It was a typically rainy day as Tom Riddle picked his way through the streets of Diagon Alley. An owl from Eeylops screeched at him as he passed and was silenced almost immediately when Tom shot the creature a tempering look. His pocket was loaded down with a quill, courtesy of Livius Nott's second cousin, that could render the unfortunate user deaf and blind if anything the quill deemed pro-muggle was written. It was a curiosity, but a tiring one, and not exactly the sort of captivating find he was sometimes favored to discover in his work as an Acquirer of all things dark and enthralling for Borgin and Burke's.
As he strode deftly into Knockturn Alley, he noted a young lady following somewhat on his heels as he headed towards the storefront. He suspected she was paying little attention to where she was going, her nose buried deep in an old and ratty looking tome, and his musings were confirmed when he paused outside the store only to have her ram painfully book first into his shoulder blades. The girl lost her balance, brown, chocolate eyes widening comically as she fell backwards. She would have landed squarely on her back, but Tom's natural charm overrode his annoyance at her inattention and he caught her with a steadying grip at her elbow.
The girl straightened herself and to his rising irritation, she ignored him in favor of grimacing and retrieving her book from the road.
"Pardon me, Madam," he intoned politely, biting back his annoyance at being accosted in the street. Were he still school-aged, he likely would have sent her a nasty hex right there for her rudeness. At 29, Tom was more discerning about his punishments. "Are you alright?"
The girl glanced at him briefly before she moved to slip past into the store. "It's Miss, and I'm quite well."
She paused just inside the doorway and glanced back over her shoulder at him. "Thank you, Tom," she murmured before striding into the depths of the store.
Tom felt his eyes narrow slightly in aggravated surprise before he followed the girl in, tracing her footsteps until he found her perusing the cursed books. "I'm sorry, you have me at a disadvantage. Have we met, Miss...?"
He let the question of her name dangle in polite inquiry, his face a smooth mask of courtesy despite his irritation.
"We have not, Mr. Riddle," she answered smoothly, deftly dodging the question of her own name as she turned into the next aisle.
Allowing himself a moment of gritting his teeth ever so slightly, Tom followed her and pressed her again. "I repeat, Miss, that you have me at a disadvantage. If I may be so frank as to ask, what is your name and how exactly do you come to know mine?"
She glanced at him distractedly, letting her fingers drag inches from the spines of the books in a caressing fashion, as she murmured, "Hermione Mortensen, if you must know."
She spun in a circle, the skirt of her dress billowing slightly as she glanced at the tomes behind her before she stepped slightly towards him and lowered her voice.
"Perhaps you could help me. I'm looking for information on the instability of Horcruxes. Any idea where I might find anything on that, my Lord?"
Without a second thought, Tom had her whirled into his arms with his forearm securing her at her delicate neck, the curve of her back pressed to his chest as he apparated them both to his flat above the shop. She did not fight him as he pushed her to the wall and secured her there with a Sticking Charm, keeping his wand trained on her as he took a much closer look at her than he had bothered with earlier.
Hermione Mortenson's wrists were wrenched above her head, the elbows bent slightly at her ears so that she could rest mostly comfortably on the balls of her feet. Had she attempted to pull her wand, the chit would have found herself much more painfully restrained but as it was, he was merciful and so he allowed her this small concession until he could ascertain what exactly her purpose was in securing his attention so thoroughly.
Her peaches and cream complexion was complemented by a smattering of freckles across the bridge of a delicate nose, her high cheekbones currently tinted lightly with color. Her mouth was plump, but not overly full and she licked her lips nervously under his scrutiny. Judging by her features, Tom estimated her to be in her early twenties. She wore a dress that tailored in at the waist, the soft peach fabric glancing over delicate curves as it fell to mid-calf. Her stockings were seamed and while one of her shoes had fallen off in the scuffle, he could see that she wore sensible low heels. The cape she wore was a flirty wink to traditional wizarding robes as it glanced over the princess neckline, the lacy sleeves of her dress stopping at her wrists. A few chestnut curls fell alluringly along her jawline but the rest was pulled into a braided crown that circled her head. While her appearance was that of the quintessential pureblood witch, her manners dismissed that idea entirely.
All of these physical characteristics combined in mere seconds in Tom's brain to coalesce in the absolute certainty that he had never seen this witch before in his life. How then, one had to wonder, had she come to know not only his name but arguably the biggest secret he had? Not even his inner circle was aware of his Horcruxes, and this girl either had knowledge of them personally or at least was aware of his interest in the subject.
"Well, Ms. Mortenson," Tom began smoothly, not a hint of agitation in his voice. "You have successfully gained the somewhat dubious honor of my notice. I wonder if you might now enlighten me to how you know of me and what, precisely, you expect to do with your alleged information?"
