She sleeps until evening, ignoring the occasional creak of the door. He must want her to know he's looking in on her, or else he'd just install cameras.
The thought makes her sit up.
She switches on a lamp and creeps out of the bed. The next half hour, she turns over the tissue box, the basket with tylenol and little soaps, the tasteful sculpture on the coffee table. Looking for nasty little lenses or wires.
Anger pulses in her temples.
She's been trapped. Tricked.
Sick.
That's what he is.
It's an illness.
And now he's caught her in his pathological pit of insanity, and fuck. It's like, freaking gorgeous.
No cameras on the mid century velvet loveseat, or the creamy leather reading chairs, or the teak mantle.
She runs her fingers over the spines of the books lining the shelves that fill the far wall of the room.
He personally chose the books for her, that much is clear. On the top shelf is a row of weathered volumes, organized from Ovid to Salinger. Eclectic, deep cuts from the literary canon.
She pulls down a copy of Lewis' Till We Have Facesand finds underlined passages, notes in the margins.
She hums.
He's tucked his own personal collection in here.
Hermione turns toward the lamp light, pulling the page closer to her face. His script is neat, but highly serifed, betraying his enchantment with his own words. Typical.
"The soul reckons with its losses by making an account for itself of how it has loved."
That coal in her chest glows again.
He's not hiding from her.
The row of books below eye level are new, fresh-smelling and spines unbent.
It's a small library of mathematical theory, history and analysis. As the titles progress by subject, the collection veers toward computer science, which is a growing area of interest to her but a career she hadn't considered. Mostly because she's just been trying to survive.
Hermione makes a scoffing noise.
Not the subtlest of hints, Riddle.
She instantly decides she hates computer science.
But a title featuring the latest applications of computational algorithms catches her eye and she sneaks it off the shelf.
My, she's completely forgotten about her search for cameras.
The walk-in closet is free of bugs, but equally burdened with Tom's designs on her.
He's supplied her primarily with light, breathy dresses. The pervert.
Soft pinks, florals, pastels.
Silk and lace negligees.
Form-fitting silhouettes from French labels. Where the hell is she actually going to wear a pearl blue suit?
She can't even believe most of it is actually maternity wear, it's such a far cry from the blousey sacks she couldn't bring herself to buy at the mall.
It's like he doesn't know her style at all.
On second thought, he knows—but he wants to see her in this.
Ass.
A tiny furl of black lace peeps from the top drawer. She brushes her fingertips across it and then recoils.
There is no chance in hell Tom Cleanfreak Riddle didn't plant that there as some kind of kinky provocation.
She doesn't want to look in the drawer.
It will disgust her, certainly.
His filthy, encroaching thoughts manifested in expensive purchases…
Ewwww, ew, ew.
Hermione holds her breath and yanks the drawer open.
Oh.
That fucker.
Her pulse skitters with excitement.
Here, in this drawer, Tom has dispensed with the angelic fineries and indulged her darker curiosities.
Wispy, frothy, delicate, strappy, plunging, boosting, coquettish, daring, nasty… it's all here.
And it's all black.
She smirks; that dirty snake.
As if.
The drawer below has a less theatrical assortment of underthings with surprising sturdiness and quality. Because Tom Riddle is as much a pragmatist as he is a showman.
There is no way she would ever buy any of this stuff. Mostly because each item probably exceeds what she makes in a day at Taco Bell. But the message of his eerie benevolence couldn't be more apparent.
He wants her to swan about his house, dressed like his little doll.
Hermione laughs darkly into the closet.
She fingers a satiny, dusty-rose slip with eyelash lace, a plan forming in her mind.
Tom thinks he controls all the moving pieces. Like he's asserting his will onto her, but he's really just tipping his hand.
The big moron.
Chapter Text
Tom likes doing his homework from the long, Swedish dining table at the very heart of the house. The calculus textbook lolls open next to his graph paper.
Scotch on the rocks clinks delicately in his left hand.
It's just a nightcap, to slow the thudding of his exuberant heart.
Outside, the tide is high. Water crashes and furls against the bulkhead, black and glinting with starlight.
They're here.
His pulse quickens.
And what could be more natural? His girl under his roof, all tucked in with their dreaming little angel curled up under her heart.
He wants to check in on them again.
It's like a drug, the delicious twist in his chest when he lays eyes on her sleeping form. Her hair fanned out on the pillow behind, legs twisted in the sheets, (she's selfish with the bedding, he remembers,) her arm cradling her swollen belly.
Damn. Just the thought makes his heart sigh like the whoosh of the shore out his window.
She'll understand why he had to act on her behalf. Even her indignation can't rid her of logic.
Yes, better that it's out in the open and over with.
The punches of his calculator and jot of his pen mingle with the distant rush of the high tide. He's not listening, really, lost in the slipstream of numbers.
Still, the hush of her footsteps immediately arrests his attention.
Mother of God.
His heart slams itself against his ribcage.
She floats down the staircase, moonlight radiating from her pale skin like a lambent star.
