Lunch had been... illuminating.
Hermione had expected Antonin to be sympathetic. After all, he was her friend, her sworn wizard, and he of all people understood just how evil Tom could be.
Instead, he had pointed out the flaws in her logic with brutal efficiency.
"I just confessed to having no qualms about torture," he'd told her as they sat across from one another at one end of a long, formal dining table. "I told you how drawn to dark magic I am and how my interest in dark curses began. And yet you accepted this, accepted me."
"Yes," she'd allowed, pausing with her spoon full of stew halfway to her mouth. "But it's different, it-"
"Is it?" Antonin interrupted as he carelessly cut into a piece of chicken. "Tom has always been drawn to the darkest of magics; it's part of his very soul. He employs the infliction of pain on others as a tool, but rarely as a sport. He's stronger than me, magically speaking, but I don't see so very many differences between the two of us. Perhaps the only real difference, aside from his being significantly more charismatic than I could ever hope to be, is my refusal to harm those I was taught were worthy of protection."
"But that is an important distinction," Hermione had began, but he'd cut her off again.
"It's a taught distinction," Antonin said firmly. "One Tom did not have the benefit of."
"Fine," she growled out at him. "I understand your loyalty and I understand your points, but this does not address the issue at hand. His choices can be utterly nightmarish, his ethics are non-existent, and yet I have feelings for him. I'm a good person, Antonin, I am. Or, at least, I try very hard to be. How do I reconcile that?"
He sighed and set down his utensils, leaning back in his chair as he eyed her with slight exasperation. "You're in love with him," Antonin reminded her bluntly, ignoring her flinch at his words. "There is no use in you dancing around that reality. In addition, you seem to believe this is a fact of great import as if people do not fall in love every single day. Forgive me for speaking so frankly, my Lady, but your great love is nothing special."
Hermione had sputtered in outrage, slamming her spoon down so hard in her bowl that the stew sloshed over the side.
"Being infatuated with Lord Voldemort is nothing special?!" she hissed, leaning forward towards him over the table. "I came back to change the world, not to become enraptured by a barbaric arsehole who lacks even the most basic of moralities! Is he charming? Yes. Is he prepossessing? Yes. But there are many more important attributes for a person to possess than general allure and I have plans, damn it! I have contingencies and research and goals that need to be accomplished and nowhere in any of the many parchments detailing those things was there a bullet point reminding me to fall for Tom Riddle!"
Antonin tapped his index finger against the mahogany table impatiently. "And?" he queried. "Now you love the fiend you came back in time to temper. How does this impede your ability to do what you set out to do? You are so busy self-flagellating for feelings you cannot control, you've decided that your original designs are in flames all around you, made impossible in the wake of your emotions. But are they truly? Or are you simply convinced that to love Tom Riddle is the evilest of sins, and in doing so, you sin too deeply to ever do good again?"
She had arrived back home with the distinct feeling that came after a scolding as a child. Which was absolutely ridiculous, because Tom was the one who had tortured a man and she was the one who loved him anyway. Both she and the Dark Lord deserved her derision.
Scowling, Hermione stripped off her outer robes and climbed the stairs up to her personal study. Antonin was wrong, of course. Her husband had enough of her just from the need and devotion entreaties; she never should have handed him her heart as well. Upon arriving, she closed the door firmly behind her and layered ward after ward to keep away any disturbances. She turned away when she was done, spelling her hair up into a haphazard bun and ignoring the gloomy aura her normally sunny room was giving off, no doubt due to the pouring rain outside. A quick 'dies' informed her that the time was half-past one.
She chewed on her lower lip as she moved toward her drawing desk, kicking off her heels and stripping off her stockings on the way, before settling down in front of it. Tom had left that morning around eight so she had until six in the evening before the dizziness from the need entreaty would set in, assuming the symptom manifested as it historically had. He would be home around five but would likely leave her be if he saw warding on her door unless her necklace sent a distress pulse.
With that in mind, Hermione banished the bind rune she had been working on in her spare time and took out a fresh sheet of parchment on which to take notes. It was time to take stock of the state of things and see what she could salvage of the life she was making here in light of this newest development.
An hour passed, then two, and she worked diligently on listing out her original goals, new additions, and how she had intended to accomplish them. Of course, she had assumed that her death would be imminent, so things were quite different now than they had been when she had first set her mind to this task. Time passed and her quill scratched and her brain fired off and as she planned and organized and plotted, she found herself falling into old rhythms.
