I recently reread the story "Ultima Ratio" by Winterblume (probably my all time favorite Fanfic) and I just had to write this.

Warning this story contains dark themes like human sacrifice, blood magic, torture and most likely character death. This is dark, more like a horror story like the old mythologies or fairy tales before they were rewritten for kids. Tom is a true psychopath but Hermione is not a victim.

Psychopath
N. A person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behaviour.
INFORMAL an unstable and aggressive person

Empath
n. (Chiefly in science fiction) a person with the paranormal ability to perceive the mental or emotional state of another individual

Disclaimer: the above definitions of empath and psychopath are from the "Oxford Dictionary of English " and the characters and places in the following story are the works of our Queen JK Rowling, and belong to Bloomsbury and Warner Bros and other companies that are rich and successful. I hold no claim to any of it except for the very made up situations I have suddenly smashed these characters into.

It was a surprise really, the whole bizarre situation Hermione had wound up in.

She was always amazed at the very odd situations one finds themselves in after you enter the magical world, and being friends with Harry Potter meant having a front seat to bizarre events. Being a muggleborn meant all of her knowledge came from books since her two best friends were knuckleheads who either, like herself, had grown up in the muggle world, or in Ron's case thought everything that wasn't obvious was, and everything that should be obvious wasn't.

Still she had never heard of a case when one gets thrown through time and space, from a battlefield to a muggle war half a century earlier. And she figured if anyone should know, it would have been her.

Suddenly she had been shipped off to Hogwarts, to attend her last year of schooling in 1945. It was nice being able to finish her 7th year, a part of her regretted the decision to go camping in the woods instead of sitting at a desk for a year. Another part of her would remind her that said school was house to a bunch of Death Eaters eager to maim and kill her, or at the very least torture her for information about her best friend.

So she figured being stuck in the wrong century did have some perks. Sure Grindelwald and World War 2 was annoying, but Hermione had learned every single detail about both wars in the fascination of how they interacted. And she was safe in Scotland in a castle filled with innocent children. If anything this was like a vacation.

Underneath her joy of going back to Hogwarts, her brain was whirring with possibilities, consequences and plans for the upcoming year. It was giving her a headache so she decided to take a nap.

When she woke up again, leaning against the window with drool dripping on her robe, she noticed with horror that she was surrounded by boys. From their sneers, she guessed Slytherins, as her sleeve had slid down and revealed the word Bellatrix had carved into her.

With growing apprehension she wiped the drool and tried to collect herself. "Excuse me." She intoned lightly.

"Why don't you get another place to stay, Mudblood!" She cringed slightly but decided against confrontation in a small enclosed space against 3 unknown adversaries.

"Now there Malfoy, no need to be rude to the new girl." She blinked and tried to look closer at the person with the sweet melodic voice.

"Thank you, Mister?"

"Riddle, but please call me Tom." He leaned forward and gave her a dashing smile she could not help but stagger against.

Whatever Hermione had expected Voldemort to be in his teens, this was not it. As she gazed upon the infamous man she was struck dumb by his beauty, a feat no other man could say he had done, for she always had a number of things to say in anger against men and even more so against Slytherins. But here was a man, nay yet a boy, capable of such wretched acts of violence and hate that she had hour long monologues she could throw at him that even the most unfeeling human would cringe and look away in guilt.

Yet she could only gape at him, wonder at his perfection. His most prominent features were his insanely high cheekbones that protruded out of his face, sharp enough to cut you should you try and caress his cheek. They sharpened his features, even more, added by his sharp jawline and piercing eyes. That elegant jawline that descended down into a strong neck with taunt muscles that you could scarcely see a pulse tick against the soft marble skin. That white soft grace against his sharp bones, contrasted by his dark hair and eyebrows. His eyebrows fighting against his cheekbones for attention in their sharpness. They were thick, elegant and in complete control by a man who's soul, even at this point in time, was darker than his hair. A darkness that drew you in, lured you, sang to you like a siren, promising joy and pleasure while showing you a path to death and destruction. A darkness that would claim you, hold you slave while you begged for more.

His lips were blood red, the only part of his natural features that showed this creature was not from a black and white movie, they made her wonder if it was coloured by his victims blood.

