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He pushed her against the mattress, peering down at her from an angle, no longer touching her above the waist except for his palms on her shoulders. "No."

She was not sure what this meant—if his ambitions had given him the idea, or if he simply enjoyed the title that he already had—but she did want him. Her core ached for him. "My lord," she murmured. "Please."

His eyes gleamed, and that smirk that she knew so well appeared on his handsome face. "Certainly." In the next moment, he was inside her. Her eyelids closed again in bliss.

They moved in the now-familiar dance, caressing each other’s body in time with their movements, each touch heightened, gasping and quickly finding mutual release with each other. Tom collapsed on top of her afterward, breathing heavily as he kissed her mouth with leisurely abandon.

"I can hardly wait until we can do this every day and night without having to hide," he murmured. He reached for her left hand and fondled it, giving special attention to her ring finger and the object on it.

"This is quite a change from the beginning of our relationship," she teased.

He smirked. "I can acknowledge now that my mother guessed well. You would have been my own choice too." He kissed her again.

"Even though I don’t have wholly English blood?" she said, still teasingly.

Tom sat upright, the smile vanished from his face. He wrapped his arms around his bent knees and gazed outward, away from her.

Hermione suddenly felt cold. "Tom?" she asked.

He turned toward her, and the smile was on his face again. "Even so," he said. "Your paternal grandfather was purely English... and which relative was it on your mother’s side?"

"My grandmother," she said quietly.

He was gazing at her. "I know what happened with your father’s family—your grandfather’s marriage to the Norman noblewoman to secure the family fief back from the usurper lord—but what happened with your mother’s?"

"I have never told you?"

"I have never asked," he admitted, somewhat embarrassed.

"Well," she said, "it was not as interesting. My grandmother was the daughter of a knight. When the Normans came, her father was ordered into the service of the new lord. She ended up marrying a Norman knight in service to the same lord. They were granted a manor house... and their twin daughters married my father and my uncle."

"So this side of your family aligned with the Normans," he said.

Hermione was suddenly unnerved. "Tom, my great-grandfather on that side was ordered. The lord at least saw the value of having knights in his service who were from this country... and my noble Norman great-grandfather, on my father’s side, let an Englishman marry his daughter."

Tom was silent for another moment before finally replying. "They survived," he said. "Both sides of your family did what was necessary to survive and to either regain what was theirs or to advance themselves."

"Yes," she agreed. She moved closer to him, pulling her outer robe loosely over her body. "They did what was necessary. So did your Gaunt ancestors... and I would guess your Riddle ones too, since your father was a knight." She rather hoped he would take the point and stop trying to provoke trouble from the Malfoys....

"Hermione," he said, turning to face her once again, "there is something I need to tell you."

The moment of hope was gone. He looked terribly grave, and she braced herself.

"My friends... my allies... do not approve of you."

She drew back. "Oh, do they not?" she retorted. "Then in that case, Tom, I think you should explain to them that it is not their decision about what becomes of us."

"They understand that," he said. "They either have, or expect arranged betrothals of their own. They know about it. They do not blame me."

"Blame you?" she exclaimed. "As if being engaged to me is wrongdoing?"

"That is not what I mean!" he said at once. "I should not have said it that way. I just mean... they know it isn’t my fault."

Hermione rose to her feet and reached for the rest of her clothing. The feeling of intimacy was entirely gone. "Tom," she said icily, "I think that you should say whatever it is that you are trying to say, and without words like "blame’ or "fault’ if that is possible."

He scowled. "You know what I mean. But very well—they understand about noble betrothals, and they do not know that we’re affectionate out of free choice. And this is why I cannot have you at the meetings with them."

"So it is not just that it’s a "group for wizards,’" she said. She pulled her robes back on. "It’s also not a group for half-Norman Mudbloods."

"Don’t call yourself—"

She gazed at him through narrowed eyes. "That is how they see me, is it not?"

He moved across the small room to where she stood and enveloped her in his arms. "Hermione," he murmured, cradling her head against his neck, "it is not how I see you. I am doing what is necessary—just as your family did, and mine. It won’t change anything between us. We will keep our affections private now, and after we have a public wedding too. No one has to know except us."

"And your mother."

