? I should be writing my new chapter for Excitant? I should be doing a lot of things? Instead I'm posting this? ENjoy?
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Hermione had never found Halloween to be particularly dreadful as a child. Of course, a holiday was easy to enjoy if the celebration was receiving candy from your neighbors, but as the years wore on, and adulthood began to rear its ugly head, the joys of Halloween started to dissipate.
And now, at nineteen, while she wouldn't exactly say she loathed the holiday, she definitely was not overly fond of it.
It wasn't necessarily the parties—which, while they aren't normally her style, she could still appreciate a crazy, drunken night every once in a while—and it wasn't the costumes or the horror. More than likely, it was simply the hype. It was the idea that it was some sort of shame to be alone on halloween, like spending a holiday dedicated to binging on either candy or alcohol (depending on your age) by yourself was somehow pathetic.
Of course, that could just be her own bitter thoughts as she sat alone one Saturday evening—Halloween, no less—while her best friends were getting wasted at some rager.
It wasn't that she didn't want to get shit-faced with the rest, it was just that she didn't have the time for halloween this year, let alone the energy. Between school and her shitty part-time job and that asshole who always sat beside her in her biochem class as if he was assigned there to make her life a misery—
She just wanted to spend her Saturday with some overpriced coffee and a nice, long, scorching hot bath.
Instead, she was dealing with the end of the world. In her bath robe.
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She had only left her flat because she had only just found that she had run out of bath salts, and considering she lived just above a convenience store, she didn't see any reason why she shouldn't just throw a coat over her bath robe, wrap her hair up in a bun (she stick a pen through it when she couldn't find any elastics and it worked just the same) and run down to get some bubble bath or something—anything that smelled lovely—to save her plans for the evening.
The convenience store has only one other person there, besides her, and that was the cashier; a middle-aged man, prematurely bald and angry-looking. He glanced at her briefly, giving her a nod in place of a hello, and then turned back to his magazine. She hurried to the cosmetic section of the store, her slippers shuffling along the tile.
She was just deciding between lavender or vanilla bath soap when someone grabbed her arm and she nearly screamed.
The two bottle clattered to the floor, and there, standing tall and handsome with a leather jacket and an unusually flustered expression—for him, that is, for he still looked relatively calm—stood her asshole of a biochem partner.
Tom bloody Riddle.
Hermione immediately jerked her arm out of his hold. "What the hell do you want? What are you doing here?"
"Granger," His voice sounded calm, and she wondered if the panicked look she saw in his eyes was a trick of her own mind, "Come with me. It's urgent."
A moment passed between them where neither did anything but stare the other down. Then Hermione bent down to pick up the bottles and placed one on the shelf—she didn't even look to see which one she kept—and turned around to approach the check-out counter.
Of course Riddle grabbed her again, because—and Hermione was certain of this fact—he was some sort of psychopath and he enjoyed making her uncomfortable and angry.
"Stop grabbing me!" She ordered, pulling her arm back again.
"Are you wearing a bath robe?" He asked, his face screwed up in judgmental inquiry as he examined her clothing. She felt a flush run up her neck so she compensated by glaring at him.
"Yes," She said, holding up the bottle of bath soap—she had picked lavender, apparently—"I intend to return to the peace and quiet of my flat and enjoy a nice bath to wash your fingerprints off me, thank you."
"No, no, no," He was mumbling, "That won't do. Granger, you need to go change, and come back to meet me, there is—"
"I will do no such thing!" She laughed, and Tom ran a hand through his hair in distress. She had never seen him quite so nervous. Curiosity rose in her, wondering what exactly he needed her for, why he was so nervous, but knowing Tom Riddle—and she knew Tom Riddle—it was something nefarious, possibly even evil, and she wanted nothing to do with it.
"Hermione—" He rasped, and his use of her first name gave her pause. He never called her that, most often Granger, and sometimes if he was feeling especially spiteful, he would call her mudblood, a term she was certain had some mean, horrible explanation that she didn't care to hear. But she was never 'Hermione.' She had even doubted, sometimes, that he even knew her first name.
"Riddle," She dictated, "I don't know what it is you are so distressed about, but I am returning back to my flat for the night, and you can carry on whatever distasteful goings-about you were already—"
A guttural scream startled her into silence, and she turned to see a bloody mess of a human figure ripping the cashier's throat out with its teeth.
"Holy shi—!"
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"What is that?" Hermione hissed after Tom pulled her down to hide behind the crisps display, "What the bloody hell is—"
He shushed her, straining his neck to peer around the display and watch for the creature—human, animal? Alive, dead?—and then he murmured, so quietly she had to strain to hear it, "It's coming up the aisle, move."
She removed her slippers before she followed him, because the blasted things were always dragging on the floor and making a scuffling noise, and then she followed his steps, crouched down low and moving without a sound. She could hear her breathing, the beating of her heart in her chest, and the uneven footsteps of the beast wandering around the convenience store.
"Can it smell us?" She whispered the question in his ear once she reached his side. He shook his head, what she could only assume was his way of saying he didn't know. "We need to get to my flat," She muttered. This time he nodded.
They crossed from one end display to another, and as they passed the aisle, she saw the thing standing there. It faced away from them, standing still and slanted, its arms laying motionless by its sides. Its head lolled lifelessly to one shoulder. It looked like a corpse. A halloween prank, maybe? A gruesome, sick, disgusting halloween prank?
Riddle didn't dare speak to her as he motioned toward the front entrance, not while they were so close to the—the—
Hermione followed him wordlessly out the door.
But outside was chaos.
