Hermione liked books. She liked books and tea and the soft sound of rain tapping glass. She liked all of those far more than she liked people. She spent her evenings in sitting in her favorite armchair with a book in hand and her nights out wishing she was in that armchair. She was more than content living her life like this, exploring never-ending worlds through others' words.
"Come on, let's go!" Lavender hurried her.
"Please, it'll be so much fun," Ginny begged.
"You won't regret it!" Cho promised.
"This was a bad idea," Hermione sighed to the darkness of the night as she sat on the porch of the house she was supposed to be in. The walls of some stranger's home muffled the popular music blasting through shitty speakers, but she still felt its pulse moving through her.
"I can only assume you mean this party," said a masculine voice behind her. The words he spoke were perfectly sculpted and she swore this man's voice alone could make speaking a form of art. She turned to face the unfamiliar voice. It belonged to a man currently towering over her. He must've been in his early 20's. His face was perfectly shaven and his complexion was even as if adolescent acne was never an enemy of his. His grey eyes cut through the night and her with a shocking intensity.
Danger a voice whispered in the back of her mind.
But is this not how all good love stories start?
"So, why is this party a bad choice?" he asked and Hermione was certain she could never get use to such a voice.
"Honestly? Because life has better things to offer than this."
"And what, may I ask, is better than this?"
"Curling up in bed and reading," she said simply, but her confidence was wavering.
"Sure," the man scoffed. "Life has much better things to offer—you are right there—but that isn't one of them, Miss…?"
"Hermione—It's Hermione," she told him. He held out his hand and she shook it. His hands weren't calloused, but smooth.
"Tom. Tom Riddle."
She knew he would change her mind.
"Stop it with the books, Hermione. They won't make you feel alive. That's what you want, yes? To feel alive?"
"Give that back!" She reached for her book and he held it out of her range.
"No. This isn't living. Reading the printed words of other's experiences or dreams won't make you feel alive." His tone was even, but firm. He leaned down so his gaze was level with hers, his grey eyes searching honey brown. "Let's go be wild."
She nodded.
She forgot about her books.
Tom yanked her ponytail and Hermione yelped in pain. "Tom, stop!" she cried out. He didn't until the band attempting to control her wild mane released its grip.
"No," he said firmly, holding her hands away from her hair, letting it come back to life and take its natural state. It grew, taking up space and letting her presence be known. "Your hair is beautiful. It is wild and big and living. Let it breathe."
She stopped trying to control it.
"Tom, my father always taught me smoking is bad for your lungs." Hermione scolded the gorgeous older man. The orange embers of the end of his cigarette were reflecting in his eyes and it was doing weird things to her soul.
"That only matters if you live long enough to suffer those effects." He took another deep drag of his cigarette and slowly blew it out towards her face. She coughed and waved the curling, gray smoke away quickly, her eyes burning.
"What's that supposed to mean?! Why wouldn't you want to live long?" she demanded, fear seeping into her voice.
"Hermione, my dear," Tom said slowly, each word shaped carefully by his lips. He leaned forward and she sharply inhaled. "You aren't living life right if you aren't taking enough risks to die before old age. 'Only the good die young' and I plan to be that."
She didn't imagine death as an end anymore.
"Tom," Hermione hissed as the perfect man stood outside her bedroom window. He flashed her a smile laced with mischief. He tapped on the glass lightly and her heart jumped. Her parents were asleep just down the hall.
"Come on, Hermione, what's life without a little risk?" he asked, voice muffled by the glass. She sighed and opened the window for Tom to climb through.
"You're going to be the death of me," she whispered and he laid her down on her bed before wondering her imperfect body.
"Oh, I know," he murmured.
She believed him and wasn't sure if she minded.
He tasted like mint and tobacco and iron, a strange, sharp, tangy detail she clung onto. She carved words about him in her journals as he carved bits of himself into her soul.
His hips were between her pale thighs and he made love to her like she had read about in her books. It was better than what Lavender described at their sleep overs and smoother than Cho had explained. It was fast and hard and deep, but he loved her and she loved him. She raked her nails down his back, lying on her bed in the home she shared with her parents who were currently at work while her peers sat in desks and learned simple subjects like algebra. She was living while they weren't.
