authorsnote: here we gooo, a little late christmas present - enjoy!
I enjoyed writing this, and I do love this story/ship, but I really feel I need to making something clear here:
This is a firm Tom/Hermione story, there will be romance, angst, smut, hate, love, the whole shebang, but that DOES NOT make it healthy. This is not a healthy depiction of a relationship, this is not sunset and roses, this is toxic, angst, and should not been seen as representative of a healthy relationship. He is Tom Riddle for goodness sake. I know that should be obvious but I just wanted to be super clear on this point.
ANYWHO, I do hope you enjoy, do let me know if you did, or any suggestions for other ships to include (it will always be tomione centric but would like to include others, I have ideas, but I'd love your thoughts).
do review if you liked, follow for updates, and enjoy!
songrecs: betty - taylor swift
She expected with all the excitement that Midnight would come quickly, but no, instead it drags.
Lessons go slowly, and even her usual thirst for knowledge doesn't help her in this case. She finds herself twiddling her hair around her pencil (which was initially out of boredom but a terrible idea as it takes 10 minutes and Harry's concentration to untangle), sighing and even tapping her foot against her chair.
She is officially distracted and checking the clock every two minutes. It is embarrassing really, and yet she can't help it.
She is both excited and nervous for tonight. Eager and anxious, keen and a little scared. But then, that is how Tom makes her feel, a terrifying mixture of utter excitement but with a not so healthy side of damning anxiety. And then there was that kiss…
Even sat in Transfiguration class her mind drifts to that kiss, and as McGonagall is explaining the theory around animate to inanimate transfiguring, she finds her mind drifting in her favourite class.
She swears her lips are still tingling, and she finds her fingers brushing her bottom lip. She remembers his hands gripping at her waist, hers tugging at his hair, the little moan that had left her lips, the groan that had near escaped his, the flush to her chest, the warmth between her legs … but most of all she remembers how ruffled he looked after, how affected.
She smiles to herself and barely focuses as class winds on.
Finally, dinner comes, and again she is unfocused. Part of her is a little annoyed and she knows she'll be more irritated when this haze fades, for again Tom has made her feel confused, muddled, unfocused … and yet she feels so sure that the kiss was the right thing, that it felt right.
Tom is a puzzle. One second he confuses her, belittles her and makes her nervous, the next he is kissing her, praising her, building her up. She feels like she might have whiplash, but even as she feels such a torrent of warring emotions her mind keeps focusing back to that kiss.
"Hermione?" She is jolted from her thoughts by Ron, who has given her a light kick under the table, evidently, she was not listening to the conversation, her mind miles away as she held a fork aloft, no food on it, her friends trying to get her attention.
Quickly she places her fork down, tries to feign an expression of interest, and tries to focus, "Hmm?"
"We were just saying about the Charms homework?" Ron says, as though it should be obvious and she resists the urge to roll her eyes – of course they want her input now, when it is about homework.
She loves her boys, she does, but damn they can be lazy.
"What about it?" She asks, eyebrow raised, her mind wanting to be thinking of kissing Tom, not correcting Ron's errors on cheering charms.
"Have you done it?" He asks, taking a bite of his food, and this time she allows herself an eye roll as she digs into her bag.
"Well of course I've done it" In she looks, in the folder she keeps parchment in, in the inside of her textbook, even roots around the bottom where only droobles bubblegum wrappers and pens exist, and yet no essay on cheering charms.
She remembers doing it, she knows she's done it, she did the research in the library, she had it with her in potions …
She just about smothers the gasp that leaves her lips, as she whips her head around to look across at the Slytherin table. He is sat with his usual cronies of course, and as she looks at him he turns his gaze to her, as though he knew she'd be looking, and of course he smirks.
Bastard.
Why did he steal her essay? Though she hates to admit it he doesn't need to, he is just as good in Charms as he is everything else (i.e. brilliant), so why did he steal hers from her bag during Potions?
"Hermione?" Again, he is smirking as he slides his gaze away from her, back to his friends, and she can feel her teeth grinding.
Well that has focused her away from her head-in-the-clouds attitude she's had today, now she knows he has stolen from her!