"Well... after the public wedding," he acknowledged. "I doubt we could hide it from her after we were openly living in the castle as a married couple, it’s true. But it doesn’t seem typical for nobles to know about private affection in other nobles’ marriages at all."

"That is true in my experience," she admitted. Tentatively she wrapped her arms around his waist. "But please don’t let these "allies’ change the fact that you care for me. Please."

He kissed her. "I won’t."

They remained in their embrace for a while before finally separating. They finished getting dressed and tidying themselves. Before they left the little room, Tom gazed thoughtfully at the rug on the floor, dark blue with Celtic patterns. Then he strode to it and flicked his wand, causing the rug to roll up. He cleaned it and picked it up.

Hermione stared at him in surprise. "Tom, what are you doing?"

"No one else seems to use this room, but when we are not inside it, it is open to anyone in the school," he said. "Someone might come in and decide to destroy it."

"You are just going to... steal... the rug from Hogwarts?"

"I am protecting it from being destroyed or defaced," he said defensively, foisting it over his shoulder. "It will be in my private bedchamber. It won’t leave the castle."

She considered for a moment before nodding.

Castle Parselhall at Hangleton.

Severus Snape stood on the balcony overlooking the inner courtyard. Next to him stood his liege, Lady Riddle.

"You are quite certain of this?" she asked, not looking at him.

"The little source heard it personally."

She sighed. "I will not marry Caractacus Burke, you realize. I certainly will not surrender authority in my own castle and fief to him."

"Of course not." He wanted so badly to speak, but it was not the right time. That he could tell.

She turned to face him, skirts swishing in the chilly air. "Because the grant of divorce states that I abandoned Sir Thomas, I cannot remarry so long as he is alive."

Severus’s words were bitter with disappointment. "My lady, he is a Muggle. It would be no trouble at all for the Malfoys to murder him."

"I will go to his home and cast a ward of protection over it. It will prevent them from even entering the grounds, or anyone magical except my own blood."

Severus swallowed. "My lady, there is an alternative. We could modify the Muggle records to show it as an annulment instead of a divorce, and then you and I could—"

"I will not break an oath, risking grave magical consequences, and delegitimize my son," she said firmly. "I regret this, Severus—but please try to understand." She sighed again. "Muggles do not always live long. If he should die a natural death any time soon, then we can have this discussion again. But for now, this is what must happen."

Severus did not like it, but he did understand. He nodded and left her to her thoughts.

Winter intermission for Yule and Christmas was approaching rapidly, and with the chill of the air came a chill throughout the school over the Wizards’ Council edict, especially in Slytherin House.

Tom’s Lords of Beltane now sat with him at meals. Hermione always sat on his other side, and next to her sat Harry, but the "Lords" tended to treat both of them as if they did not exist. Apparently, given the alternative of verbal disdain that Tom had implied, that was preferable, but Hermione did not especially like the fact that her fiancé’s allies so obviously disliked her.

Their disapproval was never more obvious than it was at the leaving feast the night before the pupils were going to go to their homes for the two holidays. Tom conversed with Fawley with an air of arrogance, and whenever she asked him anything, he would turn to her with an air of tolerant coolness that made her heart hurt every time even though she told herself that it was just an act.

Even if he does think he needs allies, she thought, sipping her spiced cider, he should make them accept me! We are betrothed. According to his reckoning, and his interest in the ancient ways, we are married. I have given myself to him! I deserve more than this. Her face grew hot and tears threatened to fall as she bent her head and shoveled food down her throat. Her bushy hair hid her face, which relieved her.

Harry seemed to notice that she was distressed. He gave her a sympathetic glance, to which she returned a shaky smile.

On the other side of the table, Draco Malfoy, Adelaide Lestrange, and their friends glared at their adversaries across the tabletop and muttered amongst themselves. As soon as she was able to feel confident about looking up, Hermione stole a glance in their direction. Her eyes widened momentarily at the sight of Malfoy staring at Astoria Greengrass.

I can hardly blame him, she thought, but this cannot end well. He is to marry Lestrange, and Daphne obviously hates the idea of him looking at her younger sister. Still, I wonder what she would think of it if the betrothal with Lestrange were called off... it might be a chance to subvert the Malfoys....

