A small brown rabbit was nibbling on a blade of grass in a small clearing of a wood just outside of the town of Little Hangleton. Its long, keen ears pricked up at the faint sound of crackling leaves and the snapping of a few twigs. As the sound got closer, the rabbit tensed and got ready to run for its life. Suddenly though, the sound ceased, but the rabbit held very still, its body still tensed, its ears still pricked, and its little heart pitter-pattering about a million miles a minute. After a minute of listening, the rabbit could not find anything wrong, so it returned to feasting on the grass, completely oblivious to the fox that was watching it from a bush, ready to pounce.
However, before the fox could claim its prey, there was a loud pop, and three teenagers, two boys and a girl, appeared in the middle of the clearing. Startled, the rabbit hopped away as fast as it possibly could, and the fox had lost its meal in a flash.
“Are you sure that this is the right place?” the boy with ginger hair and a gangly figure asked.
“Yes, of course it is, Ron,” answered the girl with bushy brown hair, exasperation evident in her bossy voice.
“Okay, just checking, Hermione. There’s no need to get snippy,” Ron said hastily, holding his hands up in surrender.
“Well, I’m not the one who made myself regurgitate slugs, so I am assuming that we are just outside of Little Hangleton,” snapped Hermione nastily.
“Hey! That’s not fair! My wand was”!” Ron started, clearly affronted.
“Don’t start this again! Don’t you two ever stop bickering! This is not the time to argue, especially when we need to work together in order to find the Horcrux!” the boy with untidy black hair and glasses interrupted, annoyed with the other two.
Both Ron and Hermione gaped at him, looking slightly offended and shocked by his outburst. Then Hermione said, “I’m sorry, Harry. You are right: we need to stick together, otherwise we will never defeat Voldemort.”
“Yeah, mate. Sorry, I guess we got a little carried away,” Ron apologized sheepishly.
“That’s quite all right,” said Harry.
And with that, the Golden Trio made their way through the wood and into the village under the Invisibility Cloak. Little Hangleton, it seemed, was a quaint, sleepy town in the British moors, and there was barely anyone in the streets. High up on a hill, overlooking the town, was a huge mansion. That mansion happened to be their destination, but they did not know which road led to it, so they wandered the streets, invisible to the few Muggles that they encountered, searching for the right road. Eventually, they turned on to a winding lane that went up the hill.
About ten minutes later, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were standing in front of the Riddle House, panting and clutching their sides. The abandoned manor loomed eerily over them, vines of ivy creeping up the side of the house, and the once-white paint peeling off in large chunks. The garden and lawn were unkempt and overgrown with weeds, as its last caretaker had died three years previously. The shutters were hanging in a lopsided manner, and some were dangling so much that they seemed as if they were going to fall off. Some of the windows were broken from kids throwing stones at them, others were boarded up, and there were several shingles missing from the roof. Despite all of those drawbacks, one could tell that the Riddle House had been luxurious and grand in its day. Now, however, it just appeared to neglected and ominous.
Ron started to walk towards the Riddle House and Harry and Hermione screamed, “NO, RON!”
Puzzled, Ron wheeled around and gaped at them and asked, “Why ever not? It’s just a creepy old house!”
“Voldemort most likely put wards and deadly curses around this place to prevent anyone from breaking and entering or alert him if someone did just that. Just walking up to that house is suicide!” Hermione explained.
“Oh. Why didn’t I think of that?” Ron said, highly resembling Goyle when a professor asked him a question, in Hermione’s opinion.
“Because you obviously weren’t thinking,” Harry responded.
“Right. Well, how do you suppose we get in there if You-Know-Who put the wards up himself? I mean, he had to have made it nearly impossible to take them down,” Ron wondered.
“Voldemort is arrogant enough to think that only he could take them down, so there has to be a loop-hole or counter-curse somewhere. Firstly, we need to identify exactly which ward or wards he used. Then, we exploit the loop-hole, if there is one, or cast the counter-curse,” Hermione explained matter-of-factly.
Seeing the confused and amazed expressions on both Harry’s and Ron’s faces, she added, “I read a book on wards and their counter-curses recently.”
“Aperio,” Hermione cried, pointing her wand at the Riddle House determinedly.
At first it did not feel like it had worked, and Hermione felt a sharp pang of disappointment in her gut for a second, but then a blue-tinted, transparent bubble surrounding the house suddenly became visible.
“Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t walk into it, Ron,” Hermione said, “because that is a Death Ward: it kills anyone who touches it.”
“How do we get rid of it?” Harry asked.
“All we have to do is cast the counter-curse together; if you both help me, it will work more efficiently than if I cast it by myself,” Hermione answered.
