Narcissa met Hermione at the door when she arrived at the Malfoy's home the day after Christmas. The woman took her hands and looked her over with a fond, almost proprietary glance. "We're so happy to have you," she said, leaning forward to brush her lips over each of Hermione's cheeks.
"I'm happy to see you too," Hermione said, letting the elf that had appeared at her side take her bags. As Narcissa led her into the Manor Hermione said, "Would it be possible for me to impose on you to borrow your owl to send some gifts out? I didn't get a chance to do it using the school owls and haven't been to Diagon Alley to use the public post."
"Of course," Narcissa said. "Our home is yours, child, and it's no imposition at all. I don't suppose you'll indulge my curiosity and tell me what you're getting your friends?"
Hermione smiled. "I got Greg and Vincent homework planners; if they're going to make me drag them through Potions they get planners."
Narcissa laughed. "And the rest?"
"Candy for the rest of the boys; Daphne, Pansy and Millie all still love the Muggle makeup, though I'm not sure why." She paused and bit her lip and then blurted out in a rush, "Could I ask you something?"
Narcissa hid her smile. She had a fairly good idea what Hermione was about to ask, but she just said, "Of course, sweet girl. I hope you think of me as a… well, a mother might be presumptuous of me but…"
"What do I get Draco?" Hermione was twisting the bracelet on her wrist with obvious nerves and Narcissa had to work harder to suppress her smile. "I don't know what's appropriate and I don't want to… and… there needs to be a class!" she finally wailed. "If I get him something to… will he think I don't… but what if I push too hard." She gave Narcissa a baleful look. "I think it's easier for Muggles. There aren't nearly as many rules."
At that Narcissa laughed. "I assure you, child, there are just as many rules for courting in every culture. You're just confused because you're not used to them being quite so codified or happening at such a young age. I understand Muggles tend to marry later."
"Yeah." Hermione scuffed her foot against the floor, the poise that came and went was now totally gone in the face of her elegant hostess.
Narcissa put her finger under the girl's chin and tipped her face up. "You handled the dance last year brilliantly. But maybe this year you should give the poor boy something a bit more formal. If you'll let me be a tad forward I have a selection of cuff links I've had set aside and perhaps you'd like to pick out one of them to give him?"
"I… thank you," Hermione stumbled over the words. "You're so good to me, Mrs. Malfoy. I… thank you."
"Well," Narcissa said, "if I hadn't liked you before, the day you threatened to kill Moody for hurting Draco you would have won me over."
Hermione gave a quick jerk and looked at Narcissa who had a bland smile on her face. Slowly, Hermione smiled back but all she said was, "Promised."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I didn't threaten. I promised." Hermione frowned for a moment, her expression a bit of a sulky pout. "But the Ministry got him first."
Narcissa laughed at that, a full, delighted laugh that summoned Draco from wherever he'd been hiding. "You are the most darling child I have ever met," Narcissa said before her son tugged his girlfriend away to some place more private. "I suspect you'll have a chance to indulge in your delightfully murderous streak eventually, but for now you'll have to settle for our company and more peaceful pursuits."
Draco was pulling on her hand even as he smiled at his mother with strained patience.
"A moment, son," Narcissa said. "We can meet later, Hermione, to go over that thing we were talking about. And we'll be having a guest for dinner who's interested in meeting you so, Draco, dress for dinner, please. All of you."
"Yes, mum," Draco said and, with that, Narcissa released them with a wave of her hand and they ran up to the room that had become where the teens gathered when the weather was chilly. Daphne and Theo were already there, Daphne sporting a simple, sparkling stone on a chain that made Hermione widen her eyes and tip her head towards Theo in an obvious question. Daphne grinned and both girls fell onto a window seat to gossip.
"She just gets here and I'm already abandoned," Draco groused.
Hermione looked up at him and grinned. "Never abandoned, you know that."