Hermione returned to her food at once. It would not do any good to speculate about things that were not in her power to change. Her thoughts turned instead to the imminent holidays, and the chance to be with Tom in his own family castle, away from these wizards whom he felt he had to impress by being cold to her in public. The ghost of a smile formed on her face at that. Yes, tomorrow would be a better day than today was.

Merope’s house-elves were waiting for Tom and Hermione the next morning when they carried the items that they were bringing home into the courtyard. Tom’s snake was enclosed in a large jar, which was covered with cloth and warmed with a spell to protect the snake from the cold temperatures of winter. Hermione held Crookshanks herself, and the large fluffy cat was quite content in her arms. The two elves stepped forward and reached for the young couple, Disapparating them to the castle grounds.

Once she had greeted Merope and settled into her bedchamber, Hermione went to the Gaunt library. She was not particularly surprised when she saw that Tom was already there.

He smiled at her as she approached, and it warmed her to the core to see that it was a genuine smile. It appeared that she was correct, and he would indeed be openly kind to her when those boys were not present.

He drew her knuckles to his lips in greeting. "I have found something marvelous," he said.

She tried to see what he was reading. "Oh?"

He held up the book, titled The Book of Morgana. "I was not allowed to read this before," he said. "Mother had hexed it, but I guess she lifted the hex from this one."

Hermione suppressed a frown at the title of the book. "What have you discovered?" she asked, trying to appear sincerely interested.

"Well, this purports to be a transcription of Morgana le Fay’s own... diary, I suppose," he said. "If that is true, then she was definitely married to Arthur by the old ritual, and she also asserts that her son Mordred was not, as he was commonly claimed to be in later sources, a deformed cripple."

"Oh," Hermione said. "That is certainly interesting about him... and the part about the ritual confirms what you suspected, I suppose."

He gave her a querying look. "Yes, it does. She says—again, if this really is what she wrote—that "Queen’ Guinevere called Mordred that, because she was angry that she could not bear Arthur any children, and because she considered magic an abnormality—an abomination, in fact. So she lied about the nature of Mordred’s "deformity’ and claimed it was because Arthur and Morgana were half-siblings." Tom scowled. "I wonder if that is why she slept with Lancelot, because she wanted to have an heir and did not much care if it was a fraud. Too bad for her."

Hermione did not comment on that. "Of course, this is all Lady Morgana’s point of view."

"Yes... but she was a witch."

Hermione also decided not to pick a fight with him over that assertion, but it troubled her that Tom would automatically regard the word of a magical person as more credible than that of a Muggle. "So this is what is marvelous?" she asked. "The fact that Mordred was of sound body?"

"Well, I actually meant something else," he said with a smirk. "She wrote that she believed Merlin dabbled in black magic involving time."

"Time?" Hermione repeated, her eyes as wide as saucers.

Tom nodded smugly. "If that’s true, then he was the one whose brain was probably addled. Even if it is not, he definitely enabled a Muggle warlord to rape a witch, and he turned a father against his son because that son was a wizard. If this claim is true, then he was a hypocrite, too, using dangerous magic himself—and manipulating kings—but not wanting anyone else with magic to have power. Merlin was the first great blood-traitor, and it is a disgrace that so many of our people almost worship him."

Hermione gently reached for the book. "Tom, I have read about the legend of King Arthur too, and it does seem that Merlin helped Uther Pendragon realize his vile desire... but the rest of it is Morgana’s own perspective."

"I believe her perspective," he said. His tone of voice indicated that the subject was closed.

Hermione decided not to argue. In the absence of a definitive authority, it was a good idea to know of multiple perspectives, and it was just possible that Morgana le Fay’s claims—if the book that Tom held was a faithful transcription of her thoughts—had some validity to them as well as the histories that Hermione already knew. She took Tom’s hand in her own and squeezed it.

That evening, Hermione tiptoed into Tom’s bedroom, her heart thumping with anticipation. The last time she had been here, they had merely slept in the same bed. She knew that more was going to happen, and the idea was very exciting to her—an early opportunity to enjoy her future marriage bed.

Tom seemed to be expecting her. His sleep robes were open and he was reading that same book in bed. When she entered the room, he closed the tome and set it aside.

