The lord and his lady

Hermione and Tom spent the rest of her fifth year in a happy daze. Being together felt like being home. For the orphaned girl and boy who had never known what a real home felt like, thy found it in each other's arms. They felt as if they were made for each other. And when he murmured to her one rainy morning in a hidden alcove of the library that fate had dropped her in that godforsaken orphanage so they could be reunited, she believed him. And when she whispered back that she would have torn the world apart just to find him, he smiled knowingly.

They still had problems, of course. All couples had problems, though being exceptional, their problems weren't ordinary. They had one recurring fight, always out of prying eyes and ears, but they had it about once a week. Hermione wanted in with the knights. She believed that Tom's refusal came from a lack of trust in her. He assured her, again and again, that she was being ridiculous. He stopped meeting with his knights every single week as they used to, just to stop her pestering. It wasn't that he didn't trust her, he didn't trust them.

They were having the same fight for… he'd stopped counting, on the bus taking them to the orphanage, where they would spend yet another summer stifling their magic, when she asked the question he hated.

"Is it because of my blood status?"

Tom took a deep breath, and turned to look at her. Her curly hair set free, floating around her heart shaped face, warm brown eyes, a few shades lighter than his, observing him for clues. He always joked that she looked like a kicked puppy when she raised her eyebrows that way. He had a feeling if he said at that moment she would lash out him.

"You do know I don't give a flying fuck about that, right?"

"Well I don't understand…"

"If any of them provoke you in front of me, I will rip out their tongues with my own hands. And since they are still useful to me, I would like to keep them around."

She pouted her full lips, and he stopped himself from kissing it away. While the wizarding world hardly cared about what anyone did or didn't do with their bodies, the muggle world still held on to useless things like "decency".

"I'm pretty sure I'm more useful than a bunch of spoiled rich kids" she grumbled.

He smiled at her.

"Of course you are. But do you want me to tell them that, or do you want to prove yourself?"

She glared at him.

"I don't need you to defend my honour."

"Good, because that would become tedious and I don't need another spoiled baby whose feeling I need to manage."

He was getting tired of this conversation. He meant every word he said, or rather repeated. If she wanted in, she would have to work twice as hard as the other knights; because they needed to not only accept her, but embrace her. He had risen to the top of that little organization by his blood thirst more than his blood right. No one had batted an eye at Lestrange's death, nor had they objected when he started reading dark books, or when he mentioned trying out unforgivable. Some had looked queasy, but all had bowed their heads. All but soft hearted Theo who had stoped joining them altogether.

But if Hermione, his Hermione, were to join them, she couldn't just be another knight. How would it look for him to be fooling around with the help? No, she had to be more than that, had to be recognized as their proper lady at his side. And Tom, for all his dreams of world domination, sadly still needed to rely on democracy. She had to prove herself to him, to them, beyond a doubt. And he believed she could do it, but she still needed a little push in the right direction. She needed to fully accept the training he had offered her years ago. She had to let go of petty friendships and fully submit herself to him, and he'd be able to shape her into his greatest weapon, his mightiest ally, his true partner in every way. Only them would he allow her to join him in any plan.

Was he being a little harsh? Perhaps. But Lord Voldermort wouldn't accept anythingless than perfection. A half-hearted ambition born from jealousy and fear of abandonment was not enough. He finally told her as much, and she clamped her mouth shut and turned away from him to watch the streets. She didn't speak for a while. Not until they were in his room at Wool's. That's when she turned to him.

"Alright."

He smiled.

"But I won't be learning the little party tricks you teach your stupid knights."

"Obviously."

Thus began the most harrowing summer Hermione had ever lived, including the horrible summer after her first year. She didn't react to her OWLs results. She barely registered the time flying. She was to master occlumency by the start of sixth year, as it was the only thing they could practise in the muggle world. And Tom attacked her mind, day after day. He dove into her memories as if they were open books for him to peruse at his leisure. He had seen everything. Including her first time with Zabini after making him swear an unbreakable vow to not use her virginal blood in any magical way. That had led to a fight that had rattled him so much she managed to slip past his own shields and witness his first time with a ravenclaw girl whose name she couldn't recall. When she put her hand on her hip and stared him down, he merely shrugged.

"I wanted to test those virginal blood spells."

That day had inaugurated the start of their physical relationship that barely put a dent in her "training". Any tenderness he showed at night was turned off the minute they sat on the ground across from each other, legs crossed and beads of sweat rolling down their brows. By the end of summer, she had breached his shields exactly twice, but she was finally able to keep him out for more than five minutes. He would claw and scratch and beat at her walls, and she would take the migraines like a badge of honour. They kept it up throughout their sixth year, both the occlumency training and anything else they found the time for. Every hex, spell and curse he'd ever learned, he taught her.

She ignored Zabini's and Theo's warnings. Her friendship with both of them turned sour, but she didn't need weak friends, she needed power. And that's what Tom was offering her. When he asked to train her on resisting the Imperius, she barely blinked before accepting. And at the end of they, she was the one who suggested she should learn to withstand the Cruciatus curse, to which he had only smiled before setting the place and time. She savoured every second of it. And every pain, every scar, every scream, honed her into someone she had only dreamed of, only seen through Tom's eyes the second time she peered into his mind. What she had seen that day had fuelled her ever since. She had seen herself as a queen of darkness, beautiful, unbreakable, deadly. And she had worked every single day to get there.

If her so called friends couldn't understand her need for power, her need to become more, and more, and more, until the scared orphan was buried so deep underneath it all that no one recognized her, then perhaps they weren't really her friends. She was almost happy she wouldn't see Zabini after summer. And by the end of summer 1944, Tom had finally deemed her ready. He had knelt in front of her, kissed her hands, his eyes gleaming in the sun, and proclaimed her Lady of Walpurgis.

And she couldn't wait to unleash herself upon the world.

Short chapter for now because hospital rotations are kicking my ass.

Few random thoughts to maybe help you all understand my goal behind this chapter, self-harm can take many forms, trauma is hard to heal from and it takes years, no person can change or save another person unless they want to.

As always, thank you for reading, to all new readers, welcome to my crazy ass journey, to old readers, welcome back. I love you all!

Until next chapter :)