Discovering her pregnancy had been terrifying. Hermione had tried the catch-all diagnostic spell on a whim, tired of the nausea and soreness, but she had expected a fever or the flu or mono, not pregnancy. She ran to the drug store immediately, still clad in slippers and her silky green bathrobe he liked so much, and bought out all the pregnancy tests available; twenty, in five different brands. Not that muggle pregnancy tests were known for their veracity, but she was muggle-born damnit and muggle technology had never let her down before. Over the course of three hours, she drank enough cranberry juice to make herself sick and peed on twenty-six sticks that she arrayed throughout the bathroom, before she finally admitted to herself, angry tears stinging her eyes, that she was, in fact, pregnant.

That realization caused the blood to drain from her face in abrupt terror; how would she tell the father?

Tom Marvolo Riddle was, contrary to what his name suggested, a simple man. He disliked most everything the world had to offer, as he had learned at a young age that those offerings were just there to tease children before being torn away with cruel amusement. However, that made the few things he liked all the more precious. Perhaps precious enough to be described as 'loved'.

He liked magic, with all of its whimsy and bloody depths, and he had mastered it all (in part, thanks to her). In mastering magic, he had learned that power belonged to him and him alone, and that only he could control the wretched world. The first go-round had been a bit of a muck-up; dying to an unexceptional teen was more than his ego could really handle. Although, he admitted grudgingly, the crazed, giggly, volatile monster he had become truly needed to be put down like a rabid dog. The monster had been a crazed Chihuahua, but Voldemort was Tom's crazed Chihuahua; he should have been holding the knife that went into that yippy bastards eye-socket and ripped out his brain matter. But he held no grudge against the boy, truly. Not at all.

She looked at him with suspicious knowing, but let him crow all he wanted about how the boy-who-lived had saved him, while he secretly tried to figure out the boy's favorite tea so he might poison it one night. She seemed to be a step ahead of him, as she always tossed out old tea the boy had, declaring the flavors faded and musty. She was even more beautiful for her meddling and it took every fiber of patience and will power he had cultivated throughout his long life to not to fuck her on that dark oak dining table in front of the Potters.

He liked, to his initial disbelief, the Muggle practice of science. It was wrong on some things, alchemy, gravity, and time travel to name a few, but overall the practicality and ingenuity it fostered was right up his alley. The 'scientists' had a strange reverence for rules that he so proudly flaunted and sometimes he wanted to fly into the air before throwing a well-aimed Avada at his coworkers faces. But their love of rules was truly no different than that of the wizards, so he could contain himself in the lab before Apparating home and ranting to her for however long she would listen. Take that, Einstein. In fact, in a show of his usual genius, he excelled through Oxford University at an accelerated rate, and graduated with his PhD in Chemistry in the shortest time of any muggle in recorded history (although, if he were being honest they had not been able to use copious memory modification charms to test out of the mind-numbing Gen Eds). Doctor Tim Doramov had then basked as she commenced several vigorous rounds of congratulation in various new and exciting locations across the Isles. After they had returned home, she fell asleep and he Apparated to Dumbledore's grave in full doctoral regalia and pissed on it. Old coot.

What he liked most was the witch who had raised him from Purgatory. He was not quite sure how, a fact that niggled at the back of his mind like a bloody Puffskein, but he certainly knew why. Revenge was a bedfellow he held near and dear to his blackened heart. When he first opened his blue eyes, all he saw was a flash of golden skin before his head was cracked to the side from the force of a bludgeoning punch. Things had continued downhill from there for some time, before they suddenly did not. Through righteous fury and biting interrogation she found something she liked, and then loved, and he found someone he liked quite much. The first time they kissed reminded him of the time he had managed to steal his first bite of stale chocolate at the orphanage; warm and smooth and sweet and heavenly. She had disappeared for several days after that, disrupting the routine most heinously, before returning and picking up where she left off on her interrogation. He vowed to taste her lips again. The first time they fucked made his mind go blank with bliss, something he had never experienced before, but something he wanted to feel again and again. This time she stayed. And the first time she said she loved him, well, he still was not quite sure how he felt about that strange bubbling warmth that erupted whenever he saw even a glimpse of her. He was even more confused when she removed his bindings and told him to get out, so to be contrary more than anything else, he refused and continued to impose on her burgeoning generosity. It was worth it to see the look of jumbled longing in her eyes whenever she looked at him with her expressive brown eyes. He wondered if his eyes reflected that when he saw her; they had always been cold and calculating before. He wanted them to, if only to make Hermione happy.

Hermione chewed on her fingernails, a habit she had stopped when she was nine, and paced in front of the door. Tom would be home soon and he would want to know why their bathroom stank of cranberry juice and pee. He was inordinately attached to tidiness and routine for a previously mad dark wizard. She could have cleaned it all, but having the smell linger was impetus for actually telling him today, instead of when her water broke. She winced. He would probably not be amused by the mess of childbirth. He was not amused by much.

Hermione did not hear anything when he Apparated onto the doorway, but then again she never did. He was the only true living master of Apparition. She did, however, feel the wards shift and let him through without a protest.

He opened the door with a sneer, donned in his perfectly-pressed Muggle labcoat. "Those imbeciles insist that I cannot chan—"

"I'm pregnant!" She slapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Tim Doramov, Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort was speechless.

The silence extended for a long moment before Tom blinked, wiping the frozen sneer from his face, "It's about time. How many are there?"

Her hand slipped from her mouth and she stared at him in puzzlement, repeating, "How many are there?"

He frowned and walked up to her, putting his long hands firmly on her stomach, "You should be able to feel the number if you're patient. Before Nagini laid her clutch, I felt twenty-one." He pulled up her shirt and his fingers started digging into her abdomen, "You're squishier, so this should be easier." She stared at him in horrified shock as he stared intently at her stomach, "Four?"

"Didn't you take a year of biology?!"

After ninety-years, Tom Riddle finally received the Talk and learned yet another difference between snakes and humans. He was a little disappointed that his exceptional Hermione was only making a single clone of him, but he supposed it would have to do.

Thanks for reading! Just a silly little Tomione fic, inspired by Ternion of Trouble by dulce. de. leche. go

To be continued~