The clone I had left at Hogwarts—one of the few remaining after my voluntary weakening—was the first to react. It had remained in a state of absolute hibernation, inert in the corners of the Lair, until that precise instant.
It awakened.
The newly imposed seal containing my power fractured.
My clone tore through doors and corridors at top speed, its terrifying aura sweeping through the castle for a fleeting second as it surged toward a specific point. It was a phantom occurrence, so subtle that many would mistake it for a simple shiver.
But there were those who were not deceived by its brevity.
In his office, Albus Dumbledore sprang to his feet. The impact was sharp and vanished as quickly as it arrived, but it left a trail of alarm in his senses. Believing that Tom Riddle had finally lost his patience and was acting with suicidal abandon, Albus did not waste a second. He summoned Fawkes and vanished in a burst of flames, determined to intercept whatever was happening before the plan slipped from his fingers.
On the other hand, the Heir and his ancient serpent were mired in confusion. Until then, the petrifications had been a tactical choice; they needed to sow fear gradually to shut down the school and operate freely. But patience had run out, and Hermione Granger was to be their first mortal victim—the sacrifice that would mark the beginning of true terror.
However... she did not die either.
The girl, destined to repeat the tragic end of Myrtle half a century later, now lay cold and hard as granite, her fixed eyes showing subtle crystalline cracks. But the Heir had no time to analyze the failure. The deathly aura hit them full force. The Basilisk, possessing an ancestral instinct far superior to a human's, felt a terror so abject its muscles nearly collapsed. That which approached surpassed its own creator in essence. Without waiting for its master's orders, the great serpent fled into the shadows of the pipes, seeking the stone refuge of its den.
Riddle did not bother to reprimand it. Convinced that this suffocating pressure was the prelude to a Dumbledore decided on hunting him down once and for all, he too vanished into the darkness, leaving his prey behind.
Both sides, convinced that the other was the source of that power, moved accordingly. This allowed the true "monster"—the origin of that lethal presence—to arrive before Hermione.
The clone contemplated the girl's statue for a brief moment before both vanished from the spot, as if they had never existed.
Seconds later, Dumbledore emerged from a golden flame... only to find a void.
He did not lower his guard. Wand in hand, he cast a web of high-level tracking spells, searching for echoes of dark magic, heat signatures, or soul prints. The result was an absolute zero. There was no trace of a struggle, no people, not even the thermal residue of a spell. It was as if reality itself had been scrubbed clean in that corridor. Gilderoy Lockhart, who was loitering nearby to be Albus's planned "sacrifice," was unharmed and as oblivious to reality as ever.
Dumbledore stood there, alone in the sepulchral silence of the castle, doubting for the first time if his age was playing tricks on him or if it had all been an illusion. But there was nothing. No Riddle, no victim, no trace of a fight. As a precaution, he even monitored Tom in secret over the following hours, but the soul fragment seemed to have entered a state of total withdrawal, as if trying to go unnoticed by a superior predator.
The plan to use Lockhart had been ruined. Dumbledore didn't know it, but Riddle wouldn't dare move a muscle for a long time, believing the Headmaster had finally shown his teeth. Both strategists saw their plans collapse, blaming each other, while the true culprit of the chaos remained hidden.
...
Deep within the Room of Requirement, a room of ancient elegance had materialized. In the center, an imposing bed with duvets in blue and silver—in pure Ravenclaw style—harmonized with the rest of the classic decor. Upon it, Hermione lay in silence.
I approached to observe her. Her expression was frozen; it didn't quite reach pure terror, thanks to the lightning speed with which everything had happened. I could feel her pulse latent beneath the stony surface, a spark of life trapped in a prison of granite.
Carefully, I brought my hands to her face. My fingers brushed her eyes to remove the fragments of multicolored glass, now fractured and slightly charred. They were the remains of the contact lenses I had forced them to wear. They had served their purpose, though their imperfection was evident; I would be able to improve them significantly now if I wished.
Once cleared of shards, I extracted a singular object from my recent adventures: a long golden needle. After contemplating it for a moment, I sank it into Hermione's petrified skin, which yielded without resistance to the enchanted metal. Then... I waited.
Seconds passed. As if a rusted mechanism were being oiled or an inert body were catching its breath, Hermione began to change. The process wasn't instantaneous, but it was steady. I watched her fingers regain flexibility and then, suddenly, her lungs sucked in air in a sudden gasp. Following the movement came the absolute paleness of fear and confusion.
Her eyes focused on mine. I don't know if she managed to process the sequence of events, but she needed no logic to throw herself into my arms. She clung to me sobbing, seeking a shield in my chest against the horror she had just witnessed.
"Easy, everything is alright now," I whispered, wrapping my arms around her and stroking her back in a slow rhythm.
I let her cry. She needed that release. Hermione had looked death in the eye and had been saved by the thinnest of miracles: experimental eye protection. She was too intelligent not to realize how close she had come to disappearing. If I hadn't erased her memories of the spiders, perhaps the shock would have been less, but I had left her unarmed against the true danger, feeling the abyss beneath her feet for the first time.
