A/N: Against my better judgement (I am already working on other stories), I decided to continue this because something about it keeps calling to me and I have to let it out. Thanks to the reviewers and readers for the feedback (thanks to Elm & Gle for their anonymous reviews, I'm glad the story has made an impression).
Big Warning: non-con and dubious consent from hereon so if this is triggering, I suggest you steer clear.
- / -
Daylight made everything ugly, she'd discovered.
Perhaps the weight on her chest also turned her world a little grey, but there was something incomparably cruel about mornings.
She had used to love mornings at Hogwarts; waking up early before everyone else, walking down the empty corridors, listening to the unheard sounds of the castle.
Now, it was a chore getting out of bed and making her breath fall evenly with every step.
This morning was worse because Harry was giving her that knowing look of his, the one mixed with pity and concern. He thought she was suffering on account of Ron. He imagined she felt his absence more acutely.
He was wrong. And for once, she was glad he could not see he was wrong.
For a third night in a row, she had dreamt - although, calling them dreams made them all too real - about Tom Riddle. No, she wouldn't say Voldemort because this had so little to do with the dark wizard they were currently on the run from.
Of course, nothing and everything.
This ghost - because what else was he? - this piece of soul, this harbinger of death whose name was a mongrel of muggle and pureblood, had entered her mind via Horcrux and was twisting her body and bending her thoughts into destructive and base directions. It was a slow dance with the devil, only it wasn't quite slow and it wasn't quite a dance; it was a mad chase, and he was not a devil, for a devil makes you choose your fate before damning you.
She had not been given a choice. She had been taken in, made to taste the forbidden, and now she was too far over to tell a soul. Because truly, if she were made to choose again this time around, she would choose the same. Not by the ugly light of morning. But by that soft, serpentine light of night. In that hour, she would open her arms to him and consider herself chained, if only to ignore her conscience.
But there was no point using euphemisms; Tom Riddle was seducing her.
Seduction; such a ludicrous notion. But there it was.
Perhaps she had been vulnerable and ripe for the taking after Ron's departure, perhaps she was too young, too smart for her own good. Perhaps no one could really resist him.
From what Harry had told her during their Sixth Year, she had expected a charmer, someone who sought power at any costs, using people without much consideration for their integrity, and she had not been wrong, but she had never thought he would stoop to something...like this.
She could not spell it out, what he did exactly that made the seduction so insidious. It was not just the physicality, although -
(She bucked as his tongue drew lazy circles around her nipples, his teeth applying pressure gently, slowly. They never sank into her skin, only showed her the possibility.
I will make you my slave, little tainted mud-whore.)
- although the physicality helped and, for someone as inexperienced as she, it increased the potency of his person.
No, beyond this, his voice, his words (that goddamn tongue) did things to her, woke up some dormant being that should have stayed locked up.
It was her ugly, ugly face, ugly as the morning. It was the face of the eleven year-old who liked to recite Potions ingredients in front of her schoolmates to make them feel inferior, it was the face of the sixteen year-old who had hexed her best friend out of jealousy, it was the face of the fourteen year-old who had turned a woman into an insect and kept her in a jar, it was the face of the fifteen year-old who had created so powerful a curse that a girl's face had been irremediably damaged - at all ages, her ugly face was tremendously powerful and shameful to her, but appealing to him.
And it was continuing, this horrible seduction, because she had let it go on for three nights now.
For a deep, unknowable reason, she had not removed the locket once from her neck.
Hermione was aware this was probably what Tom Riddle wanted, but his desires and hers must have met somewhere in between, because she felt more than reluctant to part with it, as if they had started something and she needed to see it to the end, so as not to make the surrender pointless.
Her mind had easily conjured the pretext of friendship to silence her guilt; she was sacrificing herself for Harry's sake, Harry, who was tormented by so many demons that he could use a break from Voldemort, Harry, who was so diligently selfless and stubborn that, he would probably choose to wear that thing all the time and spare her even one second of misery. The same Harry who had no idea she had betrayed him.
And that she would betray him again tonight.
Are you ready to call yourself mine?
Hermione's arms were held above her head in a deathly grip. His pale form now looked more vivid, more real, as he stood over her, naked but dressed in shadows.
Or must I coax you?
His face should have terrified her, half-skull, half-skin. She could see bones jutting out through his cheeks. But instead of wanting to turn away, she wanted to lean into them, until they grazed her own skin.
He looked unfinished, with one red and one black eye, switching places, becoming one when he looked at her so that she almost never saw both of them separately. She grew dizzy and faint, but she kept looking.
His mouth was half-lip, half-forked tongue. He was all halves. And his skin, blue like a cadaver, shone with a cold fire.
But Gods, that forked tongue. Her core still throbbed. She was reeling from her latest orgasm.
"I could - I could say it, but I know it's not true. It's not real." She wasn't sure if she was denying him because she knew it was the right thing to do, or because she wanted to see what he would do.
You do enjoy a bit of a struggle, don't you?
"You're only a Horcrux and once we destroy it, your influence will die with it," she replied calmly, although she was buzzing with excitement.
And until then?
She swallowed. "Until then... I - I don't care."
She could hear, more than see, a smile. His breath on her stomach was in the shape of a smirk.
You don't care what?
"It's not real," she repeated stubbornly, "so I don't care what you do with me."
Her boldness was more an effect of arousal, but he seemed to be enjoying it, as his fingers traced her hips in an almost gentle caress.
You will.
This was the first night he plunged into her.
She had not expected it, she had not even thought it possible. But all of a sudden, she was filled up. She was filled up with pain and desire.
His hips slammed against hers without mercy or warning and she screamed. His blue skin rubbed against hers and the burn of his touch drew blood.
She screamed again. Pain and desire.
"Please, don't!"
She begged and cursed, shutting her eyes tight, but he was there, whispering sweet nothings in her mouth, biting her lip, breathing her air. At first she thought he was trying to comfort her, but after a while, it was clear he was spilling more poison through another opening.
What mattered was that he was inside her.
Her body vibrated with anger and lust as he drove her closer to the edge.
The forked tongue was in her mouth. She bit it hard.
He stood back for a moment and slipped out of her. Only a moment. Enough to smile down at her with one red and black eye and a forked tongue.
Will you call yourself mine now?
Hermione spat into his face. She wanted to say yes.
"Never."
When he sank into her once more, she grasped his body in her arms and carved the skin of his back with her fingers. Her nails drove into him with the same speed and alacrity as himself inside her.
Hermione cried out desperately. She was mourning her will, her innocence. Whatever was left of it.
He fucked her. Seduction momentarily delayed. He just fucked her.
He remained silent all throughout, only his breathing on her neck giving indication of his participation. She screamed and moaned and spoke for both of them.
But she said nothing, a string of words without meaning, because he would not stop and she did not want it to stop. Yet she had never hated herself and the world more.
When she came, she tore at her own face. Her nails drove into her own skin.
My little tainted mud-whore. My lovely little muggle bitch. How I wish to taste thee... he recited with glee.
He bent down and collected her juices and lapped at the blood dripping down her leg. His forked tongue was red with her blood.
Hermione shuddered and tried to push him away, but he clung to her bones.
I am tainted too now, new wearer. I have tasted your darkest blood. And I will taste it again.
"Why?" she expelled hoarsely, fighting the stream of tears in her eyes.
Because you are wearing my soul. I must have yours in return.