There is an outfit on the bed.
It's a precious summer dress, all purple silk polka-dot print and solid ivory base with the tags still on. It looks to be the pinnacle of envy of any woman in possession of a pulse. The neckline cuts straight across, high and modest just the way Hermione likes it, with a strict skirt hitting right at the knees. It looks respectable and sexy. By all means, it is a dress sent from heaven to perfectly suit Hermione Granger. She would fall in love with it if not for the fact Tom Marvolo Riddle's name was written all over it.
"Such a waste," Hermione says out loud, frowning.
She picks up the dress carefully, although the silk is of high caliber, the resistant kind that can weather storms and a hundred washes without fading. Madame Pomfrey would have died and come back again if only to touch such a gorgeous work of fabric. Unlocking the French doors to the balcony, Hermione steps outside, lightly pitching the dress over the railing. It catches in a wind belt and flies away, heading for the Hudson River. Perhaps it will wash ashore on Coney Island and make some lucky girl's day. By the time it gets to the girl, the dress might not be a dress anymore, but... Hermione sighs shakily.
She is so furious she could spit.
Hermione curls her fingers around the hot railing, glaring into the bright city skyline. Sunlight reflects off the tiny buildings and nearly blinds her – she grits her teeth and squints harder. The pain helps her focus. She grabs onto it, letting it build and fuel the fury inside her. Son of a bitch. No, son of no one. That was one of the perks of being an orphan, belonging to nobody except to the government who didn't want you anyway.
Tom Riddle, her childhood nightmare come back to life. There she'd been years ago in 1942, thinking her one and only friend had deserted her for good. In 1943, Hermione aged out of Wool's and found employment with Madame Pomfrey. God, how idiotically proud she had been to make it on her own, scraping rent and meals with pennies and sleeping in a drafty closet of a room with the miserable Dudley family. She did it all without any help, without him. The agony was starting to fade to a dull pang by then. Instead of seeing Tom's face in her mind at every second of everyday, it was only once an hour or two, and then, she only saw him in the morning when his voice clung to her dreams like cigarette smoke or she caught herself biting her lip and lost her breath at the memory of his lips biting hers. Then it was 1945 and she was still having dreams about Tom from time to time, wondering about him stupidly. Was he married with a wife and children? Had he forgotten about her completely yet? She cursed him over and over in her mind, in the crushing solitude of an empty room with a leaky ceiling, on the ship sailing from London to New York.
She has crossed half of the world to get away from Tom Riddle. Why the hell is he here in New York City?
Hermione laughs and sobs. It isn't a pitiful sound. It is ripped from her chest, clawing and snarling, cheated out of her as so much has been cheated from Hermione in her life. She has loved Tom since she was a naive little girl. How has it taken her so long to realize how thoroughly and utterly she hates that deplorable boy?
She wipes her face, but there are no tears to dry there. She feels a scary calm descend over her, a cold rationale that makes everything suddenly clear as ice. What does Tom want with her now? He'd said that he wanted her to make good on some sort of promise and while that may have been true, it certainly wasn't the whole story. She knows Tom Riddle well enough to remember that he never tells any story in full. If there's anything Tom adores, it's a secret. That's what he must have liked about her so much before...
But what secret is he keeping now?
A knock on the door interrupts her reverie. Hermione starts and has a sporadic recollection of her half-dream from last night: the rapping claws, the sounds of door slamming, and an eerie feeling her worst nightmare was stalking the halls while she slept. Is it Tom? The knock sounds again: soft, tentative. No, not him, she thinks. It's most likely one of the housekeepers.
"Yes?" she asks, opening the door to find – indeed – one of the mansion's seemingly never-ending supply of servants. She wonders why they are here at all. It's not as if anyone is making a mess of the house. The only person who lives here is Tom, and for now, her.
"Good morning, Ms. Granger," says the helper - a woman - in a heavy Brooklyn accent. "Mr. Voldemort is waiting for you downstairs in the dining room."
"Waiting for me?" Hermione frowns, like she doesn't understand. "Why would Mr. Voldemort do a thing like that?"
"Well, for breakfast of course. Er, aren't you… hungry?" She looks terrified by the icy rage radiating off Hermione's face. "I'm sorry, Ms. Granger. Is there something wrong?"
"No, oh no, of course not." Hermione flaps her hands, waving away any worry. "What could possibly be wrong? I mean, if you don't count the fact that that bigot called your employer has the nerve to expect me to go down there into that oh-so grand dining room of his and dine with him like we're good old pals and eat off his spanking new silverware and – what? – hold a conversation over flapjacks, like civilized human beings, after six years of nothing." She snorts ha! "No, nothing's wrong, because I'm not going to do that at all. You tell Mr. Voldemort-" The name is uttered carefully, like a complex set of directions. "-that I have no intention of enduring his presence today, or tomorrow, or the day after that – so no, I will not be coming to breakfast. If he wants to see me, he can come to me. And don't you worry, because NOTHING IS WRONG AT ALL."
