Author's Note:
As aforementioned this is my first story so be kind but more importantly if you have constructive criticism that would be great. I've been thinking about writing fan fiction for years but working up the nerve in small sections. Honestly love Tomione so if that isn't your thing then this might not be for you. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think! :)
JKR owns Harry Potter and all the rest of its lovely characters.
She arrived in a whirl of gossip and mystery. No one had the faintest idea of who she was except for the infuriating knowing gleam in Dumbledore's eyes. She was an enigma. He noticed that she portrayed a perfect persona that was behind an impenetrable wall. She was ordinary in her facade except for the extraordinary nuances that were so easily overlooked.
Her rather ordinary brown hair was tamed into fashionable chignons and curls that were never out of place. Her makeup was both complimentary and subtle. Her uniform, he would guess, was exactly within measurements of dress code. All in all she was completely unworthy of exceptional attention until one day in Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Dueling was very nearly completely sexist. Tom didn't particularly mind this fact since he was quite sure that most girls only knew one end of their wand from the other because of beauty charms. Many of the girls in the class took the option of the alternate activity but today they were forced to participate. Merrythought had caught wind that the practical of the DADA NEWT would be a duel over a variety of spells. He had never dueled her before but she normally competed within an ordinary zone. He expected to win within a few minutes at the most.
He was wrong. At first she parried the normal spells. He decided to gradually increase the difficulty of the spells to test her limits personally. It was like the rose colored glasses that he had been wearing broke before his very eyes. He noticed how she moved out of the way of the spell before he would complete casting it, how she would begin casting the counter-curse as he was beginning his own wand movements. He saw her the hawk-like look furrowed in intense concentration as she watched every move he made. How the intelligence shining in her eyes portrayed an intelligence that had only been proven on paper by the professors.
He sent a cutting hex when the most infuriating thing happened. He saw her begin to move to the side he knew that the spell would miss her by mere inches as most the others had until suddenly she moved back into its path. The cutting hex sliced into her shoulder like butter. The blood blooming upon the crisp Oxford running down the sleeve like a creeping tentacle. Shock flashed in his eyes, confusion marring his features. She threw the duel but why? But he saw how she hid the sharp witty gleam behind a mask of mediocrity, how her reaction to the pain was delayed and forced, and he was undeniably intrigued. Perhaps he thought, reflecting, this was his point of no return.
Tom volunteered to walk her to the Hospital Wing. He couldn't help but watch for the truth in every fake move she made. The subtlety of sliding her wand into a wand holster on her right arm. The unwillingness to walk too near him even though she filled the air with vapid gossip, words he was sure she barely even paid attention to as they fell from her lips. Just filling the air with incessant noise that neither of them truly cared about. He did not care and he knew that she did not as well. If he had not seen the way she dueled he would have not given her a second thought.
She thanked him with a saccharine voice that grated on his ears effectively dismissing him at the doors of the Hospital Wing. He realized that as she walked away that she had made minute mistakes. That while she gossiped she should have been complaining about the pain in her shoulder. That most girls would bring tears to their eyes as they preyed on their saviors using the advantages of being a damsel in distress to its full effect. He realized she was showing a lie, just like him, and, just like him, everyone was believing it. Even he had much to his own dismay.
He watched and watched and watched. It became an obsessive habit that he could not break. She should've been a Slytherin but the lions had claimed her. She was cunning and complete in her acting. As she talked she spewed forth words from her mouth but little to no information. She never wavered from the middle of the road in controversy but the tightening of her jaw and the fire in her eyes belied her true opinions.
He saw all her acts unfold before her eyes but knew no more than he had before just the bubbling of questions that plagued his mind. She would flinch as anyone reached in to touch her except for Potter. But why? What was special about Potter? Why did she flinch? Why was there a sad but fond look for the messy haired Gryffindor? He bet Potter didn't even realize the privilege that he had above all the other lions.
