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"Hermione, who are your lovely friends?" Tom asked smoothly as he took the chair beside her and wrapped an arm around her back.
"Hi, Tom, sorry about this," she said softly. "They showed up all of the sudden and I mentioned I was here with my boyfriend, and then you came out and it just happened."
"Oh, no, it's quite all right," he answered, but she could feel the tension rolling off of him. "I just worry because some people here might get the wrong idea about me, report me to the Ministry or something. But ladies, I must tell you, the Tom Riddle you knew does not yet exist for me. All that he did, all that he became, are his crimes, not mine. Why should I suffer punishment for them? Why should I, an innocent man, face their wrath when the perpetrator has already met his end?"
"But why are you here?" Ginny wanted to know. "How did you get here?"
"It was a purely selfish reason, I can assure you," he said with a smirk. "I caught a glimpse of the most beautiful woman who ever lived, and I had to have her for my own. And now, here she is by my side."
Hermione blushed and smiled, and the two girls sighed dreamily.
"Wow," said Luna. "I wish a man would come across time for me."
"But, my dears, you'll have to excuse me for now," he added as he stood to go. "I've a few loose ends that need tying up, as it were."
Hermione stood as well.
"My darling, I fear you would not wish to take part in this particular excursion," he told her as he kissed her cheek. "It could be a bit dangerous."
"What? Wait, Tom, what are you going to do?"
"That, my dear, is a secret," he said lightly. "But once I take care of this, I'm all yours. Why don't you stay here visiting your friends? I won't be gone long."
Hermione sighed as she stepped back, and Tom popped from view.
"You're not really going to just stay here, are you, Hermione?" Ginny asked.
"Of course she isn't," Luna said. "She's the most curious girl we know."
"Maybe we should go with you," Ginny suggested.
"Don't be silly," Hermione told them. "I'm simply going to return to my room and wait for him to come back. If Tom Riddle tells you something is dangerous, you can be pretty sure it is."
Of course, that was not what Hermione did. She Apparated to her room, all right, but then stepped straight through her mirror into Tom's. He wasn't in his room, naturally. Nothing overly dangerous was likely to be going on there, so Hermione cast a disillusionment charm on herself and quickly went out into the hall. If Tom was in some sort of danger she wanted to be there to help.
Tom went as quickly as possible into the girl's bathroom on the second floor and opened the sink-doorway to the Chamber below. He went to the main chamber and found, to his dismay, that the candle was extinguished, and the clothes and other items were all missing from the mirror. As quick as a flash he made the remnants of the spell disappear and headed back up to the castle to see if he could find—himself.
Hermione, having guessed Tom might go into the Chamber for some reason, was at the far end of the hall as he exited the bathroom. She kept a fair distance away as she followed him, knowing full well that he could sense her if she drew too near.
He had a look of desperation on his handsome face, and walked at a fast clip through the halls, obviously in search of something. Then he suddenly came upon a lone figure standing in the hall.
"Malfoy? What the devil are you doing here?" he asked, stalking up to the blond individual with an air of command reminiscent of the future Dark Lord Hermione had known.
"I've come for the meeting, of course," he answered, confused.
"What meeting?" Tom demanded.
"You called for all the Knights to come tonight, did you not?" he asked with a puzzled frown.
"I did not," Tom growled. "Come with me. We have an urgent matter to attend to."
"What is going on?" Abraxas demanded. "First we don't hear from you for over a week, and then you call a meeting you didn't even call? It's all very peculiar, my Lord."
"All shall be revealed in due time, Abraxas," he told him. "But you must trust in me now more than you ever have before. It is imperative that you do."
"As always, my Lord," said Abraxas with a slight bowing of the head as they walked quickly toward the exit. Once they'd gone outside the castle the two men crossed the grounds as quickly as possible, heading directly for the Forbidden Forest.
Hermione's legs were beginning to ache from practically running to keep up. She already knew where they were headed, for it was ancient history that the Knights used to meet in the Forbidden Forest, but she did not know in which part of it, so she could not afford to lose sight of them.
Tom and Abraxas took her into the very heart of the forest, where she could hear voices already raised in conversation. She grew confused when she thought she distinctly heard Tom's own voice, even though he was not speaking as far as she could tell.
"What on earth?" she muttered under her breath.