"Good." The maid pauses, scrutinizing Hermione's feverish eyes and ragged breathing. "I'll tell him."
"Thank you."
"Should I tell Mr. Voldemort you won't be joining him for lunch either?"
"Yes, I would appreciate that." Hermione reins in some of the rage with effort, so she can say, "May I use the telephone to call a taxi?"
The maid – who had previously looked uncomfortable – now looks positively petrified. She squirms and replies, very quickly and un-elaborately, in the negative. "But why not?" Hermione begins to protest, before it hits her. Tom. Of course. "Mr. Voldemort would rather I didn't leave the estate, correct?" she says in a monotone.
The maid nods slightly.
Hermione purses her lips and nods with her. "Alright then."
This is utterly humiliating.
No, on second thought, it's worse than humiliating. It's laughable.
The entire day has dragged on agonizingly, all of it spent arrested in the mansion's guest room. Hermione spent every second pacing back and forth, strategizing, turning plan after countless plan over in her head, and playing out possible scenarios in which she persuades Tom to let her leave this place unscathed. Most of her schemes end in a rather morbid manner, however, the worst of which end with Tom shackling her inside a water closet or humiliating her in some other fashion. And what does it matter anyway? Halfway through another down-the-gutter idea, Hermione stops and realizes that even if she did miraculously convince him to release her, she'd be in just as dismal a situation as she is now. Except if she isn't suffering here in the lap of luxury, she'll be suffering in the midst of New York City without a roof over her head.
Unless I had money. Nearly as soon as the thought dawns, it flickers out. Hermione does not steal, not even from Tom Riddle. Then again, the untouched typewriter he gave her is technically her property, therefore, she can do whatever she wants with it. How much is a typewriter of that scale worth? she wonders. It looks to be a pretty penny, but who's to say a buyer wouldn't take advantage of her and take it off her hands at a bad price? Once again, this would leave her at a disadvantage. Though there is the closet of Coco Chanel at her disposal…
Her thoughts go on like this for the remainder of the day, circling and dead-ending until it is six PM and the sound of her own stomach growling finally renders her attempts useless. The conclusion that there is no possible way to escape Tom's care without killing herself in the process combined with the sensation of not having eaten in over fifteen hours is so frustrating she could scream. …Not that she couldn't eat now. After all, the maid (called Winky, as Hermione has come to know from their frequent run-ins throughout the day) extended Mr. Voldemort's invitation multiple times – Hermione simply refuses to accept them. Call it pride or fear or petulance, but she draws the line when her 'oh-so generous host' decides to keep her trapped like an animal. That, and Winky won't be bribed into helping her.
The sensation of helplessness is crushing.
Hermione listens to the sound of Winky's futile knocking without getting up to answer. She swallows a tasteless pool of saliva and closes her eyes. If only she could go to sleep and dream this all away, dream herself into a new world, a safe place, an abyss of nothing. Wouldn't it be lovely to live in nothing, after all? To be nothing? Nothing never cries or feels emotions, like hurt or betrayal or bitterness. Nothing is just that: nothing. Nothing is perfection.
But I am not nothing, Hermione thinks. I'm not a child anymore. I am a full-grown adult. I am not irrational. I am in full-control.
She is not a child anymore.
Just like that, the solution crashes down on her, hard as a slap in the face and brilliant. That's it. Hermione sits up straight, remembering how she head butted Tom at the Fat Lady and feeling overtly smug. The bruise on his face probably smarts like hell at this very moment.
Mouth watering with hunger, Hermione smiles for the first time today.
The epiphany is broken by a soft – and unsurprising – rapping on the door. Hermione's hand is on the handle before the next knock can sound. "Yes, Winky," she says firmly, before the maid can get a word in edgewise. Winky's crestfallen expression gives way to befuddlement at her giddy expression, so she adds in a more subdued tone, "I'm sorry for the inconvenience earlier, but I'd be more than happy to join Mr. Voldemort for dinner now."
"You would?" Winky squeaks.
Hermione looks at her strangely. It isn't that surprising, is it? "Well, yes. Unless… there's a problem with that?"
They stare at each other in tense silence for a moment.
Finally, Winky sighs loudly and says, "Look, I came up here because Mr. Voldemort is entertaining his guests, and I thought that in the time-being you could go to the dining hall and eat alone before they all leave. Since you said no all the other times-"
"Guests?" Hermione repeats, and all the giddiness swoops out of her. "What guests? Where?"
"Er…" Winky is clearly trying to judge whether or not she should impart this knowledge. After another moment (and another heavy sigh), she replies, "Yes. They're downstairs in the game room… Ms. Granger, no, please don't, Mr. Voldemort hates to be interrupted-!"
Hermione is already halfway down the hall.
She stalks through the pristine second floor, ignoring the alarmed looks housekeepers exchange as she stomps by and Winky's pleas. For the first time, she manages not to get hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of Tom's mansion as she quickly finds the sweeping, marble double staircase and descends it to start scouring the main floor for the game room - wherever that is. An irritable Kreacher tells her how to get there when she is forced to stop for directions, while a distressed Winky stumbles over her toes still trying to dissuade her. Hermione takes one right after another before at last dragging open the second door on the right of the pipe-organ.