He tried talking to her more but she was always with friends an almost triumphant look in her eyes as they fawned over him and she slipped away. The male Gryffindors protected their lioness with zeal. They were wrapped around her finger and she was shameless in using them to throw him off her trail. She would bring up how Tom had met some famous Quidditch player at the last Slug Club party and the fanatic grin that would light up one of the Gryffindors' faces before they started firing off questions was the sign of his defeat in their game of social chess. It was infuriating and he could not help but appreciate the finesse in her avoidance. He was accustomed to losing.
The Knights could not understand their lord's fascination with the Gryffindor transfer. She was pretty but not too pretty, smart but not too smart, and they were stumped yet they dare not question. Avery had been the only one audacious enough some weeks ago and was treated to a scathingly condescending speech laced with pain-filled curses that cowed the rest thoroughly.
Eventually Tom was able to out maneuver her. He had charmed his way thoroughly into Merrythought's good graces. The manipulation weeks in the making was brought to fruition when he had convinced Merrythought to have required dueling even more. So when they were assigned together again Tom reveled in the annoyed glint in her eyes.
He was prepared though to push and shove and test her very limits of control. He would change spells last second, send a second spell to the spot that she would move. In turn she made faux moves and successive shields. The spells more complicated, more layered. Her wand work was flawless and precise. She used spells that he had never seen, never heard about. He in turn used obscure spells that she expertly countered. It became a game of wits, a test of skills. It was the first time in a long time that Tom had met a good challenge in someone and couldn't help but drink in the experience greedily.
Tom nearly cursed Merrythought when she interrupted but was soon smirking at the frustrated look on her face when the professor announced that since they were so matched that only they would duel together. They would have to call it a draw today.
He was determined. It was a fire in his blood driving him forwards. He had to know more. He needed to know more about this slip of a girl. A girl that to the unperceptive was nothing but ordinary. But he knew better. He knew that she was so much more than she had portrayed herself to be. He began planning how to provoke her into showing her potential. He could see it bubbling just beneath the surface.
He found her weakness. In truth he knew it all along and he would've hit himself, if he could, for not thinking of it sooner. The Potter boy. But he was backed into a corner as well for he had his persona to protect. He was the shining Head Boy whose reputation was as pristine as his badge. Teaching cooed and awed over his exemplary leadership and academic skills. He couldn't afford to throw away a facade he a fastidiously spent the past several years building up. He would corner her like she unconsciously cornered him.
She came in a rage. Her curls were flying about her shoulders crackling with magic and fury. The fire in her eyes was a sight to behold. He drank it in like ambrosia. It was better than what he had anticipated.
He didn't know how she found them so quickly. Didn't understand how she disabled his followers so quickly. The Room of Requirements was seeping with the blood of his followers. He didn't know which ones were dead and which were alive. He found he didn't care. All he could focus on was this lioness that had come fully emerged from the supposed slip of an ordinary girl.
She was ruthless. Her spell threw the Potter boy to the side of the room, out of harm's way, before she unleashed her anger upon him. The barrage of spells was unprecedented. He was taken aback, his feet retreating back a few steps before his mind could fully recognize the danger. This was not a teasing testing of wits. This was survival.
The magic was heavy in the air as he struggled to gain his footing. The spells dark making the scent of the magic sinful and seductive. But this was his element, his art, his passion. He responded with equal vigor soon enough. His magic eagerly bending to his will in excitement. She met him just as strongly. Parrying, pushing, shoving, each of his moves.
This was beyond what he had imagined. He hadn't realized how much she had been holding back. How much she had been able to hide without slipping up except for one otherwise nondescript day when she stepped purposefully into his spell. But she seemed to know how much he had been holding back. The audience of the Knights and Potter watched in awe. Never had they seen such displays of magical prowess.
The Knights that were conscious enough to watch didn't dare interrupt. How could this be the same girl that had been in class with them a scant few hours ago? It was like watching an illusion shatter before their eyes. Yes, the hair was the same, and the face but that was it. The posture, the fire, the magic cracking and fizzing in the air might as well have belonged to another person entirely.
