Braving the Past

Chapter 13: This is the Feud That Never Ends

Hermione avoided Tom for the next few days, though she didn't really have to. He had decided to leave her be for a while before trying again.

Perhaps his strategy was off? He never had to get close to someone before, he would just flash them a smile and say a few lies and they'd be his. But no matter what he did with Hermione, it always backfired. What made her so different? And why did Tom care so much about it?

Hermione seemed to be acting the same as she had been lately with her Gryffindor friends. Laughing and joking during meals and spending time in Gryffindor Tower. She seemed very well acquainted with Hogwarts at this point, barely over a month having passed since she showed up. Of course, she had seemed to know exactly where she was going after being there only 5 minutes.

Though the small group of friends never realized it, Tom was always close by, making sure Hermione was always taken care of.

"Do you spell flip with just one 'p'?" Angela Brown wondered aloud to no one in particular.

"Uh...yeah..." Hermione said, sending the girl an incredulous look.

"Oh!" Brown frantically erased what Tom assumed was a second "p" and rolled his eyes. Why did Hermione even bother spending time with these idiots?

Hermione raised her head from her roll of parchment and looked around their section of the library with a frown.

"Everything alright, Mione?" Jonathan asked.

"You know those times when you think someone is watching you, but you look and no one's there?" Hermione said, still glancing around.

Tom ducked down, knowing full well this brilliant witch was on to him.

"Plot twist, you're blind," Phillip suddenly put in.

Tom looked up to see that Hermione had looked over at him and rolled her eyes with amusement. She shook her head and went back to the homework in front of her. That had been too close.

The Gryffindors went back to their strange conversations and many bubbles of laughter. Hermione's laugh stood out to him the most.

Tom wished she would act that way with him already. Why couldn't he ever make her laugh? It could be because he hadn't exactly tried, but no, she wouldn't have let him even if he made the effort. She had a way of bruising his ego, which infuriated him to no end yet made him all the more curious. More desperate to win her approval. Was this what it was like never to have the upper hand?

Tom sat with his chin on his hand in DADA a couple days later as they listened to Professor Cipriano rattle on about the latest subject; one which he didn't bother paying attention to as he already knew how to do it. He didn't care what the book said, it was so much different than real life experience. Hermione was situated ahead of him for once, in the same bored position as he was.

Should he...? No, it would be incredibly stupid to think he could get away with it again.

But she had to be daydreaming at the moment. Perhaps she wouldn't notice? Or maybe he could just slither in unsuspected on a memory that she was already thinking of on her own...

Legilimens.

Tom was thrown into a hazy memory that whirled past him almost before he could get his bearings.

There was a tunnel, a familiar-looking redhead limping ahead with a ragged man and a young boy helping him along. They looked like the ones he'd seen in Hermione's previous memories and nightmare, only younger. This had to be several years ago.

Then they were outside, coming out of...was that a Whomping Willow? As far as he knew there were only a rare few in existence; how had she actually have gotten that close to one?