The first dream – or nightmare , as Tom often corrected himself, because there was no way in Muggle Hell he wanted the things he saw every night to happen, absolutely not – occurred on his 17th birthday.
There was no other reasonable explanation for why prissy knickered, stuck-up, swotty know-it-all, frigid bitch Granger was lying on her back with her legs spread wide and her knickers hanging off one foot, with her hand pressed against her neatly trimmed cunt and –
It was a fucking nightmare .
So, he clenched his eyes shut and turned away into the corner – because the door he'd walked through only moments ago had disappeared, and apparently , his subconscious wouldn't let him leave – and he did not press his hand against his burgeoning erection, because he was not in need of relief- as the girl he'd hated for six years masturbated behind him, seemingly oblivious to his presence.
She didn't say a name as she came, thank Merlin, and as soon as she'd finished, Tom found himself wide awake, and alone, staring up at the canopy of his bed in the Slytherin dormitory with his sleeping roommates. He glared at the tent his very real erection formed and grit his teeth as he rolled over onto his stomach and attempted to think of anything other than how fucking wonderful Hermione Granger had sounded as she'd gotten herself off.
Tom Riddle met Hermione Granger on September 1st, 1991, when she barged into his empty compartment aboard the Hogwarts Express and asked him if he'd seen a toad.
He blinked at her from where he'd been sitting at the window, carefully reading the copy of Hogwarts: A History that his mother had gifted to him before he'd boarded the train and was about to tell her that yes , he had in fact seen a toad hopping down the corridor when she spotted his book and began to question him about it.
"Oh! I didn't know if anyone else would bother to read that. Have you gotten to the part about the sky in the great hall being bewitched? Or about the Poltergeist; I think his name is Peeves? That haunts the castle, alongside other numerous ghosts, and who takes great pleasure in disrupting classes and -"
"I've just started it," he interrupted, glaring at her. She seemed ignorant of his annoyance and just grinned at him.
"Well, it's good. Really good. I've already read it three times and I've only had it a week."
Tom stared at her. "Didn't you have anything better to do?"
She blinked at him. "Well, I'd already read through all the textbooks for first year and - you're a first year, too, right?"
The girl glanced at the empty patch where he was fully confident the Slytherin house crest - his ancestor's house - would appear in only a few short hours and he nodded She pointed to the empty space above her heart.
"Me, too."
"What house are you hoping for?" he asked, noting the page of his book and shifting it shut in his lap as he leaned forward to speak with her. His mother hadn't let him out of her sight for a long time, choosing to homeschool him herself after his father's death. Tom suspected foul play, but his mother had been dreadfully upset, and well - suffice it to say he'd never asked.
"Ravenclaw, but I don't really care."
Tom snorted and she levelled a glare his direction. "What?"
"Nothing." She pursed her lips and hummed, but said nothing more; and then she was gone, proclaiming that she had to help find this toad and that she would see him in a few hours.
Tom looked forward to it. Looked forward to seeing whether she would be sorted into Ravenclaw or not. Whether she would be a formidable foe for him to compete against throughout their school years. He was disappointed, but not disheartened, when she was sorted into Gryffindor, instead. In fact - they got along perfectly fine, until both Potter and Malfoy - arch enemies and subsequently each one of their best friends, found them studying quietly in the corner of the library once, and that perfectly amicable friendship was torn to shreds.
He had to stop staring at her. He had to. He didn't want anyone, least of all her , to notice that he was paying far too much attention to her, and with all the times that he'd caught Potter staring at Draco - almost forlornly, really - it was entirely possible that she would notice she was almost as smart as he was, after all. But there was just something about that mouth of hers and -
Merlin .
How many times had he wanted her to just shut the fuck up?
How many times had he concocted various ways of doing just that, when she'd mouth off in class again without even being asked?
How many times had he silently agreed with Nott and Avery and Malfoy when they'd said they'd like to put her on her knees and give her something more useful to do with that mouth?
Those particular comments weren't too common, thankfully. He ran a tight ship in the Slytherin dorms, and the subjugation of women - particularly those his classmates thought of as 'less than', just because they weren't born with a silver spoon in their mouth (i.e pure blooded) - was a topic he made his views exceptionally clear on.
Unless it was something she clearly enjoyed - he'd caught Zabini and Parkinson mid coitus enough times to know it was a thing - then it wasn't tolerated.
All the Slytherin boys - even those in seventh year - were wary of Tom's ability to cast the Cruciatus and so they kept in line.
A laugh, her laugh , startled him from his thoughts and he dragged his eyes away from the sight of her giggling loudly - her head thrown back and the widest smile he'd ever seen plastered on her face - and dug his fork back into his dinner, glaring at the table until he was sure he'd scorched it with his stare.
The year passed quickly.
The nightmares got worse.