"The essay?" Snapped back again she can't help but glare at Ron, and stand to her feet, hands shaking a little in rage.
"Not now Ron!" Is all she offers before she is storming out of the Great Hall. Part of her wants to march up to Tom and demand he hand it over, but she also doesn't want to acknowledge in front of the whole school that she knows him, nor that they've had contact, nor that she is annoyed with him.
No.
Instead, she'll wait until later, but far from the second kiss she was hoping for, she'll march up to the Astronomy Tower and demand her essay back before perhaps never speaking to Tom Pevel again. Yes, that is a good plan, and as she storms up to Gryffindor Tower and marches into her room she flops down on her bed again, but this time she doesn't giggle, she fumes.
She finds that Midnight still comes slowly.
She had hoped in her rage the hours would fly by whilst she stewed in her own anger, but instead it dragged along as it had all day. The minutes drip by like slow rolling rain off a roof, and she was sure the clock had gotten stuck at several points and not budged.
She tried to do homework, she tried to focus on studying, even tried to read one of her classics (Little Women, then Jane Eyre), but she couldn't focus, not a bit, she couldn't get lost in the tales of Laurie and Amy, nor Jane and Mr Rochester, nothing.
Her roommates haven't arrived, but then it is Friday, she can't imagine they'll drag themselves to bed before the early hours of the morning.
"Come on" She grumbled to herself, glancing at the clock again – 11pm, still an hour to go! How was time going by so slowly? She was sure she'd never before wished so hard to have her time turner back.
Glancing over at the stack of books on her bedside table, she looked through, and pulled out the one on the bottom, one her Father had given her, one she hadn't read in a while, and yet nothing else was distracting her, perhaps time to try something different.
The Tempest.
She had read this a fair few times, but it wasn't one of her most well thumbed novels, still she found herself flicking through the volume, attempting to distract herself, to not think of Tom.
Though as she read through, it seemed to do the exact opposite.
'We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep' … his lips on her neck, her cheek, her earlobe, her lips. Soft to touch but with a hard intent.
'This thing of darkness I Acknowledge mine' … His hand on her thigh, lifting her, ghosting over her skin, skating over her.
'Awake, dear heart, awake. Thou hast slept well. Awake' The race of her own heartbeat, her pulse flickering incessantly against her neck, her ragged breath.
'What seest thou else. In the dart backward and abysm of time?' His words as he insults her, mocks her, praises her, compliments her, riles her up. His smooth rich voice where the accent is just a hint too perfect.
'Hell is empty and all the devils are here' His eyes, piercing into hers, as though gazing into her soul, hers searching his, for something, something she knows is there but can't quite identify.
Him.
A little gasp leaves her lips as she comes back to herself, no longer lost in the words on the page and her thoughts of Tom. She near threw the book across the room, but sets it down instead, and almost backs away from it.
How is it that she can't even seem to distract herself from the thought of him now?
Consuming her…
She glances at the clock again and her eyes widen: 11:45? Time has been slow all day, like paint drying on a wall, taking forever to set, but now? Now she feels all flustered, her cheeks aflame, her mind far too occupied with the man she has vowed to chastise and push away, now time decides to move quickly?
Just her luck.
Quickly she jumps to her feet, and goes to the mirror, thankful her roommates are still absent, for she is looking decidedly flushed.
One glance at herself and she almost doesn't recognise that it is her. Her hair is a little wilder than usual, her cheeks pink, hands shaking, her uniform a little askew. She feels unsettled; he unsettles her. She feels angry at him again, and something else.
He is always making her feel 'something else'. She hates it … and loves it.
Quickly she rakes a brush through her hair, murmurs a charm that flattens the curls just a hint (for anything else she'd ever tried with her wand had stuck her hair on end), smooths down her uniform, slips her shoes back on and takes a deep breath.
First one, then two, then three, and then finally after a sixth she feels ready … almost, ready, for whatever Tom wants to meet her for, for whatever he plans for them, and for the moment she is determined she will take control and finally make it clear to him that this messing around with her is not okay.
