Jörmungandr

Business Over Drinks

Hermione was an idiot.

It was a Portkey.

Well it wasn't a Portkey—it was distinctly not a Portkey—but the little runes carved into the metal of spyglass on page two hundred thirty-nine of Missy's Miracles patterned out and overlapped with its consecutive curved lenses to engineer magic not dissimilar to how one constructed the endpoint to a Portkey.

The spyglass allowed one to observe the different magicks that might enchant an object. And where would be the best place to keep such a thing? Why a place with a great deal of magical items of course. An unwise Lord would likely keep it among his most intriguing possessions. Hundreds made the world over, and one would have the pick of the litter.

Perfect for an errant thief.

Missy must have some way to choose between them... Perhaps it was the inverse of a Portkey. Static start point—a room or a grounded circle—but a variable destination. Or perhaps she had made a paired object that allowed her to choose, wards be damned. Something that Hermione could not actually reverse-engineer unless she dedicated at least a month to it.

Time she didn't have. Not something to worry about.

But Merlin, that witch was clever.

What Hermione wouldn't give to pick her brain apart. Learn not only her spellwork, but how she had crafted such a delicate persona, a homely author, and then tricked people for decades. How she had the patience for it. The mettle for it.

It was a skill she was in desperate need of.

Hermione made the spyglass of course.

The intricate metalwork and precise lenses. It didn't take long. For all its redundant spellwork, it was not more complicated than a second-years capability. Forging rings of metal and curved glass. Tom had been right.

She left it in the second-floor girls' lavatory.

Rested, propped up at the edge of the entrance. She had thought to transfigure herself into a snake—sneak in through the pipes—but perhaps, if fate was feeling ironic, the next time Riddle opened the entrance it would roll into the Chamber, clanging all the way down.

And Riddle had mentioned Townsend once, in Ambarella's memories under the tree. Maybe she would break into the school, into the Chamber with all its strange, tempting magic, and he would crack even further. More desperate to take Hermione as a piece or a partner.

As something.

That was for later though. Today she needed to secure Dolohov and a line into the Continent. The Stone was tricky for a variety of reasons, the most pertinent being she had no idea where it was. Grindelwald wielded the Wand flagrantly, brazenly, with all the care of a child with a new favorite toy. It would take but a moment—an eye line from a crowd—and she would own it. She had already killed one Master of Death. It was no trouble killing a pretender.

The trouble was Tom Riddle.

He bought her perfume.

A small crystalline glass bottle left on her bed after breakfast—pumpkin muffin, strawberry rice pudding, and bacon—with a filigreed note strung around the neck saying: 'Enjoy your date, dove. He will like this.' in his neat sharp script.

It was to fuck with her, shake and rattle her bones to see what clanged loose. See how she would react, stabbing a snake to watch it writhe, coil, and squirm.

Git.

"Mr. Riddle told me to leave that for you," Marjorie Greengrass said as she examined herself in a mirror. The girl had gotten a family pass and was dressing up to go out to lunch with her aunt or sister...or fiancé or something. "Don't worry. He has given gifts to many girls. I guarantee it is not cursed," she said with a violently condescending smile.