authorsnotes: quick updates bbyyyy (or quick for me at least)
damn this chapter is a rideee
do enjoy, do review and let me know if you did!
songrecs: toxic - 2WEI (how have I not recommended this yet?! this is their song, god listen to this whenever you re-read)
The next day she sat at breakfast, deliciously well rested, eating her porridge, and drinking her pumpkin juice, and yet she was not nearly as relaxed as she'd made out.
Yes, she'd sat herself down, worn a smile, fooled Ron (maybe not Harry who looked at her with narrowed eyes but let it go), and had gone about her morning. When she'd needed to think, to be left alone, she'd dug out a Potions book, propped it up and been left be, this being completely normal morning behaviour for her.
Only she didn't feel normal.
Everything Tom had said to her was playing on a loop in her head, over and over and over.
His talks about rising to power, about using the blood purist waffle to do so, the entirely terrifying look in his eye. This wasn't some stupid boy talking about going into politics, this was Tom, who'd had the Slytherin's scraping at his feet within a day of him transferring, who'd made putty out of her, who'd charmed every teacher and knew exactly what cause to spin to get himself to the top.
She had no doubt he'd do it, people here were either terrified or charmed by him, and she knew he'd continue that tactic going forward.
She no longer doubted his feelings for her, but she felt almost … dirty. Like a prized pet treated differently because they had the favour. Tom was more than fine with grinding down muggle-borns, she was just the exception. It felt wrong and left a horrible knot in her stomach.
A knot she tried and failed to ignore.
How could she ignore it? It made her feel even a touch sick. Tom was willing to do anything to get to power, and what he'd said about the wheels turning she knew was true, but from her perspective she'd always intended to change the wheel.
She'd settled on possibly wanting to go into that world too, to the Ministry, but to make effective change from the bottom up, rise up the ranks overturning injustice and corruption, not go along with everything to get to the top and then doing what you wished when you got there, just as corrupt, and bad as the rest of them. It was wrong, it felt dirty, and she didn't want a part in that.
And yet, she did want Tom, she cared for him, hell she probably even loved him, but what he was doing? It made her heart ache.
How could she go along with it? Be a traitor, a hypocrite to her morals, and yet if she wanted something with Tom, she doubted he'd be persuaded to go a different way.
No, Tom was the type to take what he wanted, not wait around for things to change.
God, she felt deflated. All happiness of the day before gone. Why was this a repeating pattern?
This wasn't like yesterday, she didn't feel angry or furious, no she just felt tired, and a touch ashamed. Just the day before she'd been falling over him with pleasure in the broom closet, snuggled up to his side in her bed, was she a traitor? To muggle-borns? To Gryffindor? To herself? It felt like all three.
And so, she hid behind her book, ate her breakfast, and when she hurried down to the greenhouses, she kept a smile plastered on her face, even though inside she felt like crying.
Two bites from a venomous tentacular plant later and apparently the jig was up.
"Hermione what's wrong?" Harry spoke in a hushed whisper, which she was thankful for. She was so over Ron her jealousy for him and Lavender no longer existed, but they still weren't quite as close, never really had been as her and Harry, and she felt easier in confiding in him.
"Just Tom" She whispered, well aware he was in this class, though towards the back, and when she flicked him a glance (which she'd somehow managed to avoid doing all lesson), he was huddled with his cronies speaking in hushed tones.
No doubt about their world takeover.
"What about him?" Harry asked, patting down some fertilizer, as Hermione glared at the wretched plant, before reaching for the soil, mind too far away for a lesson as interactive as Herbology.
"A minor argument" Anything but minor and yet she could hardly confide in Harry that her boyfriend? Lover? Whatever the hell Tom was, was planning a Wizarding World takeover using blood supremacy as his platform, when she a muggle-born was basically in love with him.
No, Harry already had his suspicions about Tom and his 'Slytherin gang', and regardless of Voldemort's disappearance and the much calmer atmosphere that had left over Hogwarts, Harry was still far too reckless for his own good. No, better to keep Harry out of it and away from Tom.
There was no denying Tom scared her a touch, not that she ever thought he'd do anything to her, but she'd seen the way he plotted, the look in his eyes sometimes, and he'd given her more than one non-desire fuelled shiver down her back.
Tom was dangerous, there was no doubt, and she intended to keep Harry away from danger for the foreseeable and long future.
