Apologies in advance if someone has already done this one.

This popped into my head the other day, and while I am not an author, I like the potential.

Chamber of Secrets Year...
Hermione notices that Ginny is acting oddly and always has her nose buried in an...interesting.. book. Ginny either comes to Hermione for help, Tom makes G give H the book, or H sneaks in and studies the book. She forms a stronger bond with it, and becomes corrupted by it. Instead of fighting it, she is seduced by the unlimited knowledge offered by the book and actually partners with Tom to give Ginny to him as a body but slowly becomes dark as well. Trees off at that point...
-Evil sneaky Hermione misleading harry and the rest of the light
-Evil Dark Queen for Tom (young riddle not old nasty one)...meh
-Evil Dark Hermione uses her connection with Harry to corrupt him, and prepare him to defeat Tom, while misleading Tom. Possible Redemption, or just a shocker for ol' Tom to be betrayed for a change.


I actually felt sorry for Tom in COS. You know the poor bastard was pulling his hair out cursing in the back of Ginny's head. "Damnable girl! Get your arm out of the butterdish, stop squeaking like a little mouse and listen to me!"

He gets an opportunity at "the smartest witch blah,blah blah"...Drops the ginger like a bad habit. Besides, I can actually see Hermione being corrupted quite easily. She is a HUGE sucker for authority after all, but I can also easily see her logic pointing out that Harry already defeated the original Voldemort, manipulating Harry, and using him as her tool to get even for the whole mudblood crap.

 

How would she form a stronger bond with it than Ginny? Ginny was really vulnerable that year because of how lonely she was and was thus easy to exploit. She poured all her angst and emotion into the diary, which is what Tom fed off of to become strong enough to possess her. Hermione, on the other hand, had two great friends in Harry and Ron, and no real reason to get all angsty that year.

There's also the fact that Hermione would've been bright enough to not take a sentient diary at face value.

 

Lets use the seven deadly sins as our judge of good targets.
lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride

I figure Angsty first year Ginny you have: maybe some lust for Harry, maybe some greed for money, and envy of others. Plus Ginny had Loony as a friend.

Hermione?
Lust for Harry and knowledge.
Gluttony - again can't get enough knowledge
greed- the restricted section is like porn for Hermione
sloth-yeah, can't really make a case for this
wrath-plenty of instances where she can be quite wrathful-fondly visualizing the ferret smackdown
envy-envious of how easily harry can just "get" the practical applications
as well as the fact she had no friends before Harry so she is envious of the respect the purebloods automatically get
pride-smartest witch of her generation drilled into her head over and over.

She is still a very insecure young girl who is desperate to prove herself.

Plus old young tom looks like a smarter harry and was Head Boy, special award for services, etc.

So he starts talking to her, telling how he will teach her what she needs to know to become prefect, Head Girl, etc. and tells her how to access the restricted area.

Then as her trust is built, says that the COS has even better books there that are unknown to the rest of the wizarding world... Maybe he even tells her he will teach her how to help Harry against LV.

This isn't a quick process by any means. Tom is not trying to overwhelm like with Ginny, but slowly twist and mold.

As for the not trusting a sentient diary?
This is the girl who never thought to try using the telephone to contact Harry. The one who is sooooo trusting of authority figures. She doesn't know who Tom is, but when she does her inevitable research blitz, discovers he was head boy, as well as the special services award.

Tom would have her hook, line and sinker.

 

Compulsion charms could easily explain her being drawn to the diary, and knowledge could keep her coming back. I'm not sure of a logical reason for Harry not noticing his best friend acting strange (and thus going to Dumbledore to see if he can help her).

 

Hermione was completely against the Half-Blood Princes' Potions book, though it contained information that would've helped her. What makes you think that she will trust a sentient diary when she didn't trust a textbook, written in or not?

 

She was against that because of the incident with Ginny. The thought probably terrified her that books could be out to get her. :awesome

 

^That.

