London, England
April 1941
As soon as Hermione hears a knock at her window, she jumps up and opens it to see Tom hanging on the eave down below, panting from the climb up. He does this all the time, sneaking into her room after a late night of working at a dodgy pawnshop called Borgin & Burkes. He's got a backpack slung over his shoulder. She throws down a hand and he grabs it, scrambling into her bedroom.
He catches his breath for a moment once he's inside, dropping his backpack on the floor and wiping the sweat gleaming on his pale forehead. He grins at her. "I quit."
"Why?" Hermione asks, bewildered.
Tom looks smug. "There are two answers to that question. 1) I made all the money that I wanted to make and have decided to move on with new business ventures. 2) There is a very expensive heirloom that has been stolen and is now in my backpack, and I plan to turn it and Mr. Borgin into the police for a prize. Unless the police don't offer prizes, in which case I will sell it to the highest bidder. Does that make it stolen twice?" He peers out her open window, deliberating. She can hear him taking a deep breath of the wet night air. It's April and everyday has been gloomy rain and fog in London. It has been months since Tom told her about the last horrible thing he did. The Myrtle girl.
"Come here," he says, startling her out of thought. She stands next to him and he automatically winds his fingers through hers, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. It would be soothing had he not just said everything he did.
"What did you take, Tom?" she asks, staring at the discarded backpack on the floor.
"What did I rescue for the police, you mean?"
She rolls her eyes. "Or steal for the black market," she corrects him. He snorts and grins.
"It's a diadem. A crown-"
"I know what a diadem is," Hermione says waspishly. He snickers.
"Of course you do," Tom says, gazing at her fondly. She likes to think the look in his eyes is fond, not like a shark eyeing a guppy fish. But she can never be sure with Tom Riddle.
"Are you ever going to draw again?" she asks.
Tom smirks. "Can Peter Pan fly?"
"Only with the help of Tinker Bell and fairy dust," Hermione says gravely. He scoffs and pulls on her hand lightly, making her stumble into him. She pauses there in the circle of his arms, breathing in the sharp scent of rain and smoke, the salt-tang of sweat under his cologne. She kisses his cheek carefully, dimpling under her lips into an arrogant grin.
"I need you to do something for me," Tom says suddenly. She pulls back to see his face, but he holds her too tightly in his arms for her to move. His voice sounds deliberately nonchalant in her ear. "I need you to make sure Mrs. Cole doesn't leave her office tonight."
"Why?" she asks suspiciously.
"Just do it for me." He reaches into his pocket, pushing past half-shaved pencils and extracting a cigarette to light. He puts it between her lips and Hermione snarls, turning her head away with a gag of disgust. She hates nicotine. Tom is laughing at her quietly.
"You're so innocent," he says, amused, but not as if it is an insult. As if her innocence is a decadence, like gold-flaked chocolate or caviar. "Will you keep Mrs. Cole in her office?"
She wipes the taste of burning from her lips, still annoyed by his little stunt. "If you tell me what I'm doing it for."
Tom looks at her sideways, his gaze dark and mysterious. He looks dashing even in common clothes, like a black knight dressed as a peasant. Without looking to see where it goes, he flicks his cigarette out the window. A second later, they hear the shouting of a furious passerby down below.
Hermione averts her eyes from his - it is hard to hold his intense gaze for long, without her heart starting to race - and she feigns studying the stars in the sky. "You know you can't see the stars from here," Tom says in her ear, distracting her immediately. "Too much smog. It blocks out the sky."
She looks at him, irritated. "What are you going to sell this diadem anyway?" she says.
Tom shrugs. "Around. One of my old chaps from Hogwarts has a father that collects little trinkets."
Hermione stares at his face, searching for any cues that he is upset, but his handsome features are smooth of worry. He never brings up Hogwarts, not without spite or plots of vengeance anyway. What is he up to?
While she is speculating, Tom shifts around and suddenly plunges his cold hand under the back of her shirt, making her jump into the air with a screech. "Sssh, you'll wake the others," he whispers, sitting on the window ledge. He wraps his long legs around hers so she is trapped between them. "You're so warm." He looks pleased.