"-what atrocious aim, Mulciber!" someone booms.
A snazzy pink dart whizzes through the air and pins the wall, half a foot away from the board on the other side of the room. Its holder – Mulciber – blames his skill on his beverage by waving a Budweiser about animatedly, tripping into a game of poker when he belches and turns green. The participants groan and pellet striped checkers at him, swearing while cards and fifty dollar bills flutter to the floor and rain down on his slumped form. Behind a polished mahogany bar, the bartender slides a margarita to a man with white blonde hair – Malfoy? – no, it's a face she hasn't seen before. Hermione bites her lip nervously, vividly aware of how out of place she has suddenly become. Not safe, her brain titters. They are too many close, male bodies. Too much liquor. Too much slurring laughter. Too many possible combinations equaling doom.
No. Remember what you're here for, she chastises herself, grabbing onto her anger and revving it back to life. She can't let the old fears blind her. The last thing she needs now is to be afraid, of all things.
"Hermione! What are you doing here?" a voice says, followed by the grinning face of Cygnus Black as he swaggers toward her. She flinches back and he falters, surprised. Then he glances at the cigarette in his hand, stamps it out, and starts coming again. I don't like the smell of nicotine, Hermione remembers telling him last night, and she isn't sure whether to be stupefied or amused that he thinks this is the reason why she recoiled. Before she can decide on one, however, he is in front of her.
"Well?" Cyg asks expectantly.
"Er…" Hermione flounders to remember what he said, fidgeting. "Well what-?"
"Ms. Granger is here crashing Mr. Voldemort's gathering," Winky answers for her, sounding just as exasperated as she looks. Cygnus blinks at Winky in astonishment, not having seen her before – but then, the woman is so short she barely reaches Hermione's shoulder, much less the shade of a lamp. "I tried to stop her," Winky goes on, clucking disapprovingly, "but she's very stubborn."
"Hm… Not stubborn. I would say, 'headstrong.'" Cyg nonsensically taps his nose and smiles in such a way that in another life, it can be imagined that he would be a pirate, or some sort of dark sorcerer's apprentice. At the moment, he's probably only very much amused by her theatrics, Hermione notes tartly. "I'd hate to get a whack from your noggin," he says, looking at her meaningfully. She flushes at the reminder that her tussle with Tom did not go unwitnessed last night.
"Oh, shut it," she grumbles, too low for Winky to hear. He sniggers.
"What are you really doing down here anyway?" Cyg questions, scanning her attire with a skeptical eye. "I daresay you didn't come for the party… Oh no, don't tell me." He points at Hermione's forehead, like her deepest secrets are spelled out there, and she stares at his accusing digit quizzically. "You're looking for Voldemort again, aren't you?"
"I am." She frowns. When did she become so predictable? "Have you seen him by any chance?" she asks. "I need to talk to him."
"Of course you do." Cyg squints at her and Hermione realizes with sudden clarity how bizarre this entire ordeal must look to a stranger: a scrappy girl who seems to have popped out of nowhere searching for a famous artist she claims to know, living under his care, kissing him in public and calling him by his Christian name… It's very implicative. In fact, it sounds like one of those cheap romance tales where the heroine is swept off her feet in a whirl of rags-to-riches plotline, adored by the highly-esteemed broad who sees she's got a heart of gold underneath all the peasant clothes, and is so unconvincingly optimistic you can't put the damn thing down until it's finished.
Only in this story, there don't seem to be any golden hearts lying around.
Hermione is distracted when Cygnus gestures toward the back, shaded eyes on a group lingering there. "Voldemort's over there, if you want to speak with him," he tells her, and grins for some unfathomable reason. "Tell his highness I say hello."
With that, Cygnus saunters away (probably back to whatever mysterious pit he crawled out of) and a significantly less distraught Winky tags along with him. Hermione scans the group he indicated and spots a tall figure balancing a crystal tumbler filled with amber liquid in the middle of it, smirking at some nameless joke – Tom. Well, he certainly looks like royalty, she takes a short, tense breath. He's had her locked up all day and still has the gall to be down here hosting a get together? She envisions herself marching up to him, demanding that he release her immediately, and embarrassing him in front of all his privileged little friends if he refuses – they're probably all art snobs who do nothing but drink booze and talk about different ways to mix paint all day, she reassures herself. And if the odds are in her favor, maybe he'll even lose that rotten temper of his and kick her out so he can repair his immaculate reputation. Meanwhile, Winky would have witnessed the scene and – out of contempt or pity – let her out of here with a few bucks in her pocket to help her make her way…
Hermione shakes herself. This is no time for fantasizing. She has a better plan than that one, and while it may not be the most ideal, it's functioning. All she has to do is follow through with it.
