She approaches him first. He is working and suddenly she is there. Hesitant, and confused, and not giving much away.
"Hermione. Hermione Granger" she says, and he lies when she ask him his.
They talk briefly, she evading, he polite, charismatic.
He notices the way her eyes narrow and her lips thin and her eyebrows frown. He notices the way she cuts herself off and looks at him with doubtful eyes.
He shrugs, pretends to not really care, but remains ever helpful and kind, spinning his web of lies.
She smiles at him, then, though there is still a bit of doubt, lingering on the edge, freezing up her smile.
A clever one, he knows, and all the more fun for him. He has always been a patient man, patience before the kill.
She will be back, he knows, and he isn't wrong.
Xxx
She goes to Dumbledore, and while he is understanding and kind, he is not much help. He suggest the ministry and the library but does not wants to get involved she senses in his evasiveness. She remembers then her conversations with Harry, her assurances and her good faith in the man standing in front of her, and suddenly wonders, if she was not wrong.
He was always a manipulative man. He never really let go of the 'For The Greater Good' philosophy.
And maybe, he and Tom Riddle where really not that different at all.
Xxx
"Orion? Orion Black?"
The dark-haired man next to him turns and he sends a quick wand less, nonverbal stinging hex. Flick of a wrist, and "aw" his neighbour utters, sending him a scornful glare.
He raises his eyebrow. Orion looks away.
He does not miss the way her eyes flutter, taking in the interaction.
He smirks, razor sharp and watches as her cheeks turn rosy and her pupils dilate.
"Can I help you?" he whispers, seductively.
It is a dare and a threat and a promise all in one.
She takes it.
Xxx
Hermione hesitates, tries to tell herself there may be another way.
There isn't.
He knows it too, and his raised eyebrows only give way to a triumphant smirk. She needs help. Orion can provide her the research and the money.
His interest in this is purely academic.
She hopes.
Xxx
They work in silence, passing each other texts from time to time, writing down notes, making remarks.
He is amazed by her intelligence, and finds they have many things in common.
Maybe, he notes, something else could be arranged.
He reaches out his hand, touches her hand lightly, gently and suppresses a smirk when she jumps.
"Aren't you hungry?" he asks, frowns, cocks his head a bit, "we could go and get something to eat? There is a lovely bistro a bit further down the street. It is in the muggle-world, though -"
She cuts him off, "I would love to"
He smiles, fast, catching her eyes and holding them, holding them until she finally smiles too, and when he releases them it is only to offer her his arm.
Xxx
Hermione knows, she knows, that he is not Orion. He is too brilliant, too handsome, and his story and way of behaving fit better with the person she thought him to be, weeks ago.
Every time she tells herself she must not give in and run while she still can, but then he smiles at her, reaches out, and though she knows it must all be fake, she still hopes. Still is captivated.
Xxx
She is laughing outright, head tossed back and eyes shut and he looks and looks and cannot suppress a smile of his own.
It is simply unacceptable.
So he reaches out, grazing his thumb slowly down her cheek, and watching mesmerized, as his actions cause her to still completely.
He cups her head more firmly, taking a step forward and bends down his head to kiss her. He swallows her surprised gasp, presses his lips against hers, hungry, hungry for more.
Her hands are at his ribs then, before they disappear again, as if she were holding herself back, and he debates with himself, to stop or to go on, a decision easily made. He snakes his arm around her waist, grabbing her hip, pulling her closer, closer still, and at last she responds, kissing him back just as feverishly.
He will not let her go.
Xxx
His body presses against hers in all the right places and she cannot breathe ,running her hands across his chest.
He kisses her softly, and then moves swiftly and she gasps, eyes shut, hands in fists.
She does not think he is really big, not that she has any experience to compare him with, but he feels..
"Breathe," he whispers against her ear, tugging her bottom lip free of her teeth.
She does, rapid shallow breaths, and wonders at the knowledge of having someone else inside her. It feels more like fulfilment than like an invasion, though, so-
"oh" she utters, as he rolls his hips, the sensation amazing. He smirks at this, and starts moving in and out at a constant, slow pace.
"Tom" she whispers and never notices his amused smirk. What she does notice are the way his fingers suddenly clench tighter in her flesh, so hard she thinks there will be bruises left, and his mouth attacks her own, hungry, almost violent.
Later she will understand.
Xxx
She avoids him for a day or two, goes over her options, thinks, thinks, tries to predict what the outcome of this will be, paces the tiny bedroom she is staying in (for which she pays an outrageously high rent, really) reminds herself of who he is, what he has done, what he will do.
In the end it is pointless.
She meets him at their usual spot, he is already sitting at the table, his pen in his left hand, ready to take notes and when her shadow blocks the sun from the big window, he looks up, giving her a smug grin, as if he never even doubted she wouldn't be back.
She cannot be mad, not really. Not when he is right.
Xxx
And Tom is brilliant, Tom is charming, Tom is handsome, even kind. Every day she spends with him she smiles a little more, every day she spends with him she relaxes a little more, well over three months now that they first met and two and a bit that they came to this deal and he-
He is devastatingly gentle with her when he touches her, he holds her hand when he kisses her, brushes his knuckles across her cheek and she-
She is falling for him, rapidly, slowly all at once, and she tries to hold on but she forgets and she doubts and she hesitates and he is luring her in his trap but is it a trapmaybeitisreal-
No, no, she mustn't, she mustn't but she needs this. she needs him.