The fiendfyre snake that slithered like poison towards her shifted into a lioness after a few whispered words of Arabic. The lioness turned on him protecting her own. He ended the spell admiration shining in his eyes. Their bleeding wounds ignored as they eyed each other. Their chests panting as they heaved in, the magic racing through their veins and high on adrenaline.
He saw the confidence in her stride. The freedom of releasing her full potential, the potential that he had seen hiding beneath the surface was there no longer. The magic swirled around her, a slave for its mistress, waiting to do her bidding. He was intoxicated by her performance.
Nott got up and tried to attack her from behind. She lazily shot a spell behind her knocking to the ground again gasping to earn the privilege of oxygen. The others stayed wisely down. They knew that they were no match. Only Tom could hope to beat her.
He pulled the magic from the air creating a tornado of whipping winds around her. Sucking the oxygen from the air surrounding her. She waved her wand in a complicated pattern. But he saw the wind turn to water before his eyes. The water soaked her but left her unharmed. He noticed her curls still fought against the onslaught much like she fought against him.
They stood at an impasse. An unstoppable force against an unmovable wall. The threat was clear in her eyes. The Potter boy stays untouched. But the challenge was clear in his grin. It would take more than that to stop him.
Nothing was said as she strode over to the messy haired Gryffindor cutting his ties. Potter gazed at her in shock sputtering as he tried to form the words to form even just one of the question racing through his mind. The Knights stepped out of her way as she guided Potter from the Room of Requirements. She had gained their respect. She might be lion and she might have bled them but she was worthy of their respect now.
They turned to Tom in fear. Eyes cast to the ground in constricting breaths as they awaited their punishment. The deep rumbling laugh that erupted from their lord caused the braver ones to raise their heads in confusion. They could feel his magic happily snapping about them in pleasure.
There was only a single thought that kept repeating in his mind though. He had to have her. He had to have her. He would even excuse his followers ineptitude in the face of this life changing revelation.
She never did seem to tell the Potter boy anymore than what anyone else knew but he protected her from anyone even to his own detriment. He fielded the questions that arose when the Slytherins suddenly stopped bullying her with a fearful and respectful gaze in the eyes. She had earned Potter's unswerving loyalty and no one besides those who were in the Room of Requirements that night knew why. They had been friends before but now he was willing to side with her against friends he had known since birth.
She returned to her mediocrity in the practical exercises in the classroom but Tom still refused to duel with anyone but her. His frustrations grew at each drop of her blood that was spilt over hexes and curses that he knew she could avoid.
The Knights researched her and came up with nothing. There was nothing on her. She was ghost. There was less on her than any other person that he had tried to learn about. She was born and she attends Hogwarts now. That's all he could find, not even which school she had attended before.
She remained elusive as ever like grains of sand and effort slipping through his fingers. The Knights never questioned his fanatic obsession again after seeing what she could do. She was almost as mythical and fantastical as their lord.
The rumors spun faster and rose higher when Malfoy, of all people, defended her against a jealous Ravenclaw when her back was turned. She seemed equally annoyed at both of them but Tom saw her only hex the Ravenclaw. Tom rewarded Malfoy with praise and exemption from punishment. The others soon followed Malfoy's footsteps. She was not pleased but he saw how his Knights had already unconsciously accepted her as their liege lady.
Much to his pleasure, her frustrations came out as hexes and curses while dueling. She let it out in a beautiful collage of colored spells. He knew she knew who was a fault for her band of protectors. He couldn't help but grin. It tasted like victory.
Grindelwald attacked Hogsmeade in the spring of 1945. The students screamed and ran about terror pushing them forwards. Fire and soot stained the blue of the sky. Cries of pain and loss pierced the air. But still Tom watched her.
She strode into the village with the same unshakable confidence in which she dueled him. The blueish wisp of spell racing towards the castle. Black cloaks with golden triangles swarmed the village in sadistic glee. But they didn't know her like he did. All they saw was a slip of a girl.
A fiery whip of scarlet and burnt orange erupted from her wand. With the snap of her wrist it latched on to its closest victim without mercy. She grabbed the flame in her open hand wrenching it to the side to attack another foe. Her wand was turned towards another the faintest hint of white emitting as blood splashed from her foe's chest.