She finds herself skating her fingers over her bottom lip again, this may not be easy …
One last look in the mirror and she turns away.
It is time to face the devil again.
The corridors are silent as she hurries through them, head down, taking the routes past the teachers who she knows are on patrol (and feels awfully guilty using her Prefect knowledge to do so, out after hours, using her special privilege to skate the rules, she feels terrible, and yet it doesn't stop her, this is the first time breaking the rules for something unnoble has come so easy to her), and hurries along to the Astronomy Tower, where she knows Tom will be waiting.
She does pause for a minute before going on up, glances at one of the clocks on the wall: 11:58pm. She pauses, waits, hesitates, she knows this could go South. Anger still simmers in her veins, she still plans to scold him, to be done with him, to demand he stop messing with her head, stop taking her on this rollercoaster he has forced her onto. She knows that is what she should do, it is even what she wants to do, but as she glances at the spiral staircase, as she knows he is up there, she knows it might not be what she will do.
He is the only person who has ever made her feel so uncertain in her own actions.
Still, she only pauses for a second, and then she is heading up. She was always going to go up, she knows herself well enough to know that, and hates herself a little for it as well.
When she arrives at the top, eyes wide, hair a little messy, hands shaking, he is not there.
Disappointment is the primary emotion, swiftly followed by frustration. Where is he? She wonders briefly if he got caught by a teacher, or even lost but she dismisses that, he is too smart for that.
He is too smart for his own good, but then perhaps that isn't true.
'You little miss are too smart for your own good' It has been said to her before, by primary school teachers unsure what to do with a little girl who was always top of the class, won the school spelling bee whilst only 6 against 9 and 10 year olds, won the regional math championship at just 8, talked back to a teacher when she noticed an inaccuracy in the work on the board, 'Too smart for your own good' – how could one be too smart for their own good? A silly expression, but if it applies to anyone, it applies to Tom.
Where is he?
Five minutes she waits, then ten, and as the clock hand reaches quarter past, she feels like an utter fool. She jumps to her feet to leave; she is no lap dog! Waiting around like a puppy waiting for its Master, no, that has not been and will never be her.
If her blood was boiling earlier it now must have simmered over, she is furious.
And of course, as she jumps up, angry and red faced and completely and utterly incensed, Tom strolls up the stairs, closing the door behind him, not a hair out of place, utterly at ease.
"I'm leaving" Is all she says, because of course he doesn't apologise, she'd have been shocked if he did, and so she marches for the door, intent on going.
"Why?" He catches her wrist as she goes to storm past him, stopping her in her tracks, one eyebrow raised as he looks down at her, and she offers her best glare.
God, she hates him, and then he smooths his thumb over the inside of her wrist, her heart stutters and she hates him even more. She wants to punch him and decides she thoroughly despises him when he smirks at her.
"Get your hands off of me" She growls, he may make her feel warm, and the area between her thighs a little heated, but she'll die before she goes to him now, and she furiously yanks her wrist from his grasp.
He has stolen her essay, teased her, irritated her, showed up late without an apology, and is now smirking at her. She feels if she stays another minute, she'll scream at him, which for some reason seems to be what he wants.
Well, she won't be giving him what he wants – not now, not ever, and so she turns again to the door, though this time he grabs her from behind, by the waist, to some it would seem playful, flirty, but he grips her hard, and keeps her right in place.
"I told you to get off me" She says, twisting her body to try and get him to release her, he doesn't, hell he has the gall to laugh, and she wonders then if she could throw his body off the Astronomy Tower and get away with it. Could she cover up his murder? She is sure if she got Harry and Ron involved they could hide it well enough.
"I think you know by now I do not like being told what to do" He practically purrs in her ear and she hates herself for shivering against him, hates herself, hates him. "Now, why are you upset with me?"
"Why?" She shrieks then, and she feels some satisfaction in seeing him wince, "You stole my essay, showed up late, didn't apologise, and now you're assaulting me, I wonder why"
She can practically feel him roll his eyes, and she tries to shake him off again, but he just grips her tighter.
