It was with shaky knees and shakier hands that Hermione found herself in a little parlor beside the entrance hall at Avery Villa, rubbing her eyes roughly as she gazed out across the expanse of the ancestral grounds. The sun was shining outside and despite the dilapidated state of the place and the time of year, flowers charmed to perpetually bloom struggled to lay their claim against suffocating weeds. A half-frozen lake by a gazebo was just visible through the large, floor to ceiling windows, an appealing picture where the Avery Family of generations past could take their children on charming picnics and congratulate themselves on being proper and ever so pure.
It was a wholesome picture that was also a lie; it wasn't as if the dungeons in the house were new. How many pureblooded homes had them, and more disturbingly, how many were still in use?
Hermione swallowed heavily as she turned away from the deceiving tableau, kicking off her heels as she crossed to the settee and collapsed down gracelessly. She curled her knees up underneath her body and draped herself over the end, resting her head in a cradle of her arms.
Only a floor down, Tom was currently finishing what she started and inflicting unnamable horrors on Corvus. Her feelings about today were more than a little complicated, to say the least. Her head swam with guilt and vindication; with anxiety and satisfaction.
She had tortured a man. The once Great Hermione Granger (now Hermione Riddle,) Golden Girl of Gryffindor, one-third of the Golden Trio, best friend of the uncorrupted Savior of the Wizarding World Harry Potter, had tortured a man.
And while part of her soul ached with the knowledge that she had been the one to do it, no part of her wished that it hadn't been done. Corvus deserved to suffer and she wanted him to; it was just, it was right, it was righteous and her only regret was that she, personally, had to live with the fact that it was her own hands that had been dirtied.
Hermione bit her lip as her shoulders tightened at her revelation. She... didn't like this about herself. It was one thing to be truly light, to be unwilling to allow even the worst of the worst to be harmed on one's watch; it was one thing to be a hero. It was another thing entirely to simply not want to hold the knife that caused the blood to flow.
This was not the first act of cruelty she had committed in the name of what was just, but as always, she walked a line that kept her from crossing over into becoming a creature she was not sure she'd know how to come back from. She had kept Rita Skeeter imprisoned, but she hadn't ground the little beetle underfoot. She had scarred Marietta Edgecombe, but only when the girl had deliberately and willfully turned traitor. She had thrown Umbridge to the Centaurs, but she certainly hadn't encouraged the woman to continue to antagonize them as she was drug away.
The punishment had fit the crime and, in each case, she had not done any more or less than each person had deserved.
But today, giving Corvus the entirety of what he deserved and ending his life would have broken a part of her. He was so heinous, so irredeemable, that bringing him to justice would have brought a new stain to her soul that would not have washed clean, and she knew that. Corvus's death was promised, and she had yet to take another's life from them. And when she had approached that familiar figurative boundary and considered that this time, she may well and truly cross it-
Tom. Tom had stopped her before she became something she no longer recognized; Tom had kept her safe.
With a sigh, Hermione breathed deeply as she let herself slip into the trance state that allowed her to manipulate her shielding. She was practiced at this now and it was only minutes before she dove into her own mind and began to build a new wall, alongside her others, for this experience with Corvus Avery. Unlike the solid boundaries she usually built, this one she wove into a sort of frosted glass, transparent yet cloudy. She stood inside her swirling consciousness and watched the session in the dungeons once more. The memory was less vibrant now, softened in its intensity, but very much present.
The wall smoothed the sharp edges of the experience but did not take it away from her. She needed to live with what she did, to remember what she was capable of the next time an evil needed to be brought to heel.
She licked her lips as she returned to the present, staring at the diamond pattern that made up the fabric of the carpet. It was less painful than she would have guessed to admit that she was no longer the Golden Girl; that even if she hadn't crossed the line, she had certainly crossed a line and she was now different than she had been when they had entered the house this morning.
There was no Harry to admire and fear disappointing, no Ron to be abhorred by her choices. She didn't have the Order to issue suffocating edicts or her mentors to steer every wavering impulse back to the side of the light. In a sick way, she felt free, reborn. She was unconfined and without any limitations to her morality and her ethics but her own, self-imposed boundaries; the world had opened to her. Forbidden magics were there for the taking, theories that were too dangerous or borderline where waiting for her exploration.
