AN - This is my first time publishing anything on here or anywhere and my first time writing anything outside of an academic setting, so take it with a grain of salt. I think it will be two to three chapters. I obviously don't own any of the characters.
Hermione felt her chest tighten in resentment and jealousy as her friends reminisced about their childhoods. Ron and Ginny talked of weekly board games and playing tag with siblings while Harry talked about playing tag with cousins and his uncle Sirius's kids and she yearned for the same sort of memories. She looked around at her homey living room, seeing not the perfectly curated decor, but the living room of her childhood, devoid of any personalization or warmth. Her attempts to create a home were evident all around her, but to everyone else it looked like a typical home because it was what they'd all grown up with. She resented that too.
She remembered the last time she'd been home. She remembered how her mother held her diary in her hands, far away from her body as though its contents were contagious, reading her innermost thoughts and curiosities aloud.
His hands drifted over her body, first lightly over her neck, tightening slightly to prevent her from relaxing into his ministrations. His fingers drifted to her shoulders next, stopping to knead her tense muscles.
"Nervous?" he asked. He didn't expect an answer as he stopped at the nape of her neck, his lips joining the exploration. He put the zipper of her dress between his fingers, dragging it down slowly to no doubt torture her further.
"Don't move," he warned her. She bit down a whimper, tensing her muscles further to contain her body's desire to seek his touch.
"Good girl, you obey me so well." Her dress fell to her waist, stopping at her hips and leaving her breasts bare to the air. Her nipples puckered as the cold air hit them and his hands reached around her to cup them in his palms.
"Are you cold, sweetheart?" He caught each nipple between the ring and middle finger of their respective hands and pinched. She gasped, then bit her tongue as a moan tried to escape her mouth at the sound of his words and the feel of his slightly calloused hands on her skin.
"Please," she finally vocalized. She could feel his body shake as he laughed at her begging words.
"Please what?" He squeezed her breasts harder.
"Please, daddy!" She cried out, trembling as his hands finally moved lower.
At the time, her fantasies had starred a favorite teacher of hers who was devilishly handsome (for a high school teacher) and had seemed so sophisticated to her younger self. Her mother called her fantasies depraved, dirty, sinful when the truth was Hermione had never felt closer to Heaven than she did during her fantasies and if that's not the definition of holy, she didn't know what was.
While her mother waxed poetic about God and morality, about perversion and the perils of hedonism, Hermione made arrangements in her head to leave the suffocating place she'd called home for the first eighteen years of her life.
That had been five years ago, and she hadn't looked back since. At the time, she'd already graduated high school and been accepted to university, so she'd simply left for uni earlier than anticipated and that had been that. She ended up finishing undergrad with honors, and was now in grad school at one of the best universities in England. Despite leaving that life behind, she had yet to find something – or someone – to call home.
"Her-my-oh-knee," her friend Ginny Weasley sang, questionable drink in hand, drawing her out of her bitter memories.
"Yes, Ginny?" She sighed. She loved the woman she called her best friend, but her picturesque family and recent engagement to Harry made it hard for Hermione to divulge her inner turmoil and she knew exactly what Ginny's topic of choice would be.
"You're spacing out for the tenth time this hour and it's your birthday party. What's wrong?" The redhead's left eyebrow arched high on her face, emphasizing her unwillingness to let the topic go.
"It's not been nearly that many times and I'm just tired. Honestly, with you lot around how could I not be?" The sound of a lamp crashing across the living room emphasized her point, as did Ron and Harry's sheepish apologies and profuse promises to fix the damage they caused.
Ginny rolled her eyes at their antics, refusing to let Hermione get off that easy. "I know it's not that. You deal with their shite far more frequently than just today and it doesn't usually make you zone out like this." Her gaze turns calculating. "Is it about a bloke? That guy you've been seeing—what's his name? Marvin? Maltese?"
Hermione snorted. "Maltese? Who is named Maltese?"
The drink held by the redhead's freckled hand sloshed perilously close to the edge of the cup, making Hermione fear for the fate of her cream carpet. "Not the point, 'Mione! I know something is up, and you know I'll keep prying until I get the answer out of you so you might as well fess up now."