Hermione's shoulders loosened, the anxious tapping of her foot slowed, and she sunk into the familiar melody of study. This was where she was most comfortable, the feeling reminiscent of taking a bath at the perfect temperature or pulling on a jumper long worn and long loved. As her head cleared and she settled back into her own skin, her quill stilled on the parchment and she found herself staring out her bay window with unfocused eyes.
This is what she'd been longing for; she had been missing herself.
Quietly, Hermione set down her quill and moved across the room to settle in the window seat. The forest outside Nidum Serpentis was beautiful as ever and as the rain fell down beyond the window, she seized onto the momentary silence of emotional turmoil to finally do what she truly did best and ruminate on her situation. She could sort this out, she could, and that quiet confidence in her ability to figure anything out if she just applied her mind hard enough was a welcome departure from the frantic mental upheaval that had been her constant companion recently.
Tom was a problem, of course. But then, as soon as that thought occurred to her, she paused to consider if it was actually valid. Was he really an impediment? Her eyes flashed back to her list of stated goals, the ones she had for herself when she came back in time.
She had intended to find Tom Riddle in the past.
She had intended to ensure that he succeeded with enough of his goals to eliminate the need for a war.
She had intended to secure his stability so that he would never unleash his madness on wizarding Britain.
And she had intended to ensure a better status for muggleborns in the new world order.
During her time in 1955, she had added onto those original objectives. She had agreed to provide Tom with information on Horcruxes, with the express purpose of keeping him from making any more. She had promised to try to prevent him from ever becoming incorporeal. She conceded to giving him pertinent information on Death Eaters and to walk him through the political future of Britain, all in the name of keeping war from ever becoming necessary. She had sworn to bring a political coup in place of war instead. And she had agreed to make his objectives of securing true immortality and elevation of his personal status her own objectives as well.
Had he, in any way, actually hindered any of that from becoming a reality?
The answer, she realized with a jolt, was no. Tom Riddle was not in her way. She had already found him (accomplishing her very first and perhaps easiest objective) and he, too, did not seek to bring war. It was inefficient to battle for power, after all, when you could quietly steal it from under people's noses instead.
He wanted authority and he wanted the British Ministry and he wanted to stay sane. He had offered her a position that would afford her the ability to improve the lot of muggleborns once they consolidated their political power and he had a plan to do that. He shared his prospective machinations with her, had allowed her to weigh in on them, and when she had presented logical arguments, had adjusted his plots according to her wishes.
And that was perhaps the biggest difference between Tom Riddle and the Lord Voldemort of her time. Lord Voldemort brought agony and destruction to all of wizarding England and he reveled in it. He wanted to see the suffering of others and drown in their pleas for mercy.
To Tom Riddle, the death and distress of the populace was incidental and while he did not demure from the creation of suffering, he did not actively seek it either. He gravitated to violence out of habit, because it was the most familiar of his tools aside from manipulation, but he did not enjoy it for its own sake. He enjoyed submission, he enjoyed victory, but the means were fluid. If another path was brought to his attention and it was equally effective, he would take it, if for only one reason.
He would take the path of less blood for her.
No, she admitted to herself with a sense of growing annoyance that maybe, just maybe, Antonin had a point. The only person currently in Hermione Riddle's way appeared to be Hermione Granger.
And that's what it really came down to, wasn't it? She saw herself as a light witch. Even when she made decisions that others would consider cruel, she did it for the light. She did it for Harry and Ron and to ensure that good would conquer evil.
She had always found the degree to which the Order limited their spell casting maddening. It was positively idiotic to send back an 'expelliarmus' against an 'avada,' an 'incarcerous' against a 'sectumsempra.' But that was what was right and good, that was what was permitted, and she had not wanted to be dark. So she'd followed the rules even when it hurt to do so; she'd taken the hits from Death Eaters when she could have dealt them.
But for all that she had tried to be light, she never really had been fully successful. Not in that selfless, guileless way Harry had been; not in that brave, passionate way Ron had been. It had fallen to her to be vicious where they could not, to be Slytherin when they could not set aside the Gryffindor, and she had gotten down in the dirt and gotten filthy to keep them clean every time it was necessary.
She did not regret it, mind, and she would do it again. Her boys had not asked it of her and they had not judged her for it; they had simply not been built for that kind of work. She wouldn't change that bit of protection she had been able to offer them-
Hermione pressed a hand to her stomach as she was struck by the realization that Tom felt the same, but for her. He was willing to do the 'dirty' work that he deemed necessary, the things that she would not do. The difference was that she did judge him for it, and she judged him harshly.