Finally, her gaze travelled to what had drawn her in, at first, his unfathomable grey eyes. Of all the things she noticed about him, they took her by surprise the most. For all the other things reminded you of the danger lurking underneath, of a void that would devour you, eat you alive while you rejoiced that he had chosen you. But his eyes were filled with emotion, a stark contrast to the stories she had heard of him, and of what she believed. Her entire life she had believed that the eyes were the Windows to the soul, but his were inviting, warm and comforting even with their cold grey colour. She thought herself a fool for seeing what she saw in them, for seeing love and devotion and passion. As she stared back at him, however, she was compelled by darkness to yield to a monster she had sworn to destroy. Yet with every fiber of her being she knew it was already too late, and she knew she was already lost.

"And what may I call you beauty?" He still gazed at her with cold and tempting eyes that Hermione knew had fooled so many, and yet here she was fooled as well.

"Jean Roddich"

"What a common and yet such an unusual name." He said, and by the sniggers of his comrades Hermione knew he was mocking her heritage while he still could claim to be innocent and paying her a compliment. "How lovely." The glint in his eyes made her uneasy, usually, she could tell exactly what people were feeling and what drove them. The compelling qualities of Tom Riddle were a mystery to her, though, for as much as they seemed to emanate the emotions of a good, kind and gentle soul, something was off.

"Thank you." Her voice stammered, he cocked his head and she prayed to any deity that would hear her that he believed her to be yet another girl who had fallen for his charms. "I must be off, it was nice meeting you."

She flicked her wand and practically ran out into the corridor, heart racing and palms sweating while her luggage innocently floated next to her.

She managed to avoid any more odd interactions with people of the past while she went over her reasoning for going back to Hogwarts. She didn't have much of a choice really, she had no money, no actual education as far is this period was concerned. There was a war raging, meaning the muggle world was on rations, and she didn't want to use her wand to steal from already starving muggles.

Really her choices were Hogwarts, starvation, persecution (she had once out of curiosity checked if she would be considered Jewish in the eyes of the Nazi soldiers. Turns out, she would have especially with her hair), or she could kill herself. Out of all those choices, the only one she would consider was Hogwarts.

It was selfish really, her will for survival might mean messing up the timeline and condemning others to death with her actions.

But being sent back must mean something.

They were almost there, and Hermione needed to change her clothes. She had been roaming the corridors and decided a bathroom was the best course of action. She slipped in and started undressing. When she was just in her bra and skirt she heard the door click shut and the lock turned.

She whirled around and saw the handsome face of Tom Riddle. She tried to cover her chest with her robes, still halfway through changing into her uniform, stuck in between fight or flight against this foe.

"Well, aren't you precious?" He was eyeing the skin exposed between the folds of her robes, and her hand clutching her sides.

"What do you want?" Fear, anger, indignation, shame and worry laced her words, but Riddle was too busy eyeing her to notice those things, he just saw the red lines of her scars that were mostly hidden against her robe.

"Who did that to you?" Her eyes shot down to where his was trained.

"My scar?"

"Your gift." He stepped closer to her, towering over her small frame, and she gasped, holding her arms tighter against her. But he wrenched her right arm away from her, looking closer at the word carved there. "So beautifully done." He leaned down to inspect it and kissed her right over the u in the word "Mudblood".

Continuing kissing the scar, Hermione tried to wrench away from him, But the hand clutching her tiny wrist tightened. His fingers were so long and strong, going all the way around her arm, his thumb was touching his pinky. It was a mirror of their contrasting strengths, how with just a tiny portion of his strength he overwhelmed and controlled hers.

Her heart was beating fast and erratically. "Please, let me go." She pleaded.

"What a thrilling sound, you begging me." He bit her arm where the last letter of her scar was, as to punctuate her inferiority him. "I want more."

Hermione snapped out of it then, the weakened stance, the begging, the prayer for it to stop. "I will never give you anything." She snapped, and dropped her robe to slap him with her other hand. But before it connected, he intercepted it, clutching both her wrist.

He now stared with a hungry gaze over her body while he straightened. "So much skin to work with. All the possibilities..." he murmured and then pushed her against the wall, holding her hands above her head, pressing his body against hers.

"You will yield to me eventually." He deadpanned and then leaned forward to kiss her, but Hermione had enough and swiftly brought her knee up to connect with his groin. His yelp and groan of surprise and pain made Hermione smirk. He let her go to hold his groin and try to stand upright by leaning against the wall. Quickly Hermione pulled on the last of her uniform and levitate her trunks after her.

Before she left the toilet she turned around to look at him. He was smirking at her, like causing him pain had gained her some sort of respect in his eyes.

"I will never yield to you, no matter what you do." She turned and opened the door, but before she could pass the threshold he called after her.

"I've been looking for a worthy opponent for quite some time. I guess I finally found one." She didn't have an answer for that, so she walked out slamming the door behind her.