"How I know of you, Tom Marvelo Riddle, should be of much less interest to you than what I know of you," Hermione answered with a wry smirk.
He noted her knowledge of his middle name and tucked that away for later analysis as he moved towards her quietly, stopping to study Hermione's expression as she stared back at him.
"I worry that you misunderstand your situation, Miss Mortenson," Tom told her coolly. "As I see it, you are currently in my home, kept in by the same wards that keep all others out. I assure you that my protections are nigh impregnable. To further the desperation of your situation, I have you secured and entirely at my mercy. You may be laboring under the false assumption that I am above coercion to achieve my ends, but that would be a fallacy. Crucio."
His voice was a quiet touch as Tom waited for the telltale screams of pain or at the least the clenching of her jaw indicating that she was fighting the excruciating agony of his curse, but aside from the occasional involuntary twitch of her muscles, Hermione's face stayed impassive.
His eyes narrowed in the face of her unperturbed countenance and he grasped her chin, pulling her eyes to his as he bit out a forceful 'Legilimens'.
What Tom encountered was like nothing he had ever seen before in the mind of another. Her mind was not accessible, nor was it shielded. Instead of the usual walls and buffets one would meet in the head of an accomplished Occlumens, he felt himself sucked into an impenetrable fog. Everything around him was white and static and the act of forcing his way through any shielding became increasingly frustrating because there was nothing he could see to attack.
With a growl of rage, Tom wrenched himself from her mind in the most painful way he could manage and his anger only grew when she failed to even flinch.
"What is this?!" He spat at her, mind whirling at the consequences of his two favorite spells being rendered inert.
Hermione smiled gently, no mocking in her gaze despite how she had just obviously won a battle. "I am your absolute foil or your absolute tool. How you use what I offer will determine which I am to you."
He scoffed at her, running a hand through his dark hair before he forcefully reigned his control back in. His face returned to a cool mask as he tempered his rage. "I am growing increasingly tired of your equivocating. There are a million other ways to cause pain than a crucio, witch."
"And none of them will do a thing," she retorted with as much of a shrug as she could manage. "Induced congenital analgesia."
Tom tilted his head slightly as he regarded her. "If I recall correctly, congenital analgesia is a muggle disease."
Hermione nodded. "Correct. It renders the sufferer, as it were, unable to feel painful stimuli. All pain is processed through a part of our brain that identifies the agony as such, including the physically anguishing effects of curses and poisons. I quite literally rewired that part of my brain to fail to recognize painful stimuli, and only that stimuli."
"That's a handy little bit of magic," he commented slowly, his brain quickly firing and connecting the implications of such a thing. "And the fog? Is that the same?"
She granted him a small smile. "I have had 5 years to prepare for you, Tom, and nothing else to do but that. If I gave you walls, you'd just knock them down. At least the mist will force you to think about it."
"But for what, Miss Mortenson, are you preparing?" He hissed at her, his control slipping slightly as he pressed his wand to her neck in frustration. "You have shown me all the ways in which you find yourself superior, but you have told me nothing. I do not respond well to taunts."
"I am your foil, or I am your tool," Hermione repeated. "The year is 1955, but I was born in 1979. Think about what that means for you."
"Show me," Tom demanded, as he willingly dove back into the mists that made up her mind, daring her to prove to him that she was, in fact, a time traveler. This time the white cleared and he saw a teenaged Hermione bent over a Daily Prophet with a ginger-haired boy, reading an article. It detailed the arrest and subsequent conviction of a wizard named Sturgis Podmore who was charged with trespass and attempted robbery at the Ministry of Magic. While that was uninteresting, what was fascinating was the date on the newspaper: 7 September 1995. Tom studied the memory thoroughly for signs of tampering but found none.
'Another,' he breathed into the space of her mind and she showed him 2 more headlines with dates from the 1990s before he found himself immersed once more in white fog.
This time, Tom gently released his hold on her and stumbled back into the current space, his dark eyes flashing as he kept the girl caged with his body.
His gaze flickered to her left arm and she smiled, quirking an eyebrow in silent invitation for him to look for himself, see if this girl came back to him as a follower. The dark mark was still in its earliest stages, only a handful of his people even had one, but he intended for them to be much more common as time went by. Tom's fingers slid across her skin as he gently pulled up her sleeve, feeling irregular bumps and scaring as he watched in fascination as instead of a dark mark, he steadily revealed rune carvings.
His eyes flicked back to hers as he rest his hand lightly over the markings, watching carefully for her reaction to his touch.
"I will give you this, witch. You are unbearably intriguing," he murmured.
Tom took a step back and considered her briefly before casting a silent 'Finite' and releasing her from the wall. If Hermione took offense to his heavy-handed tactics she didn't show it, simply shook her arms out presumably to allow the blood to flow back in from her previous position as she regarded him silently.