In no way was the image of Granger spread out on his bed in nothing but one of his shirts and his tie a good thing.
"Tom." She moaned.
He grit his teeth and clenched his eyes and tried to think of all the things he needed to do before he went home for the summer instead of how good Granger looked sliding her delicate hand against her pretty, wet cunt. All the books he needed to read before then. All the internships he needed to apply for before he started his final year of Hogwarts. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that he would be appointed Head Boy when he returned in a few months.
That was when the realisation of just who would be Head Girl struck him. Hermione was still writhing behind him as his eyes snapped open and he punched the wall in front of him.
He woke up sweating and with a broken hand.
"What are we looking for again?" Nott muttered from beside him. "Something about dreams?"
"They're not dreams!" Tom snapped harshly. He dipped his head in apology to Madam Pince whose glare was enough to shut even him up and dragged Theo further into the stacks. "They're not dreams," he sighed, exasperated.
He hadn't had a full night's sleep in months now. He hadn't even been able to wank properly because any and all fantasies he'd had before were tainted by Granger now.
By the sight of her on her knees, three fingers buried deep in her cunt.
The sound of her pleading for him to help her.
To claim and mark her.
It made no sense.
"Nightmares then?" Tom snapped his eyes up to meet Theo's inquisitive, but not judgemental, stare. He pursed his lips and tightly jerked his head.
"Nightmares." He mumbled
"When did they start?" Theo asked, moving around Tom and carefully perusing the aisle they had ended up in.
"My birthday." Theo stopped, his hand floating in mid air as he turned to look at Tom - one eyebrow twitching upwards. "What?"
"Your seventeenth?"
"Yes. Why is that, important?"
Theo snorted and Tom resisted the urge to draw his wand.
"You seriously don't know?"
"Theo!" He growled, following his friend who'd quickly vanished around the stacks. "What the fuck?"
"Here," Theo said, thrusting a volume of Newt Scamander's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them into Tom's hands. "This should tell you everything you need to know. Honestly," he muttered, though he was smirking fiercely. "You're the Heir of Slytherin. How could you not know this?" He asked before he disappeared and left Tom to ponder what the fuck he was on about.
"You've found your mate!"
Tom didn't look up at the great Basilisk who had slid out of the statue of Salazar within the Chamber of Secrets. A chamber he'd discovered three years previously and found nothing useful inside of it - he'd rarely been back down since. The Basilisk had kept herself alive all these centuries and she didn't need him to help her just because he was a descendent of her first owner.
He snorted at her proclamation. "I have not."
She hissed and Tom could hear the chastisement it was meant to convey. "You have. But you haven't claimed her - marked her yet."
He bit the inside of his cheek. "I haven't done anything to anyone."
"Oh I know." She was laughing now. So wonderful . "I can tell. But you know who it is no matter how much you wish to deny it."
He resisted the urge to look up. To confront that statement with a glare. "It's not her!" He spat out.
"Why not?"
Why not indeed? Wasn't Hermione Granger perfect for him in every way? Equally as smart as him - not only here in the wizarding world - but in the muggle one too. She was ambitious. Fierce. Confident. In fact, the more Tom thought about it the more similar he realised they were.
Hadn't they become fast friends all the way back in first year only to let a rivalry between two of their friends seperate them. He hadn't particularly cared that she'd been a Gryffindor - House prejudices had never really been an issue for him. You were either good enough for Hogwarts or you weren't, though of course, there were always exceptions - Weasley was a good enough example of that.
"She won't-"
"Won't what? Accept you? You seem to be under the impression she has a choice in the matter-" Tom growled - "Oh you're delightful," she hissed. "Go and claim your bloody mate."
"So it's true then? What the book said? Slytherin was half Naga?"
"Yes. And you and all the descendents before you carry that same gene."
"So my mother-"
"Probably doesn't even know."
"But I'm-"
"You're Naga."
"So I'm going to turn into a snake?"
She moved so fast Tom didn't have a chance to move before she was millimetres away from his face. He could feel her breath fanning against her skin.
"Careful. Heir or not. I'll still devour you."
He swallowed, jerked his head and stepped back. When he heard her slithering away he made his way back out of the chamber with as much haste as he could manage without actually running.
"You have to admit that it's funny." Theo said later that night when Tom held him back in the common room as everyone else went to bed.
"What?"
"Oh just that you and Granger are soulmates. Belong toget-"
"I belong to no-one!"
"-her," Theo went on, waving Tom's interruption off. "Especially when you consider just why you stopped being friends in the first place."
"Because Malfoy can't keep his mouth shut," Tom grumbled.
Theo smirked and swung his legs over the arm of the sofa as Tom continued to pace in front of the fire. "And isn't that ironic, considering where his mouth has recently been."