She has lost so much already, and he offers her gentleness and human comfort and tenderness.
She craves it.
Xxx
"So," he begins.
They are sitting in a little restaurant, that offers tiny sandwiches and salad for lunch, at a very reasonable price. (not that she needs to worry about that, since Tom pays every expense of her and she is beginning to worry that she is entirely too dependent of him).
She fiddles with the cheese on her sandwich, adjusting the lettuce so that the edges fit and does not look up to him.
"So?" she asks.
"It isn't polite to not look your conversation partner in the eye, Hermione" he chides her softly.
"Oh, is that what we are? Conversation partners?" and the words sound bitter even to her.
"No, you're right? Fuck buddies is maybe a better term to describe our, ah.., interactions?"
She rears back as if slapped, offended by the crude term and a part of her wonders how he even knows about that, if it even exists in the forties, were women's rights are just coming up, after the second world war.
"It isn't all that hard to perform legilimency on someone, dear," he says softly, "especially if that someone happens to be sleeping"
For the first time since she met him, she is genuinely afraid of him. Sure, the idea of him has scared her before, but until this point, he had given her no reason to.
"Eat Hermione," he says, and then he sighs, "we can talk later"
He tucks a stray strand behind her ear. She takes a bite of her sandwich.
The crunch forms an offbeat pattern in her skull.
I'm go-ing to die. I'm go-ing to die.
Xxx
He asks her to move in, a warm summer night.
Nine months now, since that first kiss on that rainy autumn day.
Nine months, she thinks, and it feels heavy, like an actual burden she wears.
Xxx
In the end it all goes surprisingly easy.
She says yes, and is introduced to his friends.
Orion Black, the real one, and his little brother help her move the little things she has into Tom's flat. Malfoy pretends to help but is really only annoying and giving commands.
Walpurga Black (there are many, many Blacks she notices) urges her along on a shopping trip.
Lestrange barely even makes her flinch anymore, the scar on her neck a distant memory, from a faraway time.
When it is all done, Tom wraps an arm around her waist, and proceeds to introduce her to all the chambers, surfaces and furniture in the house.
She becomes especially well acquainted with the shower and with his bed.
"Really," he says, pushing up on his forearms, hovering over her to look at where they meet, where he is trusting into her, "this bed is- oh, much be-et-better than.. that thing-"
She kisses him than, silences the words, unable to even find the words to reply.
Xxx
Nott introduces her and the next day she gets an owl. She is busy than, training, learning, becoming a healer.
Tom is busy as well, with his job at Borgin and Burkes, his visits to Hepzibah Smith and the meetings he has with his knights? Death eaters?
Hermione firmly refuses to accompany him to them, trying to hold on to this last thing as if it might save her.
They fight, one day, and it is brutal and it is hard and the words they scream really hurt, after two years of living together how could they not? And she yells about his mother and his loneliness and his fear of death, and he yells about her betrayal to her friends and to Ron, the boy she used to love once.
She makes a final dig at his character, and suddenly his wand is trained on her.
This is it, she thinks, trying (and failing) to not flinch at the way his eyes flash red and his jaw clenched in fury.
She expects Crucio, she expects a gruesome death.
She does not expect his wand clattering to the ground, his hands, one pulling her hair back painfully, the other clenched in her hip with such force she is sure it will leave bruises. They kiss and bite and draw blood and he pushes her to the wall, snarling, pounding into her.
She never thought she would like it, this rough, but she does, she does, and she finds on why Lavender and Parvati kept going on about hate sex like it was possibly a good thing because it is, it is.
"Marry me" he whispers, says, commands, later when they are laying in bed, exhausted.
"Yes," she finds herself answering, "yes" and only then, when she sees the nervousness disappear from his gaze she notices he even was nervous at all.
He kisses her, slowly, and his knuckles brush down her bare back in a touch that she would call possessive, if she knew what a possessive touch was.
Maybe she does know, she thinks, as she kisses him back, because, yes, she knows, he will not let her go.
But neither will she.
Xxx
And that's how the story could end maybe. It also could be looked at as an open ending, as a possibility.
Tom never did destroy his Horcruxes, but he never made more either. Hermione became successful in her career, and felt better because she still was helping people. (she also killed one, or two, to end their suffering and crucioed one who had caused that suffering)
The Death Eaters went into politics, becoming powerful men and/or women (Tom holds their strings, he still does, he still does)
Hermione still said no each time Tom asked her to join him in immortality, but perhaps one day she would say yes.
(Harrry Potter would live a normal, happy life. So would Neville Longbottom)
For now, Hermione comes home, and kisses Tom warmly.
Xxx
Time flies. Seasons change. Books end, and new ones are written. Stories are told, whispered under the moon, until the sun comes up and takes the words away.
She loves him, she knows, and she thinks he loves her too. They are not the conventional couple, they do not whisper sweet things into each other ears, they do not hold hands in public, don't give each other kisses for the whole world to see.
It is a love story perhaps, but not a romance.
It is theirs.
It is perfect.