"I think, Miss Mortenson, it would be wise if we sat down and you told me exactly what you have come back in time for."
Tom gestured towards the sofa in his sitting room, a furnishing that came with the flat and settled himself on the opposite side of the girl as she settled in, crossing her legs. This witch had gone from unbelievable annoyance to priceless possession in a matter of seconds. She could tell him exactly how he had achieved his goals, because he had no doubt that he would, and any difficulties he may encounter moving forward could be smoothed before he hit them. The girl had broken her own brain in order to undermine his use of his favorite unforgivable; that was both incredibly brash and... Intelligent? Insane? He couldn't actually decide which. Tom doubted very seriously based on that alone that she would bother to send herself to him without all the pertinent information.
Of course, there was the very real possibility that she had sent herself or been sent to undermine all his efforts instead, to stall all his success and attempt to ensure his failure. While that would be mildly annoying, her work as an aide instead of a hindrance could be assured in other ways. Removing the use of physical torture and occlumency would force him to be creative, but these were not insurmountable obstacles.
Hermione tugged her sleeve back down before she answered him, and he filed her obvious discomfort away to dissect later. "I've come to you with an offer."
She took a deep breath and seemed to be casting about for how to say what she wanted to. "Things in the future are... well, they're bad. Really bad. And although I have no illusions that my preferred version of the future and yours do not match, I am almost 100% sure that things did not turn out how you intended."
"Show me," he demanded once again, grabbing her chin, intent on diving back into her head.
"Wait!" She cried, attempting to batt his hand away. "You can't just go poking around in my head all the time, Tom. I allowed it as a small extension of trust earlier, but there are rules!"
Tom's eyes narrowed and he forced her eyes up to meet his, keeping his grip on her face firm. "I think you will find very quickly, Ms. Mortenson, that I do not like rules."
"Yes, well, there are many things I don't like, Tom," she answered with a huff. "And yet I find that when someone has something I want, I may have to do them all the same."
He released her face and sat back on the couch, twirling his wand lazily in his hand. "I could easily kill you."
There was no use beating around the bush about who he was and what he was capable of. She obviously knew too much of him to be surprised by his willingness to murder.
"Perhaps," she allowed. "But then how ever would you get the information you want?"
"While I accede your point, there are many ways to torture a person that do not require pain," he pointed out.
Hermione raised an eyebrow at him and clasped her hands in her lap. "I quite literally severed synapses in my own brain to remove a tool from your arsenal. I created a whole new way of occluding just to undermine your own skills. You don't know this yet, but I personally reconstructed and repowered a completely non-working time turner to get back to you. Do you honestly think, if I can do all that, that my will or my mind will break first? Because my broken mind is worth nothing to you, and I promise you that it will go before I bend."
Tom considered this, rage at her impertinence crashing against fascination at how effectively she had backed him into a corner. She said that she had spent 5 years preparing for him and if he thought about it, Tom figured that was probably about how long it would take to try to ferret out every loophole and weakness one could when they were faced with trying to come to some sort of accord with him. For once in his life, he was the person at the table less prepared to negotiate and that simply was not something he could allow to happen.
Tom stood up swiftly, causing Hermione to startle slightly as she looked up at him with wary eyes. "I hope you will permit me an evening to consider what sort of terms I would like to set for any proposed arrangement. You once again have me at a disadvantage, as you have had years to sort out what you wish to gain from our... acquaintanceship and I have not had the benefit of even a few hours."
Hermione stuttered slightly, but she stood as well, smoothing her skirts and nodding. "Yes, that does seem fair, I suppose. I think it's only right to give you a moment."
Tom almost laughed at her sudden change in demeanor. Audacious with no finesse, sense of fair play, no ability to think on her feet; Gryffindor, one would think.
"Would you like to join me for tea tomorrow, Miss Mortenson?" Tom asked, placing a hand lightly on her back as he led her to the door. "I think it would be wise to keep our conversation private, as it were, and perhaps after a bit to think things through we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement."
"Absolutely," she told him with a firm shake of her head. "Shall we meet at the store, say, around two?"
"Perfect," he confirmed with a smirk, turning her at the door to brush her knuckles with his lips. As he kissed her hand, he cast a silent 'Inveniet' onto her skin, distracting her from the tingling of the tracking spell by slamming the door open and into the wall with his other hand simultaneously. There was no way in hell he was going to risk this girl slipping through his fingers while he took a night to plan his strategy to acquire her.
Hermione jumped at the sound and Tom murmured an apology.
"Until tomorrow," he bid her as he opened his wards to let her pass.
"Tomorrow," Hermione affirmed with a small smile before turning and disappearing down the stairs and off into the streets of Knockturn Alley.