Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and full at evening. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Chapter 18

Hermione's first week of the summer holiday was spent candidly observing the customers of the Leaky Cauldron. It was not as full as it had been when she had been there the previous year with Professor Flitwick, but it still attracted a number of witches and wizards, some of whom seemed familiar to the bushy-haired witch.

At the end of the first week she found herself sitting at her usual table, a coffee set in front of her and the Daily Prophet spread open. Several books were also on the table, though she was currently paying these items no mind as her attention was focused on a small family who had just come in.

The man, fair-haired and cheerful looking, was dressed in muggle attire, while the woman with him, brown-haired and solemn looking, wore violet-colored robes. The little child with them, holding tightly to her father's hand, had a head of brilliantly violet hair. Hermione watched them settle into a table not far away from her.

"I still think we should have stayed at home," she heard the woman say in a low tone. "It's not safe to simply wander around these days."

"But we are hardly wandering," the man said. "We will just have some breakfast, finish our shopping and go home. There is no reason to hide. We have done enough of that thanks to…" His next words were spoken too quietly for Hermione to here but she could see that the woman was frowning.

"I still think that it's not safe Ted," the woman continued to look solemn. Her dark eyes trailed around the tavern with caution, though for what she was looking for Hermione could only guess. Their breakfast arrived then and as they turned their attention towards their meals Hermione focused once more on her papers.

She was sure that she knew who the family was but they had no business with her and she had no pretext for talking to them. Concentrating on her coffee and paper she had mostly pushed them out of her head when she felt a little tug on her shoulder. She looked over to find a pair of brown eyes looking back at her from a pale little face framed with violet hair.

"What are you doing?" the little child asked her as she came to sit beside her.

Hermione smiled at her. "I'm reading the newspaper and having breakfast," she replied.

"By yourself?" was the child's next question. "Aren't you lonely?"

"Sometimes," Hermione told her. "But I know plenty of nice people to talk to and they come in here all the time."

That was not exactly true and somehow Hermione's little acquaintance seemed to know this. "You look sad," she said softly. "Are you sad?"

"Nymphadora!"

The violet haired child then smiled. "I know! You can come and have breakfast with me and my mummy and daddy," she said excitedly.

"Nymphadora!" Andromeda Tonks had reached them. Her own eyes, similar in color though so much more serious in feeling than her daughter's, regarded her small daughter with disapproval. "You know better than to wander off." She then turned to Hermione. "I apologize for my daughter."

Hermione offered what she hoped was a friendly smile. "It is alright Mrs. Tonks. Your daughter is not bothering me." The words had barely left her mouth when she realized they had been a mistake. Andromeda Tonks was now regarding her with suspicion.

"I'm sorry but have we met before?" she asked politely. Hermione saw her hand tighten on her daughter's shoulder. From the corner of her eye Hermione could see her husband getting up to join them.

"We have not," Hermione began quickly, "but I go to school with your cousin Sirius and he mentioned a little cousin who could change her appearance at will named Nymphadora." She smiled kindly at Nymphadora Tonks.

The child wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I don't like that name. Daddy calls me Dora."

As though on cue her father cut in then: "Quite right I do!" he said cheerfully. He then smiled at Hermione and held out his hand which Hermione getting up from her seat took. "The name is Ted Tonks and this is my wife Andromeda and I see you have already met Dora." His light eyes twinkled as they regarded his little girl with fondness. "It's good to meet a friend of Sirius's."

"Likewise," Hermione told him. "My name is Rose Perkins. Do you see your cousin often?"

"We had him for dinner on Tuesday," Dora told her. Then brightening she added: "If you are a friend of his then you can come over too sometime!"

Her father laughed but Andromeda Tonks was still frowning.

Hermione hesitated. "Well I am more of a friend of a friend Dora," she said gently. "I'm his friend Remus's girlfriend." As she said this she felt a pang remembering how quiet she had been around Remus the last time she had seen him. There was a very unpleasant talk she had to have with him but when she was going to have it and how she did not know.

Dora it seemed was nothing if not persistent: "then bring him with you!"

"I am sure that Rose would like to finish her breakfast in peace," her mother told her. Her voice had a quiet sort of firmness that Dora could hardly fail to comprehend. She turned back to Hermione with a distinctly crestfallen face.

"Well goodbye Rose," with that she reluctantly allowed her mother to steer her away from Hermione's table and back over to their own. Andromeda offered Hermione nothing more than a cordial nod and a "please excuse us" but Ted shook her hand again and gave a more cheerful goodbye before bustling off to join his wife and daughter. Hermione took her seat again and aside from the occasional look thrown her way from Dora no more was said or acknowledged on the subject.

She still wondered if there was anything more she could find on Voldemort's background and it was this more than anything that had her foolish enough to go traipsing into Knockturn Alley later that day. Ignoring several strange stares and sidestepping a cart filled with trinkets that looked suspiciously like they were made of human bones she made her way to Borgin and Burke's. The door creaked unpleasantly as she entered the musty, cluttered old shop and approached the counter where a grizzled old man stood waiting.

