A/N: it's my birthday today, so here's a gift to everyone as a thank you. unbeta'd, since i wanted to be sure to get this out this afternoon, but if you catch anything glaring, feel free to let me know. review replies will be done by tomorrow-me. my hungover ass thanks you in advance.

now on with the show -

The Roots of This Tree

Chapter Twelve

The shrivelfig is a shrunken thing, its flesh a dry and crinkly purple.

Dehydrated, Hermione thinks as she stares at the rare magical fruit. This is what a lack of water will do.

Tom's thumb and forefinger hold the fig firmly against the table as his knife snicks its way under the the fruit's tough, leathery casing. The actual peeling of it comes about slowly, layered with an odd, almost sideways kind of fury. It feels like steam, what's bleeding off of Tom; hard to frame, difficult to grasp, slipping in around the corners of his every action.

It's been this way for some time. With each ingredient hauled out by hand instead of magic, each prolonged stretch of his shoulders, each deliberate, unhurried, achingly slow cut — she can't help but feel it's all been designed to slight her.

She couldn't care less, though. Not when it's all she can do to stay upright.

Sitting up had been a mistake.

Her whole life, she'd had an endless well of energy, an ocean of strength that she'd never had to consciously acknowledge the depths of.

Now, that ocean feels like a puddle. A quivering teaspoon, her stamina sloshing over the sides.

It's a mistake. Sitting up had been a mistake.

But it had also been her mistake, and she won't regret making it, no matter how much Tom tries to make her in this new, roundabout way of his.

If anything, she's glad. Sitting is a thing she can do now that she couldn't do before. And she'd do it again. Would make this choice every time.

Her shoulders strain, muscles warm and burning.

You're here, they seem to say. Still present.

Still alive.

And she is.

Hermione's arms don't shake, not yet, but she honestly doesn't know how much longer they can support her like this.

Five minutes? Ten?

Less time than this potion will take to make, anyway.

And as for the potion after that, and the one after that, and the one after — ?

Hermione sets her jaw and buries the thought. She knows where that road ends, after all.

The road she doesn't know, and the road that is infinitely more concerning, starts somewhere else entirely. Somewhere she can't place or entirely predict.

Her eyes flit to Tom, bent over the table. He's moved from the purple shrivelfig fruit to the grey-green shrivelfig leaves, mincing them slowly, so slowly, his movements drawn-out and emphasized and utterly predictable. But behind his passive aggressive, immature tactics, there's something else she's starting to notice.

And — yes.

There it is. Another one.

A slanted brow, a softened jaw.

A worried glance, thrown her way when he thinks she isn't looking.

Hermione frowns, straightening. This is the third furtive look she's caught, and it's downright unsettling. This tall, cruel, long-limbed thing showing flashes of real concern. Concern for her.

It can't actually be right. Hermione knows she's missing something important. Vital, even. The results clear and the cause unknown, like everything else in this godforsaken place.

"Boomslang skin next," Tom announces, carefully pronouncing all four syllables of the perfectly simple phrase. His tone is dry. Perfunctory. Designed, again, to slight her. To emphasize, once more, how unreasonable her perfectly reasonable request had been.

Hermione keeps still as he picks up a long, leathery sheet of the boomslang skin, but inwardly, she fumes. She is not being unreasonable here. He killed someone. Will kill and kill and continue to kill, from now until she is born — and after.

Sure, he says he won't kill her, and maybe she even believes him, but the chasm-like space between murder and do no harm is near-exponential. There are so many other ways to hurt. Ways to die.

Whack.

There's a blur, and a hit, and a smacking sound. Hermione jolts, the suddenness of it taking her by surprise.

The boomslang skin whirls through the air, colliding with the worktable a second time. Immediately, Tom pulls back and swings again, going for a third, treating the magical ingredient like meat that needs tenderizing. Whack.

Whack.

Whack.

Hermione watches his arm swing.

She does not startle again.

He really is very clever.

Economical, intuitive, bright. Every movement has a meaning. Every word's precise.

She knew it and she knows it, his brilliance, but seeing it is another thing entirely. Living it. Not looking away even for a moment.

It's bound to have an effect.

"I thought you wanted to monitor the potion-making process, Hermione?"

Tom says this sometime later, after her arms have given out and she's been forced onto her back once more through lack of other options. Though his words resemble a question, would be from anyone else, Hermione knows better.

Still, she replies to him, not really knowing why. "I do want to," she says clearly, her face blank, a mimic to that mask of his he wears so well. "I am."

Tom's dark eyes glint in response. His expression is a bit cruel and a bit cold, like he knows something she doesn't but would never, ever tell.

