A/N: Apologies for the delay this week, everyone! This summer is a bit crazy for me, but I'll still be trying to stick to my weekly update schedule. Hope you all are enjoying and thanks for sticking with me so far. :)

Hermione mostly spent the weekend in her room, interacting with Tom a few times but not quite like she had on Saturday. It wasn't that she in denial that something was happening between them, because whatever was happening seemed to be growing without her permission. No; it was just that she was letting time freeze, if only momentarily, before she became completely subsumed in her budding relationship with Tom. A week ago, she was in such healthy denial about everything but her attraction to Tom, and now nearly overnight she had accepted her feelings and realized that she had preemptively failed at her task.

But where did that leave things? Somehow, despite her new resolution not to murder Tom (which now seemed almost laughable that someone who was supposed to be one of the most intelligent wizards of her time ever thought she could kill anyone—even Tom—in cold blood), Hermione felt that her life was inexplicably intertwined with Tom's, but she hadn't figured out what that meant, or how she could proceed in being involved with someone who she knew would only worsen as his soul degraded.

But their kiss… Hermione had been kissed before, of course. But it had never been so consuming. Her other thoughts weren't just pushed to the back of her mind; they seemed to disappear altogether. Even sex had never been that passionate for Hermione before, and sex with Draco was never bad; she had always enjoyed herself. But when she had sex with Tom, it would be… No, no… no! You are not thinking about having sex with Tom Marvolo Riddle. A smaller voice in the back of her head added: not yet.

It wasn't just their physical chemistry, either. Hermione had been somewhat prepared for how handsome and charming young Tom Riddle would be. She had seen through his veneer so quickly that she thought herself out of the woods. But she wasn't prepared for how un-Voldemort-like Tom would be. He wasn't the same person who was obsessed with murdering her best friend; Tom was much more interested in academics and pushing the boundaries of magic, and even if his interests tended more toward the Dark Arts, she couldn't help but see herself in him. Ultimately, she knew Tom would be a challenge, but expected that to be a hurdle to overcome, not something to make her care for him.

Hermione had skipped breakfast Monday morning as a last attempt to avoid interacting with the rest of the student population for as long as humanly possible. When she went to leave for Potions, however, she found Tom casually reading his textbook in their common room, not-so-subtly waiting for her.

As they walked to class, Tom had his arm around her. Although his touch was light, something about it that was possessive; maybe it was how close he held her, the way his finger would occasionally toy with her upper arm, or the occasional burning look he shot her way. Either way, she knew she should be irritated with his behavior, but was suppressing a smile instead. As they arrived at their first Monday morning class, Potions, she half-heartedly tried to detach from him. He allowed it (perhaps because they couldn't fit through the doorway as is), but threaded his left hand through hers as they walked into the room.

They weren't late, but weren't early, either. Hermione noticed almost immediately that Abraxas was sitting in her normal seat, leaving a seat empty for her next to Tom. She tried to walk to her normal table, but Abraxas gave her a terrified look and Tom pulled her toward the table closest to the door. Reluctantly, she slid in the seat to the right of Tom, Mildred Bulstrode in her normal seat to his left. Hermione didn't turn around, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead, but felt everyone in the small class staring at her. It turned out that staring straight ahead was hardly a helpful task, because Slughorn was unabashedly smirking at the pair of them, actually sending her a wink before diving into his lesson.

Luckily, they had been working on shorter potions so she wasn't in the middle of any potions with Olive, although she didn't know if that would have changed the behavior of a very attractive Slytherin sitting to her left. Hermione needed to have a talk with him later. It was incredibly endearing (and she hated how much), but he couldn't just decide where she sat in Potions. What really took her aback, though, wasn't the controlling bent of his actions, but how calculating and detail-oriented he was. Clearly, he had already told Abraxas that he would be required to move seats in order to sit next to her in class—or did Abraxas really just know Tom that well? She had only been in this time a few months, after all. It was perfectly possible that this was something Tom did with all of his girlfriends.

