Hermione scowled at her husband and pinched the skin of his hand lightly between her pointer finger and thumb in rebuke.
"That's because the Horcruxes are a terrible idea," she stated firmly. "I've just managed to excise all the suppuration and infection of your soul wounds through our bonding, and we're not likely to get another opportunity like that. The disgust I feel at your murderous impulses aside, there will be no more Horcrux making for you."
Tom's chuckle drifted across her cheek as he twisted his hand out of her hold, clutching her wrist instead and sliding his other hand up to mirror the position on her opposite arm. He pulled both their limbs inward until they were cradling her stomach. The manuscript, unsupported by either of them, fell to the sofa in front of her shins. He secured her there before pressing a kiss to the spot in front of her ear that he seemed to favor, causing a jolt of pleasure to run through her body at the sensation.
"How I yearn to slice the tongue from your mouth," he murmured, undercutting his own threat by nuzzling into her neck. "I could keep it in a lovely, velvet box until you learn the lesson of tempering your sharpness in our little chats."
Hermione couldn't even find it in herself to stiffen and she wondered internally when his threats had ceased to sound like threats; at some point, they had begun to sound an awful lot like endearments.
"Your questionable manners aside," Tom continued, "I hardly see the necessity in making another Horcrux, little wife. After all, I already have two."
She tilted her head, considering the point, before giving a tentative nod. She hadn't contemplated the possibility of using a soul shard they already had, but it was a much better option than any of the alternatives.
"It could work," she allowed, "if we were able to destroy the Horcrux. I don't suppose you have any basilisk venom stored away for an undoubtedly diabolical project, or an exceptional control of fiendfyre, by chance?"
Tom stretched his legs out and hummed.
"I have access to both, Deliciae," he reminded her smoothly. "Fiendfyre is easy enough to control if you understand your own magic, which I do. And I could, potentially, order Cygnus to access the Chamber of Secrets through a series of written instructions, though his survival of the task would be doubtful. However, neither of those options should be necessary."
Hermione made an inquiring sound and glanced at his face over her shoulder as Tom released her and picked the manuscript back up from where it had fallen to the couch. He ignored her gaze and proceeded to study it until she turned back around to face the parchment as he pointed at something on the page.
"I believe we can follow the instructions... here," he stated, indicating the macabre directions on how one would go about sacrificing a loved one. "I can force my Horcrux into corporealness with a fair amount of ease and slaughter the result, thereby paying the cost required for the creation of the stone."
Hermione's body gave an involuntary shudder at his impassive assessment.
"You truly think you could just... murder a sixteen-year-old version of you?" she said softly. "You have no qualms about that? I just- It is still you after all and you are quite fervent in your desire to never come to anything approaching a death. It seems to me that this should be more disturbing for you."
Tom chuckled as he set the parchment down once more, wrapping his arms firmly around her waist and capturing one of her wrists again as he nipped at her throat.
"Do you know what I despise almost more than anything else in this world, little Gaza?" he inquired, his voice dripping with darkness and liquid sensuality that seemed to drape over every single inch of Hermione's skin. "I cannot abide a lesser version of myself. Teenaged Tom Riddle, your timeline's version of Lord Voldemort; they disgust me. Given half the opportunity, I would dispose of either with less compunction than I would give stepping on a cockroach."
Tom drug his lips up her neck, dipping his tongue out ever so slightly to run along the tendon there, as he made his way up to the lobe of her ear. Hermione's eyes fell to half-mast as she melted back into the unforgiving, lean musculature of his chest. The need entreaty sparked through her, causing her limbs to suddenly feel like jelly and her heart to stutter before picking up speed.
The subject of conversation was ridiculously unsavory. She should not be enjoying his attentions when he spoke like this. Yet, she had made the decision to stop fighting against her rising emotions and just let the tides sweep her under, and she intended to follow through.
She'd also be lying if she did not admit that the vicious streak inside her thoroughly enjoyed the image of the Lord Voldemort of her time being crushed beneath Tom's shiny, perfect shoe.
While her husband still had one of her arms pinned, her other was free and Hermione took full advantage of this fact by bringing that hand behind her to thread her fingers through silky, dark strands. He bit down on her earlobe at the feeling and growled, forcing a shiver from her body as she immediately tightened her hold.
Tom liked pain; she knew that. So it was only natural to wrench the hair between her fingers to the side with a quick precise motion, forcing her husband to moan involuntarily while his whole body shook behind her in one, quick movement.
