Notes: If Christmas is your thing, have a merry and safe day. If not, Happy Saturday. I wish you all much love this yule.
WARNINGS: sexual content
35. Make Thee Another Self for Love of Me
Hermione finds him on the moor.
The smell of cloves guides her through the infinite stretches of pale heather and paler mist. She follows the familiar scent, boots sinking into the damp soil below.
She doesn't ask what he's doing out here, but she wants to know, to understand the boy who stands with his back to the house and his face to the setting sun.
Despite their growing affection, she feels him slipping away, the distance between them growing with every heated caress they exchange. It makes no sense, but intimacy is far more than the frenzied brush of flushed skin.
"Draco's gone to finalize his surrender of the Manor to the Ministry with Astoria and Snape."
Tom's shoulders remain a rigid black line against the deep grays of the landscape. "You didn't go with him?"
"I've had enough of the Ministry for a while."
"Still trying to convince you to come work for the Department of Mysteries."
Ever since the cogs of bureaucracy started turning again, Remus Lupin and, on the worst of days, Severus Snape, have begun a quiet campaign to bring Hermione into a job at the Ministry. Currently they're attempting to sway her to the Department of Mysteries.
Once, it would have been a dream come true, but now the idea fills her with an overwhelming sense of dread. As if the Ministry will bury her alive and only she can sense it.
Hermione crosses her arms as she stops beside Tom.
"I've told them I'm not interested."
He takes a long drag from his current cigarette. Butts litter the ground beside his rugged combat boots. Either he's plowing through the cigarettes or he's been out here longer than she thought.
Neither option is good.
"And why aren't you interested?" he asks, slanting his gaze toward her. "They'd make you Bloody Minister of Magic if you let them. Or if that's not to your fancy, you could likely head the department of your choosing."
She understands what Tom doesn't say. That he would give anything for the opportunities laid at her feet. This kind of power was always his addiction. And now he has to watch her turn down every opportunity while he stands aside, magically impotent.
"It… it just doesn't feel right." She can't quite explain it, but she owes it to him to try. "After everything I went through, I'm not ready to pretend my life hasn't changed. I'm not ready to go back to the way things were or how they ought to be. I want to write my own story."
He ducks his head, ebony curls hiding his handsome features. "And what does that look like?"
She hears the fissure in his deep voice, the uncertainty fracturing his usual timbre. "I don't know. I stopped having an idea of what the future might look like sometime in that cell, Tom. The only thing I'm sure of is you. I want you."
"As your confidant. As your friend."
Both are true, but neither close to adequate. "No, as the missing half of my soul. As my partner in every way possible."
His head snaps up and she's drowning in molten sapphire. "You can't be serious, Hermione."
That he can vacillate between such bold confidence and searing self-doubt astounds her. "And why wouldn't I be? You know how I feel about you. About us."
Tom's expression contorts in a way she can't follow. His lips cling to his cigarette like it's all he has left. She takes a step closer to him, but he sidles away.
Fuck. Whatever's going on his head is worse than she feared.
Hermione takes a steadying breath, the fog of her exhale melting seamlessly into the chilled mist. "Talk to me, Tom. You know what I've been through. I'm not in the position to judge you."
His laugh sends chills down her spine. His lips pull into something that isn't a smile. "Oh, Hermione. You're in the best position to judge me. This—your broken body, your pain—is entirely my fault. And now, when you need me. When I should be helping you, I've become nothing at all."
"You're not nothing."
"I'm a bloody Muggle!" he roars, the violence of it sending her rocking back on her heels.
"I thought…" she has no idea exactly what she thought. He seemed alright with the idea. Had been upset because he'd lost his power to protect her, not because he'd simply lost his power.
"I lied" he hisses, eyes hard sapphire.
But she knows he didn't. His anger was a visceral thing that day, but nothing like the fear that broke him down.
"What changed?" He gives her a scathing look that might have chilled her veins once, but now only makes her exhale, exasperation coating her breath. "I'm not stupid, Tom. I know you were okay with losing your magic. Well, not okay, but you were willing to pay the price. So what changed?"
His jaw is a taut bowstring. "Time. Perspective."
She holds his burning stare. "Explain it to me."
He looks like he dearly wants to tear his eyes from hers, but he doesn't. He faces her, rage split by despair in an instant. "You and Draco, you're moving on. You're finding your place in the world again. A world of magic."
A world he cannot be part of.