The lightest of magics had been stifling, in a way. The expansive future of pragmaticism over unyielding moral virtuousness, grey over light, had been opened today when she did the wrong thing for the right reasons.
Tom had been (obnoxiously) right again. The shielding allowed her emotional distance to view the day as she felt she truly should (or at least, she admitted to herself, in the way she wished to.) Epona would be safe now, she had been vindicated, and a reprehensible figure with too much power in the organization Hermione was now a very high-ranking member of had been dealt with swiftly. No one would miss Corvus Avery and he'd never subjugate someone weaker than himself ever again.
Uncurling herself from her position, she groaned as all her muscles protested the movement. She glanced out the window and noted that a few hours had passed since she had left the dungeons. It wasn't surprising, really; the occlumency meditations were extremely intensive and even if she no longer felt completely magically drained after making a few changes, they were still time-consuming.
With a heave, Hermione pushed herself to her feet and stretched her whole body, reaching up onto her toes as she extended her arms as far towards the ceiling as she could. Her stomach rumbled loudly and she realized that in their fervor, neither she nor Tom had eaten. She wrinkled her nose at the thought of eating anything from the Avery kitchens and sighed when she realized that left her with only one, truly viable solution.
Merlin, she was becoming as bad as the average born and reared pureblood.
"Gilmy?" she called tentatively, wincing with guilt when the little elf popped into the sitting room and shot her the brightest of grins.
"Missy Mione be callings Gilmy?"
"I'm sorry to bother you," Hermione said quickly, smoothing at her skirt as she glanced at the house elf. "But Tom and I haven't eaten anything yet and I don't want to leave him here alone..."
Gilmy's eyes widened and she let out an affronted squeak.
"Yous not be eating and the Master, too?" she said sadly, fixing Hermione with watery eyes. "Gilmy is a bad elf, not taking cares of the Master and Mistress-"
"Oh no, Gilmy!" Hermione said frantically, quite sure this was headed towards an unearned punishment. "This is entirely my fault. I should have called you much sooner, but now that you're here, I would appreciate it very much if you could pop back to Nidum Serpentis and make up a lunch tray."
She watched Gilmy closely, silently praying that the direct order of a task would save the elf from the urge to punish herself for a perceived fault. After a few moments, Gilmy nodded firmly, clearly successfully diverted, and Hermione breathed a muted sigh of relief.
"Gilmy be backs in just a few minutes with the tray," she said quickly, before popping out of existence and, presumably, back home to prepare something.
Hermione paced the room, trying to increase her circulation after sitting for so long until a tray magically appeared on the end table between two armchairs. Her mouth watered as she noted the chips along with Cheddar and Chutney sandwiches and lemonade to drink. She immediately made herself a plate and settled back onto the settee, eating much more voraciously than usual in a bid to recover some of the magical energy she had expended during the day.
She was tucking into her second sandwich when Tom arrived in the doorway, bearing a flower in hand and watching with amusement as she turned to him after hastily swallowing down a bite.
Silence reigned momentarily as Hermione cast around for what to say, what to ask, in the face of the many things that had been done today. In a rare moment of cowardice, she took what she assumed was the easy approach and inquired about the flower.
Tom's eyes fell to the bloom as he lifted it up to eye level and ran a finger along a delicate petal.
"It seemed appropriate," he said, turning his attention back to her, "That he represents his sins in death as he failed to do so in life. A Black-Eyed Susan, for your justice."
Hermione bit her lip as a small wave of nausea ran through her. "Is that his..."
"Body?" He finished casually, tossing the flower onto one of the armchairs and reaching for a chip. "Correct. Shortly, Corvus Avery will officially disappear on an apparent binge of privilege and liquor. Epona will worry and fret in the press, for a time, before announcing that her bond to Corvus is severed, implying his death. His body will not be recovered. She will, of course, be required to mourn publicly before we secure her a new, more advantageous marriage."
"More advantageous for whom?" she asked uneasily, pushing away her half-eaten sandwich as her appetite abandoned her.
"All parties involved," Tom answered smoothly, moving to transfigure a truly unfortunate throw pillow into a long, rectangular box. He set the Black-Eyed Susan in the container, summoning Corvus's wand from inside Hermione's robes and adding that as well before he moved to secure himself a plate and cup of lemonade. He paused, glancing slyly at the box, before seating himself in the free armchair.
"Well, most parties, at any rate," he told her with a knicker's melting smirk.