She could not have stopped the wicked smile that broke across her face had she tried. So rarely was Hermione able to break through the way that Tom rigidly ruled his every reaction; the fact that his emotions currently swirled so close to his skin could make for a very intriguing, if a bit terrifying, night indeed.
"You are playing an exceedingly dangerous game at the moment, Deliciae," he informed her, his voice huskier than usual as he released Hermione's wrist and smoothed his palm between her breasts and upward. It settled around her throat like a necklace in an embrace that was becoming as familiar to her as the feel of his emerald around her neck.
"You're always dangerous, Tom," she reminded him, turning quickly in his arms and leaning slightly back onto the soles of her bare feet. She kneeled between the cradle of his thighs as he resettled his hands, his left falling to spread across the small of her back while his right simply reversed position and smoothed across her throat once more. "How is today any different?"
He raised a brow at her, eyes dark and flashing with a warning she was determined to ignore as she slid her fingers across his ribs through the fabric of his shirt.
"Today, little wife, my magic has splintered walls and crumbled sconces," he reminded her, pulling her closer with the arm around her waist until her nose brushed against his as he spoke. "My hold on my control of it is tenuous at best. However, I have done all of the denying I intend to do this evening, and the decision to continue with your seduction is your own. Proceed at your own prospective peril, Gaza."
Hermione smiled slightly as she leaned forward until the scant space between their mouths was closed, letting her tongue peak out to drag slowly along Tom's bottom lip. His entire body pulled tight like a bowstring and he inhaled sharply at her action.
She was a Gryffindor, after all; peril was kind of her specialty.
She pulled back to watch in curiosity as her husband closed his eyes and breathed deeply as if the sight and taste of her were too much for him to bear at the moment. It was so... out of character for Tom to hold himself back, for him to not simply take what he wanted and damn the consequences.
She knew he despised the loss of his ability to tamp down every emotion and response until only those which he deemed worthwhile were allowed to manifest, but she reveled in this. She bit her lip as she studied his poorly blanked face, pondering for a moment how many human beings had ever been allowed the privilege of seeing Tom Riddle like this.
Very few, she'd wager.
Her fingers converged on the buttons of his shirt as she pressed her lips to Tom's own, placing gentle, soothing touches to his chest as she exposed the pale, entrancing skin stretched out across his abdominal muscles. Hermione pushed at her husband's shoulders so he lay back against the arm of the couch, strangely pliant to her directions if only for this moment in time as the shift in his position caused Tom's shirt to gape open around him.
His eyes flashed open and he stared at her silently, his irises completely black as he watched Hermione's every move with the studied air of predator learning the movements of prey.
Tom's hand slid from her throat to settle into the curls at the base of her neck as she pressed feather-light kisses to his chest, pausing to tease at one flat nipple as she made her way down his body. When she bit at the nub, his fingers tightened severely and he released a breath, bringing his other hand up to join the first in the messy strands of her hair.
"Gaza," he warned, arching his body ever so slightly as she licked between the lines of the muscles on his stomach. Hermione hummed against his skin, pressing her open mouth to the trail of wiry hair leading down into his trousers as she flicked the button there open and pulled the zipper apart slowly, tooth by tooth.
She felt the way his magic crackled across his skin wildly as she nibbled along the line of Tom's pants and began to pull down the fabric which formed an impediment between her and a destination her mouth almost watered to reach.
Tom Riddle under her attentions, at her mercy, sounded like the most delicious of delicacies and she rubbed her thighs together like a teenager at the thought.
"Gaza," Tom repeated sharply, wrenching her head upward until she was forced to meet his gaze instead of continuing on her path. The sigh that had built in her chest at him denying her the ability to get her mouth on him, even as he had had the prerogative to do so to her own person multiple times, died in Hermione's throat rather quickly. Her eyes widened at the thoroughly debauched state of her husband, one she had never had the privilege to see before, and at the combination of violence and lust roiling in his eyes.
"Listen well, little wife," Tom almost snarled, his breath coming in harsh pants as he stared down at her position between his legs, "as weakness is not something I am accustomed to admitting and I will not do so twice. I AM NOT IN CONTROL, not the way in which you are accustomed to me being. Consider this the last caution I will grant you."
Her mouth fell open as she sucked in a harsh breath. The expressions flitting across his face were inflamed and fervent and gritty. She'd never seen Tom Riddle so unvarnished and she wasn't sure she'd ever get another opportunity to do so. It felt... intimate, in a way that any of the sex the pair of them had experienced together previously lacked entirely.
He kept attempting to warn her away, to somehow sway her from the decision to have him at the moment, and she was suddenly struck with the realization that perhaps all of the menacing words and promises of risks and prospective imperilment had very little to do with her. Perhaps, it was Tom who was the one in peril if they continued.
