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"Why are we in the library?" Hermione complained. "What, first you copy yourself and he goes loony, and now you want to read a book?"
"Hush, Hermione," Tom chided her. "I have to put this Mirror Spells book back, if you're going to find it in the future, don't I?"
"How do you know if it'll be me that finds it?" she asked irritably.
"Because I'm going to make certain of it," he told her as he set it on the exact spot she picked it up from fifty years later. Grabbing her hand, he made her touch it as he cast his spell upon it, making certain that only she would be able to see the book sitting there. No one in the past or present but Hermione could even touch it afterwards until it was once again in her possession.
"What's the good of finding that book if it just leads to this?" Hermione growled hotly as she pulled her hand away so she could put it on her hip.
Tom rolled his eyes, saying, "Oh, here we go."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she wanted to know.
"It means, why the devil did you follow me in the first place when I told you it was dangerous?" he ground out.
"Well, I thought that if you were in danger that maybe you would need my help, but I guess I was wrong," she said with a sniff. "After all, since apparently I'm nothing but a little piece of Mudblood fluff, I suppose you never really wanted me in the first place."
Tom grasped Hermione's shoulders and gave her a little shake. "Don't you listen to him, Hermione. That thing, whatever it is, is not a true reflection of me. You've got to believe me, I don't feel that way about you."
"How can I believe anything you say?" she asked, on the verge of tears. "You're bloody Tom Riddle, aren't you?"
"Damn it, Hermione, you've got to believe me," he shouted, and pushed her up against the nearest table. She stumbled backwards against it, losing her balance, and Tom's lips crushed hers as he laid her back onto it, spreading open her legs so he could stand between them.
"Tom!" she gasped, but he muffled the cry with his tongue as their pelvises ground together. He grasped her hips and pulled her even tighter against him, and she moaned into his mouth.
"You can't listen to him, Hermione," he said against her lips as he tore at her blouse. "You can't, because you're no such thing! You're my other half—the part of me that's been missing all my life."
"Tom!" she sobbed, clinging to him for dear life. Somehow he'd undone his pants and hiked her skirt out of the way, and now he tore her underwear right off of her and plunged deep inside her. He pounded into her, desperately wanting her to feel how much passion he had to give.
"No one's ever made me feel like this," he insisted as he thrust harder still. "Can't you feel it, Mione? Can't you feel that?"
"Yes, Tom, yes!" she sobbed, grabbing his hands so she could hold them. The two of them came hard and at the same time, both practically screaming their release. Tom collapsed onto her belly, still inside her, breathing so hard he could barely catch his breath.
Hermione threaded her fingers into his hair, taking great pleasure in making a total mess of it. He laughed, knowing exactly what she was thinking.
"We've got to go," he told her then, and waved a wand over them both, mending their clothing so they would at least appear presentable when they went out into the hall. Grasping Hermione's hand, he dragged her along with him as fast as her legs could carry her.
"Why are we running, Tom?" she asked, all out of breath.
"I don't want to be seen," he said. "We need to get back to the future, now."
"Going somewhere, Tom?" asked Dumbledore as they sped right past him, unaware of his presence.
"No, sir, of course not," he said, stopping abruptly.
"And who have we here?" he inquired, looking Hermione over. "Is this the girl you've been so preoccupied over?"
"Yes, sir," he said with a slight blush.
"She's not from the school," he mentioned as he looked her over.
"No, sir, she's been home-schooled," he said, trying to look casual.
"And does this lovely young lady of whom you are so enamored have a name?" he inquired as he smiled at her.
"Her—Hermione, sir," she answered nervously. She was desperately trying to think of a suitable pure-blood last name from somewhere she would have been far enough from here to negate her having been sent here to learn, in a timeframe fifty years earlier than her own, and it was proving a challenge.
"Hermione…?" he prompted.
"Smith," she added uncertainly. Dumbledore did not look fooled, however, which made her fidget as he continued to gaze at her.
Tom took matters into his own hands, rather smoothly, by saying, "Professor, Hermione is a refugee of sorts. Her family was killed by Grindelwald recently, and she's come to live with her aunt in Hogsmeade. But sir, we were in a bit of a rush. I'm supposed to have her home by ten tonight, and—"
"Say no more, Tom, say no more," Dumbledore said with a wink. "It's nice meeting you, Miss Smith."
"You, too," Hermione answered as Tom started to pull her along again. She smiled back at the man as they went, and found that he was looking at her speculatively.
"I hope he doesn't remember me later," Hermione said worriedly. But then she remembered something the Headmaster had said to her one time that made her wonder.
She'd been feeling kind of down because Ron was dating Lavender Brown for the first time, and Dumbledore had happened upon her sitting up in the Astronomy tower staring up at the sky full of stars. She wasn't supposed to be out of bed at the time, but he didn't seem to care about that.
"Did you know, Miss Granger, that love doesn't always make sense?" he'd said.
"What do you mean, sir?" she asked, not looking away from the view. Dumbledore sat on a chair beside her with his hands behind his head and proceeded to stare upwards as well.
"Some people fall for the wrong person for all the right reasons," he said with a small smile. "People may try to tell them they are wrong, maybe even try to prevent it, but in the end only you can decide if it's right or wrong."
"I don't know what you mean, sir," she had answered after a few moments of reflection.
"No, but you will, someday," he had replied. And now she believed she did.
Tom was watching Hermione intently, and she realized that she had been standing still as she recalled the memory. With a small smile, she started moving again.
The pair of them went into his dorm together and headed up the stairs, intent on heading for his room. However, on the way there, Tom stopped and grabbed a bag out of the hall closet and threw a few things into it. Hermione did not bother to ask him what he thought he was doing.
In Tom's room, Hermione stood watching as he grabbed anything and everything that would give the copy evidence of the past two months. Tom paced nervously about looking for clues, and at the last he spotted one on his mirror that he hadn't thought of. She giggled at the memory as he wet his thumb and wiped away the dried-on stain he had been displaying there in all the time since they'd made love against the mirrors.
Tom looked over at her with a wicked smile, and Hermione blushed hotly. He drew her against him and kissed her forehead, and then the two of them stepped through the mirror and into New Year's Eve of 1998.
"Happy birthday to me," Tom whispered as he looked at her clock. Then, without any warning, he turned about and shattered Hermione's mirror into bits, making certain every particle of glass was reduced to nothing but dust.
Hermione had backed away from him as he did this, holding her hands over her ears and staring at him like he'd just lost his mind completely.
"There," he said when he was finished. "I won't be going back there anymore, and no one will be able to come here that way again, either. And, since I can't be certain you would stay here while I go to the Forbidden Forest in this time any more than you did before, I fear I will have to bring you with me tonight."
"Why, Tom?" she asked, confused.
"I've arranged a little meeting with some old friends," he explained cryptically. Then he reached over and grabbed the book of Mirror Spells off Hermione's desk before pulling her along with him out her door, down the stairs, and into the halls of Hogwarts yet again.
Hermione was not well pleased with him, for she knew the only old friends Tom Riddle could possibly have in this time were no friends to her. And, more importantly, she began to wonder what she had just unleashed on the world.
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