He is born into war in the dead of night. Darkness surrounds him, and he feels the touch of the grave in the mud underneath his body as his mom dies.
Tom's birth had killed her; or maybe it had been a broken heart. She was too fragile for this world and everyone knew it.
His cries bring no one at first and this feeling stays with him forever. The feeling of isolation and death that he experiences as he draws his first breath.
Somehow he survives, but through his childhood so close to war and death he grows cold.
Even as an orphan, Tom becomes strong, powerful, and beautiful.
Growing up had been hard. But then he discovered his powers.
He was magical, special, incredible. He alone could bend the world to his needs, he alone could defeat death and be eternal.
The day he ventures out of the dark streets he was born in he sees someone else who is magical for the first time. A kid as old as him, flowers and butterflies swirling around her and up in beautiful patterns and colours as she laughs and twirls. The girl in the field of flowers turned towards him. Her eyes were still sparkling with life and joy, and he was struck by an urge to hide her away from everyone else.
"Hello," she said. Smile adorning her beautiful features.
"Hi," was his timid reply. He was in the shadows of the forest, looking out on the meadow with envy. This is how they met, a chance encounter sealing their fates.
Hermione. She was the only other person in the world that could do the things he could. She was special, like him.
Hermione had grown up like him, but where he was cruel, she was kind.
Eventually, they fell in love.
Eventually, he found his father.
His father had been a high ranking officer, looking for some fun while on duty. His mother had once been a noble woman. She was disgraced when her family lost all their money, and had been forced to work as a barmaid. His father left his mother in the end. Some said for war, others said to escape her unwanted pregnancy.
Once upon a time, there was a young boy.
They said he was an orphan of war.
But he knew the truth.
On his 18th Birthday, he went to see him.
Even if he had been kind to his son, Tom would have murdered him. Nothing could stop this, not even Hermione.
For Tom had found a spell to summon Death. All he had to do was murder his father, an easy feat. Then he would be able to get what he always wanted.
When Death came, he made a deal. A deal for immortality.
"I'll give you anything!"
"Anything?" The smirk the grim reaper wore, was deadly and terrifying. He looked like the Devil, not Death.
"Yes."
"I want–" Death looked around for emphasis, like he was trying to decide, before he zeroed in on Hermione. "Her."
"Me?"
"Yes."
Hermione looked shocked at Tom when she realized he hadn't said anything against the option. "Tom?"
"Oh no darling, he might be the one that has to kill you–" both Hermione and Tom looked shocked at Death then."– but you will have to accept it, go willingly."
Hermione agreed. She loved Tom too much to deny him his biggest wish. Her life was so insignificant compared to his, compared to the love she had for him.
They were both unaware of the true price they promised Death. For nothing is simple when you try and cheat Death.
Tom murdered his father on his 18th Birthday. And summoned Death to make a deal. The price, he was willing to pay. For it did not involve him, it involved Hermione.
She was to be murdered on her 18th Birthday by her lover's hand.
While he lived happily ever after.
Tom lived for many years, thinking that was it; she was gone forever.
Then one day he meets her again.
"Tom?"
"Hermione?"
"What are you doing here?"
"What am I doing here? How are you still alive?" He exclaimed, and she blushed. They had drawn an audience. Quietly and quickly, she pulled him around a corner. Hidden in the shadows, he cast a spell to muffle their conversation. Her eyes shimmered in the dark, so much life in them.
He couldn't help but kiss her.
"I'm so happy I found you," Hermione whispered in the dark. All Tom could do in response, was offer up his home, and his heart, again.
When the year turned, Hermione would turn 18 again. Death came to visit them.
"Remember the deal, at her 18th Birthday she has to die, or you will both age."
Hermione slowly became afraid of Tom, and started to plead for her life, for them to have a life together.
With everything she has, she fights death. Everything about Hermione is alive, that is why Tom had loved her at first. She had been his immortality, until Death came, then she became his ticket to immortality instead.
On her 18th Birthday, she was woken up by his whisper in her ear.
"Avada Kedavra."
The next time he met her, she was hesitant.
Her heart beat against her throat. Love mixing with anxiety, stopping her from running to him like she would usually do.
He spoke of love and life. She forgot about death and betrayal.