The Saint Laurent in burnished mauve hangs on thin straps from her shoulders, falling like water to her knees. Worth every fucking penny. Its crepe texture clings around her lush curves.
He can't breathe.
Her hair falls loose down her shoulders, face washed and dewy in the soft light. Barefoot. One hand traces the bannister, her other supporting the perfect curve of his baby.
She pads across the living room toward him, like a doe through an open glen. Her soft body vulnerable, the predator watching.
His chair creaks as he leans back.
"Hermione, the doctor said you'd ought to stay in your bed," he says, tapping the end of his pen on the graph paper. He'll play the hall monitor just to get a handle on his wild pulse.
Her slow inhale expands her round, apple breasts against the thin fabric.
God.
His cock muscles against the front of his jeans.
"Did you get Harry and Ron out?" she asks.
He tips his head.
Merciful.
"I did."
"And your lawyer?"
"Got the DEA to drop all charges," he replies.
Her shoulders relax.
"In that case, I'm looking for something to eat," she says. Her expression wavers between uncertain request and confident demand.
She doesn't even know how much he would do for her.
Sweetling.
He pushes back from his work and stands with the gentle slide of his chair against the oak flooring. His tongue feels thick, like he's dreaming.
"I'll get it for you, what would you like?"
She drifts around to the other side of the table and he watches each beguiling step.
Her movements are fluid, like the bend of sateen in dim light.
The hem of her garment splashes against her thighs. Every succulent shape veiled by her negligee is inches from him now.
Yes, the waves rush.
She's yours, she's yours, whoosh, whoosh.
"I'd like something in particular," she says.
Her voice a velvet alto.
"Sit down."
She pushes Tom's shoulders and he sinks back into the chair, too overcome to object.
Hermione kneels on the hardwood and he chokes,
"...The devil? No. Absolutely not."
But the damp-eyed longing of her upward glance silences him. How can she, with one doleful bat of her lashes, melt him like this?
He leans back, his twitching lap surrendered.
Why not let her thank him, after all? He takes a smug sip from the liquor perched in his hand.
Hermione traces her fingertips over the solid package inside his Italian slacks with a pleased hum.
It's a tender unwrapping: she draws out Tom's cock with a worshipful stroke up its red, throbbing length. She kisses the tip with innocent softness.
He hisses.
"That's it, angel."
His lungs wring with surprise when her slow movements burst with a quick, thick-tongued lap.
"Eager gi—Hrr!"
She clutches him at the root, painting a long, luxurious stripe from the base to his slit. Swirling licks trace the spongy ridge of his cockhead to its eager underspine, stirring his blood in a head-spinning rush.
The tightness in his throat cracks with a visceral sound.
"Slowly, my sweet…" he says, easing back from a brink. His scotch clinks lightly.
He wants this to last.
Clearly, she wants to kill him.
When she closes glossy lips like a hot trap around his tip, he makes a husky sound, steadying himself with a hand on the table. His raspy breaths rush like a shorebreak off the room's cool surfaces.
"Good?" she whispers kitten-soft, her breath puffing warm against his pulsing, livewire flesh.
"Christ, my girl," he pants.
The house feels small around them; earthen dark like the secret place where his baby sleeps inside her. He wants to pour more of himself into her. More.
She takes him deep in her throat, swallowing sumptuously. Her hot channel closes around him and he throbs in her mouth: veins thick with lust.
He's no longer steering this ship, but he can hardly care.
Tom grunts and huffs like a bull, tangling his fingers in her hair and begging his heart not to split in half. As she swirls the flat of her tongue up and down, a thought burns him like a burst of white heat.
She chose him once.
Hermione looks up at him: her eyes saturated with feeling, tears dripping down her cheeks and chin, her throat wrapped around his shaft like a tailor-made sheath.
She chose him. She did.
Tom is at the very edge of himself now and she keeps him there.
Oh God.
She traces the seam of his head and taunts his little slit with the tip of her tongue.
His cock bucks in her throat. Heat swims up the neck of his sweater and he flushes, burning: livid for her. He claws his hair.
Hermione chuffs around Tom, drooling, her dear little throat stretching for him. She plunges deeper, burying her nose in his coarse nest of hair.
Her breaths come short with the rapid pound pound pound of his heart.
She swallows again around him, crushing his heart.
"Hrrrng! Jesus— Hermione!"
He's ruined.
Blinding pleasure ripples from his center as all the silent, built-up desire spurts with a torrent, flooding her throat.
He grinds out a huffing, drowning cry.
The surges wring him out, jerking his hips; he hangs his head back in the chair.
Hermione drinks him down, her trails of jeweled spit sliding down his thighs. Her gentle hands slide up his waist as she pops wetly off his cock.
She looks up at him, flushed and tangle-haired.
What can he say to her?
"Goodnight," Hermione says, the slant of her lips like a victor, like a conqueror.
And with that, she wipes her smirk with the back of her hand and retreats up the stairs.
Tom droops limply in the chair, his unbuttoned slacks as open as his flayed, pounding heart.
There can only be one Lord of this house, and he's not certain it's him.
Well played, Granger.