"Not even a kiss," he whined and she pulled herself off the window seat and, after he turned to Theo to complain in jest even more, she pounced on him. When he stumbled back onto a couch at the force of her attack, she pushed him all the way down, straddled him and, after brushing her nose against his, kissed him.
"That," he said, coming up for air after a few minutes, "is more like it."
"Prat," she said and he laughed, sat up, and pulled her onto his lap so he could bury his face in her neck.
"I missed you," he said. "I don't like it when you're not around."
"Well, good," she said, lacing her fingers through his. "'Cause I'm not planning on going anywhere."
Later, after Hermione had chosen a set of cuff links from the oh-so-convenient selection Narcissa had provided, and after all the teens had dressed for dinner, she asked him, "Do you know who this guest is we're all supposed to dress up for?"
"No idea." Draco shook his head.
"My father's here," Theo offered but they all rolled their eyes at that.
"Someone important, I guess," was all Daphne said as they made their way down the stairs towards the room Hermione thought of as the medium-sized-dining-room. It wasn't actually that large, not really, but it was far more formal than the family dining area they took most of their meals when she was here. Narcissa was keeping it intimate and formal tonight.
Well, that was a bit nerve-wracking.
When they walked into the room Hermione smiled at the Malfoys and nodded at Nott Senior. The only other guest in the room was a distinguished looking middle-aged man, graying slightly at his temples, sitting to the left of Narcissa, who watched her with measuring blue eyes. He, Nott, and Lucius all stood as the teens walked into the room, though he looked amused at offering them the courtesy.
Hermione's own eyes flickered around the table. The numbers were off; there weren't enough women. That was… interesting. It wasn't a party, then. It was a… meeting?
Draco held her chair for her and she thanked him as she sat down across from the stranger.
Once Theo had seated Daphne the men all settled back into their seats. Hermione laced her fingers in her lap and sat, her back very straight, as the man regarded her.
"You," he said at last, "are rather a quandry."
"Tom," Narcissa said, "Let me introduce you to Hermione Granger. Hermione, dear, this is Tom Riddle."
He watched the way she couldn't quite control the slight stiffening in her posture and he smiled. "So you know who I am?" he asked, his voice quiet.
"After being put into a coma by your basilisk I did some research," Hermione admitted and Draco, who was watching them with a worried look on his face, paled utterly.
"And what did you discover?"
"Tom Marvolo Riddle. Head boy, regarded as a brilliant student with a bright future. Mother the last descendent of Salazar Slytherin. Father… who your father was seems less clear, but if the name is an accurate guide he was a wealthy but unimportant Muggle." Hermione struggled to keep her hands from twisting in her lap. "You disappeared after graduation. Returned with a new name as the leader of… well, what you were the leader of varies depending on which book I look at."
"You are good at research," Riddle said, sounding amused.
"I told you she was clever." Narcissa was quite clearly smug and Hermione felt a bit like a child put on display and told to show off what all those ballet lessons had wrought. It made her even more uncomfortable, which she hadn't realized was possible in this already strained situation. There might be a book on how to handle pureblood courting rituals, but proper dinner table etiquette when dining with Lord Voldemort was something she was fairly sure no book anywhere covered.
"If you'll allow a bit more tedious interrogation, what did your books tell you I was leading? I find I'm quite curious how the media portrays me these days." Riddle was draping his napkin in his lap with a deceptive insouciance.
"Most called you a violent, unhinged terrorist," Hermione said, her tone as bland as she could make it.
"Not all?"
"Some added the moniker 'evil'," she said and, at that, the man laughed.
"Oh, Lucius," he said, "Where did you find this girl? No one's had the stones to call me evil to my face in… oh, years."
Lucius smiled. "She was meeting Draco to go shopping for school supplies. I hauled her to Borgin and Burkes where she promptly identified a Hand of Glory and was offered a job."