Tom wrapped his hand around her throat and squeezed. Hermione felt panic wash over her body and instead of scratching him out of pleasure, she was doing it out of pure fear. She knew her eyes were big as she desperately gasped for air.
Something changed in his perfect eyes. They got darker and deeper and his pupils grew until she swore she could fall right into them if his hand wasn't keeping her grounded against her bed.
She opened her mouth to cry out a plea for freedom, but her orgasm came crashing down and she started seeing spots of black between the two taking her breathe away. Tom finished right after, crying out loudly and his grip on her throat loosened.
They lay in her childhood bed together. Hermione was supposed to be so afraid, but instead she felt something blossom in her chest. It was dark and buried deep, but her heart was racing quicker than any orgasm or book had ever made it. Her mind was a contradiction, racing but fuzzy as if she couldn't completely collect her thoughts.
She felt more alive than she ever had before.
Tom Marvolo Riddle was an addiction. The man's voice was a drug; any words could leave those lips and Hermione knew she would do what they told her to. She fell asleep thinking about it and woke up with it in her mind already. Everything felt better, brighter, louder when he said to do it.
"Come on, 'Mione, this is going to be great," he encouraged her, hands resting softly on her shoulders from behind.
"Tom, this is illegal," she hissed, but it was half-hearted. She knew this was for her own good. This was to show her what being alive meant.
"Just go do it," he said softly. He pushed her forward a bit and her grip tightened on the spray can.
For the first time ever, Hermione Granger broke the law. And it was great.
"Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing" was written with forest green spray paint on the side of the public library, as big and beautiful as she could make it.
Hermione couldn't stop laughing the entire evening.
She knew there was no going back.
"Have you seen Hermione?"
"Not really, she's skipped the past two calculus classes."
"She never misses class!"
"I heard she spends all her time with that man she met."
"Didn't he use to go here?"
"My brother went to school with him; he said Riddle has always been trouble."
"She's really changed hasn't she?"
"What are you going to do after this year?" Hermione asked softly, running her fingers through his dark hair.
"What do you mean? I'm going to keep doing what I am now: I'm going to live." He spoke as if it was the most obvious, simple fact in the world.
"Aren't you worried about college?" She had applied, but her responses weren't back.
"No. I don't want to spend more time confined in an institution of limited thinking where we focus on others' lives."
"So...you aren't planning on going? How will you get a good job?" She worried her lip. Father always said she had to go to college to get a good, secure job.
"I'll keep doing what I am." He paused, contemplating something. Leaning toward her face, he made sure their eyes were locked before speaking. "Would you want to come live with me when you graduate?"
Hermione held her breath, searching his grey eyes to see if this was an honest offer. When she saw only the truth, she answered:
"Yes."
She stopped worrying about the future.
When her acceptance letters came (she made it into every school she applied for), she never even opened them.
"Hold it. Feel it. Isn't the weight comforting? Grounding?" Tom asked. Hermione held his favorite switchblade in her hand. She turned it over slowly, amazed, yet cautious of the sense of power it gave get
"Ready to try?" His voice was quiet, barely carrying over the sounds of the night.
She didn't speak, but nodded. Nothing would ever replace the feel of her pushing that thin, silver blade through the ribs of another body. Muffled cries. Thick, red liquid pooling around her sneakers. The way her heart was racing, the pounding in her ears of her pulse. It was strong enough to get high off of.
She finally placed what that iron smell that clung to Tom so desperately reminded her of: blood. When they kissed, he tasted of blood and it was just so right, so symbolic of what being alive really meant.
She realized that sometimes being alive meant for others to not be.
When she graduated, she didn't go out to the repetitive, silly parties people her age so stupidly loved. She packed her bags that night; she didn't need much and wasn't planning to say goodbyes. The man with the razor-sharp jawline stood outside her window and helped take her bags. They loaded up his beat up, old car and disappeared into the night, ready to feel alive.
She was finally alive.