Draco skulked about for several days, sullen and unpleasant to be around, before Tom finally decided he'd had enough and suggested the boy either solve his problem or let it go. "This is worse than the daily treats we used to get of your ex shrieking out your name," Tom said.

"Pansy's the problem," Draco muttered. "Or the lack of Pansy. Who am I supposed to take to the Yule Ball?"

Tom rubbed his forehead and took a deep breath. "Are you telling me I've been putting up with your scowling bullshite because you're upset you can't get a date to a school dance?" he demanded. He rubbed at his head some more and considered that he'd been far too lenient with this whinging boy; once they were out of school and he didn't have to worry about Dumbledore breathing down his neck that would change.

"It's a big fucking deal," Draco muttered. "It's our last year and people will assume I'm one step away from proposing. It's easy for you. Granger will come whenever you snap your fingers at her but I'm unfortunately single and hell will freeze before I ask someone like Daphne Greengrass. She's quite possibly the stupidest woman I've ever met and she makes my cousin Dru seem like a sweetheart and –"

Tom pulled out his wand and leveled it at Draco. "Go ask Ginevra Weasley before I make you wish you could erase the last week and start again."

"The blood traitor?" Draco began to pout before he looked closely at Tom. "Oh, of course. Is that, uh, an order?"

Tom just stared at him until Draco began to back away. When the boy had fled the Head Common Room Tom put his wand away with a groan. People had been so much more respectful of his time in 1944. Merlin. He wondered what the dress code was for this event. In 1944 it would have been formal but now it was nearly impossible to guess. He liked the shorter skirts of this era. He'd enjoyed – if been somewhat taken aback by - the lewd suggestions girls had made before he'd become publicly linked with Hermione. But the manners of this era left something to be desired. "Honestly," he muttered, "I was raised in an orphanage and I'd not whinge about things like that boy does. Whatever happened to having the good breeding to not wear your heart on your sleeve?"

. . . . . . . . . .

As soon as Draco stopped moping – Ginny Weasley having accepted his invitation to the Ball with a caustic reminder that she was not going to sleep with him just because they were going to a dance together so he could just kiss that dream goodbye – Hermione started and Tom began to feel like he was living in some kind of nightmare. "What is it?" he demanded after what felt like an eternity of feminine drooping but was, he had to admit, really only one afternoon. "Did you get a 'not your best work' on an essay or something?"

She flopped down onto their couch and crossed her arms and glared at him and he found himself rubbing his face again. "Also," he said, "before we get into whatever has you so inexplicably moody, could you tell me what the dress code is for this Ball? And what colour flowers I should get you? I'd assume black tie and white flowers because you're not married, but I overheard some daft Ravenclaw talking about matching her flowers to her date's vest and I cannot even fathom the tastelessness of that so I'm going to need some guidance here."

He looked over at Hermione who was blinking at him with what seemed to be confusion. "You're planning on taking me to the Ball?" she asked.

It was his turn to be confused. "I sleep with you every night," he pointed out. "I adore you. You belong to me. Of course I'm going to escort you to any social event that requires a partner." He watched a look of relief dance across her face and began to be irritated with her, with this modern era, with all the subtle cultural expectations he got wrong. He hated being wrong. He eased down onto the couch next to her and leaned over so his mouth was at her neck. "Was I supposed to ask?" he breathed against her skin, "when you know I'd kill anyone else you even considered attending with?"

"Tom," she muttered, "I just… yes," she said at last, "you were supposed to ask."

He nipped her earlobe with his teeth and took her wrists and held them tightly between his hands. She made one of those little gasps that told him this was something to pursue in more detail later; now he just held on more tightly as he whispered in her ear, "Will you accompany me to the Yule Ball, Miss Granger? I would be honored to be at your side for the evening."

"I… yes," she said.

"You'll dance every dance with me," he continued, letting his lips brush against her neck and then the line of her tensed jaw. "You know how I don't like seeing other men touch you."

"Harry," she said helplessly.

"One dance," Tom agreed.

"And I have to open the Ball with Malfoy," she said and then winced as his grip on her wrists briefly tightened. He released them and began to gently rub them as she said, "It's tradition; the Heads of school always start the first dance."

"I'll remind him that if he touches you inappropriately he'll spend the rest of the night spitting up blood," Tom said, bringing one of her wrists to his mouth to kiss in apology, then the other.

"I'm not a thing you own," Hermione said. "You really need to remember that."

"You want Malfoy groping you?" Tom asked, still stroking her wrists lightly with his fingertips as she sighed and shook her head. "One dance with Malfoy. One with Potter. The rest of the night by my side. And what colour flowers do I get you?"