“The counter-curse is ‘Nex Everto’,” Hermione said.
“Okay, point your wand at the house and we will all shout the incantation on the count of three,” Hermione ordered, and Harry and Ron acquiesced.
I really hope this works, Hermione thought.
“Alright…. One--Two--THREE”Nex Everto!” she bellowed.
Three jets of red light came out the end of their wands and collided with the bubble. The ward collapsed immediately, and Hermione felt like jumping for joy. It had worked. I had actually worked!
The Golden Trio then proceeded to walk cautiously up to the front porch. Hermione cast a quick spell to see if it was safe to touch the doorknob, and it was, so Hermione gripped the doorknob and opened the door. She was greeted with the stench of stale air, dust, and decay. “Lumos,” she muttered and Harry and Ron did the same.
Cobwebs and a layer of dust about an inch thick coated every surface, and the rotting floorboards creaked and groaned as Hermione walked. It was obvious that no one had cleaned the Riddle House in years.
“Yuck!” Harry exclaimed. Apparently, he had stepped on a huge cockroach.
“We need to search this place as quickly and as efficiently as possible, so I think that we should split up,” Hermione suggested.
“Are you mad? Voldemort could have hundreds of booby-traps set up in here! What if we need help or are in danger? Not to mention that this place is literally falling apart!” Harry objected.
“I know, Harry, but it’s the best way. Or would you prefer to spend days in here searching for Hufflepuff’s cup, constantly worrying that Voldemort or his Death Eaters will show up?” Hermione reasoned.
Harry shook his head, and Hermione said, “I thought not.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “Ron, you search the attic; Harry, you search the first floor and the basement; and I will search the second and third floors. Any objections?”
Neither Harry nor Ron said anything, so Hermione took that as a ‘yes’.
“Okay, good. Now, if anyone is in danger, send a Patronus. Actually, if you find anything at all also send a Patronus,” Hermione reflected.
“Good luck, Hermione,” Harry said.
“You too, Harry,” she replied, giving him a small, nervous smile.
“Yeah, and be careful, Hermione. Remember: constant vigilance,” Ron said.
“I will, and you need to be careful too,” Hermione said. And with that, they parted ways.
Hermione climbed the rickety, rotting, wood staircase cautiously with Ron in tow. She stopped at the second floor landing and turned into the hallway. There were eerie portraits on the wall, and she had the uncomfortable feeling of being watched as she made her way down the hall, wand in hand. The first room that she came upon was a bedroom, most likely one of the many guest bedrooms in the manor. She thoroughly combed the room for any signs of magic or magical concealment, but found none.
Then, Hermione searched the rest second floor, and still found nothing. She sighed heavily from disappointment and frustration, and headed to the third floor.
An hour and a half later, she only had one more room to search, and she was restraining herself from tugging out her hair in frustration. It’s highly suspicious that the wards around this house were so strong, and yet it seems like there isn’t anything here. Maybe Voldemort intended this house to be a red herring and nothing else. But that does not seem like something he would do. Then again, how do I know what he would do or not do? Hermione thought.
She had heard from neither Harry nor Ron, and she was getting slightly worried, but that also meant that they weren’t in danger and that they hadn’t found anything yet either. Hermione entered the room, which was the master bedroom from the looks of it, and suddenly felt a very faint tingle of magic. Excited, she located the source, and found that it was coming from a huge, mahogany bureau that was shoved up against the wall opposite of her.
Hermione went over to it and examined it further. After a minute or two of feeling around, she felt that the tingle of magic was the strongest when her fingers hovered over a wooden square that looked like it was just decoration.
It’s a secret drawer, she thought in amazement.
Remembering what Harry had told her about the cave, Hermione suddenly knew what she had to do. Hermione conjured a small, sharp, silver knife, and cut her palm with a hiss of pain. She then pressed her cut and bleeding palm to the square, and it popped open. Hermione muttered a healing spell, and peaked inside the secret compartment.
Inside, there was an ornate silver key and a small, black leather-bound book. She picked up the key and ran her fingers over the cool metal, trying to figure out what it unlocked. When she could not think of anything, Hermione proceeded to the book. It appeared be a journal or diary. She flipped through the pages of it, but found them all to be blank. A wave of déjà vu hit her, almost causing her to drop the journal. This looked just like Tom Riddle’s diary, but that was impossible because it had been destroyed, hadn’t it?
Hermione swiftly flipped to the front cover and did not see ‘T.M. Riddle’ written in the corner, much to her relief. However, that did not explain why Voldemort would want to hide this journal and the key, since it did not seem as if these objects were of importance or significance. Unless… they had hidden magical properties, although it did not seem likely.