"You are mine, and I will be yours," she reminded him quietly, watching as some of the wildness of his gaze smoothed under the familiar oath. "And Tom Riddle takes care of what is his. You won't hurt me and if anyone can handle your tempests, it is the one who is your own."
His eyelashes fluttered imperceptibly under the force of her words and his eyes calmed then warmed then heated before he wrenched Hermione up by his grip on her hair and kissed her as if he was attempting to steal the very air from her lungs.
She allowed herself to melt into her husband's embrace and kissed him back just as harshly, with just as much fervor, as she swallowed back the words on her tongue that threatened to erupt. In a few sentences, she had gotten as close to confessing she was in love with him as she was willing to get right now. Whatever was forming between them now was fragile and nebulous and she felt instinctively that too much too soon could shatter it forever.
When he released her mouth to allow Hermione to suck in deep, gulping breaths, she took the opportunity to slide back down his body, returning to her position between her husband's thighs. This time, Tom's fingers curled into her hair without restricting her movements as she mumbled a wandless banishing charm and both his trousers and pants disappeared in the space of a second.
Tom inhaled as he was freed from the constriction of the fabric before Hermione quickly leaned down and licked a broad stripe up the underside of his cock.
She watched in fascination as his eyes sparked impossibly blacker and his mouth fell slightly open, his dark gaze boring into her unfalteringly as she took only the head of him onto her tongue and sucked. The way that his hands clenched and unclenched rhythmically as she allowed her tongue to circle around only the very tip of him caused her to smile slightly around his girth before she allowed more of his length to slip between her lips.
Hermione sucked and nibbled and ran her tongue along his cock, reveling in the groans he did not quite cut back in time and the way his hips pushed upward without his permission when she applied pressure to the little dip right behind the head of him. When she felt that she had teased his flesh sufficiently, which was significantly less time than he usually forced her to wait (for which he should be thankful,) she finally swallowed, opening up her throat as she allowed him to slip past the tight, spasming muscle.
Tom let out a growl, surprise sparking across his face as she bobbed her head gently in direct contrast with the fingernails that she dug harshly into the skin of his inner thighs. His head fell backwards as a long groan of pleasure escaped his mouth, his hips stuttering upwards unforgivingly in a move that buried him more firmly in the clench of her throat.
She gagged, unprepared for the continued intrusion before pulling back and allowing the shaft to rest on her tongue. She bobbed her head once, twice, before her eyes widened dramatically as Tom used the hold he had on her hair to thrust himself fully into her throat again on her downstroke. When she pulled her head back, he let her up immediately, allowing his cock to pull from her mouth with an audible pop.
Although she blushed lightly at the sound, she ignored her embarrassment and stared up at the man before her. "I had somewhat of a plan," she scolded, trying to not be distracted by the hardened shaft that bounced awkwardly close to her face.
"I do believe," Tom murmured, eyes fixed intensely on her mouth, "that there is a muggle saying, little wife. Something to the effect of, 'mortals plan and gods laugh'."
He disentangled his fingers from her hair, reaching one hand down to palm his own length and stroke with painstaking, precise slowness. His gaze, intense and full of promise, never strayed from her lips as Hermione's own eyes refused to move from the sight of his head disappearing and reappearing inside the clutch of his fist. She found herself strangely entranced as he caressed his own flesh, attempting and failing to ignore the hot surge of arousal that swept through her body at the sight. A few moments passed in a haze before his actual words caught up with her and she barely managed not to roll her eyes at his continued condescension.
"I suppose," she said with an annoyed huff, "that you are the god in this scenario and I am the mortal, worshipping on my knees."
Tom's eyes sparked with humor as he reached with the thumb of his free hand to caress the plump protrusion of her lower lip. He offered her a lazy shrug as his wrist twisted, caressing the tip of his length as he sped the palm he was pleasuring himself with.
She scowled and opened her mouth to tell him in crude detail just how he would be doing his own worshipping in the near future, as she was certainly not going to be aiding him. Before she could speak, however, he cut her off with a tsk, pushing the digit sliding across her lip inside her open mouth instead and pinning her tongue down as he stroked along the top of it.
"You aren't a goddess yet, Deliciae," Tom told her with a fond grin that said he was well aware of what she had been about to say. "Though, I confess, the clench of your throat around me would almost force me to believe otherwise. I did warn you, little Gaza, that my control was questionable at the moment. I admit to a moment of insensibility, lost as I was in the warm, wet nirvana that is your pretty little mouth."
