Disclaimer: If I were JKR I would be off signing a million and a half copies of my new book. However, I am NOT Rowling. As a result, I am continuing on with a story that has a shockingly large audience.

Author's Note: A friend took pity on me and lent me her copy of DH. As a result there may or may not be Deathly Hallows spoilers in this story! You have been warned. Also, be warned that this chapter is rediculously fluffy.

I would like to thank all of my reviewers, who wrote me ideas and threatened to tear me apart limb from limb if I finished my story here. As a result, Corsa di Tempo goes on!

You might also like to know that I read some of my previous chapters and managed to pull myself together. I have seen what you reviewers did all along: the story cannot end yet! I have begun to make some plans for the future of the story. I have also tried to bring my writing back up to the quality it had before the interest died. Enough of my long ramble. On with the story!

Chapter 12

The Pureblood Prince

Hermione woke up several hours later with a severe kink in her neck. She was also acutely aware that her pillow was abnormally warm and hard. She slowly raised her head, due to the kink in her neck, and turned to look at what she had been laying on.

It turned out to be a matter of whom she was laying on. She gaped for a moment as Tom rolled his shoulder a few times to get the blood flowing again. She managed to compose herself quickly.

"I'm sorry I fell asleep on you like that. It must have been terribly awkward and uncomfortable for you."

Tom looked at her. There was no way he was going to tell her that he had enjoyed it.

"It's alright."

She looked at him for a moment and then rose, slowly heading to the washroom, hoping for a painkiller potion of some kind. Tom watched her shuffle off with a small amount of concern.

He was beginning to alarm himself. He, who feared nothing and believed that love or really any emotion that did not control others, was getting these odd moments of concern or genuine like for the young witch he found himself living with. He even found himself thinking that she was attractive. This all had to stop before it got out of hand!

Hermione came traipsing back into the room, clearly feeling better. Tom smirked at her.

"Is it really necessary to dance into the room I am occupying, Griffith?"

She attempted to lift her left eyebrow. It wound up looking like a comical parody of Tom's well-known expression. "Back to surnames, are we? Alright then. No, Riddle. Griffiths do not dance, they glide."

The two of them looked at each other with completely straight faces for a moment before Hermione burst out laughing. Even Tom deigned to smile.

It was a real smile, not a smirk. He did not try to stop it or hide it and Hermione stopped laughing to watch as it completely transformed his face. He was a good-looking man at the best – er, worst – of times. Right at that moment he was beautiful.

The smile died a little bit as he noticed her stare. She snapped out of her daze and flushed. She looked away, recalling Draco Malfoy's groupies, and how they had stared at him very much the same way she had just looked at Tom Riddle. She had always been disgusted with them. Now she was one of them.

Then again, she had always been disgusted by the very idea of a young man turning into a monster and look where she was.

She gained her composure and looked up at Tom. The smile was gone and there was a slightly predatory look in his eyes. She lifted both of her eyebrows and asked, "What?"

Hermione staring at him was not something new to Tom. Some days she looked at him like she was pitying him. He hated that. Some days she looked at him like she was repulsed. That did not shock him when he thought about her blood status and everything that she knew about him.

This, however, was new. Hermione looking at him as if she might start to salivate on his shirt was something he had never experienced from her before. It was the opposite of revulsion.

She thought he was attractive.

He wondered what had brought about the change. He was still the same Tom he had been before.

Then he remembered the smile. The closest she had ever come to seeing him smile was when he had chuckled that one time. She had gaped then, too, but not like this.

Tom Riddle was confused. He did, however, manage to hide it admirably under a very Slytherin-esque smirk.

TRHGTRHGTRHGTRHGTRHG

Hermione was baffled. Tom had known what she had been thinking when she had embarrassed herself the night before. The depth of his understanding was clearly written all over his face.

Yet he had slept on the couch.

Not that she was complaining of course, she hastened to reassure herself. She was just confused. He was generally a very predatory person but all of the sudden he was backing off while smirking evilly.

She pondered all of this as she wandered to work. She was tired due to being up for some time wondering at her sudden lack of self-control. Added to that, she had not slept the night before that, as she had been waiting for Tom to come home.

She arrived at the apothecary and walked into the back room, where she washed her hands and set out to clean the front of the store.

TRHGTRHGTRHGTRHGTRHG

Hours had passed and Hermione was bored. There was nothing for her to read here, other than the labels on some of their products and she had read all of them a dozen times, at least. The shelves were all stocked and the store was clean. She had even cleaned the back room in her boredom.

Delight shot through her as she heard the bell over the door jingle. She looked up and found herself wracking her brain, trying to place the familiar face.