"And you are freezing," she snaps, trying to wriggle away. His icy fingers spread over the dimples above her hips and she gasps in shock.
"Why are you trying to get away from me?" he whispers in her ear, breath hot. It is the only warm part of him. "I can't get enough of you."
Hermione blushes and he takes the opportunity of her silence to nip the skin under her ear, working his way around her neck and chin until he reaches her mouth. She parts her lips and he sweeps his tongue inside, twisting them around so that it is her pushed up against the window sill now. She squeals in terror, breaking away from him momentarily to look at the dizzying drop to the street behind her. She sinks her nails into his shoulders, making him flinch. "Don't drop me," she says panickedly.
"Never." She is distracted when Tom firmly rubs his fingers in a place he shouldn't under her skirt. Her breaths are turning uneven.
He stops sucking on her lip long enough to speak. "You're very warm here. You feeling okay, baby?"
"Oh shut up." She smacks his face with a growl and he looks angry with her for hitting him, but it is all a part of their game. Hermione is beginning to know the game well. She bites her lip to stifle a moan when he dips a cool finger inside her, she digs her nails into his shoulders so hard it is a miracle that he doesn't make a sound of protest. He laughs softly and pulls away. Leaving her unfinished. Again.
He always does that.
She curses at him, making him laugh harder.
"Why?" she demands.
"Are you going to let me have you?" he asks in response, arching a dark brow at her. "Completely?"
She turns beet-red. "I... I... I want to wait, Tom..."
"That's fine," he says, stroking her cheek with his still-wet finger. He traces it over his lips. He wants her to suck it, but she won't. She turns her face away in annoyance. "Now you know what it is like for me to want you and always be left only half-fulfilled, little Hermione," he breathes against her cheek. "For now."
She doesn't respond.
"Make sure that Mrs. Cole doesn't leave her office," Tom says, straightening. His eyes are no longer wicked but serious. Hermione scowls at him.
"Why should I do anything for you after that trick?" she says crossly. He can be such a jerk.
"Because I have to leave," he says, shocking her into silence. "I can't stay here with this bloody diadem in my possession. Burkes is going to come looking for me first thing tomorrow morning, I have to be far away from here."
"Well... Take me with you. Or tell the police!"
Tom shakes his head. "I can't take you. Do you want to be a criminal? A runaway?" He steps closer and she can see the tiny smirk that's curling his perfect mouth, that's hidden behind his cherubic façade. She doesn't react when he pecks her lips. "Kiss me back," he says.
"No." She shoves him when he chuckles. "This is serious, Tom. I don't want you to leave-" She breaks off. Leave me, she was going to say. I don't want you to leave me.
He sobers. "Come on. You know you want to." He's still going on about the kissing thing. He weaves his fingers through her hair and kisses her hard mouth, but she doesn't move.
Hermione turns her head away. "Stop it, Tom."
He rolls his eyes. "Whatever. It's not like there aren't other willing parties," he says, and this last comment is a blow that hits her hard. She stares at Tom, anger replaced by hurt.
"You…you wouldn't." She tries to smile, like it's a joke, but fails miserably. She searches his cold eyes. "You wouldn't cheat on me."
Tom's brows rise. "Cheat on you?" he repeats. "How can I cheat on you? We're not together."
Hermione stops breathing. The ring on her finger burns hot.
"I…" She clears her throat, because her voice is cracking. She looks away quickly. Tom is just saying this because he wants to hurt her, to get back at her. She's seen him do it to other people. She knows him. She knows how he is.
But it still stings.
"I'm finished," she says.
Tom snorts. "Finished? With what? I didn't say that anything is finished here."
Hermione tries to get away from him, but his hand is suddenly around her neck, holding her in place. She stares at him with wide eyes when he starts squeezing. "Don't walk away from me," he hisses.
She glares at him through angry tears. "Let me go." She has to choke the words out through the pressure on her windpipe.
"No." His mouth crashes on her. The hand around her neck stays in place, holding her just tightly enough to make it uncomfortable, and she can feel her heart pounding in every clacking of teeth and tongue. She doesn't like this at all. It doesn't feel like love or desire, it feels like fear. She feels like an animal. His free hand fits her hips against his and she wonders how he can't taste the terror on her lips.
