milliways_bar | (no subject)

She has Tom's letter in her hand, the one she hadn't had the chance to reply to yet, even though she made the decision to see him.

Admittedly, she's nervous.

Why wouldn't she be? This is Tom Riddle, after all. And not just that, but this is the man she faced a few nights ago and Stupefied. The memory is still as fresh in her mind as if it happened only moments ago.

She finds him exactly where he said he'd be - at a table, in the middle of the room.

Swallowing her courage (you're a Gryffindor, for Merlin's Sake!), she approaches him.

"Um. Hi."

"Miss Granger," he says, as he gets to his feet.

Courtesy is something that he always falls back upon. In the old days, it was never about being polite so much as it was about impressing others and not attracting notice. Nowadays, it's a little of all the above, but politeness factors in.

He pauses, because, well, what does one say in these situations? He should know; it's happened often enough. It's simply been a while.

"This is terribly awkward, I know. Or perhaps bizarre is a better word for it. Would you like to sit down?"

She nods, settling herself into the seat opposite him.

She appreciates the politeness, even if she's still wary of it. (Wary of him.) She's heard bits and pieces about this particular Tom Riddle from those who know him, but it's still hard to shake off the notion that this man isn't a 'clone' or a 'good twin'. This is Tom Riddle ... just, from an alternate timeline.

Folding his note up, she wracks her brain for something appropriate to say.

"I could definitely agree with 'bizarre'," she finally says.

He waits until she's sitting before he sits again.

"That's Milliways for you. You get used to the bizarre eventually."

He sighs. That's a lie.

"I- know this is difficult. What would you like to know? I'll answer whatever you'd like to ask."

She nods, biting her bottom lip in thought.

There's a lot she'd like to know. Probably more than they could possibly have the time for.

"Thank you," she says softly. "I suppose - I mean, I'd like to know everything. I want to know why you didn't ... why you chose not to -"

Well. You know.

"Miss Granger, what do you know of horcruxes?"

If she hasn't heard the term, she should soon, if their versions of worlds are similar.

If she has, then it will all be easier to explain. Well, not much easier. But somewhat.

"The Horcrux acts as a receptacle to hide and protect a fragment of a wizard's soul for the purpose of attaining immortality, so long as the fragment of soul remains unharmed. They can be inanimate or live objects."

She pauses after her reiteration. It's almost an automatic reflex, to describe exactly what she learned.

"... we've been looking for them," she continues, completely honest - because, really. What's the point in trying to hide things from the man who used them himself?

"Oh, good," he says, nodding. "That seems to be a fairly common theme. I can tell you all of the ones I'd made, all the items I planned on using. I've done so for those in my version of the Wizarding world, and for Draco's. I'd only got to three of them before-"

He clears his throat. He knows he sounds blithe, but, truly, he means to be business-like and matter-of-fact. He means to make this as easy for Hermione as possible, even if it's not easy - it's never easy - for him to delve into once again.

"Right. I should start at the beginning. In 1957, I set out to create the third, using a ring, an heirloom of my mother's, or so I'd been told. I made it, and, as you no doubt know, when one is made, it ruins you, bit by bit. Voldemort alone existed after that. The part of him that was me - the salvageable part - was gone. When the Horcrux was broken by Dumbledore, what had been me - what had been purged into it - became me, here. I know it sounds fantastical, but-"

He frowns. "That's what happened. I received a second chance. I have a soul, and I am a different person. I- I know it is a stretch to take my word for anything, but I have a family here, Miss Granger. I never had that before. I never thought I needed it, and I was ridiculously wrong. They can speak for me, as can my friends."

It's terribly difficult not to simply disbelieve everything he says, even if it does all sound about right - or about as convincing as it ought to be.

Hermione sits there, across from Tom, and folds her hands in her lap. She nods when he's finished speaking, ruminating upon his confession. Then she remembers her note had promised him she would listen to him with an open mind.

So - with a breath, she does.

"I read a lot about you - or ... well, I read as much as there was available about you. Most of it, I learned from Professor Dumbledore. I read that there hadn't been a salvageable part of you." She knows that her argument is weak - after all, it's difficult to believe every text, what with authors like Rita Skeeter about, making a career out of propaganda.

But ... maybe she wants him to disprove that, too.