Nonetheless, her heart gives an irrefutable squeeze when Tom looks up and sees her watching him. She cools her expression, even as his face goes blank with surprise, and walks over with every ounce of false confidence she can summon. Ignoring the way her palms sweat under the surrounding men's speculative glances, denying the uneven staccato of her heart, she smooths back her hair. I'm not a child anymore. I am a full-grown adult, independent and deserving. I am not irrational. I am in full-control...
Hermione stops before the small group Tom sits with, effectively putting an end to whatever conversation they'd been having and flashing her best smile. "So is this what you do when you're away on business, Voldemort?" she asks perkily. "Lock women in the spare bedroom and bring out the liquor to keep your chums around?"
There's a half-choked sputter, which she ignores, and a tiny smile twitches Tom's mouth as he gazes up at her. But his left brow lifts ever so slightly, the gesture seeming to ask just what do you think you're doing here? Hermione turns her head slightly to hide her face from the others when she mouths back: socializing.
"Voldemort, you appear to have been holding out on us," a man with shoulder-length brown hair accuses, making them both look away. He flashes a winning smile at the young man sitting beside him, who agrees and calls him Avery. "Aren't you going to introduce us to your…new friend?" The word friend has a double meaning Hermione immediately decides she doesn't like.
"Friend?" she repeats, widening her eyes. "But I'm afraid you're mistaken. Voldemort and I aren't friends at all." Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione notes the way Tom's fingers tighten around his wine glass with a vindictive glee, and Avery's eyebrows lift. She's digging her own grave here, perhaps, but she's also inching closer to freedom. Slowly, but surely. "In fact, I despise him," she goes on obliviously. "He's keeping me here against my will."
They all burst into shocked laughter at that, making playful jabs at Tom's questionable status with the opposite sex and his private habits, like it's all a good, big joke. Hermione turns back to Tom expectantly, who appears unfazed. She frowns.Not enough. But how to be more direct in her efforts?
"What's all this about?" inquires Mulciber, who has wandered over and looks a distinct shade less viridescent.
"Oh, we've just met Voldemort's prisoner, that's all." Avery winks at her. Their inside joke has become famous in the span of seconds. "I do wonder how you two met – ah, I apologize, but I don't seem to have caught your name…?"
"Hermione," she supplies without missing a beat. She sits down and the men inch forward where they're sprawled on the suede sofas, like children eager for a bedtime story. Her nerves spike at the shrinking distance between them all, but she chokes back the spurt of irrational terror and composes herself. This is her one shot at showing Tom Riddle things are different now, that she is different - not a little girl that can be easily mastered.
"Yes, yes, Hermione," Avery says companionably, putting a reminiscent emphasis on her name, as if saying it himself makes them long lost friends. He smiles so wide that the grin stretching his mouth carves into his cheeks, peeling all the ruddy flesh around it back until he resembles a relentlessly cheerful jack-o'-lantern. Hermione sustains her pleasant expression. "Would you be so kind as to tell us how you met this strapping young lad here?" he pushes, glancing at Voldemort.
Hermione blinks, taken off guard by that, and a whirl of images bombard her. Cramped room, buckling bookshelves, a page with a tear down the middle, Oliver Twist – no, Great Expectations; a boy in the beaten armchair that smells like mildew, she wants to bite her nails for some reason but he's holding her hand, smiling at her, laughing…
"I…" Her voice wavers. She clears her throat and starts again, vividly aware of all the eyes watching her. She avoids looking at the ones that intimidate her most of all, doing her best to sound upbeat. "I think we met in a library, if that matters."
"A library, of course," Mulciber mutters dumbly, rendered stupid by his drunken stupor. "Always the intellectual, aren't you, Voldemort?"
"Oh pipe down, Mully, and let the girl get on with it," someone else snaps. There is shushing while Hermione collects herself.
"Yes, well, we were children then," she elaborates. "And Voldemort was rather anti-social-"
"Anti-social? But that's ridiculous!"
"Oh no, not at all. To-Voldemort was very different back then. He hardly ever spoke. He was a rather unique child, if that surprises you." Not at all, they assure, and chuckle obligingly. Hermione makes herself smile with them. "When I met him for the first time, I really didn't know what to make of him actually – in fact, I think I hid for about half an hour behind the shelves hoping he wouldn't see me," she says to their immense delight. "You see, he was drawing, so he didn't notice me at all. He wouldn't notice a Nazi invasion so long as he had that sketchbook…" A broad-shouldered man snorts. Hermione bites her lip. "Yes, well, I went over to see the picture... and..."
Tom stares at their interlocked hands, then his dark eyes slowly lift to hers, pausing on her grin.
"And?" Mulciber probes, leaning in.
"I forget." She waves a dismissive hand at their incredulous caws, drily adding, "Who knows? Maybe he tried to sever me with a pencil-"
"-and you were best friends ever since," finishes Yaxley, who is one of the last surviving post-impressionists and once worked alongside Manet in a resistant France. He smirks. "Oh, pardon me- you're 'enemies', correct?"