Man after man fell at her feet in fear and awe. The cloaked men recognized a threat when they saw one each falling to her expertise hoping they would be the one to beat her. The minutes ticked by like hours and she showed no signs of slowing. Tom dispatched a few to keep up the charade of staying for a purpose. But he watched and watched.
Her hair cascaded down her back crackling with magic. He could see her breathe in the stench of the battlefield like an ambrosia. Her eyes lit with bloodlust. Blood checkered and dotted her uniform but little of it hers. The fiery whip dragged behind her as she stalked towards Grindelwald slithering across the rumble of the town.
Charmed he was. How could he not be? She was beautiful and glorious beating with adrenaline. Tom felt their magics clashing and testing as his watched on in audience. She didn't even move as the burst of purple raced towards Grindelwald.
The pale flash of the man's wand flicked crashing the purple to the ground like a falling star. Clods of dirt raining down on the two yet they remained unfazed. The smirk on the blond man's face was the beginning of the end.
She spun and twisted, turned and dipped. He jabbed and slashed, blocked and flinched. Sweat beaded on their brows and magic suffocated their senses. She fell to her knees as the Crucio hit with painful precision. Her knuckles whitened and jaw tightened but his little lioness would not let her opponent hear her screams even as the tears streamed down her face.
Grindelwald prowled around her. A predator circling its prey. Words of praise fell from his lips. Offers of dreams and luxury as he plead for her fealty. Her harsh brittle laugh echoed sharply in the wreckage of the village. The sadness that he saw so often flooded her face.
He went to intercede. Kill me, she said, you'll be doing me a favor. But that was unacceptable. She could not die, he would not allow it. But stopped as he saw Dumbledore stride up to them strained and resigned.
She held pity in her eyes as she smiled in thanks to her Head of House. Another secret that she knew that he did not. Burns and cuts littered her body but she barely seemed to notice as she watched them in expectation.
Grindelwald was weakened that's why Tom could see that he was going to lose. Tom began slowing circling his way around to where she was. She was only just a little farther. Close enough for him to still catch the faint scent of her hair on the wind even if it was nearly drowned from the coppery scent of blood.
The vicious red of an unknown curse struck her. The pools of scarlet on her shirt grew and consumed the innocence of the white. Her eyes widened in surprise as she turned her head to Grindelwald. The possessive glint in his eyes was her escape. If he was losing she would belong to no one, not even herself.
Tom grappled with her body tugging it closer. The shake of his hands impaired his wand work. The skin of her chest was splitting faster than it was knitting. His head was shaking in denial. Unwilling to accept the possibility of the vacuum she would leave. It was unacceptable.
Her dripping hand came up to touch his face. A sweet defeated yet pleased smile graced her face. There was a hope and relief in her eyes that he had never seen before. He knotted his hands in her hair desperately pleading and furiously threatening for her to fight, to live. But she shook her head, she wouldn't fight. Not this time.
Even in death she made him question everything around him. The ordinary casket lowered what seemed to be an ordinary girl into the dirt, soon to be forgotten by near all but him. A hero that was remembered for only a few weeks by the peers she sacrificed herself for laid behind a wing that nobody used.
He went every day. Sat in front of the barely marked stone spinning the ring on his finger. She appeared as ghost, as a bittersweet shadow of the girl he had known. But he had to see her nonetheless. But the ghost of her paled in comparison of the reality of her.
He nearly forgot her voice even as her face haunted him after decades. But the cry from her throat drew his eyes. He was unable to stop them even if he wanted to. She was standing next to the Potter boy. Her loyalty as unswerving as it had always been.
Her face was in a tight grimace as she begged the boy to fight, to live. It was a horrific echo of his worst memory. She was younger, more innocent, less confident, but yet he could see the woman that lived in the dark of his eyelids. The woman that had not been parted from his mind in roughly 50 years.