It was colder comfort than she would have thought it would be to remind herself she was morally in the right.
Things were different here than they had been with Ron and Harry in more ways than one. She wasn't the one who was willing to make questionable choices any longer because she wasn't surrounded by light witches and wizards. Her version of questionable morality was very different from that of her current colleagues. All around her was the allure of dark magic and it made her feel threatened and on the outside all over again because that kind of magic did not fit her either.
It was that realization, more than anything, that allowed Hermione to breathe deeply and settle back further into the cushions of the seat. She may not be light, but she wasn't dark either.
She thought back to her bonding, when her magic had surged out and revealed itself. It had been a shimmery silver, not with the airy feeling of light magic nor the seductive tenor of dark, but with its own nuances and subtle flavors. At the time, she had ignored the implications of that. There had been far too many other considerations to focus on for her to take the time to truly absorb what the feel of her magic meant. But now, she allowed herself no further denials. Her magic was only a shade lighter than the Lestrange Family magic she had gotten a brief taste of at Rabastan's birthday party.
Brief panic at that realization began to surge through her, but she quickly quelled it. That was what her problem was and it was not helping her to do what she needed to. She had been so desperate to avoid her feelings for Tom that she had become obsessed with watching what she saw as her downfall. His magic was midnight blue before it melded with hers, as alluring and dark as a siren's song, and she had been convinced if she didn't actively resist with every ounce of her being, that magic would consume her.
She had once thought that it would be a constant effort not to drown in the dark ocean that was Tom's depths, but in an effort to flail against her own emotions, she had thrown herself into those waters with no aid from anyone else. It was now clear that fighting her affection for him, fighting against his charisma and the way his soul called to hers, had been the very thing pulling her under. He hadn't even done anything to cause it aside from being unapologetically himself; Hermione had been floundering under her weight alone.
If she would just cease thrashing about like a distressed damsel, she thought with more than a little annoyance at her own person, she just might float.
With a determined air, Hermione rose to her feet and moved back towards her drawing desk. She leaned over and examined the parchment once more to make sure it was complete, refamiliarizing herself with the things she needed to focus on before banishing it to the pile that held all her other works-in-progress and notes.
Though she was loathe to admit it (and likely would not do so to his face,) Antonin was right. People fell in love every day and there was nothing special about her falling in love with Tom Riddle. He wasn't her enemy and though he would never be a good man, maybe he didn't need to be. She wasn't entirely good herself, that was true, but maybe she was good enough for the both of them.
Turning back towards the main house, she cast a quick 'dies,' determining it was quarter till five. She flicked her wand absentmindedly for a few minutes to bring down the wards.
Despite how she had lost herself recently, Hermione was, at her core, nothing if not pragmatic. 'Fighting him nearly wrecked me,' she thought with only a little hesitation as she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. 'Let's see what loving him can do.'
She walked down to the kitchen, stopping in long enough to ask Gilmy to prepare a light supper of sandwiches and other finger foods on a tray, before settling herself on the bottom stair to await her husband's arrival. She smoothed her skirt over her bare thighs, her stockings and heels still abandoned somewhere in her study upstairs, and pressed her toes into the smooth wood of the floor to ground herself.
Hermione had been waiting for only a few minutes when she felt the wards ripple, announcing the arrival of the Master of the house. Her stomach writhed with nerves but she ignored it as she lingered in the front room that served as a combination parlor and entrance hall, watching the door as she bit her lip until it was red and raw.
Tom strode through the front door, greeting her positioning on the stair with a raised brow. Gilmy rushed in to take his outer robes, which he provided without comment, before turning his attention back to her.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Hermione stood quickly and crossed to him, twining her fingers with his as she began to pull him back towards the stairs. She could not quite bite back the sigh of relief that escaped her as her headache ebbed at his touch but she hoped he wouldn't comment on it. The need entreaty was the least of her current concerns.
"Gaza?" Tom inquired lightly as he allowed her to lead him to the second floor.
"Could you ask Gilmy to bring the dinner tray up to your study?" She asked instead of addressing his unspoken question. "You know she won't do it without your express permission and I thought you could show me what you learned from the Philosopher's Stone manuscript while we ate. Perhaps afterward we could continue your research?"
When they reached the second floor, Tom twisted so that he grasped her wrist instead of her fingers and pulled her around to face him. He walked her backward until she found her spine pressed to the wall and his body crowding her own.
"I believe, Deliciae," he said with a penetrating gaze, resting his forearms on either side of her head as he caged her in, "that you were quite infuriated with me this morning. I find myself curious as to what would cause your demeanor to change so drastically between then and now."