"Let me go, Tom!" she shouts when he finally pulls away to breathe. He looks confused by her agitation, as if waking up from a very strange dream.
"What are you-"
"Get off me," she gasps in hysteria, over and over. "Get off me, get off me!"
Tom lets her go abruptly. He looks as stunned as she feels. Then his face turns cold suddenly. She swallows back tears and he stares at her with those onyx-black eyes, his jaw taut with words unsaid. At that moment, Hermione truly believes he doesn't care for her at all. That he's a monster.
Then he frowns.
"I don't want to hurt you, Hermione," he says. "But I don't know how not to. I can't stay here anymore."
Someone sobs. It is her, she realizes belatedly, covering her trembling mouth with her fingers. She looks down at the floor so he can't see her face, and two fat teardrops plop onto her slippers. She shifts her gaze to the dull wooden floorboards. There is nothing in them to distract her from the pain opening inside her like the jaws of a beast.
Should she be relieved because he's going and he is horrible? Yes, she should. But she's isn't because he is not horrible all the time. Tom is not always a monster.
She feels so lost and empty. The beginning of the end. She knows this is it.
Tom touches her wet cheek. Hermione stays still. "You know I love you."
She says nothing.
"Do you love me?" He pulls her into him, wrapping his long arms around her. Kissing her on the head.
The hairs on Hermione's body are standing on end. She nods slowly and feels hollow inside. What does it matter if she loves him when he is going to leave her? That doesn't feel like love at all. It feels like nothing. Emptiness.
He kisses her on the ear. "Now when I kiss you, you'll kiss me back."
London, England
1947
Now when I kiss you, you'll kiss me back.
Hermione launches out of sleep, gasping. Her heart pounds away like a miner's hammer. Sweat drenches her back.
You'll kiss me back…
It's the last thing he ever said to her.
She touches her lips. They remember his. Tom's lips on hers, though, are nothing but a ghost she wants to forget. Nothing but illusions in pretty, silver-tongued wrapping.
Because that night at the orphanage, while she'd sat around watching Mrs. Cole's office door and made sure their matron did not come out, Tom had snuck out with his backpack. And he hadn't come back.
Ever.
Hermione remembers spending the next day worrying herself sick about Tom, wondering if something bad happened to him, feeling helplessly guilty when Mrs. Cole didn't see him in the eating hall or in his bedroom or in the makeshift library and finally went searching for him. Feeling crushed when she heard Mrs. Cole and the other helpers discussing runaways. Reading the newspaper everyday for the story of a teenage boy that stole a priceless heirloom. But she never saw anything, she never heard from him again, which she supposes is a good thing. It means that he is safe. Maybe.
He left her.
She had been used and discarded, like a toy someone had grown bored of. He said it was to protect her, but was it?
Six years ago... Six years since she's seen him.
I don't miss him, Hermione reminds herself fiercely. I have no reason to miss someone like that.
She shakes herself of these haunts, pulls her hair back into a ponytail, and stands up in the swaying cabin. The ship raises and bows over the rocky waves recklessly. England shrinks into an island behind her, taking all of her bad memories with it. She said her goodbyes to the Dursleys (who were very much relieved to be rid of her, but were sorry to see the rent money go) and then she bought a one-way ticket to her new home. To the host that Madame Pomfrey arranged for her.
She has no idea how she's going to go on from here.
But there's a promise in the place she's headed. It lies in a mysterious host, a customer of Madame Pomfrey's former shop who lives overseas. Madame Pomfrey assured Hermione that this host – a Mr. Malfoy – is very generous and more than happy to let her stay at his home until she can get back on her feet. So now all Hermione's hopes rest on the address Madame Pomfrey has given her. Which isn't much to rest on at all.
She peers out of the foggy window, wiping away the condensation to examine what lies outside. It's too dark to see much besides rolling Atlantic and pitch-black depths. The deepness of water terrifies her and she moves away, sea sickness crashing in on her body for the fourth time since she boarded. How close are they to America?
She'll have to wait for morning to find out.
A/N: Thank you all for your reviews and support! Your love is always appreciated and motivating. I will post more soon.