"Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows"
- Sigrid "Everybody Knows"
You Don't Own Me
By: Absinthe Dreams
The autumn air was brisk and damp. The feeling of being back to school, their last year of high school hung like some obscure shroud, lingering bitter sweet as it draped them simultaneously in nostalgia and fear of their unknown futures. Soon Harry would be off to the police academy, Ronald would go to community college and work part time at his brother's joke shop, and she… Hermione's thick hair whipped around her face as she turned it into the wind, taking a deep breath. Last year she believed she would be off to some ivy league school, hopefully on scholarship, but now… With her father ill…
Biting her lip she shoved down any lingering self pity. She had applied to community college as well, and work would be simple enough to find. The key was locating something that paid well and allowed for part time hours, but she had a year after all. The broken look on her mum's face when the acceptance letter to Stanford had come in...No, she mustn't dwell on it. Things were different now and they all had to be stronger, make sacrifices. She'd known since she was twelve that her life would be difficult. What good was a gift if it couldn't protect anyone? Especially the father she loved.
"You alright Hermione?" Ron asked carefully. He was treating her like glass lately, and she hated it. She missed her rough, awkward friend with his blunt manners, not this sheepish boy giving her tentative looks.
"Fine."
"It's not the-" At her sharp look the green boy broke off awkwardly, running his hand through his messy black hair, "Good, just checking. You know…" She sometimes wished Harry had never seen her sketchbook. Last year it had been such a relief to share her secret, but nothing felt the same after the illness.
Her secret power filled her with disgust now. She fought the urge to draw until she got sick, her temple throbbing and bile filling her throat. She didn't want to see it anymore. The future never held anything happy, just eerie warnings and vague insinuations. What was worst was the powerlessness. She couldn't do anything. What if the next thing she drew was her father, his face wane from sickness, eyes open but unseeing…
"Let's make a promise," Hermione wrapped her shorter arms around the two boy's necks, almost on the tip of her toes to reach Ron's. "Let's make this the best year yet."
"Easy for you to say, you don't have Snape for Calculus," Harry joked. Hermione gave him a cheeky grin.
"Well if you want to stay Rugby captain I suggest you crack a textbook, I had him for A.P. Geometry and he's strict." Hermione suggested knowingly.
"I can't believe I have the last lunch period," Ron sighed, "I'll never make it." Harry snorted, shrugging off Hermione's grip and patting her head.
"Yeah he's likely to waste away before our very eyes."
"Shrink to skin and bones," Hermione agreed and they smiled teasingly at the scowling redhead.
"Oh sod off you two, I'll have you know I-" His words dropped off. "Blimey, what do you suppose it is this time?" The trio drew to a halt, taking in the squad cars, ambulance and fire truck parked in front of Gryffindor High, their lights flashing and students herded into a tight knit group some distance away.
Hermione sucked in a sharp breath as a muscle spasm hit her gut so hard she couldn't help but double over. A cold sweat broke out on her pale flesh, fingers already twitching. No. Not again…
"Whoa, you okay?" Ron asked, taken aback by her violent reaction.
"Yeah, just cramps."
Ron's lightly freckled face screwed up in pure male distaste. A knee jerk reaction that would normally annoy her feminist sensibilities, but the pain was getting worse. The need had been bad lately and she had already been repressing it. She had to draw. Harry was watching her with a keen expression, not at all taken aback by her suggestion of 'womanly' problems. Green eyes probed into her from behind a thin layer of glass.
"You should get to the nurse's office, or the lavatory, then," Harry suggested, his voice and expression making it clear he was nearly certain he knew what was really happening.
Whatever he was able to discern, Hermione had never told him what it was really like. Her drawings were as much a compulsion as they were a gift. Drawing the future was something she couldn't help but do, regardless of her own desire. But he'd seen her draw, really draw, that once, and something about how quiet he had been afterwards, almost shaken, made her believe he might have guessed. Hermione couldn't be sure. She had never watched herself do it, the process was too absorbing.
The wild haired girl half ran, half stumbled up the large white steps up to the school's front entrance. Luckily everyone was so entranced by the commotion going on in the street no one paid her any mind as she tore through the large glass doors and beelined down the open halls towards the library. It was her sanctuary, no one ever questioned why the antisocial girl at the top of her class cloistered herself away in the back stacks of the school library. They assumed she was studying.