Abraxas and Tom broke into the clearing, and Hermione was not far behind them. All three spotted another Tom Riddle pausing in mid-sentence as they passed the line of the trees. Hermione scuttled back into them as quickly as possible, but sensed this new Tom's eyes upon her momentarily before he spoke again.
"Seize the imposter!" yelled the copy with a vindictive smirk on his lips.
"I am no imposter," said her Tom as he stepped forward. "I copied this bloke using a mirror spell, and I intend to use him for the purpose I had in mind whether he likes it or not."
"So you can pop off into the future with your little piece of Mudblood fluff?" he demanded hotly. "Leave me here while you get to go off with some silly, stupid girl? A silly girl who is with you even now?"
Tom's eyes went wide as the copy turned his wand slightly to the side and cast a spell, and Hermione was suddenly visible again. She screamed in surprise, and fell forward into the dirt. It got into her hair and eyes as she struggled to her feet and tried to run toward the real Tom. The copy cast again, and she felt some of the vines from the forest spring up and wrap around her. She began to panic when they very nearly covered her face as well.
"Tom!" she shouted in alarm.
He turned and cast a spell as well, to stop the vines from overtaking her completely, but kept most of his attention centered on the others.
"How weak and pathetic you are, falling in love with a girl!" the copy sneered.
"What's the matter with you?" Tom demanded. "Have you gone crazy or something? Hermione is the best thing that's ever happened to me."
"And I'll bet you haven't even realized what an opportunity you've stumbled into, have you?" the copy sneered. "A whole new world to conquer, and you've been thinking with your pants. Unlike you, I've had time away from that bloody little girl, time to realize how weak she was making me. Oh, you can have the girl all right, but I'm the one who will be staying in the future, and you, insignificant little Tom, you can stay here with her.
"You're wrong!" Tom told him as he brandished his wand. "Hermione has made me stronger than you could ever be without her. And I'm not going to let you anywhere near that mirror, so you can forget it. In fact, I'm going to make certain you forget all about it entirely. Obliviate!"
The spell hit the copy right in his head, and he staggered forward, grabbing ahold of Hermione and holding his wand against her throat.
"Let go of her!"
"You're going to have to do better than that, Tom," he laughed. "Let's find out just how strong you really are when I threaten the life of your beloved angel. What do you think, you silly little Mudblood? Is your lover strong enough to save you, or shall I kill him and take you back to the future with me? After all, you seem to like naughty boys best."
Tom was watching Hermione's face, and he saw death seething from her eyes. She broke free of her captor's grasp and turned as if to take action.
"Hermione, don't!" Tom shouted, and sent her wand flying from her hand with a twirl of his own. "I need him alive."
"I've seen you naked, Mudblood," he reminded her with a smirk.
"My Tom would never act like you," she hissed. "What makes you so much more vile than him?"
"Because I'm better than him," he told her, pushing her down onto the ground and stepping on her chest. "Because the spell took out all my sweet bits and put in sour. Because a great ruler cares only for himself."
"A great ruler cares for every single person he rules," she told him before he put his foot on her mouth instead. Hermione spit out dirt as she turned her head aside.
"Stupefy!" shouted one of the Knights from behind him, and the copy stiffened and fell down right beside her.
Tom surged forward and took Hermione into his arms, but she was having none of it. She was so angry she wanted to scratch his eyes out. If the copy harbored such thoughts, how did she know how many of them lived in his head as well?
"Let me go!" she growled, but Tom wouldn't.
"Hermione, stop it," he insisted. "It's me—your own Tom. I'm not letting that one near you ever again. Abraxas, Avery, wipe his memory of the last few months and take him to the infirmary. I don't want him to know anything about what has happened this night, not now, not ever. When he awakens, tell him he suffered an accident and nothing more. I don't want anyone ever to know about this night."
"But what about you?" Abraxas wanted to know.
"I'll be doing just as the copy suggested," he said. "I'm taking my woman to the future, and that is where we'll stay."
"But my Lord, she's a Mudblood," he said, horrified.
"Yes, but she is my Mudblood," he answered, still holding on to the squirming girl. "No matter that's she a bit put out at the moment—I can certainly see to that."
"Bastard!" Hermione hissed, mostly because she knew he could.
"Come, Hermione, we have one last task to complete before we go," said Tom, and with that he dragged her back with him to the castle.
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