Chapter Text
Hermione’s heart was pounding straight out of her chest as she kept her eyes locked on the unconscious man beneath her. Her peripheral vision flitted around the room as she battled shock and disorientation. She held him at wand point, but that didn't seem enough.
Flicking her wrist in double time, Hermione used every binding spell she could drag from the depths of her muddled mind to secure him. When she was absolutely sure that he wouldn’t be going anywhere when he awoke, she finally took a proper look around the room.
It was dark, but there was a familiar warmth in the floor and walls that instinctively called to her. Hogwarts. Yet—there was something different—a strange echo of the sleepy labyrinths she was so used to. Her normal connection to the castle felt like how old sepia toned pictures her parents loved to pull out looked. The colours were just slightly off.
While Hogwarts was a very large castle, being Headmistress had afforded her many perks—unfettered access among them. There were precious few rooms she had not stepped foot into, as she had developed a friendship with her home. The castle wasn't alive. But it also wasn't not alive.
As she inspected the surrounding space more thoroughly, Hermione became more and more curious. She lit the candles and sconces around the room and took a moment to examine her surroundings. The shelves and furniture were absolutely packed full of things. Trinkets, rocks, half-burned candles, and what looked like a library’s worth of scrap paper. Everything had that same old world feel. Slightly off.
It was a bit of a disaster if she was being honest. She glanced back down at the man on the floor, hoping that her initial reaction had been wrong.
Hermione nudged the dark-haired man with her boot—
She let out a scream as her foot, not clad in her normal boots, but wearing some kind of… Grecian sandal?—prodded at the man’s shoulder. Her eyes travelled down her body and she looked at herself in astounding confusion.
Not only had she never seen nor worn these sandals before, she had most definitely never worn so scandalous a piece of clothing outside of her bedroom. Heat crept across her face as the state of her undress worsened still when she felt a light breeze graze her inner thigh.
There were many things wrong with that, the most pressing being why there was a draft in a completely enclosed room. Followed closely by why she didn’t have knickers on.
Hermione ran a quick diagnostic on herself and blinked in surprise at the nearly perfect reading. Other than the spike of adrenaline, all of her vitals were normal. She set that aside to ponder later and focused her attention back to the matter at hand.
“Who are you?” she muttered under her breath.
Her nearly naked foot seemed too vulnerable to be touching strange men with, so she levitated him into the middle of the room and let him hover in mid-air while she got a good look at him.
She had become conscious as her foot hit the surface of the littered table, warm wax drawing her out of a… trance? Unconsciousness? She wasn’t sure still how she had got here—and why she had no memory of any preceding events.
Hermione’s thoughts stopped in their tracks as his hair fell across his face just right. He was older than her memory served. Probably mid-thirties, like she was. She did the math quickly and… no, that was impossible.
The only reasonable answer to being at Hogwarts with a mid-thirties Tom Riddle was that she had gone back in time. But… Tom hadn’t been at Hogwarts in his thirties.
She cast a diagnostic charm on Possible Tom and studied it thoughtfully. He was hovering on the malnourished spectrum, but otherwise seemed reasonably healthy. He didn’t have a concussion, thank Merlin. She didn't know if she wanted that on her conscience.
But, no. This was possibly Tom Fucking Riddle. If he had a concussion, she would not be feeling guilty about that. Seeing as he would try to kill her if he knew who she was.
But. If this was Tom, and not Voldemort...maybe he wouldn't want her dead?
Hermione ran through everything she knew about the man, Tom Riddle, and the persona, Voldemort, as quickly as she could. As her mind ping-ponged around theories, memories, and things she knew as absolute truth, she kept coming back to one thing.
If, and it was a very big if, she had travelled back in time to a Tom that was different tfromthe one who'd become Voldemort, then she could not risk him finding out about Voldemort. Hermione cursed every god she could name as she drew on all of her abilities to centre herself and began to occlude.
When she felt completely in control of her mind, her body, and her magic, she opened her eyes. With a clear, laser focus, Hermione moved to the opening in the wall, desperate for more information.
She entered a cold, sparse sitting room. It felt clinical compared to the room she had left Possible Tom in. She took in every detail as she moved about the space, opening a door to a bedroom. It had the same empty, cold feeling. There was no life here at all.
The wardrobe in the corner stood slightly ajar, and so she took a peek. This man had nothing very exciting in the way of clothes, but a long woollen overcoat stood out to her. She pulled it off the hanger and slipped it over her scantily clad body.
Occlumency caused her to not register the ambient temperature very well, but Hermione noticed that her skin was cool to the touch as she pushed up the too long sleeves. She cast a warning charm to make sure she didn't catch cold as she returned to the main living space.
Hermione had exited the bedroom and was walking towards the kitchenette, when a glint above the fireplace caught her eye.
She felt all the blood drain from her face.
"Holy fucking shit."
Her skin crawled as she felt the press of the wool against her skin. Wool that had possibly touched his as well, but necessity warranted the overcoat.
Hermione made a beeline for the only other door in the suite, and was further shocked to exit into the Divination Classroom. Her head spun as she tried to reconcile everything into one simple fact that made sense.
She ran her hand along the curve of the cold brick wall, calling to the castle in her mind.
It felt like wading through mud to reach something so familiar.
"Where are we?" she mused. "When are we?"