"Our worlds are different enough that key events have changed. Susan Bones was Minister of Magic. She was assassinated in the months before the final battle. The Horcruxes were not the same. My lineage does not appear to stay static. My mother was called Julia, and it was through my father's line that I am the heir of Slytherin. These factors changed things, in my case, for the human part of me to win out. Not being completely insane helped."

He gazes past Hermione, deep in thought. Even still, it baffles him. Even still, he wonders how many other worlds with versions of himself - of Hermione, of 'Dora, of Dumbledore, and all the others - are out there beyond the front door. Maybe in one of them, his mother lived, and he grew up cherished and content. Maybe in one of them, he had no need for this hard path of redemption.

"Dumbledore himself provided me with much of this information. He believed in who I'd become here. What proof may I provide? I should think that my word cannot be enough."

He's not offended by the notion. He'd be more concerned if she did not request more of him.

"Professor Dumbledore knew you came here?" she asks, trying her best not to make her bafflement so obvious. The idea of the great old wizard here in a place like Milliways ...

Perhaps it's only that much more strange because he's been gone for what feels like ages.

(She mentally corrects herself, imagining that he actually would find this place delightful.)

"Anyway, that all sounds completely different," she remarks, in regards to his earlier explanations. Now, her confusion is more than ever. Julia? Susan Bones as Minister of Magic? Just ... what?

"He came here a couple of times himself," Tom says, with a grin. "There was an Order of the Phoenix meeting, as I recall. I didn't attend, but my dear friend, Nymphadora Tonks-Wrangle, told me about it. Later, of course."

He looks down at his hands. He'd hated Dumbledore so when he was younger, and he found him an unwavering ally when things changed.

"I spoke with him at Hogwarts. When I came here, I couldn't open the door to my own time, since I'd been taken out of it completely. But I could - and can - enter my version of our world, when I choose to do so."

Edited 2010-05-14 02:35 (UTC)

'Nymphadora Tonks-Wrangle.'

Okay. That implies she didn't end up with Remus Lupin in one version of her universe.

She resists the urge to facepalm. This timeline, alternate universe concept is really, really hard to keep track of.

All this is doing is raising even more questions than answering them.

Still ...

"And you can - still? Is it terribly different from my - my version, I wonder?"

"I'm not following."

He cocks his head slightly.

"Can I still what? Speak in Parseltongue? Or rule the world? Sadly, I can only claim the former."

This is meant to be humorous. It may fall flat...

It does! (Fall flat, that is.)

Hermione isn't sure she will ever be able to deal with 'rule the world' jokes as far as Tom's concerned.

"Go back to your version of the world," she says quietly.

"I can go there, but I'm not a part of it. I do not wish to be. I cannot return to the time from whence I arrived; I lived in fear for a long time of finding 1957 on the other side of that door. Voldemort is long dead, and I am free."

He does not quite meet her eyes. This recitation is not easy to make, nor should it be.

"I do go back, though. To Diagon Alley, primarily. My little girl might never forgive if I stopped taking her to Florean's."

Wait.

Wait - what?

"You've got a daughter?" she asks, allowing a little more surprise to seep into her voice than she intended.

"Not of my own blood. My wife and I are raising her little sister, Ingress. Their parents and brother were murdered not long before Door and I met here. Ingress was kidnapped. One of the first things I did was help Door find her and bring her home."

It would be a stretch of the truth to say Tom did not deliberately mention his family. But what he says about them is the truth.

"She's not my daughter, but I love her as if she were."

"That's -" She pauses, and she can't believe she's about to say this, but "- terribly kind of you."

Her voice has grown quiet once more.

And for Tom to use the word 'love' and mean it ...

He says nothing for a long moment.

"I'm not the man you think I am," he says, his voice quiet. "I am Tom Riddle, but I am also Lord Ostium of the House of Arch, and I am sworn by blood ritual to protect those of my house. I am a man of the Underside, and not the Wizarding world. Though I am happily in exile, I would pledge my aid to you, to help you as I may in your own Wizarding world. It is the least I owe you."

"No," she agrees, clearing her throat. She straightens a little. "You're not the man I'd meant to attack."

She takes a breath, her mind a jumble of words and things she wants to get out.

