Her new room was huge and connected to her own luxury bathroom. She had a double 4 poster bed, huge wardrobe, dressing table and a full length mirror. She was delighted to find a book shelf and a small table in one corner. Being head girl wasn't that bad after all, she could definitely get used to this. She unpacked her things, changed and dived under the covers. Hermione woke feeling full of energy and her cold had completely disappeared. She hadn't had such a good sleep since she had arrived. It was great to have her own bathroom as she didn't have to queue up anymore. She removed various bottles of shampoo and toiletries from her trunk and placed them on the bathroom shelves. She got changed in front of her full length mirror and cautiously stepped out of her room. She really didn't feel like running into Tom first thing in the morning. The whole common room was empty and before her luck changed she quickly slipped through the portrait door.

She sat at her usual spot at the Ravenclaw table. She was surprised to find people of her house greeted her or smiled at her warmly. Becoming head girl had definitely changed their view of her. Eating spoonfuls of porridge she glanced towards the Slytherin table searching for Tom. She found him sitting at his usual spot at the end of the table. He was deeply focused reading a large book. Since he wasn't eating she figured he must have eaten earlier. She sneaked a few more glances. Something was seriously wrong with this picture. He always sat alone and ever since she had arrived she hadn't seen him interact with other students unless it was absolutely necessary. Hermione wondered how someone so antisocial had managed to gather a large number of followers in the future, unless he did talk to Malfoy and his group in secret. She would have to spy on him to find out for certain. She noticed Malfoy and his crew were absent from the table.

Suddenly the great Oak doors opened and in walked Malfoy followed by his boys. Malfoy locked eyes with her and sneered. He was about to walk towards the Slytherin table when his eye caught her head girl badge and he froze with an expression of disbelief. He started to walk towards the Ravenclaw table instead and his group followed. Why was Malfoy coming up to her? Wasn't he satisfied with a burnt hand?

"Morning Mudblood" Malfoy said calmly. The Ravenclaws glared daggers at him and she felt like strangling him but restrained herself. She was head girl and it wouldn't be good if she attacked him in front of the whole school. "Being head girl won't make you immune. You have to pay back for what you did" Head girl or not she knew she would lose control and curse him if provoked her any further.

"Get lost Malfoy"

"I'm afraid it isn't that simple" She suddenly noticed Malfoy removing his wand. Hermione instantly pulled out her wand and stood up. In a second they were both pointing wands at each others necks. The room became silent and every eye in the hall turned to look at them. Tom Riddle looked up from his book and narrowed his eyes at the pair. To hell with being head girl. If he tried anything she would get him back ten times worse. Another four wands pointed at her. She recognised Crabbe, Goyle and Lestrange from last time. Another boy with long brown hair was also pointing his wand but she didn't recognise him. Five on one was hardly fair but what Tom had said came back to her, it didn't matter if it was fair or not as long as you won. No surprise there that all the evil people thought alike. "I'll deal with you later and mark my words it won't be pleasant" lowering his wand he walked away and his crew followed.

Thank Merlin he had some sense. Malfoy wasn't stupid enough to attack her in front of a whole school of witnesses but he obviously wanted people to know his group was in charge since he publicly threatened her. Hermione sat down and buried her head in her hands. As if she didn't have enough to deal with and now she would have to watch out for Malfoy trying to attack her. Susan entered the hall and sat next to her.

"Hey head girl" Susan said making her look up. "What's wrong?"

"Malfoy just threatened me"

"You should be careful Maya, he never gives up"

"Great just want I needed to hear"

"Cheer up we have divination next"

"Divination" she said burying her face in her hands once more. "I hate divination"

"Why, it's great up there with all the cushions. The dimly lit candles and the aromas of incense makes the atmosphere so romantic."

"How is not being able to see properly and dying of smoke inhalation romantic?"

"Oh Maya come on, you find a negative side to everything" Susan said chewing down a toast. "We're starting crystal ball gazing today and I am so excited"

"What a waste of an hour"

"You know we have to be in pairs and it won't be that much of a waste since you get to work with Tom" she said with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"What makes you think I'm going to be paired with him?"

"Isn't that obvious"

"Not really"

"You see everyone already has a partner they always work with and the number of students in a class has always been odd. Tom likes to work alone and since there was nobody available to pair him with the professors didn't mind but now that your here he was no choice but to work with you"

"I see, so what your saying is every time we have to do something in pairs I'm always going to be paired with Tom"

"Yeah and don't you think that's great." Susan said in a high pitched voice.