"He was just being a dick" She whispered, and Harry laughed at that, defusing some of the tension. She did see out of her periphery Tom flick his gaze to her, and she only just managed to stifle the smirk.
It was nice sometimes, to see Tom checking in on her, when he often showed such indifference.
God, he scrambled her brain, here she was worried about his evil world domination plans, feeling ashamed for how she felt for him considering said plans, and yet she still acted like a schoolgirl, pleased he'd looked her way.
At least he was consistent, she supposed. Tom had been scrambling her brain from the day she'd met him.
"The offer to kick his ass stands" Harry said, and she laughed at that, a touch cheered up, and nodded, both of them a touch more focused on their plant, well … before Harry spoke.
"You know I think Ron and Lavender might be getting serious" Harry said then, and Hermione lifted an eyebrow, not jealous, not anymore, Tom had seen to that, but surprised.
"Really?" She asked, and Harry nodded, reaching for the trimmers.
"Yeah, I think Ron's noticed your lack of interest in it now, and lack of jealousy, and instead of breaking up with her like we thought, he's actually started to date her" Harry said with a shrug, and then a wince as the plant in front of them proved very opposed to pruning.
"Well good for them" She said, and she smiled when she found she meant it. Her romantic interest in Ron had long sailed, she hoped now he had a genuine interest in someone else, their friendship would bounce back, the trio back together, as it should be.
Though she knew Ron would not remotely take the news of her and Tom as well as Harry had, not a chance.
With a groan she too reached for some trimmers, and tried to focus, blotting out her far too complicated love-life, and instead focused on not letting the trickly plant reach for her curls as it so wanted.
She didn't look at Tom again for the rest of the lesson, even as she laughed when Harry forcibly beat back one of the plants over-enthusiastic vines with a book, did she notice him looking her way, and none too happy that she wasn't looking back.
The same went for the next lesson, Double Arithmancy. Thankfully it was a lesson on pure theory, and though there was only five students in the class, she slipped into a seat next to Anthony Goldstein before Tom could arrive and kept her head down as he walked past her.
She wasn't avoiding him per say … (though she knew that tended to be her tactic when unsure or upset), she was just trying to sought her thoughts out before she spoke to him.
At least that was what she told herself.
Thankfully there was no space to worry or think during Arithmancy, the lesson's always so intense they required her full attention and not a scrap less. Though she did find herself distracted.
Tom sat in front of her, and so she caught herself glancing up, but only the back of his head greeted her, not much to stare at, and yet once or twice she did.
God, why had he confused her life so much? Right in time for NEWTS? She needed to focus, and yet he'd taken all focus from her brain she was sure.
It felt like a rollercoaster with him, up and down, side to side, right way up, wrong way up, over, and over and over. One day she was grinning from ear to ear, smiling harder than she ever had, and then the next day she felt miserable.
One day she was so sure, so in love with him, so ready to give herself to him completely, and the next she felt like running for the muggle world and never looking back.
She had no command over her own feelings, none, all logic, and good thinking gone in the face of Tom. She had no idea what to do, how to think, how to feel. Her head felt like a jumble.
Probably just how he wanted her, confused enough to overlook his many, many flaws (scary, planning to rule the wizarding world, blood purist, or at least pretending to be, far too gifted), but she couldn't, that wasn't Hermione Granger.
Sometimes in a moment of weakness she wished it was.
She was thankful when the lesson ended, and she was on her feet and hurrying to lunch, like a rocket down the stairs, not avoiding …
Ugh, who was she kidding.
Lunch came and went, and she found herself sat next to Ginny. She gave her friend a smile but once again hid behind a book. She still needed to think, regardless of her slightly cheered mood thanks to Harry (though Arithmancy had soured even that), she barely managed it, lunch soon over, and off to Charms she went, her head still scrambled.
That was another class where she found herself between Harry and Ron, and the loud atmosphere of the room meant she was suitably distracted from her dilemma, unable to think on it, which was both a positive and negative.
Positive, the issue of Tom still championing the platform that would make her a second-class citizen, even though he said he cared for her, was not at the front of her mind, as it had been for hours.
Negative: She couldn't think on said issue and try to find a solution.
She did consider she could think on it later and try to have a touch of stress-free time during the day, a luxury for her nowadays.