Potions class had been an uncomfortable class all semester with Olive, so the added awkwardness of the day didn't bother Hermione as much as it otherwise would have. Mildred Bulstrode was obviously not informed of the new seating arrangement, and was not attempting to hide her dislike of Hermione as the three of them worked on creating a complicated potion designed to remove boils. (Hermione thought it a fair guess that Madam Ward had ran out). Mildred did not want to demonstrate her distaste in front of Tom, though, so she resorted to glaring at Hermione intently while Tom was busy stirring or chopping, and returning to her baseline irritable expression when Tom turned back around.

Hermione was glad when Professor Slughorn announced that class was over, and quickly gathered her books and rushed up to ask him about chaperoning the ball.

"And who might you be going with, Ms. Prewett," Slughorn inquired, wagging his eyebrows all about in what she assumed was supposed to be a suggestive gesture.

"Well, I don't think I'll be going, actually. The last ball I went to wasn't exactly great, and I'm not much of a dance person."

"Oh, but you have to go!"

"I appreciate the encouragement, Professor, but I really don't think—"

"You misunderstand me, Ms. Prewett," Slughorn cut her off. "I mean you really have to go. The first dance is always kicked off by the Head Girl and Head Boy. That shouldn't be a problem for you, I suspect." Hermione didn't respond. She just went from trying not to deal with her relationship with Tom to being told that in two months' time, she was expected to dance with him at a ball. Making matters worse is her heart involuntarily skipped at the thought.

"Oh… Well I will have to stop by, at least." Slughorn smiled warmly and then thankfully moved on to discussing who else normally chaperoned in more detail.

Tom was waiting for her in the hall, unsurprisingly. "How did it go with Professor Slughorn?"

"He'll be chaperoning," she responded curtly. First Tom refuses to tell her that the Head Girl is in charge of the ball, and he very conveniently neglected to tell her of the dancing arrangement. The more irritating thing was that his behavior was entirely unsurprising, yet she was still with him.

"It went well, then," Tom responded with a badly suppressed smirk.

"Mmhm," Hermione hummed, not engaging.

Herbology was her next class, and she didn't plan on ditching her two good friends for her new whatever-Tom-was. "I'll be sitting in my normal seat," Hermione said coldly before sitting in her currently empty table. Tom openly scowled for a moment before smoothing his features over and sitting in his own seat.

Lyra and Todd filed in together shortly after she sat down, sitting on either side of her. Todd was nervously shifting around in his seat, and kept shooting glances at Lyra.

Lyra was the one to break the silence. "You missed breakfast this morning," she observed as she wrestled with a quill that had a bright pink sticky substance binding it to her bookbag.

"I wasn't hungry. I ate a lot for dinner last night." It was partly true, though the main reason for her absence was the knowledge that the entire school had probably spent the weekend gossiping about her and Tom. Saturday she survived off of her Honeydukes purchases, but when Tom brought her a serious helping of food from the kitchens, she couldn't resist (though not without delivering a series of lectures about house elf enslavement).

"But you weren't in the Great Hall all weekend," Todd blurted out. He was still fidgeting and it was making Hermione uncomfortable just watching him. She looked past their table and saw a lot of other students were clearly listening while trying to look like they weren't doing just that. Wonderful.

"I got food from the kitchens." If you want your gossip, you have to at least ask for it. Hermione reached into her bag for her books and notes, as she realized with horror that her bag had one notebook too many in it—a certain notebook that looked either black or a very dark green depending on the lighting. In the bright light streaming in through the windows of the greenhouse, the notebook stood in stark contrast to her plain black one. She looked for the first time since she sat down in Tom's direction. He was holding his quill and looking at her with too much mirth.

Hermione ignored him and turned back to Todd. He would just have to come get his notebook if he wanted it. She was not crossing the shark-infested waters to deliver it.

"Are you and Riddle—um—"

"Charlus has been telling everyone that he caught you and Riddle snogging in the dungeons after the Quidditch game," Lyra said, her voice triumphant (likely because she had pulled her quill loose from the strange substance in her bookbag).

