A/N:Long time no see, I know! College, university, whatever you want to call it- It's a trap! Anyways, remember that prompt table I said I had been working on? Even though the Tomione community on tumblr gave me some amazing ideas, I am still stuck. My muse, she's as fickle as the weather and stays as long as the sun shines. (In this country that means not much time at all, I assure you.)
The prompt for this little one-shot/drabble is 'muse', I found that amusingly ironic.
As always, enjoy and feel free to share your thoughts with me!
.
It is a dangerous game we play, the one about giving our hearts away.
i.
She isn't what everyone thinks she is.
Sure, she is a war heroine, she fought next to her best friend to aid him in overcoming a ruthless tyrant, she did what was right and she was so brave, so couragious, so loyal, so Gryffindor.
And yet-
And yet-
She isn't what everyone thinks.
And she is so tired of it. Because people look at her and see the brightest witch of her age, people look at her and see Harry Potter's best friend, people look at her and see a strong war heroine.
No one sees her. No one sees Hermione Granger. And it's suffocating, it's maddening, and really, sometimes all she wants is to be back in her first Hogwarts year when she was 'Just Hermione' with her bushy hair and know-it-all attitude.
Instead, she smiles, when all she wants to do is cry, remains strong while she feels so weak inside, and tries to not be atrocious at socialising. Tries to not feel so insecure about love and a million other things.
(Somewhere in her head there is a voice screaming at her that she has every right to feel that way, she is only nineteen, but she shoves it back, shuts it down.)
ii.
He isn't what everyone thinks he is.
Yes, he is Head Boy, and top of his class. He is charming, good-looking and kind. (seems to be, seems to be)
He is the school hero, for discovering the monster and the boy who kept it, for saving others of poor Myrtle's fate.
He never openly agreed with Grindelwald's theories, stayed carefully silent while others shouted, agreed, despised.
Now, he roams Hogwarts halls, with an even shinier badge than the last, gives polite nods to teachers and helps first years along the way.
And no one sees, no one notices that he is Slytherin through and through, that he is cunning and resourcefull and agile and bright, and sometimes all he wants to do is scream and lay his heart bare but he doesn't-
He doesn't because he is a Slytherin, and if there is one trait they value is the one of make belief.
He remains perfect for the whole world to see, holds his head high at the whispers from the corners, does not react on the filthy blood insults and does not show hurt at the attitude some teachers seem to have against him.
(And somewhere inside him there is a voice screaming, yelling about madness but he shuts it down, forces it away, he will not give in, will not give in)
iii.
It starts with a look.
Somewhere, sometime, in a world different and the same they are allowed to meet.
Suddenly they are ripped away from their respective worlds, find themselves in a vast library and she wanders and reads for days, grateful for the reprieve, though dissapointed that it offers almost no new knowledge,thinks it is only a dream and she will wake up soon.
He wanders too, searching information he does not know already, because he is sure the spell went wrong.
She rushes a corner, smacks into him and falls on the ground.
He does not understand why the woman he met is screaming at him, not until she yells 'Voldemort' and starts a rant, and he keeps quiet, observes, plans.
There is a glint in his eyes she does not like very much, and she wonders if she can pretend, but there is a tiredness in her spirit that weighs her down, and she cannot take it anymore so she stops fighting the voice, lets it all flow out.
Madness screams in his head, tells him to kill this girl, but he does not want to, and he has always been stronger, there is only a tiny hole in his soul and he does not let it overpower the rest, does not get sucked into the abyss.
Two strangers, two enemies, apathy, hatred and yet, a strange comfort is between them, a moment respite, where they can forget about the world and about the masks they are forced to wear, the roles they are forced to play and just be, just lay themselves bare.
She knows everything about his madness, witnessed it first hand, had a V.I.P ticket to the front seat.
He knows all about her weakness, she showed herself to him and he loved the gift, drank it all in, still wants more.
They part without a word, without a sound, but there is a look between them, a knowledge, a silent promise that they will return, even if they have to search the ends of the earth to find how.
iv.
There is a boy.
(There is always a boy, isn't there?)
This time, it is different, though, this time it is not a boy she is supposed to think about, they should never even have met.
But if Hermione has ever learned anything, it is that in the magical world 'should haves' hardly ever count.
And she wants to scream and rage and laugh at the same time because the same boy who is making her life easier is also making her life harder.
No one notices if anything is wrong with her, no one ever says anything, but sometimes she catches them looking at her from the corner of her eyes, and once she even caught someone crying.
v.
There is this girl.
'I am not capable of feeling love, and it certainly is no love I feel, yet I want to wrap my hands around her neck just as much as I want to wrap my arms around her body, I want to choke her just as much as I want to pull her close, I want to feel her warmth just as much as I want to feel her die.'
There is this girl, a girl with bushy hair and who is weak and strong at the same time, and somehow, somehow-
He keeps thinking about her, and it sends shivers up his spine nd he feels panic burning in his throat because, no, that's not how it is supposed to be.
He is a Slytherin. He is supposed to be in control.
They were never even supposed to have met.
However, if there is one thing Tom Riddle has learned in this peculiar world, is that things never go as they are supposed to.
vi.
"Tom"
"Hermione"
She speaks first, after a long silence begging to be broken, but the words she speaks only make him want that silence back.