The rather handsome young man did it for her. "You went to Hogwarts for part of sixth year, did you not?" At her nod, he continued. "I am Stan Prince. I believe you would have heard of me. You spent time with Rotherst."

Hermione felt a slash of recognition. She remembered Maddy drooling over some guy named Stan. "You were in Ravenclaw, right?"

He smiled. "I was. Played on the quiddich team. Chaser."

Hermione smiled at him. His light brown hair fell in curls that made her think of Draco Malfoy's friend, Zabini. He was tall, though not as tall as Tom, and his blue eyes sparkled at the unexpected surprise of meeting someone he knew.

Suddenly she remembered something. "You say your last name is Prince?"

He smiled and nodded. "Yes."

"Are you at all related to Eileen Prince? She played gobstones, I believe."

She watched in amazement as he nodded and said, "Yeah. She's my half sister. She does her last year of Hogwarts in the fall."

"Are you serious? You look nothing like her!" said Hermione, thinking of the young woman whose picture she had seen in her sixth year. That woman could easily be the mother of the grossest piece of flesh to grace Hogwarts since Voldemort had gone back looking for a job.

Stan was stunning.

Hermione smiled at him and then said smoothly, "I'm sure you did not come in here to introduce yourself to me. What can I do for you?"

He smiled back and replied, "I came looking for erumpent horns. They are crazy hard to find. Do you have any?"

"We most certainly do. Just a moment," she said calmly. She strolled into the back room and grabbed a jar of ground erumpent horn powder and another of the whole horns floating in some kind of mystery fluid. She tried not to think about what the fluid was in that jar as she walked back out to show them to Stan.

TRHGTRHGTRHGTRHGTRHG

Tom was sitting behind the counter at Flourish & Blotts, flipping through an old text on various potions. He glanced up and looked out the window absently, while still absorbing the information that he had just read.

As he let his gaze skip around the street, he found himself looking at two familiar figures. It was Hermione and some Ravenclaw boy that had been in Tom's year. He and Tom and not gotten along at all and so to see him with Hermione made Tom's blood boil.

He rushed out the door and made sure that the closed sign was pointing outwards. He then nearly ran in the direction he had seen them go in. He had just missed them, it seemed. They were gone.

He returned to work very angry.

When he arrived back at the flat, he was appalled to see Hermione sitting on one end of their couch, with the Ravenclaw boy sitting in one of the chairs. He silently made his way over to the other end of the couch so that he was beside Hermione.

She positively beamed up at him. "Hello, Tom. I didn't hear you come in."

He nodded to her and then looked over at their guest, who looked a little bit off. He seemed rather stunned, actually, Tom noted.

He looked at Hermione and spoke softly in his deep, smooth voice with its slight Irish accent, "You never told him that I was your flatmate, did you?"

"Why?" she asked, looking honestly confused.

"He wouldn't be here if he had known, would you, Prince?" He spat the last part out like it was vile in his mouth.

"Most likely not. Come, Hermione. Let's go to my place."

Tom felt his eyes go red and his anger peak. This man dared invite his Hermione to his flat?

Hermione felt the magic in the air before it began to crackle and said softly, "Maybe some other time, Stan." She looked at Tom. "I have some things I need to sort out with Tom tonight."

Stan looked like he was going to complain, but he finally just nodded and left. Tom smirked.

"Your eyes are still red. When they stop, come talk to me," Hermione said in a tone that was nearly dead. It almost frightened Tom.

As soon as the bedroom door was closed Tom headed for the washroom. He looked in the mirror. Sure enough, his eyes were a frightening shade of scarlet. He would have probably enjoyed the colour and tried to keep it if it weren't for Hermione being in the bedroom, waiting for him.

He sat down on the side of their tub and waited, thinking of her dead tone with him, and how cheerful she had been with Stan. She liked him better, Tom thought bitterly. Who wouldn't?

Tom was quiet, mean, sarcastic, and generally evil. Evil in its true sense.

Stan was outgoing, friendly, genuine, and all things, really, that Tom was not.

He finally stood and looked at himself in the mirror again. He almost wished that his eyes would stay red so that he would not have to hear her say that she liked the Ravenclaw better.

Unfortunately, or fortunately as some may see it, his eyes were no longer their eerie scarlet colour. They had returned to his usual grey with hints of blue. He walked out of the washroom and prepared for the information that he knew and did not want to hear.

TRHGTRHGTRHGTRHGTRHG

Hermione looked up from the book she was reading when she heard a knock on the door. It must have taken his eyes a long time to turn back into their beautiful grey shade if he was just knocking now.

She rose and opened the door. For the first time since she had met him, Tom Riddle could not look her in the eye. She smiled softly but he did not see it, as enthralled as he seemed to be with the floor.