Hermione does not like it. Not at all.

"Oh, are you?" Tom says, tone light. "Seems like you were more focused on looking at me than the ingredients, is all."

Hermione blinks up at him.

Was that it?

"Well, yes," she says simply. "It's not the ingredients I'm worried about."

Tom mutters something. Gives a low hum of acknowledgment.

He doesn't say anything else for a long time.

An excruciating hour and a half later, and the first potion is done.

Purple-green and viscous, it resembles nothing short of a liquid bruise.

One potion down. Nine more to go.

At least, nine more if she still wants to start from scratch, which she most certainly does.

She heaves herself up onto an elbow, downing the potion expertly, without giving him so much as a fight to enjoy or grimace to worry over. It's all a well-practiced routine by now, isn't it?

Her head still aches, though. Her abdomen still burns.

She can't go on like this forever. She knows this.

But forever doesn't have to start right now.

"Next potion," she says, easing herself back onto the cot gingerly.

"What?" Tom looks down at her, stunned. "You can't seriously wish to continue this charade. I thought you smarter than this, Hermione."

And isn't that hilarious? Tom Riddle thinking he knows anything about who she is.

He doesn't know how smart she is. He doesn't even know she's a person.

Hermione remains silent, her steady glare all the answer he's going to get from her.

"You're worsening, Hermione. This is madness," he says, voice firm. "Idiocy," he continues, like that's worse.

She glares again, and of course her body takes that moment to betray her, pain arcing lightning-sharp across her spine. Along her abdomen.

It's telling. So telling.

Tom notices. Makes like he's going to approach.

"I'm fine," Hermione grits out, raising a curt hand to stop him from attempting whatever it is he's planning on.

At her hand, he appears indignant. At her hand, he also stops.

"You're not fine," he says darkly, drawing himself up. "I'm not going through this a second time."

He is firm and cold and final, and she almost shrinks back under the authority he imbues in those words. Almost, as if he wants her to. Almost — but not quite.

"You will drink the potions I've brewed for you," Tom continues, "or I will make you drink them."

There's another flare-up. More of that arcing, shooting pain. And as best as she tries to keep it from her face, Hermione knows she hasn't masked it entirely.

She narrows her eyes at him through it. At the thought that he could make her do anything.

"I've resisted the Imperius before, Tom. I can do it again."

This is, of course, a stretch. Her resistance had taken place in a controlled classroom setting under the wand of the false-Professor Moody, and it had lasted for all of fifteen seconds, but Tom doesn't need to know that.

And it appears, indeed, that he doesn't — because Tom, who she knows has cast the very worst of the Unforgiveables, looks just shy of distressed at her pronouncement. He studies her, his gaze tumultuous and searching and not furtive in the slightest. "That," he says finally, "is not at all what I meant. But interesting."

Hermione glares.

There's another blinding flash of pain. They're like contractions, almost. Getting closer. Getting worse.

Jaw set, she clenches her eyes and rides it out.

A year later, the wave passes, and she blinks, surfacing, opening her eyes.

Tom looks like himself again. He looks different, too.

"A compromise, then," he offers. But it's with a note of finality, as though the subject isn't up for debate.

Immediately, he follows his words with action, with a wave of his hand, summoning a large, empty jar and picking up a short, stubby wand. A murmured word later, and a colorless liquid trickles from the wand's tip. The slight sloshing of it echoes throughout the room. Throughout her body.

When the jar is nearly full, Tom ends the spell with a sharp twist of his wrist, and meets Hermione's incredulous gaze. Not glancing away even for a second, he raises the glass, and takes a long, slow, meaningful sip. His Adam's apple bobs as the liquid disappears down the long line of his throat.

When he extends the glass to her, she takes it without a word of acknowledgment. Her hands tremble, understanding what he's offered her.

It tastes delicious, and it tastes like nothing.

It tastes just as she thought.

Like water.

The water is not the compromise, of course. It's a bribe.

The compromise comes later, and it is this:

The potions he can imbibe without any ill effects, he will. The remaining potions, three of them, he will make under her watch.

They decide it together. They decide it minutes.

It feels, almost, amicable.

She doesn't trust it. Or him. But it's progress, she supposes. Progress in the way time moves forward. Progress in the way entropy is.

She is so tired.

Hermione wakes with the distinct, unmistakable urge to pee.

Her head falls back to the lumpy mattress, and she bites back a groan. She'd known this was bound to happen eventually. It's a normal biological function, after all. One she's literally had all of her life, but still. Still. This is not an event she's looking forward to doing — a conversation with Tom she's looking forward to having.

