A/N: I bothered some of my author friends to do a Halloween thing this year where we each wrote a little fic! This was mine.
Lilitu
Traces, there were definitely traces. After all these years since its supposed destruction, Hermione was amazed that it still had even the faintest bit of his magical signature.
And oh was she sure it was HIS magical signature.
She turned Tom Riddle's diary over and over in her gloved hands, one hand fiddling with the torn and ragged cover and the other gripping her wand to swish and flick and flourish. She was supposed to be filing, cataloging away and getting all these cursed objects into their properly secured spaces and she WAS…she just got a touch distracted was all.
Somewhere between her filing of mystical pendants another artefact recovery team had interrupted her and among the piles of goodies extracted from Merlin knew where, was the big bad boy's diary itself. Hermione hadn't known what the insistent thrum of energy had belonged to until she carefully plucked apart her delivery but as soon as she'd set eyes on the thing, it had derailed all other bits of her productivity for that afternoon.
"Bloody hell," she said in astonishment, dropping the piece she was working on inspecting perhaps a touch too close to the new shipment.
It wasn't possible! It really just WASN'T! It had been only a few years since the end of the war but this piece of Voldemort should have been dead for quite a bit longer. The fact that it felt as though it was practically breathing was, well, it was more than a little distracting to say the least.
In fact, if she were to look back on that day and evaluate it from a distance, Hermione would dare to say that that very distraction may have been the culprit to...absolutely everything that went wrong.
During her inspection of the diary and its curious thump-thump-thumping, she failed to notice the nudging of two of the new items the away team had brought in.
Around her fourth or fifth flipping of a page, she happened to miss the teensy, tiny, nearly microscopic flicker of a spark from a nearby crystal.
What she did NOT miss, however, was the bright and blinding flash of light that erupted from the diary as well as a few other choice objects in her general vicinity. The book burned, it veritably burned, and she reflexively tossed it away. A loud crack and subsequent rumble that made the very floor tremble and quake caught her off guard and Hermione stumbled back. Her arms windmilled and grasped and groped for anything to stop her tumble as she plummeted awkwardly to the ground, only succeeding in taking the small lineup of pendants she'd been working with moments ago down with her.
Once the light had cleared and she was able to peel her eyes open, a very curious sight met them.
A young man in his late teens or thereabouts stood and stared coldly down at her from behind sharp, angled features and dark, intelligent eyes. His equally dark hair was neatly parted and precisely trimmed, topping what appeared to be a perfectly put together individual clad in a well-tailored gray blazer, slacks, and robes emblazoned with a Hogwarts shield on his left breast. There was something about him that immediately exuded an aura of power and command and, as if he knew just that, his mouth curled in a vicious smirk that was much more predatory than it was jovial.
"You…" Hermione began shakily as she made to free herself from a tangle of medallions and get her feet under her once more.
"Greetings," the young man interrupted haughtily as if the very world turned for him. "My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle." Tom paused and gave the witch a once over, his smirk turning more towards a sneer than anything else as he spotted her discarded wand and whipped a very solid hand out to claim it as his own. Grip tightening on the wood, he levelled it at her still wobbly figure and was brimming with a morbid sort of glee. "And who might I have the pleasure of encountering at this time of my rebirth? Come now, witch, who shall I name as my first victim?"
Hermione finally managed to get upright though she still hunched forward unsteadily with her hair masking her face. Her head tilted to one side curiously but she said nothing. Her silence served only to irritate him and when he spoke again, his voice was tight with a barely restrained hiss.
"I asked you a question, witch! It would be in your best interest if you answered, and quickly before I lose my patience and you lose your chance to at least be recognized for your pitiful sacrifice as a stepping stone before the Dark Lord Vol—"
His words were cut off abruptly by Hermione's hand shooting out to clamp down around his where he held her wand, but more so by the fluid way she moved into his circle of space. In a single step, she had closed the gap and her face was at his neck, her nose brushing up along the skin above his collar and her act of inhaling of his scent almost comically loud in the quiet room.
"You smell like power, little virgin boy."
Tom blinked, clearly taken aback by the woman that was now essentially nuzzling her lips against him in a way that was upsettingly not unpleasant. "I-I-sorry?" was all that managed to sputter out of his lips, his dark and mysterious tone having buggered off in favor of one of bewilderment.
Hermione had made her way up to his ear and taken the lobe between her teeth and purred at him. "I like power." One of her hands danced down his uniformed chest and ended at his crotch, curling her fingers around to cup him through his trousers.
Tom yelped and shoved her away, pointing the wand once more as he straightened his garments. "Madame, you WILL control yourself!" He snapped in a voice that was much more flustered than he would ever admit. "I AM powerful, yes. I am also beyond such mundane sorts of things like pleasures of the flesh. You have successfully squandered your chance to—what are you doing?"
"Madame makes me sound so old, Tom…Mar-vo-lo…Riddle," she hummed every syllable as though she were rolling a sweet candy around her tongue. Hermione shrugged free of her blazer and was making quick work of her blouse and skirt. "Do I look old, Tom?"
His wand arm faltered as she stepped forward again, now clad only in her underthings. "M-madame-I am-above-these—" And then her bra went away too. "—things."
"Do I feel old, Tom?" she asked as she reached out to coax his free hand onto the curve of her breast, guiding him in the motion of rolling the pert nipple between his thumb and forefinger. "Does this feel old?"
Tom gulped audibly. "N-no...Madame…"
She removed her hand and smiled a devilish smile when his remained and continued toying with her, his eyes rather glazed yet focused on the dainty pink nub. His tongue darted out to wet his lips and she cooed pleasantly when his throat bobbed at what had to have been some very indecent sorts of thoughts. "Then don't call me that," she teased.
Tom's eyes turned upward again, thoroughly entranced by the creature before him and having completely forgotten his original plight. "What shall I call you then, my mistress?"
Her smile stretched impossibly wide and she swept some short curls of hair from his forehead, taking a moment to admire the sigil that her pendant had burned into her – into her host's – palm.
"Mistress is fine," she murmured near his lips, "Or Lilitu if you prefer."