Why the devil wouldn't diary-Tom suck the juice out of Hermione? It is totally absurd that the Horcrux would just advise her to give up the diary. Only explanation could be that he still has influence over her, thus Hermione being enraged by Parseltongue. Fuck, the last chapter was likely too much...

 

Some people, in the reviews I believe, have suggested that Tom approved of Hermione in Slytherin. That he even perhaps liked her, hence not wanting to drain her.

Which to me stinks a bit of utter fanwanking, if it's the truth, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

 

Sorry, that explanation doesn't satisfy me at all. The Horcrux should be striving to gain physical form as fast as possible and unleashing the basilisk as soon as possible. It is still Voldemort, evil since fifth year and all. Rubbish.

Positive: I like Snape's characterization until now.

 

Oh it doesn't satisfy me either. The Horcrux's primary goal would be to gain control over someone, yet it chooses to not do so for one Hermione Granger, a muggleborn witch.

Fuck if I know why. Maybe he wants to gain her as a follower once he does manifest physically? There's all sorts of possibilities really. I'd like to think he's just using her in some indirect way, but the way he goads Neville into acting on his feelings towards Hermione might prove me otherwise.

What I'm sort of curious about is whether events will play out the same they did in the official book, if Harry will wind up down there in the Chamber and kill Horcrux!Tom before he fully manifests. And I wonder if Hermione will learn about Harry destroying Tom's diary, but not the whole truth behind it, thus setting her slightly against Harry in the future.

Of course, this is just wild speculation on my part.

 

I imagine teenager Tom Riddle wasn't nearly as inhuman as Lord Voldemort became. He probably held nothing but disdain for Ginny Weasley, and had zero issues with using up her soul and similarly probably felt nothing about killing Myrtle to help create the Horcrux in the first place. But he may nonetheless have felt some level of kinship with Hermione, having both having gone through the difficulty of being half-bloods in Slytherin and feels a bit apprehensive of killing her. Probably also feels like she's following him down the same path, and thinks it'd be a waste for all that to go to waste.

Not saying he's misunderstood, or anything like that. But something is bound to have changed between Riddle after having committed just one murder, and still having to act like a student, and a Voldemort who has long since established himself as a feared entity with many followers and much more blood on his hand. His ego could have been smaller during school, to allow himself to feel some level of respect and even friendship toward Hermione.

Didn't really feel all that awkward to me when I read it at least.

 

What? Hermione isn't a half-blood. Or did I seriously miss out on that crucial information in this story?

 

Absolutely loved the update, this story is probably my favourite HP story right now. The different take on all the characters, like Lockhart Riddle and so on is just incredible.

So, yeah, Riddle explained his plans for Hermione and I am curious how this will paint the future relationship with Harry and so. Especially the impact the Lockhart issue will have on Hermione is going to be interesting.

 

Welp, Hermione remains a snotty little bint, no surprise there. I wonder how jealous she will become of Harry in the future. I wonder if she'll be killed off by him, would be kind of neat.

As for the present, I'm curious as to how she will handle this whole situation, if she'll tell the truth of her own volition about what happened or if she'll be forced into such.

 

I'm sorry, am I the only one who is missing the crucial ingredient?

I won't quote the summary, but isn't Harry supposed to be the Dark Lord some time in the future? There is no bloody development in that direction...

 

No, it's saying that Dumbledore need not have worried about Harry's similarities to Tom, he doesn't have the drive. Having not read the story, I can only assume that Hermione is the one he should have worried about.

 

You misunderstood the summary completely. It's implied that Hermione might become a dark witch/dark lady. How? I haven't a clue, which I imagine is the sole reason why I keep reading this fic, because it's amusing to me how much the original character will be warped in order to fit the author's ideas about how Hermione might have acted if she had actually possessed any ambition at all.

 

Seriously? It clearly implies that 'if some "things" (i.e. things may have turned out...) would have been different, Harry would have been a Dark Lord.'

If that was indeed not meant as I read it, this story sucks moneky balls and the summary sucks even more balls.

Also, I might be drunk.

And Hermione sucks.

By the way, fun-fact no.1: go to the zoo and take some onions with you. When you get to the baboons, throw the onions in there and watch the alpha male go fucking bananas.

 

Liked the way this chapter went.

Have a feeling Tom was being half-serious when talking about his ideals. I suppose it's something he latched onto as a kid to sate his egomania (noble cause and all that), and something he'd end up discarding as he became more and more powerful (and less human). I'm going to be very disappointed if a fully revived Lord Voldemort will still hold onto the same ideals.

I did like this Tom a lot. Shame to see him go (half interested to see what it'd be like if he lived and did play the game he wanted to play with Hermione standing against him). Could see her seriously trying to stop him, while he basically forces one-on-one confrontations that make her come out looking his equal.

I really like the way he actually genuinely respects Dumbledore. Or at least, a previous Dumbledore before the war. For someone who sees power as a definition of worth, Dumbledore would definitely be near the top of the list of those Riddle would respect. Certainly, the Dumbledore from his memories is way more in line of Riddle's ideas of power.

It's good Harry ended up killing Riddle. It would have been cheesy if Hermione did it in the end and I was getting a bit worried it'd go that route. But the fight with Lockhart gave Hermione a chance to do something meaningful too (especially against a considerably more competent Lockhart), and hey, first kill and all that. She's taken the first steps down that violent slope. And even when being a complete dick, Lockhart managed to pull off that persona of his, which actually made him almost pretty cool rather than completely pathetic as he is in canon.