Riddle turned back to Hermione. "Oh, I think we can do better than that," he said. "I worked there and it's quite tedious; you wouldn't like it. I wonder, did you read anything that offered a different perspective on my little group?"
Hermione's gaze flickered, against her will, to Theo who was sitting watching her – they were all watching her. "One," she admitted. "One described your organization more as a political group advocating… well, what you were advocating wasn't wholly clear, to be honest. The book had a lot to say about how the Ministry was corrupt and how the ban on Dark Arts was oppressive, but even that book didn't hide that you had no qualms using violence." She stopped and swallowed hard. "Or that you rallied people around blood purity."
"Which brings us to you," the man said, pouring himself some wine and handing the bottle to Nott Senior, who did likewise. Hermione noticed the adults all seemed far more relaxed than her friends and, taking her cue from that, began, ever so slightly, to ease. "The Slytherin Muggle-born who's threatened to kill two of my Death Eaters already."
Hermione tensed again.
Riddle noticed that and smiled at her again. "You're the first Muggle-born to be sorted into our House in… how long has it been Lucius?"
"Several hundred years at least," the older Malfoy said, "though it's quite possible that several people with obscure parentage were Muggle-borns whose ancestry was covered up to help the families they married into maintain the fiction of pure blood."
"Do you plan on doing that?" Riddle asked and Narcissa laughed.
"No. I have a feeling that in a few years she'll be a shining asset to the family tree."
"Do dark things really shine?" Riddle asked and, when Narcissa waggled her wrist, draped in a bracelet of black opals, the man nodded. "They do indeed," he admitted. "I would like, however, an explanation as to your slight altercations with my Death Eaters."
The last was directed at Hermione and she swallowed again, feeling her throat tighten.
"In all fairness," she began, "I didn't realize Moody was a Death Eater."
"No, you thought he was a powerful, if slightly crazed, Auror and yet you threatened him anyway."
"He hurt Draco," Hermione said, her voice low.
"And that's not allowed?" Riddle sounded like he was trying so very hard to keep from laughing, but Hermione's eyes flashed in the candlelight as she shook her head.
"No," she said. "It's not."
"How about Peter Pettigrew?" Riddle asked.
Hermione hedged a little. "I didn't know he was a Death Eater either. And I didn't threaten to kill him, I just asked Sirius Black to get it over with."
"He's not your biggest fan," Riddle said, sipping from his wine glass.
"I'm probably not his," Hermione muttered.
"I'm not sure Peter has fans," Nott Senior interjected, handing the bottle to Theo and nodding slightly. Theo, his hand shaking, poured wine into first his glass and then Daphne's.
"What did you think of him?" Riddle asked Hermione and she shrugged.
"Other than, even as a person, he looked like a rat with mange? Not much. We didn't really have a chance to become acquainted."
"He's an idiot," Narcissa said.
"Agreed," Riddle said. "And a sycophantish, groveling fool. But Karkaroff has fled and Crouch is dead and the Lestranges are all in Azkaban, not to mention probably mad as hatters by now. I have, at the moment, what one might call staffing problems."
"We are utterly loyal, my Lord," Lucius interjected smoothly but Riddle waved a hand at him irritably and went back to regarding Hermione.
"Well," he said finally, "I can't simply kill you over dinner. That would be rude and I'm not sure Narcissa would forgive me if I got blood on her carpets. And Snape reports you're a gifted student despite what he calls a 'lamentably sloppy approach to ingredient preparation'. Indeed, he tells me you can cast a Patronus."
Hermione nodded, bristling a little at the criticism of her potions work.
"Show me."
Hermione recognized the command and pulled her wand out and, with a quick incantation and a spin of the stick of wood that was almost an extension of her body by this point, she summoned her Patronus. The cat bounded around the room on its large paws, stopping to sniff at Riddle before it rubbed its head against Draco and chased a dust mote out the door and disappeared.
Narcissa looked from the cat to Draco and back again before smiling and leaning back in her chair, wine glass held between her fingers.