They were set the Finestra Charm today, all given glass panes which they were to shatter, repair and shatter again. Professor Flitwick had impressed upon them the need to shatter in different ways; gently, forcefully, in shapes and patterns, and so the lesson as always was loud and boisterous.
Yes, she was definitely distracted.
But it wasn't like Arithmancy, she was distracted in a bad way. There was no intense focus here, just her mind rolling over and over, unable to stay on one thought.
"Hey Hermione" Ron spoke snapping her out of her thoughts; positives and negatives, jumbled. Harry was chatting away to Susan at the next table, and so she turned to Ron and smiled, it had been a little while since they'd had a proper chat just the two of them.
"I heard about you and Lavender" She said, and found her smile was genuine, she was happy for him, really.
"Yeah" Ron's ears turned red then and she smiled deeper, she had missed him, as a friend, nothing more, not anymore. "She's nice"
"Just nice?" She teased and his blush only deepened, to which she grinned before going to turn back to her pane. Ron was so easy sometimes; he wore his feelings on his sleeve.
For a second she mourned what she could have had. Sure, Ron could be stroppy, and impossible, but she knew a relationship with him (if it ever got there) would have been simple, happy. She would have fallen quickly, and he too, and they would have had a relaxed happiness, unassuming and loving. She wouldn't be sat feeling like she was.
Ron wouldn't make her feel like a traitor, wouldn't have her second guessing her mind. Ron would give her a kind smile not a smirk. Ron would kiss her softly, not with a possessive intent. Ron would cup her cheek and hold her close, not bait and mock her. Ron would love her, not give her whatever Tom was giving her.
It would have been easy with Ron, but Tom had seen dust to that long ago.
"Well, we're okay, though right?" Ron asked her before she could get too lost again, and with a slightly forced smile she turned back to him and nodded, finding they really were okay, and she was glad for it.
"We are Ron, really" She said, and she didn't imagine the sigh of relief that left Ron, she would have given one herself, were she not far too tense to be relieved by anything.
Once again, she went to turn back, but Ron's next words stopped her, this time a touch more violently as she jumped at his next words, not expecting them at all.
And they scared her.
"Though you know, you and me … I always thought" She shook her head then, a flash of panic running through her, stopping Ron in his tracks. She didn't feel scared of Ron, of course not, but his words. Especially to who sat three tables over and one in front. Who she'd just been comparing Ron to in her mind. Fuck.
Surely, he couldn't hear them? Not as Professor Flitwick was heard admonishing Seamus for blowing up his glass pane, or Neville apologising to Ernie for breaking both their panes, or the general chatter. Surely, he hadn't heard what Ron had said?
She hoped not.
God, she hoped not.
She wasn't scared of Tom in what he'd do to her, but she got quite the sense he was jealous, possessive, 'Mine' and as much as she wanted to keep Harry with his gallantry and chivalry away from Tom, she wanted to keep Ron and his potentially dangerous thing he'd just said away from Tom more.
"No Ron" She said, trying to shake the worried expression off her face, for now Ron looked concerned, "You and Lavender suit, you really do" Ron smiled then, and she nodded a bit too hard. Surely he hadn't heard?
She couldn't fool herself that he didn't care enough. She knew even if Tom didn't care for her that deeply (and she went back and forth on that), he still wouldn't like this. 'Mine' He'd said, which both had her stomach fluttering and her teeth grinding, she wasn't a possession, but the idea of being Tom's made her thighs clench together.
"We do" Ron said then, "But…"
"No buts Ron" She cut him off again, closing that door, even if part of her still longed for it herself … in another world, that was the only place her and Ron would exist like that now, she knew that.
She was thankful as the bell rang, more confuse than before as lessons ended, and she waved her pane with a quick flick, and was up to her feet, she felt like she might cry, and she couldn't even figure out why, damn he messed her up, didn't he? "Really"
Ron looked crestfallen then, but nodded, and she quickly gathered her things before heading for the door, a nod to Harry that she was alright as she hurried along, though she wasn't alright, not at all.
She hurried along though, the last thing she needed right now was to be confronted with Tom, not now.
And yet, she soon heard footsteps, and knew someone was following her, and she quickly knew who.
Yes, he'd heard.
Fuck.
soooo thoughts?
HOT DAMN
poor hermione D: tom is doing a number on her. d'you get my warnings now? this shit is TOXIC. ugh, I still love it, hopefully you do too.
next chapter shit's gunna kick off!
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speak soon