Hermione rested her palms on his chest, sliding her hands along the slight creases in his crisp, white button-down and up to his shoulders. The urge to touch him was too great to fight and while she should have minded him invading her space without so much as a by-your-leave, she didn't. Maybe that was part of what she liked about him, the way he never felt it necessary to ask permission before doing exactly what he wanted. She certainly envied him that confidence, if nothing else.
Tom's eyes fell to half-mast at her touch and she smiled slightly at the sight.
"I went to see a friend and did quite a bit of thinking," she admitted, her voice taking on a breathy quality as he dipped his head down to kiss along her pulse.
"Which friend?" he asked, biting at her carotid artery in a way that made her shiver. The danger of his teeth so close to her life's blood was strangely intoxicating, and the chuckle that rumbled through his chest suggested he knew that.
"Antonin," she answered, and she felt the way his whole body tensed against hers at the man's name. She smacked lightly at his back and scowled.
"He's not interested in me like that, Tom," Hermione scolded, soothing her harsh tone with little pets to his shoulder blades. "He's not interested in women like that."
Tom scoffed before pulling back to thread his fingers through her hair, ruining her bun as he pulled her curls free. He met her gaze with his own icy stare and she felt pinned by those eyes, skewered by their beauty and the way they could simultaneously burn and freeze her.
"Sexuality is so very fluid, little wife," he said, one eyebrow tipping up as if he was surprised by that not occurring to her. "Not for everyone, of course, but for many. I have been inside his mind. The mouseling is not nearly so rigid in his preferences as he likes to believe he is."
Hermione rolled her eyes at the disdainful way Tom said Antonin's nickname but chose not to comment. "It doesn't really matter anyway, you know," she informed him. "I'm bound to you and I have no interest in other men. Aside from that, I needed to talk to someone and he's sworn to keep both me and my secrets safe."
She brought her fingers up to toy with his hair just as he was with hers, grinning at the way his eyes melted into nearly black pools when she tugged hard enough to send little stings dancing along his scalp. She hesitated but ultimately, Tom was going to find out anyway.
"I needed someone other than you to truly know me here," she finished.
The way that his entire body tightened and magic exploded outward from her husband's form in a fit of rage made her immediately question her decision to tell him the entirety of her conversation with her sworn wizard. The wall sconces a few feet to the right of them folded in on themselves with a whine as the strength of his magic crumbled them.
"You confided your true origins to him?!" Tom hissed, eyes flashing as his fingers tightened dramatically in her hair. While she could not feel the pain that the fierceness of his hold would cause anyone else, she was viscerally aware that he was clutching her hard enough that escape was impossible. "Why must you insist on exposing your vulnerabilities to those who would find a way to strike at your underbelly?! Bonds are not entirely infallible, and some can be made enfeeble. You know this."
He released her with choppy motions, throwing himself away violently as his fists opened and closed spasmodically. This was by far the most wrathful Hermione had ever seen her bond mate and her chest tightened uncomfortably as the urge to soothe him began to beat at her from the devotion entreaty. Before she could make any sort of move to do so, he punched the wall behind him, and she watched, stunned, as his magic rippled along the plaster and caused a multitude of spider web cracks.
"Do you understand the consequences of what you've done?!" he seethed, staring at her with wild and unrestrained fury sparking in his gaze as he pressed his own back against the opposite wall. "If there is a way to weaken the Allegiance and Protection bond (and if you have researched Horcruxes as extensively as you have implied, you know that continued severing of the soul will do so,) then I am compelled by my entreaties to protect you from him. The only ways to do so that immediately occur to me are to obliviate or dispose of him. Obliviation can be reversed, so what does that leave me, wife?"
"No, Tom! You can't hurt him," Hermione forced out, wide-eyed and suppressing hysteria as the full force of her decision hit her. Her soul thrashed in her body at the thought of Antonin coming to harm and she could feel the way her magic swelled to the surface to linger with her husband's. "I can't let that happen."
Tom was right. She was aware that the bond could be weakened through the creation of Horcruxes. She also knew that even if Antonin was aware of that as well, very few people would be willing to make a Horcrux. It was vile magic, the darkest of the dark, and unappealing to almost everyone but a very select few. There hadn't been any probable danger to telling him her secrets, but if Tom truly disagreed, the entreaty would claw at him to fix it.