"Impressive," Riddle said.
The elves began serving the food and conversation briefly halted as everyone spread napkins in their laps and began to eat. Draco was cutting and chewing his food with wooden motions and Daphne's hand shook so much she clanked her wine glass against her plate as she tried to set it down. Hermione ate the surely excellent dinner without noticing what it was. When Theo also knocked his glass against his plate Riddle set his fork down and looked at the boy and sighed.
"I'm not going to kill her."
"You kill a lot of people," Theo muttered and Riddle laughed.
"Indeed I do, but generally not ones who are useful to me." He turned to Hermione and smiled. "And you will be very useful, won't you, my dear?"
"You do have staffing problems," Hermione said, smiling somewhat nervously back at him.
"Give the current generation a few years to mature and that problem will, I think, be solved," he said. "No, I have a Dumbledore problem, and a Potter problem."
"Not a Ministry problem?" she asked.
He snorted at that. "Weak-willed fools. They'd hand me the Minister of Magic position and be grateful I took it if it weren't for the Order of the Phoenix, meaning, mostly, Dumbledore."
"And the Weasleys," Lucius said.
"Indeed." Riddle leaned back and tapped his fingers on the table, evidently lost in thought. "Potter seems like the easier target, but he's already evaded my clutches once. I can't quite tell if it was dumb luck or if that blood ward his mother put on him as she died is slipperier than I thought."
"Speaking of Lily Potter," Narcissa interjected, "there remains the Snape issue to deal with."
"Why couldn't that man have fallen in love with someone who loved him back?" Riddle muttered. "It's so tiresome dealing with his devotion to that woman." He eyed Draco and Theo and said, "Try not to spend your lives in eternal servitude to a dead woman. It's irritating to everyone around you."
"Especially since they were totally estranged by the end," Narcissa said.
"People and their messy emotions," Riddle said in obvious disgust.
All the teens looked confused and Nott Senior rescued them. "Your Professor Snape was quite in love with a Muggle-born witch who had a wee problem with his becoming a Death Eater."
"If by 'wee' you mean 'so significant she totally rejected him and married the man who'd bullied him for years', yes, it was a 'wee' problem," Narcissa said.
"Harry Potter's mother," Nott Senior continued and Theo and Draco looked at one another is obvious shock. So that was why Snape despised Potter so much.
"Are you going to have a similar issue?" Riddle asked Hermione. "Because, really, I'm not sure I can take pretending not to notice another Death Eater is a spy for Dumbledore because his true love went and joined the other side and I had to kill her."
"I despise the other side," Hermione said in a low voice. Riddle made a politely inquiring noise and she continued, "They're prejudiced and… no one in Slytherin cares where I came from, only that I'm one of them. They're… they toss insults my way and hate my House and… they may tell me that Death Eaters are violent radicals, but all I've ever seen are perfectly lovely people who've made me welcome in their home and their lives."
"Well," Riddle said, "in all fairness we are violent radicals." He set his silverware down and an elf popped in and cleared the plate. "I do think, however, we can adjust the blood purity rhetoric to include, shall we say, a footnote about House affiliation counting more."
"Sometimes you need violence," Hermione said, her voice still quiet. "Sometimes change doesn't come through… they aren't fair. Dumbledore isn't fair. Even if we held a vote and asked ever so nicely for things to be changed they wouldn't be."
"Pragmatic little thing, aren't you?" Riddle asked.
"She was sorted into our House," Lucius said.
"Voting wouldn't work anyway," Narcissa said. "Not right now. We're outnumbered and admitting to even vague Death Eater sympathies is a fast track to unemployment and possibly even a stint in Azkaban."
"No, it has to be violence," Riddle agreed. "Don't you have any sympathy for the Muggle-borns in other Houses? Most people would think your fellow-feeling would lie with them."