"I don't know you well enough to ... to believe you. I mean - I suppose I do believe you. A little. But a couple of others whom I trust have told me a little about you and they assured me you weren't the Tom Riddle from my world."

She watches him carefully for a moment.

(... Maybe they were right.)

Then, "I'm - I'm sorry for attacking you."

"I accept your apology," he says, a hint of a smile playing about his lips. "That was one hell of a hex. Are you in Dueling Club? You ought to be president."

She laughs softly.

(It distantly occurs to her that this is the first time she's felt relaxed around him. With good reason, of course. But - still. It's odd to let her guard down.)

"No, I'm not. I've never been much for dueling, really."

Not until it became necessary - such as in Dumbledore's Army. But somehow she isn't sure she ought to bring that up so soon.

"I'm ... something of a bookworm, I suppose."

"I'm rarely without a book, so you'll find no condemnation from me on that count."

Tom's found good friends amongst those who might have hated him otherwise. Bill Weasley told him as much.

She smiles a little, glancing down at the edge of the table.

After a moment, her expression sobers again. She hates to bring it up again, but that's what this meeting is for, isn't it?

To get some answers?

She clears her throat. "So - Mr Riddle, if you came here, does that mean the world you came from never had to suffer Lord Voldemort and the Wizarding Wars?"

"I had hoped that might be the case, at first, but no. As I said, I am an aspect of Voldemort, shattered into a Horcrux and made incarnate here by what magical means I have no way of knowing. Voldemort continued along his path of destruction until he was destroyed by Harry Potter. That's another constant between the worlds, it seems. It always comes down to those two in the end."

He could go more into the details of how he, as a Horcrux in essence, was recalled and held captive by Voldemort in those last terrible days, or how he was there when Potter finally destroyed Voldemort, helping the only way he could.

He doesn't like to remember, to be honest. Besides, it's hard enough to explain as it is.

"Oh."

She had so been hoping at least one version of their world could go without a Lord Voldemort.

But perhaps it is, as Tom says, a constant in time that can never be changed. (Some things cannot change, after all.)

"Yes," she says in agreement. "I suppose Harry and Lord Voldemort will always end up facing each other, no matter what other events might be altered."

It's not the most positive of conclusions, but it's a truth she'll have to come to terms with.

"But there is another consistency - or there must be, anyway," she adds - and it sounds almost as if she's ruminating to herself. "Ron and I - we'll always be there for Harry too."

Right?

"You were with him on my world. So yes, I think so."

He takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and slides over the table to Hermione.

"This is a brief account of what happened, with a list of Horcruxes. I don't know if it will help you or not, but I'd like you to have it. I could also owl you the latest edition of Hogwarts: A History. It really is one of the best references I could provide. It's a few years ahead of you, and a world away, but there might be something useful you can glean from what happened to us."

Edited 2010-05-16 19:22 (UTC)

She stares at the envelope for a moment, wondering what sort of rules against time there might be having something like this.

But - their situation is desperate enough that she just couldn't refuse.

She leans forward and takes it.

"Thank you," she says, really meaning it. "And I'd like that." Her own copy (slightly roughed up, with the cover bent and scratched from wear) is currently sitting on top of her dresser table upstairs, but a comparative copy could never be a bad thing.

"I shall send you a copy straightaway."

He leans back in his chair, rolling his shoulders back slightly to stretch the tense muscles there. This was more stressful of an experience than he thought it would be.

"Perhaps, if you don't mind, we could end our conversation for now. I do need to get back the the House of Arch. The Mayfair is over, and the usual squabbles and feuds are picking up again. My wife and I must tend to the needs our allied baronies and fiefdoms. But if you should have questions or need anything else, leave me a note with Bar. We could always speak again. If you liked."

"Oh - right. Of course. Thank you for meeting with me, Mr Riddle," she says politely, nodding.

She would agree that this has been one hell of a stressful experience, but certainly one that has given her a lot to think about.

She doesn't move to leave - she doesn't exactly have a place to leave to; not yet, anyway - and the envelope he'd given her is still in her hands.

Tom stands and gives Hermione a small bow.

"Then I'll take my leave, Miss Granger. It was good to speak with you under different circumstances."

He flashes her a quick, genuine smile, and then turns and leaves.