"Do you think I want to kill a loyal and exceptionally talented follower?" Tom raged, pacing back and forth like a caged animal across from her as his magic continued to surge about violently and he clawed at his chest. She could see the entreaties were pushing at him, pulling at his nerves in ways that hurt her soul to watch. "Not only do I not wish to lose that asset, the violent manner of his disposal would cause bond sickness within you, and I am not able to cause you harm!"
Hermione paled as she realized what her need for companionship had done. She had created a conflict in their bonding, one that he either had to reconcile somehow by changing his feelings on the matter, his true feelings on whether Antonin knowing her secrets was dangerous, or...
He stumbled, falling to one knee as his breathing shortened to pained panting. "Your entreaty is tearing at my soul, Gaza," he said haltingly, a bitter laugh bubbling out of him as he curled his chest towards his knees. "I had thought Antonin's contradicting vows may one day shatter him, but no. The decision to give him to you ends up fucking me after all. The irony is-"
He cut off with a growl, pressing his forehead to the floor as Hermione's throat closed up and she began to panic in earnest. What the bloody hell would happen to him if he failed to reconcile the contradicting demands of the entreaty?! This hadn't been in any of the books she read; there were no footnotes on what to do when someone could not fulfill their oath without failing it simultaneously.
She hit her knees beside him, frantically running her hands through his hair and over his back as she tried to think. His magic was coming in increasingly weaker bursts and while she didn't know precisely what that meant, the fact that it was diluting at all was causing dread to overwhelm her.
Tom's breathing slowed and Hermione's heart screamed, her soul howled, and then suddenly her brain kicked on and she-
"An unbreakable vow!" She yelled, shaking her husband to force his attention to her. "If we require him to make an unbreakable vow, I'll be safe and he'll be alive!"
Tom sucked in a deep breath as if whatever had been blocking him from taking full gasps of air was suddenly removed and he fell onto his side. He gulped in oxygen as Hermione rubbed his back, her fingertips shaking on his spine as she stroked up and down in a soothing motion. She took a moment to be thankful that planning to do the vow was enough to stop the entreaty from throttling him before she realized she was sobbing. She ignored it as she listened for his breathing to even out and waited for him to feel well enough to get off the floor.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, leaning over to press her face into his shoulder as he slowly came back to equilibrium. "I didn't think, I didn't THINK! It was illogical, I- I just wanted a friend and I've been so off lately, so emotional. I had no idea this would make you- But I'm so sor-"
Her voice cut off with a gasp when Tom's hand wrapped around her curls once more, pulling her backward viciously with her hair grasped implacably in his fist. He was still panting lightly as he forced her to the ground, rolling over quickly until she was pinned beneath him.
His magic roiled over his skin in scorching waves but she didn't fight him as he forced her chin up so he could stare into her eyes. Her breath caught at the look on his face, a mixture of bewilderment and unease and fury.
"You almost killed me," he said incredulously, almost to himself as he looked at her like a bit of arithmancy he just could not seem to sort out. "You almost killed me. Why don't I hate you? WHY DON'T I HATE YOU?!"
"I don't know," she breathed, biting her lip so hard it almost bled as she forced herself not to struggle. He looked like an animal in a trap, like he was a moment from losing every grip he had on this reality, and she didn't want to tip him over. "I almost killed you, you should hate me. I'm sorry, I'm SO sorry-"
"Stop talking!" Tom snarled, pressing one of his palms into her lips to muffle the sounds of her apologies. His eyes softened ever so slightly as his gaze flitted from the tear streaks on her cheeks and back to her eyes before he slowly removed his hand. "Just... stop talking."
He buried his face in her neck with an almost wounded sound and Hermione felt fresh tears spring to her eyes. He had almost stopped breathing, almost felt his magical core deplete to nothing. Even if he had the Horcruxes, for a man who so despised his own mortality, the distress would be unbearable.
"Why can't I hate you?" he whispered against her skin and then he was kissing her and it was desperate and it was brutal and it tasted like violence and poison and the way she needed him.
It tasted like the darkest midnight blue magic with silver, shimmery stars.
It tasted like Tom Riddle.
Hello my very best of readers! There was a lot of love for Antonin after last chapter (which both he and I appreciate) as well some concern about Hermione being OOC? I suppose all I can say is that I disagree, but that I DO agree like she's been exceptionally emotional. It's just that emotional rollercoaster is intentional so we can get to this chapter and the character development herein. So, maybe I don't disagree but only because I knew what I was planning for this chapter? Regardless, I appreciate all your comments, both glowing reviews and constructive criticism and may I just say that you proved yourselves to be exceptionally awesome again. Even those of you who did not like the last chapter were very kind with your feedback and I can't thank you enough for that!