He withdrew from Potter's mind even angrier now. How dare this boy have the one thing he wanted more than immortality. He lashed out at Dumbledore with fury. He felt like only he could see the taunting knowing glint in the old man's eyes as they flicked to her. Dueling fiercely he eventually fled knowing it was not his time to succeed yet.
It was painful watching her grow throughout the years that becomes closer to the woman he knew. It pained him that he was the cause of her hurt. But he was too deep now. There was no way to escape the path that fate had set for him.
Time travel. That's what was the obvious answer but it begged so many more questions. When would she travel back? Was it by choice or accident? If it was by choice, was it because he had finally won, after so many years? What if he prevented it, kept her for himself? Could he even? If he did, would the memories he had of her in the past cease to exist, subtly fading from his mind until they were no more?
Tom agonized over these thoughts. So he watched. Watched her through Potter's eyes, through memories and whispers. Brightest witch of her age and a muggleborn to boot. Fate had a very cruel sense of karma.
The Death Eaters could not understand their lord's brutal and vicious mood swings. Could make no sense of his frustration. He prowled like a caged animal within the Manor walls. Finally finding himself leaning against the wall across from a portrait of Abraxas Malfoy.
I found her. That's all that had to be said for Abraxas's sharp steel eyes to snap to his, even if they were paint. Tom was drastically different looking than when they attended Hogwarts together but there was only ever one witch that brought that look to his eye.
Where, one simple question is all it took for it all to come pouring out. Abraxas listened with rapt attention as he heard about the witch that had been too painful for any of them to speak about for so many years.
Tom was at a loss. His predicament could not be solved with all of the Malfoys' money, even though it was at his fingertips, or with all the power that clung to him like a second skin. He made her Undesirable no.2 if for nothing else than to see her brought before him in the flesh again.
Learning that she and the Potter boy had been caught yet escaped before he could get there was maddening. However after learning that she had been tortured it was all Tom could do not kill them all on sight. That she had spent countless rounds of the Cruciatus beneath the unyielding wand of the mad Black sister, that she had been carved into as if she was anything less than exceptional. As if that mad woman that had crawled out of Azkaban to grovel at the hem of his robes truly thought that she was above his lioness.
How much could one lose their sanity and still be functioning? Bellatrix and Tom both discovered how far the mind can stretch before very nearly breaking that night. He watched Bella's curl flail and soak with blood thankful that they were black instead of brown. The confusion and pain shined out of the mad woman's dark hooded eyes. There were bad punishments and then there was what her lord was incurring on her now. The other Death Eaters gave Bella a wide berth for some time after lest they catch whatever bad luck incited that kind of punishment from their lord.
It was the the crescendo that everything had been building up to. Potter stood before him skinny and bloody but determined. The boy's wand was white knuckled in his grasp ready to snap up at the whisper of a spell.
She stood beside Potter. Finally the lioness that he recognized. The crackle of her fiery whip hissing on the ground beside her while gripped in her hand. She was bleeding and he could see the jagged scar on her arm from Bellatrix but she stood unfazed.
Time seemed to slow as if deep within himself he knew that this was it. The Killing Curse fell from his lips as he pointed his wand at Potter. Potter's customary Expelliarmus shot forth to meet his spell in the middle. Then suddenly a a fiery whip wrapped around the conjoined spells giving a harsh tug.
Tom watched in horror and fascination as the spells raced up the flame to the hand holding it. Her eyes widened with fear but also hope. Hope that perhaps this would help her best friend in winning. The spells raced and crackled over her skin in flashing colors before becoming so blindingly bright that it was impossible to continue watching.
When the light was gone and he blinked away the spots in his vision Tom saw there was nothing left to be seen of his lioness. She was gone. Back to him in a different time. A time where he would get to marvel at her for the first time. And the last in a sense.
Tom barely caught the flash of green that hurtled his way from the Potter boy. Those green eyes were murderous. Tom could understand. He had felt the same when he had lost her all those years ago. Unable to cope with the grief, the vacuum of her loss. The spell hit him and he blissfully thought that he would get to see his lioness again.