For a moment she and the old man stood staring at each other. His face looked venomous but he was clearly not going to be the first one to talk so Hermione took a breathe and began.

"Good afternoon. Are you Caractacus Burke?"

"So what is it to yeh if I am?" His voice, like his manner, was nothing if not discouraging.

"Well," Hermione told him. "I was hoping I could get some information about a former employee of yours, a…Tom Riddle."

At once she realized that was the wrong thing to say. The man's face turned very dark. "What's Riddle to do with yeh?" he snapped at her.

"I had questions about his time here and what he did immediately afterwards, you see I know him slightly and…" She was rambling by now but it didn't matter; her words had opened a floodgate that she could not possibly stop.

"Oh yeh know him, eh missy?" Burke said angrily. "Well I know him better, takin' off the way he did with the locket and cup. He was supposed to make a deal for them but he goes and kills the ol' biddy and takes them, never mind how valuable they were to us."

"The locket was very valuable to you?" Hermione repeated.

"That one especially. It were Slytherin's own locket. That little bastard thought that I didn't know he coveted treasure but I saw how it were when he left the ol' bag's home. Talkin' to himself about heir's and 'rightful property' and some such." His glare had become murderous by now as he peered at Hermione. "You say yeh know him, huh missy?"

"Only slightly," Hermione replied faintly. "But he likes antiques. He collects things." She said it on the fly but it worked. His face snarled and he continued.

"That were a good find of mine, both of em were and he up and takes 'em and runs off with the ol' thing dead an' is nowhere to be found and I'm a shopkeeper short."

"But that was years ago," Hermione breathed. "He's much older now."

"Yeh know where he is then, do yeh?" Burke was glowering as he regarded her. "You related to him or some such? He'd be old enough to have a kid or two by now, maybe even a grandkid."

Hermione shook her head wildly. "I don't know where he is. He never stays in one place for long. I just wanted to know about what he was like when he worked here."

"He was a thief. That's the long and short of it. If you know him, yeh must be a thief yourself. Now get out."

"I thank you for your time," Hermione quickly said, "I…"

"I SAID GET THE HELL OUT OF MY SHOP!" Burke yelled, making Hermione jump. She hastily muttered an apology and exited the tiny shop, her heart racing. She quickly made her way back to her room at the Leaky Cauldron, her mind filled with what she had learned.

As soon as Hermione got back to her room she locked herself in and threw herself on the bed. She needed to think. Tom Riddle had stolen from Burke or at least had stolen things that Burke had wanted off of a customer. Slytherin's locket and from the sounds of things, a cup of some sort. He had apparently killed an old woman to get them. This at least explained why he had left Borgin and Burke's.

She understood the need for the locket if it was Slytherin's. As Slytherin's heir he never would have been able to pass up the opportunity for it but a cup? Could that have belonged to Slytherin too? He had taken the time to steal it and Burke had sounded furious about it even though it was easily more than twenty years ago so it must have been valuable. She wondered how much he would honestly care even back then about the cost of something. It was likely to be considered much more important to Riddle based on historical or magical importance. The cup, like the locket must have one or both of those things.

Reaching into her bag at the foot of the bed Hermione extracted ink, quill and parchment. She smoothed out the parchment and began to write a list of all the things she now knew about Tom Riddle. He was the son of a muggle named Tom Riddle and a witch descended from Slytherin. His father abandoned his mother when he found out she could use magic, she died and Tom Marvolo Riddle was raised in an orphanage. He was a Slytherin in school, was prefect and then Headboy. He opened the Chamber, killed Myrtle and blamed it all on Hagrid. He at some point murdered his father, who had lived in Little Hangleton.

"And then he went to go work at Borgin and Burke's," she said aloud to herself as she finished writing. "Where he killed an old woman, stole Slytherin's locket and a cup and did a runner." She threw down her quill in frustration. She remembered Harry telling her about the Little Hangleton graveyard and how he had been tied up against Tom Riddle's gravestone while Voldemort bragged about having killed his father. Was that before or after he had left school? She didn't know.

The only person who would know the answers to all of these questions was somewhere out in hiding in Wizarding Britain, waiting for the next chance to strike. All she could do is try and study everything she could learn about this war and the consequences of it.

There was one last thing she could do though. She could try to study up on any sort of magic that let people leave memories of themselves in books.

It was this thought that had her searching the bookshelves of Flourish and Blot's the next day. Many of the books she found talked about penseives and potions for improving the memory and memory charms but she could find nothing on what she was looking for. Though more than one shopkeeper offered their assistance Hermione found that she wanted to keep this under wraps to herself.

She was so caught up in her perusing of a shelf of material on sentient books that she failed to notice when Regulus Black entered the shop, accompanied by Barty Crouch Jr.

Regulus was not nearly as unobservant of the bushy-haired witch as she was of him and as his friend went wandering off into the opposite stacks he regarded the teenage-girl with particularly minute attention. Making his way towards her he came to within an arm's length before stopping. His gray eyes slid over her downcast head to the cover of the nondescript book in front of her. As she got up and reached up to place back the book on its high up shelf her blouse rode up slightly, exposing just the slightest hint of pale skin.