"Great" she said sarcastically gulping down a glass of orange juice.

The divination class room was awful as ever. Too hot and filled with aromas that made you drowsy. Incense smoke that made your eyes water and the light so dim that you had to strain your eyes to see. The divinations professor was ridiculous as ever but she seemed saner than Trelawney. Like Susan said the professor paired her with Tom. She could see he wasn't too happy about it but he didn't complain. She sat in a corner at a low round table opposite him. The crystal ball was at the centre and he stared at the ball, completely ignoring her presence. She gazed into the ball for sometime and then she got bored. She couldn't see anything except the white crystal surface. She glanced up at him. The shadowy background and the dim candle light made his face look different. He looked hauntingly beautiful and she continued to stare at him instead of the crystal ball. He suddenly looked into her eyes and she immediately looked away. Why had she been staring at him and did she just think he was beautiful. Merlin he was the dark lord and she couldn't think stuff like that about him. It must be the smoke she reasoned with herself. It was messing with her brain somehow and making her hallucinate or something.

"Granger the ball is at the centre of the table" She felt embarrassed that he had caught her staring at him and she couldn't help it as her cheeks reddened. For the first time in her life she was grateful the divination classroom had poor lighting.

"I got bored" she said looking down at her hands.

"Bored" he said crossing his arms "More like to lazy to even try" yeah like he could see anything in that stupid crystal ball.

"Stop acting like you could actually see something"

"I might have if you hadn't broken my concentration with your staring" She felt her cheeks redden again.

"I wasn't------"

"Don't distract me again" he cut in sharply and went back to staring at the ball.

"Your wasting time on stupid made up nonsense" he looked up annoyed.

"It's not nonsense Granger but a matter of being patient and allowing your senses to open up to other possibilities"

"If you say so"

"It takes patience, focus and concentration to open up the inner eye. Someone shallow minded as you can't obviously achieve that"

"I am not----" he held up at hand to silence her.

"There's no point arguing. Stop wasting my time" he went back to staring at the ball.

Tom seriously believed in something loony like divination. Well the dark lord wouldn't have been so paranoid about a prophecy if he never believed in divination so it did make sense. The inner eye she thought looking down at the ball once again. If such a thing existed it was a good thing Tom had never learned how to open the so called inner eye. She couldn't think of anything scarier than a dark lord that could see the future. She stared at the ball trying her best to keep focused but her eyes kept wandering to random locations in the room and in the end she gave up.

At lunchtime she was studying in the library when Susan and her girls decided to join her.

"Hey Maya" Susan said pulling her book away. "Spill"

"There's nothing to say, may I have my book back" she really wanted to finish of the chapter before lunch ended.

"May I have my book back" a brown haired girl repeated making a face at her.

"This one really knows how to play innocent" a girl said flicking her loose hair back.

"It's always the quiet ones isn't it?" another girl said.

"I really don't know what your talking about" she said hoping they would go away.

"Oh come on Maya, we all saw you drooling over Tom in divination" Susan said accusingly.

"Yeah the crystal ball sure wasn't floating in the air" the brown haired girl said dramatically waving her hands high up.

"I wasn't staring at him" she said avoiding their gaze and she couldn't help it as her cheeks turned pink.

"Someone's blushing" Susan said making everyone laugh. Hermione grabbed her book and ran out of the library. She had to escape from these gossip loving, boy crazy girls. "Maya this isn't over, you can't run forever" Susan called out and all the other girls laughed. She went to the great hall but found it too noisy to concentrate and it was way too cold to read outside. In the end she decided to go down to the heads common room.

"Its you again" the woman in the painting said looking at her sourly. "Password"

Hermione fished through her bag and pulled out her heads handbook. She skimmed through the passwords page and found the password.

"Medusa" she said and the door sprang open. Thank Merlin the common room was empty. Everyone was probably still out having lunch. She spotted a comfy looking green armchair close to the fireplace and sat down. Hermione resumed reading the book and everything was going fine until the sound of a door opening made her look up. It was Tom coming out of his room carrying a pile of books. He didn't notice her presence until he was halfway across the room. Tom froze and stared at her unmoving. Hermione looked up from her book to find him looking at her expressionlessly. What's his problem now she thought?