It's not the same as a wizard falling in love with a true Muggle. In that case, the Muggle partner will always be in awe of magic and the world it encompasses. For Tom, there is no awe, only the excruciating ache of what once was his.
And Tom is not one for patience or longing. He takes what is his.
Except he will never find his magic again, not without delving into the deepest dark of magic. And even then, Hermione doubts such a restoration spell exists.
He made his choice and now he will pay for the rest of his mortal, Muggle life. It is everything he ever despised. Everything he ever feared.
How he must hate her and what his feelings drove him to do for her.
No wonder they're drifting apart.
She chokes on her next breath, the air suddenly too thick. "God," she whispers, lapsing into her Muggle upbringing. "What have I done to you?"
There are obvious answers. She has made a man out of a monster. She has found light in the depths of darkness. She has remade reality in her own image.
None of them are sufficient. None of them explain the conflict tearing Tom's beautiful face apart.
He cards a hand through his hair, tugging fiercely. His cigarette drops to the ground, smoldering.
"If you know, then please tell me," he begs.
Monster. Boy. Wizard. Muggle. Power. Impotence.
She has unmade him.
"I'm not the person you think I am," he continues, the glint in his dark eyes spiraling into mania. "You think I'm some sort of saint. The devil reborn into an angel. But I'm not good, Hermione. I will never be good."
"That's not—"
"Yes. It is true. You can forget that your body was harmed because of me, because of the choice that disgusting creature made after he lost his mind. You can say I'm not to blame. But if I never existed. If we'd found a way to go back to the moment I made that diary and cut me down, then you would have everything. Your body, your friends, the boy you love. I'm alive only because you've lost everything."
She wants to contradict him, but the bitter truth seeps into her veins and holds her tongue. He gives her a ruthless, bitter smile.
"See? Even you can't deny it."
"You're right," she admits. "Except the part about the boy I love. I love you, Tom, not Harry. I don't care whether you think you deserve it or not. That isn't going to change how I feel."
"I fucked Draco where you're standing. After I promised it was over."
She feels the impact of his words like a blow. She stumbles, knees giving out. Her fingers claw into the muddy ground.
Hermione grinds her teeth and glares up at him. "Stop trying to turn me against you."
"His hands were in the dirt too, while he moaned my name into the ground."
She refuses to picture it. Refuses to give Tom the satisfaction of her anger. "I don't care, Tom. I know you've been together. I know he loves you. Whatever jealousy you're trying to stoke isn't strong enough to matter. Draco and I know each other better than that."
"You need to walk away," he whispers, broken edges cutting through his words.
"I can't."
He falls his knees beside her, vacant gaze latched on the dim horizon. "No, you won't. You won't let go. Salazar, Hermione, I don't—"
She stares at him. The light is fading fast and he's more shadow than boy now. "You don't what?"
"I don't know how to exist like this."
He could mean a million things. "Like what?"
He finally turns toward her, his eyes the darkest blue of the night. "Powerless against my emotions. Ruled by my need for you beyond anything else. My life meaningless to me."
"You're human, Tom." She wants to reach for him, but holds back, afraid the moment will shatter if she moves. "We are all fragile, finite creatures searching for each other in the void."
"I don't want to be human… I want—need to be more."
"There's more than one way to be more," she murmurs. "We can create our own magic. Find our own power."
He blinks and she sees moisture clotting his dark lashes. "How?"
"Look at me."
He doesn't move for so long she fears her effort is in vain. But finally, he brings his wrecked face of shadows and dread to bear. Her breath rattles in her chest, but she holds
fast to the traitorous grains of hope cradled deep in her heart. This moment has power and she will not waste it.
"Do you hate me, Tom?"
By all rights, he ought to, but she can see the answer in the slivers of his shattered eyes.
"No." His voice is hoarse, but firm. "I could never hate you."
"But I've stolen everything that matters from you. Your immortality. Your magic."
His lips twist and his eyes squeeze shut. "No. You didn't take them. I gave them willingly."
An admission at last. "Why? Why give up the two things you valued most?"
"Because…"
He fights the words, the emotion. She doesn't blame him. It's a terrible thing to realize what you're willing to do for someone else and why. To understand how little control you have over your own choices.
"Say it," she orders. He has to say it.
His ragged breath is like thunder. "Because I… I love you."
Despite the epic hurdle he just surpassed, she won't let him off the hook. "And would I ever love a monster? Would a monster ever love me in return?"
"No."