She watched him chew and swallow a few bites of his chips as she thought before Hermione spoke again.
"Won't the Aurors be suspicious when his magical signature disappears so early?" she pointed out. "Surely he'd continue to use his wand during this 'party binge,' as it were."
Tom grinned at her as if she was a very, very clever and yet very confused puppy.
"I own the Aurors, Deliciae," he reminded her. "Bastien is the captain and will ensure that this particular case inadvertently slips through the cracks. It happens every day, you know, that some atrocity or another is failed to be investigated properly. It's an unfortunate symptom of the bureaucracy."
Hermione sighed and slumped down on the lounge, biting her lip as she glanced pointedly out the window.
"That's unacceptable, you know," she said quietly. "I understand that works in our favor, but-"
"You wish to fix the world, my little Gaza?" Tom inquired with a chuckle, taking another bite of his sandwich before offering her a lazy half-shrug. "That should hardly be a problem when we rule it."
While she grimaced at the notion, she kept quiet, choosing to watch the flowers outside the window instead of her husband. She tried to simply keep her mind blank. If she allowed herself to think, her brain would inevitably fall to the transfigured body of Corvus Avery in the room and she suspected she could not cope with that reality at the moment.
Tom finished his food and eyed her contemplatively before setting aside his plate and glass and striding towards the chaise. He crouched in front of her, roughly clutching her chin as he forced her face to his before studying her intently. She allowed her gaze to meet his and whatever he saw there must have pleased him because Tom released her more gently than he had secured her and planted a barely-there kiss to her temple as he rose lithely back to his feet.
"I see you took my advice about the occlumency shields," he said, staring down at her as she shifted on the couch. "My chest is surprisingly pain-free and your face is strangely untroubled.
Hermione sighed, but after a moment of debate, she offered him a short nod of confirmation.
"I- I have never been capable of allowing the strong to hurt the weak and not exacting the strongest of penalties I can upon the guilty party," she admitted, even as her shoulders tensed around her ears and she rose to walk to the window and stare out onto the expanse of Avery Villa once more. Crossing her arms across her chest, Hermione considered her next words as she absentmindedly chewed on her bottom lip. "As a teenager, my resources were limited and that made me unaware of what I can do. Now, my resources are unlimited, and part of me worries about what I was capable of down there. Corvus deserved to suffer, and Epona suffered for years and years at his hands. What was given to him was but a fraction of her pain. And when the opportunity came to hurt him in the same way she had been hurt, helpless and unable to escape, I took it."
A shiver tore down her spine in spite of herself and Hermione was unable to suppress it.
Warm hands settled on her waist, sliding forward until Tom's palms pressed into her stomach and forced her arse and back to nestle into his front. She leaned back into the safety of his chest, reveling in the strong musculature there and the way her husband's breath stirred the curls that escaped around her face as he leaned down to speak directly into her ear.
"And does that frighten you, little Gaza?" he murmured, biting lightly at the lobe so close to his mouth before licking at the soreness. "To learn of the darkness that lurks in your heart, even if it is directed towards what you perceive as vindication?"
Hermione tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling, threading the fingers of both hands with Tom's as she considered before she finally forced herself to answer.
"What frightens me is that the only part of what happened today that disturbed me was that I was the one doing it," she whispered into the air. "I know it would be different with someone who was innocent or unable to defend themselves normally, but we removed his ability to fight back and I hurt him. The means were upsetting, but now that the sting has been taken out of it... the graphicness, the act itself does not bother me. And that- It is much different than I anticipated."
Tom froze for a moment, brilliant mind almost audibly whirring at the admission before he hummed his understanding and moved his lips lower again to press slightly open-mouthed kisses to the column of her neck.
"Someday soon," he said, "I will own all of Britain. First this country, and then the world, could tremble beneath my feet, little wife. Power, immortality, and the fate of the masses will rest in my frozen, blackened palms. I care little for their pain, for their desires, even for their life. I seek only to be victorious, to see my plans come to fruition; this you know."
One palm slipped up in between her breasts and further to cradle her throat in that familiar hold and her own hands spasmed at his words, a reminder of exactly who Tom was.
"Will you allow me to slice them open, Deliciae?" He asked, caressing her neck lightly beneath his fingers. "To use their lifeblood to lubricate my passage into ultimate power? Will you stand beside me as I subjugate and dominate and force every soul to bow before their rightful god?"