"White is fine," she said. "And you can't go wrong with black tie though some people will have some creative interpretations of that."

Tom's expression conveyed his opinion of people who interpreted black tie 'creatively'.

Hermione frowned at him and then asked, her voice a little tentative, "Tom, what are you doing over Yule break?"

"Staying here," he said, his tone light. "I'm not even sure if the orphanage I grew up in is still in existence and, given it was a Muggle institution, I doubt they'd quite understand having me show up again now if it were."

"You plan on being alone for Yule and Christmas?" Hermione asked, turning her hands so she caught his fingers in a tight grip. "And your birthday?"

"It will be fine," he said. "It won't be different than any other year."

She tucked herself against his side and said, "There's still one more day to sign up to stay and my parents have gone on a trip to Australia anyway. I'll stay with you."

"Australia?" Tom turned his head to look at her.

"I guess they've always wanted to go," she said with a shrug that just let her nestle herself more firmly against his side. "So I can stay here with you and we'll have the dorm to ourselves and we can spend the holidays with the other stragglers and see whether I can finally manage to Imperius you."

He felt the last remnants of his irritation drain away as he nuzzled the side of her head. "I'm not sure why you're so damn hard to get with that curse," she continued and he inhaled the scent of her hair and her lotion and considered that this would be the first holiday season he'd ever spent with someone whose company he enjoyed.

"I'm very resistant to being controlled," he said.

She pulled away and looked at him and he watched the slow smile spread across her face. It was Hermione at her most dangerous, her most desirable. "Yes," she said, "that's right. You aren't the slightest bit controllable."

Tom reached a hand out and grabbed her chin and she just smirked at him as he began to smile back.

. . . . . . . . . .

Pansy showed up the afternoon of the Yule Ball with a sack in one hand, a garment bag draped over her arm, and a pair of shoes dangling from her fingertips. Draco gaped at her. "Who are you going with?" he demanded. At his tone she began to sashay across the worn hardwood floor, and her only answer was a smirk she tossed over her shoulder before opening the door to Hermione's room. The way the door slammed behind her and a silencing charm went up made it clear she had no intention of answering him.

"Women," Draco muttered.

"Get used to her," Tom said without looking up from the text he'd been studying all afternoon. "She's coming along with us after graduation."

Draco almost managed to contain his horror at that. "She is?" he asked. "Really? Pansy?"

Tom flicked his gaze up at that. "Is that a problem?" he asked.

Draco held his hands out in front of him. "No, my Lord," he muttered. "I'll just be in my room working on an essay if that's – "

"Just go," Tom said with a sigh returning to his book. He needed to share this with Hermione; the further you went back into the archives the more interesting the spell books got but also the less precise. It reminded him of a jam recipe he'd read once that directed the cook to 'stir until jam has a jam-like consistency.' The entire book was filled with assumptions the reader knew things that no one taught anymore; the notes were little more than things meant to nudge your memory instead of being explicit instructions.

It meant experimenting with these spells would be dangerous.

It meant it would be fun.

He could hardly wait until the rest of the tedious students went home and he and Hermione could see what these did. He glanced up after tracing the lines of a beautifully complex runic incantation pattern and, when he looked out the window, he realized it had gotten dark and he'd best get ready for this event lest his lovely witch start using one of these interesting spells now, and in the general direction of his testicles. A quick shower, a quick shrug into the outfit he'd liberated from one of the school storerooms no one but him seemed to know existed, and he was back at the couch, a transfigured corsage lying on the table, book in his hand.

When Hermione emerged from her room, Pansy standing behind her like a proud mother, Tom felt his mouth curve up in a slow, appreciative smile. He understood now why they had taken so long to get ready; Pansy had somehow transformed his wild, modern witch into a siren from his own time. Her hair, that curly hair he adored, had been straightened and set into large, rolled curves that framed her face and gathered at the nape of her neck. Her dress surely had to be from his own era; the soft fabric drooped loosely at her neck before it pulled itself in against her and slithered along the lines of her body. It reminded him of nothing so much as what he'd seen the society wives wear at gatherings at Abraxas' house. She was a vision of everything he had grown up to believe was beautiful and unattainable and she made Pansy, standing behind her in something flouncey and modern, look common.

He was, he admitted, biased.

When she spun for him he caught a glimpse of her legs and realized she'd found a pair of seamed stockings and he inadvertently licked his lips. She saw the movement and her smile became downright smug.

"I'm rethinking the idea of letting you dance with Potter and Malfoy," Tom said as she glided toward him. "I'm not sure I want to let you leave this room."