The answer is that simple. She allows herself to crash into him, to bury her hands in his silken hair. She rests her forehead against his. "Stop trying to hide from me. Stop trying to hide from yourself. I know you're terrified of what's to come. I am too. Why do you think I refuse the Ministry? I don't see a path forward in my life either."
"I'm only going to hold you back," he protests, voice raw.
"That's where you're wrong, Tom. Love doesn't make people weak, it makes them strong. Lily's love for Harry defeated Voldemort that night. It didn't matter how much power he'd gained, a mother's love was greater."
It's perhaps not the wisest choice to use his own mistakes against him, but Tom is so far from the monster he defeated that Hermione doesn't worry. He knows love. He's admitted his love for her and she has no doubt he harbors similar, if less ardent, feelings for Draco. He is nothing like the soulless wraith he cut down.
"When we get back to the house, I'm going to kiss you," she tells him. "And this time, I don't want you to hold back. I want to feel everything. I want to know how your love feels inside my body and my soul."
Dark pupils devour sapphire and his lips part. "Are you sure?"
Hermione pushes up from damp ground and holds out her hand. "It's the only thing I'm sure about."
His fingers lace through hers, surprisingly warm in the cooling night.
They don't speak as they make their way through the darkening plain. The house is still and dark, Draco absent and the sconces not yet illuminated.
Neither of them pauses. They don't need light to find their way up the stairs and down the upper hall. Floorboards groan softly beneath their feet, the only sound beyond their ragged breaths.
They pause a moment when they reach the middle of the hall. Hermione's bedroom lies to the left and Tom's to the right. Neither room holds more than a standard Order cot and wardrobe.
Tom's dark gaze consumes her as he pulls Hermione into his room. The door clicks shut behind them. Hermione pulls her wand from the back pocket of her jeans and recites a litany of silencing spells. She has no intention of holding back tonight.
When she turns, Tom is watching her with an intensity that goes straight to her core. He licks his lips and she follows the path of his supple tongue. Her reaction isn't lost on him. He gives her a wicked smirk that promises more dark delights than she's dared imagined.
In a heartbeat she knows this will be nothing like her time with Harry. Their lovemaking was gentle, naïve even. Their desire like spun sugar, delicate and sweet.
Nothing in Tom's face is sweet.
She trembles, her legs suddenly unsteady.
It's one thing to intellectually know she's ready for this moment. To have explored her own body enough to be confident it will allow his touch. It is quite another to have Tom ravishing her with a mere look, the promise of what's to come brimming in his molten eyes.
He doesn't move. Doesn't close the distance between. The heat between her legs builds to a fever pitch. She's going to implode if he doesn't touch her.
The pale haze of the night emits a soft glow at the window, the diffuse moonlight falling into the room like a flame scattering from the depths of a pool. She can't see every detail of him, but it's more than enough.
His deft fingers pull down the zip of his leather jacket. She watches with rapt fascination as he strips it from his broad shoulders. The black tee shirt he wears underneath does nothing to disguise the contoured perfection of his chest or the sculpted lines of his arms. She's felt those hard muscles twitch beneath her touch a hundred times, but this time will be different.
He pulls the shirt over his head with one nimble tug. It drops to the floor. Hermione's mouth goes dry.
She can't stand to wait another moment.
Tom lets out a choked gasp when her hand traces the line of abs. Her fingers skitter lower, closer to the clasp of his dark jeans.
His head falls forward. "Fuck, Hermione."
She lets her fingers dip beneath his waistband. He shudders, another muttered oath tripping from his lips. Her lips twist up as she tugs him to her, using his belt to propel him forward.
Tom's ebony bangs tease her cheek as he ducks his head lower. Their lips hover, not quite meeting. She can feel his words vibrate through her as he murmurs, "I believe you promised me a kiss."
Hermione blinks, remembering her earlier declaration. That's why he's been holding back. Why he's let her come to him.
His restraint is nearly as arousing as his physique. It's a reminder that she can trust him. That he understands just how significant a leap she's taking.
She speaks against his lips. "Are you sure?"
He may have taken this step with Draco ages ago, but Hermione knows this choice is nothing like that. She's asked him to give her his soul, not merely his body.
His eyes are blacker than the night, all traces of sapphire swallowed by desire and darkness. She still feels his stare burn through her, igniting every nerve ending in heady anticipation.
"I've never been more sure about anything."
There's half a heartbeat where all they do is stare, their souls breaking through the glossy windows of their eyes to meet in the charged air.
Then her lips are on his and he's plundering the depths of her mouth. He moans, hot and wanton and she answers in kind.