"Why?" Hermione looked at him, genuinely confused. "Why would I… House before Blood," she said finally. "Do you have sympathy for the Weasleys just because they're purebloods?"
Riddle looked at her for a moment and then leaned back and eyed Narcissa. "Bella is going to be a problem," he said and his hostess nodded in some resignation.
"Aunt Bella's in Azkaban," Draco said, speaking for the first time; Hermione sent him a 'try not to be an idiot' look.
"She's the savvy one in the pair, I see," Riddle said, watching her, and Lucius sighed.
"You begin to see why we latched on to her so quickly."
"He'll have Theo as well," Nott Senior said and, as the elves finished clearing the table, the adults turned talk away from politics to this season's Quidditch rankings and Theo and Draco, hesitantly at first and then with more confidence began to join the conversation while Hermione watched Tom Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort, pretend to care about sports.
. . . . . . . . . .
After dinner the teens were shooed out of the room and, not needing to be told twice, they fled.
"Tom Riddle," Draco said once they'd reached the relative privacy of their parlour, his voice shaking. "You just got vetted by Tom Riddle."
"I guess the blood purity thing's not going to be an issue," Theo tried to quip but his pallor belied the attempt at humor.
"That was intense," Hermione agreed, her shoulders aching from how stiffly she'd been sitting for all of dinner. "I… I didn't think he'd kill me outright but…"
Draco pulled her into a tight hug. "Logic said you were okay," he admitted. "If the man had wanted you dead he wouldn't have waited to do it over a meal."
"He broke bread with her," Daphne said, the slow realization of what that meant making her sink down into one of the armchairs. "He broke bread with all of us."
Hermione pulled away from Draco and looked from Daphne to Theo, who'd started to laugh, a relieved, hysterical sound. "This is some pureblood thing, isn't it?" she finally said, waiting for someone to explain.
"Well, technically once you've eaten with someone you've… you're…."
"You can't just kill someone after that," Draco said. "Historically."
"Not," Theo admitted, "that I'd put it past your mother to poison people over canapés."
"A sit-down dinner, though?" Daphne asked.
"No," Theo agreed, running a hand through his hair with a nervous laugh. "We're in." He looked at Hermione. "You're in. And he's prioritizing you over Bellatrix Lestrange."
The last sounded almost wondering and Draco said again, "But Bella's in Azkaban."
This time it was Theo who gave Draco a contemptuous look. "Not for long, I bet. But… our Hermione gets precedence. And your mother didn't even object."
"I would never have expected that," Daphne admitted. "Even accepting her seemed like something we'd have to… but to… you've somehow really impressed him," she said at last to Hermione. "That's kind of scary."
"That Patronus is impressive," Draco said, sitting down and pulling Hermione on to his lap.
"Maybe," Daphne said. "I bet it's the loyalty, though. She's kind of fierce when people go after you, you know."
"Bella's loyal," Draco objected.
Theo rolled his eyes. "Sure, but after twelve years in Azkaban she's probably unstable and Hermione's loyal and rational. She's a better bet."
"She does have that soft spot for Potter." But now Draco was teasing, the tension of the dinner having drained away and been replaced by a slightly manic relief that the Dark Lord had accepted Hermione.
Hermione punched Draco in the shoulder. "Ow," he muttered.
"Potter lost any sympathy I might have had for him when he beat you up," Hermione said, "so you can stop with the 'Hermione likes Harry' crap."
"But it's okay for you to beat me up?" Draco asked, rubbing his shoulder.
"Do you see me ganging up on you two to one?" Hermione demanded, "or continuing to pummel you after you're down?"
"I think that little fistfight might have lost Potter the war," Theo said, pulling out a chess set and starting to set the pieces up. "Because they might have convinced our Patronus wielding Muggle-born her interests lay with them before that."
"Never," Hermione shook her head.