As the clock chimed midnight, on her 18th Birthday, and she stared into her lovers eyes, she knew he had lied. He was death, she was life. They were what they granted each other, and they both knew it when the knife glinted silver.
For every time she is reborn, Hermione enjoys life more.
She chases butterflies, laughs at stupid jokes, makes friends, helps everyone but herself, and smiles at strangers.
At the same time, Tom grows colder.
He barely leaves his castle, always looking for the woman he has to kill. His lover, his breath of life. The only person that keeps him alive, the only one that lets him be something other than immortal.
Hermione always loves him, and he feels guilty.
It eats at him, leaving him a rotten corpse after he kills her. He wonders if this is the true price of immortality. Staying alive, while you rot on the inside. Slowly becoming a shell of a human. Slowly disintegrate into bones. A mockery of a human being that others laugh at. He thinks the only time he isn't hollow is when she is there to love him.
She still pleads for him to spare her life.
He doesn't know what changes within her, but one day she stands before him stoic. She waits for him to deal out her cards.
After all, killing has become the one thing he is good at.
She still doesn't want to die, but she is resigned to her fate now, she knows Tom will never change, will always crave immortality.
He knows that she is the only one that could ever be his equal, only held back by her love for him and the certainty of death.
He spends the rest of her birthday staring into her lifeless eyes as the blood he spilled, her life essence, wraps around them like a carpet.
It must have been the next time that she wants death. He sees it in her eyes, the way she counts the days until her birthday.
Every other time he noticed dread seeping into her. Turning her skipping into slow, calculated steps. Looking up at the sky with a smile, turns to looking at the ground as if she wants to hold on tight. Her smile is replaced by big worried eyes. Kisses turn to sleeping in a bed alone.
But this time, she seems to run towards death.
She asks quietly how he will kill her that time. He turns to look at her, but she doesn't look up, just turns a page in the book she is reading. At first he wonders if he heard her correctly, wonders if he should question what she said.
She looks up, and asks again, "How?"
It is the first time he is scared, but he doesn't know why. He only knows that the way she looks at him is different than before. It might have been love there at one point in this life, but now there is only a hunger. A hunger for death he has never seen in a person so full of life.
"Poison," he says after the silence has stretched between them.
Her responding smile is all the answer he needs.
When he toast to her 18 years, her eyes sparkle. The poisoned wine slipped through her lips quickly, like water for a parched man.
When she falls to the ground, Tom feels lonely for the first time in his long, long life.
The next time Tom finds her, she is sitting next to a dead bird.
Never has he seen anyone so envious. It doesn't even come close to the women that hate Hermione for stealing him away. Hermione doesn't envy anyone, she knows Tom's cold, dead heart only beat for her. Only beats because of her.
For that reason alone, he could never love another.
This life, she laughs a tinkling laugh as he plunges a knife into her heart.
When he sees her next, he hasn't even started looking.
She shows up at his door, 5 years old.
Her icy voice reverberated through his entrance hall, "Hello, Tom."
"Hermione?"
"Yes darling."
"How old are you?"
"5."
"So why are you here?"
Her smile is even icier than her voice, "To die, what else?"
"No."
She frowns, and it would have been cute on her at this age, normally. But, Hermione has left that part of her in another life.
"Kill me."
"Not until you are 18."
She stomps her foot, and Tom tries very hard not to laugh at her. She will always have that trace of living a life before this. But every time she is reborn, she has to grow into an adult.
13 years, he has to live with someone that will only ask for death. She does everything she can think of, plead, blackmail, bribe, any and every method to bring her closer to death.
She looks like an eager puppy, the day before her birthday. When the clock strikes midnight, she stands before him, head lowered, and hands him a sword.
It is the first time he hesitates before delivering her to the other realm.
Then she disappears. She is gone for her entire life. She shows up as the clock chimes midnight on her birthday.
In her hands, she holds whatever she wants him to kill her with. Her eyes are gleeful, like it is graduation day, like this is a prize. Her prize, not his.
He longs for immortality, she longs for Death.
He wonders what she spends her life doing.
His life is the same, over and over again. The only difference is her. Of course there are others. Some are even magical, but their talents are mere echoes of hers, their knowledge and brilliance pale.