They've kissed dozens of times before, but never like this. Never without restraint. Without fear.
He has her sweatshirt off in a matter of seconds, their mouths only parting for the briefest, necessary moment.
His dexterous hands are beneath her shirt, writing sinful promises against her flushed skin. She tears at his buckle, then zipper. His jeans fall with a heavy thunk. Tom steps out of them, his dark boxers hanging low on his hips. She traces the vee of his pelvis with greedy fingers.
He yanks her shirt over her head in response, scintillating growl on his bruised lips. When he slips her jeans button out and drags her zipper down, Hermione shakes so violently he pauses.
"Is this okay?" he pants, freezing in place.
That he's willing to stop, makes her chest tight and warm. But she's experimented enough to know this is far from her limit. She's felt his lips on her heated flesh before, shattered around his talented tongue.
"Yes," Hermione breathes. "Yes. Please don't stop."
They work her jeans off and tumble onto the bed, only their underclothes separating them. The cot squeaks and jerks in protest, but neither of them pay it any heed.
They're lost in each other. In the lines and curves and sighs. Breathy need passes between their lips. He unclasps her bra with a mere flick of his wrist. She pushes her heaving chest into his hungry caresses, keens when he places his lips and teeth upon her pebbled nipples.
Her hips tilt upward, searching for him. Tom pulls back, a wicked angel of sin as he stares down at her. He's painfully handsome like this, all flushed and bruised and brimming with want.
He trails his index finger down her stomach until it catches on the hem of her string bikini knickers. He hooks the finger into the elastic and drags slowly downward. She lifts her hips and he maintains the teasingly slow pace until her final barrier to him falls away.
Holding her gaze, he rises to his knees between her legs and sheds his boxers. Hermione swallows, her gaze dropping from his hypnotic stare to his arousal. She reaches for him, but he bats her hand away.
"I just want to feel you."
There's no mistaking his meaning. Moisture slicks the inside of her thighs, the anticipation leaving a throbbing ache between her legs.
Instead of moving over her as she expects, he retreats to lean against the wall at the top of the cot. Tom takes her hand and guides her to him until she straddles his waist, her knees bumping against the wall.
She's never had sex like this and she's grateful that even now he's working to reduce any possible triggers. That he's given her the chance to experience something entirely new and good with him.
Hermione feels him brush against her throbbing warmth and shudders, her head falling to his shoulder. His skin tastes of salt and desire when her lips trace the column of his neck.
Tom pulls back a fraction, dark hair matted to his brow as he holds her gaze. "Tell me to stop and I will. At any moment."
She sinks onto him and his face shatters into shards of ecstasy. His lips part with a deep moan and his fingers dig into her hips. She lifts herself up and repeats the motion. His response is no less powerful.
She's tight and he stretches her beyond comfort, but not into pain. It's an ache that slowly fades as her muscles relax and adjust. As the sensation of him inside her becomes a heady pleasure, she dares to meet his fractured stare.
The boy below her is raw, open like a gaping wound. But where there would be carnage, there is naked adoration and the glittering facets of love. She's seen him appear alluring before. She's seen him cracked open, tears leaking from his stunning sapphire eyes. She never could have imagined him like this.
Every layer of pretension is stripped away. Every defense abandoned.
This is simply Tom Marvolo Riddle and he is the most exquisite, arresting thing she has ever seen. He is more splendid than magic. More intoxicating than dreamless sleep. More… just more than she can comprehend.
His hands guide her hips against him and she lets out a whimper that is far more than pleasure.
In this moment, she knows there is so much more, that the universe encompasses vast secrets and that this is one of them, escaped just for her. That she was given this moment and this boy.
It is a gift she will never be able to repay.
"Hermione," her name on his quivering lips guides her back into the physical, to the slide of him within her.
She grinds down on him with renewed vigor and gasps as the deeper angle elicits a new pleasure. Tom follows her lead and soon she's whining softly against his hot mouth, his name slipping from her throat like a prayer.
He chokes, pleasure and emotion consuming him. When he speaks, his voice is hoarse and haunted by longing. "I love you. I fucking love you so bloody much. I never knew… I never thought it possible. Salazar, Hermione, you have destroyed me and made me something else entirely. And I will never be able to truly repay you for it."
The words are more threat than promise, but she knows what he means. To be undone so completely and find such wonder in that destruction. She's broken in different ways than he is, but as he continues to move within her, she understands that, like Tom, she can be remade in beautiful ways.
She drowns in the impossibility of him as he rewrites her destiny.