"Yes, that's true." It wasn't Hermione who responded, it was Tom. His silky voice rang out in the quiet room as he reached out for his notebook, brushing Hermione's fingers in a way that would seem accidental to every other pair of eyes in the room, but Hermione recognized the action for what it was: a performance.

"What was that earlier?" Tom snarled before releasing her arm. It was after dinner, and he had insisted on walking her out only to drag her to what was becoming their typical corridor. Godric. I have a typical dark corridor with the Dark Lord.

"You can't forcibly drag me here every time you want to have a conversation. Especially when we share a common room. And you'll have to be more specific than 'that earlier,'" Hermione responded, rolling her eyes.

"You were cold during Herbology."

"Because I didn't come give you a notebook that you intentionally left in my bookbag like a puppy?"

Tom chuckled softly, idly twirling and untwirling one of her curls around his index finger. "Why would I plant a book in your bag when I wanted you to sit next to me?"

Hermione pondered that for a moment before responding. "I suppose you must have known I would sit in my normal seat. It's either impressive or deeply disturbing." It's certainly both. "Regardless, I was merely responding to your overtly possessive behavior all day."

"And why would you have a problem with that?" The corridor was too dim for her to read his expression in his eyes, and his face was smooth as always, but there was a slight edge to his tone that she found simultaneously dangerous and oddly inviting, feelings that she was becoming increasingly used to having at once. His grip on her hand tightened as she continued to make small circles on the soft flesh of his hand with her thumb.

"I don't like to feel like someone's property, even yours."

Tom pushed the hair he had been playing with behind her ear as he leaned forward to whisper, the sharp cut of his cheekbone brushing against her more rounded cheeks ever so slightly. "You aren't my property, but you are mine."

Hermione responded by grabbing his jaw, a gesture he understood immediately as his lips crashed into hers again. As they kissed, no less hungrily than the first time, Hermione found her hand had darted up inside his shirt of its own accord. As they broke apart, she idly traced the indentations in his skin where her nails had dug into his bare back. She didn't respond, but they both knew what the message was: you're mine, too.

Right before her second Potions lesson of the week, Hermione headed to the bathroom, taking a moment to splash water on her face.

"You can stop staring at your reflection. It's not going to change," Mildred said from behind her.

"Excuse me?" Hermione responded, a bit taken aback.

"You heard me. I don't know what Tom could possibly see in you, but now that he's decided to date, he'll find that there are plenty of other witches that are much more… desirable." Oh, so that's what the change in tone was about. Hermione told herself not to take the bait, but her blood was boiling. Her confidence was bolstered, though, by Mildred implicitly admitting that Tom had never had a girlfriend before.

"Jealous, Mildred?" Hermione quipped in an even tone, though the knuckles on her left hand were turning white from the fierceness of her grasp on the sink. It felt like fourth year all over again, where no one could possibly believe that someone as desirable as Krum would want to go out with the mousy bookworm.

"Why would I be jealous of you? Tom's too good for you. He'll realize it soon enough."

"Tom doesn't seem to think so."

"Don't flatter yourself. You're shiny and new; it will wear off." A very strong part of Hermione wanted to hex Mildred, but she walked away instead, wrapping her arm around Tom's waist as she met up with him in the hallway. If Tom was put off by her behavior, he didn't show it.

When they arrived in Potions, Hermione took the middle seat that belonged to Tom, and threw her bookbag on top of Mildred's regular seat. Tom smirked but otherwise didn't respond. When Mildred walked in, she came to her normal seat, but Hermione met her with a fierce glare and a calm voice. "This seat's taken."

"You can't just—" Mildred started to say in a high-pitched voice, but what Hermione "can't just" do, they never found out, because Tom snaked an arm around Hermione and cut in in his velvety smooth voice.

"I believe you heard my girlfriend, Mildred." Tom Riddle's girlfriend. Hermione found she didn't mind as she met Tom's hand around her shoulder with her own.