Tom paused mid-step and looked at Theo - who was grinning like the cat that had caught the canary - with wide eyes. "That's why he's been staring at Potter." Theo hummed and nodded. "Wanker!" Tom mumbled before he turned on his heel and disappeared into the dormitories.
He saw her again that night.
"I've been waiting on you," she whispered, smirking at him.
Tom folded his arms across his chest and glared at her. "You're not real."
Her smirk grew feral and then she was moving across the room and pinning him to the wall with a flick of her hand and Tom hoped and prayed that the fact she was able to do wandless and non-verbal magic in his dreams was a reflection of her abilities in the real world. But he still glared at her as he struggled to release himself from the bonds she'd leashed him with.
"I'm just as real as you!" She spat, glaring up at him. He snorted.
"And I'm actually a pure blooded prince."
She rolled her eyes. "No. You're the Heir of Slytherin," she said, her eyes rolling as he began to sputter rebuttals and excuses and - "You can't lie to me. I know you are. I know what you are. You think I wouldn't do everything I could to work out why I was suddenly having all these sex dreams about a boy I'd never given any thought to?"
"Now who's lying?" He sneered. "I've been neck in neck with you all through Hogwarts. You've never been above me for more than a few days in any given subject. We've traded places at the top for years Grang-"
"Hermione."
He startled. "What?"
She looked away from him. Tom watched her neck contract delicately as she swallowed. "My name," she muttered, "it's Hermione. Not just Granger."
"It'll be Riddle soon enough," he grumbled.
She snorted. "What?"
He narrowed his eyes at her. "You think you're the real Granger?"
She stomped her foot and glared at him as she crossed her arms across her chest - pushing her cleavage together in the process. "I know I'm the real Granger."
"Then you know I'm an absolute bastard and that when I wake up I'm coming for you. "You're mine."
"I'm not anybody's."
"Wanna bet? That was you just a few nights ago begging me to help you come with my dick rather than those three fingers you had stuffed in your cunt wasn't it?" She blinked at him. "That was you begging me to use my tongue to get you off?" She took a step back. Her magic weakened and Tom stepped forwards as he freed himself from her bonds. "That was you pleading with me to mark you with my come, to claim you," he sneered at her as he backed her against the opposite wall until her had her pinned between it and him. "Come on now Hermione," she shivered and he knew he had her, "don't be shy."
"I hate you," she said defiantly, glaring up at him. He smirked down at her.
"I'm coming for you," he muttered, giving her one last look over, "mate."
When he reopened them he only remained in his own bed for seconds before he was flinging himself out of the dormitory and through the corridors and began the long trek up to Gryffindor Tower.
She was waiting for him.
"You came." She breathed out, as she jumped up from the step outside of her common room - the Fat Lady grumbled something about how unladylike she was acting - and rushed into his arms. "I didn't think you would come," she mumbled against his neck. Tom could feel her inhaling his scent. Like she couldn't believe he was real.
"What?"
"Why did it take you so long?"
"I literally just woke up." She smacked his shoulder with her fist. "OW! What the bloody hell woman?!"
"You know what I mean."
"Gran- Hermione," he corrected. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
She lifted an eyebrow at her. "I've known for months that you're a Naga - well part Naga - and that I'm your mate."
Tom stared at her. Definitely smarter than him. "How?"
She slipped her hand into his and began to lead him towards the Room of Requirement at the other end of the seventh floor corridor. "I've been having kinky sex dreams about you since your birthday at New Yea-"
"You remembered my birthday?" She stopped walking and peered up at him.
"Obviously."
She was talking to him like he was stupid. Maybe he was stupid because as she led the pair of them towards the privacy of the Room of Requirement would provide for them, she explained exactly how she'd known for months that they were soulmates.
"Why didn't you say anything?" He asked when they finally reached their destination. She snorted and dropped his hand from hers as she made her way towards the bed.
"Because I know you Tom."
His stomach fluttered but he bit the inside of his cheek and glared at her. "No."
"No?"
"You knew a kid. I'm not a kid anymore Hermione."
She was taking off her clothes. He couldn't stop staring. "I know," she said pointedly, eyeing the growing tent in his trousers.t. She shed her shirt, then her shorts and slipped underneath the duvet of the bed, clutching it to her now very naked body as she watched him. "And I'm not a little girl anymore."
"Thank Merlin," he muttered, taking a step towards her as he shucked his own pyjamas. "The things I want to do to you are-" he broke off at the sight of her biting her lip and blinking up at him. He knelt down beside her and grabbed her jaw in the palm of his hand. She moaned and the sound went straight to his already hard and throbbing dick. He angled her face and pulled her bottom lip between his teeth. "Mine!" He growled.
She dropped the cover, revealing her perky, dusky rose tipped breasts, and lay back on the bed smirking up at him as she ran a hand down her body and cupped her cunt. "We'll see."
He dove for her.