Her backpack slapped the back table, and she almost tore the zipper her hands were shaking so bad, her gut roiling and heaving. Taking a deep breath she slipped out a notebook, having burned her sketchbook in a fit of defiance. As if it could cure her. Her hand clutched the nearest writing utensil, a crappy bic pen, but she couldn't care less about the medium or quality of her work. She just wanted it to be over. As soon as the pen touched the lined paper her hand jerked, taking on a mind and life of its own.
It was near impossible to describe what it was like. It was like she was herself, but not. Her body and muscle was there, but her mind was distant, taking it all in from a backseat perspective. A force seemed to seep deep into her bones, driving her meat and muscle, fueling her hands as they swept clear, cutting black lines. It knew what she was drawing, all Hermione had to do was obey its need, and watch as the picture formed.
First came the lips. Masculine and mocking, her pen etched a nearly teasing grin onto the thin paper. Then the nose, slightly long but pleasant enough, her breath caught as her hand drew the eyes. Dark, cunning, more shadow than light. The rest of the features followed, capturing a handsome boy, but her eyes stayed glued to the dark irises her hand had depicted. Despite the 2D nature of it, the eyes themselves seemed to hold life, sucking into her from sooty lashes and tugging her into those fathomless pools. Without her paints or colored pencils she would never know their color, but there was something dark there, something intense. Terror pounded through her, inexplicable but very visceral as were most of the feelings she got with these images. Strange images and random feelings, and she rarely knew what they meant until it was too late.
It made no sense. As usual. Hermione tore the paper from the metal binding, willing herself to shred it into pieces. It crumpled easily, but she hesitated to rip it, instead staring at the balled paper in her white knuckled grip for a long, tense moment before reluctantly smoothing it back out with a belabored sigh. Cinnamon eyes peered back at the drawn profile, trying to pinpoint what in the innocuous depiction of a relatively handsome boy, around her own age, perhaps a little older, could possibly spark such spine curdling fear.
Nothing immediately stood out to her, but the feeling of unease persisted, her mouth dry as she folded it carefully and slipped it into the outer pocket of her bag. The bell rang and she flinched. Oh great. She was late for class. Not the best way for the future valedictorian to start her year.
It turned out the incident in the parking lot was just yet another car accident. Some overly confident sophomore had crunched in the side of a soccer mom's van. Despite the lack of sensation to the news it was all anyone talked about all day. Harry was in a bad mood after third period, claiming Snape had it out for him. He wouldn't listen to her reassurances that he was always prone to humiliating someone on the first day to serve as a warning to the class. A less than pleasant teaching method to be sure, but despite his acid personality the man was a mathematical genius. At least Snape took Harry's mind off Hermione and what happened earlier.
She wasn't sure she was ready to show anyone the picture yet. Not even Harry, and they'd been best friends since primary school. It scared her, and Hermione wasn't used to feeling such baseless fear. A part of her was overly aware of the piece of paper traveling with her, it seemed to have a presence inside the front pocket of her backpack. What's worse, the urge to draw hadn't fully gone away. Usually she felt drained after a drawing, not quite satisfied but somewhat peaceful. Right now she still felt the itch, her fingers clutched in her lap on the way home to keep them from twitching.
"How was your first day, honey?" Jean Granger asked, having insisted on picking her up on the first day like always and they were even still going out for ice cream. As if everything was the same, but keeping up that lie got more painful everyday. Like swallowing spoonful after spoonful of glass.
The tense brunette girl sat in the backseat, and the empty space up front carried volumes. None of her dad's jokes or easy smiles this time. He was back in the hospital, maybe this time for good. Her mum looked tired, deep circles under her eyes, smile pinched. Every second she spent out of the dentist's office she and her husband once shared, she was usually at the hospital, and Hermione couldn't blame her. She was watching someone she loved die, they both were and pretending otherwise was stupid.
"It was good," Hermione cleared her throat, looking out the window without really taking in the scenery. "I think I'll be able to handle my class load just fine."
"That's good dear," she was trying, Hermione reminded herself as the bitterness welled. This wasn't her fault, but it didn't suck any less.
"You haven't had any… artistic moments lately?" Her mother's hands were positively white on the steering wheel. Her parents rarely spoke of her "gift" and it was just some sort of unspoken rule that they all pretend what Hermione did was normal. Not at all weird or scary.