Enemies. Unable to stop it, Hermione's eyes drift to Tom – and instantly drop when she sees he's already staring back at her. Bizarrely, a needle of guilt stabs at her, like an abrupt finger prick. "That's the idea," she says, laughing lightly.
"I disagree."
The rest startle at the interjection. It's a surprise to hear from Tom, so still he could be one of the tiny bronze cast figurines posing on their lit pedestals in the sleek game room, or perhaps a statue sculpted from the spotless granite flooring. His eyes are steady on his glass as he continues, "How can you decide where two people stand if you only have one side of the story? That sort of bias changes the tale entirely… sometimes it even distorts your perception of the characters. If you know a story like this – from one perspective, without ever hearing the other – then you'll never really know the story at all. It's unfinished, underdeveloped." He looks up at last, and his eyes go straight to Hermione when he murmurs "incomplete."
There's a beat of thoughtful silence. Hermione stands, feeling embarrassed when he is supposed to be the one who is mortified this time, feeling childish and petty instead of grown, a little ashamed. She doesn't understand why he hasn't exploded, why mocking him didn't work. He's so vain, her jabs at him should have made him explode into a black rage by now. Why is he so composed, so insufferably collected? She doesn't understand. All she knows is that the conversation around them has taken up a new topic, revolving around some artist in Beijing.
When Hermione leaves, Tom follows her out.
The door shuts behind them. She paces to the opposite side of the hall and turns around. Tom isn't wearing a jacket, just pin-striped slacks and a silk black vest over an Oxford shirt, she observes. He arcs two neat brows at her, the picture of pretension. Completely oblivious to the fact that he has just presented her with the perfect opportunity.
"Care to tell me what that was all about?" he inquires.
Hermione shrugs. "It was nothing really, I just wanted to get to know your friends, that's all." His eyes roll at friends and her brain snags on the detail, though she doesn't comment on it. "Care to tell me why I'm here?" she quips.
"Sure," Tom says easily, surprising her. That surprise dissolves when he adds, "Over dinner."
"Don't do that. Don't give me an ultimatum."
He scoffs. "Like you're in any position to gamble."
Hermione flushes. Any pretense of the remote, untouchable Voldemort she saw minutes ago is clearly gone, only leaving behind the unfailingly arrogant young man before her – who is ten times more difficult to deal with. She wars with herself for a minute, grits her teeth, and pretends to concede to him. "Alright," she says tightly. "Tell me over dinner, then call me a taxi so I can leave this hellhole immediately afterward."
Tom scowls. Triumph dances through Hermione and her eyes slip, licking the skin adjoining his jaw and white throat – she looks away quickly, blinking. She needs to focus. She has to stay here until she's able to find a job and support herself outside of Tom's influence, and to do that she has to pretend she can't get out of here fast enough. Which shouldn't be too troublesome. Still, her patchwork plan has to be carried out carefully. She needs to make Tom think she'll do whatever it takes to get rid of him – and if he wants her here as badly as he says he do, then he'll agree to bargain with her. She'll set the terms of their temporary contract, thus ensuring her safety while she is forced to remain here, and deceive Tom into being on his best behavior… and most importantly, into leaving her alone.
"If you want to go afterwards, you may," Tom finally says. "I won't contact you ever again after that."
She nods.
He doesn't mean it, Hermione has to remind herself for unknown reasons, while Tom excuses himself to dismiss his guests. He lies all the time, so it only makes sense that he sounds so convincing. He wants me to stay.But her thoughts are interrupted when Winky reappears to guide her to the dining room, chattering happily about a conversation she had with Cygnus at the party as they make their way. Inside the dining room, the chandelier shimmering overhead winks at Hermione as if it knows what glorious entertainment it is about to witness.
"Do you want to change into something…more fitting, Ms. Granger?" Winky asks, staring at her with a subtly creased brow. Hermione answers in the negative and absently requests that Winky not call her Ms. Granger. It's too formal. Winky smiles and corrects, "Hermione."
The door opens behind them and Winky turns, although Hermione doesn't move an inch. As soon as her pert, small, round face blooms into a blinding smile though, she knows who is there. Tom has that...effect on people. "Hello Mr. Voldemort," Winky greets. "Dinner will be out in a moment. Dobby is just warming it up."
Tom must nod or make some other sign of acknowledgement, because Winky beams once more and waltz out of the room, presumably in the direction of the kitchen. Hermione sits still at the table and fights the urge to turn around. She doesn't like Tom being somewhere she can't see him, it puts her at a disadvantage, it makes her feel cautious, anxious-
"I hope you like duck," Tom says conversationally, sitting down across from her and lazily shrugging off his vest for no apparent reason except to make her uncomfortable. "Dobby hasn't made anything else for a week."
"I know." She clears her throat. "I've been eating the dinners too, if you might recall." You should recall it anyway, since you sent me halfway around the world for possibly psychopathic reasons.