"R-Red..." she stammered through sobs, regaining a shred of composure but without stopping her trembling. "The He-Heir... he..."
"I know," I interrupted calmly, kissing the crown of her head.
She looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying and her lips were still quivering. Upon meeting my gaze, she found only absolute serenity—a contagious calm that seemed to tell her there was nothing left to fear in this world.
"Stop thinking about that. We will resolve the matter of the Heir very soon. For now, just rest. I have chocolate..." I tried to relax her. I could have used [Calm], but I decided not to. Partly because my powers had sealed themselves again after rescuing her, and partly because I didn't want to strip her a second time of a traumatic experience that, in the long run, would forge her character and courage.
"I don't want chocolate..." she murmured, though in other circumstances she would have accepted. She clung tighter to my robes and after a while, tugged at me. "I... I want..."
She didn't finish the sentence. She simply buried her face in my neck, trembling with a renewed intensity.
"What do you want, Hermione?" I asked tenderly, noticing the weight of what she didn't dare name.
"I... I want... that," she whispered, leaning closer, seeking my warmth.
I remained still for a moment. Her vulnerability and the trauma of the moment could have made me doubt her intentions, but my instinct told me otherwise. I have known many women in extreme situations, and that inability to hold eye contact after such a request was the definitive sign. Still, I chose to double-check.
"Are you talking about...?" I asked, letting the weight of the doubt hang in the air.
"Yes..." she whispered against my chest, still tense from the residual terror. "What you... what you wanted in the infirmary wing," she forced herself to say before clinging to me with renewed strength.
"Do you really want this? Didn't you say you weren't ready?" I couldn't help but question her. Everything had happened too fast, and her emotional state made me doubt if it was a rational decision. It's not that I didn't want her, but...
"Is it that you don't want to?" she asked, starting to tremble again.
"It's not that I don't want to, Hermione. Of course I do... but why would you agree exactly now?" I asked with a skepticism born of concern.
"Because... I'm afraid," she admitted, and the tears began to flow heavily again. "I thought I was going to die! I felt like everything was over..."
"Relax, I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you," I assured her solemnly while wrapping her in my arms.
"But what if it does?" she replied between sobs. "I thought if I died today... everything would end. No more Mum, or Dad, or Hogwarts... or you. No more Hermione. And I don't want it to end like that; we haven't done anything yet. I... I want to live this. I want it so that, if I'm in a situation like that again, I can't regret what I let pass by." She spoke in a contemplative state, ignoring me and trapped in her own musings.
"Are you aware of what you're asking for?" I asked, though my resistance was beginning to crumble.
"I want to do it," she stated, wiping her tears with determination. "That way, no matter what happens... we will have consummated what we have. I don't want to leave this world without having lived this... in our relationship. Leaving you alone and... Please, don't tell me no now."
"Are you sure? Totally sure?" I asked one last time. It was almost impossible for me to reject her, but I knew if I didn't stop her at that moment, there would be no turning back.
"Yes... I'm ready," she murmured, her voice barely audible, as her paleness transformed into a burning blush.
Without wasting a second, I pulled back just enough to capture her lips in a deep, hungry kiss. My tongue invaded her mouth as our lips sealed. Hermione tensed; her heart, which had previously galloped from the fear of death, now did so from the vertigo toward the unknown she herself had suggested. She responded clumsily, still hampered by a lack of experience, but surrendering herself completely to the sensation.
My hands began to trace her silhouette as I guided her toward the center of the large bed. I laid her down gently, positioning myself over her without breaking the contact of our lips, stealing her breath in a kiss that seemed as if it would never end.
"Will you let me undress you?" I asked, though my hands were already working skillfully on her robes.
Hermione, overwhelmed by the heat, the lack of air, and the adrenaline, could only emit a small sound of agreement. By the time she managed to regain her composure, her clothes had almost entirely vanished and my hands were already removing her underwear, leaving her exposed under the soft light of the room. Her hands instinctively flew to cover herself in a gesture of panic and modesty.
"You know covering yourself now is useless, Hermione," I told her with a tender smile. "Besides, you are beautiful... my perfect girlfriend."
She turned red to the roots of her hair. She tried to pull her hands away, but her body tensed as she became aware that my eyes were roaming those places she was always taught to hide. Despite being the one who proposed it, her heart was hammering in her throat.
"Can't we... do it with the light off?" she asked in a thread of a voice, remembering such things from her parents.
"No. I want to see you," I stated with gentle dominance before kissing her again. "You are so lovely that I'd rather you hate me than miss a single detail of you right now."
I kissed her with such intensity that her doubts dissolved in the heat of the moment. While our tongues intertwined, I stripped off my own clothes in a flash. Hermione, whose near-death experience had led her to want to leave an indelible memory in our relationship, now had to face exactly what she had provoked.