She muttered a revealing spell, but nothing happened. Feeling slightly let down, Hermione whispered, “Expecto Patronum.”
A silvery otter burst forth from the tip of her wand, and she told it to go find Ron and Harry. The Patronus complied, and Hermione watched it go with a slight sense of sadness at seeing it leave. Now, all she had to do was wait. Hermione did not have to wait long until she heard footsteps coming from down the hall. The door opened a second later and the two Gryffindor boys stepped into the room, excitement evident in their faces.
“So, what’d you find, Hermione?” Harry asked.
“Just these,” she replied, holding up the key and the journal. “They aren’t magical, but I found them in a secret compartment that was sealed with magic in that bureau over there,” Hermione added, jerking her head in the direction of the bureau.
“Wait a second, Hermione. That’s Riddle’s diary!” Harry gasped, his almond-shaped, emerald eyes as round as saucers as he pointed to said book.
“No it’s not. That’s what I thought too, but I checked and it is not Riddle’s diary,” assured Hermione.
“I also found this key, but I have no idea what it goes to. Unfortunately, this is all I found,” Hermione continued.
“What I don’t get is why You-Know-Who would hide these things when they hardly seem important,” said Ron, who had been surprisingly quiet up until that point.
“I don’t know either, Ron, but I think that maybe this whole thing was just a red herring,” Hermione said, anxiously running a hand through her tangled, frizzy hair.
“I agree,” Harry said. “I think we should leave as soon as possible, since there isn’t anything else we can do here,” he proposed.
“Yeah, no hard feelings there. This place gives me the creeps,” Ron echoed, shuddering for effect.
“Okay, let’s get out of here. The sooner we leave the better,” Hermione agreed, pocketing the key and the diary.
The three Gryffindors hastily made their way out of the Riddle House. In fact, they were so determined to leave that they forgot to put the ward back up, so as not to alert Voldemort to the fact that they were hunting his Horcruxes.
They Apparated back to Number 12 Grimmauld Place, where Kreacher was waiting for them with a hot meal.
Later that night, Hermione was lying on her stomach on her bed reading Hogwarts: A History for the umpteenth time, when the journal crossed her mind again. She couldn’t concentrate on her book, so she snapped it shut, and grabbed the diary off her nightstand. Hermione then fetched an eagle-feather quill and a bottle of ink from her beaded bag. She opened the diary to the first page, dipped her quill into the ink, and began to write.
August 6, 1997
Dear Diary,
I don’t usually write in diaries; actually, I detest them, but I feel that I have to record certain events. I found this diary in a secret compartment and a key, but I have no idea why they were in a Muggle house in a drawer sealed with magic. Well, actually I do. You see, the Muggle house was the Riddle house, and obviously, Voldemort himself enchanted the compartment in the bureau. Harry, Ron, and I thought that we would find a Horcrux, Helga Hufflepuff’s cup, there. Apparently, the Riddle House never contained any Horcruxes, and now the three of us are back to square one with the cup. Oh, I forgot the niceties, silly me….
Anyway, my name is Hermione Jean Granger, and I am seventeen-years-old, although I’ll be eighteen in February. I am a Gryffindor, and I should be entering my seventh year. However, I am not going back to Hogwarts, unfortunately. I would except that I have to track down Voldemort’s Horcruxes and destroy them, so that that bastard can finally be defeated. I am also a Muggleborn, and a member of the so-called "Golden Trio". My two best friends are Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, the other members of the aforementioned "Trio". Harry and I are like siblings, but I think that my relationship with Ron is much more than that. If only he weren’t so tactless and clueless….
Oh, my! Look at the time! It’s just after midnight, so I have to go to sleep.
Hermione Jean Granger
Hermione shut the journal and turned out the lights so quickly that she failed to notice that the ink on the page of the diary had faded and disappeared.
Fading Ink by Wicked Sapphira
Story Notes:
Welcome to Fading Ink! I wanted to try my hand at a Hermione/Tom story, so I did, and I hope this turns out well….This is my favorite pairing to read, although a lot of them have cliché plots. I promise that this is not a cliché time-turner fiction. In fact, it does not involve any time travel at all. How are Hermione and Tom going to meet, then? Well, you are going to find out. Just a warning, this disregards some of DH, but otherwise it follows the book. Okay, I’ll stop rambling now.
Chapter Endnotes: Please review. If you guys like it, I’ll continue it. I really want to know what you think. Anyway, if you have any questions, don’t be afraid to ask! I’ll try to answer them as well as I can, but there are obviously some things that I can’t tell you, as it would spoil the story.
Translations: “Aperio” is Latin for “reveal,” and “Nex Everto” literally means, “Death demolished” in Latin. English to Latin Translators are the best!