The last word was said on a groan as he thrust hard into his hand, eyes falling closed in pleasure as his palm sped further. She flushed, flattered and with her knickers quickly becoming wetter at the sounds of his exceedingly dirty words before she made the rather sound (in her opinion) decision that perhaps now was not the time to discuss the many ways in which his superior attitude irritated her.
She had a gorgeous, thoroughly debauched Tom Riddle desperately bucking into his own hand at the mere thought of her lips around his member. He had pulled so many orgasms from her while she pled and whimpered, given and denied her pleasure at his whim, and Hermione found herself quite ready for it to be her turn to do the same.
Her eyes sparked with a glint of mischievousness as she closed her lips around the thumb resting against her tongue and sucked.
Tom's lashes fluttered open and he moaned, his movements stuttering as his focus shifted to the way her lips wrapped around the surrogate member, the way she suckled so sweetly and hollowed her cheeks to create the perfect amount of suction.
Taking advantage of his loss of rhythm, she released his finger and surged forward quickly, sucking just the head of him into her mouth again. When he moved to loosen the grip he had on himself, she gripped onto his hand and moved it with her own instead, sliding her fingers into the gaps between his knuckles as they stroked across the hardened flesh in tandem.
"Fuck," he muttered, cupping Hermione's cheek as he watched her with intense, feverish eyes, his gaze fixed without wavering on the place where he disappeared between her lips.
Still, she knew how desperately he wanted to thrust, how he yearned to push all the way in and bury himself, and so she waited patiently for the moment when his body would draw tight and his eyes would haze over and his mouth would slacken in anticipation.
When she saw the signs of his impending release, she pulled Tom's hand away and swallowed him down, allowing him to breach her throat once more in one smooth motion before she forced another swallow.
He almost roared, magic surging outward and lighting her skin enticingly on fire in waves as his hand buried in her hair before he began to pulse in her throat. He thrust almost infinitesimally as she swallowed one last time around him, slapping lightly at his thigh as she ran out of air in the aftermath.
With a violent pull, her mouth was free before she was hauled up her husband's body and she found her lips pried apart by his tongue. Tom licked into her mouth and devoured her until she was dizzy, until her own breaths were coming in short desperate pants and she was squirming in the space where she still kneeled between his thighs.
"There is another muggle saying," Tom informed her, wrapping his hands under her thighs as he lifted her from the couch, "that refers to the chains a man wears whilst he remains indebted to another."
He moved towards the door of the study, murmuring the charms under his breath to peel back the wards before carrying her out into the hallway. Hermione ignored the cracked walls and the crumbled sconces in favor of burying her face in her husband's neck and licking along his pulse, reveling in the way his hands clenched along the crease where leg met arse when she bit down roughly.
Striding into their bedchamber unashamedly nude save for his open shirt, Tom tossed her on their enormous four-poster bed before flicking his wrist impatiently. Her clothes vanished as completely just as his had, causing her to shiver as her bare skin met with the cool, December air.
Tom's lips curled into a small grin before he pointed lazily at the fireplace. Flames consumed the wood that was already prepared for such a purpose and while she took a moment to stare longingly at the heat the fire began to give off, her husband seized the opportunity to prowl up the bed and settle with his hand at her throat in what was clearly his favorite position.
The need entreaty spiked as arousal shot through her, causing her back to arch up into the man above her. Tom met her movement with a wicked smirk, allowing his free hand to drift lazily over her breasts and stomach, all the way down until it stalled between her thighs.
"I am not a man who will ever wear chains," he murmured, watching with avid interest as Hermione keened when he pushed two fingers inside of her without warning, "so allow me to pay my debt."
"Master Riddle? Missy Mione?"
Hermione attempted to roll over from her spot tangled in the silk sheets with a furrowed brow, seeking out the squeaking voice that had woken her. Her attempts were stymied, however, by the bare arms of her husband which caged her in place. She glared blearily down at the limbs before letting out an annoyed huff.
"Missy Mione?"
"Just a moment, Gilmy," she called, pushing at the forearm clutching her to the firm, warm chest behind her in an implacable grip.
"Let go," she scolded, moving to pry each individual finger from the bedsheet.
Tom's arms tightened further in response and he buried his face into her riotous, morning curls. "No," he murmured simply before he swung his leg over her lower body, pinning her further to the bed.
"Gilmy is here-" she started, but he interrupted her.
"Gilmy is a servant," Tom said huskily, his voice sleep-deepened and painfully alluring. "She will leave immediately and come back only when she is called."