"I thought you would want to do this," he said as she boldly climbed on the mattress.

She flashed him a grin. "It is not exactly a difficult thing to guess."

He gripped her waist possessively and leaned close to her, his eyes intense and dark. "I would have come to your room for you if you had not."

His words sent a jolt down her spine. She pressed close to him, wrapping her legs around his waist as her sleep robes rode up her thighs. He leaned in and nipped her on the side of her neck as he pressed her into his mattress.

After they were finished, and their breathing had returned to normal, she shifted and made to climb down from the bed.

"Stay," he murmured.

She halted. He was asking this. He had been so nervous about this over the summer, when all they had done was spend the night together, but now he wanted her to sleep next to him after they would not be able to claim that their affections were innocent. Warmth and relief filled her. He did choose her. His behavior before his "friends" was the political front that he had claimed it was. With a smile on her face, she curled against him and soon fell asleep.

Merope drew away from Tom’s bedchamber door without knocking. She was almost certain that Hermione was inside—for where else could the young lady be, if not in her own room or the library?—but if her guess was correct, she did not really want to disturb and embarrass them. She stepped back and gazed out a small diamond-paned window. The morning light streamed through, providing a bit of illumination to the stone hall.

During the summer, Merope had caught Tom and Hermione embracing, huddling close in private discussions, and kissing when they believed themselves to be unobserved. It would not shock her a bit if they had progressed beyond that at Hogwarts. With a final gaze at the closed door, Merope walked down the hallway to the nearest staircase and began to descend, thinking.

Even now, she did not regret her marriage—it had given Merope her son—but she did feel wistful while thinking of the happy young couple upstairs. This is how it should have been for me, she thought. A good, appropriate match to a nice wizard, who was already my friend. Years to become close, and the approval of both our families. Not a desperate elopement with a Muggle, with a great lie at the core, to escape the threat of rape and incest.

She sighed to herself as she reached the next level down. At least I could give Tom that, she comforted herself. At least I knew my son well enough, and—more relevantly—cared about his contentment in life, that I could correctly identify a witch he would like.

She had heard nothing from Severus about Tom and Hermione’s probable behavior, nor from any of her noble correspondents, which meant that they were discreet enough at Hogwarts that none of their schoolmates knew. That meant they certainly could not be using his bedchamber in the Slytherin dormitories. Probably they had found a private room in a little-used part of the castle. A part of Merope wished that they had restrained themselves for a couple more years, but she supposed that Tom was only a few days away from 15. Young people had hot blood, and this was far better than if he had ignored Hermione (except for public displays of propriety) and sought out girls of lower status. That does not seem to be that common at Hogwarts among the young lordlings, at least, she thought. Perhaps they don’t want to behave in such ways with other witches, even common-born witches—and perhaps the girls are worldly enough to know that such flings cannot end well for them personally. But Muggle village girls at their homes....

Merope shook her head. If there was one thing she knew for certain about Tom, it was that he would not touch a Muggle. His open contempt for almost all of them was actually a bit disconcerting to her. No—it was more than contempt. She had a certain degree of disdain for them. It was probably inevitable that a witch or wizard would have that. But with Tom, it was almost hatred, at least for those with Norman blood. She had seen such hatred before, although with her brother and father, it was for all Muggles and even most wizards. Nevertheless, she was pleased that Tom and Hermione were so happy together. If anyone else but me could influence him, it’s Hermione, she comforted herself.

Merope walked down the hall and passed by the potions laboratory, which suddenly made her stop cold. I hope that Hermione is taking the potion to prevent pregnancy, she thought worriedly. If she is not, she won’t be able to stay at Hogwarts, which means she won’t be declared a master of any branch of magic... which means she won’t be allowed to carry a wand in public. This is important. She resolved to get her message to Tom and Hermione in some way while minimizing embarrassment to them.

Tom stretched and blinked awake. His dark eyes quickly adjusted to the beam of sunlight that streamed through his window. His gaze shifted as he became aware of the soft warm body curled next to him. A contented smile formed on his face... and then he put the two sensory inputs together. His heart thumped in sudden anxiety.

"Wake up!" he exclaimed, nudging Hermione hard.