take the bit between your teeth;
one
He has removed his robes; she wonders if that is deliberate.
The neat fold of his sleeves stopping just below his elbows. Hair windswept from his perch on the freezing bricks of the Owlery, waiting as she sends an owl off with a letter to her parents. Exasperation in his eyes as he follows her into their little corner of the library. His robes folded with mathematical precision on the back of his chair, his hand on the back of hers, her eyes on the casual disarray of one Tom Riddle. Oh, but the knot of his tie is secure as always, protecting the soft dip between his collarbones, and Hermione remembers placing a finger right there, once. Remembers feeling him swallow.
Her eyes flick up to his.
What a strange boy, she thinks.
What a miserable one.
"And you expect me to go quietly, to just … submit to this arrangement of yours," he muses – she isn't so stupid to allow the rueful tone in his voice to be anything but put on – he muses, he says submit like it's a bad word, he does not look at her, and she wonders again, Is this deliberate?
She's not sure what she hates more: when he looks at her, or when he doesn't.
"God, you can't help being so archaic all the time, can you?" She manages to find her voice. Forces a wan smile. He studies her lips with detached interest that she might describe as clinical, if she didn't know him. But she knows him. She wonders what he's thinking. He is still not looking at her. "It's called breaking up, Tom."
She wonders if she should go back to calling him Riddle now.
"My apologies," he says, contrite. He straightens up and does not elaborate.
When it's clear that he's left his sentence trailing, unfinished, for her to fill with a lie of her own, she purses her lips to keep herself from smiling. A real smile. She takes a deep breath. Lets it out slowly.
For a boy who wants so much, he's taking so little.
She feels his hand leave the back of her chair. Counts the seconds it takes for him to gather his things. Notes the scratch of her skirt against her thighs. It's winter, her skirts are thicker, she is ankle-deep in Tom Riddle and will not allow him another inch.
It is a game. She will win this. She will have this.
"I suppose that's it, then," he says. Finally.
"I suppose that's it," she agrees.
.
.
.
It starts over breakfast one day, almost a month into their first term.
To her left, Ron is shovelling eggs into his mouth faster than she's buttering her toast. Quidditch practice had found the team trudging up to the common room very late and very muddy, and they'd all continued discussing tactics late into the night. They'd be practicing again later in the evening. The first game against Slytherin was coming up after all.
To her right, Harry is reading an interview on some Italian seeker, idly scratching his jaw. She wonders what sort of moves he expects Malfoy to use against him; her eyes flick to where the pointy blonde face peeks out through a sea of emerald and black. He's sitting next to—
"Merlin, spare me."
Not Ron's best, but not Ron's harshest, either, so Hermione takes that as a win.
"We have an arrangement," she says almost automatically, and then cringes. She drags her eyes back to her hands. She'd been pouring tea, she is very focused on pouring tea.
"And does this arrangement involve you and Riddle taking turns sending murderous looks at the other when you think no one's looking?" Ron asks thickly through a mouthful of eggs.
"How uncharacteristically astute of you, Ronald." Hermione doesn't look up from the complicated task of dropping sugar cubes into her cup. "And it's not a murderous look. It's just his face."
"What does it say about yours then?" Ron smirks.
"I don't have a—" she sighs, and switches tactics. "It's Potions. We have an arrangement. He's good at a ladle and I'm good at – a knife."
It's not a lie, but.
Riddle's cross-chopping was slightly better than hers.
"You make it sound like Home Economics."
Hermione straightens her shoulders, a bit of light debate over breakfast always cheers her up. "Well, if you think about it – questionable, uh, ingredients aside, both practices involve following a standard sequence of steps. If you follow all the instructions precisely, your end product is always the same."
"Depends on the instructions though, doesn't it Mione?" Harry asks with a shade of a grin. "If the instructions are shit, it doesn't matter how good you are at following them."
Her eyes narrow. "Just because you happened upon a used book—"
Harry is grinning openly now. "A used book that used to belong to someone better at Potions than both you and Riddle combined?"