I don't know about the original idea but can someone please make a parody out of that?

Pretty please with a cherry on top? (I know that was disgustingly cheesy)

 

Why was she so leery of the Half-Blood Prince's book?

...that's right, because of the experience Ginny had with a sentient book in CoS. Since this would be an AU that branches off before Ginny can be truly victimized by the diary, that reason doesn't exist.

At this point, Tom hasn't really used Ginny for anything truly horrible and she hasn't been left for dead in the Chamber while he sucks the life out of her. So when Hermione discovers that Ginny is talking to a magical book, why would she think it's that different from, say, a magical portrait that guards your dorm or a talking hat that decides your educational future for you?

I can see Hermione getting drawn in by the book, but I don't really see her conspiring with it to drain Ginny's life away and bring back Tom.

I could see Tom proposing the idea and Hermione getting wise to the notion that he could easily drain her life away as well. Then she might just ditch the thing and use the tricks she's learned for other purposes...

Like the aforementioned scenario where she molds Harry into her right hand man as she becomes a Dark Lady and reshapes the wizarding world into an 'equal opportunity utopia'... where equality is enforced by her iron fist and the power of The-Boy-Who-Lived.

Hermione, I think, can be lead towards her own selfish designs (like taking over Britain for the citizens' own good) but not so easily would she be coerced into acts of true evil.

That could work.

 

That sounds like communism vs. dictatorship... lol.

The funny part is that it actually sounds good.

 

Partially, I can concur with that. But when nothing she tried revealed any sentient force within the book or anything special about it, there was no reason for her distrust the Half-Blood Prince's book if it was only because of Ginny and the Diary.

Would Hermione keep the Diary a secret? Ron would have his dangerous book talk, Hermione would likely research sentient literature. I find it hard to believe that there are 'good' sentient literature floating around Hogwarts, if any exist at all. Considering we never heard another peep out of sentient literature, I'd say it's near/is non-existent.

It can go either way. Depends on how one chooses to write Hermione's personality.

 

Seems pretty obvious that she was jealous...

 

A very, very twisted version of this concept called Blessed was written by Erised Burning over on FFN. Here's a summary:

Blessed by Erised Burning

Summary: Post-HBP, super!Harry, dark!Hermione. Lots of action and destruction in this cool, if a bit strange, story. Completed. (Summary by IP82 from FF.net) Nine chapters, 67k words, so not a huge time investment.

I have this on my "To Do" list but haven't yet read it, although it looks to be both good and disturbing. I'd write more but I don't want to spoil it for anyone who doesn't know more about it.

It might suck, but apparently the author went out on a limb to write a pretty dark!Hermione.

 

Remember, Hermione is still young and fairly innocent at this point, and almost stupidly trusting of authority.

But her first friend led her a few months ago into disobeying the HOH, and trying to stop Snape from stealing the Philosopher's stone.

As far as the whole book thing, wasn't Hagrid teaching out of a book with teeth at this point? Tom is a Slytherin, and I have to believe he could get his hooks in her pretty easily.

And as far as OOC critics...
Remember this was the supposed smartest witch of the generation and she was corrupted by the ginger bastard into cheating to help him become a keeper and becoming a baby factory for him.

 

Personality Disorder!Hermione.. I like it!

Nice.
Paranoid Schitzophrenic!Hermione.

She's one seriously fucked up little Griffindor.... a Ravenclaw that got sorted into Griff, due to simply not being cunning enough to hide her disorder, loyal or hardworking enough to stick to her meds, and too dim to realise that she got into Griff, simply by having the courage to believe in her psychosis'


Book book book! Knowledge that isn't corrupted by THEM. If I can just read as many as possible before they catch on.. i'll be ready for THEM when THEY come for me... I have the Boy-Who-Lived on my side, and the 6foot gormless idiot to throw himself infront of curses for me when they do...I am Hermione Granger and I am the Lizard Queen.