She laughed and batted him on the arm. "Try to control your possessive streak and think of it more as showing me off."

"I'm not going to have spent all afternoon doing this to her hair only for you to skip the dancing part and go right to the sex," Pansy said matter-of-factly, "so cut this crap out." Tom looked over at her and she added, more politely, "my lord."

Tom sighed. "None of you respect me properly," he complained as he picked up the corsage and began to fasten it to Hermione's dress.

"We do," she reassured him, stopping his hand so she could look at the flowers. "We're just difficult. But we'd all follow you anywhere and you know it."

He flashed her a smile as she catalogued the flowers he'd selected.

"White lilacs," she said, "and lily-of-the-valley. It's beautiful."

"And grass," he said as he returned to putting it on her.

She snorted at that and leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "You wish."

"Want me to prove it?" he asked and she raised her sculpted eyebrows but also turned a dull shade of red.

"Maybe later," she muttered. "Afterward."

Draco loped out of his room and eyed both women. "You look nice," he said politely to Pansy. If his eyes widened a bit at the sight of Hermione he kept himself to, "You clean up well, Granger." He nodded to Tom and seemed to debate what to call him before settling on, "my lord."

"I understand you and Miss Granger open the dancing," Tom said.

Draco nodded.

"Put a hand wrong and you'll spend the rest of the night in the infirmary while Pomfrey works to staunch the internal bleeding. Am I quite clear?"

Pansy snickered as Draco nodded again, his jaw so tense his already angular face became more pointed than usual.

The door to the common room opened and Theo stuck his head in. "Are you ready, Pansy?" he asked. He glanced at Hermione, then at Tom, and said nothing.

"You're Pansy's date?" Draco asked in clear annoyance, his nerves over Tom's threat forgotten in the light of this far more ordinary adolescent aggravation. "Whatever happened to leaving your friends' exes alone?"

Theo snorted. "It's a small school, Draco, and there's not that many women in our class. I'm certainly not going to ask Daphne Greengrass; she can't find her way out of a paper bag. And you know Greg and Mills have their long-standing thing, and, well, I'm not exactly Tracey's type."

"I so love being your last resort," Pansy said.

Theo tossed a corsage over to her. "And you would have been my first choice even if there were dozens more witches in our House. " He smiled at her. "Hundreds more."

Pansy snatched the flowers out of the air and examined them. A single stargazer lily that had barely begun to open was surrounded by orange blossoms. She narrowed her eyes and Theo shrugged.

Draco looked from one of them to the other. "I'm going to go pick up Ginny," was all he said. "With your permission, of course," he added, looking at Tom.

"Go," Tom said.

Hermione watched Pansy attach the flowers to her dress before she gasped. "I almost forgot," she said, and accioed a flower from her room. She turned to Tom and carefully stuck the small black orchid on his lapel. "A boutonniere," she said. He brushed a finger over the inky petals and then offered her his arm.

"Shall we go?" he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

Tom had, of course, charmed the corsage to remain in stasis and when Hermione released it from her dress it was as perfect as when it had been attached. She brushed her fingers over the tiny individual florets of the lilac and said, "This really was beautiful, Tom. Is beautiful."

He came up behind her and set his black orchid on the shelf; she set her corsage next to it. "Mine wilted," he said with a laugh. "Someone forgot the charm."

"I almost forgot the flower," she said, turning around so she faced him. "Count yourself lucky you got it at all."

He let his eyes slide from her waved hair to her feet; she'd already kicked her heels off and was rising and falling on the balls of her feet as if trying to stretch them out. "They hurt?" he asked and when she nodded he knelt down and took one in his hands, began to rub the sole through the silk of her stocking. "You looked amazing," he said, thumbs kneading back and forth and back and forth across her arch and along her heel. "I'm sorry it hurt you."

"It was worth it," she said. "Finding the dress, letting Pansy wrestle my hair into submission, the shoes. Worth it to see your face when I walked out of my room, worth it to see your face all night."

"No other faces?" he asked.

She laughed. "Jealous, Tom?"

"Always," he said.

She set her foot back on the floor and squatted down, took his face in her hands. "You don't need to be," she said, running her thumbs over his cheeks.

He reached out and closed his hands around her wrists. "I can't bear the idea of you as not mine," he said.

She let him pull her wrists down, taking her hands away from his face, and sighed. "I'm not interested in anyone else. You terrorized Malfoy and Harry and some poor fourth year from Hufflepuff who just wanted to dance tonight. You need to stop."

"I don't like other men touching you," Tom said, pulling them both back to standing.