"The puzzle just keeps solving itself, innit." Ron finishes his eggs. "Pass the muffins?"
Hermione does so, but not without a withering glare. "My marks are slipping," she finally mutters.
"You can just ask, Hermione," Harry goads. He's enjoying this, her abject refusal to … Pander. Or cheat, or swindle, or whatever word she'd used during their last, lengthy argument. "It goes something like Harry may I please borrow the book you've been quote-unquote cheating off, so I, too, could have Slughorn sniffing my arse?"
"You know," Hermione's eyes gaze upwards, sounding like she's about to remark upon the weather, "it's been a while since I've punched someone."
"A brilliant feat which would've been made more brilliant if you didn't keep bringing it up whenever I win an argument."
"Hear, hear," Ron says.
Completely ignoring the murderous glint in Hermione's eyes, Harry just prods further. "Come on, Hermione. I know how much you love annotations. And the Prince's textbook is just filled with personal annotations."
He waggles his eyebrows.
Somehow, her eyes go to find Riddle's, who is not looking at her, but then almost as if he senses her gaze—
Alright, no, it did not start here.
.
.
.
It starts at Slughorn's first party at the end of the first month of their first term and it's because Harry, miraculously, comes out first in Potions.
Riddle calls it a sudden … predilection, and he only has a tiny curl at the set of his mouth.
Hermione calls it cheating.
She thinks Riddle would be more inclined to agree if he didn't have his perfectly-polished Prefect badge stuck so far up his arse.
"I mean, it doesn't make any sense," she hisses into her goblet of Something. It smells of pineapples and tastes like a shade of firewhiskey, and Slughorn had only winked when she'd asked what it was. The only other option was pumpkin juice, and – no thank you. "He asked me what sopophorous meant—how can you not be familiar to the properties of the potion you're brewing?"
"We're talking, Granger," Riddle observes, Goblet of Something in his hand.
"And then he asked me what a sopophorous bean was," she continues.
"Though it's not so much 'we' as it is 'you', is it? Because that would require you letting me have a turn to speak."
"He asked me this whilst his stupid textbook was right there—"
"You walked right up to me and just started talking without so much as a preamble."
"Then he had the nerve to point out the technique I was using to extract its juice was wrong."
"One might even go so far as to say we were gossiping," Riddle muses.
"And can we revisit the fact that not only did he not know the properties of a sopophorous bean— which means bringer of deep sleep, by the way – he would know if he'd just read One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, but he does not care to know. He does not. Care. To know."
"Almost as if we were friends," he hums.
"So I gave it to him straight—"
"I mean, I could be over there, chatting up Carroway. He's distant cousins with Lukas Karuzos, who's looking for an apprentice, you know. Something to consider if I were to take up Arithmancy for N.E.W.T.s."
"What do you mean, take up Arithmancy?" Hermione asks as if she hadn't been talking about a completely different thing a just breath ago. "You say it like you've the luxury of choice."
"I wouldn't call it a luxury," he rebuffs lightly.
"You're hedging." She takes a sip of her Something, grimaces, and lowers the goblet. "What's with the humble bragging?"
"If I said the fruits of my labour you'd still accuse me of –" his lips curl, like he's seriously considering parroting her, but then abruptly changes his mind with a sip of his own Something, "false modesty."
Hermione stares at him. "Sometimes I think you're from another planet. Where people drink tea with their pinkies up and blush at the sight of a woman's ankles."
There was no discernible change to that blank genial prep boy slate of a face, but Hermione suddenly thinks Riddle could be smirking. "A planet with manners, you mean? I can see how that might seem a foreign concept to you."
Hermione snorts, no doubt proving his point, and turns her eyes back to Harry. "As I was coming to my main point—"
"I don't know what possessed me to think you may not have had one," Riddle says dryly.
"—Harry swears fealty to that barely-legible book of his, yet he still asked me, which just proves—"
Riddle sighs.
"You're only taking up Arithmancy because it's the toughest subject."
Hermione pauses.