She grabbed his hand and tugged on it a little bit. He followed her into the room and then simply stood there. He looked up at her and found her looking at him with a certain degree of confusion. He looked at the floor again.

Hermione reached up and gently took hold of his chin. She moved his head so that he was forced to meet her gaze.

"Tom, what's wrong?"

He looked her in the eye and remained determinedly silent. There was no way he was going to tell her that he was insecure around her. At this point, if she could not figure it out for herself, she was not nearly as intelligent as he thought she was.

Hermione studied him intently. He looked like he was… scared. Tom was scared? Of what?

She continued to look at him. Suddenly his mask slipped. It was only for a short moment but it was enough for her to see the insecurity. She quickly realized what the problem was.

She lightly placed her hand on his cheek. He flinched away.

"Tom, I'm not going anywhere. Nor am I going to tell you to leave. I do not like Stan more than you. In fact, at this point I think it is safe to assume that there are very few people around here that I like more than you. Relax."

Against his will, Tom felt himself doing just that. He looked into her caramel coloured eyes and saw only what he heard in her voice. She really did care about him.

Suddenly, Hermione felt the need to really make him understand that she did, in fact, care. She threw herself at him in a huge hug.

TRHGTRHGTRHGTRHGTRHG

Tom was tense. Ridiculously so, actually. There was a girl hugging him. A girl that he actually respected. Her arms were around his neck and she was leaning on him because she was so much shorter than him and needed to stand on her tiptoes to hug him properly.

He, ever so slowly, moved his arms upwards. Inch by inch he began to reach for her. He was so very close to making contact when she backed up slightly. She made contact for him.

He nearly dropped his arms. Hermione, it seemed, had other ideas.

TRHGTRHGTRHGTRHGTRHG

Hermione began to pull away in embarrassment. He had not responded to her hug. She had stayed in that position for a long moment, hoping that he would accept the contact. He had not moved, as far as she could tell.

As she had began to move away from Tom, she ran into something. His arms. He had moved. He had not actually touched her, but he had moved to try and accept the hug.

He looked away and began to drop his arms. She swore she saw the slightest red tint in his cheeks and she smiled softly before pulling him into another hug before his arms fell all the way down to his sides.

This time, he hesitated for only a moment before placing his arms around her waist. She smiled into his shoulder. He smelled wonderful and his sweater was somewhat scratchy against her cheek.

For a moment, she thought she felt him begin to rest his head on top of hers, but he drew away at the last moment. She smiled and drew back slightly, keeping her arms around his broad shoulders.

His grey eyes were swirling with something she had never seen there before. He was not angry or putting up his cold mask. He looked slightly confused and very… happy.

Tom Riddle had never been happy a day in his life. Nor had he ever been hugged before. He supposed that the two events could easily be linked. However, he had a sneaking suspicion that it was the woman that had hugged him, not the event itself, which was causing him to feel like he did.

As he debated this with himself, he found himself somewhat drawn to her. For a moment she looked surprised, but then she smiled up at him and moved the final couple of inches and gently brushed her lips against his.

It was a soft and slight movement that sent shivers through both of them. Hermione could feel the butterflies swarming in her stomach and Tom wondered at the warm feeling moving throughout his limbs.

The two of them stared at one another before slowly, regretfully, pulling away.

Hermione smiled. "I definitely like you better than Stan."

He smirked. She was not getting rid of him, after all.

TRHGTRHGTRHGTRHGTRHG

Hermione woke up the next day with a huge grin on her face. She figured that Tom would make some comment, but the heir of Slytherin was too busy trying to keep a goofy expression off of his own face.

She wandered in and grabbed her tea. She sat down and looked over at Tom who was reading his paper with a slight red tint to his cheeks.

"Merlin, we're pathetic," she finally declared.

Tom looked up from his paper, the flush in his face gone. "How so?"

"Millions of people kiss every day. We do once and we can't even look at each other, that's how!" she teased.

His lips twitched up into a small smile and she smiled back. Tom studied her for a long moment. Her hair was still frizzy (like that pot scraper that Malfoy had mentioned) and she was still short. She was entirely too smart for her own good, and she was Gryffindor to top it all off.

On the other hand, she was his.

That was definitely a good thing.

Author's Note: I apologize for the shortness of this chapter, but I needed some fluff before I moved on. I hope none of you choked on it. Anyone need to be taken to St. Mungo's? No? Good.

By the way, I love you beautiful reviewers. However, if one more of you tells me not to end the story hear, I will be forced to take drastic measures (i.e. killing off a character that you all love). I am not ending it here. I have a whole story line to work with now!

Happy trails! -Jenn