"Okay" He speaks in a hushed tone, next to her ear, and again she feels herself shiver, feels a wetness between her legs, it is awful and wonderful, and god she hates him. "I did not steal your essay for one, and I showed up late because I had to dodge one of the teachers on patrol, I didn't apologise because it wasn't worth apologising for, and I doubt you'd be quivering as you are in my arms if you felt assaulted"
"You're disgusting" She hisses, and again tries to shake him off, but again no luck, he holds her firm.
"I think that is the last thing you find me" He whispers into her ear, and her head lolls back against him, almost instinctively, against her will.
This is what she hates the most, not how mean he is, how unkind, how difficult, how brilliant, how much better than her, it is this. How he twists and turns things, how he makes her feel so weak, manipulates, and influences her, how he can say one thing, do another, and yet the end result is always that she is putty in his arms.
She hates him for making her feel this way, but she hates herself more for letting him.
"Tom, let me go" She stutters on her words then, it would be so easy, so easy just to give in, and now only one of his hands holds her firm at the waist, not letting her escape, the other is trailing down her stomach, drifting over the waistband of her skirt, teasing there. Then his other hand, so sure she won't run, finds her cheek, turns her head in his direction, and his lips descend upon hers.
It would be easy, so easy, and for a moment it is.
His lips meet hers and a strangled moan leaves her lips, his fingers dip below the waistband of her skirt, ghost over her underwear and then dip below them. His fingers just trace down, and he flicks her bottom lip with his tongue, another whimper leaves her lips, but then somehow, she finds the will, and wrenches herself free.
She whirls away from him, and finds some satisfaction that he looks shocked, he was certainly not expecting her to end this little romp, he was expecting her to melt in his arms, which she almost did, hell she actually did for a few seconds and was seconds off just giving in before finding the strength to break free.
She pulls away, whirls around to face him, and as she collects herself a little, she feels livid.
"I am not some easy piece of skirt who will let you push me around" She feels furious, and delirious with desire, and somehow a little happy, but angry all at the same time, it is horrible, confusing, and awful. "I am worth more than that" She growls before scooping up her bag from the floor and glaring at him.
"I know what you're worth Hermione" He sounds sincere then, for the first time, and he takes a step forward, and she is so almost convinced, she so wants to be convinced. She notices he seems a little ruffled again, but it doesn't make her feel smug like it did before.
"No" She shakes her head, "You are bad news"
"You're just realising that now?" He laughs then, and steps forward again, and again, and then he is backing her up, into the door, and she wants to shove him, she does even, but he grabs her wrists, and holds her there, his eyes glaring into hers, she feels both turned on and a little scared, and those two emotions are an odd pair.
"I am bad news Hermione" Somehow him using her first name whilst looking at her like he wants to kill her and kiss her at the same time is absolutely terrifying, and this time she shivers, both with a hint of desire, but also fear, "But I know that is what you like"
He grins then, like a shark, locking in on its prey, her eyes never leave his, not once, even as he releases her and steps back, holds his hands aloft in surrender.
"I know you want me; you know you do too" He shrugs then, putting his hands in his pockets, looking all for the world like he couldn't care less, but she sees a hint that he does care, and that is the biggest shock to her, he does care.
She doesn't know how to feel about that.
"You just need to decide what you want to do next" He is smirking again, it is unsettling beyond belief, "And I'll be waiting"
She pauses, just for a second, 'You just need to decide what you want to do next'
She knows what she wants to do, but instead she runs.
"You can't run forever Hermione" He calls after her, and she knows he's right, but she doesn't slow down.
Not once, not until she is back in the common room, not until she is safely locked in the girl's bathroom, warded and hidden away. Only then does she slow down, only then does she sink to the floor.
And for the second time after a confrontation with Tom does she find herself sat on a cold floor, her mind and heart racing, more confused than she has ever been before.
sooo thoughts?
ahh the angst is killing me! d'we love it? hate it? I am personally a huge angst lover, but do let me know if you hate/love it!
as always, pls review, fav/follow, and I will be updating asap, thanks as always for your support. also for fans of my fic 'the greatest' I am actively working on chapter 3!
speak soon