She is gone and his dreams are haunted by her.
Now that she leads a separate life, he wants her more. Craves her presence like she craves death.
One of his servants talks about a girl that cannot die. Whispers of dark magic in corners, places where people think he will not listen. But he hears every word that could bring a breath of her into his life. Brown curls on a servant girl is enough to make his head spin. Brown eyes full of fire and life is enough to make him desperate for her.
When she shows up holding a poisoned dagger, he knows he will always want her. He doesn't kill her at first, tortures her for hours, simply by letting her live. She believes he enjoys her misery. The truth is, he can't stand to see her leave.
After the knife cuts her skin open, poison and blood loss combined to drain her life away, he holds her. In his arms is the dead woman he loves, his price of immortality.
When he finally lets her body drop, she is frozen stiff, and cold as ice.
She longs for death like others long for love.
Her existence is never without that. She already has love, a man waiting for her, wanting to hold her close forever.
At some point that might have been Tom, but now she wonders if it is death.
The first life she took might have been an accident. She can't remember if she teased the man until he thought she wanted it, or if he was scumbag trying his luck with young girls. All she knows is her back pressed up against cold tiles – cold like death – and a man tearing at her clothes. Fear is not the emotion that surges through her. As she smiles and chokes him with a thin wire, she can only feel satisfaction. His eyes bulge, and she hopes it will be gory.
His body slumps, finally, and she looks at him curiously. For some reason she thought there would be more.
Then, like a shot of lightning she feels that warm, fuzzy feeling she has only felt while looking at Tom.
Killing is like falling in love.
Maybe if she kills enough, Death will love her too.
When she goes to Tom again, she feels guilty.
He takes the rope, and chokes her like she killed that man. His grey eyes seem sad, and she wonders if she is cheating on Tom with Death, or Death with Tom.
The next time she is reborn, she feels angry.
Why must death be so cruel to embrace her over and over again, only to bring her back to life. She wants to tear the world apart.
She gets a knife, and slashes the world in two. With magic she tries to summon death, but only Tom knows the formula, only Tom knows how. If she goes to him, she will be forced to stay.
All she wants is death; All she feels is anger, and sadness that so many are granted what she wants.
This time she goes to Tom without a weapon.
"Kill me with your bare hands. I want you to feel the life drain from me."
He loves her too much to refuse.
Eventually he finds a way to watch her, no matter where she is.
He watches her dance on the graves of her victims, and the leftovers of her previous lives. Her feet are soaked in blood, her dress dripping with it.
She was innocent once, before she met Tom. She wore white and swore to never harm a living soul. Her life was given freely, taken forcefully by him.
Now she grants others the freedom she wants in death, she gives them that which she can't have by any other hand than Tom's.
Tom hates Death now, even more than before.
He vows to beat it, and searches for an answer.
The Deathly Hallows.
He reads about them, and Hermione walks in. She wipes the blood from her mouth, and looks at him in satisfaction. "I am ready to die."
"I'm busy."
He knows the date of course, he has been counting down for a while. She shouldn't know that he has, shouldn't know he hasn't touched a woman in centuries. There has only ever been one woman for him, Hermione, and she stopped wanting anything from him but Death. Why should he always be the one to deliver her to the lover he envies?
But she sinks down into his lap, and strips her clothes off. All that covers her is the blood of the people who had the misfortune of meeting her and he can't resist.
His hands run over her bare thighs, slick with blood, smoothing her skin so it is the softest thing he has ever felt. She looks at him with those warm chocolate eyes, and he knows he will deliver her to anything. Her fingers run through his perfect hair, messing it up, blood mixing in with his strands.
She tears his clothes off, and pushes him to the floor. While he is distracted, slipping into her, she takes his hand. She places a knife in his palm, and slits her wrists while he holds it.
Her heart beats steady, blood draining onto his skin. They fuck in the blood of her enemies and her own. When he comes, she whispers, "If only you knew what death felt like."
And with that, she dies.
He finds out he has the ring while she is gone. When he calls for Death, he answers.
"Release Hermione, let her live with me, or die forever," he begs.
"She pays the price for your immortality. Magic like this comes with a prize." Death stares at him. "You can release her, you know only you can kill her. Choose any other day to kill her, and you will both be free."
