This place is a prison and these people aren't your friends.
This place is a prison and these people aren't your friends.
This place is a prison and these people aren't your friends.
this place is a prison
and these people aren't
your
friends
The words reverberated through her mind over again and again, tearing through every corner of her brain and enveloping her entirely.
She would have preferred for him to have said it in terror, encouraging her to get out, to run, to leave this godforsaken place before it swallowed her whole and refused to spit her back out, finding too much joy in the terror all but leaking from her pores—
But no.
His soft, sensible voice had mentioned it in passing, as though he were commenting on the weather; completely devoid of emotion—straightforward and nothing more. She didn't realize it was a warning slipped into regular conversation, the oddness of the statement ensuring she remembered it down to the letter.
She couldn't believe she had been so blatantly oblivious to her surroundings—never fully allowing the signs of a disintegrating psyche to breach the wards protecting her brain, refusing to let her see what was directly in front of her the whole time. The wards that convinced her time and time again that the events occurring around her were normal, reinforced by a deep baritone coated in honey ensuring her of the group's safety.
That despite all of the alarms blaring in her mind, she found it possible to ignore her conscience; her conscience that was all but beat down and pushed into the furthest recess in her mind, silenced by her misinterpretation of love—
this place is a prison and these people aren't your friends
Misinterpretation, because whatever went on between herself and Tom was not love.
Love was not manipulating your partner into performing experiments on perfectly normal people, experiments that changed the brain in the worst of ways, to obey despite the person's original objections—
How he had managed to convince her their experiments were ethical was beyond her. He had such a way with words she felt he could sway even those with the most resolute consciences—herself included. He could end wars, even move heaven and hell with a brush of his hand and a whisper in your ear, ensuring all of your wildest fantasies would come true; all you had to do was sign your life away—and most did without hesitation.
She had.
Lucifer was God's most beautiful angel, after all. And it was hard for her to see him as anything but the devil.
this place is a prison and these people aren't your friends
He stroked her ego, made her feel like the most intelligent woman in Britain—which she had felt wasn't far off, as she had been described as the smartest doctoral resident of her age. He made her feel important, that his team wasn't complete without her; that he wasn't complete without her.
He used her and made her believe that their experiments were for the greater good. That if they managed to crack the code, they'd be able to change a person's behavior and prevent them from doing things that were harmful to others; rape, theft, murder.
She choked on the bile that rose from stomach at her naivety.
this place is a prison and these people aren't your friends
He made her feel like she belonged. That he cared for her unconditionally and his colleagues felt the same.
She hadn't realized she was just another person to collect. She was blinded by his sharp features that screamed of aristocratic heritage, his obsidian orbs that glowed with knowledge and triumph, his dark hair that was always perfectly coiffed with the exception of one stray curl. It made him feel more human—because certainly, if he didn't have some outward flaw, he would be too perfect to be true. But even his flaws could be masked by his smile, white and shining teeth brightening his face.
He had convinced her that she was his—which was undoubtedly true—and that he was hers.
She wanted to peel her skin from her body, remove all parts of her that had touched the man who weaved lies as though it were his day job, business as usual for him.
Tom Riddle belonged to no one, and yet everyone belonged to him.
this place is a prison and these people aren't your friends
The people he had described as his colleagues were nothing more than his followers, listening and obeying to his every want and need, all but begging to be the one to help him. They viewed him as a god—all but worshipping at his feet—and he made each one feel like they were his most important ally.
Including her.
But now that she knew the truth—that he was a monster—she knew he would send his followers after her, just as he had done with Harry.
Harry, her best friend since high school, whose body had been found dismembered and drained of blood, painstakingly sterile by the river—
It was a message to her.
I know what you plan to do. If you act upon it, you'll be next.
Tom would take her to the river at night; pepper kisses down, down, down her neck to the place she needed him most—and just as she felt she would combust from the pleasure pounding in her veins, he would envelope her in a kiss that made her heart sing and claim her as his. He would ensure she knew who she belonged to, adding emphasis to his words with the thrust of his hips.
How could she do anything but agree?
Who else could make her feel like she was floating on air while her body was blissfully pinned to the ground?
this place is a prison and these people aren't your friends
He didn't have emotions that weren't entirely centered around himself, and it took her best friend being murdered for her to realize it.
She hadn't found a reason to worry in his darkened, sleep deprived eyes, despite noticing the way they darted around the room continuously throughout their conversations as if he were expecting someone to appear out of thin air. She hadn't paid mind to his previously full and radiating face sinking inwards from lack of food and appetite. She hadn't questioned the scabs surrounding his nails or tarnishing his lips, evidence of nervous, absent-minded gnawing that was beyond his control. She outright ignored how he jumped at almost every sound, including a mere pen dropping across the room.
this place is a prison and these people aren't your friends
It was what Tom wanted, after all.
When she came to him in tears one night, begging him to help Harry as he withdrew from her more and more, Tom had reassured her. Harry wasn't sure that he could handle finishing out medical school; he was afraid to mention it to her because he didn't want to disappoint her. Harry was simply working things out for himself and would undoubtedly return to his normal self very soon.