She looks at Riddle, who looks as if he's holding back from a much-needed eyeroll. She allows this intentional change of subject only because of the insinuation, and:
"So I like a challenge, Riddle," Hermione says loftily. "Don't you?"
"I do, but I find the need to prove oneself rather…" he pauses, "unmannered."
She blinks.
Unmannered.
Really.
He might as well have said ill-bred, he might as well have said beneath him, but Hermione is more amazed about the fact that—
"Did you just purse your lips?"
Riddle narrows his eyes. "Very Gryffindor of you to overlook truth for performance—"
"And very Slytherin of you to expect everyone to fall all over themselves over subtext," Hermione interrupts waspishly. "And might I add, it's very privileged of you to make assumptions about me, about my motivations."
"Privileged?" Riddle spits, as though the word had burnt his tongue.
Hermione lifts her chin. "And as if you haven't spent the last six years trying to one up me."
"If you recall, there was no try: the frequency in which you come second to me is high."
"As obnoxious as that was, it all serves to explain why you're not as irritated about Harry swiping that Felix Felicis right under your nose. Even though that flummoxed look you had on your face was hilarious—"
"A minor setback," Riddle says through gritted teeth. "I am unconcerned because it's only the first week."
It's kind of cool how his shoulders are still so straight and proper despite the look on his face. But that's besides the point. The point is, Riddle is irritated. It's a good look on him, really brings out the personality she'd always suspected he possessed. And he's still going.
"And I, unlike you, don't need to prove myself to anyone, because I am better. It's not a brag, it is fact. I do not seethe over Potters cheating-" he ignores Hermione's eyes lighting up "-because I believe in differential survival, I believe in—"
"Luck," Hermione finishes for him, dumbfounded. "You're saying Harry got lucky?"
"I've been trying to avoid that word." Riddle side-eyes her. "Lest you get tetchy again about that first class."
He waits pointedly as Hermione struggles to blink red away.
Finally, she takes a deep breath.
She looks at Riddle.
He is still waiting.
"I dislike change," she admits.
"No, you like that Potter and Weasley depend on you for their studies." He tilts his head. "Don't give me that look. Malfoy would've come third had Potter not found The Book-" Hermione appreciated him capitalising, "-and you've never been rankled about that, not as long as I've known you."
Hermione sighs. "I don't have the predilection for humility as you do, it would seem."
Riddle seems to deliberate this. He looks down at his Something, before giving up altogether and just vanishes his goblet with a silent twirl of his wand, like conjuring up a tiny tornado.
"You could always cheat. Borrow Potter's book. Better yet, partner up with him."
"I refuse to aid and abet!"
Riddle almost rolls his eyes. "Malfoy, then. Merlin knows he could use the leg up now that Potter's gone and reshuffled the balance in our class."
"Where would Ron go?"
"What sort of question is that?"
"I mean, how would he—
"Survive without you?" Riddle cuts in.
And again, Hermione stares. Differential survival, he'd said. She'd been complaining about Harry getting eight marks over her, and he'd postulated theories of evolution like it was mutually inclusive to classroom politics. He really is a swot.
"Another difference between you and I is that I know my limits," Riddle says tersely. "Let's revisit this argument when you've learned yours."
Another silence follows.
Riddle doesn't leave. No, that'd be… unmannered.
Her lips twitch. She feels some measure of guilt. She also feels kind of drunk.
"I don't know how it happened, but the conversation ran away from us," she mutters. She's not apologising. "I'm going to go save Harry from Slughorn."
Riddle nods, and she passes him.
And then she stops.
"You never offered, when you were talking about partners," she says.
Riddle stares at her. He looks like he doesn't really know what to make of this conversation, of her. "We were just talking about limits, Granger. Enjoy the rest of your evening."
He steps away.
What a drama queen.
She tries not to feel stung.
.
.
.
Or maybe it wasn't either of those times.
Maybe it started with the awful realisation that she may be a bit of an arsehole.