"He was fourteen, Tom," she said. "You need to relax. All this – " she yanked a hand away from his grip and waved it near her hair and then down along the vintage dress, " – was for you, to make you happy." She put her free hand back on his cheek. "Because I'm yours, right?"

"I don't understand," he admitted. "I would have been quite happy with you in any dress. Why go to so much trouble for me?"

She tugged her other hand free from his loosened grasp and wrapped her arms around him. "Because… just because. Hasn't anyone ever done anything more than the minimum for you just to make you happy?"

He sighed in her embrace and said, voice patient, "Grew up in an orphanage, remember?"

"Just…."

"1940s orphanages didn't exactly have the resources for extras," he said. "And there was rationing, Hermione, even if anyone had cared. Can we not talk about this, please?"

She tipped her head up and studied his face for a moment before she said, "You just go take over everything and I'll do these whole 'worrying about you' and 'making you happy' things, okay?"

He stepped back and looked her over. "I have an idea," he said and she tilted her head to the side and made a questioning face. He took her wrists again and slowly backed her up until she was braced against the wall before lifting her hands above her head and holding them against the stones. She inhaled sharply and he nodded. "Want to pursue that?" he asked in a low murmur, "Since you're so interested in making me happy?"

Hermione licked her lips and, before he could bend in toward her and brush his own lips against her skin she said, "After we take the dress off. It's actual vintage and was hard to find and I don't want it to get torn or anything."

Tom nodded and stepped away and watched her reach to her left side, slide the zipper down and then tug the dress off. She carefully hung the silk up in his closet and he watched her, admiring the perfect seams in her stockings. When she crossed back to him he tugged down her knickers and unhooked her bra, tossing it down before sliding his hands back along her arms and holding her wrists behind her, forcing her to press herself into him. "I like the stockings too," he said, "Leave them on for me?"

"I… I can do that," she said, a little breathless already.

"Perhaps we should revisit your objection to the grass in your corsage," Tom whispered against her neck. "You mentioned something about that not being accurate." He grazed his teeth along her skin. "I think, 'you wish' were your words." He tightened his grip on her wrists. "Am I remembering correctly?"

"You are," she said, and he watched her pulse flutter at the base of her throat. She swallowed as he ground into her and that pulse seemed to get even faster.

"I am what?" he asked, pushing harder.

"You are, my lord," she whispered.

He brushed his lips against her hairline. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" he asked before releasing her and stepping back. He saw the disappointment in her eyes before he spun her around, picked her up, and settled her on their bed. He straddled her and snapped his fingers above her head. She almost glared at him for that but lifted her arms up for him and he summoned a tie from a drawer to tie them down while he asked, voice quiet, "Too much?"

She shook her head. "I'll tell you," she said.

He nodded and leaned back to look at her. "You are a fantasy come to life," he said. "The hair, the stockings, tied down in our bed waiting for me to do whatever pleases me."

She swallowed and said, pulling at the knots holding her wrists a little, "What pleases you, my lord?"

Tom shuddered and pushed off his shoes and began tugging his trousers down as quickly as he could. "You do," he said hoarsely. "Merlin, Hermione, I've been watching you all night and now you're… I'm not going to be able to wait and – "

"Don't," she said.

He stopped and looked at her.

"Please don't wait," she amended before adding, mischief in her eyes, "my lord."

He threw his pants across the room and shirt still on, held himself above her for a moment before she murmured another 'please' and he gave in and thrust himself into her. "You're so wet," he groaned as she rocked her hips against him and he looked up to see her arms straining against the tie holding them down. That visual was his undoing and, having barely started, he finished and, collapsing against her, buried his face against her skin before reaching up to free her hands. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Oh," Hermione said, twisting to her side and propping herself up on one elbow. "You thought we were done?"

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N – It's ALL FLUFFY!

Since I assume no one wants to go looking up all the flowers in the corsages: white lilacs stand for youthful innocence, lily of the valley, sweetness and luck in love, and grass for submission. Flowers are symbols in this context and as a magic user Tom would be more than comfortable using symbolic communication. Plus, he's being obnoxious. The black orchid is a symbol of power and absolute authority. Orange blossoms are a traditional wedding flower.

You can see Hermione's hair on my pinterest board for this fic. There's also a Vogue cover from 1943 so you can get a feel for the style of dress if you are interested.

If you aren't reading Linen Rope by Brightki and you like a little BDSM Tomione, you should be.

The best way to ask me questions remains not the PM feature here, as my phone despises 's servers, but tumblr where my username is (shockingly) colubrina