She believed him.
She never once brought up the subject the few remaining times she had seen Harry, almost as though her subconscious already knew that what Tom had told her simply wasn't true.
Her mind couldn't process that possibility, so she ignored it.
this place is a prison and these people aren't your friends
Ignored her best friend's appearance all but screamed that things weren't getting better—in fact, they had only continued to get worse, until he had disappeared completely and washed up with the tide.
Had the feeling of truly belonging for the first time in her life been worth the price? Exchanging her best friend for a group of peers that always managed to comfort her whenever she questioned their experiments, ushered her on to work all of those long nights that bled into long days? Peers that despite claiming to be her friends—even family—didn't reach out to her outside of the group. Peers that she couldn't remember meeting with outside the basement of the local hospital, Malfoy's family being the majority on the board of trustees.
Malfoy had always been Tom's right-hand man, and she could see why; it's difficult to stop those who fund the place, and who better to have than a Malfoy to ensure knowledge never left the basement?
And now she found herself in that exact basement, heart pounding louder than the echo of her feet hitting the floor. She was running out of options, out of time, out of breath.
He had already blocked the stairs, locked chains dangling ominously, akin to the invisible chains attached to her feet. He deactivated her access card; her only hope of accessing the elevators that dredged down to the depths of her own personal hell.
Her own personal hell in addition to the hell of too many others, volunteers—no, victims—that were unknowingly led to their demise like sheep to the slaughter. Whether they survived or not after they left her care, she was unsure; but one thing was certain, and that was they didn't leave the same person they came in as. Their minds rewired to act of someone else's accord rather than their own.
She had never even asked how they acquired their patients, simply believing Tom when he said those who volunteered were asking to have their proclivity for bad habits removed from existence.
How could she be so fucking stupid?
She bolted into a room that held pleasant memories of herself and Tom. Memories of sneaking away to snog on an old gurney, his hands traveling up her skirt to grab her thighs forcefully and pull her core flush against his groin, his mouth muffling the sound of moans she couldn't contain despite her best efforts.
She had a feeling those memories wouldn't affect him in the way they did her. She knew he wouldn't feel the pain she felt in her chest—like her heart was being ripped from her rib cage, his hands transforming into talons as he dug deep into her body to remove her still-beating organ.
She knew it would end this way. She knew it from the moment she decided to smuggle out evidence of just exactly what was happening in the basement of St. Mungo's hospital.
But she still had to try.
For Harry.
this place is a prison
"Hermione?"
and these people aren't your friends
She could hear his voice in the hallway, mere steps away from where she was hiding. She struggled to ball herself up as small as possible, praying to whichever deity that could hear her to help her turn invisible; when she realized she wasn't that lucky, she shoved herself further into the shelving she hid behind.
"Hermione," he spoke in hushed tones, voice still sickly sweet with mock affection. "There's no reason to hide—it's over. Come out."
She continued to hide, smothering any noise of her panicked breathing with both hands.
"Enough's enough, love. I warned you."
He slammed a hand onto the shelving she hid behind. She couldn't muffle the yelp that escaped her mouth.
"Nowhere to go now, Hermione. Come out and bring whatever files you have with you, and I might spare you." The lie rolled off his tongue easily, something that would easily fool someone not privy to his true nature.
She knew she should face her fate, die with what little dignity she still clung to after losing most of it during her time under her attendee. She just couldn't make her legs move; her feet cemented to the floor in a pitiful attempt of self-preservation.
She heard a heavy sigh before a hand tangled in her already knotted hair, forcefully pulling each strand by the roots; her scalp was on fire, and she cried out as she was brought face-to-face with the man she had previously thought she would eventually marry—
"My patience is running thin, Hermione. Why can you never do as you're told?"
"It's not as if 'following rules' was in my application, sir."
She gritted her teeth, rage boiling in her blood and causing her to see in hues of red. She had lost her best friend, her supposed lover, and now she was to lose her life—she felt her rage was justified.
"Ah. She speaks."
"Fuck you," she spat in his face, fully expecting the pain that followed when his unoccupied hand formed a fist and smashed into her nose. She could hear the crunch of her nose breaking, feel the cartilage crumble from the force of his hand.
"I didn't want to do that, you know." He murmured, unfisting her hair and throwing her to the floor.
She fell back with a loud smack, head hitting tile so violently she saw spots.
this place is a prison and these people aren't your friends
A laugh bubbled up her throat, hysteria setting in and intertwining with the adrenaline shooting through her.
"You can kill me, Tom, but you'll never succeed without me."
He knelt down beside her, pushing mangled hair away from her bloodstained face.
"Oh, dearest Hermione," He whispered in her ear, calloused hands coming to rest at her throat. "It's a shame you're so out of sorts. I already have."
He pressed down on her trachea, the pressure keeping her from speaking what was circling through her mind as her vision clouded. She clawed at him uselessly, kicked any part of him that she could manage.
It still wasn't enough.
Her last memory would be looking into the cruel, dead eyes of a man so beautiful that he couldn't possibly be of this earth while her best friend's voice whispered in the distance.
this place is a prison and these people aren't your friends