"We will both be immortal?"
Death laughs, a sound out of this world, caught between the veil of living and death. "You will both live a mortal life, the deal will be broken."
When death leaves, Tom vows he will find the two other Hallows, and rule over Death forever.
For some reason, Hermione is early this time. Tom wonders if she is tired of playing games with Death. But he doesn't dare ask.
She finds the ring. Of course, she knows what it is when she holds it in her dainty fingers.
When she calls for Death, he wears a smile.
They kiss, and the Dementors are born.
She asks him to stay, but he can't. He is Death, life is not for him.
"We will be together soon," he says cradling her jaw, while Tom watches through a crack in the door. His jealousy comes to new heights as he watches them together. With a gentle caress, Death leaves and Hermione crumbles to the ground. Tom hides the ring again, far away from the castle. She never asks him about it again.
Hermione grows jealous of her children, knowing they can feel death so close, when she can only count the days until they meet again.
When her 18th Birthday comes, Tom doesn't want to kill her.
It isn't until the clock chimes 11 at night, an hour before they are both released from the curse, that Tom gives her a poison.
She dies right before the clock strikes twelve.
Tom is desperate to conquer death.
When he finds the wand, he is lured into using it for power.
He creates an empire, but still he can never find Hermione.
She shows up on her 18th Birthday, always with her weapon of choice in her hands.
He obliges, but tries to get her to say how she hides.
Finally, after several lifetimes, maybe even centuries, he realises she has the cloak.
"Give it to me Hermione."
"Give me my freedom."
"How?"
"Kill me when I am young, or let me live another day." Her eyes glint dangerously from the challenge in her words.
His answer is pulling the arrow back, and letting it hit it's target.
It takes another hundred years of this before they make a deal; If she gives him 3 years of her life, he gives her death.
They both bicker, he wants the years before her 18th Birthday. She wants the years after.
They compromise, 1.5 years before, 1.5 years after.
Tom cheats, and kills her on her birthday once more, vicious and quick thinking he has finally won.
He waits for her anger, but she seems victorious.
He doesn't understand why she is happy, until a servant asks if they should have a party for her birthday the next day.
Leap year, that sneaky witch.
Somehow he finds the cloak.
But it doesn't bring him freedom. He spends the rest of his life in shadows, hiding, hoping Death will never find him.
It isn't until he is 100 years old, and he is too weak to hold the wand, too thin for the ring to stay on, too frail for the cloak to rest on his shoulders.
He slumps and falls down.
The sound of fabric moving in the wind alerts him of a different presence. Death stands before him at last as his equal. In Death's arm is the ring, and he twirls it between his fingers before putting it on with the rest of his lost belongings.
When Tom hears steps, he can't believe it.
He would know her anywhere.
She stands before him, 18 years old like every time he killed her.
"Tom." Her words are like the kiss of death, the one she said she wanted all those years ago. The one he wouldn't give her because he didn't want to pay the price.
"Hermione?" He questions.
"You get to experience it at last, The thrill of dying is exhilarating." She twirls, again so full of life and joy even in this state of between.
"No! I am immortal, invincible, the best that ever lived!" he protests, still unwilling to face death as an equal.
"Death is but another adventure," she whispers against his lips, kissing him as Death lifts his scythe and beheads him. She cradles Tom's head as his body slumps lifeless over. "You have never looked more beautiful Tom Marvolo Riddle." Her eyes can't seem to leave him in this vulnerable state, the way only she will ever see him.
She kisses him again, and then his head is dropped next to his body. Without looking back, Hermione takes the hand Death offers her and walks away into the stars.
Every step they take brings them closer, until there seems to be only one figure that fades into the shadows where death has always been lurking, waiting for the next life to end.
In the end, no one can escape Death.
AN: Dedicated to an old friend I haven't talked to in years, Lokilette. I don't remember why I wrote the working title as "How to bug Loki" but I know I miss the fun we had. I am but a message away from running away together into the darkness to rule the world ;)
This has been almost done for years, and is possibly my favorite story I have ever written and rewritten a million times. It was time to finish it.
To everyone that reads, reviews, favorites any and all of my stories, Thank you 3