I have no clue how you read it that way.

It's basically taking a shot at the Slytherin!Harry idea and suggesting that he never would have had the drive to become a dark lord. It's pretty damn clear it's suggesting that Hermione is the one who has more potential to go that route. I have no clue how you read it a different way, or how you thought that the summary for a complete Hermione-centric fic was about Harry Potter.

I have a feeling we're not exactly leading to a Voldemort-style Hermione, forcing her followers to grovel and worship her while she goes around torturing her enemies. I think we'll likely have a ruthless terrorist quite willing to do anything if it helps her destroy the Ministry and old families.

She's getting those traits from having to deal with Malfoy and her house. She's made her first kill. And generally is starting to get very disillusioned by everything. Tom has then planted some seeds that she has the capability to be someone great (over Harry in fact).

 

Hmm, I honestly can't see it. Hermione becoming anything/anyone important. I know that's what the purpose of this fic is, to show off a Hermione-centric POV if she was a Slytherin, but with each new chapter, she is diminished. For one, she gives up too easily, she has no true conviction or determination.

Oh yes, she is strong in her ideals, in the concepts and ideas, but she stays faithful to how she was in the original books: utterly useless when it comes to action time. Without a plan beforehand, she is less than useless. Hell, like the author says, Hermione doesn't even think Tom can be defeated, she's just that plain deluded.

And then later on, that poorly made excuse in her mind that Harry wouldn't want any more fame, so it's okay for him to be Obliviated, but not her, no that would be too horrible.

In this chapter, she is more of a Hufflepuff.

And as for being a ruthless terrorist, I suppose that would be adequate, as that would allow her to never get involved personally with things, and only strike from the shadows when it suits her plans the best. She has those pesky inadequacy issues, and I doubt she will consider herself as a cheater of any sorts when she uses underhanded methods against others, because she'll always rationalize it, somehow in her twisted little mind, that it's alright, because she's always at a disadvantage.

I hope Harry gets his memory brought back at a later date and confronts Hermione about the CoS incident. Would make for an interesting scene, to say the least, to see her justifying her petty reasons.

And let's be fair here, Tom might have had a somewhat twisted, 'noble' goal in the beginning, but I doubt the adult/present version of him is like that anymore. As for the destruction of the old families, boy, I can't wait to see how Hermione would justify that to herself. Naturally, they're all gonna be portrayed as the big bad evil boogeyman for Hermione to fight against and kill, no matter that magical blood is being spilled.

 

I am enjoying the slower development though. As opposed to a Hufflepuff, I think she's just acting like a Second Year, 12-year-old girl. Most of her developments (like dueling Malfoy) are still in the context of schoolyard fights. We still have another 5 years of development to build up to.

Remember that at this stage, Harry has already faced off against Voldemort once before in First Year, while Hermione hasn't had such an experience, and this chapter will likely serve that role for her. The events of this chapter, I'm sure, are likely to change her attitude towards what she can do (Tom's regard for her, Harry's success and her being able to kill Lockhart).

 

In last chapter, Riddle mentioned that he had same problems with Bellatrix as he has with Hermione. But he was presumably born in 1926. When he was sixteen, it was 1942. But Bellatrix was born in 1951. That doesn't make sense. Maybe Diary was later 'updated' by Voldemort? Maybe he placed memories inside like Dumbledore does with Pensieve?

 

This would have been another good place to diverge from canon even further. It was already shown that Tom was "maybe" a fan of Dumbledore while he was at school, so he was possibly a different person. Either that or he was playing Hermione.

I think a better road to be taken could have been to have the diary be exactly what he said it was, a fount of knowledge for the younger generation that fed a little off their magic to stay active, and nothing else. Let him be the red herring, and then have the whole Heir of Slytherin/basilisk/chamber of secrets be something entirely different.

But the author backslid to canon again along with Obliviate happy Lockhart, all for virtually the exact same reasons.

So now we're rehashing canon once more with a few tiny changes. Seeing all the work that had been put in up until now I was disappointed in the conclusion of 2nd year.

 

I am pretty sure that Tom was blatantly lying to Hermione. He certainly have multiple versions of True Plan, presented to various people (and true one: become immortal god ruling everything).

Great chapter, despite that it was too close to canon. I really liked description of fight, Lockhart characterisation was probably my favourite part. It will be very interesting to see fallout.

@title and description - I really hope that Hermione will not turn into one dimensional character like canon Voldemort (or zero dimensional like Bellatrix) and this story will not cop out with "dark magic is just misunderstood". It is really not necessary to tweak a lot from canon. Note her "I know better than absolutely everybody" with House Elves combined with what she did to Rita and Umbridge. Despite this I encountered only single other story with dark!Hermione that cannot be described as terrible.

 

Don't you know? What you think is Dark Magic is actually just misunderstood cooking/food preparation charms.

 

While I read that chapter I was kind of hoping that Riddle would survive, but now that I think about it more, that particular line of thinking seems implausible. Hermione made great steps to become dark witch, but she is not there yet. She would not agree with sacrificing Harry and Neville just to resurrect such untrustworthy and cruel person that Riddle undoubtedly is.

You are exagerrating. Just compare end of canon second year and this. There are significant changes already, just look what happened to Harry and Neville, not to mention Lockhart. Even killing of basilisk was not exactly the same, even if it was similar. Furthermore, there are not many ways that whole Chamber of Secrets incident would happen with Riddle dying and Harry and Neville surviving.