Elusive. Powerful. Untouchable.
That's how Tom Riddle preferred others to view him, how he preferred to view himself. He was Head Boy, the last descendent of Salazar Slytherin – he was above everyone in this school and everyone knew it.
Christmas, for example, was a banality for lesser mortals to indulge in. He had no time for carols and goodwill and presents under the tree.
So he was surprised when he found himself, the night before Christmas, walking to the Room of Requirement to meet Hermione Granger. He'd decided the witch was intriguing enough to warrant a meeting – the time travelling Muggleborn who had asked to be sorted in Slytherin, who could match him in every class.
They'd been circling each other like wolves since she'd arrived and an opportunity to meet her undisturbed was too good to miss.
As Tom approached the Room of Requirement, he stopped for a moment. He allowed a cruel smile to grace his features.
He could smell Dark magic.
It was a beautiful intoxicating scent, like inhaling raw power. He'd been biding his time, practicing his art in secret, to know someone else at Hogwarts was capable of this was certainly intriguing.
He pushed open the door.
His nerves set alight as a wave of magic hit him. The room was dimly lit, with only candles stood in the middle of the room. White rose petals were scattered, splashed in something red. Tom squinted in the darkness, there was a pool of blood in the middle of the room.
"I'm surprised you don't already have your wand out." A voice came from the shadows.
Tom scoffed, he had mastered wandless magic years ago and the voice knew it. "Wands are limitations on truly powerful wizards."
He stepped forward, his eyes trained on the blood that was now seeping into the floorboards. "As delightful as this scene is, perhaps you could tell me why I'm here."
Hermione smiled. "Your Christmas gift is ready."
A burst of light and the room was illuminated revealing that the walls and ceiling were also spattered in blood. In the corner of the room, Hermione stood, her wand hanging from her fingertips. Behind her, a body slumped on the ground, blood dripping from a large gash in the neck.
Tom's eyebrows raised in surprise and he examined the Mudblood that had apparently caused such devastation. She caught his gaze "You wanted him gone," she said nudging the body slightly with her shoe, "He'd started asking too many questions in the common room, became too interested in your research in the Restricted Section so you wanted him gone and it was convenient for me to do the job for you."
"But why all the blood?"
Hermione looked around the room casually, as if contemplating a change in a wallpaper as opposed to a violent murder. "I needed to know how it felt, Avada Kedavra is so quick and easy, I needed to see what it's like to feel life leave a body." She smirked, "Not as clean as using a Basilisk I admit."
A faint twitch was Tom's only reaction to the knowledge that this witch knew about the Basilisk, knew about Myrtle and therefore probably knew about the Horcrux as well. He felt a stirring in his stomach and for the first time he looked at this girl and respect for this clearly powerful witch overtook his disgust of a Mudblood.
"Why are you here Hermione?"
She tightened her grip on her wand and Tom felt his stomach jolt again. This woman who had just killed a fellow student was still scared of him.
"I was sent back to stop you" she said slowly and he nodded. It made perfect sense that his future self would become unstoppable.
"I was betrayed, sacrificed as a pawn, forced to leave everything I knew." Bitterness hung from every word. "If I stop you, it won't make any difference to my life as I won't even exist in the future." She paused to take a breath. "So I decided to join you."
Tom smiled. "And you didn't think to ask me first?" He took a step towards Hermione, taking delight on how the grip of her wand tightened even further. It was almost touching how hard she was trying to hide her fear.
But then Hermione's eyes began to blaze. "I don't need your permission. I made a Horcrux."
This time it was her smiling at Tom's apparent discomfort.
"I was a Gryffindor in the future, you know. A lion through and through. But I always thought I could do wonders with the right connections."
She stepped towards Tom and ran a hand through his hair, smiling when he didn't flinch.
"You made mistakes in the future. Mistakes that cost you. Without me, you won't succeed."
Her words hit a pang of truth that Tom didn't like to admit. The idea that people in the future wanted to stop him was very appealing, the idea that they succeeded….less so.
He looked at this confident Dark witch from the future. "What's in it for you?"
"Control." She whispered. "You could have died and the world still wouldn't have been the way I wanted it."
The blood was nearly at Tom's feet now. He watched it creep towards him, thought of the useless Slytherin boy that was now no longer his problem. He thought about how it would be to have a partner, a confidant. Hermione grabbed his hair again and he thought how it would be to have her as a partner.
He licked his lips.
She wasn't like him, there was no one like him. But she understood him, understood his desires.
He placed a hand on her neck and brushed his lips against her ear.
"You, my dear, are the perfect gift."