"This isn't right," she says, shaking her head, "this isn't how it is supposed to be. We should never even have met, and I don't know this world, I don't know if it is only a dream and why you are here and if that only makes it a lovely nightmare instead but-"
He steps forward decisively, even though he has no idea what to decide.(Life or Death, Life or Death)
She scrambles back, frightened but there is nowhere to go, and they both now it.
He reaches for her neck first, wraps his hand securely around the back of it, debating if he should move to the front, but his other hand is already moving of it's own volition, settling on the soft skin of her waist and he finds himself playing with her hair instead.
Lightly, she traces his rips and he pulls her closer at the touch, her head in the crook of his neck, his chin resting on top of her head.
They are both stiff and it does not feel right, but somehow it does feel right and it is-
It is-
(If one dared, it maybe could be called beautiful)
vii.
How many weeks, months, years go by?
They continue to meet, sometimes in dreams, sometimes in memories and it still is perfect but-
They know it cannot go on.
They now it will have to end.
It is a truce, a silent understanding, that they will betray eachother, and it is exhilirating and maddening and it makes their hearts beat faster each time they are wrapped in each other embrace.
There is a countdown.
Ten
Nine
viii.
"How come we meet in my dreams, and yet it is always noon?"
"Why do you say that?"
"The window," she gestures at one of the things, huge and bright and the sun does not quite hurts his eyes when he looks at it, "the sun always shines through the third on the left, and always throws a shadow on this table" she knocks the table for emphasis.
He shrugs, pretends to be indifferent. She is watching him too eagerly, to scrutunising, too close by and he knows it won't be long anymore.
Maybe he should be more upset about it. It was not what he wanted at all, but he has met her, has delved into her mind when she did not notice it and he suddenly stopped caring.
Eight
ix.
"No, no, NO!" she yells, pushes him away, scrambles for her wand, fist her hand in her hair, shakes her head, "no, I can't do this anymore, you are Voldemort, you killed Harry's Parents, my friends, Fred, Dobby, Dumbledore they all died because of you and I-"
"And you are fucking the enemy?" He asks calmly, feels behind him, leans against the wooden table in the library they always find each other in.
She winces at his crude words. "We are not fucking" she hisses.
He shrugs, "Not yet"
"Not ever"
His eyes narrow, and a smirk dances around his mouth. It is a challenge, and he has never been known to back down from one. He has always been able to charm the people he needs, to get what he wants, and she will be no different.
She will be his.
(Maybe he will be hers too)
"Want to bet on that, Hermione?" He says softly, straightening up, starting his journey across the room.
She is trapped, and judging by her expression, she knows it. The aisle they are in has a dead end, that was not there before, and every time something changes Tom understands a bit more about the magic that brought them here, the spell he performed. It is like a room of requirement, only less flexible, but he knows, he knows, the basic concept is the same and that means she is here, because he wished for her to be here.
She is everything he ever wished for.
And that is unacceptable. Because he is Tom Riddle, he is Lord Voldemort, and he doesn't do wishes, he doesn't do love and he knows he should really just kill her and get it over with, perform legilimency on her to change his future and then choke her to death, or avada kedavra her, maybe use her for a next horcrux.
He can't.
He can't.
And he hates her for that, he hates her for that and when he is standing a breath away from her he bends his head and whispers that truth into her ear, making his voice as venomous and low as possible.
She slaps him, tells him "I hate you too, then" but there is hurt in her eyes and maybe she feels just as conflicted as he does.
He grips the hand that slapped him, crushes it tight, revels in her wince and then, he is pulling her forward, digging his other hand into her hip, letting her hand free to grip her jaw, pull her against him.
They fight in their kiss, they bite and they draw blood and in the end they don't know if the coppery taste in their mouths is from his blood or from hers, muddy blood and half muddy blood mingle and there is no difference and he rips at her blouse and she shreds his shirt and he scratches her breasts and she leaves bloody nail mark on his back.
It is brutal, it is primal, and it is perfect.
seven
six
x.
He knows she has figured it out. Knows she knows the nature of the spell he did.
He laughs when she confronts him, asks her what she expected. He is no light wizard, has never been, is not even capable of producing light magic.
"You summoned me to learn more about fate? So this place.. I- we both?"
Her voice breaks at the last syllables.
"It went wrong" he shrugs. "This was not my intention. Not that it matters, really, because my intention would have never come true anyways, would it Hermione? Not if you had any say in it"
"This isn't what I wanted" she says, shakes her head, eyes filling with tears. "I.. I performed a spell too, but never-"
There is a reason the library is so vast, and yet the books offer no new knowledge.
There is a reason the sun always shines through the same window, never changing position.
There is a reason everything remains unchanged.
five
four
xi.
She was tired of having to be perfect. She was tired of being unnoticed, and when she stumbled upon the spell to make things true she thought this is it, this will make everything right.
three
He was tired of fighting against the madness and he found a spell that would make the madness go away, that would make things come true, he thought this is it, fate will be right.
two
And they performed the spell, and somehow, somewhere fate interlinked, found inspiration, and tried to make things right, wanted to give them what she thought they deserved, discovered that she had been wronged.
one
Hermione Granger should have never survived the war.
Tom Riddle was never supposed to live forever.
Fate fixed it.
xi.
There is a countdown.
ten
nine
eight
seven
six
five
four
three
two
one
zero
There is a reason no one notices them. There is a reason they have started to spend more time in the library than in the real world.
There is a reason everything remains unchanged.
In them, fate found her muse, her inspiration and made things as she liked them, made her dreams and intentions come true.
They are death.