Horror spread through her limbs as she wrenched herself forward and away, turning abruptly as she pressed herself back into the glass and stared at her husband with incredulity and disgust.
"No!" she denied firmly, shocked and disappointed that after all this time, after all she had revealed to him, he could think for even a second that she-
"No," he agreed, pressing his arms on either side of her head against the window to cage her in as he leaned forward with a wry, fond grin. "You'll fight me, Gaza. Recall what you came back in time to do; it was not to stop me, not to attempt to prevent the impossible. In this reality, in all realities, I will win."
"You came back to temper me," he continued, wrapping an escaped curl around one of his fingers and tugging on it lightly. "Your wearisome ethics remain very much intact. I have often referenced the death of the snake that cannot shed its skin to grow; you could truly live, little wife, and grow you may. But the same serpent at your core you will remain. Were Corvus an innocent or had he made less of what you consider to be egregious choices, he would not be deceased, transfigured into a flower, and shoved into a box."
She slumped slightly as she conceded the logic of his words, attempting to swallow the fear that came with the ways she was changing, the ways her ideals were expanding and she was losing all boundaries on her magic she herself had not created.
"Tom-" Hermione started, but he pressed a finger to her lips and leaned in ever closer.
"Soon, Deliciae, so very soon I can almost savor the taste on my tongue," Tom interrupted, brushing his lips along her cheekbone as he moved ever closer to her mouth, "mortality will trouble us no longer. I will be the god I was born to be and you will be my goddess and together, we could rule this nation, this world. I would share this with none but you, allow myself to be steered by none but you. I will be judge and jury out of necessity, I will determine who lives fruitfully and who does not in this existence I am creating, and I will do it alone. Unless you are willing to do it, too."
Hermione inhaled sharply as he stilled, lips against her skin as he waited for her to concede or deny him. This was what her brutality had taught him; this was how he absorbed what she was capable of.
Now, he offered her a choice:
Truly be the immortal at his side, accept her place as equally responsible and equally damned, and be given the ability to mold the world just like she had asked for. She could have her hands in the clay beside his own, build the mountains and crumble others, but she would have to own it. She would have to be as close to his equal as he could ever allow; it would mean no longer being his reluctant conscience, his fetters and chains and a force that tried to hold him back. It would mean becoming a force that propelled him forward instead, in the right directions, and shared in the culpability of what they created.
Or she could remain, a serpent too small for the skin she wore as she flailed against his tides and stayed at his mercy. She could stay less than in his world; less influential but less liable too and with far less blood and guilt on her head.
This choice wasn't easy and it wasn't without terrors but it was clear. She was Hermione Riddle nee Granger, a Gryffindor at heart, and she was brave enough to do this, too.
And if her decision was influenced the tiniest bit by the fact that she loved him, that she loved Tom Riddle with a desperation that made the thought of him descending into madness and indomitable tyranny (as he likely would unchecked) absolutely unbearable, she forgave herself for her folly. Albus Dumbledore, who she had once respected and admired, had been absolutely sure that the reason for Tom's descent was that he lacked love on the most fundamental of levels. She didn't know if that was true, but she did know that she'd given herself over to this, and she'd try.
She'd try to love him enough that the whole world did not have to die before he was satisfied. And if that meant that someday some god would weigh her heart and find it heavier for the culpability she was willingly shouldering, she'd just have to hope that Tom was right and they really would live forever.
"Yes," Hermione said simply, because there was nothing else to say. She didn't have flowery words or snark or an eloquent warning for this; not this time. This was defeat wrapped in the sweetest veneer of victory, the inevitable filling of one's lungs with water when drowning.
Tom's finger moved and his lips pressed to her own, desperate need and triumph whispered into the warmth of her mouth and the depths of her soul.
This was the way a serpent shed its skin and was imperceptibly changed in the after.
AN: So, a few housekeeping things to address quickly:
First, I know this chapter was a little shorter than normal. However, this was really where the scene ended naturally so... *Shrug*
Second, I wanted to let you all know that Book One of Pendulum is quickly coming to a close! This is insane to me, as this entire story was originally plotted to be around 50k to 60k, but whoops, here we are. There is a little time jump to Book Two. I will not give any spoilers, but if you have questions, I will answer them as best I can without giving anything away over on my tumblr (link in my profile.) Much love to you, my very best of readers!