Theo shrugged. "Guess it doesn't matter now whether they could have exploited your incessant need for things to be fair or how bad you feel about Potter's shitty life; I still think that if Potter could have just kept his hands off Draco, Dumbledore could have tried to recruit you both. He's nothing if not a manipulative old bastard who knows how to play people. Now?" Daphne joined him at the table and moved a pawn and Theo groaned. "You are so bad at this game, Daph."
"I'm good at games that matter," she said.
"We all are," Hermione agreed.
. . . . . . . . . .
Narcissa summoned Theo and Daphne away later that night with a transparent excuse. Left alone with Draco for the first time since she'd arrived, Hermione suddenly found herself feeling far more awkward and tongue-tied than she had even with Riddle. A possibly evil would-be dictator exchanging niceties with her over dinner was one thing but…
"I have something for you," she finally said, fumbling with the small box she'd had in her pocket since she'd wrapped it in Narcissa's private sitting room. She shoved it towards him. "Happy Yule." When he didn't take the box right away she started to stumble over her words even more. "I know it's late but I didn't go shopping for anyone until after school let out and I don't have an owl and…"
Draco swallowed hard and took the box off of her palm. "No, it's cool," he said. "Mine's late too." He pulled a small, rectangular wrapped box out of the drawer where he'd stashed it and held it out to her. She tripped on the edge of a carpet when she stepped towards him to get it and fell into him and he caught her and they both laughed nervously as he helped her back to her feet.
"At the same time?" she asked and he nodded.
She pulled the ribbon off the box and carefully opened up the paper and set it aside. When she tried to pull the top of the box off it stuck and she had to wedge a finger under it to pry it off. By the time she'd gotten it, she heard Draco's intake of breath and looked up, her own gift still folded in tissue inside the box, to see the goofy smile on his face. "So… for real then?" he asked and when she nodded dumbly he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed so tightly she squeaked and he loosened his grip just a little. "I know it's… Muggles don't do this so young, do they?" he asked. "I don't want to presume you…"
"Since we were eleven," she said.
He let her go and wiped at his eyes with the back of one hand. "Dusty in here," he muttered. "Stupid elves." He looked at the box still in her hand, paper still folded over what it held, and said, "Open yours."
She pushed the paper back and looked at the bracelet. The beads were green this time, and not glass. One bead wasn't green at all, but covered in small diamonds. Not, she thought, cheap. This was… this was a statement if ever she'd seen one.
"Jade," Draco said, sounding nervous again, "but if you don't like – "
"I love it," she said staring at the simple strand. "Draco, this… it's…"
"I said I would get you a real one," he said, setting down his own present and pulling the bracelet out of the box. "May I?"
"Is this… can I wear this?"
"Yes," he said softly, plucking the box out of her hand and dropping it on the table. "It would make me very happy if you would wear it."
She held her wrist out and he fastened the catch, fumbling a little with the hook until he got it to close properly. She turned her arm back and forth and watched the way the one bead sparkled as light caught all the tiny, glittering stones. She swallowed as he watched her. "This is so much," she finally said. "I… I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything until we graduate," Draco said and she pushed herself forward and buried her face in his chest. "Then I'll give you a ring and you'll say yes and my mother will plan a wedding for the ages and we'll get married and live happily ever after."
"You're forgetting that minor matter of the brewing war," she said with a nervous laugh and he held her close.
"Well, we won't be inviting Potter, what with him surely being dead by that point, no."
"Or the Weasleys," she said.
"No," he agreed. "Not them either." They stood for a long time until he said, "It'll be okay, Hermione."
"War is never okay," she said. "People die. People get hurt."
"I won't," he said.
"You don't know that," she objected. "You can't know that."
"I have you on my side," he said. "Best weapon ever."
. . . . . . . . . .
At breakfast, Daphne looked at the bracelet and smothered a gasp.
"Damn," Theo said. "You're making me look cheap, arsehole." Draco smirked and began digging into the plate of eggs and tomatoes an elf had slipped in front of him.