It was while he was observing this last most interesting sight, and for once in his life enjoying the fruits of muggle attire that Hermione finally turned his way and caught him staring. Her face immediately flushed scarlet.

"How long have you been standing there?" she demanded faintly.

"Long enough to see that you have no perception skills," he answered dryly. His pale eyes turned towards the book she had just put back before turning to regard her once more. "Sentience in the Modern Book? Well that's not the usual muggle drivel I see you reading. Or do you just save that stuff up as an excuse to flirt with me?"

Hermione's flush became even more pronounced as his words hit their mark. "I'm not the one going out of their way to try and steal other people's girlfriends. " She told him angrily.

"I'm sorry, are you angry at me?" Regulus asked innocently. "I think you seemed pretty happy kissing me back Perkins." He shook his head, his lips catching at a particularly infuriating smile. "It's okay though, I mean if the alternative is to kiss Lupin then of course you couldn't resist."

"What are you even doing here anyway?" she asked him. "Surely you didn't come find me to fight?"

"Of course not," he told her. "I have a life you know and you are far from the only thing in it."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"Finding books," he replied simply. "Same as you. Though what you are getting out of reading about sentient books I don't know."

"I wanted to know…" she stopped then as Barty Crouch Jr. made his way towards them.

"It's Perkins," he said snidely. "What do you know, a Ravenclaw in its natural habitat." He turned to Regulus then. "If you are ready to leave your girlfriend, I'm ready to go."

"You get going," Regulus told him. He had yet to take his eyes off of Hermione's.

"I'm not waiting for you Regulus!"

"You are if you don't want me telling your father where you've been disappearing on weekends." Regulus said.

Barty froze in his tracks, his eyes flying over to rest on Hermione for a moment and then back on Regulus, who glared at him coldly. "You're a bastard Regulus."

"I know I am," Regulus replied simply. "Now go wait outside like a good boy, Barty."

Barty Crouch Jr. glared at him for a moment before turning and stomping off. Hermione heard the door slam all the way from her spot several aisles down.

"Do you always treat your friends so kindly?" she asked Regulus.

"Only when I think they really deserve it," he told her.

"What has he been up to?" she found herself asking.

"None of your business," he told her sharply. "I know it's a bizarre concept for you, that something might not be your business, but do try to wrap your mind around it."

"Considering you're the one who bothered me when I was reading it seems as though you could stand to learn a thing or two about that yourself," Hermione said. She felt tired of all of this arguing. "We are getting nowhere here, so maybe we should say goodbye."

"Who says I want to say goodbye," he told her. "I want to know what you are going to do when we get back to school?"

She froze. "What do you mean?" she asked him, though she of course knew perfectly well what he meant.

"You kissed me back," he told her. "Then you left me standing there like a fool. So you can't just tell me you are going back to Lupin like nothing happened. You aren't that sort of person. So I want to know what you are going to do?"

"I…what are you planning on doing about it?" she asked him. It was sidestepping the issue but she couldn't help it. "You can hardly tell me that you plan on walking around the school hand in hand with me after all of the fighting we did last year." Tucking a strand of bushy hair behind one ear, she continued. "We made a mistake is all, but that doesn't mean we have to continue it."

Regulus's expression remained unreadable for a moment. "So you are staying with Lupin then are you?" His words were careful, guarded even, but she couldn't not hear the hint of disappointment in them.

Hermione sighed. "I don't know…" she told him. In reality she did, however. Her and Remus Lupin were never going to work. He was a figure apart from her, someone who stood guarded by a lifetime of secrets and self-loathing. She was filled with her own secrets, some even more potentially dangerous than his own. They would never make it work. "Probably not."

"No?" he asked her. "Not good enough for you? Is anyone good enough for you?"

"I just need to be alone," she told him. "It is my seventh year next year and I have N.E.W.T's to study for and so does he. We can't spend all our time together when so many things need to get done." It wasn't a lie and yet it wasn't the full truth either and they both knew it. In spite of that she knew that wasn't all that he was asking. It was a dead subject though and they both knew that even before Barty Crouch came wandering back in to pester Regulus about leaving once more.

"Yes Barty, I am coming," Regulus told him, his face a perfect mask of haughtiness. He turned to go then and as the sun from the open door caught in his pale eyes Hermione felt a sudden impulse strike her.

"Please don't make any rash decisions before you see me next," she told him.

He froze then, his face slightly obscured by the lowering sun as he gazed frowning back at her. She didn't need any further words to make her meaning plain.

"The hell are you on about?" Crouch asked her irritably but Regulus waved him off before he could say more. His light eyes met her dark ones for a moment and in that moment she knew just how indecisive this past year had made him. Then the moment was gone and he was turning back towards the fading sunlight.

"See you around Perkins."

End of Chapter

Yeah I know she lives! So yeah I've been super busy in addition to suffering writers block. I originally wanted this chapter to be longer but then I thought I should at least get something out. This is the first writing I've done of the new decade so I hope it's good.

Next chapter will find Hermione learning about Horcruxes and will have some additional nasty surprises in store so let's see if I can get it out sooner than this chapter.