Riddle and His Lady

Chapter Eleven: The Awkward Conversation

Previously:

She met Tom in the empty drawing room, holding a mug of tea and a slice of toast. In that short scene, he seemed so normal to Hermione; so human. The room was empty. Of people, that is. Of mess, it was far from empty. And yet there Tom sat, leaning back in front of the fire in a cosy chesterfield arm chair, sipping his tea and reading The Daily Prophet with an unimpressed expression on his marble face; and he looked so perfect; absolutely flawless and unspoiled, surrounded by heaps of mess and broken glasses and alcohol stains on the carpet. He seemed almost like an angel, but she supposed that's exactly what he was when he went home. A perfect, faultless angel surrounded by a war zone that had nothing to do with him. He was just a boy at the end of it all, she supposed; a boy just like Harry, with no true parents and a looming fate slowly following him and backing him into a corner that he didn't want to face.

The young witch rubbed the back of her neck, suddenly feeling uncomfortable with the thoughts going through her mind. She was about to say something smart, a typical pedantic remark but he beat her to it.

"Are you just going to stand there, gazing at me, or are we leaving any time soon?"

She felt her cheeks rise in temperature and retorted sharply, "I was not...gazing! I was merely observing. Waiting for you to hurry up, if you will."

Tom chuckled and took the last bite of his toast before standing up, brushing himself down and placing the newspaper on the arm of the chair. "I will never tire of your temper, Hermione. Shall we go?"

She nodded, noticing his eyes looking her up and down with an approving gaze, and then took his arm and happily left the house.


"So," Hermione began, wiping whipped cream from the corner of her mouth with her napkin, "tell me about yourself."

His reply was a firm shake of his head and a few sips of his tea. "I didn't bring you out here so we could have a touching conversation about my past, Hermione," he said, his eyes moving upwards to meet hers, "I want to know about you."

"Th- there's really not a lot to tell," she stuttered, suddenly feeling very self-conscious and paranoid. She had never been good at lying on the spot, so any rubbish she could suddenly come up with would be pure word vomit, and Tom wasn't stupid. He'd be able to see straight through her.

Tom sighed, and neatly sliced himself a small triangle of cake, "It really isn't that difficult; I just want to know about you. How about I ask you questions?" he suggested, popping the triangle of cake into his mouth and chewing silently. Hermione had never been a fan of ugly eaters – eaters like Ron for example. Shovelling food in public and not being capable of eating with a knife and fork properly were two of Hermione's pet peeves.

"Okay," she replied, "shoot."

Tom took no time to think and immediately asked, "What's your favourite colour?"

The surprise of such an innocent and normal question couldn't be masked from her face. A year ago she never would have imagined herself sat in a tea room eating cake with Lord Voldemort as he asked her what her favourite colour was. For once, Hermione didn't have a quick reply. She didn't actually know what her favourite colour was – it had never struck her mind before to even think about it.

"I don't know…" she replied, her brow furrowing.

"Sorry, I should have picked an easier question for the first one," Tom said sarcastically, but the smirk on his lips reassured her he wasn't genuinely getting impatient with her.

"No – It's just I've never really thought of it before. But I suppose I quite like green,"

"Oh, how very Slytherin of you," he drawled with a small smile and poured her more tea.

She gave him a mock glare and asked him the same question.

"Green, naturally," was his smooth reply.

"Oh, naturally," Hermione said mockingly but he ignored her little dig.

"What's your favourite animal?"

"I'm fond of otters," she replied pleasantly, thinking back to when she had first produced her Patronus with Harry.

Tom scowled, apparently unimpressed with her reply, "Otters are very mild creatures,"

Hermione laughed, "What do you mean by mild?"

"Well, if I were to pin an animal on you it certainly wouldn't be an otter. They seem far too… timid and playful."

"You do realise that's virtually an oxymoron."

"I know what I mean," he replied, apparently struggling to explain, "Otters are excitable creatures. You are not. You're more of a…"

"A what?" she questioned.

"A bear," he answered finally, looking her straight in the eye, "Yes – a bear. Fierce, clever, but incredibly protective and matriarchal. You're a bear."

Hermione, for one, wasn't quite sure what to say to that. She took it as a compliment of course – she did quite like bears, and to be described by Tom Riddle as clever!

"Well," she began, wracking her brain for something quick to say to defuse the awkward silence, "your question was about my favourite animal – not my kindred spirit."

He nodded in agreement, "True,"

"Is there any need for me to ask yours? Or is it as predictable as a snake?" she asked wearily.

A smile twitched at his lips as he appraised the feisty witch opposite him. Since meeting her, he couldn't deny, he had grown to be fairly fond of her. Well, he wasn't sure if it was fondness or if he just wanted to know more about her. On the outside she appeared to just be an average, fairly boring, witch but as he had grown to know her more, he decided he actually quite liked her. He enjoyed her company – he wanted to know what she liked and didn't like. He was secretly glad when Orion screwed up with her; he may have been a smooth talker but Hermione was dearly wrong if she thought she was the only one he was smooth talking.

"You would be wrong, actually," he replied, his cool gaze watching her. He could tell his constant stare was making her feel uncomfortable, but he'd have been lying if he said he didn't like watching her face flush when she caught him looking.

"Oh, really?" she exclaimed, "Do enlighten me, Tom."

He smirked, "Thestral," he said, not in the slightest expecting her to even know what he was talking about. He was surprised to see her eyes widen.

"Y-you can see them?" she asked, placing her cup down on the saucer.

"Yes," he replied, "can you?"

She nodded silently and they decided not to push the subject, as much as they both wanted to delve.

"Is the plan to sit here all day, then?" she asked.

Tom chuckled and stood from his seat once he had noticed they had both finished their tea and cake, "No; I do want you to enjoy today. So the rest of the day is up to you to decide."