Slughorn's ice-breaker party wasn't the first conversation they've ever had, per se. Riddle and her talked. They talked in class, things like "Riddle's eloquence only serves to distract from the fact that he'd only identified four out of the five properties you'd asked for—" or "As perfunctory as Granger's answer was, I do believe her argument would've benefit with—" and her ever favourite, "I apologise, I did not mean to speak over Riddle—" or his oft-used, "It appears Granger would like to answer, seeing as her elbow is in my face yet again".
And they talked outside of classes too, things like "Granger" when their patrol routes converged every once in a while, and her returning greet, "Riddle."
Harry would get a bit … exuberant, shall she say, in DADA, and her Protego wouldn't be strong enough to hold against the magnitude of his spell, and she'd be knocked back, and Riddle, who always seemed to occupy the spaces Malfoy occupied out of some dumb Slytherin organisation chart she assumes – and of course Malfoy would always be occupying the spaces Harry occupied, because of course – Riddle would start to reach out a hand with a questioning, "Granger?" and she'd give a clipped, "Thanks, but I'm fine, Riddle"—
She'd grown so used to his orbiting that she hadn't even questioned how they'd both ended up eyeing a rather garish portrait Slughorn had of him and Celestina Warbeck framed up large and proud on his wall.
"Bit much," he'd offered into the space between them, and she'd immediately volleyed with a, "Oh wouldn't you like to know what's a bit much?" which had lead to … that whole spiel.
Huh.
She supposes maybe they had never really talked before.
"Good evening, Riddle," she greets awkwardly when she bumps into him in the library the next Monday after dinner.
"Good evening, Granger."
He looks up at her briefly, expectantly.
She's in his corner. Everyone knows this is his corner. More specifically, she knows this is his corner. Sometime in the middle of second year they'd come to an unspoken agreement about this. The same way he sometimes lets her take certain questions and the way she never sits next to him in Astronomy lest her elbow accidentally vaults him off the tower.
"It occurs to me," she says, dropping into the seat opposite him, "that we've never properly spoken before."
"Why is that, I wonder?" Riddle scratched his jaw with his quill, eyes scanning his Ancient Runes translation.
Hermione studies her palms, then studies him. "I honestly thought we were on speaking terms."
"Communication is an exchange of information, Granger. I suppose that counts for a conversation. A second-hand conversation, if you will." He finally puts down his essay. "But at least you came with a greeting."
"You're the only person I know who smiles and scowls the same way," she comments.
"And you're the only person I know who can tell them apart," he says.
"Spend enough time being someone's academic rival and you learn their tells I guess."
Apparently satisfied with his essay, Riddle rolls it up and tucks it into his bag after waving some kind of anti-crease charm over it. Then he turns his full attention on her. "Are we about to have a debate, Granger?"
"Not as far as I know," she replies.
"Then to what do I owe this pleasure?"
"Sarcasm doesn't really sound like sarcasm coming from you, either," she notes. "You should teach that to Malfoy. He's so forceful with it, it's like he'd cry of disappointment if you didn't realise he was being mean to you."
"He doesn't have your aptitude for learning," Riddle says easily.
"Thank you," she says after a pause.
There is another awkward beat where Riddle assumes she's going to say something else, and then she doesn't, so she slowly reaches into her bag for a book, only looking at him when she's placed it on the desk in front of her.
"It's a very good corner," she admits with a tentative smile. She can give him this one. "And I thought I'd lucked out with the Muggle Tax Laws section."
"I don't know anyone," Riddle says, raking his eyes over her face, "who could possibly be interested in the Defence of Vulnerable Magical Creatures and Beings corner."
Hermione's eyebrows rose.
Riddle adds, "Not personally, anyway."
He's not smiling, but she's pretty sure he was making a joke.
Her smile widens.
Riddle pulls out his own book, and they both read until curfew, pausing only to share an interesting anecdote every so often.
.
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hello everyone! i've never written for this fandom before, so this is a fun new adventure for me. i have fallen helplessly into a tomione spiral, and as sexy as time travel fics are i feel like i'd probably just do a shoddy job of it. so have this silly little fic instead.
i'm a bit nervous about adding my writing to an already immensely-talented pool of fic out there. please let me know what you think!