Hermione tugged her sleeve down over the bracelet with a self-conscious twitch and Theo laughed. "It looks good on you," he said and kissed the top of her head. "Green's your colour."
"Get used to being stared at for that," Daphne advised as she poured herself some juice. Hermione shot a look at Draco who cheerfully refused to make eye contact until Hermione nearly growled.
"You told me this was okay," she said and he made a faux-innocent shrug.
"No one would expect anything less from a Malfoy," Lucius said coming into the room and running a hand fondly over Draco's head. The boy pulled away from the caress with an embarrassed motion and Theo laughed. "It will be fine, Hermione," Lucius added. "We have no intention of steering you wrong."
"And," Daphne added, "it's not like Theo exactly got me junk. This is normal Hermione."
"It really is," Theo said. "We're just teasing you."
"Forgive them," Lucius said. "You fit in so well they forget you don't have the same frame of reference they do. I would expect to see quite a few of your peers sporting pretty little baubles when you go back, especially with the war brewing. People are clinging to what makes them happy and young love makes everyone smile."
"Thanks," Hermione mumbled.
Lucius placed a hand on her shoulder and when she turned to look at him he said, "We think of you as a daughter, Hermione. You can trust us."
"I know," she said, flushing, "it's just… this is all…"
"Different, I know." He smiled. "When you're done, Riddle would like to see you. He's in the library."
Hermione dropped her scone and started to push back from the table as Lucius laughed. "You don't need to rush. He's reading the Prophet."
Riddle was sitting in one of the armchairs by a window with the light behind him making it hard to see his expressions when Hermione entered the library.
"I'll have to remember that," Hermione said without thinking.
"What?" he asked and she immediately wished she'd remembered whom she was talking to and had kept her mouth shut.
"Sitting in the window," she said, trying not to gulp. He made one of those polite inquiring noises that were obvious commands to continue and she said, "The way it makes it hard to see your face, hard to read you. It's a good way to limit the... the... the information you give out."
Riddle smiled - she thought he smiled - and leaned towards her in a gesture in anyone else she would have taken as an attempt to establish a connection between them. From this man, it scared her a little and she had to force herself not to step backward.
"You mentioned the book you read that was a little more in favor of my - shall we call them activities? - was unclear on my goals. I thought before bringing you into the fold I'd give you a chance to ask questions."
"Really?" Again she spoke before she thought and Riddle laughed.
"Yes, really."
Hermione clasped her hands in front of her, feeling rather like she'd been brought into a Professor's office, and thought about what to ask. "I thought your original goal was immortality," she said at last and he nodded. "Well," she continued, "you seem to have accomplished that."
Tom Riddle laughed again and she felt like she'd pleased him and amused him and wanted to charm him again. "I have," he admitted, "though that bit about being nearly incorporeal for a while and having to be reborn out of a cauldron was... unpleasant. Be grateful you don't remember your birth."
"So... what now?" she asked.
"Killing Potter," he said bluntly. "He's the only person who is a challenge to that immortality and I am quite interested in avoiding another bout of being a barely alive spirit."
"And after that?"
"Taking over," he said. "I have... opinions... about how our society should be run. Opinions you might share, my dear."
"The Ministry," she muttered.
"Quite," he said. "Prejudiced, filled with influence peddlers, no interest in even appearing fair much of the time." He eyed her and added, "Doubly prejudiced against you, I suspect: once for your blood and once for your House."
Hermione nodded, a sharp movement, but she also squinted at him and said, "Are you telling me you'll eliminate all corruption?"
"Of course not," he said easily. "I'll simply direct it in directions I find more desirable."
"People have to have trials," she said, her voice low. "It's not fair to send someone to Azkaban without a trial."
"Not even Sirius Black?" he asked, sounding amused.
"No," she said stubbornly. "Not on your side, not against your side. It's not fair."