The brunette sighed, knowing her friend was right and dreading the inquisition that would surely follow if she refused to give in. "It's really not that serious, Gin. It is about a guy, but it isn't about Matthew. It's actually not about anyone in particular, it's just my lack of a dating life lately. Things with Matt fizzled out pretty quickly. He was nice, but relationships take more than just…nice. You know?"
Ginny's stare goes deadpan. "Oh, do I know. Dean and I never argued, he never cheated, we didn't break up because of anything dramatic. He was perfectly respectful, perfectly fit, but he just wouldn't shag me how I wanted—hard and passionate! Now Harry on the other hand…".
"Ginny! Please, I don't need to know that much." She covers her ears as the other woman cackles at her own antics.
"Oh, calm down, you prude! I know you know what I mean. Never mind that, though—I know just what you need. You need a casual, stringless hook up!" Unfortunately (or fortunately, Hermione wasn't quite sure which it was), the rest of the room chose that moment to become aware of the conversation occurring between the two women.
"Ooh, who's Miss Goody Two Shoes shagging?" Fred, or maybe it's George, waggled his eyebrows at the woman in question suggestively.
"None of your business," Hermione says at the same time Ginny shouts out, "Anyone she bloody wants to!"
At that, the rest of the party guests start discussing who she could be shagging which leads to who they all want to be shagging (from the twins) and who they might be able to set their curly-haired friend up with (Luna and Lavender, there with their respective partners Neville and Ron).
Hermione zoned out for the eleventh time that night, but she couldn't get Ginny's words out of her mind. Perhaps she did need a good shag to get over the existential crisis she seemed to be having. Unbeknownst to Ginny, Hermione hadn't been telling the full truth. Her mood was about a man; that is– a specific man. One she worked with daily and dreamed about nightly. One who reignited the fantasies her mother worked hard to spirit out of her with increased church visits. One who she shouldn't think about, but who she couldn't bring herself to stop thinking about.
Professor Tom Riddle.
Hermione was bent over the mahogany desk, her neck aching as she raced to finish the book held beneath the small, dim light. The library had long been abandoned by other students and faculty members, but she had secured work as a research student with one of the professors in her department, which afforded her access after hours.
The sound of a throat clearing behind her brought her out of her deep concentration. Bergamot and musk filled her senses, a scent she associated with only one man.
"Professor Riddle," she acknowledged the man she was conducting research for as she turned her head to meet his dark Aegean gaze.
"Miss Granger." His eyes bounced around her face, as though taking in any changes since she'd last seen him a week earlier. "How was your birthday?"
She was shocked he'd remembered. He always seemed mercurial and resistant to learning about her personal life whenever she spoke to him.
"It was fine, I had a small celebration with a few close friends, but it was pretty tame besides."
He hummed his acknowledgement of her statement but didn't say anything else in response to her words. Uncomfortable at his stare and silence, she turned her back to him, intent on finishing the tiny bit left in the chapter she'd been reading.
"Are you dismissing me, Miss Granger?" She heard his voice much closer than it had been previously as his breath ghosted hot over her left ear.
"No," she stuttered out, shocked by the typically stoic man's behavior.
"Good, I'd hate to take back the present I got you." A small diamond pendant in some indeterminable shape dangled in her peripheral from a delicate silver chain. "Would you like me to put it on?"
She nodded, not trusting her voice to remain steady.
In the next moment, she felt his hands brush her neck as he brought the chain around her front. She expected him to step back once the necklace was on, but he shocked her yet again as his lips met the skin beneath the clasp gently before he stepped away.
"Happy birthday, Hermione."
"-Hermione! Hermione!" A voice less smooth and far shriller than the rich tone of her professor ricochets through her sleepy thoughts. Her world begins to shake, and she wonders if this is what an earthquake feels like.
Her eyes shoot open as her friends crowd around her.
"'Mione, you fell asleep! It's officially your birthday!" Ginny and Luna are holding an elaborately decorated cake in front of her shaped like a book, 'Happy 23rd Birthday, 'Mione' written across it in Times New Roman. "Blow out the candle and make a wish!"
Her dream featuring Professor Riddle plagues her thoughts, and she can't help but wish it hadn't been just a dream as she closes her eyes and blows.