Tom pauses in the act of unfolding a napkin on his lap and studies her. "Yes, that's right." The three words are pointed: a warning to be on her best behavior. He doesn't seem like somebody who ever went to an orphanage, Hermione reflects jealously. Is that because of his new lifestyle, or the well-rounded environment at his old prep school, Hogwarts? Or is it a combination of the two? It feels extremely bizarre to have to wonder about his personality, to not be certain of it. So far, she hasn't been right at all about this Mr. Voldemort. He hasn't been easy to provoke or unhealthily covetous, or any of things he was as a child. It makes her a little mournful, although by all means she should be relieved the reckless, predaceous Tom of the past is gone – or at least, hidden better.
But the Hermione of the past is gone too. This is precisely what she must prove to him.
They eat, and everything about the situation feels stilted and awkward, like they're strangers. Where at this time last night, they yelled and hit and clashed teeth and tongue, in this moment they sit in stony silence. When he isn't looking, Hermione searches for signs of their tussle on Tom's face, but he's unblemished as always. She squints at a square of skin on his chin that seems paler than the rest, and a satisfied smile turns her lip. Make up. He's wearing make up to cover the bruise.
Vengeance, she thinks, feels satisfactory.
Tom sets his fork and knife down, and the time for smiling is over.
"I believe you had some questions for me, Hermione. I'm willing to answer them now, if you're ready," he says politely. Too politely. But of course, now she is speaking to Mr. Voldemort. The Tom Riddle she saw in the hall minutes ago disappeared sometime between then and now. She frowns, feeling an out-of-place disappointment.
"Well… yes." Too uncertain. Hermione starts over, sitting taller. "That is, I want to know why you've brought me here. I don't really care about this supposed promise of yours, I just want to know what your intentions are."
"Because you don't believe I'm telling you the whole truth," he finishes.
Embarrassed by her own transparency, Hermione glares at him. "Well, you've never told me the truth before, now have you?" she says defensively.
"Never is a big generalization."
Her eyes narrow. "It's close enough."
Tom nods, allowing that. "You're right. I lied to you often. I'm cruel by nature." His uninflected tone and the harsh words make an odd combination, as if he's reciting a tragic accident he's told so many times it has lost all meaning to him. Hermione frowns.
"Yes, but…" She stares at him, nonplussed. "Wait, are you actually admitting to that?"
Tom chuckles. "Of course I am," he says. "I hurt you, I manipulated you, I used you, I left you, and in the end I destroyed you," he lists blandly. "I regret none of it, because I thrived off every second of it. I would do it all again, because I am not a good person, Hermione, and unfortunately for you, I am inexplicably drawn to you. I can see you hate me for that, but I don't expect you to understand my reasoning. I only tell you, because you asked." He cocks his head to the side, scanning her medically. "And in truth, I missed you. Does that answer your question?"
Hermione looks at him for a stunned minute. She swallows down the lump in her throat. "You wouldn't know the truth if it slapped you in the face."
The iced eyes sharpen. A wisp of Tom peeks out from behind the empty mask, seething. "Don't tell me what I do and don't know," he says coldly.
"Why now?" she demands, and detests the way her voice shakes. "Why am I here now? What's different? Why not cut off the money supply three or four years ago, and make me come here then? What aren't you telling me-?"
"I told you, Hermione." Tom's hand covers hers. She jerks back, but he doesn't let her go anywhere, catching her fingers before she can pull away totally. A sudden image pervades her mind and she hates herself for it: Tom holding her hand for all to see, twirling his fingers through hers, kissing the tips and sucking them and blowing on them... "I miss you." He searches her gaze, trying to pick it apart and figure out the way she ticks. To get inside her. "Tell me why you're acting like this."
"Acting? Like what?"
"Don't play dumb, Hermione. Naivety doesn't suit you." Tom's voice suddenly has all the fatal edges of a razorblade. His condescension burns her. "You look ready to crawl out of your skin because I'm touching you, you hated it when I kissed you last night, and just now you turned into Miss Popularity - which you have never even faintly resembled, I might add. So who are you trying to impress?"
"Impress?" she echoes, disgusted. "Oh, of course, because if I'm not head over heels for you, Tom, then there must be someone else."
"Oh, I doubt your feelings for me have changed," he says confidently. At her look of pure loathing, he smirks. "In fact, I think they've intensified."
Stay calm. Hermione takes a deep breath, then another, before speaking. "Did it ever occur to you that who I am might have absolutely nothing to do with you? That I've moved on?"
"Not for one second."
Her mouth thins. "Well then, you're been quite mislead."
"No, I haven't." He caresses her hand with his opposite one, tracing the bumps and dips of her knuckles carefully. It tickles. She shivers, repulsed, and Tom's teasing smile transforms into a sneer. "Tell me the truth, Hermione," he orders, tightening his grip. "Tell me how you feel."
