed. He knew that Monsieur Knauss was in the French Ministry, and suspected that he was not entirely on the side of the light. This was, of course, to his preference. He did deal with fool wizards if he had to, but he preferred to restrict his contacts to families of good name.

They began their tea-time conversation with a bit of talk about Julian's son. Monsieur Knauss had heard the boy was promising. Apparently he was an acquaintance of Alicia Silversmith, who was more or less Knauss's ward after her father's death. Julian quickly understood that the conversation was in part an offer. And Jean would do well to work within the French Ministry.

But the conversation turned away from Jean after a certain point. It seemed that Monsieur Knauss was gathering people for some kind of operation. Julian knew that it was related to Grindelwald's rise on the Continent. After a bit of questioning, Julian had settled for himself definitively which side Monsieur Knauss was on.

*

Bently Brown was a second-year Gryffindor, product of two solid Gryffindor lines in fact, although he did have a married in uncle who was a Slytherin. A rich Slytherin who was in Pendrake Malfoy's father's circle, which sometimes made them as good as in Pendrake's own circle. So he had blackmailed the little boy into performing an ongoing task for him.

On the day he had gotten Hermione to hex him, Pendrake had been holding in his pocket a stone which recorded her wand's signature to it. He had spelled his own signature to the rock, and if ever Hermione chanced to hit him with a spell, the rock registered the hit by lighting a vein of color up its side. It was something he had picked up at Borgin and Burke's. After all, he might not be a great wizard, but he could be very cunning. Who would think a little Gryffindor would be his pet?

But Pendrake was not a good enough wizard to withhold this information from Hermione when his mind was under her control. Although he did manage to withhold it for a good two weeks. So it was that Hermione woke up one night in Ravenclaw tower, the words "The Pet" escaping her lips like a dream. And immediately she realized what it meant.