"No," the lie slipped off her tongue easily, the burning presence of the piece of paper in her backpack almost as intense as a living stare.
"Oh, well, good, that's good," Jean smoothed back her hair, smiling wanely at her daughter through the rearview mirror. Hermione twisted her fingers, feeling the itch spike and choking it down.
They went out. Had ice cream at the tiny parlor. Hermione ordered pistachio, her favorite, with fudge drizzle. Her mother got pecan, her dad's favorite, but neither remarked on her selection. Instead they talked about menial things, Hermione's curriculum and her mother's patients, what plants they wanted in the garden this summer. Meaningless details. It was almost pleasant. It would have been more so if she could stifle the twisting need in her gut.
It grew almost unbearable on the ride home, and it took every inch of her willpower not to break down and give in with her backpack so close. If her mother had been anything less than exhausted she might have noticed her uncharacteristic squirming in the backseat. As it was she dropped Hermione off at the front of the driveway, visiting hours were almost over.
"What if I came with?" Hermione asked, for what seemed the millionth time. Crestfallen, Jean patted her cheek.
"He isn't doing so well, darling, maybe next week?" She offered hopefully.
"What if he doesn't start to get better this time?" Hermione asked, carefully blinking back her tears.
"Oh honey," Jean wrapped her in a hug, patting her thick hair, "We can't think like that."
"I just miss him,"" Hermione admitted gruffly, squeezing hard.
"I know, and he misses you too, he's just so tired," Jean wiped at her own eyes, trying to hide their wetness. "Next week, okay? I promise."
"Tell him I love him," Hermione insisted, a bit primly to hide her emotions. Jean nodded.
"Of course. There's some dinner in the freezer, or money for takeout if you like." She kissed her daughter's forehead, looking so much older as of late, the lines around her eyes and mouth really beginning to show.
"I'll be fine," Hermione assured her, clenching and unclenching her hands as she fought to smile. The pain was back, fiercer, more gnawing. She watched her mother get in their faded blue car, allowing herself to run up to the front door when she saw the car had turned off the block and out of sight.
Her hands shook as she fitted the key into the lock, the door slamming behind her as she threw her backpack aside and made a beeline for her room. She didn't know why, but she needed to paint. Color this time. Bold strokes. The need was so keen it shrank her focus into a single minded drive. Tying her thick curls into a tight knot, she rolled up the sleeves of her flannel long sleeve, facing her canvas with a certain dread and desire. Paint, thick and bright acrylic, slashed against the white, there was so much red.
-*-
Riddle idly watched the blood wash from his long dexterous fingers, swirling down the bowl, around and around before pouring down the drain. He looked up, seeing the trembling scrap of waste eyeing him with horrified eyes, unable to scream since he'd ordered her to be quiet. A blessing, to be sure, she'd been making quite the racket at the sight of her husband hacking off his own limbs. He could have just ordered the man to tell him where the hard drive was, but he had wanted to watch him suffer. A sad puppet, just like the rest. It gave him some satisfaction to watch him, powerless and in agony, sawing at his extremities one by one, fingers, toes, legs, and then his arm, unable to stop until he bled out.
Just then, his phone rang. "You don't mind, do you?" He asked rhetorically of the silently sobbing woman frozen over the remains of her husband, smiling as he flipped open the device and held it to his ear. "Yes, this is Tom Riddle."
After a moment he smirked, tapping his finger against his lip. "Oh, rest assured, you have caught my interest Mr…?"
"Dumbledore," he eyed the sniveling Mrs. Smith, eyes keen as he smiled slowly, "I appreciate the opportunity sir, and look forward to meeting you."
"Yes, seven o'clock is fine, see you then," he snapped the phone shut and smoothed his already perfect black hair. "Well, it seems I have a few things to settle before my meeting so I'll make this quick. Here," he picked up the knife her husband had used to remove his toes and fingers. "Cut your throat."
Helpless but to obey, the blonde forty something woman reached out for the bloody knife, slicing into her own jugular immediately and dropping to the floor. Riddle didn't so much as spare her a backward glance, adjusting his watch and striding from the apartment, hard drive in hand.
-*-
A/N: I have so much love for this dark little plot bunny. I hope you enjoy this Jessica Jones slash Dark Visions inspired fanfiction. Reviews feed the muse, just saying. Stay tuned for more Tomicidal goodness.