"Angry." It's a whisper. She's bitten her lip too hard and it tastes like metal when she licks it. Blood. "I feel angry and resentful and filled with...hatred. That's what I feel…for you, Tom. Because of you." It feels good to say it, to not play this game of tea party and pretend anymore. She wants to hurt him suddenly - to hurt him bad and good – with words, with a knife, with her bare hands, she doesn't' care. To, like a grudging child, hurt him as he has hurt her. She wants justice. She doesn't want to be the bigger person, to walk away with her head held high and let bygones be bygones. No, she wants revenge. She wants it all. She has nothing.
She smiles hollowly. "So I suppose you're right, Tom. You destroyed me." So just leave me alone.
The haughty knowingness abandons Tom's expression. His brows furrow and he searches her face, like unsaid answers are waiting there. "And what else? What else… do you feel?"
"Nothing."
Tom stares at her. Waiting for her to take it back. She doesn't.
He lets go of her and looks at the silver cutlery between them pensively. She doesn't know what he expected to gain from seeing her again. She doesn't know what she expected. Whenever she pictures this moment – and she has, often – it begins with Tom seeing her married and happy (however improbable that actually is) with kids, a family he can envy but never have. Now, girl eyelashes Hermione has marveled at more times than she cares to admit flutter as Tom looks back up at her, – boy of her dreams, man of her nightmares – scanning her face. Something in that dark gaze makes her feel sad and lost and lonely inside.
She regrets lying when he looks at her like that.
It's just the angel eyes, she thinks fiercely. He's trying to guilt you. She must stick to the plan, which is nearly complete now. The only thing left to make her deception perfect is the gamble.
Tom's usual charming smile is stilted and brittle when it makes its gallant return. "Nothing else?" he confirms. "So I was that fucking awful to you, hm? A real monster? A living nightmare?"
"Yes." She licks the last of blood from the cut on her lip and stares at her napkin ring, playing with it to avoid his churning gaze. Her heart is pounding so hard she's sure he can see the organ throwing itself with abandon against her chest. "You tortured me, Tom," she says softly. "You know that."
"I didn't do it on purpose," he retorts. "It's just the way I am. I thought you knew that and you never seemed unhappy. You liked all of my attention, you know it-"
"That's a lie," she interrupts sharply. "I didn't like any of it. You were a jealous control freak who never let me talk to people or make any friends so you could keep me all to yourself-"
"You're exaggerating."
"You're delusional!" She takes a deep breath to cool all the simmering rage she's kept bottled inside for years and years, continuing solemnly, "You're greedy and narcissistic. You care for no one and nothing but yourself." These are the precise words she's told herself for six years. They're reasons to stay away from him.
"If that were true, you wouldn't be here," Tom says, in a voice that's so gentle it could be a lullaby. She looks up. "And on the contrary, I do care for something other than myself. It just so happens that who I care for has abruptly decided she does not desire my affections and cannot even stand my…seemingly repulsive touch." He smiles a cruel, terrible smile. "Or am I lying to you again? Tell me if I am, baby."
Hermione's eyes are piercing. Deliberately, she says, "Don't call me that."
He chuckles, low and scornful. "And what if I do? Are you going to leave? Yell? Stomp your feet? Throw a little tantrum? Tell me more about what a horrible person I am and how much you claim to hate me? I'll know you're lying. You can't lie to me."
"I can do whatever I want," she snarks.
"I like how feisty you've become." He appears thoughtful. "It's sexy."
Hermione's face heats. She gets to her feet, fists balled, and Tom rises too, ready to follow. "I'm leaving," she tells him and waits, because this is it, the bait, her last and final card to play. All she needs is for him to take it. Take it. Tell me to stay. Tell me I'm not going anywhere.
Tom gazes at her, eyes shadowed and unreadable. And he says, "No."
"No?" She sounds indignant, but inside she is skipping for joy. It worked. Oh, thank God, the damn thing worked. She shakes her head. "Don't be ridiculous, Tom," she says, moving toward the door. "The dinner is over, so I am by all means free to go."
"You promised-"
She whips around, eyes nothing but crackling slits, and Tom grinds to a halt. "I don't care what I promised, Tom," she snaps. "I don't even remember it! I don't care about any of this!"
He's furious. Fantastic, she thinks. Let him be. "Oh really?" he fumes. "None of it?"
"Nothing."
"So if I, say, killed myself right here and now-" He saunters to the table and snatches up the carving knife for the roasted duck, flipping it so the silver curve of the blade is pressed into his wrist. Hermione freezes. "-then you wouldn't care? Not even a little?"
She says nothing, watching him warily. Tom shrugs. "Alright." Beads of crimson blood interrupt the smooth flow of his alabaster skin as he slices through it– Hermione gasps, lunging toward him and upsetting the banquet of dishes as she makes a grab for the knife, knocking it out of his hand and sending the lethal blade spinning to the floor. She catches his wrist in a vise-like grip, panting. "Are – you – insane?"
Tom smirks – and Hermione realizes that, of course, he never was going to kill himself, or really even make a worthy injury. It was a trap. He just wanted to prove that he's right about her… and she let him do it. God damn it. Staring at his arm, Hermione sees he barely nicked himself. It could be a paper cut.