The elf appeared suddenly on Hermione's side of the bed, wringing her ears as she looked miserably at her entwined masters. Hermione pushed as hard as she could once more, attempting desperately to free herself, before giving in with a sigh and sending Gilmy a small, forced smile.
"Gilmy be leavings now?" the elf whispered.
Hermione shook her head. "Not quite yet. It's alright, Gilmy," she assured the anxious creature. "What did you need this morning?"
Their house elf had never violated the sanctity of their bedroom before, except on the occasion that she was invited in. Hermione wasn't sure what it meant that the creature was here now, but she doubted very much that it was good news.
"A Lady Avery is being heres to see the Master," Gilmy said, nodding along frantically with her words. "She being very sick, too, and Gilmy tells her that she goes and gets the Master right away."
At that, Tom's head lifted from the cradle of her neck and he stared at the elf with strangely sharp eyes for someone who was only minutes past sleep.
"How was she sick?" he asked curiously.
"Blood, Master," the elf said nervously. "She being very weak and lots and lots of blood."
This time when Hermione frantically moved to sit up in the bed, Tom let her go with a sigh. She gathered the bedsheet around her chest as her mind whirled, rage and nerves fighting for precedence in her scattered thoughts.
"Apparate her to the guest bedroom directly next to my study," he commanded, curling his body upwards in one smooth motion until he stood, still unclothed, next to their bed. Hermione didn't even blush as she did the same, rushing quickly to the walk-in closet and securing a slip to pull over her head and cover her nude body. "Settle Lady Avery in the bed there and inform her the Mistress and myself will be there presently."
Gilmy disappeared with a crack of sound as Hermione rushed from the closet and across the room to the stool in front of her vanity. She hurried to slide her dressing gown across her shoulders before turning back to where Tom was quickly buttoning his trousers.
She paused, taking a large breath as she tied the clasp of the gown with shaking fingers.
"That man is a monster, and a menace to boot," she hissed, glaring at her husband as he raised a solitary eyebrow at her and proceeded to button his shirt with a nonchalance that made her want to spit curses. "If he's hurt her again-"
"Then he will have disobeyed a direct order," Tom cut in, securing the final button and moving with practiced efficiency towards his socks and shoes. "Do not bare your claws at me, Gaza, before the facts are all known. If Corvus Avery has vented his frustrations on his wife, after I specifically forbid it, the consequences will be such that your morality will find itself greatly offended."
Hermione crossed to the door, pausing to look back at her husband with fire reflected in her gaze as he finished tying one shiny, leather shoe.
"If Corvus has laid a single, repulsive finger on Epona's delicate skin in a way that is neither tender nor welcome," she snarled, pushing the door open in front of her as her magic crackled furiously in the air around her, "I will wade into the Avery dungeons myself to find the most agonizing, most excruciating of the many tools in your lead torturer's toolbox. I will force him still by the force of my own magic so that Epona may do with his body and soul what she will and if she wishes to drown him in his own blood or bathe in it herself, I will drag a porcelain bathtub there for her purposes."
Tom's cold stare bore into her as she turned on heel and stomped towards the guest bedroom. He caught her right outside the door, wrapping his arms around her waist as he pressed a brief kiss to her throat.
"And if I am the one doing the torturing, little Gaza?" he inquired softly, breathing his words into the sensitive skin of her neck. "If the Dark Lord is the one to make him bleed and writhe and plead mercy that will never come?"
Turning her head ever so slightly, she stared up into his dark eyes with deep, chocolate orbs of her own. She reached across her body, setting her hand on his cheek before pushing up on her toes and pressing a gentle kiss to Tom's lips.
"I have decided that innocence matters, Erus," she said firmly, and Hermione didn't miss the way his breath caught and his pupils dilated at the endearment. It was the closest she'd likely ever come to accepting him as the Dark Lord, to not shying away from the blackness of his depths, and she wanted to give him that in this small way.
She despised so many of his choices and that was not likely to ever change. But she did love her Tom, Dark Lord or no.
"Do what you must," she breathed, pulling herself from his embrace and walking into the guest room with purpose.
She'd just given Tom Riddle her blessing to torture one of his more heinous lackeys. She waited for the nausea to come, the guilt to fester, but nothing happened as her nostrils filled with the scent of copper and she laid eyes on the broken, bloody body of Epona Avery.
Hermione wondered if that lack of guilt should concern her more.
AN:
Quotes referenced in this chapter:
"A man in debt is a man in chains." - James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), c.1882
"Man plans, God Laughs." - Old Yiddish Saying