But, as Hermione takes in the rest of the room, she realizes that luckily or unluckily for her, that conversation may be postponed.

Tom is gone. Again.

This time, she looks down immediately.

He's not there, of course. Not on the floor. It doesn't come as a surprise. Judging by the brightness of the room, it's only early afternoon, and while she doesn't know Tom well, exactly — doesn't think anyone does — she would not picture him as a person who naps.

He's really not here, though, and again, it feels like a trap.

She scans the room. There are less places to hide, now, in the light of day.

He's really not here. Not visible.

But then — a ridiculous thought flashes through her head that he could be hiding under the bed, waiting. Waiting to see what she will do. Waiting to lash out a hand and grab her by the ankle if she attempts to run. Has only lulled her to complacence with the recent compromise but is really just as cruel as ever. Crueler, maybe, than even she knows.

She tries to dismiss the thought. Really, she does. But with each passing second, the far-fledged thing grows. Latches further and further in. A niggling thought, burrowing. Plausible, almost. Real.

Just as she contemplates whether she's capable of leaning over the cot to peek under the bed, if she's willing and able and even should with a full bladder, there's a — ting.

A ting.

A ringing sound, sudden and insistent.

It's coming from above, from the window, and Hermione drops. Ducks down, flung back to Tom's fists flying, banging at the very same glass. Her heart is in her throat, and her mind reels, and she's breathing hard while simultaneously holding her breath. And she's not even scared, really. It's only that she's surprised, only that even if she attempted run, she wouldn't be able to, she couldn't go anywhere, can't go anywhere, she's here, just here, and she's trapped, and —

Ting.

Another series of them. Taps. Cuts.

Ting - ting - ting.

She looks up.

Up into a mask of stark white. Inscrutable beady black eyes. And - a beak. A short one.

It's — it's a spotted barn owl, and it's sitting, perched on the window's ledge like it'd always been there, like she'd be crazy to think otherwise. It quirks its round little head at her, turning it a startling ninety-degrees. It blinks.

Hermione's brain short-circuits for an impossible, undetermined length of time, and she just sort of... stares at it. Then it moves, beak tapping against the windowpane in short, sharp bursts — ting, ting, ting — and her brain resumes functioning, as if rebooted, updated, going seemingly faster than before.

She whirls up and fumbles for the latch at the window even as she knows it's locked. Tom likely locked it the moment he slithered back through it all those days and tickmarks ago, but she tries again because she can't not.

Her fingers pull at the latch, and, yes. Okay. She's right.

Locked. It's locked.

Her forehead kind of slumps against the glass, and she half contemplates banging her head against it to see if it'd break, but it's a fleeting, indulgent thought. One she knows is futile and stupid and a waste of time. If he couldn't break it, even at the height of his fury, there's no way she could now.

But she can do other things.

See other things.

As she peers through the glass, her eyes lock on the letter clutched in the owl's talons. She strains a little further, and — yes!

There it is — writing! A blur of elaborate calligraphy; of looping, connected letters.

An address. It's an address.

Hermione flattens her face against the thick, cool windowpane, pressing herself against it, trying to read what it says. The glass is dirty, so she reaches back to bring the linen bedsheet up, using it like a cloth, wiping it against the window. It kind of works, but it also kind of doesn't, just spreads the dirt around, so she spits on the window and tries again. Has to spit several times.

And even though most of the dirt is on the outside of the window, it helps. Somewhat, at least. She can see.

Can read.

At the top left corner there is a deep, looping emerald she recognizes instantly. Intimately.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Hermione's fingers claw at the glass.

Hogwarts. A letter from Hogwarts.

Underneath, in the middle, there's more.

MR. T. RIDDLE
Floor In The Main Room
Gaunt Residence
Little Hangleton, Yorkshire

It's larger than the regular back to school letters that are usually sent some time in late July. It can't be that late. She hasn't been keeping track of the date, admittedly, but there's no way she lost months as well as years. There's no way.

Hermione swallows, and the owl leans forward and taps, hard and sharp, right in the center of Hermione's forehead. Where it would be, anyway, if not for the thick pane of glass. The glass reverberates, and the letter twitches in the owl's sharp talons, and when Hermione looks at its white feathered face, surrounded by a ring of tawny brown, she'd swear the owl appeared almost annoyed. It trills, a sharp hooting noise, a farewell and thanks for nothing, and Hermione feels more than hears a broken noise of protest rip from the back of her throat.

A noise the owl doesn't hear either or must ignore, because it launches itself off of the windowsill, making for the front of the shack.

For the front of the Gaunt Residence, if the letter had been correct.

And Hogwarts letters always are.