Riddle [Tomione, On Hold]

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight
Unexpected Images and Forgotten Passwords

Tom Riddle could not fall asleep.

It had been two weeks since he had uncovered the fact that muggle blood ran through the Lockhart girl's veins; two painstakingly long and awful weeks of failed attempts to slip once more through the fortifications within the stubborn but brilliant witch's mind. Once the fact that he had snuck past her many defenses and entered her mind had been made aware to her, she had immediately evicted Tom from her thoughts and refortified it once more. 

With absolutely no progress with his plans to extract information from Hermione, Tom's schemes have been brought to a complete stop. Ideas and scenarios would constantly be conjured within the young wizard's mind, each one falling short when faced with the constant threat of detection from none other than Professor Dumbledore. It would seem that the old crone has taken a suspiciously fond interest towards Hermione Lockhart's life, with Dumbledore pausing every once in a while at Hermione's desk during class to share a few words with her or even just to send a disgustingly warm smile.

Well, Tom paused his train of thought and groggily sat up from his bed to reach for his wand, tucked securely in his silk robes. It's not as if it was just Dumbledore who has taken a liking to the mudblood.

He began to absentmindedly wave his wand as various scenes of teachers praising Hermione were conjured from thin air-- from the proud expression Miss Merrythought had given the witch when she had perfectly conjured a Brachiabindo spell on some Gryffindor named Liam, to the round of enthusiastic applause she had received when her Veritaserum potion had successfully made Professor Slughorn confess his enduring crush on the pretty witch who sold cauldrons at Hogsmeade Village. When Tom had finally run out of times when Hermione Lockhart was praised and practically worshiped for her suspiciously undeniable talent in almost all subjects, an image of a dozing witch was suddenly conjured before him, replacing the scene which he had thought of last with a slight swish and illuminating the room with a soft glow.

The sudden appearance of the image had made him drop his wand in surprise, and he swiftly secured it between his two fingers before it could clatter noisily on the floor. Tucking the wand back into his robes, he peered closer at the image with a furrowed brow. It was unmistakably Hermione, her familiar brown curls fanned out over the side of the table as she peacefully dozed off on a rather thick and yellowed-with-age-looking book. A roll of parchment with long paragraphs of words was tucked under her chin where a small blot of ink had decided to settle on. Tom could see the slight rise and fall of her chest as the candlelight from the image flitted around and created shadows across the room, almost as if he was with her in real time. 

"What the bloody hell," Tom murmured to himself as he reached out to the strange conjuration before him, almost expecting to feel the scratchy surface of the wooden desk or the heat from the candle which flickered silently beside the witch. Before he could feel anything, however, the image disappeared and darkness filled the room once more. 

Several jumbled thoughts ran across Tom's mind, none of which coming close to an explanation of what he had just seen. 

Was it simply just a hallucination?  

Tom paused.

Or maybe something more?

After several unsuccessful minutes of attempting to diminish his curiosity, the head boy hardened his resolve and hastily secured his robes as he bounded out of his chambers and towards the library, where the image of the sleeping Hermione seemed to be located in. Tom didn't know what to expect once he would arrive there, or even what to feel or do if he actually stumbled across the witch that seemed to occupy much of his thoughts as of the late. Suddenly, a single thought made him stop dead on his tracks.