She nodded and remained silent for a moment. He found it impossible to decipher what she was thinking, but he quite liked that. Girls were usually so easy to read; this one was a delicious challenge.

"We could go for a walk around Hogsmeade? Or Diagon Alley?" he suggested.

"No," she replied quietly, "Would you mind if we just went to yours?" she suggested; it was obvious she was nervous about asking, and rightly so, because as soon as the words left her mouth, Tom's eyes widened as did his lips in shock.

"No, no, no!" she suggested exclaimed, waving her hands in front of her, "not like that! Gosh, you men are awful! I just want to…relax, you know? I don't want to be in the public eye all day,"

Without a word, and admittedly a slightly quicker heartbeat, Tom took her arm gently and apparated them to his apartment. It seemed odd to Hermione as Tom released his grip that only last night she had been there, all dressed up and excited for the night. Now she could barely even remember it. Although that was probably for the best.

Tom and Hermione spent the rest of the evening either discussing magical literature or having heated debates about the position of magical creatures in wizarding society. The latter, of course, just seemed to rile both of them up.

"But why should elves not have the same free lives as we? They were not put on this planet to serve us, Tom! They have their own thoughts and their own feelings, just as we do." Hermione argued, her cheeks suddenly feeling very warm as she sat beside him on the larger chesterfield sofa and he spun his wand through his fingers.

Tom sighed, clearly losing interest in the conversation, "I agree, Hermione. But I, for once, am not about to go around fighting for the liberation of all elves on the planet; that's not what I was put on the planet for."

"And what exactly were you put on the planet for then?" she said sourly, other than to murder innocent people and start two ridiculous wars, she thought but decided not to add.

Tom was silent for a moment and finally said, "That's an interesting question, Hermione. But what exactly is the value of the life of a witch or wizard? To breed, I suppose. What else is there?"

Hermione shook her head, "Unfortunately, I can't answer that, but not everything is about sex and producing heirs and one person being better than another person."

"I disagree," he replied smoothly, with almost no emotion in his voice. But now he was looking at her again, watching her silently get more and more worked up about the conversation. He liked how passionate she became.

"You what?" she said, leaning forward with her eyebrows raised.

"I said, I disagree. Life is, really, all about bettering yourself which in extension means striving to be better than as many people you can be. And that's why we have children, so we can continue being better than everyone else just by being able to breed someone who can continue the legacy."

Hermione was silent. What he said was very true, but she wasn't sure what to say to him, so she said nothing and they sat in silence.

But the silence was unbearable for Tom and he sliced through it with an arrogant tone, "and anyway, anyone who has to say that sex isn't important obviously hasn't had very good sex before."

Hermione laughed with an open mouth. "Oh, and you have?"

He nodded with an amused gaze, "You sound surprised. Did you think I was a virgin, Hermione?"

"Well no, but you're implying that either I am or I'm just not very experienced!" she retorted.

"Are you?"

"Am I what?" she replied, suddenly confused.

"A virgin?" he questioned, quite liking the deep shade of pink that her face was slowly turning.

"I hardly see how that's any of your business," she snapped.

"Merlin, you are!" he chuckled, turning his body so he could sit a bit closer to her, but it only served to make her shift a bit further away from him.

"Actually, I'm not. Shall we end this conversation?"

"I think not!" he laughed, "This is actually getting interesting now."

"Oh, I'm glad you find my sex life so entertaining, Riddle!" she said sarcastically.

"No," he replied quietly, "not entertaining. I just find it difficult to imagine a girl like you completely let herself go like that."

"What do you mean?" she said, her head turning so she could look at him better. Her cheeks were now fully ablaze – she felt embarrassed but she couldn't deny it was an entertaining conversation.

"You know what I mean, Hermione," he said huskily, leaning closer to her. Suddenly she felt very warm around her neck; she could almost feel his breath tickling her skin and she felt goosebumps prickling her.

"No," she squeaked, and then cleared her throat, "I'm afraid I don't." She knew exactly what he meant, but part of her wanted to entirely avoid the subject, and the rest of her wanted to pursue it. She wanted to know if he would say what he meant.

"I'm talking about the heat of the moment, letting go of built up frustrations- Passion!" he explained unabashed. He clearly quite enjoyed talking about it, which was something Hermione hadn't been used to.

She sighed, "No," she finally said, "I mean – I'm not a virgin, but I've never experienced it like that."

They were silent for a moment, both of them contemplating what she had just said. She felt like now was the right moment to sweep him into a passionate kiss, or something from a typical heated romance novel. But after last night, the last thing she wanted to concentrate on was her sex life.

Their eyes met again, and the air suddenly felt thick around them. He knew he could very easily make her forget all about Orion; he knew he could make any girl forget about anything with just a graze of his fingertips or the touch of his tongue, but she looked too fragile. One wrong move and he could tell she would just leave and then he'd have to spend weeks and weeks trying to get her back to this point with him.

So instead he just quickly said, "You're missing out," with a sniff and returned to his book, leaving his guest shifting very uncomfortably in her seat and contemplating whether it was a good idea or not to stay after such an awkward conversation.


So here's a short one. All I can do is apologise to all of you for being such an awful writer on here. I write these for you to enjoy, and I know how annoying it is when a writer doesn't update in so long but here is the next chapter! Things seem to be heating up a bit between those two. But is Orion really out of the picture? ;)

Thank you to everyone who reviews this story, I adore all of you! If you're a fan of Black stories, I've started another very recently about Sirius and Hermione. I absolutely love that pairing so please have a look and please review because it means so much to get feedback!

I am going to try my hardest from now on to update this as often as I can because it would be such a shame to just forget about this story. Thank you to those of you who stick with this, I hope you enjoy this chapter :)

mwah!