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The moment they stepped out that automatic door, the apocalypse awaited them, snarling with blood stained teeth. She didn't even have time to look in the direction of her flat before Tom was pushing her away, "Go, go, go" down the street and away from her temporary home.
"My flat!" She cried.
"There isn't time, Hermione!"
The things—the demons—they chased them down the street. There were only four—five—six—but there was another across the street feeding on something, and she thought she saw another in an alleyway, and they were so fast, so much faster than anything that looked that dead should be.
Tom ran with her, his hand clenched tight around her arm. She kept looking back at the gruesome creatures, but he never did once. Instead he led her down the street, pulled her toward him when she needed to turn left, and pushing into her when she needed to turn right, and how could he be so calm? How could he—
"Here!" He said, and practically shoved her through a narrow opening that led to a set of stairs. She didn't know where they were going, and a terrifying thought occurred to her. He could be leading her to her death. He could be planning on killing her, or using her for bait, or—
At the top of the stairs, to the left, there was a door. He thrust a key in her hand and said, "Open it!" And took the pen from her hair. Her curls fell into her eyes and her hands shook and she kept looking from him to the door—he used the pen to puncture one of the creature's necks, upwards under its chin and it fell to the ground, still—she finally got the key in and opened the door.
"Tom!" He kicked one of them, which didn't do anything but make it stumble for only a moment, and then he ran to her. They both entered, and he threw his weight against the door just as one of them thrust their grey arms through.
Tom swore, pushing against the door as the dead swarmed it—there were only four now, how could they seem so many? They were in an apartment, Hermione realized, and she ran to the kitchen. She heard Tom shout after her.
She pulled a knife out and ran back toward the door. Without thinking, she swung the blade down on the extended arm, and a howl sounded from just outside the flat. She choked, trying once to get the blade out but it was stuck on bone, so trying again and just managing to unhinge it. She struck again. Then again.
The door slammed shit and snapped it, finally, and Hermione dropped the knife, shaking like a leaf.
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Tom didn't stop to comfort her until he had barricaded the door, and even then all he did was place a hand on her shoulder and say, "There should be clothes here that will fit you. There were too many undead to get to your flat."
"How did you know where I lived?" She asked, and it seemed like such a silly question to ask in the moment, like that should be the last thing on her mind, but she didn't want to ask him about everything else. She didn't want to know.
He didn't answer anyway, but the way he suddenly tensed and turned his eyes away from her—he was oddly expressive when he was panicked—was answer enough.
"So, what, not only do you insist on sitting next to me in class, you also stalk me during you free time?"
"Hermione," He warned. She continued, her mind racing.
"So the dead rise and you come to find me? Why am I the first one you find? Is this some sort of prank? Another attempt of yours to make my life more miserable?"
It was a ridiculous thing to ask, of course, and they both seemed to think so as they turned their attention to the bloody, rotting arm on the floor of the apartment. It stained the otherwise pristine, white carpet.
"Where are we?" She asked, her voice still shaking. The knife was off the floor and in Tom's hand.
"A…work colleague's house. I happened to have their key and I knew they lived near you."
"What the fuck is going on, Tom?" She groaned, thrusting her hands through her wild hair.
"I don't know." He admitted, "The dead started rising. And everyone they kill rises, too."
"Oh God," She breathed, "Harry and Ron. They're out partying, they're probably wasted, they can't last on their own!" She walked toward the window. "There's a fire escape. We can make our way down and head toward them, see if we can—"
"They're dead by now," He said, flippantly, as if he were saying 'we're out of cereal.' "We take the fire escape down once its daylight, and we make our way toward a hospital, a school, anywhere we can find medical supplies and food. we—"
"You're insane." She spat, and suddenly realizing she was still in her bathrobe and she was desperately tired of staring at his face, she walked toward what she assumed was the bedroom.
She was right.
"Hermione," He pleaded—as much as Tom Riddle can actually plead—as he followed her into the bedroom. She searched the drawers for something to wear. Apparently this place belonged to a man and no woman, because there were nothing but men's clothes. She found a pair of pants with an adjustable waist and pulled those on.
"I'm going to find my friends." She said, resolutely.
"No," He commanded, and smiled her hands with his, "Hermione you will live a week at most if you try to go this alone and go find your friends. Your friends are dead. There is nothing you can do for them now." Tears welled in her eyes and she tried to turn away, but he turned her back to face him, his hand gripping her chin.
"You are the only person brilliant enough to help me, and I will not waste my time with people who will do nothing but let myself and themselves be killed, so are you coming with me, or will you die for your friends who are dead anyway?"
"But they could be alive," She insisted.
"The only thing I know for certain," Tom said, "Is that you and I are alive." He cupped her face in his hands. He was too close for comfort. "It's the only thing you know as well."
Hermione didn't answer.
"I am your only hope," He said, "Of surviving to see any living thing again."
She hated him. She hated him now more than she ever had before the world was ending. But if her friends really were alive, like she wanted to believe they were…
Then she would need to stay alive for them.
"And I'm yours," She said, "I'm your only hope, too"
His hands went slack and slid down her neck to her shoulders. He said nothing in reply, but the panicked look was finally gone from his eyes. Or maybe she had imagined it all along.
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Happy Halloween! Well belated halloween! I'm not entirely sure what this was? but i might make it a threeshot? I don't know! I'm just sinking deeper into the abyss that is Tomione and I dont know how to stop! I did not proof read this! because it is very late! so i hope there are not any weird typos or autocorrections!
Thank you for reading! I love you!
I'm going to bed.