"So you do care," he says sweetly.
"Go to hell," Hermione replies, dropping his arm and moving back. Perfunctorily, she dusts off the gunk on the back of her skirt. That's the last suicide I ever stop, she thinks begrudgingly. Tom watches her clean up with an inscrutable expression before he reaches over and lightly brushes a chunk of cranberry sauce off her shoulder. She stills. He withdraws his hand slowly, as if reluctant.
The awkward silence ends when Tom says, so quietly she barely hears him, "Stay."
Hermione looks away. "You know I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because things are different now." The speech she rehearsed in her head hours before this comes to mind automatically, but it feels phony and cheap now. Tom would never believe it. Besides that, she realizes she doesn't want to say it. She couldn't possibly.
"Stay, please," he whispers.
It's the please that makes her look at him. Lifting her head, Hermione stares at Tom good and hard, and she's baffled. Please? That doesn't make any sense at all, because Tom Riddle never says please, and certainly not to her. The word goes against every fiber of his being, of the fragile, quaky understanding she has of him, it goes against the very fabric of the universe. How can he say please when it's Tom's way or no way? He can make her submit to him, if he really wants to, so why would he bother asking?
She doesn't know. All she knows, or at least, suspects, is that something has changed in him. She doesn't know what it is, she doesn't really know who he is anymore… and that scares her more than a threat from Tom ever could. It scares her most of all.
"I need to leave," she says, and suddenly means it. Damn the consequences. She'll figure out what to do next when she gets there.
Tom, who had been moving closer, stops cold. "I can't let you do that."
Hermione scoffs. "Of course you can. It's not like you'll have a guilty conscience. Just get one of your numerous private cabbies to take me where I need to go and we can be out of each other's hair forever. I never asked you to babysit me, or to pity me, or… or for any of this." At his silence, she adds, a little desperately, "Let me go home, Tom."
The angel eyes aren't even faintly cherubic now. "You don't have a home," Tom says simply, and something in her body breaks.
It feels like a bone, except larger than that, deeper than that, like it's rooted inside her organs, connected to a hundred thousand intricate veins and bodily webbing, the heart of everything, the brain, the control system – and Tom has just reached his hand inside her and wrenched it out. "Y-yeah, I know, I don't have a home anywhere." She blows out a gust of air. "You, on the other hand, in your big fancy mansion with your European cars and servants waiting on beck and call…" She smiles ruefully. "You've got it all, Tom, don't you? Everything you ever dreamed of. Everything I ever dreamed of and more, certainly. That's what you brought me here for, isn't it? To show me. To rub it all in."
Tom sighs. "That's not what I-"
"But then, how would you know what I've been dreaming about?" she plunges on. "We haven't seen each other in years. You don't know me anymore, Tom, and I don't know you. You can't disappear from someone's life for six years and come back expecting to meet the same girl you left behind in an orphanage. That's not the way reality works. I've changed. You've changed. We don't know each other anymore." And as she says the words, she realizes with an overwhelming dread that they're true, and they're a hundred times better than the speech she prepared. They're absolutely, infallibly true. And judging by the look on Tom's face, he's prepared to do whatever it takes to change that. Her plan worked. She should be thrilled, euphoric.
But all she can think about is how hideous it is not to know your own best friend at all.
Because how can she not know Tom? Her Tom? Her terrible, selfish, flawed, umbrageous Tom? Who used to whisper things in her ear, things only he wanted her to know, who used to walk all over her heart like a rug but would be at her side in an instant if anyone dared try to hurt her. Tom, Tom, Tom. How did this happen? Why does it feel like 1942 again, like the center of the world has fallen out from under her? Why does she want the impossible – for him to care about her, reallycare – so awfully, so irrevocably, and with such a savage brutality it feels like the desire is going to kill her in her sleep?
She shouldn't see a little boy when she looks at Tom Riddle. They're not children anymore. They're not in love.
They're nothing but strangers.
"What if it were different this time?" Tom says.
It's the perfect thing for him to say, but Hermione doesn't feel anywhere near relieved. "Different how?" she asks, just assiduously enough to sound wary.
"You say we don't know each other anymore." He pauses. "If you stayed... then that would change. We would start over."
Hermione fixes him with an analytic stare. "Start over as what?"
"As whatever you want to be."
There it is. The bargaining chip, in her hands. Finally.
"Maybe." She fidgets. "But there would have to be…boundaries. I mean, I'd like to be friends again, Tom-" The words are cockroaches in her mouth. "-but we can't be anything else. That's the only way I'll stay."
Hermione waits.
Tom nods.
And the weight of this tenuous agreement is a burdening creature, solidifying when a grin slowly creeps up his mouth, and the angel eyes glint at her. She doesn't know what he thinks or feels, and she tells herself she doesn't care either. She's succeeded in the gamble. Next, she finds a job, packs her things, and high-tails it. She can do this. She must.
She's going to win the fight this time.
They are not children anymore.