He laughed outright at that. "You are delightful. After Pettigrew falling at my feet and telling me he'd like nothing more than being kicked in the face, it's a refreshing change to have someone not afraid to speak her mind."
"Oh, I'm afraid," she muttered, though she was considerably less so now. "Everyone's afraid of you."
He smiled again. "Narcissa's not," he observed. "And I think you'll be following in her footsteps, another delightful viper people will underestimate: her because she's nothing but a society wife, you because you're nothing but a Mudblood."
She narrowed her eyes at him at that and he smiled, that charming, cruel smile. "You know it's what they think. Oh, your own House doesn't, but even Dumbledore likely thinks of you that way, though he probably feels a certain liberal guilt when he hears the slur in his own mind. Doesn't mean he doesn't think it. Doesn't mean he doesn't expect you to be less."
"What does my House think of me?"
"That you're a Slytherin. That you've been practically adopted by the Malfoys. Soon enough, they'll know you're one of mine. I assure you, none of them would dare think anything that disrespectful of you. They know too much. Others?" He shrugged.
She smiled back at him at that, mirroring his expression until he pulled something out of an inside pocket and said, "I have something for you."
He tossed her a box and she opened it and looked, first confused and then concerned, at the necklace inside. "I... I don't think I'm supposed to take jewelry from anyone other than Draco."
Riddle rose from his seat and plucked the necklace from the box. "I may look old enough to be your father but I am quite old enough to be your grandfather so, even if I weren't the Dark Lord, it would be quite acceptable for you to accept a gift from me. As it is, you simply cannot refuse."
Hermione looked at the simple charm hanging from the chain. "What is it?"
"A Dark Mark," he said as though he were somewhat disappointed in her.
"I can see that," she said. "What else is it?"
He looked far more pleased at that. "It's protection. Any of my Death Eaters who see it will know you're one of mine. Anyone else will see this - " the charm shimmered in his palm until it was a heart, " - unless you consciously choose for them to see the Mark."
"A heart?" she looked up at him, sounding horrified. "You had to make the innocuous version a heart?"
"What wrong with a heart?"
She made a wholly aggrieved adolescent face. "It's lame," she said and Tom Riddle, the Dark Lord, burst out laughing as he fastened his Mark around her neck.
. . . . . . . . . .
A/N – Well, I assume this is the point at which readers will drop away. Do try to keep the Howlers to a minimum.
Hermione's bracelet is on the Pinterest board for this story (linked from my profile).
I started a fluffy Death Eater Regency-esque romance, Only a Nobleman. You will probably hate it but I think it's adorable and fluffy.
Beta love to Shealone, who continues to magically find my misplaced commas and missing question marks. She's wrapping up Debt of Time and, I happen to know, is starting a new one that is FABULOUS so go follow her as an author so you don't miss the publication of her newest when it goes live.
I'm idly curious what House most readers of this story identify with. If you do review, let me know, would you?
Some responses to the non-logged-in reviewers: General Mac (Thank you.) DramioneDreamer (Thank you.) Nicole O (Thank you and congrats on the new baby!) AdriannaLovegood (Thank you so much.) Disappointed (Well, as they say, one can't please them all.) Azerty (Like most people who abuse power, Umbride is well aware people in groups are more likely to stand up to her. Keeping her torture detentions to one student a time means she's less likely to have people refuse as a group to do it.) Slythindor (Hermione is touching the inside of her arm where a Dark Mark would be so the person she's talking to knows what she's referring to without her having to say 'Death Eaters' out loud and draw attention to herself.) Guest (Thank you.) Nina (Well, he's here and I'm considering an 8th Year to wrap up the post-war stuff.) alli (Thank you.) Mariya (Thank you.) Guest (Draco's just not the sneakiest Slytherin ever.) Guest (Thank you.) Lisanda (Thank you.) Guest (I suspect Umbridge cannot, though Hagrid does announce what invisible creature they are supposed to be studying.)