"What do you think your doing sitting in my chair" he said in a dangerous low voice.

"Your chair" she said snapping her book shut. It's not like he owned the place. This was a heads common room meant to be shared between all the heads. She had as much as right to sit on this chair as he did.

"Move now Granger" she wasn't going to let him have his way.

"I don't see your name written on it Riddle" he violently threw his books onto the nearest table.

"Get up" he shouted drawing his wand.

"No" she shouted pulling out her own wand. He wasn't the only one that could shout and get angry.

"Maybe I was too generous last time" he said stepping closer threateningly.

"Keep in mind Riddle last time I couldn't move and this time I can" she said raising her wand higher.

"Conjunctivitis" he yelled pointing at her eyes.

"Protego" she blocked his spell instantly and he momentarily looked surprised.

"Corpus inflammare, Incendio" She managed to block the first spell but the second spell was almost touching her. She held up her book as a shield and it burst into flames. She dropped the flaming book and blocked a few more dangerous spells. Verbal and nonverbal spells moved between them at a maddening speed. Lights of various colours illuminated the room making it look like a firework display was taking place and a lot of furniture lay broken from the impact of their missed spells.

Hermione's face was screwed up in intense concentration and Tom appeared angrier than ever. "Diffindo" he shouted throwing a spell at her. She didn't manage to block it and a huge cut appeared on the top of her hand. The stinging pain from the cut was nothing, she had suffered much worse at the battle. She carried on throwing spells at him and red blood stared to flow covering her whole hand. The pain just made her more determined to hurt him. He threw two non verbal spells at her. "Levicorpus" he roared while she was busy dealing with the non verbals. He lifted her of the chair and threw her hardly against a wall. Her nose crashed into the solid and broke, causing blood to heavily pour down her face. She ignored the throbbing pain and breathed through her mouth. Gripping her wand tightly she forced herself to jump up and face him. She blocked another spell and spat out blood.

"Sanguifervana" she yelled throwing a blood boiling curse at him. He looked absolutely furious and he ran towards her blocking all of her spells.

"Impedimenta" she shouted running backwards trying to get away from him. Her foot caught on a piece of broken furniture making her trip and fall. Tom stamped his foot down hard onto her hand and Hermione screamed letting go of her wand. He kicked her wand away and painfully dragged her up by the hair.

"I've warned you before not to disobey me" he shouted forcefully tugging on her hair and she let out another scream. Her wand was gone and she had lost once again. He probably wouldn't let her of easy this time. He might even decide to kill her and all her dreams of a Voldemort free world was going to be over. All because she couldn't control her herself and let him have his own way. Why did she have to argue with him and ruin everything? What difference would it have made if the dark lord had spent the last days of his life sitting in his favourite armchair and thinking he was calling the shots? She should have kept quiet and remained on his good side, then when the opportunity arose she should have killed him of. She should have drowned her pride and kept her mission in mind. The mission was to kill the dark lord, not argue and provoke the dark lord to kill you. Too late now though, she should have realised earlier. "Your going to regret disobeying me" he shouted pushing the tip of his wand into her neck.

"Drop dead" she shouted spitting at him. If he was going to kill her she wasn't going to go out begging for mercy. He roughly tugged her hair making her cry out once more. She didn't have a wand but she didn't care anymore. She was going to die fighting with dignity and raising her left hand she punched him hard in the chest. She expected him to shout the killing curse or at least Crucio her. But to her surprise he immediately withdrew his wand and stumbled back with a blank expression. He tightly pulled his robes shut and she could have sworn she saw blood seeping through the material of his white cotton shirt. She was sure the blood hadn't been there before she had punched him and the hand she had used wasn't blood stained either. This wasn't making any sense. Where had the blood come from?

She couldn't have caused him to bleed by just punching him. She was a weak thin girl and she knew her punches couldn't have that much force.

"Get out" he screamed setting a cushion on fire. "Get out" Hermione didn't need to be told again, she was grateful to escape alive. Hastily grabbing her wand from the floor she threw the portrait door open and ran as fast as her legs could carry her.

Yes, I know I said I wouldn't update until mid may but I couldn't help it. I have an exam tomorrow and I can't believe I'm writing fanfiction instead of revising, I think I've lost my mind. I mean it this time, I won't be updating until mid may. Anyway, this chapter will leave you with something to think about. Please review.